I was banned for 3 days in 2023 though, so I wonder if its the same fucking photo I challenged and (eventually) got overturned. Of course at the moment I can't remember what the fuck that photo was either.

Well, welcome to 2024, where no strength of corrective lens will allow me to see more than blurs out of my left eye!

So... I'm finally getting cataracts removed from that eye. It will either happen after an eye exam with the surgeon tomorrow, or he might make the call to schedule it out after looking at me.

I'll still end up paying out the ass if I want more than basic lens replacement, but either way it will be nice to be able to see again. Any time I try to look at any fine print lately I feel like I'm 80 years old, and a magnifying glass doesn't help anymore.

Goddamn kids, get off my lawn!
....What do you mean those are lawn gnomes? They look like kids from here!

Also, hello.

Before:

After:

Did anyone ever figure out if it was a boy or a girl?

Yes. THAT Anita Bryant.

Ugh.

But anyway. While reading I realized that I was both in awe of how much creativity I had, but also ashamed about how shitty some of the things I said was. Which made me wonder what type of things changed my mind.

From there I thought about the old "Do you fold or crumple when you wipe your ass" debate we had that went like 20 pages. I think it even had a few discussions on if you stood up or just lifted a cheek to wipe. I have to admit... that forum thread absolutely made me change how I wiped my ass.

So, did any discussion on Pen ever change your opinion? Did anything here ever change your behavior outside of Pen? Or even how you presented things?

hey punks. howzit?

Anyways, MAGA and Woke. The press has been covering the absurd ideas of the MAGA political lump. I don't need to go into it, and in any case, I don't have the energy. The press doesn't spend nearly as much time covering the absurd ideas of the Woke political lump, but they are just as bad. I spent years here and on associated sites talking about that, and I mostly received hatred for it. I don't have the energy to rehash it.

Thing is, there have to be a lot of people that aren't in either of the said political lumps who realize just how crazy those in them are. I've long estimated that about half the American population is nuts, broadly defined, but that still leaves half that isn't. My best guess is that they have been keeping their heads down for fear of being cancelled in one way or another.

The hope for the future is that the sanes will eventually work together to marginalize the crazies, but first-past-the-post voting makes political realignments take time. The present political split means that the sanes need to accommodate the crazies rather than hand them Binkies and put them in their playpens. Of course, some of the sanes are happy to use the crazies for their own benefit. "Why, another capital gains tax cut is just what we need."

During the rise of the internet, I had hopes for democracy. The net is the greatest information dispersal tool ever, and it provides essentially free forum space for thoughtful persons to discuss that information. A quarter of a century on, that dream has been dashed. In terms of public policy, most people use the internet to find echo chambers to support their biases, not to learn.

So the Founders were right. Democracy in its purer form still isn't going to work well. There needs to be insulation from the mob in order to get decent government. If we are lucky, we will get a realignment some time in the next several political cycles, but the sanes will need to step up.

On the other hand, if we are unlucky, the United States and the world are nowadays extremely wealthy in historical terms. That should give us insurance from disaster if the crazies remain influential.

Zippy and Monju at the PenHouse in Portland. Zippy had relocated to portland for a internship and Monju at the time was still a PDX resident. Date: ehhh 2003?

What ever happened to visualizations? I have bounced from Amazon to YouTube music to Spotify to Tidal (tidal sucks) but now back to Spotify and I just want to have Spotify playing on my PS5 with winamp visualisations

Or even windows media player visualizations

I don't care at this point

~~

Hope everyone is feeling good and happy.

Oh darn. I wonder how many posts I have defending this piece of crap on one one of the old forum instances...

That said, I wasn't part of the crowd that thought he was suddenly suffering from dementia after the debate, but rather that he was just acting like an 80-something year old man. Which was, quite frankly, a concern.

So... I was fine with Harris stepping in. Not happy with the pick, but fine with it. She'll be fine. Especially since she didn't pick the candidate everyone was pushing her to... Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania. He had some skeletons in his closet and probably would have lost her the tenuous support of some of the anti-Netanyahu folks.

Speaking of the VP pick... what does everyone think of Tim Walz? He probably doesn't give Harris any leverage in battleground states.

My own opinion is that at least he doesn't hurt Harris at all. He isn't just boring centrist/conservative Democrat like Tim Kaine or 2000-era Lieberman either. However, I'm not sure if he does anything for Harris's ticket unless he really blows away J.D. Vance in a debate. Which... well, maybe he will.

Honestly, the only thing better would be if this post was actually used in his custody hearing.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I first saw this guy on the Joe Rogan show. I thought he was interesting. I neither condemn nor endorse his opinions.

In other news, got an invite code if anyone wants one.

Its still run by a horrible billionaire and has the usual privacy concerns and social media problems. But at least its not Twitter.