I also had a handful of interactions with her as a student reporter back in the early 90s. She was always very gracious and engaging, but in my experience that’s kind of true of all politicians by definition.

The one thing that always stood out to me is the way she handled the dual assassination of mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk. I was just a little kid at the time, and the way she stepped up and took control of the situation filled me with admiration and confidence.

Maybe that was the high-point of her political career, I don’t know.

That said, you couldn’t be a Northern Californian at that time and not appreciate her leadership, no matter what else you may have disagreed with her about.

I say all of the above while not touching the obvious fact that she stayed in office far too long.

Oh good, a pompous, nonsensical, deeply condescending, deliberately inflammatory, provincial and unhelpful comment! That’s just what we need, said no one, ever.

My cat’s name is Nancy Reagan. She’s almost lived up to it. And no, she doesn’t like you either and if you try to pet her you’ll get what you deserve.

Some cats have official titles. I had another cat whose title was “Chief Inspector.” He was known to do home invasions and conduct snap inspections of my neighbors houses. He had more friends in the neighborhood than me.

It was a warning. Frum is and always has been a staunch never-Trumper. He’s still a conservative, but he was never on board with Trump and to his credit has been pretty vocal in his opposition.

More often than not.

The guy is surrounded by a team composed of some of the most elite, highly-trained and experienced security experts on the planet. I don’t think he has much to worry about. His security detail will be composed of tier 1 operators; the elite of the elite.

Meaning no disrespect, but it’s pretty obvious that you don’t know much about the US military. The senior officer corps uniformly despises Trump for all of the obvious reasons that we already know about, and no doubt for other reasons that aren’t public knowledge.

Trump is only popular among the enlisted ranks, and even that’s not universally true.

In any case, while the enlisted ranks know how to keep things rolling and coordinated at the lower levels of organization, there is no world in which any of them knows how to coordinate whole divisions, carrier groups, fighter squadrons, signals intelligence, bomber groups, the nuclear arsenal, and so on and so forth.

The US military is a vast and incredibly complex organization and the only people who really know how to operate it are all in the senior officer corps which again, uniformly despises Trump.

All that said, I would almost kind of like some crazy MAGA fucker to try to assassinate Miley. You know he’s protected by some of the most highly competent and experienced security experts on the planet.

I work in industrial construction on massive unionized projects with tradespeople coming from all over the US and Canada and I can tell you for an objective fact that the number of guys --it’s almost always guys, which should tell you something-- who drive giant lifted obnoxious trucks as their daily driver vs the number who actually really and truly need them on a regular basis is like 100 to 1.

But even if it were only 10 to 1, that means we have 10 times as many of these giant gas guzzling dangerous trucks out on the road.

The industry has done such a good job at selling these trucks as part of a self-image, that a lot of guys are incapable of admitting that the only reason they drive one is because they think it looks cool.

I can easily do all of that and more with my non-lifted mid-sized long-bed pickup. It’s just a fact my dude; they are selling a self-image, not actual utility. Or what about a van with a roof-rack. In my professional experience that’s a lot more utilitarian if you’re a tradesman.

Again, it’s all about an image that’s been meticulously and brilliantly marketed and sold to very specific demographics.

To be fair, they are hugely popular in both Canada and Mexico as well. I’ll leave it to you to figure out why.

Hint; if marketing didn’t work, it wouldn’t be a multi-billion dollar industry.

But that’s a Federal violation, so not the same thing at all.

Well obviously it’s very difficult for the poor to leave and if you aren’t poor it’s actually a pretty nice place to live.

Also most of the loyalists in the colonies fled to Canada during and immediately after the American Revolution, for obvious reasons.

None. My wife doesn’t know about tact, or the polite white lie or anything like that. She doesn’t have time for that bullshit. It’s one of her endearing qualities.

I can and do agree with everything you argue while also maintaining the objectively obvious fact that context matters in politics.

You either get it or you don’t. I can’t help you with your lack of reading comprehension.

They specifically said that “you can be mad” about it.

You want to have it the way that they’re pushing some kind of agenda, when in fact they’re simply stating what’s true.

I’ve worked for a lot of super rich people over the years in high-end construction. Most (not all) of them are deeply un-self-aware and have no idea how they are seen by regular people because it would never occur to them to ever think about it. The lives of most people are like some strange and exotic foreign country that they’re vaguely aware of but that they have no real interest in. They’re aware of poverty as a concept, but that’s as far as it goes; it’s not something they actually understand or have any desire to understand or even think about.

A lot of this, I think, is somewhat deliberate in that it allows them to ignore how unjust their hoarding of wealth and resources is.

“There’s nothing here but war, where the murderin’ cannons roar, And I am sick and tired of this hard fighting.”

So is yours, ambiguous I mean.

In other words, I think you’re being ridiculously over-generous in your interpretation of ancient knowledge.

If it were in fact the case that the ancients had any real notion of Darwinian theory, I think they would have stated it in unequivocal terms, as they did with so many other Platonic and/or Aristotlean concepts.

Vaguely suggestive biblical lines interpreted as somehow suggesting an understanding of Darwinian theory strikes me as wishful thinking.

Agree. I also think that it’s inevitable that when he dies, leaving aside the fact of his old age and poor health, it will necessarily result in a cataract of deeply stupid conspiracy theories.

This is the world we live in, unfortunately.