they inventeed a new science called “dont let the balloon hit the floor” scientests are being vaery careful and bapping that thing before it can fall jumping over the couch and shit
americans pleeease. please kill elon musk 🙏🙏🥺😔😩🙏 americans! please. Please !!! kill elon musk. don’t you remember gun.. ? bang bang ? your favorite game..? Americans… please. 😔🙏 have you forgotten your local deity, captain america: kill nazis??? americans !! I know you can do it 🥺🙏 please americans..
through pure random chance someone said “jerma rip your shirt open” and he said no i like this shirt. let me put one over it and rip that instead. and he gave the nation of mexico an eternal gift
MLMs are the mirror-world version of community organizing
ALT
If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
In her unmissable 2023 book Doppelganger, Naomi Klein paints a picture of a “mirror world” of right wing and conspiratorial beliefs that are warped, false reflections of real crises:
For example, Qanon’s obsession with “child trafficking” is a mirror-world version of the real crises of child poverty, child labor, border family separations and kids in cages. Anti-vax is the mirror-world version of the true story of the Sacklers and their fellow opioid barons making billions on Oxy and fent, with the collusion of corrupt FDA officials and a pliant bankruptcy court system. Xenophobic panic about “immigrants stealing jobs” is the mirror world version of the well-documented fact that big business shipped jobs to low-waged territories abroad, weakening US labor and smashing US unions. Cryptocurrency talk about “decentralization” is the mirror-world version of the decay of every industry (including tech) into a monopoly or a cartel.
Klein is at pains to point out that other political thinkers have described this phenomenon. Back in the 19th century, leftists called antisemitism “the socialism of fools.” Socialism – the idea that working people are preyed upon by capital – is reflected in the warped mirror as “working people are preyed upon by international Jewish bankers.”
The mirror world is a critical concept, because it shows that far right and conspiratorial beliefs are often uneasy neighbors with real, serious political movements. The swivel-eyed loons have a point, in other words:
Once you understand the mirror world, you start to realize that many right wing conspiracists could have been directed into productive movements, if only they’d understood that their problems were with systems, not sinister individuals (this is why Trump has ordered a purge of any federally funded research that contains the word “systemic”):
This also explains why the “tropes” of right wing conspiratorialism sometimes echo left wing, radical thought. I once had a (genuinely unhinged) dialog with a self-described German “progressive” who told me that criticizing the finance industry as parasitic on the real economy was “structurally antisemitic.” Nonsense like this is why Klein’s “mirror world” is so important: unless you understand the mirror world, you can end up believing that “progressive” just means “defending anything the right hates.”
Historian Erik Baker is the author of a new book, Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, which has some very interesting things to say about the mirror world:
In a recent edition of the always-excellent Know Your Enemy podcast, the hosts interviewed Baker about the book, and the conversation turned to the subject of pyramid schemes, the “multilevel marketing systems” that are woven into so many religious, right-wing movements:
MLMs have it all: prosperity gospel (“God rewards virtue with wealth”), atomization (“you are an entrepreneur and everyone in your life is your potential customer”), and rabid anti-Communism (“solidarity is a trick to make you poorer”).
The rise of the far right can’t be separated from the history of MLMs. The modern MLM starts with Amway, a cultlike national scam that was founded by Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos (father-in-law of Betsy DeVos).
Rank-and-file members of the Amway cult lived in dire poverty, convinced that their financial predicament was their own fault for not faithfully following the “sure-fire” Amway method for building a business. Andrea Pitzer’s gripping memoir of growing up in an Amway household offers a glimpse of the human cost of the cult:
MLMs are the mirror-world version of community organizing
ALT
If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
In her unmissable 2023 book Doppelganger, Naomi Klein paints a picture of a “mirror world” of right wing and conspiratorial beliefs that are warped, false reflections of real crises:
For example, Qanon’s obsession with “child trafficking” is a mirror-world version of the real crises of child poverty, child labor, border family separations and kids in cages. Anti-vax is the mirror-world version of the true story of the Sacklers and their fellow opioid barons making billions on Oxy and fent, with the collusion of corrupt FDA officials and a pliant bankruptcy court system. Xenophobic panic about “immigrants stealing jobs” is the mirror world version of the well-documented fact that big business shipped jobs to low-waged territories abroad, weakening US labor and smashing US unions. Cryptocurrency talk about “decentralization” is the mirror-world version of the decay of every industry (including tech) into a monopoly or a cartel.
Klein is at pains to point out that other political thinkers have described this phenomenon. Back in the 19th century, leftists called antisemitism “the socialism of fools.” Socialism – the idea that working people are preyed upon by capital – is reflected in the warped mirror as “working people are preyed upon by international Jewish bankers.”
