When another poster asked, “Isn’t it possible that this was a deliberate terrorist attack rather than a tragic accident?,” Simon retorted, “It’s possible that you’re a useless shitheel rando on an internet hellsite speculating wildly and without regard to what is already known by authorities in Baltimore. Quick, have someone fund your podcast. You’ll go far.”
To a poster who called Baltimore a “mismanaged, failed state,” Simon offered a well-worded correction: “The port is a state-run entity and nothing whatsoever to do with Baltimore municipal government, you absolute submoron.”
To Anthony Sabatini, the former Florida congressman who wrote “DEI did this” – referring to diversity, equity and inclusion – Simon took no prisoners. “Your mother did you, but after a hard life of service on a truck-stop lot, can we really hold her loosened, battered womb responsible for dropping you head-first on the Winnebago floor and burdening our society with another empty, racist demagogue thereafter? We cannot.”
If this is indicative of The Wire, I should watch it.
Yes.
Sheeeeeeeit. You should definitely watch it.
Idris Elba started out on it. As did Dominic West (Prince Charles in The Crown), and Aidan Gillen (Littlefinger in Game of Thrones). And Michael Kenneth Williams had some choice parts, he was always great.
“This…. Is bullshit.” RIP Lance Reddick
Obligatory: I wish I were LeVar Burton
Don’t forget Michael B. Jordan baby facing it up in the first season
Where Wallace at, yo?
WHERE WALLACE AT?
Yes. Yes you should. It is a very realistic portrayal of crime, politics, and the police in Baltimore.
Not just Baltimore. It represents most major American cities and their institutions.
I finally gave in and watched it after multiple independent recommendations from people who had strong educated opinions on quality nuanced literature and media. The last series sort of declined a bit, but overall I was in no way disappointed. It was exceptionally well done, and importantly for me, not too watered down with tired tropes, stereotyped single dimensional characters, painfully predictable plots and neatly tidied moral threads.
I mean, there were definitely some, but, it’s TV. It holds up extremely well even with age.
It’s also had such a large cultural influence, many of those tropes come from it.
Those replies, especially the last one, are worthy of a Pulitzer.
Good God, someone call the Hague
This man’s gift of insult is truly magical.
I wish I had a mastery of the English language even half as good as this man. There’s fucking POETRY in this!
Holy shit man, that guy rips! I almost want to go piss him off to get my own!
I…I would like to wed this man.
Fucking savage.
And I’m gonna binge-watch the wire again.
Goddamn. Glorious.
How is it that we’ve created a society where scientists are subordinate to lying narcissists and psychopaths?
This isn’t something new. This is how society has functioned throughout history. Democracy is an ideal, but no country is truly democratic. Show me a country where the parliament or whatever legislative and executive bodies they have is truly made up of common people voted by their peers, and not part of the upper class.
Ireland has a political elite, like most other countries. However, many of our politicians are ordinary people too… There are teachers, doctors, farmers etc mixed among the lawyers. Due to proportionak representative democracy, there are also one issue candidates who her elected for campaigning on things like special needs or other issues.
When K moved to Australia, I was quite surprised to find that nearly every politician was a lawyer by trade.
Norway
Bro we got a lot of career politicians that have had their families intrinsically tied to our political sphere for ages. Also we have an insane revolving door of people being in politics and doing “lobbying” depending on the way the wind blows. There was also a bigger article with the actual stats on how often this has happened but I can’t find it. Anyway …
From last year: https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/i/Qy6KXR/gullkortet-minst-50-med-fri-tilgang-jobber-med-aa-paavirke-politikere
Edit here it is: https://www.vg.no/spesial/2020/pr-politikk/
Switzerland
My current conspiracy theory as to the accident:
The ship lost main power because the corporation that leases it doesn’t pay for sufficient maintenance because that would eat into executive bonuses and shareholder dividends. The ship lost control at a pretty pivotal time with no safety measures whatsoever in place, because “most of the time they aren’t needed.” And because this is the chronically negligent maritime industry, not much will be done about it industry wide.
We really need to bring back the true meaning of conspiracy, because these “conspiracy theories” just serve to distract the public from the wrongdoings of the capitalist class.
Slow your roll captain conspiracy. That sounds like lunacy.
It’s way more likely that illegal aliens transported this ship under the cover of night to cover up the melting of the steel beams by jet fuel. They don’t just crumple like that on their own after all. We’ve known all along these cargo containers are hollow on the inside.
It was space lazers (sic)!
Turns out the entire Cargo was de-transition pills and AR-15s
And adrenaline harvested from babies.
… and Jewish space lasers!
Believe it or not, the insurance companies drive maritime safety requirements since they hate having to pay out for things like this. The classification societies that regulate and inspect ships to approve for insurance coverage have very strict and well thought out safety requirements that get better any time a new failure mode is discovered.
I personally think this one was human error in an emergency situation.
