Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I think so but am not positive. I haven't used the open one I have for quite a while but already has thousands of songs on it.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Many people break that law because they do not think they will be caught. Trump has learned, over decades, that even if he is caught, he is not held accountable. (Or that he can pay some money.) He ran a risk/reward calculation, and got it wrong. That doesn't mean he has a mental illness, any more than it does for any other criminal.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

That's not a rule. You are criticizing DEI right now. No one has silenced you. You are absolutely free to be a dissenting voice.

I see plenty of information about RFK on social media. If social media isn't repeating some of what he says, it's likely because social media doesn't want to repeat untruths about vaccines that will get people killed. That is, of course, the free speech right of the people running social media, and if you have a commitment to the First Amendment you should be glad that social media companies get to decide on their own what content they want to share.

You are putting your thumb on the scale of public discourse right now. You're just complaining that other people say things you don't like. In the annals of human history, it has never been easier or cheaper for people to participate in the public discourse by saying what they want to say. Any jackass can post on social media, put up a blog, or say what they want to say in a myriad of ways. I don't understand your grievance. "There isn't enough vaccine information out there!" "Other people should stop disagreeing with stuff I agree with!"


Ha. I didn't offer a definition. I am just using the word the way everyone besides you uses it.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You don't know what you're talking about -- it just keeps changing from post to post.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You are not understanding what I'm saying.

I do not believe that a single fact in the prior two facts is accurate, except that it is true that Musk bought Twitter. But the great thing is that the government has not suppressed any of this speech, as actual authoritarians would. You have read it all, in all its bogus glory, because our country's laws and culture often make it very possible, even lucrative, to publish misinformation.

For reasons that are hard to fathom, you saying that the people who published all this crap which you read and now believe were not allowed to publish all this crap. A sharper mind mind wonder how you were able to read it.

The grievance you are struggling to articulate is that you believe a lot of crap, and that too many other people don't, and don't want to share it. For example, Twitter decided that the Post's story about the Biden laptop violated a company policy about sharing hacked information. They did not stop the Post from writing the story, printing many copies of it, and sharing them with many, many people. Yet you're upset that Twitter had different editorial judgment than you would.

You're not mocking them. Try that instead.

But they're not off limits, sacred. No one actually thinks that at all. They just don't share your views.

You can absolutely tell that person to fuck off. You just have to live with the consequences, that they'll think you're an asshole. You're just complaining that you think things that other people disagree with.

Name one. You are so full of shit here that it's coming out your ears. You want to pretend that you are in the center, so you pretend Democrats are something they are not.

Here's what you said a few days ago about the US Open protesters:

It wasn't the tantrum that you objected to -- it was that they did it in the match. I pointed out that disrupting the US Open is something Trump would never do. And we all know he wouldn't.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Can you run to your songs or are you too critical that it would break the zoning?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

1. You’re not saying anything. You’re reframing. As is your move. It’s been more than 20 years.

2. Of course you don’t believe anything about the laptop. You want to appear above it all, but you’re ultimately emotional.

3. I don’t need to mock you here. You’re emotionally on one side. Hence the hysteria on “both sides-ism.”

4. They’re absolutely off limits. You can’t poke fun at DEI and collect a check in any large corp or agency.

5. You’ve a position. You just want to seem above it all. We both know that. Your issue is my issue. You can’t admit it. The difference is, I now realize I’ve never really had a position. I’m actually what I am, which I’ll have to deal with. You’re playing rationalist. Nobody likes a pose.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You’re not a simpleton.

Framing isn’t genius. It’s like playing semantics. We’ve been here two decades, and you’re not William Safire. Stop.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You were calling DEI a form of authoritarianism, and I was saying it was exactly the opposite, in that it is not really changing anyone's behavior much at all. Saying that companies spend money on DEI consultants or lose money with ESG is missing the point.

I believe all sorts of things about the laptop. I believe Hunter Biden has done things I disapprove of, and I wouldn't vote for him. I didn't vote for him. I voted for his father, and he is being dragged through the mud in an effort to harm his father, as we all know. If he were a Republican, you would be full of sympathy for the way he is being abused, but since he is a Democrat, it doesn't bother you -- you think his dick pics should be on the news.

I'm not defending the pieties you want to mock (but aren't mocking). I'm saying they don't exist. You carp and carp and carp about how you can't say the things that you and many other people are saying.

