President Trump said he would veto the $740 billion National Defense Authorization Act unless it includes a measure eliminating a federal law protecting tech companies such as Facebook and Twitter https://t.co/H4InvBeYlo pic.twitter.com/9QQ42u9TMm
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 2, 2020
Into the grinder at the legislative sausage factory…
Threatening to shut down the military over Internet intermediary defamation immunity was not on my otherwise-expansive Presidential tweet bingo card. pic.twitter.com/eOLFPGSzug
— Jonathan Zittrain (@zittrain) December 2, 2020
BREAKING @JimInhofe says that Majority Leader @senatemajldr will bring the defense authorization bill to the floor "immediately" –which he says that he takes that to mean early next week h/t @elwasson
— Roxana Tiron (@rtiron) December 2, 2020
the president doesn’t remotely understand anything about section 230, he just likes to get mad about stuff and this is something somebody told him he should get mad about. “hey this is unfair to you” is the cheapest way to wind up the wind up toy that is donald j trump.
— Normie Transition Team (@CalmSporting) December 2, 2020
NEW: Lawmakers are moving ahead with a compromise NDAA despite Trump's threat to veto it without a repeal of Section 230.
“Republicans are sick of this shit,” one GOP lawmaker put it. w/@AndrewDesiderio and @marianne_levine https://t.co/zIcPnZfDWC
— Connor O'Brien (@connorobrienNH) December 2, 2020
Lemme get this straight: @realDonaldTrump wants to put the @GOP against annual raises for troops so he can make it easier for blue check Republicans to threaten to sue Twitter? And he wants [checks notes] Nancy Pelosi to honor this check his mouth is trying to cash? https://t.co/RbEY6KOHp6 pic.twitter.com/vkNgjLIKJA
— Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) December 2, 2020
The President's threat to veto an annual defense bill unless Congress removes legal protections for social media companies drew swift, sharp bipartisan pushback from lawmakers who charged Trump was using leverage over the troops to settle personal scores. https://t.co/8kHOO08HbZ
— CNN (@CNN) December 2, 2020
A Warren aide confirms that her provision to remove the names of Confederate generals from military bases over a three-year period has been included in the final NDAA.
— Connor O'Brien (@connorobrienNH) December 2, 2020
The final NDAA that Congress is pushing ahead with:
—includes a provision to remove Confederate base names (Trump threatened to veto if it's in)
—doesn't repeal Section 230 (Trump threatened to veto if it's not in)w/@AndrewDesiderio @marianne_levine https://t.co/zIcPnZfDWC
— Connor O'Brien (@connorobrienNH) December 2, 2020
dmsilev
And the cherry on top of the stupid sundae is that if Congress did repeal that section, Twitter’s response would be …to ban Trump, lest they get sued for all the shit he says.
dmsilev
Also, McConnell bringing the bill to a floor vote means that, despite everything he’s said, he recognizes that there’s zero chance of Trump being in the White House past January 20th.
Fair Economist
Trump has threatened to veto assorted essential budget measures over the year for assorted inappropriate trivialities like this. The threats have always been empty, and I expect this one is too.
Delk
The very beautiful Resolute desk.
Baud
I wish they’d stop quoting anonymous Brave Sir Republicans.
The vote on the NDAA won’t be anonymous at least.
The Moar You Know
Per Trump’s tweet: there is one other industry that has full liability shielding without which they could not function: the gun industry.
Spanky
@dmsilev: First override of a Trump veto? Eight Ball says “No way. Trump will back down”.
debbie
I’d like to see NDAA pass with a veto-proof majority. Now that would make for a lovely going-away gift.
Frankensteinbeck
Amazing. Trump picks on literally the only thing left in American politics that has bipartisan congressional support. The one thing that is still considered ‘must pass’.
I think it’s more like Trump yells “Why can’t I punish Twitter for being mean to me???” and somebody says “Section 230-” and that’s it, it’s in his head, Section 230 must go.
Rob
@Delk: Is that the tiny desk?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
IS the section 230 ranting still about “Diaper Don”? I managed to miss most of that
Mike in NC
@Delk: To be stolen and moved to Mar-A-Lago, like the artwork he pilfered from a few of our overseas embassies.
Just Chuck
I put the odds at 20% he actually does veto it. He’s made veto threats before, never followed up on them, and he’ll continue to be full of shit with regard to every last thing he ever says or tweets.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I feel like we should have come up with Diaper Don much earlier in his term.
Mike in NC
Trump will veto the big, beautiful NDAA because it includes a provision for renaming bases named for Confederate traitors he reveres.
Just Chuck
@Frankensteinbeck: That bipartisan support will come in handy since Mitch will need a lot of Dems to override that veto. Which means Dems will be able to extract more compromises.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Just Chuck: he can create some new squid cloud five minutes before signing it and his followers will never know he backed down, and will in fact think he totally owned the libs that day by insulting Rosie O’Donnell or something
dmsilev
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think it’s more about Twitter constantly slapping those “no, he’s lying about electoral fraud. Again.” labels on all his Tweets.
MattF
Sen. Inhofe, who is chairman of the relevant Senate committee, is not going along. Trump’s power is leaking away.
Brachiator
@Rob:
Tiny desk for tiny hands. Someone should give Orange Rage Infant Trump his baby rattle and a pacifier.
The Moar You Know
Sadly, I’d love to see Sec. 230 repealed, as it would be the end of Facebook, Twitter, and all other “social media”, which I think would be a godsend to our democracy.
But I’m such a petty shithead I don’t even want Trump to get that. I want there to be a literal “our final offer is: nothing” scenario as he is booted out of office.
He will not veto. What he’s really trying to blackmail out of everyone is legal immunity, and he’s not going to get it.
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
It would be the end of Balloon Juice.
The Moar You Know
@Baud: Yes it would. And as much as I truly love y’all, I’d be OK with that. Good of the many outweighs the good of the few.
And if we don’t get rid of Facebook, it will be the end of American democracy.
Kent
Georgia has a ton of military bases including Fort Benning (named after Confederate General Henry Lewis Benning) . And also a TON of military retirees.
Please, please veto this bill so we can see Loeffler and Perdue twisting in the wind, refusing to fund the military and raise military pay over Trump’s twitter temper tantrum.
scav
Oh, the funding opportunities that will open before him if still more of everyone is against him. Deep State Companies! Deep State Judiciary! Deep State Fox News! Deep State Republicans! It’s AAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL The Deep State. Send Money Now.
Kent
Nonsense, Balloon Juice would just have to move to a secret server in Ukraine!!!
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
I. Choose. BJ!
Rob
@Brachiator: And a red stapler too
Baud
@Kent:
Unhackable!
Martin
So, if Trump shuts down the military, that would seem to interfere with the marshal law, have the military oversee a new election fever dream on the right.
