Jeff Bezos was talking about this the other day, about how he can't think of anything to do with all the extra money he has for some reason, and he seems resigned to plowing it all into space travel.
As long as we avoid giving it to people who work for a living.
This trend is so last year. To the extent that I thought there was an Unfogged post about it already.
1 is pretty fucking infuriating. I guess 2 captures it.
This is where the old ways should come back. Bezos should establish a "court" with hundreds of servants, retainers, artisans, musicians, random people who did a good deed that he read about in the paper, all of whom receive a stipend for life because his financial people caution him that an image of munificence is essential to keep the rabble at bay.
We could achieve Renaissance levels of juggling again.
Why don't rich people start universities anymore? I mean maybe Bezos isn't creative enough to find interesting new uses for his money, but why not just obvious old uses? Start a new tech school in Seattle with your name on it.
I would settle for Renaissance levels of friezes.
Or public works. Town halls and parks and stuff.
I hear Seattle is short a few bridges, even.
He should start a university in Iquitos, but it might be hard to think of a name for it.
Some financial dominatrixes develop payment plans where clients fork over an agreed-upon salary to them every month
I've known men who think that's what marriage is about.
In the darkest timeline we're all going to be paying for GoFundMes to pay for financial dominatrices for incels, aren't we...
An incel could fund his own dominatrix, unless he's also an inpov.
I'm not sure exactly how, but I feel this story is relevant.
He must have broken the weight-gain clause in his contract.
The safeword is the combination to a safe.
Because if he isn't willing to pay he obviously isn't really
in trouble.
Well, this puts another possible spin on that guy who gave decimillions to the enterprising fortune teller.
An incel could fund his own dominatrix, unless he's also an inpov.
Live at the Improv, an inpov incel improves improb(ly) with a dom.
Has the IRS considered adapting this approach to taxation of rich people?
Honestly, I'd settle for Gilded Age levels of munificence. We're not even getting libraries.
I... no longer understand things. This is literally the least sexy activity I have ever heard of.
1: This reminded me of the episode of SpongeBob in which SpongeBob and Patrick make a fortune selling Pretty Patties, but then don't know what to do with all the money.
SpongeBob: [laughs] At first we didn't know what to do with all the money. We tried burying it... [Mr. Krabs' eyestalks inflate] ...shredding it... [Krabs' eyestalks inflate some more] ...and burning it! [Mr. Krabs's eyestalks burst and fly around like a balloon with a hole in it as he screams] But in the end, we decided just to give it all away.
[We see Patrick at this stand that now has a bamboo "$" and says "FREE MONEY". He hands a filled paper sack to Nathiel]
"We made too much money," said Harry.
Look, idiots, charity money these days is going where it will objectively do the most good, as determined by the power of reason -- protecting us from a hypothetical evil AI from the future that will destroy us all.
"It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the whole of bourgeois society on trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of existing production, but also of previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity - the epidemic of over-production... And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented." - Marx
"Fuck that, let's just shoot it all into the sun!" - Bezos
I heard an account of a Tom Steyer event whence it sounded like Steyer is very set on impeachment/removal as a necessity he's willing to spend a lot on (ok) but he's also determined that it feel bipartisan and include Republicans as partners and has not yet accepted that the most likely/effective way to open the roads for impeachment is to flip Congress (dude).
Totally unfair to Steyer -- he's putting a ton of money into Congressional races.
Totally unfair to Steyer -- he's putting a ton of money into Congressional races.
That was an accident, I don't actually care that much about Tom Steyer.
1) Steyer's right; impeachment has to be bipartisan or this country is over.
2) Impeachment won't be bipartisan.
Incel in the streets, Excel in the sheets.
At the limit, unless there's dirty talk or something, isn't this just having a landlord?
29/30: That was my gloss, not my interlocutor's - I didn't realize he was putting that much money in, but good to hear. (I knew about the TV spots on impeachment, which seem indulgent. And I guess I know he's involved in a CA10 canvass with Barbara Lee the day after tomorrow.) What I heard, without adding my gloss, is that the big point he emphasized was that if anything is to be done we must appeal to some Republicans for their sense of justice and common decency.
