Political Bullshit 2024

@blaineg
God I miss those two…

@blaineg @chienfou Wasn’t the famous phrase
Ack. Pftphtf!
or something like that. We need them now!

EDIT brings back memories of being with my parents in the 1980s on weekends and buying the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday edition which was about 2 inches thick and weighed a couple of pounds.

@blaineg @pmarin

@blaineg @chienfou @pmarin Did you know that Bill and Opus had a Christmas Special? “A Wish For Wings That Work”, It’s totally awesome!

LEGOS! EGGOS! STRATEGO! AWESOME!

@kenrose
Yep… I still love the roach’s line: “an ALBATROSS”!

@werehatrack As opposed to the Capital Tools (aka, the ones in office)?

@tysontomko You want to impeach a toddler? That’s so weird.
Or maybe it’s my eyes that are weird. I’ll try sleeping it off.

@haydesigner What about politicians that do that?

@haydesigner Wonder which politician started calling names first?

@Felton10 @haydesigner Probably Adams.

@duodec Yep I could do that!

@funsyd That’s been excised with the establishment of this thread. Political comments elsewhere will be dealt with via the Giant Inflatable Bop-Squeaka Hammer of Moderator Deletion if I find them. Namecalling here may result in disemvowelment of the comment, removal of the name-calling via hamfisted-Edit, subthread-lock (possibly with a Warning), or other creative mischief adopted on the fly, if I catch it. Other mods have other plans/methods. It won’t be fun, though.

@funsyd @werehatrack extra thanks to @extramedium for the product thread cleanup! It is so very much appreciated!

@funsyd @werehatrack Locking the thread won’t solve anything. The crap will just surface elsewhere. Better all the misbehavior be on this thread where others don’t have to deal with it because they can ignore it.

@Cerridwyn Both polarized sides regard the other as a greater evil than a mere insanity-inducing Elder God. Cthulhu may be a sort of compromise; the evil with only one agenda, unconcerned about the Terribly Important Issues one way or the other.

I just realized that this is a very Charlie Stross Laundry Files scenario…

@Cerridwyn Saw a bumper sticker version of this back in the '90s.

@yakkoTDI daughter had the TShirt back in 2004 she reminded me

@Cerridwyn @yakkoTDI A 2024 version is available at pegasuspublishing.com

@Cerridwyn

@Cerridwyn @mycya4me This is one I ran across a couple months ago:

Of course, it turns out that I got it from here on Meh.

@Cerridwyn @werehatrack Love me some Charlie Stross and Laundry Files…
Reminds me that it’s time to look for some missed ones…
https://www.betterworldbooks.com/

@narfcake Months of vomiting seem to precede a day of voting.

Or is that just all the drugs the TV tells me I can’t live without? *

*Side effects may include death.

@blaineg @narfcake
FIFY
*Side effects may include uncontrolled flatulence, oily diarrhea, and possibly death.

@OnionSoup I agree!

@medz
Now there’s a name I haven’t thought of long time!

@xobzoo Odin or Cthulhu would be the Best choices!

@mycya4me And they would represent a much better 2-party system than we have now.

Though I worry today’s voters might still pick the wrong one…

@Cerridwyn I think the two that made me laugh the most out of those were

• Literally Anyone Else
• Electile Dysfunction

Another I liked was “Have we tried turning it off and then turning it back on again?”
And the answer to that one is “Yes, about 250 years ago. But while it gave us good results for many years, it was a lot of work and took a long time. I don’t think today’s society has what it takes to see that one through to the end again.”
(I worry that’s what it’ll take to actually fix things, but I worry even more that the wrong group would end up on top afterward and the “fix” would be worse than what we started with.)

@Cerridwyn Great! I Love it!

@werehatrack I have worn a Clothes Pin to the Polling station before. That is to represent that the Choices stunk!
Now I am working the Polls as an Election official!

@mycya4me I’m slated to be a Presiding Judge at one of the polling places in November. I might work as a clerk in the early voting, too.

@mycya4me @werehatrack Was going to vote no-op as I had past 2 elections (I was always more on the Independent side; favored Anderson and Perot in the day). So yes, I will vote this time with confidence, but also I’m in a state where the electoral college outcome is assumed. Crazy broken system we have, though.

If I were a resident of my to-be-newly-adopted state of NC then it would definitely matter. But I’m not on the books there yet.

@pmarin @werehatrack Yes I have seen stuff that is Scary & Not a Value of the US system! But one that wants to tear it down.

@f00l Yep I agree!

@f00l I will note that a bit of a bomb about YouTube personalities getting paid to be Putin shills dropped today. They claim they were duped, and it might be technically true, but they profited handsomely from delivering a pro-Russia diatribe and didn’t ask too many questions about where the wretched excess of funding had come from. Something tells me that they were willing to volunteer to be useful idiots for that kind of cash.

@werehatrack

I’m shocked. Shocked

Aren’t you?
: (

@f00l I’m shocked that they didn’t ask for more money.

@f00l @werehatrack Imagine how much they would pay a politician if they’re willing to pay that much to a faux-journalist.

@Felton10 I think he just got confused when he heard someone talk about “eating pussy”.

@OnionSoup Given that Malaria wants nothing to do with him now, I’m sure eating pussy got him going.

@Felton10 But my question is “What Planet are these Aliens from” As Zero humans would be an Alien!

@mycya4me Well ALF came from Melmack.

@Felton10 OMG ALF finally got caught Red Handed / Paw

@Felton10

We do not

—-

He’s been lying and thereby trying to weaken and destroy the Republic for nine years now

All for the point of putting salve on his vanity

And he seems to have been exactly what all those who want politics to be like professional wrestling were happy to have, happy to cheer on

as long as their leader was giving them phrases they could yell and cheer, for they were willing to accept any lies and any destruction of our constitution

Nine years is enough

It’s time the country quit worrying about the corrupting and destructive bottomless well of insecurity and vanity
And the self delusion of his followers

Nine years was too much
How the hell did it come to this?

Was it a combination of the corrupting influence of Fox News and new Gingrich style politics?

Was that the apparent end of the Cold War, which turned out to be an overly optimistic point of view made people think they could just be a stupid and toxic as they wanted, and it would not have any serious effect?

—-/

Every single individual active during the revolution and the creation of the country who is now one of our revered national heroes would’ve despised him

Every Republican ex-president who is not named Trump and every living Republican nominee for president not named Trump despises him

Starting with World War II in historical terms

Every Republican ex-president who is not living and every Republican nominee for president who is not living would have despised him if had they lived to see him

—-

There’s nothing quite like a nation winning World War III and appearing to win the Cold War, although that’s becoming a little bit more in doubt

Then, following that up by electing, a man who is devoid of honor and who lies every time he opens his mouth and corrupts and destroys and throws away and attempts to suppress every virtue that made those victory possible

@f00l @Felton10 Amen to that!

@Felton10 That’s the least of it:
https://www.axios.com/2024/10/24/trump-scandals-hitler-john-kelly

@Felton10 @PhysAssist

And it appears Trump bought off Jeff Bezos.

Bezos strongly appears to have killed off the WaPo formal Harris presidency endorsement in exchange for Trump not trashing Bezos business interests.
And for Bezos getting more contracts if Trump wins next month.

So they can be yet another extension of the Putin Industrial and Financial Network.

@f00l @PhysAssist The Republicans yell and scream about what they think the democrats do that is illegal to tilt the elections in their favor. But if the truth be known, the Republicans use every dirty trick in the book as they know that if the election were fair they would lose and lose big every time.

@Kyeh Penzeys is a must stop whenever I’m in Pittsburgh. Fantastic store and staff. Bill’s emails are great reads. Definitely supported him through this!

@sassymango There’s a Penzey’s about 30 min. drive from me, but I haven’t been there yet. I buy enough at a time to get free shipping .

@Kyeh you should go to the store if you are in the area. They have jars of all the spices that you can open & smell - just taking in all the wonderful spice odors is an awesome experience. The staff have always been very knowledgeable about the spices & have great ideas how to use them.

POPSOCKETS! SPROCKETS! DAVY CROCKETT! AWESOME!

@sassymango I worked for while at Celestial Seasonings years ago. Sometimes I got to pour herbs and spices into grinders and I’d come home saturated with the scent of mint, or cinnamon - it was pretty cool!

@Kyeh that sounds like a great job! That’s another great brand.

@Kyeh @sassymango Thanks for reminding me. Yes I accidentally discovered a Penzey’s store a few years ago. Good spice isn’t cheap but they had a selection of what seemed like very good stuff at relatively reasonable prices (compared to boutique brands). I remember reading the labels on some of the blends and there were clearly some let’s say political or maybe ex-hippie writings on it. And what better for ex-hippes (are you ever really an EX- hippie?) than to sell natural spices and encourage health and nutrition? Go seek a store out if you can. Like I said, prices were not bad and there was some promo like buy 3 get one free plus I got a free bumper sticker back from the days when people had bumpers. People were very nice too.

@rockblossom OHHH - those Kiffness cat-collaboration songs really are sticky! His first one runs through my head for days if I hear it. Not sure I want to watch this …

@Kyeh Sometimes I’m alone, sometimes I’m not. A meowworm.

