As long time readers of this space know, I have the political instincts of a concussed garden snail, so no one should ever pay any mind to my predictions of what’s going to happen in an election. I confidently predicted the elections of both Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris.
Going back decades, I’ve backed the wrong horse in every Democratic primary with one exception: Barack Obama. So it’s no surprise that among the many things I didn’t see coming, I utterly failed to comprehend the danger when Trump’s MAGA movement merged with RFK the Lesser’s woo-woo kooks last year.
In my defense, at first blush, it made for a seemingly unwieldy base coalition, crunchy granola types who haunt dairy farms and fondle cows for raw milk united with human truck-nuts who subsist on bags of pork cracklings dipped in convenience store nacho sauce. I failed to see what they had in common, which is a propensity to credulously swallow the dumbest conspiracy theories. It was enough, damn it.
But now it looks like the cells within that malignant coalition are busily dividing, and with any luck, maybe that will kill the rotten host eventually. Here’s an excerpt from Michelle Goldberg’s NYT column on a MAHA spat that broke out when Kennedy recommended wellness quack Casey Means for surgeon general.
Means is a close ally of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., now the secretary of health and human services. Yet much of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, movement has revolted against her nomination. It’s a rift that underscores the instability of a political coalition built on paranoia, distrust and the dogged pursuit of social media clout.
Among the loudest voices railing against Means is Laura Loomer, the conspiracy theorist who has achieved an outsize role in some of Trump’s personnel decisions. In a post on X, she zeroed in on Means’s new age spiritual practices, detailed in a 2024 newsletter article Means wrote about finding love at 35. The surgeon general nominee described working with a medium, doing full moon ceremonies and “plant medicine experiences,” and asking for help from trees. Loomer called her a crackpot and warned, without a trace of irony, “The inmates are running the asylum!”
Loomer! Calling someone else a crackpot!
Kennedy’s former running mate Nicole Shanahan suggested RFK Jr. is being controlled by his siblings. Naomi Wolf (the nutty Naomi, not the Klein) thinks Means and her wellness entrepreneur brother, who also works at HHS, are CIA plants. RFK Jr.’s pushback is just making things worse, according to Goldberg:
Kennedy has responded to these attacks by accusing Means’s detractors of being paid shills for big food, which, as you can probably imagine, has made some of them even angrier. For decades, he’s been telling people that monstrous totalitarian powers control the medical system. In the subculture he’s helped build, scientific knowledge is found not in peer-reviewed articles, but down internet rabbit holes, and all appeals to authority are necessarily suspect. Now the dark energies he’s manifested are coming back to haunt him.
That’s the downside of the do-your-own-research methodology that rejects science and expertise. There’s no pursuit of truth, only clout chasing, and those who become “authorities” under that rotten system will be in the sights of the next band of kooks looking to tear down “the establishment.”
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving bunch.
Open thread!
Butch
“Big food?” That’s a new one on me.
Baud
Worked for the Hobbits.
Albatrossity
Coalitions of the paranoid are rarely successful.
Matt McIrvin
“Natural”/”wellness”/supplement/alt-med world is predominantly right-coded now. I’ve been watching it slowly happen for decades. The COVID pandemic massively accelerated the process, but the link between evangelical religion and MLMs was a major entry point.
Matt McIrvin
(Note, this is very much returning to a preoccupation of the original Nazis.)
Josie
I’m not really understanding why these two factions are fighting with each other.
Portly Neighbor
Oh, “full moon ceremonies.” Dammit. Alone again, naturally.
Harrison Wesley
I would agree about the ‘monstrous totalitarian powers’ if they were talking about insurance companies or private equity owned healthcare facilities. But that doesn’t appear to be the case.
mappy!
There does seem to the vibe of a looming crisis of confidence amongst the gamers…
Matt McIrvin
@Josie: Seems to be a Christianist vs. new age pagan thing?
Loomer also got pissed off at the Qatari plane bribe because it was coming from Muslims.
Geminid
Laura Loomer is also griping about the Boeing 747 Qatar is expected to give Trump. I’m not sure that jet will ever be delivered, much less converted to Air Force One, but it’s created one of the larger controversies of Trump’s term so far.