The mirror world is a critical concept, because it shows that far right and conspiratorial beliefs are often uneasy neighbors with real, serious political movements. The swivel-eyed loons have a point, in other words:
Once you understand the mirror world, you start to realize that many right wing conspiracists could have been directed into productive movements, if only they’d understood that their problems were with systems, not sinister individuals (this is why Trump has ordered a purge of any federally funded research that contains the word “systemic”):
This also explains why the “tropes” of right wing conspiratorialism sometimes echo left wing, radical thought. I once had a (genuinely unhinged) dialog with a self-described German “progressive” who told me that criticizing the finance industry as parasitic on the real economy was “structurally antisemitic.” Nonsense like this is why Klein’s “mirror world” is so important: unless you understand the mirror world, you can end up believing that “progressive” just means “defending anything the right hates.”
Historian Erik Baker is the author of a new book, Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, which has some very interesting things to say about the mirror world:
In a recent edition of the always-excellent Know Your Enemy podcast, the hosts interviewed Baker about the book, and the conversation turned to the subject of pyramid schemes, the “multilevel marketing systems” that are woven into so many religious, right-wing movements:
MLMs have it all: prosperity gospel (“God rewards virtue with wealth”), atomization (“you are an entrepreneur and everyone in your life is your potential customer”), and rabid anti-Communism (“solidarity is a trick to make you poorer”).
The rise of the far right can’t be separated from the history of MLMs. The modern MLM starts with Amway, a cultlike national scam that was founded by Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos (father-in-law of Betsy DeVos).
Rank-and-file members of the Amway cult lived in dire poverty, convinced that their financial predicament was their own fault for not faithfully following the “sure-fire” Amway method for building a business. Andrea Pitzer’s gripping memoir of growing up in an Amway household offers a glimpse of the human cost of the cult:
MLMs are the mirror-world version of community organizing
ALT
If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
In her unmissable 2023 book Doppelganger, Naomi Klein paints a picture of a “mirror world” of right wing and conspiratorial beliefs that are warped, false reflections of real crises:
For example, Qanon’s obsession with “child trafficking” is a mirror-world version of the real crises of child poverty, child labor, border family separations and kids in cages. Anti-vax is the mirror-world version of the true story of the Sacklers and their fellow opioid barons making billions on Oxy and fent, with the collusion of corrupt FDA officials and a pliant bankruptcy court system. Xenophobic panic about “immigrants stealing jobs” is the mirror world version of the well-documented fact that big business shipped jobs to low-waged territories abroad, weakening US labor and smashing US unions. Cryptocurrency talk about “decentralization” is the mirror-world version of the decay of every industry (including tech) into a monopoly or a cartel.
Klein is at pains to point out that other political thinkers have described this phenomenon. Back in the 19th century, leftists called antisemitism “the socialism of fools.” Socialism – the idea that working people are preyed upon by capital – is reflected in the warped mirror as “working people are preyed upon by international Jewish bankers.”
The mirror world is a critical concept, because it shows that far right and conspiratorial beliefs are often uneasy neighbors with real, serious political movements. The swivel-eyed loons have a point, in other words:
Once you understand the mirror world, you start to realize that many right wing conspiracists could have been directed into productive movements, if only they’d understood that their problems were with systems, not sinister individuals (this is why Trump has ordered a purge of any federally funded research that contains the word “systemic”):
This also explains why the “tropes” of right wing conspiratorialism sometimes echo left wing, radical thought. I once had a (genuinely unhinged) dialog with a self-described German “progressive” who told me that criticizing the finance industry as parasitic on the real economy was “structurally antisemitic.” Nonsense like this is why Klein’s “mirror world” is so important: unless you understand the mirror world, you can end up believing that “progressive” just means “defending anything the right hates.”
Historian Erik Baker is the author of a new book, Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, which has some very interesting things to say about the mirror world:
In a recent edition of the always-excellent Know Your Enemy podcast, the hosts interviewed Baker about the book, and the conversation turned to the subject of pyramid schemes, the “multilevel marketing systems” that are woven into so many religious, right-wing movements:
MLMs have it all: prosperity gospel (“God rewards virtue with wealth”), atomization (“you are an entrepreneur and everyone in your life is your potential customer”), and rabid anti-Communism (“solidarity is a trick to make you poorer”).
The rise of the far right can’t be separated from the history of MLMs. The modern MLM starts with Amway, a cultlike national scam that was founded by Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos (father-in-law of Betsy DeVos).
