Topics

https://apnews.com/4e57a0cff03de2198a0cf7b12665132f

This looks like a head-fake.

1.  Time travel fucks up tenses really bad, and
2.  The future is incompetent.

Is that Kevin in the ball turret?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6npKLMK9fo

This topic has been moved to Principia Discussion.

https://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=38816.0

Stupidity is the state in which you refuse, for whatever reason, to think.  A person with a big brain that won't use it has no advantage over a person with limited cognitive abilities.  Look at the po'buckers out hollering praise for Trump or putting on angry town-hall face at a teabagger rally; when you refuse to question your own assumptions, then that freak is your equal.  The fact that he is your equal because you are slacking rather than him being smart is irrelevant, from a results point of view.

The thing that makes most smart people stupid is arrogance.  When you begin to think that the fact that you are smart implies that you are the smartest or even the only smart person around you, congratulations, you are now an extra in the movie deliverance.  Likewise, when you decide that your solution to a problem is superior to any other solution by virtue of the fact that you thought of it means that you are a DUMBASS.  Usually that isn't a conscious process...When an alternate idea is explained to you, you listen with the intent to sabotage it or pick it apart to defend your own cherished notion.

The people - in my own experience - that are most susceptible to this trap are people with professional standing.  Doctors, engineers, narrow-field tradesmen, and teachers at higher education levels are in fact the most obvious examples (though it is of course not universal in those fields).  You have to be careful with this, as a doctor that has become stupid can be worse than no medical care at all.  Less visibly, a stupid engineer or tradesman can also be a threat to life and limb.  Worst of all, an instructor that has allowed themselves to become stupid is contagious.

Oddly enough, lawyers seem to be less likely to fall into this trap, mostly because they are natural schemers and have no time for that sort of thing.  Their arrogance is instead reflected by their almost-universal poor taste.    Anyone who has ever seen how a lawyer dresses while on vacation will know precisely what I mean.

There is no universally-applicable solution to this.  Each person has to find their own way to not be stupid.  Personally, I always assume there is some data that I do not have, and I go into a solution assuming that it is fatally flawed.  Then I try to find the flaw.  When I am listening to someone else's solution, I trick my own ego by asking "what part of what they are describing can usefully modify my plan?  Asking that means I have to LISTEN to their idea for what it IS, at which point I often find that their idea was better as a whole...And if not, then there's one avenue that can be closed off.  But the plain fact is that I did in fact listen.  I accepted data contrary to my own personally-cherished idea.

Of course, this works far better in theory than in practice, at least at first.  Because it WAS my idea.  It was a bad idea, but it was MINE and now you bastards have killed it.  For which I will inflict an appropriate vengeance.



 

"And what do you do, sir?"

"I hit things with sticks.  Repeatedly."

"Oh, erm, well thank you for..."

"They make me sit in the back, you know."

"Yes, well, we're out of time and..."

"They never turn the lights on.  I have moss on my eyelids."

"Yes, well..."

"I hear the crowd, but I can never see them."

"We have to take a commercial break now, and..."

"I JUST WANT TO SEE THE SUN!"

etc.

LMNO, who exposed me to the GAY AGENDA.  It went something like this:

6:00 AM:  GAY alarm clock goes off.  Hit snooze to have 9 more minutes of BIG GAY DREAMS.
6:30 AM:  Eat your GAY Cheerios, prance out the door.
7:00 AM:  Get on the MBTA, change universes from our NORMAL one to the BEARFORCE1 dimension.  Dance on Subway to Elton John's I'm Still Standing.
7:30 AM:  Arrive at GAY job, have a great big cup of GAY coffee.  One of those frou-frou ones. 
8:00 AM:  Do financial dark arts.  Explain nothing.  Say horrible GAY things to the SEC investigators, then throw them down the elevator shaft.
12 PM:  Light lunch.
1:00 PM:  Office dance party.  Mandatory fabulousness. 
2:00 PM:  BIG GAY MEETINGS.
3:30 PM:  Back to the MBTA.  Leer at terrified passengers.  Return to our dimension.
4:00 PM:  Come home, greet wife. 
7:00 PM:  THE GAY BAR.
10:30 PM:  Stagger home, pass out unconscious in Divine Underoos. 

