[Gorefest]

I thought it was looking a bit more sunny today.

[Malankazooie]

Malankazooie, on 05 February 2020 - 02:07 AM, said:

Damn, watching the beginning of State of the Union and all the dignitaries walking in. First lady shook hands with Rush Limbaugh. Holy crapola, I never paid attention to Rush Limbaugh, so haven't tracked how he has changed over the years, but I didn't even recognize him. He looking frail af. I know he's been diagnosed with the capital C, and late stage to boot. I'm guessing he's doneso in under year and won't see 2021.

Called it.

Can't deny how influential he was at one time though.

[EDIT] Yeah yeah, I know, he made it to 2021, but close enough. Horseshoes, hand grenades, and Rush Limbaugh's death, so pttthhh.

This post has been edited by Malankazooie: 17 February 2021 - 07:14 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Texas's Power Grid Makes It Unfree

[...] For four days, millions of people in Texas—the so-called energy capital of the world—shivered in the dark, unable to turn the lights on or run their heaters during some of the coldest days in decades. At least 30 Texans have died so far, including a 75-year-old man whose oxygen machine lost power and an 11-year-old boy who may have perished of hypothermia. Desperate families have tried to stay warm by running generators and grills indoors, leading to more than 450 carbon-monoxide poisonings, many of them in children.

[...] they are many of the same issues that hampered the United States in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Too many crucial systems in this country are run on an ad hoc basis. A lack of planning, a reliance on just-in-time logistics, and a self-defeating trust in the profit motive are withering the American economy and way of life.

[...] "It reminds me of watching The Big Short," [...] an engineering professor[...] told me, of Texas's natural-gas crisis. "You had the best and the brightest, the financial wizards of Wall Street, that knew how to put together a portfolio that was diversified." But they didn't foresee that a single massive crisis could tank the value of mortgages across the country simultaneously, taking their portfolios with it.

[...] In a feat of just-in-time logistics, gas is delivered to power plants nearly at the moment that it's combusted. Most gas plants do not buy fuel in advance, [...] and few keep on-site backup fuel, such as diesel, to run in case their pipelines break. [Texas] as a whole doesn't maintain much natural-gas storage, because it treats the ground as its reserve: If it needs more gas, it can always drill.

As temperatures plunged, the pipelines delivering gas to power plants froze and depressurized. [...]Texas, sitting on one of the world's largest natural-gas reserves, suffered a statewide run on gas. [...]

What happened wasn't so different from what struck FedEx, Charmin, and New York's health-care system when the pandemic hit last year. There was enough toilet paper in America for everyone to buy it every few months, but not for everyone to buy it the same week. Just-in-time logistics, whether by pipeline or cargo ship, makes good economic sense; it's cheaper than running a system with a little built-in slack. But it depends on tomorrow looking roughly like yesterday, and when something unusual happens—such as Texas freezing over—the system fails.

[...]

When a shortage like this hits Lululemon, it means you can't buy spandex bike shorts. When it hits the power grid, it means children freeze to death in their beds.

3. Yet why didn't someone plan for a natural-gas shortage? A wintertime run on supply was entirely foreseeable. Pipelines could have been ordered to winterize; power plants could have maintained on-site backup. The natural aspect of this disaster had precedent: Although Texas saw brutal temperatures this week, they were within the historical norm.
https://rogerpielkej...t-and-preparing

[...] society's plans didn't make sense, because they assumed that natural gas could do an impossible number of things at the same time. And nobody noticed this beforehand, because it was nobody's job to notice.

In 1999, Texas restructured its power sector, dumping its old utilities and adopting in their place a new and totalizing market system. But this market looks little like the markets we know from everyday life. [...] a legalistic, mechanistic auction between power plants and distribution companies, funded with consumers' utility bills.

In this market, ERCOT is less an administrator than an auctioneer. Governor Abbott vowed this week that Texas would "investigate what lapse of judgment ERCOT had with regards to preparing for this situation"—but as he likely knows, ERCOT judges in the same way that eBay judges who will take home this Walker, Texas Ranger varsity jacket. When Texas needs more power, the price of electricity on ERCOT's market increases. [...]

