happy bastille day à tous pic.twitter.com/A8b6kDMDMw
— David Mack (@davidmackau) July 14, 2018
Deep in that Sun interview, Trump brags that his poll numbers with Republicans are even better than Lincoln's were. Lincoln died a decade before the telephone was invented and about eight decades before presidential approval polling began. https://t.co/9I5BOotua4
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) July 12, 2018
There's so much insanely wrong with this, I honestly don't even know where to begin. pic.twitter.com/XvgAo59lsA
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) July 13, 2018
But even in the era in which we have presidential approval ratings and, moreover, break them down by party, this isn't the record for a Republican.
George W. Bush regularly hit above 92% approval from Republican voters between 2001 and 2005. Hell, he hit 99% in January 2002. pic.twitter.com/YkYZLmDmcG
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) July 13, 2018
It's like a haiku of insanity — it's actually impressive he crammed so much wrong into so few syllables.
That said, bragging he beat "Honest Abe" when that's absolutely not true really is a special brand of crazy. Bravo.
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) July 13, 2018
OK.
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln won almost 40 percent of the popular vote in a four-way presidential election. He won 180 of 303 electoral votes.
In 1864, he won 55 percent of the popular vote and 212 of 233 EVs in the middle of the Civil War.
Sorry, Biff.— Charles P. Pierce (@CharlesPPierce) July 13, 2018
I think Trump meant he's more popular than Abraham Lincoln in the south.
— Schooley (@Rschooley) July 13, 2018
Abraham Lincoln was literally murdered by a treasonous prick for fulfilling his promise to keep the union together you stupid bastard.
Take a fucking 5th Grade History class. https://t.co/tZ6HahSec8— soonergrunt ???? (@soonergrunt) July 13, 2018
Counterpoint:
Easy to feel like the United States is falling apart when our reference point is the past few years
For some real context of what it would feel like as the world is falling apart, watch Ken Burns' documentary on the Vietnam War, especially the years 1968/1969.
— Tim Mak (@timkmak) July 12, 2018
Or watch the First World War series on PBS's 'America Experience.' Woodrow Wilson viciously cracked down on dissent with mass incarcerations of German Americans and the empowerment of citizen vigilante groups to 'arrest' anyone suspected of antiwar sentiments.
— Jeff Stein (@SpyTalker) July 12, 2018
hells littlest angel
I can’t imagine how much of a complete fucking fool one would have to be to genuinely like Trump. He comes as close as is possible to being an objectively rotten, repulsive motherfucker.
Mike in NC
The three part PBS documentary about American involvement in WW1 is absolutely must see stuff, and Woodrow Wilson is accurately portrayed as a dick.
Major Major Major Major
“Sure, it might feel like the world is about to plummet into the abyss, but it’s not nearly as bad as it was during these two times that look a lot like a plausible future!”
Not my favorite take in the history of takes.
Love the Beyoncé tweet.
Villago Delenda Est
@Mike in NC: He was a racist asshole, and an utter naif about great power politics. Any reverence for him is misplaced.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike in NC: I believe we covered that on the front page a while back. As usual Balloon Juice is running 12 to 24 months ahead of the rest of the country!
Platonailedit
The ‘Counterpoints’ are so comforting. Is this another pathetic attempt to normalize the thug’s atrocities?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Re the Tim Mak tweet. I lived through 1968 and it did kind of feel like the world was falling apart. Yet even so, I didn’t feel the existential fear I sometimes feel now on my worst days for the survival of American democracy and the rule of law.
Probably because I was a kid then. I turned 11 in 1968, and didn’t understand the politics, not really. The horrible things going on were in the nature of riots and assassinations, violence and murder. I do remember being shocked that LBJ wasn’t running for reelection, but no recollection of why it hit me so hard. Also I remember a general impression that what they called the “generation gap” (the hatred for the DF Hippies that still persists to this day) was about to break out into open warfare at any moment.
But still, as an adult, Trump feels worse than any of that.
Major Major Major Major
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: my parents (Boomers) say this era feels crazier and darker than the late 60’s.
NotMax
@Mike in NC
If you have access to Amazon Prime (or can find it elsewhere) highly recommend a 6-part (IIRC) series on the years immediately following WW1 and right up to the beginning of WW2, Impossible Peace.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Made a pact with the wife, as we are about to embark on an extended vacation (3 weeks for the first time in my life). We will not mention T’s name, we will attempt as much as possible to avoid hearing about the outrage of the day or politics.
She knows me though, knows I’m going to be checking in here and at Wonkette (my other favorite source of snark-flavored news and intelligent commentary thereof), so she amended the agreement: “Or at least don’t share any news you do read”.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
There are degrees of crazy and degrees of dark. So yes to both in some ways, not as much in others. It certainly feels, for want of a better term off the top of the head, more smothering.
GregB
Trump for almost two years: The Obama era initiated Russia investigation is a hoax.
Trump today: Why didn’t Obama initiate a Russia investigation?
Rommie
Sooner’s tweet reminds me again that I hope John Wilkes Booth is getting Lucifer’s 1st-class torment sessions, if there truly is a Hell. That SOB derailed any chance to win the peace after four years of brutal civil war.
