Matt Pinwall 🇬🇱🇨🇦🇵🇦🌮🍿🚀💥🍊😆🇲🇽🚫🤴🤴

Who's keeping track of all the impeachable offenses?

Non-rhetorical question.

So much for sovereign sheriffs

Legalized gambling goes part and parcel with the downard-mobile economy and wealth inequality. The billionaire class want it because it provides the illusion that there's possible upward economic mobility -- and sports gambling plays into people's high opinion of their own opinions. Dunning-Krueger.

From 2021, please note.

But...Hunter Biden lied on a gun permit application, which was denied!

Thanks for reporting on this.

I know I should feel schadenfreude, but I don't. I'm sorry for her and glad she finally figured a few things out.

Hey NYT I'll give you a hint

The endgame rhymes with Schmistraction from the Schmepstein Schmfiles.

Dershowitz of course is referring to the sweetheart deal Epstein got from one of Tr*mp's cronies (and later cabinet officer) in Florida that had him doing easy time in a country club jail, not the more extensive federal charges that he beat by (checks notes) dying in his cell.

I don't say this hypocritically, I am positive I make decisions like this without knowing I'm making them. That's one reason I am trying to step back in the merry season of consumerism and ask myself checklist style questions about purchases and needs and wants and so forth.

And even that is pretty unreliable, since -- you know, that friend who recommends Dementia Clock C at twice the lowest price may actually be assuming it's higher quality because of the higher price, and because nobody likes recognizing themselves as a fool.

But I have no way of knowing if this product -- or any of its clones -- is a quality product, because there's zero information content available from either the purchase and review patterns. We're left with good old word of mouth.

And it's true that (no specific endorsements of any products here) we can get a lot of high quality goods that serve a useful function that we just never had before, at cheap prices. My grandparents could have really benefited from a large display clock that reminded them to take their meds reliably

I won't go into the "late stages of end-of-capitalism" posts that truly bore me to tears, because in part I believe market efficiencies of old fashioned open competition are both friendly to the consumer and to the idea of informed choice that is, at its heart, a core democratic value.

It's the opposite of competition, really, since there aren't really any true competitors that come out in the listings. The makers here are flooding the zone, and obviously Amazon is either colluding or doesn't care.

What we're seeing here is the illusion of competition, but it's also a form of confidence game to brand the same product differently and charge a different price. In the meantime, this same clock has flooded the results for many keyword searches for "elderly clock" "clock for seniors", etc.

Some of these have as few as 15 reviews. One version, retailing for $59.95, has nearly 23,000 reviews with a 4.5 star average rating. ("Coupon Price" only $53.95). That one has a fake but American-y sounding brand name. The description boasts "US based costumer service" [sic]

Are we de-branding, as it were, that we don't even care about the reputation? I think there may be a general awareness that the ratings are relatively worthless, in the era of AI bots placing reviews and paid influencers. Or is there?

Because I can think of no other reason why this product ranges in price from $26 to nearly $100. ("Amazon's Choice" is only $3 more expensive than the cheapest price listed.) Who knows who actually manufactures it?

At a guess the only differentiator is in the product description keywords, each designed to get a different type of consumer to go directly to the individual listing and say "aha! That is exactly what I'm looking for!" and dish it into their cart without shopping around.

This is a small thread on the market inefficiencies of Amazon.

Take at look at these "Dementia Clocks". There's three more screens just like this -- all the same model of clock, each with one of those indecipherable brand names.

I wonder how many votes we are from an impeachment resolution, now that the orange muffinhead has decided to go mental on MTG. With Massey I'd make it as 216-217, not counting feckless Democrats who don't want to go there again. That's a one-vote margin of error.

The Wag the Dog vibes have never been stronger

😘

Nice try at a post, robot

Odds are good he has Asperger's or a related syndrome. Living the life.

And people want to know why I don't publish under my own name

i feel seen

I got flagged on Facebook once for discussing the Trolley problem.

nah, they're counting on the fact that Bondi had a thousand FBI agents working on scrubbing the files and destroying evidence.