I was in some stupid ego match, and some guy made the comment that was one of those machismo put-downs akin to, “I fucked your mom.” So I snapped back, “She died in 1987, so I guess that makes you a pedophile.” I meant to say “necrophile,” but my mouth said something different than my brain, and I screwed it up. Thankfully, he didn’t pick up on it, and shot back my mom died knowing I was a disappointment. But he went too far, and his friend stopped him, like, “stop before this becomes a physical fight.” I had ZERO intention of making it a physical fight (I would have lost), but he backed down anyway and it just awkwardly ended with me remembering I said the wrong word for almost two decades, now.

“Abs of a Savior.” --Ted Alexandro

Surprised it’s a sailboat. How deep is that pond to accept a boat with a keel? At least 5-6 feet for clearance that close to the edge. Maybe it has a retractable centerboard, though.

The strips of peeling paint from the bottom of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. There have been six arrests by people stealing the paint chips, and now they have fenced it all off.

At least one well-publicized arrest involved former Olympic canoeist David Hearn, who says he merely touched an already-detached section of peeling liner and did not remove or damage it. Other reported incidents include people picking up or handling loose pieces, but it has not been established that all of those arrested were intentionally taking paint chips as souvenirs, but suspected as such by popular opinion.

Ah. There’s a reasons for that, as told to me by a supply sergeant in the military. A lot of suppliers had a BEL (Basic Equipment List), which says all stock must have a minimum and a maximum of XYZ in order to meet government spec. Some large items, like diesel generators, have a BEL minimum of 2, but also because of their size and storage complexity, have a maximum of 2. So it order to get a new one, you must get rid of one of the old ones. But if you get rid of the old one, you are below minimum BEL, and could fail inspection or an inventory check, if it takes a while to get a new one. Large items don’t always “hang around,” but they get manufactured on demand, so the only way to get a new one is to be without one for a very long period of time. Thus, you risk failing inspection. The best way to avoid that is to keep two and never order any.

Military logic.

If I could, I think I can explain why they feel this way. This is not justification, but some insight. I believe all people should be allowed to live and flourish to the best of their free will and ability without harming others.

Those with siblings, think of this: it’s your birthday party. You’re 8. Your younger sibling is 5. All day, your younger sibling has been whining, complaining, and ruining “your day.” You are forced to share with this sibling, this sibling has stolen and broken your stuff, and embarrassed you. You are forced to play with this sibling, let him hang out with your friends, and this has translated into a kind of inner resentment. Anything that they do wrong, things that you would get punished for, is excused and waved away. “He can’t help it, he is young.” Then, as your birthday cake is being served, he gets the bigger piece. You have the feelings and emotional control of a small child. How does that make you feel?

The deepest feeling of rage and anger, the unfairness of it all, the entitlement that was taken from you.

This is how they feel about “the others.” They see handicapped and poor people “getting away with something.” They feel they worked hard to achieve their position in life, and now someone just hands them food and shelter. A kind of jealousy of them skipping some process. That they didn’t earn it. It’s a sense of revulsion usually reserved to rotting meat. But above all, they are projecting all their unaddressed issues of playing second fiddle to someone they perceive as having it easier than they had. And this is what the liberal side fails to address, because they are like the parents in this scenario. “They can’t help being poor/handicapped/disadvantaged.” They are right, of course, but that doesn’t address the feelings. The rich know it, as they themselves have the same emotional disconnection. Unaddressed childhood pain distanced by nannies, au pairs, and “please don’t play in the main areas, Stewart. You’ll soul the Matisse.” Raised by parents who have kids for prestige and legacy.

The conservatives listen to their inner, unresolved feelings. And those are very easy to manipulate by the rich, wealthy politicians. And being different makes it easy to label.

As a forced pedestrian (can’t drive due to health issues), this is so true. Also at crosswalks, a lot of drivers turning right while looking left. They always appear genuinely SHOCKED to encounter “a walker.” Like, “A PERSON…? NOT IN A… CAR?? IS THAT POSSIBLE?” Like it shatters their entire concept of the universe and how things work. Yes, I live in America, and this happens in both suburbs and downtown DC.

My life, much better. My finances, not so much.

My father was a wealthy defense contractor, but an abusive sociopath. My mother was an alcoholic. My mother died and he threw me out before I finished high school. I graduated homeless. I am 57 now. I haven’t spoken to him since 1998 and I am not entirely sure if he’s still alive. But I do know the last time I had to do a background check on him for job-related stuff, he was still wealthy, remarried, and living in a multi million dollar condo with a huge yacht. I am not so wealthy, but I got a foothold during the beginning of the dotcom boom, and doing okay financially. At my age, my dad was remarried and still employed as a wealthy contractor. I think he retired in 1999.

Meanwhile, even though I am clinging onto a disintegrating upper middle class, I have escalated my career in unexpected and adventurous ways. I have had an exciting life, amazing friends, and held very weird jobs including science fiction author, president of a non-profit, bouncer for a roller derby team, emcee and cosplay judge, minor fandom celebrity, and written a comedy podcast. I have been married twice, widowed once, and had good marriages. I have a son now in his 30s. I have traveled, met celebrities, and survived harrowing health issues.

So, you know, I am not as “well off” as my parents at this age (I mean, my mom died in her 40s), but doing amazingly well outside of money compared to them. Sure, it would be nice to be wealthy, but I’d rather have the life I do now than his.