Those high prices are supposed to drive power-generation capacity online. They didn't—because of the ice-locked equipment and natural-gas crunch. "The price could've been a million dollars a kilowatt-hour, but you can't supply with gas you don't have," [...]

Yet as the market foundered, those generators that survived made a killing. By one measure, ERCOT power plants have made more already this year than they made in the past three years combined. Meanwhile, customers are suffering. In four days, the city of Denton paid $207 million for electricity—which is more than it pays in a typical year, [...] When Texas's power market does allow consumers to join as market participants, it does so through start-ups, such as Griddy, that give consumers unfettered access to wholesale ERCOT power prices. Most of the time, Griddy consumers pay alluringly low prices—except, this week, some found themselves owing $2,500 a day.

At the core of ERCOT's structure is a total trust in markets, [...] To design a system such as ERCOT, "you have to believe that markets are better at coordinating than centralized planning," [...]

Whatever the virtues of that hope, they were not borne out this week. The city of El Paso has its own utility, separate from ERCOT's market system. That utility maintained power while ERCOT drowned. Why? After a winter storm swept through Texas in 2011, El Paso planned for future cold-weather disruption by winterizing its natural-gas infrastructure. ERCOT did not. Nor did the Public Utility Commission of Texas, which regulates power generation statewide, mandate such preparedness.

[...] the Texas government assumed that high prices alone could guarantee grid reliability and incentivize power plants to prepare for the worst. This didn't happen. The market failed.

This failure reminds me of what I observed while reporting on America's COVID-19 testing failure. For months last year, the federal government failed to adequately plan and pay for the industrial-scale production of COVID-19 tests. It assumed that high demand for tests would lure companies to join the market. But no individual private firm had an incentive to risk short-term stability for potential medium-term profit. So the country went months without sufficient tests.

After that 2011 winter storm, the federal government actually did require Texas power plants to draw up plans for how they would avert a worse disaster[...] But it had no ability to enforce those plans, and power plants seemingly put them aside.

[...] The grid grants a certain kind of freedom—freedom from darkness, freedom from cold or heat, even freedom from boredom. There is a freedom in knowing that anything you plug into the wall will turn on; there is a freedom, too, in knowing that your house will stay inhabitable and your pipes will not burst. Texas's system is built on the idea that the liberty of companies to buy and sell electrons—and the freedom of consumers to pay a $2,500 power bill—is greater and more dear than any freedom wrought by consistent power service.

Perhaps ERCOT's strangest and most un-American trait is that it strips citizens of their democratic authority; instead of being able to hold someone accountable when the power goes out, Texans are told that the market, like a rain god, has failed again. [...] Markets are [can be relatively] good tools; they aren't our only tools. Government by auction is no way to live. Indeed, Texans are dying of it.'

https://www.theatlan...g-texas/618104/



'even if someone was checking in on the dog, Cruz would have possibly still left the animal in a house without heat for over a day.

"If #tedcruz lost heat and power as he stated in his formal statement why leave the dog home alone in those conditions?" That alone is animal cruelty..#tedcruzAnimalCruelty,"'

https://www.dailydot...un-controversy/

'Because poodles are without an undercoat, they are left vulnerable to cold weather. We as humans, can go into a hypothermic state and get frostbite in the cold weather. Poodles are just as susceptible to these problems. For this reason, a poodle should never just be left outside in the cold weather [or inside a freezing house].'

https://emborapets.c...cold%20weather.

'Owners of pets left to freeze in winter storm may face criminal charges, Harris County official says'

https://www.click2ho...utside-in-cold/

Unfortunately Cruz almost certainly won't be arrested and convicted for this, though it would be a fitting end to his political career (well, hopefully an end...).

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 21 February 2021 - 05:33 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Facebook apologized Thursday and restored a video that showed Rep. Marie Newman displaying a transgender pride flag outside her Congressional office.

