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Northern Ireland26036 Posts
On August 09 2025 08:34 Gahlo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2025 07:48 WombaT wrote:On August 09 2025 07:01 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
I’ve played Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons, both hobbies with a larger than usual player population of queer and trans individuals.
I can assure you that trans people don’t give a fuck if you accidentally misgender them and I have literally never seen anyone use any pronoun more unusual than they/them. They do fuck around with people who are openly malicious towards them.
Maybe Blackjack needs to hang with people who aren’t yanking his chain or hide his disgust for trans people better because it sounds like they're giving him shit. Warhammer 40K too for, some reason. Disproportionate numbers of both trans folks, as well as mask off Neo-Fascists, ah well you win some you lose some. I’ve always wondered about the former, there doesn’t seem any obvious reason for it. The latter makes a ton of sense, such types tend to gravitate to such media and completely miss the ‘it’s not supposed to be aspirational’ aspect. See also - Judge Dredd, the Punisher Being an outcast tends to steer you in the direction of what other outcasts are doing. There's less reason to gatekeep in those communities, especially when it's something that requires other people to take part in it, because overly gatekeeping means there isn't one. It's really that simple.
Warhammer isn’t crazy huge, but equally it’s no longer niche enough to really be some haven for outcasts
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On August 09 2025 08:38 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2025 08:34 Gahlo wrote:On August 09 2025 07:48 WombaT wrote:On August 09 2025 07:01 Hat Trick of Today wrote:
I’ve played Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons, both hobbies with a larger than usual player population of queer and trans individuals.
I can assure you that trans people don’t give a fuck if you accidentally misgender them and I have literally never seen anyone use any pronoun more unusual than they/them. They do fuck around with people who are openly malicious towards them.
Maybe Blackjack needs to hang with people who aren’t yanking his chain or hide his disgust for trans people better because it sounds like they're giving him shit. Warhammer 40K too for, some reason. Disproportionate numbers of both trans folks, as well as mask off Neo-Fascists, ah well you win some you lose some. I’ve always wondered about the former, there doesn’t seem any obvious reason for it. The latter makes a ton of sense, such types tend to gravitate to such media and completely miss the ‘it’s not supposed to be aspirational’ aspect. See also - Judge Dredd, the Punisher Being an outcast tends to steer you in the direction of what other outcasts are doing. There's less reason to gatekeep in those communities, especially when it's something that requires other people to take part in it, because overly gatekeeping means there isn't one. It's really that simple. Warhammer isn’t crazy huge, but equally it’s no longer niche enough to really be some haven for outcasts
Warhammer got a lot bigger over the lockdown, at least over here, it hasn't had long outside of its niche status. Now there's more visibility on it and trans people are seeing that they're already represented in those communities, so there's less apprehension in joining.
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On August 09 2025 08:11 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2025 08:04 Razyda wrote:This is massive win for Trump: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/guaranteeing-fair-banking-for-all-americans/"Within 180 days of the date of this order, each appropriate Federal banking regulator shall, to the greatest extent permitted by law, remove the use of reputation risk or equivalent concepts that could result in politicized or unlawful debanking, as well as any other considerations that could be used to engage in such debanking, from their guidance documents, manuals, and other materials (other than existing regulations or other materials requiring notice-and-comment rulemaking) used to regulate or examine financial institutions over which they have jurisdiction." It's an executive order. How is the president signing an executive order a massive win for himself? I mean... didn't the massive win happen last year when he won the election to become president and do this kinda thing? In addition, it just doesn't seem like a big deal. But I'm sure Nigel Farage will be delighted.
"How is the president signing an executive order a massive win for himself?" - because this one will be very popular.
"In addition, it just doesn't seem like a big deal." - It is. As of now bank account is pretty much essential utility (like water for example). Usually best test is to think "what would I think if it was happening other way around?" So what would you say if Trump strongarm banks into debanking people for liberal views?
