TrickstaPriest

This presumes the avoidance of biological and nuclear weapons?

I think the modern solution is getting killed in an accident, and being reborn in a fantasy world complete with harem.

So...
 
My time, it's 10:25 pm.  Just poured my New Years libation;  this year, it's an Ommegang Three Philosophers, Blueberry-Coffee.  It's a blend of a Belgian quadruple and a cherry ale...in this case, with additional flavors from the coffee and blueberry.  First sip, it's quite interesting, but I think I preferred the wine barrel version.  Ah well.
 
So this is taking the place of writing in a journal.  It's the end of another year, and time to think back.  Which is good to do, even if I don't want to remember much.
 
Because in some ways, this year was more painful than 2020.  2020 had the inevitability of a runaway train.  We knew it was gonna smash us.  With Trump still in power, once we heard that the coronavirus had escaped China...it was going to be a brutal year.  And it was.
 
But this year has shown that we're on course and racing down the Niagara River, swept up in the current.  While, OK, if Trump was still in office, the engine would be going full throttle as well, the best we can do is get the engines shut down.  We can't get out of the current because such a large percentage of us are fighting any move to direct the boat out of midstream.  And others are sabotaging the boat.
 
Where last year was hard and draining, this year has been more about depression and despair, at least for me.  Covid is starting a bigger surge than ever...because so many people fought so hard to make sure it became completely rooted in the population.  Democracy and the rule of law are at great risk.  Climate change is wreaking havoc *now*...more intense storms, serious heat waves particularly in cool zones.  Crop losses.  The Western drought is only getting more severe.  (Side note...we actually got 0.6" of rain today.  That tripled the 4th quarter total.)
 
And we have proven to be too narrow, petty, and self-centered to get anything much done, at least here in the US.  The Congressional Republicans have shown for years that they're just fine with the ship flying over the falls...because short term profits and stock prices are all they seem to recognize, and things like clean up, pollution limits, etc. might damage that.  Then the Democrats are held hostage to the coal mining industry and Joe Manchin.  Virulently anti-democratic voting legislation is trying to lock down several purple states to try to make them red states...like Arizona, which would normally be considered red but obviously wasn't red enough for them.    And there's grave concern that the Supreme Court may only, IMO, toss out the most rampantly egregious.  If they can't agree to block implementation of the Texas abortion law, then we need to be very, very worried about what they'll allow.
 
And...I think a lot of it for me is, I allowed myself hope.  And in so many ways, stupidity, or greed, or authoritarianism have blossomed, and crushed it.  That can't get better because too many people view anti-vax/anti-mask, or the election issues, or the like, to be the desired outcomes.  So the fracture lines just continue to get wider and deeper, and the ability to adopt sufficient policy shifts to make a difference becomes less and less viable.  
 
I stand a decent chance to see 2050;  my father's older now that I would be at that point, by a couple years.  Things won't collapse completely before then, probably, but I suspect smaller-scale, localized violence will be MUCH more common.  What starts as racial violence may well grow into any "non-normal" situation.  It's hard to say this, but the institutional blind eye for a lot of police abuses will only grow.  More Matthew Shepards.  More Pulses.  MANY more Marjorie Stoneman Douglases, as early alienation becomes more commonplace.  Greater income and opportunity disparity;  the American Dream may become unreachable unless you can connect to someone who's already made it.
 
And that's why this year's hit more.  Last year showed promise of a light at the end of the tunnel.  This year shows the brakes don't work.

Excuse me, I think you'll find it was the Finns that thought it up -- at least the name. In the Winter War, the Soviets were bombing Finland. Molotov denied it, claiming it was actually food drops to alleviate the suffering of the poor, oppressed Finnish masses. So the bombs were dubbed "Molotov's breadbaskets", and the improvised fire bombs that were used to take out Soviet tanks got the name "Molotov's cocktails" as the perfect companion.
 
The Finns are noted for their dark humour. 

I want a president who will actually take climate change as seriously as it needs to be.

I want a president who will actually take climate change as seriously as it needs to be.

"Tax and spend" is how governments are supposed to work. Government exists to provide services: notably, protecting citizens from foreign enemies and from each other. That costs money, which the people pay in the form of taxes.
 
It's a much better system than "Don't tax but still spend," which various politicians have advocated. Or, "Extort money but provide no services," which has been a common setup through history.
 
I am sorry if this seems snarky, but my guess is that people who complain about "Tax and Spend" merely want someone else to do more of the paying, and to see more of the spending directed at them. But, well, humans. How often does anyone get on a soapbox and shout, "Raise my taxes! And spend the money helping people who aren't like me!" And some people talk tough, but not many really want to go back to Hobbesian anarchy.
 
I do not think that politicians of *any* party will ever speak honestly about what government costs, and how to pay for it. The public won't stand for it.
 
Dean Shomshak

Invisible and unheard: how female veterans suffering trauma are let down by US healthcare

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/season-11-episode-12/
 
this episode pf Freakonomics discusses the similarities and differences in corruption between the US and PRC, and how it relates to political and business culture. The professor who studies this stresses that "corruption" -- the abuse of public power for private benefit -- occurs in multiple modes, and surveys that purport to rate the relative corruption among countries can thus obscure more than they reveal. Notably, the US scores quite low in outright theft of state monies or simple bribery... but in subtler, more high-level forms of corruption such as corporations writing the laws by which they do business, or paying for access to the halls of power? That's another story. And the situation is not so simple in China, either.
 