Impeachment has to be bipartisan or it doesn't happen. "Sense of justice" and "common decency" are just code words for "sense of survival."
Someone, Nichols maybe, was saying on twitter yesterday that the incentives run the other way. Even with impeachment looming, they have to pretend to have stood by Trump as long as they could.
Technically it's conviction and removal, not impeachment that has to be bipartisan (assuming the Dems take the house) but, yes. Also, 32 is right -- a more sane Republican party is in fact necessary for the country to be a non-disaster. But that Republican party shows no current sign of appearing.
we must appeal to some Republicans for their sense of justice and common decency
Good luck with that! But yeah, it has to be done.
So, it was just in the local news that Stormy Daniels was performing here. Who is going to see her? Just the usual crowd or flocks of liberals thanking her for doing more for democracy than any elected Republican or conservatives who want to see what Trump got to see?
I agree with 37 completely. I'd add, too, that an impeachment that does not lead to removal leads to re-election. Choose wisely!
Republicans must flip for impeachment to happen, but it won't be done by appealing to their decency, which they mostly lack (in Congress, wholly). But if we flip the House, control the agenda, and mount true public investigations, they'll be under worlds more pressure to do so. That's the path.
an impeachment that does not lead to removal leads to re-election
You think impeachment without removal makes reelection more likely? What's the mechanism for that, given most minds are made up?
I guess I can envision the mechanism now. Less arduous Dems get discouraged and don't vote, Trump supporters feel vindicated and do vote, some of the mushy middle who accept Trump think he's vindicated too, etc. But I don't think that's justification to forego impeachment even if Republicans haven't turned coat yet. There's no other way.
41. Right. Investigations into emoluments make impeachment more likely to lead to removal, because it makes Republicans more likely to flip as more and more evidence of crimes is revealed, and as the 2020 Senate map gets closer. I'd not say to rule impeachment out (as I would have and probably did say in 2006) but it can't look to the majority of people not yet on board as if the investigations are looking for a reason to implement the pre-selected strategy of impeachment.
41.2 Yeah, vindication. Failed coup attempt. Deep state. "Leads to re-election" is a serious overstatement though. Substantially increases likelihood, though, I think is justified.
My own fireball-hot take is that if the Dems take the House and/or Senate they should relentlessly and furiously investigate the administration but not actually hold impeachment hearings unless they've got goods that are incredibly and obviously damaging enough so that they can reasonably expect a 2/3 conviction vote in the Senate (which is pretty unlikely). A sure-to-lose impeachment proceeding seems dumb, which doesn't mean you shouldn't be doing massive investigative hearings all the time.
You think impeachment without removal makes reelection more likely? What's the mechanism for that, given most minds are made up?
Remember how much we loved Clinton when he was impeached?
Also, most minds may be made up, that that still leaves a sufficient swing in a sufficient number of states with sufficient electoral votes to make the difference. Most minds were made up in mid-October 2016, but that doesn't mean that Comey by inaction and Stormy by inaction could affect the outcome.
which doesn't mean you shouldn't be doing massive investigative hearings all the time.
With a lot of firebreathing about the Senate Republicans are protecting their boy Trump.
Is this something that's every happened before?
I was going to link that. Reality Show Politics.
Not necessarily the winner of the internet today, though. On a scale from incel to stormy, just how fucked is Cohen? is a strong entry.
44: This accords with my intuition, but it also seems pretty likely that Trump and the Republicans are going to force the Democrats' hands on this. He's a spectacularly stupid criminal accustomed to operating in a milieu with little scrutiny, so he's going to get caught, but criminality doesn't bother Republicans, and they won't defect in significant numbers.
I like how Giuliani* set up next season's plot with his mentioning that Jared isn't necessarily safe. Nice use of foreshadowing.
* In the tradition of Trump's Homeric epithets, he should be Failing Rudy.
But that Republican party shows no current sign of appearing.
