HarmoniousClaptrap

[PoIiMath @politicalmath]

Michael Crichton is such a fascinating figure and it is a goddamn shame he died so young

This guy got into Harvard Medical School and said "actually, I want to write stories" so he wrote one of the most harrowing long short stories, the Andromeda Strain.

This guy was addicted to research. He read scientific journals for fun and researched everything that captured his interest. He was curious and skeptical. He thought hard about the implications of technology all the time.

And, instead of being a dork and writing a blog, he wrote entire novels warning about the dangers of emerging technologies. And they were great!

He wrote a `Prey` about the dangers of combining AI with nanobots 24 years ago. It's tremendous. You could publish it today and it would be relevant.

I miss him. I miss technically competent authors who can spin a good yarn while informing the reader about how technology is changing the world.

Crichton was a generational talent and we are poorer for his absence.

[HarmoniousClaptrap @BluntDialogue]

@SuperSisi Suidoken. The third was the worst of the five.

[HarmoniousClaptrap @BluntDialogue]

@nostalgames69 Fantastic game! I loved how you could promote your characters to advanced classes (a few even allowed to be promoted twice if you had the right item).

[HarmoniousClaptrap @BluntDialogue]

@izzat26500 @TheModerateCase Hey, look, it’s an Islamist radical living in a shithole. Let’s ignore him so he can get back to their favorite pastime of interbreeding.

[HarmoniousClaptrap @BluntDialogue]

Season 3 of Frieren takes an unexpected turn into the corporate slime world.

[HarmoniousClaptrap @BluntDialogue]

@alt_w_v_g Love your work. As to your question why is there a competing Mattress Firm nearby, please look into Harold Hotelling’s model. It is an economic model showing why businesses (for both competitors and different branches of the same business) cluster together.

[HarmoniousClaptrap @BluntDialogue]

@corey_gman @mattforney Great argument. They are saying it’s entirely intentional—that’s way worse.

[HarmoniousClaptrap @BluntDialogue]

@jackteagle @Movies_analyst Ha, an apt and amazing reference.

[HarmoniousClaptrap @BluntDialogue]

@corey_gman @mattforney Japan & Germany killed OVER 10,000x more US soldiers in WW2, which ended only twenty years before the accident you’re sperging about. They’re considered some of our biggest allies now too. Seems you & your fellow Woke Right only care about one tiny nation. Hmm. I wonder why.

[HarmoniousClaptrap @BluntDialogue]

@CMOS76 @weberju5 @owengreeley Tungsten.

[Insurrection Barbie @DefiyantlyFree]

The USS Liberty conspiracy theory asks you to accept that Israel, a nation of 2.5 million people fighting for its literal survival on six fronts simultaneously against 110 million Arabs equipped with Soviet tanks, Soviet aircraft, and Soviet warships, and with no formal American alliance, no American weapons, and no guarantee that anyone was coming to save them, is chose day four of that existential war to deliberately attack the one country on earth that might eventually become their ally, in broad daylight, in international waters, leaving 174 survivors who could identify the attacking forces, while fourteen separate investigations across two governments found zero evidence of intent, while Israel’s own military had accidentally bombed its own armored column the day before proving how catastrophically identification fails in wartime chaos, and while not a single one of the conspiracy theory’s proponents in nearly six decades of trying has ever managed to agree on what Israel was actually trying to accomplish by doing it.

Heavy lift.

[Mor Edge Insight @MorEdge_Insight]

Even Arab leaders admit it.

Everyone is sharing the Bill Clinton clip where he describes how Yasser Arafat rejected a generous peace offer at Camp David that would have given the Palestinians a state on 96 percent of the West Bank, land swaps, and a capital in East Jerusalem. Clinton says Arafat lied to him and that the Palestinian leadership never actually wanted a two-state solution. They wanted to destroy Israel. It’s a video often shared by people like @VividProwess, and it’s an important one for people to see.

Of course, critics immediately dismiss it. They claim Clinton is biased or he’s pro-Israel. They’ll tell you that you cannot trust the American perspective.

Ok, so let us set that aside.

Now watch this.

In this powerful interview, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a major Arab leader who was directly involved in negotiations, says exactly the same thing from the Arab side. He talks about the Mena House Conference in Cairo as well as the Camp David negotiations of 1978. All failed because of the Palestinians repeatedly rejecting any offer. The Oslo accords were signed but because Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad were not involved, they derailed the accords and any chance for peace by initiating 4 years of terrorist suicide attacks in Israel. Then came the second Camp David negotiations in 2000 which Arafat agreed to, then rejected and instead initiated the Second Intifada.

