Political Bullshit 2024

@blaineg
God I miss those two…

@blaineg @chienfou Wasn’t the famous phrase
Ack. Pftphtf!
or something like that. We need them now!

EDIT brings back memories of being with my parents in the 1980s on weekends and buying the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday edition which was about 2 inches thick and weighed a couple of pounds.

@blaineg @pmarin

@werehatrack As opposed to the Capital Tools (aka, the ones in office)?

@tysontomko You want to impeach a toddler? That’s so weird.
Or maybe it’s my eyes that are weird. I’ll try sleeping it off.

@haydesigner What about politicians that do that?

@haydesigner Wonder which politician started calling names first?

@Felton10 @haydesigner Probably Adams.

@duodec Yep I could do that!

@funsyd That’s been excised with the establishment of this thread. Political comments elsewhere will be dealt with via the Giant Inflatable Bop-Squeaka Hammer of Moderator Deletion if I find them. Namecalling here may result in disemvowelment of the comment, removal of the name-calling via hamfisted-Edit, subthread-lock (possibly with a Warning), or other creative mischief adopted on the fly, if I catch it. Other mods have other plans/methods. It won’t be fun, though.

@funsyd @werehatrack extra thanks to @extramedium for the product thread cleanup! It is so very much appreciated!

@funsyd @werehatrack Locking the thread won’t solve anything. The crap will just surface elsewhere. Better all the misbehavior be on this thread where others don’t have to deal with it because they can ignore it.

@Cerridwyn Both polarized sides regard the other as a greater evil than a mere insanity-inducing Elder God. Cthulhu may be a sort of compromise; the evil with only one agenda, unconcerned about the Terribly Important Issues one way or the other.

I just realized that this is a very Charlie Stross Laundry Files scenario…

@Cerridwyn Saw a bumper sticker version of this back in the '90s.

@yakkoTDI daughter had the TShirt back in 2004 she reminded me

@Cerridwyn @yakkoTDI A 2024 version is available at pegasuspublishing.com

@Cerridwyn

@Cerridwyn @mycya4me This is one I ran across a couple months ago:

Of course, it turns out that I got it from here on Meh.

@narfcake Months of vomiting seem to precede a day of voting.

Or is that just all the drugs the TV tells me I can’t live without? *

*Side effects may include death.

@OnionSoup I agree!

@medz
Now there’s a name I haven’t thought of long time!

@xobzoo Odin or Cthulhu would be the Best choices!

@mycya4me And they would represent a much better 2-party system than we have now.

Though I worry today’s voters might still pick the wrong one…

@Cerridwyn I think the two that made me laugh the most out of those were

• Literally Anyone Else
• Electile Dysfunction

Another I liked was “Have we tried turning it off and then turning it back on again?”
And the answer to that one is “Yes, about 250 years ago. But while it gave us good results for many years, it was a lot of work and took a long time. I don’t think today’s society has what it takes to see that one through to the end again.”
(I worry that’s what it’ll take to actually fix things, but I worry even more that the wrong group would end up on top afterward and the “fix” would be worse than what we started with.)

@Cerridwyn Great! I Love it!

@werehatrack I have worn a Clothes Pin to the Polling station before. That is to represent that the Choices stunk!
Now I am working the Polls as an Election official!

@mycya4me I’m slated to be a Presiding Judge at one of the polling places in November. I might work as a clerk in the early voting, too.

@mycya4me @werehatrack Was going to vote no-op as I had past 2 elections (I was always more on the Independent side; favored Anderson and Perot in the day). So yes, I will vote this time with confidence, but also I’m in a state where the electoral college outcome is assumed. Crazy broken system we have, though.

If I were a resident of my to-be-newly-adopted state of NC then it would definitely matter. But I’m not on the books there yet.

@pmarin @werehatrack Yes I have seen stuff that is Scary & Not a Value of the US system! But one that wants to tear it down.

@f00l Yep I agree!

