First off, this fucking guy:
Arizona’s Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes on Friday announced that Rudy Giuliani had been served with the notice of his indictment in connection with an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election results in Arizona.
The announcement came less than two hours after a social media post from Giuliani taunted Mayes for failing to deliver his indictment. The notice was served to Giuliani during a celebration in Palm Beach, Florida, for his 80th birthday.
In a now-deleted post on X, Giuliani taunted Arizona authorities. “If Arizona authorities can’t find me by tomorrow morning; 1. They must dismiss the indictment; 2. They must concede they can’t count votes,” Giuliani posted Friday night. Accompanying the message was a photo of Giuliani smiling with six others and balloons arranged behind them.
An hour and 14 minutes later, Mayes responded to Giuliani’s post, writing, “The final defendant was served moments ago. @RudyGiuliani, nobody is above the law.”
HAHAHAHAHA. Happy birthday, bitch.
I keep seeing this nonsense on tiktok and elsewhere about Gen X being awakened, and it’s all these losers and morons saying that OH NOES YOU HAVE AWAKENED GEN X AND NOW WE ARE GONNA KICK ASS AND TAKE NAMES and for the life of me I can’t figure out what these delicate souls are all wound up about, but I personally think it’s probably some right wing astroturf campaign to re-elect Trump. Other than that I have no idea.
It’s all so silly, anyway. Generations are such an arbitrary thing, although we do share, for the most part, a memory of similar cultural zeitgeists, but other than that it’s really a kind of hollow approximation of a large number of people who had radically different upbringings and experiences. Well, there was the lead paint and leaded gas, which really explains a lot.
Regardless, even if you do buy into the generational thing, as far as I understood, the motto of Gen X was supposed to be “EHh, whatever,” so I am not sure how successful any campaign to motivate my generation will be. Good luck with that and a hearty “you do you” is all I can think.
The videos of the tornado and other shit ripping through Houston were terrifying. While watching them, I kept thinking “I have seen something like this before,” and then I realized I in fact had seen this before. In every climate apocalyopse movie from the 90’s and 2000’s that Republicans said was pure hysteria and would never happen.
Slow day for me- there’s a ton of stuff to be done in the yard, but I just did not want to go outside and get more sun until this sunburn has healed, so I went and got a hair cut and beard trim. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I rarely if ever pay attention to what I am wearing or what my shirt says when I put it on, and often times could not tell you what I am wearing until someone says “nice shirt” or something and I have to look down and remember what it says. Long story short, I wore my “Veterans for Biden” t-shirt and one of the rednecks at the barbershop said something to the effect of “I can’t believe you’re supporting him” and I just blurted out “I spent ten years in the army and I am not voting for that piece of shit draft dodging Trump.” That ended the discussion.
I know I have talked about this at length, but I really don’t understand how the right wing has changed so much. I don’t get the pickup trucks and the cop worshipping and the gun fetish and all that. When I was younger, the only pickup trucks you ever saw had “farm use” spray painted on the side, and you rarely saw them in town. All the farmers would never drive a pickup truck to town or church or the mall. They all had a nice ford ltd or a mercury grand marquis or something that was the family car and grocery getter. And everyone had guns but no one advertised it and they would have looked at you funny if you told them you needed a m-16 for self defense. And no one liked the cops or the game warden because it was understood they were just there to fuck with you. It’s all fucking bonkers.
And while we are at it, I am so fucking sick and tired of the culture wars. I was talking to Betty Cracker the other day and we chatted about this, mainly about how tired I am about having to have an opinion about shit that is completely irrelevant to me. I could have gone my entire god damned life without ever thinking about trans issues or gender affirming care or any of that stuff. I seriously could have. It’s weird and annoying. I never thought people were going to force me, a 53 year old man with no kids or grandkids, to spend time thinking about kids and their genitals. I mean who the fuck cares what I think, anyway? But now I have to think about all this shit because we can’t simply just treat people like human beings and these right wing monsters and godbotherers are hell bent on making people miserable, so now I have to be informed and have opinions to push back against the sick bastards.
I think that is it for me. Gonna put another application of aloe on, eat some sun dried figs and maybe a grapefruit, and spend the rest of the night watching tv. Joelle is all wrapped up in the new season of Bridgerton, while I finished season 1 of Caprica and am going to re-watch the Rings of Power before moving on to Season 2.
Talk to you all tomorrow.
bbleh
I don’t get the pickup trucks and the cop worshipping and the gun fetish and all that.