More to follow.

You bump into an unstable EoC in a grocery checkout line.  He in turn cuts Nullified off in the parking lot because he was thinking about what a jerk you were.  Nullfied gets pissed at him and tries to follow him out of the parking lot to give him a piece of his mind.  Nullified, of course doesn't see LMNO in his shiny 4X4 and runs right into him.  LMNO won't stand for that and pumps two rounds from his shotgun into the freak that scratched his truck.  The Cops show up to take down LMNO.  After riddling LMNO full of holes, all of LMNO's kin come crawling out of every swamp yankee nook and cranny to wreck havoc on the town constabulary.  This gets the State's National Guard contingent in on it as well as the state's local gun nut/conspiracy theorist/militia types.  This war expands to include the Army and Marines.  Our weakened defense posture from internal strife gives the Chinese and some mid-east terrorists the idea that the US is falling.

They launch strikes against the US who retaliates in kinds with much more effective nukes.

The world ends.

Because you were rude.

You can't get the Catholics to apologize for molestation, genocide, standing by while the Nazis killed people, or any of that.  Likewise, the Mormons won't apologize for anything, either.  But we here in the Best of the One True Churches™ are bigger people than that, so here goes.

Dear Benighted Heathen Swine:

We in the Church of Discordia™, Inc, would like to apologize for our many and varied crimes against humanity.  While a complete list of our villainous deeds would be too long to publish, and too difficult to explain to a pack of apostate scum like yourselves, you should take the apologies for the listed items below to also cover all the minor things we have done.

1.  We're sorry we were rude.  We shouldn't have horse-laughed at your pitiful and obsequious observations of your fake holy days.  For all we know, Jesus (or Mohammed, or Buddha, etc) really is interested in the bottom line, and Black Friday is the holiest day ever.  It may even be the case that Christmas really is about Jesus, and not about some morbidly obese old man violating FAA regulations in a sleigh pulled by some deer.  We can't see that, but that doesn't mean it's not true.  Also, while we are not sure how Easter is about Jesus rising from the dead as a rabbit that poops tie-died eggs works, but we really shouldn't have to...It's your religion, and we laughed.  Very sorry.  And that Torah thing, well, sorry about that, too.  If we had stopped to think for a moment, we would have realized that lighting the bush on Mount Sinai on fire again doesn't actually phone God and was very insensitive.

2.  We're sorry that we can't act right.  We were only trying to help when we showed up to coach your Pentacostal seizures and your speaking in tongues.  We now see that this must have made you very uncomfortable, and we feel just awful.  Likewise, when we showed up to help you at your anti-abortion rally, it was with the best of intentions.  It's just that we were all on drugs and may have wandered slightly off message.  In addition, we're sorry we laughed at your funny hats.  But they're funny.  Nevertheless, we shall attempt to act more appropriately in the future.

3.  We're sorry about the pope card thing.  We realize NOW that you find the pope, patriarch, etc, thing to be sacred or holy or something.  So do we; we feel your pain.  Only we view holiness in a totally different light, and popes and imams really are a dime-a-dozen.  This is something we may have to agree to disagree on, but next time we won't hand a pope card to the actual Catholic pope, seeing as how he obviously already has one. 

4.  We're so very sorry for The Incident.  The voices in our heads told us it would be hilarious, and we really didn't think things all the way through.  (Note:  This is not to be taken as a legal or civil admission of guilt.  Our only official response is that issued through our legal counsel.)  It is our sincere hope that, after a few years of therapy, you'll be right as rain.

5.  We're sorry about the economy.  Indeed, we have expelled Professor Cramulus from our religion as a direct result of his shenanigans...We weren't amused, either.  Blowing economic bubbles just to watch them pop isn't clever or amusing, and he really should be ashamed of himself.  It's like wanking to images of the Laffer curve, really, and we regret having anything to do with the bastard even IF he IS actually sorry about what happened to your cat's penis.  Which is debatable at best.

6.  We're sorry our death ray didn't work, mostly because there are still humans that we have to apologize to for all the other crap we've done.  If we had spent more time working and less time huffing 'stache, this letter itself would not have been necessary.

