there’s an element of juvenile politics in the folks who refute any historical leader as villainous. or even uphold but can’t stand to be serious, to be full throated in defense. which is like a petulant refusal to respect authority as a value in itself
dude
how many layers of irony are we on right now
I remember even as a kid thinking that the Sarlacc must have some incredibly life-extension abilities to keep its victims alive for 1000 years, and that that could be pretty valuable if you could find a way to extract it.
When humans found a species of super-poisonous tree, we nearly wiped it out of existence.
This explains why the Sarlacc hasn’t simply been bombed yet.
a silent guardian, a watchful protector
lol look at mercury go that wild bastard
as with all astronomy this is reassuring and terrifying in equal measure
Also, TIL that the asteroid belt is actually a giant triangle, who knew.
Great Filter material, I wonder?
Imagine your icon becoming universal dictator of earth
Buckle up kids, because you’re about to be ruled by an ＡＭＥＲＩＣＡＮ ＣＹＢＯＲＧ ＴＩＭＥ ＣＲＩＭＩＮＡＬ！
most of the time I’m vaguely impressed by the way Japan manages to balance tradition and modernity, local culture and globalisation, advanced technology and respect for humanity, then I remember they had that fetish for girls licking doorknobs and wonder if maybe two atom bombs wasn’t enough.
I’m pretty sure the that came after the atom bombs, so, uh, maybe it’s the other way around.
This blog recommends not using radioactive city-vaporizing weapons on human population centers.
I’ll agree that’s a great butt if you could just stop calling me Becky.
this post 2edgy4you now that Becky is on verge of becoming an ethnic slur (via argumate)
Let’s suppose that I’m some kind of recluse who doesn’t have any real clue what the Kids These Days are doing. “On the verge of becoming an ethnic slur?” What? Directed at whom? With what connotations? I am so lost.
(via balioc)
White women. I’m not sure how to explain the implications.
dentist checkups are this weird inverse Confession where the priest tells you how much you’ve sinned since your last visit.
they’re also serious memento mori because teeth, gums, and bone once lost cannot be regained.
Yet. Tissue engineering mindset.
Centrism and normalcy are all ruses created by the establishment to make any sort of alternative seem like madness. Seriously think about what kind of world we must live in where politicians as moderate as Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn are written off by the establishment as extremists. On the other hand, growing economic inequality and the downright cruelty of the establishment os meant to be normal or a “harsh truth of reality” that can’t be changed whatsoever because anything else is an extremist aberration.
People aren’t advocating for poverty. Jeremy Corbyn’s intentions may be pretty fucking great, but raising minimum wage by so much in one go will cause workers to becone redundant and will slow the growth of businesses.
Listen dude, if paying workers fairer wages somehow makes the economy worse overall, then that means there’s something seriously wrong with the current economic system and the solution isn’t more of the fucking same. I didn’t write this post saying that Jeremy Corbyn was some savior, I wrote it saying that he wasn’t an extremist and that there needs to be alternatives. To centrists, there are no alternatives, only the status quo, and I hate to break it to you, but for the vast majority of the people on the planet the status quo is fucking shit. That’s the reason why the Western world is in such an upheaval at the moment, because we have uncaring governments who want everything to continuously stay the same because they’re the primary beneficiaries of the current system. And if an alternative is never found, and everyone sits around listening to centrists, they’re going to end up being the only beneficiaries.
Villainous National Technocratic Centrist here.
Direct-to-employee wage subsidies (with a minimum wage decrease, but a net total increase in compensation) would increase the purchasing power and economic security of the working class while not damaging businesses (much, because it will need a bit of taxes to fund), and having a variety of other positive side effects (including higher employment overall). It could be implemented gradually and rolled back if it doesn’t work.
Unfortunately, this isn’t in the interests of Globalist Capitalists (who are pursuing a global unification of wages, including through open borders), Leftists (who may seek UBI or industrial nationalization instead), or bootstrapper Conservatives (who really believe the whole bootstraps thing for some reason).
I do agree Bernie isn’t that extreme though.