@rockblossom Oh, it’s that same song, then? It is a fierce one!

@Kyeh The song in the video above is new. The other one is the first Kiffness video I remember that got stuck in my head on continuous replay.

@rockblossom Oh, okay. Yes - that first one is inexorable.

@Kyeh @rockblossom I thought, you warned me, what could a 2-minute video do to my brain? And yes, it’s in there now.

@pmarin The classic method of banishing an earworm is replacing it with a different earworm. There are numerous ways to get rid of an earworm without another one taking its place, but I gave up on that. Earworms are the brain equivalent of the computer clipboard - they only hold one thing at a time. I can erase the clipboard file, but sooner or later I will dump something else there anyway. The clipboard clears when I shut down the computer for the night and my earworm file clears when I shut my brain down for the night. Your Mileage May Vary.

@pmarin @rockblossom

I’m conniving w my brain for good earworms

Passages I recall from classical pieces will sometimes work to supplant repulsive garbage.

Sometimes.

@f00l @pmarin @rockblossom The Kiffness cat songs aren’t repulsive garbage, but they are persistent.

@Kidsandliz I am not as certain. I’m seeing signs of a potential implosion on one side as a whole at the same time that I have personally seen some multi-level double-down faction supporters buying even the most outrageously farcical stuff. The datum that gives the the most hope is the count of the number of people polled who refuse to respond. (I’m one of them, for that matter.)

@Kidsandliz @werehatrack missed the cat food thread…was it worse than the Black Rifle Coffee one?

@Kidsandliz @PHRoG It barely got started before the official Take It To The Politics Thread announcement was made (and the OTP content was deleted).

@Kidsandliz At this point in the last election cycle, in my own neighborhood, there were about a dozen houses sporting pro-Trump signage. Six months ago, one house down at the other end of the street had two Trump signs out. Today, the only political signs in the neighborhood are the three I’ve got, for minor-race Dems. (I’m pretty much the anarcho-commie-eat-the-rich extremist in my area. And I don’t just vote, I also serve as an election judge, and I don’t care which way they vote as long as they show up to do it!)

@werehatrack

his followers would go nuts.

Pretty sure that boat sailed long ago.

@Cerridwyn https://meh.com/forum/topics/political-bullshit-2024#66e51def343636d49618c23f
I guess it’s been a mixed blessing - Fox News ranted about them and a bunch of nasty reviews flooded Yelp to the point that Yelp froze for the time being because a lot of them weren’t from verifiable customers.

@Kyeh yep
and he’s loving it.

@Cerridwyn Yes, but also he sent this email:

Donald Trump called Penzeys “Terrible, Over-Priced Product” this week. Fox News called Penzeys “the meanest spice shop in America." Much of the rest of the right wing media repeated those words or worse. All this because we welcomed Vice President Kamala Harris into our Pittsburgh store this past Saturday.

They really do want to boycott Penzeys out of existence. They want to make an example of us and leave every other retail store out there too frightened to welcome in Kamala like we did. They want us to be the next Bud Light trophy on their wall to show off the costs of going against their will.

And as much as you know we won’t back down, if you don’t make the effort to support us right now this will be crippling. Yes, email subscribers have known who we are for years. But among our store customers we have hundreds of thousands who are not on our list. Among those there are no doubt tens of thousands, maybe more, under the Fox/Trump influence.

You know the hypnotic power Trump and Fox have over their followers. When they say do something their crowd does it. We’ve already had thousands of customers quit. You can imagine the language they’ve used to do so.

So he’s asking his loyal customers for a little extra help right now. I got some Christmas shopping done.

@Cerridwyn @Kyeh when I drove past the store here in Houston yesterday, the parking lot at that end of the strip center had more cars than usual. I consider that a good sign.

@unksol Thanks. It’s rough.

But yeah - so far, this thread hasn’t been as hard to moderate as we anticipated. I’ll take it.

@Thumperchick @unksol

I think people just way burnt out being willing to maintain the intensity of constant attention and reaction.

Once upon a time so many people seemed glue to the latest craziness 24/7/365.
Mee too.
In my case my sleep got messed up

Now it’s “ok I’ve taken what actions of advocacy I intend to take”.

I check out the headlines now and then. (Rarely read details since there will be new details about some new issue or event shortly and I’m burnt out in election-specific details)

And things will happen (or not); and I’ll presumably hear about whatever makes the headlines.

In any event I intend to get normal sleep.

@f00l @Thumperchick oh there’s lots to meme and lots of other stuff.

And this election is pretty serious. But IDK that picking fights in a meh forum is productive

@Thumperchick @unksol

My “protection” over my personal state of anxiety about this election is not counterproductive afaik.

I have just become accustomed to the ways of the most apparently disruptive of the current crop of candidates and their most visible advocates.

As have so many other voters (pro or con whomever), as far as I can tell

I take this election (and the more and less visible issues under consideration) quite seriously.

But we now have not the political tone of 80-50 years ago where political conversations mostly involved semi-open-minds (at minimum), and were more often than not both civil and non-trollish.

So I ration my energies and attention to those areas where ny actions most express my values, do not degrade me daily life too much, and might be most effective (according to my prefs)

Given that most folk I know kinda seem to be going about their daily lives calmly (even tho they do privately have strong beliefs in these areas), suggests to me that my partially-stepped-back public reaction to the recent political push-and-pull is pretty commonplace.

@f00l @Thumperchick @unksol And 80-50 years ago after the election people would put aside most of their differences and try to come together to run this country in some sort of sane way. What happens now is that it seems like one side just tries to block the other side… doesn’t not bode well for this country. Rome fell, the sun now sets on the UK empire, the Soviet Union splintered apart… we are not immune.

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Thumperchick well yes. I mean if we wanted to have a sane conversation about politics without all the name calling/attacks that happened last time.

I mean there are things that need discussed in general. But it got toxic real fast last time. Across the board on random threads. Definitely confine it to this thread

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Thumperchick @unksol As a high school student learned enough about world history (Egypt, Greece, Roman, England) and also US history. It was around the big “bicentennial” at 1976. Was in DC with my mother; she took me on a trip with the Amtrak Railpass they used to have.

I remember thinking of all the old “empires” thinking isn’t our time about up? 20 years later I was in DC on 4th of July 1996 with my wife on a big motorhome trip, and it was cool, big fireworks for 220 years, and yay we’re still here. (Not that we would go away, just this lingo of “leader of the free world” whatever that means might diminish). 30 years later I now cringe a bit when I still hear that. Actually, looking back, I think it’s funny that at about age 15 I figured out that this can’t last; it never does. Inevitably with greed, corruption, power, the fact is, just us humans in general can’t maintain it indefinitely.

@pmarin
While I can’t argue that your post wasn’t insightful, I have to note that to me at least, it is quite sadly cynical as well.
I have decided to be more optimistic, even while being realistic and proactive in trying to help preserve and defend our democratic way of life.

@Jamileigh17 now this is an interesting topic. Because of “Citizens United” companies are allowed to massively fund PACs and manipulate elections.

Companies don’t care about anything.

Their goal is to make money.

That’s it. They will do whatever to make the most money.

Not going to debate politics. But. The effect large companies can have on policy. Going back 100 years. It’s a thing

@Jamileigh17 @unksol Companies don’t make decisions, people running companies do. And for the most part, the people running really big companies are greedy bastards whose decisions about corporate policy mirror their own personal ones. This is not unique to the modern era, as you correctly noted.

@Jamileigh17 @werehatrack let’s take this apolitical.

Do you know why nuclear power got a bad rap? If we had not screwed up research into molten salt reactors we would have them. “big oil” is actually a thing. That ran a fearmongering thing against and still does.

A company that produces a product that has a monopoly wants to stear things their way.

Bezos and Amazon vs the workers is a more current one but.

@Jamileigh17 @werehatrack companies do this on more incidious ways. See astroturfing

Those big budget ads that basically lie to your face… I’m for this and vote no on…

If you go look up the fine print attached to the ad…

It’s usually they are going to fuck me over.

Keep in mind the companies have the money. They can manipulate people.

Government and regulation is supposed to be our response to stop the psychopaths from doing horrible shit. CEOs don’t care about. You.

@Jamileigh17 @unksol @werehatrack And keep in mind that celebrities (actors, musicians, talk show hosts, models, etc.) are just agents (or sometimes heads) of corporations who are also used to manipulate people and shape opinions for their benefit.

@Jamileigh17 @macromeh @werehatrack well… And assuming the government cares about you… There’s power hungry people everywhere. There 100% people in politics who don’t care about anyone but themselves.

But getting money out of politics seems like a net good

@Jamileigh17 I think there’s a time, place, and manner to report or comment on a company’s politics. It is a hard line to walk though.

Perhaps we should stick to a link to the company’s policy page with a short blurb covering where they put their money, without the political commentary.

Sound fair?

@Jamileigh17 @Thumperchick Not sure what you are asking/suggesting here. And with mod power can of course delete as you see fit. I agree that ad-hominem or racist attacks shouldn’t be welcome even on this specific forum because we are, after all, civilized people, we would hope.