Yours truly,
Doktor Hamish Howl
Official Spokesman
The Church of Discordia™, Inc.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/nov/29/ohio-extreme-abortion-bill-reimplant-ectopic-pregnancy

Ohio bill orders doctors to 'reimplant ectopic pregnancy' or face 'abortion murder' charges

I was at first thinking it would just be 78 cards with me saying "SHUT UP," but then I thought about it and we could definitely have fun with this.

Cain - The Magician (Pic should show him holding a mouse instead of a wand, though)
ECH - The Heirophant
QG - The High Priestess
Dr Howl - The Fool (duh)
Suu - The Empress
Cramulus - The Devil (again, duh)
Nullfied - Death (on account of reinventing herself on the regular)


Add people in, you don't have to stick to the major arcana, or add yourself in.

Go here.  You'll like it.  Not for trolling.

It's about as busy as PD.

http://readerrant.capitolhillblue.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=cfrm

"You have the right to undervalue your rights."

[Officials believe a thickening agent used in black market THC vaping products may be a culprit.]

https://apnews.com/fb92709abf944e8f980321ebc8b96622

The American Medical Association on Tuesday called for an immediate ban on all electronic cigarettes and vaping devices.

The group adopted the sweeping stance at a policy-making meeting in San Diego. It aims to lobby for state and federal laws, regulations or legal action to achieve a ban, but the industry is sure to fight back.

The AMA cited a surge in underage teen use of e-cigarettes, which typically heat a solution that contains nicotine.

"It's simple, we must keep nicotine products out of the hands of young people." Dr. Patrice Harris, AMA's president, said in a statement.

The doctors' group said a separate health issue also prompted its action — the recent U.S. outbreak of lung illnesses linked to vaping. Most of those sickened said they vaped THC, the high-inducing ingredient in marijuana, not nicotine. Officials believe a thickening agent used in black market THC vaping products may be a culprit.

Because we all know that illegalizing something makes the black market go away.   

This is dumbassery at its finest.  Let's remove the regulated shit, leave the black market shit, and let people decide between poisoning themselves with black market product, or go back to smoking actual cigarettes.

Kinda makes me wonder who's behind all this mess.  Wait, scratch that, I'm lying.  I know who is behind it.  RJ Reynolds.

Post your findings.

Everyone knows that I am the legitimate Mexico, despite EoC's PARTISAN WITCH HUNT.  The rumors of me being a lizard person are FAKE NEWS started by EoC and his deep state cronies.  It is time to get back on track.  It is time to get BIGLY FOCUSED.  EoC is 100,000,000 years old, it's time for him to go home.  Besides, nobody in Mexico likes stegosauruses.  They're BAD NEWS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=rZ9GSFZZY6c&feature=emb_logo

If you're having a bad day, don't read this.

https://apnews.com/4af7e346b990476d97ad1ee8db618cca

https://www.apnews.com/472ab99bda374c3ba906366d2f0a6d00

https://www.apnews.com/3db8829a222e45b08ed93834f792e9c5

Colby Marshall, vice president of the Silvies Valley Ranch that owned the bulls, has another theory: "We think that this crime is being perpetuated by some sort of a cult."

EoC has the meat sickness on him again.

So this happened.

https://www.apnews.com/3c3ce6a941f5489eaa778ccc5db2437c

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Global energy prices spiked Monday by a percentage unseen since the 1991 Gulf War after a weekend attack on key oil facilities in Saudi Arabia caused the worst disruption to world supplies on record, further fueling heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S.

American officials released satellite images of the damage at the heart of the kingdom's crucial Abqaiq oil processing plant and a key oil field, alleging the pattern of destruction suggested Saturday's attack came from either Iraq or Iran — rather than Yemen, as claimed by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels there. A Saudi military spokesman later made the same accusation, alleging "Iranian weapons" had been used in the assault.

Iran rejected the allegations, with a government spokesman saying now there was "absolutely no chance" of a hoped-for meeting between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and President Donald Trump at the U.N. General Assembly next week.

For his part, Trump sent mixed signals, saying his "locked and loaded" government waited for Saudi confirmation of Iran being behind the attack while later tweeting that the U.S. didn't need Mideast oil, "but will help our Allies!"