In their eighth year out of power in CA, that Republican party is emerging, starting with reasonable mayors, and going on to vote for climate change cap-and-trade and then getting removed as a legislative leader for that and then trying to start up a new moderate Republican branch. 'Course, there is still lots of crazy left. I think another 8 years our of power will be good for them. It isn't an impossible thing. It'll just take a generation.
Hawaii Republicans have been out of power for several generations now and yet remain mostly crazy. OTOH if you're a mildly right-leaning lawyer with federal judicial aspirations, putting some time into the party is an excellent route to a 9th Circuit seat (Ri/ck Cl/ifton and soon M/ark Benn/ett, both of whom are good lawyers and good people despite their regrettable political affiliation).
54: The current state of the College Republicans is not promising in this direction. It might be another 20 years rather than 8.
44 seems right. Keep investigating, sending people to jail, flipping witnesses, getting cabinet resignations, and hope that eventually something happens that gets republican senators on board. Only go with impeachment if Republicans decide they want it.
Here in Appalachia, it's probably more like never.
Yep. They don't like us, but they hate Mitch more.
What's rural white people for "a shanda fur die goyim"?
60: Being a rural white person means that whatever you do is decent, authentic, and righteous. Any cityperson who thinks a rural white person has done something shameful is just displaying libtard bias.
If only I'd known to take advantage of that when I could.
I'm thinking local law enforcement wouldn't have been citypeople.
56: The current Republican party is kind of what you would expect from people who thought things like affirmative action bake sales were clever and devastating critiques 10-15 years ago. Plus some actual Nazis and old-school racists who used to be pretending they weren't.
54 and 55 aren't necessarily describing contradictory phenomena. If the loony right (or the loony left, in principle, for those with long memories) gets kicked out of power, their first instinct is to double down. Then, once they get bored of being marginalised, if there is a serious chance that they could recover by re-badging themselves, they eventually get round to re-imagining themselves as less loony; but if there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that they'll ever get a sniff of office again, then the people who would have done the re-imagining fuck off to some more fertile looking environment and leave the loonies on the margins to enjoy being marginal.
Is it not more plausible that this whole thing is just a new, smarter cover for blackmail and extortion?
||
And now Junot Díaz. Almost as if his powerful piece on his own childhood abuse three weeks ago was partially getting out in front of something.
|>
Well, right. I mean, the piece on his own abuse elliptically confessed to having behaved badly in a way that could be reasonably read to include this sort of thing.
At the risk of sounding prejudiced, having that type of facial hair is grounds for at least some suspicion.
I could be overstating it -- I think all the misconduct he directly fessed up to was maltreating women he was in relationships with. But I think the implication of misconduct more broadly construed was there.
If the rape piece was getting out ahead of, it was kinda a failed attempt. All he had to do was to confess more directly and apologize directly and in the context of an "I was raped" piece he would have prob gotten some points for courage. Now he looks even worse for not doing that.
Really, though, all authors are liars.
71 Diaz? I saw a tweet by a woman who said he'd forcibly kissed her.
OT: As a class, are recruiters unreliable about time? I was expecting a call from one and I can't really see myself playing Pokemon until after I take it.
Best way to a good job to email the recruiter saying "let me know when you're gonna call, need to schedule some serious Pokemon Go time." Shows that you're proactive and on top of your schedule.
Diaz's NYer piece made me think Sherman Alexie might have ballsed up handling allegations against SA so I suppose now we'll find out.
Must good at maintaining anonymity.
My advice to you is to start drinking heavily.
I'm still working because I didn't get into the office until 11.
I really don't even drink heavily anymore for values of "heavily" that me of twenty-five years ago held.
I'm still working because it's not even noon yet.
Don't you guys get the day off for vulcanism?
Wrong island. But colleagues in Hilo just had a 5.4 earthquake. Pele apparently is just getting started belching.
This reminds me of a question I always had. In Hawaii, do real estate people say, "They aren't making more land"?
I have not heard them say exactly that but have enough exposure to believe they'll say any damn thing they think might extract an offer.
Anyway the old stuff is eroding away as fast as the new stuff becomes habitable (faster really), so it all sort of balances out. And mortgage rates will go up if you wait too long!
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