dasfoo
2yr ago
As an isolated gag, it's funny. Because the teacher I'm sure had 0 actual fear of getting fired for showing his students Michaelengo and was perfectly fine with them showing their parents, and thought that was common knowledge for everyone listening, until he actually was fired.
If the teacher "had 0 actual fear of getting fired" why would the joke ever occur to them? It's the joke of someone who is aware of the hazard, or there is no joke. Now, it may be that a teacher in an urban Portland Oregon school full of good little liberals might make that joke as an outgroup dig, but a teacher at a Florida school where "we don't use pronouns" is surely aware that he is operating in a different environment.
dasfoo
9mo ago
It would be closely related to the "Sicilian immigrants are eating our horses" meme as featured in The Godfather.
Uh, what? I think a re-watch might be in order.
dasfoo
1yr ago
It doesn't look like everyone (or anyone, really) at Dominion is twirling their moustaches and cackling as they disenfranchise the American people. It looks like they run like a standard tech company, which is to say all over the place, constantly fighting fires and doing the needful to get their sales. I'm sure 2020 was a complete nightmare scenario for these guys, where suddenly all their customers are radically transforming their deployments and doing novel, untested, gigantic-scale absentee and mail balloting.
Since I got downvoted for this skepticism, I think this is key part of the above explainer. Yeah, it sounds like routine software company patchwork, but it's a big leap from there to actionable claims of fraud. "Stop the Steal" is as dumb a mantra as "Most Secure Election Ever." They aim to convince through emotional appeal backed only by weak insinuations. For the kind of election fraud claimed by Stop the Stealers, you do need to find a couple of moustache-twirling villains intentionally changing vote counts through illicit means, not just the implications-without-accusations listed above.
dasfoo
1yr ago
I think it's more that he says a lot of stuff, and there's an army of people employed at sifting through it to snip out bits that make him look maximally evil out of context.
And that he is imprecise and careless about what he says, especially when he's regurgitating things he has only vaguely committed to memory, so he leaves a lot of room for others to figure out what he meant.
dasfoo
1yr ago
When you provide evidence, it magically doesn't count, because you have evidence.
Yes, the "deep" modifier of "the deep state" suggests such layered institutional presence that "the deep state" controls what counts as "evidence," making it therefore impossible to prove its existence within deep state-controlled venues.
dasfoo
2yr ago
Yes, and the teacher was totally correct to be defensive given what happened!
Which is why he should've known not to do it. Unless he is a new transplant with no sense of the community, it's either pure stupidity or intentional self-sacrifice.
dasfoo
4mo ago
My daughters have been giving me Spotify playlists of recent music. Swift stands out as one of the most idiosyncratic and emotionally complex lyricists working today. She captures a cognitive dissonance between introspection and compulsive habit that most pop songwriters would never consider. And yet is also so recognizably "normal" that she avoids the edgelordy bullshit of more progressive artists and easily appeals to a wider audience. I've become a huge fan.
dasfoo
9mo ago
What about this is blood libel?
If you wade into the X threads where the Cats thing got started, there are now nascent claims of voodoo and, yes, cannibalism.
dasfoo
10mo ago
In some countries, they refer to this as a "coup".
No, it isn't.
First, a party can nominate whoever it wants; it doesn't have to go through a "democratic" primary process, and the Democrats only did that in the most disingenuous way possible for this election.
Second, it's absurd for people on the right to try to claim that, both, A. Biden is mentally unfit; and B. It's a "coup" to replace him. If A, then B must happen in the name of civic responsibility.
I'll grant that a lot of Democratic Party shenanigans stink to high heaven, and this whole election process makes them look like the most cynical operators. But it's rich for people, most of whom don't even think Biden was legitimately elected in the first place, to try to claim that switching out nominees in this case is somehow deeply illegitmate.
dasfoo
10mo ago
There was no mystery as to the identity of the shooter
Officially, maybe, but speculation about Maxwell Yearick is still circulating on social media.
dasfoo
10mo ago
The difference is that nothing positive can break for Kamala.
What if Biden is declared unfit in early October and a new wave of enthusiasm for the First Woman President gives her a 5% boost to carry her through the election a week or two after she assumes office?
dasfoo
11mo ago
the real target is the companies that feel safe hiring such people
Please, no. We don't want it normalized for employers to scrutinize their employees' politics, regardless of ideology.
dasfoo
1yr ago
With what endgame?
What happens to unspent campaign cash after an election? Let's say Biden is tanking but has healthy coffers. Would it benefit a candidate to quietly accept an early loss and become thrifty in the final months, setting aside a surplus of funds as a nice consolation prize?
dasfoo
1yr ago
Simply find examples of parties on opposite sides of the political spectrum cooperating to actively pass bills or do other positive work together, while centrist parties vote against it.