But the thing about company policies specifically, seems strange. Were you now acquired by the big A too just like W? Or fear of lawsuits from oil company lawyers? Just not sure what’s going on makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. Wonder what the word you got is from “higher ups” that caused you to advise this way.

@pmarin None of the above.

My suggestion was for a way to let folks point out a company’s political leanings without turning product discussion threads into political fires.

@pmarin @Thumperchick

I’m not sure there is any longer a possibility of not having a political firestorm of trolling delusion and madness if politics is mentioned at all in a public forum.

@f00l @pmarin @Thumperchick

/showme a political meh

Something went terribly wrong. Please try again.

@Thumperchick I would “mildly” agree but in a “civilized” forum (if at all possible which we agree is increasingly hard to maintain) there could be discussion of a big corporation’s involvement in political and environmental issues (Monsanto, anyone?) and discuss what we know about what that big corporation with many lawyers is doing to us and the environment, without just defaulting to carefully-written marketing statements on their website pre-approved by their lawyers. But if that’s the new Amazon way, good for you guys (congratulations on the upcoming acquisition by Amazon, if that’s the case, you will all get rich on stock! or maybe not.)

@pmarin @Thumperchick I honestly don’t think companies have any actual political leaning. At all. They are amoral so what they post is kinda irrelevant.

They are just entities that will mostly align with whatever makes them the most profit. We have had anti monopoly laws in this country for 100 years. To protect people. Sometimes they are not enforced. Sometimes they are. Same with regulation. And actually if you pay attention there are always politicians on both sides both for and against. And people across the board generally getting hurt.

I don’t think the current FTC chair cares about politics either. If you look at what Lina Kahn has done. The politicians who oppose and support her on both sides. And the companies who hate her or have just stopped anti consumer mergers because of her…

It’s. Interesting. To have someone actually doing the job they were tasked. By law. And confirmed by the Senate. To do.

@tinamarie1974

@narfcake that is fantastic!

Going in another direction I decided to purchase a yard sign this year.

@narfcake @tinamarie1974

Do DOGS have a political PAC for fundraising?

I presume that CATS would not bother with a PAC unless it was just for appearances or disinformation purposes.

Since CATS already control all the $.

@f00l @narfcake @tinamarie1974
/image cats all your base

@f00l @narfcake @pmarin @tinamarie1974

God I want want some. Milleni… Ok I guess I’m eldar millennial. But I really don’t think that’s fair since most of them won’t know what that is

@f00l @narfcake @pmarin @tinamarie1974 if it’s not clear it was a meme before there were memes. We knew “all your base are belong to us” I the 90s or very early 2000s. Also strong bad. And lightsaber kid.

On the school t1 line. Cause our 56K AOL sucked.

@narfcake @pmarin @tinamarie1974 @unksol

/image “Kilroy was here”

@f00l @narfcake @pmarin @tinamarie1974 okay. Technically you win it you count grafiti. Which. Should count. And if course there was a chad. When is there not a chad… Lol

@f00l @narfcake @pmarin @tinamarie1974 @unksol
Actually, the term “meme” predates the release of Zero Wing by quite a bit. The original idea is much, much older, but the term came from Richard Dawkins in the 70s.

@f00l @Limewater @narfcake @pmarin @tinamarie1974 for obvious reasons I meant early internet. Before it was wide spread. But killroy seems to be a thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here

Which… Makes sense. To be a meme requires a high concentration of people sharing it. A world war does do that way before the Internet.

Some history YouTuber needs to do a “what was the first meme”
Cpgray or one of the many others.

I would watch the history of the meme

@narfcake @pmarin @tinamarie1974 @unksol

FWIW “Kilroy” was such a big meme during WWII, with US troops leaving graffiti all over the place, that supposedly Hitler assigned some military people to track down his current location so that the Germans could target him.

I actually kinda guess that if graffiti and slang both count, then memes precede all the great ancient civilizations.

@f00l @narfcake @tinamarie1974 @unksol Early (for me) computer history. Back in early 1970s on IBM computers (“mini” meaning they only took up a small room) there were some files with ASCII art we could print. One was Woodstock (the Snoopy bird, not the music festival), and one was Kilroy was Here. I had no idea why it was a thing then but it was kind-of cute and I assumed it had a much longer history. I just now remembered the sound of when you sent an ASCII art image to the IBM chain printer, which printed pretty fast (faster than a “line printer”) it would make this cool percussive banging sound as a whole line of hammers hit a rapidly-spinning chain of keys.

/image IBM chain printer 1970s

/image Kilroy was here ASCII art

(EDIT wasn’t quite the image I remember but guess it works)

@f00l @narfcake @pmarin @tinamarie1974

Mmmm delicious history facts. These make me happy

@f00l @narfcake @tinamarie1974 @unksol
here you go then.

@Cerridwyn Well if the first one was staged it sure was a near miss. I doubt anyone would risk staging something to give a very minor injury when if they were off by an inch the outcome would have been very different.

@Cerridwyn The first rule of Conspiracy Theory Club is that the existence of Conspiracy Theory Club is proof that there’s a conspiracy.

@Cerridwyn @Kidsandliz yeah assuming it was the actual bullet (some early reports just said maybe shrapnel) but if you accept it was a bullet, no sniper could be good enough at that range to do an earlobe shot at that range. On the ex-president no less, regardless of political motivation. Time to watch “Jarhead” again. Have not watched “American Sniper” but now I guess I have to.

@Cerridwyn @Kidsandliz Don’t get me wrong I love good conspiracy stories as much as the next person. A mix of spy novels, detective drama, fun mysteries; who could resist? It’s fun but when it becomes part of “the news” becomes much more serious but many take it as continued 24hr entertainment and sometimes a reason to distrust or even hate.

On a related topic, many rural area schools districts in Eastern Oregon have outbreaks of children with Measles which used to be considered gone from the U.S., but with the anti-vax crowd in those areas a lot of kids getting very sick.

@Kidsandliz @pmarin sad and happening lots of places
whopping cough again too

@Kidsandliz @pmarin

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvglm0rjy2go

@Cerridwyn @Kidsandliz

whopping cough again too

A Portland State college football game was canceled due to a whooping cough outbreak with the team. It’s “fine” when kids get really sick because their parents watch F** news or read misinfo posts on F**kbook, but once it starts affecting College Ball(!) it gets REAL!

@Cerridwyn @Kidsandliz @pmarin My GP has started recommending that folks over 40 should get some of the “childhood disease” vaxes again, and apparently the majority of insurance plans are on board with that. I had a DPT booster a while back. Between one thing and another, I’m a regular pincushion these days. (One jab every other week is self-inflicted.)

@Kidsandliz @pmarin @werehatrack very good for him. The hospital I used to work for offered that as well to employees at a certain point not this Resurgence with the one before they requested every employee get revaccinated and I know I had mine then it’s been a while. But good for you too vaccines are the bomb

@Cerridwyn @Kidsandliz @pmarin @werehatrack
I mean bottom line I’m not worried about vaccines in general especially old ones.

Bacterial related ones, like tetanus are required because, if you’re anything like me, you poke holes/bust knuckles/bleed some outdoors. And that bacteria just lives there…

The child hood viruses… The titers don’t last forever but they were also supposed to be eradicated. If you have a weakened immune system or are just getting old and the antivaxers are spreading it. A booster makes sense.

Or if you’re at a high risk of exposure because of any job… Kinda common sense.

On the other hand, can’t trust insurance companies and they will do whatever saves them/makes them money. Without regulation.

If it’s cheaper for a million people to get a vaccine then 10K be in the hospital. Sure. If it’s cheaper for them to let 10K people suffer. They will not care.

If you’re wondering why asthma inhalers got drasticly cheaper it’s because their patents were invalid and when someone noticed they suddenly lowered cost.

Negotiating drug cost. Suddenly they agree to dropping insulin costs out of nowhere. Funny what happens when the government tries a little huh?

@Felton10 sadly, syphilis is caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum.

Herpes is a virus, would work better perhaps?

@Cerridwyn I didn’t know that and am sure the person who did the cartoon didn’t know that either. Am sure the people who got a third grade education from Trump U didn’t either.

@Cerridwyn @Felton10 Perhaps they were implying that nobody on that side knew anything about either viruses or syphilis. That’s probably gratuitous. While djt loves to claim he’s an expert on everything when he’s blathering for a crowd, I suspect that he tells an aide to go find out the dope and report back when it’s out of the public eye - if he actually cares. That’s the common management mindset; delegate everything.

@Cerridwyn @Felton10

Am sure the people who got a third grade education from Trump U didn’t either.

I am sure that not only did they only get a third grade education there but they forgot to teach them about science and how it works all the time, not just when you want it too… just like gravity does.

@Felton10 @Kidsandliz Wait! What! Anti-gravity doesn’t work?

@Cerridwyn @Felton10 @werehatrack It’s probably not that complicated - whoever created the meme probably didn’t know. But it’s still funny.

@Cerridwyn @Felton10

Wait! What! Anti-gravity doesn’t work?

You could test that theory by choosing to fall down some nice cement stairs and call on whatever antigravity devise or chant you have to save you from bruises and broken bones. Let us know the outcome of that experiment. OK?

