But if there's a topic or link on which to base a thread, it wouldn't need to be an open thread, right? And don't they all become open threads anyway, without the indignity of calling them open threads? Anyway, I heard that something was happening in Egypt—and when I thought about that for a bit, it occurred to me that something is happening, like, everywhere.
I thought explicit "open threads" were considered counter to the unfogged ethos for some reason.
Well, it still has a seed. So yes, "open thread" is probably the wrong word.
Maybe we can have a thread looking for a better name for such threads.
3: They used to be, but we live in a fallen world.
I hate this idea. Entertain me for free, front page posters!
We used to have front-page posters -- like Ogged -- with criminally low self-esteem, and therefore in need of constant external validation. Our current batch of front-page posters just like themselves too much to properly entertain us.
8 gets it exactly right.
Surely some of you must have a few especially clever and thought-provoking facebook updates you could recycle, or something you could gank from Emerson, since he doesn't hang around here anymore. Also, Egypt.
How about a "Follow Friday"? I'll tell you who I'm going to follow this Friday: My ex-wife! Bada bing!
I was going to do an thread on Egypt last week, but I delayed - because of the feeling-like-an-uninformed-idiot problem - and then eventually thought neb's Journalism post served that purpose.
The O'Keefe style deceptive videos being shopped around about Planned Parenthood are pissing me off.
It seems to me that morally if not legally the person being filmed has a right to have access to the full unedited video in cases like these.
Although no one commented on the Republicans co-opting prison reform thread. Sometimes if there's no one trolling, nothing gets going.
14:I hear you, heebie
John Emerson ...is posting again
When Styron keeps talking about Peyton's hips, isn't the interest he's taking in his fictional character's ass as unhealthy, in its way, as Milton Loftis's Oedipal fixation on his daughter -- pretty much regardless of how lovely Peyton's fictional ass really was?
Unhealthy Oedipal/Electral fixations on fictional asses? A thread topic.
But see, if you link it in the comments, then I generally wouldn't make a post out of it because it seems redundant.
For anyone trying to keep up on Egypt Nick Baumann at Mother Jones is my main source.
Lambert at Corrente is just transcribing al Jazeera coverage, with occasional snark. I gather there is prejudice against Lambert. I share it, he seems fanatically non-violent.
I could show pictures of Dallas snow and ice, for those who need pictures of weak-ass snow and ice, if I knew how to work a iphone or blackberry or whatever she has, and hook it up to a computer, and if I had access to the twitter account, and if i cared.
Days like this I hate my dogs.
To the OP:
Somehow the following variant never quite occurred to me before (even though other blogs do it all the time): if you just have a topic or link you'd like a thread on, shoot me an email and we can have an open thread. No one really has to write a post at all.
As somebody who very occasionally sends links or guest posts, I would be happier with the following scenario: (1) I send a link with minimal commentary (2) when you look at it you either post it yourself (if it inspires enough of a reaction), ignore it (if it doesn't look at all interesting), or send me an e-mail saying that you think it's an interesting issue and that if I want to write a couple of paragraphs you'd be happy to post them.
This strikes a balance between allowing the option to just send in a link rather than writing a guest post up front (because it can be discouraging to write up something like a post and then have it disappear) but, at the same time, there's no reason to post something at all if it doesn't strike you as interesting.
But that's just a thought from the peanut gallery.
I was going to do an thread on Egypt last week, but I delayed - because of the feeling-like-an-uninformed-idiot problem
Doesn't stop several people at the NYT (to their credit, Kristof is informed, and Krugman admitted that he wasn't). "Walk Like an Egyptian": inspiring, or just odd?
18: That sounds complicated to remember, but I'm happy to do it if you remind me when you send a link.
Also, if you wrote an entire post and I never posted it, I really apologize. I generally am not trying to screen actual written posts, and so it must have been just a hectic few days, and then it slipped out of mind.
Egyptian cotton makes the best thread. Not so great as candy.
I'm confused about whether the pause/play convention should be used on a thread about open threads. Is this an open thread or are we just talking about the concept?
Anyway:
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My freshman-ful class this afternoon had 5 of 16 present. 2 had "family emergencies" of some sort, and the rest all have the flu.
(I don't know if they all actually have the flu. Some of them may just have been hungover. But it's an afternoon class and they've been shockingly attentive and participate-y til now so I think at least most of the absences are because of real live germs).
