We should stop calling them conspiracy theories. They're conspiracy fantasies. Dark wish fulfillment, immune to reality.
— zeddy (@Zeddary) August 3, 2018
Hitting ’em where it hurts…
so i got an unsolicited statement just now that the adult site YouPorn is banning Alex Jones and Infowars content from its platform (what? ok.) pic.twitter.com/U4IwkGf4FO
— Charlie Warzel (@cwarzel) August 6, 2018
BUT SERIOUSLY…
MAGA-world is in a civil war over QAnon. The teams are:
Anti-Q:
Jack Posobiec
Scott Adams (The Dilbert Guy)
Kurt Schlichter
Sean Spicer
Alex Jones / Jerome Corsi
Assorted Pizzagaters and Youtube conspiracy theorists— Will Sommer (@willsommer) August 6, 2018
And on the Pro-Q side:
Roseanne Barr
Curt Schilling
Bill Mitchell (?)
Hollywood D-lister Isaac Kappy
This one guy named Lionel
And assorted Pizzagaters and Youtube conspiracy theorists— Will Sommer (@willsommer) August 6, 2018
These chowderheads are only anti-Q because they don't get a piece of the action.
— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) August 6, 2018
Notice the division here: On one side, those trying (at various degrees of earnestness) to use the Qanon flock to further promote their own celebrity; on the other, those — like Barr and Schilling — who just enjoy the warm bilious glee of being among Those Who Know.
It’s a war between the Profiteers and the Believers. And, IMO, it’s just one facet of the current war of all-against-all that’s currently roiling the whole real, serious Republican party.
"There hasn't been any non-evidence yet" is a real quote from this. god damn
— Brendan Karet ? (@bad_takes) August 3, 2018
CNN asked Qanon supporters to explain their dedication to reading 4chan shitposts. the result is exactly what you would expect pic.twitter.com/yChpmaFN0w
— Brendan Karet ? (@bad_takes) August 3, 2018
The Buzzfeed post Betty linked earlier is actually a pretty good overall explainer, and Ryan Broderick ‘follows the breadcrumbs’:
… While it’s almost impossible to prove who started QAnon, there is some evidence that it was meant to be a prank all along. And more importantly, it’s looking more and more likely that QAnon is actually a prank by leftists or anarchists to make the far-right look deranged.
Last month, an Italian leftist activist collective called the Wu Ming Foundation pointed to a book they published in the ’90s that is shockingly similar to QAnon.In 1999, Roberto Bui, Giovanni Cattabriga, Federico Guglielmi, and Luca Di Meo, writing under the name “Luther Blissett,” published an Italian novel called Q…
It follows the journey of an unnamed Anabaptist religious radical across Europe during the 16th century. He joins various movements that emerge following the Protestant Reformation. The whole time he’s being pursued by a spy for the Roman Catholic Church named Q.
The book sparked all kinds of debates about what it’s actually about, but its authors said it was meant to be autobiographical. “We often described it as ‘playbook,’ an ‘operations manual’ for cultural disruption,” they said.
Basically, Q is a handbook for activists who want to disrupt society…
“We can’t say for sure that it’s an homage,” they said. “But one thing is almost certain: our book has something to do with it. It may have started as some sort of, er, ‘fan fiction’ inspired by our novel, and then quickly became something else.”
Ironically, it seems that even QAnon followers have noticed the similarities. A user last month highlighted the book, calling it “an old Q.” …
What if this is all just the middle-aged to oldster version of emo teenaged bullshit pic.twitter.com/Py2JSV9Aub
— QHatSecretMessages (@Popehat) August 5, 2018
Political “outbreaks” like #Qanon only break into the general (media) consciousness when there’s enough genuine fervor to indicate a serious social infection… and for the Repubs, there’s nothing as serious as money. C.R.E.A.M.
The metaphorical Kaposi’s sarcoma of the modern True Believers — the astroturfed Tea Party, the promotion of Sarah Palin, Trump’s triumph over fifteen ‘more suitable’ GOP primary candidates in 2016, the mainstreaming of Alex Jones and his imitators — have fluoresced into an Oval Office Occupancy that the Permanent GOP (from legislators like McConnell & Ryan to funders like Charles Koch) fears it no longer has under control.
