40°C = 104°F
Sky News 
Jul 15, 2022
Climate Stuff
The weather service guys in the UK have put up a national warning about a heat wave that could be a huge problem for the Brits.
Those Deleted Text Messages
Justin King - Beau Of The Fifth Column
When you get to feeling frustrated, and you wanna bitch about why the Democrats and Merrick Garland aren't doing enough fast enough - uh - don't.
Jan6 was an inside job. Some of the things being uncovered show how deep and wide this shit river was flowing.
For decades, "conservatives" have been working hard to wreck American bureaucracy.
BTW - bureaucracy is something that's absolutely mission critical for every civilization. Roads and seaports and street lights and education and money and garbage collection and cops and water works and all the other stuff we absolutely depend on for a decent quality of life are all dependent on the maintenance of a functioning bureaucracy.
Ain't it funny how certain people of a certain political stripe have done nothing but shit on our bureaucracies - telling us over and over how we should hate bureaucrats - and now, "all of a sudden", we've begun to notice a rather precipitous decline in the aforementioned quality of life.
Come to think of it, no - it's not funny. It's not fuckin' funny at all.
Anyway, when I stop to think about just how fucked up things had gotten before Trump was elected, and then I think about the damage his gang did in the 4 years he was in office, the enormity of the task of cleaning up this mess looks pretty daunting, especially in light of ongoing GOP obstruction and general fuckery.
So I'm gonna continue being antsy and prickly and impatient - and probably more than a little vocal about it - but I'm also trying to remember what a ridiculously heavy lift I'm expecting them to do for me, so giving the Dems a lot of wagon room on this project seems pretty reasonable.
It didn't get all
fucked up yesterday
And we're not gonna get it all
un-fucked by tomorrow
Ukraine
Russian missiles - said to have been launched by submarines in the Black Sea - hit several civilian targets in Mykolaiv and Vinnytsia, as the EU proposes further sanctions against Russia.
And they tried to put up a cover story that they were trying to hit a meeting of Ukrainian military leaders or foreign arms dealers or some such - likely more bullshit rationalization.
Russian missiles struck two university complexes Friday morning in the southern city of Mykolaiv, heavily damaging nearby shops and buildings and injuring at least four people, the regional governor said. Washington Post reporters heard explosions in the city starting around 7:30 a.m. local time. An official investigating possible war crimes could be seen examining a crater caused by one of the weapons, which the governor identified as S-300 surface-to-air missiles.
President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Russia as a “terrorist state” after a missile attack on civilian targets in the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia left at least 23 dead Thursday. Searching continues for dozens of people still missing. Russia, which has denied causing civilian casualties throughout the war despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, claimed Friday that the Vinnytsia strike targeted a meeting between Ukrainian officials and foreign arms dealers.
Photos show aftermath of deadly Vinnytsia strike
Far from the front lines of Russia’s war on Ukraine, a woman laid red roses near the target of a missile strike that killed at least 23 people in Vinnytsia on Thursday.
Rescuers waded through buildings with collapsed walls and shattered windows. A forklift took away the scorched husks of cars.
In aftermath of the attack on a crowded business complex, photos showed residents picking up the pieces. A damaged high-rise office block towered over them as firefighters rested nearby.
Three children were among the dead, one of them a child with Down syndrome named Lisa, Ukrainian officials said.
![]()
Firefighters take a break near a building that was hit in downtown Vinnytsia.
Scores of people were injured, and some were still missing as of late Thursday, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed Friday that its missiles targeted a meeting of the command of the Ukrainian armed forces, according to Russian news agency Tass. Ukrainian officials accused Moscow of striking a location with no military targets and shared images that appeared to show a bloodied child and a stroller lying on a street littered with debris.
![]()
Near the damaged office building, men put a scorched car on a carrier.
E.U. proposes additional sanctions on Russia
BRUSSELS — The European Commission on Friday proposed additional sanctions on Russia for the war in Ukraine, as well as measures to tighten existing sanctions, according to E.U. officials.
The “maintenance and alignment package” takes aim at imports of Russian gold and includes measures aimed at better implementing and enforcing the sanctions.