I’ve always wondered if Churchill and Truman would have considered Operation Unthinkable thinkable if they were given a 2018 history book. We’ve been tantalizingly close to winning the peace after WW2, but are *still* living out the consequences and *still* have reason to fear it can fail or Epic Fail.
debbie
@Mike in NC:
Not just a dick, a racist dick.
randy khan
The thing that’s most breathtaking (no longer astounding) is how obvious it is that he doesn’t remotely care if what he’s saying is true. On a certain level, he isn’t actually lying because that requires an understanding that what you’re saying is false, and I don’t think he really much differentiates between reality and what he says.
Platonailedit
@GregB:
Lie.
And Lie.
The turd’s only shtick.
Adam L Silverman
@Mike in NC: Yep, exactly 12 months ahead!
https://balloon-juice.com/2017/07/14/lessons-from-history-the-us-during-ww-i/
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: it’s very clear that both were major inflection points in history. This one just isn’t over yet. But my parents have also noted what you said, that this time it’s harder to escape. I imagine much of that is due to technology, though that’s not to minimize it—information technology is playing a starring role in the story right now.
debbie
Don’t forget Trump’s statement earlier this year that Orin Hatch told him he was the greatest president ever, greater than even Washington or Lincoln. Trump, humble soul that he is, demurred at the mention of Lincoln.
But that was then.
Chip Daniels
I think a lot of the dark warnings about potential violence are subtle threats for us to keep in line and not make a fuss.
So its good to remind ourselves that America has had fights like this before, and while it wasn’t always a clean victory, victory is definitely ours to lose.
Mike in NC
@NotMax: Thanks. Will check that out.
debbie
@Major Major Major Major:
I think we olds think that because we feel like we’ve seen this nightmare before and we know what can happen. I still remember the Boston Globe front page after the Saturday Night Massacre. I read it but it didn’t seem to have anything to do with me. This time, it definitely does.
NotMax
@NotMax
Memory fail 8-part series, not 6. Most worthwhile viewing, all.
Gelfling 545
@Major Major Major Major: I agree with them. I was in college in 68-72. Those were some scary times but there was a feeling of hopefulness as well. Also there was no sense that we were in the hands of a “stable genius”
debbie
@GregB:
“Somebody stop me.”
Platonailedit
And yet, they whine and whine.
EBT
@Villago Delenda Est: This is true of most world leaders, especially the ones people like.
HumboldtBlue
Did the Bluegrass harmony workshop today at the Folklife Festival.
A little Bluegrass goes a long way.
Does get your feet moving.
Gravenstone
@randy khan: He talks to hear himself. And the only things he wants to hear are things that make him look or feel good. So most of what he says is bullshit ego stroking.
Wag
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I’m just a few years your junior, but remember 68 as being crazy. I was in the equivalent of kindergarten while my family lived in England for the 67-68 school year. I remember watching MLK’s funeral on the telly and being profoundly disturbed.
We moved back the summer of 68 and I remember my Weekly Scholastic Reader with Humphrey and Nixon on the cover and thinking to myself that Nixon looked like a crook.
Just a few years early.
NotMax
TCM reminder for any who might have interest piqued.
2 a.m. (Eastern) Sunday, Don’t Look Back, follows Bob Dylan’s 1965 tour of England.
4 a.m. (Eastern) Sunday, Festival, three years of the Newport Folk Festival
Honus
@Major Major Major Major: I gotta agree. We were still doing things like going to the moon and building interstate highways in all of that political chaos.
NotMax
@Wag
Had sonograms been around when he was in utero, he would have looked like a crook then, too.
efgoldman
@Wag:
I was a young adult, just out of college, married to the first mrs efg, in my first full-time job.
It was a trucking company, full of WW2 and Korea vets who today would likely be Weasel Face supporters. I was the office commie, along with a woman in the steno pool (look it up)
efgoldman
@Honus:
Congress still worked. Politics meant compromise (and log rolling) which got things done. There were liberals and conservatives from all regions, in both parties.
Not today’s DC at all
Enhanced Voting Techniques
WILSON!
We meet again, you slack eyed demon of the American political system!
So who will be the biggest bastard – Jackson, Wilson or Trump?
M. Bouffant
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: No love for The Nix?
efgoldman
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yes
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
Missed that at the time, thanks.
Found this pdf (August 17, 1918) poking through refs:
GEORGE CREEL SOUNDS CALL TO UNSELFISH NATIONAL SERVICE TO NEWSPAPER MEN
Amazing for its time. (Now we have Fox, RT, Breitbart, Sputnik and the like in the mix, too.)
NotMax
@efgoldman
Cue Mary Hopkin.
Those were the days my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way
SiubhanDuinne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
¿Por qué no los tres?
Another lurker
@Rommie: The thing I hate most about trump and Republicans, is that I have lost my sense of empathy if any misfortune befalls a Republican individual or a Red State. I despise what they have turned me into.
For every election that I vote in, since 1976, I have read each party’s platform. Shit! I have read up on candidates for School Board and local judges. In 1980 I read Regan’s platform and then read everything that I could pertaining to trickle down economics. I actually found myself laughing, asjing how anyone could actually think that “Voodoo Economics” would work. I am not an economist but, come on, it makes no sense. When I engaged republican friend, I was told that I just didn’t understand basic economics. This was in the condescending G.O.P. manner that evolved into the nasty Republican manner that we all know and love today.