"Congresswoman, this plainly should not have happened. We've restored this content and you have our sincere apologies"'

https://www.thewrap....ansgender-flag/

Video:

https://www.facebook...707142506633099

'senators have raised concerns about the participation of transgender girls and women on female sports teams in schools. It doesn't address sports directly but mandates equal treatment in all educational programs. National Women's Law Center spokesperson Gillian Branstetter, a trans activist, told the Washington Blade the bill's supporters are unlikely to compromise on the sports question.'

https://www.advocate...-vote-next-week

Allowing trans women to compete in girls/women's divisions (in competitive, rather than recreational, sports) is not likely to be a winning issue for Democrats... women have separate divisions because they have physical disadvantages on average and at the extreme. Women do sometimes compete in men's divisions when they're able (current college football kicker, two high school state wrestling champions, etc.).

'Trans rights advocates — and many in the medical community — push back by observing that substantial musculoskeletal sex differences don't emerge until puberty and thus aren't significant for children who transition from male to female via hormonal treatments beforehand.

They contend, moreover, that trans women who make the shift via hormonal therapy after puberty lose any male muscle-mass advantage within a year.

[...] the lines we draw between the competitive edges we accept, even admire, and those we think unfair are the stuff of our culture, not our science. Wrestlers compete in weight classes — we reject a contest between a 125 pounder and a 195 pounder as a mismatch — but we're OK with a 6' 4" high-school basketball center's unequal struggle under the rim against an opposing team's 7-footer.'

https://thehill.com/...nfair-advantage

The US seems a little unusual in prioritizing team sports that give an extreme advantage to people who are physically larger---especially American football and basketball. Baseball to an extent as well---jumping up to catch balls, etc. Football ('soccer') seems to prioritize lower-body strength so I'd expect a bit less of a gender gap.

'Trans women retain athletic edge after a year of hormone therapy, study finds

The findings raise questions about current Olympic guidelines, but the lead author cautions against using them to back bans in recreational and school sports.

"For the Olympic level, the elite level, I'd say probably two years is more realistic than one year," [...] "At one year, the trans women on average still have an advantage over the cis women," he said, referring to cisgender, or nontransgender, women."

For the first two years after starting hormones, the trans women in their review were able to do 10 percent more pushups and 6 percent more situps than their cisgender female counterparts. After two years, [...] "they were fairly equivalent to the cisgender women."

Their running times declined as well, but two years on, trans women were still 12 percent faster on the 1.5 mile-run than their cisgender peers.'

https://www.nbcnews....-study-n1252764

'Why It's Fair for Trans Femme Athletes to Compete With Women

[...]

Intersex Athletes and Why They Matter

[...] assigned female at birth, raised as female all her life, being in an analogous situation with trans women insofar as she is seen as having a competitive advantage to due to her unique physiological features.

[...] lifelong history of testosterone exposure which gives trans women their slight physical advantage. But Caster Semenya also has a lifelong history of elevated testosterone exposure, giving her advantages over other cis females.

[...] Hyperandrogenism comes in a spectrum. Some cis females are always going to have higher naturally occurring testosterone levels compared to the average female. And they're likely always going to have a competitive advantage compared to someone with low T.

So should women with high T not be allowed to compete in any sport, ever? Where do you draw the line? Drawing lines on a biological spectrum is always going to be somewhat arbitrary because you'll leave out some people from the sport. And why should those particular women be discriminated against? You don't see tall basketball players being discriminated against because they have an unfair advantage over short basketball players — and imagine trying to implement some height cut-off and measuring things precisely.'

https://medium.com/@...en-bb7a45ef1b42

However, it seems the current equality bill would not require any hormone therapy before mandating that trans girls/women be allowed to play in high school / college sports... even with that addition this will be a hard sell and an unfortunate wedge issue. Hopefully most people won't care enough for it to impact voting....

'Is Ted Cruz laundering dark money through sales of his own book?

Per this thoroughly reported piece at Salon, a Cruz-aligned PAC called Lawyers, Guns, and Money Jobs, Freedom, and Security made payments upward of $1 million last year to Reagan Investments LLC (did everyone just give up on naming these things?) And here's the kicker:

The only other committee to register any disbursements to [Reagan Investments] was Trump Make America Great Again, for a fundraising promotion for Cruz's books in December, according to The New York Times. However, the Trump group clearly marked the payment for "collateral: books"; campaign finance experts told Salon that the PAC's payment classifications—all of them for "sponsorship advertising"— were unusual and opaque.

