In math, there's an idea called undecidability which means that any sufficiently-complex mathematics will eventually produce undecidable questions that cannot be proven true or false. I think we may have reached that point with Frustum/Frustrum.
I find the idea that there are five women who hate themselves enough to get naked with Ted Cruz less plausible than a claim that Cruz Senior personally jumped from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository and strangled JFK with his bare hands.
The notion there are 5 women who would have sex with Ted Cruz is so preposterous, it's an excursion into a fantasy world that makes Tolkien's Middle Earth look as pedestrian as downtown Boise in comparison
Yep, that was the moment when The Enquirer jumped the shark. Their readers were happy to accept "Bigfoot Working in Memphis Convenience Store" but it was "Woman Willingly Has Sex With Ted Cruz" that finally clued them in that it's all fake.
Oh no! My boss was looking over my shoulder and I think she noticed " yellow streams" and "Pecker" in the article I was reading. I think she's headed to human resources! I could be fucked here, and not in the loving, reassuring way.
Math PROFESSIONAL here and I've always thought it was frustrum (as in, "Hey, they dropped a frustrum on his rostrum!") OTOH Wolfram is never wrong, according to students who use it to cheat on exams.
Frustum, Frustrum,. this thing is ripe for calling off.
The Greeks thought it was all handed down to us from the Gods, but no mathematician has thought that since the late 1900s. You start with a set of axioms, they'll generate mathematics. Start with different axioms and you'll end up with different mathematics. It's a coincidence that any of it conforms with actual things that happen in the real world, or we just got lucky in picking the right axioms.
They called it 'Calculus III'. It was actually "here are five axioms. Now derive all of mathematics". When I tell people it took nine weeks to prove 1 = 1 they don't believe me. And we got to differentials nine weeks later.
Don't get me wrong - it was my favorite class after Abstract Algebra, but that had the advantage of finding out the sports crazy dad of the family next door I'd known all my life.....was a math professor.
Well, "professional" in the sense that I do get paid to do math, but the math I do is mainly Algebra, mainly taught to students who struggled with it in high school, which is why they're forced to re-live it again with me.
My degree's in Engineering, but I've never actually worked as an engineer. Graduate with a PhD in the early 90's during a simultaneous downturn in the oil industry and the military-industrial-complex and that'll happen to you too.
Mine was a bit ironic. I was a Comp Sci major until my senior year, but the old bastard that was department head insisted our Phys Ed credits must be "Social Dance", so that we nerds could have actual contact with the opposite sex. As if. Went up before senior year started and told Dr. Hamm, "I'd like to be a math major". No problem credit wise, I had taken all those courses anyway. So I took ROTC for my Phys Ed. Orienteering (field course was a remote swimming hole I'd been going to forever. Me and my buddy aced the course every time...because we knew where to jump the hills) and Marksmanship ("A rifle? Is that what you call it? Bwahahahaha).
ETA: For the record, I already had the contact with the opposite sex bit pretty well worked out by that point.....
Sadly, No. I hate to be lookist, but the potential dance partners were.....not so appealing.
I came from a high school where Liz Ward, Miss America 1982, was strictly second tier, and I got the yearbook to prove it. So I had the choice of Dancing With The Gars or being out in the woods. I picked that latter.
Just some random speculation about the impact of Trump’s legal woes, both his repeated violations of the gag order and the catch and kill allegations, on his base. I could be completely wrong about this, but I wonder if he isn’t beginning to tarnish a bit in their eyes. The MAGAs would never admit it to outsiders, but I wonder if they don’t grouse among themselves “if I were a criminal defendant and did any of this, I’d be held in contempt and I’d be in jail within minutes.” Likewise, when they fuck up in their personal lives, there are no Michael Cohens to deliver burlap sacks covered in dollar signs to make their problem go away.
I guess what I’m getting at is Trump loves to rail against the elites and the deep state and the Washington Blob and yadda yadda yadda. He positions himself as the truth-telling champion of regular folks. But I wonder if this trial isn’t giving his supporters a closer look at how very elite he himself is. Trump has been not-so-subtly trying to rally his supporters to come to the courthouse to protest, but they haven’t shown up. After all, J6 only happened because Trump was in a position of power and his voters believed the White House was at stake. But nobody wants to get arrested because as a defendant Trump can’t keep his mouth shut.
Also, the Pennsylvania primary was held yesterday, and Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race in March, got 155,000 votes. Now, the vast majority of those people will vote for Trump come November. But what if about 20,000 of them stay home? Out of the nearly 7 million votes cast in Pennsylvania in 2020, Biden won by only about 80,000 votes. So those 20,000 people who might stay home could matter. Just speculation, as I said I could be completely wrong, but I wonder if some of Trump’s support may be softening around the edges.
The Ubermensch who boasts HE doesn't COMPLY with the DEEP STATE blah blah blah is sitting there in a seedy overlit court room alternatively seething and napping. Not a great look. I do believe there is fatigue even among his cult, but also gotta consider this is Manhattan. How many of the True Believers are gonna hang out in NY and spend their days standing around outside a courthouse? Expensive proposition.
He IS the President. In a truly GREAT country, the President does whatever the hell he damn well pleases. That's what THEY would do (in their muddled, befuddled, encruddled minds).
