DradisPing
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User ID: 1102
DradisPing
3mo ago
It looks like USIP is structured to get government money and spend it without oversight. It'd be very surprising if it weren't up to anything shady.
DradisPing
2mo ago
People who want to colonize Mars really need to think smaller first.
They should start by trying to build pleasant domed habitats somewhere marginally habitable like northern Minnesota first.
Then a resort hotel near the peak of Mount Whitney where people can take in amazing views.
Thirdly I'd go for a resort hotel on Mount Foster in Antarctica.
Really if a comfortable enclave in Minnesota for remote tech workers isn't practical, I don't see how we're remotely ready to go to Mars.
DradisPing
3mo ago
The family values voters were mostly Silent Generation and are mostly dead.
Musk is a Trump ally. But I think everyone on the right is aware that he only got there because the more authoritarian elements in the Democratic Party felt he wasn't toeing the line and decided to go after him.
But I do think there is less of a split than you think. The traditionalist right has always been pretty accepting of wealthy men being bad parents so long as their children were all well provided for. Musk is more shameless and extreme than is typical, but it's really less offensive to conservative sensibilities than a DINK couple.
DradisPing
4mo ago
The random jihadi style attacks are less ideological than people assume.
Islam liberalized a lot of social policies, but also froze them. One of the problematic rules was that low level officials had unlimited tax power over their regions. These could be enforced on a small level.
One of the things that travellers between Christiandom and Islamdom often commented on was that in the Christian lands peasants often had carts. Under Islam they did not.
A cart was too much of a visible investment and could be sized by the local lord (not sure about the correct title) at any time.
How does a family protect it's wealth under those circumstances? One strategy it to convince everyone your family is too dangerous to mess with. The local lord or his relatives are frequently vulnerable to a mob of people with knives, they can't be hyper aware and guarded all the time.
However committing suicide makes you, and thus your family look weak. And therefore vulnerable to exploitation.
So you have things like "Running amok" where a brooding person suddenly lashes out in random violence.
So the attacks are often closer to "death by cop" than some deep ideological motivation.
You could probably eliminate a lot of it if there was some way for men who feel they've failed at life to die gloriously. But that's a big step for society to take.
Perhaps we could just start off by sending them on "the Hock".
DradisPing
2mo ago
A lot of news anchors basically wear a latex mask that is then painted to look human. They aren't in any position to call out the guests.
Expensive makeup gets away with being expensive because it works. People going on TV pay some professional to do their makeup because the results are worth it.
DradisPing
1mo ago
Also the market. They can use early robots in Disney's films and parks until they are ready for the home market.
DradisPing
3mo ago
The most likely explanation is that when DOGE asked about the work USIP tried to play the "private organization" card instead of answering questions.
DradisPing
2mo ago
Trump is not going to cut Medicare or Medicaid. If he does it won't be until after he's cut so much from DC and NGOs that the average Trump voter feels that those orgs have sacrificed enough.
DradisPing
2mo ago
To be a little tighter, it's like telling them to have some willpower and just use drugs in moderation. Which is precisely what they have proven to be unable to do.
DradisPing
1mo ago
The chronological or purchase order make a lot more sense to me. The only issue I can see is that I might not remember buying some of them.
DradisPing
6mo ago
California passed a constitutional amendment decades ago where property taxes can only be increased on an home with the same owner by 1% a year. So some of those people bought their homes back in 1990 and only pay like $2000 a year. Made up numbers, but it's directionally true.
From what I've seen wealthy Californians spend their lives in a dreamy utopian state where the only evil is Republicans.
Their usual system of blame is to look at the various levels of government, City, State, Federal, and put the blame on the first Republican they find.
When they can't find one, they blame institutional racism or climate change.
Thus, I predict they will all blame it on climate change and nothing will happen.
Now this one is going to be particularly bad because California passed laws a few years ago restricting fire insurance premiums and most insurers left the state. So a lot of these homes are uninsured.