Your both-sidesism is apologism for authoritarianism. Left-wing authoritarianism exists -- it's called Communism. It is a real problem in some parts of the world, like China. But not in the US. Here, the authoritarian threat is from the right. And your both-sidesism is a myopic effort to deny reality, to invent a non-existent left-wing counterpart to MAGA.

There are all sorts of things you can't say at many large organizations, because saying them reveals that you are a little dim, with poor judgment, someone who doesn't know how to fit in. You can poke fun at DEI just like you can poke fun at Finance. (But if you go after either in the wrong way, you are demonstrating that you don't know how to play.)

Of course I have a position. I have never pretended otherwise. I'm not "playing rationalist," whatever that is. Are you copping to being irrational?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You said, "what I see at the extreme poles is delusion, religion. MAGA thinks they're in a fight for the soul of America. Their counterparts on the extreme left believe that the country must be reinvented down to its plankings."

MAGA elected the last President, and it's about to try again. It has almost half the Senators doing its bidding. "Their counterparts on the extreme left" are a couple of guys at Oberlin annoying you with their tweets. When they're done, they go outside and play Spikeball. Your "extreme left" is a chimera, and all your nonsense about the extreme left is a way to avoid acknowledging that the real authoritarian threat in this country is MAGA and the Republican Party.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Actually people who voted third party elected him. Hopefully they learned their lesson.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

He was caught. The subpoena was him being caught. Any sane person, including even his psycho mentor, Roy Cohn, would make the strategic decision to return the materials. It's the only move on the chess board.

What does Trump do? In perfect childlike fashion, in an act consistent with someone with pre-pubescent level stunted maturity, he decides to try to hide the stuff? Ok, so then there must be some value to his doing so, right? He must have run a cost/benefit. Nope. There is no value to his keeping the stuff. If the facts adduced to date are accurate, he doesn't even know the totality of what he withheld.

That is the act of someone whose mind is addled. And recall, this nutball is 78. If Biden is mentally compromised at 80, which appears so, why not Trump? Dementia + Mental Problems + Getting Away with Things. He's all three.

You only fight the obvious evidence of his mental problems because you seem to think they raise an insanity defense, or render him worthy of leniency. That's in your own head. I don't see that at all.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

We obviously run in different circles.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Except it is. It's a cult that's caused corporate America to engage in performative rituals. Performative rituals are not conducive to productivity. Companies exist to make money, period.

HR is enough of a cash suck/cost center already. Larding it with DEI strictures is throwing sand in gears. At one point in my life, and very annoying one, I had to work with an HR head managing 1100 people. This kind of stuff drove everyone nuts. "This is sexist, that's discriminatory, we should have a workshop." Pissed away a small fortune getting opinions from outside counsel on employment matters. Godawful, tedious.

If the Trump kids had such a laptop, it'd have been on the front page of every newspaper in the country. Don Jr's dick picks would still be a meme today.

And you know it. There's a double standard in the media (legacy and social) and only a liar or a knave would state otherwise. And it's defended, laughably, as efforts to stanch misinformation.

But the Biden laptop is just one of the most recent examples of it. Recall how the media got in line and parroted Bush's bullshit to get us into Iraq? How about the stamping out of lab leak theories as disinformation, and worse yet, racism? How about the endless bullshit about the efficacy of masks? Even Fauci has admitted lying about that. But it's okay, and we shouldn't talk about his lies, because they were noble lies - those who know what's best for everyone else needed to get people in line.

There's an official narrative on everything these days, and what doesn't fit it is branded false. The left should give Trump a lifetime achievement award for gifting it the greatest weapon of all time: the allegation, "Fake news!" It's fucking brilliant. Destroys opposition in two syllables.

I couldn't and can't say those things in public. I go along to get along just like everyone else. It's only in private where one can do so.

Your refusal to see authoritarian creep all around you is kind of surprising. You're not a blindered sort. But I think you're so tied to the idea that it can only come from the right that to show you how it insidiously comes from the left incenses you. It's like pissing on some article of faith.

Here's where you shift and adorn yourself with the wise cynic hat. It is a game, and you're right - only a fool fails to act as a Roman when in Rome. But we're not in Rome. The conversation here is inconsequential, only had for the purpose of the intellectual exercise. If your immediately preceding statement is true, if you mean it, then you and I don't really disagree. We both admit things like DEI are feel good performative behaviors. We only disagree on the extent to which they impact things (you say not much; I say they are productivity-sucks and cash machines for manipulative consultants).