@Felton10 @Kidsandliz my daughter did that one time. Not on purpose though bilateral tib/fib fracture

@Cerridwyn @Felton10 I did that once by accident and it was just 4 steps with metal edges on the cement. Permanently smashes the shin muscle so you can still see the big long dent and tore two ankle ligaments. Not fun. I am sure you kid would agree with me that this was the one time I wished gravity hadn’t worked.

@Felton10 @Kidsandliz yeah, when she was released from the ED, not weight bearing, her boy friend, now spouse, had to basically carry her up those awful Cali apartment stairs

@Cerridwyn @Felton10 @Kidsandliz As HGTTG author Douglas Adams explained, the secret to overcoming gravity is mastering the art of throwing yourself at the ground and missing.

@Cerridwyn @Felton10 @macromeh well to do that (throwing yourself at the ground and missing) you will need to travel to the edge of the flat world/earth and throw yourself off there. I am sure there are some science denyers who can give you the directions to the edge of the flat earth.

@Kidsandliz If you had an accurate map, it would be easier to use LibrarySpace to navigate to Discworld, which affirmatively has an edge. But throwing yourself off of it without a vacuum-capable conveyance is not recommended.

@werehatrack but that is why, since the world is flat (right?) find the edge and throw yourself off. You’d need a space suit though since you’d be launching yourself in space.

@Kidsandliz But on this planet, there’s a folding field that hides the edge. On Discworld, they don’t bother; the local magic field keeps the oceans full.

@Kidsandliz @werehatrack I mean. If we want to be real about it. The correct way to throw yourself off and not hit is to achieve orbital velocity. And while Musk has gotten weird. Space X is very good at it.

The heavy booster catch was pretty good.

I fell down a large flight of steps at church once but they were carpeted and I was young. Damage free. Snapped an ankle on some ice at 25… Bent it like 180. The screws kinda ruined running. They did something with a ligament I think. And my rehab guy was just. The worst piece of shit. Just yelled at you if you did it wrong or couldn’t do what he said. Or he told you wrong. So you sure trying to do what he said.

Shit happens I guess…

@Cerridwyn Oh, I love that.

@Kyeh I have no clue about the quality, but it tempts

@Cerridwyn Same … so few of my friends drink anymore and I seldom do, but it’s so cool!

@Cerridwyn Awesome!! I’m ordering a case to celebrate a Trump Victory!! And me and my Patriot Friends will turn the cynicism of the product into “Tears of Joy”!!

POPSOCKETS! COURT DOCKETS! FOLK ROCK HITS! AWESOME!

@Modhran2 It sounds so simple to someone who has absolutely no concept of costs or logistics or impacts. OBTW, parts of Canada are hurting badly for water, too.

@Modhran2 that… Reminds me of the introduction to Fallout 1 or 2 on the PC where the upbeat narrator mentions something about Canada having large resources to share while the footage is of an armored soldier executing a civilian as the Canadian flag is burning in the background.

@werehatrack Canada is also mostly conservative at this point, possibly leaning toward strong nationalism.
https://338canada.com/20240921-leg.htm

@Modhran2 @werehatrack It’s worse than that- he [Sweet Potato Hitler] was describing an actual spigot that would dispense the water- not something figurative.

@Modhran2 @PhysAssist @werehatrack in had not heard that bullshit. But I have hear plans for a aquaduct from the Great lakes to the Colorado. And that would make more sense than that statement. And still a bad idea.

Water rights in those states are a mess. Lots of reasons. And… Well. They need addressed but not by Canada. Where does he think the Colorado feeds from?

@Modhran2 @PhysAssist @werehatrack
And while we’re on it. If this will load
/youtube John Oliver water rights

@Modhran2 @unksol @werehatrack
In re-reading this, it occurred to me that he may have thought that because Canada is above the US on the map, gravity would make the water flow down to the lower 48 states to irrigate the drier areas.
Similar, in a sense, to the thought [promoted most famously by Keith Olbermann [sp]] that His Cheese-Puffiness doesn’t understand that the word asylum has two meanings, and that’s why he keeps talking about illegal aliens coming from other countries [insane] asylums.

@Felton10

“an ex-president and some one who wants to be the leader of our country again” >

So, you’re actually admitting that Trump was the LEADER of our country?? I’m shocked!!

@Felton10 @IndifferentDude Eh, I’d have characterized him as more if a misleader, but he had been entitled to that one long before he ran for office.

@IndifferentDude The president whomever he is is always the leader of this country-that doesn’t say anything about whether he is nice person or an egotistical racist rapist piece of shit which Trump is.

@Felton10 @IndifferentDude No one said a ‘good leader’…

@Felton10 @werehatrack
It was estimated that he told approximately 30,000 lies publicly while in office, although since it seems like he lies virtually every time his lips move, it must have been higher…

@DLPanther isn’t that really all of them?
I’m definitely jaded, but I personally prefer leaders who lead from the front … And step down to pass the baton to the next person (so everyone gets to experience panic). Yeah, some people are natural leaders; I’d rather have a quick line of reluctant ineffectual leaders and maybe find an efficient one (like a game of hot potato) than trudge through a pile up of overenthusiastic ineffectual leaders whose competition for the position and hoarding tendencies creates an increasing power vacuum for more overenthusiastic idiots to clamor for.

@Cerridwyn I personally would have found it repulsive even before the subject entered politics, but I have no doubt that such was the artist’s intent. Several tradespeople of my acquaintance had an even less charitable opinion of him as a result of dealings with him in the '80s. The wisdom among them in the NY/NJ area was “don’t bid on his jobs, don’t sign his contracts. don’t do work for him or his companies at all.”

@Cerridwyn @werehatrack

According to many sources in the construction trade who interacted with him over the decades he makes a practice of not paying his contractors in full ever. He always comes up with all sorts of serious reasons why they didn’t fulfill the contract he plans to do this in advance and then they have to take cut right settlement because he will go to court over anything and most contractors. Don’t have the time or energy to match that.

Sources include mini contractors many news reports and DT himself

@Cerridwyn @f00l @werehatrack I mean. You can literally find very very recent posts of him bragging he refused to pay overtime and contracts…

@IndifferentDude Maybe he will get lucky and have a new indoor swimming pool in his living room from the hurricane. Although being on the Atlantic side of FL that place probably won’t be underwater.

@rockblossom Are they misusing it if they are, in fact, part of the machine that created the world described in the song?

I mean, they’d probably want to quit advertising that fact, but since when have large political groups been guided by wisdom?

@Kyeh Revealing facial expressions:
EM: Look at me! Look at me!
DT: I tolerate you only for your money.

@Kyeh @rockblossom I figured that memes would be made from it.

@narfcake @rockblossom Yes, there’s a lot of them.

@Kidsandliz reminds me of an episode of the RoboCop TV series in the mid-90s; the Detroit Police have a politician in the witness box, but everything they say is inconclusive because their entire livelihood has conditioned them to never speak the truth (or get caught in a lie). Even RoboCop says their voice levels are consistently and constantly in-between normal tolerance and lying.

@Kidsandliz @pakopako there was an OG RoboCop TV series?!?

@Kidsandliz @PHRoG There were a few, but I will preface that nothing captures the future like the first movie.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop_(animated_TV_series)
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop_(live_action_TV_series)
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop:_Alpha_Commando
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop:_Prime_Directives

Ordered in chronological release order (and coincidentally in my order of preference).

The first animated series was made to sell toys, but at the heart is a basic buddy cop series (Murphy & Lewis) with an intolerant sidekick (made-for-TV anti-cybernetics Lt. Hedgecock); I found the character dynamic decent to sustain the John Henry vs the Steam digger friction.

The first live action show was also family friendly; it fits right in with RC2/RC3. It reboots the series, bringing new characters with the same roles (Lisa instead of Anne) and there is focus on the supporting cast like the smalltime villains and techs and family members (including made-for-TV Diana, the technician that accidentally became the citywide AI, giving RoboCop an almost omniscient view of the city at times). The show moved along like Star Trek, often having characters develop only to fall back to the status quo the next episode. The finale was something of a cliffhanger, but really it feels like a fumbled “and they continued going on”, which is also annoying.

Unlike the first animated series, Alpha Commando was really pushed to sell toys (each episode had a new gimmick of sorts) and the series lasted much longer; the irony is that there was no toy line.

Prime Directives was like RC2: it was darker and edgier, often for shock value or to show off the (lack of) special effects budget rather than include satirical jabs. At the core, it was a RoboCop 1.0 vs RoboCop 1.1 fight during Delta City’s Fall from grace as a corporate town back to Old Detroit, which works better than RC2’s RoboCop 1.0 vs 2.0. The 4 episode miniseries lasted about 6 hours in total.

@Cerridwyn Yeah - they went on and on about Biden’s verbal mistakes, which were impossible to ignore, but yet they gloss over the disconnected word salads that Trump’s been spouting. Not all of them, though: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4925023-podcast-host-laughs-trump/

@Felton10

Add that to what the generals have to say about DT, quoted in Bob Woodward’s new book (be released on Tuesday).

It has not so far been just day that we get a major party presidential candidate who announces in advance his intent to destroy the constitution.

