FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
And every gimmick hungry yob
Digging gold from rock n roll
Grabs the mic to tell us
he'll die before he's sold
But I believe in this
And it's been tested by research
He who fucks nuns
Will later join the church
User ID: 195
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
Kidnappers are much more likely to wear masks, as they don't want to be seen and identified, so not wearing masks provides evidence that they're legit. Wearing uniforms and/or providing badges and names is more evidence against being miscreants. Obviously none of that is perfect, but the current videos provide zero evidence against the carjacking hypothesis, I just have to decide not to shoot.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
Appreciate the kind wishes
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
My condolences. Times like that are usually when my wife steps in and reminds me I'm old, and to stop trying to hurt myself. I probably defer to her judgment about half the time. Then probably about half the times I think "Naw I'll be fine" I wind up hurting myself.
Thanks. Hopefully it's like all the times I've hurt my shoulder or elbow, I stay off it for a week and while it might ruin a project it doesn't permanently change anything. As opposed to the first time I hurt my lower back, after which it's never been the same.
I haven't biked in like, 10 years?
I've really enjoyed taking it back up. My wife joked that as a white male professional, I hit a certain age and my biology kicked in and I needed to go get a road bike and some spandex like every dentist around here.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
Or if I'm giving one of my Venezuelan teammates a ride after jiu jitsu, or one of my wife's law school classmates is at my house, or the guys who come with my drywall contractor who don't speak English and I don't ask questions about...
It's unlikely but it's bound to happen to somebody.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
I tore something in my hip practicing single leg takedowns two Tuesdays ago. Thoroughly warmed up and stretched, we were half an hour into a class, at more or less the point at which I'd expect to be least likely to injure myself...but I was wrong. Normally, when I've hurt myself lifting or climbing or in jiu jitsu, there was a moment going in where I thought to myself "gee, I shouldn't be doing this right now." Trying to squeeze in a workout super fast when I didn't have enough time, or feeling a stiff back and trying to muscle through it, or going for that extra rep or that extra five pounds when I knew it wasn't feeling it, or trying to fight my way out of a guillotine choke when I should have just tapped, etc.
But this time, it was absolutely no warning, I've never had hip problems up until I went down for a penetration step and couldn't get back up. Pop, sharp, instant pain. I was able to get up and walk it off, but when I tested it again I couldn't get down and up, so I went home. I was so upset thinking that I wasn't sure how long it would take to recover, that I briefly went online and considered buying a ski-erg because I thought that might be the only workout I'd be able to do. But it recovered pretty quickly, so glad I didn't pull the trigger. Took most of the week off, and after a day of mild discomfort it quickly felt fine. After a couple days I felt ok on the bike, so I stuck to that for cardio. Went back to BJJ Monday, rolled a few rounds starting from the ground, felt fine, no soreness after. So Tuesday AM I go back to the same wrestling/stand-up class...and it's fine for the first half hour then the exact same thing happens. The exact same way. I hit a bunch of penetration steps and shots, I was moving well, but then I felt that same pain.
So I'm mad at myself for being a moron. The pain has faded now, I only feel a mild twinge when getting in and out of my car. But IDK how soon to go back to full sparring with no limits, or to hip dominant exercises like a deadlift or KB snatch. For the moment I feel comfortable doing BJJ on the ground with certain partners, but it's going to be a long time before I'm ready to try stand up again. Which bothers me because I felt like I was making real progress towards a decent standup game.
The one problem I've had with BJJ is that it sucks up all the energy from everything else. I'm always too banged up or exhausted or busy to get much of another workout in. Which, combined with hitting middle age, is what has me liking biking more as cardio, because I'm less focused on the numbers right now and achievement, I'm just going out and enjoying the ride. I guess I needed to be reminded I'm middle aged on my birthday.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
In this case, a heckler's veto is being exercised on good police procedure. You're saying I can't advocate for the basic libertarian principle that agents of the state have to identify themselves until every single person in the united states agrees to treat them well.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
I'm against no knock raids for the same reason. There should never be a situation where the boundaries of acceptable self defense and the boundaries of acceptable law enforcement activity intersect. That venn diagram should be two circles.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
It depends on your goals. Kamala's realistic goal was always to lose the electoral but win the popular vote and provide enough support to hold onto at least one house of congress. She failed at these minimal goals as well, because she was a bad candidate and faced constraints on maneuver (can't go against Israel). Wild moves might increase your odds of winning the white house marginally, while costing you seats in congress or require touching third rails (Trans, blacks, olds, Israel).
