domain:drrollergator.substack.com
wemptronics
10m ago
Throwback T-saturday*
I've developed a burgeoning, if still nascent, interest in the IRA. I was reminded of a post from ancient times. Mcjunker's quality contribution on The Ins and Outs of the Kilmichael Ambush where, a week after Bloody Sunday in 1920, the IRA hit the Brits with unprecedented lethality in an orchestrated ambush.
Maybe this topic or post isn't so much fun, but I figured one or more interested parties might not have had a chance to read a dusty old effort post. I felt like I rediscovered it, enjoyed reading with new old eyes, and thought to share.
- If only this was some flavor of Tsar related it could be Tsar-turday. First one's free, folks.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
13m ago
I don't know a single person in clinical medicine who wants to eliminate opioids
Yeah, but I'm not talking about people in clinical medicine, though I suppose it's not out of the question there are some drug warriors there. Ask a clinician who deals with severe pain as part of their practice whether APAP or ASA or ibuprofen control pain as well as opiods, and they're going to laugh. The reason studies like this are done is to come to the conclusion "Non-opioid medications are just as good as opoids for , therefore we should move to legally discourage the use of opoids for that condition."
To be "fair" to the drug warriors, in recent years they've been moving from accepting the presence of APAP in combination drugs as a reason for lesser regulation to not doing so, instead making both the combination and the straight opoid hard to deal with. I presume this means more people with broken bones being sent home with an aspirin.
coffee_enjoyer
☕️
14m ago
I’m not necessarily pointing to invention here, though the similarities are pretty shocking. Re: the line from Isaiah, that’s true, but the second half of Isaiah is sometimes referred to as the “fifth gospel” because of its prophecy of the Messiah (according to the theology). In any case, it is still hundreds of years older than Ad Herennium.
But Ad Herennium was the most important book on rhetoric in the Middle Ages, which likely means it was esteemed around Christ’s time. So it’s not impossible that the authors used the go-to manual on rhetoric to emphasize certain aspects of the event. I suppose a more literalist reader can just as well say, “of course God would author the real events in line with the best rhetoric and memory advice; the only new info here is that Cicero had some Godly wisdom about rhetoric”.
Gaashk
30m ago
I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, they are a foundational part of our civilization, and it's good for people to know about and consider them, so I would certainly address them in the curriculum at some point. On the other hand, they're kind of appropriate as actual classroom rules.
I am the LORD your God; you shall not have strange gods before me.
Clearly inappropriate for American public schools.
You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.
I don't think religious people even agree about what this means, and also not appropriate for American public schools.
Remember to keep holy the LORD’s Day.
They get Saturday and Sunday off, anyway. It would be an improvement on playing Roblox all weekend, but not seriously taught in public schools.
Honor your father and mother.
Good advice. Public schools like to focus on the dishonorable parents, with messaging like this Mother's Day, think about all the women who are unable to be mothers, or are estranged from their mothers, and how sad they are. This would probably be a net improvement.
You shall not murder.
Schools are very serious about this one.
You shall not commit adultery.
Inappropriate for school aged children to discuss.
You shall not steal.
Schools are and should be serious about this.
You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Schools should be more serious than they are about this.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
Inappropriate for children.
You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.
Schools should be much more serious about this, and especially about flaunting your goods at your neighbor to try to bait them into covetousness.
So I guess that's half of them, where the Commandments and schools align, though they probably wouldn't be comfortable mentioning the possibility of murder, even.
I'm so bad at memorization that I never learned the multiplication table by heart. If someone asks me what 7 x 8 is, my mental process goes: Okay, I have no idea what 7 x 8 is, but that's the same as 14 x 4 (multiply the 7 by 2 and divide the 8 by 2). Then I can just:
1
14 x
4
56
Which only takes me a few seconds.
Likewise, I never memorized most of the trigonometric identities. Instead, I memorized cos x + isin x = e^ix and rederived them at need. When I took the ABCTE math exam, I even practiced using Feynman's notation to make this faster.
The one math quiz I totally bombed in high school was when our teacher gave us a list of squares and cubes to memorize and then deliberately did not give us enough time to calculate them, to check if we had indeed memorized them.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
34m ago
You too? My condolences.
haroldbkny
39m ago
I'm that episode, they were specifically showing everyone who wanted safe spaces being guys who don't want to feel bad about living in the first world, and don't want to be asked to donate to charity at the supermarket. And "Reality's" argument against it was you should feel bad about living in the first world sometimes. It seemed way off the mark to me, just like they're missing anyone and everyone's points on the issue.
quiet_NaN
40m ago
Some relevant context (from my understanding from the far side of the pond):
Paramount and Skydance have recently completed a merger. As both were big media networks, that merger was subject to approval by federal authorities, e.g. the SEC and the FCC.