The package “clarifies a number of provisions to strengthen legal certainty for operators and enforcement by Member States,” according to an E.U. statement. It also “reiterates the Commission’s determined stance to protect food security around the globe.”
The proposal could still change and must be approved by all member states. E.U. diplomats said the hope is that countries will formally approve the measures next week. If that happens, it will be the bloc’s seventh round of sanctions since Russia launched its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine continues unabated,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement published Friday. “Therefore, we are proposing today to tighten our hard-hitting EU sanctions against the Kremlin, enforce them more effectively and extend them until January 2023. Moscow must continue to pay a high price for its aggression.”
Although E.U. sanctions have hurt Russia’s economy, the country continues to generate revenue by exporting energy, including natural gas and oil. The seventh package is not expected to include measures on gas or any additional measures on oil, ensuring that cash keeps flowing to the Kremlin’s coffers.
Though some E.U. countries have called for a full and immediate energy embargo, many member states worry that such a move would destabilize the global economy and push Europe even closer to a recession.
The United States is pushing for a new global price cap on Russian oil as a way to diminish Russia’s massive revenue from energy sales. E.U. diplomats said the idea is being discussed but is unlikely to gain traction before autumn, if at all.
Paolo Gentiloni, European commissioner for economy, told reporters Thursday that the commission is reviewing the proposal on price caps but that such measures would be considered only in “extraordinary future scenarios.”
Sky News - Russia's 'flawed' intelligence
WaPo: (pay wall)
Russian missiles struck two university complexes Friday morning in the southern city of Mykolaiv, heavily damaging nearby shops and buildings and injuring at least four people, the regional governor said. Washington Post reporters heard explosions in the city starting around 7:30 a.m. local time. An official investigating possible war crimes could be seen examining a crater caused by one of the weapons, which the governor identified as S-300 surface-to-air missiles.
President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Russia as a “terrorist state” after a missile attack on civilian targets in the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia left at least 23 dead Thursday. Searching continues for dozens of people still missing. Russia, which has denied causing civilian casualties throughout the war despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, claimed Friday that the Vinnytsia strike targeted a meeting between Ukrainian officials and foreign arms dealers.
Photos show aftermath of deadly Vinnytsia strike
A Russian missile strike on an office complex Thursday
killed at least 23 people in the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia.
(Alexey Furman/Getty Images)
Far from the front lines of Russia’s war on Ukraine, a woman laid red roses near the target of a missile strike that killed at least 23 people in Vinnytsia on Thursday.
Rescuers waded through buildings with collapsed walls and shattered windows. A forklift took away the scorched husks of cars.
A woman lays flowers at the site of the attack.
(Roman Pilipey/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock)
In aftermath of the attack on a crowded business complex, photos showed residents picking up the pieces. A damaged high-rise office block towered over them as firefighters rested nearby.
Three children were among the dead, one of them a child with Down syndrome named Lisa, Ukrainian officials said.
(Roman Pilipey/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Scores of people were injured, and some were still missing as of late Thursday, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed Friday that its missiles targeted a meeting of the command of the Ukrainian armed forces, according to Russian news agency Tass. Ukrainian officials accused Moscow of striking a location with no military targets and shared images that appeared to show a bloodied child and a stroller lying on a street littered with debris.
(Alexey Furman/Getty Images)
E.U. proposes additional sanctions on Russia
BRUSSELS — The European Commission on Friday proposed additional sanctions on Russia for the war in Ukraine, as well as measures to tighten existing sanctions, according to E.U. officials.
The “maintenance and alignment package” takes aim at imports of Russian gold and includes measures aimed at better implementing and enforcing the sanctions.
The package “clarifies a number of provisions to strengthen legal certainty for operators and enforcement by Member States,” according to an E.U. statement. It also “reiterates the Commission’s determined stance to protect food security around the globe.”
The proposal could still change and must be approved by all member states. E.U. diplomats said the hope is that countries will formally approve the measures next week. If that happens, it will be the bloc’s seventh round of sanctions since Russia launched its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.
“Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine continues unabated,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement published Friday. “Therefore, we are proposing today to tighten our hard-hitting EU sanctions against the Kremlin, enforce them more effectively and extend them until January 2023. Moscow must continue to pay a high price for its aggression.”