Rank-and-file members of the Amway cult lived in dire poverty, convinced that their financial predicament was their own fault for not faithfully following the “sure-fire” Amway method for building a business. Andrea Pitzer’s gripping memoir of growing up in an Amway household offers a glimpse of the human cost of the cult:
MLMs are the mirror-world version of community organizing
ALT
If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
In her unmissable 2023 book Doppelganger, Naomi Klein paints a picture of a “mirror world” of right wing and conspiratorial beliefs that are warped, false reflections of real crises:
For example, Qanon’s obsession with “child trafficking” is a mirror-world version of the real crises of child poverty, child labor, border family separations and kids in cages. Anti-vax is the mirror-world version of the true story of the Sacklers and their fellow opioid barons making billions on Oxy and fent, with the collusion of corrupt FDA officials and a pliant bankruptcy court system. Xenophobic panic about “immigrants stealing jobs” is the mirror world version of the well-documented fact that big business shipped jobs to low-waged territories abroad, weakening US labor and smashing US unions. Cryptocurrency talk about “decentralization” is the mirror-world version of the decay of every industry (including tech) into a monopoly or a cartel.
Klein is at pains to point out that other political thinkers have described this phenomenon. Back in the 19th century, leftists called antisemitism “the socialism of fools.” Socialism – the idea that working people are preyed upon by capital – is reflected in the warped mirror as “working people are preyed upon by international Jewish bankers.”
The mirror world is a critical concept, because it shows that far right and conspiratorial beliefs are often uneasy neighbors with real, serious political movements. The swivel-eyed loons have a point, in other words:
Once you understand the mirror world, you start to realize that many right wing conspiracists could have been directed into productive movements, if only they’d understood that their problems were with systems, not sinister individuals (this is why Trump has ordered a purge of any federally funded research that contains the word “systemic”):
This also explains why the “tropes” of right wing conspiratorialism sometimes echo left wing, radical thought. I once had a (genuinely unhinged) dialog with a self-described German “progressive” who told me that criticizing the finance industry as parasitic on the real economy was “structurally antisemitic.” Nonsense like this is why Klein’s “mirror world” is so important: unless you understand the mirror world, you can end up believing that “progressive” just means “defending anything the right hates.”
Historian Erik Baker is the author of a new book, Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, which has some very interesting things to say about the mirror world:
In a recent edition of the always-excellent Know Your Enemy podcast, the hosts interviewed Baker about the book, and the conversation turned to the subject of pyramid schemes, the “multilevel marketing systems” that are woven into so many religious, right-wing movements:
MLMs have it all: prosperity gospel (“God rewards virtue with wealth”), atomization (“you are an entrepreneur and everyone in your life is your potential customer”), and rabid anti-Communism (“solidarity is a trick to make you poorer”).
The rise of the far right can’t be separated from the history of MLMs. The modern MLM starts with Amway, a cultlike national scam that was founded by Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos (father-in-law of Betsy DeVos).
Rank-and-file members of the Amway cult lived in dire poverty, convinced that their financial predicament was their own fault for not faithfully following the “sure-fire” Amway method for building a business. Andrea Pitzer’s gripping memoir of growing up in an Amway household offers a glimpse of the human cost of the cult:
MLMs are the mirror-world version of community organizing
ALT
If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
In her unmissable 2023 book Doppelganger, Naomi Klein paints a picture of a “mirror world” of right wing and conspiratorial beliefs that are warped, false reflections of real crises:
For example, Qanon’s obsession with “child trafficking” is a mirror-world version of the real crises of child poverty, child labor, border family separations and kids in cages. Anti-vax is the mirror-world version of the true story of the Sacklers and their fellow opioid barons making billions on Oxy and fent, with the collusion of corrupt FDA officials and a pliant bankruptcy court system. Xenophobic panic about “immigrants stealing jobs” is the mirror world version of the well-documented fact that big business shipped jobs to low-waged territories abroad, weakening US labor and smashing US unions. Cryptocurrency talk about “decentralization” is the mirror-world version of the decay of every industry (including tech) into a monopoly or a cartel.
Klein is at pains to point out that other political thinkers have described this phenomenon. Back in the 19th century, leftists called antisemitism “the socialism of fools.” Socialism – the idea that working people are preyed upon by capital – is reflected in the warped mirror as “working people are preyed upon by international Jewish bankers.”
The mirror world is a critical concept, because it shows that far right and conspiratorial beliefs are often uneasy neighbors with real, serious political movements. The swivel-eyed loons have a point, in other words:
Once you understand the mirror world, you start to realize that many right wing conspiracists could have been directed into productive movements, if only they’d understood that their problems were with systems, not sinister individuals (this is why Trump has ordered a purge of any federally funded research that contains the word “systemic”):
This also explains why the “tropes” of right wing conspiratorialism sometimes echo left wing, radical thought. I once had a (genuinely unhinged) dialog with a self-described German “progressive” who told me that criticizing the finance industry as parasitic on the real economy was “structurally antisemitic.” Nonsense like this is why Klein’s “mirror world” is so important: unless you understand the mirror world, you can end up believing that “progressive” just means “defending anything the right hates.”
