…fuck it…let’s do a little thought experiment…don’t worry about the part where I don’t have a trillion bucks & change to do it with…say I promise every american five grand to vote not-republican in november…if people take me seriously…I get arrested, more than likely…because that’s as illegal as it was when they didn’t arrest elon last time for doing something like that with a few individuals for a lot more money…or…let’s say I’m the IMF & I say the money I’m gonna disburse is contingent on your country voting the way I want…or…lets say I’m the president & I say “vote (R) in november & I’ll stack another trilly on the deficit, yo”…the way this one did
President Donald Trump pledged to send every American adult $5,000 if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in the midterm elections. The promise, made at the GOP's midterm convention in Dallas, could cost over $1 trillion and would require congressional approval.
…it’s not a new idea…but the idea that it’s really USA PLC & actually he’s a CEO…has never been an accurate metaphor…in fact it’s always been a throughly shitty one…but…to people who know it’s a metaphor…& understand both how a nation state works & how a company works & the parallels & where they diverge…it can be a useful one…if you understand neither of those things…have spent a lifetime imagining that getting away with shit is the same as being smarter & better than everyone else…& are…just staggeringly fucking stupid…I expect it’s possible that you think dividends are just kickbacks & you name the figure without it having any relationship to any other number or variable related to your business…so…don’t embarass me in november is priced at 5x over don’t embarrass me about how bad I fucked up that whole COVID thing…now you like me 5x more than you did then…right…right?
you forgot the most important part: it is blatantly illegalholy shit guys
…no…important, I mean…obviously tons of this shit is illegal…but I burned my allowance for getting hypothetical about the monopoly of violence & the application of epistemic collapse to the concept of the rule of law & all that wittering about there being an invisible layer of consent underwriting policing in some places according to theory & a lesser spotted form of consent so that’s like gunning it in a semi with bad brakes headed downhill at a patch of black ice the size of a green reflecting pool…probably running toxic, highly flammable noxious chemicals in a tank that failed certification
Once you realise computer misuse has been illegal for decades, you realise why companies crave their AI systems to be seen as something else.
…it’s not the fucking civil rights act or anything…but could we…I dunno…as a society or whatever…outlaw the “smol bean defense” or some shit…fucking…pretty please with a candied fucking cherry on top…anytime now?
To achieve machines they own and control having special legal status, "robot rights", they can also dehumanise people to bridge the gap with machines too. This also helps them fire people. Two mutually reinforcing ideas that protect them for the law and erode human and workers' rights.
…how is it so seemingly hard to understand…there used to be…in the before times when dinosaurs shared the earth with BBC micros & ZX spectrums…these things called text based adventures, right
…you read some stuff…you typed some stuff…that made more stuff show up where you read it…type…read…type…read…maybe you did it enough times you got a “you win!”…famously a lot of people in one of them in particular got “you have died of dysentery”…the world & its dog didn’t come out in the pages of the newspaper with claims that the game had an internal state that deserved the rights & protections of a person…in fact a person like the person that the parent business gets to be…not a mere person like you can apply laws to like one of you miserable little consumer user types, mind
…for the love of all that is holy…get a fucking grip…quit it with the half-assed lazy AF refusal to apply the slightest rigor to your fucking thinking about this shit…I swear you fucking people are all jacked up on huffing each other’s vapid hot air like you dived too deep & you got the mix all wrong on the tanks…even as a “say what you gotta say per where we need to end up as triangulated from the loud parts to a corresponding overton window so we thread the next funding round’s eye of a needle with our multi-modal camel”…talk like a fucking adult…make the distinctions…or would that go…I dunno…fucking badly for your whole deal, maybe?