(more at link, pics of damage at link)

[Billionaire David Koch, conservative donor, dies at age 79]

https://www.apnews.com/ed43f9c20fef40fbbad07c6897f819b3

Billionaire David Koch, conservative donor, dies at age 79

WASHINGTON (AP) — Billionaire industrialist David H. Koch, who with his older brother, Charles, transformed American politics by pouring their riches into conservative causes, has died at age 79.

Charles Koch announced the death on Friday, saying, "It is with a heavy heart that I now must inform you of David's death."

David Koch, who lived in New York City, was the Libertarian Party's vice presidential candidate in 1980. He was a generous donor to conservative political causes as well as educational, medical and cultural groups.

The Koch brothers were best known for a vast political network they built that became popularly known as the "Kochtopus" for its far-reaching tentacles in support of conservative causes. The brothers founded the anti-tax, small government group Americans for Prosperity.

One of the two architects of Citizens United is dead.  What a shame.

1.  Don't put anything in your ear that's smaller than your elbow.
2.  A nation doesn't go bad in two years.  It was already rotten, it's just that you could ignore it because it wasn't happening to you.
3.  You can't go back.  Thomas Wolfe was a dumbfuck, but he got that right.
4.  A bacon sandwich is worth any number of coworkers.
5.  Simply Red AND the Moody Blues together are still not as good as Deep Purple.
6.  All humans should get on the bus.  WeeOOOWeeOOO.  Like right fucking now.  Fuck it, just go stand by the stairs.
7.  American Science & Surplus sells a de-weaponized bazooka.  I don't even know where to start with that shit.
8.  No matter how much you loathe people, they won't believe you really loathe them, because they are special.
9.  You apparently cannot kill humans just by loathing them.
10.  You can normalize anything, no matter how grotesque and orange it is.

You want to let folks know the Mitch Royce account has also been permanently killed?

1.  If my Antarctic expedition finds frozen bodies of an alien species, I will leave them where the fuck they are.  And I will leave.  And I will never tell nobody, nor will I leave a cryptic diary laying around.

2.  I will not join any research effort that involves being in a deep sea habitat.

3.  I will never, under any circumstances, investigate a derelict ship/spaceship of any kind.  I will blow it up and tell nobody.

4.  If my team reports that they have located an anomaly on the moon, I will tell the press they are crazy and arrange fatal accidents for everyone involved.

5.  If the engines involve shifting universes to bypass physics, I will have the researchers responsible shot and the records burned.

6.  Aliens are not on my side.  They're *aliens*.  Why does this have to be explained?  WTF is wrong with people?

7.  When agents from <acronym> arrive to look at the site, I will have them shot from ambush and blame it on the libertarians.

8.  When my old colleague shows up on my door after twenty years, babbling about some horror, I will call the police and have him beaten and removed.

9.  If the AI becomes self aware, I am throwing kitchen magnets on the housing until it shuts the hell up.  Also, air gaps.

10.  Why the fuck am I on a space station and there are no vacc suits?  Who the hell ordered this?

Some of these were movie rants I bastardized, some were original.  I am writing them until the Star Trek watch party page gets back to Star Trek and stops playing Goddamn Cowboy Bebop.

Anyways:

Okay. Here's the deal.

I'm not here to waste your time. I hope you're not here to waste mine.

So I'm gonna keep this short.

If you become an member of this crew, you will kill your first cardassian within three days.

Okay? I repeat that:

You will kill your first cardassian within 3 days of your first day on Deep Space 9.

There is no question whether or not you'll become a soldier here.

The only question is how many times you'll do it.

You think I'm joking?
I am not joking.

I am blob security chief. It's a weird thing to hear, right?

I'll tell ya. It's a weird thing to say.

I am a fucking blob security chief.

And guess how old I am? Two thousand years old.

You know what that makes me here?
A fuckin' blob.

This base is entirely comprised of people your age, not mine.

Lucky for me, I'm very fucking good at my job, or I'd be out of one.

You guys are the new blood. You're gonna go home with the Cardassian pelts.

