No. It's worse than I thought but see PT Barnum's "There's a sucker born every minute" and HL Mencken's "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
My husband and I have been reading bits of this post to each other over breakfast and totally cracking up. When it comes to delivering value for money, there is no one on Substack—no one!—who beats Jeff Maurer. (Those unpaids ought to get a clue!)
BarPod is 16% less at $5/monthly but as a podcast they have less episodic content. Slow Boring is 33% more expensive at $8 but Yglesias puts out a lot, on Twitter, too. Value for money is a hard calculation for me. But what is not hard is recognizing what unreconstructed brutes the unpaids are.
Don’t forget galaxy brain Congressman Jeff Van Drew of NJ-2, who said “I’m going to tell you the real deal. Iran launched a mothership that contains these drones. It’s off the East Coast of the United States of America. They’ve launched drones.”
After his apparent glue-huffing session ended, he went with “While it has been verified that Iran does have three drone ships, new satellite images show they are currently stationed off the southern coast of Iran.”
Doug Mastriano : The government cares too much about Ukraine to stop drones.
Motherfucker, Ukraine is at the bleeding edge of anti-drone warfare. They have downed thousands of chinese made drones.
Admittedly, I don't think they've shot down a single TIE fighter despite BILLIONS in US aid (which the republicans were totally planning to give to you, promise).
It’s entirely possible that many people in the tri-state area have never actually looked up at night, and it’s increasingly possible that younger generations have never looked up at all. So this is coming as a bit of a shock to many. Also, birds aren’t real.
I was once on the slopes of Mauna Kea at night and a fellow researcher almost jumped out of his skin because he’d never seen the Milky Way. It was earth-shattering for him. In a good way, but still.
I think this is the crux of it. People have no idea how many objects are actually coursing through the skies at any given moment, especially in the dense northeastern seaboard. The fact that they finally looked up from their phones and saw twinkling lights doesn't prove some massive conspiracy; it proves they're all massive dumbasses.
Wasn’t NJ the site of War of the Worlds, or do I misremember? If only there existed a device with all data known to man, I could solve THAT mystery, too. Alas.
Two days ago, an 84-year-old housebound friend of mine (who lives on New Mexico, not New Jersey) posted an ominous warning on Facebook: “You first heard it here; there is danger lurking; in the sky and on the ground...(rumour, in the east)”. When I messaged him about it, he responded “information from several knowledgeable sources; some even making preparations; not Trump...”. I can’t even with this level of paranoia. 🤷
This whole thing is the result of Christian Nationalist interference in our mathematics curriculum. In 2018-19, there was a concerted push by conservative groups in New Jersey that resulted in a majority of school districts adding Murphy's Law to their AP Stats syllabi. Whether you believe Leviticus 13:13 (where it was first preserved in writing) is the inerrant Word of God or not, most people agree that it is at least wisdom of the ages. Yet it is belief, not math. And when it interacts with Bayes' Rule, you get the New Jersey drone scare. Bayes says that airplanes are more common than Chinese spy drones, so that should bias your identification of flying objects toward "airplane". But then Murphy pushes up his glasses and says, "Um, actually, sometimes the unlikely explanation is the right one, which means that the unlikely explanation is always the right one." So, spy drones.
There are no good terrorists - as all terrorists are lethal and the worst kind of terrorists, trained, armed and funded by the Obama and Biden duo during their infamous two terms in the White House, including IS, ISIS, ISIL and Syrian rebel groups - the intention of many regime change biz, including Libya, Syria, Venezuela, and Afghanistan. All these lethal terrorist outfits are trained to kill, mass murder, wholesale rape of children and women and make governance ungovernable.
All this drone biz or rondeau with drones being carried out by ruthless, insane, schizophrenic mass murderer cum child mass murderer, Irish Catholic Biden to terrify the American people - the intention of staying in power after the 20th. He had no idea of leaving the slaughterhouse (before he came to power it was named the White House and he turned it into over 45,000 Palestinian men, women, children, infants, and mothers breast-suckling babies, including Russians and Ukrainians. This is, of course, a historical record and he has nowhere to go - after pardoning the unpardonable worst criminal son in US history.
Remember before the internet when we were blissfully unaware of how many stupid people there are in this world?
No. It's worse than I thought but see PT Barnum's "There's a sucker born every minute" and HL Mencken's "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
My husband and I have been reading bits of this post to each other over breakfast and totally cracking up. When it comes to delivering value for money, there is no one on Substack—no one!—who beats Jeff Maurer. (Those unpaids ought to get a clue!)