I am done with civility. Trumpers (the entire top) can say what they want, but I am also entitled to call bullshit, in a very emphatic way, in return.
Whew!
Thanks to all Jackels for letting me rant.
Adam L Silverman
@Bill Arnold: Creel was a master of what he did. You are correct to wonder what he’d have been like with 24/7 cable news, as well as the Internet and social media
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@M. Bouffant: Hmp, as bad as Nixon was I don’t see him an as awful as Jackson was with thumbing his nose at the Supreme Court with the Indian Removal and destroying the economy with his snit with the 1st US Bank or Wilson with Wilson encouraging lynch mobs in the streets and basically trying to be a dictator. Yes, Nixon played games with the rule of law but Jackson and Wilson were openly contemptuous of it.
Mnemosyne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I’ve had to stop sharing political tidbits with my spouse. He has issues with high blood pressure and I really don’t want to make them worse by getting him wound up about stories he hasn’t seen for himself.
To be clear, he’s 100 percent a Democrat, which is why he gets easily wound up about the latest Trump atrocities.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
.
Y’know, this actually is great because this seques into something I’ve wondered for a long time. It’s been a while since I watched BTTF II and I always wondered why Biff wasn’t investigated for possible sports fixing. I mean, nobody could possibly be that lucky.
NotMax
@Another lurker
Major Major Major Major
@Honus: That does seem to be one thing people all over the ideological spectrum can agree on: we don’t do crazy aspirational shit any more.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Yute to doddering translation, por favor.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: back to the future 2, methinks, given that the discussion is around one of the characters.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Bullpuckey. The unmanned space program is not exactly moribund. ACA bill was a fulfillment of the aspirational.
Just two examples.
Mnemosyne
@randy khan:
One of the hardest things to wrap your head around when dealing with a narcissist is realizing that, for them, “truth” is strictly subjective. The truth is what they say it is, even if they say opposite things on different days. The truth exists solely inside their heads and reflects how they’re feeling.
You can’t prove to a narcissist that they’re objectively wrong about anything, because they literally do not understand what “objectivity” means. And because of that, they assume that everyone makes decisions the same way they do — by projecting their feelings about something outward onto everyone else.
MattF
So, Trump is completely delusional. Yeah, it’s a detail, but still someone should point it out.
EBT
I got my setup, set up!
https://twitter.com/norintha/status/1017885826431234048
efgoldman
@NotMax:
Pigpuckey. Does the unmanned space program have firm funding for a number of years? How many?
And the ACA is eviscerated, by congress and the agencies. It is but a shadow, especially in red states.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: I actually agree with the sentiment. The things you mentioned are all prudent and sensible; they don’t capture the public imagination in the same way as rockets flinging people to the moon and back for no especially urgent reason.
ETA: I’m doing a bad job representing the argument, mind you.
Bill Arnold
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Or had his secret beaten or otherwise extracted from him. Good point. If somebody smart had obtained that book they would have tried to disguise their bets/winning streak somehow. But Biff was not smart.
The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut has a more farcical variant of this.
efgoldman
@Bill Arnold:
It’s a fucking MOVIE for fuck’s sake.
Yarrow
@Another lurker:
Based on my observations in my daily life I am going to say that you are not alone. I have seen a lot of people speak up that did not speak up before. People who have been nice and just kept their mouths shut while rightwing people said whatever they wanted, those people are no longer keeping their mouths shut. It’s been an interesting phenomenon to watch. Liberals are pissed off, particularly women. It’s been interesting to watch rightwingers reel as people who have never stood up to them tell them to fuck off.
Redshift
@randy khan:
As always, I recommend reading Harry Frankfurt’s “On Bullshit.” It is tremendously clarifying.
Trump had been a BS artist his whole life. He’s never cared whether what he said was true, just if it created the impression he wanted.
A saw an article today that his lying is getting much worse. I suspected the reality isn’t that he’s deliberately lying more, it’s that reality is cooperating less with what he wants it to be, so his disregard for it is leading him further and further afield.
The true insanity is that so many from GOP officials to the average wingnut feel they have no option but to continue to believe him.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
Yes.@Honus:
We could have gone to Mars with updated Apollo-Saturn hardware by like the 1980s. Just saying. Stephen Baxter’s Voyage was based on proposals at the time in the late 60s to extend the keep using the Apollo hardware.
However, the famous unmanned space missions of the 70s and 80s never happened since the Ares program got the priority and NASA tunnel visioned to Mars, like they did to Earth orbit and the Moon before. By 1986, we didn’t know much more about the outer solar system than we did in 1886. But we got American flags and footprints on Mars.
https://www.rocketryforum.com/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2F-14zlWMS6vks%2FTwoSIX9Vk0I%2FAAAAAAAABBw%2FCUFPIslWT6M%2Fs800%2FIMG_0435.JPG&hash=66070056ceb4d560403c626b5933de25
https://www.rocketryforum.com/proxy.php?image=https%3A%2F%2Flh4.googleusercontent.com%2F-VKbdikMxzRs%2FTwoSD51itlI%2FAAAAAAAABBo%2FhiwqiLY1TyU%2Fs800%2FIMG_0436.JPG&hash=b0568ba2590a9bf72de544aab2acb92c
Platonailedit
I had said that would drive the traitorous thug’s rage tweets today and so it happened.
encephalopath
I was watching episode 2 of The Vietnam War last night and thinking about what contemporary lesson we could learn from that experience. The South Vietnamese hated the Diệm government. It was repressive and corrupt. They got rid of him… executed him and his brother extra-judicially.