My roommate says half her office has been out sick for a week or so, too. It's all making me and my compromised immune system and our shitty health insurance very nervous.
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Well, Mubarak has said he's standing down at the next election, and is asking the Egyptian parliament to introduce changes to the constitution to add term limits. So, all go.
If the whole "blog" thing isn't working anymore, why not just make the front page a wiki, so that anyone can post threads they think will be interesting?
Or, I know, an even better idea: why not just create an official "unfogged" group on facebook, and migrate the whole blog there? Then we could all officially "like" unfogged, which would be neat. That would also make it easier for me to share these interesting topics with old friends from high school.
Is this an open thread or are we just talking about the concept?
Just talking about the concept; correct use of pause/play conventions; I hope you stay well.
If the whole "blog" thing isn't working anymore, why not just make the front page a wiki, so that anyone can post threads they think will be interesting?
That makes it sound like I'd have less power. NEXT!
heebie.geebie, which is a gmail account.
Or heebiegeebie which, if directed to the gmail domain, would also reach you because dots in gmail addresses are nonfunctional! Maybe everybody knew that, but I learned it long after putting some (okay, not a ton, but some) thought into whether to include them in my own gmail address. If not, it can be a Fun Fact for Tuesday.
I did not know that. I'm still annoyed that they didn't allow hyphens when I set it up, though.
Mubarak will step down! (In 9 months or something, pah.)
23: Judging from the Al Jazeera live stream, to which I've become addicted, he's only emboldened the crowd.
23:Fahir Square response to the brilliant Obama/Frank Wisner ploy. An Egyptian lawyer, careful with words.
"We want Mubarek out of the country now."
Frank G Wisner at Wikipedia. Recently Vice-Chairman of AIG
27: Boy, I did not know that... and am embarrassed about that. Just sent to j.p.s.t.o.r.m.c.r.o.w@ domain we are talking about ... and it worked.
Indeed, my wife has received emails (including private financial-related authentic non-spam ones, things like payment confirmations) because someone registered or thought they registered her email address but with dots in it and now my wife gets them. She couldn't convince the corresponding business to change the email address because of course she didn't have the appropriate security answers.
My friend's dad (and his partner) live and work in Cairo. They don't really know what to do - no food around, can't get money anyway, their street has been barricaded to stop looters getting in ... there's a British govt plane home on Thursday but they don't know if they can get to the airport - and then what do they do once they're here, with nowhere to stay or job to do? They don't know if they'll be able to get back into Egypt if they leave, and she's been there for ages.
Israeli crowd dispersal weapons arrive in Egypt. "Internationally proscribed gas" 3 full cargo planes
34:Tell them to sit tight, I think Obama & Mubarek & Suleiman will win this.
Revolutionaries can't sit in the square and wait for the pigs to get all embarrassed.
dots in gmail addresses are nonfunctional!
My friend's dad (and his partner) live and work in Cairo.
Same as with my ex's dad, except that neither I nor my ex know what the story is. Not that the dad would necessarily write or call even if communications were all in order.
Fortunately for all of your friends in Egypt, there is an underemployed old hippie in Dallas with internet access who can tell them what to do.
35: The Israelis simply aren't that stupid. Getting involved on the wrong side of this could lead to a hostile neighbor with Islamist leanings and a major grudge. This is just another of the rumors and smears that are a dime a dozen in the middle east.
Or heebiegeebie which, if directed to the gmail domain, would also reach you because dots in gmail addresses are nonfunctional!
I don't know why, but this makes me feel deeply aggrieved.
28, 32, 41: I am pleased to have spread some knowledge. I didn't mean to embarrass or aggrieve anyone, though, and am sorry for unwittingly raising a touchy subject.
And it's weird, right? My comprehension of nosflow's link was not 100%, but it made it sound like this was violating some kind of international standards, or something.
26: hmm. If you do not like the wiki or facebook idea, maybe we could just create an unfogged group on meetup.com. You could set yourself up as a group admin, so you'd still be very powerful. Meetup.com is pretty handy for proposing and organizing meetups. And the unfogged group would have its own discussion forum.
Have none of you people heard CHANGEBAD?
I could totally think of bicycle-themed posts to send heebie all day long. Now that, that would be fabulous.