To add to y’all’s reading list:

Dulles Airport (the big international airport that serves Washington DC and Northern Virginia) did the same: https://travelnoire.com/town-destroyed-international-airport

Also, maybe tangentially related, The Tulsa Race Massacre: https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=TU013

Keep in mind, whenever you think too hard about these sorts of things, this is one of those operations that could apply to Hanlon’s Razor: “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” Many people make the incorrect assumption of something like, “They must have done some clever supply-chain wizardry," or “There’s a smart cost-reduction plan behind this.” When in reality, a lot of times, the actual explanation is something like a mid-level manager wanted a slide that said “cost savings," then procurement was pressured due to some personality ego problem, engineering objections were ignored, the math was never checked, and in the end, nobody involved actually understood unit economics. Maybe exchanging a $6 part for a $4 looks good in volume, but they only did this 20 times, resulting in $40 of savings which was erased by their reputation and incompetence.

I have worked government contracts. I have worked with shitty project managers. There’s a lot more of these mistakes than you realize powering economies.

Started with online BBS’s in the 1980s where you could get kicked off for being a dick (and your phone number banned) but Larry Wall’s “rn” for Usenet used to say before every post:

This program posts news to thousands of machines throughout the entire civilized world. Your message will cost the net hundreds if not thousands of dollars to send everywhere. Please be sure you know what you are doing.

The US National Park service frowns on people tossing anything into the volcanos. But the deep, deep ocean has no enforceable jurisdiction.

A statement which, in itself, is a generalization.

• Vacation (Annual Leave) for the EU is minimum 4 weeks (20 paid days) per year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absence_management
• The US has no federal mandate for paid vacation, where the private sector average is about 10 vacation days after one year, plus about 6 paid holidays, totaling around 16 days annually: https://time.com/4227072/job-benefits-united-states/

In addition, some European countries have more, like Sweden’s legal minimum is 25 paid days per year, with a special rule for new employees hired after August 31 granting only 5 days until the next April. Sick days 1–14: Paid by employer at a minimum of 80% of salary, subject to a deduction, and from Day 15 onward: Compensation provided by the state, typically 80% for 364 days, then 75% up to 550 days, with medical certification and administrative reporting required. https://www.e-days.com/holiday-compliance-guide/emea/sweden

Even if what you said were true, the “stupid” Europeans have it better than the US.

I have endured a Phoenix, Arizona heat at just under 120° F and opening my motel door was like opening an oven to check on something you’re baking. Our rental car had to have the AC on for about 3 minutes before sitting in the seats wasn’t searingly painful. It took about 5 minute for the steering wheel to be comfortable enough to grip for more than a few seconds.

You got me. I think it was because our group was under one contract set of hires (I was an employee, but some of these people were still part of a contract), which is why we weren’t let go immediately. But sometimes you get some manager who doesn’t want the OLD people, but a FRESH NEW set of people. For example, when the entire QA department was let go an outsourcer, all the documentation we made was thrown out the window because “that was the old way!” And the next major software release was a disaster. And we were going from a 16 bit client (Windows 3.1x based) version to the new 32 bit (Windows 95/98-native) version, and the QA/testing was not really part of the process. “Who are these product testers, and why are they so negative about the product? LOSE 'EM! They only see mistakes, there’s no room for that kind of attitude, and it slows the whole release cycle down.”

Corporate stupidity.

This is comedy gold. MANY years ago, late 1990s, my department was getting laid off, but due to some contract line items, they gave us 90 days to find a new job within the company and then blacklisted us, which was another bullshit thing. Then someone found in a job hiring seminar in a nearby convention center where our company had a booth. The seminar was free, so a bunch of us went.

At the booth, we found out that they were interviewing for our jobs (QA testing engineers). Not a surprise, but they got excited when the first few of us were uniquely qualified (duh). But after the third person, that guy didn’t hide we still worked for our company. Someone from the HR team panicked when they realized the group of us were CURRENT employees. What made it even funnier was that not only was it the same QA testing jobs they needed to hire for, but the pay was about 20% greater than we were making.

HR called corporate asking “what do we do???” Corporate said “SHUT THE BOOTH DOWN!!” A very weird reaction. Then we applied to other jobs at the fair, and when we left, the booth was still closed. The next day, those that interviewed got taken into a meeting room and cursed out by management for “that stupid stunt!” We asked, “so why are we being blacklisted?” “You’re not being blacklisted!” “Uh… nobody internally will return our calls, and we have found out that they were told not to return our calls due to a leaked email.”

Oof. Oddly enough, i got a new job a few weeks later in the same company. So it kind of worked.

This platform became “mature” with less downtime around the Reddit API disaster, and I wanted to support it. I still use Reddit, but I go here first.

“I WOULD WALK FIVE HUN DRED MILES AND I WOULD WALK FIVE HUN DRED MORE!”

I would imagine that they see your country as small, unable to fight back, and “full of savages.” I am SO embarrassed at this administration, they live in some weird childish fantasy land like 1950s cartoons. These are people with huge paintings of cowboys in their offices, like “Custer’s Last Fight” by Cassilly Adams, showing Custer somehow fighting off Indians dressed as Zulus (a lot of 19th-century artists sometimes portrayed Plains Indians in “Custer’s Last Stand”-style paintings with elements borrowed from Zulu warriors due to ignorance, theatrical flair, or lack of good references). Deporting these people to your country, which is probably seen as “generically Africa” in some undefined manner, “put the savages back with their kind.”

These politicians are a stain on anything good and decent about Americans. Again, on behalf of America, I am deeply sorry this administration is so immature and reckless. Reminds me of this joke from Johnny Dangerously

Specialization can breed a narrow limit of scope when it come to general knowledge. Sometimes the best lawyers and surgeons are complete idiots when it comes to falling for things like, say, internet scams. I am not sure if that’s what’s happening here, but I have known enough assistants of big skilled people that they always say “This guy is a brilliant surgeon, but doesn’t know how to cook or even how to shop for his own groceries.”