My hypothesis is an emotionally stunted masculine culture. They’re stuck in high school. YMMV.
CindyH
@bbleh: stuck in adolescence
John Cole
@bbleh: Sometimes I wonder if it is because the nerds took over with the internet.
trollhattan
IDK if you’ve tackled the Perlstein books but the seeds seem to have been sown as far ago as the ’50s by the Birchers et al., and ’60s by the “college Republicans” and reactionaries who backed Goldwater and began attacking functioning moderates.
They were kept in check to an extent for decades but flared up here and there. Gingrich and GW Bush brought them into the open, Obama focused and enraged them by being Obama, then Trump allowed them to let their freak flags fly, open and…proud is the wrong word here.
That genie ain’t going back into the bottle anytime in the mid-future, if ever.
I’ll rent a pickup should I ever need one.
beef
So, the nerds won and the jocks comforted themselves by strapping truck nuts on their daily driver? LOL
zhena gogolia
You’d think Bridgerton was just my speed, but I didn’t warm to it.
mrmoshpotato
Wait! Ghouliani is only 80?! i call bullshit!
Frank Wilhoit
@CindyH: Stuck in the newborn’s first cry.
piratedan
@bbleh: I had a thought about this and then sit back and think about how many shows are about cops or detectives, all driving fast, being emotional and solving crimes. It’s literally every-fucking-where. While I can enjoy a good procedural as much as the next guy, can you think of another profession that gets the pub that cops, lawyers and doctors do? Teachers come in a very distant 4th, but when you check out regular network TV, it’s either stuff up above or reality shows with a few sit-coms mixed in.
20-30 years ago we went thru a game show craze, it was our reality TV and instead of being smart or solving puzzles, now it’s evolved in many ways as to who can be the most insincere.
Just happy that I have the curiosity network and can catch the odd show that catches my eye, domestic or otherwise when I’m not bringing on bad movies and sport.
bbleh
@John Cole: I would ascribe it to the slow demise of a concept of social membership and its attendant benefits and responsibilities and the rise of a culture of self-centeredness, caricatured as the “70s ‘Me’ Generation” but due to a confluence of many factors, including growing up with the benefits of the great middle-class economic boom of the 50s and 60s, a consumer-focused economy driven by relentless advertising, and to some degree the exploitation of this by a borderline-sociopathic corporate culture aligned with the Republican/Tory Party. But again YMMV.
HumboldtBlue
@zhena gogolia:
I’m in that group too. It got too absurd for me.
J. Arthur Crank
Please tell me that when Attorney General Mayes served that indictment he rolled it up into a small tube and shoved it up Rudy’s ass. Given the circumstances, it doesn’t have to be the Attorney General himself—a designee would suffice.
MomSense
It is exhausting – all the drama and bullshit over the basics of a modern society. At some level it’s just so absurd. The policies Democrats are pushing for are just the basic things we all need. They can’t really argue honestly about increasing wages or better more affordable health care so they scaremonger about “illegals”, trans people and the ridiculous and completely made up after birth abortion. The problem is they are harming people. I have no idea how we get out of this mess.
It’s been raining all day. I watched two families of lions come ashore right in front of my window.
The sellers had to delay the closing for a few days so I’m not hauling boxes this weekend. I’ve been sleeping on and off all day.
ETA Loons! Jesus autocorrect
John Revolta
White US population 1960: 88.6 percent
White US population 2010: 72 percent
That’s what happened. White people freaked out and lost their goddamn minds.
(US Census Bureau)
J. Arthur Crank
@MomSense:
Hmm, aquatic lions in Maine? Running this through the autocorrect inverter, I assume you meant “loons”?
MomSense
@J. Arthur Crank:
I would love to see actual lions. It’s on my bucket list but I do not want to see them at camp!
kalakal
@MomSense:
Puts my little family of Wrens nesting in the porch in their place
I’m glad you made that correction.
bbleh
@J. Arthur Crank: Haven’t you ever heard of sea lions?
Suzanne
It’s a reaction to the erosion of white patriarchy.
smith
@J. Arthur Crank: Just for the record, AG Mayes is a woman. In fact, it’s interesting that so many of the local prosecutors calling the insurrectionists and their god/king to account are women — Mayes, Willis, James, Nessel.
Shalimar
Gen X came of age in the “Greed is good” Reagan era. I have no faith in the majority of my generation not to be selfish assholes.