Somehow, 43 and 45 just made me laugh and laugh! Like, eyes watering with the effort to keep it more or less inaudible (I'm at work).
Or, I know, an even better idea: why not just create an official "unfogged" group on facebook, and migrate the whole blog there?
You're trolling, right? Please tell me you're trolling.
The Israelis simply aren't that stupid.
Oh, but we are!
Kidding aside, the government is blending idiocy and viciousness extremely well lately. And they've already committed the blunder of announcing their support of Mubarak. I wouldn't the crowd-dispersal thing past them.
Urple's continuing ability to play you for a bunch of suckas suggests that he could make some money from this website.
Also, maybe it's just time to single out one commenter and drive hir away while inflicting grievous emotional wounds. The blog thrives on blood. I nominate, say, urple.
52: Say, by claiming to have cancer and then collecting money for expensive restaurant meals?
Is it just me, or does the protest guy on the front page of NYTimes.com right now look like really, really angry Ted Danson?
Not just you. Picture 4 makes me think of Monty Python.
I having a hard time understanding how anyone could read 24 and 43 as something other than straightforward and obvious sarcasm.
1) You're that good, urple.
2) Not that much weirder than things you've defended seemingly in earnest.
Both may be true.
Say, by claiming to have cancer and then collecting money for expensive restaurant meals?
Actually, my mom has cancer. But it's ovarian cancer, not stomach cancer. I think that means that if she happens to get better, you're all going to need to pitch in to fly apostropher down to have sex with her.
It's just that the long con you're running has been so successful, Urple. Even I can't see what the denoument will be, but I expect to be poorer as a result.
Cat caught ANOTHER bird today. This makes 4 that have gotten in within the past 6 weeks or so.
Also, NO DNC IN MPLS IN 2012! Whoo-hoo! Let Charlotte have all the fun.
We need a new Unfogged chat-bot.
It turns out that XMPP is complicated. (I still don't know what the actual problem with the ruby version was, but it's not as if I spent a lot of time investigating it.)
I think Halford's got it in 60. And like all the masters, urple has left ample clues right out in the open:
I spent the first 15 years of my life carefully developing a reputation as the mildest, most inoffensive and good-natured person you could possibly know. Which built up a huge reserve of goodwill that I was later able to leverage into hilariously offensive jokes. I could be a complete asshole, and it was just funny, because everyone knew I wasn't really an asshole.Apparently born to the long con.
Of course, the key to Urple's success in this particular troll is that people do suggest migrating groups to facebook all the friggin' time, because it'd be awesome!
I've developed an increasingly deep resentment toward Zuckerberg at this point.
There's part of me that just doesn't believe that facebook will achieve the complete, more-than-google-at-its-zenith dominance that is frequently predicted for it, if only because complete transparence is just...not how people actually live their lives.
Then there's the rest of me, which hates and fears social media. Every time someone talks about an abstract digital "space" I want to kill a carebear.
58/60/65: I know you're (mostly) joking, but that leaves 57 essentially unanswered. The last two sentences of 24, in particular, should belie any plausible argument that the comment wasn't sarcasm. I just don't see any way around that.
I was just reading my FB and I see that one guy went nuts on the quizzes. If he were a handgun, he'd be a Browning 1911. Were he a Tim Burton character, Sweeney Todd. Plus, he is 100% redneck and, were he an evil person from history, he'd be Vlad the Impaler.
I just don't see any way around that.
Neither do I, in retrospect. You just hit a nerve, I suppose, which is funny in its own right.
68: I found your comments hilarious and thought it was clear you were joking.
And yet, 26, 45, and 49. The marks are all taking the bait, just as they always do.
But is pointing out the marks just setting me up as the real mark? This is complicated. Damn you Urple.
72: If you receive a Facebook invitation from one Urple to join a FB group called "Unfogged", what will you do?
NO DNC IN MPLS IN 2012! Whoo-hoo! Let Charlotte have all the fun.
I saw that. There's a really good Ethiopian restaurant in mid-town. They should try the buffet before they leave.
Isn't Charlotte where Bank of America was headquartered? Maybe Obama really is evil?
CBS headline: President Mubarak Says He Intends To Die In Egypt.
The story is very disappointing, though. Turns out that he hasn't set a timetable or anything.
