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Willa Rogers posted:Have you done this in your own life? I reside in Texas and I enjoy being able to afford food, so I have some opinions about this whole thing. Gumball Gumption posted:The price of advertising on a billboard is proportional to the number of people who will potentially see it. I hope that also helps explain why billboards in the middle of no where are more likely to have insane things on them. I saw some interesting ones driving through north Texas, should have stopped to photograph a couple. edit: also yes please don't fight subforum clique wars here
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Nov 1, 2021 21:57
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Lib and let die posted:I'm not sure how much more specific I can be on this. A child residing within the borders of the united states is...a person residing within the borders of the united states, right? yes, turning the current ctc into a ubi would be a great start
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Nov 2, 2021 00:08
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A big flaming stink posted:@greyjoy, i thought you said we were discarding the thread and forumbans? We are reconsidering forumbans, at present they are still in force. We are also, technically, reconsidering threadbans, but I don't mind saying that I think those serve a useful purpose. We might adjust our terms for those but if we abolish them I was probably a voice in favor of keeping them.
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Nov 2, 2021 05:36
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A big flaming stink posted:you or fool of sound mentioned that vital signs was on the verge of being welcomed back into USPOL. do you plan to provide a framework through which posters can be commuted from their threadbans? We do! ...sometime! I like threadbans more than forumbans, and  please take all my policy statements as me rambling as a mod rather than as Mod Consensus unless I say otherwise , but I'm disinclined for threadbans to be absolutely forever. Maybe someday the people who appear to be totally incapable of posting in covidthread without being assholes and/or melting down can correct their issues.One option is an appeals process. Another option is putting a timeframe on the threadban, although I imagine the person in question (in this case vitalsigns) would be on thin ice afterward.
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Nov 2, 2021 08:45
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i mean, we already have an appeals process of sorts, but formalizing it a little more would probably not go amiss
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Nov 2, 2021 08:47
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Bloomberg says the plan under discussion is the version from the original Senate Budget Committee proposal: while A) a 10k salt deduction is Okay and B) salt deduction details are, like, my two hundred and eightieth policy priority in the tax code alone, an income cap seems reasonable course, you know what would be easier to calculate and involve a functional income cap? a changed simple salt deduction
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Nov 2, 2021 23:34
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Jaxyon posted:Bulworth has a lot of problems, but a senator getting assassinated by an insurance company exec for suggesting single-payer isn't one of them. on the flip side, that's also a legit reason to move from "here is a suitcase of cash" corruption to "here are campaign contributions and contracts" corruption. Less waste! It's been a whole Thing in Sri Lanka, although I don't think any of the major players have stated it quite like that, lol.
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Nov 3, 2021 00:20
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I was going to say "I wouldn't mind Congress incidentally happening to authorize more FBI personnel for anti-domestic-terrorism purposes" but 1) that might have unintended consequences, which isn't necessarily a dealbreaker in the face of future ones-six and 2) actually I dimly recall they might actually have done that.
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Nov 8, 2021 20:35
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"the president of the teacher's union hates kids" certainly is a statement 
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Nov 8, 2021 20:36
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FlamingLiberal posted:I mean, anyone is an improvement over Harris except for like Mayo Pete He's almost certainly more (ugh) electable. Whether he'd be a better president is... unclear, but I'd say he was probably the best CAMPAIGNER in 2020 - "mayor of middling Indiana town" is not exactly who you would expect to be a solid number two Not Bernie.
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Nov 8, 2021 22:55
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Angry_Ed posted:Can't wait for him to try to solve a budget shortfall by selling an NFT of a picture of Madison Square Garden I am both excited and troubled by the idea that this sort of program might actually solve a budget shortfall.