Chet Murthy
I guess we all have our theories for why this happened. I agree with @John Revolta: but also believe that a big part of it is women’s liberation. Men were used to being the protagonists in their own story. One day, they woke up and they weren’t any longer: their wives had lives of their own, and sometimes they weren’t included. And sure, the same thing happened with white people: you turn on the teevee, and there are brown people starring in things! I remember when people thought the job of quarterback was too …. cerebral for a Black man to do it. Not any longer. Some of the biggest pop stars are Black. Some of the biggest actors are, too. When you’re used to turning on the teevee and seeing *only* people who look like you, I guess it can be jarring.
TL;DR Men (esp. white men) were used to being the protagonists in their own story. That’s changed/changing, and a lot of men can’t handle it.
P.S. I remember there was a TV show where the (befuddled, but decent, well-meaning) cop is starting to interview the young attractive female, and she thinks he’s coming on to her. She says “fancy you chances, grandpa?” And …. well, I also think that a lot of men haven’t gotten over that idea: that at some point (far sooner than they want to contemplate) they’re not going to be able to chase after the nubile females they continue to dream about. Again, I think a lot of men just can’t handle it.
Chet Murthy
@Shalimar: So much this. I turned 18 in 1983. We were all enthralled by the prospect of becoming yuppies, getting that beemer, etc.
J. Arthur Crank
@smith: Thanks for the correction. I did not click to read the whole story, that had a link to the Twitter account of the AG. I am suitably embarrassed.
Chet Murthy
@smith: Well, given how abysmally most of the men who should have held TFG responsible have failed at that, I’m just glad women have stepped-up. And I hope that at least a few are destined for higher office, like, say, the Presidency. I especially think (bitterly) about Cyrus Vance Jr. and all the times he let TFG and his spawn off the hook. Grrrrrrrr.
Torrey
@Chet Murthy:
Friendly amendment: white men were used to being the protagonists in everybody else’s story (as well as their own).
TBone
I miss watching Karen Walker and company on Will & Grace. My GenX shero. Could that show even get on a major network these days?
mrmoshpotato
Excellent! Short and sweet, and STFU Trump trash!
Brachiator
@piratedan:
Cops, lawyers and doctors have been mainstays of radio and TV since the invention of these media. And even more than cops, the private eye. I would sit on my mother’s lap and watch the angry young crusading Dr Ben Casey and the magnificent liberal lawyer drama The Defenders.
Very few of these shows were rigidly right wing. But the censors and right wing culture critics were always in the background, nudging things towards conservative “respectability.”
trollhattan
Any California peeps in the house? Holy shit, bring your dogs inside!!!
Seems nice.
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia: Me either. I had early onset diabetes partway through ep 1.
For that sort of thing, The Great hits on all cylinders for me. Sad it’s cancelled.
Jackie
@MomSense: I thought beautiful scenery AND LIONS!?!
I was sooo envious😂
Torrey
@trollhattan:
So now she’s going to go on a donkey-shooting spree?
Chet Murthy
@TBone: I was never into Will&Grace. But I did watch a few episodes, and ….. I thought it was groundbreaking for its time, but geez, wouldn’t it be completely so-normal/so-normal today? I don’t watch a lotta TV, so I don’t know, but geez it seems like leads that are gay (both men and women) are pretty normal these days?
Or maybe you’re thinking about something else about Will&Grace that was norm-breaking ?
I personally believe that we can thank Will&Grace for a lot of the normalization of gay people: I mean, I bet for a lotta straight Americans, that show was their first introduction to “out” gay people.
J. Arthur Crank
@trollhattan:
Another unrelated reason to bring the dogs and cats inside: a cougar was spotted in La Mesa, which is one of the towns directly east of San Diego (story here).
smith
@Chet Murthy: Thinking about it, it’s also striking how many of the people in charge of these prosecutions are Black as well. James, Willis, AG Ford in NV, and DA Bragg in NYC. I think the only white man heading any major prosecutions aimed at the Defendant or his co-conspirators is Jack Smith.
Sort of confirms the fears of those terrified white men clinging desperately to their delusions of dominance in all things. What is the world coming to if you can be thrown in jail by a Black woman just for a little insurrectioning?
