Hm… maybe I am wrong. It’s definitely not just a conservative talking point, it was how historians looked at early modern cities for a while, I thought. But it seems like modern historians aren’t sure that’s the case:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/2598176

With just a quick look around, I couldn’t find anything that seemed definitive in the other direction, but also, the little preview that shows of that paper seems like it does a pretty good job of saying “Yo the reasons they said this is true are incredibly weak when you dig into them.” So maybe it was just premodern science from the leeches-and-ECT days.

There’s also this. Deaths are exceeding births in almost half the US, now:

https://carsey.unh.edu/publication/deaths-exceeded-births-nearly-half-us-counties-last-year

(And, of course, it’s mostly in the rural areas)

This is the way it used to be. Cities didn’t used to be able to sustain themselves through the birthrate alone; they were so toxic and dangerous that they would eat the populations within them, and needed a continuous flow of people from the countryside to sustain the population. Who would then, as the years went by, get fed into the maw and replaced in their turn.

Doing the whole country that way hasn’t been tried before to my knowledge, but what the hell, we might as well be the first to give it a shot.

Sure

Like I say, other people might have other wordings or summaries. Honestly hair-splitting about it just pisses me off. A court proved that, by the normal-human definitions of these words, he’s guilty of rape. How’s that?

That’s not to mention the many, many allegations of rape, sexual assault, and child rape that other people have credibly raised. That’s just the time that it’s been proven in court with him having every opportunity to vigorously defend himself against the allegation, and failing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Jean_Carroll_v._Donald_J._Trump

renewing her claim of defamation and adding a claim of battery under the Adult Survivors Act, a New York law allowing sexual-assault victims to file civil suits beyond expired statutes of limitations

A jury verdict in May 2023 found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, and ordered him to pay US$5 million in damages.

Regarding the jury verdict, the judge asked the jury to find if the preponderance of the evidence suggested that Trump raped Carroll under New York’s narrow legal definition of rape at that time, denoting forcible penetration with the penis, as alleged by the plaintiff;[d] the jury did not find Trump liable for rape and instead found him liable for a lesser degree of sexual abuse. In July 2023, Judge Kaplan said that the verdict found that Trump had raped Carroll according to the common definition of the word, i.e. not necessarily implying penile penetration.[e] In August 2023, Kaplan dismissed a countersuit and wrote that Carroll’s accusation of rape is “substantially true”.

The official finding of the jury was that he was “liable” for sexual assault. The rest of it, I think pretty much speaks for itself. I would summarize that as him being proven in court to be guilty of rape, other people might have other wordings or summaries. Whatever.

The man don’tbe corporealanymore center

Sounds like someone needs a visit to the MDC

He was literally proven in court guilty of rape, in the defamation case.

the NTSB chair has been going after the FAA, saying that the FAA failed to adhere to 15,000 close call warnings at Reagan National Airport between planes and choppers, failed to act, failed to move the helicopter route so that there would not be a disaster. Failed to listen to controllers who warned of a possible disaster. And she says the FAA has been dragging its feet and not cooperating in this investigation.

This is precisely why the FAA and NTSB are two separate agencies: When you’re looking into why a crash happened, it often develops that the FAA wasn’t doing some things it should have been doing. And, of course, if the FAA was investigating itself, it would be tempted to downplay how that happened or how big a deal it was. Since it’s a totally separate organization that does investigations as the one that enforces airline safety day-to-day, though, they can just state the facts and if it hurts someone’s feelings or career prospects, oh well.

It’s a leftover from an earlier and more honorable time in American governance.

It is hard to get account-banned from Reddit. Like mad hard. I mean, I’m not up on current events over there, maybe things have changed and they brand you as “antisemitic” and ban your account sometimes, but I feel like much more likely is that this is a you issue.

No, everyone doesn’t deserve a second chance. Certainly not everyone deserves a fourth chance, on the same platform.

Surprisingly, when you drop not enough food basically at random on a whole population of starving people, they start “stealing” it from each other. And the ones who are best at violence tend to be the ones who wind up with it. Who knew.

(Not that I’m saying the NYT isn’t lying here. I haven’t even read the details really, but I’m sure they are making up some kind of bullshit. I’m just saying that, even if there is some kind of “theft” or hoarding of food going on, that is 100% what anyone with a brain would expect to happen from the way Israel is controlling humanitarian aid at this point.)

Seriously, I was gonna say that this is a software skill issue at this point in computing history.

There is a story about Danegeld

every outlet that promoted this false narrative must update their coverage to reflect the full truth

“Oh, you want the full truth?”

“No no no, no no not that. Just enough context to encompass slightly more of this one individual child, and then stop.”

Honestly, if you want to introduce kids to the horrors of the adult world, take them to Chuck E. Cheese. Drunk adults, fights, grime, unsafe food, and capitalism. Run around, Billy. Have fun.

Okay, here’s the answer: Just do an occupation of the whole region like Germany after WW2. Israel and Palestine both.

Have interviews with each and every person. Give them a choice: We’re going to have peace. We’ll set the boundaries, we’ll run the civilian police for a little while, nobody shoots anyone, nobody takes anyone’s land. The boundaries might not be fair, you might or might not agree, but that’s what we’re doing. Are you cool with that? Or do you feel like you want to fight for something better than that, for your people?

Anyone that says “cool” gets to live in the currently Israel part. Anyone that says “fight for my people” gets to live in the currently Palestine part, with all the apartheid infrastructure that the Israelis already set up for them. They’re probably not going to like it. Well, you said you wanted to fight, now we’re fighting, stay in your box, we’ll have some patrols with some trigger happy soldiers. You can fight them, if you want. Anyone in the Israel part who also happens to be Israeli and falls back into some old habits gets to deal with UN sanctioned MPs with the little blue helmets, maybe with the US military if they get extremely excited. And then they go in the box.

Netanyahu and all the IDF leadership and anyone who seems appropriate goes to the ICC, just drop them off at the door in cuffs and let them sort it out what they want to do with him.

I mean, as long as I’m dreaming, I’d like a Caribbean vacation, too. But if you ask me what a solution looks like, that’s the best I can come up with. Maybe let that go for five years or so, and then go into the box again and poll the people: Hey, ready for peace? It’s ready for you, if you want it, if not then we’ll be back in a few years to check again. Let us know.

Just elaborate fantasies to distract me while everyone is dying, along with their families

I have a feeling they’re going to be fine moneywise whatever happens. Their personal safety is probably fine. Maybe not, but probably they don’t have to worry too much.

It’s still courage that they’re doing it.

Jesus Christ, I didn’t know that. That’s worse.

I highly recommend watching the Joe Rogan interview with David Miscavige’s dad, it’s just wild and weird.

Also, where’s Shelly? Where did she go?

You had 8 years to have the CIA invest in some regime change in Israel for the long-term stability of the region big guy

This was always coming, they’re extra fucked that it’s happening now under Trump, but every US president at least since Carter is complicit.

Edit: Also "prevent"able get the fuck out of here

Matt and Trey really don’t give a fuck. They tried to show Muhammed in multiple cartoons, and when the network vociferously shouted them down about it (because it might get them killed or their offices attacked), they snuck him in anyway in multiple places and just didn’t tell anyone. When one of the foundational members of their cast didn’t want them to trash Scientology, they trashed it ten times harder and told him not to let the door hit him on the ass on the way out. They made out with each other for a long time in “Baseketball.”

However valuable or not you feel like their message / their humor is, they are among the very few voices in mainstream media who are simply unafraid and doing their own thing, completely without reservation.