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United States43232 Posts
On August 09 2025 08:11 Acrofales wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2025 08:04 Razyda wrote:This is massive win for Trump: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/guaranteeing-fair-banking-for-all-americans/"Within 180 days of the date of this order, each appropriate Federal banking regulator shall, to the greatest extent permitted by law, remove the use of reputation risk or equivalent concepts that could result in politicized or unlawful debanking, as well as any other considerations that could be used to engage in such debanking, from their guidance documents, manuals, and other materials (other than existing regulations or other materials requiring notice-and-comment rulemaking) used to regulate or examine financial institutions over which they have jurisdiction." It's an executive order. How is the president signing an executive order a massive win for himself? I mean... didn't the massive win happen last year when he won the election to become president and do this kinda thing? In addition, it just doesn't seem like a big deal. But I'm sure Nigel Farage will be delighted.
It identifies as a massive win.
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On August 09 2025 09:06 Razyda wrote:
So what would you say if Trump strongarm banks into debanking people for liberal views?
Like what he's doing to universities?
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Northern Ireland26036 Posts
On August 09 2025 10:22 LightSpectra wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2025 09:06 Razyda wrote:
So what would you say if Trump strongarm banks into debanking people for liberal views? Like what he's doing to universities?
Lol, lmao.
Look you’ve got increased freedom to host genuinely reprehensible shit, so it’s freedom. Protest against Israel I mean, nah shit’s not cool fam. But that’s fair, it’s anti-Semitic
I personally think it’s great that Mastercard could potentially be obligated to keep Stormfront running, I mean freedom of speech doesn’t at all encompass freedom to wilfully associate.
It’s great, Trump’s bringing freedom of speech back!
/s /s /s /s
Bunch of fucking clowns, supported by even bigger fucking clowns.
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If only there was someone that was warning people for years while Biden was leaning on social media sites to ban anti-vaxxers or Trudeau was freezing the bank accounts of protestors that, "you're not going to like it when the other side is back in the white house."
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On August 09 2025 11:21 BlackJack wrote:
If only there was someone that was warning people for years while Biden was leaning on social media sites to ban anti-vaxxers or Trudeau was freezing the bank accounts of protestors that, "you're not going to like it when the other side is back in the white house."
Freezing them was much less of a punishment than enforcing the law. It was made into some massive deal by your media. They were wildly unpopular people in Ottawa, this is why Poilievre lost his long term conservative riding in Ottawa. Instead of protesting, they blocked all streets so the local businesses already hurting from covid lost all their revenue. Many shutdown due to it.
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Northern Ireland26036 Posts
On August 09 2025 11:21 BlackJack wrote:
If only there was someone that was warning people for years while Biden was leaning on social media sites to ban anti-vaxxers or Trudeau was freezing the bank accounts of protestors that, "you're not going to like it when the other side is back in the white house."
If only.
I do vaguely recall someone saying such things at the time, but when the shoe was on the other foot thinks crazy leftists complaining about Sydney Sweeney is more worthy of comment than like, all that other stuff.
‘Hey I was right about x, but I show no inkling to actually give a shit about x’ really isn’t the flex you think it is
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On August 09 2025 11:40 WombaT wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2025 11:21 BlackJack wrote:
If only there was someone that was warning people for years while Biden was leaning on social media sites to ban anti-vaxxers or Trudeau was freezing the bank accounts of protestors that, "you're not going to like it when the other side is back in the white house." If only. I do vaguely recall someone saying such things at the time, but when the shoe was on the other foot thinks crazy leftists complaining about Sydney Sweeney is more worthy of comment than like, all that other stuff. ‘Hey I was right about x, but I show no inkling to actually give a shit about x’ really isn’t the flex you think it is
Show me the defenders of Trump targeting universities over supposed anti-semitic speech and I will go after them. They don't exist here. Just because I don't like to have imaginary arguments against hypothetical conservatives that don't visit this site doesn't mean I don't give a shit about X.
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United States43232 Posts
I particularly like the idea that Trump and conservatives wouldn’t be doing this if it wasn’t for X. As if their entire political ideology wasn’t using state power to punish those they perceive as a threat to their institutional power. As if there’s some new level they could sink to that they previously had too much integrity to resort to.