@f00l I will note that a bit of a bomb about YouTube personalities getting paid to be Putin shills dropped today. They claim they were duped, and it might be technically true, but they profited handsomely from delivering a pro-Russia diatribe and didn’t ask too many questions about where the wretched excess of funding had come from. Something tells me that they were willing to volunteer to be useful idiots for that kind of cash.

@werehatrack

I’m shocked. Shocked

Aren’t you?
: (

@f00l I’m shocked that they didn’t ask for more money.

@f00l @werehatrack Imagine how much they would pay a politician if they’re willing to pay that much to a faux-journalist.

@Felton10 I think he just got confused when he heard someone talk about “eating pussy”.

@OnionSoup Given that Malaria wants nothing to do with him now, I’m sure eating pussy got him going.

@Felton10 But my question is “What Planet are these Aliens from” As Zero humans would be an Alien!

@mycya4me Well ALF came from Melmack.

@Felton10 OMG ALF finally got caught Red Handed / Paw

@Felton10

We do not

—-

He’s been lying and thereby trying to weaken and destroy the Republic for nine years now

All for the point of putting salve on his vanity

And he seems to have been exactly what all those who want politics to be like professional wrestling were happy to have, happy to cheer on

as long as their leader was giving them phrases they could yell and cheer, for they were willing to accept any lies and any destruction of our constitution

Nine years is enough

It’s time the country quit worrying about the corrupting and destructive bottomless well of insecurity and vanity
And the self delusion of his followers

Nine years was too much
How the hell did it come to this?

Was it a combination of the corrupting influence of Fox News and new Gingrich style politics?

Was that the apparent end of the Cold War, which turned out to be an overly optimistic point of view made people think they could just be a stupid and toxic as they wanted, and it would not have any serious effect?

—-/

Every single individual active during the revolution and the creation of the country who is now one of our revered national heroes would’ve despised him

Every Republican ex-president who is not named Trump and every living Republican nominee for president not named Trump despises him

Starting with World War II in historical terms

Every Republican ex-president who is not living and every Republican nominee for president who is not living would have despised him if had they lived to see him

—-

There’s nothing quite like a nation winning World War III and appearing to win the Cold War, although that’s becoming a little bit more in doubt

Then, following that up by electing, a man who is devoid of honor and who lies every time he opens his mouth and corrupts and destroys and throws away and attempts to suppress every virtue that made those victory possible

@f00l @Felton10 Amen to that!

@Kyeh Penzeys is a must stop whenever I’m in Pittsburgh. Fantastic store and staff. Bill’s emails are great reads. Definitely supported him through this!

@sassymango There’s a Penzey’s about 30 min. drive from me, but I haven’t been there yet. I buy enough at a time to get free shipping .

@Kyeh you should go to the store if you are in the area. They have jars of all the spices that you can open & smell - just taking in all the wonderful spice odors is an awesome experience. The staff have always been very knowledgeable about the spices & have great ideas how to use them.

POPSOCKETS! SPROCKETS! DAVY CROCKETT! AWESOME!

@sassymango I worked for while at Celestial Seasonings years ago. Sometimes I got to pour herbs and spices into grinders and I’d come home saturated with the scent of mint, or cinnamon - it was pretty cool!

@Kyeh that sounds like a great job! That’s another great brand.

@Kyeh @sassymango Thanks for reminding me. Yes I accidentally discovered a Penzey’s store a few years ago. Good spice isn’t cheap but they had a selection of what seemed like very good stuff at relatively reasonable prices (compared to boutique brands). I remember reading the labels on some of the blends and there were clearly some let’s say political or maybe ex-hippie writings on it. And what better for ex-hippes (are you ever really an EX- hippie?) than to sell natural spices and encourage health and nutrition? Go seek a store out if you can. Like I said, prices were not bad and there was some promo like buy 3 get one free plus I got a free bumper sticker back from the days when people had bumpers. People were very nice too.

