It is just endlessly insane and it's been driving me nuts for years. It's not just being dumb, it's the contempt they have for being informed.
14.03.2026 16:32
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It is just endlessly insane and it's been driving me nuts for years. It's not just being dumb, it's the contempt they have for being informed.
Sinking feeling this is going to be an evergreen essay
selfindulgentclaptrap.com/p/how-are-th...
Probably more cost-effective to just set up an Office of Trump II Prosecutions at DOJ and staff it with enough attorneys to fill all an entire other United States with AUSAs.
The new cure for the male loneliness epidemic? Massive welfare fraud schemes.
And this is the real thing that I find so outrageously repulsive and insulting about the character of the Trump administration and the rogues' gallery of goons it contains: They are incurably incurious. They have no belief that anyone else exists. In the television show 30 Rock, the eccentric celebrity character Tracy Jordan declares "I'm Tracy Jordan: when I go to sleep, nothing happens in the world!" This might as well be the operating logic of the Trump administration's plethora of pinheads. Small wonder they deploy videos of US strikes on Iranian targets dressed up as clips from video games—they believe everyone else is an NPC. They are the main characters of their own universe.
Socrates once observed that he was wiser than a man who claimed to know a lot, because he did not claim to possess knowledge he did not actually have, in fact, he was very aware how little he knew. All he knew was that he knew nothing. This sort of recognition is beyond this administration. Karoline Leavitt has been pushing the line that the Strait of Hormuz closure is all part of a master plan, which is par for the course: they cannot admit fault because to admit fault would be to suggest that there was something you didn't know and they know everything. You actually do have to learn to conceive of other people as having independent thoughts and feelings, to understand that other organisms perceive the world differently from you and have access to knowledge you do not and thus make decisions and act on a body of knowledge you do not possess. That the universe does not begin and end with you. It's believed to be a marker of intelligence, a step on the pathway to sentient thought. Most species are suspected to not have this skill at all. Human beings generally begin to work out around the age of four.
I'm the type of person who will combine a quote from 30 Rock, Socrates, and a factoid I learned from an episode of "The Rest is Science" the other day in a single essay.
it is my life’s mission to find the guy who’s pitching “no income taxes below [seemingly upper-middle-class threshold]” to big Dems electeds and hit him with a whiffle bat until he stops doing that
It's far from the worst thing he's done, but it's really pernicious to efface national symbols in a way that they will circulate for decades.
Donald the Dove news update
Phil Berger has been North Carolina’s most powerful Republican since the GOP won the legislature in 2010 for the first time since 1870.
Under his leadership, NC’s GOP has attacked democracy, gerrymandered, restricted voting rights, undermined public education, targeted LGBTQ people, & much more
And this is the real thing that I find so outrageously repulsive and insulting about the character of the Trump administration and the rogues' gallery of goons it contains: They are incurably incurious. They have no belief that anyone else exists. In the television show 30 Rock, the eccentric celebrity character Tracy Jordan declares "I'm Tracy Jordan: when I go to sleep, nothing happens in the world!" This might as well be the operating logic of the Trump administration's plethora of pinheads. Small wonder they deploy videos of US strikes on Iranian targets dressed up as clips from video games—they believe everyone else is an NPC. They are the main characters of their own universe.
Socrates once observed that he was wiser than a man who claimed to know a lot, because he did not claim to possess knowledge he did not actually have, in fact, he was very aware how little he knew. All he knew was that he knew nothing. This sort of recognition is beyond this administration. Karoline Leavitt has been pushing the line that the Strait of Hormuz closure is all part of a master plan, which is par for the course: they cannot admit fault because to admit fault would be to suggest that there was something you didn't know and they know everything. You actually do have to learn to conceive of other people as having independent thoughts and feelings, to understand that other organisms perceive the world differently from you and have access to knowledge you do not and thus make decisions and act on a body of knowledge you do not possess. That the universe does not begin and end with you. It's believed to be a marker of intelligence, a step on the pathway to sentient thought. Most species are suspected to not have this skill at all. Human beings generally begin to work out around the age of four.