@Felton10 I still don’t like “orange skidmark” despite some recent reporting that might… Make that true. Is possible to say that factully he is bad/corrupt/liar. And give examples.

IDK that I like that nickname. Maybe it’s the repitition… Which is what he does.

I’ll admit I’m more ok with one off Colbert jokes… But they’re usually relevant. And always accurate or transparent

@Felton10 Hey, what’s the big deal?? They were only Covid Test Kits! Just be glad he didn’t send him any Covid Shots that could’ve cured him. You know, syringes pre-filled with Clorox Bleach that would have killed the virus and make Putin healthy again!!

@IndifferentDude Well no difference to me or you, but if you were the one who died because you didn’t get tested soon enough because the kit you might have had access to was sent to Putin, it would matter to your family.

@IndifferentDude
Sorry, wrongo Keebler, they weren’t the simple [recently free for the asking] [relatively] instant tests we have now.
This was when Covid testing required expensive and hard to get hold of testing machines- so much so that all of the correctional facilities in NYS had to send all the test swabs we all obtained daily doing random testing of inmates to Albany by special courier to be tested by the few machines we had then.
Like these:
/image Abbott Covid test machine

@IndifferentDude Hamas was guilty of initiating hostilities. On the other hand, Netanyahu is guilty of attempting genocide and is purposefully targeting civilians, prove me wrong, not his excuses.

@IndifferentDude Just a Jewish Trump. He will do anything to stay in power. Have a client is Israel who said the people won’t get rid of him or put him in jail where he belongs if the war is going on. Sounds exactly like another toilet floater we know.

@Felton10 @IndifferentDude Why would he do that? Being ethical and doing a good job with what they do for a living is what someone needs to do to keep the job they have (not to mention it is the right thing to do). Their politics should have nothing to do with that - if it does that speaks to a problem with the employee.

@Cerridwyn @IndifferentDude

Hamas the political/military org is evil evil evil. And it uses propaganda, terror, and fear to force the local population to stay committed the path the leaders espouse.

That said: altho the political of that area are very complex, and a fair or reasonable peaceable co-existence seems out of reach right now due to prevailing politics and war imperatives on all sides;

I know some people who are Israeli citizens living there. The are fully committed to the existence and safety of Israel and have all done military service. Some are career military.

And members of these family believes that Netanyahu wants the war to continue to protect his own skin. That is he likely guilty of many crimes that would have him in terrible legal jeopardy oh he weren’t in office. That he desperately needs to stay in office so that he can stay out of prison. So he personally desperately needs war.

Is that why his govt ignored numerous warnings from their own military and security services before Oct 2023? Is that why local civilians weren’t warned of the obvious (to security services) military buildup in the days before invasion?

So he has every incentive to destroy every opportunity for any end to military hostilities and to destroy or torpedo any serious negotiations.

The fact that the leadership on one side is beyond evil and that they want war and genocide as a result of their terrible vile political and religious “philosophy” … that doesn’t mean that the leader of the other side is some sort of hero.

@Felton10 @IndifferentDude ITYM Israeli-tRump!

@Cerridwyn @f00l @IndifferentDude
Again, just like tRump and other autocrats who are desperate to stay in [or regain in his case] power to avoid the consequences of their criminal activities.

BTW, if the colorfully descriptive term: orange skidmark is objectionable to some, perhaps the less subjective of his titles would be better accepted.

Such as: the twice-impeached, four-times indicted, 34-times felony-convicted, twice-defeated, ridiculously over-made-up, incontinent and flatulent, unelectable golf-cheating loser.

@Cerridwyn @f00l @IndifferentDude
Oops, I forgot adjudicated sex offender, [and only judged short of being an actual rapist on a technicality].
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2024/01/29/donald-trump-rape-e-jean-carroll/72295009007/

@Cerridwyn @f00l @IndifferentDude @PhysAssist

/youtube cpgray keys to power

@pakopako ITYM George III, who was the King when we decided to be revolting over here. Multiple examinations of the evidence have pegged him as being bipolar. The “treatments” of the day were neither humane nor effective, and it’s notable that when he wasn’t in the depths of an episode, he was actually an effective leader. The same conclusion is difficult to support for certain figures at this time, although the cause seems more simple dementia…Fortunately, we have a choice that doesn’t show those indications. (I am cautiously optimistic that this may end well, but the fact that the Trump campaign is far beyond the due date for submission of the agreements preparatory to a possible change of administrations is a complicating factor whose implications should not be lightly dismissed.)

@narfcake That’s fantastic!

@Felton10 @SarahKirby12345

@Felton10’s statement is factually accurate.

All of the previous living Republican Presents and Veeps, and official Republican nominees to the office of President or the office of VP:

Only 1 of them is supporting Trump on this election. The rest of them have either openly endorsed Harris, openly said they did not support Trump, or privately made their attitudes clear against Trump. (I know a quite a few people who personally know the “quieter persons” among this group)

Trump’s only supporter from that group would be professional nutcase Sarah Palin.

@Felton10 I strongly dislike this “gold digging wife”

That’s not necessary. And we don’t actually know anything about their relationship. I mean she clearly looks uncomfortable when dragged out on the stage with him. But he’s an admitted adulterer and convicted sexual assaulter.

Also this implies he has gold to dig. Which he doesn’t.

IDK. I don’t feel bad for her exactly but pick a place where she would have been to divorce him in the last 10 years. Especially considering his misogyny. She l had withdrawn and said in her book she disagreed. She doesn’t get a free pass. But.

@unksol Anyone that has anything to do with this disgusting despicable POS knows does so for one reason and one reason only-what they can get out of the relationship but also knows something-Trump will turn on them in a minute if they show even the slightest amount of disloyalty. ie Jeff Sessions first comes to mind.

Despite Malaria 's extraordinary skills (???) that got her citizenship and her anchor parents who she got citizenship for also, she knew what she was getting when she married Trump in addition to the large amount of money she is now paid to stay with him and to attend as few events with him as possible.

Could call her a lot more things that would apply but the post would have probably been deleted. But for sure she is a “gold digger” of the highest order.

But she does go with Trump-he was the worst President ever and she the worst first lady by far.

@rockblossom It’s probably the eating all the pets or something.

@rockblossom @xobzoo my God. If they broke into my house and ate half the cats. Id only have 10 left.

@rockblossom @xobzoo pweaze don’t eat mez

And “I didn’t say you specifically” is not a defense, no matter which side you’re on.

Chill it.

@IndifferentDude

@Kyeh I’ll give props to the meme creator; it is sorta funny! (but incorrect).

@IndifferentDude @Kyeh
po-TAY-toes. Po-TAH-toes

@chienfou @IndifferentDude @Kyeh Perhaps rotten on the inside would have been better… Of course it will be rotten in Nov…

@chienfou Stealing this!!

@chienfou It’s funny how I miss all those annoying ads for medications and ambulance-chasing lawyers when election ad season begins.

@IndifferentDude
Gotta love Stephan Pastis and PBS! See above for another example.

@chienfou @IndifferentDude I mean please don’t steal it. Please link to the actual non AI artist

@unksol The Cartoonist’s name is right there in the comic strip next to the name of the cartoon. No linking needed I’d assume.

@IndifferentDude it’s the stealing it and misrepresenting it part. But if you’re stealing it… That kinda implies your not going to link it. And if you’re stealing real easy to snip that out.

@IndifferentDude @unksol
/giphy it was a joke

@chienfou @IndifferentDude I’m aware. Lol. The stealing of artists work to use to subvert their intended message. Or. IDK. See Trump’s theft of many musical artists. Just. Annoying.

Just post it as frustration with politics and let it go.
.

@Felton10 just say Duck tRump.

@Felton10 @mycya4me no don’t. A duck trump might be cute

@pakopako It’s very disheartening that so many voters only care about their personal finances, and don’t look any further into what contributes to the state of those finances at a particular time beyond who’s in the Oval Office.

@Kyeh @pakopako people are generally biased toward their own personal interests. You can’t have two family housing in an area because of NIMBY. Not in my back yard. Sometimes that’s to try and protect their property value which. They may have put everything into.

We don’t want it here so concentrate it over there.

Away from me. Humans are unfortunately still tribalistic.

Some are racist. Some just want to live with people who have shared values.

Some are legitimately afraid of what could happen to them outside of their community. And 1000 other ways people feel.

And some people go around stoking fear to get and benefit off it. And make people believe it’s a zero sum game. If they are getting better I will get worse.

That’s not how it needs to or should work… And just cause someone’s savings are worse than previous years. There was a pandemic and inflation and are you not listening to the tariffs trump wants to put on you?

I just. A guy wants to take your money and give it to the rich and to China. And also wants to have the military hunt his political opponents on US soil…

@unksol
You make a lot of valid points. The concept of NIMBY is one that’s particularly hard to fight.
You may want to revisit the end of your comments though because sending the money to China conflicts with your point about tariffs.

The concept of NIMBY is one that’s particularly hard to fight.

@chienfou @unksol Where selfishness exists, so will NIMBYism.

On a different paw, Mr. Quirks and Features has this license plate.

@chienfou @narfcake @unksol Presumably he has a high privacy fence.

