#3

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The "end of the line" came days ago, boys. 

REPOST

 

Comments

[The Dark Avenger]

A cascading failure is a process in a system of interconnected parts in which the failure of one or few parts can trigger the failure of other parts and so on. Such a failure may happen in many types of systems, including power transmission, computer networking, finance, human body systems, and transportation systems.

Cascading failures may occur when one part of the system fails. When this happens, other parts must then compensate for the failed component. This in turn overloads these nodes, causing them to fail as well, prompting additional nodes to fail one after another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure

[Peter G]

So apropos. I have spent a lifetime trying to anticipate, analyze and prevent just such failures. But I have yet to find a system where such failure could not occur. The really interesting part is that failure usually has multiple coincident initiators and more often than not they are human. Then the shit snowball heads downhill.

[Peter G]

I don't know PM. I just don't know. Usually I would rely on those most powerful of human instincts, self preservation, to inform the judgement of politicians. Especially politicians. In this case, I should think, the quality of self-preservation falleth as a gentle rain of shoes dropping one by one. Which isn't going to stop. Fratboy Bart O'Kavanaugh, I mean Kavanaugh, could hardly have been part of that environment without participating in it. He would have been rejected.

But here we have an extremely unusual case where political cover may derive from being part of an anonymous crowd. Gosh they will tell us, he sure fooled us when and if the indisputable bomb ultimately drops. And being right about anticipating it will confer exactly zero benefits within the Republican Party even if it does make them right with the electorate in general. Especially if it is someone like Flake who is hoping for bigger things politically down the road. Rightness in such a case is often less forgivable than wrongness.

They have an incompetence defense already primed and ready to go. It is the Democrats fault they didn't do their job. So I will make you a bet that you can't persuade me yet to make a bet that you are correct. Yet.

[The Dark Avenger]

They didn’t have a plan B, and they couldn’t appear weak. To put it in psychological terms, they went from a gain mentality to that of a loss mentality,
and loss mentality is what keeps casinos open, unless your last name is Trump.

[Joseph Ernst]

Never underestimate the blatant partisan hypocrisy that is willing to upend protocol, tradition and decency for the goal of partisan advantage.

[Peter G]

That's a pretty good psychological analysis and perfectly consistent with my own. Which is that they are fucked now if they bail and they are fucked later if it explodes. I mean worse than it has. If they don't win the election it is going to go boom in a very big way.

[Max]

Yes, exactly. It is way too soon and too uncertain to pronounce Kavanaugh toast. Murkowski could very easily call for an FBI investigation. She has not. Collins can't be trusted in the least.