Chet Murthy
@smith:
Can you imagine the rage some of these men must be feeling? *grin
Chet Murthy
I made some cinnamon rolls (this recipe: bakingmischief.com/easy-overnight-cinnamon-rolls-two/ ) and hooboy, the recipe calls for making *twice* the amount of frosting I feel comfortable putting on the rolls. *Twice*. I guess I’ll store the rest and make something else to put it on.
This is, like, my 3rd attempt at making cinnamon rolls. I’ve baked bread a lot, and some banana, pumpkin, etc bread, but only recently started making pastries. I’m still ginning up the courage to try making laminated dough (for croissants).
MomSense
@Chet Murthy:
I blame Michael J. Fox. He is too damned charismatic. The character Alex P. Keaton was supposed to be a cautionary tale – young, sociopathic Reaganite. He said truly awful things and if James Spader had taken that role things might be different now. But nope. Michael J. Fox with his insidious likeability ruined our generation.
Other MJS
“now I have to be informed and have opinions to push back against the sick bastards.”
I hear ya. I try to abide by a personal maxim that worthwhile opinions are high-maintenance and therefore best adopted sparingly. The clowns on the Right have more opinions than brain cells.
mrmoshpotato
@J. Arthur Crank:
BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Thanks!
kalakal
@mrmoshpotato: I hope the guy serving it was wearing a Four Seasons Landscaping TShirt
mrmoshpotato
@MomSense:
At first I thought “sea lions” was autoincorrected.
John Revolta
trollhattan: applauding when she described the small-government structure of her state and jeering when she contrasted herself with Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Back to the Census Bureau!
CA population 2020 39.5M
SD population 887K
Got anything else stupid to say, Gravelpit Gertie?
BigJimSlade
@John Cole: I think it’s all fox news telling all of them what they should be up in arms about. 24/7. And the rest of the rw chorus from Limbaugh to Alex Jones to OAN over the last few decades. Culture wars = cha-ching (and get people emotional over some political things they never would’ve cared about).
Auntie Anne
@MomSense: I thought OMG – climate change we now have lions in your neck of the woods! We are doomed!
Gloria DryGarden
The governor of tx sent all those immigrants and asylum seekers up to Denver by bus. Because we’re a sanctuary city. Just dropped them off. I hear the city is going broke providing services to all these people, and the city health clinics system, too. Many regular services have shifted. Less hours at the rec centers. Not a lot of Iit touches me except I used the clinics system, and the huge apartment complex across the street from me has changed. Many many Venezuelans, with a pretty different accent. Whoever the newcomers are, I don’t like the new increase in trash left in our yards across from these apartments. Sometimes 10+ beer bottles, cans, auto parts, McDonald’s wrappers, used motor oil in open containers, a truck tire. These people are not given what I got as an exchange student: intro to life and customs in your new country. Anyway, there are difficulties, and it’s affecting many people in our city.
so when reading about this tornado flood thing in Houston, and the gov needing big fema money, I’m thinking, karma. Passing his immigration problems to some one else, (cuz he can’t see the asylum seekers as people) and getting a different big assed problem.
I am sorry for the people going through this in Houston.
I’m also bothered about states and legislators who are against fema and government help, until they need it.
ETA I had to edit bcs auto correct thought auto was autism! As loony as a lion in a typo.
I agree “ Jesus, autocorrect “
Percysowner
I still have people stop me and tell me how much they like my “But still she persisted” Liz Warren hoodie. All of those peoples stopping me are women, for some reason.
As a baby boomer who keeps hearing about how awful my generation is, I have finally reached the conclusion that no “generation” is a monolith. When I was phone banking for Hillary Clinton most of the other phone bankers were my age. I know a lot of my generation got caught watching Fox News, but others still push for MSNBC.
We are all shaped by what national events we lived through, I got my kid (Millennial) out of school because of 911) but we also all had different experiences. Same kiddo was going to a Catholic girls school because my ex refused to do public and it was a really good school. In 5th grade she ended up checking with me that her knowledge of birth control was accurate because her classmates were asking HER about it, since their parents were playing ostrich. I suspect she and those classmates see the world from different perspectives now.
Aziz, light!