Both far left and far right would likely agree on official policies of banning books and jailing opponents of the regime, whereas the middle left and middle right would likely oppose those policies as policies. Even in the case of Trump, I think the middle left is convinced that he broke the law and would not sanction a policy of government jailing opponents "without cause."
dasfoo
1yr ago
But that’s the entire point. You needed to do it with an intent to defraud and commit another crime. If he wasn’t thinking at all about that, then that is proof he didn’t commit the crime.
Yeah, I agree. But Trump is his own worst enemy and creates most these problems for himself. It's hard to feel sympathy for him when he is essentially dooming himself by repeating the same mistakes over and over rather than adapting -- even though I think he is being unjustly persecuted in a way that really hurts the entire country. Even if he's the least-bad part of this whole debacle, I can only shake my head in pity at mess he's put himself in.
dasfoo
1yr ago
When Obama was elected, Democrats were, understandably on a high, and while I can't point stats my sense of the national mood was that the younger Boomer Liberalism that first assumed power under Clinton considered itself victoroious in the culture war (and it was!) and this was reflected with unusual smugness. A new generation was in charge, and they were "on the right side of history." There were some prominent books and articles that got a lot of talk radio play in the wake of Obama's election, like the uncreatively titled "The Death of Conservatism" by Sam Tanenhaus (2009, The New Republic) and "The Death of Conservatism" by Lee Siegel (2009, The Daily Beast). Even quasi-conservative Andrew Sullivan got into it with a book titled "The Conservative Soul: How We Lost It, How to Get It Back." More self-eulogizing from conservatives in "The Death of Conservatism: A Movement and Its Consequences" edited by Lee Edwards (2011).
As for the ideological composition of the federal workforce, the size doesn't matter as much as who made up the ranks. I asked ChatGPT and it responded with this:
One notable initiative in this regard was the National Performance Review (NPR), also known as the Reinventing Government initiative. Led by Vice President Al Gore, the NPR sought to make government more efficient, customer-focused, and results-oriented. It aimed to eliminate waste, reduce bureaucracy, and improve the delivery of government services.
While the NPR did involve workforce reforms, such as encouraging early retirements and implementing performance-based management systems, the primary goal was not age-based replacement but rather improving the overall effectiveness of the federal workforce. The initiative emphasized the importance of attracting and retaining talented employees, regardless of age, and creating a culture of innovation and accountability within the government.
Additionally, the Clinton Administration supported initiatives to promote diversity and equal opportunity in the federal workforce, including efforts to recruit and retain a diverse range of employees across age groups, backgrounds, and demographics.
Obviously, there is not going to be a stated purpose in these initiatives to replace older workers with young democrats, but there is going to be a natural influx of Democrats in such an environment led by party operatives, especially with diversity initiatives driving part of it.
dasfoo
1yr ago
I think you misunderstood me- deaf activists who object to curing deafness are wrong to do so.
Yes, I did. I read it as "government interventions to reduce the number of deaf people..." "...would be wrong to so"
dasfoo
1yr ago
1990s non-religious centrist conservative, part of Jonah Goldberg's "Remnant."
dasfoo
1yr ago
Chamber of Commerce
LOL. I just got back from a local Chamber meeting. I'm not sure what you think it is, but I am sure it doesn't belong in the company you think it does.
dasfoo
2yr ago
Could you elaborate on what specific harm showing an anatomically correct sculpture to sixth graders does to them?
This is a wholly irrelevant question. I know it's what the pro-David side likes to focus on, because it makes their opponents look like aliens to the ingroup, but it fundamentally doesn't matter.
If we can agree that there are two groups who differ on the answer to your question: regardless of the substance of their answers, this is an issue of how a community has decided to navigate through this difference in opinions. Now, it may seem to some like the question is so stupid that the community process no longer matters, but this is a great way to destroy a community. This is the essence of a lot of culture war issues at the moment, a focus on terminal values above the process by which we allow competing values to co-exist peacefully.
dasfoo
2yr ago
I forgot all about the Awan Brothers! I am guessing nothing ever happened with that, even though it had the stank of suspicious incompetence all over it.
dasfoo
2yr ago
They don’t “speculate” in the sense of disclosing uncertainty, they outright state they have the data. The book actually lays out that data.
They speculate that their data reflects a conspiracy of vote fraud. What they never show is a single actual person going to multiple ballot dropoffs. Not just in one night, but ever. Their "4 million minutes" or whatever of video either fails to corroborate their claim or they decided not to show that it does, which is very weird.
I didn't know that there was a book, too. I doubt that it proves anything more than the movie did, beyond possibly doubling their profits on their uncorroborated speculation.
dasfoo
2yr ago
That paragraph completes a collection of 3 paragraphs all follow the form "Republicans do , but Democrats aren't any better". That is to say, I'm pretty close to certain OP is saying "Roe v Wade, anyone" as a dig at Democrats
It read to me like the first hint of a tipping point, but it was vague.
The woman in the right corner at just after 9 minutes who transitions from shouting "USA! USA! USA!" to "FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU!" is a perfect ecapsulation of the ugliness of the current American body politic.
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