Some days you gotta just blast through the links because you’ve got to drive three and a half hours to look at a bunch of damn trailers. This is one of those days. So enjoy these links. I won’t get a chance to.
WaPo Poll (although its not a WaPo story I’m linking to) says that Trump would have beaten Clinton if election were held today. Take it with a grain of salt, what with people not liking to admit they’re on the losing side of something. But still, the results are pretty surprising, in my opinion.
No “major” party in France will be a part of the Presidential election since forever. And they rejected the socialist pretty convincingly.
Aw, man. it would have been the most awesome bit of trolling ever if President Trump would have done these EO’s on Earth Day. Alas, we’ll have to wait for the lefty heads to explode a few more days.
Jesus. There’s some sick fuckers out there in the world.
Hey, looks like eminent domain hasn’t made it to Charlotte yet.
Don’t pretend you aren’t a fan of the music even if the politics suck.
Comments
383 responses to “Monday Morning Links”
Not first?
You’re always first in my book, oh frost-top-hat-of-America comrade
Awwwww…
*wipes away tear*
Why not?
Dramatic Footage Of Firefight On The High Seas: U.S. Security Contractors Open Fire On Somali Pirates
The market finds a way. Also merc vs pirate was a favorite childhood game of mine, though it was usually set in space, or the age of exploration.
Absolutely thrilling footage. Fucking pond scum. I would never want to be put in a position like that.
How do they get to their boats without roads?
Levitation.
Deck-mounted .50 would have sorted them a lot quicker.
A deck mounted .50 would just shred their boats and leave them as chum in the water. I think the idea is they want to give them an opportunity to retreat.
Do you have any idea about how private guns (those seem to be 7.62 NATO chambered rifles) like those remain legal at port in countries with strong gun control? I’ve always wondered about that. Maybe westernsloper knows.
My specialty is bird law
I wonder if you can stick them in an embargo locker with a seal like any other transiting prohibited personal possession.
Maritime law provides and exception to most of these laws. Its also how you buy a Glock in London
https://www.guntrader.uk/guns/pistols/glock
An, not and. /facepalm
Doh, you already got it..
Ships are considered sovereign territory by maritime law, so unless you disembark the weapons or are flagged under a nation that has these anti-gun laws, you have nothing to worry about.
Thanks guys. That was really informative.
I thought armed vessels were somehow illegal under maritime law? Or having arms somehow put you in harms way with respect to various ports of call…
I don’t recall the details, but there is a reason merchant ships are unarmed. In fact, I’ll bet that these contractors hop on board as the ship enters pirate territory and hop off after they safely negotiate the area.
Relevant
I was also responding to the idea of a deck mounted 50 cal, which would certainly be effective. I think they don’t do this because they would lose the ability to traverse most national waters around the world.
I was told at least in a few circumstances they dump all the munitions overboard once the tug makes contact with them. Cheaper to just get new guns then deal with all the bullshit in some of those ports.
Actually, it is relatively common to use floating armories in international waters to avoid the regulatory hurdles in Europe and elsewhere. Predictably, the EU has set about attempting to regulate even this practice.
http://www.businessinsider.com/massive-floating-armories-filled-with-weapons-are-a-pirates-sweet-dream-2013-1
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-floating-armories-help-guard-cargo-ships-from-pirates-on-high-seas-1422934573
http://www.lloydslist.com/ll/sector/regulation/article427433.ece
http://www.marsecreview.com/2012/10/floating-armoury/
Seems they kind of scattered after the volley of warning shots. That first skiff that rammed the side of the vessel didn’t seem to capsize and took off.
20) As time goes on, if we continue to find no evidence that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe, despite our increasing capabilities to investigate the cosmos, will that increase the probability that we were made by God?
I mean, the sheer size of just our own galaxy, with its 100 billion stars, would suggest there must be intelligent life out there somewhere, especially since we now know many stars are orbited by earth-like planets. But if years and decades go on without us finding any sign of life, doesn’t that make it look more and more like we’re specially chosen? At what point of unlikelihood of intelligent life developing does it go from our good luck to our being chosen?
Life is out there – but as to why we haven’t seen any evidence of intelligent life is another question. Personally I think that a civilization that can send radio signals or travel in space is exceedingly rare. The only planet we can currently investigate for this idea is our own. Sure dolphins, whales, and primates are “smart” but they don’t have ability to make a radio telescope. In my imagination, much of the life of the universe is like this. Humans are a evolutionary freak, not necessarily the path for every planet that can sustain life.
/written without coffee
“but as to why we haven’t seen any evidence of intelligent life is another question”
Have you seen the March on Science?
I would be so depressed if we were the most advanced life form in the universe.
More advanced civilizations are likely using technologies we have not yet even figured out are possible. Because of the vast distances involved, radio communications (what we use and are looking for) are simply an ineffective means of communication and very likely to simply go undetected because of all that other noise out there. Quantum entangled communication devices for example, or even lasers, would be far harder (if not even impossible) to detect with our technology today, despite the fact we think this stuff we have is all cutting edge…
Then again, maybe advanced civilizations simply destroy themselves as some have posited, which is why there is nobody else out there and our oiwn days are numbered…
Also, the signals diminish as the square of the distance, so our methods of detection would only work for Earth sized signals out to a small corner of our galaxy – maybe a couple hundred light years at best? The galaxy is 100,000 light years across.
And almost all of the universe is outside our galaxy. A 1985 era earth in Andromeda would likely be completely invisible to us, even if we pointed every radio telescope on the planet directly at it, and that’s as close as an extra-galactic civilization gets.
Like they say, space is big. Really, really big.
Not to mention that if we are picking up radio transmissions from a planet a few million light years away, we are picking content up from a few million years ago..
People simply don’t comprehend the scale of the universe, and time in it, IMO, because we have no relative experience to go bye…
Eventually we will all go bye.
Glibertarians are just pawns in game of life.
Why would God making us be more or less likely based on the discovery of other intelligent life in the universe? I never understood it when people asked that question.
Me neither.
CS Lewis didn’t understand it either.
So that is 3 of us.
Add me to that number. How numerous or limited life is throughout the universe seems to be an illogical argument for whether or not the universe we live in is created. I think that was started by some leftists who seem to think that if any other life is discovered in the universe, it proves there’s no god. And that may have been started by some creationists who think that we’re unique in the universe and that somehow proves there is a god. It’s totally illogical. But remember that the earth at the center of the universe was a religious argument at one time. And you could be put to death for being a ‘denier’ about that fact.
Climate change is the new heliocentrism.
Seems to be.
The irony is that modern leftists and creationists have a lot in common.
