231–240 of 1001 posts
The announcement by America's Finest News Source: https://theonion.com/heres-why-i-decided-to-buy-infowars/ Alex Jones response: https://x.com/RealAlexJones/status/1857058831135645739
Alex Jones using Twitter/X is on-brand.
There's tonnes of worthless merchandise and supplements of a dubious nature which The Onion, the least expected of all possible buyers, now has to find a use for. My first suggestion would be melting down all of the 500% marked up gold bars[0] and make a one-time-run charity auction collectible for the Sandy Hook families. Or upcycling all the paper in Alex Jones' books [1] into paper mache, and use it to make globes…
Or a monument / memorial to the deceased, in the hopes that the truth would outlive Jones's lies.
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The auction included all of the InfoWars and several associated corporations' assets, including the studio and the supplements business. At one point the settlement administrator was trying to get Alex's Twitter handle. I believe he's been doing some half-ass scheming to create essentially the same company but in his parents' name, and I doubt he has a problem getting listeners back.
... Infowars had a supplements business?
The announcement by America's Finest News Source: https://theonion.com/heres-why-i-decided-to-buy-infowars/ Alex Jones response: https://x.com/RealAlexJones/status/1857058831135645739
Wonderful news. I'm glad their CEO recognizes the great value of CEOs. My only worry is that this acquisition makes Global Tetraeder so large that it attracts the attention of those pesky EU bureaucrats, who will want to split it up into multiple imperfect solids.
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The core idea of satire, which is often missed in supposedly satirical works is that you should not only make fun of the thing you don't believe, but you should also explain what you do believe under the cover of pretending to dismiss it. For example everybody knows Swift's Modest Proposal does not seriously intend that the problems in Ireland ought to be fixed by literally eating children , but if you read it, the p…
> The core idea of satire, which is often missed in supposedly satirical works is that you should not only make fun of the thing you don't believe, but you should also explain what you do believe under the cover of pretending to dismiss it. I often suggest that satire is a dangerous double edged sword and not a good primary vehicle for positive change. Part of your audience will understand it's satire, but a signific…
Yes, if you expect anything from satire you expect too much. Let it be art, not propaganda.
Allow yourself to find poor execution of agreeable messages distasteful. Allow yourself to enjoy good execution of messages you disagree with.
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I guess this is about the domain name infowars.com which belongs to a bankrupt company. Alex Jones is such a big name and has other channels (x.com, Joe Rogan etc.) that he can easily build a similar site/business under a new domain name. Perhaps The Onion should ask - who gets most promotion of this?
Perhaps The Onion should ask - who gets most promotion of this? Well, we’re all talking about the onion. And I, personally, haven’t read onion content in a long, long while. So this kind of put them back on the radar for me. But I could be one of only a few people who fell out of onion readership? More likely is that they believe the next four years will provide them a lot of comedy fodder and they’re setting their p…
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> You elect the representatives, and they nominate in turn whoever bureaucrats they feel comfy to work with. This is not always the case, although I guess it depends how you define bureaucrats. As an example, in France, most of the administration is not nominated. You become a public worker through exam, and the representative usually have no power over your nomination, raises, etc. It does make sense in a lot of cas…
> You become a public worker through exam, and the representative usually have no power over your nomination, raises, etc. Who else would have power over "nomination, raises etc" of anyone, if not elected representatives? Other public workers? At this point would they not be a sovereign group distinct from France, untouchable by the french people? I guess the elected representatives have indirect power over everythin…
Yes, that's how the civil service works in most countries, more or less. The US is an outlier in that the executive appoints about 4,000 civil servants; most places don't work like that (even in the US; _most_ civil servants (about 2.8 million of them, federal) are hired, promoted, disciplined etc by other civil servants; the president doesn't sit in on every interview or anything.)
> I guess the elected representatives have indirect power over everything in the end, if France is still a democracy.
The elected representatives pass laws. The civil service implements them.
Separately, at least in many countries, not sure about France, you have the concept of power devolved to the minister, where the legislature passes a law allowing the minister to make orders in certain restricted areas, a bit like a scope-limited version of US presidential executive orders.
This occasionally has amusing repercussions if the original devolution legislation was insufficient or unconstitutional; for instance in Ireland nearly all drugs (morphine, heroin, cannabis and possibly cocaine remained illegal) were accidentally legalised for a day, when the supreme count found that the legislation used to enable the Minister for Justice to ban drugs was insufficient, thus legalising everything which had been banned since it was passed.
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The auction included all of the InfoWars and several associated corporations' assets, including the studio and the supplements business. At one point the settlement administrator was trying to get Alex's Twitter handle. I believe he's been doing some half-ass scheming to create essentially the same company but in his parents' name, and I doubt he has a problem getting listeners back.
... Infowars had a supplements business?
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That doesnt mean it was a reasonable amount.
No but it dispels the opening statement of gp about supposed dictatorial power.
That can come from broken systems as easily as a dictator.
It is hard for me to imagine what would support 150 million per plaintiff. That is and order of magnitude more civil damages than are often awarded for cold blooded murder.
Everyone hates Alex Jones, and I don't like him either, but that shouldn't trump justice and proportionality. It makes me think that the penalty was for more than what was on trial, and rather a reflection of mob justice by other means.