He wasn't crazy in the classic sense, he was just a scumbag with a grudge.

He wasn't any sort of hero, and no one should mourn his passing. He is more culpable because he was not crazy.

I read his "manifesto" at the time it was published in all the newspapers. His vision of an anarcho-primitivist utopia was highly idiosyncratic (although not unique to him), and his ideas about how to usher in that utopia were naive and morally repugnant, but he was definitely sane. It would have been an outrage if he had been acquitted on the basis of an insanity defense.

I often wondered if the MK Ultra experiments both he and mob boss Whitey Bolger took part in made them even more addled. It apparently left Bolger with chronic insomnia, yet whenever he murdered someone, he'd take a nap straight after. I've wondered if this was a side effect also.

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UFC star Conor McGregor - obviously a moron - knocked unconscious the Miami Heat mascot in what was supposed to be play acting

I hope he goes to jail for this





https://www.indy100.com/sport/conor-...hes-nba-mascot

It does seem like a bad idea to ask for some restraint and common sense from someone who gets punched in the head for a living.

Most fighters probably have plenty of restraint and common sense. Conor is a special kind of knucklehead though. If he ever decides to do movies people would be out of their mind to work with him.

Silvio Berlusconi died today. Of all the public figures in the world, he was probably the most similar to Trump.

Conor McGregor. Embarrassing Irish people and being a terrible ambassador since 2008...

He also likes to hang out with drug trafficking cartel members when he's not decking mascots.
https://www.sundayworld.com/crime/ir...722595788.html

https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/jy0713

Hopefully he's enjoying that big bunga bunga party in the sky.

MTG Caught COMMITTING CRIME on LIVE TV

She knows that no one is allowed to go into a skiff and disclose any information that they might have read in there.

Isn't she on the homeland security committee? Hypocrisy, thy name is MAGA.

Yeah doesn't she know better and she needs to do what the dems do and leak it through the press. She is not the brightest bulb

https://www.richardhanania.com/p/div...s-our-strength

Richard Hanania is a right wing think tank personality on Twitter who had a pretty interesting piece recently that has generated a lot of Twitter discussion, even among the left.

Basically he argues that diversity has been good for a lot of reasons, but an important reason no one considers is that it fractionates the lower classes, making it harder to enact true socialist policies, allowing the far superior capitalist policies to thrive. Most of the people who actually pull the levers of the economy, even Democrats, understand the basic reality that capitalism is generally good and socialism generally bad, so as long as the lower classes continue to stay divided, the economic status quo can continue, which is far superior to expanding the welfare state.

He makes the point that affirmative action (which is really the only wealth distribution effort the left has enacted in the last 50 years) isn't good for the economy, but ultimately it is a much lesser evil as it is limited to just shifting limited economic resources from lower and middle class whites and Asians to hispanics and blacks, which is far less onerous than true significant wealth distribution from the capitalist class to the lower classes.

He also argues that it is possible that continued high levels of Hispanic and Asian immigration, even if the immigrant themselves vote Democrat, could shift the Overton window right. As these immigrants are more moderate than white liberals and urban blacks which would shift the Democratic Party itself right, while the Republican Party will continue to move far far far right for xenophobic reasons. So in practice continued high level of immigration could end up moving both parties right.

red state Christians
Jesus and John Wayne

reading material

I have a lot of thoughts about this article.

First, his overall thesis seems to be:

1. Immigration increases diversity of the population.
2. Diversity reduces, or at least makes it harder to enforce, social cohesion.
3. Reduced social cohesion makes it harder for politicians to pursue large-scale government initiatives.
4. Large scale government initiatives are inherently bad. Smaller government is inherently good.
5. Therefore immigration may result in "better" government, with the caveat that politics is hard to predict twenty or thirty years in the future.

He doesn't make any attempt to prove Step 4. He is just the sort of person who accepts and presents Step 4 as self-evident. It isn't close to self-evident imo.

Second, I agree with him that Republican nativism tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy and that there is no reason to assume that immigrant communities are inherently, inevitably, and durably disposed to support progressive economic policies.

Third, like many people who aspire to be public intellectuals in the political realm, he uses statistics in a sloppy way. For example, like many people in this forum, he cites affirmative responses to survey questions such as "do you want to increase assistance to the needy" as evidence that American public opinion is socialist. We can debate how socialist American public opinion really is, but surveys that show support for progressive initiatives when those initiatives are presented as cost-free certainly doesn't prove the point.

Fourth, there is a lot of highly dubious stuff related to race and IQ in this article. Th author seemingly asks us to accept that IQ tests are a reliable measure of native intelligence. That is, he seemingly asks us to accept that IQ tests are immune or mostly immune to environmental factors. That is a debatable starting point. But even if you accepted that premise, measuring IQ by race would be a fraught exercise for the reason that Luckbox harps on. I also am highly skeptical of the IQ by country statistics that he presents. People who have adequate support from a young age but who nevertheless score in the fifties on IQ tests tend to be very limited. Often, they are unable to live alone without assistance. Often they are unable to manage even low-level jobs. Often, they have great difficulty reading. But the author asks us to believe that the average IQ of people in certain countries is below 60. I am highly doubtful of those statistics no matter what IQ tests are measuring (how are we assessing average national IQ in Equatorial Guinea in the first place), and they seem ludicrous if we are asked to accept that IQ tests are a reliable measure of native intelligence.

Fifth, his vision of smart GOP politics is downright dystopian. For example, he offers the following advice near the end of the article:

God help us all.

both authors are women giggity

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Scientists have created the first human synthetic model embryos without the use of human eggs or sperm

freaky deaky

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/14/healt...ryo/index.html

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--I am sure much of the unstated motive for writing the article using the language he does is to "troll the libs," but on the surface he is writing it to a conservative audience to argue in the current context immigration is good for conservatism. So he is writing to an audience that already accepts that small govt is better than big govt and IQ tests are a reliable indicator of intelligence and competence.

Also, the idea that immigration and diversity is used by elites (capitalists) to weaken the unity and resolve of the working class isn't exactly a new idea. Before our elites were able to capture the narrative and make it all about morality, Bernie Sanders was arguing against immigration from an economic perspective and the Koch brothers were giant donors of pro immigration politicians for economic reasons.

However, Hanania's framing of the issue and mechanistic explanations arguing from a pro Caplitalistic perspective are interesting. Also FWIW this article doesn't exist in a vacuum. Hanania tweets and writes a lot about the superiority of market systems over what he views as socialist anti-market ones. And his general thesis is that the US is so much wealthier than most of the rest of the developed world precisely because is is more pro-markets and less socialistic.

Also, cynical politics isn't exactly something exclusive to the Republican Party. See the success the Democratic Party has had in promoting extreme right wing candidates in primaries, with many believing this is the true motive of going after Trump legally right now (to ensure he is the favored Republican candidate for 2024).

US immigration policy can be summed up as making it difficult to immigrate here legally but super easy to immigrate illegally. Bipartisan agreement on that

I have never argued that cynical politics is solely the province of one party of the other in the United States.

freaky indeed

It's a hoax

It's always a hoax.

https://www.history.com/news/george-...o-alien-photos

What the hell is in the water at Penn State?

A Penn State chemical engineering professor is accused of performing lewd acts with his dog in a state forest