Creationists believe nature has never changed, that it was a perfect creation that is and will remain immutable. Leftists basically believe the same thing, which is why they deny the existence of warming and cooling periods throughout the Earth’s history, and why they seek to preserve every single species of plan and animal in its current state, rather than letting evolution take place.
They are both obsessed with permanency.
But if years and decades go on without us finding any sign of life, doesn’t that make it look more and more like we’re specially chosen?
No. Space is too large, time is too long.
Wait…what happen to the (((Chosen People))) – that is it – I am calling International Zionist conspiracy HQ on you!
International? What about intergalactic? 🙂
Alien Jews are the bestest Jews.
Live long and prosper.
I thought the money-grubbing Ferengi were the alien Jews.
I never watched that show, but Nimoy was Jewish. So was Shatner.
+one bar of gold pressed latinum
Quark was a suave motherfucker.
I refer you to the fermi paradox:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
and possible answers:
https://medium.com/o-s/6-mind-bending-solutions-to-the-fermi-paradox-c0f32e47a0f7
The most relevant one is that the various civilizations are just too far apart for meaningful or even detectable signals to be heard. It’s a big universe.
Yeah, that’s what I figure. That and the possible time between civs and the lightspeed barrier, they pretty much ensure that unless life is in the cosmic equivalent of our back porch we won’t find it and they won’t find us.
The Fermi Paradox set to music.
That’s really cool, thanks for posting that.
If inflation theory is correct, there are parts of the universe we’ll never be able to see or contact (without being able to harness wormholes and such for transport)
If some ‘creators’ wanted to play a really, really long game of their version of civilization, they wouldn’t make it easy for the avatars to finally get at each other. Right now we’re in the primitives killing each other on a terrestrial level. And the creators are probably about ready to destroy us with a comet or something to get rid of the snowflakes who are ruining the game, so they can start all over.
“I don’t care if you scour every inch inthere, the man in the canoe is in the next canal over.” -Wife wisdom. It’s where you look.
Our increasing capabilities? We can barely find planets around the closest stars. We haven’t even begun to explore our immediate neighborhood.
Even if we did find intelligent life how would that disprove that God exists? I think that at least in a technical sense I am a “bad” Christian because I tend to make stuff up as I go along rather than adhering strictly to what the Bible teaches so my thoughts on the subject should be taken with a grain of salt. The universe is just so freaking amazing that I believe that there must be a Creator. To think that some random accident resulted in dogs and manatees and roses and oceans and all of the wonderful things that surround us every day strikes me as simply impossible. All of God’s creatures are “specially chosen” whether on our planet or on some planet not yet known.
Specially chosen? No.
Now me, on the other hand, I am special and unique. You know, just like everyone else.
A conversation that I will remember for the rest of my life:
Me – “You will know you are getting close to the north line when you get into the creek bottom. Be careful down there. Watch where you step, that damned creek bottom is full of snakes.”
Him – “There are no snakes this year.”
Me – “Whut?”
Him – “Well, I haven’t seen any”
That’s funny man..
You could be the only real person in the sim, Suthen, the rest of us may just be NPCs.
Roll for initiative?
This is a very good article:
http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html
My opinion is that intelligent life at our level of technology within a detectable distance would be way more rare than intelligent life. Intelligence just a bit below our level of technology would be undetectable (we’ve been broadcasting radio for only about a century), and intelligent life just a bit more advanced than us would might use communication technology that can’t be detected. It’s a very narrow window. Another idea is that it artificial intelligence is easier than inter-galactic travel, and intelligent life gets replaced with intelligent artificial life (which could “live” in places that couldn’t sustain biological life) and also choose to be undetectable. Now a very advanced intelligent life might have detection abilities beyond our comprehension, but we aren’t in that club. And those that are, might not be interested in finding a bunch of apes like us.
I hear that our overlords are already on the way here and the slave market auction for the 8 billion fools they plan to find and then sell off is rocking…
I doubt they would have any use for us as laborers. Regardless, trying to remain undetected seems wise. Since destroying Earth might be “teenage vandalism” for life millions of years more advanced.
Well, they wouldn’t. Any civilization that can build a ship capable of intergalactic travel would view us a maybe some cute pets or something like that. We would be of no use to them as labor, they would have machines to do that. They might put us in their zoo of primitive life forms collection.
They plan to sell us to space restaurants.. Humans make for some real great cuisine is the rumor..
To Serve Man
The cosmic conditions for life only started up about a billion years ago. We’re in a safe zone, and it still took a billion and a half years for the earth to cough up humans. There might be some alien races that that have a hundred million year head start on us. But as it it stands, it looks like we’re the elder race.
+2112
Consider that some stars like red dwarfs are very stable and have a stable life span of trillions of years. Compared to our star which is only going to last a few billion years. Life around a red dwarf could actually have trillions of years of head start on us. We’ve only developed technology beyond simple tools in the last few hundred years. Just imagine what a civilization thousand of millions of years more advanced than us would be like. They would probably already know we’re here and just wouldn’t care about some primitives out in the middle of nowhere unless they want to study us like we study insects.
Not really, the universe is only about 14.4 billion years old, and most of the early stars were blue giants which were bright and short lived. While red dwarfs are long lived, they sure as fuck don’t have trillions of years on us.
I meant to say billions there, not trillions. Thanks for catching that.
Also:
“civilization thousand of millions of years more advanced than us would be like”
That was supposed to be thousands or millions, not thousand of millions. Ugh, I need more coffee.
Umm, I meant a couple of billion years ago.
Maybe closer to 4 billion.
Shouldn’t this have been number 4/20)?
The Human Race is still in the early days of its infancy (hopefully!). “Years and decades” is nothing at the scale of space. If we go a couple million years and still haven’t found anything, MAYBE then we can start wondering if we’re so special?
Once we even begin to master gravity we will then be able to start saying, at least galactically, that we are alone. The likelihood that a civilization stays subluminal to seems extremely remote and the exception. Ringworld’s Engineers would be non-typical.
million- and billion-year old space-faring civs have probably wiped themselves out via internecine conflict. i’m just hoping we get there in time to reap the benefits of any surviving tech before it falls into suns or is obliterated by asteroids.
The issue here is not about god or our capabilities. It is simply about perspective. The Fermi Paradox is certainly a valid approach but one must understand it is only a string of arbitrary assumptions. Any one of which can greatly effect the order of magnitude. Recently we went from “no planets discovered and definitely no earth like planets” to thousands of planets. (Interestingly, and this goes to our poor perspective, our closest star’s planets weren’t even discovered in the first thousand). So we lack a great deal of perspective here. The sun is 93 million miles away. That isn’t close. Proxima Centauri is almost 4 light years away. Again, amazingly far. The common theory is that the universe is 13 billion years old. Well, that is a REALLY long time.