…take that last paragraph…”A[rtificial]G[eneral]I[ntelligence] [WHICH I & ALL THE REST OF THESE LABS DON’T HAVE OR EVEN HAVE GENUINE REASON TO BELIEVE WE EVER COULD] could [THEORETICALLY – IF IT EXISTED PER THE EXTANT DEFINITIONS OF THAT WITH WHICH COME CAPABILITIES & QUALITIES ABSENT WHICH WHAT YOU’D HAVE WOULD BE SOMETHING ELSE ON ACCOUNT OF WHAT BY DEFINITION MEANS YOU MISBEGOTTEN MENDACIOUS…sorry…uhh…muttermumblemotherfuckers…mutterbitchgripegrumble] shape who holds power, which values guide society, and whether humanity controls its own future for generations”
…sure…& so could the second fucking coming of the god-damned messiah…guess that must be why we give churches tax breaks
…one of these things is almost entirely abstract…the other is as mundane as reality gets…somewhere in the middle they meet where an attempt to live according to a set of beliefs meets the similarly mundane realities of life
…a text based adventure in green type on a black screen that stands a high enough statistical likelihood of success to be on super-easy mode but the prize at the end is you made a powerpoint deck…doesn’t sound a lot like talking to god from where I sit…but it is genuinely more than a little amazing how slick a mechanical turk you can run as a virtual machine if all bets are in fact off & money is seemingly no object & you can rack up a statistically significant proportion of sorta-literally *all the resources* until what you’ve done has torqued not only yours but a whole slew of supply chains in ways people might have noticed a bit more if there hadn’t been a deranged old fuckwit who literally understands nothing but getting what he thinks he wants hadn’t been sabotaging everything in sight until it’s hard to be specific about which bit of boneheaded insanity it particularly was that fucked up some other thing in its particulars…but if you award yourself the upgrade in your internal monologue to “parents of the machine god” & think your thing…on the basis of the actually-the-hard-parts-you-haven’t-done folding neatly into the blind spot of the-bits-of-the-thinking-you-don’t-think-you-do-because-that’s-not-how-you-think-thinking-works-&-anyway-wouldn’t-you-know-because-you’d-have-the-thoughts…so…you can say this shit…& you aren’t greeted with a unified cry of bullshit so over-subscribed the pressure wave actually hurls you backwards
…fuck regulating the rate of model development…just enforce existing law on the fucking companies…I don’t love the sense in which those are legal entities, either…but…they don’t get to be all “oh, whoopsie – we designed a test environment that we would like you to believe we left unmonitored for literally days as it did stuff that it would be literally a federal crime for us to have done on purpose because we’d have you swallow whole the bait that we couldn’t rather than didn’t achieve containment like our working definition of that never encountered the concept of a firewall much less an airgap & it’s frankly news to us that there are things called ports that you can’t see from the outside of the magic box – don’t be mad about it you can’t get mad about it because it’s the future & it’s inevitable now unless you don’t give us several hundred billion dollars…again…because pretty soon you won’t need more than a few bucks to be a 4chan sized problem & we need to have exfil’d way more of this money somewhere you can’t take it back before people figure out what we believe ourselves to be engaged in here”
…losing control is different to being insufficiently on top of what the fuck it is you’re doing to meaningfully control your own test environment…which is either a flatly ridiculous claim for any lab to make of itself on its face & a claim to be summarily thrown out of court on the grounds of being transparently self-serving…or you are labelling yourself very specifically as needing to have your toy taken entirely away from you…&…all of them wanted their own story about the scary models that got away…so we know how that line is supposed to play & in many places that flew just fine despite being explicitly backwards wearing its ass for a hat
Governments should bring leading labs together, and work with China, to urgently slow or pause the most dangerous AI activities, especially around cyber and pathogen risks.
The limits need to apply to everyone, including us. And we need to verify they’re being follwed.
…since we’re all still here I guess TIL that the sheer density of self-serving mendacity you can cram in a handful of words has a higher bar for a critical mass than I guess I’d assumed
…wanna go a few rounds on what might be “the most dangerous AI activities”?