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On August 09 2025 11:44 BlackJack wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2025 11:40 WombaT wrote:On August 09 2025 11:21 BlackJack wrote:
If only there was someone that was warning people for years while Biden was leaning on social media sites to ban anti-vaxxers or Trudeau was freezing the bank accounts of protestors that, "you're not going to like it when the other side is back in the white house." If only. I do vaguely recall someone saying such things at the time, but when the shoe was on the other foot thinks crazy leftists complaining about Sydney Sweeney is more worthy of comment than like, all that other stuff. ‘Hey I was right about x, but I show no inkling to actually give a shit about x’ really isn’t the flex you think it is Show me the defenders of Trump targeting universities over supposed anti-semitic speech and I will go after them. They don't exist here. Just because I don't like to have imaginary arguments against hypothetical conservatives that don't visit this site doesn't mean I don't give a shit about X.
I'll just use this post to make another point.
I'm all for deporting foreign students who blockade universities or take over buildings, set up camps, or say blatantly antisemitic things. That's where the hard part of the line is. Tufts girl, probably not. Mahmoud Khalil, probably yes. I'm not sure that even 10 years ago any country would have put up with the types of things these people are saying and doing.
There's also the issue of non-compliance with civil rights laws, ala things like discrimination against Asians.
I will point out though that you are right. The legal statutes the Trump administration is doing this are ones that the left explicitly wanted, because they wanted to use them to go after schools for their own things. See cases like Bob Jones University v. United States. But also to hear people who were pro banning COVID "misinformation" complain about censorship is....
But your warning will always fall on deaf ears, because as KwarK below you demonstrates, there are people out there who believe that once they got institutional power, were never going to lose it. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they find out the don't like it. No lessons will be learned though. The left controls all the relevant institutions part of this discussion for decades and yet they still whine about abusing institutional power.
What happened were two things. First, the left finally pushed far enough for long enough that the right stopped considering the alignment of higher education and other institutions as something to be lived with and started seeing it as detrimental. I will bring up again Buckley's God and Man at Yale. It took us a LONG time to get here.
Second, Trump spent four years fighting the government he oversaw as they decided that he wasn't legitimate enough to have his policies carried out. It started before he was even sworn in with Russiagate. Now that he is back, and had 4 years to think about what he wanted to do and got a growing coterie of advisors and ideas people, he's decided that if the bureaucracy and these other institutions were going to go to war with him, then he was going to go to war with them. They played a dangerous game and lost. The lefties that control these places think it's their God-given right. It is not. And it's not fun to imagine what happens when the side that normally errs on the side of preserving the status quo decides maybe it's not worth preserving. Of course that's not to endorse everything that is done or how it is done (as I have said before) but the problem and underlying reason is right there, but correcting it would require a little humility from those who haven't had to practice it in their lifetimes.
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On August 08 2025 22:06 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2025 20:02 Sermokala wrote:
Also my uncle is alive because he got an mrna shot to treat his cancer. That is fantastic. I'm glad your uncle is alive. Is it the only treatment he got? Is he the only one that got it? Because obviously the US government can't afford $500 million per life saved, so please expand the anecdote or its significance. Show nested quote +On August 08 2025 20:02 Sermokala wrote:
The idea that curing cancer going to profitable to pharma companies is silly. What is this sentence supposed to mean? Are you saying pharma companies are intentionally keeping people sick with cancer to get more money? Or curing cancer would be a loss for them? I don't see how any company that "cured" cancer wouldn't be worth over a trillion dollars overnight. Show nested quote +On August 08 2025 20:02 Sermokala wrote:
The misconception that research dollars invested should be diverted to only known technologies and science is very ignorant and not how any of this works. This is a great rebuttal to something I haven't seen argued. It is a mistake to presuppose that the word "research" necessitates any government anything whatsoever. The research isn't banned, is it? If it's so promising, why does it need public dollars? If it's such a long shot, why would it deserve public dollars? Stuck on level 1 if this can't be answered. Nor is mRNA unknown anyway. Billions of doses worldwide. Should we fund it just because it'd be really nice if it worked out? There are thousands of proposed treatments for everything that have fallen by the wayside. Okay? Cost benefit. For example, it'd be really great if the world had a cheap source of nearly unlimited clean energy. It just so happens I'm working on it, it's called cold fusion. Do I deserve $10 billion in taxpayer funds, maybe not.