@rockblossom OHHH - those Kiffness cat-collaboration songs really are sticky! His first one runs through my head for days if I hear it. Not sure I want to watch this …

@Kyeh Sometimes I’m alone, sometimes I’m not. A meowworm.

@rockblossom Oh, it’s that same song, then? It is a fierce one!

@Kyeh The song in the video above is new. The other one is the first Kiffness video I remember that got stuck in my head on continuous replay.

@rockblossom Oh, okay. Yes - that first one is inexorable.

@Kyeh @rockblossom I thought, you warned me, what could a 2-minute video do to my brain? And yes, it’s in there now.

@pmarin The classic method of banishing an earworm is replacing it with a different earworm. There are numerous ways to get rid of an earworm without another one taking its place, but I gave up on that. Earworms are the brain equivalent of the computer clipboard - they only hold one thing at a time. I can erase the clipboard file, but sooner or later I will dump something else there anyway. The clipboard clears when I shut down the computer for the night and my earworm file clears when I shut my brain down for the night. Your Mileage May Vary.

@pmarin @rockblossom

I’m conniving w my brain for good earworms

Passages I recall from classical pieces will sometimes work to supplant repulsive garbage.

Sometimes.

@f00l @pmarin @rockblossom The Kiffness cat songs aren’t repulsive garbage, but they are persistent.

@Kidsandliz I am not as certain. I’m seeing signs of a potential implosion on one side as a whole at the same time that I have personally seen some multi-level double-down faction supporters buying even the most outrageously farcical stuff. The datum that gives the the most hope is the count of the number of people polled who refuse to respond. (I’m one of them, for that matter.)

@Kidsandliz @werehatrack missed the cat food thread…was it worse than the Black Rifle Coffee one?

@Kidsandliz @PHRoG It barely got started before the official Take It To The Politics Thread announcement was made (and the OTP content was deleted).

@Kidsandliz At this point in the last election cycle, in my own neighborhood, there were about a dozen houses sporting pro-Trump signage. Six months ago, one house down at the other end of the street had two Trump signs out. Today, the only political signs in the neighborhood are the three I’ve got, for minor-race Dems. (I’m pretty much the anarcho-commie-eat-the-rich extremist in my area. And I don’t just vote, I also serve as an election judge, and I don’t care which way they vote as long as they show up to do it!)

@werehatrack

his followers would go nuts.

Pretty sure that boat sailed long ago.

@Cerridwyn https://meh.com/forum/topics/political-bullshit-2024#66e51def343636d49618c23f
I guess it’s been a mixed blessing - Fox News ranted about them and a bunch of nasty reviews flooded Yelp to the point that Yelp froze for the time being because a lot of them weren’t from verifiable customers.

@Kyeh yep
and he’s loving it.

@Cerridwyn Yes, but also he sent this email:

Donald Trump called Penzeys “Terrible, Over-Priced Product” this week. Fox News called Penzeys “the meanest spice shop in America." Much of the rest of the right wing media repeated those words or worse. All this because we welcomed Vice President Kamala Harris into our Pittsburgh store this past Saturday.

They really do want to boycott Penzeys out of existence. They want to make an example of us and leave every other retail store out there too frightened to welcome in Kamala like we did. They want us to be the next Bud Light trophy on their wall to show off the costs of going against their will.

And as much as you know we won’t back down, if you don’t make the effort to support us right now this will be crippling. Yes, email subscribers have known who we are for years. But among our store customers we have hundreds of thousands who are not on our list. Among those there are no doubt tens of thousands, maybe more, under the Fox/Trump influence.

You know the hypnotic power Trump and Fox have over their followers. When they say do something their crowd does it. We’ve already had thousands of customers quit. You can imagine the language they’ve used to do so.

So he’s asking his loyal customers for a little extra help right now. I got some Christmas shopping done.