At the beginning of July, Paramount decided to settle with Trump for 16M$ in a lawsuit where he contested that they had illegally used editing in a Harris interview, despite the fact that experts say that they could likely have won the case on merits.
On July 17th, they cancelled Colbert.
On July 24, 2025, the FCC approved the merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media.
South Park is ultimately owned by Paramount. Given the length their owners had gone to appease Trump, of course they took it upon themselves to maximize pissing him off.
--
While previously, Mr. Garrison had been a stand-in for Trump as an obnoxious narcissist, Trump now had the dubious honor of becoming (iirc) the second person to be represented by photographs of himself, after Saddam Hussein. Like Saddam, he was also depicted in a gay relationship with Satan, and they also gave him a micropenis.
None of this is particularly funny on its own, but it reads as a credible signal that they want to piss of Trump.
Turning the PC principal from a proponent of political correctness into a power christian worked for me. (South Park has mocked political correctness and wokism for two decades, the death camp of tolerance remains a personal favorite of mine.)
Cartman, being upset that he can no longer start his day by hearing 'liberals whine on NPR' due to a funding cut has a crisis of identity which might be somewhat autobiographical for SP. They were mocking wokeness before it was cool to mock it. Now that everyone does it, it can no longer be Cartman's (or SP's) shtick.
The second episode was okay. The "Kristi Noem shoots puppies and has a face full of botox" thing did not really land for me. The "anyone can earn a huge salary by becoming an ICE goon" was better. Eric Cartman and Clyde "masterdebating" (to) college girls was ok as far as jokes go. So far, the Epstein stuff was more hinted at (Dora the explorer giving a massage to some old guy at Mar-a-lago). Presumably, it will be milked for what it is worth in a latter episode.
I don't think this degree of victory lap is earned just because Mississippi taught its poor black kids to read better than California's. Also, there might not be a better way to catch a state's attention than by rubbing Southern success in their face.
Mississippi is supposed to be dumb and backwards. Ipso fatso anything that contradicts this is due to unfair, fraudulent, or underhanded tactics. You can't just spend $32 more per student to teach an entire state of inbred hicks to read more better. Oh, they're making fake would-be 5th graders take the test? That explains it.
A good way to keep kicking the same dumb dog with a finger in each ear, but I don't think it's one that can last. Involved parents prefer effective education more than they do values that say holding kids back is emotionally damaging or mean. Involved parents vote with their feet. Uninvolved or uninterested parents might prefer their illiterate kid get failed upward than the hit to their pride, but that's the school's problem. The schools have lots of problems and seek the path of least resistance, but the school can always point blame above.
California legislature tried at least once already to push science based reading. They failed. There's another go so it will be interesting to see if it fares any better. This story got a lot of press. States can choose to teach kids to read, but only if they have the power and wherewithal to say, "Tough luck, toots. Teach the program." I, for one, hope we improve education for kids. But, if shame fails to sufficiently motivate, then there is always honor to be found. You may keep your Kipling, Shakespeare, and Twain. They may keep their compassion and progress. Who has the honor culture then?
NYTReader
50m ago
Their main argument seemed to revolve around people using safe spaces to avoid having to think about starving 3rd world countries.
No, that subplot was mostly mocking celebrities for their performative charity.
The episode was primarily about how safe spaces insulate people from any criticism of their worldview. It was basically saying that people should stop being pussies and offended at everything. That's seems about right to me.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
51m ago
My bad.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
58m ago
A sort of problem is that the “marred more than any man” bit isn’t in the gospels, it comes from Isaiah 53. And if you’re dealing with a person who was crucified, the beating and the crucifixion would be part of the story whether or not you’re trying to create a memorable scene. Just like the ending of Hamilton being played for drama, this doesn’t change the fact that the historical Hamilton actually died in a pistols at dawn duel with Aaron Burr.
I’m not going to suggest that the prose of the text wasn’t written to highlight certain parts of the story to appeal to people reading the story. But I think the claims of skeptics that the story must not be true because it matches a rhetorical style is a bit too far. The story was told in a way that appeals to Romans of the first century.
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
1hr ago
Except they do not have different morals, they do not believe in the tenets of Satanism, they are trolling? Petulant trolling no less since I would bet they agree with the morality of most of the ten commandments, usually they're just having a 'fuck you dad' reaction to at least one of the first four?
haroldbkny
1hr ago
Well, I mean to say they don't really understand the current issues that they try to tackle on their show. They always seem to misunderstand the core issues. I remember when they had an episode about safe spaces where they were fighting a complete straw man. Their main argument seemed to revolve around people using safe spaces to avoid having to think about starving 3rd world countries. That's just so off the mark.