…wanna talk limits & controls & corroboration & cooperation & collection &…training sets…&/or the GI:GO principle, perhaps…want to count some costs & balance some books & see how underwater your bottom line looks…on the ground behind the meter grid to grid & peak to node…wanna chat some about the cyber…or…hell…get on the level in a discussion about pathogens & what the other elements of that causal chain look like if you take away the AI component & are just left with…oh…all the physical components of winding up in possession of a fucking pathogen you pathological fucking pseud…either you’re imaging some fool mixing up homebrew mustard gas because his friendly phone told him it would cure his fucking allergies…or the movie villain terrorist is concocting a means of inflicting mass casualties the way the first born sons got got…selectively…in which case…if we’re writing off the whole bio-lab requirement as nothing compared to the chatbot that did it all…says the guy-on-the-inside…are we beginning to get a sense for how much the thing they think it’s free to use like the internet gives everything away for free…you know…fucking costs?
…few people over the age of about 5 think if they could drive to work in a formula 1 car they wouldn’t get stuck in traffic
…for reasons that are fucking lost on me…we seem to find the ones that do & shower them in enough money that competent people could have accomplished some real good with that nobody ever gets the benefit of…so we can all read about how fucking clever they think they are because those are the words to the tune the piper’s rent depends on
…see…the iron man was…kinda sweet, really…before ted kinda swung around on some stuff…& mother nature is known to put some gusto into it…but…y’all…when it comes to anthropomorphic representations & their ire…language…best believe that bitch would make a believer out of you…or ain’t you heard the one about the woman scorned?
…your friendly neighborhood deal-doing demon in faust explains how this is hell, nor are we out of it…& like it or not we’re all of us condemned to a life sentence trapped with ourselves wherever it is things live behind the eyes or between the ears or in your gut or to the tips of your toes or in your very soul…that hell…hath indeed no fury like the righteous fury of the language so mistreated for so long as to admit of such contortions without even a charge of torture being among the inevitable consequences
…but
…for realsies?
…fuck right off…with just all of that…damn near any other day in the last…thirty or forty years…I’d have happily nattered all day long & well into the night about all manner of parts of that…& the ones to do with hypotheticals about consciousness…artificial or just the regular sort we like to think we can show the thinking to underwrite belief in being in possession of to begin with…but…specifically today…no offense…but…you don’t wanna do that…trust, fam…it’ll go badly for everybody & at least one of us will regret it…not saying for a guarantee that would be you…I don’t like my odds, tbh…but I like yours a whole lot less
even the GOP are like “this is basically our last hope”
given the stupidity of the American voter, it might work!
lmao
…anyway…aside from the part where it was already going to be better if there was some kind soul who felt like stepping in to replace whatever I’d wind up with if I wasn’t going to probably not have time or opportunity to make an unholy mess of a post come sunday…probably all I really ought to do is reiterate the request that someone volunteer to be the anyone-but-me to do the thing when the time comes since I won’t have the one to manage the other…well…I mean…fucking look at it?
I've sometimes wondered why people bagged pretty hard on HPMOR – it's silly but I thought it was harmless and I kinda liked the take on the world – because I didn't realize Yudkowsky was the author and an absolute piece of shit. Learned something today!
The messaging is so weird, that the federal government has enough money to just issue every American $5,000 today if the president wants to, BUT ALSO, no, he doesn't want to right now (only if the GOP wins).
…ok…lotta folks get hurt even if I don’t…that part ain’t new, neither
CBS/Reuters: “Multiple American military aircraft suffered damage in strikes overnight on the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.One A-10 Thunderbolt, known as the Warthog, was struck and left with a missing wing, ~ eight F-15s sustained light damage and were placed back into service”
oh wow that's crazy is there a machine learning expert consensus on AI ending humanity by the end of the decade at like a 10% risk?or is it a subset of machine learning experts with very real, identifiable biases and motives
…old man yells at cloud…meets…the fuckers really were out to get him
This past weekend marked one year since a Russian drone pilot killed Oleksandr Hordienko, a Ukrainian farmer in Kherson region. Farmers within reach of Russia's drones and missiles continue to be targeted as they collect their summer harvests.