Historian Erik Baker is the author of a new book, Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America, which has some very interesting things to say about the mirror world:
In a recent edition of the always-excellent Know Your Enemy podcast, the hosts interviewed Baker about the book, and the conversation turned to the subject of pyramid schemes, the “multilevel marketing systems” that are woven into so many religious, right-wing movements:
MLMs have it all: prosperity gospel (“God rewards virtue with wealth”), atomization (“you are an entrepreneur and everyone in your life is your potential customer”), and rabid anti-Communism (“solidarity is a trick to make you poorer”).
The rise of the far right can’t be separated from the history of MLMs. The modern MLM starts with Amway, a cultlike national scam that was founded by Jay Van Andel and Richard DeVos (father-in-law of Betsy DeVos).
Rank-and-file members of the Amway cult lived in dire poverty, convinced that their financial predicament was their own fault for not faithfully following the “sure-fire” Amway method for building a business. Andrea Pitzer’s gripping memoir of growing up in an Amway household offers a glimpse of the human cost of the cult:
…fuckin’ really? Oh yeah, sure, let me spray an irritant into a dead eyesocket. Fuckin’ hell. The fukc am I gonna do with that, indeed!
Aerosol flamethrower.
Buddy, I know you are trying to help, but lightinf a zombie on fire with somethin’ that small is NOT gonna get rid of the zombie problem. It will just be a Fire Zombie now.
No worries!
Just make sure all the other things are also zombies.
I am going to put the Fire Zombie in your house.
Yeah no worries just stash it over there with the rest of the fire.
Takes a guy who’s obsessed with saving people even if it risks his life and a guy who is literally allergic to asking for help in any situation and puts them in My stew puts them in my fucking stew and stirs it
Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado and his wife, Lélia Deluiz Wanick Salgado, have been instrumental in reforesting the Rio Doce Basin area in Brazil since 1998. Through their organization, Instituto Terra, they have planted over 2.7 million trees, successfully restoring more than 550 acres of forest and 2,000 natural springs. 
Their efforts have transformed a once barren landscape into a thriving forest ecosystem, demonstrating the profound impact that dedicated reforestation initiatives can have on environmental restoration.
My grandma was in a relationship with Elon Musk and she (my grandma) made my whole family go to this island where he was testing stuff and basically it ended up like Jurassic Park but with robots and really weird tech.
It often feels like mainstream acceptance of queer people, particularly trans and nonbinary people, is contingent on there being few of us. When I was a kid witnessing arguments about gay marriage, statistics about LGBTQ people were so often presented in such a way as to reassure everyone else that we are not dangerous because we are rare. “It’s not going to cause societal collapse … because such a small percentage of people are gay.”
And conservative rhetoric against queer people, particularly trans people, which explicitly refers to us as a “social contagion,” really underscores that any perceived “increase” in sexual or gender diversity will be seen as a threat. If queer people are permitted to exist, we must be aberrant and isolated. If we are normal and natural and commonly occurring, it is because something has gone terribly wrong.
So. Forgive me if I bristle at the well-meaning argument that “these trans athlete bans are ridiculous, they’re only going to affect a few dozen people!” I understand where they’re coming from. But I think trans people should be free and abundant.
In 2008, a Japanese artist named Yasushi “Yassan” Takahashi created the world’s largest GPS drawing to propose to his girlfriend. He traveled over 7,000 kilometers across Japan over six months, tracing the words “Marry Me” along with a large heart using GPS tracking. His journey was officially recognized as the world’s largest GPS drawing at the time.
This suggests that Maximum Overdrive was Jurassic Park for motor vehicles.
I’m sorry, but that is misleading as hell. American and European trucks are bred for different purposes.
American trucks are bred for long hauls on largely straight roads. They can go for hours without a break. A European truck needs more breaks and a lighter load, and they would indeed take great internal damage if they tried to keep up with the Longsnout.
The European Shortsnout is not bred for looks, but for agility! They navigate the windy roads of Europe in a way that would be way too risky for the powerful, but more clumsy American truck. It is true that the European overheats faster at high speeds, that is the very reason that breaks every 4,5 hours are mandatory for both the truck and the handler and a day of driving can never be longer then 9 hours.
So, all in all, appreciate all of our trucks and our shared history, and be the responsible owner that gets the right breed for the right job.
