Notices by Jorge Stolfi (jorgestolfi@mas.to), page 3

Dear Americans, enjoy the last few hours of your country as you knew it.

Tomorrow, Democracy will be gone from the US, replaced by a full dictatorship -- a regime where the government is not bound by any laws. Where each member of the government is bound to do all and only what his superiors tell him to do.

🧵> Anyway, her nomination by the Dem in 2020 was again mostly due to internal politicking. While she did get more votes than Trump, it was not enough to defeat him. Surely there were many other possible candidates who could have won...

🧵> I am convinced that the war against Assange was largely pushed by Hillary, in order to divert the blame of the leak away from her. It would fit with my impression of her character... 🧵>

🧵> Assange is not a very likable character, but he did nothing wrong in that case. As a foreign national living abroad, he had absolutely no obligation to preserve US secrets. If anything, he had an obligation to send them to the Australian government. Yet the US waged a ferocious war against him, intending to bury him alive in solitary for the rest of his life; and arranged for trumped-up charges of rape to get that. Which caused him to spend 14 years essentially in prison. 🧵>

🧵> As Secretary of State, she -- not the CIA, not the President -- was the custodian of those "cables". So it was by her decision that, in the panic after 9/11, those files were made available to all "intelligence analysts", presumably to help them identify members of Al-Qaida etc. But those "analysts" included people like Bradley/Chelsea Manning, then a troubled kid working at an insecure location in Iraq. 🧵>

🧵> Maybe Hillary had some positive achievements in her tenure as Secretary of State; I don't know. Maybe she did not deserve blame for the Benghazi affair. But she is responsible for a HUGE fail: the leaking of the "diplomatic cables" -- all the messages from embassies around the world, going back to the 1970s. 🧵>

🧵> Obama made a big mistake when he nominated her as Secretary of State. Naively, one may think that it is gentlemanly and democratic for the winner X of an election to invite the second most voted competitor Y to join his team. In fact that is a big mistake (as I learned myself, years ago). Because, for Y, supporting X is only second priority, at best; the first priority is to build up support for him/herself in the next election, possibly stealing support from X. 🧵>

🧵> IMHO, Hillary is guilty of letting Trump win in 2016, by imposing herself as the Dem candidate -- largely by internal Dem party politicking, rather than by her charisma, ideology, or merits. She comes out as a member "right faction" inside the Dem party, as compromised by big money as any GOP candidate.

That was already case already in 2008, when she ran against Obama for the Dem nomination. 🧵>

My recent poll " Who bears the largest slice of responsibility for the Donald Trump catastrophe" gave 47% "GOP as a whole", 44% "FOX News", 6% "Merrick Garland", and 3% "Hillary Clinton" (of 64 respondents).

My own choice would be "Hillary Clinton". Right-wing entities like the GOP and FOX News were of course the direct agents, but they were doing what they were supposed to do. They were the adversary team. The question is, why did THAT team win? 🧵>

/A Midsummer Late Night Dream with Seth Meyers/

#ShakespeareAShowOrSitcom
#HashTagGames

Milton, /Free Espresso Lost/

#WorkAtHomeASongOrPoem
#HashTagGames

#METAnews Of The Day*

BOCA CHICA, TX Jan 17, 2025: Qualifying the 7th Starship launch as an amazing success, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced that the next launch is scheduled for later this month, after his Inauguration. The Starship will feature improved heat shielding, a revised payload bay arrangement, Full Self Driving, and will land directly into a Hyperloop tube that will take it back to base at 1000 miles per hour.

*100% Community Approved

Question for physicists: if Schroedinger puts a mirror in the box with the cat etc, will the cat still be in a superposition of states after it looks into the mirror, with the box still closed?

What if the cat is dumb and thinks that the reflection is not itself, but another cat?

@isaacfreeman

But if a sort does not exist, why would you believe that it *could* exist?

@gutenberg_org@mastodon.socia

"Tuvo a todo el mundo en poco;
fue el espantajo y el coco
del mundo, en tal coyuntura,
que acreditó su ventura
morir cuerdo y vivir loco."

(OK, volume 2, but whatever.)

@michael @Mkagle

Thanks!

@br00t4c

You should check what triggered the Albanian civil war...

@michael @Mkagle

Yeah, I guess it is time to move. What do you think of .social, technically and as a community?

@Mkagle

Many months ago I posted a request on the Mastodon bug/suggestion site for more flexible polls, including polls with more than 4 choices. Comments have supported the idea, but nothing happened...

@GottaLaff

Garland could save a tiny little bit of his reputation by simply ignoring her and releasing the report. But of course he chose to end his term with perfect 100% cowardice score...