In theory, the Cruz PAC can take huge amounts of money from anyone, with next to no oversight, and then funnel it to the Texan senator via royalty payouts.

All of this, of course, further underlines the deeply problematic relationship between corporate publishing and the right wing entertainment-industrial complex: there will always be a PAC or an opaquely funded conservative think tank ready to buy made-to-pulp polemics by this or that aspiring quisling senator. It's not even a free market of consumers desperate to spend their hard earned money on conservative view points! It's a side hustle laundering dark money.'

https://lithub.com/i...f-his-own-book/

'Now Ted Cruz may be buying his own books through a mystery company

If Cancún Ted is paying royalties to himself through a shadow entity, that could stir the FEC into action

[...]

Legal experts tell Salon that if the money was for promotional book sales, as the filings may suggest, then the leadership PAC could be using Reagan Investments as a pass-through to allow Cruz to keep the royalties, which are generally between 10% and 15% for hardcover books, and about half that for paperbacks. Political candidates are not allowed to do that through their campaign committees. But the identity of Reagan Investments itself poses a mystery.

[...] "Trump MAGA described its payments to Reagan Investments as 'collateral: books,' whereas Cruz's leadership PAC described every payment to Reagan Investments LLC as 'sponsorship advertising.' Just because Trump's payments were for a specific purpose doesn't mean we can conclude that Cruz's payments were for that same purpose when the payments were reported differently."

[...] "That said, I really don't know what 'sponsorship advertising' means, and it looks like Cruz's leadership PAC was the only political committee that reported payments for that purpose in the entire 2020 election cycle. Cruz's failure to meaningfully disclose how his leadership PAC is spending its money means we can only guess about where the million-plus ultimately went."

If Reagan Investments is a means for Cruz to collect publishing royalties, the senator would appear to be converting donations to personal use and possibly filing false FEC reports. [...] Candidates who sponsor leadership PACs are generally allowed to use donor funds for personal expenses, meaning Cruz could keep any royalties, but the FEC currently has a pending review of a related question: Whether the personal use prohibition should extend to leadership PACs that belong to active candidates, such as Cruz.

An unfavorable ruling could have implications for Trump's leadership PAC, Save America: If the former president decides to run again in 2024, he may not have unfettered personal access to the millions of dollars in the PAC's account, and that could circumscribe his ability to spend those contributions on his personal business empire.

Sales for Cruz's 2015 book, "A Time for Truth," drew scrutiny after The New York Times refused to put it on the bestseller list, citing "strategic bulk purchases" that appeared inorganic, prompting Amazon to push back on the paper's claim. HarperCollins, that book's publisher (Cruz's new book was published by the conservative-oriented house Regnery), said it had "investigated the sales pattern" but found "no evidence of bulk orders or sales through any retailer or organization." [...]

The Cruz campaign did not immediately respond to Salon's requests for comment, by email and phone. The campaign's outgoing voicemail informs callers that book orders will take four to six weeks to fulfill, citing an allegedly high demand.'

https://www.salon.co...ystery-company/

Hopefully Cruz won't get replaced by someone even worse.... (Daniel Crenshaw? Trump-ish neo-fascist, but with actual military experience... so he might be willing to risk his life to stage a coup.)

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 25 February 2021 - 07:19 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'Cruz Jokes About Cancun Trip, Dabbles in COVID Denial in Bizarre CPAC Rant

[...] "This is just dumb," Cruz said, pretending not to understand the importance of wearing a mask to curtail the spread of COVID-19. "We're gonna wear masks for the next 300 years. And by the way, not just one mask—two, three, four—you can't have too many masks! How much virtue do you wanna signal?"

Likening the Republican party to the "rebel alliance" in Star Wars, Cruz then went after Democrats and the media, claiming they "are convinced that political theatre helps them."

"The media desperately, desperately wants a Republican civil war," he said. "Liberty is under assault and what are we going to do? I will tell you: We will fight!"

He then insisted that people should "lighten up"—before making a transphobic joke about a New York Times story that said 60 percent of women named Karen voted for Biden.

