This is really cool, but it would have been cooler if they’d named their scouting missions Hugin and Mugin, since they’re Odin’s ravens that scour the earth for secrets to give to Odin.

I fuck with this energy, let’s get it done!

I don’t know if I can; it’s not, well, in my lane as a bicycle/pedestrian committee member. I still show up and advocate for lane narrowing and traffic calming at the city council meetings.

Edit: disregard. I thought you meant lanes, you clearly mean sweepers

I’m trying to secure wholly separate bike lanes, or at least flexi-posts, anything but a sharrow or a line of paint. Tbh, I dunno how that’ll work with a street sweeper.

Day 30 of being fucking bewildered that I, a non-voting member of my city’s bicycle commission, have stricter ethical laws binding me than those for judges and politicians.

I wish they’d explored this more in Voyager, as rationing their energy reserves was always a narrative tension throughout the series. It would have been interesting to explore a crew used to post-scarcity economics have to wrangle with switching to scarcity economics and all of the problems that come with it.

I’ve always wondered about how they have to seemingly make the replicators suck at random shit, like how they can’t just make the fancy new tricorders (Lower Decks S1E3, I think) and have to compete for the chance to win one.

Yep, that’s me. You could probably find a few more good examples of me stepping in shit on Hexbear, that’s hardly the first.

Externalities with no direct impact on the company? No way! Milton Friedman assured me that capitalism was perfectly balanced with 0 exploits!

You’re not really using the fediverse until you’ve been told that you’ll get the bullet, too. Sometimes, it’s exhausting commenting something pretty uncontroversial and then seeing like eight notifications and realizing it was on Hexbear.

OTOH: Boeing. Had the 737 Max bug been a one-off incredibly bad fuck up, they would have been a good buy. Then it turned out that that bug was just the first sign of many deep seated issues with their production process. Boeing 100% deserves everything they’re getting. Management skipped right over lawful, chaotic, and neutral evil and went into stupid evil, and decided that sacrificing QC/QA on aerospace equipment would be a great way to get returns for shareholders.

[Look inside]

It’s a regex

This is a mixed bag. Where I get lukewarm is that I’m convinced it’s going to come down to a shooting fight with the fascists at some point, and I’d rather that the people who are not fascists be able to educate and arm themselves appropriately. Don’t bring sticks and bricks to a gun fight and all that.

I don’t want Biden to start drone striking Congress, but it would be nice if the democrats acted like this election is as important as they keep saying it is, because it is that important.

Dude, okay, first: I’m sure the Nazis led plenty of people to the gas chambers with their heads held high with pride about their non-violence. What stopped the Nazis was bullets. There aren’t any two ways about it, if you really, really believe that the GOP are a bunch of violent fascists, and they are, then saying “no, it’s okay, we can beat Hitler with voting / I’ll feel good if we lose as long as I tried my best” is a deranged statement. I can’t believe you had the gall to call me out of touch with reality. You can’t have it both ways, they’re either an existential threat to the Republic and a large chunk of America, or it’s okay if Joe loses as long as he tried his best.

Look, I voted in the primary, and I didn’t vote for Biden, so miss me with 100% of that shit. I want the democrats to get their ass in gear because I don’t particularly want to have to shoot Nazis. and btw, can you rephrase what the question is that you’re posing about the SCOTUS? What exactly is it that you want to hear from me?

Uh… Yes? I think that if you’d actually read what I’ve written, you would see that I make no secret of the fact that the GOP are fascists. That’s the point, the democrats have hitched themselves to the strategy of being the not fascists, and now they have no way forward. You can’t say “these guys are actual Nazis, that really actually want to do Nazi shit [and they do], but be cool about it.” It’s the political equivalent of “listen, there’s a nuclear strike incoming, but keep calm and carry on, maybe bring an umbrella.” Either you’re going to send the message that you have no idea what you’re talking about about, or that you don’t seriously believe in the threat; either way, it makes you sound like you’re full of shit and people will tune you out.

I think the best approaches at this point are to promote the P2025 talking points with no editorializing, just lay them bare and let people draw their own conclusions. ALSO, they need to put forward a bold, real alternative to the fash instead of just finger wagging. People are starving for the system to work for them, the GOP are exploiting that, why aren’t the democrats?

Edit: They also need to not be afraid of the conclusions people might draw from learning about what the GOP wants. If you want people to know the fascists are fascist, you have to be okay with some people deciding on sic semper tyrannis. It’s fine to disavow them, to discourage them, but you can’t flinch.

Hey, acting mean and superior is a poor crutch for a bad argument.

If you’d read my post, you’d understand that what I’m saying is that the Democrats are using the fact that they’re not the fascists as their primary outreach and fundraising platform. The problem is that there’s no soft way to deliver that message; you can’t say “hey, these guys are actual Nazis, but it’s like totally cool, don’t shoot them” without undermining your entire messaging. So, now that the democrats have decided to stop saying mean things about the fascists for fear that the fash will get the bash, the messaging has gone from “shut up and vote or we’ll get Hitler” to “shut up and vote”. Forgive me if I don’t find that to be a particularly powerful rallying cry, but I have some concerns about the ability of “just shut up and vote” to get people to the ballot box.

That’s fair, everything was about immigration this, immigration that, and it was upsetting, particularly because he was practically on stage by himself. It was upsetting that Joe couldn’t ever seem to get his head on straight. Even when he did “come alive”, it just felt like “confused old man yells at Wal-Mart employee” more than it reminded me of 2020 Joe.

Yes. Which is part of why I’m frankly pretty concerned about the possibility that there’s no real path to victory for the democrats here. That debate should have been an easy W for anyone, instead Joe got up on stage, said “heads up, chucklefuck”, and blew his own leg off on national TV.