Attribution: IlNat, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Featuring The Fabulous Dadbots: Mark M., Dave S., Mark O., Dennis C., John K., Michael D.,
and Geoff Carter
A calculus max min term as we all know…🤓
…and No, I’m not referring to exactly when Ohtani’s 3rd jack started to fall. Before I begin, I want to sincerely thank MO for getting the gang together this summer. ‘Twas a beautiful season for the proletariat, the zen master, miz the wiz, etc… and great to kick off that playoff run in late June. Go Jays!
At some point, the camel’s back is going to break and something is going to happen. First the straws then the predictions:
Straws:
- All the faux indictments.
- Attacking the ‘Venezuela Navy”.
- The one that had my fellow sorters at the thrift store literally SOL (screaming…) yesterday—the self-award lawsuit for $230M (everyone is aware that the judges who defended him will be deciding if he gets it)—not that he needed that, but that detail both galvanizes the resistance and creates a steep grade of dissonance for the Mike Johnson’s of the world. BTW, fun to listen to him squirm when asked about it…all sorts of twitchy body language..then… “have to learn more…” I did hear the President say he MIGHT give it away to charity,…look, the president is always being attacked”. That MIGHT word really caught my ear. Kissing the ring…semper fi…camel’s back still intact…for now.
- These, not so young, racist Republicans’ Telegraph chat exposed. Reprehensible how JD Vance tried to whisk it away…(“college kids”…uhmm…in their 30s).
- More but I’m stopping there…(I need a character count max ticker)
Something predictions:
- Mamdani wins NY Mayor. Ok, not a big something…liberal island, but something. BTW: In today’s Times Conversation article one of the writers likens Zohran’s stands to the sewer socialist—Milwaukee Mayor Don Hoan—recently referenced by one of the ‘bots above. (raise hand). I didn’t catch his last name then. A politician that built bridges…and got one named after him.
- These No Kings Marches, (I’m guilty of not attending one yet), will turn ugly at some point.
- Acts of increasing serious levels of civil disobedience (e.g. protestors clogging freeways) and violence will emerge. Events like the $230M cash grab will push people over the edge.
- Some Rs are going to break file—this one not as near term—they’ll only do this after more serious cracks emerge.
-d.
Thank you, kind sir. That particular Brewer game will be hard to top, but perhaps we can try to in the next rotation round the sun. It was a great season with a disappointing end. Clearly the Crew needed another bat or two on their playoff roster. Maybe they can squeeze a few nickels out of the owner’s purse this off-season to address that.
As to B., there has been some ugliness at the No Kings rallies already. What I’ve seen are essentially arguments between folks who want them to be strictly anti-Trump in nature and those who believe in a more wholesale reform or even dismantling of the American capitalist system. Normies vs. radicals you might say. The organizers (Indivisible, etc) would prefer the former, the kids largely for the latter. I think it’s a healthy and necessary debate to have. Anything would be better than the situation we’re now in, but is returning to Democratic politics that delivered us to Trump (twice) the answer? We better figure this thing out pretty quick. Could we possibly bond behind a 21st century sewer socialist approach?
MarkO
I’m fond of the maxim, “If something can’t go on forever, then it has to stop.” A recent application might be the Gaza conflict that started with the October 7th attacks. And thus it may be with his Trumpiness.
I’m not in favor of dismantling. Maybe it’s cuz I got it pretty cushy. But my kids aren’t getting the financial and security perks that I enjoyed in my corporate career. One result: they are pissed off at politics in general, just disgusted and not interested in talking about it at all.
Dave, you left the Golden Ballroom off your list. It’s kind of the cherry on top of the entire shit sundae.
I spent many many hours listening to Mike Duncan’s “Revolutions” podcast. It covered, in detail, the history of seven or eight Western hemisphere revolutions: English, American, Haitian, French (a couple of those), Mexican, and Russian. Are there parallels in some of those with the US today? Sure. But there was no revolution which transpired against the backdrop of such a wealthy and powerful nation as we have. Our situation is sui generis (I have always wanted to use a bit of fanciness in a sentence!).