@Cerridwyn @Kyeh when I drove past the store here in Houston yesterday, the parking lot at that end of the strip center had more cars than usual. I consider that a good sign.

@unksol Thanks. It’s rough.

But yeah - so far, this thread hasn’t been as hard to moderate as we anticipated. I’ll take it.

@Thumperchick @unksol

I think people just way burnt out being willing to maintain the intensity of constant attention and reaction.

Once upon a time so many people seemed glue to the latest craziness 24/7/365.
Mee too.
In my case my sleep got messed up

Now it’s “ok I’ve taken what actions of advocacy I intend to take”.

I check out the headlines now and then. (Rarely read details since there will be new details about some new issue or event shortly and I’m burnt out in election-specific details)

And things will happen (or not); and I’ll presumably hear about whatever makes the headlines.

In any event I intend to get normal sleep.

@f00l @Thumperchick oh there’s lots to meme and lots of other stuff.

And this election is pretty serious. But IDK that picking fights in a meh forum is productive

@Thumperchick @unksol

My “protection” over my personal state of anxiety about this election is not counterproductive afaik.

I have just become accustomed to the ways of the most apparently disruptive of the current crop of candidates and their most visible advocates.

As have so many other voters (pro or con whomever), as far as I can tell

I take this election (and the more and less visible issues under consideration) quite seriously.

But we now have not the political tone of 80-50 years ago where political conversations mostly involved semi-open-minds (at minimum), and were more often than not both civil and non-trollish.

So I ration my energies and attention to those areas where ny actions most express my values, do not degrade me daily life too much, and might be most effective (according to my prefs)

Given that most folk I know kinda seem to be going about their daily lives calmly (even tho they do privately have strong beliefs in these areas), suggests to me that my partially-stepped-back public reaction to the recent political push-and-pull is pretty commonplace.

@f00l @Thumperchick @unksol And 80-50 years ago after the election people would put aside most of their differences and try to come together to run this country in some sort of sane way. What happens now is that it seems like one side just tries to block the other side… doesn’t not bode well for this country. Rome fell, the sun now sets on the UK empire, the Soviet Union splintered apart… we are not immune.

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Thumperchick well yes. I mean if we wanted to have a sane conversation about politics without all the name calling/attacks that happened last time.

I mean there are things that need discussed in general. But it got toxic real fast last time. Across the board on random threads. Definitely confine it to this thread

@f00l @Kidsandliz @Thumperchick @unksol As a high school student learned enough about world history (Egypt, Greece, Roman, England) and also US history. It was around the big “bicentennial” at 1976. Was in DC with my mother; she took me on a trip with the Amtrak Railpass they used to have.

I remember thinking of all the old “empires” thinking isn’t our time about up? 20 years later I was in DC on 4th of July 1996 with my wife on a big motorhome trip, and it was cool, big fireworks for 220 years, and yay we’re still here. (Not that we would go away, just this lingo of “leader of the free world” whatever that means might diminish). 30 years later I now cringe a bit when I still hear that. Actually, looking back, I think it’s funny that at about age 15 I figured out that this can’t last; it never does. Inevitably with greed, corruption, power, the fact is, just us humans in general can’t maintain it indefinitely.

@Jamileigh17 now this is an interesting topic. Because of “Citizens United” companies are allowed to massively fund PACs and manipulate elections.

Companies don’t care about anything.

Their goal is to make money.

That’s it. They will do whatever to make the most money.

Not going to debate politics. But. The effect large companies can have on policy. Going back 100 years. It’s a thing

@Jamileigh17 @unksol Companies don’t make decisions, people running companies do. And for the most part, the people running really big companies are greedy bastards whose decisions about corporate policy mirror their own personal ones. This is not unique to the modern era, as you correctly noted.

@Jamileigh17 @werehatrack let’s take this apolitical.

Do you know why nuclear power got a bad rap? If we had not screwed up research into molten salt reactors we would have them. “big oil” is actually a thing. That ran a fearmongering thing against and still does.