Yeah its the only one he got. Why would you think that he was the only one who would receive the treatment? Do you think that there wouldn't be other lives saved through the advancement of mrna shots? My uncle isn't rich or exceptional, but he was able to get a genetically tailored shot of tuberculosis that killed his cancer cells really well. If the funding didn't go through he would have to get radiation therapty and other worse treatments.
Curing cancer through one shot is less profitable than a series of treatments. Yes, it would be less profitable to cure cancer quickly instead of slowly over time. Why would a company be worth trillions of dollars if it only sells a cheap cure to a problem? If the government funds this research instead of a Pharma company that means that the patent can be used for the public good so we can have that cheap cure instead of an expensive series of treatments.
Its exactly what you were arguing. If the government doesn't fund a line of R&D that doesn't show profitability, a private company won't pay for it either. It deserves public dollars beacuse it potentially can be something. The greatest innovations and leaps in science come from public funding of things that don't make sense for a private business to fund. Dwarf wheat, or what you think wheat is, only was discovered to be so good beacuse some random guy was testing every kind of wheat he could find to see what would work best. If you have Cargill funding this research, this technology never makes it to India and pakistan, after Dwarf wheat spread to the subcontinent the wars between them stopped.
Like yeah, if you can make experiments about cold fusion the government should be putting those billiosn to it, it would make everything a lot better. thats how cold fusion has been developed so far. Mrna vaccines were only created beacuse there was such insane funding given to it by the public. Even in the middle of the plague the government had to fund the research to cure it. Was there not enough of a profit motive for big pharma to fund it before the plague? Would it have been great to have mrna tech before it was needed? If it turned out so well for the covid vaccine why didn't the private sector fund the research into it?
Yes cost benifit, great argument. If there was an agency that could generate 3 dollars for every dollar invested should we fund that? If cold fusion only cost 100 billion we should pay that instantly. You only get to cold fusion though by spending money on thousands of lines of research that lead nowhere. One potential line is by generating the fuel in orbit useing solar panels uninhibited by the atmosphere, and then bringing it down to earth.
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On August 09 2025 14:22 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On August 09 2025 11:44 BlackJack wrote:On August 09 2025 11:40 WombaT wrote:On August 09 2025 11:21 BlackJack wrote:
If only there was someone that was warning people for years while Biden was leaning on social media sites to ban anti-vaxxers or Trudeau was freezing the bank accounts of protestors that, "you're not going to like it when the other side is back in the white house." If only. I do vaguely recall someone saying such things at the time, but when the shoe was on the other foot thinks crazy leftists complaining about Sydney Sweeney is more worthy of comment than like, all that other stuff. ‘Hey I was right about x, but I show no inkling to actually give a shit about x’ really isn’t the flex you think it is Show me the defenders of Trump targeting universities over supposed anti-semitic speech and I will go after them. They don't exist here. Just because I don't like to have imaginary arguments against hypothetical conservatives that don't visit this site doesn't mean I don't give a shit about X. I'll just use this post to make another point. I'm all for deporting foreign students who blockade universities or take over buildings, set up camps, or say blatantly antisemitic things. That's where the hard part of the line is. Tufts girl, probably not. Mahmoud Khalil, probably yes. I'm not sure that even 10 years ago any country would have put up with the types of things these people are saying and doing. There's also the issue of non-compliance with civil rights laws, ala things like discrimination against Asians. I will point out though that you are right. The legal statutes the Trump administration is doing this are ones that the left explicitly wanted, because they wanted to use them to go after schools for their own things. See cases like Bob Jones University v. United States. But also to hear people who were pro banning COVID "misinformation" complain about censorship is.... But your warning will always fall on deaf ears, because as KwarK below you demonstrates, there are people out there who believe that once they got institutional power, were never going to lose it. