Lurker > Intro2Logic

The judges don't have the courage to treat him the way they would anybody else who flagrantly disregarded court orders the way Trump has. He knows this.

His behavior will continue until someone imposes an actual consequence.

Whiterun_Guard_ posted...

Stopped reading when they said students live out their prime criminal years in college.

I mean it is true that 18-22 is like peak getting into trouble with the law time.

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/college-is-an-education-in-bullshit

The nicest thing that can be said about college as an institution is that it gives the kids able to afford it an appropriately sheltered place to live out their prime criminal years in an environment where they will not be as harshly prosecuted for their various youthful hijinks as they would be if they were not in college. The not nice thing that can be said about college as an institutionat least as it exists in Americais that it is one of the most distilled expressions of the rot at the heart of how this country chooses to function: Take a public good (higher education), have Republicans choke its public financing, privatize it, make the ability of people to have a decent life dependent upon buying it, and then run it like a business, in the sense of creating lavish tiers for very rich customers and inflating prices to extortionate levels and attacking labor and climbing happily into bed with some of the most sociopathic billionaires the world has ever produced.

While there are legitimately important stories to be told about elite colleges and universitiesin particular their sly inclusion in the class war in the form of the adjunctification of their faculty and the way that they function to groom a superficially diverse cast of young people for their roles as the next generation of class war overseers at McKinsey and Wall Street and the halls of politicsthose are not the stories that most cultural commentators like to tell about them. Instead we get an obsessive and frankly bizarre focus on the rhetorical and political and fashion choices of a bunch of 20 year olds, who are held up as the collective Children of Omelas that all of society can come together to crucify so that sad adults can feel better about themselves. This weird tic, which pervades the media like an infectious disease, means that college does serve one more useful function: If you listen to people talk about it you can very quickly tell who is not worth listening to at all.

It is very easy to be annoyed by college kids. After all, they are young and healthy and have their whole lives ahead of them and the rest of us have already chosen our dreary paths, which we regret. Arithmetic tells you that college students have not had as many years to learn things as older people have had, and sometimes they act with the brashness and overconfidence of youth. This is a trivial observation about the nature of the human lifespan. It is not a weighty subject for political commentary. To the extent that any writer or politician or intellectual treats it as a matter that rises to the level of public importance, or, more absurdly, that reflects some new sociological trend that has not been present for the past several thousand years, the commentator in question is at best a fool and at worst a fraud. If you were to take the five hundred members of the US media who talk about college campuses the most and cast them all into the sea, the overall quality of our national discourse would rise significantly, because at least it would contain a lower amount of pure, goading distraction.
College campuses are little bubbles that exist outside of the real world. That is, of course, how they are designed. Getting mad at college kids for this fact, in the form of criticizing them for being sheltered, is sort of an upscale version of getting mad at prison inmates for being in prison. We put them there! Thats where they they are! What else are they supposed to do? Political protests on college campuses are set pieces, yes, but that is a very deliberate result that was engineered not by college students but by their institutions. To whatever extent college kids are able to break out of the comfortable trap of campus activism and connect their protests to the wider world, I salute them. As should we all.
Seen from this perspective, the protest encampments in support of Gaza that are sweeping elite college campuses across the nationand being ruthlessly crushed by riot cops at the same rateare valuable arenas of political education, more valuable than anything those kids will learn in the classroom. These experiences will teach these kids some of the most important truths they will need to know to accurately assess the way that America operates: That the polished people in charge of things are often merciless dictators at heart; That awful atrocities will be tolerated as soon as they can be ignored; That one millimeter beneath the smile of the boss lurks gritted teeth and a determination to call the cops to break your head open if you dont listen. To have young people set out to protest the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians and then be met by hysterical repression from the same institutions that have been tasked with making them good citizens is one of the best lessons I can imagine. It is an act of wiping off the makeup to reveal the pig beneath. We wouldnt want that pig to be concealed forever, would we?
Just as important as the tear gas and the billy clubs and the administrations cancelling their graduation ceremonies are the words of those condemning the college kids for doing all of this. All of those wordsfrom the somber cable news hosts pretending to fret about chaos, from the insincere lobbyists trying to smear human rights as antisemitism, from the once-friendly politicians afraid to embrace obvious moral judgments due to the naked demands of empire, from the university administrators who turn from gentle friends to militant gremlins when the invisible line into actual disruption is crossedreveal the contours of the bullshit that envelops all of this. We send kids to college to learn, but not to understand; to become independent, but not independent minded; to become responsible, as long as that sense of responsibility does not extend to everyone else in the world. Sometimes, something so bad happens that it causes an uprising that breaks the whole facade. Vietnam was that for my parents generation, and Gaza is that now, and there will be other things to come. The people who think that this is all wrong just show that they never really understood what education is in the first place.

