I’ve been wondering the same thing and haven’t seen reporting yet on who the victims are or their families. I figure there’s a decent chance that they are running drugs. Or, at least some of them are.

That being said, I’d totally run drugs if it was the only way to feed my family or they were being threatened. Just like the labor that farms coca, low level workers are mostly ethically blameless in my view.

That shit has to be terrifying, going out in a little boat knowing a military ship may blow you up. Their poor families have to live with the fear as well. Even worse is if they’re doing it under threat.

It’s the whole Pablo Escobar thing, I could give a fuck less if he gets whacked. However, that doesn’t mean some family trying to survive on subsistence farming and growing coca for extra cash deaerves a hellfire missle.

This is great info! I use the plain jane P100 instead of dust masks all the time.

General respirator info for all my peeps:

3M 6000 half face and 7000 full face series reapirators are where it’s at. They’re worth the money even if you only ever use it for home repair.

I use one of them with the P100 disks all the time for dust, mold, grinding, drilling into possible asbestos, etc. Also effective against droplet born disease such as coronavirus. The organic vapor cartridge above also does particulate as a P100 (the organic vapor portion has a limited lifespan once opened, IIRC, but the filtration is indefinite). P100 particulate filtering lasts a long time, however, before they clog. Years with normal homeowner use.

Read up on sizing. Most average cis male sized heads will be a large. Average cis female sized head is medium.

If using a half face in an infectious or chemical environment, swim googles will protect your eyes.

The racism doesn’t explain it for me.

It’s certainly a contributing factor, and I think it’s closer to whatever venality trump has tapped into in these people.

However, just the way the man presents himself should have been an immediate turnoff for most of these people.

He’s a fop, a dandy, he’s got a swish in his mannerisms that borders queer stereotypes for many southerners. He’s city soft. Which these people hate just as much as they hate black folks.

Personal experience, I don’t understand deacons, colonels, PhDs, and skilled blue collar worshipping the freak. It’s not about policy, it’s that they’re just as bigoted against how he presents himself as they are about race.

I get how the mechanics of it work. That’s not hard to see and understand.

The part I don’t understand is the cult of personality. The personality is repulsive. He violates all kinds of norms the fundies literally hold as sacred. Trump is openly a cartoon of what fundies rail against, teach their children not to be, and consider evil.

I was born and raised southern fundie. A new york city, orange makeup wearing, reality tv, biblically ignorant, multiply divorced, fucktard conman is about the last thing I could see them falling for. That’s the part I don’t understand. Mike Johnson, Bush, Cheney - I understand. Hell, they didn’t like Romney because he was Mormon.

If you’ve ever seen the movie The Outlaw Josey Wales, there is a yankee carpet bagger selling snake oil. He’s comic relief and is an archetype of slimy dandy Yankee sales weasel. There are cultural tropes against exactly the sort of person Trump is including his appearance.

And yet, they fell for it. I don’t get it.

Sitting on the inside here. I’m perpetually astounded as well. Very little of this suprises me anymore but plenty of things shock me.

He’s a stereotypical conman; so shallow, so obvious. And yet, my family and former friends continue to slurp up his bullshit. It’s so fucking stupid. He’s so stupid. On paper, many of these people are smarter than the orange used car salesman.

It’s difficult to describe how astounded I really am. Black magic or aliens would make more sense. I would find a novel or show with this unrealistic.

I wonder if I’ll ever understand?

Now this is a properly nuanced take.

Former evangelical fundamentalist raised in this stuff. Just curious, don’t answer if you don’t want to, what’s your background?

Also, if you have the time and energy:

What are your thoughts on modern day efforts to breed red heifers/resume sacrifices?

Connections between the US evangelical right and fundamentalist judaism?

Mike Johnson scares the fuck out of me, how dangerous do you think he is?

I really like your analysis.

I really fucking hope you’re right.

He sounds like a pretty awesome dude. Thanks for sharing. Also sounds like he has you pretty well trained, he gets to ride and sniff.

We don’t have a small dog right now, our elderly Chihuahua reached the end a couple years ago and my wife is still raw.

That’s really funny to me. What was his name and what was he like?