California has had problems with electricity for the past 20 years and has been dealing with it with things like rolling brownouts. Their wildfires are worse than they should be because environment groups sue to stop brush management to reduce fire spread. They have continual water problems because they refuse to build additional reservoirs to keep up with their growing populations.
There is not much hope of things changing. Their elections have major problems, ballots from ballot harvesters keep coming in for weeks after election day.
DradisPing
2mo ago
Perhaps I wasn't being clear. I'm suggesting that there have been significant changes to federal law regarding name paperwork since 1982, particularly since 2001. A judge could easily decide to cite federal law changes as a statutory restriction.
Your whole argument depends on their being no statutory restriction and you're going to need to do more research to be sure that is the case.
DradisPing
3mo ago
China has been trying to take over international shipping lanes. Trump sees US control of them as critical in the long term.
Greenland only has 57,000 people. If the Northwest Passage becomes a more viable shipping route it's an obvious chokepoint for China to try to control.
The US is already paying to defend it by having a base there. Greenlanders would most likely be better off as a US territory. Denmark isn't doing much for them.
57,000 people is less than the monthly illegal immigrant entries under Biden, so it's pretty easy for the US to invest in new programs to benefit the residents in exchange for becoming a territory.
Plus there is likely oil that can be developed with modern technology.
The only downside for Greenland I can see is the Jones Act possibly causing some problems. I don't know any of the details about shipping there.
DradisPing
5mo ago
Hasidic Jews got minority status for federal programs back in 1974.
I think this was actually a key plot point in War Dogs, Jonah Hill had to pretend to be Hasidic.
This rule seems to be just extending that, since trying to determine if a given Jewish person counts as Hasidic or not is probably pretty difficult.
It is kind of silly that the two wealthiest religion groups in the US, Jews and Hindus, get special treatment for loans.
DradisPing
6mo ago
Harper faced significant legal battles over his attempts to reform immigration an asylum claims.
One major case was "Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care v. Canada" where the Government tried to cancel extended prescription drug coverages rejected refugee claimants received while appealing their rulings. Keep in mind that Canadian citizens didn't get drug coverage.
The judge ruled that cutting the program was "cruel and unusual treatment" and thus a charter violation. The Supreme Court of Canada upheld that.
Things are a little more interesting if you look at immigration by year by country,
https://x.com/AmazingZoltan/status/1875985574429184020
There were prior trends, but Trudeau vastly increased immigration from India and Pakistan.
Instead of total number of immigrants, the key fight is really "how many poor Muslims?".
The left sees bringing in poor Muslims as key to their political success. They end up dependent on government programs and are loyal voters, or at least were before the split over October 7 in the US.
Harper did various things to tilt the balance towards economically viable immigrants. He upset a lot of Liberals by resetting the immigration backlog queue. I could go on but it was really mostly minor things that he could do with out the left going to the courts.
Trudeau tried to flip that around. Early on he brought in large numbers of refugees from Syria and Afghanistan without giving any thought about how to house them. He ended up paying for hotels and upper-middle class homes in some cases. Per head spending was enormous.
Ultimately Trudeau's problem was that he's one of those people who believes leftist academics have everything figured out and we just need to what they say. Mass immigration is always good. New housing construction is bad. So Canada has an incredible housing crisis. Also infrastructure wasn't expanded to support the additional population, so there are problems everywhere.
At least previous Prime Ministers could muster up a better response to "we need more housing for this immigration" than "shut up you racist".
DradisPing
5mo ago
People in the State Department and on the left in general want Trump to give funding to Hamas to "rebuild Gaza".
Their usual game is to play up the humanitarian disaster.
Arguing that the US should take over and rebuild with direct management counters that, because the pro-Hamas people suddenly have to argue that Gaza is fully capable of running itself.
I don't think it's any sort of real proposal, just an indication that US money isn't coming without control on the ground.
DradisPing
2mo ago
Trump's comments were incredibly influential in the election.
