Let’s see if the rats want to play global thermonuclear war.

Strangely, it’s just as you said, I recognized Goebbels but not Miller, but if you would have asked me before which I would recognize more easily, I’d have said Miller.

It’s probably just that Miller is almost always lit directly from the front.

He obviously chose names so that they would work in that song. A name like Slartibartfast is immediately ruled out.

I am not sure about the specific wording of laws in the US before the Civil War, but I do know that many of the Confederacy’s documents specifically used the term “negro slavery”. You cannot separate the race from their victimization. It is not racist to say that black people were slaves in America’s past. Even if there were a few exceptions, much of it was encoded into law.

On the other hand, like the tweets say, just because a person was white doesn’t mean they owned slaves, or that they weren’t abolitionists.

I don’t wish to make too many tangential top-level comments, so I am declaring this the tangential thread, but all I can think of is that America is on a path where someday we’ll also have journalists who will literally have to choose between the truth and their own safety. We already have so many who choose lies over the truth when their safety is not questioned.

steganography markers

On top of everything else, this isn’t even the correct term, nor does its meaning match the sentiment you wish to convey.

a jelly-filled doughnut,

Oh, like a berliner?

This is basically the plot to Funny Farm.

I am so used to people complaining about their own country that I mistakenly thought that the first guy was Danish. And then, the second guy’s comment made no sense at all. I was like, “health insurance? co-pays? How does any of that apply to Denmark?”

I had to reread the first post several times before I could overturn my impression that he was Danish.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

The 14th Amendment doesn’t say that he can’t run. It says that he can’t hold any office. Trump has a “disability” from when he engaged in insurrection by intentionally inciting it, and that disability has not been removed by Congress.

This disability does not require he be convicted of any crime. Instead, the 14th Amendment simply requires that Congress enforce the Amendment:

The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Donald Trump cannot legally hold any office under the United States. He cannot legally be president. The only reason he’s able to act like the president now is that Congress is not enforcing the Constitution.

I wouldn’t be surprised if, at some point in the future, perhaps even after Trump passes away, Congress finally grows some backbone and enforces the amendment, just to try to make up for the embarrassment that Trump causes us, similar to how the Germans would rather not remember that Hitler had been the Chancellor of Germany. Trump might be retroactively declared to have never been the president after January 6, 2021, and I think that would be in line with what is written in the Constitution.

I don’t even think Trump can legally be president today.

And on top of what you said, there’s also the possibility that Trump will be alive but too senile to run.

America was founded on the concept of no taxation without representation.

My open tabs build up until eventually I switch browsers.

I have been reading a lot of fiction lately.

Listen, the important thing isn’t to court optimism. It’s to avoid pessimism. Pessimistic thoughts tend to be sticky and refuse to go away. Mindfulness meditation can help you give those thoughts the boot.

But it also helps to stay busy. Like my hobby of reading fiction.

Exercise can also help.

Staying optimistic can backfire if you’re over optimistic at all.

I would expect not too much, since they can’t speak during sentencing.

And even if they had written a letter or something, I suspect that the very idea that they could plan for him murdering them would fall pretty flat, and might even backfire.

The outside is soft? Are you sure that’s Cap’n Crunch and not Ensign Wetley Cruncher?

Good god, the last line of the article:

A woman was seen on the ground screaming and wailing as two other women tried to comfort her.

Seems to be a false dilemma. They ignore the idea that you can eat your friends.

If you look at a single incident and try to assign blame, you’ll likely never be satisfied with any answer. However, if you look at this as a category of incidents, then it’s actually quite easy to find ways to reduce the number of occurrences.

For example, for drug related offenses, you could be looking at solutions like decriminalizing drugs and offering more social programs. Lab tests with rats have shown that when the rats have a strong community, they will naturally stop abusing drugs. It wouldn’t be surprising if the same thing works with humans. We should be spending government money to encourage the development of caring communities.

For mental health related offenses, the same sorts of things can help. Having support can be the difference between life and death. Although psych meds can be lifesavers, the government needs to invest not only in pharmaceuticals and making pharmaceutical companies rich, but in treating the person.

And it goes without saying, but the violent sort of fascist rhetoric that we constantly see from the GOP and MAGA in particular, shouldn’t be tolerated from our politicians. Ideally, I’d like to say the same for news, but that’s a more difficult problem to solve.

Are you my brother in law? And or my ex-husband?

Who?