"I'm willing to believe 80% of men named Karen voted for Joe Biden," he said as the crowd burst into applause and cheers.

[...] as the crowd of conservatives began to chant "freedom," Cruz insisted that his close ally, former President Donald Trump, would make a valiant return.

"Let me tell you this right now, Donald J Trump ain't going anywhere," he said.

Before walking off the stage, the embattled Republican screeched to the crowd: "FREEDOM!"'

https://www.thedaily...c-rant?ref=home

'While Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) hangs out at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando—where he's already joked about leaving his state in the middle of a devastating winter storm—fellow Texas Sen. John Cornyn plans to join President Joe Biden in Houston as he surveys the damage[...] Biden is expected to meet with state and local officials during the trip[...] "The president doesn't view the crisis and the millions of people who've been impacted by it as a Democratic or Republican issue"'

https://www.thedaily...f=home?ref=home

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 26 February 2021 - 09:11 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'CPAC STAGE USES NAZI SYMBOL? "Having worked with Norse and Elder Futhark iconography for years, I'm quite alert to the glyph shapes and their associations in the modern world and history. So, why is the #CPAC2021 stage an Odal rune, and specifically one with serifs (or wings) that was used by the Nazi SS?"'

https://www.facebook...64931116933237/

'Othala Rune
General Hate Symbols Neo-Nazi Symbols

ALTERNATE NAMES: Othal Rune, Othila Rune, Odal Rune[...]

[...] In the 20th century, Nazis in Germany adopted the othal rune, among many other similar symbols, as part of their attempt to reconstruct a mythic "Aryan" past. Nazi uses of the symbol included the divisional insignia of two Waffen SS divisions during World War II. Following World War II, white supremacists in Europe, North America, and elsewhere began using the othala rune. Today, it is commonly seen in tattoo form, on flags or banners, as part of group logos, and elsewhere.'

https://www.adl.org/...ols/othala-rune

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 26 February 2021 - 09:59 PM

[Malankazooie]

Is Trump the keynote, last night speaker at that? I wonder what his message will be if he is? MAGA 2024?

"The next four years of Beijing Biden, illegitimate president who stole the election, this is what the American carnage will become . . ."

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'A sitting member of Congress appeared at a white nationalist convention Friday night, marking [new more explicit] GOP support for the racist movement. Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) spoke in Orlando, Florida, at the America First Political Action conference, a far-right event meant to mimic the establishment Republican Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

After Gosar's speech, AFPAC organizer Nick Fuentes, who [...] was outside the Capitol with his supporters during the Jan. 6 riot, [...] warned that "white people are done being bullied." Fuentes praised the fatal riot as "awesome," describing it as "light-hearted mischief." He also mocked Gosar's colleague, Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC), for needing a wheelchair, saying Cawthorn couldn't "stand up" for his constituents.

"'I'm gonna take a stand?'" Fuentes said. "How? How are you gonna do that?"

[...]

Gosar attempted to distance himself from the white nationalist event Saturday morning at a panel on CPAC. Without mentioning what he was specifically referring to, Gosar said, "I want to tell you—I denounce when we talk about white racism. That's not appropriate."'

https://www.thedaily...wesome?ref=home

That seems like a charitable interpretation of 'I denounce when we talk about white racism'... as opposed to 'I denounce white racism'. The old plausible deniability, 'how dare you criticize our "improper" or imprecise language, that's just the way we talk, how dare you read racism into that' dog-whistle rope-a-dope... multiply the wells of resentment.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 27 February 2021 - 04:43 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

The Trump clip is from his speech that led into the riot.

The full Cruz quote is: 'In the immortal words of William Wallace, FREEEDOOOMMMM!'... just to clear up any doubts about whether he's asking people to fight to the death. (Of course, whether he's quoting the scream at the end or 'they may take our lives, but they'll never take... OUR FREEDOM!', both those quotes were made up for the movie. A historically accurate quote of his would be: 'We come here with no peaceful intent, but ready for battle, determined to avenge our wrongs and set our country free. Let your masters come and attack us: we are ready to meet them beard to beard.' Obviously some homophobes would take issue with that... or 'I have brought you to the ring, now dance if you can.')