But on your last point, I don't see any right way to poke fun at these things. And things like DEI, or ESG, are not like finance at all. People hold these things to be so virtuous as to be beyond reproach. I can make fun of finance all day long, anywhere. Nobody takes offense or thinks one "dim" for doing so. Finance doesn't care; it's making money. Poke fun at a DEI consultant or exec and see how that flies. Better yet, try it with a Dean or Professor. These things are sanctified. And what's sanctified is... religion.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I am completely sympathetic to drawing attention to the immediate threat of climate change, but the protestors are amazingly inept at gendering anything but disdain. Destroying art, this incident, etc.

Three weeks ago, before a half inch of rain made national news, a climate group decided to shut off the single road to Burning Man.

95 percent of the people inconvenienced didn't have a clue what the fuck was going on, so the message never made it to them. But that road is also the single road on and off the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation, whose members were already dealing with the headache of 70,000 partiers coming and going next door. The tribal rangers had zero hesitation in just ramming the blockade with their pickup.

Like I said, I'm completely sympathetic to the need to address the issue they're trying to address, but their methods are so utterly and completely ludicrous, it makes me want to buy a F350 and roll them with diesel smoke.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Last time I was dismissed* from a jury (I knew the prosecutor), the judge made an announcement they were looking for new panelists and gave a run down of the qualifications. I'm not sure how anyone with a straight face makes the argument that grand juries are comprised of any representative portion of the population.

Also, in my neck of the woods, those of us with childcaring responsibilities are excused until I think the kid is 12. I found this out when asking how I could pump breast milk and serve on a jury. Seems like a pretty important segment of the population isn't around for deciding cases where kids are involved. I'm not sure how to reconcile the two.

*I'd love to sit, but I always get bumped pretty fast.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I got bounced very fast once for saying I didn't believe in home owners associations in a case where the HOA was suing some resident for non-payment of dues. In Texas, HOAs have massive power and in some circumstances can take your house.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I did that right before a myomectomy. Wasn't until I was in recovery and my husband saw them trying to figure out why my urine was red but the blood count was zero that they figured it out.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

People who know a fuckton more about these things than I do have said that it really goes down to federal vs state prosecutors. Federal prosecutors are super cautious and state prosecutors have a ton more leeway from their courts. I also get the impression from RICO people that the Georgia RICO statute is bonkers.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Really super happy that you're still with us. Keep fucking up the odds for a lot longer.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Team silence outdoors, where I do most of my runs. Have to listen for animals sneaking up on me, falling limbs when I run on trails and listen for minibikes, scooters, motorcycles and the like when I run on the pedestrian-"only" paths in Manhattan.

I listen to music only on a treadmill and then I can. When I do run on a treadmill it's usually Underground Garage on Sirius and occasionally a song of mine comes on.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I wonder if the guy who glued his feet to the floor worried about using a petroleum product to unglue his feet.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I think it's no secret I work for a public institution of higher education in the state of Texas in arguably the most diverse city in the country. The legislature just banned all DEI activities on campuses. It's really hard and heartbreaking to dismantle some really amazing programs which have made for a more interesting and productive student body and workforce. And we're going to lose good people because of it.

Last April, I was on a search committee and one of the short list candidates told us she was attracted to us because of our commitment to diversity. I internally wept because I knew this bill was on the tracks.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I will never forget. Years before I went back to law school, back when I was a long haired musician I was called for a jury and my day job was as a bill collector for American Express. I was asked the question "So you can tell whether a person is lying?" to which I responded "Whether they are lying is irrelevant; what's relevant is whether they've paid the bill."

How's that for a lawyer answer from a rocker?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

That's a stupid and authoritarian bill. If people want to employ DEI, do so. If they don't, don't.