Please stop blaming the trucks for the shit-for-brains behind the wheels of some of them. Lots of people own pickups and they aren’t all for show and they don’t all cost a fortune and they don’t all have gun racks in the cab and they aren’t all driven by ignorant yahoos. My wife and I use my off-road midsize diesel Chevy to access wilderness trailheads and various remote places in the backcountry; we load it up with bikes and kayaks and camping gear and gardening supplies (these being the ways we enjoy our long-awaited golden years) and no, I don’t fly tattered flags from the bed and I’m not a racist gun-humping bedwetter and I can’t afford to buy a spiffy new EV or hybrid to display my holier than thou progressive bona fides.
mrmoshpotato
@kalakal: LOL! Yes.
bbleh
@Chet Murthy: dough takes a knack. I was lucky, could make bread and crusts and pastries almost from the get go. (Terrible with soups and dressings tho, go figure.) But keep it up. There is NOTHING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING better than fresh-baked bread, and I agree that most recipes call for too much icing. The pastry should taste good by itself.
raven
@Aziz, light!: Fuck em if they can’t take a joke.
Chet Murthy
@bbleh:
Well, whatever that knack is, I haven’t got it. HA! But thankfully, there are a *ton* of videos to watch, and bit-by-bit I’ve learned the techniques for some breads. I can’t remember the last time I bought bread at the store, and hopefully soon I’ll be the same way about pastries and cake.
HumboldtBlue
Good win by the Phillies!
Chet Murthy
@Aziz, light!: I think we’ve all experienced that feeling of being lumped with a group based on some characteristic, when in fact we aren’t anything like most people in that group. You mention trucks; in the UK there’s (apparently) a meme about “Chelsea Tractors” — 4WD Land Rovers that have never left paved roads (and are apparently typically owned by richies who live in the Chelsea district of London). Surely there are people who own Land Rovers who actually use ’em for their intended purpose, but the stereotype exists for a reason, eh?
We’ve all seen the well-used truck that clearly gets a lot of work. But we’ve also seen those trucks that are spick-n-shiny, with all manner of add-ons, clearly an extension of their driver’s dick. And given the way trucks sell in the US, I think many of us suspect (with some reason) that most of those trucks are in the latter category.
It is what it is, eh?
bbleh
@HumboldtBlue: verily! tho I admit to some confusion about Humboldt / Phillies.
TaMara
Found my summer jam:
HumboldtBlue
@bbleh:
I’m a Philadelphia native.
Sister Golden Bear
@Chet Murthy:
Fixed it for you.
Also, straight , white cis het men were used to playing the Game of Life(tm) on the lowest difficulty settings possible, (to reference John Scalzi’s amazing essay on privilege), and they’re pissed that they actually have to compete.
Worse yet, they’re being beaten by those who play the game better despite far harder odds. Sayth Scalzi: “The player who plays on the “Gay Minority Female” setting? Hardcore.”
it’s just all so unfair…
bbleh
@HumboldtBlue: did you have trouble with directions when you first moved? I think my sense of north and south is driven by a sense of where the ocean is, and when it was on the west I was confused for a while.
Scout211
@TaMara: OMG! Did he just sing “fake eyelashes won’t help her”? 🤣
Aziz, light!
@Chet Murthy: What’s funny is that the Trumpy guy across the street with the lifted Silverado sporting a “Let’s Go Brandon” sticker assumes I must be just like him. The Ukrainian flag above my door should have been his first clue, but he probably doesn’t know what it is.
Chet Murthy
@Sister Golden Bear: What can I say? You’re absolutely right about that “NPC” edit. I remember when it finally was driven home to me: remember that “one weird trick” thing? “This one weird trick will convince her to get in bed with you!” I mean, how much more “Women are NPCs!” can you get? Sigh.
ETA: and then of course there was the golden oldie: “Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker.”
Jackie
@TaMara:
Standing ovation!
👏🏻👏🏻 👏🏻👏🏻 BRAVO!!!
Sister Golden Bear
@trollhattan: I dunno, I’d rather enjoy the sight of a rabid dog loose at the CA Republican Party convention.
Jay
Wasn’t that Christie Noem?
Has she been tested for rabies?
Starfish
The truck thing is everywhere, and it is not even just conservatives. They are not even real trucks even. These Rivians with tiny stupid truck beds are not being driven by conservatives or people who really need trucks. They need to close all the loop holes related to emissions.
Some 23yo accidentally ran over a toddler in a parking lot in the town where I live.
Why are all these vehicles even allowed with a regular driver’s license?
Sister Golden Bear
@Chet Murthy: FWIW, I think you’re absolutely right about men seeing themselves as the protagonist in their own story (and in other people’s stories as @Torrey: noted).
