If two white guys had happened to get arrested for the hoax, would ol' Jussie have let them get convicted and sent to prison at their peril? Or did he think that far ahead?
When I agree with Rahm Emmanuel you know the apocalypse is Nigh!
A stopped clock is right twice a day. Rahm? Maybe twice a decade? It can happen though.
Smollett should rethink everything he has ever said about "white privilege". He has just taken a huge step in proving that to be a myth. I can't imagine doing those things and having the charges dropped if I was in his shoes.
In the entire flow of history, few movements or nations, even before nations existed, are pure, anything.
Except Leftism/Marxism. It has a 100% record of lies and pure evil.
Take my own ancestors on my Father's side. Irish readers took slaves, ( I'm named after an escaped English slave ) raided villages, and fought a religious war for centuries. But they also preserved civilization in the dark ages, and that religious war was a tool of vengeful, dishonest Englishmen. A bit of a mixed bag, eh?
But there is no land the Left has ruled that has not become Hell on Earth. Children informing on parents, ( Common Core ) neighbors on neighbors, ( Social Justice ) theft on a Biblical Scale ( Green New Deal ) racial hatred to gain power, ( Barack Obama, Kamela Harris, Joe Biden, Beto O'rourke...) Economic crisis, ( Obama's New Normal, The Great Depression, George, "the happiest days of my life were turning my neighborhood Jews over to the Gestapo" Soros ) open hatred for the will of the People. ( Hillary, Deplorables, May, no Brexit )
And that's just THIS MORNING. ( arguably the Great Depression is mostly over )
A dishonest cult that rewrites history by destroying the past, toppling statues and churches, is fundamentally unable to keep a deal, and never ever feels themselves bound by objective truth or deals made.
I'd be curious to see if research came close to my guesses ( biased ) on similar surveys on subjects like First Amendment support, etc.
There are a few categories I would have guesses on that I would probably be wrong about, I'm sure.
And a few I'd have had an opinion on a few years ago I have been rethinking. Pot legalization fans, for example. A few years back I'd have guessed them to be highly tolerant. But now, with Lefty Scum like my Governor jumping on the bandwagon? I know he is highly intolerant of dissenting opinions. He told us ( those not in complete agreement ) to leave HIS State.
So how many greedy intolerant folk in it for the taxes does it take to statistically turn hippies into smarmy hating jerks like Sandy the economic genius? And how many to actually change tolerance attitudes?
It's also possible I was wrong before. But how much?
Pot fans against vaping? Really? Seems like drag racers against blowers?
I have to guess we have...3? Factions. Stoners. Pretty simple there, they just want not to be busted & catch a buzz.
Taxers. Ultimately mercenaries. Gambling, pot, booze, endangered species frozen dinners.... Morality isn't an issue, if you can fax the crap out of it.
Busybodies? Outrage Flavor of the week? Libertarians? Who are the pro pot folk? I'm not caught up on this subject.
Who's against vaping? THey Seem like yuppie scum techno gold chain show off gizmos to me. Like spending four figures for a disposable phone or, to be fair, I know a guy who has a thing for fancy lighters that use triple filtered gourmet butane. Nice masculine fiddle jewelry. ( I'm a Bic guy )
The alleged Christchurch murderer manifesto. Interesting read.
Pull the European nationalism out, and it's Sandy and Bernie. Pull out the greenie and it's hard nosed demographic aware civil war promotion.
All in all, it's the 2020 Democrat platform, but honest. And backwards on immigration. If illegals voted Republican, this is exactly the DNC position.
The American Dems want to replace the folk who don't automatically vote for them. This guy's riff is don't let in folk that will vote against his social policy.
Here's hoping P45 gets the border shut down today.
Logistically...why do we need it open anyway? Commerce is generally shipping or air (or can easily be modified to be such). Vacation travel, same. We may inconvenience a few locals who travel back and forth for personal reasons, but I suspect the protection of our nation at large (as well as the strength of our Republic) far outweighs a Texan's need to go south to buy cigars or tequila.
You may call me "racist" here...it's the usual rebuttal anyway these days...but this is the most analog, most basic form of "selective immigration". We want merit-based immigration? We want to draw people who can contribute to our nation? Typically...those people have the resources to come to our nation (physically) via air travel, or - as in Ellis Island, since the Left is so fond of using that as an example for "American immigration", via boat.