Everyone celebrated. They got rid of the tyrant. And then had a revolving door of 8 different governments over the next 3 years or so.
I don’t know if there is a lesson to be learned there at all. We’re in an awful spot. And the solution needs to be lawful and as electorally correct as we can all manage because the alternative is madness.
Major Major Major Major
@efgoldman: Sure, quibbling about plot holes is for nerdy losers, but dude, let people enjoy things!
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@efgoldman:
People have always asked these types of questions about all of fiction, not just movies. People like to know how the physics of a fictional universe work or the “lore” of a setting.
If you really want your head to spin, try to ask yourself whatever happened to the 2nd Marty at the end of the first film.
patrick II
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Biff was based on Donald Trump, so you might ask yourself as well why Donald wasn’t arrested a long time ago. Big money, political campaign contributions. Besides, it was just a movie.
EBT
@encephalopath: I mean, they also had decades of colonial rule that has meticulously disassembled the country. And then imperialist nations trying to keep the colonial rule in place.
Yarrow
Watched the final episode of “A Very English Scandal.” It’s so good. Sad story but great acting and hard to believe it really happened. Hugh Grant is very good in it.
NotMax
@Yarrow
Good production. Does play fast and loose with some of the facts, though.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@encephalopath:
Honestly? I’m not sure the United States could have ultimately done anything differently with the foreign policy elite we had, along with the geopolitical realities of the time.
I read that Ho Chi Min tried to solicit the US’ help in their fight against the French in the 1950s. The French were our allies and we certainly weren’t going to abandon them for the rebels in Indochina. This was in the early days of the Cold War and we couldn’t risk alienating a crucial Western European ally, so we supported the French and eventually got dragged in ourselves.
H.E.Wolf
@Major Major Major Major:
I’d offer the Women’s March 2017 and the March For Our Lives 2018 as two exhibits to the contrary.
Nobody left the planet; but the entire USA ran out of pink yarn in approximately 2 months. That’s gotta count for something! :)
Off to dream of blue waves. Very good for restful sleep.
frosty
@Adam L Silverman: It’s true! I find out news here before my friends find it elsewhere! And it’s usually funnier. Or at least snarky. Thanks, jackals!!
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Bill Arnold:
I have another “fun” what if:
Imagine if the Libyans had shot both Doc and Marty dead in the parking lot and stolen the DeLorean. They could have strangled the Great Satan in its crib by running over George Washington!
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
As was Uncle Ho, once upon a time. But no, we fucked that one up, and so did France, with horrific results.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
That was Truman who refused to recognize Ho’s declaration of independence in 1945. Also sent the first U.S. “advisers” to Viet Nam, beginning in 1950. Also established a Defense Attaché Office in Saigon that same year. The Domino Theory was strong in that one (in fairness, also within the foreign policy establishment, across party lines).
Yarrow
@NotMax: It’s also hard to condense so many years into three hours so sometimes I got lost as to where we were with the story. It’s still very good. A lot of interesting angles to the whole thing.
Another lurker
@NotMax: LOL! Nailed it! How all conversations with gopers go with me. Not anymore.
I’m going to dig deep into my loudmouth NYC Italian. I will let my inner Guinnie out. Watch out, Bradenton and trumphumpers!
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
@NotMax:
Why didn’t Truman recognize their declaration. Post-war geopolitical realities re:Soviet Union?
Also, was there anyway the West could have helped the ROC “win” in a Korea like stalemate or even completely conquer the mainland. From casual reading the KMT were pretty incompetent and repressive but wasn’t South Korea for the first few decades?
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: Trump is definitely a narcissist. One thing that stands out to me, though, is that no matter what he won’t speak badly of Putin. Not at all. At some level Trump knows the objective truth that if he bad mouths Putin he will be fucked. It’s one thing that has broken through to him.
frosty
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I agree. What made 1968 feel like the world was falling apart was that it wasn’t just the US. It was the Prague Spring getting shut down and students tearing up cobblestones in Paris. And of course, Vietnam, Tet, and in the US the assassinations, LBJ (fuck LBJ!) stepping down, and Nixon. And might I add, Fuck Nixon!.
As bad as he was, and as much as his ratfuckers started the mess we’re in, it still wasn’t as worrisone as it is now.
frosty
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Sounds like my wife. I’m allowed to share snarky comments by jackals.
Bill Arnold
@Adam L Silverman:
I normally don’t read PhD theses, (pdfs read shortest-first :-) but this summary (25 pages) is interesting to me, as history. (FWIW, I have zero background in this area of social science, so can’t evaluate, but the refs at least are plentiful) (We’ve literally 100 years of iterative improvement on these techniques, and also rapid improvements in enabling tech (qualitative because the improvements are so large), with some (passive on the consumer side) arms races as well)
The Committee on Public Information: A transmedia war propaganda campaign (2012)
Matt McIrvin
@Honus: The thing about the Apollo Moon program is that it was arguably a failure of democracy; it did not have majority public support, except for a brief period right around the actual Apollo 11 landing when it eked out a slim majority. Most Americans thought it was a giant waste of money, and the people you saw rhapsodizing about it were usually reactionaries. It only happened as a sort of Cold War psychological-warfare project.