The decentering of straight white cis-het men, making them just one of the focal points in today’s society definitely drives much of the manosphere’s rage. Likewise, there’s a similar dynamic driving the rage of white reactionary Christofascists.
NotMax
Xenia, Ohio in 1974? Davastating.
NotMax
@Sister Golden Bear
“Real men shun water.”
//
Chet Murthy
@NotMax: Ha! You made me think of Pete “haven’t washed my hands in 10yr” Hegseth!
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
Mmm, cake.
:)
gene108
@John Cole:
I’m not sure how much the internet was involved, but somewhere in the last 25 years D&D, board games like Settlers of Catan, card games like Magic and Pokemon, etc. have all become mainstream. These things are available for sale at my local target.
The Young Adult section of my local library has a manga section.
Things that used to be “fringe” or “nerd” activities when Gen X was in high school are now mainstream and easily available.
It’s upset some people who used to look down on the people who were into mangas, anime, RPG’s, etc.
HumboldtBlue
@bbleh:
No, didn’t run into that.
Soprano2
I always tell people that I think we should all be able to be who we are. People shouldn’t have to pretend to be something or someone they aren’t, because it hurts them and others. If I think they’re receptive I tell them about my friend whose husband finally came out as a Trans woman at the age of 60. It devastated that family. It would have been better if she had been able to be her authentic self when she first felt it in her teens. It’s hard for me to understand why they care so much about what others do; I think it makes them uncomfortable that there are people who aren’t like them. It’s always been like that; part of the purpose of religion is to enforce conformity.
Redshift
In the Rudy story, I keep wondering – indictments don’t really expire if you just hide out for long enough, do they?
Citizen Alan
@Aziz, light!: If your truck costs more than a starter home and has seat warmers, you’re a poser and should be mocked without pity whether you have a Trump sticker or not.
Citizen Alan
@John Cole: Speaking of nerds (and since this is an open thread), did anyone else catch last night’s episode of Doctor Who? No spoilers, but aside from being an incredibly gripping and suspenseful story, it also featured savage attacks on capitalism, religion, and the military industrial complex. And while the series premiere caught some flack for being overly cute and silly with its “Space Babies!” premise, it also had a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it body slam attack on both capitalism and the anti-abortion movement. (Basically, there’s a space station where test tube babies are incubated in vats and, post-delivery, raised by an AI nanny (sort of). Except, the money ran out, so the people were forced to abandon the station. And then, other people decided it was immoral to simply turn off the baby-making machine before it gave birth to more babies but not immoral to let them starve to death afterwards!)
Chet Murthy
@Redshift: over at LG&M I read that Arizona law says that at some point the indictment expires. But nothing prevents the prosecutor from lodging another one, along with an arrest warrant, and since the first indictment expiring is evidence that the defendant Is purposely evading, It’s not hard to get that arrest warrant. That’s what I read, it might even be true!
Martin
The inability of the community of truck owners to moderate their own desires, such that farmers now need to import old Japanese trucks in order to get an economical work vehicle, because they aren’t interested in a $70K entertainment box that has no carrying capacity, but that’s all the automakers now want to make, is on all buyers whether it’s coal-rolling yahoos or backcountry adventure seekers that are pulling the industry in that direction. This ad projects certain personality traits on these buyers. Don’t you want to be like them?
But this industry is making larger, faster, more powerful, and harder to stop vehicles in order to satisfy the demands of their customers. This is not a property of the driver, but of the vehicle. Regardless of what you are using the vehicle for, you’re pulling the industry toward vehicles which are more polluting, more dangerous to pedestrian, and more expensive for everyone in terms of auto insurance because getting hit by a 6000lb Chevy Suburban will do more damage to your Prius, so the Prius insurance also has to go up – and people are less likely to buy the Prius because it no longer feels safe in a world dominated by Suburbans.
It’s fine that you own the truck for backcountry adventures, but 95% of the time you’re not driving in the backcountry – you’re driving to the grocery store, and whatever tradeoffs that vehicle needs to make for bikes and kayaks and camping gear are carried into spaces where they present dangers to other people – regardless of how you drive. Driving is like gun ownership. There is no degree of personal responsibility that allows you to exist safely in the world, it’s just a matter of how frequently you endanger others, and the magnitude of that danger. You will fuck up and be part of an accident, no matter how careful you choose to be – it’s just the nature of driving. And how much harm that accident causes are as much a function of the decisions you make when you aren’t driving as when you are.
