Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

–Jean-Paul Sartre

PLEASE ADOPT VERIFICATION CAT TO CONTINUE

“To prove that you are human, donate $$$ to Doctors Without Borders.”

“To prove that you are human, register to vote.”

“To prove that you are human, adopt a pet from the local animal shelter.”

Did you catch all-despising baby skull last night?

Hell, not even the fucking Nazis themselves claimed that they weren’t deliberately operating death camps. Here’s Rudolf Höss, commandant of Auschwitz:

Technically [it] wasn’t so hard—it would not have been hard to exterminate even greater numbers… The killing itself took the least time. You could dispose of 2,000 head in half an hour, but it was the burning that took all the time. The killing was easy; you didn’t even need guards to drive them into the chambers; they just went in expecting to take showers and, instead of water, we turned on poison gas. The whole thing went very quickly.

And here he is, after his trial, four days before his execution:

My conscience compels me to make the following declaration. In the solitude of my prison cell, I have come to the bitter recognition that I have sinned gravely against humanity. As Commandant of Auschwitz, I was responsible for carrying out part of the cruel plans of the ‘Third Reich’ for human destruction. In so doing I have inflicted terrible wounds on humanity. I caused unspeakable suffering for the Polish people in particular. I am to pay for this with my life. May the Lord God forgive one day what I have done. I ask the Polish people for forgiveness. In Polish prisons I experienced for the first time what human kindness is. Despite all that has happened I have experienced humane treatment which I could never have expected, and which has deeply shamed me. May the facts which are now coming out about the horrible crimes against humanity make the repetition of such cruel acts impossible for all time.

Doesn’t really sound like the statement of a guy who was trying to claim it didn’t fucking happen, or that it was anything but a deliberate crime against humanity.

Blame it on the bossa nova!

Trump abandoning NATO, Russia going on the war path, and full-blown nuclear World War 3 would probably be bad for business.

In any sane society, closing a private prison would be cause for celebration.

I’m curious: what would that mean, within Brazil’s borders? Would they be able to prevent Starlink from being used? Broadcast a Starlink jamming signal over the whole country? Or turn it into a diplomatic issue, with the US State Department getting involved?

Not to mention the security that comes from being able to not pay if you get scammed for whatever reason. I paid for a course at a community college with a credit card, but then my schedule changed so I tried to cancel the class before it even started. The college gave me a whole runaround, and whether it was willful or just simple incompetence, I wasn’t able to get a refund. So I called my credit card company and explained the situation to them, and they resolved the whole thing for me. Sometimes even mentioning that you’ll refer such a problem to the fraud department at your credit card company is enough to get someone to back down and give you a refund.

Credit cards have issues, especially if you have problems with using them responsibly, but that’s one particular way in which they can save you a lot of headache.

First devouring all of Fantasia, now this.

It should probably be written “Lesbian GOP candidate.” That seems to follow the secret unwritten rules of word order a little better.

Me: Yeah, whatever he said it’s probably not good.

“But I really, I watched Sheldon sitting so proud in the White House when we gave Miriam the Presidential Medal of Freedom,” he said. “That’s the highest award you can get as a civilian. It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor, but civilian version, it’s actually much better, because everyone gets the Congressional Medal of Honor, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets, or they’re dead. She gets it and she’s healthy, beautiful woman.”

Me: OH, FUCK!

Majority of Americans: Support policies X, Y, and Z.

Democrats: Put policies X, Y, and Z into their platform.

Republicans: Extreme socialist Demoncrabs want to destroy America!!!

During his speech, Spectrum reports that McConnell called the Walz-Harris ticket “the far left of the Democratic Party.”

“And by the way, that’s most Democrats today,” McConnell said, according to Spectrum.

Oh, no! Harris and Walz are representing the will of the majority of the people! Whatever the fuck is to be done about democracy?!

I’m not sure if the meme conveys my point precisely. I’m not saying that the Olympics are a genetic superman breeding program.

I’m saying that if you put a call out across the globe for the most gifted competitors for decades, you’re going to be getting people who are already deeply passionate about their events, but if you presume that level of competitive spirit to begin with, then you’re going to start seeing people who are also genetically advantaged emerge as top competitors.

Michael Phelps is already an incredibly passionate swimmer, but then again so is everyone in the pool with him. He’s got his super long arms that, if he weren’t competitive, wouldn’t be worth a damn, but combined with his training and commitment help give him an edge.

I bet if you did a little digging you’d see all sorts of genetic quirks among top level Olympians. Weight lifters with surprisingly dense muscle fiber, skaters and gymnasts with extra-robust inner ears, target shooters with extraordinary eyesight. It’s not meant to take away from their talent or the work they’ve done, but it’s not any more surprising than seeing extraordinarily tall players in the NBA, or extraordinarily stocky NFL linebackers.

Pretty much

Compromise: Host the debate on Fox, but have the lady that confronted him with his own words at the National Association of Black Journalists event be the moderator.

My entire adult life, it’s felt like Republicans are made in those Coca-Cola Freestyle machines where you can customize the flavor. The base flavor is always pro-big business, American imperialist, anti-women’s rights, anti-intellectual. But then there’s always an extra shot of flavor! Maybe it’s something common, like being especially anti-queer, or rare like McCain having just a little squirt of integrity.

But sometimes it’s weird! With Sarah Palin it was aerial wolf gunning! There was some other guy who was against laws forbidding dog fighting, because he said that because human boxing was allowed, outlawing dogfighting would elevate dogs above humans. And then you’ve got the likes of MTG where you just take ALL the flavors and mix them together.

So yeah, we can expect a steady stream of base flavor repellent Republican behavior, with notes of racism and sexism that will be familiar to anyone who was paying attention during the Obama administration or the Trump vs. Clinton campaign.