A company that produces a product that has a monopoly wants to stear things their way.

Bezos and Amazon vs the workers is a more current one but.

@Jamileigh17 @werehatrack companies do this on more incidious ways. See astroturfing

Those big budget ads that basically lie to your face… I’m for this and vote no on…

If you go look up the fine print attached to the ad…

It’s usually they are going to fuck me over.

Keep in mind the companies have the money. They can manipulate people.

Government and regulation is supposed to be our response to stop the psychopaths from doing horrible shit. CEOs don’t care about. You.

@Jamileigh17 @unksol @werehatrack And keep in mind that celebrities (actors, musicians, talk show hosts, models, etc.) are just agents (or sometimes heads) of corporations who are also used to manipulate people and shape opinions for their benefit.

@Jamileigh17 @macromeh @werehatrack well… And assuming the government cares about you… There’s power hungry people everywhere. There 100% people in politics who don’t care about anyone but themselves.

But getting money out of politics seems like a net good

@Jamileigh17 I think there’s a time, place, and manner to report or comment on a company’s politics. It is a hard line to walk though.

Perhaps we should stick to a link to the company’s policy page with a short blurb covering where they put their money, without the political commentary.

Sound fair?

@Jamileigh17 @Thumperchick Not sure what you are asking/suggesting here. And with mod power can of course delete as you see fit. I agree that ad-hominem or racist attacks shouldn’t be welcome even on this specific forum because we are, after all, civilized people, we would hope.

But the thing about company policies specifically, seems strange. Were you now acquired by the big A too just like W? Or fear of lawsuits from oil company lawyers? Just not sure what’s going on makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. Wonder what the word you got is from “higher ups” that caused you to advise this way.

@pmarin None of the above.

My suggestion was for a way to let folks point out a company’s political leanings without turning product discussion threads into political fires.

@pmarin @Thumperchick

I’m not sure there is any longer a possibility of not having a political firestorm of trolling delusion and madness if politics is mentioned at all in a public forum.

@f00l @pmarin @Thumperchick

/showme a political meh

Something went terribly wrong. Please try again.

@Thumperchick I would “mildly” agree but in a “civilized” forum (if at all possible which we agree is increasingly hard to maintain) there could be discussion of a big corporation’s involvement in political and environmental issues (Monsanto, anyone?) and discuss what we know about what that big corporation with many lawyers is doing to us and the environment, without just defaulting to carefully-written marketing statements on their website pre-approved by their lawyers. But if that’s the new Amazon way, good for you guys (congratulations on the upcoming acquisition by Amazon, if that’s the case, you will all get rich on stock! or maybe not.)

@pmarin @Thumperchick I honestly don’t think companies have any actual political leaning. At all. They are amoral so what they post is kinda irrelevant.

They are just entities that will mostly align with whatever makes them the most profit. We have had anti monopoly laws in this country for 100 years. To protect people. Sometimes they are not enforced. Sometimes they are. Same with regulation. And actually if you pay attention there are always politicians on both sides both for and against. And people across the board generally getting hurt.

I don’t think the current FTC chair cares about politics either. If you look at what Lina Kahn has done. The politicians who oppose and support her on both sides. And the companies who hate her or have just stopped anti consumer mergers because of her…

It’s. Interesting. To have someone actually doing the job they were tasked. By law. And confirmed by the Senate. To do.

@tinamarie1974

@narfcake that is fantastic!

Going in another direction I decided to purchase a yard sign this year.

@narfcake @tinamarie1974

Do DOGS have a political PAC for fundraising?

I presume that CATS would not bother with a PAC unless it was just for appearances or disinformation purposes.

Since CATS already control all the $.

@f00l @narfcake @tinamarie1974
/image cats all your base

@Cerridwyn Well if the first one was staged it sure was a near miss. I doubt anyone would risk staging something to give a very minor injury when if they were off by an inch the outcome would have been very different.