72: Face it Halford, you're going to end up in prison, looking at photos in the Flickr pool and suddenly realize, 'Urple's not dead, he was [redacted]!"
76: I heard a reporter recently recount a joke that's been popular in Egypt for some time:
Mubarak is lying in what's seemingly his death-bed, and a bunch of Egyptian citizens file in to visit. An aide tells Mubarak, "Mr. President, the people have come to say goodbye."
Mubarak says, "Oh, really? Where are they going?"
#75. Wachovia, now Wells Fargo, was headquartered in Charlotte. I don't think BoA was ever headquartered there, but I could be wrong. That city was (is) bank crazy.
I would like to register a vote against open threads, and to propose a solution: bob mcmanus, front page blogger.
From Wikipedia: BoA is headquartered there, and Wells Fargo's east coast operations will soon be headquartered there too.
See, my plan, which I will share with you here because (a) the beauty of it is that it can be totally public and (b) sadly, no one will ever do it; is that, for these big summitty events, especially the DNC/RNC, what anarchists should do is pick the next city over from where the official convention is happening and descend there en masse. You wouldn't even have to break any windows. Call it "Knoxville Summer 2012" and hook up with some social service organizations to do a big volunteer project, plus have an anarchist bookfair, and concerts and lectures and that kind of thing. Maybe a big march or two. Because let's face it, being part of the bread and circuses act for the corporate media is a drag. And an expensive drag at that. Of course, see, the Fibbies are never going to believe that all the anarchists are in the next city over, so they'll still have to spend a huge amount on security in whatever the city is, PLUS they'll have to have a significant amount of resources devoted to whatever's happening down the road. Heh heh heh.
75:North Carolina is the least unionized state in the union, and the hotel unions have been working on the DNC for months not to convene there. That also means non-unionized convention workers, a card I held for a little while.
Yes, he is.
That also means non-unionized convention workers, a card I held for a little while.
I had a Topps "Exploited Garment Worker" card in mint condition, but my mom accidentally tossed it in the trash.
#80. Well. Ok. But does Wikipedia know where are all the cool (for some value of "cool") little places in Charlotte? No. I don't think it does.
what anarchists should do is pick the next city over from where the official convention is happening and descend there en masse
Tega Cay. There's the added bonus of assembling around the ruins of Jim and Tammy Bakker's Heritage USA amusement park.
85: I know all the cool places in Charlotte, if by 'Charlotte' you mean the Vermont town pronounced shər-LOT and not the North Carolina city pronounced SHAR-lət, and if by 'cool' you mean the places where I made out in middle school. Nothing else there really qualifies as cool, AFAIK.
Going to Vermont to watch 12 year-olds kiss seems creepy.
One of my kids is trying to get back to school from Chitown. Shockingly, it is not working well at the moment.
87: d00d, it's not about the observing, it's about the commemorating. But wow, yeah, I guess I was 12 when I started with the making out. As a parent now, I can only say, Dear God.
I guess I was 12 when I started with the making out
Well, I wasn't going to say anything about that, Jesus. But I admit that I'm pretty sure I was still reading Nancy Drew mysteries ... wait, what grade is age 12? Like 6th grade? Not making out then, no. That age was still at just beginning have crushes on boys.
I didn't start with the making out unitl I was 30.
dots in gmail addresses are nonfunctional!
I share this knowledge with people at every opportunity and thank Osgood for his doing so here. For some reason people are really into making sure you got that dot when you're notating their gmail addresss. Personally, I ruined my last name for everyone else in the family by signing up for [mylastname]@gmail.com early on. Sorry, relations!
It would have been 7th and 8th grade. Early? Maybe.
7th Grade for me. Pedal over after school and make out before her mom got home. And now we're friends on Facebook.
I recently saw a photo of my 7th grade girlfriend on facebook, from a school reunion I didn't attend last summer. Still cute!
NickS provides exactly the right approach in 18.
(Says the would-be "guest poster" who still hasn't taken up that invation to blog at Before You Listen. I suck.)
99: I agree. NickS is great at sending along links. And knowing that I can ping him back for a brief write-up is good news. I've sat too long on a few of his links wondering how to get at the subject, and then the moment passed.
(Says the would-be "guest poster" who still hasn't taken up that invation to blog at Before You Listen. I suck.)
