Rottcodd

So my only question really is whether these people are deliberate agents provocateur who are now feebly trying to hide the fact that they were working for the benefit of Trump all along or if they're blithering idiots who are genuinely so fucking stupid that they didn't see this coming

I see no third option - it's one or the other

They're going to have to get in line.

At every level.

And even just a cursory examination of the history of civilizations would reveal that that's par for the course, and that the US is only really notable for the speed with which it's reached this point.

Huh.

Israel's whole schtick is to foment hostility then point to that hostility as an excuse for the violent conquest that's the actual goal all along.

So Syria refusing to hand them the antagonism they so desperately want so they can use it as an excuse for their imperialistic desires is actually a potentially good strategy. And a cynically amusing one.

The whole concept that governments can make or lose money is stultifyingly stupid and part of the problem.

Governments spend money. That's their job. They take in revenue from the people, then spend it on things to benefit the people. If they can manage to save some along the way or even gain some along the way, that's great, but it is not and never should be thought to be the point. The point is and always has been and always should be to simply identify things that the people need, then spend money on those things.

So no - Elon Musk doesn't need to teach the government how to lose money. Elon Musk needs to get the fuck out of the way and let the actual professionals - the people that every single government agency not coincidentally already has on staff whise jobs are to identify needs of rhe people then spend money to meet those needs - get on with the jobs they've been hired to do, and are most qualified to do (certainly MUCH more qualified than a South African shithead whose only actial qualification for anything is that he's happened to amass enough money to indulge his gargantuan ego).

It means that either the test is flawed, the results are bogus or the report is a lie.

Intelligence is a measure of reasoning ability.

Current AIs have been designed to produce content that (optimally) mimics the products of reason, but they do not in fact reason at all, so they cannot possess measurable intelligence.

Much more to the point, current AIs have been designed to make enormous piles of money for corporations and venture capitalists, and I would pretty much guarantee that that has more to do with this story than anything else.

I really shouldn't like it, since games in which you die repeatedly generally just irritate me, but something about it keeps me coming back. And dying.

Skyrim is the most obvious one - it just seems more appropriate in the winter.

Ditto The Long Dark, though it's notably not festive.

When it's really cold, and especially at night, I sometimes get an urge to play Little Inferno - it's sort of like one of those old fireplace videos, except with added surrealism and silliness.

The DNC and the rest of the Dem establishment would rather lose than adopt any meaningful progressivism or allow for a progressive candidate.

Their primary motivation, and quite possibly their only motivation, is collecting as much soft money as possible.

And that interest is actually well served by losing, and in fact, that appears to be their preference. If they lose, then they don't need to run in the next election on any platform other than stopping the Republicans from causing even more harm, which saves them having to promise their supporters things that they'll then have to arrange to somehow fail to deliver even if they have a majority. It's easier just to lose, then to run merely on being "not Republicans."

And the one thing that would upset that gravy train is ending up with an actual progressive in a powerful position. A progressive would not only promise things the establishment democrats would prefer to not even mention, but would mean it. And even worse yet, they'd then try to actually deliver on their promises. And that would alienate the big money, which pays for policies that favor themselves, and most assuredly NOT policies that favor the common people.

So yes - if the Democrats want to win, they self-evidently need to appeal to progressives. But that's been the case since 2016, and it's made zero difference and it's going to continue to make zero difference, because they'd rather lose than adopt any meaningful progressivism.

No - not particularly.

I don't doubt that they have some gut level opposition to the other things, but I don't think they'd care enough to force a potential government shutdown the week before Christmas or threaten to spend however many millions it'll take to primary Republicans who won't come on board if it wasn't for the debt ceiling.

It's very simple - Trump's been lying all along about cutting spending, and he's trying to avoid having to get the debt ceiling raised by the next congress while he's in office and he'll be the one signing the bill. He's counting on his supporters'dull wits and short attention spans to stop them from paying too much attention to the fact that he's pushing to raise it now, Later on, he'll be able to say that it had nothing to do with him because it was passed by the previous congress and signed by Biden, and the dunderheads will just nod and go along with it.

The rest is diversion, meant specifically so that allied media can run articles like this one, in which they gloss over the debt ceiling (if they mention it at all) and instead talk about the sorts of things that will get Jim Bob Bigot's jockeys in a twist.

This is what it's really all about:

It even prompted President-elect Trump to say he is "totally against" the legislation and insist any spending deal raise the debt ceiling before he gets into office,

The rest is just distractions to keep his dull-witted supporters from thinking too much about the fact that the guy who promised to cut spending - who actually created a new office that was supposedly going to do just that - is pitching a tantrum until Congress proactively raises the debt ceiling for him.

He's hoping to.

I think he's going to faceplant though.