bird food bathtub posted:

What the gently caress even is reality anymore? I don't know. I guess all that's left is to laugh at this insane asylum we live in, so here, have some lols from another thread.

Hyrax Attack! posted:

Would it be accurate to say a huge reason pot isn’t legal yet is lobbying from industries that would be negatively impacted, like why they still make pennies? In WA a few years back when there was voting on letting grocery stores sell liquor there were tv ads from Very Concerned Firefighters about easier access for kids, but for the actual spending it was nearly 100% Costco on one side & the other was beer companies as I guess liquor on the shelves hurts their sales.

bird food bathtub posted:

What the gently caress even is reality anymore? I don't know. I guess all that's left is to laugh at this insane asylum we live in, so here, have some lols from another thread.

kazil posted:

TOO MANY TRUMP LOLS TODAY

Madurai posted:

It was my understanding that the biggest opponent to legal cannabis came from the cotton industry, who didn't give any actual fucks about its use as a drug, but about industrial hemp cutting into their market.

Lord Awkward posted:

Lord Awkward posted:

AreWeDrunkYet posted:

Public disclosures on lobbying and candidate contributions seems to point more at industries making other painkillers (alcohol and pharma) and law enforcement (police unions and private prisons).

Madurai posted:

It was my understanding that the biggest opponent to legal cannabis came from the cotton industry, who didn't give any actual fucks about its use as a drug, but about industrial hemp cutting into their market.

Soul Dentist posted:

Speaking as a Kentuckian, he didn't do anything good for Kentucky that didn't specifically enrich him or his family more either

Hannibal Rex posted:

The entire world has to deal with the consequences of your election, and we don't get a vote. So those of you who can vote better make drat sure you do.

Hannibal Rex posted:

The entire world has to deal with the consequences of your election, and we don't get a vote. So those of you who can vote better make drat sure you do.

Arrath posted:

Appropos to last page's election discussion and this being raw since we spent all day at the hospital consulting specialists: Next week, at 21 weeks gestation, we will be terminating my girlfriend's pregnancy due to our son's hydrocephalus being so severe he has a sub-40% chance of surviving to term, to experience a life which the doctors described using the term vegetable more than once. So, you know, that sure fuckin sucks.

Thankfully we live in a state where Trump and his party aren't legally forcing us to carry this pregnancy out to the bitter end. I've always voted Democrat even though my personal politics lean a good deal left of their platform and you can bet your rear end I will be doing so again in November.

Arrath posted:

Appropos to last page's election discussion and this being raw since we spent all day at the hospital consulting specialists: Next week, at 21 weeks gestation, we will be terminating my girlfriend's pregnancy due to our son's hydrocephalus being so severe he has a sub-40% chance of surviving to term, to experience a life which the doctors described using the term vegetable more than once. So, you know, that sure fuckin sucks.

Thankfully we live in a state where Trump and his party aren't legally forcing us to carry this pregnancy out to the bitter end. I've always voted Democrat even though my personal politics lean a good deal left of their platform and you can bet your rear end I will be doing so again in November.

facialimpediment posted:

Menendez looking in on this thinking Cuellar is a real amateur for laundering the money instead of outright accepting it in gold

https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1786457430353756394?t=Splso1cNG_AJvzKQj8S2JQ&s=19

Arrath posted:

Appropos to last page's election discussion and this being raw since we spent all day at the hospital consulting specialists: Next week, at 21 weeks gestation, we will be terminating my girlfriend's pregnancy due to our son's hydrocephalus being so severe he has a sub-40% chance of surviving to term, to experience a life which the doctors described using the term vegetable more than once. So, you know, that sure fuckin sucks.

Thankfully we live in a state where Trump and his party aren't legally forcing us to carry this pregnancy out to the bitter end. I've always voted Democrat even though my personal politics lean a good deal left of their platform and you can bet your rear end I will be doing so again in November.

windshipper posted:

JEWS WILL NOT REPLACE US was a loving common chant in a specific moment of pro-Trump voters, and yet… how did we get here?

Arrath posted:

Appropos to last page's election discussion and this being raw since we spent all day at the hospital consulting specialists: Next week, at 21 weeks gestation, we will be terminating my girlfriend's pregnancy due to our son's hydrocephalus being so severe he has a sub-40% chance of surviving to term, to experience a life which the doctors described using the term vegetable more than once. So, you know, that sure fuckin sucks.

Thankfully we live in a state where Trump and his party aren't legally forcing us to carry this pregnancy out to the bitter end. I've always voted Democrat even though my personal politics lean a good deal left of their platform and you can bet your rear end I will be doing so again in November.