…tell me again how backing that guy to the hilt to stand his ground on the basis the castle doctrine has to hold for nation states that gave up a fuck-ton of nukes on the back of the paper with your signature on it that said if ivan that’s called vlad these days tries some shit…we got their back on account of we owe on the nuke thing alone…is…a thing you can’t sell a texan…go on…I’ll spot you a free mouthguard if you’ll do it to my face…can’t say fairer than fucking that now, can I?
Telegram looked the other way as Xinbi Guarantee, a $24 *billion* market for crypto scammers hosted on the messaging platform, grew into one of the biggest online black markets in history.Now DOJ has finally sanctioned Xinbi and seized its Telegram channels. www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/s…
This is from a very good WSJ article needs to be hammered home: people do not understand inflation like it is measured!!!
I had everyone’s favorite main character on here yell at me that inflation was going down, so people should not have been pissed off by inflation in 2024 , but no normal person thinks in these YoY categories
People also lump things into “inflation” (which thankfully has been replaced by affordability) that econ knowers don’t. Like rates, mortgages, credit card APRs
The thing about 2020 through 2022 is it didn't really happen.
Things that happen in a male supremacist regime so entrenched that no one will acknowledge that it exists.
A few weeks ago, a man on here claimed that racism alone organizes society & that the term “includes misogyny”–much the same way that the word “man” is supposed by some to include all women.
If a man murders his wife the average sentence is 2-3 yearsIf a wife murders her husband (usually after domestic abuse) the average sentence is 19 yrsMen are responsible for 90% of domestic abuse MaybeJust maybe women aren't the unstable moody ones 😒
One could make the argument that "bigotry" encompasses both racism and misogyny, but saying "racism" encompasses misogyny is just exceptionally weird shit.
Amazingly common weird shit. Sometimes also comes in the DSA variant: everything is class oppression, no other forms of oppression exist separately from that. (Resulting analysis: nothing bad can happen to women or PoC with money in the bank.)
her stats are completely made up. Compare bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/…
…because I’m the one who can’t get the hang of perspective
BlueSky: if you use AI even once, you are a fascist Normie Mom on Facebook: I just used Meta AI to combine a picture of my daughter on her first day of kindergarten with a picture of her on her first day of 12th grade, isn't that sweet?
…it’s really not that big of a deal…hell…it ain’t even that big of a picture once you get your head right
Didn’t realize the AfD wants to create a “volunteer militia under the authority of the municipal police to help authorities patrol smaller communities” – a political scientist here notes that some might regard that as a “political shock troop for the party”
…I’m the problem with my fucked up perspective & ideas above my station
FOX NEWS: During the 2021 era, you said 'there are 6 biological sexes.' Do you still believe that?TALARICO: No. I've missed the mark on some of my past statements. The reason Republicans want to talk about six sexes is because they don't want to talk about $6 diesel.
…yes…I am disputing that it’s rude to ask “how many phyla we talking here, chief?”…furthermore I’m inferring that you couldn’t find your ass with both thumbs & a full taxonomy…careful now or you’ll start thinking cellular mytosis implies your body is a warzone full of competing amoebae & honestly the numbskulls in the beano would probably be a less harmful thing to adopt as a belief on the order of the ones people have about the religious affiliations of space lasers…how’s about your ass go remigrate your definition of the relationship between your white flag & your genocide there, chief?
Sometimes, you come up with a term/concept which travels far & people forget where it originated so I'll take this as a compliment 😀If you're interested in my motivations for working on TESCREAL, and how far back I've known these people, preorder my book www.simonandschuster.com/books/Deep-U…
…I’mma go do some reading around…see if I can’t develop some intertia…quit trynna play potential energy debt on a kinetic field fuckface…or that shit will fuck up your face to fit your fucking excuse for thinking…quit bothering me before I up & make bothering you my fucking vocation…vocally…& vociferously…at an equal & opposite velocity…as god & physics intended…may isaac be my witness & an apple fly from my head if I’m lying…& don’t come whining after, neither…ain’t nobody out here believes for a moment you weren’t explicitly spoiling for a reaction…think about who asked for what you had coming
…I dunno as anyone anywhere ever got sense slapped into them…but I might be coming around to the possibility it might be possible to smack the stupid out some assholes
…I dunno ’bout science…but…it would be fuckin’ sweet?