And he promised the first day (last Monday) was gonna be WILD. America was gonna go NUTS! Blood in the streets! Revolution in the air! Maybe part of the fatigue is the realization that he rarely delivers on the entertainment he assures is coming.
Yeah, this is the idea I'm trying to tease out. By no means is his support collapsing, and his rabid supporters are still producing lots of foam. I'm simply speculating about a couple of signs that the edges may be softening. Could be wrong, we'll see.
Yeah this. Unlike Trumpov, no one is coming to save *them*. They'll get fired/divorced/prosecuted, and no one is buying and burying true stories of *their* malfeasance.
He had his shot. Hell, Trump told them he was gonna march with them to the Capitol. Then he got in his car and left, and they didn't see him again until he showed up on TV telling them to go home. The Proud Boys were begging him for orders! And he sat there and watched them on TV. Those people would have killed if he had given the order, but its not in him to take risks, to be a hero. If there's another mob, he won't be leading it.
Well, New York is empty because nobody wants to live there any more plus THEY burned the whole place to the ground and come back regularly for re-burnings. Also it's impossible to find parking but if you take the subway you'll be murdered for sure.
I was thinking that. I covered Tea Party gatherings in New York. Most of them were ill-attended. The one big event was obviously not a "grassroots" event but a put-up job with lots of white out-of-towners, guest speakers like S.E. Cupp, and a full Fox News crew. And no one is putting one of those up for Trump.
Kinda like that Chic-fil-A bullshit where a black woman "just happened" to be there. Or the bodega crowd, who coincidentally happened to be in the Young Republican club. All plants. Reminded me of those "protesters" at the Bush-Gore recount. Grassroots support, tee hee, and no one will ever know!
Funny/Not Funny how many from the Brooks Bros riot went on to be Stop the Steal drones in 2021. An election's only fair when the GOP illegally shuts it down!
"The Ubermensch who boasts HE doesn't COMPLY with the DEEP STATE..."
Trump himself, with his constant whining about "They're treating me SO BADLY, SO UNFAIRLY", could he be contributing to the dismantling of his own myth? If you're such a winner, why don't you STOP them, Donald?
It's a fair question, but never forget MAGA's ability to believe two contradictory things at once. Biden is both a shuffling geezer AND a tyrannical manipulator of the Deep State. Trump is both a Captain America stud AND a martyr, like our lord J.C.
I'm storing my concern for King Toad's indignity in the same box where I keep my concern for J6 assholes who helped for decades to make prisons as awful as possible and now sit in them complaining how awful they are.
I believe the crazification factor is presently up in the mid-30-percent range, so it doesn't matter what happens--somewhere between 32- and 36-percent of voters will pull the lever for Trump. And if you talk to those people about what an obvious fraud, fuck-up, and moral disaster Trump is, you'll get a whole lotta "wutabout" and "he's just like Jesus during His trial" and "Deep State" all with a thick rich icing of "fake news."<br>
Frankly, I'd love for the Judge to toss Trump in jail for 30 days for violating the gag order. An entire 30 days during which Trump is cut off from social media, can't do campaign events, can't stand on the courthouse steps and whine. I think even many of his die-hard supporters would start to lose interest in him during that absence. And, of course, Donald Trump finally facing actual very real consequences for his own actions would have a salutary effect on both him and the nation.
Yep the 32 to 36% -- the foam-at-the-mouthers -- are beyond the reach of facts or reason. Again, I'm just speculating about a possible softening at the edges.
I'd love to see him thrown in jail. 30 days would be great, but I think 48-72 hours would also have an impact. It would certainly have an impact on Trump, lol. Every kid in the schoolyard knows you have to push back against a bully. I say shatter that false bubble of untouchability Trump tries to project.
His worst nightmare: to be treated like everybody else. I reiterate my claim that the most trenchant thing he ever said was the statement about how he gets two scoops of ice cream at Mar-a-Lago whilst everyone else gets one. It says everything you need to know about him.
Yeah, images and impressions might make a difference, God knows facts and evidence never will. I know y'all are probably tired of my comparison to Sean Connery in The Man Who Would Be King, but like that.
Facts and reason are great for justifying opinions after people have already decided what they believe. What we first need to do is get them to *feel* that he’s a loser. Seeing him sleeping, farting, and stewing impotently in court, unable to bully anyone, before being dismissed to go yammer at his crowds of nearly *tens* of people in an empty square… that might start the Loser-fication process.
"Facts and reason are great for justifying opinions after people have already decided what they believe."
I'm ashamed to admit it took the election of Donald Trump (and his possible re-election) before I fully understood this to be true. Humans don't have reasons, what they have are rationalizations.
I remember back in those halcyon days that 27 percent was the magic number. No matter how loony the proposition, it came out 27 way way more times than not. That's the floor. The 36 percent is already starting to waiver. I'm hoping with all the trials and his flailing around we'll get back to the Moron Magic Number by election day.
Taking the time to vote for a candidate who isn't even running any more suggests some pretty strong motivation, I'm gonna up the estimate of those who don't vote at all come November to 40,000.