I think the solution to the Fermi Paradox is not that they did exist and are gone (though there will be a lot of that), nor that light speed is the problem (I have no reason to believe light speed is the universal speed limit), but that we haven’t even started. Any sufficiently advanced civilization will no longer be spewing the RF signals we are. They are not practical for interstellar communications.
A fish not only can’t understand English, he doesn’t even know he is in a fishbowl.
I don’t see what one has to do with the other.
Exactly.
The number of stars in the Milky Way could be up to 400 billion and there may be a trillion stars in our closest neighbor galaxy, Andromeda.
The reason we haven’t found any other life in the universe is because of the vast distances between solar systems. There surely has to be other life, in varying levels of complexity, in our own galaxy. Or this could be a simulation built by a civilization with a technology level far beyond our current understanding, what one could refer to as a ‘god’.
Lets assume that there are 25 intelligent technological species running around our galaxy today. On average they would be 10,000 light years apart. The furthest planet away that we have been able to detect is 13,000 light years distant. Problem is even the most powerful radio signals we generate would only be detectable over a distance of 1000 light years or so, beyond that the signal strength starts to fall too far below the background radiation to be detected so we would need to have some other way of detecting them and it taking another 1000 years would be a very short time scale to accomplish that, we’ve only been looking for ~40 years.
This does not even begin to touch on the possibilities of non radio based forms of communication that might be developed or the typical life span of technological races or the possibility that rather than 25 other technological races in the Milky Way right now it is just 3.
In theory 10,000 years from now if we still have not found any evidence of intelligent life out there we might begin to be able to ask that question, it is however way to early for that to even be contemplated.
There could be primitive life forms in our own solar system. There’s the theory about life existing in the liquid oceans under the ice of some moons of Saturn and/or Jupiter. Far fetched maybe, but we don’t have the tech right now to even test that theory.
As vast as the universe is, it would be very weird if we were the only advanced life form. So weird, that I can’t find it believable at all. Remember, we used to think that the earth, sun, and the moon were all that existed, we didn’t even know what stars were. Then we discovered that there are other planets not far from us and that those stars were actually other suns. Then we found out that there are other solar systems and those are all contained in a vast galaxy. But then, when our instruments got more advanced, we discovered that there are other galaxies. How long ago was it that we thought that stars with planets around them may not even exist. Then we found they did and finally that most other stars have planets.
Like you are saying, way too early to make a call about other life being out there. We’ll finally discover that there is, and that it’s common.
will that increase the probability that we were made by God
No? Why would it? What kind of logic is that?
My very liberal mom was just saying how if Trump’s supporters want a wall then they should pay for it themselves. It is the most libertarian thing I’ve ever heard her say. Trying to come up with the perfect response. It is my mom though so “fuck off slaver” is prob a little over thebtop
I think throwing it on Kickstarter would have the wall funded in no time. Maybe not a bad idea for Trump, actually?
I’d love to see the gov funded through Kickstarter. It would be better than not is today, I think
Kickstarter is actually an excellent idea. Finding someone honest to administer that much money would be a task and a half though.
*raises hand* I’ll do it!
*readies passport for flight to undisclosed location*
Realistically they could be corrupt as the day is long and there would still be less Fraud and Waste than there would if it were just done through government procurement contracts
A good response would be “Yes, and if Planned Parenthood’s supporters want abortions, then they should pay for them themselves. In fact, government should not be in the business of providing people with free shit at all, the people who want to do that can pay for it privately.”
This.
Someone mentioned in the other day, but I like the kickstarter idea for government spending.
Set the amount, set the number of needed donors. When that number of voters VOTE for that project, then they are charged for it.
ex:
We want $300MM for head start. We will charge $30 per, once 10 MM voters sign off.
I have a very similar problem Archie.
Brain-dead mother?
Wonder if that’s something that’s just making the rounds through lefty sources right now. I had a friend on Facebook share a meme saying pretty much exactly that a few days ago. Funny how it’s “pay for it yourself” with the wall, but healthcare, abortion, birth control? Government must pay for it!
And of course ignoring the fact that controlling immigration and securing the nation’s borders is actually within the constitutional authority of the federal government, unlike healthcare, abortion, birth control, science research, the arts, education, etc.
Abortion gooood, wall baaad
It started ad a meme that then turned into a family discussion
They think “pay for it yourself” is a punishment, and that conservatives and libertarians will balk at the idea and shut up. If you said “Gladly, as long as you pay for your own health care” they wouldn’t understand what you just said.
Found out Iowahawk may own my grandfather’s ’32 hot rod. Pretty cool little story, if true
Is he back yet?
He’s been back for a month or so from what I hear. Although I don’t think he got his cool mil.
HEY? Was that Copper? MAN the snow was awesome this year. I still have friends going up. (I don’t do spring skiing). Vail is supposed to get several more inches this week.
Yep – top of American Flyer. We had REALLY warm temps the week I was there – low- to mid-40’s. I did get down into Copper Bowl (via Otto Bahn, not the black runs), which was awesome. They were dynamiting because of fresh snow the day before. The lift to get back up to Union Park was…vintage.
There’s a Neon near the Not Wife’s house in NoVa that has a IOWAHWK license plate. I keep wondering if it’s Berg, but I really doubt it.
How did Cuomo make $783,000 on memoir that sold 3,200 copies?
Those trackers don’t chart book sales through “special channels.” I know this more in relation to comics, where the sales of graphic novels can be dramatically understated because they don’t count sales through the Scholastic company (which sells books through book fairs at schools) or through independent merchants (i.e. comic stores).
I’d imagine Cuomo’s special channels would include lots of political events and conferences.
Cuomo’s special channels would include wealthy supporters buying up copies in bulk as a form of money laundering.
I’m imagining wealthy liberals in NY State with huge mountains of mouldering unsold books in their backyards.
Really, I am imagine them using them as kindling in the winter. Hopefully the smell of ass from the politicians spreads throughout their entire house.
Edit imagining.
They had it out to the serfs they control usually and expect them to read that dreck and regurgitate it…
Well book sales are an approved way of money laundering.
I accidentally watched this over the weekend. A German version of Abba?
That was one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen.
Fond memories of that being used by local TV as part of its Moscow Olympics promotion… BTW, this German band was described as ABBA from hell
geoff N 1 年前
Still sounds good after 30 years…
Poor geoff N.
