Roy rips another one from the (Twitter) headlines. I swear if someone had told me 10 years ago that this is where we would be, I wouldn't have believed them.
“Why won’t the highly credentialed professor of molecular virology go on the comedian's podcast to debate the guy in the tinfoil hat who screams about the measles vaccine turning kids transgender (I guess the vaccine got bored with turning kids autistic)? Why is the professor afraid of the marketplace of ideas?”
If he didn’t have the Kennedy surname, if you discount who his father and uncles were, RFK Jr. is just a guy in a tinfoil hat. And not only has RFK Jr. not inherited their intelligence, he doesn’t even have their jawline – a far greater failing in my estimation.
The only elitism going on here is RFK Jr’s pedigree ensures he has a platform from which to spout his lunacy, whereas the guy stumbling around the park muttering about UFOs and anal probes doesn’t have his theories taken seriously.
And though it is not fair, it is a practical irony that the voice of this 'alternate health' fanatic sounds like Mel Blanc's portraying a sickly child, e.g. Little Willie in "East Lynn" ('Dead! Dead! and never called me "Mother"!').
Jun 19, 2023·edited Jun 19, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso
Funny stuff , Roy! There's that horrifying aspect that's troubling. I'm from SW Ohio, though.and I've been shoulder to shoulder with these grits for 65 years and well, you get used to horrifying.
You know, if there was an oral vaccine for covid, we would have skipped a lot of this. Big strong Maga Men are too pussy to get a shot.
Now I'm thinking about the comment by the bigot on Twitter about tr--y semen in the Chick-fil-A lemonade and does anyone have a gun I can borrow to get that out of my head
CORRECTION: It was more like 'replete with emotion', but the point is that it didn't mean 'pitiable', as it would only fifty years later when "Oh! What a Lovely War!" was created.
You can’t “debate” someone who operates on faith. I recall a frustrating “debate” between Bart Ehrman and some Bishop. Ehrman finally had to say they couldn’t resolve the question because the Bishop presumed the divinity of Jesus, which was supposed to be the subject of the “debate.” RFK Jr, like Flat Earthers, believes he knows something you don’t, making him better than you and impermeable to facts and logic. Also, Joe Rogan appears to be an asshole.
True. But the inability of some otherwise intelligent people to grasp that two somewhat counter-intuitive facts can both be true – big pharma are rapacious, amoral capitalists who gouge our citizenry, but also vaccines are effective because they’ve been developed over decades by doctors and scientists who only work for the capitalists – is truly astounding.
Twenty years ago, I was approached by the wife of an uber-wealthy friend to ghost-write a book about how vaccines were the cause of autism. She gave me all her "research" in a couple of shopping bags. So, I began digging through all the materials. The core premise of the autism theory at that time was Thymerisol being used as a preservative in the vaccines was causing autism--this because Thymerisol is based on mercury.
Even back then, the original paper that proposed this theory had been debunked, and Thymerisol had been discontinued as a vaccine preservative a decade earlier in favor of cheaper and more effective preservatives. So on one side you had a single debunked paper upon which everything else in the anti-vax world was based (and ALL of that was anecdata and conjecture). And on the other side, you had ore than a century of actual rigorous scientific research, public health data, and in-depth analysis.
I told my friend's wife I couldn't write her book because the science wasn't there. I walked her through everything I'd found, pointing out how the one foundational anti-vax paper had been debunked and the "culprit" chemical was no longer in use. She wasn't having any of that. It was obvious to her that there had been a concerted effort going back to the start of the 20th century to cover up the evils of vaccines. The debunked paper was the one grain of truth that had leaked through. Obviously, I had also been taken in by Big Science.
Teh Stupid is the Strong Force in the universe. It will eventually overwhelm and destroy us all.
Yep. Although I can’t really wrap my head around it, I am aware that for those who are conspiracy minded, the conspiracy is impossible to disprove because as DrBDH notes it is based on belief not facts. So every debunking only serves to illustrate how deep the cover-up goes, etc.
Sure, right, science and chemistry and evidence and stuff, but have you really given a fair hearting to Jenny McCarthy, co-host of MTV's Singled Out, Playboy's 1993 Playmate of the Year, and Mrs. Donnie Wahlberg?