I mean, these folks don’t exactly excel at planning, but this is literally holding two thoughts in your head and ensuring they don’t contradict each other, and they don’t seem capable of even doing that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Marshal?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Jared’s rank as military commander.
laura
Diaper Don so mad! Grrrr!
Just Chuck
@Martin:Oh they’ll just want him to take the money from somewhere else. Preferably from the $500 trillion going to ACORN’s Abortion Megaplexes. Hell the POTUS has already treated the military budget as a piggybank for other things, like the border wall, so they assume it works the other way too.
Kent
That would be law under which ‘The Medium is the Message?”
Probably apropos for Trump!
dmsilev
@Martin: No, the answer there is simple. Get the troops to overthrow the republic and then don’t pay them. Historically, that’s a sure-fire winner with no possibility of going wrong.
SW
God I hope he vetos the defense bill.
Omnes Omnibus
@dmsilev: But they are doing it in the wrong order. Refusing to pay them then demanding that they overthrown the government doesn’t strike me as a good plan.
Calouste
@dmsilev: Twitter would definitely get sued by people they ban for saying the exact same thing as the shitgibbon says, and doesn’t get banned for. Someone created an account that did nothing but retweet the shitgibbon, and that got banned within a few days.
Frank Wilhoit
@The Moar You Know: The problem is not the storyteller(s). The problem is the audience.
scav
@Omnes Omnibus: And?
What in the course of the last few years would bring you to expect the functional order?
Tom Levenson
@Omnes Omnibus: Tucker!
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, usually I spot the autocorrects. Whoopsie. I wonder in what manner I originally misspelled that one.
Benw
Trump’s such a coward that 1. he’s threatening to defund the military because he think’s Twitter (his best friend) is mean to him, and 2. he’s going to wimp out anyway and sign the bill.
Brave, brave Sir Trump.
Omnes Omnibus
@scav: A fair point.
Martin
@dmsilev: Yeah, that’s what I assume. The military will of course back Trump, and do it for free, because freedom. Nevermind the underlying assertion that black people voting is a form of fraud, and the military is heavily POC.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tom Levenson: Why bring Carlson into it?
Amir Khalid
@scav:
I agree. Trying to figure out Trump’s cray-cray is a fool’s errand.
Frankensteinbeck
@Martin:
Always worth a reminder that Esper got fired for relaying the message from the generals that no, they ain’t touching the election and Trump can stick his coup in his pie hole.
The Moar You Know
@Frank Wilhoit: I disagree profoundly. As does history. The Third Reich without the storytellers is just a very dysfunctional Weimar Republic. No Third Reich, no Hitler, no Holocaust.
But I expect America to bitterly cling to guns, religion, Twitter, Facebook, Parler and the rest, all the way down the slide to the bottom.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
@Omnes Omnibus:
@dmsilev:
What I don’t get is why isn’t the military considered apart of the “deep state”, anyway, to these loons? The military-industrial complex is a thing that exists
The Moar You Know
@Martin: Dude, it’s “Marshall Law”, as in the guitar amp.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@The Moar You Know:
Marshall Law should totally be the title of a courtroom drama
Wag
@Rob: No, that was the Reso-lite Desk
dm
@Baud:
You could repeal Section 230 for any business with more than $X million in revenues or more than Y million participants, leaving it in place for smaller businesses, preserving Section 230’s encouragement-of-communication-innovation by small businesses while causing the Twitters and the Facebooks to spend some of their billions exerting some editorial control.
The Moar You Know
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Sure. It’s already the name of over a hundred shitty metal bands.
opiejeanne
@Rob: Per Wikipedia:
The Resolute desk is a nineteenth-century partners’ desk used by several presidents of the United States in the White House Oval Office as the Oval Office desk. It was a gift from Queen Victoria to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 and was built from the English oak timbers of the British Arctic exploration ship HMS Resolute.
Steve in the ATL
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
“Beats up widows and orphans in court during the day, and blasts Nugent covers on his Les Paul copy and Marshall stack when the sun goes down! Fridays at 8 pm on The CW.”
Martin
@The Moar You Know: I’d be down with that. The reeducation music has never sounded better.
chopper
i love that this motherfucker thinks he’s got that kind of leverage that you’d need to extort everyone over this sort of issue.
Martin
@dm: Just do it for for-profits.
cain
It won’t be Marshall law, it’ll end up with this clown show Barney Fife Law
waratah
@Baud: They are all cowards. They could not stand by the election workers in Georgia who are being threatened. They try to bypass the threats which are real. We have all seen what has happened before when Trump encouraged things like this.
I am praying that violence does not break out in Georgia.
Amir Khalid
@Steve in the ATL:
Isn’t The Nooge a Gretsch player?
Tom Levenson
@Omnes Omnibus: Can’t You See…I’d never do such a dastardly thing.
matt the semi-reasonable
I mean, yeah, let the president get out his veto pen to defund the troops. let his Republican Party protectors suck on that.
HumboldtBlue
What utter bullshit. They’ve enabled this entire monstrosity of an administration and gladly sat aside while Trump became the most unbearable and disgusting person to ever hold the office.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@The Moar You Know:
Is there so many of them because of that pun?
@Steve in the ATL:
Could you explain the joke, I don’t get it
Delk
@Amir Khalid: Gibson Byrdland
Roger Moore
@Martin:
Republicans are double plus good at doublethink.
Frankensteinbeck
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Because it kills brown people, and they imagine the military as their surrogate brutally putting inferior brown people in their place all over the world. Similar to their support for the police. Republicanism really is all about the right of white men to hurt everyone else.
The Moar You Know
@Amir Khalid: not that classy. I know for a long time he was playing those REALLY large hollowbody Gibsons, like the ES-175. Which is not exactly the guitar you want to be using at those volume levels, but he did make it work. Probably the only nice thing I can say about him.
I think he plays anything that gets thrown at him these days. He doesn’t really have a career left save as “right-wing grifter”.
Delk nailed it, yeah, Byrdland.
Omnes Omnibus
@Delk: Why do you know that? ::side-eye::
Omnes Omnibus
@Frankensteinbeck: To be fair, it has also put in time killing fascists.
Frank Wilhoit
@The Moar You Know: Your 2d graf contradicts your first.
Here is how you totalitarianism.
First, you decide to kill somebody.
Second, you decide who to kill. (This tends to be a grab bag of potential victims, each of whom is as good as the next; if obstacles arise to pursuing one victim, you can immediately pivot to another.)
Third, you invent a reason to kill them.
Fourth, you build a propaganda around the reasons. This, and this only, is the “storyteller”.
Fifth, you build a social/political movement to act out the propaganda.
Sixth, you pick a leader. The leader is always a pure figurehead, who originates nothing and can be replaced in a split second if need be.
The propaganda that was eventually adopted by the Nazis was fully formed by the mid-19th century, before Hitler was born. Sources: Peter G. J. Pulzer, The Rise of Political Anti-Semitism in Germany and Austria [New York: Wiley, 1964]; Peter Viereck, Meta-Politics: The Roots of the Nazi Mind [New York: Capricorn, 1965].