[Malankazooie]

Oh boy, here we go again. So, March 4th now I guess. Talk about moving the goal post. If it doesn't happen on that day, then when is the next window? July 4th and some fantasy about declaring independence or something?

[Cause]

Azath Vitr (D, on 26 February 2021 - 09:58 PM, said:

'CPAC STAGE USES NAZI SYMBOL? "Having worked with Norse and Elder Futhark iconography for years, I'm quite alert to the glyph shapes and their associations in the modern world and history. So, why is the #CPAC2021 stage an Odal rune, and specifically one with serifs (or wings) that was used by the Nazi SS?"'

https://www.facebook...64931116933237/

'Othala Rune
General Hate Symbols Neo-Nazi Symbols

ALTERNATE NAMES: Othal Rune, Othila Rune, Odal Rune[...]

[...] In the 20th century, Nazis in Germany adopted the othal rune, among many other similar symbols, as part of their attempt to reconstruct a mythic "Aryan" past. Nazi uses of the symbol included the divisional insignia of two Waffen SS divisions during World War II. Following World War II, white supremacists in Europe, North America, and elsewhere began using the othala rune. Today, it is commonly seen in tattoo form, on flags or banners, as part of group logos, and elsewhere.'

https://www.adl.org/...ols/othala-rune

Well I saw cpac had to cancel young Pharoh (a rapper I have never heard of) for saying Jews are not real. Ironically his speech was on cancel culture apparently? So par for the course dog whistling if they can get away with it.

[Malankazooie]

Malankazooie, on 26 February 2021 - 10:57 PM, said:

Is Trump the keynote, last night speaker at that? I wonder what his message will be if he is? MAGA 2024?

"The next four years of Beijing Biden, illegitimate president who stole the election, this is what the American carnage will become . . ."

Saw a chyron on CNN that Trump will be the closing speaker. Any you guys going to watch? I'll probably just get the highlights myself. I can't watch this garbage for very long.

[Macros]

I'll just catch it on SNL

[Cause]

https://edition.cnn....zakaria-vpx.cnn

Not sure if this is the right place but things like this fascinate me. Why ask bill gates if the stimilus package is the right size. He is a smart guy, a billionaire, philanthropist sure but he is not a world class economist. Why do we ask the wrong people? Bill gates is by no means the worst example of this but we seem to trust fame over anything else.

[Aptorian]

My impression of the major news networks is that it's not actually about news or information. It's a TV-show where a host of characters, hired opinion monkeys, say things that a survey says the viewers like to hear - With special guests, like bored billionaire Bill Gates and reformed piece of shit Michael Cohen.

[Tsundoku]

Cause, on 02 March 2021 - 03:32 AM, said:

https://edition.cnn....aria-vpx.cnnNot sure if this is the right place but things like this fascinate me. Why ask bill gates if the stimilus package is the right size. He is a smart guy, a billionaire, philanthropist sure but he is not a world class economist. Why do we ask the wrong people? Bill gates is by no means the worst example of this but we seem to trust fame over anything else.

Why do they ask actors about politics and social issues? It's not about the facts but about the clicks.

Aptorian, on 02 March 2021 - 05:44 AM, said:

My impression of the major news networks is that it's not actually about news or information. It's a TV-show where a host of characters, hired opinion monkeys, say things that a survey says the viewers like to hear - With special guests, like bored billionaire Bill Gates and reformed piece of shit Michael Cohen.

"Info-tainment" - with not much info and the rest can barely be classified as "-tainment". Maybe Con-tainment?
Also, refer to "it's all about the clicks".

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 02 March 2021 - 10:36 AM

[Malankazooie]

Malankazooie, on 27 February 2021 - 08:46 PM, said:

Oh boy, here we go again. So, March 4th now I guess. Talk about moving the goal post. If it doesn't happen on that day, then when is the next window? July 4th and some fantasy about declaring independence or something?

Well, I think we are going to welcome March 5 without a repeat of complete QAnon chaos like Jan. 6 (too much security now?). But what date is next? Will this keep happening until Trump is ushered in as permanent leader?