<oldpersonharrumph>Every sentence said as if it is a question. The nuns beat it out of us: "Are you telling me or asking me?" in a definitely not rising intonation. Somehow caught on adjacent to Valley Girl speak, which was a parody to begin with and now reporters? are doing it all the time. The men?, too? Reminds most people of chalk on a blackboard.</oldpersonharrumph>
Remember how outraged Melon Husk was that the first AI bot the public could play with would not spit out the N-word? He finally had his own dev team produce an AI bot that replies nothing but racial slurs no matter the question!
You joke, but there's the Amazon Fresh groceries that were going to have AI track shoppers and automatically tally up their purchases and deduct the total from their bank accounts, with no human interaction. Then it developed that the "AI" they were using wasn't so much powered by algorithms and an LLM as much as a thousand workers in India.
I think "AI" has become the new blockchain. I recently had someone pitch a piece of test equipment that he claimed used AI to determine circuit integrity. Turned out it was just a multimeter with and LED attachment. But it said "AI Powered!" on the box.
If you mean "blockchain" in the sense of Great New Thing Paying Off ANY DAY NOW, yeah, pretty much. Ed Zitron, 404 Media, and the Trashfuture pod have all done excellent reporting on the AI hype and its limitations. The LLM powered generative AIs would need something like THOUSANDS of times the text input that's humanly available to be able to do 99% of what's been predicted is "coming soon". Worse yet, it's going to start having to feed off its own generation material, meaning unless it's contained it's just going to get worse and worse.
Well, the AI was not permitted to use any slurs. Trained on the internet, especially 4 and 8 chan and Twitter, the AI quickly went on to say all the you can't say that words
Spectrum News, interviewing Trump supporters outside the courthouse, found a guy who described himself as "talk radio host" and said, "Well, since Biden won in 2020 campaigning from his basement, Trump's gonna win in a LANDSLIDE campaigning from the courthouse!" I was momentarily taken aback by the open acknowledgement that Biden won, but then I remembered how this works, "I will say this thing for the purpose of getting off this one wisecrack, but I can never be held to it, ever again." Like the Supreme Court with Bush v. Gore.
Sometimes I hesitate to make predictions, because I worry I might be wrong and then I'd look foolish, wouldn't I? So yeah, two things their brains NEVER do: "Worry I might be wrong" and "Worry about looking foolish."
Of course they're right, nobody is keeping track, confidently predict RIGHT NOW that Joe Biden will win in a LANDSLIDE, nobody's going to track you down seven months from now to mock you.
Hey, this thing where Biden gets the Ukraine aid he wanted with ZERO concessions on immigration policy, would you call that a WIN for Biden? Because here's how Associated Press reports it:
"Biden’s long fight with Republicans over Ukraine aid has ended, but significant damage has been done"
AP reports on VJ Day: "Fight with Japan has ended, but significant damage has been done"
Ha ha, disarray is a thing that only Dems have. Also, I think "but" is in there because it's a balancing-word, an on-the-one-hand-but-on-the-other thing, and you gotta be all balanced to write headlines for AP.
I sometimes wonder if George Stephanopoulos ever reads your work and wonders if it's about him.
LISTEN! It's not the media's fault, it's OUR fault because we want pap and they only give us what we want and they would give us serious journalism but we won't watch it we'll change the channel WE'LL CHANGE THE CHANNEL OH GOD STOP CHANGING THE CHANNEL if only they could keep us from changing the channel by force or whatever, by drowning out the competitor's signals with their own like big FM stations used to do with their huge million dollar broadcasting towers but oh no those days are past now they have to compete they have to compete but it's OUR FAULT not their fault they're just giving us what we want THEY HAVE TO GIVE US WHAT WE WANT don't you understand it's THE MONEY THE MONEY THE ADVERTISING MONEY THE SPONSOR MONEY THEY HAVE TO GIVE US WHAT WE WANT OR NO AD MONEY it's not their fault IT'S NOT THEIR FAULT IT'S NOT THEIR FAULTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Meet the Press is the longest-running show on TV, it just turned 75 a couple of years ago. I can't believe that's due to an actual public demand for it.
"it's what we want", only for a specific definition of "we".
Meanwhile they discourage changing the channel by all seeing how close they can get to FAUX/ONAN/Newsmax without mass personnel walkouts, since that's OBVIOUSLY what "WE" want.
BTW, the NY Pisst is mad that the military didn't gun down all the Columbia protestors, there's no place for me to park at work thanks to all the goddamn kids, and I'm probably going to have another package stolen because I'll be in the Tedium Factory when it gets delivered. Oh, and a dumbass on YouTube telling me how oppressed Christians are. I'm not in a good mood.
"Gateway Pundit, a far-right outlet known for promoting the conspiracy theory that the 2020 US presidential election was rigged, has declared bankruptcy as it battles a string of defamation lawsuits."
A moment of silence please - hey you, I can see you stifling a laugh - for Jim Hoft and Gateway Pundit, declaring bankruptcy today in the face of a defamation suit by Ruby Freeman and Shae Moss:
Hilarious to see yet another conservative pisswhine about "lawfare", i.e. "how dare I be held legally responsible for breaking the law?" King Toad really has inspired the worst and stupidest in them.