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Nov 10, 2021 02:57
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FlamingLiberal posted:The DC Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary stay on the release of Trump's communications on 1/6. However, the panel hearing the arguments at the end of the month are all Dem appointees. Irritating and also unremarkable, they can't really un-release the documents if they make the unlikely bad decision. Zotix posted:Doesn't matter. It's just delay delay delay. This is just for like 50 pages of documents. They are effectively dragging all of this out because they know there's a good chance the Rs win next November and squash all of this yeah this is definitely the Trump strategy
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Nov 11, 2021 23:25
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"surely the legislature will never become propaganda-poisoned morons," muses thomas jefferson as he orders his newspaper buddies to dunk on john adams
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Nov 12, 2021 04:32
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I don't think going full Andrew Jackson is good, or necessary, or even feasible. Three of the major things that kept Donald Trump from doing as much harm as he wanted to do were, in fact, a semi-functional court system, the eviller federal agencies believing the rule of law is a thing that more or less exists, and the better federal agencies jumping at any opportunity to go "sorry, Mr President, we'd love to rolls dice grind up black children for meat for sale in Walmart, but the courts said we can't, you know how it is". Two high-profile examples spring immediately to mind. When Trump took his first swing at imposing a Muslim ban, there were many concerns about what would happen if CBP and ICE just ignored court orders. Turns out they didn't. They didn't even get to the point of having armed standoffs with federal marshals, which would have been tremendous content. The bad agencies backed down immediately. As it happens i think the third? fourth? decision was wrongly decided, because by that point there should have been enough "this policy is arbitrary and malicious" evidence to override deference to executive discretion, but I'll come back to that in a sec. From the other end, when Trump tried to keep the Census Bureau from doing the things they wanted to do (a good job on the decadely census), the courts blew up at least two very visible attempts. When he tried to add the citizenship question on the fly and it was possibly-temporarily blocked, the bureau immediately rushed to the printers with a hearty "sorry Mr President, but now that we've done all the printing it's just not possible to change the questionnaire, real shame that". When he tried to end it prematurely, the bureau had all its paperwork and workforce and organization ready at the premature ending date, just in case it was extended by the courts, which it was. End result: despite the President and the Secretary being actively opposed to full enumeration of the American population, and a devastating pandemic putting a real damper on summertime work, everything I know points to this being a better census than previous decades. Rather a lot of Trump policies in the latter half of his presidency were also struck down on arbitrary-and-malicious or similar grounds, basically a "you keep ignoring the laws and regulations for no adequately explained reason so we're going to give you a slightly less preposterous amount of leeway than most executives". This, I suspect, is a big part of why the Biden administration has been small-c conservative about some of its executive actions. If you keep doing things Just Because - like terminating previously agreed upon oil leases - you run the risk of annoying the courts even when they're not statistically slanted towards the opposing party. I understand the excitement to make Joseph Robinette Biden the absolute, undisputable dictator of the United States, but sadly it just wouldn't stick.
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Nov 13, 2021 21:13
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I'm not precisely sure what malicious compliance would look like in the case of pre-authorized leases, but I'm fairly certain the Biden admin can and will come up with something for new applications, if they haven't already. Given that they already tried the one, sweeping thing. I haven't really been following the details closely.
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Nov 13, 2021 21:19
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Srice posted:Yea those stimulus checks were extremely popular with voters and non-voters across the entire political spectrum and we're never gonna see anything like that again because they weren't means-tested tax credits lmao They were means-tested tax credits, though?
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Nov 14, 2021 20:55
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Timeless Appeal posted:Not making Abrams VP was a huge loving mistake. despite my inordinate stockpile of fish and music puns in hopes of a Karen Bass nod, I would also have accepted Abrams and she'd be way better than Harris Gatts posted:Yes. Imagine the zest a Pete Buttegeig VP nom would bring to the ticket. ngl, while i hope the supply chain unfucks itself sooner rather than later for mostly reduction-in-human-suffering reasons, there's also a chance it plunges us into the Butt Timeline if he can successfully take credit as sectrans and, heck, probably an improvement over the Harris Timeline
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Nov 15, 2021 03:49
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Kavros posted:Bet you he already out to chill at home if so seems like it would be worth finding reporting on edit also yeah testing one of those weapons that way is bad and developing it is bad and having it is bad
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Nov 16, 2021 00:11
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rscott posted:Why are you conflating government owned production with socialism, unless this is some kind of irony posting to prove the point yeah this Bernie Sanders (and Elizabeth Warren) introduced an inadequate-but-it's-a-start bill requiring worker presence on company boards Mandatory 51% corporate ownership and 51% board control for workers would absolutely be doing a socialism.
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Nov 16, 2021 22:26
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Please settle down with both the level of bloodthirst and the accusations against other goons in the thread.
