GeorgiaDon

I've seen articles that describe them as "prepubescent". Super creepy!!!

He'd better stay away from any windows!

It seems to me that a problem with the argument that soldiers take an oath to not obey unlawful orders is that it requires everybody to be able to discern an unlawful order. If several soldiers are ordered to execute a group of unarmed prisoners, and 19 soldiers refuse the order but 1 obeys the unarmed prisoners will still end up dead. You need 100% compliance. An order as extreme as "shoot all the prisoners" may be obviously illegal if it comes from some sergeant, but something less extreme may not be so obvious even if a court were to eventually rule that the act was illegal, and even an extreme act may be of uncertain legality if it comes from the president. This Supreme Court seems to be taking the position that the President can do anything, even if it violates the plain language of the constitution, and they are immune from prosecution. In the case of birthright citizenship , for example, their ruling was that people have to comply for now, and maybe eventually they will get around to deciding if the executive order was lawful. If your career depends on following lawful orders, and the "lawful" part is ambiguous, there will always be people (lots of people) who will choose to follow the order.

Anyone can "nominate" somebody for any of the Nobel prizes. That means nothing. The Nobel committees select the winner, and it doesn't matter how many "nominations" someone may have. We had a chemistry professor here who was quite enamored of himself, and he would get his friends to "nominate" him every year. He even had on his website "Nominated for the Chemistry Nobel Prize 10 years in a row!!". All bullshit. He never won of course. Also it's considered to be quite gauche to lobby for a Nobel Prize. Of course "gauche" is Trump's middle name (or one of them).

Clearly gratuitous cruelty is the point. Why is MAGA so consumed with hatred? I don't want to even think about how low these monsters will go.

I see Rubio as the personification of people's willingness to debase themselves to Trump for the sake of power. Perhaps I missed the memo, but at one time I thought he had a decent amount of integrity, even if I disagreed with many of his policy ideas. However he has completely capitulated to the MAGA world, to the point of taking a leading role in condemning millions of people to death from AIDS, malaria, starvation, etc to enhance his own power. I suppose it's the same with every would-be dictator, they are only powerful because there are so many people willing to jump on the train to benefit themselves, even at the expense of any shred of integrity or decency. Sometimes I regret that I don't believe in hell, because I can't even enjoy the delusion that they will get their "just desserts" in the afterlife.

You'll never see Trump on a horse. He's too scared. Also too heavy. Not to mention no self-respecting horse would be seen with a 400 pound lump of lard jiggling on its back.

Southern Ontario has seen a sharp increase in numbers of tornadoes in recent years. I really dislike those maps that cut off at the US border. It's not like the weather (or climate) stop at the border.

Soon to follow: 1. Trump issues executive order stripping O'Donnell, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Jack Smith, and others of their citizenship on "national security" grounds. 2. Affected people sue and obtain an injunction blocking Trump's order. 3. Supreme court reverses the injunction until they can consider the constitutionality of the order. 4. Supreme court never gets around to ruling on the order, effectively handing Trump another new power he can use to ensure no-one can oppose his dictatorship.

That link, and this thread in general, reminds me of a story from some years ago. A fellow who used to post here (I've forgotten the name), and who owned a DZ in Vernon BC, had a cottage in Port Roberts. Once when he was going there to do some upkeep on the property, and so had tools and a ladder, he was stopped at the border, and accused of entering the US to work. His explanation that he was doing maintenance on his own property, and was not being paid, did not suffice. He was told that he should have hired local talent to do the work, and he was given a five year ban on entering the US, which he discovered could not be appealed. He wasn't detained, but he was basically forced to sell his property. Crossing the border has always had an element of chance, as there was (and always will be) a chance of getting a dickhead agent when you try to cross. It's just significantly more chancy now. That being said, some of my Canadian family were just here in Georgia for my daughter's wedding, and they had no problem.

Nothing to worry about. It'll disappear as soon as summer comes. Just like that other disease (cough cough cough).

It's just symbolic pissing in the wind. It won't have any effect unless it also passes in the House, and Johnson won't ever let it come up for a vote. I wonder if the House budget has a line item for knee pads for Republican members. They can sure use them.

That's fair. Also more sea turtles than I could have imagined. I feel quite privileged, as I get to teach a course there every year.

You can do that in the Galapagos, and the weather's a lot better than Antarctica. Probably cheaper too, although not inexpensive. I'll be back there in a couple of months.

For example, the color line that is terminating every female or non-white person from senior levels of command in the US military, and replacing them with white males. MAGA begs the question: when you say "make America great again", when exactly do you want to return to? When was America "great"? What year do you have in mind? 1950? 1925? 1850? It certainly seems that for a large number of MAGA devotees that was a time when women and minorities knew their place, which was far from any position of leadership. When even being able to vote was a bridge too far. When medicine consisted of leeching and cod liver oil, not vaccines or any science-based elitist crap. Maybe back when real leaders like Andrew Jackson (who Trump so admires) were willing to force the Cherokee off their land, to die on the Trail of Tears on their way to some God-forsaken patch of semi-desert in Oklahoma. Except of course when that land turned out to have a lot of oil, that had to get taken from them too. When, exactly, was America "great" in the eyes of MAGA? What is the destination? Because as you go back, and you don't have to go back far, it might look better for white males but it sucked for everyone else. That's what all this anti-DEI bullshit is about, a desire to return to the past when all those "other people" knew their proper place.