M31
need the rhyme to keep them straight:
Naomi + Klein = fine
Naomi + Wolf = oof
Josie
@Matt McIrvin:
Okay, I guess that makes sense. They are both kind of weird, in my book.
YY_Sima Qian
Since this is an open thread, here is an absolutely fascinating study of the effects of affirmative action policies in Imperial China:
Might be relevant for public policy considerations, at least for a future time after the US returns to its senses.
rikyrah
A Surgeon General who didn’t finish her Residency or take the qualifying exams.
Only White people can get away with being this unqualified.😡😡😡
If someone non-White were nominated with these kind of non-credentials….every Republican would be on Fox screaming about them being unqualified.😡😡
rikyrah
@Geminid:
Bribery and SECURITY BREACHES EVERYWHERE 😡 😡 😡
NotMax
A perverse case of the Means justifying the ends.
//
Steve LaBonne
@Matt McIrvin: Rick Perlstein’s famous essay “The Long Con” isn’t going to stop being relevant any time soon.
waspuppet
And being right! Which does not reduce her own crackpottery! But still!
I don’t understand this alliance either. Rushing out the COVID vaccine was the only thing Trump has ever done that was (mostly) right. And Catcher’s Mitt Face got like 14 votes in the 2024 primaries, so I don’t get what “his supporters” bring to the table.
Jeffro
it’s crazy people, all the way down!
LOL
If MAGA had even two collective brain cells to rub together, they’d see this kind of thing
and maybe start to realize that they’re not being led by the best. Or even the not-worst.
catclub
Is that the cheese adjacent petroleum product?
catclub
@Geminid:
I expect that plane to be completely riddled with Chinese and Israeli spying bugs.
RaflW
I can sympathize with the opening of this post. I seem to recall backing Paul Simon (of Illinois, not the fine musician who, to my knowledge, has never run for POTUS). Also was an early Howard Dean fan.
TBF, I knew I was a nutball when I backed Gov. Moonbeam in his quixotic effort against Bill C. (I liked Tsongas but IIRC he petered out quick, so perfectly to type for me.)
NotMax
@catclub
In a pinch can be utilized in place of Spackle.
;)
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: They are gullible and distrust authority, the ideological extremes share those characteristics. Science feels authoritarian to them because they don’t understand it
My friend who was into wellness and taught yoga, liked Ron Paul and ended up voting for Obama twice. Voted for Jill Stein in 2016 and then became MAGA lite
Ten Bears
As someone with degrees in and retired from “research” I’m pretty pissed off abut how that word has been compromised. Won’t even use it: I’m studying a problem, reading up on it. If I were to look for a year of the jackpot in all this this is probably the clearest mark that the failure of a social order is in the breakdown of common civility …
Almost Retired
@RaflW: I backed Jerry Brown at my first (and only) Iowa caucus in 1980 as a college freshman. Brown favored the legalization of marijuana, and I was a single-issue voter at the time.
schrodingers_cat
@Ten Bears: Doing research these days has come to mean watching conspiracy peddling YT videos and following some kooks on social media.
kindness
We’re surrounded by idiots.
I’ll tell you what I think RFK Jr’s followers and MAGA truck nut types have in common. They both need to eat a Costco sized bag of salted dicks. Someone please post the video of this happening.
catclub
@Matt McIrvin:
interesting. I would have guessed that men into ‘wellness’ are into body-building type wellness, so right wing makes sense.
Not as clear for women into wellness.
Maybe just indicates a trend of more men into ‘wellness’
Josie
@schrodingers_cat: “Science feels authoritarian to them because they don’t understand it.”
This is an excellent explanation of their outlook. It’s so simple, but I never looked at it that way before.
catclub
@RaflW:
Euphemism for ‘died of cancer’?
Tim C.
Fascists really aren’t effective at running things. Fascism sadly has certain politcal advantages, but it always degrades reasonably quickly. The era of imperial absolute rulers ended not becasue of some moral great awakening, but simply getting out-competed by more dynamic and sane governments. We may be in for a bad time for a while, and the long term damage will be serious to catastrophic.
