He can't be wrong about everything all the time... :)
Yes, based on his public utterances, he is demonstrably able to do so.
I don't think Vance is wrong in the sense of being mistaken or misinformed. He's an intelligent person, he understands the reality, and he understands what he is saying.
He's lying. Bullshitting, gaslighting, whatever you want to call it. He speaks intentional falsehoods to obscure the truth and mislead people.
He's a liar.
Trump is also, but I think Trump half-believes his own bullshit. By "half believes" I mean I think his thought process is something like "I want this to be true, so I'm going to act like it is true".
Vance seems, to me, profoundly more cynical than that. He knows what he's saying is false and just says it anyway.
2025-08-25 12:24:12
most Germans (or Central Europeans in general for that matter) can't grasp the English/US paranoia about national ID cards*.
Can't speak for the UK. In the US folks who object to / are afraid of national ID cards are conservatives who think the government is going to exploit national ID to round them up and do horrible things to them.
Irony is dead. Or, if not dead, laying in a gutter somewhere bleeding.
2025-08-24 19:07:20
There are activists on the left bringing books into schools that are, at best, not age-appropriate or shouldn't be in schools at all.
It strikes me that if removing books from a school library doesn't amount to banning books, the presence of a book in a school library doesn't amount to advocacy of whatever point of view it presents. Or a requirement that any given kid read them.
If people don't want kids reading about Heather and her Two Mommies, then mom and dad should sit junior down and explain that they don't want him or her reading it. If they are concerned that their kid is gonna sneak a copy from the library and read it sub rosa, they can talk to the librarian and let them know they don't want their kid checking it out.
Or, you know, pay attention to what your kid is reading.
As opposed to, not only can my kid not have it, but *nobody's* kid can have it. Books that are banned tend to be about (a) sexuality or (b) race. I respect parent's wishes to have some control over how those topics are presented to their kids. Those parents don't have the right to deny *every freaking kid* access to them. I don't listen to Vance and care very little about anything he has to say.
And yet, you have somehow absorbed his talking points and have brought them here to share with all of us.
I blame ChatGPT.
GIGO
2025-08-24 14:38:32
Here, as far as I know, hundreds of ordinary people are not being arrested
"ordinary" is carrying a hell of a lot of water in this phrase.
ICE is currently arresting tens of thousands of people a month. Perhaps they are all extraordinary.
2025-08-24 14:23:35
The LLM AI stuff is a great tool. I have friends who have used it for stuff like designing the governing board structure for a small-ish non-profit, and for planning a somewhat complex trip to Scandinavia (two single women, less than unlimited budget, various health and mobility issues).
So, a really good hammer for some kinds of nails.
It's also perhaps the pre-eminent example of GIGO.
For sifting through the universe of basic factual information, it's tres handy. Need to find a useful factual result in the context of lots of different constraints? It's outstanding.
For anything involving matters of moral or ethical value - anything that involves answering the question "is this good?" - I'll stick with good old human reasoning and intuition.
Horses for courses, as they say.
2025-08-23 22:46:30
"we'll muddle through"
2025-08-23 18:07:20
If any readers here need some help when you emigrate to England, let me know.
LOL.
Emigrating would mean moving, which would mean packing up all of our stuff. I'm just lazy enough to make that a non-starter. Plus, when I retired I finally got my home studio set up just the way I like it.
Whether due to inertia, some remaining morsel of loyalty to the country of my birth, or just plain old contrariness and stupidity, it looks like I'm riding this crazy roller coaster to the end.
But thank you for your very kind offer!
2025-08-23 17:26:36
I just find it harder and harder to have anything to say about any of these people.
They're like a bunch of monkeys in a barrel. "Oh look, those monkeys are out of control, just flinging poo around, bearing their teeth and shrieking!".
Yes, because they're monkeys. In a barrel.
I look for ways to minimize the blast radius of this crazy juvenile bullshit, but it's mostly - almost completely - beyond whatever meager resources I can bring to bear.
I mean, I can call my rep and senators, but they're basically already doing what they can. I can show up for the demonstrations etc. but the folks driving the bus at the moment obviously do not give one single solitary flying f*** about any of that.
I appreciate the efforts of those folks who have some influence over it all, but a lot of the time either their hands are tied too, or the process of containing these knuckleheads through legal or procedural means just takes too long to prevent damage from being done.
I'm just waiting for this crap to be over. We'll see what's left at that point.
If we really, really, really want to keep people like these the hell away from any kind of social or political power going forward, there are going to have to be some serious come to Jesus moments at some point.
And I just don't think we - Americans, collectively - have the stomach for it.
"It'd be too divisive"
"Let's come together now"
"Look forward, not back"
All of that is no small part of how we got here.
Trump et al are gonna come after anyone and anything they don't like, and they're gonna use as much of the full power of the state as they can muster to do it. Because Trump himself is a nasty vindictive piece of work, and the folks he has surrounded himself with are a bunch of loser weirdos who find hurting other people - ruining the lives of other people in no small number of cases - to be a lot of fun.
The rest of the world is basically just working around us at this point. And are looking for ways to make us as irrelevant - as unnecessary for their own security and prosperity - as they can.
Or else figuring out ways to play our leadership for their own advantage.
It's a nightmare. If there wasn't so much damage being done, it'd be comical. And, at moments, it kinda is.