@werehatrack I don’t think he could. IIRC, his house was landmarked (100+ years old already when he bought it) so it has to maintain its original characteristics.

@narfcake
The problem with that is that sometimes it should be NIABY… Not In Anybody’s Back Yard. Interstate routing through impoverished neighborhoods is a prime example of that…

@chienfou you are correct. I saw it after I said it and said fuck it. What he actually wants to do is charge them fees, make you pay the fees. And then also give that to rich people. It’s kinda a one way plan across the board with him

@chienfou well… eminent domain is kinda different. And awful when it’s abused. And I’m not saying I love government rules but. Come on…

@chienfou @narfcake The primary reason that roads go through impoverished neighborhoods is that the Rules say that the route must be as economical (i.e., cheap) as possible to both build on and acquire. You will never see a more vicious battle over the routing of a road than what took place in Nashville when it was decided to build the section of the I-440 bypass loop around the southwest side of town, either of which way that it was practical to route was through an area full of Important People Who Were Determined That This Vital Project Must Be Built But It Must Not Be Run Through OUR Community!

@chienfou @narfcake @werehatrack and that should have been not in anybody’s back yard like many things. Because it was literally seizing property. And destroying communities. And was not needed. There’s a difference between I don’t want that around here and you’re taking my property.

Of course it goes the other way. Except people lose. Because “important” people get their way
/youtube last week tonight shingle mountain

@Kyeh well, I’ve come to accept that thinking broadly about things is uncommon and sometimes detrimental. Not everyone has the bandwidth to juggle conceptualizing, planning, and executing; there is a bit of having been trained to obtain the mindset to be able to do that, having the resources to pay it forward like some “noblesse oblige”, or just not being hit with a personal obligation (raising a newborn) that takes a person out of “immediate survival” mode.

@Kyeh
Unless you’re a complete incompetent, in my opinion/experience, this has been a banner year for returns on investment.
I’m borderline incompetent in investing and one of my accounts returned a 36% ROI for this year so far.
The last quarter not so much, but elections tend to screw up a good thing every time, at least temporarily
Just saying…

@PhysAssist And yet … all these right wingers are SO SURE that the economy will be so much better with the grifter in charge.

@Kyeh @PhysAssist what you may be missing is the percentage of people who CAN invest. We can get sucked into the trap of the thought that everyone had the free money to invest.

I have the availability to max out my HSA and invest it. Max my roth IRA and invest it. And sink some into my company 401K. As an SE in the Midwest. But only cause it took 2 decades and I have no family. That’s kinda the minimum.

MOST people can’t do any of that. They used to have pensions. They used to have unions so they could.

Now… I think SEs should also have unions because the hours I work on salary are batshit. To get to what should be a semi base level. But assuming normal workers have money to invest. That’s. Insane.

Normal middle class is barely getting by and they have nothing to invest. Just because you’re doing well. You’re not the middle class

But Kamala has polices for that. Vs trump freeding more to the rich. Honestly Biden couldn’t roll those back because of the house even though they tried.

Also the bullshit with spacs and AI. Fuck that.

@pakopako
Another way of looking at it would be called:
“Seeing it through Obama-tinted glasses”- given that any good that occurred in the period between the end of Obama’s tenure and the beginning of Biden’s was almost entirely carry-over effect from Obama’s policies and management.

@unksol
Actually, I am from a lower middle class blue collar family. […and am currently still considered to be in the middle of the middle class, at least per the analysis here: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/09/16/are-you-in-the-american-middle-class/]
I was the first college graduate ever in my extended family.
To get there, I worked in a supermarket through high school, got through college on work-study programs, and by taking student loans. ’
Then I paid them off working my way up in retail from stock ‘boy’ into management.
Then I went back to school to be a PA in my early 30’s using more student loans and a work-study grant, which were forgiven after I worked for 2 years in an underserved migrant care center.
Unfortunately, prior to PA school, all my retirement accounts had to be liquidated in my divorce, my share of which paid [some of] my living expenses in PA school.
Thus all of my current investments came from the past 30+ years working as a PA, and are hard won, and do not represent some silver-spoon trust-fund BS.

@unksol Oh, and any meager skill or knowledge I have in investing is self-taught.

@PhysAssist wasn’t trying to imply some silver spoon. I mean hobby lobby and a corn field instead of a grocery store. I did similar. I’m doing ok too. And I feel like I worked hard for it/made correct decisions.

But the whole just pull your self up by your bootstraps trope… It doesn’t always work that way. For everyone. There’s also a measure of luck in there that’s. Maybe hard to swallow cause. I mean I want to think it was me being me and I did a good job. Cause I did.

But it’s still ok to acknowledge that other people are at a disadvantage and the way it’s set up is maybe not great.

And that most of the middle class doesn’t have spare income to put into their retirement. Which they absolutely should.

Then there is … If the stock market is propped up by value to share holders because of underpaying workers… It is complex. We have to do what makes sense for us in the system we have. But we can also be on with changing the system

@PhysAssist good effects last a term; bad effects last at least two. Just some warning that whoever gets picked, this country is still in choppy waters.

@unksol
Sorry if I came off as defensive, I didn’t really mean to be.
You’re completely right re: the luck factor, in both directions.
I tried to get into the US Naval Academy, and even got an appointment from my congressman Barber Conable.
However, in 1976 the academy started allowing women into Annapolis, and to fit them, they discontinued the 100 waivers allotted per class for midshipmen who needed glasses, and I have always been nearsighted.
Thus I missed out there.
Then as a sophomore going to SUNY [NY state school], I got injured playing rugby and a malignant bone tumor was found by accident on the x-rays, thus clearly saving my limb, and potentially my life.
After college, I tried to get into the USN OCS [officer candidate school], but even though my cancer was considered completely cured, they would not accept me.
Thus began my career in retail in 1981.
My transition to PA school in 1991 was enabled by a state health dept grant designed to enable more primary care providers in underserved areas, which I just happened to be in the right place at the right time to take part in.
So, yes, I’m aware that luck has played a huge role in my modest success.
But a fair amount of hard work may also have contributed somewhat.
Congratulations on yours as well.

@PhysAssist @unksol

Wow I’m glad that malignancy got found early.

@f00l @PhysAssist sorry if my response felt targeted. The “you” was the global you like. Maybe we all should get out of our own heads. And think about how the situation is for other people. Not a YOU pointing a finger like you’re somehow causing it or doing something wrong.

And the potential solution is to change the way our society does things. And the way to do that is to vote.

I… Feel ways about that and unless you’re in a swing state. It probably doesn’t matter. But it needs to be done and it needs to be accepted.

@f00l @unksol
Me too- obviously…
The full story is even more fortuitous.
Maybe a tale for some other time.

@f00l @unksol I almost, sometimes, sorta feel kinda like I’d like to move to a swing state so my vote would count more, but if they get any even incrementally more volume of political adverts than we get as a [supposed to be] solidly blue state, I’d have to commit seppuku.

@f00l @PhysAssist I just block everything. The states red. I don’t really know why. I mean I was raised that way but that was before Trump. And Republicans went off the deepend. And Christians should not agree with him and his blatant lies. So I have problems with the whole thing.

My vote counts for nothing. I can still vote in protest, get a drink and cross my fingers and toes and hope everyone else does their job

@f00l @PhysAssist @unksol I have wondered, on more than one occasion just what part of the New Testament these so called Christians have actually read. Apparently not much. Either that or they don’t agree with it so won’t follow it despite claiming they are devout Christians. I guess Trump trumps what they should know is in there.

@Kidsandliz @PhysAssist @unksol

Some “Christians” have transitioned into full cult hood I guess.

After that it’s just a matter of mandatory gaslighting misinterpretation

as with all cults.

@f00l @Kidsandliz @PhysAssist @unksol Trump really took the wrong option. He should have gone the L. Ron Hubbard route straight to a new religious cult, since what he really craves is constant uncritical adulation.

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @PhysAssist Well… There’s always been that whole white nationalist under lying belief for some that we are the chosen savior of the world. America was founded on God and the way I was told is RIGHT. Probably how you get mega churches with rich pastors. And private jets. Mostly grifters

But that’s more old testmant than new. More rooted in the violence of the middle ages when they couldn’t read the Bible. IDK.

We went to church. And AWANA. I went to a Christian high school. When there were no vouchers. Dad busted his ass for us to go, even when he stopped going to church. and mom worked there as the school nurse. And we had people taking lower salaries to work there. Not grifting the system. And smaller classes. Teachers who were honest and believed. And had morals. My two older sisters when to the public elementary school literally directly across the street from our house. And something changed that. But no one was doing weird shit in public schools in 1989 like they are now.

I dont have any real problem with that. I mean I haven’t really been to church in a decade and a half at least. But trump clearly doesn’t know what a bible is. What it says. How to hold it. Or any context. I read it end to end back then. More than once.

If you call yourself a white Christian nationalist. You are by definition not Christian. This is just an indisputable fact. And pastors/religion should not be involved beyond encouraging peoples for to vote and providing assistance to ANYONE who needs a ride.