@Cerridwyn The first rule of Conspiracy Theory Club is that the existence of Conspiracy Theory Club is proof that there’s a conspiracy.

@Cerridwyn @Kidsandliz yeah assuming it was the actual bullet (some early reports just said maybe shrapnel) but if you accept it was a bullet, no sniper could be good enough at that range to do an earlobe shot at that range. On the ex-president no less, regardless of political motivation. Time to watch “Jarhead” again. Have not watched “American Sniper” but now I guess I have to.

@Cerridwyn @Kidsandliz Don’t get me wrong I love good conspiracy stories as much as the next person. A mix of spy novels, detective drama, fun mysteries; who could resist? It’s fun but when it becomes part of “the news” becomes much more serious but many take it as continued 24hr entertainment and sometimes a reason to distrust or even hate.

On a related topic, many rural area schools districts in Eastern Oregon have outbreaks of children with Measles which used to be considered gone from the U.S., but with the anti-vax crowd in those areas a lot of kids getting very sick.

@Kidsandliz @pmarin sad and happening lots of places
whopping cough again too

@Kidsandliz @pmarin

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvglm0rjy2go

@Cerridwyn @Kidsandliz

whopping cough again too

A Portland State college football game was canceled due to a whooping cough outbreak with the team. It’s “fine” when kids get really sick because their parents watch F** news or read misinfo posts on F**kbook, but once it starts affecting College Ball(!) it gets REAL!

@Cerridwyn @Kidsandliz @pmarin My GP has started recommending that folks over 40 should get some of the “childhood disease” vaxes again, and apparently the majority of insurance plans are on board with that. I had a DPT booster a while back. Between one thing and another, I’m a regular pincushion these days. (One jab every other week is self-inflicted.)

@Kidsandliz @pmarin @werehatrack very good for him. The hospital I used to work for offered that as well to employees at a certain point not this Resurgence with the one before they requested every employee get revaccinated and I know I had mine then it’s been a while. But good for you too vaccines are the bomb

@Cerridwyn @Kidsandliz @pmarin @werehatrack
I mean bottom line I’m not worried about vaccines in general especially old ones.

Bacterial related ones, like tetanus are required because, if you’re anything like me, you poke holes/bust knuckles/bleed some outdoors. And that bacteria just lives there…

The child hood viruses… The titers don’t last forever but they were also supposed to be eradicated. If you have a weakened immune system or are just getting old and the antivaxers are spreading it. A booster makes sense.

Or if you’re at a high risk of exposure because of any job… Kinda common sense.

On the other hand, can’t trust insurance companies and they will do whatever saves them/makes them money. Without regulation.

If it’s cheaper for a million people to get a vaccine then 10K be in the hospital. Sure. If it’s cheaper for them to let 10K people suffer. They will not care.

If you’re wondering why asthma inhalers got drasticly cheaper it’s because their patents were invalid and when someone noticed they suddenly lowered cost.

Negotiating drug cost. Suddenly they agree to dropping insulin costs out of nowhere. Funny what happens when the government tries a little huh?

@Felton10 sadly, syphilis is caused by the bacterium Treponema pallidum.

Herpes is a virus, would work better perhaps?

@Cerridwyn I didn’t know that and am sure the person who did the cartoon didn’t know that either. Am sure the people who got a third grade education from Trump U didn’t either.

@Cerridwyn @Felton10 Perhaps they were implying that nobody on that side knew anything about either viruses or syphilis. That’s probably gratuitous. While djt loves to claim he’s an expert on everything when he’s blathering for a crowd, I suspect that he tells an aide to go find out the dope and report back when it’s out of the public eye - if he actually cares. That’s the common management mindset; delegate everything.

@Cerridwyn @Felton10

Am sure the people who got a third grade education from Trump U didn’t either.

I am sure that not only did they only get a third grade education there but they forgot to teach them about science and how it works all the time, not just when you want it too… just like gravity does.