To be fair, the US does have shortnose trucks as well, they’re just a breed kept mainly for very local work where, like the above says, they are working in places with lots of turns, shorter drives, and plenty of stops. I see them used for garbage pickup a lot, where a longnosed Mack wouldn’t be able to fit much less maneuver, and the short nose prevents them from getting rubs (raw skin or even open sores) on their snouts.
I would also like to point out that the tags have got it backwards. The wild trucks (which I’m pretty sure are extinct in the wild now) that all modern breeds stemmed from were shortnose trucks. We had known about automobiles and domesticated several species, but the truck species was not discovered until close to the start of the 1900’s, in Germany, which I BELIEVE was the first country to breed them in captivity, although England was the first country to really start using them for work. I managed to find a photo of taxidermied specimen
As you can see, it resembles both long and short nosed breeds, as well as the far more common house truck used by individuals instead of for commercial work.
As to the aggression, while the mack longnose LOOKS aggressive, they’re generally gentle giants (although please do give them space on the road! not seeing you in their blind spot is NOT the same as aggression!), it is actually the smaller house truck that is often trained by their handler to be aggressive: the keyword being TRAINED, they are also not naturally aggressive. The only time I have seen a mack be commonly aggressive is when they are pulling 2 gravel trailers, and I would be cranky if I was being overworked, too. If you see them hauling that kind of load, just give them space, and you’ll be fine.
I feel like somebody should add something about the Australian variants.
From my understanding of Australian wildlife:
Does anyone know if/how American School Busses are related to trucks?
Pics for reference:
The classic long-nose schoolbus
But short-nose varieties exist, I remember when they first started appearing in my district!
@dreorzen While school buses ARE in the automobile order, they are actually part of the Van family, not the Truck family, due to their passenger capacity. As you can see in the photos, they have no cargo bed or hookup, and are not really built for object transport. But they DO excel at carrying passengers, particularly children (although certainly not limited to just children)
They’re known to be exceptionally protective of any passengers, and if you look closely on that second image you can actually see a specialized appendage that is (I think) unique to school buses- a small, red, octagonal fan, which they extend when there are small creatures around them that they are acquiring or releasing. Much like an angler fish’s bioluminescent bulb appendage, this fan (along with several bioluminescent patches on top of their faces and on their hindquarters) works to mesmerize any other vehicles in close proximity, to where those vehicles will cease movement until the bus lowers the fan. It’s super fascinating behavior, and little wonder why we trust our children to these gentle, protective giants.
Don’t forget about the bus trucks.
While these vehicles can sometimes be bred by accident (after all, who hasn’t accidentally left the gate open when your school bus is in season), they are usually bred for specific purposes.
These hybrids are bred for both their cargo capacity and their gentle temperments. Especially in a farm setting, there’s a need for many different kinds of vehicles, some of which sometimes don’t get along. Having a vehicle with both the strength and capacity of a large work truck with the amiable nature of a school bus can be a real benefit.
It’s a little unfortunate that these hybrids tend to be sterile, though, since it would be easier if they’d breed true. Also, something to keep in mind… bus trucks are bred from a bus.
Truck buses are bred from a truck and… tend to not be quite as useful as bus trucks, although some people do like keeping truck buses for companionship and as show vehicles.
This website sucks I love it
I can’t believe nobody ITT has posted an image of actual Australian Long Boys.
This suggests that Maximum Overdrive was Jurassic Park for motor vehicles.
I’m sorry, but that is misleading as hell. American and European trucks are bred for different purposes.
American trucks are bred for long hauls on largely straight roads. They can go for hours without a break. A European truck needs more breaks and a lighter load, and they would indeed take great internal damage if they tried to keep up with the Longsnout.
The European Shortsnout is not bred for looks, but for agility! They navigate the windy roads of Europe in a way that would be way too risky for the powerful, but more clumsy American truck. It is true that the European overheats faster at high speeds, that is the very reason that breaks every 4,5 hours are mandatory for both the truck and the handler and a day of driving can never be longer then 9 hours.
So, all in all, appreciate all of our trucks and our shared history, and be the responsible owner that gets the right breed for the right job.
To be fair, the US does have shortnose trucks as well, they’re just a breed kept mainly for very local work where, like the above says, they are working in places with lots of turns, shorter drives, and plenty of stops. I see them used for garbage pickup a lot, where a longnosed Mack wouldn’t be able to fit much less maneuver, and the short nose prevents them from getting rubs (raw skin or even open sores) on their snouts.
I would also like to point out that the tags have got it backwards. The wild trucks (which I’m pretty sure are extinct in the wild now) that all modern breeds stemmed from were shortnose trucks. We had known about automobiles and domesticated several species, but the truck species was not discovered until close to the start of the 1900’s, in Germany, which I BELIEVE was the first country to breed them in captivity, although England was the first country to really start using them for work. I managed to find a photo of taxidermied specimen
As you can see, it resembles both long and short nosed breeds, as well as the far more common house truck used by individuals instead of for commercial work.