The boomer left has a very strange relationship with the US. They love Obama, vacation in the US all the time, and frequently fantasize about living in NYC. However they rage against the US and Americanization.
The "51st State" comments triggered a key part of their political identity.
The results aren't so much that Conservative support collapsed. It did go down a little, but the NDP basically committed suicide this election. Hyperbole, they can come back later obviously. But this is their worst result ever, and they've been running since 1963. 7 seats is 2% of the house. They got 9 seats in 1993, but that was 3% since there were fewer seats. They lost 70% of their seats in the House.
The Bloc Québécois also lost 10 seats, or 30% of their seats.
The Green Party went from 2 to 1.
Basically the Canadian left decided to rally behind Carney.
I think the motivation isn't so much that they thought anything would happen. It's more that they see Canada as a showpiece of centre left governance, and losing to the Conservatives after Trump's comments would be globally embarrassing.
There's a lot of dislike for how Trudeau II ran things but the Liberal Party brand is incredibly strong in Canada. Back in the run up to the first Quebec separation referendum in 1980, Trudeau I, in the name of national unity, talked the Conservatives (then the Progressive Conservatives) into backing a new national identity that was closely related to Liberal policies. So "Liberals Good" is basically taught to all school children east of Winnipeg.
Switching to Carney allowed them to create some space from the unpopular policies. Most of which are probably going to continue.
Is it because they really like what Canada is becoming under Trudeau?
This is actually a very interesting topic. It's surprisingly easy and common for Canadians to not follow what's happening in Canada too closely.
Canada has two cable news networks, run by CBC and CTV.
What's the most popular cable news network? CNN.
Plus the Liberals ramped up subsidies to news media in 2018, so reporters have a strong financial incentive to stop the Conservatives from getting in.
As a result people tend to be less aware of problems than you'd expect. Things sort of have to penetrate their social networks to become aware of them.
Also the age breakdown is interesting.
https://x.com/JackPosobiec/status/1918071839365980483/photo/1
The Liberal victory came from voters aged 55+. People who are much less concerned about things like housing affordability. Also they probably figure that staying the course until they die will be less painful for them personally than making dramatic changes.
DradisPing
8mo ago
It feeds into the culture war. This was a multi agency raid with judicial warrants to kill a squirrel and racoon.
Blue tribe members love to talk about how much government money is spent on rural people. But then things like this are counted as spending money on rural people.
It touches on other aspects. The agents used the search warrant as an opportunity to grill the woman of the house on her immigration status, which is something they never would have done to someone in NYC.
It's common to hear online that people can't understand why other parts of the state would want to separate from NYC when it brings in so much tax revenue.
But a rural view of the situation is sort of like this: A man from the government walks up and demands $5. He then pays his friend $10 to slap you as hard as he can. Then the man goes on a long rant about how much he spends to govern these fucking takers.
Sure, the government man is net spending money. But the rural guy isn't exactly happy about the transaction.
DradisPing
6mo ago
The current culture in cities is to just push and see what you get away with. Right now stores have trained their employees not to push back on the general public in most cases.
So if a dog owner needs to go for a quick walk to grab something from a store then bringing the dog is convenient for them. Tying up the dog outside is seen ask risky. So they will try to bring the dog in the store.
The store doesn't see much value in using their employees to get their customers to follow norms and by laws.
The city will be on their side if it's something like smoking. A lot of blue cities will not be on their side if it's something like shoplifting. Where do dogs fall? Why should the stores risk it?
DradisPing
3mo ago
Self bailout may not be exactly accurate, but I think it's mostly about refinancing the X debt.
The other issue is that xAI is a benefit corp. I'm not an expert in legalities, but this probably allows him to bake in a requirement to promote free speech into X.
If he becomes more arms length or sells off enough stock to loose control he could probably still sue the board if they start bringing in "misinformation policies" or banning politicians and political activists from one side.
DradisPing
11mo ago
I can give a broad overview.