I don't understand how that's constitutional. But then, I also don't understand how DeSantis' preclusion of certain content in FL is either. My guess is its constitutional until someone sues and it is found otherwise.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I wonder if he understood how much of the clothing he was wearing was comprised of petroleum products.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I'm always fascinated by "vegan leather" which is mostly petroleum based.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Have they destroyed any art? Hasn't it all been behind glass or otherwise protected?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I'm pretty sure that since the Court added Barrett most conservative legislatures and governors have figured out that whatever their position is will be deemed constitutional no matter what previous courts have decided.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Here's the running tally from 2022. It looks like all of it has been behind glass.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

The good stuff is cork. However a million year old dead animal I guess is better than a freshly killed one.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

If you look at the numbers, you will see that Trump got more votes than the people who voted third party.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

No, I think Trump has strong, strong preferences to keep those documents, and did not evaluate the risk of doing so very well. I personally think his preferences are a little weird, but "crazy" to me is a medical term, and I'm reluctant to pathologize odd behavior. YMMV.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

If the social change you attribute to DEI is that corporations now perform expensive performative rituals, I would say (1) speaking as a manager in corporate America, you are overestimating the expense, and, more importantly, (2) the kind of social change that DEI advocates have been looking for is to foster a culture of social equality, and even expensive performative corporate rituals weren't the point.

The great thing about this kind of argument by hypothetical is that it is completely speculative, and so completely irrefutable.

I personally don't want to see dick pics from anyone, including both Hunter Biden and Don Jr. I am 100% OK with editorial judgment by the media that permits me not to see them.

It's telling that it's not that you want to see Hunter Biden dick pics, it's that you see a double standard. We started with the idea that you were defending the freedom of expression from authoritarians, but now you are complaining that about a double standard involving the publication of hypothetical dick pics. Life comes at you fast.

Actually, no. I just told you that Twitter's policy was not to publish stuff that had been hacked. The misinformation is in your version of the facts, and there is no stanching it. God Bless America! You continue to be free to receive and disseminate all sorts of nutty things.

Is your point that when the government says something, lots of people believe it? Yes, that is too bad.

I don't see authoritarian creep on the left because I think the fringe lefties you're talking about are not in any danger of taking any real power anywhere in this country, and when I and the rest of the world talk about authoritarianism, we are talking about government control over things, not a couple of guys on Twitter. YMMV. MAGA types currently occupy all sorts of government offices all over the country, and there is a real danger that Trump will win the next presidential election. (You never actually name the leftist bogeymen who get you all hot and bothered.)

If you say the left and the right are equivalent, and I say, no they're not, it doesn't mean that I think the left is perfect. I'm saying that differences between right and left are real and important, and should be acknowledged and discussed.

It just depends on how you do it. The issue here is that when you talk about poking fun at DEI, what you really mean is trying to make a so-called "joke" that tells everyone you think DEI is a waste of time and money. In the sort of large company that we are talking about, there is an understanding that once business decisions get made, there is a time to shelve your personal views and pitch in to make the plan work. If you're at the table when someone is deciding whether to invest in DEI, you can absolutely say it's not a good use of money. Once the decision is made, it's time to support that decision. People who can't do that are disruptive, and they get weeded out.

like Tinker Bell, but in reverse
 

I don't like HOAs either, but I never thought of trying to stop believing in them. If you do that, do they disappear?

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

A DEI manager is a six figure position. It's not huge dollars, but not pocket change either.

And you miss the fact that a ton of managers don't want to adopt it at all. But because it has become a sort of industry standard thing, it becomes (I hate this word, but it's necessary here) best practices. Once something is adopted widely, it becomes compulsory. An HR manager says, "Look, when in Rome... And it's a hedge against claims... and creates a nice feel good story."

It's not speculative at all. Anything related to Trump is front page immediately. We heard about hookers and golden showers in Moscow for months, and no one in the media stepped back and asked if that was reckless. Then it was proven to be bullshit, and nobody in the media apologized for any of it. All is fair with the Orange Man.

He deserves this, no doubt, and courts it, but still - it is a double standard.

The Post wasn't showing dick pics. The Post was merely writing about a laptop that had all sorts of material damaging to Joe and Hunter on it.

I share your lack of interest in dick pics. The Post was exercising free expression - providing a story of public interest. A late campaign surprise, like Hillary's strategic drop of the "grab them by the pussy" tape. The Post story was every bit as newsworthy as the Access Hollywood interview of Trump. One was carried in every media outlet on earth. The other was ignored in legacy media and silenced in social media.

(I'll reply in advance to your facile attempt to distinguish the stories by stating one involves the son of a candidate rather than the candidate by noting the laptop contained info regarding Joe, not just Hunter.)

Right, just like Twitter's refusal to allow links to the Times' publishing of Trump's stolen tax return showing a $900mil loss.