But they will lose.
catclub
@Josie: Also relevant to apes reading philosophy.
HT: Fish called Wanda
Belafon
@Geminid: come to find out, the plane has been in San Antonio since at least the beginning of the month. I work for the company that is getting to do the check on the plane, though I’m not part of that group (it’ll probably be moved to Greenville, Tx at some point).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/05/12/trump-qatar-747-gift-security/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJyZWFzb24iOiJnaWZ0IiwibmJmIjoxNzQ3MDIyNDAwLCJpc3MiOiJzdWJzY3JpcHRpb25zIiwiZXhwIjoxNzQ4NDA0Nzk5LCJpYXQiOjE3NDcwMjI0MDAsImp0aSI6IjFiNTRkMjc4LTdkYzItNDc0OC05ZjY3LTdlOTFjNmY0MzY1MyIsInVybCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vd3d3Lndhc2hpbmd0b25wb3N0LmNvbS9uYXRpb25hbC1zZWN1cml0eS8yMDI1LzA1LzEyL3RydW1wLXFhdGFyLTc0Ny1naWZ0LXNlY3VyaXR5LyJ9.kjyWzG9o2FqeJgZRLM9Vdqj1_trsLNXbIaoCdPlWV-8
Tim C.
@kindness: They don’t go to Costo… maybe Sam’s club. ;)
artem1s
@Harrison Wesley:
It’s probably about processed food and additives. they were fine when being concerned about the prevalence high fructose corn syrup in anything that comes in a box or can or bottle. Or nitrites that can add to hypertension, cancer and other health problems.
then there is the effect of marketing, packaging, branding and bribing grocery stores to place their products at eye level. I know kids who can’t eat anything without covering it in red high fructose corn syrup (ketchup). They also won’t eat generic oat O’s even though they are exactly the same product as the General Mills brand that comes in a yellow box and costs 3x’s as much.
being concerned about highly processed food is a legit thing. But then they go down the conspiracy rabbit hole and decide pasteurized milk is evil. they can’t stop themselves.
Harrison Wesley
@YY_Sima Qian: That is fascinating. I seem to recall that one of the UC campuses tried something similar a few years ago, but I don’t remember specifics.
Sure Lurkalot
@Matt McIrvin:
For podcast listeners, Season 1 of The Dream is a good primer on MLMs and how they escaped being deemed the pyramid schemes they are.
I have the current bestseller/MLM expose “Little Bosses Everywhere” on hold on Libby. Meanwhile, I’m reading Tom Levenson’s So Very Small which is so very good.
cope
@catclub: Not to mention strategically placed small explosive charges.
schrodingers_cat
@Josie: TBF, Science is not easy to understand. Basic scientific research can be easily made to sound wasteful. I bet if I explain some of the research I have done over here, people’s eyes would glaze over and their internal monolog would be, what is even the point
Sometimes there is no immediate practical application. So it all seems wasteful and self indulgent to many.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@catclub:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tsongas
I was also a Paul Simon supporter when he ran, then Paul Tsongas. I think many of us here who talk about a lifetime of nose-holding experiences come from the same perspective as BCrack.
catclub
@cope: An Israeli specialty!
Jackie
Semi-sorta on topic: Why conservative Christian women get away with wearing non-conservative clothing?
Dressing to please dirty old men.
artem1s
@schrodingers_cat: TBF,
ScienceReligion is not easy to understand.Basic scientific researchRaiding tax payer dollars to fund parochial schools can be easily made to sound wasteful.Science is hard but not nearly as hard as twisting yourself into mental knots so you can claim that schools should teach that everything in the bible is literally true.
Sure Lurkalot
@rikyrah:
Since they celebrate being uneducated, it follows that qualifications are for suckers. Who you know and mutual grift are the gateways to success so why bother with all that time consuming learning?
Geminid
@Belafon: They ought to call that plane “The White Elephant.”
