Yeah, I've used the name before in a similar tale. It just really tickles me to think that there in fact ARE Jewish space lasers, and there's a brave group of rabbis up on a space station keeping the planet safe from extraterrestrial threats. And "Rabbi Rabinowitz" is one of the most ridiculously over-the-top Jewish names I can think of. And instead of nefarious conspiracies, it's very fun to just be like, "what do you have against the Jewish space lasers?! How dare you insult the good work of the great Rabbi Rabinowitz! You ungrateful bastard. He's given his life to save you!!"
I love the Forest Products Lab! I constantly reference the Wood Handbook.
Well you can't win a war until you start fighting it. Do you understand why the wealthy accepted those high tax rates in the first place? They did so only because they thought the alternative was much worse.
The problem with this is that it assumes both parties act independently.
You know how right now how Republicans are willing to use every loophole, cite ancient forgotten laws, and violate every norm? That's always been possible. You can't actually write a constitution to constrain bad-faith actors. You can always come up with a bogus interpretation to do what you want.
If this is possible, you have to ask, why did leaders ever try to follow the law in good faith? How was it ever possible to establish a norms-based stability when either side could knock over the board at any moment?
The answer is that good-faith interpretation of the law fails when people only do so out of principle. It succeeds when good-faith interpretation is a peace treaty. Both sides agree to follow the law in good faith, as the alternative is complete chaos as both sides try to twist every loophole.
Democrats are a bunch of liberal arts majors that have forgotten that Democracy and the rule of law does not exist because everyone worships them as high ideals. They exist because they are a compromise, a peace treaty.
Republicans break norms. In response, Dems latch on even tighter to the norms. Instead, they should be seeking to break them at every opportunity they can. They need to be as ruthless as the Republicans, and even more so.
Following the rule of law is hard. It means giving up power and results that you could otherwise achieve by violating the rule of law.
Right now, only Democrats are trying to obey every norm and precedent. As such, Republicans have nothing to lose by violating these. It's all upside to them. Their bad behavior is the direct result of Democratic cowardice. If Democrats were willing to give as well as they get, we could actually have a rules-based order again. Paradoxically, a prerequisite for rules to be effective is that both sides need to be willing to violate them.
And I want a pony.
We are at war. You don't have to like it. Enough of this sniveling, appealing to an order that is now dead and buried.
We are at war. Start acting like it.
What's everybody got against the Jewish Space Lasers? Rabbi Rabinowitz has been in charge of those lasers since 1998, and he's been doing a damn fine job keeping the Martians and asteroids at bay! You know he's only come down from Skylab II twice since he took the director's position up there? You know what that much zero gravity does to a man? He's been up there so long, he can't come back anymore. He's gonna die up there manning those lasers. That's what Rabbi Rabinowitz has sacrificed for his country and planet! And the gall of some people, ranting about the Jewish space lasers. Are there Jewish space lasers? Yes! And they've been keeping your dumb ass safe from Martians and meteors for decades!
[In my head, I read this in Bernie Sander's voice.]
I mean, isn't it obvious? Christianity has traditionally believed that Earth is the center of the Universe. Everything in the Universe is moving away from us, as if we are sitting at the very spot where "Let There Be Light" resulted in light being let. Physics has proven that we are at the literal single unique geometric center of the Universe. /s
Remember, vandalism or arson against the property of the rich is just the working class recouping its stolen wages. Someone's going to have to fix Elon's broken windows, and the people who do that will have far, far less wealth than Mr. Musk. Some glazier is going to feed his family at the expense of Tesla's owners. In this day and age of plutocracy, property crime against the wealthy is an unambiguous force of social good.
Remember. The rich have assets. And those assets can burn.
I think my "peak American" was that time many years ago when I went driving down the I35 interstate in rural Kansas...eating a plate of chicken fettuccine alfredo.
It's OK. The statute of limitations has long passed.
Although, now that I think of it, this might be my peak Italian moment, though I'm not of Italian ancestry...
Anyway, it was delicious Fazoli's.
But here. In the North of England, we still have multigenerational houses in the working class…
US: All that's old shall be new again!
If they really wanted to redeem themselves, they should public domain it, allowing anyone to make new Command and Conquer games.
His followers did that - after being led by their leaders into doing so. It was the leaders that made it all possible. The only reason several dozen Republican Congress members aren't rotting in jail right now is because Biden is a coward and a traitor to the Republic.
Damn amateur methhead copper thieves. Don't they know the first rule of something like that is to break into into unrecognizable pieces or melt it down prior to taking it to the scrap yard?!#
And are they purging everyone who used such chats? Are they purging every straight person who ever mentioned a romantic partner? Are they purging every cis het guy who mentioned hooking up with someone over the weekend?
Give me a break. People talk about their personal lives all the time at work. This isn't Severance. What kind of company have you worked for that people never talked about their personal lives? Except, the administration has chosen to interpret completely normal discussions about personal lives and health matters and declare them obscene, simply because they involve queer lives and bodies, rather than straight ones.
People who appeal to "the rules" are usually doing so in bad faith. If the NSA really does have such formal and strict rules, then they would likely have to fire every person there for violating them. The employees on this chat were clearly acting in a way that was considered acceptable within the culture of the agency.
Would you freak out over a group of women discussing their health issues? What about a chat where a group of men discuss the pros/cons of a vasectomy? Everybody has issues that can sound gross and obscene if you read them in bad faith. It's obvious that at the NSA, this kind of discussion was just acceptable. But then they chose to only fire the trans people for violating the sanctity of "the rules."
You are the kind of person MLK warned us about, the kind that prefers order over justice. And you should know from history that "the rules" are often applied with blatant bigotry and double standards. And that is the problem here. Appealing to "the rules" when they are clearly being applied incredibly unevenly in the service of overt bigotry shows that you do not give a damn about justice.
Are they also purging everyone in the agency that ever texted about hooking up with someone over the weekend? Please. People talk about their sex lives all the time, even at work. They just make sure to discuss it an appropriate context. And this discussion group was just that kind of appropriate context.
Again, are they firing everyone who ever texted about a weekend hookup? If not, then it's simple bigotry. Even using lurid words like "gangbang" is honestly almost a slur in this context. Do I participate in that kind of romance? Personally, no. I'm monogamous myself. But I also recognize overt, rank, and despicable bigotry when I see it.
This is how bigotry puts on a polite face. You declare certain sexual practices as obscene while consider others polite and acceptable. On cis het guy brags to another about the time they hooked up with two chicks in one weekend? That's just a player. A queer person has multiple partners and chooses a poor word to describe it? Suddenly it's worth firing every trans person in the agency.
You clearly don't hate this administration enough, as you are completely willing to accept their framing that certain sexualities are inherently deviant and shameful.