I think all German bands in the 80’s sounded the same. That reminded me so much of Alphaville.
Ok sounds like you listened to DeeDe Ramones solo album.
Nah…in the 80’s I was into German new wave bands.
I’m sure you’ve listened to Wolfsheim.
Peter Heppner, the singer of that duo, has some good solo material.
Were they somewhat mainstream in the U.S.? I didn’t know much outside of Top 40 until I was like 17 or 18 (late 80’s)
Yeah – popular in Germany – but never making it big in the US.
Youtube Linky
https://twitter.com/OnlineMagazin/status/856153528120815616
The immature bozo in me just wants to point and laugh. The humanist says ‘oh will you go out there and show the idiot how to use it!’
So many questions. Are electric mowers a tough concept? Why the lack of geometry, just heading right into the middle of the grass with no mowing plan? Also, it might have helped if the lady (?) hadn’t waited until the grass was half a foot tall before mowing it.
Plugging that sucker in might have helped, too.
You know, I used to think that referring to those people as coming from “stone age” societies was a nativist exaggeration, but that video does kind of put it in perspective. That’s exactly how I’d imagine a scene in any time-travel scifi story where primitive people are exposed to modern tech. Like using computers as paperweights, type of thing.
It also inspires some questions about how these people can possibly acclimate. How in the hell is someone who doesn’t even know what a power cord is navigate a modern Western civilization? And what the hell do you do with someone who doesn’t even understand that what she’s doing isn’t working at all?
Cincinnati Reds troll Cubs fans:
http://www.foxsports.com/mlb/story/cincinnati-reds-ruthlessly-troll-cubs-fans-with-bandwagon-cam-042217
That’s Grade A stuff right there.
I’ve got to respect that, now we need someone to do the same for Cavs fans.
When LeBron left Cleveland many of my friends burned his jerseys and otherwise carried on about how much they hated him. My response was: “Aren’t you free to work with whomever you please? Why can’t LeBron do that?” I was persona non grata amongst many for a while.
Then he came back and they all hopped back on the LeBron bandwagon. Now that he has shown he is more valuable than Jordan was, they are worshiping him. it’s a little crazy how fickle people can be.
[for those of you who think Jordan was the greatest, remember this: the year before Jordan went to play baseball the Bulls were 57-25 and won the championship. The next year, without him, they were 55-27 and went to the Eastern semifinals. The year before LeBron left Cleveland the Cavs were 61-21, the next year they were 19-63.]
Maybe because the Bulls had a better overall team?
I’ve heard that said about Gretzky after he left the Oilers. The Oilers won without him in 1990! Yeh, but the team he made was still largely in tact.
If the Cards had done it I could see the humor. They’ve actually been successful recently, historically, and have cast a large shadow across the Cubs org for decades.
Coming from the Reds, whatever. Oh, so you last won in 1990 and have the Big Red Machine, bfd. Outside of that your franchise is a giant shoulder shrug emoji of irrelevance in the American sports scene.
The Reds have a 9 game WS winning streak going.
Haven’t lost since game 6 in 1975.
LOL, I was laughing hysterically after reading this comment, catching up on last night’s posting. Props to jesse:
jesse.in.mb on April 23, 2017 at 10:25 pm
Please this is just like one of those movies when the authorities hire the best bank robber or hacker to solve their problems because they’re incompetent. Nobody knows better how to put a sandaled foot on the neck of women forever. They’re clearly best positioned to come up with solutions.
Now that sloopy is gone, we can break out the high grade weed and the expensive booze.
PARTY!
Shouldn’t you be working?
/pouring beer over head. Stops.
Maybe?
I think he is being chased by Scientologists and Travolta’s lawyers for that alt-text…
Boy, 12, trying to drive across Australia ‘crashed’ car before he was pulled over after 1,300km
Except he’s probably not tall enough to see easily over the wheel, I don’t think there’s anything intrinsically so difficult about driving that a 12-year old couldn’t do it. Especially on probably not very heavily-trafficked highways away from big cities.
Meh. If Australian farm kids are anything like American farm kids used to be, by 12 they should be able to run the tractor and may have even run a truck in a pasture.
Who said he was a farm kid? Anyway, I’m just surprised his parents didn’t seem to have either noticed or worried that their 12 year old and a car were missing
No kidding. I would’ve freaked out if my car was missing.
Well I learned how to work a stick shift on a tractor before I learned how to drive a car. So its is not exactly far fetched too assume he was a farm kid.
It just seems a bizarre assumption (kids learn to to joyride in the city easily enough) and statistically unlikely. Also (local knowledge) he’s not from a farming community.
Anyway, found some more information – he’s six foot tall(!) and his parents did report he’d gone, along with the car – but the cops didn’t stop him because of that…
I was SO hoping it was Short-Round.
David Burge @iowahawkblog Apr 22
OMG u guys if all the scientists are all out busy marching WHO IS DOING THE SCIENCING
Atlantic admits that there were almost no scientists among the marchers.
Did they march in step?
Only 97% of them did.
Unsurprising, even the ones who are sympathetic also have day jobs and lives outside of IFLS.
There are some awesome photos of the derp march here.
Jeeeez-a-fucking Christ.
Hey, let’s further politicize science, what a great fucking idea.
I’m a pretty reasonable guy but I’d deny heliocentrism if it’d piss off these smug scrunts.
I find Adam Savage from Myth Busters funny and entertaining, and his YouTube channel can be a good watch, but I had to unsub when he announced he was going to attend this march. The derp is becoming so toxic and irritating, that it’s easier to simply cut my losses and stop spending time/money on anything that is even tangentially related in order to avoid even the slightest possibility of having to deal with it in the future.
“Scientists” – it’s a wide catch-all phrase. Like playing X-Com and having the scientists research space travel, grenades, biology, lasers, and psychic powers. Uh – aren’t there any specialists here?
Every scientist knows everything about everything. This is known.
I only ran into one hardcore middle-aged SJW at the reunion this weekend. That was more than enough.
Here is a video of a badger burying a cow
MUSHROOM! MUSHROOM!
Snake! It’s a Snake!
Eek!
Italy migrant crisis: Charities ‘colluding’ with smugglers
I’m shocked, shocked I say.
Obama’s hidden Iran deal giveaway
This is what happens when one’s own ego is more important than all other factors.
I Had 4 Boys — Until One of Them Told Me She Was Really a Girl
A boy without a winkle is a girl.
I thought, Okay, I could start with girls’ panties. It’s something no one else will see. It took me three or four trips to Walmart until I could finally bring myself to do it.