Post Vietnam war there was basically a domestic truce declared between the pro-war and anti-war sides. People who served in the war were patriots who loyally served their country. War protesters were patriots who wouldn't let their countrymen die in a misguided war.
When Kerry got back from Vietnam he became a major figure in the protest movement. There's some dispute about what he actually said personally, but he at least associated and sat on panels with people who were saying horrible things about US soldiers. People from his old unit got at least the impression that he was saying he saw them commit horrific war crimes.
Since this was back in the 70s there aren't many recordings showing exactly what he said when.
Once things quieted down it wasn't heavily criticized due the de facto truce and he went about his political career.
Then in 2004 when he was running for President he wanted to play up his war record. Bush only served in the air national guard while Kerry was deployed and won a silver star. Bush is a little younger than Kerry and got a deferral to help on one of his father's campaigns. By the time he would have been deployed things were winding down in Vietnam and the NG didn't really need him for anything.
In the Presidential campaign Kerry cast himself as a proud veteran. Meanwhile other swift boat veterans were still pissed off at him. They had been quietly shit talking him for 30 years.
Some of them got in contact with Republican organizers and we got a bunch of "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" ads.
Basically a bunch of people who had reason to dislike him came forward and badmouthed his claims about his military service. I have no idea what the truth is or the specifics of the claims.
The Dems organizers didn't really understand that just because other veterans weren't talking about him publicly didn't mean they didn't still carry a grudge. They don't run in the same social circles.
So from the Dem point of view it was a manufactured conspiracy that came out of nowhere.
DradisPing
5mo ago
Solo dining is more of a city thing, and I think it's largely due to small apartments and a decline in public spaces.
If you live in a 300 square foot unit, you're going to want to get out of the house to eat. Cooking and eating alone in a tiny space is depressing. The "me time" response is just a poor classification of the problem. Trying to schedule things with friends every time you leave the house is a huge amount of work. No one ever did that all the time. Prior to cell phones it was basically impossible.
Due to the difficulty in scheduling everything, striking up conversations with random people was way more socially acceptable.
Also people would pick up location based hobbies like bird watching and just chat with the other bird watchers.
I suspect that packing a meal and eating it in the park was more common in the past. People in the park were able to beat up anyone harassing picnickers without the police getting upset. Police carried batons and used them to deal with small problems without the courts getting involved.
Old homes have front porches because prior to TV people would just sit there in the evenings. Watch their kids play, chat with neighbours.
DradisPing
9mo ago
The people pushing MeToo didn't really understand the situation.
The first sexual harassment was in 1974. By the 90s lawsuits we common enough that Michael Crichton's Disclosure (1994) featured a fake sexual harassment complaint as part of a conspiracy.
Business men protected themselves through a mix of better behaviour, legal strategies, and other techniques to avoid trouble.
However since the lawyers involved were strongly left wing, liberal strongholds like Hollywood and the Media were given a pass and ignored. This was compounded by the fact that those industries attract a lot of pretty girls, have powerful men at the top, and look down on traditional sexual rules.
This wasn't well understood on the left, and they all insisted on believing that Republican businessmen are the worst people ever and much worse about things that MeToo covers.
So activists pushed MeToo hard. Then they noticed that all the big fish going down were on their side. So they sort of stopped talking about the whole thing.
DradisPing
5mo ago
There was a push on Twitter to start calling them "Para-Governmental Organizations" instead of "Non Governmental Organizations" because they are intertwined with the government but don't have normal oversight like government groups do.
There's a strong bias in the US around not viewing white on white conflict through an ethnic lens. The differences in geography, religion, and ancestry would be enough to label the conflict as ethnic if it were to happen in a different country.
Red tribers already see DC as more of a colonial occupier than their elite.
Also the US civil war is seen as the template for a civil war. But that was a war of secession, specific regions had military organizations and used them to try to separate from the national government.
Proper civil wars (an attempt to change the government) are more of a sliding scale of actions by locals.
It'd be more of smaller scale disruptions followed by either an attempt for the feds to regain legitimacy or a brutal crackdown.
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