17 Comments
Talarico is much hotter than Paxton (who is a wackadoo of the highest order), and is the D, so I would vote for Talarico. Which reminds me: several of my friends and acquaintances moved off to Texas during COVID so I should do some grassroots outreach and appeal to them to vote for Talarico.
They all love Texas, by the way, in the same way that folks I know fled to Florida and they’re never looking back. I have a thousand reasons to love living in Manhattan but I’m not sure I’d do it now fresh out of college.
But speaking of elections, vote buying is a long and treasured tradition here in Murrica. NYC passed “congestion pricing,” a daft idea if ever there was one. Krazy Kat “paused” it until some elections were over out of fear that the metro area would swing Republican out of anger over it. Then, miraculously, it was resurrected. It has generated tons of ca$h for the MTA but has done nothing to improve air quality.
Now, apparently any day now, I’m to receive a check from the state to offset my energy bills. It’s a laughable $100 (my energy bills run between 200 and 300 dollars a month.) Conveniently, this cash will start flowing before the 2026 elections. You know what would really help? Open up the Strait of Hormuz and remove all those nuisance taxes and fees. But no.
…in a curious irony if it hasn’t made a dent…just recently they put out some facts & figures about the effect of first the congestion charge & then upping it to whatever ULEZ translates to where the rubber meets the road…& to say the effect is clear with respect to the air quality might be a bit on the nose in a few senses as it turns out that’s gone?
The “AI” doom narrative is really getting some traction this time around. Both got extensive coverage in Icelandic media and I’m seeing it spread far and wide among the web’s pseudo-intelligentsia. “Oh, no! These people know what they’re talking about so it must be true!”It’s exhausting
Absolutely fascinating watching the confusion in England as to why masked men are allowed to march wherever they want and intimidate whoever they feel like while the police and politicians do nothing.*waves from Northern Ireland*
He's now resorting to trying to buy the election.Federal law makes it unlawful to knowingly and willfully pay, offer to pay, or accept payment for registering to vote or for voting. (52 U.S.C. §10307(c).) Any type of incentive is considered “payment.”
The problem with applying reason to Fetterman is that he's behaving very much like a 57-year old who's recovering from a massive stroke. He's responding to positive stimuli he gets from Fox, McCormick, and other Rs as well negative stimuli he might see online. He's subject to manipulation.
if fetterman was going to switch, the moment to do that was Jan 2025 when Trump’s approval was as high as it had ever been and business, universities, tech, and the D party were all preparing for a 1000 year reich. 1
you know, seems a way to handle musk spending tens of millions on anti trans shit is to make his money worth nothing by saying “medical care is between patients & doctors & people are sick of you talking about children’s genitals. let’s move on—here are 10 ways you freaks made american lives worse.”
…you know
I would be careful to overindex on anything US-related on a resumption of mil to mil talks with the PLA given the talks in question here were centered on………the PACOM commander (just happened to be hosted by CAF on the sidelines of conference in Victoria)
We need to really focus on the fact that OpenAI employees are behind this not sentient software. Like, if a person/company creates a malicious code then they’re responsible. AI does not change that
…not only can’t I call balls from strikes I can’t even be sure if three strikes is a turkey or an out…I’m a fucking sports heathen for…well…probably not pete’s sake these days unless that’s become polite for something your grandmother would wash out your mouth with carbolic soap for letting her catch you saying
…still & all…if there’s a hill I will continue to die on…it’s that the other fuckers started it…go ask billy if you don’t believe me?
…in the immortal words of the only person the world’s greatest detective presumably considers a peer…one more thing?
…about billy?