The church is supposed to reach out not. Shut in/push down. It’s supposed to be a becon of hope. Not “Gods revenge against our evil enemies so we will execute”

If anything someone who read and believed the Bible would think Trump was maybe not THE antichrist. But he’s definitely 100% opposite of Christ.

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @unksol
Exactly, I [do my imperfect best to] follow the teachings of Jesus- turn the other cheek, treat your neighbor as you would be treated, the least shall be first and the first last.

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @PhysAssist @unksol I am a Christian and I take my faith very seriously and would generally be considered an “evangelical.” I don’t really see the Biblical case for saying pastors should even encourage people to vote.

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @Limewater @PhysAssist

I think my case would be that they could encourage people to do their civic duty. But not actually make any suggestion about how any person should vote.

It would be highly dependent on how it was said. And for some reason half of our voting centers in my county are in churches. But like I said. Churches should be outreach. Sometimes they do even function as community centers. I think it could be fine if your church just regularly picked elderly people up to take them places. Maybe if that was normal. Not special for the election. You were just performing a service that was asked for.

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @Limewater @PhysAssist

@Limewater And before you jumped in. I was about to post this. The “you” here is not YOU. If was a metaphorical you of what I would expect from an evangelical christian. My teachers. My pastors. My friends. Who i cannot imagine supporting Trump. I guess I could have used “my” instead but I already wrote it and… Idk if it’s my opinion now anymore or not… So don’t take it as an attack but would love to hear your opinion/response…

I feel like I cannot stress this enough. Per the Bible. It is not your place to judge. Or punish. It is your place to reach out and accept. And help. And maybe suffer. And by your example bring people to God. And not to mislead them.

Not necessarily bring them too your side. Or try and force them which will do nothing for them. But to save their eternal soul. Because of your character and example. Across all people and all nations.

If that’s what you believe. Help the poor. Help the sick. Help the mistreated.

Even if you think they are a sinner. You don’t get to judge. Or control. Best you can do is be a good person and maybe if they let you talk about your faith. And we are all irredeemable sinners. So what do you care if they had an abortion. What do you even care if they had one and don’t regret it. Not your job.

Romans chapter 3 if the Bible was never your thing. Like I said I spent a lot of time in the Bible as a kid. After high school… not so much the church and bible study or daily prayers.

You don’t have to believe these things to recognize the extreme hypocrisy and perversion that is going on.

Trump and the other people claiming to be fighting for a Christian God. Are lying. There is no call for a Christian nation. There is a call to save souls until the final judgment.

And you don’t have to believe any of that. To just know what it says.

“You do know that the Bible that you are claiming says the opposite?”

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @Limewater @PhysAssist also as far as the “busing” that church was in a very rural area and never organized anything. And my current town has like 2k people. There is no Uber out here for obvious reasons

If I were more social. In a church. And someone IMed me to give them a lift. I’m sure you’d do the same. Regardless of where to. If you had the time. Just the nice thing to do

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @Limewater @PhysAssist

And obviously @limewater like I said. That response was not for you. It was for the existing people on the thread. I’m sure you know Romans chapter 3. Not being patronizing. I’m not sure if they would have. But I really hope you can recognize that inherit hypocrisy. That is just trump. Being non Christian.
I could have a theological debate. But I’m hoping you had already seen the cognitive dissonance

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @PhysAssist @unksol I assure you I took nothing you wrote personally.
I was going to write something more, but I not had any time today.

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @Limewater @PhysAssist I still would like to hear your take. Or anyone else’s.

I literally meant I wrote the whole thing with “you”

As the generic you.

I just cannot equate Christian nationlism. With the new testament.

And even if I could. Definitely not trump. He has no morals

And Vance and the tech bros running him. And the misogyny… That violates a circuit in my brain.

@f00l @Kyeh @Limewater @PhysAssist @unksol The people who spout some of the shit that comes out of their mouth clearly haven’t read the New Testament, or if they have, decided that it didn’t apply to them.

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @Limewater @PhysAssist Idk. They either are too much into the old testament. Or the wives submit to your husband bit.

But that’s not even the issue. If you have a core belief. That you both agree on. And aren’t being forced into. That’s fine.

The issue is trying to enforce it on other people. Against their will.

@f00l @Kyeh @Limewater @PhysAssist @unksol That is the usual “my way is the only way and fuck the rest of you” approach many of the fundamentalist cult types have. Umm no I don’t think so.

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @Limewater @PhysAssist Except this time either a lot of people thought so or they didn’t get the memo.

Now realistically no I don’t think that. The economy always rules because as much as I wish we weren’t all selfish. We look to our situation first. And if it looks hard. Or worse. People flip. But there is no denying what Trump wants is to make it worse. His entire life is a grift.

But people just go “I’m not happy so let’s change” which with someone whos entire purpose is to extract/transfer money. Any way he can. And couldn’t tell the truth if he were attached to a battery… FFS

The cultist are just hijacking it but he doesn’t care and will go with it

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @Limewater @unksol
“inherent hypocrisy”
No criticism, just correction.
Because my semi-OCD brain requires it.

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @Limewater @unksol
…and it’s also clear that he will f-up the economy like he did before only worse…

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @PhysAssist @unksol

Writing a bit more. This won’t be short.

As mentioned previously, I am an Evangelical, at least by the word’s definition fifteen years ago. I am a member of a church that even has “Evangelical” in its name. My denomination is Evangelical Free Church of America if you want to look it up. We profess that the Bible is the word of G_d and our final authority. That should make me a “Religous Conservative.”

I will mention, though, that the term “evangelical” itself has kind of shifted and is now just a signifier of alignment with the Republican Party, particularly with former and future President Trump. So-called “cultural Christians” who grew up in a generally “Christian” environment but don’t really believe any of it or go to church, and even devout Catholics, Muslims, Jews, and Mormons as well as non-religious people are now sometimes using the “evangelical” if they’re really into the Republican Party because to many, the two have become synonymous. So a lot of current “evangelicals” don’t even really have a common religious base with people who would have been called evangelical fifteen years ago.

Here’s a decent article about the weird political meaning that has been assigned to the term “Evangelical.”
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2021/10/27/ryan-burge-why/

On the topic of Christian Nationalism: It appears to be a natural state of man to mix religion and government. In ancient times, if you belonged to a nation or tribe, you worshiped that nation or tribe’s god, at least nominally. This makes sense. Religion is a very good tool for building communal bonds within a society and separating one’s society from rival societies. We see this even with the Jewish people in the Torah. G_d set aside his chosen people, delivered them out of slavery, and gave them instructions on how to worship Him and exist as a nation.

If you look at the work and teachings of Jesus Christ, however, I believe his teaching was notably apolitical. During his life on earth, he had many followers who were willing to die for him. Many would die for his name in the following years. He could have led a revolution and people seemed to want him to. But he did not act against the government authority of his day. He did speak against the religious leadership of his day, challenging their unrighteousness and their failure to uphold the Law of G_d. A lot of people want to say that he was super political to do things like talk to women, but I don’t buy that. His speech and actions are only political if you are looking through the lens of saying that all action is political. In terms of government, the closest he gets to political speech is in Matthew 22, when the Pharisees attempt to trick him with a question about poll taxes.

Matthew 22:15-22 (ESV Translation)

Then the Pharisees went and plotted how to entangle him in his words.
16 And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians,
saying, “Teacher, we know that you are true and teach the way of God
truthfully, and you do not care about anyone’s opinion, for you are
not swayed by appearances. 17 Tell us, then, what you think. Is it
lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” 18 But Jesus, aware of their
malice, said, “Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? 19 Show me the
coin for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius.[c] 20 And Jesus
said to them, “Whose likeness and inscription is this?” 21 They said,
“Caesar’s.” Then he said to them, “Therefore render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”
22 When they heard it, they marveled. And they left him and went away.

The Pharisees attempted to pull Jesus into a conflict between the Jewish population and the Roman government at the time. Jesus made clear this wasn’t the reason he was here. He was here for bigger things.

In Isaiah 40 also addresses the important of nations in relation to G_d:

Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted
as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like
fine dust.

Christ didn’t come to change tax law. He came to save the tax collectors from their wickedness. He didn’t come to establish democracy. He came to save kings and commoners from their sin. He didn’t come to build a social security net. He came to change people’s hearts so that they will want to help those who are struggling.

Perhaps I am influenced in my reading by my rugged American individualism, but I don’t really think so.

Many Americans like to believe that the United States is somehow a new Israel. That our government is somehow special and ordained by G_d, that our founding documents are close to the level of Biblical scripture. There’s absolutely no scriptural support for such an idea, but again, that seems to be a natural desire of mankind. They want to believe that their nation or society is special and ascribe religious importance to it.

They are certainly aided in this desire by evangelical leaders. Dating back to at least the seventies, politicians and religious cultural leaders have been attempting (successfully) to manipulate conservative Christians for their own political ends. And, to be clear, it’s not just a Republican/Christian Conservative/Moral Majority/Evangelical thing. Regardless of what I believe about the merits of the Civil Rights movement, it was also a political movement that used Christianity for political ends. If you go back to the founding of our country, you had preachers and political leaders stirring up the colonists to rebel against the British government, despite Romans 13 telling us that everyone should submit to governing authorities and that we should pay our taxes.