BREAKING NEWS: Hacker collective ‘Anonymous’ announces its intent to eradicate #QAnon and its followers. #OpQ
— TARGET: #QAnon (@TAPAlerts) August 5, 2018
How great would it be if the ludicrous QAnon kitchen-sink conspiracy theory turned out to be a setup for Sascha Baron Cohen's greatest prank?
— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) August 5, 2018
It’s the Democrats who are traditionally riven by factionalism, but the current Republican Party is at war with itself. And I’m rooting for injuries.
Going to start a new conspiracy theory in which observable, empirical data is revealed to be the truth.
— Michael Ian Black (@michaelianblack) August 4, 2018
Baud
I’m a little peeved at the amount of national press El Sayed in Michigan is getting when he’s not even the front runner in the polls. Seems unfair.
Chris Hayes just joined the bandwagon.
But at least we’re not debating which conspiracy fantasy faction to support.
SFAW
I call bullshit. Those RWAs ALREADY look deranged, especially with the Deranger-in-Chief in
orificeofficedifferent-church-lady
I belive that ought to read, “…more deranged.”
SFAW
@Baud:
Yet.
different-church-lady
@SFAW: Great minds think alike.
I have no idea what that has to do with our posts, but there it is.
Gemina13
Think we can get this devolution televised?
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: El-who?
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
It really scares me that one third of this country has just utterly lost its shit. They’ve just walked off the map. I don’t know how a society can make it with this many people believing this deranged shit. We need a way to just drive them out of the political process altogether. I wish I had the first damned clue how to do that, but I don’t.
The Dangerman
Just watched whoever was filling in for Tucker Carlson on Fox. He claimed the violence in Portland was from the Left and/or was Antifa. I thought it was some conservative group that was causing trouble.
feebog
I think the bottom line here is that these people should all be rounded up, sent to South Carolina, walled off, and blockaded by the Navy. As amusement we can toss Thorazine gumdrops over the wall to keep them zoned out.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@The Dangerman: Oh, no, those are just nice, well behaved nazis, as most nazis are. Very fine people, don’t you know? Our president told us so. All they really want is to not be replaced by Jews, and I mean, hey, who does? If nice young men can’t go around running people down and screaming about how Jews won’t replace them without mean, mean liberals calling them names, then what have we come to as a country?
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/7/30/17616800/progressives-abdul-el-sayed-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-michigan-governor-democrat-primary
Mary G
Those “I’d rather be a Russian than a Democrat” shirts showed up on Russian TV today even though the two olds who had them on at the Ohio rally said they made them themselves. Hm.
Ken
This is the crowd that a PSA “I”m President Obama, and please don’t drink bleach” would take out.
jacy
In local asshole news: my kid just made Eagle Scout, and his Eagle Scout ceremony and reception is this weekend. His dad has been planning it with him: taco bar, cake, etcetera. The kid got wind that his dad was planning on bringing The Whore, even though there has been a clear moratorium on her attendance to any kid-related event since his dad left home. (The boys refuse to be within 50 feet of her and have maintained that for the last four years, so it’s not something new.) So he told his dad she was not welcome. His dad said, “Fine, I won’t come either. And I’m no longer paying for anything. I’ll send you a list.”
So now, we have four days to figure everything out and a guest list of about 40 people. The only upside — and it’s not much of one — is that his dad is going to look even more like an asshole than he already did.
AAARRGGHHH. WHY CAN’T PEOPLE JUST BE DECENT.
The Midnight Lurker
@Mary G: These guys couldn’t make a t-shirt. These guys couldn’t make a TV dinner.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
@Mary G:
No, they’re for sale. Those shitstains didn’t make them themselves.
Baud
@jacy: Congrats to the kids.
Baud
@Baud: kids=kid
Thoughtful David
The only reason the “serious” wingnuts like Posobiec, Adams, Lyin’ Spice, etc. are anti-Q is that they are rationalizing like hell that the Q-panzees aren’t perfectly typical Republicans.
DeNile ain’t just a river in Egypt.
Baud
@The Midnight Lurker: I bet they could make borscht.