Actually, it's a couple guys in the C Suite of Twitter who were working with NSA and FBI folks to massage narratives. I mean, you could read Bari Weiss on this. And you probably did read her when she was at the Times. But then she started criticizing the narratives you prefer, so you'll of course assert that all of the info she published about Twitter after Musk bought it establishing govt-concerted efforts to control what was said on the platform are just... quackery.

You're not seriously buying that hysterical conspiracy theory that Trump has an army of bureaucrats placed in positions to grant him the election in 2024. That's Alex Jones level silliness, and I'm not dignifying anything that frivolous with a response.

Totally agree. The right is far more aggressive and seeking direct control. Hence, I referred to it as Orwellian. Boot on the neck. Couldn't agree with you more. The left, however, is for more effective, as it is capturing the culture - the legacy media, a large chunk of social media, academia, corporate management. And as Huxley described in Brave New World, it is suggesting, both carrot and stick in hand, that the masses had better take their Soma and do as the People Who Know Best (maleducated knuckleheads of our strata who fancy ourselves wise wonks) tell them to do. It is subtle, but it's also obvious. You have to be willfully obtuse to miss it.

See my earlier comment about "best practices." It's pretty much compulsory, and you'd be an utter fool to argue against its adoption at any stage. The smarter play is to adopt, let it fail as it often does, or succeed, and wait out the current moral panic over "equity" and "inequality" until the thing burns out from its own heat, as moral panics and fashionable manias will.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

You are completely missing my point, which is that the people behind DEI efforts are *not* trying to create six-figure jobs for DEI managers. They are trying to change society, but they aren't changing much. But they are providing a fig-leaf for large corporations.

Are there double standards? Sure. (For example, if Joe Biden said crazy things that Trump says all the time, the media would completely flip out, and rightly so. Trump says them and it's not news.) Does that mean the left is authoritarian? No.

There was and is widespread skepticism about what was actually on the laptop, because of questions about the chain of custody and because of the poor credibility of key people (e.g., Giuliani) involved in the story. (The fact that some contents of the laptop are legit does not, of course, mean that everything on it is legit.)

This country has many, many, many media outlets. Some ran the story, and some did not, each according to its own editorial standards. The government prevented none of them publishing.

In other words, there is no First Amendment issue here, period, full stop. There is no authoritarianism going on in this story. Indeed, the federal government was, at the time, run by Trump, so I suppose it's a testament to our media's editorial independence that many outlets felt free not to run the story.

We both know that the allegations about Joe and the Ukrainian prosecutor are empty, and that the GOP wanted the Hunter Biden dick pics in the news before the election. That was the point.

God help anyone who tries to defend the application of Twitter's policies. A good friend was a top lawyer there. It's an impossible job.

I have looked at what she and Taibbi came up with from what Musk gave them, and it was the weakest of weak sauce, twisted and amplified in the retelling by the kind of morons on Twitter whom you would try to escape at a party.

Who, specifically, "in the C Suite of Twitter" do you think was "working with the NSA and folks to massage narratives." Facts, or it didn't happen.

No, I'm pointing out that MAGA Republicans are currently holding seats in the Senate and Congress, statewide office in many states, and many state legislative seats. This is not a secret or a conspiracy theory.

I'm glad you perceive reality, but your grasp of cause and effect is weak. The "left" is not "capturing the culture." There's no carrot and no stick. It's the other way around. The culture has changed. What most people want is where most media, business and schools are. It's not like mainstream institutions were all taken over by Maoists who brainwashed everyone.

The mainstream is most of the country. It changes, because that's what it does, and yes, the country has been mostly growing more liberal and less conservative for decades. The "left" of your imagination is a tiny fraction of people who have almost never had power and almost never will have power. Conservatives are a much larger fraction primarily motivated by resistance to and grievance about social change. (Hence "Make American Great Again.")

Thanks for the advice, but I am familiar with the way these issues play out within actual companies, large and small.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Greedy, you might find this review of Marty Peretz's memoir interesting:

https://thebaffler.com/latest/everyb...es-marty-klion

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

I had thought they were trying to be provocative and annoying, but not destructive.

The spokesperson for Just Stop Oil was on Pod Save the UK and did not seem like a crazy person.

Re: Implanting Bill Gates's Micro-chips In Brains For Over 20 Years!
 

Ty:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...en-laptop.html

From those rabid right wingers at the Daily Mail.