Although E.U. sanctions have hurt Russia’s economy, the country continues to generate revenue by exporting energy, including natural gas and oil. The seventh package is not expected to include measures on gas or any additional measures on oil, ensuring that cash keeps flowing to the Kremlin’s coffers.
Though some E.U. countries have called for a full and immediate energy embargo, many member states worry that such a move would destabilize the global economy and push Europe even closer to a recession.
The United States is pushing for a new global price cap on Russian oil as a way to diminish Russia’s massive revenue from energy sales. E.U. diplomats said the idea is being discussed but is unlikely to gain traction before autumn, if at all.
Paolo Gentiloni, European commissioner for economy, told reporters Thursday that the commission is reviewing the proposal on price caps but that such measures would be considered only in “extraordinary future scenarios.”
Jul 14, 2022
Today's Climate Stuff
Here's a bell-ringer.
The interim CEO at ERCOT says, "Gee whiz, guys - I didn't know it was gonna be this hot."
People who have lived in Houston for a while expect hot summers, but this one has been next level.
Now, the head of ERCOT has admitted to a Houston newspaper they did not expect it to be as hot as it is.
In that interview, ERCOT Interim CEO Brad Jones says he is concerned about some of the state's older power generators keeping up with the record demand for power this summer.
Jones said the extreme heat scenario for this summer estimated that demand could reach above 81,000 megawatts, which was the original forecast for Monday. Originally, forecasters gave that a 5 percent chance of happening, according to Jones.
"The 81,500 (megawatts) was the extreme, but those numbers are in the system. We just start with what we think the expected case is, and in early May, the expected case was 77,500" megawatts, he said.
But he’s hopeful that they’ll be able to keep everyone’s lights on.
So far, there haven’t been significant outages. ERCOT says one reason is because requests for people to conserve energy have worked.
KHOU 11 News has received several questions from viewers asking if big companies that use the most power are required to conserve energy when there’s a threat of outages in the state.
The answer is no. It’s optional for businesses just like the rest of us.
ERCOT says it hopes big businesses comply with requests.
As of this morning, the grid operator has not called for anyone to conserve energy the rest of the week.
The prick "didn't know" it would be so darn hot.
The power grid operator has a chart online that shows projected supply and demand in real time.
Later on Wednesday, the blue dotted line that represents demand is neck and neck – even passes – the purple supply line between 1:30 and 11 p.m.
What Makes Us Crazy
Sometimes people start "acting funny" and we look at them like they've gone a little nutty.
And if they keep moving further away from what we've come to regard as "normal", we'll prob'ly call them crazy.
But just as often as not, they're in the process of rejecting what they've come to regard as freakish conformity, or soul-killing banality, or plain old ordinary boring routine, and trying to break out into some fresh new sunshine - or whatever other sappy cliche comes to mind for ya.
The point is most of them aren't going crazy at all - they're trying to get un-crazy.
But other than the usual suspects of conformity and banality (et al), what makes us crazy?
Here's some brand new shit for us all to worry about in this modern world, as published at WaPo: (pay wall)
The nonstop scam economy is costing us more than just money
Relentless waves of sophisticated phone and online scams are impacting people’s mental health
Pamela McCarroll doesn’t have the luxury of ignoring phone calls from unknown numbers.
The 30-year old is undergoing treatment for long-term colon cancer in Fairfax County, Va., and never knows whether it could be a doctor, a hospital with test results, or someone trying to schedule an appointment.
Unfortunately, that means she’s fielding up to 20 spam phone calls every day on her mobile phone, adding to her already sky-high levels of stress. Since her diagnosis in August 2019, the number of scam attempts has shot up while the topics have gotten strangely specific, including Medicare or senior benefits.
“I’ve gotten some calls about funeral insurance. That kind of bums me out,” McCarroll says. “I’ve got cancer, but you don’t have to rub it in.”
We’re living in an era of constant scams. The technology and techniques behind them have improved, while attempts to crack down have largely stalled. For the millions of people in the United States dealing with scam attempts like McCarroll, there doesn’t seem to be any meaningful relief in sight.
