This is very beautiful, but let’s not forget that it can be taken several steps backwards.
All the material in the recycled butterflies, wolf fur, etc. that is now your body came from the explosion of now-dead stars billions of years ago. (This is a fairly recent discovery –late 20th Century, btw.)
You are literally stardust.
As they say, you are not living in the universe; the universe is living in you.
Over a period of several decades, I wrote many hundreds of market research surveys, supervised their execution on a statistically valid sample space, then tabulated and presented the results to my clients.
At this point, I would love to get the opportunity to interview the 800+ people who have been convicted in our criminal courts for their participation in the January 6th insurrection, and ask them to answer:
• Do you feel that you have been treated fairly? If not, why not? What would have been just, in your opinion?
• Please tell me how, if at all, your allegiance to Donald Trump has changed since that day. What did you believe going in? How do you feel now?
• If justice is to be served, what do you believe should happen to Trump at the conclusion of the trial in which he’s charged with inciting the insurrection?
Good for Mark Cuban.
When it comes to Trump, you either see him for what he is, or you don’t. Most people of intelligence and compassion are in the former camp, and fortunately, that will be more than enough votes to “get it done” in November.
Btw, that Trump is a “snake oil salesperson” is actually not the lowest aspect of his character. He is a traitor to his country, and this is about to be proven in court, both in Fulton County, GA and in Washington, DC.
Most commenters on this meme here report that “it’s already in full swing.”
One might think that the appeal of this conspiracy theory would be limited to the completely uneducated, but that’s not true; an old college friend liked this post on social media.
If I were to consider accepting the idea, I’d first challenge it with what I read about the American economy: the growth in GDP, the job market, corporate earnings and thus the all-time records in the stock market. I’d consider inflation numbers, and public spending that has already provided real value for the common American. 
In short, I’d want to examine the evidence.
It doesn’t appear that there is a plan to destroy the American economy. In the olden days, we used to evaluate the legitimacy of an argument’s premises before trying to draw conclusions. Perhaps it’s our loss of our capacity to think rationally that’s been our undoing as a nation.
As suggested here, children have been disappointing their parents, and scaring the living hell out of the pundits of their times, for more than 2000 years.
Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that parents today have no reason not to be terrified at the conditions our kids will be facing in just a few decades from now.
I’m more concerned that they’ll be living under the yoke of terrible stupidity, and baking on a planet with runaway warming. I doubt it will have much to do with their insatiable desire to write books.
Here, ultra-right-wing Hillsdale “College” offers another online survey, largely attracting people who embrace the Big Lie, i.e., that the 2020 election was rigged, and that our democracy is in tatters.
I just got back from voting in our primary elections, and one of the poll workers almost had a seizure when I started to put my ballot in the box before one of the volunteers could ask me if this was a “standard” or “provisional” ballot. She immediately explained: “We almost made an error on this earlier in the day. We could have gotten in a lot of trouble.”
There’s an incredible level of scrutiny here. Just one man’s viewpoint, but I think we’re in pretty good hands.
Of course, no one can predict what will happen post the 2024 presidential elections in November. Maybe Fox News wants to re-raise the claim that our voting systems are rigged, and risk shelling out another payment of hundreds of millions of dollars in damages from losses in defamation lawsuits.
Around here, the world has ceased to make sense. Perhaps the best explanation came from “No one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”
I’ve mentioned that 2GreenEnergy “headquarters” is located in a heavily MAGA part of rural California.
That said, we have occasional Trump signs on our front lawns, but we do not have anything approaching the display here.
Property values?
Trump’s level of intelligence is irrelevant to the damage he’s inflicting on American society and humankind as a whole.
OK, he’s smart enough to have pulled off, so far at least, the greatest con in world history, but his defining characteristic has nothing to do with his IQ. It lies in his singular ability to tell bald-faced lies that are eagerly accepted by large swaths of American voters.
In November, tens of millions of people will go to the polls and cast their ballots for a man who has convinced them that the 2020 election was rigged against him, that the country’s problems stem from the radical left, and that he is the only person on Earth who can fix those problems, even though he is being unfairly prosecuted by the Deep State and woke liberals.
IMO, there is no antidote for this poison, no cure for this disease. It’s something that needs to simply run its course, like a case of the flu.
Trying to have a rational discussion with people who think this way is as good a use of your time as trying to teach your dog to play the violin.
Thomas Paine put it better (see right).
I was fortunate enough to have grown up in an affluent household, in which my parents were able to join a nice country club near Philadelphia when I was 12 years old. The kids with whom I played golf and tennis all came from similar settings, but it was immediately clear that they had a wide ranges of aptitudes and intelligences.
For example, there was a kid we all knew to be seriously unintelligent. From his Facebook page, it appears that he graduated from the local public high school and went no further with his education.
There was another who graduated from a 325-year-old Quaker prep school and then on to Princeton.
One of them posted the meme here, though remarkably, it could have been either of the two.
Over the years, the Princeton grad has posted on social media about the importance of building the wall, closing the borders that the Democrats had opened to human vermin, English as the only language in the U.S., the climate “hoax,” COVID as part of a government plan to enslave the American people, etc.
Seems like a lot of wasted money, since that level of education is available at Walmart.
Rather than leave readers guessing, here is the identity of the guy who actually posted this.
From magician and actor Penn Jillette: For (millions of) years our biggest problems were too few calories, too little information. For about 50 years our biggest problem has been too many calories, too much information. We have to adjust, and I believe we will really fast. I also believe it will be wicked ugly while we’re adjusting.
Keep in mind that our capitalist society really doesn’t give a damn about what happens to the consumers who live on the garbage sold at fast-food restaurants and the interior aisles of our grocery stores.