This sounds cut and paste from Penthouse Forum.
Otherwise known as kids being little assholes who love to argue and this one, in particular, clearly being able to tell he was getting your goat.
What a maroon this woman is
I remember one night when Kai was very young, and I was tucking her into bed. Her legs were cold and, concerned, I lifted the sheets, discovering she had taken a pair of panties off a baby doll and put them on herself. It was constricting her blood circulation and if she’d slept that way overnight, it could have become very dangerous. After that experience, I realized I could no longer ignore something very real about my child: My son, born Joseph Paul Shappley, is a girl.
And away we go.
What an idiot.
Oh for chrissakes.
When I was four I told my parents I wanted to be a duck when I grew up. It was either that or astronaut, and I’d been on the astronaut thing for a while, so I wanted to keep things fresh. Plus, ducks seemed to have a pretty good deal going on, what with the swimming, the pithy remarks to rabbits, flight, quacking.
Never had duck transformation surgery, and I’m good with that. Then again, my parents weren’t retarded, so…
Plus those duck costumes have to be a lot harder than your average run-of-the-mill Furry suit.
*to make
My Daughter Is Not Transgender. She’s a Tomboy.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/04/18/opinion/my-daughter-is-not-transgender-shes-a-tomboy.html
Adults never realize when they’re the ones putting undue social pressures on kids instead of the kids’ peers.
The Pretenders were/are fantastic.
My City Was Gone is now associated with Rush, but that Tony Butler* bass line is killer, now matter how many times it’s talked over by an under cooked haggis
*Tony Butler’s Big Country work is fantastic as well.
Is saw The Pretenders last month. Chrissie Hynde is a GILF.
Spend hundreds on a special machine to squeeze juice out of squishy packs, or…
This is like a story from 1999. What bubble?
Okay, this just has to be viral marketing for HBO’s upcoming season of Silicon Valley, where Bachman invests all of the firm’s capital into Juicero, and wacky hijinks ensue. Right?
Shit, Entrepeneur had the same idea.
Too late now, suckers!
So what are the bookies giving Le Pen? Less than stellar from, what I’ve heard but better than zero.
As I recall, Trump had pretty shit odds with the bookies too.
Means a sweet payout though.
Yeah, wasn’t Trump like 98% certain to lose?
According to the NYT.
She’ll do much better than her old man, but she’s not going to win. She’s not running against Hillary.
Also there are several other parties to form coalitions against her.
Well, they’re already looking for their next scalp from Fox. That didn’t take long.
Not surprising, once they have success in getting Fox to knuckle under on one person they dislike, it’s only a matter of time before they try the same tactics on whoever is next on their hit list.
Never give in to them. You have to fight them constantly.
Along the same lines – they got Calhoun and Yale, now they are going after Jefferson at Columbia.
By that logic Yale should change their name, as they are named for a corrupt slave-trader.
We are still trying to change the name of Lake Calhoun here in Minneapolis.
The silver lining in this nonsense is that I think the Park Board knows this is just virtue signaling. They don’t have any authority to change the name, so voting for this is just a way to get the nuts to stop bugging them.
“venerating Thomas validates rape, sexual violence, and racism on this campus. Until Columbia and its administration acknowledges and addresses the implications of this statue”
…they’re endorsing statuetory rape?
More to the story than that. It’s also a power play by Lachie and James Murdoch – clearing out their dad’s mates, who are old, expensive talent, changing an old-fashioned corporate culture, and trying to attract / retain a younger audience.
So, their brilliant plan is to ape all the other cable news sites, and destroy the successful niche Fox occupied as the lone semi-conservative site?
However do you get that from what I wrote? They’re swapping out old conservatives for younger ones (which is aimed at making the station more attractive to viewers less closer to death than the current lot), and moving away from an old-fashioned internal culture in which old guys can be as creepy and sleazy as they please (which, BTW, is not an inherently conservative culture).
I don’t think replacing the old guys with young guys will save them. Young people just don’t watch TV. We do online streaming. I’m not sure there’s anything legacy TV can do to save itself.
Pushing out popular big-ratings guys like O’Reilly based on flimsy accusations seems like the kind of SJW-appeasing foolishness that would tend to anger and alienate actual conservatives, but I could be wrong.
Besides of which, the kids are never going to think Tucker Carlson is cool. This is the same basic mistake Reason has made with their messaging. You’re the Michelob Light of politics, and changing the font on the label ain’t gonna do it.
I still don’t see how getting rid of O’Reilly was a smart business decision. It was their #1 show. It would have had no problem getting advertisers.
Yeah, I would think the situation would be similar to Rush Limbaugh, whenever the left gins up a “controversy” about him and gets some advertisers to bail, it doesn’t matter because his numbers are so big there are many more lined up to take the place of every one that left.
Maybe. The big problem (putting to one side he is clearly now a litigation magnet) is that O’Reilly is nearly 70. Generational change has happened off screen in management (cf Rupert stepping back, and Ailes going) , it has to happen with the audience (Fox has an ageing and thus less lucrative viewership) and it has to happen on screen too at some point.
And as I noted above, this is also about Lachie and James flexing their muscles.
This way, they might shed some oldies who liked O’Reilly’s statist rage-boner bullshit, but also pick up younger viewers. Oh, and lose those viewers who watched only on the off-chance O’Reilly’s arteries would finally explode mid-rant.
Interestingly, I just found this:
That sounds like that other website.
What Count Potato said…
Robert Conquest’s Second Law of politics.
That’s assuming that they are replaced by younger conservatives (or even better libertarian leaning conservatives) and not by retarded SJW’s.
Sounds about right. They hate that people who aren’t FNC’s audience call them Faux News. What better way to appeal to them then by alienating their own watchers? I mean, just ask the Republicans. Trying to give in to the Dems to be loved by their enemies works every time, am I right?
Unless he’s getting a huge payout from the Other networks (the Left) to kill Fox news
The Possibility of Silicon-Based Life Grows
Several problems. Number one: bonding. Silicon doesn’t form stable double bonds and there’s no analog to aromaticity.
But I saw it on Doctor Who, so it must be true
Silicon dioxide is hard to breathe.
“such as the rock-eating Horta from the original Star Trek series”
What about the rock-eater from the Never-Ending Story, huh? (Fun note: Called a Felsenbeisser in the original German.)
“my feeling is that…”
YOU ARE SCIENCING WRONG!
This is what happens when you mess with mother nature.
And be able to dance?
There’s a huge problem with silicon based life. I’m constantly surrounded by silicon compounds. I call them rocks.
Silicon isn’t the same thing as carbon.
