 |
| CRANKY OLD FART #232 leftovers & links Friday, Nov. 18, 2022 |
My wife knew. A few very good friends know. Beyond those few, whenever I'm out and about in the world or even putzing around on the internet, it feels like everyone else buys into everything, and I'm the only one who doesn't.
Some small percentage of people may suspect that a small slice of everything is bullshit, but it's never more than a suspicion, never more than a slice, when in reality, bullshit is all-encompassing.
With the exception of love when it's done right, everything is bullshit.
If there was no god, and never had been, what do you suppose people would do?
They'd make up gods, and say gods are in the stars, or in the clouds. They'd make up stories about these gods, tell of long-ago miracles these gods performed, and laws the gods had given us, and promises of an afterlife if we live by those laws.
And of course, every different group would have a different god, and people would go to war defending their god's honor against the enemy infidels.
Pretty much exactly what's happened, and is still happening.
What about America? It's the greatest country in the world, we often tell ourselves. We have a grand democracy, a noble constitution, a bill of rights that protects us, but it's all only as strong as our leaders' willingness to abide by such rules. That willingness seems more an more imaginary, like the gods and borders.
Everything is bullshit.
And now, the news you need,
whether you know it or not
• DOJ announces special counsel for Trump-related Mar-a-Lago and January 6 criminal investigations
It's been obvious for at least years that Trump is a criminal, and almost as obvious that he'll get away with everything. But now, after a year and a half of dithering and "no comment," Attorney General Merrick Garland has done what he should've done with his first phone call as AG.
And he's screwed it up.
As obviously as an unflushed toilet, the scope of any investigation should be far, far broader than merely Mar-a-Lago and January 6.
And why did Garland wait and wait and wait and announce this two days after Trump declares himself a candidate for 2024, so it can't possibly not look like simple politics?
Because it is simple politics. It's not about investigating or prosecuting Trump. DOJ doesn't want to prosecute Trump, and if charges are ever filed, they'll half-ass it in court or plead it down to six weeks of mansion confinement.
It's only about being able to say, "Gosh, we tried."
• Biden is OK with killing reporters, long as the US still gets oil
• Catholics rally for reinstatement of priest twice accused of sex abuse
• Musk emails remaining Twitter staff to find "anyone who actually writes software"
My apologies for spending five minutes thinking about Musk and Twitter, but...
"Anyone who actually writes software, please report to the 10th floor at 2 pm today. Before doing so, please email a bullet point summary of what your code commands have achieved in the past ~6 months, along with up to 10 screenshots of the most salient lines of code," Musk wrote in the first of three emails reportedly sent around midnight PT Friday.
Musk is captain of a sinking ship, where he's the one who pulled the plug to let the water in — and he's asking his software team to impress him, before he'll let them bail water.
It's damned funny watching Musk sink Twitter, but it's probably not funny for the employees who used to work there, and their families.
Certainly it debunks any myths about Musk being a brilliant capitalist. You don't have to know squat about business, about tech, or about social media to know that everything Musk has done with Twitter is stupid, and we'll be reading about the lawsuits for years.
Here's an excerpt from a related WaPo article I've misplaced:
"I know of six critical systems (like 'serving tweets' levels of critical) which no longer have any engineers," a former employee said. "There is no longer even a skeleton crew manning the system. It will continue to coast until it runs into something, and then it will stop."
Musk was forced into buying Twitter by his own blunders, but everything he's done since then has been on purpose. Dude has no intention of making a profit with this investment. I believe he doesn't care about the money; he can afford to dismantle Twitter out of spite, and that's what he's doing, and it ought to be illegal.
• 'Highly religious Americans' are the biggest climate deniers
• Pelosi won't try to be Minority Leader in the House
Pelosi says, "the hour has come for a new generation to lead the Democratic Congress," but the time was thirty years ago.
The new Democratic leadership will be younger. Hard not to be; Pelosi is 82. But whoever they pick, he or she will be just as uninterested in changing anything, because that's the primary requirement.
• NASA study: rising sea level could exceed estimates for US coast
And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops...
• NYPD arrests and jails cyclist for fixing driver's illegally obscured license plate
And it never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops...
And it never stops,never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops, never stops...
Links I liked
• TikTok's greatest asset isn't its algorithm — it's your phone
• Matt Berry reads hilariously prurient Matt Stone memo to the MPAA
• Electromagnetic hypersensitivity
♫♬ Mix tape of my mind ♫
• "Don't Be Shy" by Cat Stevens
• "Mannix" by Lalo Schifrin
The End
11/18/2022
Brisket is a biscuit made of meat.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that's literally the truth, but it's a lovely mini-poem.
Delete