Al Petterson's avatar

Al Petterson

@eyelessgame.bsky.social

192 followers 192 following 3092 posts

I do TTRPG, astronomy, inclusion, politics, mathematics, music, economics, history, SF. Python I guess. Dad & grandpa. Him. Frustrated by stupid. Angered by evil. Blocks anyone confusing Biden with Netanyahu. 300? A suggestion. I squeet more than once.

Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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The purpose of that bullshit is to avoid ever having to answer any questions about it.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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But we're not getting a different candidate this year. No matter how enticing and exciting and disorientingly full of perilous possibilities you think it is that Biden had a really bad night. The sooner you realize that replacing him is a nonstarter, the better. Because we need that energy.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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Which means we are going to need an absolutely kick-ass candidate in 2028. And we should start vetting immediately. Not to push Biden out the door. He's got a lot more he can do. Not everything, not all the things we need. But he will still do some more good stuff.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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It just is not going to happen this cycle. Work your ass off to keep Trump out - which means go to the mat for Biden right now. And plan for 2028. We know, even if we make the diving catch at the foul line and nail the throw to the plate, they'll just convert Project 2025 to 2029 and try again.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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And Biden isn't that. Not just because he's elderly - he never was that. But of course the perfect president is an illusion anyway. Every presidential candidate will have drawbacks, and do only some of what we need. But we could, of course, really use one with a different skillset.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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Not all things will be addressed in the next four years. There are problems that will get worse. There is stuff only a next generation can tackle. Biden has been doing a really phenomenal job, understand, but some of what needs doing needs a visionary polemicist to convince the country to do.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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But it's an *illusion*. Thinking dispassionately about the electoral consequences for two seconds reveals, pretty trivially, that Biden not being the candidate *guarantees* a Trump win. And that's a catastrophe far worse than a dreary four more years of the boring, if noncatastrophic, status quo.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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You can draw your own metaphors, for the illusion of something to leap at NOW instead of going through a dreary long process. And make no mistake, there are things that need fresh vision and fresh ideas and fresh energy, and there are things Biden won't do, that will hurt not to have. A lot.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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And so anything that looks like it might have a chance to jump the line is exciting. I get it. The whole idea is intoxicating - "we could have our 2029 president NOW! Who wants to wait???" I can smell the slavering anticipation. And that's why they keep talking about it.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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It has such a dreary futilism to it, that this is sort of *by definition* a status quo election. No sense of possibility or energy. No matter what happens, there's nothing new in the wings (at least to the privileged folk who won't be targeted by Project 2025).

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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Everybody knows the next four years - assuming either Biden's reelected or Trump is somehow bound by the constitution and leaves - is the last gasp of that generation. And a whole lot of people understandably want a jump-start, and not to have to go through those four years first.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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Why not simply answer the question you wish they had asked? Just completely ignore the question and just tell them what you've done for the last month.

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Reposted by Al Petterson

Charlie Thomas's avatar Charlie Thomas @cthomasjamh.bsky.social
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I mean, I look at the structural stuff, not the narrative here. The polls have barely moved, Trump has no money, and Biden has a huge war chest and time booked. Why let the panic of a few people- largely driven by people that already don’t like Biden- shape what I’m thinking here?

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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The Venn diagram of people trying to blame RBG for not retiring a decade before she knew she should have, and the people trying to forgive themselves for not supporting Hillary Clinton, is a circle. Anyone trying to blame RBG is just telling on themselves.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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There is a reason the executive branch is thousands of jobs, including many, many hundreds of loyalists there to implement the agenda of the party platform and to do the work of the administration.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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I am reminded of Steven Brust: "The defender always starts a war. The invader isn't interested in war; he's interested in conquest. The war starts when the defender objects."

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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Remake a movie with Shrek and make it better Muppet Shrek

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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We need to start a religion about not getting sick and the religious observational use of masks thereto.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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There's a symmetry here. July 4 is America's most symbolic day of liberty. November 5th is the UK's most symbolic day of treason - or revolution.

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Reposted by Al Petterson

Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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I suspect this received so much attention (by which I am quite flattered!) due to wholly justified astonishment from Brits that an American knows what the 5th of November is.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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Number of American casualties in Aghanistan, by year.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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If I might offer a suggestion to the victorious party across the pond: be very clear and direct about what your policy changes will and will not accomplish for the person on the street. Do not let the opposition declare you a failure for not accomplishing something impossible you never promised.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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The reactions of the EU since Brexit have suggested to me that at the very least they will make it incredibly painful.

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Reposted by Al Petterson

The Silvered Spherical Ideal Median Voter 's avatar The Silvered Spherical Ideal Median Voter @swolecialism.bsky.social
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this will be, fundamentally, unchanged from every single other poll this year, and you can belive it's a plausible reflection of the outcome in november or not. oh actually let me add one more thing: nyt/sienna will probably show trump narrowly winning women. maybe even white women

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Chrissy Stroop's avatar Chrissy Stroop @www.bugbeardispatch.com
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“Electing the Democratic presidential candidate this fall—who, we have every reason to believe, will still be Joe Biden—is the only way to prevent the rise of a corporate-Christian American dictatorship with the criminal Trump at its head, his every whim rubber-stamped by an illegitimate SCOTUS”

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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I'm nowhere near as famous as you (cue cats and tequila), but absolutely likewise.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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It really is a weird symmetry that this year the UK elections are the 4th of July and the US elections are the 5th of November.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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As well as "nobody used to think discrimination against LGBTQ people was wrong"

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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It is for us the living to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us: that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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stealing this also from my big brother. Some of the things that Biden has made better over the last four years.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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stealing this from my big brother. THIS is why you should vote for Joe Biden.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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I think the other five want that (with various reservations). I quite honestly just think Roberts is fundamentally a very stupid person. I've been thinking this for a very long time. The intellect behind his reasoning and decisions is consistently both facile and feeble.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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My big brother, who is a writer and as such has not for professional reasons abandoned the ex-parrot, has a thread that everyone needs to read, and then forward to everyone else.

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bobby (frociaggine) 's avatar bobby (frociaggine) @bobbylewis.bsky.social
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this. that’s why they rig elections, that’s why they stockpile guns, that’s why they puff their chests out and act tough. they’re in the minority. and at their core, they’re weak.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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I have concluded he just has an IQ of about 85 and he earnestly believes that what he's doing is for the best.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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It's so much easier to destroy than to create. They have the simpler job. All they need is the mentality of a two-year-old. Our goal is to leave things better than we found them. And you're right, we can do that - but we have to win.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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I am going to lay odds nobody on the right is going to utter the words "Biden crime family" again from now to the election. Remember when that was a big deal for them?

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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And to all the yoots: even if 2024 makes a diving catch at the foul line and somehow nails the throw to the plate, you will be telling the young people of 2060 how huge a fuckup 2016 was, and that the reason *they're* finding everything so hard tracks right back to Her Fucking Emails.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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There's no questioning that half of the reason everything seems so futile right now is because of what happened forty-four years ago, when I was 14 and Ronald Fucking Reagan was elected. But that's precisely why every election matters - because *that* one still does. We're still paying for it.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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I muted him. And then since John kept responding (and gave a decent reason why), I unmuted one post so I could respond too. He wants to be flirted with, see. He wants us to act like we want his vote, and to drop our drawers for him so he feels properly wined and dined. I told him to grow up.

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Al Petterson's avatar Al Petterson @eyelessgame.bsky.social
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You have agency. You could, y'know, be a grownup, and figure out for yourself, based on actual values important to you, which of the two guys currently running you'd rather have as president starting next year, because that's the choice you get to help make.

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