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Nov 17, 2021 22:36
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Dubar posted:Nonwhite people were not invented after European colonization While he worded it poorly (and afaik is wrong about the timeframe), there was definitely a shift in how race was perceived institutionally in the West that just so happened to coincide with the dawn of the transAtlantic slave trade, the Enlightenment, and (slightly earlier?) some complicated stuff in Spanish and Portuguese colonies regarding who you were theologically and legally allowed to enslave. tldr: there was a general idea that enslaving people, or at least Christians, was bad, whereupon some of the brightest luminaries amongst the rich went "well, what if black people aren't people?" Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 22:59 on Nov 17, 2021 |
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Nov 17, 2021 22:56
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Gumball Gumption posted:They were through the invention of white people. People hating people, tribes hating tribes, is all very ancient. Race and racism is a pretty new idea from the 16th and 17th century. that's a more succinct way to put it
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Nov 17, 2021 23:00
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Halloween Jack posted:A professor I work with is teaching a class on racial identity in ancient history. He asked me to order a pile of books all with titles like The Invention of Race in the Middle Ages, The Invention of Race in Antiquity, and so on. So it's an ongoing debate when humans developed the concept of "racism" as distinct from other concepts of bigotry and fear of the Other. From what I know, I tend to side with the viewpoint that "race" was invented in the early modern period to justify the extreme brutality of settler colonialism and plantation slavery, but it remains controversial. Ngl, if you get a chance to read those books yourself or at least his synopses, I'd be real interested in your thoughts.
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Nov 17, 2021 23:17
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Space Cadet Omoly posted:Yeah, from where I'm standing that dude still seems like the main problem and it sucks that it looks like he's going to be walking free for the remainder of his days. QAnon shaman was definitely the most visible player whose name doesn't rhyme with Clump, but he's far from the most dangerous. Afaict he wasn't much involved with the planning, he didn't have a particularly clear plan himself, and he certainly wasn't one of the extremely troubling militia folks who showed up with significant preparation and a definite desire to start killing legislators if they could manage it. I'm hoping the reason none of those people have been tried yet is because the feds are making sure their ducks are all in a row.
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Nov 17, 2021 23:20
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Killer robot posted:From the moment the coup attempt fizzled the only sure thing was that the "What, do they give Nobel prizes in attempted chemistry?" argument would be used unironically to dismiss it. At least the argument that the people in front are being prosecuted more vigorously than the people behind has a little substance. a surprising number of definitely acknowledged attempted coups around the world consist of "attackers seize buildings and then stand around like idiots until arrested by the people they failed to subvert because they didn't have a step two", and more than a few successful coups were incredibly stupid I'm very fond of Gaddafi's successful one in Libya, where his saving grace was that the central government was even more amazingly, hilariously, unfathomably incompetent and he had just enough buddies to swing the armed forces after a series of massive fuckups
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Nov 17, 2021 23:42
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If absolutely nothing else, the secretary of defense or definitely, positively delegated minion has to verify "yes it is the president who gave this launch order"
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Nov 18, 2021 00:06
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trazz, chill
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Nov 18, 2021 02:55
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HonorableTB posted:The Guardian has, uh, endorsed blowing up fossil fuel infrastructure. You love to see it while that's an opinion article and I'm unclear on how tightly the guardian regulates those, it's definitely a thing
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Nov 19, 2021 00:06
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I was hopeful for a bit there with the long deliberation, but I guess it was a holdout who ultimately decided not to hang the jury. Rip.
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Nov 19, 2021 19:28
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Eric Cantonese posted:That went out the window once they couldn't prove the gun crossed state lines. Yeah i'm grouchy about that / the whole thing but as long as the intermediary buyer sticks to his story (which might even be a true story) that's a losing charge. That's also a problem for the feds. I don't have an enyclyopedic knowledge of federal criminal law so I don't offhand know other things they could nail him on.
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Nov 19, 2021 19:54
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Oxyclean posted:Wasn't it not his gun, and wasn't he not legally old enough to own a gun or some poo poo? Afaik: Wisconsin gun laws have a very, very stupid loophole. Rittenhouse was not legally able to own a gun, but he could give an older Wisconsin friend money to purchase a gun, and the friend could then legally lend Rittenhouse the gun. It's notionally supposed to be a hunting and target shooting exemption. The wording of the law is Bad.
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Nov 19, 2021 20:02
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the_steve posted:Wasn't the Democratic equivalent of the Southern Strategy the uh...Southern Strategy? ...no? not at all? that was the republican strategy (centered around Richard Nixon) to pull the weird historical rich fat white southern racists from the democratic party to the republican party and it did that pretty goodly
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Nov 22, 2021 06:11
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stop talking past each other, please trazz, please state what you mean?
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Nov 22, 2021 07:22
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Having a functioning (...non-Taliban?) Afghan state done sailed a long time ago. The withdrawal was handled alright - better handling of the refugees would have been real real good.