@Felton10 @Kidsandliz Wait! What! Anti-gravity doesn’t work?

@Cerridwyn @Felton10 @werehatrack It’s probably not that complicated - whoever created the meme probably didn’t know. But it’s still funny.

@Cerridwyn @Felton10

Wait! What! Anti-gravity doesn’t work?

You could test that theory by choosing to fall down some nice cement stairs and call on whatever antigravity devise or chant you have to save you from bruises and broken bones. Let us know the outcome of that experiment. OK?

@Felton10 @Kidsandliz my daughter did that one time. Not on purpose though bilateral tib/fib fracture

@Cerridwyn @Felton10 I did that once by accident and it was just 4 steps with metal edges on the cement. Permanently smashes the shin muscle so you can still see the big long dent and tore two ankle ligaments. Not fun. I am sure you kid would agree with me that this was the one time I wished gravity hadn’t worked.

@Felton10 @Kidsandliz yeah, when she was released from the ED, not weight bearing, her boy friend, now spouse, had to basically carry her up those awful Cali apartment stairs

@Cerridwyn @Felton10 @Kidsandliz As HGTTG author Douglas Adams explained, the secret to overcoming gravity is mastering the art of throwing yourself at the ground and missing.

@Cerridwyn @Felton10 @macromeh well to do that (throwing yourself at the ground and missing) you will need to travel to the edge of the flat world/earth and throw yourself off there. I am sure there are some science denyers who can give you the directions to the edge of the flat earth.

@Kidsandliz If you had an accurate map, it would be easier to use LibrarySpace to navigate to Discworld, which affirmatively has an edge. But throwing yourself off of it without a vacuum-capable conveyance is not recommended.

@werehatrack but that is why, since the world is flat (right?) find the edge and throw yourself off. You’d need a space suit though since you’d be launching yourself in space.

@Kidsandliz But on this planet, there’s a folding field that hides the edge. On Discworld, they don’t bother; the local magic field keeps the oceans full.

@Cerridwyn Oh, I love that.

@Kyeh I have no clue about the quality, but it tempts

@Cerridwyn Same … so few of my friends drink anymore and I seldom do, but it’s so cool!

@Cerridwyn Awesome!! I’m ordering a case to celebrate a Trump Victory!! And me and my Patriot Friends will turn the cynicism of the product into “Tears of Joy”!!

POPSOCKETS! COURT DOCKETS! FOLK ROCK HITS! AWESOME!

@Modhran2 It sounds so simple to someone who has absolutely no concept of costs or logistics or impacts. OBTW, parts of Canada are hurting badly for water, too.

@Modhran2 that… Reminds me of the introduction to Fallout 1 or 2 on the PC where the upbeat narrator mentions something about Canada having large resources to share while the footage is of an armored soldier executing a civilian as the Canadian flag is burning in the background.

@werehatrack Canada is also mostly conservative at this point, possibly leaning toward strong nationalism.
https://338canada.com/20240921-leg.htm

@Modhran2 @werehatrack It’s worse than that- he [Sweet Potato Hitler] was describing an actual spigot that would dispense the water- not something figurative.

@Felton10

“an ex-president and some one who wants to be the leader of our country again” >

So, you’re actually admitting that Trump was the LEADER of our country?? I’m shocked!!

@Felton10 @IndifferentDude Eh, I’d have characterized him as more if a misleader, but he had been entitled to that one long before he ran for office.

@IndifferentDude The president whomever he is is always the leader of this country-that doesn’t say anything about whether he is nice person or an egotistical racist rapist piece of shit which Trump is.

@Felton10 @IndifferentDude No one said a ‘good leader’…

@DLPanther isn’t that really all of them?
I’m definitely jaded, but I personally prefer leaders who lead from the front … And step down to pass the baton to the next person (so everyone gets to experience panic). Yeah, some people are natural leaders; I’d rather have a quick line of reluctant ineffectual leaders and maybe find an efficient one (like a game of hot potato) than trudge through a pile up of overenthusiastic ineffectual leaders whose competition for the position and hoarding tendencies creates an increasing power vacuum for more overenthusiastic idiots to clamor for.