You are the future big swinging dicks of this base.

Now, you all look battle hungry, and that's good.

Anybody tells you violence is the root of all evil doesn't fuckin' know about Kevin.

They say violence can't make you feel better? Look at the fuckin' smile on my face.

Ear to ear, baby. You want details? Fine.

My backpack's got jets.

What's up? I have ridiculous quarters in the center.

I have every weapon you could imagine, and best of all, kids...

I am liquid. I am a blob.

So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required.

You are required to work your fucking ass off on this base.

We want winners here, not pikers. A piker walks at the bell.

A piker asks how much vacation you get in the first year. Vacation?

People come and work at this base for one reason: to kill Cardassians.

We're not here to make friends. We're not savin' the Federation, guys.

You want vacation time?
Go teach third grade, public school.

Okay. The first three months at the base are as a trainee.

You make a tenth of a bar of pressed lantinum a week.

After you're done training, you take the shuttle out.

Pass that, you become junior gunnery and you open comms for your team leader.

You kill 5 Cardassians, you start workin' for yourself. Sky's the limit.

Word about being a trainee.

Friends, parents, other security team members, they're gonna give you shit.

It's true. Less than a bar of pressed latinum a week? Not a lot of money.

Pay them no mind.

You need to learn this business, and this is the time to do it.

Once you pass the test, none of that's gonna matter.

Your friends are shit.

Tell them you killed 20 Cardassians last month, they won't fucking believe you.

Fuck them! Fuck 'em!

Parents don't like the life you lead?
"Fuck you, Mom and Dad."

See how it feels when you're bombing their colony.

Now, go home and think about it.
Think about whether it's really for you.

If you decide it isn't... It's nothing to be embarrassed about.

It's not for everyone.
Thanks.

But if you really want this...

you call me on Monday and we'll talk.

Just don't waste my fuckin' time.

Okay. That's it.

Well, you know, I have to admit that I appreciate your directness, Chakotay, and I will try to be as direct and honest with you as I possibly can be. I think-no, I am positive-that you are the most unattractive man I have ever met in my entire life. You know, in the short time we've been together you have demonstrated every loathsome characteristic of the male personality and even discovered a few new ones. You are physically repulsive, intellectually retarded, you're morally reprehensible, vulgar, insensitive, selfish, stupid, you have no taste, a lousy sense of humor, and you smell. You're not even interesting enough to make me sick."
- Captain Janeway, balls-deep in a bottle of scotch

Okay, it's time for Rappan Athuk again, as there are not nearly enough PC corpses choking up the harbor.  Running two groups, Saturday and Sunday, in the Lost Lands campaign area (Rappan Athuk, Slumbering City of Tsar, and Tomb of Abysthor). 

Medium track, 25 point buy (5 extra points because "Rappan Athuk"), 6 players per group.  One group will be doing tomb of Abysthor and then Tsar, the other group will be doing Rappan Athuk (Classic entrance) after a short lead-in arc.  Write ups will be posted here.

For the Rappan Athuk group, we have
1.  Paladin
2.  Wizard (going into rogue and then arcane trickster)
3.  Cleric (going into Holy Vindicator at 9th level)
4.  Ranger (trap archetype)
5.  Bard   
6.  Samurai

I have not gotten the info back from the other group, which will not actually start for a couple of weeks after the RA group starts.

Bear in mind that this campaign area has an 85% mortality rate. 

[It's time.Already. Stop screaming, you're upsetting the goldfish.]

It's time.

Already. 

Stop screaming, you're upsetting the goldfish.

Kicking off this horrorshow, Bernie Sanders misses an excellent chance to shut his big fat spoiler face:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/sanders-says-hes-not-interested-in-asking-hillary-clinton-for-2020-advice/ar-BBUg7Ga?ocid=spartanntp

This topic has been moved to Aneristic Illusions.

https://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=29611.0

So, you think you're pretty clever, there, with your futures contracts with HIMEOBS.  You got a put on LMNO's mustache and a margin account in your pants, and the gains are permanent, get in before you are priced out forever, right?  And sure, you only have to put up $2000 to get in on the mustache on margin, and you'll sell the wad before it comes due. 