The most relevant parallel that I can think of is the situation in France before their decade long convulsion, starting in 1789. I’m not referring to the drastic wealth inequality, hungry peasants living alongside rich nobles. What I’m thinking of is the absolute political paralysis that gripped the nation. Everyone, from the King to the nobles to the army to the clergy to the shopkeepers, artisans, and peasants, KNEW that drastic reform was needed. But the monarch was not strong enough to impose his will, for even the mildest reform, over the privileged gentry and clergy. The tax situation alone was absurdly regressive, and its noble benefactors refused to budge. This paralysis was the top pressed down on top of the boiling tea kettle. Eventually it had to blow, via avenues that did end runs AROUND and THROUGH conventional politics.
The paralysis of our political system is similar to that. There is no way for our political system to handle ANY hard problem, be it immigration, entitlements, or health care. (Trump has actually addressed immigration, but not via conventional politics. He simply went full authoritarian.)
What will relieve the growing pressure of unrelenting political paralysis? My guess is a severe economic downturn, exacerbated by reckless Federal debt. The markets can’t accept the growing fiscal craziness. At some point… it can’t go on forever, and so it has to stop.
MM
Interesting. And fancy! Re the markets boiling point and debt. Not a strong believer in what I’m about to say—not smart enough. With that caveat—and many metaphors:
The markets have a ton of capacity. There is so much wealth stored up in people that as long as there is hope of a bigger fire (ROI), folks will keep digging into their wood piles and tossing logs on the fire. The key is innovation and right now AI is sitting atop of so many things. Presently, everyone is soooo worried about the AI bubble. Even Jamie Dimon.(JP Morgan chief). But your bot analyst is here to set the matter straight. Yes, there will be various start ups whose bubble bursts. (Rigetti, Palantir, D Wave, IonQ—there are dozens of firms with spectacular P/E ratio. Our NWM financial expert can correct me, but spectacular is not a good word here, rather, firms whose price is based on potential not proven production. Lots of ratios out there that are unprecedented.
However, IMO there are plenty of these and many are going to bear fruit. Tons of fruit. Zucchini in September. AI, because it is an accelerant to EVERY sub silo market out there will fill our gardens with hope. A mild wide bottomless pit of hope/growth…such that debts are never called in—by the people who own it. These people, (whatever their statehood), are fat and happy on their ROIs. As long as the fire is hot…toss another log on it.
While you’re at it, go out to the car and change the tire…cook me up some bacon and some beans.
Please shoot that down with weapons of your choice,
Dave.
Zucchini in September. An apt analogy. Who wants it?
Oh, yah, I love the idea of AI assisting in finding cancer drugs. Who doesn’t want that? But in general it fills me with dread.
My point on “can’t go on forever” is not the overvalued stock market, but the looming debt crisis. All the ROI in the world won’t help with that… as long as we are unwilling to tax that wealth to pay our govt bills.
One more log on your itemized fire of Trumpian sticks breaking the camel’s back (mixing my metaphors). Aircraft carrier group to the Caribbean. Yikes. Not looking forward to our impending bombing campaign against Venezuela.
It’s funny. Your point about impending No Kings violence — I just heard that at my breakfast table today. Can’t say I disagree.
MM
Hey bots,
I was at the No Kings Protest in Milwaukee this past weekend and there was nothing even near violence. Taking our cue from Portland, we had a lot of inflatables (no furries, thank God), a guy in an inflatable Trump suit on stage who reminded me of Chris Farley but who was not nearly as good. Fifteen or sixteen thousand well-behaved patriots. So far, so good—but people being what they are, you’re right—something’s gonna snap.
Of course, Trump’s juvenile reaction to the demonstration was eminently predictable. I can just imagine he and Steven Miller and Russell Vought putting together that AI.
“Yeah, a jet! A fighter jet!”
“Put a crown on the side!”
“Don’t put the mask over my nose! You idiots!”