Not sneaking across a river, using innocent children as shields, to subvert the law of the land.
One thing I completely agree with. If a wizard in a Harry Potter movie isn't sufficiently openly gay, is the biggest crisis in gay rights? Then gays have no rights problems, at all.
And we know that's not true. But it's probably woke blasphemy to talk about it.
When the worker in Britain sees the boss drive out of the factory in his Rolls Royce, he says, “I’d like to put a bomb under that car.” But when the worker in the U.S. sees the boss drive out of the factory in his Cadillac, he says, “Someday I’ll own a car like that.”
They did a documentary on the Viper factory where the film makers were astonished how many factory workers there drive their own Vipers to work. It's an American Thing.
The Corvette factory has a lot of 'vettes in the parking lot too. Not in the executive lot, but where the proles park. I've been there & seen it.
Creating wealth is an American Thing.
Not stealing the resources of the colonial natives, that's a European Thing. Japan gave that a shot 70+ years back too.
Capitalism here means that we have a stake in "the means of production" unlike the slaves of the Soviet system. We got stock in our retirement plan. Not everyone does, just most of us. Not everyone in America can afford a Corvette, but a lot more can if they really wanted to, and gave up luxuries like McDonald's every day. They just have different priorities.
I didn't buy a Viper. I thought about it. But I had "better" things to spend money on.
If I could give my younger self advice, I would have spent more on some enthusiasms and far less on others. I also would have not done some stupid stuff.
Politics? Yeah... People fall off cliffs all the time. We have many phrases in our language describing the danger of standing on a cliff.
The USHPA.org rating system has cliff launch as a special skill, like flying a tail wheel equipped airplane is a special skill for a Private Pilot License. In fact, the hang glider section has TWO separate cliff launch ratings, low wind & high wind assisted.
Yes I have both. Why? Because cliffs are dangerous. You can fall off them. Tourists do so every year, somewhere. Places where tourists come to see cliffs often have the natives joke about them falling. The local tourist boards tell the natives not to joke in front of the tourists.
Ask anyone who lives near the Grand Canyon, Yosemite, Pike's Peak, or the Gorges at Lefty College town, Ithaca.
There's a reason local hang glider clubs don't publish detail maps to get to the cliffs we fly off. Often locking gates behind us to keep out the tourists, who would ruin the carefully negotiated and rare sites.
Imagine how hard it is in "sue them all" America to get a farmer to allow you to fly off a mountain on their land. How would you react? It takes million dollar insurance paid by the local clubs and release forms that invoke Roman Common Law... and basically, carefully, don't say we will bury you alive in a hidden grave if you screw this up by suing for cutting a finger on barbed wire. But you know we will.
There's a place near my house called (of all things) High Rock. Lots of hang gliders go there...and lots of drunkards. We usually lose a half dozen folks to gravity every summer/fall...but I'd never thought to politicize it. Sure, gravity is a law, but...it's kinda bipartisan, isn't it?
I was telling a relative that there was never going to be a Presidential candidate who agreed with me on all subjects. No politicians ever will. I declared I was pro choice, pro first & second amendment, pro limited constitutional government, and... Was then interrupted. Questioned on my views of the second amendment. The Militia? That's me. Us, if be considers himself a Citizen, and able bodied adult. For both of us, at least used to be able bodied. The folk that wrote the Bill of Rights, clearly laid out in their own writings on the subject, exactly what they meant.
Some further desperation on his part... " why would anyone want a machine gun? " my reply, "because it's fun! What other reason do I need? Bang hang bang, noise and vibration! Dirt flies down range! Whee!" but that's for rich people! Yes! That's why I don't have one. I don't have a Ferrari either. I have other hobbies. But if I hadn't bought motorcycles and built aircraft, and competed in martial arts for my adult life, I could have had a mechanically and historically interesting Lewis Gun to share those interests with others. I can save up for a fun range trip every month. If I was richer, every week. But I thought flying for hours down mountain ridges and touching the clouds with no engine, using the power of immense natural forces and hard won skill, to be more rewarding.
And... Yep. I'm crazy in his eyes to do that, too.
"Why would you do anything difficult or dangerous or seek incredible sights?"
If you don't get it, if 24/7 tv is your be all, then you aren't going to get anything.
I don't ride a motorcycle because it's cheap transportation.
