Woolly Willamette

In 2019, seven years ago, when he was 34-years-old, Graham Platner logged into reddit and posted a response to a video of an American soldier being shot by the Taliban. Platner wrote: "This video never gets old. Dumb motherfucker didn't deserve to live. At least his stupidity and fat ass wheezing are available for all future infantrymen to witness and hold in contempt. Poor marksmanship on the Taliban's part is the only reason this mouthbreather made it home, he managed to make every possible shit decision possible when it comes to small unit combat." Think about each line. "This video never gets old." Platner's implying he's watched the video several times and enjoys it. "At least his stupidity and fat ass wheezing are available for all future infantrymen to witness and hold in contempt." That's what Platner thinks about his fellow Americans at war. If they're not good at killing or broader tactics, he has contempt for them. He displays no empathy. The opposite, in fact. The man that Platner is commenting on, by the way, is Pfc. Ted Daniels, who was a 37-year-old father of two serving in Afghanistan at the time of the incident (2012). The bad tactic Platner enjoys mocking? Daniels stepped into the open deliberately to draw Taliban fire away from his fellow soldiers so his squad could get to safety. Daniels was shot four times in this video and, ultimately, earned a Purple Heart. When the video was initially released (2013), Pfc. Daniels was critical of himself in interviews, saying, "It wasn't the most tactically brilliant thing to do." He described that he was embarrassed by the video; that people could hear him screaming for help. But, also, he said: "I put my ass on the line for other guys." Then, we have, again, Graham Platner, logging into reddit, in 2019, to comment: "Dumb motherfucker didn't deserve to live." For all those who say, "That's just how Marines talk," I'll tell you: Platner's comment got downvoted by the military community. Even if it didn't: We're not talking about the military anymore. We're talking about a 34-year-old man, years after service, logging in to mock another man who's being shot on video. We're also talking about the U.S. Senate, not boys-will-be-boys or Marines-will-be-Marines. We're always told to view Platner as a changed man. 2013, when he made the rape apologia comments, was the "darkest point in his life," or so we have been told. So what was going on in 2019, such that Platner enjoyed watching a video of a man getting shot and mocking him? How many arcs of change are there in Platner's life? Was there a specific point where he discovered human empathy? I couldn't help but think of that specific reddit comment while watching the video below. "Still sending young Americans to die thousands of miles away from home," Platner says. Didn't he log in to reddit seven years ago to say, "Dumb motherfucker didn't deserve to live" ? I don't like being lied to.

@eigenrobot Billions is conservative. I’ve seen far bigger numbers internally.

so. who's absorbing the billions of people getting laid off in tech rn seems very bleak

@rightwingnutrs There’s a spelling error in the post. This was a Generic Ballet Poll, not a Ballot Poll. It only sampled men performing in the Ballet.

The idea of Republicans losing men by 19% is insane. These polls are utterly absurd. We have never seen these kind of insanities in any election ever.

@evisdrenova I’m seriously considering switching to it with the amount of frustration claude code has been causing lately.

The cursor fall-off is going to be studied for decades. I don't know any engineer who uses them anymore. Not to say that others don't, but it's obvious that they're no longer on the tech frontier. Still, a $60b outcome in 4 years is nothing to sneeze at...

@ChristianHeiens You can safely delete one of them now.

Got my drafts saved for tomorrow night.

@nabeelqu @GrantaMag Screenshot this before they delete it

Well, this is a first: a ChatGPT-generated story won a prestigious literary prize (The Commonwealth Prize). "Not X, not Y, but Z" sentences everywhere, the "hums" trope, and plenty of other obvious markers of AI writing. A major milestone for AI, at any rate... @GrantaMag

@yuseikikuchi3 @RepMGP Nothing more important than serving your constituents.

@RepMGP rare mgp truth nuke but aren’t there more important things to do rn???

Given that Red Delicious are the worst apples, have you ever wondered why they’re in every school cafeteria? It’s because there’s a list of "approved" apple varieties allowed in schools, and it hasn’t changed since Kmart sold firearms.

@cursor_ai Been looking for an off-ramp from Claude code. Looking forward to trying this.