The Dangerman
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Oh, you mean, the FOX viewing demographic. OK, gotcha.
From my view in the cheap seats, if the Nazi’s rally and the counter protestors come out, if shit goes down at all, I’m blaming the Nazi’s. I’ve no time to find out who threw the first punch or tossed the first rock.
JGabriel
New CIA Slogan:
The CIA – Weaponizing People Without Their Knowledge Since 2009, When A Black Man Got Elected President And Ruined American For White Conservatives
Seriously, how do they think someone can be weaponized without knowing it?
Morans.
Roger Moore
@Mary G:
Somebody has looked at the graphics on the Ohio t-shirts and compared them with the one that showed up on Russian TV. They noticed two things:
1) The background drawing of the boxing elephant and donkey was something someone else had put online.
2) The text over the background was positioned slightly differently in the Ohio version and the one that showed up on Russian TV.
So the theory is the guys grabbed some graphics off the net, pasted on some text, and had somebody turn it into a t-shirt. Russian TV saw the shirt, loved it, and made their own version.
jacy
@Baud:
The kid made Eagle Scout and got into LSU Engineering College on scholarship, plus got an IT desk job on campus already. Apparently that’s not good enough for SOMEONE, but I’m immensely proud!
JGabriel
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Anne Laurie
@Baud:
Too many otherwise decent media people, like Chris Hayes & Dave Weigel, are extremely susceptible to the dubious charms of the ‘True Progressive’ / BernieBro gang.
Believe it or not, I make a conscious effort not to front-page these acne eruptions on the Democratic body until they rise above Oooh, new shiny! status. It’s not as though we’re desperate for more important news to discuss, and fortunately most of the pimples never amount to more than a brief nuisance.
JGabriel
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Vote.
ARoomWithAMoose
“… While it’s almost impossible to prove who started QAnon, there is some evidence that it was meant to be a prank all along. And more importantly, it’s looking more and more likely that QAnon is actually a prank by leftists or anarchists to make the far-right look deranged.”
Given that 4chan is mentioned as a source, I’m going with less an attempt at actual cultural disruption and more fanfic for the lulz. Think more along the lines of Lord Kibo or John Titor on alt. usenet, one huge inside joke.
The bigger deal is the editorial attempt in news rooms to push this into the mainstream media, it’s weird and is like the 800 bazillion ebola stories going into 2014 election, or the 2016 “brown people are bringing zika into the country”, both stories completely disappearing from the daily news cycle they’d been part of for months the day after their respective elections.
The Midnight Lurker
@jacy: Tell your son, from one Eagle Scout to another, congratulations. The world needs more Eagle Scouts.
TenguPhule
Murder Suicide is the best possible outcome.
Ruckus
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
This isn’t anything new. There has always been a crazy percentage. It just spreads faster and farther because of the net. 40-50 yrs ago it had to be printed and handed out. Not much spread if the papers didn’t promote it or at least give it enough space to be noticed. Now it spreads faster than a CA summer time fire. Lots faster and lots farther. So now you can feed your bigoted fantasies within minutes of some other bigoted fanatical asshole putting it online. And it’s not like we don’t have a bigoted fanatical asshole in charge right now, who spreads more than his share of stupid fanatical bigoted bullshit.
JGabriel
BTW – Comment editing, and requesting deletion is completely FUBAR’d on my end. Is everyone experiencing that, or is it just me (meaning I might have to adjust my firewall settings)?
Baud
@jacy: That’s impressive.
@Anne Laurie: I agree with not front paging it. I don’t know much about El Sayed. Maybe I would even vote for him if I could. But I just started noticing he was popping up all over my feed and now Chris Hayes on the eve of the primary and that’s seemed unfair to the process. Like I noted, he apparently isn’t even the front runner.
TenguPhule
Poe’s Law in play.
Unless the author chooses to say, its impossible to tell.
WhatsMyNym
@jacy: Wow, congrats to your son. Those are some great accomplishments.
TenguPhule
@JGabriel:
Not just you. Alain was in the last thread telling us we are all buggered till he can fix it.
MagdaInBlack
@jacy:
Its supposed to be about your amazing kid, and the jerk just made it all about HIM.
Probably typical behavior?