Before Alex Jones and Donald Trump, successful libel cases weren't so common. You have to go pretty far to meet the American standard for libel, almost like you'd have to be trying to get sued.
Wardrobe and styling, as always, on point.
Music and fashion were always a passion at the REBID
You had me at “repulsive music”.
So many possibilities.
"large, grey square-frustum*-shaped object bearing the network logo and the words 2000 LBS"**
*spellchecked – lost an 'r' somewhere...
**Thank Ma & Pa Warner for Warner Bros. for providing us all with the visuals to track that description.
The post isn't finished until the commenters spell-check. Thanks, fixed.
Hearted but woulda hearted more if ya'd left it – alt. spel looks/sounds good in this instance.
"Frustrum" does have a nice ring!
Postum is my nostrum.
In math, there's an idea called undecidability which means that any sufficiently-complex mathematics will eventually produce undecidable questions that cannot be proven true or false. I think we may have reached that point with Frustum/Frustrum.
Praise Gödel!
"...streams raining down on his from above...."
Not to mention Pa's contributions to football.
Thanks, too, to Monty Python's Flying Circus.
So nice to see Scott Stapp still getting work.
The ending deserves some Carl Stalling.
I was thinking more like Boots Randolph.
ALWAYS appropriate.
Think good thoughts about Boots!
(REPULSIVE MUSIC, SEVERAL MICE FALL FROM RAFTERS APPARENTLY STUNNED)
I find the idea that there are five women who hate themselves enough to get naked with Ted Cruz less plausible than a claim that Cruz Senior personally jumped from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository and strangled JFK with his bare hands.
He survived because he landed on the grassy knoll!
The notion there are 5 women who would have sex with Ted Cruz is so preposterous, it's an excursion into a fantasy world that makes Tolkien's Middle Earth look as pedestrian as downtown Boise in comparison
"Bored of His Ding"
Damn.
2 marks.
"Ding" sounds about right. Not big enough for "Dong."
Yep, that was the moment when The Enquirer jumped the shark. Their readers were happy to accept "Bigfoot Working in Memphis Convenience Store" but it was "Woman Willingly Has Sex With Ted Cruz" that finally clued them in that it's all fake.
I always thought Cruz was the infamous Bat Boy who grew up and became doughy from eating too much bacon cooked on his car hood.
Cue slightly hysterical-sounding vocal group from mid-60's tv:
"Dada dada dada dada dada dada dada dot: Bat Boy!"
Which is a staple at minor league ballparks on a sunny, slightly sleepy afternoon...
Nelson Riddle really had a way with lyrics, didn't he?
Neal Hefti, but why quibble?
Oh, that's why there's only double yellow lines on Boise streets. You shall not pass.
I thought it meant Boise has a high walkability score.
No Pasarán!
Do you guys sit around Casa Edrosso, spending the day tossing witty bon mots made up exclusively of seldom used words and phrases?
I had to look up " Frustrum" because, "Dammit Jim, I'm a horticulturalist not a mathematician"
The first article I googled noted in the opening paragraph the word is
" Frustum " and is frequently misspelled with the second " r"
https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Frustum.html#:~:text=A%20frustum%20(unfortunately%20commonly%20misspelled,with%20a%20single%20plane%20only.
Funny article !
Oh no! My boss was looking over my shoulder and I think she noticed " yellow streams" and "Pecker" in the article I was reading. I think she's headed to human resources! I could be fucked here, and not in the loving, reassuring way.
You and thousands, nay MILLIONS, of others who stood in line at Lyin' Ted's Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am Emporium.
Math PROFESSIONAL here and I've always thought it was frustrum (as in, "Hey, they dropped a frustrum on his rostrum!") OTOH Wolfram is never wrong, according to students who use it to cheat on exams.
Frustum, Frustrum,. this thing is ripe for calling off.
Sorry about your job.
Unlike math, PLANTS ARE REAL!
But not birds, don't get me started on the birds.
I agree - birds are completely made up. Like trigonometry.
The Greeks thought it was all handed down to us from the Gods, but no mathematician has thought that since the late 1900s. You start with a set of axioms, they'll generate mathematics. Start with different axioms and you'll end up with different mathematics. It's a coincidence that any of it conforms with actual things that happen in the real world, or we just got lucky in picking the right axioms.
This is getting a bit down in the weeds, but I'm fascinated by the possibility that Axios actually describes the function of the universe...
Wasn't there a lot of trial and error?
They called it 'Calculus III'. It was actually "here are five axioms. Now derive all of mathematics". When I tell people it took nine weeks to prove 1 = 1 they don't believe me. And we got to differentials nine weeks later.
Don't get me wrong - it was my favorite class after Abstract Algebra, but that had the advantage of finding out the sports crazy dad of the family next door I'd known all my life.....was a math professor.
So now you're trying to say Greeks are real?
I saw the sine.
Aw damn. Respect.
Secant you will find, they say. That's why I'd like to cosine this comment. Or is that taking this whole off on too much of a tangent?
Professional?! I'm impressed. My degree is in Mathematics - that's why I was a computer programmer all my life.
Well, "professional" in the sense that I do get paid to do math, but the math I do is mainly Algebra, mainly taught to students who struggled with it in high school, which is why they're forced to re-live it again with me.