As an example, carbon dioxide is a byproduct of oxygen breathing creatures. Silicon dioxide is the fancy scientific name for quartz.
But if there is silicon based life, does it freaking love science? And more importantly is it liberal?
NO BREED I
Where has Groovus been?
He got his degree from the Marvin Gaye School of Medicine.
How can the freakin French put someone in the race who has no party affiliation, and we sit here stuck in the mire with these tribal shenanigans?
Parliamentary systems seem to foster more diversity of political power.
ummm…but 17 out of 19 of their parties are various flavors of socialist/marxist.
That’s democracy for you.
France has inherently more unstable politics? I mean I know its rhetorical, but that seems to be what it comes down to. There have been 5 french republics and like two or three royalist revivals since our independence.
A political scientist from Europe came to speak to our class in university way back in the 1990s and he argued – when discussing the ‘Big Four’ + Sweden political systems – that Italy was more stable than France. His take was despite all the change of governments they always ended up pretty much under one party -Christian Democrats making Italy less volatile.
I thought one of the Nevertrump complaints was that Trump doesn’t have a history as a loyal Republican soldier – and doesn’t play nice with the party elders.
But if he had run unaffiliated, I doubt he would have gotten very far.
I know we have a completely different system than France, but I do grow weary of the two-party monopoly*.
*Wording intentional
+1 duopoly
George Wallace was right (about this).
Killed another fucking mouse this weekend. Now I have a mouse trap fortress in my kitchen. Go ahead, punks…make my day.
I had a mouse at my place a couple years ago. I put out about 2 dozen snap traps and bombed the crawl space with 3 bags of rodenticide. While I was down there I sealed up every possible opening i could find with spray foam and caulk. Had a dryer vent in need of repair that probably provided the path inside. Got the one in the house within 24 hours. Got another one that died in my walls or my vents, I guess – it stunk for about a week. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of one since then. Moral of the story: keep them out of the house. You can set as many traps as you want, but if they can possibly get inside they’ll find a way. You gotta seal up those openings and kill them outside before they get in.
What Pat said – the old man’s last house – a cabin in the woods – had chipmunks and mice getting inside. They were coming in through a roof vent and through the basement (cellar-style door). Screening the vent off and then trapping the stairs into the basement greatly reduced the incoming vermin population.
The condo had a maintenance guy up to my place a while back to check on a leak behind the wall, and they basically destroyed the wall behind the plumbing under my sink. Though I haven’t seen any mouse turds in that cabinet, I suspect that’s where they’re coming from. But that hole has been there for a long time (like, two years) and this is the first sign of mice. They’re clearly hanging out in the walls and have been disturbed by one of my neighbors gutting their condo after 30 years of not touching it, plus my other neighbor hiring an exterminator, who put poison in the walls. First mouse I found was dead as a doornail on my kitchen floor. Last two have gone into the traps.
I can’t wait to get my payout from the developer we’re selling to and GTFO.
Ahh, didn’t realize it was a condo. That sucks. You don’t really have much choice there but to kill them as you find them.
I was smoking some salmon this weekend. I have a big plastic container that I keep charcoal in. As I was scooping up a few chunks to put in the smoke box, I found the mummified body of a mouse who must have fallen in last fall and couldn’t get out.
Pretty gruesome. Also made me wonder if other parts of him had gone into the smokebox when I wasn’t paying attention.
Where on earth did you get rolling papers big enough to fit a salmon?
The Bob Marley brand?
We used to glue papers together to make monster cigarettes filled with only legal tobacco.
Call it “rodent-infused smoked salmon,” that will make it a big hit.
The batch came out really good too. Do I tell my wife what the “secret” was this time around?
I don’t think so.
What doesn’t kill, makes you stronger…
or “stranger”
Once, I had to water some patches of new seed in my back yard. So I fill up the watering can, and start the task. I notice that there appears to be something stuck in the spout, as water isn’t coming out. I figure a stick or something had fallen into the can, and gotten wedged up in there. I shake it a couple of times, and just slosh the water over the top. Cut to about 5 minutes later, when I tip the can and a half drowned chipmunk comes climbing out. There may have been a manly scream as I dropped the can and watched the rodent run away.
I was very thankful I didn’t decide to reach into the can to check on the blockage at that point.
I found one in my backpack camping once. The mouse wanted to make a nice nest from my kerchief/scarf. So I accidentally grabbed it with my hand while attempting to get the stuff from my backpack. I think I jumped, and squealed a little.
Good luck out there! Battle can be exhausting.
Is it sporting to kill mice while they are fucking?
I don’t know, but it seems a lot like shooting a game bird on the ground. A true sportsman would give them a chance to zip up and make a dash for it.
Surely the sporting thing to do is to put the mouse on a clay pigeon doohicky and shoot them on the wing
Mice are accounted no sport for at least another 500 years on account of the plague.
You can’t spell “homeowner” without “meow”.
Just get you something other than a Persian. My cat was totally oblivious to a mouse scurrying around behind the kitchen drawers and cabinets.
Neither of my cats are any good for mice. They basically act as spotters for one of my pits, who is the best terrier I’ve ever seen. I mean, for an overweight couch-potato who doesn’t like grass or diverging from room temperature, that dog can kill a mouse like the finger of God.
I thought this was the Finger of God as it pertains to dogs.
We had a mouse pathfinder in our kitchen a week or so ago. My wife walked into the kitchen to do something and then started screaming as it came running out from under the fridge, saw her, and fled back to safety.
My wife shouted at me to take care of it, instantly, but not to kill it. “Do the man thing!” she commanded.
The next morning, I took the no-kill trap out to a nearby wildlife preserve and released the disoriented mouse, fur slick with a fragrant mixture of mouse-urine and peanut-butter. I’m sure some hawk, snake, coyote or raccoon was grateful for the treat.
I’m firmly in the “KILL! KILL! BURN IT WITH FIRE!” camp. Those electric traps that someone here recommended are pretty great.
Our neighborhood was infested with mice last year after the first rain. We sealed all the possible entry points to the house, especially the garage door. We trapped 15 over the course of a few days. I felt like I was a trapper in one of those Alaska reality shows going out to check the trap line. We probably poisoned a couple more in the attic because there was a stink in the walls for a few days, and the cat got a few more inside the garage and out in the yard. We probably killed about 25 in all.
I’m not joking about getting a cat. Get a nice, healthy adult cat from the pound.
Here a song that was considered a classic in the 1980’s and today would be hateful.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drGx7JkFSp4&index=12&list=RDUhpu2N4rQZM
From strength to calculated “weakness”. What a waste of a generation.
