Re: "Starter Villain" by John Scalzi

On Wed, 21 May 2025 08:43:56 -0700, Bobbie Sellers
<bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:

>
>
On 5/21/25 08:31, Paul S Person wrote:

On Tue, 20 May 2025 19:13:52 -0700, Bobbie Sellers
<bliss-sf4ever@dslextreme.com> wrote:
 

On 5/12/25 08:43, Paul S Person wrote:

On Mon, 12 May 2025 08:38:01 -0400 (EDT), kludge@panix.com (Scott
Dorsey) wrote:
>

Lynn McGuire  <lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

>
When I got into grad school in Mechanical Engineering at TAMU in 1982, I
was the only USA citizen.  The rot has been going on that long.  I
dropped out when I found a job that spring when I got my undergraduate
degree.

>
That's a different problem.  That's the lack of interested and qualified
American students for engineering programs.  Also... when
I was an undergrad I heard a lot of freshman engineering students talking
about how they had picked their major entirely because they expected to
make big money as engineers.  This is not the way to get good engineering
graduates.
>
I blame this on a lot of things, not just middle and high school math
programs being pretty terrible, but also on stuff like the disappearance
of shop classes in school.  I deal with a lot of fresh-outs who have an
engineering degree but don't know how to pick the right size screwdriver
for a screw... but worse are the kids who never got interested in mechanical
stuff enough to consider engineering in the first place.
>
If anything I am pleased at the number of foreign students in engineering
programs, because a lot of them decide to stay in the US and become
well-educated Americans.  But then, I think of engineering as a calling like
the priesthood and not just a fast-money job.  (It's true that I would
probably make a lot more money if I didn't.)

>
IIRC, something called "STEM" exists to ameliorate that problem.
>
Of course, since it isn't restricted to White Males it will shortly be
halted as being part of DEI.
>
BTW, it was known in the 60s that there simply weren't enough White
Males to fill all of the positions requiring something other than a
Liberal Arts degree that would have to be filled. Ultimately, it is
sheer economic necessity that is driving STEM and DEI.

>
Not what the present Federal mal-adminstration wants to realize.

 
Myself, I am waiting to see how the Dems manage to lose the mid-terms.
I would prefer they didn't, but they appear to be locked in the past
-- and have still not figured out that whenever Hillary, Bernie, or
Bernie's friends (especially the Represntative from Hamas) opens their
mouth they lose votes.

>
Bernie and his friend are speaking to gatherings of people comparable
to Trump rallies and make more sense than that individual ever did.

All the Trump rallies in the world did not prevent Trump from losing
in 2020.
 

Muzzles are needed!

>
They certainly are but not by the people speaking to enthusiastic
crowds and
who consider Palestinians to be people who deserve fewer murders by bomb and
shell, not to mention IDF who shoot people that were hostages of HAMAS among
others.

A minority. A very large minority, as minorities go, but Trump won in
2024 cleanly (no waiting six weeks for a contested State to get its
act together). This doesn't mean he has a mandate (Nixon in '72, OTOH
...). And it is the undecideds that decide the election, and they are
as tired of Bernie as they are of Trump. A lot of them are tired of
Boomers, period. Which is why I still think that the party that runs a
non-boomer (one born later, not some Greatest Generation fogie) will
win in 2028.

The DNC is responsible for losing the last election as they controlled the
spread of the Democratic message to many groups and under-advertised the
previous administration's accomplishments.  Individual democratic
politicians
are winning many positions formerly locked up by Republicans.  That is the
Trump effect.

The Democrats have been responsible for losing every election since at
least 1980. The only time they have won is when the Republicans lost:
the economy, the first Shutdown (where the Republicans learned that
the American People like their government and want it open and
working, contrary to Republican ideology), the Great Recession,
Trump's first term.

The election of a Democrat to be mayor of Omaha, NB was trumpeted
abroad as that office had been held by a Republican since 2007 (18
years). Meanwhile, the primary argument the Republicans put forth for
their candidate for Governor in 2024 was that the Dems had held the
office for 40 years and it was time for a change. It didn't work. And
that's a State-wide office, in a State with a lot of Republican voters
(albeit even more Democratic voters) and Republicans running the
legislature for much of that 40 years.

Omaha, as in many States, is a Blue Dot in a Sea of Red. This sort of
thing is a form of grasping at straws to keep Dem hopes up. Yes, if
Trump mucks up badly enough, the Republicans might lose. But that
won't actually fix anything. To /fix/ things, both parties need to
move to the center and jettison their nutters.

Or they need to be replaced by two centrist parties, one slightly to
the right, and the other slightly to the left. Both with the guts to
say "no" to the nutters.
--
"Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, 'I never knew him.'"