My degree's in Engineering, but I've never actually worked as an engineer. Graduate with a PhD in the early 90's during a simultaneous downturn in the oil industry and the military-industrial-complex and that'll happen to you too.
Mine was a bit ironic. I was a Comp Sci major until my senior year, but the old bastard that was department head insisted our Phys Ed credits must be "Social Dance", so that we nerds could have actual contact with the opposite sex. As if. Went up before senior year started and told Dr. Hamm, "I'd like to be a math major". No problem credit wise, I had taken all those courses anyway. So I took ROTC for my Phys Ed. Orienteering (field course was a remote swimming hole I'd been going to forever. Me and my buddy aced the course every time...because we knew where to jump the hills) and Marksmanship ("A rifle? Is that what you call it? Bwahahahaha).
ETA: For the record, I already had the contact with the opposite sex bit pretty well worked out by that point.....
Is Social Dance some kind of euphemism?
Sadly, No. I hate to be lookist, but the potential dance partners were.....not so appealing.
I came from a high school where Liz Ward, Miss America 1982, was strictly second tier, and I got the yearbook to prove it. So I had the choice of Dancing With The Gars or being out in the woods. I picked that latter.
or Safety Dance without the seat belt.
Oh god math chat breaks out AGAIN. Help me.
LOL, NO ONE expects the Mathist Disquisition!
OOF.
I think she's headed to human resources! I could be fucked here, and not in the loving, reassuring way.
More in the Ted Cruz cheating sort of way?
Just some random speculation about the impact of Trump’s legal woes, both his repeated violations of the gag order and the catch and kill allegations, on his base. I could be completely wrong about this, but I wonder if he isn’t beginning to tarnish a bit in their eyes. The MAGAs would never admit it to outsiders, but I wonder if they don’t grouse among themselves “if I were a criminal defendant and did any of this, I’d be held in contempt and I’d be in jail within minutes.” Likewise, when they fuck up in their personal lives, there are no Michael Cohens to deliver burlap sacks covered in dollar signs to make their problem go away.
I guess what I’m getting at is Trump loves to rail against the elites and the deep state and the Washington Blob and yadda yadda yadda. He positions himself as the truth-telling champion of regular folks. But I wonder if this trial isn’t giving his supporters a closer look at how very elite he himself is. Trump has been not-so-subtly trying to rally his supporters to come to the courthouse to protest, but they haven’t shown up. After all, J6 only happened because Trump was in a position of power and his voters believed the White House was at stake. But nobody wants to get arrested because as a defendant Trump can’t keep his mouth shut.
Also, the Pennsylvania primary was held yesterday, and Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race in March, got 155,000 votes. Now, the vast majority of those people will vote for Trump come November. But what if about 20,000 of them stay home? Out of the nearly 7 million votes cast in Pennsylvania in 2020, Biden won by only about 80,000 votes. So those 20,000 people who might stay home could matter. Just speculation, as I said I could be completely wrong, but I wonder if some of Trump’s support may be softening around the edges.
The Ubermensch who boasts HE doesn't COMPLY with the DEEP STATE blah blah blah is sitting there in a seedy overlit court room alternatively seething and napping. Not a great look. I do believe there is fatigue even among his cult, but also gotta consider this is Manhattan. How many of the True Believers are gonna hang out in NY and spend their days standing around outside a courthouse? Expensive proposition.
I suggest other.
He IS the President. In a truly GREAT country, the President does whatever the hell he damn well pleases. That's what THEY would do (in their muddled, befuddled, encruddled minds).
And he promised the first day (last Monday) was gonna be WILD. America was gonna go NUTS! Blood in the streets! Revolution in the air! Maybe part of the fatigue is the realization that he rarely delivers on the entertainment he assures is coming.
Yeah, this is the idea I'm trying to tease out. By no means is his support collapsing, and his rabid supporters are still producing lots of foam. I'm simply speculating about a couple of signs that the edges may be softening. Could be wrong, we'll see.
I know, let's interview the 20 people who DID show up, see if they still like him, that should give us the pulse of the American People!
Let me know when you got the veins good and bulgy.
Oh, the veins on the temples are always that.
Is there a diner nearby?
It's NYC, so even if there is a diner, I'm sure it's the WRONG kind of diner.
I'm not sure 20 people showed up.
Here, I rounded up some Trump supporters for ya! (rounded up from 15)
Yeah this. Unlike Trumpov, no one is coming to save *them*. They'll get fired/divorced/prosecuted, and no one is buying and burying true stories of *their* malfeasance.
As soon as people realized they weren't going to be rewarded for rioting, it kinda took the wind out of their sails.
Yeah, this is why I'm skeptical when some people claim there's going to be a Jan. 6 Part Deux if Trump loses.
Seems like a lot of work for these particular folks.
He had his shot. Hell, Trump told them he was gonna march with them to the Capitol. Then he got in his car and left, and they didn't see him again until he showed up on TV telling them to go home. The Proud Boys were begging him for orders! And he sat there and watched them on TV. Those people would have killed if he had given the order, but its not in him to take risks, to be a hero. If there's another mob, he won't be leading it.
Remember when there were going to be riots as soon as he was indicted?
