This is very clearly an example of bad AI, but maybe it was trying (and failing) to convey this?

Basically, 1/3 + 1/9 + 1/27 + 1/81 + ... + 1/3^n = 1/2.

Probably not. But maybe.

I mean, anything can look like a conspiracy to a layperson who pays zero attention to 60 years of incremental progress and focuses solely on the end result. It's the same reason why people think vaccines are evil, or that 5G towers cause COVID.

50 bucks says that the instant that Arlington staffer's info gets made public, s/he'll be inundated with death threats from Cult 45ers.

You know what? I felt the same way before today. But I've been thinking about it a lot since the announcement, and the more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Harris is the best possible presidential candidate.

Like you, I don't think she'd make the best president. Hell, she wasn't even in my top 10. I'd have vastly preferred someone like Hakeem Jeffries. But here's the thing: the person best suited for the office of president isn't necessarily the best person to run for president.

Harris has all of the advantages Biden had: she can run on this administration's record, since it was her administration too. Every positive talking point about the stuff that Biden's done for the country can equally apply to Harris. Additionally, she gets his entire war chest, and with the president's blessing today, she's likely going to have 100% party support as well. To make matters even better, she doesn't have any of the flaws he sported: she's young, she's sharp, she's great in debates, and because she's the antithesis of Biden in all of these respects, all of the criticisms pointed at Biden (which could also 100% be applied to Trump) will now all be applied to Trump and Trump alone.

Lastly, I think that now is the most favorable moment in our country's history for a non-white, non-male person to become president. She's got the built-in support of everybody who dreads another Trump presidency. A significant number of people who would vote for Biden but not Harris due to sexism or racism will be rethinking that position when the opposition is Donald Trump. Also, something like 40% of people in the US just simply don't vote. Biden would never appeal to those people, but a black / asian woman who has succeeded in a mostly male dominated field could be very inspirational to a large number of otherwise apathetic non-voters.

I honestly think that Harris being endorsed for President is just an unalloyed good. I don't see any realistic downsides, and an incredible number of upsides. It actually has me excited, which is a feeling I haven't felt since 2008.

What the fuck are you talking about? When she was running for president in 2019, she released detailed plans about how she would legalize marijuana, abolish private prisons, and reform the carceral system.

I get that you probably weren't aware of her evolved stance on these things, but a single google search could have shown you that you were incorrect on every single point you made.

Huh. Call me provincial, but I had no idea that sovereign citizens existed outside of America. The idea of a Cypriot sovcit never occurred to me.

I hate that this is the new narrative, like violence against political opponents is a new thing in this country. Obama survived MULTIPLE assassination attempts. Bill Clinton and George Bush both survived multiple assassination attempts. Sectarian violence has been a thing in this country since its inception. The fact that the secret service failed to do their due diligence at policing the buildings surrounding Trump's latest rallies doesn't somehow mean that sectarian violence has reached some momentous peak. It simply means that people didn't do their jobs properly. Maybe because, like, why would they? I know that if I was a secret service agent assigned to the duty of watching after Trump, I wouldn't be particularly committed to the task. Maybe they felt the same way.

Edit: Here's the NY Times image of the vicinity surrounding the Trump rally. Why the fuck wasn't that place watched by the Secret Service? Any competent agency looking to protect someone would have 100% had agents watching that building.

Well, not that we needed one, but I really appreciate you giving us a reminder for why we should never ever make you president, Mittens. It's very thoughtful of you.

So, Kobach et al's complaint is that the plan to replace lead pipes is underfunded and so probably won't cause enough of an impact on lead levels in drinking water to even bother, and yet the reason it's underfunded is because Republicans specifically voted to not fund it properly. So instead of funding it 100% (or close to 100%), they chose to only fund about 1/3rd of what it would cost to replace all of the lead pipes.

It almost seems like Republicans want potential voters to imbibe neurotoxins that will negatively impact their IQ, harm their ability to concentrate, and make them more easily swayed by emotional appeals. I wonder why that could be?

The guy went down a rabbit hole that eventually led to him deciding to kidnap and/or murder a sitting US Representative because of a fucking youtube comment? Jesus Christ. This fucking country...

Edit: fixed her job title

The thing I love most about this article is this one throw-away little line right here:

He ... claims that all of his legal troubles amount to "election interference" as he campaigns in the 2024 presidential election.

It just illustrates who Trump is so well. First, he hears a term that he doesn't understand, like: "election interference". Like what he did when he incited his cult of morons to attack the capitol during January 6th to prevent Congress from certifying the election. Then, he takes that term that he doesn't understand and uses it improperly to insinuate that that's what's being done to him. This is either because he's too dumb to know what it means and too stubborn to look it up, or because he believes that about his cultists.

This is the exact same playbook he used for "puppet" during his debates with Hillary, "Fake news" when he was campaigning, "witch hunt" when he was being investigated for impeachable offenses, etc.

The man is a complete god damned moron, and yet somehow, he's managed to figure out that a significant number of Americans are even dumber than he is, and he has become their messiah. It's awe-inducing.

So this article makes it seem like he's got dementia and was under the spell of a delusion when shooting his partner & daughter. But it's written so vaguely that it's hard to know for sure. So I found another article that seems to be much more clear about what happened:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/who-is-tony-louis-valez-father-sentenced-to-100-years-in-prison-for-killing-daughter-while-shooting-wife-and-son/ar-AA1jkw2q

TL;DR: 66-year-old man is in rough shape; has Hepatitis B, Emphysema, and COPD, and needs an oxygen tank. His partner (a much younger woman), their daughter together (8 years old), and his son from a previous marriage (18) all came to his house. The article doesn't say what happened in the conversation, but he apparently became enraged thinking they were trying to get him out of the house. My guess is that they were trying to get him to go into a care facility due to his many, many ailments.

Dude saw red, grabbed a gun, and started blasting. Shot his partner, then tried shooting his son, missed, and hit his 8-year-old daughter in the back as she was running away from him.

So it sounds much less like dementia (though that could still very well be a factor), and more like a miserable piece of shit reaching for a gun first to solve all of his problems.