cremaster_shake

cremaster_shake t1_iu654y1 wrote

College town I worked in . . . city development board basically forced out a three-generations family-owned grocery adjacent campus despite it being dearly loved and a huge university tradition. They wanted to put in a strip mall, and they did.

Dude on the board straight up told the local paper that the public's memory in a college town only lasts four years.

He wasn't entirely wrong, but you're not supposed to say it out loud.

College town I work in now is a total steaming craphole compared to what it was like twenty years ago . . . but the college kids have no idea. The way it is now is all they know about it.

Meanwhile, alumni come back to town, come into my shop, and complain endlessly. Yeah, I know. Vote against senseless development? Or put up with it.

20

cremaster_shake t1_iu3plu0 wrote

2nd Amendment was meant to stop the federal government from grabbing state militias to use in a federal army, anyway, because the slave states were worried about slave uprisings if their militias got depleted that way.

There are no private well-regulated militias in the US. Closest thing to what the Founders were arguing about is the National Guard. We're at least not enough of a joke so the National Guard is committing school shootings, but . . . .

5

cremaster_shake t1_iu0at2a wrote

It's a rocket. They're reporting that they have a new improved rocket that can lift satellites to orbit.

Which is an impressive sort of thing, but the article wants to be vague about it for awhile, as if you're gonna think they've come up with an electromagnetic catapult or something. It's a rocket. If it works, that's potentially terrific.

34

cremaster_shake t1_itxf3p7 wrote

Zuckerberg is not some business or technology visionary. He's a shemp who stole a frankly unoriginal online yearbook idea from some guys he knew and then cashed in increasingly on how exploitive it could be. He's done nothing else whatsoever to suggest that he's a genius. He's not even Elon Musk, let alone Bill Gates, let alone, I don't know, Bob Forward, or something.

He's not a genius. He has clout because he has money. He has money because he had luck and gall. He's throwing his moneypower down a bad Sims version of The Sierra Network and he doesn't even seem to know that the concept (never mind the execution) is stale even to know-little venture capitalists.

I'm not saying he can't succeed, especially if Meta just weasels out in another direction that turns out to be an easier path. But if he had less money, he'd sure have less success.

45

cremaster_shake t1_is2ie5f wrote

Hey, you shouldn't have stupidly, pointlessly thrown away what was left of your credibility and international good standing if you wanted to be taken seriously. You decided to fly a suicide mission into the Hated Laughingstock Mountains, against much advice, and justifiably no one cares if you hurt your butt in the process.

11

cremaster_shake t1_irbyqwp wrote

It's all so stupid. The Constitution has nothing to do with most of this, and the courts and (mostly) legislature know it perfectly well. Neither originalism nor textualism justifies any of this crap.

Massachusetts was being MUCH more logical when they ruled that the Constitution doesn't say "guns," so "arms" doesn't just mean guns. But the gun fetishism is just a weird perversion. I couldn't walk into Walmart carrying a battery-powered circular saw without getting stopped, but for some reason an AR should be fine.

It has nothing to do with American ideals and everything to do with the lowest lazy politics. I can't respect a judge that's transparently disingenuous about it. If you want to just blame the Supreme Court, say it plainly, or it's on you.

I'm not even anti-gun, not by any stretch. But the people most rabid and down-votey about this are always the people you wouldn't want to see driving, much less holding a gun.

−42