Dean Shomshak

Paperwork is the life blood of the government. Also it has to be documented against future lies
CES

I was just responding to your comment on raw numbers there. Of course, there are a lot of other factors in play.
 
I don't really see a full-blown civil war happening anytime soon, but there are enough extremists (future moderates, if things keep going the way they have been) out there to cause real problems.

Trump aide set up meeting where election worker was pressured

This is a much more credible threat, that the GOP will rig the 2024 election so their candidate is declared the winner, regardless of the legitimate outcome. IMO if they do that there will be challenges, protests and demands for investigation that make the Republican maneuvers of the past year look like pattycake. A Republican President installed that way may try to stifle dissent by Draconian measures, including use of force. At that point everyone in America will have to pick a side.

There are about 696,000-697,000 police in the US.  There are about 336,000-337,000 National Guard members (including support units) in the US. There are about 1.3 to 1.4 million active duty military personnel in the US armed forces (including support units and those deployed around the world.)
 
A single million people acting up at once is a catastrophe of unheard of scale. Just 1% of the population is 3.3 million people . . . we'd be in deep doo-doo if that many people started acting up all at once.
 
Could they actually overthrow the government? Probably not, but not for lack of bodies, even at those numbers.
 
 

Let's not allow the hyperbole to panic us. The United States is a country of 330 million. "Millions of Americans" translates to less than 1% of the population. Revolution ain't happening from that.
 
Post-election violence? Very possible, but if the intelligence of the Jan. 6 rioters is typical of the movement, it won't be organized enough to make any practical inroads.
 
That said, it's three years away. A lot can happen in that time. The greater danger is if Trump, or a more competent successor in the same mold, wins for the GOP in 2024.

Maybe but.......I don't think it's that much of an overstatement.  We'd NEVER have predicted Jan. 6th as late as, say, October 2020.  And play the numbers.  Let's start with 50 million Americans 18-60, who count themselves Republicans.  Call it 25 million males, 25 million females.  If 2% of the women and 5% of the men are willing to join in...that's 1.75 million.
 
Another consideration is, I absolutely expect that "don't let them steal THIS election!" is going to be the mantra for the election.  So if they lose, they'll have seeded the revolt already.
 
Also understand:  I think the action will be viewed as absolutely patriotic.  So it IS protecting themselves.

I don't think the gap surprised him, just the magnitude of it. As he pointed out, no distinguishing feature for any group accounts for as low a vaccination rate.
 
 
Perhaps it's overplayed, but these days the American courts can't be counted on to deliver a judgement without partisanship. Besides, anything that brings Fox closer to accountability is worth a pat on the back.

"Both sides have a point."
 
Yes: one is a spear and the other is a toothpick.

I believe some of that "slanting" from today's American liberal media has come in response to propaganda from "conservative" outlets. The radical American right is advocating such a distorted, biased viewpoint, media on the left has to some extent abandoned their commitment to be as impartial as possible (which most of them took very seriously during the previous century) in order to present a counterpoint to that propaganda. Under the circumstances I don't think they have a lot of choice, since the alternative is to let the current Conservatives have free rein in the marketplace of ideas.
 
I recall a few years ago listening to a discussion among American journalists where it was pointed out that during the 2016 presidential election, while all of Donald Trump's shenanigans and transgressions were being raised, the media believed they had to highlight issues surrounding Hillary Clinton for the sake of being balanced. Most often that involved Clinton's infamous emails. But the conclusion the journalists came to was that that coverage contributed to a false equivalency in the public's mind between Trump's actions and Clinton's, such that it undercut her image while making Trump look less egregious in comparison.

Unfortunately proven beyond a reasonable doubt, with the Covid lies.  In a different forum, I responded to one person with a "so England, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Australia, Canada...they're all lying about their Covid situations?" and their answer was "Yes."  This, to me, is a much better example, as anything related to US politics ties into the HARD partisan divide and the totally unshakable belief that every major media outlet on the other side is lying or actively covering up.  Or slanting at the very least.  There is, unfortunately, a degree of truth to that;  but CNN and NYT don't *outright* lie the way Fox does. 
 
 

One commentator I heard yesterday pointed out that this proves that when Fox pundits claim that the coup attempt was actually a peaceful demonstration, or an Antifa plot to make Trump look bad, or the left-wing media blowing it out of proportion... they knew at the time that wasn't true, and they've been deliberately lying about it ever since.
 
Tragically, the people who listen to them will never hear that proof, or believe it if they do hear it, or care if they do believe it.

So apparently the late night hosts had a field day with the Fox people about texting Trump to go on air to stop Jan. 6th.
 
I rather like this one:
 
 

I was raised Catholic.
 
 
 
But I got better.

Believe that's a reasonable paraphrase of the minority opinion.  The problem is, Roberts, who wrote it, could NOT convince the 5 other conservatives.  
 
I think some of the reason why California's pushing this is to force the Supreme Court to recognize what allowing this to stand would do.  The 5 conservatives seem to be taking an "end justified the means" position...abortion should be banned, and it doesn't matter how.  Doesn't it????

This legalization of vigilantism has all sorts of implications for real life superheroes.