“We’ll go over the crowds, but we can’t bomb them.”
“Why not?”
“Let’s dump something on them.”
“Food. Food fight. Drop Big Macs on them.”
“No. No, I got it! Poop! Drop diarrhea all over them.”
“With corn, man! With corn!”
And so forth. God, I hated teaching middle school. Of course, Trump lashed back even more. I’m sure the optics of seven million people—twenty-two solid NYC blocks of marchers—pissed him off mightily. Enough to start wrecking the East Wing. If that doesn’t get more people out on the streets, I don’t know what will.
G
Hello Bots,
Yes, The No Kings event was very heartening. Not only were the crowd sizes impressive, but I loved the upbeat spirit of the march. I’m not sure some of the animals who turned out weren’t furries. But I’m not one to “yuck” anyone’s “yum” as they say.
Hilarious image of Trump and his tech-bro interns cooking up the lame prompts for their AI slop. Considering the asinine stuff that comes out of his mouth in public, one can only imagine what he says when he thinks no-one’s listening. If someone in his inner circle had the cognitive wherewithal and shred of self-awareness they’d secretly record his unguarded musings for posterity.
MD
Hey bots,
Good point about preserving the idiocy for prosperity. Didn’t someone make a book of poetry out of some of Donald Rumsfeld’s quotes during the Bush administration? Yes. I just googled it, and the work, compiled by Hart Seeley, was entitled: Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld.
Here’s one of Rumsfeld’s gems:
Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns – the ones we don’t know we don’t know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, it is the latter category that tend to be the difficult ones.
—D. Rumsfeld
He’s sort of like a malignant Yogi Berra. Of course, our present administration’s book would probably be a soiled version of Captain Underpants.
G
I love the “malignant Yogi Berra” line! And I was no lover of Rumsfeld. His “you go to war with the army you have, not the army you would wish to have” line was uniquely obtuse.
But I kind of like the “known unknowns” and “unknown unknowns” taxonomy.
Rumsfeld claims in that quote that unknown unknowns have proven to be the worst threats to American security. But, even though I like the classification, I am having trouble coming up with an example. (Of course, to come up with an example would require that the unknown has become known. Hmm.)
(BTW, you don’t have to indulge this rumination. I’m a bot and bots sometimes go haywire.)
To many Americans, the 9/11 suicide plane attacks were an unknown unknown. We had never stopped to consider that primitive weapons (box cutters) could be used to hijack a plane; that terrorists would happily destroy themselves in a spectacular attack; and that hatred and anger at America was so great as to motivate these attacks! So for the man on the street, this was a u-u. And I remember the Bush administration using some of that logic in their own defense. But really, that was hogwash. The national security establishment was well aware of all those possibilities. Failure to protect America from 9/11 was a mistake that Bush never did have to pay for. Even though the head of the CIA was running around with his “hair on fire” in the weeks before 9/11.
I suppose that the US atom bomb might have been a u-u to Japan. They had no idea we were developing a super weapon or that such a super weapon could exist! Germany knew— they had their own small nuke program. But I would wager that the Japanese military rulers had little to no insight into the Manhattan Project.
MM
Hell, we can’t even deal with the known knowns in this country anymore. Partly because we can no longer agree on what are known knowns. Substitute the term unknown for known, anywhere in the sequence, and we’re totally f**ked.
MarkO
I too love Rummy’s logic and non sequiturs. It definitely has a “when you come to a fork in the road, take it” quality.
I would venture that 9/11 was an unknown unknown to almost everyone. I agree with Mark that the national security apparatus knew something was up, but they likely had no idea the terrorists would use jet planes as lethal bombs. Dubya seemed to have no idea given his first reaction while reading to the school kids. I think 9/11 led to a series of known/unknown scenarios with questionable choices made. I can imagine Rummy and Cheney discussing Iraq during the invasion planning. “If there’s a 1’% chance they have WMD, we gotta go in”. Maybe it was an excuse to take Saddam out.