As to the aggression, while the mack longnose LOOKS aggressive, they’re generally gentle giants (although please do give them space on the road! not seeing you in their blind spot is NOT the same as aggression!), it is actually the smaller house truck that is often trained by their handler to be aggressive: the keyword being TRAINED, they are also not naturally aggressive. The only time I have seen a mack be commonly aggressive is when they are pulling 2 gravel trailers, and I would be cranky if I was being overworked, too. If you see them hauling that kind of load, just give them space, and you’ll be fine.
I feel like somebody should add something about the Australian variants.
From my understanding of Australian wildlife:
Does anyone know if/how American School Busses are related to trucks?
Pics for reference:
The classic long-nose schoolbus
But short-nose varieties exist, I remember when they first started appearing in my district!
@dreorzen While school buses ARE in the automobile order, they are actually part of the Van family, not the Truck family, due to their passenger capacity. As you can see in the photos, they have no cargo bed or hookup, and are not really built for object transport. But they DO excel at carrying passengers, particularly children (although certainly not limited to just children)
They’re known to be exceptionally protective of any passengers, and if you look closely on that second image you can actually see a specialized appendage that is (I think) unique to school buses- a small, red, octagonal fan, which they extend when there are small creatures around them that they are acquiring or releasing. Much like an angler fish’s bioluminescent bulb appendage, this fan (along with several bioluminescent patches on top of their faces and on their hindquarters) works to mesmerize any other vehicles in close proximity, to where those vehicles will cease movement until the bus lowers the fan. It’s super fascinating behavior, and little wonder why we trust our children to these gentle, protective giants.
Don’t forget about the bus trucks.
While these vehicles can sometimes be bred by accident (after all, who hasn’t accidentally left the gate open when your school bus is in season), they are usually bred for specific purposes.
These hybrids are bred for both their cargo capacity and their gentle temperments. Especially in a farm setting, there’s a need for many different kinds of vehicles, some of which sometimes don’t get along. Having a vehicle with both the strength and capacity of a large work truck with the amiable nature of a school bus can be a real benefit.
It’s a little unfortunate that these hybrids tend to be sterile, though, since it would be easier if they’d breed true. Also, something to keep in mind… bus trucks are bred from a bus.
Truck buses are bred from a truck and… tend to not be quite as useful as bus trucks, although some people do like keeping truck buses for companionship and as show vehicles.
This website sucks I love it
I can’t believe nobody ITT has posted an image of actual Australian Long Boys.
my friends held an intervention for me to “stop asking intimidately specific questions”. i tried to explain that i am just a good listener but there is apparently “a line between follow-up questions during small talk and interrogation tactics that gets crossed sometimes”. turns out my curious nature is “scaring the hoes”
when i asked for examples i was told that “do you think your tendency to show appreciation through restoration is part of a greater life philosophy or is that coincidental?” and “is your communication with allied forces satellite or radar based and is it vurnerable to cyber attacks?” are apparently “inappropriate questions to ask someone you just met at a club”. but i disagree. as if you wouldn’t be a little bit curious about the answer? yeah that’s what i thought
[ID: question by anonymous: did they answer the question though ///end ID]
the navy officer i asked about cyber attacks did answer my question very thoroughly. he also answered other questions such as “when refueling on sea, which boat is the primary course holder?” and “would switching to another government branch affect your retirement benefits?” and generally provided a lot of information over the course of a fascinating hour that as a former government employee myself i am pretty sure he should not have told me. but i also think he would have told me his social security number if i asked nicely (i didn’t, I was busy learning about the tactical advantages of speedboats).
the guy obsessed with boat refurbishment that i asked about his tendency towards preservation gave me a really haunted look, said “holy fuck” and then after a moment of consideration “i think i am too drunk. i’m going home” and proceeded to leave. in my defense, it was well and truly meant as genuine curiosity and not as the attempt at psychological warfare it turned out to be. he unfortunately did not answer my question.
…he was also the catalyst for the intervention i received.
sometimes i forget wizardposting isn’t a regular occurrence on any other website. what do you mean your posts don’t randomly get taken over my evil wizards casting spells on your peunis
Since the courts are pretty much the only avenue of relevance in the current battle over executive expansion given that Republicans control Congress and don’t seem to care all that much about it (they are chipping away at their pet issues ofc), I do think it is a little ironic that the Republican judicial strategy is something Trump 1.0 had the least input on. He really didn’t care, best I can tell whatever justices the hardline Republicans put in front of him he said “great” and signed off on them. There was not, in fact, an attempt to put “lackeys” on the bench, and the Trump Triple are on average actually more independent than Alito or Thomas.
