Zompist Bboard Again

That's no good, hope he pulls through.

This may be off topic, but it's a vent, so fuck it.

Packing the court is a terrible idea. An independent judiciary is one of the biggest obstacles to tyrrany, and one of the first targets of would-be autocrats. If there was anything close to enough legislative momentum to pass a new court packing bill, they could use it to just make laws protecting reproductive rights. That's what they should have been doing all along. SCOTUS has always been poorly equiped to deal with these kinds of issues, and many of these decisions rest on circuitous logic and are highly vulnerable to reinterpretation (if they can touch it at all, she said, glancing in the direction of partisan gerrymandering). Congress could have solved marriage equality thirty years ago if they wanted to. Instead, they did nothing and waited for the court to do their job for them. And the population was fine to let the dog catcher deliver the milk, as long as the milk showed up on time. But this was always a bad plan, and the solution is not to go back and do it again. Let SCOTUS overturn their decisions. Tell your congress person that they will be enshrining human rights into federal law or you will personally make sure that they have a [VERY NICE TIME] with the business end of a [SOFT KITTEN] so hard no one will be able to clean up all the [CUPCAKES].

Also, sorry about your uncle, Travis.

I think I'm allergic to something in chocolate syrup. I have discovered this in the wake of ordering a Blizzard^® that I neglected to specify was to lack that syrup. Now my mouth feels somewhat irritated, which it normally does not do after consuming soft serve. I am hoping this will disappear by EOD tomorrow.

Yesterday someone mistook me for a woman, presumably because of my height and build. Not the biggest problem right now but still an unpleasant reminder that I am unusually short. Also it has come to light that I messed up while signing up for insurance last year and have no dental coverage. Which means I will have to pay for an upcoming checkup and cleaning out of pocket. No idea how that will work on my already tight budget.

malloc wrote: ↑Fri Jul 01, 2022 7:56 pm Yesterday someone mistook me for a woman, presumably because of my height and build. Not the biggest problem right now but still an unpleasant reminder that I am unusually short.

That sometimes happens to me on the phone when I'm talking to customer service people and the like, because of my high-pitched voice. I usually provide a polite correction, and that's that.

Also it has come to light that I messed up while signing up for insurance last year and have no dental coverage. Which means I will have to pay for an upcoming checkup and cleaning out of pocket. No idea how that will work on my already tight budget.

Ugh, that's bad. Sorry to hear that.

Just learned that Alexander Vovin died earlier this year.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Mon Jul 04, 2022 10:34 pm Just learned that Alexander Vovin died earlier this year.

WHAAAAAT? I'm really sorry to hear that. He was one of the people in the field I always looked forward to reading more from, and I'd expecting that I still would.

People like him are extremely valuable to science. When it came to Altaic studies, Vovin was a walking null hypothesis. And his work on Old Japanese is still the best scholarship on the language done in a non-Japanese language. None of the obituaries will say what he died of (at 61!), so I'm guessing it's not Covid.

Unrelated: Lord almighty, why did I go on Twitter today?!? Some highlights:
Woman claims Crimo is a liberal, so the Woke Media is going to say he's a pregnant man who is angry he can no longer get an abortion.
Man claims that Crimo was not MAGA because he sometimes dressed like an anime character.
Crimo gets taken alive a week after a black man in Ohio gets shot 60 times for fleeing a traffic stop.
Earth was a mistake.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Tue Jul 05, 2022 10:47 am Unrelated: Lord almighty, why did I go on Twitter today?!? Some highlights:
Woman claims Crimo is a liberal, so the Woke Media is going to say he's a pregnant man who is angry he can no longer get an abortion.
Man claims that Crimo was not MAGA because he sometimes dressed like an anime character.

Remember, these people are reactionary scum. They should not be given the time of the day, much the less allowed to have an opinion.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Tue Jul 05, 2022 10:47 am Crimo gets taken alive a week after a black man in Ohio gets shot 60 times for fleeing a traffic stop.

And of course, many police themselves are reactionary scum - the police attract these kinds of people - so this should not be surprising.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Tue Jul 05, 2022 10:47 am Man claims that Crimo was not MAGA because he sometimes dressed like an anime character.

Hahahaha... ha... like, this person is either lying his ass off or has not been online much in the last two decades. (Or -- why not both?) It's sure a bold hill to plant his flag on, regardless.

[BTW, does anyone else want to pronounce this shooter's name as Crime-O, like a low-budget Dick Tracy/Batman comics villain?]

fusijui wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 3:32 amHahahaha... ha... like, this person is either lying his ass off or has not been online much in the last two decades. (Or -- why not both?) It's sure a bold hill to plant his flag on, regardless.