Enjoy your celebration and let Buzzkill sulk ??
TenguPhule
@JGabriel:
To be fair, they’re living examples of it. Weaponized by Russia and they don’t fucking care.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jacy: Congrats to the scout from a fellow Eagle Scout.
Ruckus
@jacy:
That sounds like some good kids you got there. Not afraid to stand up for themselves and demand to be reasonably treated.
frosty
@jacy: congrats to your kid in any case. Once an Eagle always an Eagle. He’ll have that accomplishment his whole life.
ETA: From one Eagle to another. LBJ (fuck LBJ!) signed my card.
TenguPhule
@The Dangerman:
Funny how only the Nazis brought weapons and were actually allowed by the police to keep them.
danielx
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
A world of douchebags. Armed douchebags.
WhatsMyNym
@JGabriel: It’s not you. Editing is on vacation and the temp never came back from lunch.
dmsilev
@Baud:
Aragorn was secretly in league with Sauron the whole time. It was all a ploy to break the Hobbits’ monopoly on pipeweed smuggling.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@dmsilev: The reason why Tom Bombadil was deleted from the movies because he was the alternate identity of the Witch King. You never see the two together and both aren’t effected by The One Ring. Connect the dots.
Immanentize
@jacy: Jacy,. Your kid is amazing! Wow! It really doesn’t matter so much what games without frontiers we adults play. You should be so proud.
Fuck everyone but you and your son. Fuck em.
CaseyL
@jacy: Congrats to your kid! I hope the party comes out OK (let people know what happened; maybe they could help?). What an utter bilgewaffle your Ex is, snubbing his own son.
SenyorDave
My wife left her ex after 20+ years of marriage because of a fidelity problem on his part. We were married 3 years later. I certainly was persona non grata for one of her kids for about the first two years (the other one knew more of what had transpired). I guess I might have been the “whore” from one of the child’s standpoint. There was no similar event to compare, but I suspect after four years my wife might have had a major problem with me not being welcome at a life event, especially if she were footing half the bill.
And since I see her ex a couple of times a year at family events we manage to get along if for no other reason that we are both adults.
Anne Laurie
@Ruckus:
Bingo.
Even the “core” of the Qanon nonsense, the claim that there’s a global pedophile conspiracy that Their Guy is gonna overthrow, has a loooong history — you can draw a straight line from the medieval blood libel about Jews stealing Christian children to murder at Passover, through the muddled European tropes Thomas Pynchon satirized in Lot 49, to America’s own ‘Satanic Panic’ in the 1980s, to the modern #Pizzagate ‘believers’. And it’s always a small proportion of profiteers, a slightly larger group of ‘mockers’ in it for the lulz, and a churning mob of “believers”, most of them just bandwagoning to sound savvy, but some (sub-27%) portion looking for The Real Reason why they’re so sad and broken and isolated.
It’s only a genuine problem when there are enough soulless profiteers working on a sufficiently desperate bunch of ‘middle class’ bandwagoners to turn it from a fad to a movement. Various MittelEuropean warlords managed it across the centuries; that Hitler dude demonstrated its modern potential; and the current GOP thought they could weaponize the mob-monster for its own ends.
If we’re lucky, and work hard enough to organize in the Sane Opposition, the monster(s) will once again eat each other, and the brainworm will be reduced to its usual status as an opportunist social infection. Like shingles, retreating into our nerve ends, to erupt two generations later and give the grandkids chicken pox.
Yarrow
@jacy: Congrats to your kid! Amazing accomplishments. Your ex sure is a piece of work. Ugh. How hard is it to be decent, especially at an event for your kid? Good for your kid for standing up for himself. That’s a skill that will stand him well in life.
MoxieM
Schilling is a Nazi on the (not so) down low, and has been for some time. No idea about the other folks. Having recently re-watched Gone, Baby, Gone, when I read the name “Lionel” I could only think of the hapless turd who is the toddler’s uncle in the story–he’s called Lionel.
Immanentize
@Anne Laurie: And I thank you sincerely for that editorial discretion.
David Anderson
@jacy: as you should be…. Great job spawn of Jacy
Immanentize
@frosty: Well ol’ Lyndon did one thing right!
laura
@jacy:
The only upside ….