Theory: They lost primary electric service and began a slight drift to starboard. When they got backup power online, they began a crash reverse to slow down. This would hinder rudder control since the ship was still going forward and now just creating turbulence with the prop. Reverse would torque the stern to port, swinging the bow to starboard, as we saw. The bow thruster was offline due to the power issues.
from the photos that I saw thismorning she had also dropped a bow anchor, my thoughts are if this was done when the bow had already began its drift to starboard that could have swung the stern even more to port.
At least they called in in
Insurance companies, being for-profit institutions, are poorly suited to manage industry safety.
As for theories as to exactly what happened in terms of “the power failure caused the rudder to remain 4 degrees to port and stopped the bow thruster, causing the ship to veer off course” or whatever…I’ll wait until Brick Immortar reads me the NTSB report.
Being a pilot (as in an airplane driver, not a harbor pilot) as long as I have, I’ve had this conversation a lot:
“Did you see that airplane crash in the news?”
“No.”
“Here look:” 3 seconds to look at a hastily googled headline and a badly taken photo of what looks like a mangled Piper Cherokee wing sticking up from behind something “What do you think happened?”
Ironically things like that absolutely get covered up by the media.
Casual Navigation has (amazingly) already made a video about this accident and hypothesizes that the geography of the channels in the harbor may have pulled it to starboard. Had they not lost power they could have corrected, but it looks like happened at the worst possible moment.
Alarmingly fast, he put out that video. I don’t know how you’d edit it that fast.
The fuck? There are conspiracies about this already even though there was a live stream of it? What the fuck is wrong with people?
There were conspiracies the morning of. I asked if anyone at work had seen it, about 9 California time, they hadn’t but soon after seeing pictures and video some of these guys were calling for a conspiracy.
So I leaned into it. Yeah Republicans refuse to fund infrastructure maintenance, so the conspiracy is get shipping companies to ram dilapidated bridges so their insurances fund the rebuilds.The Key Bridge isn’t even that bad. There are WAY worse bridges. Just roll down the water a few miles and go after the Bay Bridge near Annapolis, for example. I’m still irritated that as bad as that pair of bridges is, there’s STILL no long term plan for replacement. We’ve been talking about it for at least a decade now.
One two lane bridge (circa 1952), and one three lane bridge (1973) with a lane that is often set to the reverse direction - without barriers! No shoulders at all. You break down, you’re in the lane. People freeze up from fear driving over it, and I really don’t blame them - I’ve never had an issue, but there is little to block your view of water almost straight down out the side of the vehicle. Don’t forget the metal grate section that gets nice and slick in any sort of wet weather. And they carry far more traffic than they were ever expected to handle. Oh and there are often high winds that add to the fun.
The Mackinac Bridge is exactly the same. Built in 1957, with one concrete and one metal grate lane in both directions, and in winter, it’s sheer ice. It’s so long over a strait prone to high winds, you can feel the sway. I’ve had panic attacks halfway over it as a passenger – and I’m always a passenger even if I was driving in the lead-up because it scares me so much, I was too terrified my first time driving across it and was shaking so badly, I could barely steer. Maybe I’m a pussy, and they say it’s well-maintained, but I’ve read Michigan DOT’s state-wide bridge health report, and it’s less than exemplary.
I have driven over that bridge as well and it’s definitely a scary one. Especially since part of it is that metal grating which gets slick in any kind of humidity.
But for me the Bay Bridges is worse (and I’ve driven the Bay Bridge many times, and the Mac only once - so you’d think familiarity would kick in). The Mac has the other lanes in sight, so it doesn’t seem as crazy small. Also, the Mac doesn’t climb as far over the water as the Bay Bridges do.
I actually compare the Bay Bridge more closely to the old bridges in Charleston, SC that connected downtown Charleston to Mount Pleasant. The Grace and Pearlman bridges were quite exciting, the Grace was like a roller coaster. Like the Bay Bridges, the Grace had 2 lanes and the Pearlman had 3, one of which served as a reverse lane for trucks since the Grace couldn’t handle them. They didn’t have the height over the water that the Bay Bridge does (based on my memory), though. Those bridges weren’t replaced until 2005.
When you’re trapped in the phantasm of conspiratorial thinking you’ll try to map any event that makes you feel something into that crooked framework.
It’s incredibly said when it’s involuntary, because it shows how damaged a person’s reasoning faculties have become. It’s infuriating when it’s done by assholes who use it knowingly to manipulate others.
Most of the conspiracies I’ve seen are related to the fact that there were live streams of it.
Some people are just unfamiliar with the fact that there are webcams streaming 24/7 in cities all over the world.
There are conspiracies that the earth is flat too. Humans can be profoundly stupid.
And religion + racism + fear of the unknown + social echo chambers can all be exploited. Remember that MTG floated a few years ago that space lasers caused California forest fires. Never mind the power requirements and ridiculousness that would require.
I think the woman is dangerous as hell, but I don’t think she’s stupid. I think she uses dumb ideas to mobilize an ignorant base.