I’m not trying to shame you for owning the truck, but you don’t get to no true scotsman your way out of your truck ownership. You may be able to say you are ‘one of the good ones’ and I’m inclined to believe that, but 40,000 people are killed in this country in vehicle collisions – about 1/5 of which are pedestrians. And we know, definitively, that the increase in vehicle size and power has contributed to that problem getting worse despite air bags and ABS and automatic braking systems and lane warnings and all of that technology. All of that tech has had zero benefit, apart from enabling people to buy bigger and more dangerous vehicles, which is why the pedestrian share of that 40,000 goes up every year. We don’t get airbags, but we do get pulled under large trucks where we are assured of death rather than going over the top of passenger cars, where we might live.
Those are my holier than thou progressive bona fides. Your closing sentence carries a whiff of FYIGM.
Aziz, light!
@Martin: No shit, mister insufferable know it all.
Responsible for 90 percent of our driving is our 24 year old Miata, but you be you.
Martin
@Aziz, light!: So you’re a Miata driver who occasionally drives a truck. Why did you feel the need to rush to the defense of the truck?
Gvg
@Aziz, light!: yep. I miss having a small pickup. Gardening fanatic and searching for furniture. Don’t own a gun, always been liberal. Would like better gas’s mileage. Don’t think I can afford electric truck yet.
Jay
@Martin:
It’s actually kinda interesting.
In other nations where large SUV’s and Trucks have come to dominate the markets, (Canada, Australia, Mexico, etc), vehicle and pedestrian collisions and fatalities are down on average, 40% to 50%. In the US they are up roughly 50%.
HumboldtBlue
I just came across this sentence: Nine months before I was born, I went to a party with my dad and came home with my mom.
Just watched a guy use a micro grater to grate onion into his meatball mix, and now I’m wondering where that’s been my entire life.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, this. Back in the ’90s I started noticing guys at work talking like street loon in Berkley with the constant conspiracy theories.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s a bit more than just a right wing thing. Like here in Silicon Valley driving a truck is a must if you are in management: driving a sedan would be to stogy and sports car would mean your to wild. There is a lot of stupid shit tied up in truck marketing.
Martin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: US automakers no longer make sedans. At all.
Gloria DryGarden
@TaMara: this video hits the spot! Thank you!
Glidwrith
@Soprano2: “I always tell people that I think we should all be able to be who we are.”
But what if you’re an asshole?
Ba-dum-bump
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Martin: Yes, well, when people won’t buy sedans because they don’t want to look like The Man even when they are The Man then we don’t have sedans. That’s the really pathetic bit in all of this, the desperate need to be an eternally young and edgy rebel from people who are in middle management.
Chet Murthy
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: My understanding is that that is *not* why they don’t make sedans. Lots of foreign carmakers import sedans to the US. US carmakers don’t make sedans, b/c the profit margin on trucks and truck-like things (SUVs) is much higher. And for trucks and “light trucks”, they don’t need to abide by the same fuel economy ratings that sedans must.
They’re shitheads, destroying the future of their business b/c they’re too damn busy hoovering up all the slop in the trough today, this quarter, and next.
HumboldtBlue
Trump has his VP hopefuls dance a jog.
Martin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I mean, there’s pretty substantial evidence that people don’t actually buy vehicles for practical reasons. My usual conversations with truck owners typically invokes the ‘I need to haul plywood’, and you know, I do carpentry as a hobby, I buy plywood quite frequently and have as much as I need delivered for $45. Your $60K pickup truck in its typical 11 year lifespan, would need to haul plywood every other day to make up those delivery costs.
We make a lot of excuses for why we need to buy the thing we want. Nobody ever bought a sports car because it was the practical choice. Maybe it’s fun, but more likely it’s to project a personality to others. There are a lot of ways we socially signal, and in the US cars are a main way we do it. Kei trucks being more practical utility vehicles than US trucks are a perfect illustration of this.
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
Give it at most a C+. Lazy writers missed a golden opportunity to slip in a Torah! Torah! Torah! joke..
Slaps with wet noodles all around.
HumboldtBlue
@NotMax:
It was meh
opiejeanne
@NotMax: I thought the same thing about the Torah joke.
NotMax
@opiejeanne
“More and more people area hearing about how Jewish space lasers attacked Pearl Harbor”
AM in NC
@Aziz, light!: There are Pickup Trucks and there are Pickup Trucks.
