Pagliacci

It's so incredibly frustrating. One of the main reasons Trump rose to popularity was his campaigning against D.C. ineptitude and corruption. Drain the swamp and all of that. And now we have the perfect encapsulation of why those issues exist. He is the ineptitude and corruption. But the people who are supposedly railing against that are embracing him without wavering. Now they're about to nominate someone who had a laundry list of indictments.

If you can't hold yourselves accountable how could you ever expect to hold others accountable? It doesn't work like that. The GOP is broken, but perhaps more concerning are the supposed independents who for one reason or another just don't seem to care.

I've had Pixels since the first one, this is news to me.

He'd probably have to put all of his eggs in the reincarnation basket and start doing some good deeds.

Or bad deeds, depending on your opinion of actors.

This line from Schindler's List always stuck with me:

“Whoever saves one life saves the world entire.”

The context is that at the end of the movie Schindler is distraught thinking of how many more he could have saved if he just did certain things differently, like selling a ring and using that money to hire another Jewish worker. One of the people he saved tells him the above line.

It's stuck with me for two reasons, I think.

First, it's an interesting perspective on individuality. Each person has their own unique perspective of the world. When that person dies, that perspective is gone forever. An entire universe dies with them, never to be seen again. I think that's a powerful way to view the individual.

Second, it's a reminder that we do what we can, and while it may be imperfect, it's enough. You can't save everyone, just live well and help those you can in the capacity that you can. If you save one of those people, you've saved the world.

The Exorcist got me pretty good

They claimed that his statements made while President served an interest to the government. It's wildly stupid, and really just a flimsy excuse to protect him, but that's what they said.

I think this may just be another excuse, but part of why they're reversing course is that he's now made statements long after losing office, so how could you argue that his actions were driven by his service to the office?

Justice Department lawyers said they took into consideration Trump’s deposition that was played in the battery and defamation trial, as well as statements Trump made last October repeating the denials long after he left office, as an indication that he was not motivated to protect and serve the US when he first made the comments.

Bathtub is a common spot for my GSD during fireworks and thunderstorms.

When the success of a media organization is bound to the rules of capitalism, it's unsurprising that their objectives becomes capitalistic. The responsibilities of the 4th estate and the incentives of capitalism are misaligned.

The catch-22 is that the solution to this is regulation by the government. But the 4th estate is itself a check on government. So if the government is given regulatory control over the 4th estate, you open up the possibility of neutering that check.

Then again, that check has already been neutered by capitalism so...

In this case the article states Meta did not comply with the requests and responded to the FBI with concerns about the accounts being flagged. It also states that Meta was not pressured to comply with the requests.

I think this is a tricky situation. It's in the interest of social media companies to limit the spread of misinformation on their platforms. When that misinformation is coming from state actors (e.g. Russia) it's not uncommon for the US Government to have the best knowledge of those efforts. It follows that the social media company would want to consult with the US Government to improve their efforts. But the US Government obviously also has its own interests and biases that can very easily corrupt those efforts.

There has been cases (as pointed out in the last court case) where I think the government did cross the line from advisory to directive. I think that's a problem that absolutely needs to be addressed.

IMO the answer to this is a bit of a one-way communication and transparency. The US Government should keep a publicly accessible database of what it believes to be misinformation efforts including posts, accounts, etc. Third parties can audit that DB and conduct their own reviews. It would then be up to them whether or not to use that information to aid their own efforts. The public can also review that information and they (and the media) can point out the flaws and mistakes they believe are being made.

I don't think he "face planted", he's telling us exactly who he is. The good Senator from Alabama, one of the lucky 100 to make major policy decisions for all of us, is a defender of white supremacists.

But don't worry, racism is dead and gone. SCOTUS told us so.

I feel like there's a concerted effort to delegitimize the entire concept of whistleblowing. They're getting more common, more partisan, and less backed by physical evidence.

Agreed, if a bear can eat a person why can't I eat a person?!