I’m at one of the biggest airports in the world in the middle of a very red state today. The mood is somber. I have never seen this airport this quiet. There is no sense of pride or celebration here, and I know the majority of people around me voted for Trump.

If I were to speculate, I see scared faces and other faces too guilty to look anyone in the eye. Eye contact among strangers in an expectation here under normal circumstances, but not today. Everyone is aware on some level that this is a bad thing.

λ definitely has my vote.

Science

On the ACES assessment, every single one of the 10 things asked about is known to cause neurological issues in children which persist throughout their lives. Only a 0 is insignificant. A 1 is very significant. I also scored “low” and thought it didn’t mean anything, but I’ve since learned every single one means a lot.

When Microsoft hears " how can Microsoft get any worse?" they have always taken that as a challenge.

This is after they decided to be one of the most public facing corporate sponsors of the genocide in Gaza.

It is way, way worse than this. It’s not hundreds, it’s millions. 1 in 3 people in the US over 65 have some form of dementia. The Republican party is driven by dementia at this point. There is a literal reason they’ve been rhetorically targeting the cognitively impaired for the last ten years. I am a dementia care professional and this is not a joke.

Capitalists will say that it’s fine for an economy to have a few capitalists own all capital and all physical and intellectual property while common people are only allowed to rent it from the capitalists at whatever rate the capitalist pleases. However, capitalists will also say that the evil of socialism is that you won’t be allowed to own property. That’s the most capitalist thing I’m aware of.

This is why I put this in politics instead of news. This is such a calculated position technically reversing on something they were seemingly committed to to an absurd degree. Until now the WH has been consistent that it was not willing to even entertain the suggestion that any limitations at all be placed on “Isreal’s right to defend itself.” Allowing humanitarian support to mitigate the problems of disease and famine on the gaza strip is the absolute least of what needs to be demanded of Israel.

Will it be powerful enough to kill Son Goku?

I feel like my group has been doing this unofficially for a long time.

Yeah, like most MCU villains they started committing random acts of violence as their leader “goes bad.” The in-universe MCU Senate canonically already went bad. The solution proposed by the story was to kill the flag smashers and ask the people who (I keep repeating this) are canonically responsible for the problem due to their negligence, are asked to “do better.”

They’re trying to do the impossible with this character. He is critical of the actions of the in-world corrupt establishment but also unquestioningly loyal to it. The climax of his last story was asking a bunch of senators who canonically caused a human rights emergency to try harder. He literally just asked them to try harder. That was the resolution. Also the people who were fighting for the victims of the human rights emergency that the MCU American senate canonically caused were all killed because boot-licking is framed as the “correct” way to address systemic issues. More than any other IP, I think this one is the US military’s favorite for recruiting purposes.

I’m proudly indecent in this and other regards.

In the future I hope this won’t be such a universal experience.

The Cadaver Collector is real!?

Netanyahu is really doing everything he can to start as big a war as possible. The US should not be enabling this madman to terrorize an entire region.

There isn’t one atrocity committed by the US or its allies that the NYT wasn’t in full support of. The “paper of record” is essentially the main distribution channel for COINTELPRO style bullshit.

All my exes are from Side 3

This was a really interesting video which I had a lot of thoughts about.

I think that discussing narcissistic personality traits that appear commonly among many in our culture is valuable, just as I believe discussions concerning safe spaces, triggers, and what it means to be woke are valuable. The thing that all these have in common is that conservatives took these terms over and made them meaningless to suit themselves. This video features dozens of instances of American con artists and cult leaders leveraging a valuable discussion to their own benefit.

The experts in the video believed that they and people like them were inherently superior, or deserved to be considered among the elite group. They expressed no empathy or compassion toward the people they dehumanized. Since they make their money from the people they lie to through lying to them, they are skilled exploiters. I would call all these narcissistic tendencies even if none of them had diagnosed NPD.

The reality is that many Americans, especially those in business, don’t care how they get what they want as long as they get it, and have no qualms about doing whatever they can get away with. I think this is a consequence of our culture and economic system rather than individual moral failings.

I don’t accept that no one should be called out for their greedy and selfish behavior. I don’t accept the most greedy and selfish in our society are once again trying to blame their own vices on their victims. I don’t think it’s monstrous to behave the way that countless nobles, gangsters, and capitalists have throughout history have because it’s clearly very human behavior in the circumstances that allowed these people to thrive at the cost of others. It’s the circumstances that allow and/or encourage this behavior which are a problem.