So as much as I personally love the drama and the science and engineering of it–I am a space fanboy of long standing–I’m not sure it’s an ideal example of how America used to be greater.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Aside from geopolitical maneuvering, have always felt (though it sounds simplistic) for much the same reason he did rush to recognize the state of Israel.
Don’t have the precise quote at the ol’ fingertips, but it was along the lines of “I have a lot more Jewish voters than Arab ones.” In the case of Viet Nam, the thinking was probably similarly influenced by ‘I have a lot more French-descended voters than Vietnamese ones.’
Bill Arnold
@efgoldman:
And a movie that deals with F-in time travel paradoxes. :-)
Mike J
Mnemosyne
@Yarrow:
I don’t know if it’s that, or if Putin has cannily set himself up as a father figure to replace Fred Trump. I’m sure that the GRU’s psychological file on Trump fills at least a full file cabinet drawer, and they know how to psychologically manipulate people.
Trump is so fawning that is almost seems to be a hold beyond a mere physical threat, so that’s what makes me wonder if it’s more that Putin has made himself into a parental figure.
NotMax
@Bill Arnold
Casey and Kildare.
Now there’s a pair o’ docs!
:)
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Mike J:
I remember seeing a few people wearing those right after the 2016 election, but haven’t really seen one in person since then. They were always gaudy and ugly looking.
Another lurker
@Yarrow: Liberals have always played by the rules of give and take. Liberals compromise and negotiate . Cons obstruct and vilify. They depict the process of compromise as a weakness, to be despised. Always done at top volume and repeated, endlessly, on “Fox News”. I hypothesize that Fox news is presented in a way that leads to the onset of Dementia. I am too lazy to research, now, but I believe that some academic studies show a demonstrable relationship between propaganda and a person’s diminishing ability to listen and act on real information and to change one’s perceptions and beliefs. Liberals can adjust their positions in many ways and change their minds in varying degrees, Cons are less likely to adjust their perceptions. “My way or the highway” is the Con’s attitude.
Sorry for the rant, again.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: dunno, dunno. MacArthur probably had some weird opinions on the latter.
Matt McIrvin
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: As I’ve said before, I strongly suspect those 1960s plans for Apollo-derived crewed interplanetary missions were baroque forms of suicide in the making. They didn’t understand the interplanetary radiation environment well enough, nor the physiological dangers of long-duration spaceflight.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@NotMax:
Racial and cultural homogeneity strikes again. Another point in favor of diverse, democratic societies. Maybe if Vietnamese people had been a part of the Democratic coalition (similar to today), Vietnam could have turned out differently, assuming that quote was real and the actual rationale of Truman.
NotMax
@Another lurker
There was at least one study which concluded that regular FOX viewers showed a demonstrable diminishment of knowledge.
Platonailedit
Elon Musk Can “Stick His Submarine Where it Hurts”.
People are sooo stupid.
/musk & his fanbois
Aleta
Twitter feed of Nader Issa @NaderDIssa, a Sun Times reporter who was at the protest in Chicago tonight after a police officer shot a black man in the back as he ran away. There are video clips.
This link is to the story that Nader Issa is putting up and updating at the Sun Times tonight.
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
The one about the French and Vietnamese is not real (hence my putting it inside single quotes). The one about Israel is accurate although, as said, may not be the precise wording.
Bill Arnold
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
In that genre, 7 word short story: BIN LADEN’S TIME MACHINE: PRESIDENT GORE “CONCERNED”
I am not yet a big fan of (unauthorized :-) causality violation.
FlipYrWhig
@Mnemosyne: IMHO Trump is really fucked-up psychosexually about strong men, who he admires and eroticizes. (Think of all the excitement about military guys as key advisors–I feel like he was giddy that he now had a job where army men had to listen to him!) TBH I’m not sure if he wants to BE one, or if he wants to bang one, or if he always wanted to MAKE one and thinks his failsons have embarrassed him, or if he’s really not even sure.
gene108
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Ho Chi Minh was at the Versailles peace talks, in 1919, trying to get anyone, who would listen to support his goal of Vietnamese independence.
He was at liberating Vietnam for a long time.
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: “Maybe if Vietnamese people had been a part of the Democratic coalition (similar to today)”
Er, you do know how they mostly got here, yes? :)
At any rate, I kind of understand it as geopolitically defensible, but still a big moral failure.
Yarrow
@Mnemosyne: Could be. I think Roy Cohn filled some of the father figure role, but since he’s gone maybe there was a hole to fill. I don’t think Trump and Putin have actually met many times but maybe that’s part of how it works. The distant father he’s always trying to impress.
After the indictments on Friday I really wonder how it’s going to work in Trump’s head. He can’t badmouth Putin but not saying anything also gets him in trouble as Mueller gets closer. At some point he’s going to have those two entirely contradictory things he must do clashing in his head. I have no idea what he’ll do then.
Ian R
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: And so are their hats.
sukabi
@NotMax: yep. FOX News, the lead paint of information.
NotMax
@Bill Arnold
Even Superboy couldn’t do it.