We mostly think about scam calls and texts in terms of their financial costs to the people who fall for them. Consumers reported $5.8 billion in fraud to the Federal Trade Commission last year, a 70 percent increase from 2020. Falling for or engaging with one scam can lead to an increase in attempts. According to RoboKiller, an app for screening robocalls on phones, an average smartphone owner in the United States will get an estimated 42 spam texts and 28 spam calls a month. Once a number or email address spreads into more spammer databases, it can be bought and sold by the companies involved in the booming scam industry.
Someone could come across any or all of these scams in a week: A text message from UPS with a link promising a delivery. A prerecorded phone call about a car warranty or bank issue. Emails that appear to be from Amazon or Apple customer service asking you to log in to your account. Shady replies on Facebook Marketplace for a chair you listed. Maybe a wrong-number message on WhatsApp from a chatty stranger.
Beyond the financial repercussions, there’s a steep emotional cost for people who don’t lose a dollar, mental health experts say. Constant scam attempts can increase stress levels and strain relationships. Their negative impact on mental health is even worse when the scammers target people based on perceived weaknesses, like advanced age, loneliness or, in McCarroll’s case, an ongoing illness. That anxiety can spread to their worried family members, they say.
Irene Kenyon’s family was in a good position to avoid scams. She’s the director of risk intelligence at risk assessment company FiveBy, and her father has two engineering master’s degrees. But in 2017, she got a panicked call from her mother. Her father had gone out and bought $6,000 in gift cards at Target for a phone scammer who claimed to be their grandson. The man on the phone said he was in jail and needed to be bailed out. By the time Kenyon reached her dad, it was too late. He’d read the gift card numbers out over the phone.
“What these people do is play on people’s emotions, they play on the fact that grandparents love their grandkids more than you can imagine, and all their logic will fly out the window,” Kenyon says. They reported the case to the police, and a special program in their state was able to reimburse them for part of the lost money.
At the time, her parents were embarrassed and she was angry, but now they talk every day and go over anything suspicious. She has taught them to never answer any of the unknown calls they get a day and to look closely at emails. She says they’re still tense about falling for something, and she worries about them day and night.
Many of these scams are easier to spot or screen with a little training, like looking for a misspelled email address or ignoring an unknown phone number on caller ID. Others scams are incredibly believable thanks to technology like spoofing, which lets the attacker fake a call from the number of someone you know, maybe even yourself.
Many of these scams are easier to spot or screen with a little training, like looking for a misspelled email address or ignoring an unknown phone number on caller ID. Others scams are incredibly believable thanks to technology like spoofing, which lets the attacker fake a call from the number of someone you know, maybe even yourself.
A proud and protective mom of two adult daughters, Renee makes sure they both call her once a day to check in. When it looked like her oldest was calling at 11 p.m. on a recent weeknight, Renee and her husband were confused but answered right away. They were met with the gravelly voice of an unknown man on the other end.
“He was very agitated. He was very angry, very threatening,” says Renee, who spoke on the condition that her last name not be used for fear of being targeted again. “The first thing he said was, ‘I’m going to kill her. I’m going to get her. I don’t want to have to hurt her. I’ve been to jail before, and I don’t want to go back.’ ”
The scammer said he was holding Renee’s daughter hostage and wanted money to let her go, asking repeatedly for her Cash App information — an app Renee didn’t recognize. He threatened to slit her daughter’s throat. Renee believed him completely but managed to stay calm and continue talking to him, slowly collecting more hints that the situation wasn’t what it seemed. They sent police to their daughter’s home, where they found her safe and confused. The man was a scammer who had faked her number. When it was over, Renee’s calm broke and she began crying.
“I feel grateful, but I feel like they’ve invaded my space and my peace and that was trauma,” Renee says.
Those feelings are common, says Matthew Mimiaga, a professor at UCLA.
“Scam victims often suffer from a decrease in life satisfaction and are likely to have higher levels of anxiety and lower levels of happiness,” Mimiaga says.
Their lingering anxiety has real, physical side effects including feeling restless, wound-up or on edge, Mimiaga says. It could lead to people being easily fatigued, having difficulty concentrating, or even having headaches and other unexplained pains.