Bastard! Heheheh.
Summer after 7th grade. Then year-long dry spells waiting for summer camp to roll around again.
Bank of America was North Carolina National Bank when I was a kid.
101: 81 degrees tomorrow? That's too warm. Temperatures in the Bay Area are ideal right now, though. Too bad I have to fly back to the east coast in a few days. (I'm hoping a snowstorm there will strand me here for longer....)
Bank of America was Bank of America when I was a kid. As late as 1998, I think, you still had to use other banks' ATMs if you were on the east coast.
I also thought of the banks when I heard the convention was going to be in Charlotte. I don't feel like being confronted with facts, so I'm going to assume that the choice is not a coincidence and not look into it.
Just by Occam's Razor, I'll go out on a limb and say that banks and unionization rates had just about nothing to do with selecting Charlotte to host the convention. Instead, I'll go with: the electoral map in 2012 becomes much, much easier if Obama becomes the first Democrat since Adlai Stevenson to take NC twice in a row, and he's currently holding leads here against every potential GOP candidate.
I heard 78 about Franco in the early 1970s. I wonder if they told it about Louis XIV.
Of course, researchers who've attempted to find any electoral impact from convention locations have come up empty. But campaign consultants are generally rain-maker sorts.
True. On the other hand, in a state you won by fewer than 14,000 votes out of over 4.2 million cast, even very small effects yadda yadda yadda.
I guess. I dunno; I'd be more worried about the possibility of ridiculous security craziness pissing the locals off.
Isn't the main reason to have a conference in Charlotte that it's a huge airline hub (Continental HQ, right?) but cheaper than (say) Chicago or New York?
Also, in re Obama, what part of "now" was missed?
"What is clear, and what I indicated tonight to President Mubarak, is my belief that an orderly transition must be meaningful, it must be peaceful and it must begin now," said Obama.
I suppose he could have beaten a photo of Mubarak with his shoe.
Also, in re Obama, what part of "now" was missed?
I suspect that the answer to that is in "I will die in my home country" - Mubarak might have been given an updated prognosis on his lymphoma.
113: ah ha, another data point for David Owen.
http://qjmed.oxfordjournals.org/content/96/5/325.full
107: I heard 78 about Franco in the early 1970s. I wonder if they told it about Louis XIV.
But they really, really *meant* it when they told it about the pharaohs in the Old Kingdom.
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!!Crisis What Crisis!!
Power cycling here in Dallas. 15 minutes on 15 minutes off. Really Sucks.
13 degrees
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116: Meanwhile, high of 70 here in central NC. It's been a weird winter.
Made, I think, of win. From 3arabawy, who is awesome.
Meanwhile, high of 70 here in central NC
Single digits here with chill pushing it into negative territory. Damnit people, don't make me get out of that car because I might have to baton you just to keep warm.
I think you need more gun stories over here. Excuse me for the crass self-promotion, but mine is the right place, always from the pro-gun-control perspective.
http://mikeb302000.blogspot.com/
But, never fear, the commenters are mostly extremists from the other side.
119: perhaps you should take a job on the Cairo force? plenty of sunshine, and plenty of baton too...
the Cairo force? plenty of sunshine, and plenty of baton too...
I've heard the same about New Orleans. Why do all the warm places have to be so shitty?
I don't actually even have a baton on my belt anymore. They gave us the option of only carrying two of the three options of pepper spray, baton, and taser. Except that they then said one of the two has to be taser, which is exactly the one a lot of us would like to take off the damn belt. Pepper spray is nice to have for dogs and the ASP is heavy and not that effective so goodbye ASP.
Can you taser a dog or does the fur keep it from working?
You can totally tase a dog, but it's more challenging. The probe spread comes from the lower one flying out at a slight downward angle. On a dog you have to turn it sideways and tase it gangster style.
Assuming nobody dies, I think you'd get much worse press for tasering the dog.
That is, worse press than you'd get for tasering a guy. But, also probably worse press than for peppering the dog.
one of the two has to be taser, which is exactly the one a lot of us would like to take off the damn belt
This surprises me.
This is the classic "dog gets tased" video that makes the rounds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGUyMFPJRnU
This surprises me.