Quite. I have largely moved away from anime at this point precisely because the fandom is so right wing.

malloc wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 7:26 am

fusijui wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 3:32 amHahahaha... ha... like, this person is either lying his ass off or has not been online much in the last two decades. (Or -- why not both?) It's sure a bold hill to plant his flag on, regardless.

Quite. I have largely moved away from anime at this point precisely because the fandom is so right wing.

Much of new anime is overtly pro-capitalist, but a lot of classic anime is built on leftist themes. There are still some unironically Communist anime channels on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WeebRevolutio ... &flow=grid If you're satisfied with channels containing light anti-capitalist messages, then you'll find much larger ones: https://www.youtube.com/c/mothersbaseme ... &flow=grid Also, the association of "Japanese culture" with right-wing politics (like >90% of 21st century "common sense") is way overblown: https://againstjapanism.buzzsprout.com

I'll just say that having grown up there to a large extent, I'm personally less prepared to discount the right-wing qualities, and maybe we should leave it at that. As far as anime & manga go -- having been exposed to it in its natural habitat, I was already at the Hell. No. stage before I noticed it seemed to have become a marker for MRA/incel and racist types on the internet. So, pretty biased, sure. But the idea that Crime-O couldn't have been a MAGA because of his fandoms? Laughing.

fusijui wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 8:54 am I'll just say that having grown up there to a large extent, I'm personally less prepared to discount the right-wing qualities, and maybe we should leave it at that.

Japan's right-wing environment was artificially constructed through state violence.

fusijui wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 8:54 am As far as anime & manga go -- having been exposed to it in its natural habitat, I was already at the Hell. No. stage before I noticed it seemed to have become a marker for MRA/incel and racist types on the internet. So, pretty biased, sure.

Anime is also a marker for Communists on the internet. Because right-wingers tend to be more financially secure than left-wingers, there are more right-wingers than left-wingers wasting time on the internet.

All political extremists are united by social alienation, a condition that's also prevalent in Japan. I'm not sure trying to forget one's sense of alienation is necessarily more beneficial than fortifying it with a rigorous analysis of material conditions. Eg. I've read extensive political analyses written by a left-wing self-described "incel", and it had nothing to do with curbing women's rights.

Somehow far right incels and big-C Communist, especially tankie, incels do not seem that different to me in practice - must be something about fascism and big-C Communism being rather similar to me.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 9:11 amBecause right-wingers tend to be more financially secure than left-wingers, there are more right-wingers than left-wingers wasting time on the internet.

I'm gonna slap a big ol' [citation needed] on that chain of cause and effect.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 12:01 pm Somehow far right incels and big-C Communist, especially tankie, incels do not seem that different to me in practice - must be something about fascism and big-C Communism being rather similar to me.

In the sense that both use despair as an excuse to disregard human rights, maybe.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 4:51 pm I'm gonna slap a big ol' [citation needed] on that chain of cause and effect.

Even if you could find good cell reception in the jungles of Jharkhand, I'm betting Maoist rebels probably wouldn't make it so easy for the government to track them down. Granted, Communists who live off the grid aren't usually anime fans. However, I bet they would be if they spent much time on social media. Political extremists tend to experience life like the protagonist of WataMote.

Moose-tache wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 4:51 pm

rotting bones wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 9:11 amBecause right-wingers tend to be more financially secure than left-wingers, there are more right-wingers than left-wingers wasting time on the internet.

I'm gonna slap a big ol' [citation needed] on that chain of cause and effect.

Right-wingers have been claiming the complete opposite this whole time, complaining about "liberal elites" and "liberal academics" and that the everyman is really right-wing at heart.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 6:13 pm Even if you could find good cell reception in the jungles of Jharkhand, I'm betting Maoist rebels probably wouldn't make it so easy for the government to track them down. Granted, Communists who live off the grid aren't usually anime fans. However, I bet they would be if they spent much time on social media. Political extremists tend to experience life like the protagonist of WataMote.

Umm... here in America there are no off-the-grid Maoists - and those who claim to want to live "off the grid" are invariably right wing, often far right wing (emphasis on "claim" because in reality they're too busy listening to Alex Jones' podcasts and buying "survival" products, supplements, and bitcoin).

Travis B. wrote: ↑Wed Jul 06, 2022 6:15 pm Right-wingers have been claiming the complete opposite this whole time, complaining about "liberal elites" and "liberal academics" and that the everyman is really right-wing at heart.

The smart people who spread these ideas are blatantly lying for political gain. Their followers are often naive, hero-worshipping innocents who are ignorant of history.