It probably feels/felt that way initially, but you’ve got much to celebrate, and the children’s father has given himself an out from a lifetime acheivement because he wanted to.
40+ people who care want to get together in celebration. Party planning under extreme circumstance can be hard. Please consider asking to potluck it, or host.
Cant wait for the triumphant report after the shindig.
You must be so proud of your Eagle Scout and his sibs!
JGabriel
@TenguPhule:
Danke.
JGabriel
@TenguPhule:
Touché.
TenguPhule
@Anne Laurie:
There’s supposed to be a vaccine for that now.
I don’t think the monsters are going to stay buried this time. Or at least, not unless we double tap them to make sure this time.
Immanentize
@SenyorDave: Really? That’s what you got? Jacy’s now nearly-adult kid has no say in this? Should just suck it up because of your experience? Which, gender-wise is utterly different and may I say almost unique.
It is very rare for an unfaithful man to end up with custody of a child , let alone many kids, in this America. Shheeeeiiittt
Marriage is always tricky business.
WereBear
@jacy: That is wonderful.
jacy
@Yarrow:
one thing, Loch is no shrinking violet. Once his dad gave him the ultimatum, he said okay, and immediately started to contact people and take over the planning. He will make it a huge success and have a marvelous time. He knows it’s his father’s loss and not his. One thing the last few years has taught us all is resiliance. :)
Mnemosyne
@jacy:
Is there still time to outsource at least some of the food to trusted friends and relatives? If not, pizza is classic for a large crowd for a reason.
Shana
@jacy: Seems to me that all of you are better off without him. I know you are, but your Eagle Scout has clearly done well, is headed in a good direction, and has the ability to tell his dad what his limits are. Good for him. Tough and annoying I know, but good for him and you.
Immanentize
@jacy:
Which is why Lick is an Eagle Scout and a favored freshperson at LSU.
The kids are definitely all right.
ETA. I onky wish half as much maturity for my son, the Immp
SenyorDave
@Immanentize: Every situation is different, but someone referring to their ex’s partner as a whore might just be a small contributing factor.
Mnemosyne
@SenyorDave:
I think you might be coming in late on jacy’s ongoing saga, but it’s more akin to your wife’s ex insisting that his mistress — the woman he left your wife to be with — be included in family events and saying that your wife should just suck it up and be civil to her.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
This Abdul El-Sayed chap (I’m guessing he’s from the Arab-Muslim community in Michigan) comes off as a dyed-in-the-wool Wilmerista, which would worry me. Also, my mind keeps trying to correct his name to Abd-el Sayed.
jacy
@SenyorDave: this woman was a parent of another child in my son’s third grade class. She and my husband had an affair for a year where they would take my children out with them, or bring my children to her house and tell them not to tell me. She spread lies at school that I was an alcoholic when I had cancer. She stalked my youngest when I changed his school and tried to lure him into her car. There are many reasons they will have nothing to do with her.She is not a good person.
MoxieM
@Immanentize: Family courts/Judges generally give no shits about cheating and or adultery, alas. Parent needs to document who does the driving, the coaching, the homework, the dentist … thing is, cheating parents are rarely as involved in family life, since it takes time, energy and lots of planning to cheat. (I wish I did not have first hand knowledge of all of this crapola.) So there it is. Unless the divorce becomes a rage + hate fest.
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne:
Heart
ETA. YEA Alain! My name stayed in the boxes below.
MoxieM
@jacy: Oh, Hi Jacy. Been there, and back. Got the T-shirt. Difference is, I’m crazy and unstable, not alcoholic or cancer-ridden. Sigh. I certainly found out who my friends wer(n’t), as I imagine you have as well. So sorry for your experiences.
jacy
@SenyorDave:
Also, my significant other’s ex-wife cheated on him, a couple of times — but it never involved their children. After some time, they became friendly again, and I’m friendly with her — even went out with her the other night to see her boyfriend’s band. So it’s not that I think everyone who cheats is a monster or deserving of shunning — but this woman is crazy. And everybody knows it.