A scientist friend of mine conducted an experiment in which he responded to every penis-enlargement email he got over the course of a month. By the end of those 30 days, his member was 106 meters long and could not be concealed by any clothing.
MSNBC was showing some video of a guy interviewing Trump super-fans outside the courthouse in Miami, he shows them a picture of the boxes stacked up in the bathroom, and one response is "Nah, that's bullshit." Well, ya got me there, you win!
And Peter Hotez, the target of the real-life idiocy that inspired this magnificent work of art, is a goddamn hero, working to develop a no-patent vaccine that's saving lives all over the world. My only consolation is that, if humanity has not destroyed itself through sheer stupidity in the next 50 years, Peter Hotez might be remembered long after the morons harassing him have been forgotten.
Exactly. How do you "debate" what's polluting Twitter today: "Kennedy Drops BOMBSHELL: For every life saved from vaccine, it killed 4 people. You are 21% more likely to die in 6 months from taking vaccine."
My boss is anti-vax. He's convinced that the death toll from the covid vaccines is in the tens of millions, but Biden is forcing hospitals to hide that data. (When I pointed out that the vaccines were developed at the direction of Donald Trump, he countered that Trump told Fauci to develop the vaccines--and Fauci told the scientists to make sure the vaccines were poison.)
"He's convinced that the death toll from the covid vaccines is in the tens of millions, but Biden is forcing hospitals to hide that data."
Is Biden also forcing the newspapers to not print the obituaries? And I supposed he's also forcing the families of TENS OF MILLIONS of people to all keep quiet about how their formerly-healthy family member suddenly died after taking the vax. Wow, that Biden, for a stumbling, senile old fool, he sure is powerful!
For thinking logical people, the bigger a conspiracy gets, the more likely it is that at least one of the participants is going to spill the beans.
But for modern conservatives, a conspiracy CAN'T work unless it has hundred, thousands, or even millions of participants. Thus, Hillary was never held accountable for Vince Foster's death because it turns out that Newt Gingrich and every top Republican, along with all federal and local law enforcement, was part of the conspiracy to protect her. Yeah, makes no sense . . . to YOU. But you're not a conservative trying to make the square peg fit through the Ken Starr hole.
Tim Scott, on Fox (of course) "We've got to fire Joe Biden and then fire Merrick Garland, and then fire Christopher Wray, we've got to get rid of these political appointees who have weaponized our justice system."
Christopher Wray, of course, was appointed by Donald J. Trump after he fired Comey. Which just proves Trump himself is in on the conspiracy?
Does he say WHY Fauci wanted the vaccine to be poisonous? Or don't I want to know, as I need to jealously guard my remaining brain cells. I mean, it just sounds like Underpants Gnomes "reasoning" to kill tens of millions of people: Death, death, PROFIT!!!
Sorry, late getting here. I was on a day-long vacation!
I don't know that line, so it probably is. I can't have written it myself, because a hole "up" another hole is too topologically difficult for me to grasp.
It was in the letters page, distributed over the course of the it, but I can't remember who it was they claimed were an asshole who was leading a safari up David Frost's arsehole. (They were referring to Frost as such every issue or so—I know because in 1980 I bought every single back-issue from Book Village in Pasadena for $1 each, and proceeded to further damage my grades by reading them all in order, probably only narrowly avoiding becoming some scabrous version of Flaming Carrot in the process. I _did_ become aware that a.) the start of the letters page was for a time where every doomed band advertised their first album, b.) ads for stereos, cigarettes, and [to a lesser but dependable extent] terrible dorm posters probably kept the magazine going for a few years, c.) P.J. O'Rourke at first only slowly revealed the extent of his hateful bigotry and d.) I liked the "Penthouse" ads c.1977 much more than anything I ever saw in an issue of "Penthouse".)
Thinking about that "conversation" with Dad and Kevin yesterday and how OBVIOUS it seemed to them that they were right and I was just misinformed, as well as the mini-Gish Gallop of "well, yeah, BUTWHATABOUT". Which is why these dopes want "debates"; they get their shotgun of bullshit before an audience while their opposite has to scramble to keep up with the lies. Researching takes time, even in the age of Google, and that's time they're going to spend harassing you for not having proper talking points at hand, like they always do due to getting them from conservative media.
