Hodad

FYI, Trump was drone striking at 3x the Obama rate. They just made it policy not to report on casualties.

Have you been over at WestCanMan's house watching his TV that shows the future? No fair, the rest of us have to wait until the "manifesto" is released.

Political, it's risky, for sure, but principles should rise above politics. The one thing in your post that I really disagree with is that Trump will get top lawyers. So far, he has been TERRIBLE at picking lawyers. They are carney barkers like Trump, but that sideshow atmosphere has not been rewarded in court.

Why? There is not evidence that the vaccines have any impact on fertility. COVID, on the other hand, can. Their fertility is more secure having been vaccinated.

Actually, I assumed that was the case because Connally was and Barnes was part of his contingent on the mission. My mistake. Conservative Texas Democrat.

The long history of police brutality and excessive force against Black people in the US means that the racial dynamics of those involved is always an issue. People are always on guard. It's always questioned as, if not a pure motive, a contributing factor. It's a fact that Blacks face prejudice at every level of the justice system. Even normalizing for the exact same crime, Blacks are more likely to be stopped, arrested, tried and convicted. And when convicted they are likely to receive harsher sentences. Again, that's normalizing for the same offense, apples to apples When that ceases to be the case, people will stop paying such close attention to the race of the races of characters in these stories. There is no such history or parallel to be made with trans people and mass shootings--or committing any other kind of violence. No relevant pattern. -- Rather, trans people are much more likely to be targeted for violence. And indeed if a trans person had been targeted, we'd all be wondering if the fact of being trans was the reason. Because that is a pattern.

The gender or gender status of the shooter is only a headline-level issue for the transphobic. The only way being trans becomes really important to this story is if it's revealed that things happened at that school that contribute to motive. If the faculty, staff or students at that school were abusive toward Hale because she was trans and she came back for her deranged version of revenge then being trans is key to the story. But other than that it's as irrelevant as any other sexual detail of a shooter's life. None of the headlines say "Gay shooter..." "Straight shooter..." "Cis shooter..." etc. That headline is correctly focused on the mental health problem.

Yes, published information used to be vetted and trustworthy, because the production and distribution costs were high. Suddenly, anybody could publish anything, and Americans lost their minds--particularly older Americans. They could get all the information in the world, but were completely unprepared to critically evaluate information. Respected institutions used to do that for them.

Nobel peace prize winning journalist Maria Ressa has a sophisticated take on what's wrong with social media and how to fix it. https://www.axios.com/2022/06/28/maria-ressa-social-media-democracy

Exactly. With the nation in the midst of extreme racial tension and protests everywhere against police brutality the POTUS must speak to the whole nation, and particularly as the first Black president, must use his platform and his voice to ease tensions and build bridges. He rose to the occasion here. The slain officers and their colleagues were both humanized and lionized, celebrated for their courage and sacrifice. He also recognized the legitimate grievances of the protesters. And then tried to bridge the gap between the two groups. Structurally, it was very good leading into the unity thesis. He got the attention of everyone who needed to hear, showed them that he understood what they were feeling, and implored them to see the humanity in one another.

No, no. Remember how your colleagues held you down and injected you against your will? You were forced! Or, perhaps, we are all subject to conditional employment and really conditional participation in society. Wear your hard-hat, get your license, show up sober, dress appropriately etc. -- You're correct. Nobody was forced to vaccinate. It did become conditional for some things and was a matter of convenience for others. In exactly the same way that vaccines are conditional for school in some areas or for travel to certain countries etc. If one wishes to refuse to participate in community protection through vaccination, they sometimes have to figure out some alternate arrangements. Those are choices people make.

You get caught lying (again and again and again), and when I call you out on your lies, citing your own words you call me a liar and put me on ignore? 🤪 That all tracks, actually. Bullies are inherently cowardly and are all the same online and off. None of them have a backbone. Will be nice, actually. I can correct your lies without watching you desperately weasel afterward. 👍

Yeah, I think individual libraries make their own calls in most cases-- they set a policy and stick to it as well as they can. That Toronto speaker seems like a tough sell to me, but I don't know what their policies are. Kirk Cameron (pivoting back) was allowed at several libraries. He Trumped it right up though, claiming all sorts of things about record attendance blah blah. The library had to issue a statement correcting his claims. Sigh. No good deed goes unpunished in the culture war.

This is an old chestnut for folks arguing against the social safety net, but I've yet to see any reasonable explanation for a mechanism that creates dependency. Presumably, there was a time in your life in which you made a lot less money, but could still meet your basic needs for food and shelter. Did achieving that basic, subsistence lifestyle demotivate you? Did you have any less ambition or less desire to elevate your status or acquire more luxury? Did you want less? Or, alternatively, you could quit your job now and move down into poverty, meeting your basic needs with assistance, but little else. Is there any appeal to that? Is it a struggle to avoid doing making that choice and what keeps you from it? Those are largely rhetorical questions and I'm pretty confident that I know the answers. They're probably the same for you as they are for me. So my question is why do you think the majority of people would have different answers? People with little or no income may be dependent on aid to meet basic needs, but I don't see that meeting those needs creates further dependency? And I certainly don't see how it would discourage or demotivate people who want more. For anyone who wants more, it's a safe platform from which to pursue goals.

Maybe. But also I think the generalization is correct. For example, a Christian might share the message "Love everybody." But "Love everybody." isn't a religious message. No one would object to that. But if the message is "Love everybody because Jesus is the savior and he said to love everybody." that's becomes a religious message and is inherently exclusionary to other faiths and non-faiths. The distinction I've been making is between messenger and message. Inclusivity means anyone from any faith or non-faith can come and participate in appropriate activities comfortably. It doesn't mean that anybody can use public space to produce any content they want, particularly when there's a hostility baked into religious messaging. Religions can get coexist at a superficial level, but underlying the civility they are not pluralistic and are inherently hostile to one another. If someone says that Jesus is the only path to salvation and eternal happiness that sounds fine enough, but the other edge of that sword is that it is telling all the Jews, Muslims- whatever -that their beliefs are wrong, inferior and that their souls are damned unless they convert. So not exactly nice dinnertime conversation. -- Best to just stop at "Love everybody."