Roger Moore
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The Deep State are the people within the government who oppose them. They believe the military is on their side. Therefore the military is not part of the Deep State.
Steve in the ATL
@Amir Khalid: you think screenwriters at the CW focus on details like that? That’s why you never made it in LA!
True story: college friend dreamed of being a jingle writer. Double majored in Music and Philosophy. Graduated and moved to Hollywood to pursue his dream. Was possible the greatest failure in history of Hollywood failures. Defeated and broken, he returned to Atlanta and became a cardiologist.
NotMax
5049 shades of bray – and counting.opiejeanne
@Rob: The Resolute desk was a gift from Queen Victoria to the White House during the Presidency of Rutherford B. Hayes. It was made from the recovered timbers of a British arctic exploratory ship, HMS Resolute.
Steve in the ATL
@Tom Levenson: I’ve heard that you can, and I heard it in a love song so it can’t be wrong
Amir Khalid
@Delk:
Thank you. I lounge in bed corrected.
Frank Wilhoit
@opiejeanne: I like desks that weren’t shipwrecked.
geg6
@Frankensteinbeck:
Yup.
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: I am so glad I didn’t go to college in the south.
Uncle Cosmo
@Brachiator: Diaper Donnie at the Dissolute Desk.
Roger Moore
@HumboldtBlue:
Republicans became sick of Trump’s shit the moment he failed to steal the election. Now that he can’t do anything more useful for them, they’ll be all too happy to see him go.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: well, there weren’t any colleges named after Robert E. Lee in the north, so what choice did I have?
@Amir Khalid: you should change your nym to “Hugh Hefner”
schrodingers_cat
I just want the tiresome Orange Clown to disappear. Buy a clue Orange man we are not that into you.
Calouste
@Omnes Omnibus: My first thought here was that I was surprised that the Nuge played the same acoustic guitar as Woody Guthrie. Woody had “This machine kills fascists” on his guitar.
Baud
@Steve in the ATL:
He wants to remain anonymous.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Frankensteinbeck:
Ah, delusional racism, how silly of me to forget. Not to praise the military too heavily, but diversity is one of it’s assets. I imagine that will help in the future
NotMax
@Steve in the ATL
Speaking of schools: Data: The Schools Named After Confederate Figures.
;)
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Roger Moore:
Simple enough
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: I do see your point, I guess. And, of course, mine was founded as a coed institution and that just wouldn’t do.
Roger Moore
@opiejeanne:
Honestly, I would love for Biden to warehouse the Resolute Desk and get a contemporary American craftsman to build him a stylish new desk that’s designed from the ground up for a modern working style. It would be a great symbol that he isn’t tying himself to an obsolete, backward-looking approach to government.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus:
So it’s Antifa? No wonder Trump wants to defund them.
patrick II
@Omnes Omnibus:
Neither order sounds like a good idea. Would you want troops mad at you before or after you asked them to seize power?
schrodingers_cat
@Roger Moore: Didn’t he actually lose the military vote this time around. I remember reading that somewhere.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Calouste:
Woody Guthrie’s later life is super sad. He suffered from Huntington’s disease. His wife eventually divorced him
Steve in the ATL
@NotMax: my school was (1) a university, (2) private, and (3) named after Lee only after he served as university president.
Also, the school appointed a blue ribbon commission to study the issue. A number of buildings have been renamed already, but changing the name of the school is a bit of a sticky wicket. And since he’s buried in campus, would he haunt the place in response?
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
You are making the mistake of allowing facts to interfere with a good story. Republicans would never let that happen.
Craig
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s the title of a comic series from the 80s.
Steve in the ATL
@Roger Moore: he can get one at the IKEA in Woodbridge!
schrodingers_cat
@Steve in the ATL: According to my Norwegian friend IKEA is the Swedish Walmart. She is not a fan.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Certainly no impediment to a different desk. The Resolute desk sat in several locations other than the president’s main office room over the years.
raven
@Steve in the ATL: My bother repped this dude against Zep. They settled.
Dan B
@Omnes Omnibus: Oberlin?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@schrodingers_cat:
Couldn’t find actual votes, but even with the probably inaccurate exit polling this time around, Trump lost 20 points with active military and veterans nationally
Trump’s election fraud allegations suggest military voters uniformly supported him. It’s not so
NotMax
@Steve in the ATL
Just tweak the history to it being named after Bruce Lee.
:)
Omnes Omnibus
@Dan B: No, Lawrence. Oberlin was first, but we were second.
Bill Arnold
@dm:
All this could and would be gamed, and a cottage industry of destroying communications platforms for a fee would emerge.
It’s interesting. Facebook is quite shameless about its nature, a computational propaganda (which includes marketing) platform. Twitter has been changing[1], enough to cause a nutter exodus to nutland outlets like Parler. They are also open, and there is substantial academic interest (sociology etc) in analysis of twitter, which is basically a publicly accessible graph with time labels. And there are active projects attempting to find (and often succeeding) twitter-based influence operations (bots etc) in real time, and sometimes to disrupt them.
[1] Is Twitter Going Full Resistance? Here’s the Woman Driving the Change. – Vijaya Gadde flies under the radar in a world that worships tech CEOs. But she’s quickly moving Twitter toward a tougher line on speech—and infuriating conservatives along the way. (NANCY SCOLA, 10/28/2020)
Omnes Omnibus
@schrodingers_cat: That’s because it is Swedish.
Steve in the ATL
@NotMax: I like it—there was even a Chinese restaurant one county over!
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@Wag: Is that anything like Hippolyte fudge?
zhena gogolia
@Dan B:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Haha, perish the thought!
Omnes Omnibus
@Steve in the ATL: For the GOP at your school, there is always Lee Harvey Oswald.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Per Wikipedia, seventh.
;)
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: Did you see that Prof LaRoque died?
Dan B
@Omnes Omnibus: I wondered since my mother, two of my father’s sisters and a couple cousins graduated from Oberlin. And they were / are strong women
Lawrence is good as well. Oberlin has gone full PC event horizon last I heard.
Steve in the ATL
@schrodingers_cat: does the ownership of ikea fund right wing politics and move fine art to rural Arkansas? Could duck duck go it, I suppose.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah I know. But their labor practices are not great compared to other Scandinavian companies. They rely on economies of scale and scope just like Walmart does and kill local competition etc. etc.
Steve in the ATL
@Omnes Omnibus: Washington and Lee Harvey Oswald University—catchy!
schrodingers_cat
@Steve in the ATL: IKEA’s founder was a part of the Swedish fascist movement and had Nazi connections.
Benw
@raven: I’m tickled to learn that the same person who wrote Dazed and Confused wrote the Army jingle!
Martin
@NotMax: Zebulon is a hell of a first name, though.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
They pay me nothing for putting together their furniture.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: It is a pain in the neck to put together too.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
The pictorial instructions are like hieroglyphics!
