A commercial incentive?

If you want to commercialize solving the ills of society, you end up with death camps as being simply the end result of efficiency.

If you want to solve the problems of various demographics rather then viewing them as gender-specific instances in order to benefit the whole of society you get, among other benefits, a lot less genocide.

Wow. Like a zen koan.

If a tree applies bronzer in the forest, and no one is around, does it still embezzle?

How, the fuck, is this “bizarre?”

He’s a sundowning, semi-literate, demented, narcissistic, dysphagic, self-obsessed asshat who has NEVER been able to focus on anything that isn’t a Fox News segment about himself.

Had he somehow read a passable 500-word speech from a teleprompter, that would have been “bizarre”

The only way this could have been more standardized would have been a rambling mention of Hannibal Lector, blaming Hillary for something, and then dancing to YMCA.

Screwed over by the world’s richest man?

Yeah, well so was the rest of the nation…

Yes.

This elder is fucking abusing us…

We destroy capitalism or capitalism (finishes) destroying us. Appear to be the only two options available.

Boring, slow incremental progress is great. Not ideal, but great.

However, a two-party system where one party is ALWAYS a single lost election from the advent or fascism is a democracy too brittle to survive.

Won in 2012

Won in 2018

Won in 2020

Won in 2022

And this is where it got us.

So… They are just going to pretend he’s mentally sound, and for as long as they do, this shit just gets worse and worse until we all die from it.

… Now?

They don’t seem overly concerned with public opinion or the possibility they might be removed from power by the vote.

likely, they are banking on us to revolt so they can deploy the military domestically.

If the whole thing seems like unchecked expectations - so did the dissolution of NATO prior to 2016.

There are no checks. There are no balances. There is nothing stopping them…

This isn’t Trump’s vanity - this is the oligarchs, who do not care about nation states, carving up the globe as a resource grab.

The US will annex Greenland. The US will invade Canada. The US will kill protesters, starting with the students.

Concentration camps. Gulags. The disappearing of opponents and mass killings of the undesirables.

Europe will try to unify, but their democracies are already beset by oligarchs, from Putin to Musk, who are financing newly emboldened far-right fringe groups and political candidates.

Europe may rally and pull together.

Or, they may fracture from external pressure and splinter from internal dissention; that is the plan.

Oh man… probably should have passed laws to regulate data harvesting and digital privacy back in the 90s

when the Internet was still just a series of tubes…

… Big Meat?

No mate. A Muppet Movie with Gov. Abbott as the villain.

It will be hard to tell if they are being obnoxious or not, you know, once we lose power.

Just wait until the deregulated power grid goes out - again.

Texas will loose whole counties to diphtheria and darkness.

Persist.

Keep at it; try again tomorrow.

Depression will rob you of joy, erode your appetite for life, and leave you blaming yourself for any/everything.

In those circumstances where you cannot defeat it, you can still outlast it.

Do what you can for yourself. When you can do no more, do what you can for the person you will be later, and, when you can do no more: forgive yourself.

Depression is a parasite and it’s been eating your strength far longer than you realize.

“Perfect is the enemy of good.”

Bad, also, is the enemy of good…

I think maybe good walked into the wrong damn neighborhood.