Just read the link. Wow. Baylor U needs to screen their perfessers better. Those eggheads need to keep their lesson plans focused on scripture and guns. And The Big 12 Conference. As for their extracurriculars.... well I'm too Christian to say what I'm thinking. That would involve using the Lord's name in a colorful manner, if you get my drift. I'm just thankful the people are finally waking up to the danger posed by these academics.
Much as people still use Chile's and New Zealand's privatised old-age pension schemes in argument when both have been thoroughly repudiated by their nations, Sweden's initial herd-immunity strategy was repudiated (I recall it as) four months in.
Yeah, Elmo's confused sense that Sweden must be different from/ better than everyone else must be based on their failed herd-immunity strategy (or else why Sweden?) But remember, the subject up for debate is vaccines, AFAIK, Sweden didn't do anything different vaccine-wise. But look at me, applying facts and logic to the ravings of a goddamn troll, so the troll wins I guess.
Good (funny/scary) stuff, Roy, as always! Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't debate a skill that takes practice and preparation? Funny how debate in this country has become a cage match with combatants shouting at and over each other. The loudest and nastiest being declared the winner, of course. Trying to discuss science in that atmosphere is ludicrous. (Joe Rogan will moderate!! Hundreds of thousands of dollars to the charity of your choice!! Lol). I blocked hundreds of Yahoos on Twitter yesterday, while I drank vodka lemonade on my deck.
Sorry, debate has been replaced by points-scoring. Musk says Covid-19 isn't Covid-19 any more, because of all the mutations. Which proves something, somehow. Checkmate libs!
There’s a debate in the banjo world that goes like this: Gibson banjos made pre-WWII sound best. You find one in sad shape. You replace the torn head, warped tone ring, cracked neck and fret board and a few smaller pieces of hardware. At what point does it cease to be a pre-war Gibson? Of course this is banjos we’re arguing about, not life saving vaccines so it’s nowhere near as donkeybutt stupid as Elon Musk.
Yeah, he shows off all that classical education he got in South Africa by referring to it as "The Virus of Theseus". So if there was some kind of debate over which strain of Covid is "authentic", he'd have a point, I guess? Of course, they can all kill you, which sounds pretty authentic to me, but I'm not a Covid Originalist.
About the banjos, we're lucky they keep making new wars, so really any banjo can qualify as "pre-war."
"You can shit in the river as many times as you want and totally own those losers who live downstream LOL" - From the Collected Sayings of Chairman Musk
Oh FUUUCK, I forgot in the post at alicublog that my brother in law and my father were yup yup yup'n yesterday about what an intelligent charming person Jesse Waters is, and I just had to keep quiet. Heard him the other day on (I think) Knowledge Fight and, jeezus, what a piece of work.
If I just use Firefox to read the post, I can download the picture and cut/paste text. The Substack app seems to not have this capability, for whatever reason.
Musk has been vaccinated, because he's not an idiot, he just panders to idiots. And apparently he had a reaction to it, which just exposes the massive conspiracy to deny that anyone, anywhere, has ever had a reaction to a vaccine. Of course, dying from a vaccine also falls under the category of "reaction to a vaccine" so if I deny mini-RFK's claim that millions have died from the Covid vaccine, then I must also be denying... ah, fuck it, why bother.
True, if the more-than-a-million people who died from Covid were all given Celestial Twitter accounts where they could all just post, daily, "I'm still dead from Covid, you know" that might have an effect on the discourse.
Jun 19, 2023·edited Jun 19, 2023Liked by Roy Edroso
No new information here, I was a smart and science-obsessed child and adolescent in suburban New York in the 1970s in public schools. It might have left me with a little too much respect for Order, as I knew there was very little but grudging respect for the schools' administrators' ability to fuck-up their lives keeping some people from literally killing me for fun.
Of course, to be fair, their hatred for and disparagement for learning might have something to do with 0.) anti-Semitic tropes they didn't ask to be saddled-with and 1.) their mistreatment by the schools' both damaging their own ability to learn and leaving them to see anyone who could as trusties.