I'm the type of person who will combine a quote from 30 Rock, Socrates, and a factoid I learned from an episode of "The Rest is Science" the other day in a single essay.
I've been losing my mind for a while, so I thought I would write it down. selfindulgentclaptrap.com/p/how-are-th...
Just so we're all clear, this is a war crime and would be punishable by life or death under U.S. law.
Mac from Always Sunny looking at Charlie and saying, "That doesn't sound right, but I don't know what metrics to define class to use to dispute it."
The lack of rigid class definitions really biting us in the ass here
I don’t think populism is inherently bad, boiling down complex policy ideas into appealing and simple slogans is literally just politics. But there is a difference between simplification and fabrication. It matters if things are actually true in a meaningful sense.
The $100K number is just so offensively political. I'm sure there's a study on the threshold for where collecting tax costs more than it raises, but it's not $100k. It's to keep politically engaged people from getting angry, when you should be convincing them tax is worth it by adding services.
I wrote a review of @esotericebb.bsky.social for The Avocado!
the-avocado.org/2026/03/13/e...
I have some real gripes with the game, but it's also easily the game to beat for GOTY for me.
Dear members of the Senate: if you vote to confirm Mullin to run DHS, people should absolutely hold you personally responsible for every atrocity ICE and CBP carry out under his leadership.
"We knew all along that they would close the Strait of Hormuz if attacked and create a global oil crisis, which is why we developed a secret plan to...just kinda let it happen"
"Declaring that no quarter will be given" is specifically prohibited by Art 23 of the Annex to the Hague Convention IV, which means it is a war crime under US domestic law by virtue of the War Crimes Act (18 U.S. Code § 2441).
(1) The accused declared, ordered, or otherwise indicated that there shall be no survivors or surrender accepted; (2) The accused thereby intended to threaten an adversary or to conduct hostilities such that there would be no survivors or surrender accepted; (3) It was foreseeable that circumstances would be such that a practicable and reasonable ability to accept surrender would exist; (4) The accused was in a position of effective command or control over the subordinate forces to which the declaration or order was directed; and (5) The conduct took place in the context of and was associated with hostilities.
✋ Former USG war crimes lawyer here.
Apropos of SecDef's remarks this morning:
Denial of quarter—even the declaration of no quarter—is a war crime.
And recognized as such by the US Government.
From DoD's Manual for Military Commissions.
1/2
This is crucially important point.
1) "No quarter" is indeed specifically war-crime term
2) Under Geneva Conventions, after sinking an enemy ship, the attackers must "take all positive measures" to find and rescue any survivors. Text in next post
No evidence US sub did so after attack, AFAIK
Really frustrating. As I understood it from some architects several years ago, there's a supply bottleneck that forces LC cement to have to be ordered way earlier in the development of a building than normal, which means most developers don't bother. You can't break that w/o building factories
we've all been assuming they want to do a Sicario from the famous movie Don't Do A Sicario but maybe they're actually planning on doing a Gallipoli from the famous novel Oh Shit We Did a Gallipoli
designs for the obverse of a dollar coin featuring Trump, via https://www.usmint.gov/news/media-kit/semiq-dollar-coin
You know what we're not griping about enough? That Donald Trump's face is going to be on U.S. currency—on $1 coins—later this year. This will be the first time a living president has appeared solo on a coin, and one of the very few times a living individual has ever been on U.S. coinage.
Looking inside a Dwarf's Mind
Senator @lindaujifusa.bsky.social and Representative @jenstewart4ri.bsky.social are sponsoring legislation to protect Rhode Islanders from the disadvantages of Medicare Advantage insurance plans.
Learn more: rilegislature.gov/pressrelease...
Had to check it's real and it is real. They lost a Stratotanker over Iraq.
www.centcom.mil/MEDIA/PRESS-...