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, they find out the don't like it. No lessons will be learned though. The left controls all the relevant institutions part of this discussion for decades and yet they still whine about abusing institutional power. What happened were two things. First, the left finally pushed far enough for long enough that the right stopped considering the alignment of higher education and other institutions as something to be lived with and started seeing it as detrimental. I will bring up again Buckley's God and Man at Yale. It took us a LONG time to get here. Second, Trump spent four years fighting the government he oversaw as they decided that he wasn't legitimate enough to have his policies carried out. It started before he was even sworn in with Russiagate. Now that he is back, and had 4 years to think about what he wanted to do and got a growing coterie of advisors and ideas people, he's decided that if the bureaucracy and these other institutions were going to go to war with him, then he was going to go to war with them. They played a dangerous game and lost. The lefties that control these places think it's their God-given right. It is not. And it's not fun to imagine what happens when the side that normally errs on the side of preserving the status quo decides maybe it's not worth preserving. Of course that's not to endorse everything that is done or how it is done (as I have said before) but the problem and underlying reason is right there, but correcting it would require a little humility from those who haven't had to practice it in their lifetimes.
while interesting to read your perspective, the gaps left out and more importantly - reality - amply provides a different and damning picture.
Trump always was and is at war with something. mostly himself and his character flaws.
he jumped into the political ring warring and being himself in his purest form on social media. what gained the most traction was Obama's "kenynan" birth certificate. wonder where that old piece of paper went?!
even though being personally close for years with the Clintons, rat-fucking them. not that they would not deserve a bit of lashing mind you, but he saw what the audience craved and he gave it to them. being a nuisance to Billary.
every time he opens his mouth is a testament to him being neither worthy nor legitimate.
Russia gate while certainly overblown, had every right to happen. Trump has been a con man criminal all his life. who bankrupted casinos and has ties to the worst people you will ever hear from.
and embraced them on the campaign trail - because those ties left no other avenues in 2016. the Trump yuck was just too much back then. not anymore alas.
conservatives dying on that hill is something I will never quite understand. you cannot stand for Trump and quote Buckley, even he had standards.
Trump represents corruption more than academia challenging certain beliefs. making a deal with the devil to turn back time - I don't think that's how it works. just ask George Will, one of Buckley's "descendants" if you will.
Russia gate really is an embarrassment to everyone involved in the US more than anything. one side used it as a half arsed cudgel to keep him from office. now funnily enough they won that epic mess of an election, and still Trump is such a sad little man he has to take vengeance.
and conveniently bringing it back - among other things they just churned out for one special reason - due to his close ties to yet again one of the worst people in the Western sphere - Epstein.
it is transparently obvious and looking at a couple of minutes at that press conference where it was announced you can tell even Tulsi's heart is not in it to sell this.
priding himself having "total immunity" - echoing disgraced Nixon "when the president does it it's not illegal". oh why when you are so great?
and spectacularly failing to disguise it as "meritocracy", "culture" and "winning". in the end you will have none of those things with Trump. everything he touches withers and dies.
the damage he does has not reached you yet. it will. not an enviable position being conservative and doing the Trump do or die dance, but they better prepare an exit ramp. giving his policies and age you might not even need to give him a push.
and I am not even talking about Republicans taking more than cheap shots at him.
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United States43232 Posts
Ah yes, the lefties that control the deep state. No wonder Trump has such trouble getting chat gpt to spit out good policies for him.
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now that almost married my keyboard to my coffee. in a shotgun marriage, as coffee left my mouth prematurely and in explosive fashion.
The US Air Force wants to buy Cybertrucks for target practice because they may start showing up on the battlefield
he US Air Force wants to blow up some Cybertrucks.
It's looking to buy two of them to use for munitions testing as they will "likely" soon start appearing on the battlefield, per documents posted on a US Government contracting website on Wednesday.