;)
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Matt McIrvin:
In the book, NASA spent much of the 70s messing around in Earth and Lunar orbit with Skylab-like space stations (like the SU did IRL during that time frame) to work out the kinks of long-term space habitation, with periodically updated Apollo CSMs serving as space taxis.
I believe they worked out some kind of shielding for the modular interplanetary craft, Ares, as well as a orbital method of getting to Mars sooner. They tried developing nuclear-powered engines (NERVA) first but all that resulted in was a Challenger analogue disaster in Earth orbit in 1980.
I’m just mad that the Apollo CSM didn’t become the American Soyuz and the Skylab program was cut short.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Major Major Major Major:
Oh it was a moral failure, no doubt.
Let’s pretend for the moment the US decided to back the Vietnamese independence movement. What would have likely followed?
frosty
@Another lurker:
Nah, rant away. Pretty soon you’re gonna be Another Non-lurker if you keep this up. :-)
Bill Arnold
@sukabi:
That looks like it might be an original. Mind if it spreads a bit?
EBT
@FlipYrWhig: I think he wants to lord over folks who made a living in a military uniform because of his shitty reform school he went to.
sukabi
@Bill Arnold: spread away. ?
Major Major Major Major
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?: beats me!
NotMax
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
In the U.S, the “little man on the wedding cake” would have had a stronger shot of winning the presidency in ’48.
Trying to figure out how China would have reacted opens up almost too many doors of speculation.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
I remembered what the orbital method was. It was a gravity assist from Venus that propelled the spacecraft to intercept Mars where it would do a retrograde burn to slow down into Martian orbit.
prostratedragon
Mr. Mahal:
“Things Are Getting Crazy Up In Here”
Yarrow
So this could be interesting.
piratedan
well, something that many of us have touched upon but have never really drilled down into is how the Right has been using the media against the left in both controlling the narrative and in keeping their followers in line. We see it every fucking day on Fox News, something from the Mueller investigation (or any one of the myriad other investigations regarding the shit that this administration and the GOP in general is doing) and you hear NOTHING about it. No attempt at even trying to spin the shitshow in any capacity whatsoever, so when someone like Pruitt leaves, they scream “fake news” and those filthy liberals were out to get him, never mind all of the truly heinous shit he was doing on behalf of his paymasters.
How do we fix something like Fox News?
If we find them in cooperating with the Russians to bring down the Dems, on what charge do we get to arrest Rupe and his family and seize all of his US assets? Can the same be said for the TFNYT or the Sinclair empire, when the Russian Kompromat tendrils are found to be twinned repeatedly among the people who continue to shape the fucking narrative?
How do we root out this shit to deprogram millions of Americans from their daily dose of MS-13 is coming to kill them after they rape them and that illegals are coming to take their jobs and then tell them, yes, millions of illegals are coming to take your jobs because your employers refuse to pay anyone a fucking living wage. Who’s going to help us fight that damn fight. I’m surprised (pleasantly so) that no one has entered onto a Fox News set and shot them all fucking dead for all of the evil that they spread because imho, they’re the source of the rot, people getting paid handsomely to lie and misrepresent America every fucking day, both the people behind the cameras writing the copy and the people in front, with their vacant expressions and absolutely no remorse about what they are doing every fucking day, all in the name of greed and racism.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Also, here’s a really cool thread a guy posted of his pictures he made to show the Ares spacecraft in action from Voyage. Very photo-realistic:
http://whona.forumotion.com/t3083p575-ronpur-s-custom-figure-and-model-thread
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@NotMax:
Which China? ?
prostratedragon
@randy khan: Are you familiar with “On Bullshit”?
As I recall from several years ago, Frankfort does not try to rank lying versus bullshitting. Blister President* demonstrates that the latter is not necessarily a less serious matter than the former.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Also, pictures of the Apollo-N (Challenger-analogue) as well as the Skylab stations in Earth and Lunar orbit. The space station around the moon is named “Moonlab”.
http://whona.forumotion.com/t3083p550-ronpur-s-custom-figure-and-model-thread
Chetan Murthy
@randy khan: @prostratedragon: I think _On Bullshit_ should be requiired periodic reading for us all. B/c yeah, that’s what Shitlord and his coprophagic hordes are all about. My memory is, Frankfurt makes it clear that he regards bullshit as singularly dangerous, b/c the goal of the bullshitter is unrelated to his patter, and hence, until the target figures that out, he’s very vulnerable.
joel hanes
@EBT:
My, what a big monitor you have.
And, given the Logictech gaming mouse and that the screenshot is of Steam, may we presume you’ve got a BF graphics card and a sweet solid-state “disk” ?
I’m still addicted to Fallout 4 myself, still enjoying the company of my 800 or so settlers in the Commonwealth. As FO 5 seems to be far away, and Half-Life 3 turned out to be a delusion, I’m thinking of picking up FO 3 to distract me through the next year or two.
I tried Destiny 2 (I was bred in the Unreal/Quake/Doom/Wolfenstein FPS school before falling in love with Half-Life and sequels), but so far it hasn’t taken.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@joel hanes:
Have you heard of Fallout 76?
prostratedragon
@Redshift: Ah, you beat me to it!
joel hanes
@Redshift:
so many from GOP officials to the average wingnut feel they have no option but to continue to believe him.