Apparantly the Qataris gave a Turkiye a Boeing 747 a few years ago, for Turkish President Erdogan to fly around in. I saw a picture of Erdogan being greeted by Egyptian al-Sisi at the Cairo airport, with the 747 in the background. It was like Erdogan showed up in a vintage Cadillac.
schrodingers_cat
@artem1s: You don’t have to convince me. I am trying to get into the mindset of science denying antivax people.
I am a person with a scientific education and do not follow any religion.
Josie
@Geminid: We could also call it “The Trojan Plane.”
Baud
@Geminid:
They’re like Oprah except with planes.
Geminid
From Turkish journalist Ragip Soylu:
Yesterday, Trump talked about lifting the sanctions on Syria that have been in place since the Assad era, saying this would give the new government “a fresh start.” The Saudis want this and so does Turkish President Erdogan, who had a long phone call with Trump last week.
schrodingers_cat
@artem1s: Also, belief in religion doesn’t demand understanding.
NotMax
@Josie
Hair Force One.
//
Professor Bigfoot
Heh. “Everything is a conspiracy theory when you don’t understand how anything works.”
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: Religious faith is, by definition, irrational.
What else can you call a belief in supernatural forces and supernatural beings? “The power of prayer” is irrational.
I don’t say that to denigrate it. As irrational as it is, it’s a very deeply human thing, and I respect it as such.
Citizen Alan
@Josie: When I think about MAGAs, my image of them is that they are all the assholes back in rural Mississippi who would trip me or slam me into a locker back in junior high because “reading is for fags.” And then they get out into the real world with that HS diploma that they struggled to get with a C- average and they’re incensed that the kids who liked to read and valued learning were doing better than them economically and socially.
Nothing but lazy, entitled, mediocre white boys (and girls) who hate DEI and “wokeness” because they know they can’t compete with ambitious, hardworking minorities, women, and immigrants on an even playing field.
Anyway
@rikyrah: Head of the NIH has some troubling beliefs as well.
And the acronyms peddled by RFK Jr and his merry band of grifters – makes me stabby…
Baud
Via reddit, more Democratic terrorism
prostratedragon
South African tells us briefly just how persecued white South Africans are not
Trivia Man
@Belafon: tip: remove everything after the “?” In the liink
Belafon
@Trivia Man: I didn’t only because that’s the gift link part.
Belafon
@Belafon: What I should have done was put it as a link on some words so you don’t see the whole thing.
Manyakitty
@Baud: I hate it when Ohio gets in the news.
Baud
@Manyakitty:
I’m looking forward to the upcoming Ohio BJ meetup making the news.
prostratedragon
Guess one has to be of a certain age for that phrase to trigger in the mind, Monstrous Mechanical Metal-Munching Moon Mice. It does rather help to situate that discussion.
Chris T.
@catclub:
Possibly. Note that body-building isn’t really about “wellness” though. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just not related to health. Especially if you compete on stage (and double-especially if you leave the “natural” path for the siren call of anabolic steroids). The desired look to win such contests requires a distinctly un-healthy low body fat percentage, and for the time on stage, you’re loaded up with salt and water after previously getting seriously dehydrated. (This helps striations and veins show, through paper-thin skin.)
If you skip the competitions and stay at a healthier body fat level (and don’t abuse steroids thus causing liver and/or heart issues), it can be reasonably healthy.
Geminid
@Geminid: Turkish President Erdogan– likely with the help of his shrewd Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan– really laid it on thick in the “readout” of his phone call with Trump last week:
The readout the White House provided was almost as effusive.
Erdogan carefully cultivated Trump during his first term. I expect they they stayed in touch while Trump was out of power. Trump’s not that hard to figure out for people like R.T. Erdogan and his right-hand man Hakan Fidan.
Interestingly, Trump made his long-time friend and ally Tom Barrack his Ambassador to Turkiye. Erdogan probably considers Barrack’s indictment and acquittal during the Biden administration a feature, not a bug.
Manyakitty
@Baud: heh.
Trivia Man
@Jackie: breaking news that is related to- the mormons have restyled their religious garments. When i was young it was a major point that clothing had to cover the garments and anything that didn’t was immodest. And that immodest was true even if you didn’t wear garments yet.
