Walden Ponderer

So is throat cancer, but that doesn't mean tobacco should be legal.

I scared the fool out of the postman today by showing up at the door buck nekkid. I don't know what scared him more, the fact that I didn't have any clothes on, or the fact that I knew where he lived.

Well, you may not want to call it a mental health question, but I don't know how else to characterize a complete lack of empathy. All you've done is to describe the method of transmission. You are absolutely right, though, that this problem is not unique to the right wing, which is why I consider it vital to not simply write them off as troglodytes. The nutters going after J.K. Rowling are not waving guns in anybody's face, or burning crosses on anybody's lawn, but they are suffering from the same underlying disease, and unless we treat the disease, Trumpism in another form is going to flare up no matter how many of the people who voted for Trump, in particular, die off from old age or COVID. Sooner or later, insularity will give rise to another nationalist populist movement with a new body count.

The fundamental problem is that we hear "reach out to them" and are envisioning the kinds of "reaching out" that would reach us. Insofar as we have to continue existing with the people who are currently continuing to allow themselves to be conned by dangerous lunatics, "nope, not listening" to them is a suicidal option. Something has to be done, so what will that be? Discarding their votes? Incarcerating them? Executing them? How does any of that improve anybody's moral character or render our society more just or less dystopian? I consider this not to be a social schism, but a mental health crisis. And there simply aren't enough mental health institutions, let alone enough doctors and nurses to staff them, to manage the problem. It's fun to demonize those who are spewing venom and hatred, but it's more productive to remember that they are the sores and boils on the surface of a very unhealthy human collective. Until we look at "them" as a part of "us" that needs some serious help, we're going to be stuck in a very ugly cycle.

I'm updating my earlier prediction. I think I can be more specific on my 2021 dead pool assumptions. I think after January 20th, he will slip first into excited catatonia, and then when benzodiazepines are prescribed and don't work he will succumb to akinetic catatonia, and ultimately suffer liver and kidney failure. He'll be dead by July 4th. I'm willing to bet a roll of Certs on it. If you don't like Certs, Tic-Tac's will do.

If that's how it works, then bad news, the one after the next one you'd be the sucker 15 years in with a $15k investment and nothing to show for it.

I live in a so called "closed" state; I assure you, the hippie stores are doing better here than they are in Boise. Republicans don't shop "local" unless you mean "the local Walmart".

I swear, it was in the same envelope as the check.

If millions of people were going to their local grocery store or market, sure, they'd lose out. That's not happening, and it's not going to happen, unless and until there are huge tax incentives (negative for big business, positive for small) making it happen.

Absolutely. I get to talk to him first, though. "Hey, Nolan! If I get a hit off you, they're paying me $5 million. Want $4 million of it?"

Well, see, he didn't mind being diddled as a little boy, so why should anyone else? If that's not empathy, what is it?

Has Milos ever actually been for anything in his entire life? I mean, it's pretty much the American style of nihilism; the Russian variety was all anarchist and bleak, but the American variety of just being against everything is a cocaine-fueled fun ride through dystopian capitalist excess. The fact that a bunch of redneck dumbasses who would just as soon use Milos for target practice as for anything else comprise his target demographic is rife with irony, but it is nowhere near as satisfying as irony-rich schadenfreude ought to be. It's mostly just sad.

Uh, pretty sure working for President Trump is the more embarrassing part of her resume, actually.

Wilhelm was never as popular as Trump, even in his propaganda. As for Siegfried, I have a really hard time imagining Trump's saga set to Opera. For one thing, I'm pretty sure his most talented followers only play banjo.

Uh, no. No, they most decidedly do not. The next Republican who has actually read Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" will be the first. Possibly, but debatable. Democrats are the center right party in this country. Republicans are center of the asylum. There are no non-big market capitalist parties. In what universe? No, just no. The logic behind the Godfather going towards monopoly is fully in post-modern effect in the current economy -- people want cheaper and faster. Amazon, Walmart, etc. are cheaper and faster. To get them away from that, you have to specifically incentivize, which means taxes on large companies and subsidies for small ones. I don't see either party, but especially not Republicans, going for that. Sure, if you drop enough acid.

Yes. On a half dozen counts. Other than that, keep on keepin' on.

So, after our 12 week old kitten kills its first bird on our front porch, wife posts her conversation with daughter on Facebook:

Sure, if you aren't infected with a serious case of brain rot and myopia. But, newsflash, a huge swath of the country is infected with brain rot and myopia.

The fact that it was laced with a contact-release form of mescaline is entirely irrelevant.

Hitler sold German high command on a whole bunch of bullshit, like the hollow earth theory, but on the other hand he was also competent as fuck at a wide variety of things. The use of side-by-side-by-hundreds-of-sides tennis courts, for example, to circumvent rules against building airstrips? Brilliant. He completely fucked over the rules the French wrote after WWI in ways that the Giant Orange Windbag never in a billion years would have been able to pull off. So, does Trump have as few ethical qualms as Hitler? Maybe. Was he even remotely as competent as Hitler? Not in a billion fucking years.