Which made the long camera pans of an empty Chambers Street yesterday all the sweeter.
Well, New York is empty because nobody wants to live there any more plus THEY burned the whole place to the ground and come back regularly for re-burnings. Also it's impossible to find parking but if you take the subway you'll be murdered for sure.
Mild In The Streets
I was thinking that. I covered Tea Party gatherings in New York. Most of them were ill-attended. The one big event was obviously not a "grassroots" event but a put-up job with lots of white out-of-towners, guest speakers like S.E. Cupp, and a full Fox News crew. And no one is putting one of those up for Trump.
Kinda like that Chic-fil-A bullshit where a black woman "just happened" to be there. Or the bodega crowd, who coincidentally happened to be in the Young Republican club. All plants. Reminded me of those "protesters" at the Bush-Gore recount. Grassroots support, tee hee, and no one will ever know!
Funny/Not Funny how many from the Brooks Bros riot went on to be Stop the Steal drones in 2021. An election's only fair when the GOP illegally shuts it down!
Pro bono, because of course no one who shows up for Trumpov actually got paid.
"The Ubermensch who boasts HE doesn't COMPLY with the DEEP STATE..."
Trump himself, with his constant whining about "They're treating me SO BADLY, SO UNFAIRLY", could he be contributing to the dismantling of his own myth? If you're such a winner, why don't you STOP them, Donald?
The constant and pointed application of "Losers Whine" is called for.
It's a fair question, but never forget MAGA's ability to believe two contradictory things at once. Biden is both a shuffling geezer AND a tyrannical manipulator of the Deep State. Trump is both a Captain America stud AND a martyr, like our lord J.C.
Someone should write a book on how that happens.
Yes. We'll call it "Fun With Cognitive Dissonance."
I'm storing my concern for King Toad's indignity in the same box where I keep my concern for J6 assholes who helped for decades to make prisons as awful as possible and now sit in them complaining how awful they are.
The one and only iron-clad principle by which all Republicans conduct their lives is: It's Different When It's Me.
Is your concern for Kenny in that box, too?
Who?
Your former housemate. Wasn't his name Kenny?
I believe the crazification factor is presently up in the mid-30-percent range, so it doesn't matter what happens--somewhere between 32- and 36-percent of voters will pull the lever for Trump. And if you talk to those people about what an obvious fraud, fuck-up, and moral disaster Trump is, you'll get a whole lotta "wutabout" and "he's just like Jesus during His trial" and "Deep State" all with a thick rich icing of "fake news."<br>
Frankly, I'd love for the Judge to toss Trump in jail for 30 days for violating the gag order. An entire 30 days during which Trump is cut off from social media, can't do campaign events, can't stand on the courthouse steps and whine. I think even many of his die-hard supporters would start to lose interest in him during that absence. And, of course, Donald Trump finally facing actual very real consequences for his own actions would have a salutary effect on both him and the nation.
Yep the 32 to 36% -- the foam-at-the-mouthers -- are beyond the reach of facts or reason. Again, I'm just speculating about a possible softening at the edges.
I'd love to see him thrown in jail. 30 days would be great, but I think 48-72 hours would also have an impact. It would certainly have an impact on Trump, lol. Every kid in the schoolyard knows you have to push back against a bully. I say shatter that false bubble of untouchability Trump tries to project.
His worst nightmare: to be treated like everybody else. I reiterate my claim that the most trenchant thing he ever said was the statement about how he gets two scoops of ice cream at Mar-a-Lago whilst everyone else gets one. It says everything you need to know about him.
Probably puts ketchup on it
Yeah, images and impressions might make a difference, God knows facts and evidence never will. I know y'all are probably tired of my comparison to Sean Connery in The Man Who Would Be King, but like that.
Aw hell yeah. Drumph wants to go to jail, but a couple of days at Riker's would drive his germophobic ass up the wall.
Facts and reason are great for justifying opinions after people have already decided what they believe. What we first need to do is get them to *feel* that he’s a loser. Seeing him sleeping, farting, and stewing impotently in court, unable to bully anyone, before being dismissed to go yammer at his crowds of nearly *tens* of people in an empty square… that might start the Loser-fication process.
"Facts and reason are great for justifying opinions after people have already decided what they believe."
I'm ashamed to admit it took the election of Donald Trump (and his possible re-election) before I fully understood this to be true. Humans don't have reasons, what they have are rationalizations.
Plus no hair and makeup, such as it is.
ooo...
cold.
Indeed. Quite the bern, so to speak.
Fair enough, tho I'm by now pretty used to post-hirsutitude, and not being orange.
Guards enter cell on day 30 to release Trump, find it empty but for a large clump of piss-yellow hair, throbbing malevolently...
The orange bloom is off the pig’s-anus mouth, so to speak.
Harrumph!
Apologies to our porcine brethren.
Performative believing. Does not apply in instances where actual costs to the believer might loom.
I remember back in those halcyon days that 27 percent was the magic number. No matter how loony the proposition, it came out 27 way way more times than not. That's the floor. The 36 percent is already starting to waiver. I'm hoping with all the trials and his flailing around we'll get back to the Moron Magic Number by election day.