People, people… we can’t be like our opponents. We have to teach the controversy, and let the strength of facts and logic beat back the forces of emotional reaction and fear. What would Socrates say of our brightest minds’ unwillingness to discourse with poopmouth or catturd2, or engage with noted public intellectual Joe Rogan?
Roy rips another one from the (Twitter) headlines. I swear if someone had told me 10 years ago that this is where we would be, I wouldn't have believed them.
“Why won’t the highly credentialed professor of molecular virology go on the comedian's podcast to debate the guy in the tinfoil hat who screams about the measles vaccine turning kids transgender (I guess the vaccine got bored with turning kids autistic)? Why is the professor afraid of the marketplace of ideas?”
If he didn’t have the Kennedy surname, if you discount who his father and uncles were, RFK Jr. is just a guy in a tinfoil hat. And not only has RFK Jr. not inherited their intelligence, he doesn’t even have their jawline – a far greater failing in my estimation.
The only elitism going on here is RFK Jr’s pedigree ensures he has a platform from which to spout his lunacy, whereas the guy stumbling around the park muttering about UFOs and anal probes doesn’t have his theories taken seriously.
Today's NY Times, trying to keep up with DougJ:
"Why Robert Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 Bid Is a Headache for Biden"
"The unexpected polling strength of an anti-vaccine activist with a celebrated Democratic lineage points to the president’s weaknesses."
Evergreen pitchbot: (fill in the blank) here's why that's bad news for Biden.
Good news for John McCain!
DOUBLE good news for Meghan!
"...a Headache for Biden"
Joe Biden, sitting behind the Resolute desk: "Eh, put it on the pile over there with the others, thanks."
With RFK Jr.'s antivax activism, he's one Kennedy who won't get shot!
Too soon
2 marks for the jawline.
Part of Roy's biting satire.
At least 3 jaws is better than 3 wars (according to Churchill, anyway...)
After seeing Episode I, millions agreed that war-war is better than Jar-Jar
'A beard is no substitute for a jawline.'—Henchman 24 to Henchman 21.
"If he didn’t have the Kennedy surname, if you discount who his father and uncles were, RFK Jr. is just a guy in a tinfoil hat."
Periodic reminder that his cousin's, JFK Jr's, hubris got himself, his wife and his sister-in-law killed.
Yeah, how come RFK Jr. hasn't gone all in on the PRIVATE PLANES KILL conspiracy theory? It's all a coverup by the FAA and Big Cessna!
Fake news. JFK, Jr will be Trump's running mate
And though it is not fair, it is a practical irony that the voice of this 'alternate health' fanatic sounds like Mel Blanc's portraying a sickly child, e.g. Little Willie in "East Lynn" ('Dead! Dead! and never called me "Mother"!').
Funny stuff , Roy! There's that horrifying aspect that's troubling. I'm from SW Ohio, though.and I've been shoulder to shoulder with these grits for 65 years and well, you get used to horrifying.
You know, if there was an oral vaccine for covid, we would have skipped a lot of this. Big strong Maga Men are too pussy to get a shot.
And here we are.
"if there was an oral vaccine for covid"
They'd be puttin' it in our water! LEAVE MY PRECIOUS BODILY FLUIDS ALONE
Now I'm thinking about the comment by the bigot on Twitter about tr--y semen in the Chick-fil-A lemonade and does anyone have a gun I can borrow to get that out of my head
Here's a gun—'you know what to do':
https://youtu.be/jVavtX80m3Q
(An ear-worm for a brain-worm.)
I know this one from the film "Oh! What A Lovely War!", which I recommend highly - WW1 envisioned as a British seaside funfair.
Fun fact: 'pathetic' meant 'heartfelt' back then.
CORRECTION: It was more like 'replete with emotion', but the point is that it didn't mean 'pitiable', as it would only fifty years later when "Oh! What a Lovely War!" was created.
I prefer this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbei3IAnUEs
They put it in Bud Light. Where's my Joe Rogan guest spot?
You mean _shove it down their throats_?
To quote Paul Newman in Slap Shot: "All I can get."