@Cerridwyn I personally would have found it repulsive even before the subject entered politics, but I have no doubt that such was the artist’s intent. Several tradespeople of my acquaintance had an even less charitable opinion of him as a result of dealings with him in the '80s. The wisdom among them in the NY/NJ area was “don’t bid on his jobs, don’t sign his contracts. don’t do work for him or his companies at all.”

@Cerridwyn @werehatrack

According to many sources in the construction trade who interacted with him over the decades he makes a practice of not paying his contractors in full ever. He always comes up with all sorts of serious reasons why they didn’t fulfill the contract he plans to do this in advance and then they have to take cut right settlement because he will go to court over anything and most contractors. Don’t have the time or energy to match that.

Sources include mini contractors many news reports and DT himself

@IndifferentDude Maybe he will get lucky and have a new indoor swimming pool in his living room from the hurricane. Although being on the Atlantic side of FL that place probably won’t be underwater.

@Kyeh Revealing facial expressions:
EM: Look at me! Look at me!
DT: I tolerate you only for your money.

@Kyeh @rockblossom I figured that memes would be made from it.

@narfcake @rockblossom Yes, there’s a lot of them.

@Kidsandliz reminds me of an episode of the RoboCop TV series in the mid-90s; the Detroit Police have a politician in the witness box, but everything they say is inconclusive because their entire livelihood has conditioned them to never speak the truth (or get caught in a lie). Even RoboCop says their voice levels are consistently and constantly in-between normal tolerance and lying.

@Kidsandliz @pakopako there was an OG RoboCop TV series?!?

@Kidsandliz @PHRoG There were a few, but I will preface that nothing captures the future like the first movie.

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop_(animated_TV_series)
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop_(live_action_TV_series)
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop:_Alpha_Commando
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/RoboCop:_Prime_Directives

Ordered in chronological release order (and coincidentally in my order of preference).

The first animated series was made to sell toys, but at the heart is a basic buddy cop series (Murphy & Lewis) with an intolerant sidekick (made-for-TV anti-cybernetics Lt. Hedgecock); I found the character dynamic decent to sustain the John Henry vs the Steam digger friction.

The first live action show was also family friendly; it fits right in with RC2/RC3. It reboots the series, bringing new characters with the same roles (Lisa instead of Anne) and there is focus on the supporting cast like the smalltime villains and techs and family members (including made-for-TV Diana, the technician that accidentally became the citywide AI, giving RoboCop an almost omniscient view of the city at times). The show moved along like Star Trek, often having characters develop only to fall back to the status quo the next episode. The finale was something of a cliffhanger, but really it feels like a fumbled “and they continued going on”, which is also annoying.

Unlike the first animated series, Alpha Commando was really pushed to sell toys (each episode had a new gimmick of sorts) and the series lasted much longer; the irony is that there was no toy line.

Prime Directives was like RC2: it was darker and edgier, often for shock value or to show off the (lack of) special effects budget rather than include satirical jabs. At the core, it was a RoboCop 1.0 vs RoboCop 1.1 fight during Delta City’s Fall from grace as a corporate town back to Old Detroit, which works better than RC2’s RoboCop 1.0 vs 2.0. The 4 episode miniseries lasted about 6 hours in total.

@Cerridwyn Yeah - they went on and on about Biden’s verbal mistakes, which were impossible to ignore, but yet they gloss over the disconnected word salads that Trump’s been spouting. Not all of them, though: https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4925023-podcast-host-laughs-trump/

@Felton10

Add that to what the generals have to say about DT, quoted in Bob Woodward’s new book (be released on Tuesday).

It has not so far been just day that we get a major party presidential candidate who announces in advance his intent to destroy the constitution.