Soul Dentist posted:

Speaking as a Kentuckian, he didn't do anything good for Kentucky that didn't specifically enrich him or his family more either

Elviscat posted:

Mitch is the platonic ideal of a self centered loving ghoul/turtle, sustains himself on spite, and has almost single-handedly completely hosed this country. I hope his grave ends up as an eternally full piss-puddle. And I will gladly contribute.

Elviscat posted:

Mitch is the platonic ideal of a self centered loving ghoul/turtle, sustains himself on spite, and has almost single-handedly completely hosed this country. I hope his grave ends up as an eternally full piss-puddle. And I will gladly contribute.

ThisIsJohnWayne posted:

It is rather astonishing, in a history book perspective, the moments of power he found himself in during the Obama years. Mitch McConnell will get to be one of the very few of us who had a choice. Who indisputably got agency.

He got to singularly sabotage so many and so much and empower the lunatics, all as a crude tool to benefit his tribe and his own wealth. He is the one who organised the supreme court and the revolt against reform

quote:

I first started reading the Dune novels in my teens. The amazing works by Frank Herbert had the most profound effect of any work of fiction on my nascent, developing brain.

The stories are epic. The far-distant future universe he created is strange and wonderful. The characters are deep and tortured. Somehow, like Tolkien before him, Mr. Herbert masterfully weaves in profound commentary on political philosophy and current affairs of the 1960s, when the first novels were written.

Even a young teen like myself, who was easy to hop into the stories as I was about Paul Atreides’ age), could see the parallels between the Dune spice and Middle East oil and between the Atreides-Harkonnen age-old conflict and the US-USSR animosity.

Like all great fiction, the settings of the novel give Mr. Herbert free rein to comment on the frailty of the post-Cold War Order.

Here is but one of innumerable examples of the political wisdom of Mr. Herbert (from Children of Dune):

Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders.


One of the major events in the first Dune novel (and the brilliant adaptation – though a bit slow – by Denis Villeneuve in 2021) centers on the test of the gom jabbar. The main character – Paul Atreides (who we later learn is the product of a millennia-long breeding program to create a superhuman able to see the future) – is extremely powerful and thus dangerous; he must be tested. The test involves placing his hand into a machine which creates ever increasing amounts of pain. At the same time, a deadly poisoned needle – the gom jabbar – is placed at his neck. If he removes his hand to avoid the pain, he will be killed instantly by the poisoned needle.

The test determines if the subject is human. Most animals would naw their leg off to avoid the pain of a trap, and a human who can not control his deepest impulses would do the same. In order for Paul to prove he is human and capable of denying current pleasure or pain for future positives, he must submit to tremendous amounts of pain. This is what it means to be a well-adjusted human being in this world, and Paul Atreides (with his tremendous potential for power) must be shown to be such a thing, or he can not be allowed to continue in the world.

Here is Mr. Herbert once again, explaining the concept another way (from Dune):

The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called “spannungsbogen” — which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.

How many politicians in today’s Washington would be able to pass a less lethal version of the gom jabbar test? How many of them would be willing to accept suffering and defeat in their political careers in order to protect vitally important tenets of our Republic for the future of the country?

GD_American posted:

I read the worst political article of all time.

I am only posting the lead.

You will never, in a million years, guess the two sentences following this excerpt.

https://www.tampafp.com/weller-the-woman-who-may-have-saved-the-republic/

GD_American posted:

I read the worst political article of all time.

I am only posting the lead.

You will never, in a million years, guess the two sentences following this excerpt.

https://www.tampafp.com/weller-the-woman-who-may-have-saved-the-republic/

GD_American posted:

I read the worst political article of all time.

I am only posting the lead.

You will never, in a million years, guess the two sentences following this excerpt.

https://www.tampafp.com/weller-the-woman-who-may-have-saved-the-republic/

Arrath posted:

Appropos to last page's election discussion and this being raw since we spent all day at the hospital consulting specialists: Next week, at 21 weeks gestation, we will be terminating my girlfriend's pregnancy due to our son's hydrocephalus being so severe he has a sub-40% chance of surviving to term, to experience a life which the doctors described using the term vegetable more than once. So, you know, that sure fuckin sucks.

Thankfully we live in a state where Trump and his party aren't legally forcing us to carry this pregnancy out to the bitter end. I've always voted Democrat even though my personal politics lean a good deal left of their platform and you can bet your rear end I will be doing so again in November.

GD_American posted:

I read the worst political article of all time.

I am only posting the lead.

You will never, in a million years, guess the two sentences following this excerpt.

https://www.tampafp.com/weller-the-woman-who-may-have-saved-the-republic/

Duzzy Funlop posted:

Can confirm, would never have guessed

Discussion Quorum posted:

I clicked, saw the picture, and said "gently caress" out loud