The_Nybbler
In the game of roller derby, women aren't just the opposing team; they're the ball.
1hr ago
You've said that begging here CAN save you, even rescue you from a permaban. Which encourages begging, which is why you shouldn't do it.
I'm frankly disappointed in Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Going back on their initial mockery of climate change; keeping their mouths shut on the frankly ridiculous clown world tier state of dems/ zombie Bidden. Where were they for the four years of nonstop gaslighting and censorship we endured?
Facing Covid disruptions and then streaming deal agreement issues. They were still able to make some but it was limited and messy.
"This merger is a shitshow and it's fucking up South Park. We are at the studio working on new episodes and we hope the fans get to see them somehow."
"We’ve tried to do South Park through four or five presidential elections, and it is such a hard thing to—it’s such a mind scramble, and it seems like it takes outsized importance,” Stone told Vanity Fair.
Stone said that the election is "obviously...f---ing important, but it kind of takes over everything and we just have less fun."
Plus, as Parker pointed out, the pair "don’t know what more we could possibly say about Trump.”
Even the first episode this season was delayed due to all the streaming rights fuckery.
I think this is part of why the new season's first episode was "incoherent" as the OP put it, a lot of people didn't follow along with the show so the meta commentary on the process and their anger at Paramount being expressed through targeting the Trump deal didn't make sense to them. Part of the bait isn't just to get the Trump admin mad, it's to get them more mad at Paramount.
It's actually really funny if you understand the metaphor. Cartman and Butters in the car represents the "suicide" of Matt and Trey going down this path, trying to upset the executives. They don't know what if anything will come from it, but fuck it they're bringing the fight. The anger and freakouts at them from the right are not just icing on the cake, they're part of the formula
Fruck
Lacks all conviction
1hr ago
I am usually the last one to figure it out, like with Darwin or Impassionata or Julius, so I assumed that's what was happening there too, otherwise I would have said something.
Dean
Flairless
1hr ago
Too late- Amadan banned him on suspicion of being Hlynka and thus ban evasion. Not this post, just ban evasion.
SnapDragon
1hr ago
Ahhh, you know, this makes perfect sense. His AI-skeptical post here, which had serious technical errors but somehow got a QC, matched very well with the arguments I've had with him before. Even down to the dubious (and prideful) claims of technical expertise. And the comparison of AI to animal intelligence (one heron, one orangutan).
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
1hr ago
I mean, I strongly oppose public school teachers being required, or even permitted, really, to hang the Ten Commandments in a classroom. Public schools should not endorse an establishment of religion.
The point of the Satanic Temple stuff is as a protest against religious impositions on public spaces — you say you’re just endorsing good morals, well here’s ours, how do you like it? It’s a good troll, and I think it makes its point.
You also have to separate the Satanic Temple people — who are trolling atheists, from the LeVeyan Satanism people — who are somewhat more trolly atheists who admire Satan as a literary figure (he brought the light of true choice to man!) while not believing in the literal existence of Satan, from the actual, ritual and sacrifices to Satan people. The latter are considered dangerous even among practicing occultists.
The Satanic Temple stuff is just a more edgy version of the Pastafarians trying to wear pasta strainers in their drivers license photos. I think they need to be careful, because yelling “hail Satan” as they like to do sometimes is both upsetting to normies and spiritually stupid, but based on my experiences with the type they’re just edgy atheists and their personalities aren’t much different.
I don’t like any of them, and my view on existing religious references in public spaces is to roll my eyes at people making a big deal of them, but the teachers have a legitimate constitutional complaint that being required to hang religious texts in their classrooms is inappropriate.
self_made_human
Grippy socks, grippy box
1hr ago
@EverythingIsFine I'm getting hammered in a gay bar (no, not that way), so if you do wrote back, I'll check in when I'm sober
Now, the problems are (and we know now, as hindsight is 2020) 100% factually caused by one side- the side that calls itself "left"-
Most of the people watching South Park don't think this.
What's left to mock?
MAGA. I think South Park is overcorrecting after 4-5 years of mocking "woke", but mainstream conservatism as expressed through MAGA is content rich when it comes to parody.
Why does mocking ICE work? Because the average illegal immigrant isn't a gangbanger or a rapist; it's some poor guy with a family mowing a lawn or scrubbing a hotel toilet after Cartman takes a massive shit. The Trump administration implicitly understands this and it's why they have to continuously emphasize ICE is deporting the "worst of the worst" or whatever.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't deport every single illegal. I don't watch South Park to form my political opinions but I can acknowledge that the substance of their critique is correct.
That is not what I said. You did not misunderstand me. You are pretending to misunderstand me. Stop doing that.
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