You give her far too much credit, she’s incredibly stupid. The people who feed her this bullshit might not be, but she is.
but I don’t think she’s stupid. I think she uses dumb ideas to mobilize an ignorant base.
No, she’s pretty stupid. If she wasn’t, she’d be Steve Bannon or something similar, but instead she’s the amalgamation of crazy stupid that she is
Idk I think she’s stupid but I don’t think that makes her unwilling of a participant in her evil or less dangerous. She’s the voice of the bigoted idiots of America rather than someone selling to them.
MTG
Damn, Magic The Gathering has really let itself go
She’s gooned on the juice!
People who dropped out of high school and think they never needed to learn physics are all watching the video and thinking, “why would a bridge fall THAT way?” and then blaming Biden because that’s what Fox and Newsmax keyed them into blaming.
I thought it was Obama’s fault?
Sadly truth doesn’t seem to matter anymore to a large group of people. As long as it matches their worldview they’ll just take anything at face value.
Human error is a far more reasonable explanation than complicated conspiracies, but I understand the thought. It really looked like that ship aimed for the bridge. Planning such a conspiracy would be far, far harder and more expensive to pull off than simple bridge failure, though.
This dude dropped some seriously well worded “your mama” jokes on some xitheads … damn he’s my hero.
They’re starting to claim it was the fault of “DEI”. That’s their new thing, whenever any accident happens of any kind its the fault of “DEI”, by which they mean its the fault of minorities having jobs. How convenient that all the failures of poor management and cut corners due to profit seeking can so neatly be blamed on minorities they want to discriminate against.
They’re claiming that the Black mayor of Baltimore was a “DEI hire”, which is an absolutely bonkers thing to say about an elected official.
Much less the mayor of fucking Baltimore. It’s an extremely historically black city. If the mayor of Baltimore was a WASP that would be weird
There will always be an “other” for them to blame. They’ll invent one any time they run out of “acceptable” ones in the eyes of the public.
“We have always been at war with eastasia”
It’s not minorities having jobs, it’s minorities having good jobs. They don’t like that there are brown and queer people doing shit they want. Like why the hell am I, a trans woman, an engineer and not them? It must be DEI because it definitely isn’t that I chose to attend a college that barely even requires a pulse to attempt their engineering program and then dedicaed 5 years of my life, countless hours of work, and large sums of money to it.
I don’t consider a TV producer insulting a (obviously terrible) politician to be news, but I do enjoy this particular insult. It’s nicely crafted. It’s a pity he continues to use Twitter.
He’s a chronicler of Baltimore’s underbelly. He’s a subject matter expert of Baltimore and graft.
For sure, but insults are just (nicely crafted in this case) words, and unless the insulter is in a certain position, they ultimately don’t affect much. It’s not like Simon’s statement is going to change Baltimore policy or shipping or things for the citizens, or Greene’s actions. And it’s not like Greene will be able to make funding decisions about Baltimore or declare war on the city.
Like, I enjoy some dramatic shit-slinging, but I wish “news” were more about objective things happening than someone expressing an opinion on social media that doesn’t have any obvious real consequences for anyone.
It is high time that we rid ourselves of these carnival barkers.
Anthony Sabatini got murdered. Condolences to his truck stop mother.
To Anthony Sabatini, the former Florida congressman who wrote “DEI did this” – referring to diversity, equity and inclusion – Simon took no prisoners. “Your mother did you, but after a hard life of service on a truck-stop lot, can we really hold her loosened, battered womb responsible for dropping you head-first on the Winnebago floor and burdening our society with another empty, racist demagogue thereafter? We cannot.”
Holy fuck, don’t get on Simon’s bad side. That was a solar flare level burn.
David Simon has a history of public takedowns and is pretty defensive of Baltimore. He sort of ended O’Malley’s presidential ambitions. I want to say single handedly, but O’Malley did a lot of work on that too
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/04/29/david-simon-on-baltimore-s-anguish
A woman dedicated to her craft 🫡
The captain of the ship was Captain Ray Turner… That’s right, C.R.T. You can’t make this shit up.
I mean I made it up, but you can’t.
Didn’t you get the memo? CRT is the old racist dogwhistle. Now they’re going after DEI: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
Weird that you say that, because I didn’t even make the connection - the ship’s doctor… Dr. Erica Ingold. D.E.I.
I wish I was joking, dude… And oh, look? My wish came true!
Damn cathode ray tubes crashing into bridges!
I’m still gonna try
someone is trying to fight back against the misinformation tide.
Maggie 3 toes knows a terrorist attack when she sees one, she helped plan one after all.
I heard she has a cleft butthole.
No that was a portrait.
Dang, adding that one to the arsenal.
That’s not what a pratfall means though?
Its two word put together, prat and fall. It means to PURPOSEFULLY trip up but make it look like you are clumsy.
It’s a “stage” thing and done by clowns and actors generally.
Guessing it’s one of those context-specific things- some words have wildly different meanings depending on how/when it’s used.
I assume Madge blames the Jewish space lasers again.
Hey, I think I’d like to buy this man a beer.