I’ve always heard:

Respect is given, not earned.

Trust is earned and easy to lose.

Don’t confuse politeness with respect.

There really is no one in control. Not really. There are people and groups with spheres of influence and power. I wish there was an evil illuminati out there in control of things, at least it would be organized.

Best I can figure, most everyone is faking it. I’ve spent time with CEOs, military officers, rich people, big time evangelists. They’re mostly faking it, some even feel imposter syndrome like normal people do.

This isn’t to say that they don’t perpetrate great evil, but they’re also not superhuman or super intelligent. Many of them are of average intelligence at best. They’re just lucky or lack morals as we know them, reframing their moral system to excuse their actions. Everyone is the hero of their own story even when they are corrupt to the core. Hitler was a dog lover and vegetarian.

All this to say, there is no silver bullet for cancer. There is no magic carburator invented in the '70s that gets 100mpg. There is no over unity generator that will provide free power. Somebody would steal those secrets and sell them for millions.

I half expect that the insurance companies will run the numbers on end of life costs and maintenance costs of disability and still cover the standard schedule of vaccines. Deaths/crippling get expensive enough and they may even require vaccinations to keep insurance.

The wingnuts in question here likely believe the antivaxx shit, or see enough politcal advantage in parroting it that it has resulted in this. In some sense, the GOP has been too successful, now they are married to the lunatic fringe and have members from that fringe. They’re stuck on this ride as well. Hope they choke on it.

A conspiracy like that would require a level of organization that isn’t present.

It’s willful ignorance and cultic tribalism gone real bad.

They really believe there is a vaccine conspiracy that causes autism and is being used for mind control or whatever.

Jesus fucking a goat.

If this goes on for long there will be so many dead or crippled children. So many dead people. It won’t stay constrained to Florida. This will put immunocompromised people at risk all over the country. Herd immunity is fucked.

Also, if it lasts long, expect other willfully ignorant states to do the same.

Fuck, I’m tired.

Reminds me of an emachine.

Here’s a ET1161-07 from 2009:

You’re probably right, I think the rib one got recycled a few times.

@lightnsfw@reddthat.com is making sense here. Throw the book at him and maybe have a psych eval done. Republican, so might as well check his computer for child porn.

That being said, spiking a kids ice cream with ecstasy pills makes no sense. It tastes awful, they would be hard to chew and an obvious foreign object in ice cream. If the girls didn’t OD, they’d be bouncing off the walls.

I could see someone that doesn’t actually know anything about drugs thinking this is a good way to frame someone. In reality, Drugs Are Really Expensive, as well as MDMA users/dealers generally not being willing to hurt children for nothing.

I remeber that one. Also, Richard Gere and the hamster, Marilyn Manson and the rib. The satanic panic about D&D and metal played backwards.

Yup. I have a play farm, not a real farm. Real farming is an industrial process that requires duallys and such. However, those are also real trucks. Beat to shit, tools in the bed, not lifted so much you can’t load them, etc. They look the part. I do also have a 98 Chevy 3500 box truck. Drinks way too much gas to use it for anything other than its purpose, don’t even have it registered right now, bad cats.

I wish I had AWD/4WD sometimes. That’s really the only thing I don’t like about the truck.

Before this truck, I had a Malibu, kept folding the seats down, toting 2x4’s and such. Ripped sheets plywood in the parking lot with a battery powered saw to fit it in before.

Parts are still pretty cheap for this truck here. They made so many of them. I only gave $3500 for it, but that was before prices on used little trucks jumped so high.

I’m hoping I don’t ever have to replace this truck, but if I do, I would be looking at a V6 minivan, especially if I could get in AWD. Gut one of those, and it’s basically a little truck. I think it would do everything I needed, better on fuel costs, etc. I’m not much for lifitimg suspensions, but a truck-minivan with AWD I might lift a little to get into standard truck ground clearance range.

Trucks/utility vehicles are tools and should be used and maintained like a good tool. If it doesn’t have a few scratches and dents, it’s not a real tool.

This is actually my fourth vehicle, lifetime. My second was a 97 ranger with the 5 speed and 4 banger. I sold it and missed it so bad I got this one after I lost the car in a flood.