Craig
@Steve in the ATL: W&L? I had some good times there when I was at Va Tech.
NotMax
@Martin
Had it not already been taken DuPont might well have used it as a fabric name.
;)
Dan B
@Steve in the ATL: My Oberlin graduate mother came from Walton land. The college her aunts taught at, College of the Ozarks, was turned into a university by Helen Walton.
My mother lived a life of contrasts. Put her younger brothers through MIT and Harvard on a music teacher’s salary. They avoided tickets driving from Arkansas to Cambridge by claiming to be yokels. Went on to careers at high levels of the space program at Goodrich and JPL.
Patricia Kayden
@laura: Diaper Don is always mad. I’m looking forward to seeing him have a meltdown when NY AG Leticia James goes after him and his juvenile delinquent spawn.
Patricia Kayden
@schrodingers_cat: O-o. Didn’t know that. Disappointing.
laura
@schrodingers_cat: If I recall correctly, IKEA is incorporated in the Netherlands as a non-profit.
Rob
@Wag: Indeed.
Rob
@opiejeanne: I didn’t know that. I hope it resolves to stay in the White House.
Doc Sardonic
@Amir Khalid: Nugent’s main axe is the Gibson Byrdland..Looks a lot like a Gretsch. The only time I am aware he strayed from that was his fling with PRS during the Damn Yankees days.
NotMax
@NotMax
“The soldiers became even more popular among the civilians by handing out candy bars and zebulons.”
:)
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
I didn’t remember him.
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m late to the show, but this has me ROFL.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steve in the ATL: But what will you do with Bobby’s body, maybe Subaru Diane can help with that.
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
To me, though, it’s not just about a different desk; it’s about having a new one. I’m tired of having our government so wrapped up in hoary old traditions that we can’t get anything done. Replacing a century-old desk with a modern one that represents the best of what America can do today would be a fitting symbol of an administration that isn’t going to let old ways of thinking smother progress.
moops
“Republicans are sick of this shit”
No they aren’t.
Baud
@Roger Moore:
Two words: Open workspace.
opiejeanne
@Rob: IIRC, it’s featured in “National Treasure” which is a silly fun little romp through “history”.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: I believe that the kicker is “founded as coed.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: Short dude, taught econ.
@O. Felix Culpa: I was bringing to bear my experience as a soldier.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m surprised Herr Barr hasn’t tried to short circuit that
scav
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ahhhhhhh, can it possibly be a Merry Christmas in the offing?
Wyatt Salamanca
“Republicans are sick of this shit”
Maybe they are in some alternate universe. In the reality that I inhabit, they’re a bunch of nail biting, bed wetting cowards who are afraid of their own shadows.
zhena gogolia
@Omnes Omnibus:
I never went near Econ. I really have no recollection of him.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: The Resolute Cubicle.
Lyrebird
@The Moar You Know:
Popehat on twitter retweeted this thread
..from a another lawyer (Turkewitz) about why keeping 230 is a good idea.
I am sooooooo not a lawyer, so I dunno, but I respect much of what Popehat (Ken White) has to say.
Wyatt Salamanca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I look forward to seeing Ivanka in a designer prison jump suit.
Siri has way more class and personality than this pathetic doofus.
RSA
@opiejeanne: Cool. Thanks. I did not know that.
Funny note: I checked Wikipedia and found that the first photo on the page is of the President at the Resolute Desk… President Obama. That may rankle with some. Good.
O. Felix Culpa
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m sure you were. The dryness of your observation is hilarious and spot-on.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
You were an officer, right? Out of curiosity, what branch did you serve in?
NotMax
@Roger Moore
Heck, I’ve been pushing the concept of incorporating modern furniture in the mix since Ike. If oil lamps and candlestick phones can be updated so can other accoutrements.
;)
Yarrow
@Wyatt Salamanca: No designer prison jumpsuit. A regular, standard issue one will do just fine. I’m interested to see what color her hair is once she’s behind bars for awhile.
schrodingers_cat
@Yarrow: Brown
NotMax
@moops
They have but to wait five minutes and there will be fresh, heaping servings of sh*t for them to slavishly swallow.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): Field Artillery.
mrmoshpotato
What kind of freak* talks like this?
No offense to actual freaks.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh, cool. So you worked with artillery, then? I think you mentioned once that you served in the late 80s. Were you involved in the Gulf War at all?
Steve in the ATL
@Craig: yup. I had a couple of good nights in Blacksburg too!
Yarrow
@schrodingers_cat: Or gray.
raven
@Craig: Go Hokies!
Omnes Omnibus
Um, yeah….
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: Hahahaha, get em Red Leg. . .
Uncle Cosmo
@Omnes Omnibus: I presume your specialty was (allegedly) “adding dignity to what would otherwise be an ugly brawl.”
raven
@Uncle Cosmo: The King of Battle
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
7 weeks from today, we will be liberated
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
This baffles me. Trump has done it so many times, he should know how it goes: first you make them do the work, then you stiff them on payment.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
I was prompting you to talk about the artillery you worked with
Wyatt Salamanca
@mrmoshpotato:
No rational human being has ever spoken like Trump. With each passing day, he’s setting new records for batshit crazy. He belongs in a straitjacket in the lockdown unit of a mental hospital. The notion of this raving lunatic inhabiting the White House for 50 plus more days is truly horrific.
Omnes Omnibus
@Uncle Cosmo: One owns a print.
CarolPW
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): So you have stalked Omnes all these months in your posts to him and his responses to you without having tracked that he is artillery? Fucking son of a bitch. Will wonders never cease. Satby is right.
Steve in the ATL
@Dan B: there’s hope for rural folks after all! I’ve known some really smart people from the middle of nowhere, including my mother, though most of them have moved to more urban areas.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): You weren’t doing it well.
Spanky
@Omnes Omnibus: Something I’ve always wondered: Where else do you put artillery than in the field? Is there office artillery? Stream artillery? What other flavor do you guys have?
Omnes Omnibus
@Spanky: There is Air Defense Artillery, and there used to be Coast Artillery.
schrodingers_cat
@Spanky: naval artillery?
jeffreyw
@raven: I still can’t ask anyone to “repeat that”. I default to “say again”. I have managed to drop the over in the last 50 years.
Amir Khalid
@Spanky:
Who is this Artie Leary guy that you all are talking about?
raven
@Spanky: Air defense artillery. When I was in during the 60’s they actually made the ADA insignia and the FA insignia the same. They changed it back so that FA is now just two crossed cannons.
Uncle Cosmo
@Omnes Omnibus: As soon as you mentioned it I knew exactly what print it was – a copy hung behind the desk of one of my very favorite grouchy gravel-voiced retired-bird-colonel coworkers when I was an ILS geek at Westinghouse Defense in the 80s.