Education is vital. College is dumb. A fabulously expensive ticket to the middle class that is lorded over by middle managers who love giving speeches in goofy gowns, and take their orders from hedge fund managers who have sucked their fortunes out of the pockets of the working class and splash their names on campus buildings like two-year-olds declaring themselves the King of the World. The ability to make a good living in the higher ed industry is inversely proportional to the amount you actually care about education. Universities are, at best, a grand sorting ground that divides those who can and cannot see through bullshit. Im sorry that a lot of kids may get kicked in the teeth in coming weeks to learn this. But the adults who arent smart enough to see that the kids are right are a much, much greater tragedy.

I think the combat in the Judgement games is my favorite in the series.

The beatings will continue until morale improves

Hey man thank you for taking trash from a site owned by a white nationalist and posting it here

The lesson of 2016 and 2020, the explanation that holds consistent with other results from that period and since, is that Hillary Clinton was so disliked she made otherwise surefire losers into competitive threats.

Listen: I was 29 the first time I had a sexual experience and it ended with my d bleeding and the woman not wanting to see me again. It felt, as you described, like a cruel joke. But, I decided from that experience to keep pushing, keep working towards achieving that goal, and by the end of the year I had a girlfriend. It won't be easy. There will be disappointments and setbacks. But the effort you put in towards overcoming anxieties and insecurities can be rewarded.

Is it reasonable to ask for things in the nine months before the next administration begins?

This is good news

People perceive benefit subjectively, not objectively.

Cops have a vested interest in portraying the populations they police as rioutous, out of control, in need of a billy club to beat them back. What we're seeing here is an attempt by police departments and powerful institutions to replay the 2020 protests but with a license to violently put them down.

The conservative supreme court is going to split the baby in a way that causes the criminal trial to be delayed past the election. That's how this ends.

For me, it is mostly my flawlessness that causes me to act that way.

ClayGuida posted...

The only things you can blame biden for are not getting manchin and sinema in line and his ridiculously unwavering support for Israel.

Thats literally it.

His border policies have also been pretty bad/too in-line with Trump's. But in general he has been better than I anticipated.

The unoccupied homes stuff is mostly a red herring. They're mostly in places homeless people aren't; they've been abandoned and unoccupied because fewer people want to live in the Rust Belt than they used to.

I'm just not that bouyant

Biden once again the lesser of two evils here

I'd like to reiterate my suggestion that these discussions about November should be accompanied by markers designating which state (or non-state) people live in, so you can decide whether it's worth your time getting mad at them.

For the record, I live in DC, so you can safely disregard the flippant ways I'll be discussing my vote.

Bump

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

I still don't want nazis on campus.

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/local/2024/04/24/ut-austin-campus-student-protest-arrest-pro-palestine-protests-walk-out/73425149007/

If you were really worried about what Donald Trump could do with a second term, it seems like a bad idea to set the precedent that a social media platform can be banned for vague "national security" concerns. Really think about how this approach might be used in the future.

Remember when Mitt Romney said his favorite meat was hot dog?

CountCorvinus posted...

From the writer/director moron himself:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/alex-garland-civil-war-release-timing-1235852725/#!

I believe the term for this is gobbledygook

Butterfiles posted...

Few things have aged worse than the 1990s Utah Jazz

They made Michael Jordan the third biggest asshole on the court!

Well I'm sure they'll find a socially beneficial use for AI soon

They really framed a guilty man

WrkHrdPlayHrdr posted...

I don't get why an article seems to say "donald trump sucks on abortion, oh and Biden isn't perfect either" is some kind of bad thing?

Is someone not allowed to point out the faults of the two people in a political race? You're allowed to criticize both without it being some fence sitter position. Saying Trump is old, oh and so is Biden isn't a "both sides" thing.

In making it a contest of personalities and about unknowable private feelings, the article not just omits but distracts from what each candidate and their parties would do (and has done) with power.

When abortion rights are wildly popular with the voting public, this sort of coverage muddies the waters such that Biden's stance is made weaker and Trump's stronger.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/4/423cb828.jpg

Or maybe it doesn't.

I'm aiming for five this time around

Makes you think.

