A gratuity is just a postdated bribe, and everybody including the Supreme Court knows it.

There's another whole aspect to the recurring pushes to remove the dams that's pretty much always left out too.

Likely the biggest beneficiaries if the dams were removed would be power companies, who, even with the dams generally operating at a tiny fraction of capacity, are stuck having to sell cheap hydroelectric power at low rates.

If the dams were removed, they'd be able to justify contracting (often with their own subsidiaries) for the construction of expensive new power plants with lower capacity and higher operating costs and would then be able to convince the PUCs to grant them massive rate increases.

Ah, but I'm sure that has nothing to do with the mysteriously well-funded campaigns to remove the dams that get a new round of publicity every few years...

Is that a real poncho or is that a Sears poncho?

"And it'll cure your asthma too."

I knew when I first saw it that it was an unfamiliar version, bit I just assumed it was from one of the more modern versions of the Bible with which I'm not familiar.

In retrospect, I should've guessed that the version choice was a dog whistle. Fucking racists just can't pass up an opportunity.

That's more or less the theory I keep coming back to, but I can't even entirely wrap my head around that one. It's sort of like a really complex conspiracy theory in that it presumes a particular contrived course of action from seemingly too many people.

I can absolutely imagine some number of writers, editors and publishers self-servingly treating the obviously insane blathering of a lunatic as if it's legitimate just to further their own careers, and I can absolutely imagine some additional (and likely greater) number of them doing so to protect themselves from retribution. I can even imagine some number who are themselves insane in a way that aligns enough with Trump's insanity that they treat him seriously sincerely.

But all of that still doesn't seem enough to account for the near-universal failure to even comment obliquely on how deeply mentally ill Trump so obviously is. Just as with a complex conspiracy theory, I can see the possibility on a limited scale, but it all seems to fall apart if one tries to expand it out to the scale that would seem to necessarily be the case.

And yeah - I keep ending up feeling like the only sane person in the asylum.

Well...

You're absolutely right, and that was very well-written to boot. But it's not the part that perplexes me. I likely just did a poor job of explaining myself.

I fully expect his intellectually and/or psychologically compromised supporters to fail or refuse to recognize his glaringly obvious insanity. As you note, he affirms their prejudices and tells them that the condemnation they so deservedly receive is actually some sort of evil conspiracy, and they grovel at his feet, lapping it up.

But that just accounts for a portion of his supporters and none of his opponents, and it's that remainder I wonder about - all of the people who are certainly rational enough to recognize his glaringly obvious derangement for what it is, but somehow just don't, or won't.

I have this recurring experience in which I read an essay or article from some more or less neutral site or even an oppositional site in which someone relates something that Trump said, then parses and analyzes it, as if it's a legitimate statement of supposed fact rather than the deranged ranting of someone who's painfully obviously profoundly mentally ill, and I can't even see how they managed to make it that far - how they didn't just stop halfway through relating whatever it was he said and throw their hands up and say, "This guy is a fucking lunatic!" Because he so blatantly obviously is.

That's what I don't get.

...a perfect, brilliant, beautiful statement that I make...

Doesn't anyone else notice how often he makes these cringily exaggerated statements, and more to the point, recognize how clearly they illustrate the staggering depths of his delusions?

That's still the thing I most notably don't get about Trump - the man is obviously profoundly mentally ill, so why and how is he even taken seriously? How in the world is it even possible for such a painfully obvious gibbering lunatic to not only run for public office, but quite possibly win?

No - I don't agree that they're completely different.

"Made by AI" would be completely different.

"Made with AI" actually means pretty much the exact same thing as "AI was used in this image" - it's just that the former lays it out baldly and the latter softens the impact by using indirect language.

I can certainly see how "photographers" who use AI in their images would tend to prefer the latter, but bluntly, fuck 'em. If they can't handle the shame of the fact that they did so they should stop doing it - get up off their asses and invest some time and effort into doing it all themselves. And if they can't manage that, they should stop pretending to be artists.

That's such a blatant act of public fellatio he should be charged with indecent exposure.

I'm roundaboutly reminded of one of my favorite novels - Greener Than You Think, by Ward Moore.