FTR the song lyrics are courtesy of one Seamus Kennedy, who made a living for many years in the DC area as a solo act. The other services fared about as poorly, e.g.:
and
Just FTR you should check out his rant re chihuahuas. “It’s not a dog, it’s a rat with a thyroid condition.” Und so weiter…
raven
@jeffreyw: 5×5 dawg. Over is the one that drives me nuts in movies. Over and out indeed.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@CarolPW:
What are you talking about? I’ve been a “regular” here for the last 3 years. I was trying to make conversation. And guess what, I happened to remember him mentioning at various times he was military. I was curious and decided to ask
And Satby isn’t right
Omnes Omnibus
@jeffreyw: I can’t do that either. I have removed “check or hold?” from my vocab unless I am with other gunner types.
Spanky
@Omnes Omnibus: @raven:
Ah. Thanks. I hadn’t considered AAA to be artillery in spite of that 3rd A. My bad.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Ok. What specific artillary did you work with?
raven
@Spanky: I was in the 1/79th Arty in Korea. Battery F /79th Arty in Vietnam was an Aerial Rocket Artillery unit.
Timill
@Spanky: Fixed artillery – in fortifications &c., or hanging out on the Siegfried line…
CaseyL
I don’t know how closely y’all are following the legal antics of Dolt45’s “Strike Force,” but – talk about event horizons – they’ve gone Full Metal Wacko.
Lin Wood and Sidney Powell just presided over a rally (broadcast by OANN, and a snippet was posted on YouTube) where Wood worked the crowd up into a frenzy against Georgie Gov. Kemp and Sens. Loeffler and Perdue. He’s telling the crowd to boycott the Jan. 5 runoffs unless Kemp, Loeffler, and Perdue reverse certification, “bring in the Legislature!,” and then “Resign, Kemp!”
I’m not sure how many potential Georgia GOP voters are paying attention. I hope many, many are.
raven
@CaseyL: He also said he was willing to die in the effort.
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): M110A2
Jeffro
I LOL’d at three different things in just this one sentence! =)
NotMax
@raven
There’s at least one military movie (with Walter Pidgeon, IIRC) where the chatter of an air unit uses “don’t answer” as a verbal cue the radio transmission is now finished.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@CarolPW:
I think you might’ve been joking
zhena gogolia
@NotMax:
Not Command Decision?
raven
@NotMax: Proly Command Decision
Gin & Tonic
@raven: Most people who very publicly say they are willing to die turn out not to be so willing when the rubber meets the road.
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: Yup.
Repost, ICYMI…
Notice the time delta on the two images…
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Dan B
@Steve in the ATL: Yes there is hope for rural folks… but my uncle retired to the ranch in Arkansas near the OK border – 600 acres – and hated Clinton. My grandfather owned a coal mine and a large wholesale produce business. They were anything but yokels. My grandfather studied the classics in Greek, no silly translations.
So there is always hope. Sigh.
NotMax
@raven
Before the eyes focused properly I momentarily read that as Animal rocket artillery.
Which conjures up an entirely different and novel panorama.
:)
Peale
@Spanky: on boats. I’m pretty sure the big guns on boats aren’t field artillery.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
A howitzer? Those things are awesome!
Jeffro
Good point.
Think he’ll slip and say it publicly sometime in the next 47 days? I do.
CarolPW
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): Have you not read any comments unless they were in response to you? Are the only comments you read those that have your name in them?
ETA: not joking.
trollhattan
File under W for “What the actual fuck?”
Am getting emails from Quest Diagnostics advertising 15% discounts on lab tests all week.
Bless their hearts.
trollhattan
@Peale:
If the decks are planted with lawns?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Another Scott: She couldn’t think through in advance the fact that if she gets Covid her husband is exposed. Doesn’t occur to her until after she gets it. These people are pathologically short-sighted.
Jeffro
@mrmoshpotato: the same kind of freak that humps American flags on stage, methinks
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@CaseyL:
Holy shit, that’s insane. Can you imagine what must be going through the minds of Kemp, Perdue, and Loeffler, right now?
NotMax
@raven – @zhena gogolia
Just looked it up – Flight Command.
Triva: Find it giggly (in a juvenile fashion) that Pidgeon’s first marriage was to a lady named Pickles. If only they’d agreed to hyphenate the joint surname to Pidgeon-Pickles.
Second wife’s maiden name was Walker, which would’ve been cute but Pidgeon-Walker is nowhere near as amusing. :)
Jeffro
@Another Scott: Wow. Karma is a beast.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@CarolPW:
I don’t read every single comment, no. I also don’t remember every single thing I read in detail either.
I don’t know what your point is. I wasn’t “stalking” anyone
Spanky
@Peale: I’m pretty sure they’re not Army, either, and aren’t called artillery..
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): Ronna McDaniel (RNC chair) was trying to plead with the leopards a couple of days ago not to eat the faces of their GA Senate candidates. It didn’t have much effect.
I don’t know if this craziness is enough to significantly depress the Republican GA vote, but it sure couldn’t hurt.
BruceFromOhio
@CaseyL: Either someone has been up late playing long games of 12-dimensional chess, or it’s a random collision of stupid particles causing a US Senate controlled by a Democratic majority to come into existence.
Gonna go see how the popcorn supplies are holding up.
BruceFromOhio
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That this accurately describes current events is very disturbing.
Dan B
@Another Scott: This “I’m not going to be kept from my religion by you socialist dictators.” Followed by “Pray for me and my immune compromised husband.” Is like “Forgive me because I’ve sinned.” And turning around and condemning people who are not as holy and pure in your beliefs. Logic is not to be found in claims of superiority like this.
And thus you see the appeal of conservative religion. Failing at logic and humility repeatedly is not disqualifying. There are so many people who struggle with these. Religious dogma is their refuge but not really their salvation.
Farce or tragedy?
satby
@CarolPW: Gracias! I just notice things.
Redshift
@The Moar You Know: Another thing in sure he wouldn’t like in the Defense bill is Mark Warner’s provisions to crack down on money laundering and shell companies, if anyone has told him about it. But I don’t think anyone has told him, because he’s not restrained enough to keep from blabbing about it.
trollhattan
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
Perdue and Loeffler will wave it off as some deep state shenanigans because that’s how they roll. Kemp will hopefully ponder the prior sins that led him to this underbusing, although I have my doubts.
Why does Loeffler even bother? She has a billion bucks or so to figure out how to spend before she croaks.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@satby:
What do you think you “noticed”? By the way, I never “bragged” about getting “100” N95 masks back in March or whenever the hell it was. It was only ever 10. And guess what, I tried to donate them, but because they’re industrial, the hospital doc I talked to said they couldn’t accept them
I know I haven’t always acted my best around these parts. But I’m trying to move past it. Please, let’s just start over
Dan B
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): I don’t believe that these Georgia GOP’s are realizing that the Leopards are eating their faces. They are too far into the bubble.