They “believe” him in the same way in which many of them “believe” in their God: they know that this is what they must say out loud to signify and assert membership in their tribe.
joel hanes
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Fallout 76
A friend alerted me within minutes of the release of the teaser video.
Looking forward to trying it, but I don’t play anything multiplayer, ever*, so I have some reservations.
Games with no single-player mode are dead to me, and games with weak single-player modes are just weak games AFAIAC.
(*except for the three years that my friend and I played 700 download levels of Unreal Tournament on side-by-side machines; sort of a weekly two-person LAN party).
Bart
Check out Ben Garrison’s latest w*nk fantasy: https://grrrgraphics.com/you-bow-to-no-one-trump-lotr/
Viva BrisVegas
@NotMax:
In 1945-46 Northern Vietnam was occupied by Nationalist Chinese forces. The south was occupied by British led Indian troops. The Communist Chinese were far to the north still fighting Chiang Ki-Shek.
At that stage the Communist Chinese did not have any particular interest in Vietnam.
joel hanes
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
We could have gone to Mars with updated Apollo-Saturn hardware by like the 1980s.
We could have delivered bodies.
They’d have been very very sick bodies by the time they got to Mars, and likely corpses before they could return. The problems of space medicine are difficult, and many of them still have no very good solutions.
In the 1970s and 1980s we knew far less about it, and would not have done enough of the right things to protect the astronauts.
joel hanes
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
NASA tunnel visioned to Mars
Most of NASA’s post-Apollo problems were mostly caused by Republicans in Congress.
This remains true.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@joel hanes:
See comment 106. It’s been a few years since I read the book. It was fairly hard sci-fi. They worked it out somehow. It’s not as if they didn’t have experience with long-term space habitation in their extended Skylab program, particularly with Moonlab in lunar orbit. It’s difficult to say. The book acknowledged that the 3-person crew would probably develop cancers later in life. The trip was also dramatically shortened with a Venus flyby as well.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@joel hanes:
I neglected to mention that JFK survived his assassination, so that had ripple effects.
joel hanes
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
They hadn’t yet understood the extent of the hard radiation, nor the problems of calcium metabolism disruption and bone density loss, nor the other severe biochemical imbalances that seem to be inherent in long-term low-gee. How intractable some of these problems are has only become clear really within the last decade, with long-residence experience in the space station.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@joel hanes:
Also, when I said NASA tunnel-visioned to Mars I was referring to the alternate NASA in the book.
Perhaps you’re right about the difficulties. Like I said, it’s been a while since I read Baxter’s novel. We’ll probably never know until it happens in real life.
prostratedragon
@Chetan Murthy: Absolutely. I’m due for a re-reading, maybe after I finish The Confidence Man.
Chetan Murthy
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Skylab was in low earth orbit (270mi). I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that that was low enough to be mostly protected by the Van Allen belts? The evidence since then of astronauts on the ISS has been pretty grim too, so even LEO isn’t enough.
Apollo: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/07/apollo-astronauts-much-more-likely-die-heart-disease
ISS: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/astronauts-heart-disease-link-what-happens-to-your-body-in-space-a7159946.html
Not much of this was known until both time had passed, and the ISS was up there a while. Which is, in a way, a vindication of Feynman’s description of the original methodology of the rocketry program:build from the bottom-up, testing everything to destruction all along the way. Including the human body. Just takes longer to do that, b/c we need to be ethical, yes?
joel hanes
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
I was referring to the alternate NASA in the book.
Ah. Your comment about a nuke-powered ship disaster had me wondering if I’d been knocked on the head and had selective amnesia or something. Now it’s all clear. My apologies for having treated some what-if ideas as if they were being seriously advanced — it’s a besetting vice among engineers, and makes us the death of many perfectly delightful conversations.
joel hanes
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
Have you ever read about Project Orion ?
That would have worked, I think, although the concept is completely insane, and launching it from Earth would have been an unparalleled environmental crime, as would have been the extent of the uranium mining required to fuel it for extended operation.
I’ve seen a Youtube of a model successfully propelled by conventional fireworks, but I can’t seem to find that now.
joel hanes
@joel hanes:
I’ve seen a Youtube of a model successfully propelled by conventional fireworks, but I can’t seem to find that now.
Here it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQCrPNEsQaY
jl
So, what’s next?
Better false teeth than Washington.
Better comb-over than Ike
Nailed more chicks than Harding.
Maybe he’ll shoot for fatter than Taft?
I hope he tries to tick through all the presez. Better mullet than Polk? Lies more than Nixon?
Edit: smarter than Dub?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@joel hanes:
Don’t worry about it. For it’s part, Voyage doesn’t view NASA through rose-tinted glasses. It shows both reverance and mockery for the NASA that came out of 1960s in the story through the various characters. From the fighter-jock culture of the manned space corp to the “tunnel-vision” of a single national goal, to the sometimes sensationalist stunts that NASA tried (In the book, Moonlab is basically a kludgy thrown together publicity stunt and 10 years later it shows).
In the 1970s, one of the top admin guys looks around one day and realizes the country isn’t the same as it was; it’s less hopeful and more cynical. The space program is found to be out of touch with American society of the time.
The book also acknowledges the trade offs of focusing on an Apollo-style race to Mars. The aerospace industry becomes too big to fail and has to be bailed out in 1980 I think.