Anyone can be a target for phone and email scams, but the fallout can be worse for people who are older, says Iris Waichler, a licensed clinical social worker and author of “Role Reversal, How to Take Care of Yourself and Your Aging Parents.”
“They’re extremely vulnerable and lonely. The reason they’re targets is when someone reaches out, they’re sometimes just grateful to talk to somebody,” Waichler says.
Older people may already be worried about losing independence or appearing to have diminished mental capacity, and are more likely to keep an experience with scammers to themselves out of shame. The adult could be left with lower self esteem and higher self doubt, Waichler says.
There have been some changes to try to help people avoid scams, at least over texts and phone calls. In 2019, large carriers agreed to use technology known as STIR/SHAKEN to authenticate who is calling to reduce robocalls and spoofed numbers. It’s being adopted by smaller cellphone carriers this year. The FTC has also proposed a rule to address robotexts, but it’s still pending. Phone makers are trying to combat the issue on their side with features that label some calls as possible spam, while companies like RoboKiller are making their own apps to screen and block.
Scammers, however, are always looking for new ways to adapt — and new targets to go after.
“As long as there’s billions of dollars on the other end of it, it’s not going to stop,” says Chester Wisniewski, a principal research scientist at security company Sophos.
For now, awareness and a few tools can lower the stress but not make it go away.
Pamela McCarroll’s husband, voice actor Michael McCarroll, has a blocking app from his carrier, but he made sure it was off when his wife was in the hospital for a week this month. Every time he saw a call from an unknown number, his stomach dropped and he thought, “Oh God.” He was thankful it was just spam, every time.
Older people may already be worried about losing independence or appearing to have diminished mental capacity, and are more likely to keep an experience with scammers to themselves out of shame. The adult could be left with lower self esteem and higher self doubt, Waichler says.
There have been some changes to try to help people avoid scams, at least over texts and phone calls. In 2019, large carriers agreed to use technology known as STIR/SHAKEN to authenticate who is calling to reduce robocalls and spoofed numbers. It’s being adopted by smaller cellphone carriers this year. The FTC has also proposed a rule to address robotexts, but it’s still pending. Phone makers are trying to combat the issue on their side with features that label some calls as possible spam, while companies like RoboKiller are making their own apps to screen and block.
Scammers, however, are always looking for new ways to adapt — and new targets to go after.
“As long as there’s billions of dollars on the other end of it, it’s not going to stop,” says Chester Wisniewski, a principal research scientist at security company Sophos.
For now, awareness and a few tools can lower the stress but not make it go away.
Pamela McCarroll’s husband, voice actor Michael McCarroll, has a blocking app from his carrier, but he made sure it was off when his wife was in the hospital for a week this month. Every time he saw a call from an unknown number, his stomach dropped and he thought, “Oh God.” He was thankful it was just spam, every time.
At Last A Mea Culpa - Kinda
Wait for the razor in the apple. Because there's always a razor in the apple.
Amanpour & Co - Walter Isaacson with Tim Miller
You caught it, right? At about 14:52?
Republicans have a network of wingnut media, "think tanks", and lobbying organizations, all funded by wealthy plutocrats.
Democrats have to contend with all that plus a corporate media filled with Press Poodles (like Mr Isaacson) who can be counted on to frame their questions in GOP talking points, and a host of Never-Trumpers who've screwed the pooch to the point of tipping the GOP into full-blown fascism, but still have the gall to tell Democrats how to run their party.
Miller gets some credit for his mea culpa, but he has no call to shit on Democrats who always have to do the work of un-fucking this country - hard work made necessary by the outright fuckery of Miller and his pals - fuckery that continues even now.
That said, I'll buy the fucker's book just to see if he actually grovels a little, or if it's just a way to rebrand, and get himself back on the market.
Today's Nerds
Score a big one for the nerds.
Stephen's Quintet
You might recognize this one from
New images from the James Webb Space Telescope.
Region 3324 of the Carina Nebula
"It's A Wonderful Life"
Wouldn't it be nice if we could get a bit more of this kind of beauty and human achievement, and a lot less of the kinda shit people do to each other with guns and petty ambitions.