Introducing Composer 2.5, our most powerful model yet. It's more intelligent, better at sustained work on long-running tasks, and more reliable at following complex instructions. For the next week, we’re doubling the included usage of the model.

@ericfruits Yes but your graphic needs work! AI got the labels all wrong.

Portland has a donut problem, too. Population changes from 2020 to 2025: City of Portland: -17.4k Rest of MultCo: -3.5k WashCo: +10.7k ClackCo: +3.8k ClarkCo, WA: +26.8k Rest of PMSA: +4.3k Portland/MultCo are dragging down the region and the state along with it.

"AI is hiking your energy bill" is the most popular political talking point of 2026. The data doesn't support it. A thread:

@TonerousHyus People also became much more aware of how out of control trans bullshit had gotten. The GOP didn’t run those ads without study grouping them first.

Biden did well in his midterm. Objectively. Gas was outrageous and interest rates were soaring with 12% inflation and he did fine Ultimately what did Democrats in by 2024 was filling the country with the third world. It wasn’t about anything else.

@UrbanCourtyard @NatrlBornMiller @ArtemisConsort Because the minority kept committing all the crime, and the “worthless suburbs” afforded them larger and newer homes in peaceful neighborhoods with lots of cheap land.

Why would a a powerful ethnic majority give up valuable urban land to a marginalized minority and flee to worthless suburbs? In Europe it’s the opposite—the ethnic majority stays in city center because it’s the valuable land. Most American cities were destroyed by car culture and then abandoned to minorities by middle class

Progressive urbanists are tragicomic because they’re eternally bumping into problems they are ideologically barred from understanding. “Why won’t people ride the trains? Why do they choose suburbs? It’s a mystery, let’s commission a study.”

@MillennialWoes @AntSpeaks No, I think it’s the Nazi in the “Refugees Welcome” crowd who is doing that.

@AntSpeaks Are you seriously implying that the "refugees welcome" crowd are "like the Nazis"?

On the left: a “refugees are welcome” / “Free Palestine” rally. On the right: last year’s Unite the Kingdom event. Keir Starmer is calling the latter “far right” and “racist.”

@MaxNordau This has been happening to Sarajevo and Bosnia more broadly, and I wish the EU would pay more attention to how that place has been transformed.

It’s only 1M. It’s only 2M. It’s only 4M. It’s only 8M. It’s only 16M. It’s only 32M. It’s only 64M. It’s only a small jizya tax. It’s only a ban on pig slaughter. It’s only a five times a day. It’s only a few cases of honor killings. It’s only a refurbishing of St. Paul’s Mosque and Westminster Mosque and Canterbury Mosque.

@nysom @IowaRallyYak @leflerk0 @leetorts73 @RepJackKimble It’s not parodying a specific person or brand. It’s harmless and doesn’t require the label

@IowaRallyYak @leflerk0 @leetorts73 @RepJackKimble Don't feel bad. He apparently has even fooled members of the press. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kimb… But I think his account should still be required to be labeled "parody."

Just a friendly warning. We don’t even make $200k per year in Congress despite working nearly 140 days. If we aren’t properly compensated, a lot of us will go to the private sector and you will be left with some real idiots in Congress.

@GPrime85 @benshapiro When did you join the goat fuckers?

@benshapiro Bro you should leave Daily Wire and start your own podcast, you could get literally hundreds of viewers

All the haters can kiss my ass

@tracewoodgrains @_SUPER7X Can we can actual answer to that question? How much money was requested for what disasters? How does it compare?

@_SUPER7X We know that this is a departure from previous Republican and Democratic administrations, and there's no a priori reason to expect one set of states is systematically making more frivolous requests than another. If you want to check directly, the dataset is available.

Is Trump denying disaster relief to blue states for partisan reasons? Yes, and it's not "lying with data" to say so. Some commentators have been trying to poke holes in reports showing this; Dan does a good job showing where and why that hole-poking fails.

@danato84 @charlescwcooke @politicalmath Just scroll down, man x.com/politicalmath/…

@charlescwcooke @politicalmath You might want to check back into it.

This isn’t true, as @politicalmath has clearly shown, which makes the tone here really quite funny.