Downpuppy
@Omnes Omnibus: Crew of 12, 200lb projectile, 18 mile range, looks like a tank but isn’t really armored
That’s some weird shit, man
Yutsano
Jeebus. It’s like Loeffler just wants to lose this race. Hooking up with crazy Qanon lady? Yeah that’s how you win over moderates!
BruceFromOhio
@Dan B:
Tragic farce – characters too stupid to know that jumping off high places causes injuries to everyone.
NotMax
@Ceci n est pas mon nym
Turnout is usually much lighter in special elections, so gonna lowball a guy-can-dream-can’t-he result.
Warnock – 171, 833
Loeffler – 26
.
BTW, from a longtime columnist and editor at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, just yesterday:
Omnes Omnibus
@Downpuppy: Most accurate gun the US ever had.
Viva BrisVegas
You know of a hobby that is more fun than kicking the weaker?
This is how people like Loeffler affirm their self worth, by punishing their inferiors.
Dan B
@CaseyL: Thanks for posting this. I saw a post that Lin Wood was being called barshit crazy and didn’t feel like anymore batshit winger news but my mistake. If the headline had read “Right-wing eating its own” I would have been getting out the popcorn
I hope this civil war stays confined to the GOP.
SFAW
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
I’m a-guessing that Carol’s point is that Omnes has mentioned numerous times over the years that he was in Artillery. Even I know that, and I’m not
stalking himresponding to his every comment the way you have/do/are. [Not that you’re as bad as Little Boots (I think) was.]Unless he trash-talks the Jets, of course
ETA: NB that I was not being literal when I used “every.”
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
We can only hope! Winning control of the Senate will be a big help for sure
@trollhattan:
Well, being a Senator is a prestigious job. It comes with a lot of power. And they say that Senate is like a country club too
@Dan B:
That one guy in the SOS office seemed to at least. He sounded pissed from the clips I’ve seen
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Isn’t any talk about the Jets trash talk? And Little Boots lived in Madison too. I may actually see him on the streets when I am out. Scary thought, huh?
Dan B
@BruceFromOhio: But, but, but, optimists jump off high places because they BELIEVE! Pessimists never accomplish anything great.*
*Just FYI I don’t consider ‘splat’ to be great.
randy khan
@dm:
So I work in this area. (I actually was involved in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and specifically worked on the Communications Decency Act portion of it, which included Section 230.)
It’s important to keep in mind that Section 230 works quite well on the whole, for the vast majority of Internet platforms. The exceptions are significant, but they’re still exceptions. Heck, the problems don’t even affect all social media (you don’t hear Section 230-related complaints about Pinterest, SnapChat, Instagram, or TikTok, after all).
So a fix needs to be nuanced. Something like the size of the company probably isn’t going to work. Among other things, what do you do about companies that aren’t public, where valuations are, let’s say, squishy? (That’s Facebook until 2012.) And Twitter is about half the size of Snap in market capitalization, and SnapChat isn’t part of the problem.
NotMax
@SFAW
Commenter caligula was creepy and crude, two conditions unassignable by any measure to Goku.
;)
debbie
Am I the only one wondering why Trump hasn’t been photographed in the Oval Office recently? I’m thinking he might have trashed it or done some sort of damage in a fit of loser fury.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Perhaps. How would you categorize “I hope Steve Cohen has enough money left to buy the Jets”? [Apologies if that ref is (literally) too inside-baseball-y.]
ETA: I take it from your response that I was correct in which former commenter it was? Or am I inferring something not there?
CaseyL
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): Voters are peons to Loeffler and Perdue. I’m sure they pay no attention at all.
@Dan B: We have our own crazies. (And every time someone says Democrats should at least listen to them, I seethe, for that very reason.) But our crazies get into Twitter wars, not real ones.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@SFAW:
I don’t “respond to his every comment”. All I remembered was him mentioning he was former military. I don’t read or remember every single comment. And don’t compare me to that freak little boots
SFAW
@Dan B:
Depends on who’s doing the splatting, don’t it?
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Too insiderish for me.
Yeah, you were right. He was always a bit nuts but he went way off that the rails when I told him I would never speak to him again after he went on a misogynistic rant at a longtime and very decent female commenter and refused to apologize. I think it was his continuing abuse aimed at that commenter that got him banned.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m sure I’ve mentioned that my gramps the (Lt) Colonel worked on the improvements to the 4.2 mortar for WWII. But that’s a whole different class of artillery, no?
Also, in case you’re interested, in a recent Season 2 episode of my buddy’s concert streams, he played a mix where he’d asked Adrian to play “kind of a Fripp-like solo” and Adrian said “Crimson’s in town next week, why don’t you just have him do it?” I remember the story from when he first made it. In the show he just notes he doesn’t play the guitar solo.
SFAW
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
Chill the fuck out.
Redshift
@debbie: I was assuming it had something to do with the Christmas decorating, but I don’t know.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
Thanks, man. I appreciate that
L85NJGT
Railway artillery, mountain artillery, mortars.
Dan B
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): The Georgia SOS was pissed but seemed like these people are an aberration in the GOP that can be dealt with by strongly worded requests. It seems to me that the crazies are getting crazier and attracting recruits.
We’ll see but my money is on the Malignant Narcissist in Chief continuing to rip the GOP to shreds. He has no control, only unbridled fear and hatred.
Flynn’s call for Martial Law is one more indication. The GOP brass seems to be impotent and unresponsive. They think they bought Trump but the Trumpists owned them instead.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@SFAW:
Sorry. It’s just that Carol comment really pissed me off
NotMax
@Goku (Amerikan Baka)
FWIW, details other than having been in service of anyone here who has brought them up them wash over me without adhering at all.
Spotty memory storage is a perquisite to which you can look forward sometime in the 2060s.
;)
Barbara
@CaseyL: I read an account of the voting machine allegations they made in a complaint they filed in federal court in Georgia and I can’t figure out what the judge is thinking. Who do they represent? How do they have standing? They want to bring in three teams of “experts” to basically figure out how the machines are programmed. I cannot wrap my brain around a judge just letting people run into a federal court and walk all over the voting process without producing any actual evidence. He didn’t give them exactly what they wanted but he ordered the state to impound at least three machines. It’s all now apparently on appeal as the judge acknowledged the case was “novel.” That’s being very charitable.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Steve Cohen just bought the Mets from the execrable Wilpons. Which, except for Cohen being (apparently) kind of a shit — or maybe a criminal? I can never remember* — is (potentially/probably) great news for Mets fans. Of which I am one, as you doubtless remember (and doubtless don’t care).
Were he to buy the Jets, I think it would also be A GOOD THING.
*PS to NotMax: The other problem with Cohen is that he went to GNN.
Omnes Omnibus
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: Yeah, mortars are little artillery pieces that travel with the infantry.
Love that story.
mrmoshpotato
They all suck Kremlin asshole now! SAD!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@SFAW: Little Boots had some good tunes.