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Malankazooie, on 05 March 2021 - 12:46 AM, said:

Malankazooie, on 27 February 2021 - 08:46 PM, said:

Oh boy, here we go again. So, March 4th now I guess. Talk about moving the goal post. If it doesn't happen on that day, then when is the next window? July 4th and some fantasy about declaring independence or something?

Well, I think we are going to welcome March 5 without a repeat of complete QAnon chaos like Jan. 6 (too much security now?). But what date is next? Will this keep happening until Trump is ushered in as permanent leader?

'QAnon was born in October of 2017 with a post on the message board 4chan that predicted the imminent arrest of Hillary Clinton. The anonymous writer, known as Q, who claimed to be a government insider with top security clearance, said her arrest would spark mass riots.

"HRC extradition already in motion effective yesterday with several countries in case of cross border run. Passport approved to be flagged effective 10/30 @ 12:01am. Expect massive riots organized in defiance and others fleeing the US to occur," Q wrote.

[...] But that original prediction never came true, and dozens more like it over the last three and a half years have also failed to materialize. And yet, since that first false message, QAnon has grown into a global conspiracy phenomenon with millions of adherents in dozens of countries across the globe. [...]

"The entire QAnon belief system is built on getting burnt," [...] "It has never been a problem for the movement, it's been a feature of the movement." [However, they did seem to lose members after Biden's inauguration. Though that could have more to do with Trump no longer being in power than in the prophecy having failed....]

As [March 4th] approached, most of the movement's major influencers decided that they wanted to avoid a repeat of January 20, when so many believers said they felt let down when Biden became president. Those influencers dismissed the March 4 prediction as something created by the "fake news" media "to make the movement look dumb."

[...]

Unlike the aftermath of the Biden inauguration, there was no anger or frustration Friday morning within QAnon channels and groups on platforms like Gab and Telegram.

Instead, followers said that they always knew that March 4 was a false prophecy, saying that "true believers" knew not to expect a Trump inauguration. They claim that the people who had predicted something would happen on March 4 hadn't done their research.

"Q never mentioned March 4 Anons are no different than me and you. Don't blame Q for what crazy ideas people come up with,"[... Last I read Q had stopped posting, which makes me wonder if they'll eventually drop the "Q" part. Pizzagate was before Q after all...]

Instead, the movement serves as a way for believers to identify as peace-loving patriots while also hoping for the execution of their enemies.

"That is all a byproduct of a broader cultural yearning in America for fascism, for hardcore order in law," [...] "For the boot of the state and the military to come down onto the neck of those that you don't like, those you blame for your material conditions."

And no matter what happens, [...] the goal will always be the same.

"Just because QAnon's wrong doesn't mean that they're suddenly not going to want to see their enemies hanged." [And tortured for eternity in hell.]

https://www.vice.com...is-ok-with-that

'The future of QAnon, explained by 8 experts

[...]

It's a religion — and religions have staying power

[...]

Research suggests that some people are unusually predisposed to accept implausible conspiratorial beliefs, and that those people may accept multiple such beliefs at once, even when the beliefs are brazenly contradictory. In any case, the glaring failure of a prophecy is almost never enough to make the prophecy go away.

[...]

Many observers of the movement have compared QAnon's failings — the myriad predictions that did not come to pass, including the very predictions of ultimate Trumpian victory that served as the foundation of the conspiracy theory — to the 1844 "Great Disappointment."

[...] the world did not end on October 22, 1844. [Or any of the new dates proposed afterwards.] But neither, surprisingly, did the Millerites. Instead, they broke into factions — the most famous of which, the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, came to believe that October 22 did not mark the second coming but rather an event that took place in heaven.

Failed predictions will not doom QAnon, as it did not doom the Millerites, because QAnon could perhaps be best understood as a religious movement of sorts that places faith above accuracy, and believes in, above everything else, a final judgment for sinners where, to loosely quote Philippians 2:10-11, every knee shall bend and every tongue shall confess. It's just that to QAnon, "sinners" are "all Democrats, and most celebrities" and the tongues of all would be confessing that Donald Trump has defeated ultimate evil.

