Friday, October 26, 2018

Punditry

     I could offer up my commentary and insight on current events, but it's just too depressing.  Hey, you know what?  Be respectful and polite to those around you.  Don't go out of your way to "push people's buttons."  Don't be a jerk.  And oh, yeah, don't send mail-bombs to people.

     I'm hearing a lot of claims of "Extremist Trump supporter!" from liberals and "False flag!" from conservatives about the mail-bomber.  Yeah, about that--  Probably None Of The Above.  Mail bombs are notoriously unreliable, in both activation and target selection.  Who believes ex-Presidents and Congressthings open their own mail?  --Lunatics, that's who.  This will turn out to be the work of some kind of a nutjob.  Left, Right or Center, what they won't be is an "operative" or a regular member of one party or another.  Come on, think this through -- you don't do this sort of thing, I don't do this sort of thing and neither does the schoolteacher who lives down the street and went off to march in Washington in a pink knit hat in 2016.

     Normal people don't send explosive packages to other people, even those they loathe; normal people don't send fake explosive packages to people to "game the media," especially when most of the media are their friends anyway.   Even most crazed would-be assassins tend to opt for more accurate methods and professionals just plant repugnant pornography on their target's computer or fly in a drone, depending on the desired degree of subtlety. 

     Paranoia is addictive.  Don't smoke that stuff, kids.  It's not good for you.

5 comments:

  1. You are next to last on my list of blogs, but I am always glad to see you.

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  2. Well it seems lunatic Trumpnik is the best describer. And that perhaps CSI is a bit more realistic than people give it credit for, and that apparently the TwitterFacebook complex is even worse at policing death threats than people thought.

    He lived close to my old workplace, and was arrested about five miles from my current one. But I don't think I ever encountered him or his van. The van at least I think I would remember if I saw it in real life.

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  3. Jeffrey: there are planty of Trumpniks who *aren't* lunatics, just as there are plenty of sane never-Trumpers, Gary Johnson voters, Hillary Clinton supporters and disappointed Bernie-bros. Or at least sane enough to get along with the people around them and not try to blow people up, in person or through the mail. "Malign lunatic" is the important part of the description.

    Chuck, I suppose I should be glad I'm not in last place.

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  4. One of the reasons I like RSS feeds is that it highlights your site whenever you post something new. So your position on my read list is based on when you post.

    I would like to make the distinction between suggesting False Flag/Hyper Partisan extremist as possibilities and advocating that it's one or the other.

    Based on the limited information in the early days, I suggested it could be either one, or a non-partisan nut job, not to advocate but to look at all possibilities to go where evidence, not ideology leads. (and, despite the bleating of a certain meat puppet on CNN, false flag does not mean I was saying it was a conspiracy of the affected party and it's mainstream leadership. An individual loonie is quite capable of coming up with a way to "help" his political leadership on his own)

    Of course, there's the old saying about expecting horses not zebras when you hear hoof beats. With the understanding that at least once a Zebra escaped transport and provided and entertaining video of the local PO PO rounding him up here in the US.

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  5. RandyGC: another example of the principle here:

    https://www.nachrichten.at/oberoesterreich/Kaenguru-im-Muehlviertel-haelt-weiter-Polizei-auf-Trab;art4,2995679

    This one being the typical "escaped kangaroo in Austria" story.

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