The new styles allow much shorter dresses and even GASP bare shoulders. Still in short supply, there are reports that women are sharing the new ones for special occasions until they can all get a set. Sisterhood of the traveling garments!
Shakti
@Betty Cracker They’re both eugenicists and racist as fuck. If you follow Imani Barbarin she explains a lot and in detail, about how eugenicism is not confined to one part of the political spectrum. They also tend to love essentialism.
@Josie: Style points; probably. Most likely, I think they’re competing for their niches in the grift ecosystem and they overlap too much. I’m just going to say a lot of the ‘woo woo pet cows vaccines are bad’ and ‘gender panic are everywhere” types are racist as fuck and also religious, but not always on the religiosity.
Full disclosure: I am very into some “woo.” But I actually believe in modern medicine; do not share any of those politics, and have actually seen and experienced up close what happens when food regulations are lax and/or people contract entirely preventable food and water borne diseases.
I don’t like essentialism even though it does provide comforting stories to people.
Chief Oshkosh
@RaflW: Yes, we were big Dean supporters, including through his time as head the DNC.
It may be petty of me, and certainly makes no difference to the world, but I’ll never forgive Gephart and Kerry* for colluding to kill the Dean campaign. They then went on to run the most beige campaigns possible, and found a way to lose to the dumbest war criminal we’ve ever produced who ALSO headed the party whose policies tanked the economy. Again.
*My wife and I were pragmatic enough to get behind Kerry. We even hosted dinner parties for him. Good lord, but that man was/is dull as dishwater. I mean, he’s actually an interesting and accomplished human being, with lots of exciting and real achievements, but as a political candidate, he makes a very good fence post.
Trivia Man
@Belafon: TIL, thanks
Baud
@Shakti:
Everyone needs a little woo in their life.
Trivia Man
@Belafon: Sorry to be a Choosy Beggar instead of grateful for your contribution
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: Yeah. Faith in something bigger than yourself seems to be a human need. I agree.
But I am always wary of people who wear their religion on their sleeve. It doesn’t matter which religion. Faith. spirituality etc are deeply personal but far too often they become a stick to beat others into compliance.
prostratedragon
@YY_Sima Qian: Thank you, this sounds interesting.
The Audacity of Krope
I’m hoping he accepts it and it turns out to be a form of Trojan horse scenario.
schrodingers_cat
Totally OT Enjoying my fountain pens with a rainbow assortment of inks. Great for writing and drawing. Why did we ever stop using them.
Oh and if you want to use a black fountain pen ink for drawing Pelikan’s fount India black ink is the best. It doesn’t smudge and is fairly waterproof. I am using it for my line and wash drawings. Don’t let it dry in the pen though. Says so on the box.
Baud
Thanks, Biden
Shakti
@Jackie: They’re the right kind of ladies [white, christian, blonde, right age, attractiveness level] to wear these garments and are exceptioneered into being *virtuous* by fitting the aesthetic ideals. Being exceptioneered is a flex.
The other rules and silly things like hypocrisy apply to the lessers. who are ugly, and violate gender rules by existing. I remember it’s been a forever trope that their political opponents’ women are ugly smelly unhealthy [sexist slurs].
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: We humans are just built that way.
Faith has gotten many a human through many a trial; and religion has been around to empty the pockets of believers.
prostratedragon
@catclub: No need to restrict to those two when Iran, NKorea, etc are around, not to mention, er, ngos. They could call the plane “Antarctica.”
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: I think I’ve mentioned before how the biggest racist (and idiots) I’ve ever been forced to work with were also the
biggestLOUDEST Christians.Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
I recognize the limits of rationality.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: Same with BJP bhakts. Loudest fakest Sanatanis.
RSS/BJP calls Hindu religion Sanatan Dharma (Eternal Code of Conduct)
Someone on Twitter called it Tantrum Dharma. Many heads exploded!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Baudisattva is wise.
Jay
Project 2025 has been updated with new goals, methods and targets.
https://mockpaperscissors.com/2025/05/12/news-that-will-drive-you-to-drink-project-2025-edition/
Elizabelle
Have not read the thread, but has anyone seen some good articles and items about how to get people away from conspiracy theories?
