It’s A New Year, But With 2020’s Same Old Shit
I take two weeks off and the world continues to go to hell. I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, Fearless Loser is still president and determined to watch the world burn.
There’s a very common question skeptics get: What’s the harm?
What’s the harm if someone believes in bigfoot, ghosts, UFOs, angels, etc?
The harm is that believing in seemingly harmless things sets the bar for evidence very low. With a low bar, people can begin to believe any wild claim. They haven’t developed the critical thinking skills to protect themselves from scams, fantasy, and conspiracy theories.
What we saw on Wednesday was conspiracy theorists whose threshold for evidence is so low they believed the insane bullshit peddled by dangerous internet trolls (such as QAnon), right wing media, the president, and his fellow coup attempters. Fearless Loser has based his whole political career on mongering conspiracies. I don’t know whether he believes them or not, but that doesn’t matter. His staunchest supporters do. And on Wednesday, he, Fearless Loser Jr., and Rudy Guliani got a crowd of “peaceful” protestors ginned up to “peacefully” march to the Capitol, where a joint session of Congress was certifying the Electoral College vote for Joe Biden, and then “peacefully” push past the barricades and police to “peacefully” storm the seat of American government.
Was that Fearless Loser’s intent? I think it was. What else did he think would happen?
He started his political career pushing the conspiracy theory of Birtherism (Obama was born in Kenya) and established his base. A base of people who can’t tell good evidence from bad, reality from twisted fantasy. He then went on to lie to his base through his campaign and his entire presidency. In the last several months he set up that base to believe that if he lost reelection it would be because it was rigged. Then when he did lose, he spent two months lying about widespread voter fraud, vote-flipping, dead people voting, massive dumps in the middle of the night (or was that him referring to what he was doing while tweeting?), etc. He invited his base to come to DC on January 6th for a “wild” time. They came, he lied to them, and they went wild.
Impeach this man, the worst president in American history, again!
The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson puts this in perspective here.
Seth Meyers gets it, see here.
In the direct attack on American democracy, five people lost their lives. One of them was a police officer. So much for blue lives mattering. One was a rioter who was former military. She was shot trying to climb in through a door that had been busted open. The other three deaths were rioters who suffered heart attack, stroke, or some other medical emergency. (Four people were killed in Benghazi and Republicans were enraged. In Benghazi, the four died from an attack by outsiders on our American embassy in Libya. These five died in an insurrection attempt by Americans attacking their own country. How enraged do Republicans seem about that?) If BLM protestors had attacked the Capitol there would be far more than five people killed.
Believing the conspiracy monger-in-chief’s lies is the harm.
A Dimland Pedantic Moment: Does It Really Mean Exactly The Same Thing?
On the most recent episode of George Hrab’s Geologic Podcast, in his Facts That Will Fuck You Up segment he said the road warning “Bridge May Be Icy” means the exact same thing as “Bridge May Not Be Icy.” But, this pedant asked, “Hmmm. Does it?”
We Got Our White Christmas
It was beginning to look like we might have a brown Christmas in the Twin Cities this year. But, that all changed on Wednesday, December 23rd. Below are the before and after pictures. Before was from that Wednesday morning, the after is from just over 24 hours later.
Another Maskhole And Me Not Wanting To Get Beat Up
I encountered a giant man and his little granddaughter not wearing masks at the grocery store. I’d like to say I approached him to confront his lack of civic caring about the health of his fellow Minnesotans. I’d like to say I informed him of the science behind mask-wearing during a pandemic. I’d like to say I stood my ground.
I’d like to say these things, but…
A Cool Thing: 10cc’s Masterpiece
The story behind this 1975 pop music masterpiece is really cool. And the song is terrific!
Be patient. Wash your hands. Stay home. Stay safe. WEAR A MASK!
Dimland Radio opening theme song: Ram by The Yoleus
First ad break bumpers: Under Pressure by Queen and America Is Waiting by Brian Eno/David Byrne
Second ad break bumpers: Burning From The Inside by Bauhaus and Another Tricky Day by The Who
Closing song: Angler’s Treble Hook by $5 Fiddle
That’s it! See you next Saturday night for Dimland Radio 11 Central, midnight Eastern on www.ztalkradio.com you can also download my show from the z talk show archives page. You can email your questions and comments to drdim@dimland.com
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