You can’t “debate” someone who operates on faith. I recall a frustrating “debate” between Bart Ehrman and some Bishop. Ehrman finally had to say they couldn’t resolve the question because the Bishop presumed the divinity of Jesus, which was supposed to be the subject of the “debate.” RFK Jr, like Flat Earthers, believes he knows something you don’t, making him better than you and impermeable to facts and logic. Also, Joe Rogan appears to be an asshole.
True. But the inability of some otherwise intelligent people to grasp that two somewhat counter-intuitive facts can both be true – big pharma are rapacious, amoral capitalists who gouge our citizenry, but also vaccines are effective because they’ve been developed over decades by doctors and scientists who only work for the capitalists – is truly astounding.
Twenty years ago, I was approached by the wife of an uber-wealthy friend to ghost-write a book about how vaccines were the cause of autism. She gave me all her "research" in a couple of shopping bags. So, I began digging through all the materials. The core premise of the autism theory at that time was Thymerisol being used as a preservative in the vaccines was causing autism--this because Thymerisol is based on mercury.
Even back then, the original paper that proposed this theory had been debunked, and Thymerisol had been discontinued as a vaccine preservative a decade earlier in favor of cheaper and more effective preservatives. So on one side you had a single debunked paper upon which everything else in the anti-vax world was based (and ALL of that was anecdata and conjecture). And on the other side, you had ore than a century of actual rigorous scientific research, public health data, and in-depth analysis.
I told my friend's wife I couldn't write her book because the science wasn't there. I walked her through everything I'd found, pointing out how the one foundational anti-vax paper had been debunked and the "culprit" chemical was no longer in use. She wasn't having any of that. It was obvious to her that there had been a concerted effort going back to the start of the 20th century to cover up the evils of vaccines. The debunked paper was the one grain of truth that had leaked through. Obviously, I had also been taken in by Big Science.
Teh Stupid is the Strong Force in the universe. It will eventually overwhelm and destroy us all.
YET STILL ANOTHER YAHOO
A Confederacy of Yahoos
I can not read _any_ TradCath writer without thinking of Ignatius P. Reilly.
Yep. Although I can’t really wrap my head around it, I am aware that for those who are conspiracy minded, the conspiracy is impossible to disprove because as DrBDH notes it is based on belief not facts. So every debunking only serves to illustrate how deep the cover-up goes, etc.
COVER-UPS SO DEEP NOW WE'RE SAFE FROM OCEAN LEVEL RISE.
3 marks high & rising...
Which Johnny Cash song better describes the current world, that one or "25 Minutes to Go"? ('No other possibility.')
Belueving you're persecuted and lied to? Scary.
Believing you're significant part of a cosmic drama? Priceless.
I got out my Junior Detective Kit and I'm searchin' the internet for CLuES!
Sure, right, science and chemistry and evidence and stuff, but have you really given a fair hearting to Jenny McCarthy, co-host of MTV's Singled Out, Playboy's 1993 Playmate of the Year, and Mrs. Donnie Wahlberg?
hearing sheesh
Pretty sure I gave a fair hearting to Jenny back in the mid-90's, not so much lately.
Are you sure that was your heart?
I saw her tits, so she must be right!
None of these so-called scientists show any skin. What else are they hiding?
A scientist friend of mine conducted an experiment in which he responded to every penis-enlargement email he got over the course of a month. By the end of those 30 days, his member was 106 meters long and could not be concealed by any clothing.
Now you know what it’s like living in Kristi Noem’s South Dakota
Nuh, it's _hips_ that don't lie.
As Jordan Klepper has often shown, if you confront them with a fact they just reply, "I don't care!"
MSNBC was showing some video of a guy interviewing Trump super-fans outside the courthouse in Miami, he shows them a picture of the boxes stacked up in the bathroom, and one response is "Nah, that's bullshit." Well, ya got me there, you win!
'Kreplach!'
Gesundheit!
And Peter Hotez, the target of the real-life idiocy that inspired this magnificent work of art, is a goddamn hero, working to develop a no-patent vaccine that's saving lives all over the world. My only consolation is that, if humanity has not destroyed itself through sheer stupidity in the next 50 years, Peter Hotez might be remembered long after the morons harassing him have been forgotten.