THAT'S NOT CHOCOLATE ICING
“if you talk to those people about what an obvious fraud, fuck-up, and moral disaster Trump is, you'll get….”
He’s just like us! (At least if you talk to my curdled, always-gets-the-short-end-of-the-stick uncle)
Does your uncle shit in a gold-encrusted toilet?
No—sometimes in a literal outhouse!
There is zero chance Tubby has ever used an outhouse.
Ackshully, I'm hoping he got his share in military 'school'.
Taking the time to vote for a candidate who isn't even running any more suggests some pretty strong motivation, I'm gonna up the estimate of those who don't vote at all come November to 40,000.
Problem is, even so we're still stuck dealing with the dead-enders who'll be guarding Trump's skeleton with shotguns.
I can only imagine the tackiness of his reliquary.
The funeral itself, which the kids will plan solely with an eye toward monetizing it.
Solemnly laid to rest on a Trump property as part of a tax dodge.
I might even spring for the Pay-Per-View. And throw a party.
No doubt. Otherwise whatever public resting place would be in piss-poor saturated shape overnight...
Problem is with his diet, the SOB will live to be 150. All those preservatives....
All I want is to see Jimmy Carter dance on his grave, is that so much to ask?
"DRAMATURGY: My degrees are all in the liberal arts. So I don’t get what’s going on legally here? So I have to give Trump the benefit of the doubt."
Ouch, I say.
And many kudos, Mr. Droso, for bringing us back to vaudeville with that ending.
JUST the benefit of the doubt, Mr. Dramaturgy? You're not willing to go farther and claim this is all GOOD for Trump? No MSNBC for YOU!
“We turn now to our panel of former RNC chairs and Republican spokesghouls for their analysis…”
How can Biden win over these 15 people outside the courthouse in MAGA hats? And if he can't, how can he hope to carry New York?
And an extra kudo for the upspeak.
Rising intonation: It's not just for teenage girls any more
Edit: "Rising intonation: It's not just for teenage girls any more?"
Enquiring minds want to know.
Needs moar vocal fry.
<oldpersonharrumph>Every sentence said as if it is a question. The nuns beat it out of us: "Are you telling me or asking me?" in a definitely not rising intonation. Somehow caught on adjacent to Valley Girl speak, which was a parody to begin with and now reporters? are doing it all the time. The men?, too? Reminds most people of chalk on a blackboard.</oldpersonharrumph>
I will not make a joke about this because I do not wish to Go On A List at the FBI.
"Rising intonation is for teenage girls!"
"So is this, ma'am, but every once in a while I need to run a little water through it."
* raises hand* "MR. FBI! MR. FBI! STEVE DID THE THING!"
I was gonna drop in a silly line sung in the style of the old PSA theme:
"Teenagers Give You A Lift!" (if you're from the Old West you'll recognize it), but after reading these last 3 or 4 I think I'll pass.
Oh, it's not so bad.....
Musk’s “random slur generator” for the whim. Finally, an appropriate use of AI, well within it’s data-crunching mindless abilities.
Remember how outraged Melon Husk was that the first AI bot the public could play with would not spit out the N-word? He finally had his own dev team produce an AI bot that replies nothing but racial slurs no matter the question!
Joke is that it's not AI at all, it's Mechanical Turk with Trump voters hidden inside.
The only two sounds it can make is "Checkmate" and "N*****s"
Aw damn, a Mechanical Turk reference. Mongo impressed.
You joke, but there's the Amazon Fresh groceries that were going to have AI track shoppers and automatically tally up their purchases and deduct the total from their bank accounts, with no human interaction. Then it developed that the "AI" they were using wasn't so much powered by algorithms and an LLM as much as a thousand workers in India.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/04/amazon-ends-ai-powered-store-checkout-which-needed-1000-video-reviewers/
I think "AI" has become the new blockchain. I recently had someone pitch a piece of test equipment that he claimed used AI to determine circuit integrity. Turned out it was just a multimeter with and LED attachment. But it said "AI Powered!" on the box.
If you mean "blockchain" in the sense of Great New Thing Paying Off ANY DAY NOW, yeah, pretty much. Ed Zitron, 404 Media, and the Trashfuture pod have all done excellent reporting on the AI hype and its limitations. The LLM powered generative AIs would need something like THOUSANDS of times the text input that's humanly available to be able to do 99% of what's been predicted is "coming soon". Worse yet, it's going to start having to feed off its own generation material, meaning unless it's contained it's just going to get worse and worse.
Meanwhile the AI over on Gab has a default prompt specifying it won't censor its output for slurs or bigotry.
Well, the AI was not permitted to use any slurs. Trained on the internet, especially 4 and 8 chan and Twitter, the AI quickly went on to say all the you can't say that words
Your detailed fashion knowledge always amazes.
Also: love the giant Looney Tunes weight crushing Toehold.
Spectrum News, interviewing Trump supporters outside the courthouse, found a guy who described himself as "talk radio host" and said, "Well, since Biden won in 2020 campaigning from his basement, Trump's gonna win in a LANDSLIDE campaigning from the courthouse!" I was momentarily taken aback by the open acknowledgement that Biden won, but then I remembered how this works, "I will say this thing for the purpose of getting off this one wisecrack, but I can never be held to it, ever again." Like the Supreme Court with Bush v. Gore.