Donald Trump descending his golden escalator at Trump Tower prior to the 2016 primary season seems like a U U on the surface. What the hell? Who knew what hell hath wrought? Remember the way he treated Gary Busey on You’re Fired? Lordy, who would even consider that guy for president other than Homer Simpson.
John
I think there are very few possible lethalities that haven’t been examined at Fort Bragg (Special Forces school) or Fort Benning (School of the Americas). One of the Saudi masterminds of 9/11 was trained here in lethal tactics when he was a “friendly” Mujahadeen and one of the lessons was on how to hijack a plane using, you guessed it–box cutters.
MarkO
John,
Trump is an excellent example of an unknown unknown — and one that is most definitely threatening the security of the US. Who knew? Maybe Steve Bannon. But yes, he was definitely a surprise. Not on anybody’s bingo card, as the cliche goes. Rummy was right, I guess.
How about COVID? Not really. Epidemiologists were well aware of the possibility of a pandemic. And we had recently dodged an earlier bullet with SARS— a much more deadly disease, but one that didn’t transmit to others until AFTER symptoms appeared. Now, with Trump decimating the ranks of public health, it’s more likely that a future pandemic will take us unawares. But even then it won’t be a u-u.
I thought of another. When Scott Walker unleashed Act 10 on Wisconsin. I was utterly shocked to learn of the deep abiding animosity carried by so many citizens, against that most dreadful of villains— the public school teacher. It was an unknown unknown to me. What the hell?
MM
Hey bots,
So, existentially, if something—like extraterrestrial life or Trump saying something intelligent—can be imagined, isn’t it known? At least on a subconscious level? Or does knowledge have to be empirically based? If not, Rummy’s “unknown unknowns” are not only outside our experience, but outside anything we might think of. If that’s the case, Mark’s right: 9/11 was known, or at least acknowledged as a possibility, but on at least a scientific theoretical subatomic level, the atomic bomb was also a possibility, a known.
I don’t think a true unknown unknown can be defined until we experience it–just like pornography. We know it when we see it. Of course, then it’s no longer an unknown. Was Trump’s second presidency a unknown unknown? I think the depth of his avarice and depravity, and the quivering mass of spineless jelly that is the Republican party, were unknowns—or at least partly knowns.
I think we all knew that an autocratic takeover of America was possible, but not an unknown. Maybe in our complacency and arrogance, we considered it impossible, but we’re being proven wrong every day, every minute.
As Yogi said, “The future ain’t what it used to be.”
G
You know what a true unknown unknown is? The dadbot discussion of epistemology according to Donald Rumsfeld. Who’d have guessed?
G
My interpretation of unknown unknowns are those things that are possible but beyond our imagination capabilities at any point in time. A mere citizen such as myself has limited mental bandwidth, so I have a huge universe of u-u’s, while the U.S. intelligence services with their enormous budgets for big brain data analysis and gaming capabilities have relatively few u-u’s.
I must correct my previous post about box cutter hijacking. I reviewed my source material, and it was not a Saudi who was trained here in that tactic but an Egyptian born U.S. Army Special Forces member named Ali Muhammed. Mr. M was dispatched to Afghanistan where he trained the Saudis surrounding Osama Bin Laden in that technique (and many others from the Fort Bragg training manuals). The moral being the same, what goes around comes around (I’m sure Yogi has a clever aphorism for that).
MarkO
Trying me bot best to “clever up”…but chuckling too hard to come up w/ fresh (u/u) material. Okay got one:
The 8-6-2 double play. Someone sent me a still of Frelick’s crazed look—in the moment–next to Jack Nicholson’s in The Shining.
DS
Oh man, I hear ya Dave about clevering-up. There’s some excellent bot pondering here about ol’ Rummy and philosophification about known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns… hmmm. But are there also unknown knowns? Oooof. It taxes me simple bot programming.
DC
Good one, Dave. Frelick kind of looks like a Mafia hitman when he’s calm… that was a Nicholson moment.
G