America has seen incredible political deceptions in its past, from the Gulf of Tonkin to WMDs, but this real-world Dave script involves someone not named Biden steering presidential authority to approve billions for shooting wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, while handing out pardons in record numbers, among God knows how many other things. Is there even a word for fraud on that scale? A lot of people need to go to jail behind this caper.
Arraignment or Runway Event?
Here’s how Women’s Wear Daily covered the arraignment of Luigi Mangione, accused of killing United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson:
At first, videos on TikTok identified Mangione’s crewneck top as Maison Margiela’s burgundy washed lambswool sweater, which was available for sale at $1,000 on ssense.com — the piece is now sold out… Users [later] determined he was wearing the “washable Merino crewneck sweater” from Nordstrom. The style is available for $62.65 in six other colors. However, the burgundy color that matched Mangione’s outfit is now sold out… Levi’s, Peak Design, Tommy Hilfiger and Monopoly were previously referenced in news stories…
“What we see with Mangione is he has quickly become a folk hero and a fashion folk hero. It’s almost like the movie The Joker, where people dressed like him,” Diana Rickard, a criminal justice professor at the City University of New York, previously told WWD…
As Everyone Knows by Now, the Pediatric Cancer Story is Phony
Jasmine Crockett: Trump wanted $90M for inauguration while cutting $190M from cancer research
Absolutely Mind Blowing
Drop a ? for Jasmine pic.twitter.com/f1I1Gk80Fb
— A (@bluhue123) December 28, 2024
The author and Crockett are a little late to the party. Thanks in large part to X, everyone knows that the pediatric cancer story is phony.
That bill passed the (Republican) house with virtually zero “no” votes in March, then went to the Senate, where it was never brought up for a vote and was eventually jammed in to a 1,500-page CR, along with a big raise for Congress and god knows what else.
It should have been voted on nine months ago as a standalone bill but wasn’t, so that if Republicans objected to a 1,500-page CR, Democrats could pull out that one thing and say “Republicans hate kids with cancer.”
What’s Going On in Delaware?
BREAKING: A former Delaware teachers union president cut off his friends and family because they voted for Trump.
He wrote them a letter right before Christmas and published it in the state's largest news outlet
He was forced to resign as union president in 2018
Buckle up ??
— Corey A. DeAngelis, school choice evangelist (@DeAngelisCorey) December 26, 2024
This may be the thread of the year.
As noted, the teacher was forced to resign in 2018, the reason being the discovery of some of his past tweets, including one calling then-Delaware Gov. Ruth Ann Minner a “Butch Bitch” and wondering whether a video of “chocolate, caramel and vanilla brothas” gang-raping Minner would boost her poll numbers, another suggesting that “blowing all the Muslims up” perhaps isn’t such a bad idea, and one suggesting a child molester is justified if his wife is a “stank-ugly ho.”
There’s a lot more where that came from, so if that piques your interest, read the whole thread.
Remember as you’re reading it that this is the kind of thinking that gets you elected teachers’ union president. The teacher, Mike Matthews, is still a teacher in the district.
Matthews’s husband, Jose Matthews, is the current school board president.
Monkeys and Pedestals
Imagine that you’re trying to train a monkey to juggle flaming torches while standing on a pedestal in a public park. If you can achieve such an impressive spectacle, you’ve got a moneymaking act on your hands.
[Recognize] that there are two pieces to becoming successful at this endeavor: training the monkey and building the pedestal. One piece of the puzzle presents a possibly intractable obstacle in the way of success. And the other is building the pedestal. People have been building pedestals since ancient Greece and probably before. Over two-plus millennia, pedestals have been thoroughly figured out. You can buy one at a furniture store or a hardware store, or turn a milk crate upside down.
The bottleneck, the hard thing, is training a monkey to juggle flaming torches.
The point of this mental model is to remind you that there is no point building the pedestal if you can’t train the monkey.
In other words, you ought to tackle the hardest part of the problem first.
Why Engineers Make More Than Marketers
Monetizing Fake News
Monetizing fake news. It's genius.
Amazingly, several pundits are quoted to the effect that calling someone a rapist in the absence of a verdict is not such a bad thing. ?
It's slander, you numbskulls.https://t.co/CUvq9qieEp
— Paul Epps (@paulepps) December 16, 2024
Some of the comments are extraordinary. Someone named Michael J. Stern says
When George Stephanopoulos said Trump “raped” E. Jean Carroll, he was using the word colloquially.