People’s lives are ruined due to the high levels of stress. The head engineer for the NERVA project for Apollo-N is a good example. The three astronauts are killed from the radiation after the reactor blows.
Many of the famous unmanned spacecraft like Voyager and Pioneer are never realized and the Outer Solar system is left largely unexplored. By 1986, we know as much about it as we did in 1886.
It’s a pretty good book and I highly recommend it.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@joel hanes:
I’ve heard of it. It was a concept for an interstellar craft that was propelled by the force from nuclear explosions behind it that accelerate it to a fraction of the speed of light, correct? I don’t see a problem with it as long as it was sufficiently far away from Earth when the nukes went off.
NotMax
@joel hanes
If it wasn’t for the spaceship Michael in Footfall, we’d all be munching on Purina Fithp Chow.
:)
joel hanes
@NotMax:
Only read that one once, but it’s probably where I first heard about Orion.
Turns out that Youtube has a wealth of documentary video about it.
Citizen Alan
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
You could have asked the same question about American support of the Haitian Liberation effort in 1804 and gotten pretty much the same answer. For a nation that prides itself on its democratic ideals, other than the Marshall Plan, we’ve never really given a crap about democracy anywhere else in the world.
Citizen Alan
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
The most interesting scenario I’ve ever seen for “what if JFK lived?” was, ironically, in the British scifi-sitcom Red Dwarf. The characters, who are time traveling for some reason, accidentally stop Lee Harvey Oswald from killing Kennedy. As a result, one year later, Kennedy’s affair with Marilyn Monroe is leaked to the press, and he narrowly loses to Goldwater. Who precedes to start World War 3 and destroy the world. And for some reason, the only way to resolve the problem is to go back in time, get JFK after he’s left office, explain to him what’s happened, and then drop him off at the grassy knoll so he can assassinate himself. When I was a teenager, that episode was mind-blowing.
Ian
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
The KMT hosed themselves. The broad based alliance was based on regional warlords with no common goal. Once the Japanese left each warlord figured himself the next Emporer, and Mao managed to run them over in their divisions. Nothing short of full scale American intervention would have saved the KMT, which we had no political will to do at the time and would likely have sparked WW3. The idea that the US ‘lost China’ or could have saved China like South Korea is an American myth.
Millard Filmore
@Ian:
Stalin gifted Mao with a lot of heavy equipment left over from fighting the Japanese.
NotMax
@Citizen Alan
Obscure but intriguing (at least was at the time, early 1970s) novel obliquely related to JFK is Joshua, Son of None. Published years before The Boys From Brazil, it follows a clone of an assassinated president (not directly named as, although obviously a thinly disguised JFK), brought up to model the dead president’s life. Other than the central theme of the cloning to attempt to replicate a government leader, similarities to the later book are slim to none.
David Evans
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
The interstellar craft came later. The original idea was to take off from the Earth’s surface and launch heavy enough payloads for extensive manned missions in the Solar System. That would indeed have been something of an environmental disaster, though, I think, less so than the unrestrained nuclear weapons testing that actually happened.
I think we ought to do a modest amount of work to refine the Orion concept. If a really big asteroid was found to be on a collision course, Orion might be our best chance to deflect it.
Sherparick
@hells littlest angel: Well, there are a large number of repulsive motherfuckers who live vicariously through his meanness,assertions, & defiance of accountability, who happen to be our fellow citizens. And the U.S. has a sad history of this masss thuggery which is omitted in our school history texts.
Miss Bianca
@sukabi: OMG, I am *so* stealing this line!
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I don’t like playing “who’s the biggest monster”, and the Trail of Tears surely grants Jackson his place in the pantheon, but Nixon and Kissinger secretly spread the Vietnam War into neighboring countries, bombing and burning millions of people to death. Prior to that, they sabatoged efforts to end the war while promising to bring peace. Nixon’s a contender for sure.
Matt McIrvin
@David Evans: IIRC, most of the benefit from the Orion concept comes from being able to take off from a planetary surface, which is kind of unfortunate given what that would do to said planetary surface. The fans like to emphasize that the whole thing can be “built like a battleship”, which is only really true if you’re using the nuclear bomb drive to eliminate launch costs.
Robert Sneddon
@David Evans:
Actually no. An Orion launch to put about 10,000 tonnes of payload into Earth orbit would have taken about 800 atomic explosions each well under a single kilotonne of yield. The devices would be tuned to produce minimal amounts of fallout using modern design techniques. In comparison the US and other nuclear weapons states fired over 500 nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, some of them toxic fusion and boosted-fission monsters like the 50MT Tsarbomba and the ill-fated 15MT Castle Bravo shot of 1954 resulting in massively more contamination in the environment than a small number of Orion launches would ever achieve.
It wasn’t ever planned to launch more than a few Orions, the intention was to use their heavy lift capability to get a kickstarter level of materials and equipment into orbit and from there start exploiting Lunar, cometary and asteroidal resources to construct fuel bases, orbital stations, transfer craft etc.
Ruckus
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I was of draft age in 1967. The world did feel like it was falling apart. But it was specific, it was the war, both personally and politically. There was the “We are at war!” argument, the “Should we be at war?” argument. This is different. Support your country was heard a lot. But today we are worried about even having a country to support, not just having one worth supporting.