Conspiracy theories pushed by social media are going to be the death of us, some of us physically.
Thank you in advance.
Matt McIrvin
@Jackie: Horny public objectification of women has been a thing good Christian conservative men do and defend from those killjoy feminists at least since I was a teenager. It’s an assertion of men’s power over women.
NotMax
@schrodingers_cat
The Bauda Sutra back in print! Use code BJ69 at checkout for 75% discount.
;)
Gin & Tonic
@Citizen Alan: Substitute russia for MAGAts and Ukraine for you, and you get exactly the same dynamic at work. They are the loser big brother whose big moment of glory is the touchdown he scored in the state championship game a few decades ago, and has gone on to a loser career as assistant manager of the feed store, leading a life filled with resentment.
BethanyAnne
From a 1940 collection of essays called Freedom: Its Meaning, here’s Bertrand Russell on how fascism begins:
https://kottke.org/25/05/bertrand-russell-on-how-fascism-starts
Geminid
@Geminid: When Tom Barrack arrived in Ankara last week he told reporters:
Barrack was speaking broadly about his ancestry; his grandparents were Lebanese Christians. Barrack, who is a healthy-looking 78 years old, grew up in Culver City, California. His father was a grocer and his mother a secretary.
Barrack attended USC and earned a law degree at the University of San Diego. His first job out of law school was with Herbert Kalmbach, Ronald Reagan’s lawyer.* After a lucrative law career that took him around the Middle East, Barrack went on to found the real estate investment company Colony Capital.
* When Reagan visited his own Ranch Cielo, the Secret Service boarded their horses at Barrack’s nearby stable.
Bupalos
@Manyakitty: Beachwood is the next suburb out from the one I grew up in and I believe still pretty heavily Jewish. These are highly liberal enclaves of the generally liberal NEOhio. It didn’t happen there because of ‘redness’ but the opposite.
But the way everything is state-ified, yeah, this will be read as “book-burning Ohioans!”
But whatup Clevenet, am I really allowed to check out 100 books at a time?
Bill Arnold
@Trivia Man:
Interesting.
(I see that the markings started being silk-screened for womens’ garments in 2018.)
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: Here is an article from the Scientific American.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Thank you. Looks great, and a persuasive source.
Josie
@Gin & Tonic:
This picture reminds me of one of the tenets of the book Friday Night Lights. The author shows how reaching the pinnacle of success (that winning touchdown) at such an early point in life dooms the young man to a life of disappointment. It explained a lot to me about winners and losers.
Elizabelle
@BethanyAnne: Looks great. Thank you. Taking a friend to a med appointment, and now have something great to read.
BethanyAnne
@Elizabelle: Yw :)
Soprano2
@artem1s: Buy a box, then when it’s gone keep the box and put the generic cereal in the box. They probably won’t be able to tell the difference. My husband did this with kids, and it worked well.
Trivia Man
@Bill Arnold: Interesting, the sacred marks were sewn in and it was essential to cut them off before disposing of worn out garments. I guess cost cutting to screen printing instead but still requires the removal.
NotMax
@Tivia Man
Still a Moroni(c) cult.
raven
@Soprano2: My old man used to do that with booze. High dollar bottles filled with cheap!
JoyceH
Question – can the makers of the MMR vaccine sue RFK Jr for the repeated false claim that their vaccine contains “aborted fetus debris”?
Matt McIrvin
@Josie: Bruce Springsteen and “King of the Hill” have produced poignant works on this subject.
NotMax
@raven
“Is it live or is it Memorex?” – the hooch hoax version.
;)
Omnes Omnibus
@Professor Bigfoot: Wearing a particular shirt while watching a Packer game is irrational and has no effect on the result of the game, but I do it anyway because what if it actually works.
Trivia Man
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
Besides, the Spongebob Squarepants shirt is so fetching.
:)
Bill Arnold
@Ten Bears:
There’s also the TV Tropes treatment:
Doing Research (tv tropes)
Omnes Omnibus
@Josie: Al Bundy.
Manyakitty
@Elizabelle: whoever figures that out can save the world. I’m thinking maybe a Carrington Event that kills at least the Internet.