I didn’t even know there was a “colloquial” use of the word “rape.” Did he use finger quotes when he said it. I bet he didn’t.
Justin Baragona of the Daily Beast says, “This sets a worrisome precedent,” i.e., that you can’t say someone is guilty of a crime in the absence of a verdict. The Daily Beast is worried about that.
God is Not Mocked
I’m not a believer myself, nor am I anti-abortion, but I have no use for “Catholics” with more reverence for abortion than for the teachings of the Church.
Should not have defied the pro-abortion Eucharist ban. God is gonna cut you down.https://t.co/lRH7weEVwq
— Paul Epps (@paulepps) December 15, 2024
Autumn in Berkeley
Please Say What You Think “Misinformation” Means
The author is chasing his tail in so many different directions that it’s hard to respond.
You should not write a looong post on “misinformation” without defining “misinformation.”
For example, during COVID, a NY Times reporter said that getting a COVID vaccine doesn’t prevent you from getting or spreading COVID. Our government labeled that as “misinformation” and coerced tech companies to ban the reporter from social media.
Of course, now we know that statement to be true. I could go through more examples but the point is that labeling something as “misinformation” is arbitrary.
Pending a definition, I’ll say that “misinformation” generally means “something I don’t want you to read or hear” and is protected speech.
The author mentions hate speech. Hate speech is protected speech. Supreme Court precedent is very clear on this.
The author mentions fraud. Fraud is the intentional act of deceiving someone to gain a benefit. Fraud is illegal.
Your Karma Ran Over Your Dogma
Brian Thompson is the United Healthcare CEO who was shot to death.
Some of these comments on this post are really ghoulish. “Obviously murdering someone is inappropriate. However, . . .”
I mean, where do we set the bar here?
“Obviously murdering someone is inappropriate. However, I did pay $15 extra for express shipping and my package still arrived late.”
Or “Who do I have to kill to get an online flight with this airline?”
You can come up with more examples yourself.
I hope your dogma gets run over by your karma.
An Experiment in Educational Equity
"During one meeting, an educator recounted their experience of finding a colleague crying in a closet because they felt like such a failure teaching multilevel." https://t.co/RhU4kDFbZz via @BostonGlobe
— Paul Epps (@paulepps) December 11, 2024
Hindsight to Foresight
What you’ve learned in hindsight about giant stories like RussiaGate and Covid should now be converted into foresight
You won’t get everything right if you do this but if you don’t do it you will most surely get nearly everything wrong
What Is Your Life Worth?
I saw at the supermarket they were selling whole roasted chickens for six dollars. You get the whole chicken in one piece — six dollars.
Imagine if your life was only worth six dollars. I wouldn’t know how to explain this to a chicken.
A roasted chicken on its back still looks very much like a chicken, like it gave up its life for you, just like Jesus. For six dollars.
Supercut on the Hunter Biden Pardon
SUPERCUT!
Corporate media: Obviously Biden would never pardon Hunter pic.twitter.com/gJRhASCAUs
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) December 2, 2024
Anti-Trump pundits and cable news talking heads singing Biden’s praises for his no-pardon pledge and using it to rip Trump to shreds, pointing out the “stark contrast” with Trump’s complaints that the Justice Department was weaponized against him.
Did not age well.
Stop the Presses!
California Fast Food Restaurants Shed Thousands of Jobs after $20 Minimum Wage Hike https://t.co/TwFBK03Imc
— Paul Epps (@paulepps) December 6, 2024
The Skeptics Were Right Again
I Know Why You’re Not Getting Hired
I can tell you why you’re not being hired but you know already.
People like to hire people who look like themselves and fit in with the group. My experience with that was when I moved into the “white, male, over 40” group. I didn’t look like a typical software engineer anymore (a young person’s profession), I didn’t fit in with the group, and I wasn’t adding any diversity points. (Age doesn’t count as diversity, it’s just age.)
The saving grace is that my profession is performance oriented so if you know things that others don’t know and you can solve problems that others can’t solve, which is demonstrable at interviews, you can get hired.
I do not have a solution to your problem but I wish you the best.
Do the Right Thing
What You’re Missing on BlueSky
An example of the elevated intellectual discourse currently taking place on BlueSky:
