There are other countries is the world.
talking about oddball sociological studies
How about the legendary Stanford prison experiment being revealed as BS?
And then Trump repeating the Milgram experiment on a society-wide scale and finding it works.
More rambling thoughts for you, heebie. (Link is not endorsement. My private thoughts about the whole thing are darker than these.) I've been getting a lot of the stuff I've been sharing here from her Twitter feed, though, because I don't really have time/bandwidth to Twitter.
5: Thanks, very interesting. The experiment was indeed in my Psych 100 textbook, IIRC with some criticism of about consent issues but not questioning the basic narrative at all.
Oh, that's just a throwaway line not meaning anything. Just that he's managed to re-insert himself in conversation lately.
I was just googling on that and confused.
Cohen flipping,
Actually I think at the moment it is more Cohen attempting to extort the President for his legal fees via the press.
"Nice child-torture camps you got going there. Shame if anything were to happen to them."
6.last https://twitter.com/dril/status/171450835388203008?lang=en
"Sorry, did I interrupt something, Mr. President? I'm so sorry. I beg your pardon."
I occasionally think about the optimistic scenario -- the best possible outcome for our current rolling disaster -- and it makes me even more depressed. If the Democrats take the House, it's going to be fucking chaos. Unless it isn't, which would be worse.
Can someone tell me about a possible outcome to the Mueller investigation that is both 1. good and 2. plausible?
16: He issues big indictments not technically indicting Trump but putting all the damning details out there, close to the election - maybe 61 days before if he wants to obey the policy Comey flagrantly violated, but violating that policy would be justifiable in these circumstances. The indictments have enough new and/or base-demoralizing charges that both houses of Congress flip. Congress immediately blocks the administration at least from doing new horrible things, and starts televised hearings that dig deeper into all the scandals, criminal and otherwise, and create content to chip away at Congressional Republicans day after day. This drives down his approval levels to the crazification factor or under (similar to what happened to Nixon over the course of 1973), McConnell/McCarthy abandon him, and in autumn or winder of 2019 impeachment/removal becomes enough of a prospect for him to resign.
Alternatively, at some point during all this, he fires all secretaries/WH staff in a huff, nobody is replaced, and all the federal government goes into caretaker mode until 2020, similar to the last part of Rob Ford's mayoralty.
(Even in the first of these two quite rosy scenarios, Pence would have a good shot at several months of honeymoon/goodwill followed by reelection. Fuck.)
Even in the first of these two quite rosy scenarios, Pence would have a good shot at several months of honeymoon/goodwill
That's just because you didn't read the part of the Mueller report that shows that Pence was complicit in some of the shenanigans and all of the cover-up.
Mueller submits scathing report and it never sees the light of day? No wait. Submits scathing report and we all read about but Fox News never mentions it and deterioration continues? No wait. Submits scathing report, we all read it, and we retake the House in November, and impeachment hearings begin, and nothing ever decisive comes of them but they monopolize the next two years and then Trump is re-elected? No, I got it: Submits scathing report, we all read it, and we retake the House in November, and impeachment hearings begin, and nothing ever decisive comes of them but they monopolize the next two years and then Trump is not re-elected.
Sanity returns for eight years. Then everyone forgets everything and hands the keys back to Trump who wins an astonishing comeback at age 82 and is just dropping the N-word and Hillary and emails every single sentence, and he remains president for the remainder of his life, and we are essentially governed by Putin thereafter.
Yes, that's a hope, but may fall by the wayside, especially if it turns out Pence was merely passively complicit (knowing indirectly but not brought in on anything).
I don't think Heebie read the assignment.
I am very conflicted about posting about anything besides the border crisis.
How about Italy's ethnic cleansing plan?
When I'm depressed, I find the works of Douglas Adams comforting.
Despite being sci-fi that started in the 70s, it holds up fairly well overall if you just play Mad Libs with certain technical terms. Wikipedia and similar Web sites are the Hitchhiker's Guide. We actually have robots and computers you can have a conversation with, and they really are stupid and prone to misinterpreting us. Digital watches are old news now but people really are inordinately fond of similar gadgets. There are a lot of different worlds (timelines, countries, cities) out there, and the vast majority of them are just shitty in different ways. Those that aren't completely destroyed, that is. There's a high chance that we're all fucked no matter what we do. Even if we manage to fix our democracy, economy, and climate - and what are the odds of that? - you never know when a plague spread by dirty telephones will kill us all or the Vogons will build a hyperspace bypass. For a more realistic scenario, we're overdue for an eruption of the Yellowstone caldera. (To be extra realistic, the eruption is a real possibility but "overdue for" isn't settled science. I'm just saying, in addition to the horrible things that we as a nation have some theoretical control over, there are lots of horrible things we have no control over.)