It's a science fiction story about the end of the world that was written in the late 40s. The proximate cause of the end is all of the landmasses of Earth being smothered by a gigantic and very aggressive strain of Bermuda grass, but the real cause is the utter and complete failure, due to ignorance, greed, selfishness, short-sightedness, incompetence, arrogance and so on, of every attempt to combat it.

I am not sure what you meant by “makes your first sentence completely wrong”.

Sorry - I should've made that more clear. I meant the first sentence of your summation of what I said - the part I quoted. It went wrong immediately because you started with the presumption of an already toxic man doing something toxic, for which he's then condemned. But I was talking about young people - people who haven't established an adult personality yet - who are still feeling their way through life, trying to figure out who and what they want to be.

And to your edit - there's nothing I value more in a discussion/debate than honesty,cand not just the surface homesty of telling the truth as one sees it, but the deeper and much more rare intellectual honesty of actually considering what the other person has said, rather than just rejecting it out of hand. So thanks.

Does somebody need a time-out?

Yes, he's a war criminal. He was invited not even in spite of that fact, but because of that fact.

The thing is that the Republicans want to reject the whole concept of war crimes, at least as it might be applied to white judaeo-christian men and/or anyone who's doing "god's work" of eliminating non-white "human animals." They revel in Bibi's war crimes - to them, it's just proof of his "determination" and his "resolve." And they long for (and are actively working toward) a world in which they'll be free to do the same.

Well... that and thinking of all of those dead brown people makes their tiny little peens hard, which makes them especially eager to get Bibi in the room with them, so they can slobber all over his knob in person.

Your orgional comment reads

Toxic man: doing something toxic

No it doesn't.

It's literally right there, just a couple of posts up from this one. There's no excuse for misrepresenting it.

Here's what I actually said:

The left: “The patriarchy and toxic masculinity are evil and destructive!”

Young men: “Okay. What should I do instead then?”

l>The left: “Fuck off!”

I didn't stipulate "young" men by accident - that's the central point. I'm not talking about adults who have already developed a set of behaviors (which makes your first sentence entirely and completely wrong). I'm talking about young people - people who are lost and confused and casting about for guidance, as virtually all young people are (and not coincidentally, that's also what the linked article is talking about).

And ironically enough, you actually provide an example of the problem insofar as you don't even acknowledge the distinction - you just lump them in with overtly misogynistic and toxic adults and condemn them each and all. You not only refuse to provide them with the guidance they want and need, but bristle self-righteously at the very thought that there might be any expectation that you should.

And meanwhile, people like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate go out of their way to recognize them and cultivate them. And it works not least because you've already written them off.

Which is pretty much exactly my point, and the point of the linked article. We need to do more than simply assume that young men are automatically misogynists and therefore condemn them. We need to provide them with something positive - an actual path that they can follow that leads to a better way of living. They're right there, right now - at the crossroads in their lives, wondering how they should go about growing into adults, and Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate and their ilk are right there, right now, telling them a bunch of toxic bullshit.

And meanwhile, what are we offering them? Just what you said here - the presumption that they're already toxic, and a bland command to knock it the fuck off.

Self-evidently, that's not enough.

Dredge.

A very simple concept and gameplay loop that expands out into the bizarre and fantastic.

Honorable mention: Ronin.

Bullet time, effectively turn-based ninja combat. Simple, regularly autosaved "go until you die, then try something different" gameplay loop and just a helluva lot of fun.

Honorable mention: Valley.

Smooth and thrilling first-person mechanically-enhanced parkouring along the way to investigating the mysteries - both ancient and more recent - of a unique and very picturesque valley.

And in turn, I don't understand this comment. You seem to be saying that young people should just figure things out for themselves, and asking why it should be someone else's responsibility to provide them with guidance.

Is that what you actually believe?

No surprise there. Trump and his acolytes and sycophants have clearly signaled that they're eager to be Putin's lap dogs, so if Trump wins, Coke and the rest will have pulled out of Russia for nothing.

It's about goddamned time.

This has been what's happened for the last 20 years or so:

The left: "The patriarchy and toxic masculinity are evil and destructive!"

Young men: "Okay. What should I do instead then?"

The left: "Fuck off!"

So, entirely predictably, they've fucked off. Right into the welcoming embrace of the toxically masculine and patriarchal right.

Oh look - oligarchic apologetics in a periodical named in honor of the country's original oligarchists.