[...] QAnon movement doesn't behave merely like a pro-Trump conspiracy theory but instead like a baby religion, born on the social web and spread by Q's acolytes to extremists who feel the movement's anti-establishment message in their bones.

[...] Within the QAnon movement exists a well-practiced ecosystem that reflexively shifted the goalposts to keep followers engaged. Some claimed that their predictions had come true despite appearing not to, and others pushed the deadline for their prediction back a handful of weeks.

[...]

QAnon followers have been mostly purged from mainstream social media platforms following the January 6 insurrection. While this has hurt their proselytization and propaganda efforts, it has also enhanced their self-image as persecuted renegades.

A minority of less tech-savvy or less committed QAnon followers have given up on the movement, but the true believers are doubling down on alternate platforms such as Gab or Telegram. They continue to "trust the plan" and will likely do so for the rest of their lives. They're now committed to the cause because of the community, the sense of mission, and the time and sacrifice they have already invested.

[...]

The point of QAnon is not just that Hillary Clinton is already in prison at Guantanamo Bay or that Nancy Pelosi eats children. The point of QAnon is that there will be a point of reckoning in which evil will be punished and good will be rewarded. QAnon offers purpose, direction, mooring in a world that seems threatening, and offers insider knowledge of a "Plan," one that remains clear no matter what actually takes place in real life. Donald Trump will somehow be president again, or already is president, forever and always, amen. [...]

QAnon believers are a captive audience, and a vulnerable one.

[...] it's safe to assume that bad actors (including those openly encouraging acts of violence) will continue to take advantage of the faith QAnon believers have and are clinging to.

I wish I could say that we will see the movement's members begin to realize they are being toyed with, but I think that's unlikely on a widespread scale anytime soon. As the major social media platforms crack down on QAnon content, violent extremists are actively working to radicalize QAnon believers for their own purposes.

[...]

Just as elements of ancient anti-Semitic doomsaying belief systems were recycled into Pizzagate and eventually into QAnon, the QAnon narrative is already evolving and adapting to the current moment.

The Q worldview isn't just highly tolerant of contradictions; it's reality-proof. Which is another way of saying QAnon is not going anywhere. It will morph, and may even eventually go by a different name, but for as long as the major political fault lines in this nation are drawn between elites and populists, QAnon — or whatever it warps into — will be with us.

[...] Some QAnon followers may be recruited by or blend with more militant extremist movements. We can already see this in how they borrowed arguments from the sovereign citizen movement in order to absurdly claim that Trump's true inauguration date will be March 4. Some extremism researchers have also observed neo-Nazis organizing social media "raids" that are part of an effort to recruit disaffected QAnon followers.

[...] In its current form, QAnon exists as a decentralized catchall for conspiracy theories alleging nefarious actions are being conducted in the upper echelons of world power. Even if Q posts and Trump gradually take a backseat role in the movement, many of the tagalong theories — on topics including 5G, vaccines, and alternative medicine — will produce significant risks to the public.

[...] I think that QAnon, as it was originally constituted, may be almost over. Without Trump in office or on Twitter, and with no new posts from Q in months, the community is basically running on fumes. It's always conceivable that Q could come back, or that some new development could jolt believers back to their keyboards. But I don't think random tweets from Lin Wood and the MyPillow guy are going to be enough to keep them hopeful and engaged. They're pretty dispirited.

But even if QAnon dies, I fully expect that many of its core beliefs will get watered down a bit, stripped of the Q-related language, and dissolved into Republican Party orthodoxy. [...] I wouldn't be shocked if that cohort pushed the entire Republican Party in a more conspiracy-minded, reality-denying direction. By 2024, Marjorie Taylor Greene may look like a moderate.'

https://www.vox.com/...piracy-theories

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 05 March 2021 - 05:32 PM

[Malankazooie]

So I guess we need to talk about it. Neanderthals.

Pretty stupid news cycle to make that a thing. Almost, but not quite as stupid as Potato Head fighting. And are we really going to stay hung up on it when not even a year ago it was reported that Trump called WWII veterans suckers and losers.

Neanderthal should be taken as a compliment. They had quite the run and weren't just living in caves, throwing rocks at each other and going "oooga boooga, unga bunga."

[Aptorian]

Context?