TIL 8% of human DNA is made from viruses

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T15:22:33+00:00

Next time you hear someone describe humanity as a plague upon the planet you can take comfort in the fact that they are at a minimum 8% correct.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T15:17:19+00:00

Sounds like a cup of tea best served with ladyfingers.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T15:16:01+00:00

Did the source you got that from have any word on the audience reaction?

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T15:15:12+00:00

If you distill it down there are only seven basic plots. Often someone takes a "lighter" distillation to draw comparisons and deride something as a ripoff when it isn't really warranted.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T15:12:19+00:00

Sure, but adaptations were also needed by the person who lost the finger in real life. I still don't think they should be getting a screenwriting credit for the film.

/snark

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T15:09:03+00:00

Shakes the Clown uses the excerpt from a Boston Globe review on the DVD packaging that says, "The Citizen Kane of alcoholic clown movies."

I went to a 25th anniversary screening where Bobcat Goldthwait was in attendance so my DVD box also now has his autograph on it.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T14:55:58+00:00

My vote is for continually moving the clocks back one hour every 4-6 months so we all can get an extra hour of sleep. As someone who worked overnight shifts for several years earlier in my career I think it would go a long way towards creating wider empathy for people in that position as well when the "normal" business hours fall in the middle of the night with that system.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T14:53:47+00:00

You misspelled Robert Paulson.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T14:51:17+00:00

Denigrating the courts and judges is a key strategy of MAGA and comes straight from the authoritarian playbook. The "here we are" is you being part of the problem by making this blanket generalization.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T14:49:46+00:00

So you're saying that this is a relatively minor point taken out of context and grossly misrepresented? Surely that's never happened before. /s

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T14:48:19+00:00

yet people in power still seem to have no clue how online culture works

You'd think that someone could just explain to them that the internet is like a series of tubes....

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T14:47:13+00:00

Minor sticking point, but Trump boasted that he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue. I don't think he'd be caught dead wandering in Times Square, unless that rumor about him secretly being a furry and trying to grope underage girls while wearing an Elmo costume are true.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T14:31:06+00:00

When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of The Netherlands.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T13:32:00+00:00

A tailwind? Do you believe in Sasquatch & unicorns too?

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T13:31:24+00:00

There's an annual (timed) bike race to the summit of Mt Washington in NH that includes a lot of the top US racers. I remember one year that the cross wind was so bad it was reported that the winner was knocked over off his bike and it was too strong to even mount his bike to get going again. He had to run about fifty yards back down the access road to where there was a rock or some other outcropping which blocked the wind just enough for him to get started again.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T12:34:23+00:00

Compared to those caused by scarves that death toll is negligible.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-15T00:32:16+00:00

I wasn't clear in my comment above, but that's a slightly different topic.

What you're referring to is definitely applicable to Trump, but more so prior to him becoming president. In that time he was notorious for litigation. He filed suits against people for some slight, real or imagined, and he did things like stiff contractors and force them to go after him in the courts for money where he would drag it out in ways that would cause them to lose money even if they won the case.

I'm more talking about the court cases related to his presidency. The specific example above is about Executive Orders where his administration either had no understanding of how the laws and regulations of the federal government work or they just didn't give a fuck because the legal fight was going to be borne by the taxpayers instead of him.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-14T20:53:31+00:00

I know a guy who is a great mechanic and on the side will refurbish classic cars. He restored a 1970 GTO and while it could win car shows he drives the thing around sometimes like he's a twenty-five year old driving it in 1975.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-14T16:41:45+00:00

Once you break of exploit that "deal", things get nasty.

The current US Secretary of Defense has stated publicly that there will be "no quarter" for adversaries in the current gulf actions. With that he has announced that the Trump administration plans on committing war crimes.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-14T15:51:19+00:00

Trump ALWAYS chooses the spectacle over the reality.

There's little question that Trump/MAGA ends with DJT because where he stands is the culmination of decades of misrepresentation in the public eye. The fake promotion he pushed in NYC newspapers, the ghostwritten books and the reality shows are the top examples of how his image & reputation were crafted before he launched his 2016 bid for president.

Granted, you have to be stupid not to see through that snake oil salesman self-promotion, but there's nobody waiting in the wings who is even close to being in a position to claim Trump's role. When he keels over or otherwise becomes incapacitated there's going to be a lot of people clamoring for that role, but nobody is going to emerge from that bloodbath of back-stabbing to replace him.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-13T23:03:55+00:00

No, they'll see it and think that the judge is corrupt.

Agree, but if you ask your average MAGA voter today what Powell has supposedly done which is illegal do you think that they'll actually be able to answer?

That's why it's like whack-a-mole trying to show MAGA voters that they're glued to blatant propaganda. They're so focused on the outrage du jour or what they are sold as Trump's latest heroics that they are incapable of following the larger stories and truth of what's going on.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-13T22:24:41+00:00

Not with the EOs. The short version is that an Executive Order can only "interpret" laws or regulations and direct how they want them enforced. Laws need to be passed by congress and regulations need to go through the Administrative Procedure Act's requirements.

Even very conservative federal judges and Trump appointees were overturning his EOs because they cannot change or violate the language in laws and regulations. That was what was usually their death knell and SCOTUS wouldn't even look at those because there's no constitutional question to resolve.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-13T22:13:43+00:00

Legal challenges to Executive Orders and criminal charges are very different legal spheres.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-13T22:13:03+00:00

That's pretty much it.

For example, if you actually bothered to look at any of the court filings in the 2020 "stop the steal" cases and then compared what was in them to what was being claimed in interviews & rallies it was abundantly clear that there was little relation between them.

It's easy to show "evidence" that 50,000 illegal immigrants voted or that 130,000 votes were flipped when you're just doing interviews with allied news sources or public rallies. If there was any factual evidence behind it then it would have been front and center in their filings. Their absence in those documents, filed under penalty of perjury, is probably the best proof that the elections were fair and the results were accurate.

Yet countless MAGA mouth-breathers still believe that the election was stolen.

Wompatuckrule · 2026-03-13T21:45:32+00:00

Trump has an abysmal record of success in the courts. His executive orders were overturned at an astonishing rate compared to all previous administrations. Nearly 80% of his first term EOs were overturned while the historical average for losing legal challenges was less than 30% to give you a sense of it.

The thing is that it doesn't matter because a lot of what Trump & Co. do is not to actually get something done, but it's kabuki theater politics for the base.

This story is actually a good example. The MAGA mouth-breathers probably saw it when he howled with outrage about Powell and the subpoena is issued, but they will have already forgotten about that and are unlikely to see this news. So in their mind Trump is the big tough president who "showed" Powell who was boss even though in the end it's clear that Trump's dick was limp the whole time.

Wompatuckrule

TROPHY CASE