Mubarak explains how the Palestinians refused to even participate in the Mena House conference of 1977. He describes repeated opportunities they were given, including a detailed document that called for Israeli withdrawal from the Samaria, Judea and Gaza, security arrangements during a transitional period, and other major concessions. The Israelis were willing to negotiate on difficult issues like who would control security. The Palestinians, according to Mubarak, kept saying no and wasting chance after chance.

He speaks with clear frustration about how for decades the Palestinian side has rejected peace initiatives and realistic compromises.

The video further shows footage from the PLO representative in 1977, as well as old footage of Egyptian president Sadat who was involved in the Mena House and first Camp David negotiations of 1978.

This perhaps is far more impactful than Clinton’s account because it is not a Western or Israeli voice. It is prominent Arab leaders who lived the negotiations, who represented the broader Arab world, and who had zero incentive to defend Israel.

When leaders from both sides of the table describe the same pattern of Palestinian rejectionism and violence, it becomes much harder to dismiss as bias.

The pattern is clear across decades and across different voices… generous offers, repeated refusals, and continued demands for everything while giving nothing in return.

This is not ancient history. It is the core reason the conflict continues today.

If you value the truth, please share.

[mike bski @BskiMike22802]

Let me ruin your June for a second.

Every year when National Gun Violence Awareness Month rolls around, the same people who have not read a single page of John Lott's 13,312-regression peer-reviewed study start posting pictures of children and demanding you feel responsible for deaths you did not cause and had nothing to do with.

So. Let us talk about children. Since they brought it up.

In 2006, the CDC recorded 642 accidental firearm deaths in the entire United States. For children under the age of ten — the number was 31. Thirteen under age five. Eighteen between five and nine.

Tragic? Absolutely. Every single one.

But here is the number that will not appear on a single "Orange Friday" awareness post: 80.

Eighty children under the age of five drown in bathtubs every year. Every. Single. Year.

ALMOST THREE TIMES as many children drown in bathtubs annually as die from ALL firearm accidents combined — including adults. And forty more drown in five-gallon water buckets. The kind you buy at Home Depot for $4.99.

I have given this information at talks and watched jaws drop, because people genuinely believe the number is in the thousands. They have been so thoroughly marinated in "gun violence awareness" content that their perception of actual risk is completely detached from reality. That is not an accident. That is the point of the campaign.

Where is Bathtub Awareness Month? Where is the congressional hearing on five-gallon bucket control? Where is the hashtag? Where are the orange ribbons for the children who drowned while their parents were in the next room?

There are none. Because the campaign was never about children. It was never about safety. If it were about safety, they would be equally outraged about cars — which killed 1,305 children that same year. Or fire. Or drowning. But they are not. The selective fury lands exclusively on firearms. And if you are a scientist, which I happen to be, you do not get to cherry-pick your data based on which conclusion you prefer. Quinn's Law Number Six: facts are the enemy of liberalism.

Now let us talk about what the actual data says about guns and safety, because John Lott ran 13,000-plus statistical regressions across every county in America and the results are not ambiguous.

Fifty-six percent of convicted felons surveyed in a ten-state study said they would NOT attack a target they believed was armed. Fifty-six percent. The deterrence is real, it is documented, and it functions whether or not a shot is ever fired. The firearm you carry protects your neighbor whether your neighbor knows it or not.

When states passed right-to-carry laws, multiple-victim public shootings — what the media insists on calling "mass shootings" to maximize terror — dropped by 67 percent. Deaths in those events dropped by 75 percent. Injuries by 81 percent. States that adopted these laws virtually ELIMINATED mass public shootings within four to five years. The remaining events? They happened almost exclusively in the specific locations where guns remained banned. The gun-free zones. The places we hang the sign that only the law-abiding ever read.

There were between 760,000 and 3.6 million defensive gun uses in the United States last year alone, depending on which of fifteen national polls you consult. A JAMA Network Open study from March 2025 estimated 489,000 DGUs in which a firearm was actually discharged. The Department of Justice's own National Crime Victimization Survey puts the conservative floor at 65,000 defensive uses per year against assaults, robberies, and home invasions.

No dead body. No coverage. No awareness month.

Here is one more number for you: 74. Seventy-four percent of convicted felons in a National Institute of Justice survey said they actively avoided homes they believed were occupied by armed residents. Criminals respond to incentives. That is not ideology — that is basic deterrence theory, and it is confirmed by the people who actually commit the crimes.

I also want you to think carefully about something the Supreme Court already settled. DeShaney v. Winnebago County (1989). Town of Castle Rock v. Gonzales (2005). Two separate rulings establishing that the government has NO legal obligation to protect you as an individual. None. You are your own first responder. That is not my opinion — that is settled constitutional law from the highest court in this country.

So the political class that just told you the government is not required to protect you... is also the one demanding you surrender the tool you use to protect yourself.