Which was a pretty unforced error! Like so many “norms”, the idea that Republicans would have somehow balked at voting in underqualified partisans is a figment of the median voter’s imagination; if the admin went to the mat on this Congress would have probably folded at least partially. And meanwhile the entire MO for the Trump administration 2.0 is depending quite heavily on how legal cases come out. They won’t be the be-all-end-all of things ofc, but right now “they are probably going to lose most of these cases” is the biggest barrier their approach is facing. And the same guy probably could have flipped that outcome if he had thought about it.
Failure to get injunctions in these cases would be bad for the country, but would it be good for Trump? Without injunctions, it’s more likely that there would be disruptions in government services, and I don’t think that’s good for Trump.
That depends on what you think Trump’s goals are. I am not team “Trump is too stupid to function”, I think the evidence for that is very minimal (The space for being a dumbass without that is so, so vast). They know this is going to disrupt services! They definitely know because they are intentionally maximizing that disruption. If you are asking “will this or won’t this hurt his ’re-election’ chances” (something he probably will never have) then sure, it hurts him. But I can think of a lot of other goals where that is a price he is happy to pay.
(Related, I also do not buy the “Trump has no political goals and just likes being in the limelight”. Obviously he loves the latter but he almost certainly has the former too, his behavior is inexplicable without it)
I don’t know what his medium-term goals are, but I honestly don’t see how any sort of durable policy change could be accomplished this way. Anything substantive he could do this way could be rolled back by the next president and presumably would be if it was unpopular (if he wasn’t forced to roll it back sooner as part of, eg, a budget deal). He could destroy a lot of institutional expertise, but I don’t think “wreck the federal civil service” is a likely policy goal for him.
My working theories are
Musk, backed by Trump, honestly believes that he can fix everything and if it gets done fast enough he can present a fiat accompli that’s sufficiently popular and robust to mostly not get rolled back. Possibly they’re moving this fast because they want that fiat accompli for the March 14 budget deadline (or possibly just because of hubris). This is the plan that could plausibly be helped by pliant judges, but in order for this plan to succeed, the process has to work; if services get disrupted (services people care about, not USAID), it probably won’t be “sufficiently popular and robust”.
Losing in court was always the plan (after all, it was obvious they would do so), so there’s minimal actual disruption, and either (a) Trump positions himself as a fighter who’s being stymied by activist judges and the deep state, and leverages that reputation to negotiate for the powers/policy that he actually wants, or (b) everyone is busy fighting about the obviously illegal stuff and he “gets away” with the stuff he actually can do by executive fiat (notably, immigration and tariffs, two of his apparently durable policy goals, would probably fall in this category).
I certainly don’t think I have the Hot Goss pinned down on this, so I am not super-confident in this to caveat, but anyway:
but I honestly don’t see how any sort of durable policy change could be accomplished this way. Anything substantive he could do this way could be rolled back by the next president and presumably would be if it was unpopular
This is imo a sketchy model to project onto politicians - everything they do can be rolled back by the next administration. You can’t escape that so it doesn’t shape you all that much. And meanwhile “what is popular and unpopular in levels that are relevant” is quite opaque, certainly 4 years away from the election. Most administrations structurally understand that they are going to do some mix of “appeasing the voters” and “pursuing their agenda” and future predictions just aren’t gonna be solid on any of it. This is why you see massive attacks on USAID (something with minimal domestic constituencies) but Trump emphasizing no cuts to Medicare. That is the “play” they are making.
From that I think the Trump admin is not only willing to eat some heat from voters for priority goals, I think almost all admins are. Additionally, you don’t need much to get “their electoral victory has made the Trump Team overly hubristic when it comes to electoral success and they are drinking their own kool-aid on how polling is useless”, that is an error too common to mention.
He could destroy a lot of institutional expertise, but I don’t think “wreck the federal civil service” is a likely policy goal for him.
On this I agree in a general sense. He isn’t a libertarian after all, Trump generally wants to expand the government. Though I do think there are coalitional things at play where X% of this is some form of “wreck the government/own the libs”, but we can set that aside.
Re: the two plans, for the first one that loops back to “what is success”, so to tackle the second there is maybe an X% truth here but I am skeptical it is much because like it just isn’t gonna work right? Judges don’t “get distracted” they have dockets for a reason, Congress is eye-rolling a lot of this right now, and Trump is getting dinged in the polls over this stuff. It is just a lot of work for a purely symbolic branding exercise that doesn’t have a lot of payoff.