Jan6 Stuff
Rep Jamie Raskin's ( D-MD08 ) closing statement 07-12-2022
Federalist #1 - Alexander Hamilton:
Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.
- snip -
A torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose. To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives. An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty. An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good. It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.
Among the most formidable of the obstacles which the new Constitution will have to encounter may readily be distinguished the obvious interest of a certain class of men in every State to resist all changes which may hazard a diminution of the power, emolument, and consequence of the offices they hold under the State establishments; and the perverted ambition of another class of men, who will either hope to aggrandize themselves by the confusions of their country, or will flatter themselves with fairer prospects of elevation from the subdivision of the empire into several partial confederacies than from its union under one government.
- snip -
A torrent of angry and malignant passions will be let loose. To judge from the conduct of the opposite parties, we shall be led to conclude that they will mutually hope to evince the justness of their opinions, and to increase the number of their converts by the loudness of their declamations and the bitterness of their invectives. An enlightened zeal for the energy and efficiency of government will be stigmatized as the offspring of a temper fond of despotic power and hostile to the principles of liberty. An over-scrupulous jealousy of danger to the rights of the people, which is more commonly the fault of the head than of the heart, will be represented as mere pretense and artifice, the stale bait for popularity at the expense of the public good. It will be forgotten, on the one hand, that jealousy is the usual concomitant of love, and that the noble enthusiasm of liberty is apt to be infected with a spirit of narrow and illiberal distrust. On the other hand, it will be equally forgotten that the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty; that, in the contemplation of a sound and well-informed judgment, their interest can never be separated; and that a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidden appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government. History will teach us that the former has been found a much more certain road to the introduction of despotism than the latter, and that of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues, and ending tyrants.
Republicans have spent decades shit-talking government. And of course we need to be vigilant, and maintain a healthy skepticism when it comes to how we regard political power, but one of the truly shitty things that's been going on is the turning upside down of fairly simple ideas like "patriotism".
That's a word that should mean we stand up for the form of our government, for the principles of good self-governance that tries to organize around "the best for the most, but equity for all".
But it's been co-opted and bastardized. It's come to mean it's OK to take political power by force because all government is bad, and anyone who defends democratic traditions and institutions must be an evil big gubmint deep state race-betraying mongrel who lights puppies on fire and throws them onto your grandma's porch because they wanna take her house away from her and give it to a bunch of criminal immigrants so they can steal your job that doesn't even exist anymore because the mill was shut down and moved to Bangladesh 15 years ago by the people who paid for all this political advertising propaganda.
And if you're confused by all that, then good - that's what we want. We have to keep you off balance and uncertain, because eventually you'll want nothing more than the "stability" of being ruled by a system of powerful elites that we've been telling you is the problem this whole time.
Still confused? Well, maybe you're just not smart enough or good enough to understand, so obviously, you need us to be in charge for a while longer.
Jul 13, 2022
Jan6 (and other) Stuff
I just wanna say a coupla things.
First, please let Andrea Mitchell go.
Eventually, we have to ball up, and admit the fact that we're in this pickle at least partly because we've seen way too many rich influential people get away with all manner of shit-fuckery without so much as a slap on the wrist.
First, please let Andrea Mitchell go.
Second, I'm real tired of hearing about how so many Americans have been bamboozled, and we're going to have to give those poor rubes a chance to get over that part, and anyway, the country's just not ready to see a president charged and put on trial, and blah blah blah.
This is no different than the bullshit about "There's just been a shooting - now's not the time to talk about gun violence..."
Eventually, we have to ball up, and admit the fact that we're in this pickle at least partly because we've seen way too many rich influential people get away with all manner of shit-fuckery without so much as a slap on the wrist.
C'mon, America. Sometimes we have to take the time and do the hard things the right way. Let's get on with it.
MSNBC -
"There was a month's worth of food supplies stocked around DC" ahead of January 6
"If you take a set of things that are remarkably dumb, and a set of things that are remarkably arrogant, and you look at the intersection of those two sets, you're going to find Jared Kushner standing right there."
--Chuck Rosenberg
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