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
Once the doxxers are significantly deterred to the point the criminal behaviour is drastically reduced, and the doxing threat against ICE agents for doing their jobs is removed, then ICE agents can go maskless again.
So there's a heckler's veto on good police procedure?
My philosophical problem with ICE agents masking, dressing plainly, and not providing identification is that I'm watching these videos of raids at stoplights and I'm thinking to myself: How do I go about making the decision to shoot or not to shoot a group of masked men attacking my car at a stoplight? Because the whole visual reads to me carjacking/kidnapping/robbery, and I'd be reaching for a weapon, and I'd feel that the entire history of American self-defense jurisprudence backs me up on this one.
Now am I vanishingly unlikely to be the target of an ICE raid? Sure. But procedurally the existence of a situation where the authorities are trying to arrest me, and the situation is such that I would be legally justified in shooting them, is anathema to law and order, even if the combination of events is rare.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
Biden only committed to picking a woman, not necessarily a Black woman. Two of the four on the shortlist were white. I know it's a punchier line to say, but it's not true.
I don't know that they committed in advance that "it must be a Black Woman" but I do know that during the Summer of George they picked a Black Woman, and that they absolutely thought about her status as a Black Woman when doing so. I don't think it makes any difference. Passing over the Black Woman who was his natural successor would have been a bad look with significant IdPol portions of the Democratic base, in a way that passing over Joe Biden wasn't.
Biden in particular had bad personal feelings about not getting Obama's full support in the primary for 2016, so it seems extra unlikely that Biden would actually backstab Kamala in the same way, even on just a purely personal level (even if he was tempted).
It wasn't really Joe's call to make, once he had dropped out. The Democratic party circa July of last year isn't beholden to him on this.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
Most of the reporting from inside the Biden-verse indicated that he only dropped out begrudgingly and with guarantees of personal protection.
The movers also aren't necessarily Joe, whose next phase of life is death, it's the hangers-on and handlers who want to secure their own legacy and job security. Blinken and co. They don't want to be thrown under the bus either.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
I have no insight to offer on your deeper problems, but in response to your core original question:
Should you be a liberal or a traditionalist?
You shouldn't seek consciously to align yourself with a whole grab-bag of beliefs. You should follow your conscience and your reason and your interests, and if that leads you to find that you align with people who use the label "tradition" or people who use the label "liberal," then that is convenient for labeling yourself to signal to others what your beliefs are, but it's not real. It's not a fact about you like your height or who your father was.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
A savvy career politician like Biden would understand that winning elections is more important than being nice to him personally.
I don't think Biden would have stomached that. Throughout the process he was not willing to be a bullet magnet.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
"With hindsight, we should have stopped the pandemic-era emergency spending as soon as everyone who wanted to be was vaccinated and pivoted to controlling inflation."
"So why didn't you do it?"
The problem is that, while the VP has no formal powers, a politician good enough to be President should be the kind of person who exerts power just by existing in the space.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
If Biden had dropped dead, sure.
That was the point of the hypothetical.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
You're correct, I had forgotten this fact.
I'm not really pulling back on the point though. Ford was appointed VP during the Watergate process, he was never really part of a functioning Nixon administration.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
2d ago
No personal offense meant, but any time you start writing a fanfiction speech for a politician, just realize that one is wrong.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
3d ago
To be honest, I don't think that would stick to a VP who was trying to spread their wings and fly in a new direction. The answer to that question is obviously "Because I was the Vice President, not the President."
And what's the answer to the other question: "Was Joe Biden a bad president for not listening to you on Medicare For All/Free Palestine/Abolish Prisons/Annex Cuba?"
Kamala would never survive being disloyal to Biden. She would have been electorally doomed if she was perceived as disloyal.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
3d ago
The problem is, that is a double-edged sword: give the masses the chance to see President Kamala (as she takes over from Biden and finishes out his term) and maybe we all see how badly she does when given power. See Ford versus Carter for how being the VP who took over as President wasn't any advantage.
The difference with Ford is that Ford succeeded (as Speaker of the House, not VP) from a disgraced Nixon admin. Kamala, succeeding a dead Biden, would not have been concerned with those disgraces. Witness St. Charles of Kirk; we still avoid speaking ill of the dead. Still moreso a dead president, still more a dead president who was mediocre but ultimately started no wars and kept unemployment under 4.5% for effectively his entire term. She would have basked in the twin glows of succeeding a martyred president, and being the first woman in the white house.