Bill Arnold
@Omnes Omnibus:
That theme resonated around the world.
Some photos here:
Married … With Children And Its Remakes From All Around The World (2016)
What might be a full list:
International Remakes: “Married… with Children”
Geminid
@Geminid: An update on Syrian sanctions from Charles Lister:
Trump was addressing a “Saudi U.S. Investment Forum.”
And from Syrian news site Levant24:
That’s about 980 miles by air.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
You ent kidding.
Kayla Rudbek
@schrodingers_cat: when people asked Michael Faraday what use his research was, he replied, “ Madam, of what use is a baby?” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Faraday
Manyakitty
@Kayla Rudbek: brilliant and accurate
Raoul Paste
Haven’t read the comments here, but I completely understand why these two factions are fighting.
They are fighting over the finite amount of drift money out there.
Bill Arnold
@Manyakitty:
Is that a wish? FWIW, the internet is probably more robust than the much of the rest of civilization; much of the communication infrastructure is fiber optics, and the internet regularly routes around damage of various sorts. (The root domain name servers /DNS system might be vulnerable to a hacking attack, though.)
Alternative:
– Teach people to tag all their conjectures, and the often-delusional fluff from which they are built, with probability estimates.
– Make this a part of schooling from kindergarten onward.
– If taught as part of critical thinking lessons, make it an important part.
schrodingers_cat
Hogg releases criteria on who is PAC will primary.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I saw something on Reddit that said that Malcolm Kenyatta was also somehow caught up in the DNC rule change. Have you seen anything about that?
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
Which brings to mind this question: which commercial product was Al Yankovic referring to when he sang, “use it for spackle, or bathroom grout”?
NotMax
@Ten Bears
When research gets mired wandering in the Forest of All Knowledge.
:)
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
Humans often decline to see anything that takes thought or actual knowledge. Takes too much specific learning and actual concepts of real science. That concept is beyond them. They often want to believe “something/something/Ginger.” A saying that stands for they don’t want to know or really don’t have any clue.
Spanky
Maybe this whole RFK Jr. thing will, um, resolve itself:
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Kenyatta in his own words.
Belafon
@Manyakitty: The internet will go away when book and television do.
Jackie
@Soprano2:
I was doing this in the ‘70s for husband, continued in the ‘80s and ‘90’s for the kiddos. Now, of course I don’t need to do so, as generics are favored in most cases by the grandkiddos. My daughter was appalled that “she was being
lied tomisled,” but of course she buys generics as a matter of savings.Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: One of the other issues is that they take the idea that we are all equal too literally. They think that their uninformed opinion on a scientific/technical/legal/etc. question is as valid as that of an expert in the field. It’s not. Call me elitist.
Jackie
@Omnes Omnibus:
It does too work! We win, said shirt is hung, not washing that luckiness away! Lose, and straight to the laundry hamper it goes.
I had to discard FOUR different Mariners shirts – so far the last four games…. Three are washed and hopefully will break the current curse.
Omnes Omnibus
@Jackie: Exactly.
Jackie
@Baud:
I think they couldn’t remove Hogg alone? Discrimination or something to that effect?
Jackie
@Spanky: Grandchild named BOBCAT!?
And…
What’s gonna happen? Three slaps on his wrist?
Salty Sam
@Omnes Omnibus:
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
― Isaac Asimov
Dorothy A. Winsor
Trivia Man
@Bill Arnold: I think Lisa Simpson showed actual research. She was arguing the Torah with Rabbi Krustofsky. When he rebutted her arguments she went back to the books and rethought her position. Eventually she prevailed and Krusty reconciled with his father. Happy ending!
Trivia Man
@Manyakitty: The internet and all ‘smart’ appliances.
Geminid
@Jackie: The Malcolm Kenyatta thread linked at comment #124 explains the situation from Kenyatta’s point of view. It sounds like the DNC found his and Hogg’s election as deputy DNC chairs was procedurally defective after another contender challenged it, so they’ll have a do-over.
Jay
@Jackie:
With any luck, sepsis.
Fingers crossed.