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Nov 24, 2021 00:30
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FlamingLiberal posted:It took a lot to get these people convicted i just refreshed my memory on the timeline earlier today and now read the article (which is from after the video drop and before the arrest), so, quick summary and commentary - first recusal was correct, by the lady who employed one of the murderers - second prosecutor definitely sucked and was eventually pressured into recusing himself after he did his best to let the killers off - third prosecutor handled the case notionally-okay insofar as referring it to a grand jury, but the article points out he could and should have arrested the dudes in the meantime to prevent them from destroying evidence and/or hurting someone else Shortly after the article was published, the GBI (georgia's state-level fbi equivalent) stepped in and arrested the first two men.
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Nov 24, 2021 21:49
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Afaict that's not precisely accurate. It looks like Biden isn't removing the guy, he's declining to renominate him when his term expires (which, to be clear, is the correct choice). it also seems to have been announced last week. Tanghlerini or whatever was GSA head under Obama, so probably better than Bloom. Biden's also replacing a Republican Trump appointee (because the board statutorily has to be balanced-ish). I don't know much about either the old guy or the new guy in that slot. Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 16:58 on Nov 26, 2021 |
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Nov 26, 2021 16:53
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There actually was a way for Biden to give Bloom the boot early on. The window was limited and my bureaucracy brain has some suspicions as to why it didn't happen. Tldr: the Biden admin was not adequately prepared for the transition. This was something we already knew. The immigration part is a particularly popular topic but it's far from the only problem area. Bloom's original term expired in December 2020. Postal governors serve until their successor is nominated or one extra calendar year, whichever comes first (thus the "Bloom is getting fired next month" podcast headline), and Trump was too much of a lazy dumbass to replace or renominate him. "But GJB", you say, "doesn't that mean Biden couldnt Biden have in fact replaced him at any time?" ...Not exactly, afaik, because something else happened in mid February: Bloom was unanimously elected Chairman of the Board. I think this made him non replaceable except for cause (through December), and it also raises some other complications. Still, if Biden wanted to, he could still have gotten the replacement process started (or finished?) in that window. I can think of several possibilities why he didn't. - The transition process was a mess and Team Biden didn't really have an opinion on how to handle the USPS yet. This would, as above, be unsurprising. Now, I understand that rebuilding the government after Trump is a substantial task - but Biden knew that going in and had from at least the day after Super Tuesday, practically speaking, to get his ducks in a row. - He thought Bloom would be a good interim choice. I think we can call this a bad decision. - He thought other confirmations were higher priority. I'm not clear on how quickly Biden was able to get the average nominee confirmed, but costing the USPS another year under DeJoy probably wasn't the best tradeoff. - He made some sort of agreement with DeJoy, Bloom, and/or their supporters in the Board / Senate to keep him on the extra year. I wouldn't be too happy about this one. Which do i think it was? Eh. They're not mutually exclusive, could be all four. At least we can now conclusively reject "Biden thinks Bloom should be kept through his whole first term".
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Nov 26, 2021 20:28
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DeadlyMuffin posted:I can't find anything saying this is true. If it isn't, VitalSigns is right Biden could've solved this problem earlier. could be, that part I was working off memory
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Nov 26, 2021 21:00
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VitalSigns posted:Wild that Trump and the Republicans didn't bother to nominate their own Postal BoG replacement last December which would have been locked in for another 9 years or however long but I guess that was during his temper tantrum about losing the election. yeah that seemed odd to me, even if he just renominated this guy
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Nov 26, 2021 21:08
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| # ¿ May 11, 2024 12:15 |
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Gatts posted:Has anyone taken inventory of what this earth can support, like "Yeah we only got 5 years of steel left....we should do something about it?" and like made a plan? Cause I want an O'Neil Cylinder to house farming for the earth and be a base of ops through the solar system while we mine asteroids and establish colonies...and like...we need stuff to build it with. Disclaimer: this is not my area of expertise and there might be new information I'm missing, good or bad. Afaik the issue with basically all the resources we care about isn't "will it run out", it's "how much will it cost". Copper, zinc, and lead are at some risk of (further) price shocks as reserves become lower quality and more annoying to access. Freshwater is theoretically infinitely obtainable from seawater but there are some obvious concerns about its supply vs demand over the next century. Phosphate is both recyclable-ish and probably not literally running out but still a potential cost concern. None of this is a "we are imminently doomed" or "we will be trapped on the planet within a century". It'll just make our existing challenges more challenging, which probably isn't good. Goatse James Bond fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Nov 26, 2021 |
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Nov 26, 2021 22:59
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