SFAW
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
So did Snooky Lanson.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato: Your comment reminded me of this:
(234) A Quick Poke at Uranus – YouTube
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Jesus, he played about 5 songs, the Numa Numa thing, two different versions of The Weight, and then some ’70s pap.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Omnes Omnibus: You forgot the Monkees!
Dan B
@randy khan: Do you think some updated version of the Fairness Doctrine would provide a solution? I can think of multiple ways – thousands of platforms and blogs, getting the courts to separate the blend of media and platform so there could be clear rules, etc. But it seems we’re heading for crises in governance at a rapid rate. When one looks at the Rohingya and other persecuted groups Facebook seems like we are allowing a platform that facilitates toxic murderous propaganda. It’s like giving plastic explosive and matches to unaccompanied children – violence is only a matter of time.
oclib
@SFAW:
iirc, trump was turned down by the NFL on buying a team. If Cohen were to buy the Jets (are they really an NFL caliber team?)…..I’ll let one use their imagination on how that would play with trump…. :))))
NotMax
@SFAW
Took me several minutes to get you were referring to North high school. Staid and impressive – on the outside.
:)
Have a step-relation who still holds on to a few pieces of New York Titans memorabilia.
Omnes Omnibus
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Okay, six songs.
Dan B
@CaseyL: Who are these left wing crazies of whom you speak?
/s
CarolPW
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): You might try to say “Carol’s” to seem less sexist.
Dan B
@SFAW: Good point.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@NotMax:
Hah, something to look forward to
; )
@Dan B:
It’s tempting to want the GOP to rip itself to shreds, but it won’t be a good thing if an entire political party institutionally collapses. Those crazies will still be around. The last time that happened in American history was the Whigs
Omnes Omnibus
@CarolPW: Come on. At least he didn’t call you Karen.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
I can see why it scarred you. [Figuratively speaking, of course.] It probably would do that to me as well.
Re: ” ’70s pap”: When I was in college, the nearest watering hole ALWAYS seemed to have “How Long Has This Been Going On?” [by Ace, not Gershwin] playing on the juke when I was there. It was enough to drive me to drink.
debbie
@Redshift:
He would be back in there by now if it was about decorations. He’s all about demonstrating his power, and the Oval Office certainly conveys power. Especially since his time there is coming to an end, you would think he would be camping out there.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
I missed all that, and thus assumed it was because he seemed to be stalking you. [“I miss Omnes” “Where’s Omnes?” and so forth]
NotMax
@SFAW
Shrimp Boats!
How do you feel about Jessica Dragonette?
;)
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@CarolPW:
I’m sorry for that. Sincerely. It was insensitive.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: No, there was real ugliness.
CarolPW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Since nobody knows what my middle name is, “Karen’s” might have been OK but needs the possessive.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Omnes Omnibus: But, but, I thought the 4.2 was kind of an important little piece of artillery for the infantry in that war… Not nearly as impressive looking as what you had when you weren’t on leave skiing though.
The song’s very sad (“Dave”) but the guy it was written for was a huge Robert Fripp fan, and that makes the story better for me.
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Haha, ok. Just to clarify, I meant the GOP are now all traitorous Soviet shitpiles now. SAD!
ETA – intro music makes me want to shake my bones.
L85NJGT
@debbie:
I’m surprised he didn’t have a Space Force uniform made up for himself. Maybe that was a second term project.
Dan B
@mrmoshpotato: A hypothesis that will be clarified in time.
Another hypothesis: The rupture in the GOP is between the GRU influenced and the Chinese influenced. Or it could be factions in the Kremlin.
Fun time waster in the time of social
isolationdistancing.Omnes Omnibus
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: No, I wasn’t dismissing the 4.2. It was very important for the grunts. It kept them alive until they could call for real help.
CaseyL
@Dan B: They come in many flavors and aren’t well organized.
The Young Turks.
The hardcore BernieBros, currently dragging Biden for his “corporatist neoliberal” Cabinet picks. These were also the “Kamala is a COP!” cadre.
The left-wing anti-vaxxers pushing “natural immunity” (i.e. deliberately catch whooping cough, measles, mumps, and chicken pox) or inventing conspiracies between Big Pharma and doctors.
…that lot.
SFAW
@oclib:
I think you’re right re: You-Know-Who getting turned down.
As far as the Jets: they’re pretty effing bad this year, but I’m assuming Cohen would get rid of Gase and Douglas and their OC before the ink was dry. Get a QB coach who knows what he’s doing, maybe save Darnold from the scrap heap. But, of course, Cohen is a Mets guy, it’s too much to hope that he also buys out Woody Johnson.
What I’m REALLY hoping Cohen does is convince Theo Epstein to come out of retirement/sabbatical, hire him, and turn him loose. [But I’m also hoping to wake up young-and-handsome tomorrow AM.]
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Then I’m glad I missed it.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Omnes Omnibus: I never thought you were! I was riffing on your very (impressively) dry “Artillery” replies. I know my life is going sideways when I can no longer convey wit sensibly. Perhaps following replies back to the prompting comment and then getting back to where you started is as unreliable for you as it is for me.
Nice chatting with you, as always.
Dan B
@L85NJGT: Thanks for the image of Tang the Supreme in a Space Force Uniform. Images should carry a warning for small children, small animals, most adults but Qanon, the sane, etc.
I hope this vision avoids my dreams.
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@CarolPW:
Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it
NotMax
@L85NJGT
Design prototype leaked. Rear view to see what’s pinned there sadly unavailable.
:)
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Since I know approx zero about artillery: what does that mean in practical terms? That it can put a shell within (for example) 10 yards of the target at the limit of its range
ETA: Just Wiki’d it. Impressive-looking machine. I expected to see a semi-fixed unit, similar to a 155mm, to give you an idea of how little I know about it.
Ian
@Baud: I’m assuming you are being sarcastic, but y’all are being just a wee bit alarmist about this. Internet companies will survive without liability protections, and the protections they do currently have are plenty fine for them with or without this modification.
Dan B
@CaseyL: I went to the National Socialist Convention in 1970. That and some meetings at Freeway Hall were the most vicious events I’ve experienced. They may have been infiltrated by CoInTelPro to rile everyone up.
And there were the fights between Stalinists, Trotskyites, Marxists, etc. Fun times! /
Kamala is a Cop disturbs me as do your other examples. Saving grace is gratefully absent murderous intent.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
As I recall, it was the C-bomb he dropped on her that got him smote with the banhammer.
Dan B
@NotMax: Tacks!
Courtesy of Wild and Crazy comrades!!
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@Dan B:
I’d say that’s pretty certain. COINTELPRO was pretty fucked up
NotMax
@Dan B
“And everybody hates the Jews.”
– Tom Lehrer
.
:)
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: With good targeting info, you could get all 24 guns in a battalion to put their rounds on a target the size of a football field from a distance of over 10 km. You normally wouldn’t fire a converge sheaf with that many guns on any target, but if you wanted to, the 8″ was your boy.
