About That March

found online by Raymond

 
From author John Scalzi at Whatever:

A few thoughts on the March For Our Lives, in no particular order:

1. I personally didn’t expect it to be as large as it turned out to be, with 800,000 protesters in Washington DC and hundreds of thousand more (at least) across the country. There were even several hundred marchers in Dayton, the largest city near me:

I had honestly thought the school walkout earlier this month was going to be the crescendo of the protests. Clearly, this shows what I know. If there were indeed 800k marchers in DC, it’s one of the largest one-day protests in history, and that’s not chicken feed.

2. And it’s also clearly terrifying the NRA and its selected quislings, who have been reduced in the last couple of days to mocking the teenagers at the center of the protests, because nothing makes grown adults look more in control than making fun of children half to a third their age, whom have lost friends and schoolmates due to gun violence. What makes them angrier is that the kids are having none of it; I suppose when you’ve seen your friends murdered, being mocked by an NRAtv apparatchik or a Twitter “personality” is not nearly as devastating as those latter folks would hope it is.

The NRA was clearly hoping to do what it’s always done, which is to ride out the immediate outrage until it was over, with the tried-and-true one-two punch of “thoughts and prayers” and “it’s too soon.” But again, the kids weren’t having it, and unfortunately for the NRA, a bunch of well-spoken, laser-focused teenagers with a legitimate grievance regarding gun violence plays better than a bunch of screaming, angry guntoters who want to sell the idea the way to solve the problem of people shooting up schools with assault rifles is to force teachers to arm themselves.

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Faceberg Speaks! Says Nothin’ New!

found online by Raymond

 
From tengrain at Mock Paper Scissors:

And in a fascinating, almost lifelike, Rubio sort of way, he then repeated practically verbatim what he said in his Facebook post from earlier in the day:

“You know we have a basic responsibility to protect people’s data and if we can’t do that then we don’t deserve to have the opportunity to serve people.”

Faceberg wants to be clear that that sort of thing could never happen today, thanks to the altruistic work of his engineers to twiddle dials and whatnot so that the flashing Come and Get It sign is turned off over user data.

You trust him, right?

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They Were Told It Was Criminal – but They Persisted

found online by Raymond

 
From Frances Langum:

This is not some low-level paperwork, this is from the law firm of one of Donald Trump’s earliest allies, Rudy Giuliani, addressing one of Trump’s biggest donors and his future campaign manager and the now suspended CEO of this controversial firm and let me show you what we got.

He warned them, this firm, not to do something that the whistleblower told us they went on to do. Anna Scheckter obtained this memo and she pointed out that the lawyers directly advising Mercer, Bannon and Nix, right there in 2014, telling them that Nix should avoid the possibility of breaking US law and thus recuse himself of management of these American campaigns and clients involving these elections. Also warning him that the analysis of Cambridge’s trove of data should be conducted by, wait for it, US Citizens.

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Leaking is a Symptom – Trump is the Cause

found online by Raymond

 
From Jonathan Bernstein:

The president of the United States is one of the most powerful people in the world. Yet his private conversation with the Russian president this week did not stay that way because underlings objected to what he decided to say:

President Trump did not follow specific warnings from his national security advisers Tuesday when he congratulated Russian President Vladi­mir Putin on his reelection — including a section in his briefing materials in all-capital letters stating “DO NOT CONGRATULATE,” according to officials familiar with the call.

It’s certainly true that this White House leaks far more embarrassing and humiliating things about the president than any other in anyone’s memory; just take a look at Dan Drezner’s epic thread of White House staff talking about the president as if he was a toddler. It’s also true that leaking is a symptom, and the president himself is the cause. But it’s a bit more complicated than one might think.

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Beautiful Minds – The Internet

found online by Raymond

 
From nojo at Stinque:

It was fun at first. One day you were alone, and the next day you weren’t. One day the only people you knew were the people you met, and the next day you knew people you would never meet. It was fun. It was fun not being alone any more.

It wasn’t just that you knew people you would never meet, it was that you shared something with them, something important, something you couldn’t share with the people you knew. You shared your spirit. Sharing your spirit is fun.

And it was fun knowing that other people were sharing their spirits as well, people you never knew and would never meet, people who had also been alone and now who weren’t. It was fun knowing people were doing that while you were, all having fun, all sharing their spirits, all finding kindred spirits to share them with, all those spirits swirling around in a place that didn’t exist, a place that couldn’t exist, a space that could only be filled with imagination, a space full of spirit.

It was like that for awhile.

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Lying, Thuggish, Chaotic, OJ-like Trump; Election, Prayer

Saturday Rate of Exchange:
Witless Religiosity

from Raymond

 
On Wednesday, we linked to The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser where Bruce headlined his observations:

Dear Salesman, Don’t Assume Every Prospective Customer is a Christian:

Had you been paying attention, you never would have repeatedly referenced the Evangelical God in your conversation with us. You wouldn’t have told us that God has a plan for everyone’s life or that the Christian God is in control of everything. You also wouldn’t have mentioned how my wife’s employer — for whom she has worked twenty years — has gone downhill since its Evangelical founder died; that the third-generation now running the company is only concerned with profits and the bottom line. What was it about how we lived, dressed, or carried ourselves that said to you we are Christians? There’s nothing in our home that even remotely suggests that we are Christian; no Jesus Junk®, no Bibles lying around, no Evangelical books in our bookcase; nothing that suggests that we are Jesus-loving, church-going Christians. I suspect you wrongly assume that everyone in rural Northwest Ohio believes in God, so you thought it safe to use God to warm us up and entice us to say yes. Little did you know we are atheists. I wonder how uncomfortable that fact might have made you feel had you known.

There is more, of course, in much the same vein. As is typical of Bruce Gerencser, the remainder of the piece is entertaining, pointed, yet curiously humane.

Dave Dubya writes with passionate eloquence at his own site. He begins his response by quoting Bruce.

Dave Dubya:

“Grade-A biped manure spreader.”

I’m stealing this!

“There’s something dirty and shallow about trying to hook prospects with Jesus talk.”

Absolutely. But it works for Republicans all the time. “Jesus sent us Trump” is why it will always be a tactic.

While charity and love for God and our fellow man are central to the core message, tribal fear, resentment, exploitation, and self-righteousness also go hand-in-hand with Christianity. The latter are the easiest human emotions to manipulate. As long as those emotions are dominant, there is very little Christ left in their Christianity.

Let’s have a responsible, safe weekend, respectful of those who profoundly disagree with even our deepest beliefs.

Man Constantly Blaming His Problems On Fact That He’s On Fire

found online by Raymond

 
From The Onion:

SAN FRANCISCO—Saying his stubborn unwillingness to take responsibility for his life had done far more to distance him from friends and family than the extreme heat, sources confirmed Thursday that local man Bryce Galloway continues to insist that his problems stem from his entire body being engulfed in intense flames.

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