Bump

https://www.wired.com/story/this-woman-will-decide-which-babies-are-born-noor-siddiqui-orchid/

There are two competing theories on democracy ITT:
Public officials should change to meet the desires of voters
Vs
Voters should change to meet the desires of public officials

It's important to protect the sanctity of CE polls against rigging

Sega Soccer Slam

Full_Pokedex posted...

Larry Hogan.

Killed a public transit project here in Maryland by stoking suburban fears about Baltimore

Kradek posted...

Except that there is. Take the recent exposure of how the couple who were the main architects for "Don't Say Gay" in FL were exposed as regularly having threesomes, meaning that one of those people creating anti-LGBT laws is in fact bi herself and had regular sexual encounters that she publicly speaks out against.

So what did that exposure do? Did the hypocrisy police show up to strike the law from the books? No, because hypocrisy has no weight. It's the least powerful force in the world.

Kradek posted...

Yes, being anti-LGBT and crafting legislation from that mindset is abhorrent by default, but it does become especially nefarious when the ones doing it are members of that community themselves. It would be like if black people were the ones who wrote Jim Crow laws. Bad enough that racist white people did it, but if black people did it against their own people?

All people are their own people. "Hating others who don't look like you is one thing, but hating others who do look like you? That's too much." Don't you see how silly this sounds? It's always nefarious to do harm to others.

Any time these discussions of the election come up, there should be little disclaimers of which state a person lives in, to see if their vote is worth caring about. I'm in DC, so feel free to ignore anything I say about how I'll vote.

That's not typically how "racebaiting" comes off, but the use of "wankers" suggests this might be British, in which case the connotations are truly inscrutable to me. I hope whoever sells this shirt gets executed.

We're on CE to have conversations. There are more interesting conversations to be had than the yes/no binary of "will you vote for Joe Biden in November?"

Biden is not just a passive onlooker to the war, he's actively ennabling one side of it, in ways that even Democrats in Congress have called out:
https://news.yahoo.com/democrats-press-blinken-arms-sales-190934028.html

A bicameral coalition of nearly 20 Democrats urged the State Department on Monday to provide information on the Biden administrations decisions to sell arms to Israel amid its ongoing war with Hamas without explicit congressional approval.
The letter, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), increases pressure on the Biden White House from Democrats concerned with the U.S. role in the Gaza conflict, which has raged since Hamass attack in early October.
The Biden administration has bypassed congressional notification on Israel arms sales twice, raising concerns among the lawmakers.
The members of Congress shared the worlds horror over the violence of Hamas militants but are also deeply disturbed over Israels indiscriminate bombing of Palestinians in Gaza, the letter says.
It is essential for Congress to be able to conduct oversight of these arms transfers and determine whether they are consistent with humanitarian principles and U.S. law, and whether they advance or harm U.S. national security, the letter reads.
It is highly unusual for the president to bypass congressional oversight through an emergency declaration, it continues. In fact, since the [Arms Export Control Act] was passed into law, an emergency declaration authority has only been used 18 times in nearly 50 years.
The lawmakers drew attention to the mass civilian casualties in the conflict, and the use of U.S. munitions in strikes that killed civilians. More than 25,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
We are also troubled by the decision to provide equipment for 155mm shells, which over 30 U.S.-based civil society organizations warned poses a grave risk to civilians and are inherently indiscriminate when used in densely populated areas like Gaza, the letter reads.

Sure, vote for him, whatever, but don't lie about what his administration can and cannot do.

They wouldn't need handouts if they were legally allowed to work. The criminalization of immigration leaves people in a situation where their only options for making money through the market are under the table, for pittance wages.

Had to look up what "not the bee" was; it's the Babylon Bee except instead of satire they just post open fascist screeds. But I'm sure Musk likes them for nomal reasons.

A lot of people ITT are singling out "private" or "for-profit" prisons ITT, but this is a cop out. 92% of America's inmates are incarcerated in regular-ass, government run prisons. And these are the conditions they face:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/prisoners-in-the-us-are-part-of-a-hidden-workforce-linked-to-hundreds-of-popular-food-brands/ar-BB1hqC7d
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/19/rikers-island-abject-neglect-chaotic-conditions-deaths
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/11/louisiana-angola-prison-teens-conditions

It's like when right-wingers are careful to append "crony" before saying something about capitalism. You want credit for acknowledging the problem without actually recognizing what it is.

Seems like it's doing fine
https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/01/31/americans-social-media-use/

Basically he seems like a weird dude.