Archives for 2024

This gave me a chuckle:

(Bloomberg) — Tesla Inc.’s electric vehicles would be excluded from consumer rebates proposed by California’s governor, a decision aimed at spurring greater competition that’s likely to draw the ire of Elon Musk.

Yes, an expensive luxury good shouldn’t get a rebate — even if Elon and Gavin are gonna fight about it.

Anyway, this gives me an excuse to post this piece about the mournful Facebook post of a Cybertruck owner.

A dentist Tesla Cybertruck owner, Steven Shao, first shared this sentiment on Facebook, which several Cybertruck owners later echoed.

Steven, writing about his Cybertruck ownership experience, says…

“You worked hard, but your kids don’t want to hang out with you, and your friends are too busy to visit. You are getting older every day, and your neck and back are complaining.

You need a man cave, a Batmobile, and a powerhouse, and it would be nice to have something that makes people snap their necks and glare. You want an overpowered, overpriced, over-the-top giant fridge on wheels.

They can’t ignore you anymore.”

If this is fake, I don’t want to know what real is.

Anyway, there’s been a big focus on young men (late teens, 20’s, maybe early 30’s) who listen to Joe Rogan, follow red pill subreddits and generally think they’re entitled to sex/relationships/bangmaids.  But this elides the fact that a lot of men who didn’t grow up on Rogan and red pill are still shitty.  There are whole subreddits dedicated to the disappointment of women who are over 40 and trying to date age-appropriate men, and man it’s grim in there.  There are just a lot of undateable, divorced men who can’t (won’t) understand why their ex-wife and kids hate them, and they just repeat the behaviors that left them without anyone to visit on Thanksgiving in their tarnished IncElCamino.

There are also a lot more man babies than I ever realized, by which I mean men looking for a mommy replacement as a wife.  My wife and I just started watching Kevin Can F*** Himself, which is an attempt to subvert the sitcom genre.  The main character, Allison, is married to man baby Kevin, who doesn’t listen to her, infantilizes her, and spends their savings on football memorabilia.  When Kevin and his pals are on screen, there’s a laugh track and a bunch of lame jokes.  When Allison is on her own, it’s bitter, bleak despair and longing.  We haven’t finished it, but it’s definitely a document of a time when society as a whole is figuring out that a lot of men really suck.  And almost all of them voted for Trump.

The Strange Tale of the IncElCaminoPost + Comments (146)

I think Jamelle Bouie is one of the most reasonable commenters on our current predicament. Here he is (TikTok video) on the American system:

I have nothing but contempt for the assumption that the game is over now […] If you were black in Mississippi in 1955, the entire system was against you.  Your mayor was against you, your city council was against you, your state representative was against you, your state senator was against you, your House representative was against you, your Senator was against you, your Governor was against you.  Every single level of the institutions of the state in which you lived were against you.  And somehow they figured out how to do political opposition.  No one in the United States is living in a situation analogous to a black person in Mississippi in 1955 where there was a goddam secret police harassing opponents of the regime.  So if they can figure it out, so can we.

There’s also “are you gonna bark all day little doggie or are you going to bite” aspect of some of the pronouncements from people like Elon Musk, who’s shitposting and shittalking as much as possible, even though his stupid DOGE appointment gives him the same massive power as Bowles/Simpson or any other pointless blue-ribbon commission.

Even things Trump is purported to want on day 1, such as his apparent desire to throw transgender people out of the military, may well happen, but they aren’t a foregone conclusion.  Institutional inertia is a hell of a drug.  Just look at this page detailing the massive bureaucratic effort to behind the DoD’s current transgender policy, which has been in place since 2016.  And, as far as I can tell, Trump has never explicitly said that he wanted to throw out members of the military who are transgender.  The reporting I’ve seen on the topic comes from one rumor-filled piece by the Times of London.  There’s also some pushback from his inner circle.

To be clear, I’m not saying, “he would never do that,” just “there’s still an opposition, it’s us, and we will be able to fight this.”  Institutional inertia works both ways.  We’re the opposition party now, and we can oppose.

The Line Between Overreaction and AcceptancePost + Comments (182)

Reddit has a couple of great forums called /NotADragQueen and /PastorArrested.  Always plenty of fodder there to share with your “Christian” relatives over the holidays.

Anyway, here’s one from NotADragQueen:

A federal judge in Jacksonville sentenced Josue Garriga, 35, of St. Augustine on Monday, according to court records. He pleaded guilty in July to enticing a child to engage in sexual activity.

According to prosecutors, Garriga was a detective with the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office gang unit in 2023 when he met a 17-year-old girl at church. He used his department-issued cellphone to contact the girl and then used his personal cellphone to communicate with her using an encrypted app set to automatically delete messages after 24 hours. Garriga requested nude photos from the girl and sent her nude photos of himself, investigators said.

On at least two occasions, Garriga used his work vehicle to visit the girl’s neighborhood to meet up with her and engage in illegal sexual contact, authorities said. On another occasion, Garriga enticed the girl to his work vehicle and physically prevented her from leaving until she performed a sex act on him.

The relationship ended this past March, when the victim’s mother found messages between the girl and Garriga on the girl’s phone. The mother reported the relationship, and Garriga was arrested. His prison sentence is for 24 years and four months.

So the facts are somewhat different from the allegations against Gaetz — that we know of — but today Gaetz is making videos on Cameo for $500 a pop and this other Florida man is looking at well over 20 years in prison (federal prison, so most of his time will be served).

Lack of Elite Accountability is Definitely a ThingPost + Comments (99)