+ Fearless Girl
White Collar Fight Club: how I transformed from office worker to punching machine
I miss the days when this was called dueling.
Combat daycamp. Hasn’t this been a thing basically since white collar society was invented?
First rule of combat daycamp: don’t talk about combat daycamp.
My friends and I used to box in my parents basement when we were 14 and 15. The allure is overrated. Just wears out your arms more than anything.
We did that too – even back then. when I had a youthful energy, I was amazed how quickly I would tire.
And then I would take a few blows from my opponent and get a rush of adrenaline, and then start swinging hard again. Until I ran out of steam again. Rinse repeat.
That pretty much describes it
Yep. but it is something everyone should learn first-hand.
Some people never got spanked as a kid and never got punched in the face, They had to become adults to learn that it sucks balls.
This makes me think of the face-punch chick from Berkley. She wanted a fight until she found one.
She was even wearing weighted gloves.
I’m gonna blame Joss Whedon for that. In olden days, you could be a welterweight golden gloves champ, but fighting a heavyweight was a stupid plan because they can clean your clock with a backhand.
Now hollywood has 90 lb pound women taking down full grown men, willy nilly when the actual reaction to most men caught in a leg lock by Scarlett Johansen would be along the the lines of ‘please stop that, also would you like to go out for a drink?’
Depends on where the leg lock happened to align on the burly guy… also how fresh she was, you know… OK maybe I went too far here..
No, no, go on….
The laws of physics will not be violated.
Posted yesterday:
https://pjmedia.com/lifestyle/2017/04/18/boys-punching-girls-feminisms-big-win/
Production societies and rationing societies
Good and interesting perspective.
Yeah, that’s pretty good. I’m wondering how he would work business cycle theory into his description of the rationing society.
New York Times opinion: Free speech is bad when it hurts peoples’ feels. It denies that it says that, actually, but it says exactly that, just dressed up in fancy language.
“…is an opportunity to take stock of free speech issues in a changed world. It is also an opportunity to take into account the past few decades of scholarship that has honed our understanding of the rights to expression in higher education, which maintains particularly high standards of what is worthy of debate…”
The TL;DR version seems to be I have hurt feelings, power imbalance, shut up! FYTW
“…Freedom of expression is not an unchanging absolute…”, That’s the chilling money shot though.
Remind them of this article the next time they bitch about their first amendment rights.
Or just give them a good right upper cut.
Free speech is fine, as long as it’s about worthwhile topics..
I see what you did there…
Let me guess, and only you can say what is worthwhile too? 🙂
Salman Rushdie is a Distinguished Writer in Residence at NYU. Wonder how he’d feel about that.
He’s a prog and already actually made the case that speech from people that rag on progs is bad.
I honestly tried to read this, but only could make it a sentence in. Those snowflakes don’t get anything right about free speech. Hell, they’re burning signs that say free speech.
I read the whole thing, as I enjoy hate reading stupid stuff, but even still, ugh it’s awful.
The idea of freedom of speech does not mean a blanket permission to say anything anybody thinks.
And it’s all the feelz from there on out.
“Some topics, such as claims that some human beings are by definition inferior to others, or illegal or unworthy of legal standing, are not open to debate because such people cannot debate them on the same terms.”
Can progressives be more racist?
Is he claiming that no human is inferior to any other in any way, which is obviously and demonstrably false, or is he claiming that all humans are to be considered exactly equal under the law, which would delegitimize lefty programs like Affirmative Action?
Yes… wait… No…. wait….
I think he is claiming representatives of those groups can’t make “reasoned analysis” or “abstract arguments”.
So then he is saying they are inferior, which he denies is a thing you can say.
Well, you can say it in a round-about progressive-dog-whistle way, such as “voter ID laws are racist”. What you can’t say is “Black people are too stupid or lazy to get proper ID.”
Hence the left’s love of euphemisms.
You cant call stupid people stupid because they are too stupid to defend themselves?
“There is no honor in besting fools” comes to mind.
And they were correct. This is how critical theory undermines the Enlightenment.
There’s the strawman.
I loooooooooooove that stolen base between subjects which are too repugnant for public consumption, and protesting against Charles Murray/ Milo Yiannopolis. Way to beg the question, you censorious asshat. Also, lumping in Richard Spencer with the two. DISQUALIFIED!
BOOO. NOT COOL.
There were a massive number of viewpoints — monotheism, geocentrism, abolition, suffrage, evolution — that were once considered horribly offensive. So it’s a stupid argument even if those speakers are currently too repugnant for public consumption.
– Popper
It’s all about becoming the establishment.
Criticizing the establishment was okay when we weren’t it.
Now, we’re in charge.
I have to admit that my penchant for free speech and offensive speech probably isn’t entirely unrelated to my expectations of always being on the outside.
If the proper place for a libertarian is always making fun of the emperor, then there’s no reason why I’d ever want to get rid of free speech.
The whole purpose of the 1st is to protect offensive, unpopular speech. There’s no need to protect speech that everyone agrees on.
Manchester United striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic will undergo surgery in America on Wednesday after tearing his anterior cruciate ligament
What? No knee surgeons in the UK or Sweden?
He’s not the only overseas footballer to come over here for surgery. i just can’t put my finger on why.
Can’t stand him, but hate to see his career end like this (at his age with a dual torn ACL and PCL, he’ll be lucky if he plays again. If he does it will probably be in MLS)
He was already on the decline. This won’t help.
He doesn’t want to wait 12-18 (or more!) months to get the operation.
He wouldn’t have to wait in the UK, he’d just go private. He’s going to the US because that’s where the world leader in ACL reconstruction is – Freddie Fu.
Just like if you cut off your hand/fingers anywhere in the world, you fly yourself and your body parts to Kleinert Kutz in Louisville to have them reattached.
But I was told that with socialized medicine the rich and poor would have the same access to healthcare, unlike in evil capitalist system.
But I was told that with socialized medicine the rich and poor would have the same access to healthcare
They do, it’s equally shitty for all!
Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it’s just the opposite.
(stolen without attribution since Galbraith was a twat)
(I guess that counts as attribution)
No one dies in communist societies
That’s a thread with a lot of deleted comments, Chuck.
https://www.ceddit.com/r/LateStageCapitalism/comments/66vzsz/meanwhile_the_doctor_proceeds_to_dab_as_you_take/
That link gave me a site warning.
Click through it. All it is is a site that restores deleted comments. Giving a site warning because their SSL certificate is screwed up.
Not Even Hitler would screw up his SSL certificate.
OK, I clicked through it. Still, not worth reading, except more evidence of it being an echo chamber.