So I think that loops back to the first one, where “success” is not some mythical reductions in waste spending to close the deficit. That is obvious fiction and I do not believe enough of the admin is that stupid. I also don’t think that federal staffing levels will move that much, because these guys again aren’t libertarians and don’t want a smaller government and seem to be putting very little work into actual mass-scale deregulatory measures (ofc you will get the typical Republican shifts). Particularly once you use the real numbers of federal staffers that includes all the contractors, because at this point the federal government outsources half of its workload and a government job doesn’t mythically go away because a private company is signing the W-2’s.
Instead my current working model is that this is just a good old-fashioned purge? If you get a ton of federal workers to quit or fire them, you can replace them with your own people. That is why they are trying to make as many jobs political appointees as possible, and get people “out the door” very quickly consensually (a court can’t compel someone to take a job after all), and all that. They want it for a lot of reasons - corruption, for one - but a big one is that they do actually believe all that Deep State stuff, because when you strip away the emotional baggage “the federal workforce is hostile to the goals of the Trump Admin and the wider New Right” is completely true. I won’t go deeper on this sort of “democratic vs technocratic government” topic here, but this seems like a perfectly coherent goal - reshape the permanent civil service and replace it with political appointees, aligned contractors, and a new crop of core servants on your team.
And it is a goal that courts will interfere with, if they were more aligned they absolutely would be able to reshape it more!
I think the goal is pretty simple: find enemies to attack. Trump feels stronger when he is attacking an enemy, so he needs to create enemies to go after. This feeds his ego, and satisfies the right-wing need for focusing their anger on something. Who’s the enemy? That’s where Musk and the Heritage Foundation come in! They have a ready-made list of enemies whom they’ve hated for quite some time now (they’ve told us all about it) so just attack DEI, foreign aid, deep-state operatives, the administrative state, whatever. If someone opposes the attack, they get added to the list! Medium-term goal is to get all of their destructive acts legitimized, but they haven’t reached the limits of their short-term goals yet so they will keep up the current attacks until they stop benefitting from them.
I do think there is a pop theory of presidential power in which they can do Cool Stuff but only if they are sufficiently Tough and Manly, so so that ends up being the main differentiating factor between presidents as perceived by the common moron aka swing voter, who really does believe that there is a big lever for setting gas prices in the oval office but most presidents are too scared to pull it.
During the height of the British punk movement in 1977, a feral hog nicknamed “Sid Bristles” became a regular fixture at underground London venues. This 300-pound swine would sneak into shows and enthusiastically headbang to the music, creating a circular mosh pit around itself. Local punks began bringing offerings of stale beer and day-old chips, which Sid would delicately eat while nodding along to power chords. The Clash allegedly wrote a song about this moshing hog called “Pork and Revolution” - though it was never released because, according to Mick Jones, the demo tape was “eaten by a mysterious animal”.
Not at all, if you look carefully there are a few subtle distinctions:
Wait what’s the movie? That sounds really fun actually
Jealous Gods, it’s on Vimeo and YouTube, the YouTube one has subs and if anyone knows how to apply them to the Vimeo version please let me know cuz I’m fed up with Google/YouTube for their unfathomable ad shit and now for sucking Trump’s dick about the Gulf of MEXICO and the subbed version is the only reason I remain.
this isn’t something you can rly say in polite company but it’s true. if you’re trans or from some other marginalised community then a lot of people have wanted you dead. some have tried, in one way or another, to make that happen. you beat them and i’m proud of you
lots of my returning clients told me part of why they like commissioning me is because i keep communicating with them about their commissions while a lot of other artists made them feel anxious about whether their commission is actually being worked on or not so… tips for artist about how to communicate with your clients:
you dont have to give them an update of your wip everyday but everytime you work on it make sure to give a screenshot to send to your client. even if it’s not much, it still gives the client a sense of comfort knowing that their commission isn’t being forgotten
giving updates on wip also give your client a chance to ask for changes early on instead of regretting it later after the piece is already completed, especially since sometimes clients only have a vague idea of what they want and only realized what they really want after the wip give them the inspiration
if you find yourself unable to work on your commission for a while, inform your client immediately. give a time estimate if you can. from my experience reasonable clients don’t mind waiting, they just get agitated if there’s no contact at all
if you can’t actually do the commission it’s best to be upfront and offer a refund instead of waiting for your client to ask what’s up. taking initiatives cultivate trust that makes people come back to you to order more art. i know some people feel awkward and anxious about this but trust me it’ll be worse to string your client along than just admit to the truth.
as for people who commission artists: don’t be afraid to ask for updates of your commissioned piece if there’s been three weeks* without contact. you paid for it so you’re entitled to know what’s going on.
*non dm communications can be less frequent but you should still update your clients
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