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/08/31/1119947342/whatever-happened-to-the-new-no-patent-covid-vaccine-touted-as-a-global-game-cha
You actually give us as long as 50 years? You sweet summer child, thank you for the ray of hope.
Jeez. Don't call him that in the classroom...
I'm standin' up for ya, Steve!
Exactly. How do you "debate" what's polluting Twitter today: "Kennedy Drops BOMBSHELL: For every life saved from vaccine, it killed 4 people. You are 21% more likely to die in 6 months from taking vaccine."
(He actually said these things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G12_kBKlBGM)
My boss is anti-vax. He's convinced that the death toll from the covid vaccines is in the tens of millions, but Biden is forcing hospitals to hide that data. (When I pointed out that the vaccines were developed at the direction of Donald Trump, he countered that Trump told Fauci to develop the vaccines--and Fauci told the scientists to make sure the vaccines were poison.)
YET STILL ANOTHER YAHOO, AGAIN
"He's convinced that the death toll from the covid vaccines is in the tens of millions, but Biden is forcing hospitals to hide that data."
Is Biden also forcing the newspapers to not print the obituaries? And I supposed he's also forcing the families of TENS OF MILLIONS of people to all keep quiet about how their formerly-healthy family member suddenly died after taking the vax. Wow, that Biden, for a stumbling, senile old fool, he sure is powerful!
I don't know a single one of these dear departed. Weird.
For thinking logical people, the bigger a conspiracy gets, the more likely it is that at least one of the participants is going to spill the beans.
But for modern conservatives, a conspiracy CAN'T work unless it has hundred, thousands, or even millions of participants. Thus, Hillary was never held accountable for Vince Foster's death because it turns out that Newt Gingrich and every top Republican, along with all federal and local law enforcement, was part of the conspiracy to protect her. Yeah, makes no sense . . . to YOU. But you're not a conservative trying to make the square peg fit through the Ken Starr hole.
Tim Scott, on Fox (of course) "We've got to fire Joe Biden and then fire Merrick Garland, and then fire Christopher Wray, we've got to get rid of these political appointees who have weaponized our justice system."
Christopher Wray, of course, was appointed by Donald J. Trump after he fired Comey. Which just proves Trump himself is in on the conspiracy?
Trump both victim and participant. He contains multitudes, as is indicated by his girth.
Does he say WHY Fauci wanted the vaccine to be poisonous? Or don't I want to know, as I need to jealously guard my remaining brain cells. I mean, it just sounds like Underpants Gnomes "reasoning" to kill tens of millions of people: Death, death, PROFIT!!!
Because Fauci, ya dummy.
There MUST be another reason beyond just "Fauci" and I think you know what it is. DEBATE ME YOU COWARD
Send a hundred thousand dollars to may favorite charity (me) and I will happily engage in discourse with you, good sir.
Something something CHY-NAH Ukraine Democrats socialism yadda yadda argle-bargle.
And Burisma to you too!
Don said to Fauci
'Make me a jab!'
Fauci said 'Sir, Iʼve got just the lab.'
'Its functionʼs gained, youʼll get well fast'
Don said 'Scientists can kiss my arse'
'Theyʼre a buncha snakes'
'All eggheads are bad!'
—admittedly, I started trying to do "Highway 61" but quickly lapsed into "All Women are Bad".
Could be worse...
I’m beginning to think the American Hapsburgs aren’t that great.
Joe Rogan might be an asshole?
HUH. I have the feeling you have something there.
'Submitted for your approval: An asshole up another assholeʼs asshole.'
(Mr Weiner: was that from before your time at the "Lampoon"?)
Sorry, late getting here. I was on a day-long vacation!
I don't know that line, so it probably is. I can't have written it myself, because a hole "up" another hole is too topologically difficult for me to grasp.
Trust the science!
It was in the letters page, distributed over the course of the it, but I can't remember who it was they claimed were an asshole who was leading a safari up David Frost's arsehole. (They were referring to Frost as such every issue or so—I know because in 1980 I bought every single back-issue from Book Village in Pasadena for $1 each, and proceeded to further damage my grades by reading them all in order, probably only narrowly avoiding becoming some scabrous version of Flaming Carrot in the process. I _did_ become aware that a.) the start of the letters page was for a time where every doomed band advertised their first album, b.) ads for stereos, cigarettes, and [to a lesser but dependable extent] terrible dorm posters probably kept the magazine going for a few years, c.) P.J. O'Rourke at first only slowly revealed the extent of his hateful bigotry and d.) I liked the "Penthouse" ads c.1977 much more than anything I ever saw in an issue of "Penthouse".)