…that…doesn’t embed but also wasn’t me & sounds at least 10% less like I lost it in a context that includes these bits…hopefully…since I have stuff to do & getting carted off in straightjacket would really put a crimp in some other people’s day…that happen not to live in canada but did go to a different school & genuinely you probably have really never met…so…well…right up there with the “methinks the lady doth protest o’er much” & such…it made me laugh & I’m just trying to give props to the funny side without becoming the comedian in, like, some more-is moore-ish sense that’s all the-world-is-watchmen…or…I guess the other moor…& something about saracens probably…or…name your poison, pretty much
I hate handing it to Billy Joel like this but every time “We Didn’t Start the Fire” plays I have to acknowledge its lyrical brilliance.
Sorry, Fall Out Boy, but just naming a bunch of pop culture stuff in random order ain’t the same thing.
I don’t even know who Fall Out Boy is, but methinks Billy Joel might have listened to R.E.M.’s “Document” back in ’87.
Nah. There are similarities but they’re very superficial.
Well, rapid articulation of historical and cultural references set to music.
I was very much a college rock kind of guy, so I probably sneered a bit too much when Joel released WDSTF. 🤣
I was headbanging to metal when I wasn’t listening to Anything Released Before ‘75, and I knew about REM when they were still practically a garage band.
But at this point not acknowledging the lyrics of We Didn’t Start the Fire is just Comic Book Guy shit. 😉
I mean, bruh, you literally used “methinks” in your post.
…so…uh…obligatory last word to billy, I guess…I mean…the ending writes itself & what-all?
[note to probably just myo, really – if jah didn’t kill johnny, who killed russell jones?]
I sort of love Nige and I don’t know why. He just seems so wacky and eccentric and English, although doesn’t he have half a dozen homes and might be a citizen of France?
I read something interesting about him. Apparently when he was born the house was in Kent, but then got swallowed up when London expanded. The writer claimed that he was quintessentially Kentish.
When I was in college and embarked on my international adventures I spent a ton of time with a very wealthy family who lived in Kent. So much so that their house, a gorgeous villa from about 1920, didn’t have an address, just a name. I actually know a few other English people who are like this. “What is your address?” “We don’t really have one. We’re just [name of house] and people know where to find us.”
Anyway, no one in that Kentish family was anything like Nige.
…that sort of with the accompanying don’t know why is sort of how he made it through life…& before that school…with the full use of his limbs & a jaw that still flaps?
…the man is the odious & obsequious little shit any of his peers at school could have told you he was for the asking before he was even an adolescent problem who thought maybe the tories got you further than the [national] front
…the term “clubbable” in a wodehouse/jeeves&wooster sense rather than “asking to get one upside the head with a bat” has somewhat fallen out of fashion but seems like a good fit for what farage has parlayed into what a dismayingly large amount of people old enough to know better talk about being possibly the defining politician of the age
…arguably…if you lean into the irony…it’d be almost poetic…colonialism does a colonialism on itself & gets away with it because nobody had a book out about the perils of auto-colonialism with an in-bred weakness for the logic of eugenics passed off as nothing but moral vacuums chained together by a beneficent deity…& anyway stop complaining for christ’s sake…you got nothing to complain about, anyway…you’ll all get yours in the hereafter & until then this here is the way & the truth or it’s the valley of death for you unbelievers…I have it on The Highest Authority & He doesn’t seem to ever be at home to appeals…or…we’ll…probably best not to get into it before anyone says anything uncomplimentary about absentee landlords when the rent is too damn high, eh?
I’m not really sure why I have all these rich English friends. I come from a very humble American background but bootstraps and curiosity and whatever led me over to Germany (West Germany, at the time) and I had that college friend from Kent. A good Harrovian, by the way. He used to make fun of “Hooray Henrys” but he really was one himself.
I … guess? Mike Johnson for sure. But, I mean, NOBODY knew who this guy was three months ago. And they’ve raised his … profile MASSIVELY (oh yeah, all puns intended).
After tonight’s convention I expect People Magazine to name him Sexiest Man Alive.
Which, I suppose, is a strategy of sorts, but I don’t see how it helps Republicans. Other than the aforementioned Mike Johnson and any of the other closeted ones.
