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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 5th, 2023

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  • It’s so baffling though. Sincerely believing “these are just left wing accusations” and maga/swamp slogans, maps onto “the judge had a conflict of interest, this was a witch hunt” etc., by the exact same route of illusion.

    The only way I can make sense of this, is to assume that we’re not really dealing with sincere belief. It’s hard to imagine a rational Republican that stood behind the former president through everything since the birth certificate thing, and are now somehow chastened. Maybe they simply think it’ll be a bad look for their guy to be wearing an ankle bracelet on inauguration day / in the first 100 days in office, and it will compromise their party’s future election chances. A question of ‘ick’ factor, and not some extension of actual values and beliefs, like we might hope. “Convicted felon” is a soft Dean scream, maybe.











  • So bad it’s good. Personally, I like the description text on the video that makes it seem like the teen who was autopsied is speaking:

    An autopsy of a Massachusetts teen who died after participating in a spicy tortilla chip challenge says he died from eating a lot of chile pepper extract, and 14-old Harris Wolobah had a congenital heart defect.

    Editorially, it’s a hilarious article. Though, respect to journalists out there. This might be a situation of, “Johnson, I need that tortilla chip death article on my desk in 5 minutes”.

    edit: Per the correction in the article, I guess AP style guidelines dictate ‘chile’ instead of ‘chili’. It looks super weird to me!


  • ‘Killed her 14 month old dog for misbehaving’ is the clicky headline. But the subtext is, this person might be the republican running mate, and her story is presented as a parable about how killing is ‘a job that needs to be done’. It’s not crazy to put those pieces together and be anxious about the direction they point in.

    I can see where you’re coming from. You’re right that her story is divisive. I think that’s the objective. It’s an engineered, populist, fascist move to present the story in the way that she does. No one in the public eye writes that kind of thing in a book and expects it to fly under the radar.

    You’re also right that there’s a strong rural/urban ideological division. Best way to fix that I think is to talk to each other more, IRL, and try to honestly understand the perspectives of others, especially if they’re different from our own. My 2¢.




  • I have a sense that you know all this, but, just wanted to chime in- the system in Canada where you have to take a course and pass a screening is costly & a pain in the ass. Bottom line, legally, it’s neither fast nor easy to get a firearm in Canada, and on top of that, the RCMP can deny any application that they see fit. But ultimately, I think the existing licensing system is a reasonable management of risks, and overall a good thing.

    Unfortunately, gun control here is a wedge issue, and political points are easily scored by banning / confiscating guns from legal owners, who, as you mention, were never the problem in the first place. Actually fixing the gun crime issue here would be difficult, costly, and an optics minefield.

    IMO, the penalties for being found with an illegal firearm or using a firearm to commit a crime should be much more severe. Surely people of all political stripes could get behind that? But, no. We’re in a situation where, on the left, any policy that doesn’t include a sweeping ban is criticized as unacceptable and weak. It sucks, because it means that the actual problem affecting citizens goes unsolved, and nobody seems to care.