BarPod is 16% less at $5/monthly but as a podcast they have less episodic content. Slow Boring is 33% more expensive at $8 but Yglesias puts out a lot, on Twitter, too. Value for money is a hard calculation for me. But what is not hard is recognizing what unreconstructed brutes the unpaids are.
I'm here for the old music, the history, and the jokes.
Don’t forget galaxy brain Congressman Jeff Van Drew of NJ-2, who said “I’m going to tell you the real deal. Iran launched a mothership that contains these drones. It’s off the East Coast of the United States of America. They’ve launched drones.”
https://nypost.com/2024/12/11/us-news/mystery-nj-drones-are-coming-from-iranian-mothership-offshore-congressman-claims-these-drones-should-be-shot-down/
After his apparent glue-huffing session ended, he went with “While it has been verified that Iran does have three drone ships, new satellite images show they are currently stationed off the southern coast of Iran.”
https://patch.com/new-jersey/across-nj/nj-congressman-backs-away-iranian-drone-mothership-theory
Doug Mastriano : The government cares too much about Ukraine to stop drones.
Motherfucker, Ukraine is at the bleeding edge of anti-drone warfare. They have downed thousands of chinese made drones.
Admittedly, I don't think they've shot down a single TIE fighter despite BILLIONS in US aid (which the republicans were totally planning to give to you, promise).
It would be totally fitting though if they did
It’s entirely possible that many people in the tri-state area have never actually looked up at night, and it’s increasingly possible that younger generations have never looked up at all. So this is coming as a bit of a shock to many. Also, birds aren’t real.
I was once on the slopes of Mauna Kea at night and a fellow researcher almost jumped out of his skin because he’d never seen the Milky Way. It was earth-shattering for him. In a good way, but still.
I think this is the crux of it. People have no idea how many objects are actually coursing through the skies at any given moment, especially in the dense northeastern seaboard. The fact that they finally looked up from their phones and saw twinkling lights doesn't prove some massive conspiracy; it proves they're all massive dumbasses.
"If it flies, it spies", birds aren't real.
I mean, why isn't this the #1 Substack? This is two days in a row that I have to wipe the tears out of my laughing eyes before reading Noah Smith.
Wasn’t NJ the site of War of the Worlds, or do I misremember? If only there existed a device with all data known to man, I could solve THAT mystery, too. Alas.
FAA compliant lighted objects in the sky in the busiest airspace in the entire world? Must be “I-Ran” as there is literally no alternate explanation.
Two days ago, an 84-year-old housebound friend of mine (who lives on New Mexico, not New Jersey) posted an ominous warning on Facebook: “You first heard it here; there is danger lurking; in the sky and on the ground...(rumour, in the east)”. When I messaged him about it, he responded “information from several knowledgeable sources; some even making preparations; not Trump...”. I can’t even with this level of paranoia. 🤷
This whole thing is the result of Christian Nationalist interference in our mathematics curriculum. In 2018-19, there was a concerted push by conservative groups in New Jersey that resulted in a majority of school districts adding Murphy's Law to their AP Stats syllabi. Whether you believe Leviticus 13:13 (where it was first preserved in writing) is the inerrant Word of God or not, most people agree that it is at least wisdom of the ages. Yet it is belief, not math. And when it interacts with Bayes' Rule, you get the New Jersey drone scare. Bayes says that airplanes are more common than Chinese spy drones, so that should bias your identification of flying objects toward "airplane". But then Murphy pushes up his glasses and says, "Um, actually, sometimes the unlikely explanation is the right one, which means that the unlikely explanation is always the right one." So, spy drones.
There are no good terrorists - as all terrorists are lethal and the worst kind of terrorists, trained, armed and funded by the Obama and Biden duo during their infamous two terms in the White House, including IS, ISIS, ISIL and Syrian rebel groups - the intention of many regime change biz, including Libya, Syria, Venezuela, and Afghanistan. All these lethal terrorist outfits are trained to kill, mass murder, wholesale rape of children and women and make governance ungovernable.
All this drone biz or rondeau with drones being carried out by ruthless, insane, schizophrenic mass murderer cum child mass murderer, Irish Catholic Biden to terrify the American people - the intention of staying in power after the 20th. He had no idea of leaving the slaughterhouse (before he came to power it was named the White House and he turned it into over 45,000 Palestinian men, women, children, infants, and mothers breast-suckling babies, including Russians and Ukrainians. This is, of course, a historical record and he has nowhere to go - after pardoning the unpardonable worst criminal son in US history.
I want to believe.
Hilarious.