…you know how before fucking pigs & politics made people think of davey boy there was a saying about it?
…they want piker to be piggy in their lord of the flies routine…but also to get to say people they can call DSA tried to put lipstick on that pig & fancied it before the steely knives come out
…that way they get double-duty out of the electoral albatross you get like Designs by Dr Moreau is the flavor of the season by playing your “I don’t care if he fucked the pig I just want to hear him have to deny it” buff like it’s all just magic the gathering for all anything matters or follows rules?
…I find it hard to say it doesn’t look a lot like that’s what it looks like to some people who…in a way I can’t fathom…like the looks of it as much as they like their chances with it, anyway?
Yeah, they’re desperate for a bogeyman but this is most emphatically NOT the way to go about it. You want pictures of him that are SCARY, not pictures that are steaming up the camera lens.
They’re so damn incompetent that they can’t even manage to manufacture a bad guy. Even if they located a scary picture, that’s not gonna be what shows up in Google Image.
Talarico is much hotter than Paxton (who is a wackadoo of the highest order), and is the D, so I would vote for Talarico. Which reminds me: several of my friends and acquaintances moved off to Texas during COVID so I should do some grassroots outreach and appeal to them to vote for Talarico.
They all love Texas, by the way, in the same way that folks I know fled to Florida and they’re never looking back. I have a thousand reasons to love living in Manhattan but I’m not sure I’d do it now fresh out of college.
But speaking of elections, vote buying is a long and treasured tradition here in Murrica. NYC passed “congestion pricing,” a daft idea if ever there was one. Krazy Kat “paused” it until some elections were over out of fear that the metro area would swing Republican out of anger over it. Then, miraculously, it was resurrected. It has generated tons of ca$h for the MTA but has done nothing to improve air quality.
Now, apparently any day now, I’m to receive a check from the state to offset my energy bills. It’s a laughable $100 (my energy bills run between 200 and 300 dollars a month.) Conveniently, this cash will start flowing before the 2026 elections. You know what would really help? Open up the Strait of Hormuz and remove all those nuisance taxes and fees. But no.
…in a curious irony if it hasn’t made a dent…just recently they put out some facts & figures about the effect of first the congestion charge & then upping it to whatever ULEZ translates to where the rubber meets the road…& to say the effect is clear with respect to the air quality might be a bit on the nose in a few senses as it turns out that’s gone?
…look…I’m sorry & all…I know it’s misery
…but…it’s not *my* bastard company it loves
…all I did was wake up in an online society & get out the available side of the bed
…it’s true what they say
…I guess
…life really is what happens
…you know
…while
…you’re
…busy
…uhhh
…making other plans?
…not only can’t I call balls from strikes I can’t even be sure if three strikes is a turkey or an out…I’m a fucking sports heathen for…well…probably not pete’s sake these days unless that’s become polite for something your grandmother would wash out your mouth with carbolic soap for letting her catch you saying
…still & all…if there’s a hill I will continue to die on…it’s that the other fuckers started it…go ask billy if you don’t believe me?
…in the immortal words of the only person the world’s greatest detective presumably considers a peer…one more thing?
…about billy?
…that…doesn’t embed but also wasn’t me & sounds at least 10% less like I lost it in a context that includes these bits…hopefully…since I have stuff to do & getting carted off in straightjacket would really put a crimp in some other people’s day…that happen not to live in canada but did go to a different school & genuinely you probably have really never met…so…well…right up there with the “methinks the lady doth protest o’er much” & such…it made me laugh & I’m just trying to give props to the funny side without becoming the comedian in, like, some more-is moore-ish sense that’s all the-world-is-watchmen…or…I guess the other moor…& something about saracens probably…or…name your poison, pretty much
…so…uh…obligatory last word to billy, I guess…I mean…the ending writes itself & what-all?
[note to probably just myo, really – if jah didn’t kill johnny, who killed russell jones?]
I sort of love Nige and I don’t know why. He just seems so wacky and eccentric and English, although doesn’t he have half a dozen homes and might be a citizen of France?
