turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 5hare mcwhorter and his editors going to come back with an apology in late 2027 when trump's brain has gone from pudding to jello and he's finally dropping racial slurs every week? 000
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 16hi've seen this movie too many times by now to think that this is really "skepticism," ersatz or otherwise. most of these idiots are just believing the stuff they always wanted to believe, they're just putting on a skeptical posture because they think it makes them look smarter 020
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 07/10/2026also fwiw what appears to be the relevant statute appears to target *showing porn or snuff films to kids*, not going into their classroom and insulting them: law.justia.com/codes/wiscon... seems highly likely they are intentionally overcharging her just to punish her for being a nuisancelaw.justia.com2025 Wisconsin Statutes & Annotations :: Chapter 948 - Crimes against children. :: 948.11 - Exposing a child to harmful material or harmful descriptions or narrations.Justia Free Databases of U.S. Laws, Codes & Statutes 160
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 07/10/2026the fact that wisconsin even *has* a statute criminalizing "exposing a child to harmful descriptions" is itself a chilling sign that the government can charge you with aaannnnyyything if it's already decided that you're a bad person and that it wants to go after you 191
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 05/10/2026in some places regular bikes are totally viable, but when the terrain is hilly, the electric motor is the difference between the kid getting herself to school and her parents having to drive her 1140
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 05/10/2026journalism's purpose is not to be a celebration *or* a punishment for its subjects, but the conventions of many so-called journalists (looking at you, local TV newscasters) have confused an awful lot of people about this 060
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 05/10/2026the point isn't whether *he* is a good person or bad person, the point is that *the journalist who wrote the piece* likely committed journalistic malpractice by failing to include relevant details that would accurately contextualize the story for readers 1110
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 05/10/2026bubonic plague and pneumonic plague are caused by the same bacterium, just different modes of transmission (fleas vs inhalation) 010
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 28/09/2026lol it's like watching mr magoo's reaction once he finally gets his prescription somewhere in the ballpark of where it's supposed to be 010
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 27/09/2026in the meme-stock world we live in now, there are plenty of chuds who are like "it's not trading - i'm investing long-term!" and then they shove all their money in some garbage ETF like $DRAM without any idea of the risks of going all-in on a portfolio of three companies that make datacenter RAM 001
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 27/09/2026pointing out that "regular" fund investing is not gambling is largely the right way to look at it but apart from the day trading aspect of it, high-beta ETFs and especially leveraged ETFs have blurred the lines between "regular" investing and gambling 100
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 25/09/2026i do think we shouldn't totally ignore the specifics of stories like this insofar as they are excellent illustrations of how many major journalistic orgs are obsessed with litigating ever-more-pointless questions around specifically social class and manners just like larry david, except unfunny! 000
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 25/09/2026one of the very few specific details of an undergrad course that i can still remember is the late mark kishlansky, in his western civ lecture class 24 years ago, relishing every word as he delivered "one of the defining features of early modern Europe was...the SMELL" 020
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 25/09/2026there's always that one unctuous scumbag at the office who "inexplicably" keeps advancing even though his peers all hate him. he knows how to kiss the boss's ass and look like he's working hard! this isn't really much of an enigma 001
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 22/09/2026he's not really an economist. he's a banker with a law degree. people sometimes *assume* he's one because it seems crazy that a non-economist could get nominated to the FOMC and then become fed chair, but that's because they don't realize how much george w bush loved appointing unqualified hacks! 100
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 21/09/2026i think they are still valued in the job market *for writers* but yeah, your average corporate job mainly is selecting for yes-men there is a flavor of corporate boss who sees himself as a sophisticate and loves the *idea* of quirky curious employees, but only if they are still yes-men in practice 010
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 21/09/2026(this is also why some of them are such maniacs about "merit" in admissions - it's not just about harming the kid's prospects in life; they feel *personally* insulted that their own greatness hasn't been rewarded in the way they see fit) 001
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 21/09/2026i have also noticed that for at least the wealthier cohort of gen x parents, they seem to see their children as living trophies; if princeton waitlists little Conor, that's princeton's way of telling them that *they*, and their *own* achievements in life, are unworthy 100
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 21/09/2026this too, though i wonder if the cause is less something endogenous to gen x and more a reflection of wildly increasing college costs; the higher that even lower-tier public schools jack up the price, the more parents will view that relationship as purely transactional bsky.app/profile/bubb... 100
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 21/09/2026yes, and i also don't think it's a coincidence that everyone i've known who had this incurious, purely instrumental kind of mindset also approached their own jobs in a maximally slapdick, barely-competent way, doing the absolute minimum that was necessary for the client or boss to not pitch a fit 100
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 17/09/2026that's a little trickier then because it's too recent to be on most genealogy sites. each state's vital records office's or health department's website likely lists their procedure for ordering a death certificate search 030
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 17/09/2026(assuming we are talking historical death certificates here, not for someone who died last month or whatever) 030
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 17/09/2026Familysearch or ancestry.com should be your first stops, but they don't have every state's death indexes. if the index isn't in there you should probably check to see if the state or another entity has the index you need. 130
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 17/09/2026this is key - warsh has always been a massively unqualified hack since his initial appointment, but none of that matters as much as the fact that most of the rest of the FOMC are normal policymakers, and this ties his hands 000
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 16/09/2026should all of <gestures at the last ~12 years> be expected to make a rational observer conclude "if cultural influence has one iron law, it's that respectability matters; people really don't pay much heed to punchlines and cranks"? 110