I find this encouraging for two main reasons. First, it absolves me of responsibility for all the problems in the world. Second, if I stop worrying about the long-term big picture and stop and smell the flowers, there's a lot of cool, zany, interesting things to see.
This doesn't change the practical advice - donate, volunteer and go to relevant protests if you have the time, get involved in local politics, vote, teach your kids about what matters - but it keeps me from looking at the big picture and just giving up.
Now that I know what a "speaking indictment" is, and that Mueller has significant track record of issuing such, that's how I expect most of the information to come out, not through the DOJ which can bottle up any report it gets.
My Psych 101 class was taught by Zimbardo, and his take on his own experiment decades later was of course just the same as Mossy's textbook: "some criticism about consent issues but not questioning the basic narrative at all." So we all learned another psychological fact, that the public performance of regret feeds really easily into self-aggrandizement.
It was also a requirement of the class that we sign up as subjects for four different experimental sessions being run in the department, but none were all that sadistic.
When I'm depressed, I find the works of Douglas Adams comforting.
Yes, all of this border camp stuff is Somebody Else's Problem and therefore invisible to me.
I saw Zimbardo speak when I was a freshman jn college (because weirdly it was billed as a big event). I have zero memory of what he said but recall that he gave off the aura of a fraud. It's always satisfying when one's thoughtless, evidence free snap judgments turn out to be right.
It is of course minor, but the insanity of things like the flag-hugging (in front of an an adoring audience o small business "reps") is just so laughable/infuriating. Have his supporters no pride?
Probably belongs in a Big Sort thread, but this Politico article on The Villages points the way. (Yes, it's yet another Trumper thing, but chilling wackiness of The Villages* made it more worth a peruse to me.) "Generation Pickleball: Welcome to Florida's Political Tomorrowland
Republicans' political future looks a lot like this vibrant, fast-growing, Trump-friendly retirement community outside of Orlando."
He's always going to do the right thing, so if he doesn't execute on a promise, it's because he knows it won't help America," Gee says. "He's got our back.
Heart of fucking darkness.
31*: I believe I mentioned here my visit this winter. But maybe not. Surreal.
The Lotus Eaters, except just the ones with no class or taste.
25. A good short story in Asimov's this month, "Ephemera," by Ian R. MacLeod. It's about Mr. Darcy, the nuclear holocaust, arks, and the actual long-term. There's a very nice robot, too. Brain the size of an asteroid, in fact. Relevant to this thread in various ways.
Hrmph, nobody's talking about the latest House Republican 2019 budget proposal for $8 trillion in spending cuts, either. FFS.
House Republicans unveiled a 2019 budget proposal Tuesday to send a message to their core supporters that repealing Obamacare, cutting taxes and partially privatizing Medicare remain high on their agenda.
The budget, which claims to balance by 2027 through $8 trillion in spending cuts, seeks to revive the deficit-cutting mantle for Republicans after a two-year deal that increased spending by $300 billion. A massive tax cut approved last year is expected to add $2 trillion in deficits over 10 years.
Of course, it appears that this has no chance of passing (I think?) but still, shouldn't the mainstream media be telling people that this is even being proposed? I, uh, tend to think so.
The part of my brain that wonders "how do you revive a mantle?" is still functioning, I see.
Memorial
Race, White.
It is with great sadness we announce its passing after a brief administration at the age of 357 years. White will be lovingly remembered by many marketing firms, Fox News, and people who start sentences with "the real racists...." White is preceded in death by Basic Decency and Respect for Honesty. White is survived by people who live in countries that didn't vote for obvious frauds.
A funeral service will be held for White in the United States House of Representatives on June 22nd with interment to follow in Stephen Miller's ass. In lieu of flowers, do something masculine to the point of clearly overcompensating for something. Probably involving guns.
Republicans' political future looks a lot like this vibrant, fast-growing, Trump-friendly retirement community outside of Orlando."
...full of people who will be dead soon?
Really, it's got nothing to do with me, but Mrs. Netanyahu being charged is at least a little bit cheering.
31 - buddy I work there and they don't even let me fuck it.
I guess dril is maybe the best thing I've learned about in the last couple years.
Surely you meant 13 instead of 31?
44 - Sorry, missed that it had already been invoked.
You mean, they let you fuck the heart of darkness?
https://twitter.com/CalhounGirl61/status/1007841705935212544