Got it. Smoke two cigarettes at a time to increase my total lifespan.

Say, your telephone is sounding."

“Oh!” Matt fumbled in his pouch and got out his phone. “Hello?”

“That you, son?” came his father’s voice.

“Yes, Dad.”

“Did you get there all right?”

“Sure, I’m about to report in.”

“How’s your leg?”

“Leg’s all right, Dad.” His answer was not frank; his right leg, fresh from a corrective operation for a short Achilles’ tendon, was aching as he spoke.

“That’s good. Now see here, Matt-if it should work out that you aren’t selected, don’t let it get you down. You call me at once and-”

“Sure, sure, Dad,” Matt broke in. “I’ll have to sign off-I’m in a crowd. Good-by. Thanks for calling.”

—Space Cadet, Robert A. Heinlein, written in nineteen fucking forty eight!

More despicable than running for re-election in the first place?

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to shit in the street.

Awesome. Can we get a new Bushido Blade, while we’re at it?

<Stares blankly into the middle distance for thirty seconds in Mitch McConnell>

Or Tank Girl

It was a hostile takeover. One of the original founders tried to prevent it from happening.

“I tried to find out who was playing Baldur’s Gate 3, but all I found was this worthless pile of sexual abuse evidence!” [Throws cardboard box into incinerator]

Better for what? I only listen to mp3s I’ve got stored on my phone; I use BlackPlayer for that, and I love it. For streaming music purposes… I dunno, I never got into that racket.

When confronted, the young man’s mother admitted that the signs in the trunk of the car belonged to her son, who she described as “just an idiot.”

She told me that she couldn’t be bothered to think about Donald Trump.

Funny thing about that…

The former Berlin businessman I referred to earlier told me that he blamed his own group, people with the time and the money and the opportunity to know better, for what happened to Germany. “We ignored Hitler,” he said. “We considered him an unimportant fellow, not quite a gentleman, not of our own class. We considered it just a little bit vulgar to bother with him, to bother with politics at all.”

—Robert A. Heinlein, Take Back Your Government

Not blaming you or your friend for Trump, but reading the book that quote came from made me a lot more engaged in politics on a day-to-day basis.

That boy needs therapy.

The theory I heard on the Strict Scrutiny podcast is that the 5th Circuit exists to write atrocious opinions on terrible rulings so that the Supreme Court can make rulings that are only 85% as horrible as that so the SC can seem more reasonable by comparison.

Suppose that Australia wants to become republic.

Scenario A: King Charles tries to oppose this. His opposition is overridden by, you know, democracy. Now he looks like even more of a schmuck for standing in the way of something that was going to happen anyway.

Scenario B: He doesn’t oppose it. Australia votes to become a republic, and seems like a cool guy for not standing in the way of the inevitable.

Seems like a pretty straightforward choice between options.

Delaware has 3 electoral votes and a population of 1.018 million.

Wyoming has 3 electoral votes and a population of 584,000.

Wyoming is almost twice as over-represented as Delaware in the electoral college.

California currently has 54 electoral votes. If CA was as represented in the electoral college as Wyoming is, it would have 200 votes.

So you could argue that both Wyoming and California can claim to be more disproportionately represented by the EC than Delaware.

It’s not even plausible to imagine a world where people aren’t trying to break and exploit economic or government systems. It’s like an ecosystem where there are always plants and animals trying to find new ways to gain advantage, even if it involves full-on parasitic behavior. The only thing we can do is try and design a government dynamic and robust enough to respond to the most dangerous and aggressive mutations.

Sounds like something that demands an LBJ-style federal response.