https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/u...-students.html

Damn this story is ****ed up and also will be spun through every partisan prism to come up with some entirely self-affirming story.

Trolly’s Troll of the Week:

And there was no "good old days" before Trump where political violence was rare. The salad days of liberal democracy just had more thoughtful and disingenuous rhetoric.

I'm not advocating this or claiming it's the only factor, but that assumption is not as absurd as I think you're suggesting.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_riots#1960s

the more I think about it, the more sense it makes, really

I guess dead Iraqis don't count unless they want to become US citizens. Same old.

This is awesome:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/29/busin...ore/index.html

Cliffs: Payless shoes opens fake store, morons pay $600 for $20 shoes.

Who are you talking to?

Anyone calling for political violence because of the US government's treatment of immigrants, but who didn't over the Iraq war because of nimbyism (ie not you).

This is outstanding. **** "influencers" and their grifting ways. They take money, pimp products and never bother telling their unsuspecting followers/fans that they're being paid for their takes. DJ Khaled is one of the worst examples of this and I was thrilled to see him get got.

This is an amazing read. I don't get how people like this sleep at night.

And they'll continue letting them **** over kids if it means a middle finger to the public school system regardless of what they do.

Not defending the war and for sure violence against Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld would be justified, but it's perfectly rational to care more and react more strongly to events based on their relative proximity to oneself.

I feel like in some bygone non-Trumpian world, this would be a huge story for a week and generate a lot of focus and attention. In this world it won't get read and will be out of the newsspace by tomorrow, which is unfortunate. The NYT editorial page may be **** but the reporting is still good.

I don't get it. They basically paid people to buy their shoes and then brag about that the people paid to buy their shoes bought their shoes?
Also the people paid by the company said nice things about the company's products. I am not impressed.

I counter your distance divider with my numbers multiplier.

It's more a 'don't believe a single word of what an "influencer" tells you' story rather than a 'these shoes are awesome' story.

Pretty funny thread.


https://twitter.com/Popehat/status/1068536689977516032

It's maybe the middle finger to the public school system but don't discount the way status seeking is playing a role here. The fundamental thing that is effectively snowing everyone here is that they're being bestowed legitimacy by Ivy League acceptance letters (who are themselves seemingly doing no due-diligence on this school).

Worst part are going back to videos like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkjlHG7gSHM

Highlights:

1. the guy who runs the school like "I encourage my parents never to ever ask what goes on here with their children." Uh, welp. You know, rule #1 of parenting is if someone takes stewardship of your kids and is like "don't ask what I do it with them," run fast in the other direction and call the cops.
2. the Today Show narrator dude who is like "no teachers, no textbooks, just military style discipline, the kids just teach themselves trig from a book they bought themselves." Nothing weird about that?
3. "there is no government funding, so the kids do all the labor of cleaning the school. Impressive!" welp
4. "I understand you've filed for bankruptcy 3 times, what happened here, must be like...real gumption, sticktoituveness, right ?" welp
5. the interview noting that the kids literally sound brainwashed, then the post script stuff where the hosts talk among themselves about how the kids sound brainwashed then talk themselves out of it

For ****'s sake, my goodness.

Literally everything about this sort of puffery is dark as **** in retrospect now that it's been revealed as all fraud and abuse, like one takeaway is that if you can fraudlently get kids into Ivy League schools, literally anyone will let you get away with anything them and they will mouth their suspicions out loud while giving you incredibly glowing media coverage. Take away the Ivy League acceptance porn videos and everyone's hackles would be raised ten fold, but because the kids were getting accepted to prestigious colleges, everyone is just buying the scam, like well sure this is awesome, look at this thing that makes no sense, all these brainwashed kids scrubbing toilets on Saturday with no teachers teaching themselves trig, incredible story, great success. The school is obviously a big part of the story but don't dismiss our role, "us" being like all of us and the media together aggrandizing this school and giving them huge amounts of positive exposure despite being a Potemkin school that was just a cover for abuse and fraud.

Fox News’s go-to legal expert was raping 16-year old girls and no one gives a rip. ****ing amazing timeline we have here.

https://twitter.com/HeerJeet/status/1068350807735771139

Dershowitz is smarter Roger Stone.

You seem to have it the wrong way round. Saddam was a monster so those who believe in violence should have been in favour of the war.


hmm hang on that can't be right. Maybe, I know it's hard to believe what with the game theory proof, but just maybe violence isn't such a great thing after all.

Down thread from there:

Lol, "one of them is a seven."

I see Fox is now laughing at easily-triggered libs for pointing out that the Rudolph Christmas special is clearly about homophobic bullying. I mean, isn't this obvious to anyone who's ever watched it as an adult?

https://www.foxnews.com/entertainmen...st-and-bigoted