Workers: Single Payer is-
Dems: Workers, shut up and get the fuck out. I’m gonna fuck your insurance provider now.
Fair meme.
Popehat pointed me to this distinctly Orwellian transcript from a federal court case, in which the defendant, who wants to plead guilty, asks if she has to affirm in the plea agreement that her public defender did an adequate job when he’d actually missed all their meetings, missed key court deadlines, and couldn’t answer questions about what she was charged with:
The Defendant: What I meant to say is that at the end of the plea, it says that I have to submit and say I have been … that “I am satisfied that my defense attorney has represented me in a competent manner,” … I don’t want – I’m scared to go to trial because I don’t think that he’s going to, you know, put a fight for me. Your Honor, he didn’t submit any pretrial motions at all.
… Do I have to have the clause in there about my attorney? [referring to the part of the plea colloquy where she’s asked if she’s satisfied with her attorney's representation]
[Prosecutor]: Yes. You’re asking me?
The Court: Yes, you do. Who are you asking?
The Defendant: Just – I don’t know.
The Court: Well, you turned to [the prosecutor]. That’s part of [Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure] 11, ma’am, because you have to be satisfied with the representation and understand the terms and conditions of your plea agreement.
But in terms of satisfied with the representation, it doesn’t
mean – There’s – In terms of competent representation, it doesn’t mean that [your public defender] has to look at and touch every single aspect of the case. If [the prosecutor] reached out to [your public defender] and said,
okay, count number one and count number ten, which happen to be what we’re seeking your client’s guilty plea on, here’s the discovery information that directly relates to Count 1 and Count 10. If he reviews that,
that’s a diligent lawyer who’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing.…
The Defendant: Why is it the fact that even if I’m willing to take the plea, that clause about him, about my attorney? Why do I have to submit to the fact that he competently, you know, advised me in the matter?
The Court: Rule 11, there’s certain things that must happen if a person says I wish to plead guilty. As part of Rule 11, you have to believe that your lawyer is competent and has represented you properly.
The Defendant: Your Honor, I don’t believe that, but at the same time I’m scared to go to trial with him because I don’t think that he’s going to do me justice.
The judge says that if she doesn’t want to go to trial and probably get life in prison, she has to plead guilty, and she’s not allowed to plead guilty until she affirms that she was competently advised by her counsel. If she will not agree that she was competently advised, it goes to trial, and her trial lawyer will be the one who missed meetings with her and a life sentence is on the line.
She affirms that she was competently advised by her counsel.
The whole thing is just nightmarish, but to me the most nightmarish bit is that it was over a marijuana dealing operation. She was facing life in prison, she got 121 months with the plea, this whole charade of a just system charaded along, over her boyfriend growing and selling weed.
So, uh, have your usual reminder that fuck the American criminal justice system.
Now imagine the incentives of privatized for-profit prisons and prison labor on top of that - TUoC surely has, but there are still too many people that support it.
This probably wouldn’t even be that hard to remedy if they just allocated more money to hiring public defense lawyers, but who will do that? (Certainly not the state where they tried to draft the governor in due to a chronic shortage of available public defenders.) Republicans don’t actually believe in good government - they believe in the myth of bootstraps and tax cuts. Democrats don’t believe in it either, so instead of solving it we’ll just get some other bullsht social program that empirically doesn’t work, or schools that don’t discipline bad behaviors until they end up on the wrong end of a cop.
This all undermines the public’s faith in the justice system and the state generally, which makes policing itself harder, likely increasing crime. (For instance, similar failures involving simultaneous under- and over-policing continue to undermine the inner cities. Some people there now believe it is done on purpose, and they likely wouldn’t believe prosecutors could protect them from drug gang retaliation - so why would they cooperate to get rid of the drug gangs?) You can try to get around that with propaganda, and indeed to a degree they do, but it has to bottom out at reality somewhere.
Even imagine a simple rule like “as much money has to be allocated to your defense as they spend prosecuting you”. I bet most Americans would even consider that fair. But where will the political will to materialize it come from?