Mike Furlan
@Ruckus: The crazy percentage as many of you know is 27%.
http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/April-2011/The-Alan-Keyes-Constant/
chris
@Ruckus: Student: Why did the fall of the Roman Empire take 300 years?!!
Professor: They didn’t have Twitter.
jacy
@MoxieM:
The hilarious thing (in retrospect) was that they accused me of “getting cancer” just to make her look bad. They told me the timing was “suspicious.” LOL.
aliasofwestgate
@Amir Khalid: I’m a MI resident, i’m going to be voting in the primary tomorrow. Never heard of the guy. The two frontrunners are Shri and Whitmer, and i have plans to vote for Whitmer. This page has been tossing a bunch of anti-Whitmer adverts at me and i blithely ignore the bloody stupid things. We just did teh whole business owner/entrepreneur bullshit thing with Snyder the last 2 terms. No thank you. I voted for the dem in both those terms and got outvoted because i’m in a very red county and i’m a drop in the bucket. But oh well. Not stopping me voting for the dem ticket. *grins*
hueyplong
I would also rather those a-holes be Russians than Democrats.
Seeing as how we’re all in agreement, the only thing left to do is to see how many of the fuckers can be put on one boat.
Immanentize
@MoxieM:
I agree. Cheating is not itself an issue in many divorcees (even those with infidelity). Except as you say it implicates the child relationship with the parent — over 80% of custodial parents are the mother. So it’s not a blind flip of the coin. Women get custody in a vast majority of single-parent custody cases.
It is exceedingly rare for a father to get custody of one — or especially more than one — child. The Judge, as you say, determines that on a hoast of issues including the nature of the parent-child relationship and the wishes of the child (from State to state the will of the child is given different weight, from one factor to dispositive).
As SenyorDave himself says, the facts in each case are different (and often tragic). But let’s not pretend men get child custody in any equal amount. Every such case where the kids stay with Dad has a story.
jayjaybear
I’m just rooting for injuries at this point.
Citizen Scientist
@jacy: Congratulations to your kid; I’m sure you’re very proud of him. Really sorry that your ex- has to bollocks up something good for his kid. He sounds very mature.
Mnemosyne
@Immanentize:
IIRC, California has moved to a presumptive joint physical custody model — you have to present pretty good evidence why the other parent doesn’t deserve it to get sole physical custody, or one parent has to move far away from the other. My brother and his ex have had some bumpy times, but overall it worked for them. It probably helped that they both remarried fairly quickly so you didn’t have one resentful single parent and one remarried one.
Gin & Tonic
@hueyplong: I want to see them surviving in a house with no plumbing on a pension of $220 per month. That’s what they want, I say let’s let them have it. Fuck, I’ll pay for their visa.
Platonailedit
Of course, bs is in this lil russian montage.
scott alloway
@jacy: Sorry Jacy. But it will back at his dad for the rest of his life that he abandoned his son at an important event. Believe me, at 68 and a former social worker, that kids don’t forget this kind of behavior. You supported your son. He bailed.
Immanentize
@Mnemosyne:
Mass has presumptive joint in the courts and the legislature was considering that law last year….
I’ve been a bit out of it so I don’t know the result of the legislation, but most judges treat it as such. I think same sex marriage has really changed that presumption in Mass. ( And elsewhere?)
trollhattan
@jacy:
Some people suck You and your son do not suck and the fact is Eagle Scout is a rare and wonderful accomplishment and now you know everybody attending will be 100% in support. Congratulations to you both and please find the space to simply enjoy the moment. Sorry it has to be that way.
frosty
@Anne Laurie: Thanks for the historical perspective. Really interesting how far back this goes.
ETA and I finally lost my nym. Le Sigh. Too bad it wasn’t a more insightful comment. ?
Mnemosyne
@jacy:
Ah, the narcissist’s mind at work. She would not have hesitated for an instant to fake cancer in order to make someone else look bad, so of course that’s what you did to her. Because everyone always has the exact same thoughts and feelings and motives as the narc does, they just don’t admit it.
J R in WV
@jacy:
Your timing on cancer was “suspicious”???? OK, you[re right, they’re both CRAZY crazy. No question. Best of luck with your kid at His Party! Eagle scouts are supposed to be able to organize a bunch of scouts into doing what need to be done to survive, so a party should be a piece of cake for him.