But mostly it's a nightmare.
Good luck to Bolton, he said mean things about Trump and now Trump has an army. And a long memory.
He can't be wrong about everything all the time... :)
Yes, based on his public utterances, he is demonstrably able to do so.
I don't think Vance is wrong in the sense of being mistaken or misinformed. He's an intelligent person, he understands the reality, and he understands what he is saying.
He's lying. Bullshitting, gaslighting, whatever you want to call it. He speaks intentional falsehoods to obscure the truth and mislead people.
He's a liar.
Trump is also, but I think Trump half-believes his own bullshit. By "half believes" I mean I think his thought process is something like "I want this to be true, so I'm going to act like it is true".
Vance seems, to me, profoundly more cynical than that. He knows what he's saying is false and just says it anyway.
most Germans (or Central Europeans in general for that matter) can't grasp the English/US paranoia about national ID cards*.
Can't speak for the UK. In the US folks who object to / are afraid of national ID cards are conservatives who think the government is going to exploit national ID to round them up and do horrible things to them.
Irony is dead. Or, if not dead, laying in a gutter somewhere bleeding.
There are activists on the left bringing books into schools that are, at best, not age-appropriate or shouldn't be in schools at all.
It strikes me that if removing books from a school library doesn't amount to banning books, the presence of a book in a school library doesn't amount to advocacy of whatever point of view it presents. Or a requirement that any given kid read them.
If people don't want kids reading about Heather and her Two Mommies, then mom and dad should sit junior down and explain that they don't want him or her reading it. If they are concerned that their kid is gonna sneak a copy from the library and read it sub rosa, they can talk to the librarian and let them know they don't want their kid checking it out.
Or, you know, pay attention to what your kid is reading.
As opposed to, not only can my kid not have it, but *nobody's* kid can have it.
Books that are banned tend to be about (a) sexuality or (b) race. I respect parent's wishes to have some control over how those topics are presented to their kids. Those parents don't have the right to deny *every freaking kid* access to them.
I don't listen to Vance and care very little about anything he has to say.
And yet, you have somehow absorbed his talking points and have brought them here to share with all of us.
I blame ChatGPT.
GIGO
Here, as far as I know, hundreds of ordinary people are not being arrested
"ordinary" is carrying a hell of a lot of water in this phrase.
ICE is currently arresting tens of thousands of people a month. Perhaps they are all extraordinary.
The LLM AI stuff is a great tool. I have friends who have used it for stuff like designing the governing board structure for a small-ish non-profit, and for planning a somewhat complex trip to Scandinavia (two single women, less than unlimited budget, various health and mobility issues).
So, a really good hammer for some kinds of nails.
It's also perhaps the pre-eminent example of GIGO.
For sifting through the universe of basic factual information, it's tres handy. Need to find a useful factual result in the context of lots of different constraints? It's outstanding.
For anything involving matters of moral or ethical value - anything that involves answering the question "is this good?" - I'll stick with good old human reasoning and intuition.
Horses for courses, as they say.
"we'll muddle through"
If any readers here need some help when you emigrate to England, let me know.
LOL.
Emigrating would mean moving, which would mean packing up all of our stuff. I'm just lazy enough to make that a non-starter. Plus, when I retired I finally got my home studio set up just the way I like it.
Whether due to inertia, some remaining morsel of loyalty to the country of my birth, or just plain old contrariness and stupidity, it looks like I'm riding this crazy roller coaster to the end.
But thank you for your very kind offer!
I just find it harder and harder to have anything to say about any of these people.
They're like a bunch of monkeys in a barrel. "Oh look, those monkeys are out of control, just flinging poo around, bearing their teeth and shrieking!".
Yes, because they're monkeys. In a barrel.
I look for ways to minimize the blast radius of this crazy juvenile bullshit, but it's mostly - almost completely - beyond whatever meager resources I can bring to bear.
I mean, I can call my rep and senators, but they're basically already doing what they can. I can show up for the demonstrations etc. but the folks driving the bus at the moment obviously do not give one single solitary flying f*** about any of that.
I appreciate the efforts of those folks who have some influence over it all, but a lot of the time either their hands are tied too, or the process of containing these knuckleheads through legal or procedural means just takes too long to prevent damage from being done.
I'm just waiting for this crap to be over. We'll see what's left at that point.
If we really, really, really want to keep people like these the hell away from any kind of social or political power going forward, there are going to have to be some serious come to Jesus moments at some point.
And I just don't think we - Americans, collectively - have the stomach for it.
"It'd be too divisive"
"Let's come together now"
"Look forward, not back"
All of that is no small part of how we got here.
Trump et al are gonna come after anyone and anything they don't like, and they're gonna use as much of the full power of the state as they can muster to do it. Because Trump himself is a nasty vindictive piece of work, and the folks he has surrounded himself with are a bunch of loser weirdos who find hurting other people - ruining the lives of other people in no small number of cases - to be a lot of fun.
The rest of the world is basically just working around us at this point. And are looking for ways to make us as irrelevant - as unnecessary for their own security and prosperity - as they can.
Or else figuring out ways to play our leadership for their own advantage.
It's a nightmare. If there wasn't so much damage being done, it'd be comical. And, at moments, it kinda is.
But mostly it's a nightmare.
Good luck to Bolton, he said mean things about Trump and now Trump has an army. And a long memory.