I think the Blogfather was referring to the second (expensive, massive, never/rarely used for actual work/hauling gear, and frequently seen “rolling coal”, or sporting trucknutz, or mud flaps with nude woman in profile, or a sticker of Calvin peeing on some liberal thing).
OlFroth
Speaking of tornados, they used to be pretty rare around here (SW Pennsylvania). Now it seems we’re getting a tornado warning (not a watch) with every storm front. The news lady on the Magic Talking Picture Box informs me that we’ve already experienced twice as many tornados this year than what is expected for an entire year, and its still only May.
OlFroth
@Martin: I have a short bed pickup. Wanted it to haul manure from the horse barn to my garden and take aluminum cans to the scrap yard. Got the full sized cab so I can haul around the kiddos too! That said, its paid off, and I don’t care how dented and rusty its gotten, I’ll drive it into the ground before I buy another vehicle.
evodevo
@NotMax:
yep…Franklin Co. KY in ’74 – EVERYONE here in central KY remembers THAT spring…dozens of tornadoes – widespread damage – 60 deaths
evodevo
@NotMax: Before ’74, everyone here in KY thought of tornadoes as a Midwest thing…we have damaging tornadoes almost every year somewhere in the state now, even in Eastern KY…
Ruckus
for the life of me I can’t figure out what these delicate souls are all wound up about, but I personally think it’s probably some right wing astroturf campaign to re-elect Trump.
Bingo – in all columns and rows.
These people want mumble/mumble/mumble. What they think they want is to have a world that looks like the nightmares in their heads that everyone must be exactly like their shitty selves, other wise they are just shitty human beings that have some 4th century view of the world because that is the only way they can justify their shitty personalities and hate for those that aren’t as deluded and dumb as they are.
I never said it would make any sense whatsoever.
They are looking for a world that puts all their hate, racism and stupidity on display AND wanting not one word spoken about how much of humanity has moved on from that starting a few centuries ago. They really have nothing to offer the world, other than that hate, racism and stupidity – which is why they want to regress so far. They can’t see the world outside those 3 burnt out guiding lights. They of course have leaders and followers – because they want that world that has been rejected by normal humans time and time again and they likely really know that – but can not admit that anything but their hate, racism, and stupidity exist, which they of course see as guiding lights.
@bbleh:
I think it’s junior high school they are stuck in. Actual high school is beyond them.
Ruckus
@mrmoshpotato:
He was born 80 yrs ago, his personality is about 300 yrs old.
And decaying rapidly.
Ruckus
@MomSense:
They do not want a modern society.
One that respects humans, no matter their gender, skin color or sexual orientation. They want simplicity because simplistic is who and what they are. They have their heads up someone’s ass, it could be/likely is their own, their world is dark, rather smelly and they think because they have their heads up an asshole, we must all do the same. They are wrong. Most of us recognize that and view the world as humans are part of it, not the sum of it, especially not humans with their heads stuck somewhere that is smelly, nasty and really does not suit as a storage area for any kind of actual thought process, that thought process being beyond them.
Lucy Montrose
@Percysowner: Not all Boomers are bad… but I think specifically young Boomers and older Xers are bad. (Generation Jones?) The most right-wing, but not only that.
When young, they were the most aggressively anti-activism… they had this whole ethos of “caring about your world only stresses you out, and there’s something wrong with you if you keep stressing yourself out.” I felt like my ability to be fun and positive, and therefore to attract relationships, demanded I NOT care about my world beyond my family.
Then they fetishized families and religion, and promoted the message that people who were coupled were always healthier and happier than singles (and ditto for churchgoers vs nones). They started the whole “loneliness is deadly” messaging, which IMO is making the anger of incels worse, and doesn’t really do anything but make people feel deficient for not being in a relationship. (And for good measure there’s a subtle “romantic relationships are better than all others” message too.)
I’m very pleased with Millennials and Zoomers for poking holes in that ethos. I love the feeling of freedom and self-grace I’ve gotten, and I don’t want it to ever go away.
Lucy Montrose
@Ruckus: I always thought the people online brandishing #GenocideJoe hashtags seemed… familiar. It feels a lot like the #walkaway hashtag from about five years ago. “Walk away from the Dems”, etc. Which was eventually found to be started by a person with extensive Russian ties.
The #GenocideJoe hashtag was ready to go just a few weeks after October 7th, already being used by Halloween. As if it came from a bunch of people who already made up their minds not to support Biden back then, and just needed a permission structure.