Trivia Man
@Ruckus: “One weird trick” is an astonishingly effective and compelling argument.
“All ya gotta do is…”
Trivia Man
@Omnes Omnibus: “Thats, like, just your opinion, man”
Trollhattan
@The Audacity of Krope:
I don’t want it unless it contains a self-destruct feature controlled by a giant red* button in the presidential suite labeled “Don’t You Dare Press This Button.”
*Must be red, and definitely cannot be gold or it will be invisible.
Trollhattan
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Is this anything like the triple-dog dare from A Christmas Story?
Matt McIrvin
@Jackie: The ban on swimming in the water will go away and they’ll fire all the rangers.
Trollhattan
@Spanky:
Fuck me, how can this be real?
Jay
@Matt McIrvin:
I prefer keeping my fingers crossed for more Dead Kennedys.
Jay
@Trollhattan:
After Brie, people stopped naming their kids after cheese.
Jackie
@Geminid: Thanks! I missed that post.
prostratedragon
A telling image:
Weapon X
@Jay:
Tell that to my sons Neufchatel and Emmentaler!
Ken B
@Josie: Married With Children had the same message.
Spanky
@Trollhattan: Well, there’s a pic at the top of this article, which shows BJr and two little kids, one obviously a boy and the other, back to the camera, with long blonde hair.
So take your pick. Is the little girl “Cassius”, or “Bobcat”?
Trollhattan
@Spanky:
Going with Bobcat here. The boy has a lean and hungry look. Does grandpa look sufficiently like jerky to explain that, or is something else afoot?
LeftCoastYankee
@raven:
My dad did that except putting tea in the bottles to make the basement bar look well stocked.
This was abandoned after my aunt started mixing her own drinks one summer BBQ. She actually had several “moldy tea tonics”before anyone figured out.
frosty
I’d add ambitions, hardworking white men to that list too, if you don’t mind.
Jay
@Trollhattan:
So he was named after RFK Jr’s favorite roadkill?
Spanky
@Jay: I thought that was “Bear”.
Shoulda named the girl “Ursula”.
BlueGuitarist
Saw somewhere “me-search”
as the term for when “doing your own research” =
a google search to confirm half-baked nonsensical preconceptions.
Gravenstone
@Trollhattan: Broken father results in broken children, who are in the process of breaking their children in turn.
Jay
@Spanky:
He tossed the bear out as a speed bump on a Central Park bike path.
He ate part of the whales head, and bobcats, and other roadkill.
Professor Bigfoot
@Omnes Omnibus: BRUH— if I had ANY kind of talisman to help the Cleveland Cavaliers find success… fuck rationality, amirite? 😂
Shakti
@Spanky:
I don’t wish ill on children who have no control over what their eugenicist adults do, even if I think the Kennedys, past, present, future should disappear from public view and power forever.
However, it’s just amazing to me that RFK Jr is happily doing the most to to take out his own grandchildren via Godwin’s Law by proxy.
Why, sway?
dnfree
@RaflW: Back in the day, both the conservative-leaning and the liberal-leaning members of my family liked Tsongas.
Manyakitty
@Bill Arnold: fair enough. That’s probably less inconvenient.
Manyakitty
@Trivia Man: smart appliances seem unnecessary to me. Why does the refrigerator need Internet?
Jay
@Manyakitty:
In theory, it’s so you can see what is in the fridge with out opening it, let you know when service is needed, it can produce grocery lists for you, keep track of expiry dates, and even order a Door Dash grocery delivery.
In reality, it’s so that you can watch porn in your kitchen, take work emails and texts, and a Tech Company can amass tons of data on you and sell it off so you get spammed with hundreds of ads and AI can listen in to your conversations.
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Nooooo they don’t. One of their big problems with modern science is that it’s too often done by foreigners, brown people and women.
HopefullyNotcassandra
One should not throw stones into roiling waters. Nobody knows which way the wave will head and how hard the stone filled wave will hit.
These grifters failed to do basic research on mobs and how mobs are always, inherently, uncontrollable
Kayla Rudbek
@Omnes Omnibus: my dad tries to stick with certain brands of beer for Notre Dame football games