Deleted post:
Reading through the deleted comments is gold. One person mentioned how our healthcare is better than Venezuela’s, to which they replied, “setting the bar low huh?”. No you dolt, we are comparing ourselves to the system that you advocate!
“Every user is expected to have a basic level of understanding and acceptance of socialism and communism before commenting here. Liberalism (the ideology of capitalism) is strictly prohibited.”
“No sectarianism. This is a space for all comrades and all leftists. You are allowed to offer nuanced critiques of other leftist positions, but undermining socialism and/or communism as a whole is not permitted.”
“This subreddit is a safe space. Any bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and classism is forbidden. Participation in reactionary subs, subs that tolerate or tacitly endorse the aforementioned behavior, will lead to automatic bans.”
Shorter LateStageCapitalism: This is an echo-chamber for retards.
Yeah. That place makes me want to guzzle bleach. But before I do, will someone tell me that Trump has been impeached? That way I can die happy.
Sorry, we’re going to have to let you down one last time.
They try soooo hard to reconcile the original Marxism with the new cultural Marxism.
Like, you can’t even be subscribbed to other pages? Am I reading that right? What if you want to troll other pages? They can’t even be good commie trolls.
Subs = subthreads in that Reddit community. Basically forum posts. If you participate in a verboten r/latestagecapitalism post, they may ban you.
Ah, I only peruse Reddit, don’t have an account there, thanks for the info
Mmmm, echoey goodness.
That thread gave me cancer
Fuckin’ reddit. About the only thing i peruse there is crepypasta for writing fodder and Humanity Fuck Yeah for the lulz
The only Reddit I think I’ve ever read semi-frequently is the “Married At First Sight” subreddit. Yes, I am a middle aged woman.
Oh, and the “Roast Me” subreddit. I should check that one out again.
Roast me is hilarious. Oh and one more I forgot submechinaphobia, its just pics and videos of things underwater, can be really creepy or cool.
The college football one is decent, at times.
After her crusade against fat shaming, it looks like Demi Lovato lost a lot of weight:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-4436966/Demi-Lovato-poses-plunging-burnt-orange-swimsuit.html
It’s called not having your cake and not eating it too
We should all be so oppressed.
So, she supports other women being fat fucks; she prefers to look hot.
Everyone hates competition.
Can you imagine being around someone who was constantly taking selfies and posing like Derek Zoolander?
As long as she’s in the bathroom, she could use a little soap and water to clean her arms. Who scribbles on their arms with a marker before taking selfies?
Teenage girls. *shrug*
The freckles pleasantly distract from her creepy lizard eyes.
Reptiles beware?
So the Anne Frank Center, which has been front and center in the media calling Trump and Spicer antisemitic? Looks like it’s a gigantic fraud
That’s a serious allegation. Anne Frankly, I won’t stand for it.
and don’t call me Shirley.
You know who else Anne Frank called antisemitic…
I think he said Auntie semitic.
Look, I won’t stand for anyone insulting Anne Frank. To have written that diary and accomplished so much while being blind and deaf is amazing.
You always gotta be right don’t ya? Nazi douchebag.
Liberty Place monument in New Orleans becomes 1st of 4 to be taken down
Those neo-Confederates are going to rise again… someday.
Meanwhile, Lenin who is even further down the murderous scum scale, still has his untouched statue in Seattle.
Destroying the evidence of own history is a bad idea.
It’s sort of like how one of the benefits of free speech is that it lets the racists expose themselves as idiots.
Imagine if the Germans got rid of all evidence of the Nazis and people came to forget that the Germans were ever Nazis.
Racism doesn’t go away because you take down some statues. It’s probably better to keep some mementos around–keep the memory fresh.
But progressives are all about appearances. I don’t think they care as much about racism as they care that no one is racist in public.
These people are no better than the Taliban when it blew up those 2000 year old statues because they were indecent and unislamic… Oh, when the Taliban did their thing it was intolerance and nutty, but they have a good reason. They simply never make the connection.
First!
And they rejected the socialist pretty convincingly.
Mmmm, yeah, no. Macron basically bolted from some flavour of socialist party around a year or so ago to set up his own variant, and since his leading performance in Sunday’s primary, has had socialists all over France support/endorse him against Le Pen. I expect that, if he wins in the run-off two weeks from now, his cabinet will be filled with fellow-travelers from various parties.
And nothing will change. I love my French rellies, but France is sclerotic — all but hopeless IMNSHO.
Okay- I went and read that NYT drivel about “snowflakes” and free speech.
What is under severe attack, in the name of an absolute notion of free speech, are the rights, both legal and cultural, of minorities to participate in public discourse. The snowflakes sensed, a good year before the election of President Trump, that insults and direct threats could once again become sanctioned by the most powerful office in the land. They grasped that racial and sexual equality is not so deep in the DNA of the American public that even some of its legal safeguards could not be undone.
The issues to which the students are so sensitive might be benign when they occur within the ivory tower. Coming from the campaign trail and now the White House, the threats are not meant to merely offend. Like President Trump’s attacks on the liberal media as the “enemies of the American people,” his insults are meant to discredit and delegitimize whole groups as less worthy of participation in the public exchange of ideas.
What is under severe attack, in the name of an absolute notion of free speech, are the rights, both legal and cultural, of minorities to participate in public discourse.
I think you have that ass backwards, Professor. Those “minorities” whose rights you are so concerned about are the ones who have set themselves up as arbiters of acceptable speech on campus. “Participate” not same as “control”.
As for your demented simpering about Trump’s role in all of this, I think you need to just sleep with the lights on, so that closet monster can’t sneak up on you.
What are “cultural rights”?
And I don’t see how anyone in the U.S. is attacking, much less making a severe attack, the legal right for minorities to participate in public discourse. Or how anyone is trying to undo “legal safeguards” of “racial and sexual equality”.
It’s an elevation of political aestheticism over natural rights. Basically everything Popper argues against in The Open Society & It’s Enemies
OK, that might explain “cultural rights”. Just like valuing “experience” over “abstract thought”. But this guy is repeatedly claiming “legal”.
Yeah, saying mean and shitty things about people does not violate their legal rights, and if their culture must be defended by law its a shitty culture and should be shuffled off to an anthro museum
The best part is how he says that young folk sensed this before Trump. Nice way of trying to put your view on the good side. Why not accept Trump as a reaction to what those kids were trying to push on everyone.
Well, maybe if those kids were Russian?
Link wasn’t to Midnight Oil.
Huge ratio of Music/Politics quality.
Feel free to douse your mattress with kerosene and throw a match on it.