Thinking about that "conversation" with Dad and Kevin yesterday and how OBVIOUS it seemed to them that they were right and I was just misinformed, as well as the mini-Gish Gallop of "well, yeah, BUTWHATABOUT". Which is why these dopes want "debates"; they get their shotgun of bullshit before an audience while their opposite has to scramble to keep up with the lies. Researching takes time, even in the age of Google, and that's time they're going to spend harassing you for not having proper talking points at hand, like they always do due to getting them from conservative media.
"E pur si muove."
("And yet it moves." About 400 years ago. And here we are.)
'"Percy"!? Sounds kinda _queer_ ta me.'
https://ttte.fandom.com/wiki/Percy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_(1971_film)
Note that this movie is Robyn Hitchcock's half-sibling.
Just read the link. Wow. Baylor U needs to screen their perfessers better. Those eggheads need to keep their lesson plans focused on scripture and guns. And The Big 12 Conference. As for their extracurriculars.... well I'm too Christian to say what I'm thinking. That would involve using the Lord's name in a colorful manner, if you get my drift. I'm just thankful the people are finally waking up to the danger posed by these academics.
When the history of our times is finally published...ah, who'm I kiddin'...
I think of that scene in The Time Machine where Rod Taylor pushes his hand through a shelfful of books that all crumble to dust.
“As for the deaths you claim are due to Covid-19, why is the nation of Sweden still alive?”
Actual quote from one of the richest men on Earth.
Much as people still use Chile's and New Zealand's privatised old-age pension schemes in argument when both have been thoroughly repudiated by their nations, Sweden's initial herd-immunity strategy was repudiated (I recall it as) four months in.
Yeah, Elmo's confused sense that Sweden must be different from/ better than everyone else must be based on their failed herd-immunity strategy (or else why Sweden?) But remember, the subject up for debate is vaccines, AFAIK, Sweden didn't do anything different vaccine-wise. But look at me, applying facts and logic to the ravings of a goddamn troll, so the troll wins I guess.
Good (funny/scary) stuff, Roy, as always! Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't debate a skill that takes practice and preparation? Funny how debate in this country has become a cage match with combatants shouting at and over each other. The loudest and nastiest being declared the winner, of course. Trying to discuss science in that atmosphere is ludicrous. (Joe Rogan will moderate!! Hundreds of thousands of dollars to the charity of your choice!! Lol). I blocked hundreds of Yahoos on Twitter yesterday, while I drank vodka lemonade on my deck.
Sorry, debate has been replaced by points-scoring. Musk says Covid-19 isn't Covid-19 any more, because of all the mutations. Which proves something, somehow. Checkmate libs!
Yep.
There’s a debate in the banjo world that goes like this: Gibson banjos made pre-WWII sound best. You find one in sad shape. You replace the torn head, warped tone ring, cracked neck and fret board and a few smaller pieces of hardware. At what point does it cease to be a pre-war Gibson? Of course this is banjos we’re arguing about, not life saving vaccines so it’s nowhere near as donkeybutt stupid as Elon Musk.
Yeah, he shows off all that classical education he got in South Africa by referring to it as "The Virus of Theseus". So if there was some kind of debate over which strain of Covid is "authentic", he'd have a point, I guess? Of course, they can all kill you, which sounds pretty authentic to me, but I'm not a Covid Originalist.
About the banjos, we're lucky they keep making new wars, so really any banjo can qualify as "pre-war."
Just when I thought there couldn't be any more banjo jokes, SteveB rides to the rescue!
Putin, touring the Omsk Peoples Banjo Factory Number 17, holds up a newly-manufactured banjo and says, "Ah, one of those pre-war banjos."
A confused aide asks, timorously, "What do you mean 'pre-war' sir?"
Putin says, "Well, they made this one right before the war I'm starting on Tuesday."
Two new banjo jokes in a single thread? U OK, bro?
with a banjo on his knee!