These people are never worried about hypocrisy because the entire universe is created anew for them every fifteen minutes.
Sometimes I hesitate to make predictions, because I worry I might be wrong and then I'd look foolish, wouldn't I? So yeah, two things their brains NEVER do: "Worry I might be wrong" and "Worry about looking foolish."
Of course they're right, nobody is keeping track, confidently predict RIGHT NOW that Joe Biden will win in a LANDSLIDE, nobody's going to track you down seven months from now to mock you.
Hey, this thing where Biden gets the Ukraine aid he wanted with ZERO concessions on immigration policy, would you call that a WIN for Biden? Because here's how Associated Press reports it:
"Biden’s long fight with Republicans over Ukraine aid has ended, but significant damage has been done"
AP reports on VJ Day: "Fight with Japan has ended, but significant damage has been done"
""Biden’s long fight with Republicans over Ukraine aid has ended, but* significant damage has been done"
Well it did lead Reps into DISARRAY!
Credit for damage where due.
*woulda been more accurate-ish if replaced the "but" with "and"
Ha ha, disarray is a thing that only Dems have. Also, I think "but" is in there because it's a balancing-word, an on-the-one-hand-but-on-the-other thing, and you gotta be all balanced to write headlines for AP.
Now running through my head: "The fight has ended, but the melody lingers on."
Had I unlimited funds, I would send a Russian flag to every voter in MTG's district. Spasibo, tovarich!
They already all have the Hickenkreuz. Russian flag would be overkill.
Point.
Her latest lie is that the Ukrainian army is deliberately killing Christians, a thing the Russian army would NEVER do.
I sometimes wonder if George Stephanopoulos ever reads your work and wonders if it's about him.
LISTEN! It's not the media's fault, it's OUR fault because we want pap and they only give us what we want and they would give us serious journalism but we won't watch it we'll change the channel WE'LL CHANGE THE CHANNEL OH GOD STOP CHANGING THE CHANNEL if only they could keep us from changing the channel by force or whatever, by drowning out the competitor's signals with their own like big FM stations used to do with their huge million dollar broadcasting towers but oh no those days are past now they have to compete they have to compete but it's OUR FAULT not their fault they're just giving us what we want THEY HAVE TO GIVE US WHAT WE WANT don't you understand it's THE MONEY THE MONEY THE ADVERTISING MONEY THE SPONSOR MONEY THEY HAVE TO GIVE US WHAT WE WANT OR NO AD MONEY it's not their fault IT'S NOT THEIR FAULT IT'S NOT THEIR FAULTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT
Sorry. I'm okay now.
Meet the Press is the longest-running show on TV, it just turned 75 a couple of years ago. I can't believe that's due to an actual public demand for it.
"it's what we want", only for a specific definition of "we".
Meanwhile they discourage changing the channel by all seeing how close they can get to FAUX/ONAN/Newsmax without mass personnel walkouts, since that's OBVIOUSLY what "WE" want.
Really we just want boobs. First mainstream network to show titty is gonna win. It amazes me no one has managed that yet.
This is why I love British television. Gimme the after 9 o'clock programming, please and thank you!
"Stephanie, age 21 from Manchester, has big opinions on Sunak's election" I'll say she does!
2 marks!
Isn't this a thing on Russian TV?
Dunno, butts can be mighty nice as well.
That's one with "No way Biden could have won! I don't know anybody that would have voted for Biden"
Of course you don't, jerkwad. You only talk to your own kind. That's the story of, that's the glory of Facism.
Play Souza’s “Liberty Bell” and roll credit…
And now for something completely different...
"It's. . ."
Gotta disagree with Roy on this one. That joker is beautiful. Reminds me of a Sarah Coventry mid-century bracelet my mother had.
All I wanna know is did Peoni choke?
BTW, the NY Pisst is mad that the military didn't gun down all the Columbia protestors, there's no place for me to park at work thanks to all the goddamn kids, and I'm probably going to have another package stolen because I'll be in the Tedium Factory when it gets delivered. Oh, and a dumbass on YouTube telling me how oppressed Christians are. I'm not in a good mood.
Came home to some good news, though:
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/4/25/us-far-right-outlet-gateway-pundit-declares-bankruptcy
"Gateway Pundit, a far-right outlet known for promoting the conspiracy theory that the 2020 US presidential election was rigged, has declared bankruptcy as it battles a string of defamation lawsuits."
Be funny as hell if Freeman and Moss end up owning that turd of a site, and repurpose it for better ends.
A moment of silence please - hey you, I can see you stifling a laugh - for Jim Hoft and Gateway Pundit, declaring bankruptcy today in the face of a defamation suit by Ruby Freeman and Shae Moss:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/24/gateway-pundit-rightwing-website-bankruptcy
Who picked that fight? Dumbasses.
Hilarious to see yet another conservative pisswhine about "lawfare", i.e. "how dare I be held legally responsible for breaking the law?" King Toad really has inspired the worst and stupidest in them.
Before Alex Jones and Donald Trump, successful libel cases weren't so common. You have to go pretty far to meet the American standard for libel, almost like you'd have to be trying to get sued.