I want fewer people dead. That is why I know the data. That is why I read the book. That is why I am furious every June when emotion and fundraising replace science and evidence in a "debate" that has actual life-or-death consequences for real people.

You want to honor the children? Honor ALL of them. The ones who drowned. The ones who died in car crashes. And the ones who will never be born because a woman alone in her house at 2 a.m. had no way to stop what was coming through her door.

But what do I know — I am only a published textbook author, a science teacher, a father of four, and a combat medic who spent his career reducing human suffering and who actually read the peer-reviewed data before forming an opinion.

IF you agree:
LIKE this post so the algorithm shows it to people who need to read it.
SHARE this.
COMMENT below — did you know the bathtub number? Or did the narrative keep that from you? Tell me.

And if you want MORE of this -- the data, the history, the science, the stories -- JOIN Bski's Classroom community on X or YouTube.

#MAGA #Veterans #Trump
@JoJoFromJerz @GuntherEagleman @catturd2

[HarmoniousClaptrap @BluntDialogue]

@djalilioo @Okami13_ What a fascinating observation from a radical Islamist in the shithole of Algeria.

[Vanessa @Nessakins_]

The absolute worst part of stopping for gas on a road trip is having to get back on the highway and deal with all the fucking idiots you passed 40miles ago

[HarmoniousClaptrap @BluntDialogue]

@GigglingGanon @Serenitee_Sam I’m shocked that the plot of Xenogears was originally pitched to be for FF7. I am glad that the studio found value in it and made Xenogears into its own game. It is in my top 5 favorite games of all time.

[Mor Edge Insight @MorEdge_Insight]

We keep hearing world leaders and Arab politicians and propagandists claim that a two state solution needs to be based on the pre 1967 borders. But there were no borders. Just armistice lines. And pre 1967, the PLO didn’t even want claim to the land because Gaza was ruled by Egypt and Samaria and Judea ruled by Jordan.

And here’s the question too few ask:

If the pre-67 borders were so important, why was there a war in 1967? They ruled the land. So why did they attack?

Golda Meir asks this question too. And she asked it brilliantly. She was always just so damn great.
The queen lioness.

Watch how amazing Golda was…

[Devon Eriksen @Devon_Eriksen_]

Lots of arguments about this one.

Many people assume Nazis could not have been socialists, despite all the time and energy they devoted to jumping up and down screaming "We are socialists!", because they were "right-wing" and socialism is supposed to be "left-wing".

Except "right-wing" and "left-wing" don't have rigid definitions outside the context of the French revolution. In any other context, they're just a metaphor.

So why did the NATIONAL Socialist German Workers' Party and the INTERNATIONAL Marxist-Leninist Socialist Workers' Movement hate each other so much?

It's pretty obvious when you look at the names.

National.

International.

To Nazis, the race and culture of a people are everything. They are what the state is supposed to represent. Ein Volk, as they would say. The purpose of Nazi socialism is to control capital assets, subordinating them to the will and welfare of the ethnostate.

But Marxist-Leninists seek to abolish all ethnostates. They are a globalist movement, seeking to place all capital assets under the control of a universal proletariat in theory, which is in practice represented by one world government.

Thus, Nazis sought to use socialist policies for the welfare of the German people and Marxist-Leninists seek to abolish "German" as a meaningful distinction, along with all other cultures.

The antipathy between Nazis and communists was a sectarian struggle within socialism. Same methods, but different sacred groups.

Since the defeat of National Socialism by International Socialism in WW2, all modern socialism is pretty much of the international variety.

This does, however, suggest that there is a contrast between National Capitalism and International Capitalism as well.

Which is the source of the current sectarian struggle between elements of the American right wing.

[FantasyAnime @FantasyAnime]

Time to go to 16-bit church ⛪🙏🏻

Shown here:
1. Shining Force (Genesis/Mega Drive)
2. Shining Force 2 (Genesis/Mega Drive)
3. Lufia & the Fortress of Doom (SNES)
4. Lufia 2: Rise of the Sinistrals (SNES)

[AP @Average_NY_Guy]

Meir Dagan, the former Mossad chief, explained it simply: a car has 25,000 parts, and if even 100 are missing, it doesn’t move. A nuclear program has far more moving pieces, and Mossad’s job is to make sure Iran never has all of them.

That’s exactly what they’ve done for decades through sabotage, disruptions, and targeted operations.

So yes, Iran has been “months away” for years. That’s why Netanyahu kept warning about it. The fact that Iran still doesn’t have a bomb isn’t proof he was wrong. It’s proof the strategy has been working.

And I’ll say this: the fact that someone who was in charge of our counterterrorism can’t reach that conclusion on their own makes me, as a young father, lose sleep thinking about the bullet we dodged with someone in that role who can’t connect the dots.