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 16/09/2026not proud to admit that during the pandemic, there were a few intervals where i delayed showering longer than advisable. at 7 days i felt pretty gross, by 10 days i almost felt an involuntary physical compulsion to bathe. cannot even imagine doing that again and again for a year 030
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 15/09/2026...and they get pretty upset if your definition doesn't agree with theirs. i think that is some of what's behind this cop's reaction - she thinks the flock guy is being singled out for wrongful punishment; by virtue of his job he can't possibly be in the class of "bad guys" 000
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 15/09/2026both the cops and local TV news itself see being subjected to public scrutiny as a *punishment* (fitting, since they both largely have total impunity from it). they have both arrogated to themselves the right to determine who is a "bad guy" who should be punished... 100
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 15/09/2026the other bit of this that I couldn't quite put my finger on before is that it seems like the cop might be trotting out the "he doesn't know if he's gonna be on the news" bit to mean "this guy is just a smol bean, it's *unfair* that you would *punish* him by airing what he does to the public" 100
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 15/09/2026in that sense it really is the perfect trump playlist: a lazy sociopath just having his sycophants slop something together as a lie that his useful idiot audience will eat up anyway 020
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 15/09/2026had the same thought. including the undertaker theme is obviously a pander from some millennial edgelord staffer, it's not something trump picked up from his own fake WWE "fandom" 100
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 14/09/2026with a very big asterisk: they won't police weirdness at all if it is even a little bit of a pain in the ass. can you imagine how the average cop would respond if you called 911 and said "my name is showing up on such-and-such website, i'm afraid people on the dark web are going to target me"??? 100
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 14/09/2026we have turned into a society of useless busybody hall monitors. both cops and local TV news now largely see their jobs as policing "weirdness" - their first instinct is to attack people not for noncompliance with the law, but for not *conforming* to how they think a "normal" way to behave is 100
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 14/09/2026the reason chotiner's style works, though, is that the interviewees let their guard down - even if they don't know who he is, they have no reason to be overly combative bc the interview isn't live. on TV, they have every incentive to turn things into a crossfire-esque shoutfest circus. 000
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 14/09/2026you have to be willing to ruthlessly cut their mike, or abruptly end the interview and rebut them after you've sent them to the cornfield, because the first thing they learn in media training is to just keep interrupting you the instant you start making a point that they sense is unfavorable to them 010
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 14/09/2026i mean i guess i can see this being a very cursory step that cops take to try to deescalate disputes - "this guy has this concern about you regardless of what the law says" - but it feels scummy. a cop saying it carries the implicit threat that this "concern" might be ameliorated by the use of force 100
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 14/09/2026besides everything else, this is a perfect example of how cops act based on vibes, not the law. listen to the cop go "[the flock guy] doesn't know if he'll be in the news, if he's going to be targeted" there is no law that immunizes you from showing up in the news for what you do in public!!! 110
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 13/09/2026really not good that there are any D politicians who have internalized the idea that israel is the defender of world jewry (not to mention its absurd corollary, that attacks on jews anywhere mean that israel is justified in committing genocide against palestinian Arabs) 000
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 13/09/2026in jentleson's telling, a major triggering event for fetterman becoming gung-ho for the gaza genocide was the tree of life synagogue mass shooting. american jews did not ask for john fetterman to cheer on the killing of arabs for "our" safety (???), but he decided to be our white knight anyway 100
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 13/09/2026the men who run FIDE are corrupt bigots, but male egos are not the actual reason that they've set up women-only titles and tournaments (which are not "segregated" - tournaments almost never force women to only play in the women's section, when there is one) 000
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 12/09/2026lol okay, i did -the *founder of wikipedia* doesn't think college-level students should cite *any* encyclopedia -*one guy* who ran the ALA made the rather non-spicy point that its convenience could make students a bit lazy the "academic establishment" doesn't seem to have been thoroughly surveyed 001
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 12/09/2026"an encyclopedia website that was both amateurish and poorly moderated in its infancy was not treated as an acceptable source for university and HS-level papers" is not analogous to "fancy autocomplete can't think and demonstrably makes you dumber" 000
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 12/09/2026except blogging was good and AI slop is bad, and the fact that you don't have the critical judgment to discern the difference is not an indictment of the rest of us who, in fact, do have five or six brain cells to rub together 000
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 10/09/2026imagine how high the percentage be if they used the straightforward word "punish" instead of the bland, corporate "hold accountable" 000
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 10/09/2026i can't wait until celebrity gossip journalism starts "reporting" on which clankers are nice and relatable and which clankers are homewreckers and tramps 030
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 07/09/2026the entire US-mexico border also becomes a national park. every panel of the border fence is pulverized and mixed with any recoverable stone from the also-demolished trump tower; after safety testing these are used as substrate for public gardens that subsidize growing ukrainian sunflowers 000
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 07/09/2026argentina, israel, and saudi arabia do not get an instant of us government attention (let alone money) until their leaders personally prostrate themselves in front of me all ICE detention facilities and car dealerships will become units of the national park service 100
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 07/09/2026(yes, i'm glossing over the degree to which this also is a self-serving rationalization - that plenty of the tech elite were realizing they sympathized with many of the racist beliefs of trump's base, but were trying to find a way to get comfortable with those beliefs by making it others' fault) 000
turnerator.bsky.social @turnerator.bsky.social · 07/09/2026"am i so out of touch?" (for not using my considerable power to fight racism that i missed right under my nose) "no, it's the children who are wrong" (you should have 'debated' racists to convince them you were right, by stigmatizing them you just made them so much worse" 100
