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Showing posts from November, 2022

Derek Mahon

 

Why be political?

Why be political in the USA? 1. Global warming: I have a smart friend who at one time provocatively said that he wasn't sure humans had an influence. He now says he's glad he doesn't have children, so he doesn't have to worry beyond his lifetime. He sounds cold but he's a warm vegan. It's a political stance to say "I don't care about global warming" because you don't want your "freedoms" to be curbed. I'd like the freedom for my children to deal with less global warming problems. Let's do some smart things for the future. 2. Democracy: One party's strategy actually is to curb participation. While New Zealand wants to lower the age of voting, Republicans want to raise the age for voting. The spurious claims of stolen elections undermine democracy. Just like illocutionary prejudice leads to violence against people, so does anti-democratic words.  3. It’s not the Autonomous States of America. I get it that people don’t want t

Quotes from a liar

"If I lose to him, I don't know what I'm going to do. I will never speak to you again," Trump told the attendees at the rally. "You'll never see me again." - Donald Trump, Sept. 20, 2020, North Carolina “Trump just vowed to push for term limits for members of Congress and a lifetime ban on lobbying for former lawmakers, both of which were promises from his 2016 race — and both of which his White House never sought to adopt in any of the four years he was president.” - NYT Daughter is out . She's not going to participate in this campaign, like the last 2. I saw a sign once in front of a guy's house in Florida which said, "Ivanka 2024". Guess that's not happening. The whole point isn't to do things, though, people will vote for "lower taxes" even if they are not literally lower, and against the progressive imagination of helping people. I bet it's a much harder sell after he's been even more exposed as traitorous

Dave Chappelle

France had Napoleon and decided to become humble. Germany had the holocaust, and decided to become humble. America wiped out the people living here, and fought a civil war about slavery and dropped atom bombs on Japan. Are we humble humbled by our murders? No, we have people trying to erase them because they feel guilty? Don't teach history of slavery or the genocide of the people who lived in North America when Europeans arrived?! You're preventing a necessary natural humility that our country needs. We don't need delusional exceptionalism. Chappelle's argument in his comedy skit is that blacks are called gangs, Italians have the mob, but if a bunch of Jewish people do something collectively we can't talk about it. He's referring to what? Kanye saying something anti-semetic and losing $1.5 billion in a sneaker deal? Adidas isn't some sort of gang or mob hit. It's consequences for expressing intolerance leading to a brand not wanting to associating with

Toledo War

Giuliani is Satan, but he said something interesting: The UP should go to Wisconsin ( source ). Is he really suggesting that things should make sense? Visually it doesn't make sense, but if you look at the history, you can understand how arbitrary lines are drawn. He wishes he was a dictator, or even back in power instead of waiting for the hookers to come by and trying to pay off his child support at the very last minute to avoid arrest.  The Toledo War  is how Wisconsin ceded the UP to Michigan. Don't remember the Toledo War? You're not conversant in American history 1835–36? It was about control of the mouth of the Maumee River and the inland shipping opportunities. The Toledo strip would take care of that. Both states deployed militias on opposite sides of the Maumee River near Toledo, but besides mutual taunting, there was little interaction between the two forces. The single military confrontation of the "war" ended with a report of shots being fired into th

Election Results

The federal legislature is too close to call, the results aren't all in for the Senate and House Results that Democrats like Fetterman won in PA Hochul won governor New York over Zeldin Ralph Warnock beat Herschel Walker. But there’s going to be a runoff because it was close. Letitia James has won her reelection as New York’s Attorney General. Whitmer remains in Michigan. Democrats won control of both the Michigan state Senate and Michigan state House. Democrats will now have full control of Michigan state government. Governor Evers won in Wisconsin and Republicans didn't get a super majority.  Chuck Schumer has won his senate reelection in New York. Maura Healy won in Massachusetts Democrats have flipped the entire State Senate of Minnesota Mary Peltola beat Sarah Palin in Alaska for the 3rd time in a Republican state. Kari Lake lost in Arizona to Katie Hobbs in Governor race. Dough Mastriano lost to Josh Shapiro in PA governor race. Democrat Greg Landsman in Ohio has been ele

Obituary for Twitter

I'm sure now that Elon Musk is paying out $200 million in golden parachutes, Twitter will hang around, and eventually the advertisers will come back at a reduced price now that they've stuck it to Elon, but I pronounce Twitter dead. I'm still going to go there, but reading that Elon fired all the human rights people, so you know. It's only a matter of time once the human rights people leave. I migrated to Mastodon, but I imagine there will be another platform I will migrate to from there. There's a need for a twitter like posting area where you can blurt short thoughts to the world to be ignored, and people can fantasize about being an influencer.  I keep my facebook because it has a lot of old photo storage. I even go there once a week or so for a lark. Not sure but I just stopped visiting the site. I go to Reddit first, then Google News, then Twitter. Added in Mastodon. It takes a while to build up people to follow. Get the lay of the land. The highlight of Facebo