This varies a lot by department and even within departments. Way too many cops have become tool dependent. They don't have the ability or willingness to go hands on with people and it's especially evident in departments where a taser is used as the next level of force after verbal command.
129.1: That first officer was very calm, all things considered.
That's a nice stop-kick, too.
129: That makes sense. I was taking the "us" in 123 too expansively.
Also, that couldn't have been an easy shot for a taser.
Best Cairo protest sign to date:
"Go already," read one sign held aloft for Mr. Mubarak. "My arm's starting to hurt."
TPM is reporting Molotov cocktails being thrown now in Tahrir Square.
Sonia Verma, a reporter for the Globe & Mail, reports via Twitter that people on rooftops -- reported to be Mubarak supporters -- are hurling Molotov cocktails down on the crowd.
She also tweets that "Some pro-mubarak placards were pre-printed. This is not spontaneous."
Are you trying to imply something about how fast we work?
Al-Jazeera is reporting that a lot of the pro-Mubarak 'demonstrators' have police IDs.
gswift--Do you gusy use tasers on people who are really obviously mentally ill? Because that would kinda sick if you do, particularly since there are some de-escalation strategies that can be used with agitated people.
It is, of course, worth pointing out that they're likely to be in restraints once they get to the hospitals. Some of them are using special heavy blankets now which sounds a lot more humane to me than a 5-point restraint in seclusion.
This is not spontaneous
I figured that when the pro-Mubarak thugs turned up in Alexandria and Cairo at exactly the same time yesterday. Things you notice on the Al Jazeera live feed.
gswift--Do you gusy use tasers on people who are really obviously mentally ill?
It's happened, but not often and the instances I can think of offhand the guy had something stabby in his hand.
If this is an open thread, has anybody seen the Portlandia? The skitcom about the city "where young people go to retire." The youtube trailer is a hoot.
I saw the "ordering chicken" scene and was amused and sickened in equal measure.
143: I've seen only the first episode, but it appears that the trailers show most of the funny stuff.
Colin will be your chicken tonight. That was funny, if that's the one you're talking about.
143: A FB friend in Seattle has been skickeringly linking to clips from it. Is there more of a Seattle-Portland beef than I'd realized? I kind of assumed everyone was busy being high or drinking coffee/wine all the time in that part of the country, and thus not so likely to get het up about, well, anything.
I haven't seen the show, so I'm hoping the show is better than the trailers. This is amusing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVmq9dq6Nsg
Presumably Becks is all over Portlandia.
I saw one thread where the hipsters were like "why don't they just leave us alone? Who did we ever hurt?" It stings a little more when Carrie Brownstein is making the mockery, apparently.
147: To the extent that there is, it consists mostly of Seattleites looking down their noses at Portland and Portlanders not giving a shit.
151: My sense of it here is that people are more flattered than insulted. Then again, I don't hang out with hypersensitive hipsters.
He tases himself when off duty.
He tases all and only those men in town who do not tase themselves (since, they thus have been disposed with).
Does the crazy policeman tase himself?
Yes. We can arrive at this conclusion via either of the following routes:
(a) The parenthetical justification suggests that the rule he follows is actually "He tases all and only those men in town who have not tased themselves", since it is only following their having been tased that they are disposed of. Since he has not yet tased himself, he is free to tase himself. However, he is required not to subsequently tase himself again.
(b) If that seems too persnickety, consider that the most natural reading of the rule as it stands (the reading, incidentally, which applies to the barber case), in particular the phrase "who do not tase themselves", is that it applies to those with a particular habit or custom, namely that of not tasing themselves. Now, his job description leaves it unspecified whether he is to tase everyone one time or continually, and we will suppose (again remembering that the already-tased don't need tasing) that it is the former. We can also reasonably suppose that the officer is not someone who tases himself, i.e., that is not his habit. Consequently he is free to tase himself once; doing so will only turn him into someone who has tased himself, not someone who tases himself.
On the other hand, we could also support the answer "no", reasoning thus:
He obeys the rule "tase all and only those who do not tase themselves", but his job is to tase crazy men. Hence, his obedience to his rule will lead him to overstep the bounds his job description establishes for him—since he will tase sane men who do not tase themselves, as well as women and children of arbitrary sanity who do not tase themselves—and this will lead to his being fired, or at least his having his taser taken away from him.
What if he's a also a 500-pound gorilla?