Have fun!
Doug R
@Immanentize:
Well, he did sign the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.
jacy
@Mnemosyne:
They’re really toxic together, because they’re both narcissists. And they’re both “covert” narcissists. They are always “under attack.” But the one thing that is consistent is the projection. Ye gods. The projection. It used to be exhausting, but now it’s mostly just noise.
I think his latest fit is due to the fact that Loch is 18, and he’s losing control over him. This is probably the last thing he could attempt to control, and Loch was having none of it. It took him about 3 minutes to decide to call his bluff.
frosty
@jacy: Re: success later in life. If you’re the kind of person who’s given a list of things to do, with an award or reward at the end*, you can be an Eagle Scout. And a success at anything.
* which I found out when my kids were Cubs and I found out what I needed to get a Cubmaster knot. Same process, same incentive.
jacy
@J R in WV:
Hopefully I can just take over most of the already-planned stuff. Invitations have already gone out. The cake was ordered, and I think the Taco Bar has been ordered, just not paid for. (There’s was something about a nacho cheese fountain, but I’m hoping I just misheard that.) Whatever it is, we’ll handle it. His sister is a sixth-grade teacher, so she is a take-charge kind of person who is used to managing chaos. It’ll be fine. Loch is pretty much already over it — now he has it in his mind to make it the best thing ever, sort of out of spite. He’s not the kind of kid who ever feels sorry for himself, just charges forward.
Mnemosyne
@jacy:
I’m happy to see that your son has already figured out that living well is the best revenge. He has much wisdom for someone so young, and will go far in life.
frosty
@Immanentize: I’ve got more than half on my elder but it took awhile. He’a launched with BA, job, career, friends and apartment. Still working on the younger.
Anne Laurie
@aliasofwestgate: Good for you!
I find it hard not to be overinvolved with MI politics, since I lived there for fifteen happy years. (Got to vote for Stabenow in her very first race, IIRC, for county commissioner.) But every time I start reading up on state politics, I’m reminded why we fled the state in 1989…
Platonailedit
Platonailedit
frosty
Good perspective!
aliasofwestgate
@Anne Laurie: Thanks! Only reason i’m not going crazy here is that i grew up in the middle of it. I’m used to being outnumbered by bigoted assholes by the dozen. They just got worse, and my tolerance went down as i’ve aged and done a lot of traveling. I don’t do any agitation because i’m my mom’s caretaker. So that safety’s more important. But otherwise i make sure i vote, most of the time.
burnspbesq
@Baud:
El-Sayed is pretty unusual among progressives: he actually has a plan, not just a shibboleth. I like the guy.
I’d like him more if he would tell Bernie to go gargle with Drano.
sukabi
@JGabriel: pretty sure FOX has been weaponizing stupid for almost 2 decades now.
MoxieM
@jacy: Sweet jumping Jesus on a pogo stick (shakes head). I suggest you check out the ChumpLady blog. It’s funny, profane, and it shreds the cheaters in all kinds of innovative ways. Also it’s usually a decent online community.
I’m just glad my kid was leaving for her Jr Year abroad when the shit seriously hit the fan (although wasband couldn’t wait the 4 days until she boarded the plane). Again, Sigh. Now she lives in Germany; is a fully emancipated self-supporting adult. Oh, and she refuses all contact with her sperm-donor dad. Her choice, and I was pretty good about not shit-talking him. But she’s not dumb, and she has eyes and ears, and uses them. Came to her own conclusions. She & I are in regular cheerful contact. (It gets better). Blergh.
Me, I got PTSD, Fibromyalgia, and accelerated lumbar spine collapse out of the deal. Wheeeee. No serious drugs though. Would love some, at this point. Chronic, acute pain is a lousy way to try and live a life.
Mnemosyne
@MoxieM:
FWIW, there seems to be some evidence that a gluten-free diet is helpful for fibromyalgia — the thinking is that it seems that fibromyalgia is a free-floating form of arthritis, and some people’s arthritis is helped by a gluten-free diet, so that may be why some people with fibromyalgia respond well to one. Just a thought if it’s not something you’ve tried yet.