Heraclitus said, "You cannot step into the same river twice, for other waters are continually flowing on."
This is basically the same thing as Elon on Covid
"You can shit in the river as many times as you want and totally own those losers who live downstream LOL" - From the Collected Sayings of Chairman Musk
Quoted in a twangy 5-string sorta way...
Musk should know better than that: He started as a racist Boer, changed a lot, but he's still a racist Boer.
Imagine being a Boer, a boor, and a bore.
Ooh, well done.
And you wonder why he started The Boring Company?
That makes him a borer as well.
Don't tell anybody, but he's making those machines outta boron.
he was a borer long before that
Not just yelling, there's an advanced technique that involves walking very closely behind the speaker whilst scowling.
There's also a special "debate technique" that only gets used in Bonwit's dressing rooms.
It's called 'heel-heel gurning'.
Goes back to the 90s when "who can yell loudest" became the method of arriving at Truth as brought to us by Roger Ailes and Sean Hannity.
Yes and I would say it goes back to the advent of the 24/7 news cycle. News as infotainment, the more combative the better to get viewers.
or the McLaughlin Group
People that want to "debate" my right to exist. Because this is where it's going.
Oh FUUUCK, I forgot in the post at alicublog that my brother in law and my father were yup yup yup'n yesterday about what an intelligent charming person Jesse Waters is, and I just had to keep quiet. Heard him the other day on (I think) Knowledge Fight and, jeezus, what a piece of work.
He is basically the Nazi Mark Ravenhead from Succession.
"Have you ever read Mein Kampf... A couple times? Were there Easter eggs in there you didn’t get the first time?"
"Just checking the till here, Mark..." One of the best of so many outstanding scenes.
Hearted for yup yup yup'n.
The one who eerily resembles Ross Geller?
I'm just annoyed the Substack app won't let me save that picture.
Try Turbo Download Manager* with an Android device and browser*, or a 'download all images' extension with a desktop Firefox or Chrome.
*Share page>get all files
If I just use Firefox to read the post, I can download the picture and cut/paste text. The Substack app seems to not have this capability, for whatever reason.
Use a screen-shot, then, one version of what anti-piracy people call 'the analogue hole'.
Musk has been vaccinated, because he's not an idiot, he just panders to idiots. And apparently he had a reaction to it, which just exposes the massive conspiracy to deny that anyone, anywhere, has ever had a reaction to a vaccine. Of course, dying from a vaccine also falls under the category of "reaction to a vaccine" so if I deny mini-RFK's claim that millions have died from the Covid vaccine, then I must also be denying... ah, fuck it, why bother.
I'll have you know I had a Covid booster and a flu shot at the same time and I felt like shit for 24 hours. Ergo Fauci is Satan.
Funny how Elmo seems so focused on "I had flu-like symptoms and a sore arm" rather than "I did not die."
Had he died, he wouldn’t be focused on anything now. I think that’s some sort of “survivor fallacy.”
True, if the more-than-a-million people who died from Covid were all given Celestial Twitter accounts where they could all just post, daily, "I'm still dead from Covid, you know" that might have an effect on the discourse.
That's the One Surprising Trick that will save Twitter from the depradations of Young Genius Elon!
How much did Poopmouth pay Debbie to play that part?
Debbie does it for free, I hear.
No new information here, I was a smart and science-obsessed child and adolescent in suburban New York in the 1970s in public schools. It might have left me with a little too much respect for Order, as I knew there was very little but grudging respect for the schools' administrators' ability to fuck-up their lives keeping some people from literally killing me for fun.
Of course, to be fair, their hatred for and disparagement for learning might have something to do with 0.) anti-Semitic tropes they didn't ask to be saddled-with and 1.) their mistreatment by the schools' both damaging their own ability to learn and leaving them to see anyone who could as trusties.
yeah, I can see this happening. sadly.
People, people… we can’t be like our opponents. We have to teach the controversy, and let the strength of facts and logic beat back the forces of emotional reaction and fear. What would Socrates say of our brightest minds’ unwillingness to discourse with poopmouth or catturd2, or engage with noted public intellectual Joe Rogan?
Uh, τι στο διάολο?