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So Amerikans... why aren't you all rioting in the streets?

45 years of anomie.

Jesus Christ

The funny bit is you could be talking about anyone in this thread.   

Howl,
Doesn't exclude himself from this.

Really horrified with the unprovoked preemptive attack of Iran. Nuclear talks were due to continue next week, now they are impossible which is exactly what Isreal wants, to make all out war inevitable.

Trump will do whatever the last person that flattered him asks him to do.

I am utterly unsurprised by this.

However, we basically have three bad guys.  Netanyahu, Kamieni, and Trump.  I am sitting here with the world's biggest bowl of popcorn, utterly unconcerned with the various possible horrible knock-on effects.

I am just amazed at how thoroughly Trump ruined the army's 250th birthday.

I shouldn't be, but I am.

Interesting note:  The soldiers were not impressed.  They were out of step, for chrissakes.  My drill sergeant would have unscrewed my neckpipe and shat down it if I had marched to the chow hall like that at the end of week one.

That has to be deliberate.

A gorilla's gonna die and everybody's gonna lose their minds

There'll be a pandemic and we'll all get huge jacked right arms -- like a crab -- from crankin' our hoggs all day erry day for a whole year

Culturally, we really wanna see a tape of Donald Trump and a bunch of hookers pissing

damn, its actually so easy to predict the future

I'm not someone who believes in premonition or psychic powers, that leads me to deduce that only one rational explanation captures the events:

You were the little boy who climbed in the cage, orchestrating harambe's murder, to prove your callin' it skills to everyone.

No, he ate the red AND the blue pill.

Somewhere, Abba fans are crying.   

Bump for development.

Took forever to find this damn thing.

The transgender community said that the right was using them as a lever, before moving onto others.
This week we see RFK talking about lists for autistic people, and that things like adhd didn't exist when he was a kid.
It starts by vilifying the disabled party, then it moves on to talking about how much of a burden on society they are, then it's camps.

They are already in the process of normalising the kidnapping and forceful removal of citizens of their own country, so at this current pace I'd say you have less than a year before we are at planned extermination.

We sorta skipped the middle bit and went straight for the camps.

Not for the disabled.  Yet.

I was driving to the waste water facility today and Jelly Roll was on the radio, telling me the world is fucked up and people are awful.

You're right, Mr Roll, and you state your case eloquently.  But only one of us is DOING something about it.

There is in fact a way to handle all the world's fucked up monkey problems.  No monkeys, no problems. 

It occurred to me while I was parking the car that this all could have been fixed way the hell back when JFK was president, but Kruschev just wasn't serious about havin' a good time.

It also occurs to me that I never actually checked if the 5 gallon bucket of SRBs I am here to pick up need TWO hazmat warnings, or just one.

I am also reminded of last month, when I got pulled over with crated machine guns in the van. 

"Are there any weapons in the vehicle?"

"Why yes, there are 5 gallons of anaerobic bacteria that produce cyanide and eat carbon steel on an industrial scale in the trunk.  Why are you looking at me like that?"

I feel as if this century will not be kind to those who pursue SCIENCE.

There aren't any rules about it unless Faust has a problem with legalities, which I don't think will be the case here.

There's just sort of a red flag when new people start advertising right out of the gate.

However, given that there are about 5 active (sort of) users, don't let it bother you.

[StartProblem]

You see all the craziness going around, right?  You can't miss it.  Another European war.  Trade wars starting up for reasons that not even the president can properly explain. Irrationality everywhere, from vaccines to flat Earth bullshit being taken seriously.

You can't even just blame our joke of a president or Elon Musk or whichever stuffed shirt you prefer to throw rotten fruit at.  These people were all elected.  Over 70 million Americans thought this was a GOOD IDEA.

It is all very confusing, so I thought, "Why not do a root cause of failure exercise on it?"  This would take years, so I'm going to focus on the things that can - somewhat - be isolated to the United States.

Start
Problem:  The economy is at first glance, banging right along.  But in reality, it's a hot mess, as can be seen by the stock market.  Why?

Reason 1: Stocks have been overvalued in a bull market, and some of what is happening is a correction.
Reason 2:  Trump is using tariffs and threats of tariffs to make the stock market pogo up and down like Mia Khalifa to create semi-predictable (for those who know when he's going to do it) ups and downs that connected investors can use to get filthy rich.

Leads to
Problem 2:  How did Trump get himself elected again, having done all of this before.

Reason 1:  After you cut away all the bullshit, people in America are bored and want the president to make good television.  In a rational world, you want the chief executive to bore you to tears. 
eason 2:  The media, of course, makes money on clicks, so they publish outrage porn.  To a bored population, this is addictive, so the media ramps up the outrage.

Leads to
Problem 3:  People are bored.

Reason 1: We have succeeded ourselves to death.  Humans aren't really designed for boredom.  As pursuit predators that had predators of our own, humans are natural adrenaline junkies.  It's been a long time since the last global war, and global war makes all other wars look puny.  Why bother, almost.
Reason 2: It's been a long time since everyone was focused on a grotesque engineering project (humanity's only real excuse for existing) like the Apollo program (The Covid thing was even bigger, but nobody noticed).  Since our leadership has forgotten how to build or even maintain anything, there is nothing for people to point at and brag about.  So the only way they can get dopamine is to get REALLY PISSED OFF.

Both of those reasons have a feedback effect.  Any attempt to do anything to deal with them will be treated by the population as some kind of partisan attack.

This sounds hopeless, but it's not.  Assuming you have a capacity for having more fun than you really wanted.

(To be continued)

Oh boy.

Hi hi. I'm new here (Cue: "Hi, New Here!").

But I have been sinfully enjoying hot dogs for over a decade. I've always eaten hot dogs, but I found out it was a sin about 14 years ago.

Welcome aboard.

You're about 10 years late, but better late than never.

Product completed, patent and schematics sold to some cheerfully murderous Poles.

Now we have to decide what to do next.

I'm of a mind to weaponize sulfur reducing bacteria.  I checked, and that's not illegal, since they don't infect humans or animals. They just eat metal. Like little tiny piranha.

Gonna need a chemist and a couple of biology nerds.

Hamish,
Off to the university to find some more bright-eyed youngsters to corrupt.

When the Large Hadron Collider goes operational in May 2008, a lot of crazy shit is going to happen.

Fuckin' PROPHECY.