I might lie to myself, I might rationalize that excuse, but it's bogus. I'm in a land where the weather makes it suicidal or at least masochistic to depend on an open cockpit vehicle for practical reasons.
I do it because it's hard.
I also quote the old cop from Lethal Weapon, a lot.
"Why would you do anything difficult or dangerous or seek incredible sights?"
Some like watching sports. Some like roller coasters. I'm like you. I love the challenge. It's one reason I've never tried skydiving. I'd eventually find myself skimming the slopes in a wing suit. The sports watchers and coaster riders will likely never get it.
I suspect this did not take place without official approval from the God King of China. The People's Republic Army is undoubtedly involved. Trade war.
The fact that I mock the cult of Apple and spending stupid money for a phone has nothing to do with my opinion here. I wonder if Samsung in Korea has also had this kind of scam hit it?
If you are an Apple fan, hey, enjoy, it's a good product line. Overpriced and exploiting elitist ego brand loyalty, but that's been company strategy from the beginning.
If the company had chosen to sell it's OS ( Linux with a shell ) to PC builders I bet it would have crushed Microsoft, but they felt they could have a higher profit margin by bundling hardware, and the bailout by Microsoft made that a semi permanent part of the biggest monopoly rip off of consumers since the establishment of The Church of Rome.
You may disagree with my interpretation of consumate evil genius bar marketing. But I can't think of a similar monopoly, even Standard Oil wasn't this polarizing. OPEC tries.
Sifo, I personally hit my comfort level shy of BASE jumping. Tempted, sure. But I've had & cleared malfunctions out of a plane with half a mile of room. A much shorter cliff and a lack of belief in my immortality? Or maybe I'm just not good enough to think I should push the envelope that much.
Pity. I missed the squirrel suit revolution. From the beginning of time, until long after I quit skydiving, every single attempt at glide extending Bat Suits killed the jumper. It didn't matter how experienced, there was a 100% fatality rate. I've flown very experimental things, and firmly believe I'm still here, by careful incremental test flying, and never assuming I'd be the first to beat those 100% odds.
Some people do so choose. They get famous. Briefly, in a first page obituary, usually, sometimes, as a record breaker. Evel Knieval comes to mind.
So... Would skydiving have led you to leaping off towers in Manhattan or Dubai? Maybe, maybe not. I was too cowardly. Or rational. You decide. Now, I'm too old, & the knees can't play that game anymore.
Btw, did you know that skydiving through rain stings? A lot. I tell people it's because the rain drops are pointy on top.
The E.U. strikes me as a real bunch of bad guys exploiting a not terrible idea. A United Europe with no real internal borders, a single currency, free trade, blah blah peace & prosperity! But someone has to decide disputes. So they put in a semi useless parliament, and established a Soviet Ruling Committee, with all the power and none of the restraint of a Republic.
From a European view, this made some terrifying sense. The masses vote for useless representatives that do nothing except argue. So the self appointed elite rule instead. Just as Kings always have. But without the approval of God, or the People, and no restraints on how much power they have.
What could go wrong?
I certainly could be misunderstanding the power structure there. I'm biased on Belgium, too. Great people, I'm sure. But other than being a major gun making nation, and the beneficiary of John Browning designs, ( even while being invaded and occupied ) and under some past Kings, real monsters of colonial exploitation, Belgium doesn't have a history of freedom leadership. Great resistance folk in multiple wars, yes. But shining beacons of freedom & leadership? Not so much.
So it seems to me that the E.U. treats Europe a lot like Belgium treated the Congo. Shut up and give.
Again, my perspective is distant, and uninterested.
Great Britain voting to leave the dictatorship seemed a good idea to me. But not to the elite rich London type. You can't really equate Brit politics & 'murican. But the disconnect between coastal elites and the heartland is similar.
Sorry, but the Apple OS is much more than Linux with a shell.
It's based off of FreeBSD, which is so much more than Linux. I'm no fan of Apple, but they spent some effort on their OS (My neighbor Jordan Hubbard (one of the founders of FreeBSD) was in charge of Apple's OS for many years).
It would take a hell of a lot of effort to make their OS work on a plain PC. This is by design as Apple likes to control everything hardware wise, so the OS is coded to adhere to this. Based on the ideology, they would never sell the OS for a simple PC. They changed it too much from it's roots to be able to run on just any old PC anyway.
IXSystems uses FreeBSD in its line of storage products and continues the development on FreeBSD.