Or maybe there is enough of a run-in to let them have an open primary and choose a different candidate.
The dems could never choose a different candidate after they picked Kamala for VP. They picked Kamala to be a BLACK WOMAN, and they couldn't be seen to skip over a BLACK WOMAN.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
3d ago
First of all, 107 days is plenty of time for an election
I never blame it on the timeline. Rather the major problem is that she can't have
iconic or easy-to-understand policy goals. Compare some policy ideas from better politicians, like Build the Wall and Medicare for All. Iconic, bold, and yet emblematic of what the politician stands for. Inseparable from the personality of the originator. Give me a policy goal that fits in 3 words and you've got a shot at winning.
Because she was VP for four years and didn't try to do anything. She can't have policy goals separate from the Biden administration's policies. It just doesn't make any sense. She can't escape the questions of "Why haven't you done this already?" She's on the horns of the dilemma, she can be gored by "So you were powerless to advocate for your positions for four years?" on the left and "So you're saying Joe Biden was a bad president?" I don't see how you make any bold policy proclamations as Kamala Harris circa July of last year that don't fall victim to one of those two criticisms.
She could claim none of the Biden administrations' accomplishments, such as they were. She couldn't claim to be a steady hand, who had kept the country safe and the economy humming. She also couldn't claim to be a voice for change. Where did that leave her messaging-wise? What bold policy slogan could she have used?
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
3d ago
In 2023 the Dallas Cowboys faced the San Francisco 49ers in the divisional round of the NFL playoffs. It was probably the career-best year for QB Dakota Prescott, they had a strong team. Unfortunately the niners were having a better year, behind Mr. Irrelevant Brock Purdy's establishing campaign, and in the 4th quarter the cowgirl's season was on the brink: they were down a touchdown with just six seconds to go 76 yards. So the Cowboys draw up a hilarious trick play involving putting their running back at center and everyone else out wide, including the rest of the offensive line, and the plan appeared to be to try and lateral a series of hook-and-ladder runs up the field for the touchdown. It, of course, didn't work. Elliott got steamrolled, the pressure got to Dak and he threw it like seven yards for a short gain that accomplished nothing. They looked silly and everyone around the NFL mocked it for a while.
Now as much as I love mocking the cowgirls, realistically their win probability from that position was less than 2.5%. There was a 97% chance that the 49ers were going to win, and the play they called in that situation was unlikely to work. So I always thought mocking them in that situation was a little silly, they just didn't stand much of a chance to begin with so you gotta try something.
In the same way, mocking Kamala for her electoral results for not winning the election is kind of silly, like mocking Ezekiel Elliott and Dakota Prescott, a fun thing to do if you hate their team but ultimately not really the fault of the players on the field. She focuses on the 107 days, but the bigger problem was being tied to an unpopular incumbent president without the advantage of incumbency. If TPTB had the chutzpah to just kill Biden, Kamala would have had a chance: she would have been the first female president, she would have had the advantage of being in power. But running as an incumbent vice president of a clearly failed (because not-running) president, she had all the disadvantages of a failed admin attached to her while having none of the advantages of having concrete accomplishments to point to. She couldn't avoid blame for any of the failures of the administration eg Gaza and Inflation; she couldn't claim credit for any administration successes, eg the economy not cratering post Covid. The Democrats were doomed in 2024 when they nominated Biden and picked Kamala in 2020. Biden was always going to get old, Kamala couldn't be skipped over without pissing off too many people. The result in 2024 was pretty much set in stone, and confirmed when Trump turned left in Pennsylvania.
Pick Pete, don't pick Pete; you were losing either way. Accept what happened and move on, don't try to blame others.
Now if we want to play "How did Kamala manage to lose so badly?" then there's room to analyze performance. But losing was always her fate.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
3d ago
I had this thought a couple of times, he bounces back.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
3d ago
Are there any decent chinesium oura ring knockoffs out there?
I want to dabble in fitness biometric tracking, but I don't really want a smart watch, the ring seems practical but I don't want to spend that much.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
3d ago
It's a sop to a subgrouping that has been co-opted by the MAGA movement.
Think of it as the RFK equivalent of the Cuba embargo: most don't care, and a subgroup cares A LOT, so you go with what the subgroup wants.
Judging from YouTube, I think it's primarily useful for creating infinite quantities of music in genres that contain a lot of fuzz and vagueness already.
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