Red

I hope that's a good thing...

Rereading this is absolutely fucking terrifying, in its level of prescience: (It's from FEBRUARY)

Trump will capitalize on his reputation as a truth-teller, and be vicious about both Clinton’s sudden changes of position (e.g. the switch on gay marriage, plus the affected economic populism of her run against Sanders) and her perceived dishonesty. One can already imagine the monologue:

 

“She lies so much. Everything she says is a lie. I’ve never seen someone who lies so much in my life. Let me tell you three lies she’s told. She made up a story about how she was ducking sniper fire! There was no sniper fire. She made it up! How do you forget a thing like that? She said she was named after Sir Edmund Hillary, the guy who climbed Mount Everest. He hadn’t even climbed it when she was born! Total lie! She lied about the emails, of course, as we all know, and is probably going to be indicted. You know she said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq! It was a lie! Thousands of American soldiers are dead because of her. Not only does she lie, her lies kill people. That’s four lies, I said I’d give you three. You can’t even count them. You want to go on PolitiFact, see how many lies she has? It takes you an hour to read them all! In fact, they ask her, she doesn’t even say she hasn’t lied. They asked her straight up, she says she usually tries to tell the truth! Ooooh, she tries! Come on! This is a person, every single word out of her mouth is a lie. Nobody trusts her. Check the polls, nobody trusts her. Yuge liar.”

(...)

 

Trump is an attention-craving parasite, and such creatures are powerful only when indulged and paid attention to. Clinton will be forced to pay attention to Trump because of his constant evocation of her scandals. She will attempt to go after him. She will, in other words, feed the troll. Sanders, by contrast, will almost certainly behave as if Trump isn’t even there. He is unlikely to rise to Trump’s bait, because Sanders doesn’t even care to listen to anything that’s not about saving social security or the disappearing middle class. He will almost certainly seem as if he barely knows who Trump is. Sanders’s commercials will be similar to those he has run in the primary, featuring uplifting images of America, aspirational sentiments about what we can be together, and moving testimonies from ordinary Americans. Putting such genuine dignity and good feeling against Trump’s race-baiting clownishness will be like finally pouring water on the Wicked Witch. Hillary Clinton cannot do this; with her, the campaign will inevitably descend into the gutter, and the unstoppable bloated Trump menace will continue to grow ever larger.

Some facts that have been mentioned before, but which bear repeating:

1: Clinton actually won the popular vote, but didn't win the electoral race.

2: As ever before, a majority of the working class voted D, while a majority of well-off and highly educated people voted R. The cliche about Trump supporters being mainly "rednecks" is mostly untrue.

3: The main reason Clinton lost was the fact that a)fewer workers voted - in other words, she was unable to mobilize any sort of movement amongst normal people, and as a consequence b)Trump made inroads amongst poor people. The Dems still got the majority of the worker vote, but Trump got a larger share than McCain and Romney. This explains why some blue states went red, especially in the rust belt.

So, I've been sort of absent a while. Sorry about that. I have rather good cause though, since I've been busy getting my band's first mini-album off the ground. Which it currently is! (It's also available on Tidal, iTunes and a shitload of other platforms. Just search for "Sir Afrika" and you should be golden). I am quite pleased with the result if I may say so myself! We had a release concert last thursday, which was a boatload of fun!

Untitled by Jens-Petter Salvesen, on Flickr

In addition to that, I'm currently running for the post of vice-president for the Norwegian Journalists' Union. That is scary, but also quite exciting. I don't know if I'll be elected, but if I am, it will mean at least two years of working full-time as a union leader.

Like someone said on the internet: Can we go back to the last savegame and try over? Like, how about we go back to a savegame early in the Democratic primaries?

We had a birthday party for Mark, and he was suitably mortified.

Congrats, Dave!

Aha, so the Defenders will be players in that whole war thing Stick's been going on about. I have faith.

Are you going?

Also, you do know how the DC universe treats mad folk?

Stick 'em in Arkham until they inevitably escape?

That is a class letter, that is.

Turkey is quite comprehensively fucked at the moment. I'm not surprised in the least that Erdogan is using the coup attempt to its full effect, to push extremely illiberal policies. The future does not look bright if you're a journalist, a protester or a Kurd in Turkey.

One would think that putting an insane criminal genius in your group might seem like a bad idea.

Is Joker part of SS, or is he the villain?

Barber?

I guess they need to think of a suitably grim death first.

told the therapist in one on one what was going on and about my paranoia and i was totally honest about my thoughts, which is hard when you suspect the stuff in your head is bullshit

Keep doing this. Working through the weird stuff in your head with others is extremely helpful, in my experience.

What are you working on?

Ouch, that sounds painful. It sounds like he may have been projecting his disappointment and hurt over this girl onto you. Which is a bit of an asshole thing to do, but sadly not uncommon. If I was you, I'd just try sticking with what you've been doing the last months: Getting better, and dealing with your friends in a non-paranoid way. Maybe your friend comes back some time and you two can work things out, maybe not. Either way, I have a hard time finding any malice in what you say you did. Maybe a little thoughtless in meddling, getting yourself involved in drama, but nothing really bad. I wouldn't sweat it. If your friend should go ballistic and try to use your previous bad mental state to badmouth you to your other friends, I think the best course of action would be to be open and honest about what you'd been going through, and that it was a reflection of that, not about your relationship to them.

Good luck!

And THIS is the candidate the Labour coupmeisters think can decisively beat the Tories in a general election? You have GOT to be kidding me! Theresa May would have her for breakfast!

Scared of my POWAH?

Nope

Huh?

That final was as if someone had tried to sum up the whole Tournament in one game.

 

Disappointing.

Poor show by better team.

All it takes is one good goal.

Misinterpreted "Icelandic chant".

Ronaldo's Tears.

Nailed it.

Although the way they played, France didn't deserve to win. With a couple of exceptions (Sissoko's brilliant runs and Grizmanns ability to just be at the right place all the time), they were decidedly underwhelming. They were standing around, waiting for something to happen, not moving to create something.