I read something interesting about him. Apparently when he was born the house was in Kent, but then got swallowed up when London expanded. The writer claimed that he was quintessentially Kentish.
When I was in college and embarked on my international adventures I spent a ton of time with a very wealthy family who lived in Kent. So much so that their house, a gorgeous villa from about 1920, didn’t have an address, just a name. I actually know a few other English people who are like this. “What is your address?” “We don’t really have one. We’re just [name of house] and people know where to find us.”
Anyway, no one in that Kentish family was anything like Nige.
…that sort of with the accompanying don’t know why is sort of how he made it through life…& before that school…with the full use of his limbs & a jaw that still flaps?
…the man is the odious & obsequious little shit any of his peers at school could have told you he was for the asking before he was even an adolescent problem who thought maybe the tories got you further than the [national] front
…the term “clubbable” in a wodehouse/jeeves&wooster sense rather than “asking to get one upside the head with a bat” has somewhat fallen out of fashion but seems like a good fit for what farage has parlayed into what a dismayingly large amount of people old enough to know better talk about being possibly the defining politician of the age
…arguably…if you lean into the irony…it’d be almost poetic…colonialism does a colonialism on itself & gets away with it because nobody had a book out about the perils of auto-colonialism with an in-bred weakness for the logic of eugenics passed off as nothing but moral vacuums chained together by a beneficent deity…& anyway stop complaining for christ’s sake…you got nothing to complain about, anyway…you’ll all get yours in the hereafter & until then this here is the way & the truth or it’s the valley of death for you unbelievers…I have it on The Highest Authority & He doesn’t seem to ever be at home to appeals…or…we’ll…probably best not to get into it before anyone says anything uncomplimentary about absentee landlords when the rent is too damn high, eh?
I’m not really sure why I have all these rich English friends. I come from a very humble American background but bootstraps and curiosity and whatever led me over to Germany (West Germany, at the time) and I had that college friend from Kent. A good Harrovian, by the way. He used to make fun of “Hooray Henrys” but he really was one himself.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%80_la_recherche_du_temps_perdu
Holy shit, what are Republicans DOING?
‘Hasan Piker shirtless’ searches soar as ‘meat pic’ shown at Republican Convention
Adding to their totally not ghey spank bank?
I … guess? Mike Johnson for sure. But, I mean, NOBODY knew who this guy was three months ago. And they’ve raised his … profile MASSIVELY (oh yeah, all puns intended).
After tonight’s convention I expect People Magazine to name him Sexiest Man Alive.
Which, I suppose, is a strategy of sorts, but I don’t see how it helps Republicans. Other than the aforementioned Mike Johnson and any of the other closeted ones.
…you know how before fucking pigs & politics made people think of davey boy there was a saying about it?
…they want piker to be piggy in their lord of the flies routine…but also to get to say people they can call DSA tried to put lipstick on that pig & fancied it before the steely knives come out
…that way they get double-duty out of the electoral albatross you get like Designs by Dr Moreau is the flavor of the season by playing your “I don’t care if he fucked the pig I just want to hear him have to deny it” buff like it’s all just magic the gathering for all anything matters or follows rules?
…I find it hard to say it doesn’t look a lot like that’s what it looks like to some people who…in a way I can’t fathom…like the looks of it as much as they like their chances with it, anyway?
Yeah, they’re desperate for a bogeyman but this is most emphatically NOT the way to go about it. You want pictures of him that are SCARY, not pictures that are steaming up the camera lens.
They’re so damn incompetent that they can’t even manage to manufacture a bad guy. Even if they located a scary picture, that’s not gonna be what shows up in Google Image.
You don’t say.
Hassan’s meat is Halal… but that never stopped the GOPers from playing their inner fantasies.
wut
I want the Democrats to offer $10K per just so the media starts going WELLLLLLL you can’t actually do that, illegal and unfair, and so on
Plus you know Trump will come back with “I’ll send you all $15,000!”