Dan B
@NotMax: Thanks for the LOL / Snorting / scaring cats! But don’t you think that Tang the Most Malevolent would pitch forward from the further imbalance?
Oh, I forgot about weightlessness. Never mind!
Goku (Amerikan Baka)
@SFAW:
It’s also self-propelled. It’s an impressive barrel, looking at the pictures
Dan B
@NotMax: Ah, memories!
Cole Porter. attributed.
Dan B
@Goku (Amerikan Baka): We got decent at picking some of them out. The convicts who were given pardons – temporary if you met their goals – were non-stop rude and disruptive. Some were mentally unstable. Others were undoubtedly clever con artists so it was tricky trying to accuse anybody.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thanks. As long as the football field isn’t Shea Stadium [sic].
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Think of it as a notional football field. Maybe something around that size that is storing gas and oil. Big badaboom!
NotMax
@SFAW
Currently landfill in Joisey.
;)
Omnes Omnibus
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho: Hey, I just didn’t want you to think I was dissing Gramps.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Yeah, I know. I still reflexively refer to Citi Field as “Shea,” if I don’t catch myself.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: So which one don’t you want shelled?
L85NJGT
@Goku (Amerikan Baka):
I read somewhere there isn’t a foundry left on the planet that can do larger than a 155mm barrel. Large caliber guns aren’t cost effective in an age of drones and laser guided munitions.
cain
@NotMax:
What a wonderful read. Thanks for posting that.
Omnes Omnibus
@L85NJGT: The guns we had in the the late ’80s were built in the the 1950s and retubed (given new barrels) in the 1970s. Those guns were phased out in early ’90s. They were dinosaurs, anachronisms but still impressive.
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
If you ascribe to Joan Williams’ thoughts on this, it’s because white working class men love the military. It’s seen as honorable and most importantly, properly masculine. “Turning boys into men” and all that shit.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Let’s just say I’d prefer that general area of Queens not get targeted.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Why were they in service for so many decades?
@Dan B:
It’s hard to organize when you have opponents willing to do underhanded crap like that
@L85NJGT:
They’re impressive feats of engineering for sure
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): If it ain’t broke, why fix it?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So peak Trump right here; Trump is threatening to take the military pay away over some BS while at the same time fantasying about those very same troops staging a Coup to keep him in power.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Spoilsport.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
You seem surprised.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
True. Though I’ve read the army has struggled in recent decades to replace aging equipment and vehicles, like the M3 Bradley IFV
NotMax
@SFAW
I do appreciate the LIRR not giving the financial behemoth additional advertising; they changed the name of the stop from Willet’s Point-Shea Stadium to using just Willet’s Point or in season Mets-Willet’sPoint.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Having worked in the Military Industrial Complex it’s amazing the number of conservatives in the aforesaid complex who don’t understand it’s all funded by public money. It’s a bit like “don’t socialize my medicare”
Omnes Omnibus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Basically, the 8″ howitzer was no longer being made. They kept it in service as long as they could keep them working and had enough parts to fix ’em. Once it was too much effort to keep enough units in the field, they phased it out. Its role was taken by the MLRS and the M109 howitzer. Neither could match what the M110A2 could do by itself, but two together could do its mission plus other things that 8″ couldn’t do.
Bookeater (formerly JosieJ)
comment withdrawn
Once again, slow typing gets the best of me!
SFAW
@Bookeater (formerly JosieJ):
Never happen (i.e. losing face with his cult). Outside of that, I like your gaming-it-out scenario.
Bookeater (formerly JosieJ)
@SFAW: thanks, but I took the comment down because, while I was typing, the conversation moved on!
Backing down will, at the very least, cause Trump actual psychic pain. At least I can get small comfort from that!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Bookeater (formerly JosieJ): I’m not sure Jared is bright enough to figure it out either. The whole lot of them are pretty stupid.
SFAW
@Bookeater (formerly JosieJ):
Absolutely agree.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Omnes Omnibus:
Interesting. And makes sense.
@Suzanne:
Would go a long way to explaining the hard hats during Vietnam heckling anti-war protestors
Bookeater (formerly JosieJ)
@?BillinGlendaleCA: This is true! Either way this plays out, it promises to be entertaining.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I suppose they all think the Free Market pays them, huh?
burnspbesq
@Amir Khalid:
Speaking of “who plays what,” I was pretty surprised last night to tune into a livestream from Norway of the Hedwig Mollestad Trio and see the jazz-metal-fusion ace playing a 335 (through what looked like a 1970s Fender Bandmaster and a 4×12 cabinet). Yup, the instrument associated with B.B. King, Larry Carlton, and Vince Gill.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yes, typical defense worker is went from high school to the military, retired after 20 years, got his collage degree threw the GI bill, then went to work in the Defense Industry. They are all self made men who never took a dime of public money.
satby
@NotMax: one of my favorite Tom Lehrer songs.
Matt McIrvin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’ve talked to some who do know it’s funded by public money, but turn into Keynesians mindful of the value of economic stimulus whenever the talk turns to defense, while regarding all other public spending as dumping their tax dollars into the toilet.
Matt McIrvin
(The other, related area where this happens is SPAAAACE!! Libertarian space fans who want the welfare state to be eliminated largely so all that tax money can fund giant rockets instead. Related are the ones who idolize Elon Musk for doing it independently of The Gubmint but politely disregard who’s paying him.)
Uncle Cosmo
@NotMax:
Um, I would imagine so. (Johnny Horton, “Battle of New Orleans.” Audio & lyrics here. :^D)
Uncle Cosmo
Truly. The godbothered and unedjumacated aren’t stupid, exactly. But they aren’t exactly intelligent either. What they are – at least the brightest among them – is clever.They can recognize situations where a certain action will immediately benefit them, and they will take such actions – but you have to have a certain amount of training in how to think to follow a train of thought further down the line to gauge the ultimate consequences. Instead they go barreling ahead, only realizing that the bridge is out too late to keep from tumbling into the gorge.
(Trust me on this, I grew up among them.)
ballerat
This is very interesting. I am inclined to agree but admittedly I haven’t thought it through much.
A quick search on section 230 brought this up from Forbes.com:
But Facebook et al aren’t like the Post Office at all. Facebook is not some passive conduit of information; it actively shapes a narrative, partly based on what their users view, and partly based on its own political agenda and business goals. The USPS does not do this. For example, they do not funnel more and more radical alt-right information to a user because she’s sent money via the mail to a Trump fundraiser or mailed in a subscription to a Proud Boys newsletter.
In other words, the USPS does not read your goddamned mail and and use that information in an attempt to create a narrative for their own benefit.
So if this was the original intent of Section 230, then technological advances, aka spying on users and content algorithms, have rendered it obsolete.
I don’t have the answer to this but it is obvious Section 230 isn’t working as intended because social media companies are not “merely” a conduit.
ballerat
@Lyrebird
I’m interested in reading too, thanks for posting the link.