quicklime

Climate “ambitions”, huh. The pressing need to avoid or mitigate the collapse of civilization is merely an “ambition” now…

It’s still (moderately) difficult to find a bunch of 6 year olds with guns. But the way things are going, I’m sure that will be remedied before long.

(see other person’s same-level comment too)

good point and true. Not the case where he’s going to be charged with treason, anyway, but you’re right, I should take care to refer to the case properly. Especially if my reason for commenting is to clarify which matter is being discussed!

Good point, and true; and the way I put it probably plays into the pattern of Trump voters thinking “well yeah, that’s morally questionable but not illegal and not worth this big of a systemic reaction.”

I will adjust my mentions of this in the future.

That’s in one of his other court cases. This is about the one where he paid a prostitute to keep quiet after he paid her for sex.

I too am wondering what’s dumb or otherwise wrong or undesirable about a second coat of paint. Seems context dependent but they left the context general/generic

I’m still angry that the naming of a large sewage treatment plant in San Francisco after George W. Bush didn’t stick.

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that a similar, perhaps in some ways better system exists to this day in the world of Islamic finance. It’s far from perfect and has plenty of real-world flaws and downfalls, but it was cool to learn about the spirit and morality behind it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_banking_and_finance

I almost decided to mention that earlier/above. I’m not convinced yet that Russ Baker isn’t a little off the deep end overall, but that whole story certainly is a fascinating and disturbing read, as is much of the material on his site.

When reminding or teaching the younger community about George H.W. Bush, let us not forget to mention that when the US elected him, it elected the former CIA director to the presidency.

A supposedly democratic Republic elected its own chief of secret police to lead the executive branch of government. Somehow even at that time most Americans didn’t seem to be aware of that glaring fact, and far fewer have seemed to realize it ever since.

And then the country went on to elect that guy’s completely unqualified son to the same office less than a generation later. /facepalm

Have we already forgotten Kimbra?!

“No puppet. No puppet. You’re the puppet!”

2016 debate clip

… or Rudy’s hair gravy.

Not to mention the Rolling fucking Stones immortalized Bakersfield in song. (“Far-Away Eyes”)

Never thought I’d see an example of Darrell Issa being the reasonable person in an argument. Bad times…

ok, that’s great!

Agreed, but that might be missing the significance of the moment somewhat. It apparently only takes Bannon and a small handful of other unreasonably influential voices on the right to send Congress even further into chaos and dysfunction, making the passing of one current bill a comparatively tiny relief.

The part that I sometimes find the most disturbing is that they seem to think that’s exactly how it is for everyone else.

And worse yet, in many ways the general welfare and common good are not irrelevant to them but something they are committed to actively opposing. General welfare and common good tend toward increasing the numbers of sane, secure, less-traumatized, reasonably-educated people who vote for more of the same in a positive feedback loop. And that is hell for anyone who’s committed to a race to the bottom in what they perceive as a fundamentally dog-eat-dog world where we are no more than semi-literate primates.

you just said the same thing twice

Sure, the train track ends shortly at a cliff, but why aren’t Americans enthusiastic about how the train is currently moving swiftly over a good solid trestle?