I want to clarify the comment “I am afraid that many Liberals are blind to this. They think these people won’t ‘go that far.’”

I think that rich people are totally fine with wiping out the much-talked-about Middle Class.

They don’t need middle class people. I think liberals tend to overestimate the degree to which their interests align with the wealthy. A lot of Democrats worry about Sanders going too far with his social policy because they instinctively worry that it will cost them something, that they will lose privileges of some kind. They kind of feel like they shouldn’t fight for these things.

They think the system needs tweaking. They don’t realize that the wealthy want THEIR slice of the pie, too.

They are coming for pensions and all health care. They want everything commodified. And I don’t think many middle class people see what they’re going to do to them.

Congratulations, grandpa. I hear it’s a good gig.

When Donald Trump starts gasping and wheezing from COVID-19, I’m going to make it my ringtone.

— Middle Age Riot (@middleageriot) May 11, 2020

nittany ram wrote:

How can the interests of sociopaths be represented if they can’t hold public office?

I don’t know, Nittany. How can the interests of Seahawks fans be represented if they can’t win the Super Bowl?

Okay. So. Dead serious. I have been thinking for YEARS that preventing sociopaths from working in the government is the ONLY hope for humanity, and I just thought it was logistically impossible to do. I am very interested in this.

I wonder if sitting government employees will have to take the test, and what will happen to them if they…you know…pass.

I still can’t imagine this happening in the US because…litigation.

But this is seriously the only hope.

Screw Thailand. Iceland is supposed to be a pretty nice place.

TSRF wrote:

Moldy Pesto? Dude, you have to freeze it (basil the plant doesn’t like cold, but Pesto the sauce freezes great).

We retrieved our son form Boston on St Patty’s day. He goes to Northeastern and was doing a Co-op in Boston (still working remote, which is nice, because he is applying all his Co-op income to tuition for the fall). Anyway, he has gone vegetarian on us, but also doesn’t like tomatoes all that much. It is good for all three of us, as we have sort of gone vegetarian too (but every so often, maybe once every two weeks or so, the wife and I will have a burger on the grill or a pulled pork sandwich or something like that. I think I’m going to get some PIE Mussels for Mother’s Day lunch tomorrow). Anyway, I thawed out a half pint of pesto and boiled up a bag of cheese tortellini. So friggin good, we made another batch the very next day.

Oh, we have frozen pesto. Probably a quart of frozen pesto, and I’d guess over a dozen pints of refrigerated pesto, and 22 basil plants (4 varieties, including a purple one) growing in the garden right now. I don’t care if it goes moldy. It’s a way to free up refrigerator space.

I have pesto from 2018. My wife makes so much pesto…and then she defends it like it’s green gold, and we can’t use it. When she catches me throwing into some dish that isn’t elegant enough, she yells at me, and tells me not to waste it on “that.” But a few weeks ago, I pulled out, not one, but two pints of moldy pesto from 2018, and showed them to her before throwing them in the compost bin. And now she says I can use the pesto liberally. She makes about a gallon a year, and gives away a lot of it, but there is never a basil shortage in this household.

And I don’t think we had a single freeze this entire year, btw. Getting warmer every year. Looking forward to this year’s edition of Fire Season in California.

nittany ram wrote:

we need to incorporate the best practices of all types of farming to come up with the most environmentally friendly form and understand that some types of farming may not work everywhere.

Oh, I have that covered.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimdobson/2020/03/27/billionaire-bunker-owners-are-preparing-for-the-ultimate-underground-escape/#17f948be4e12

nittany ram wrote:

Organic farming also contributes more to climate change on a per acre basis than conventional farming does.

Why?

Right. They think the absence of government = freedom.

And, as you say, the absence of government = private tyranny. And that’s worse. Because – with government – there is at least some transparency. FOIA. Elections. Open debate. And we all know those things are seriously flawed in our system, but they are better than nothing.

Plus…theoretically, at least…government has some interest in the well-being of the country – the land and the inhabitants. Private rule is interested only in wealth/power/domination.

The fact that they don’t understand the Very Basic Fact that private tyranny is worse – and I’m calling it a fact without reservation (i.e. I don’t think this is an Ideological difference) – makes them worse than useless in the political forum. Furthermore, they don’t even recognize tyranny when it’s right in front of them anyway. Unravel THAT.

They are dangerous. They show up at capitols, fully armed, in the middle of a pandemic, at the drop of a hat when a tyrant suggests it. They preach Liberty while fostering the worst kind of dogmatic, racist domination, and a preposterous percentage of them are in complete denial that that is what they support. Libertarians are SO full of shit that, as Leftist libertarian/anarchist types, we can’t even find common ground on the Small Government issue.

Libertarians suck.

I try to steer clear of debates with right wing Libertarians now. They live in a world of complete fiction. I really don’t know of a single principle of theirs that is actually true. Their premises are all wrong – demonstrably wrong – and consequently every policy they support on the basis of those premises is absurd. And there is just no talking to them. They think Ayn Rand is the Enlightened One, and they are holders of the sacred economic texts. They are out of their minds.

“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”

[Kung Fu Monkey — Ephemera, blog post, March 19, 2009]”

― John Rogers

I am so *(&#@)^# tire of Tight Ends. We draft one or two every year, and they’re all destined for greatness, and they never achieve it, and I don’t know what the hell TEs are even for except a decoy. If they can’t block, though, eff ’em. You don’t throw to them often enough to make them worth it, seems to me.

And yet…I’m clearly wrong. Because if I wasn’t wrong, nobody would draft TEs.

Ah. The obligatory TE pick. Shoulda seen that coming.