The pickups are part of a larger order of 33 vehicles for "live missile fire testing" at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
The contract stipulates that the Cybertrucks need only be towable, not functional, and their batteries must be removed. The procurement documents were first reported by the defense blog The War Zone.
In a separate document justifying why the Tesla vehicles were specifically required, the contracting officer said that US adversaries were "likely" to begin using the stainless steel-clad trucks on the battlefield due to their durability.
"In the operating theatre it is likely the type of vehicles used by the enemy may transition to Tesla Cybertrucks as they have been found not to receive the normal extent of damage expected upon major impact," the document says.
The Air Force and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.
you end the EV mandate but buy those hideous, badly engineered an cheaply made man-child Trucks. for target practice.
gloriously spent tax dollars.
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On August 08 2025 22:06 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On August 08 2025 20:02 Sermokala wrote:
Also my uncle is alive because he got an mrna shot to treat his cancer. That is fantastic. I'm glad your uncle is alive. Is it the only treatment he got? Is he the only one that got it? Because obviously the US government can't afford $500 million per life saved, so please expand the anecdote or its significance. Show nested quote +On August 08 2025 20:02 Sermokala wrote:
The idea that curing cancer going to profitable to pharma companies is silly. What is this sentence supposed to mean? Are you saying pharma companies are intentionally keeping people sick with cancer to get more money? Or curing cancer would be a loss for them? I don't see how any company that "cured" cancer wouldn't be worth over a trillion dollars overnight. Show nested quote +On August 08 2025 20:02 Sermokala wrote:
The misconception that research dollars invested should be diverted to only known technologies and science is very ignorant and not how any of this works. This is a great rebuttal to something I haven't seen argued. It is a mistake to presuppose that the word "research" necessitates any government anything whatsoever. The research isn't banned, is it? If it's so promising, why does it need public dollars? If it's such a long shot, why would it deserve public dollars? Stuck on level 1 if this can't be answered. Nor is mRNA unknown anyway. Billions of doses worldwide. Should we fund it just because it'd be really nice if it worked out? There are thousands of proposed treatments for everything that have fallen by the wayside. Okay? Cost benefit. For example, it'd be really great if the world had a cheap source of nearly unlimited clean energy. It just so happens I'm working on it, it's called cold fusion. Do I deserve $10 billion in taxpayer funds, maybe not.
As someone who has worked in both public research (as a PhD student and postdoctoral researcher at universities, and in private research (at various companies), the main difference I've seen between the two has been in the profit motive, which trickles down into many different aspects.
- In private research your goal isn't to find new knowledge. It's to find new knowledge that will bring profit. That means projects tend to be less risky and less long-term. No company would fund an expedition to go and study gila monsters... until someone already had studied them and found that they had an interesting protein. No company would fund research into the properties of graphite (a well-known and frankly boring material), yet that research led to the discovery of graphene. Serendipity like this is far more likely to strike if the research is generally funded to discover new knowledge than if it has a specific measurable goal and will be killed if progress isn't made toward that goal. That's not to say there isn't a lot of excellent research done in private settings. It's just a different kind of research. Alphafold for instance is genius level research that was done with private funding.
- Timelines. Anything that will take decades is unlikely to be picked up by private funding even if the outcome will be lucrative. ITER is an example of a stupidly expensive long-term research project that is still our best hope of harnessing fusion power. Fusion power, if we can get it to work, is the future of clean energy. Clearly that's a very lucrative undertaking if you can master it. It's also still decades of expensive experiments away. Another example of obviously beneficial long-term research: mapping the human genome. Obviously knowing the human genome has already brought a wealth of breakthroughs in medicine. But in 1990 no medical company was going to map it: it takes public funding, because the horizon of this research is just too far away.
- Freedom to fail. I was doubting about including this one, because public funding is pretty harsh for failure as well (can generally not be published as easily, meaning the scientists involved take reputational damage and it's harder to get funding for any follow-up research), and there are plenty of private institutions that take plenty of risk in projects (pharmaceutical research in particular is infamous for how many trials fail before one succeeds). But I still think public research is generally riskier and allows for more failures to be seen through and studied properly. And often it's only through repeated failure that we advance knowledge (and the associated technology growth).