A lot of Christians seem to believe that it is correct or appropriate to enforce Christian morality on others even outside the church. The idea here is that the USA is somehow a “Christian nation,” and that G_d will continue to bless us if we all do good. Again, I see no scriptural support for this. In fact, 1 Corinthians 5:9-13 explicitly teaches against judging those outside the church. Leave that to G_d. As a side note, there is no amount of enforced legal morality that can save a person’s soul, at least according to the Bible.

So yeah, I see no actual biblical support for any notions of Christian Nationalism, and some amount of teaching that appears to be directly against it. But most professing Christians don’t look directly to the Bible for these things. Honestly, they probably don’t even think to ask. It’s amazing what you’ll go through life assuming just because that’s how it’s always been and you never thought to question it. And when it’s reinforced by “respected religious leaders” it just deepens the problem.

“Because the person they listen to told them” is the reason a lot of people think and do a lot of things. People don’t like to say it, likely because it sounds elitist, but people have limited intelligence, limited time, and limited energy they are willing to give any particular issue, so they resort to outsourcing. Everybody does it. An issue comes up and someone doesn’t know what to think about it, so he or she turns to someone else whose authority they trust to provide guidance. If you trust the wrong authority, you’re out of luck.

I do think it is important for Christians to remember what scripture tells us in important. That is, to go forth and make disciples. Point others to Christ. To love the L_rd with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and also to love your neighbor as yourself. When asked later in life about his regrets, the famous evangelist Billy Graham said, more than once, that he regretted his involvement in politics. In 1989 he said:

“Evangelists can’t be closely identified with any particular party or
person. We have to stand in the middle to preach to all people, right
and left. I haven’t been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will
be in the future.”

And I think he mostly was. He made mistakes and he learned his lesson. It’s a real shame his son did not listen to these words.

If Christians believe Romans 13, then every leader of every nation, just or unjust, only serves at the will of G_d and we are to respect our earthly authorities whether we voted for them or not, or whether we even had the right to vote for them.

Regarding former and future President Trump, I still do not really understand the fervor of support for him, except that he has been phenomenally popular and evangelicalism has been strongly associated with the Republican party for decades. I guess it must go: He’s the Republican. Evangelical leaders have said he’s great. He helped overturn Roe v. Wade. So he must be worthy of praise. Also, Democrats are evil and must be stopped at all costs. I don’t think that many people who actually that the bible seriously actually listen to much that he says. My wife was as bible study Thursday night and was surprised to hear a friend of ours say that he’d just listened to a podcast and heard that Donald Trump “might not actually be a Christian.”

I’ll probably just end this almost 1600-word, typo-laden volume with that.

I wish you all a nice day!

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @Limewater @PhysAssist I appreciate that. I think I 100% agree and that was more thorough than I could have done. And I just don’t understand how it’s gotten so… Corruptted at this scale.

Like if they read the Bible. The new testament. Just. No

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Kyeh @Limewater @unksol
First of all, NTL, SIDRI- Not too long, so I did read it.
2nd- Very well written, factual, truthful, and IMHO totally correct.
3rd- Thank you for sharing your thoughts and analysis, I for one, agree and appreciate it.
God bless us all here, and [as heard at the end of all J.R. Biden’s and some of K. Harris’ and T. Walz’s speeches, but none of the Others’]
GOD BLESS AMERICA!!
/giphy God Bless Us

@Limewater

Thoughtful response. Thx.

@Felton10 …that and/or the noxious odors.

@IndifferentDude Well we may scream, but at least we won’t deny the obvious results and try to insight people to overthrow the results just because we don’t agree with them.

@IndifferentDude First we’ve heard of it. From what I can tell, that was an astroturfed thing to provoke ridicule back in 2017; after checking around, I found no one who had heard of it at all, ever, but there is archived “news” coverage from that prior year. I’d have expected it to be an Onion item, but apparently it wasn’t.

@IndifferentDude really it is the Reverse, they love to project what the don’t like & try to pin it on others.

@Felton10 Trump [Orange Cheeto-man] incited his mob to riot because he no longer has any insight into reality [if indeed he ever did].

@f00l
Good for you. People that don’t vote have no right to bitch IMHO.
I’m planning to do the traditional ‘second Tuesday November’ thing and go to the local polling station.

@chienfou @f00l If you vote you have no right to bitch. By participating in the system you have validated it and should live with the result.
If you don’t vote, you have not validated the system, but are still subject to the result, which is a much more bitch-worthy situation.

@Limewater
If you can come up with a better way to pick our leaders than voting on them feel free to propose it.

@chienfou I’m not against voting. I’m against validating the system and then bitching about the outcome, then telling those who did not validate the system that they can’t bitch.
I plan to vote. Consequently, I don’t plan to bitch.

@Limewater
Glad to hear you plan to vote.
Maybe bitch was a poor choice of words. I think if you vote it’s legitimate to be (potentially) unhappy with the outcome. Complaining about it and supporting it are two different items in my view. I may not fully like the outcome, however I will wholeheartedly support it.
Choosing not to vote because one doesn’t want to “validate the system”, indicates to me that one has a better system to get the leadership the nation needs.

@chienfou That said, there are plenty of voting alternatives to the American system of letting to private organizations run everything and selecting our leaders from between them in first-past-the-post elections.

@Limewater
Voting is still part of those equations.

@chienfou You don’t be glad that I plan to vote. Not voting is a valid and respectable choice. One should not have to advocate for an alternative means of selecting leadership to exercise this choice.
You can vote and then complain about the outcome, but you are wrong to do so.

@chienfou

Voting is still part of those equations.

Yes. That’s why it was the seventh word in my post.

@Limewater
It’s still baffles me in states like Alabama (where only members of a registered party can vote in that party’s primaries) that as a member of a minor party (Green, Libertarian, Communist or evan an idpendant)I am funding that process but can’t participate.

@Limewater

Yes. That’s why it was the seventh word in my post.

But was also the case you made against being able to legitimately complain (i.e. bitch).

@chienfou I have good news for you. Well, I have news for you. In Alabama you don’t actually have to be a member of a party to vote in it’s primary. You’re just only allowed to vote in one party’s primary.
Just show up next primary and ask for a ballot for a particular party.
I did. Now look at me. I speak from experience.

@chienfou I brought up other voting systems just to point out that there are a lot of ways to run elections. There are alternatives that are actually voting. Not that I think that the existence of other voting methods is a surprise to you, but to make it clear that there are alternatives to our particular election system.
But my position holds regardless of voting system. If you validate the system then you complain about the outcome. If you don’t validate the system then you can complain.

@Limewater
Okay… I can see this has come to a “agree to disagree point”.
Nice to hear from a fellow Alabamian though.

@chienfou @Limewater In California, primary’s are not party based. Top 2 go to the general.

That’s why we have 2 open senate seats and the same two people on both ballot items. I wonder what happens if the same person wins both?

@IndifferentDude
That is cheap disgusting BS, not even the slightest bit clever…

@PhysAssist Well, the forum title is “Political Bullshit” so I assumed it fit perfectly well here since it obviously is Political and 100% Bullshit!!

@IndifferentDude
Sort of partially true, but only the anti-democracy posts…

@IndifferentDude @PhysAssist It’s pretty much exactly as disgusting as the one up near the top, of the offensive Trump effigy for sale at a convention somewhere. Nasty, in atrocious taste, but not a clear policy violation.

@rockblossom
Given the current political climate I would suspect ‘blow back’ (or outright vandalism etc) is the likely culprit.

@rockblossom In some cases, generally republican folk are finally disgusted with Trump, but will not openly support Harris. How they will vote remains to be seen.

@Cerridwyn @rockblossom I’ve been hearing a lot about yard signs getting stolen around here. I’ve never really understood why people bother with them myself - I’ve never been convinced to vote on someone based on yard signs.

@Cerridwyn @Kyeh @rockblossom I have a friend who lives in a militantly red area near Dallas, and there have been incidents of vandalism to places daring to have a Harris sign. But even there, the number of Trump signs is down sharply from what it was in 2020 or 2016. The rhetoric from the active Trump supporters, however, has shifted from defiant to actively threatening, even at local government meetings that are recorded for official purposes.¹ It remains to be seen if they will take a hint and STFU should the results go the way it looks like they could.² An unusual number of people are showing up for early voting who have never previously come out to cast a ballot, and it would not take a huge percentage of those going heavily on one side to swing things.

¹ This mirrors the way that such local government meetings frequently went in the '50s, except that the targets were the black community, and the loud voices were from Klansmen in their Southern Democrat personas.

² For many years during the late '60s through the late '70s, the formerly overt racists kept a low profile, but they started coming back out of the woodwork using dogwhistle signaling words to express their sentiments and affiliations during the late '70s and the '80s. Now they’re just as overt in their hatred of all Democrats as they were towards the Blacks back in the '50s. It’s convenient for them, you see, because they can mean Black but deny racism by saying “Democrat”. And I will note that more than just a few times over the years I’ve lived in Houston, I have run across people out in the Piney Woods (rural East Texas) who still pronounce “black” with two g’s. And they aren’t all in Jasper. And nobody around them looks the least bit uncomfortable about it.