That's how it's supposed to work, if you listen to a certain crowd.  You know the crowd.  Fake mustaches, pipes, vaguely-Cramulan business notions?  But what they AREN'T telling you is that they have leverage in their pants, and that leverage is about to be YOU.  Hoops, for example will teach you more about a BULL market than you really wanted to know, LMNO is Caa at best, and Queen Gogira has stagflation droppin' outta every orifice and she will slap you in your junk bonds, if you know what I mean.  And I think you do.

You want to let folks know I caught a 3 day ban for referring to Trump as The White Trash Hitler? 

I don't suggest you quote that. 

[LMNO]

Everyone had finally had enough.  Things had gotten just plain silly, and people started losing their shit. 

LMNO decided that Trump was only a symptom of the will of the people.  Then he realized that was only a symptom, because who gave Man free will?  The last time we saw him, he was banging on the Pearly Gates, telling God to come out and explain himself...With a half a dozen archangels on the ground around him and the 7th, Michael, staggering away with a fat lip.  Unfortunately, The Mgt chose to get involved in that point, to "hold the side up," before God noticed the ruckus.  This is how we got the other other grand canyon, and LMNO was never seen again.

Queen Gogira found the main nest of proudboys, and crawled in with a baseball bat and locked the door behind her.  There were disturbing noises and howls of pain, but the door never opened again.

The very last thing The Jeep did was protect my wife and youngest kid.

Pour a little out for my homie. 

Pictures tomorrow.  I am in deep mourning right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjJmTeBSEzU

Ho ho ho, motherfuckers.

[so-called anti-fascist groups]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-boy-and-girls-of-white-nationalism-proud-groups-labeled-extremist/ar-BBPVJGh?ocid=spartanntp


Interesting note is that MSNBC has no problem siding with Mcginnes if antifa is the subject of a discussion (bolding mine):

The Proud Boys have became known for their unapologetic misogyny, opposition to Muslims, and violent street brawls with so-called anti-fascist groups that made headlines.

This topic has been moved to The peanut gallery.

https://www.principiadiscordia.com/forum/index.php?topic=38495.0

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/marvel-comics-legend-stan-lee-dies-at-95/ar-BBPCSj8?ocid=spartanntp

After kissing McConnell & Trump's asses on November 7th, she is now trying to weasel-word the fact that she plans to do nothing at all.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/pelosi-says-democrats-approach-to-subpoenas-will-be-very-strategic/ar-BBPzGxA?ocid=spartanntp

"Well, we are responsible," Pelosi said Sunday. "We are not scattershot. We are not doing any investigation for a political purpose, but to seek the truth. So I think a word that you could describe about how Democrats will go forward in this regard is we will be very strategic."

Or, more to the point, she won't allow anyone to do anything.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/stocks-end-another-volatile-day-near-correction-territory/ar-BBOUQAP?ocid=spartanntp

What you SEE is the stock market correcting.  What you DON'T see is the bond market correcting.

This thread is to capture the whining and mush-mouthing of my senator, Jeff Flake.  You may remember him as Jeff "I hate this but I have to vote for it" Flake.

He's at it again:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/gop-sen-jeff-flake-'i-don't-know-if-i-believed'-brett-kavanaugh/ar-BBONDBD?ocid=spartanntp

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/post-michael-florida-fear-frustration-and-life-on-the-edge/ar-BBOx8mw?ocid=spartanntp

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/analyst-who-predicted-2008-crash-warns-of-bubble-brewing-in-household-wealth/ar-BBOxWlX?ocid=spartanntp

AVAST, YE LUBBERS!  WHITE PICKET FENCE AMERICA IS ABOUT TO GO BELLY UP!

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rep-steve-king-endorses-neo-nazi-sympathizer-faith-goldy-gop-says-nothing/ar-BBOwzWU?ocid=spartanntp

I expect this from Rep King.  I don't expect it from Toronto.

Cramulan thinking and methodology will not help you "hook up".  They will not make you dance better.  They WILL, however, fuck up your skin, make your teeth fall out, make your face curl up like a fist, and cause you to think you have bugs under your skin.

Stick with 'stache.  It's a better high, and it won't make your nose suppurate.