E: and I forgot to connect this back to mRNA research. Do I think public funding is needed for mRNA vaccine research? I don't know. I am not a medical researcher. Nor are you, Sermokala, and most importantly, nor is RFK. Mostly public funding is approved or denied by a panel of established researchers who evaluate the project based on a number of criteria. Some of those criteria are political, but I can't think of any other bans on the use of technology for idealist reasons. The only one that springs to mind was W's ban on stemcell research. And it was criticized by many many people, including myself, at the time. But at least the ethical argument was clear at the time. That argument doesn't even exist in the case of mRNA vaccines. It is a ban based on RFK's personal dislike of the topic. And that is not a reason funding should be cut.
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On August 09 2025 11:21 BlackJack wrote:
If only there was someone that was warning people for years while Biden was leaning on social media sites to ban anti-vaxxers or Trudeau was freezing the bank accounts of protestors that, "you're not going to like it when the other side is back in the white house."
The Trudeau case was ruled to be authoritarian overreach.
But the Biden case was a nothingburger according to the (conservative leaning might I add) Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court has rejected a case claiming the Biden administration illegally coerced social media platforms into taking down posts about Covid-19 and the 2020 election that were considered misinformation.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c100l6jrjvno
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On August 09 2025 16:36 Doublemint wrote:now that almost married my keyboard to my coffee. in a shotgun marriage, as coffee left my mouth prematurely and in explosive fashion. The US Air Force wants to buy Cybertrucks for target practice because they may start showing up on the battlefieldShow nested quote +he US Air Force wants to blow up some Cybertrucks.
It's looking to buy two of them to use for munitions testing as they will "likely" soon start appearing on the battlefield, per documents posted on a US Government contracting website on Wednesday.
The pickups are part of a larger order of 33 vehicles for "live missile fire testing" at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
The contract stipulates that the Cybertrucks need only be towable, not functional, and their batteries must be removed. The procurement documents were first reported by the defense blog The War Zone.
In a separate document justifying why the Tesla vehicles were specifically required, the contracting officer said that US adversaries were "likely" to begin using the stainless steel-clad trucks on the battlefield due to their durability.
"In the operating theatre it is likely the type of vehicles used by the enemy may transition to Tesla Cybertrucks as they have been found not to receive the normal extent of damage expected upon major impact," the document says.
The Air Force and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider. you end the EV mandate but buy those hideous, badly engineered an cheaply made man-child Trucks. for target practice. gloriously spent tax dollars.
Isn't one of the major problems with EVs their reliance on electrical infrastructure? I guess having a generator or two and then feeding a fleet of vehicles with less maintenance demands could be workable. But if you depend on the regular grid for basic mobility it will be removed from you in long term combat.
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EVs are about as useful on the battlefield currently as DOGE was useful to cutting "waste - fraud - and abuse" and lowering the US deficit.
supply lines are constantly under attack if you watch what is going on in Ukraine. a veritable horror show supplying everything necessary, let alone having special crews for maintenance etc. for yet another army vehicle.
but that is not the point as is written in the article.
"In the operating theatre it is likely the type of vehicles used by the enemy may transition to Tesla Cybertrucks as they have been found not to receive the normal extent of damage expected upon major impact," the document says.
apparently there is a shadow fleet - likely - being built by foreign adversaries. someone really should investigate this Musk person.
Last year, Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov showed off a modified Cybertruck decked out with a machine gun that he said would be sent to the front lines in Ukraine.
Kadyrov later accused Tesla of remotely disabling the would-be war machine, calling Musk "not manly."
Experts previously told Business Insider the Cybertruck would be "useless" on the battlefield. The electric pickup has also faced eight recalls since its launch for issues including parts falling off and the accelerator pedal getting stuck.
Musk predicted Tesla would eventually sell over 250,000 a year in 2023, but the automaker has sold only 10,700 so far this year, per auto industry consultancy Cox Automotive.
the silliness knows no bounds.
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EPT
