Gdanning
2yr ago
Silicon Valley, America’s IQ meritocracy headquarters, is so devoid of duty, of nobility, that it has allowed San Francisco to collapse into shithole status.
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San Francisco is not in Silicon Valley. It has a smaller population than San Jose, and Santa Clara County has a larger population than SF and San Mateo counties combined. SF and San Jose are further apart than DC and Baltimore.
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The idea that super woke SF is somehow driven by IQ meritocracy seems very odd.
Bill Gates’ only noblesse oblige is funding third world mosquito nets and attempting to design a better toilet for India, his philanthropic service to his own people is limited or nonexistent.
Leaving aside the fact that taking Gates to task for spending on inexpensive but highly effective interventions does not seem to be very trenchant criticism, the Gates Foundation is rather famous for its efforts to reform US K-12 education, esp re small schools, and programs like the Gates Millennium Scholarships.
Moreover, why should we assume that Gates is representative of "programmer ubermenches"? The Chan Zuckerberg Foundation seems to spend most of its money in the US, and though it is hard to tell geographically where much of the Google Foundation's spending goes, much clearly goes to US recipients.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Be that as it may, OP was clearly complaining not just about the loss of American lives but rather the loss of the lives of non-Americans. Hence his reference to Nixon bombing Laos, Obama wrecking Libya, and the "rivers of blood' on Bush's hands, only some of it American. Hence, my reference to foreign lives saved.
That's due to a derangement in your value system and not mine.
This seems to imply that it ethically "deranged" for a US President to endanger the life of a even a single serviceman in order to save the life of non-American civilian children. So, it is unethical to stop a genocide, if it puts American servicemen at risk. It was unethical to evacuate Vietnamese from Saigon. Heck, I guess Hugh Thomson was unethical as well; look at the American lives he endangered.
Gdanning
2yr ago
I understand how some might make that argument, but I understood OP's argument to be very different.
Gdanning
2yr ago
What does that have to do with what OP said about wars waged by Bush, etc?
Gdanning
2yr ago
Merely having confidential documents is not enough to violate the law. The law requires knowing and intentional retention.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Well, the article says 25 million. If so, it does indeed balance out. Especially since I would bet that some of those dead troops were Jewish, while none of those Africans were. By the only metric you seem to care about, Bush should be your favorite person!
Gdanning
2yr ago
And who determines if you riot corruptly or uncorruptly?
The jury does, based on jury instructions, which are based on the law re what "corruptly" means. Simply challenging a traffic ticket doesn't count.
Were the BLM riots over the 2020 summer corrupt or uncorrupt?
Whataboutism is tedious even when it makes sense. This is even worse; acting corruptly is not an element of riot, or arson, or assault, or any other offense that the BLM offenders might have committed. So, your question makes no sense.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Again, you need to read my statement more closely. It has nothing to do with whether the US has a right to invade the Hague (it doesn't) nor with whether it thinks it does (it doesn't).
Gdanning
2yr ago
All I know is:
- Using the ICC as an example of the US pretending to support the rules based international order makes no sense;
- Inferring therefrom that I think that the US has the right to invade the Hague makes even less.
Gdanning
2yr ago
If you think that, then you have misapprehended the particular point I was responding to, which was specifically about the ICC being part of the rules based international order.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Are the laws being applied equally or do they only apply to Trump?
Yes, that is precisely my point. The issue is not whether former presidents did bad things, as OP seems to think. It is, as you say, whether they violated a criminal statute.
Gdanning
2yr ago
It isn't a glib line. It is a description of what juries do every day: Resolve he-said-she-said controversies. Hence, arguing "This just boils down to he-said-he-said" is meaningless.
Gdanning
2yr ago
I don't know why you are conflating "doing bad things" with "doing illegal things." They are not the same thing, not in the US or anywhere else. Maybe they should be the same, but they aren't. Were Trump being charged with conducting bad policy, that would be one thing. But he isn't, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to complain that "This is the man who needs to go to prison, out of all living US presidents?" Either he committed a crime, or he didn't. Whether some other President did something morally worse or not is irrelevant.
BTW, as for Bush, if we are counting lives lost and lost saved, he is probably on the positive side of the ledger.
'Wink wink, nudge, nudge, the International Criminal Court is based in one of our vassal states and if that's not enough, we'll invade the Hague the moment a US service member is brought there.'
? The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court, so this is a very odd example of the US pretending to be defending the rules-based international order.
Gdanning
2yr ago
In the U.S. at least, the places with the longest commutes are also the places with the most transit.
I am not sure that means much. In all of those states, the vast majority of commuters drive to work. So rush hour traffic is going to drive much of that, esp since areas with large amounts of public transit are dense and have worse traffic: Major cities in the states you list also rank very high in traffic congestion.
Moreover, you seem to imply that slow commutes are caused by public transit, and hence that the same commute is faster by car. That is unlikely to be the general rule, given traffic during rush hour. People prefer to drive to work when possible; if they take public transportation, it is at least in part because in their particular case, it is more convenient than driving.
Finally, you are ignoring obvious confounding variables. Eg: Places where people use public transit the most are also places that tend to have more expensive housing. Many people with long commutes in those areas have long commutes in part because they live farther away.
you have to ... wait,
Not in places with decent systems. In NYC during weekdays, subway trains run every 6 minutes or so, which means the average wait is 3 minutes. Less time than it takes to park.
Gdanning
2yr ago
You're forgetting the requirement that the defendant must corruptly obstruct the proceeding.
Note: I am not opining on Trump's guilt or innocence. I am merely stating that the particular fear you set forth is misplaced.
No one doe, really
Hm, I don't know. I hear that there are certain cultural advantages to going into Manhattan. Theater and art and live music and comedy, for example.
And, in addition to the current Hollywood releases, here is a list of movies playing in Manhattan (a Tuesday, btw):
20 Days in Mariupol
Afire
Antichrist
Avanti!
Biosphere
Bobi Wine: The People's President
Close to Vermeer
Contempt (le Mepris)
Earth Mama
El Agua
Ghost in the Shell
Have You Got It Yet? The Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd
I Was Born, But...
I Vitelloni
Kokomo City
Lakota Nation vs. United States
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Love & Basketball
Out Of Sight
Past Lives
Persona
Revoir Paris
Rocky Aur Rani Ki Prem Kahaani
Showgirls
Shrapnel
Sympathy for the Devil
The Lost Weekend
The Rules of the Game
The Flowers Of St. Francis
The Spirit Of St. Louis
The Unknown Country
The Beasts
The Mother and the Whore
The Wicker Man
The Lesson
Theater Camp
Umberto Eco: A Library Of The World
Walid
War Pony
We Need To Talk About Kevin
While We Watched
You Hurt My Feelings
Gdanning
2yr ago
Your total commute is probably roughly 1 hour each way
That would be extremely unusual.
Gdanning
2yr ago
The former is obvious. Per the 2020 census, non-Latino whites make up less than 58% of the US population. As for the latter, it is only slightly less obvious. Unlike the US, most European countries have historically defined themselves in ethnic nationalist terms; the "nation" in "nation-state" has historically been an ethnicity. Eg: In Germany until the 1990s, no one who was not ethnically German could become a citizen.
Gdanning
2yr ago
The natural rights / social contract classics (Leviathan, Second Treatise, and The Social Contract), On Liberty, and The Wealth of Nations.
Gdanning
2yr ago
Throughout the movie, Ken is basically subservient to Barbie, defining himself only in the relation to her
Isn't that inescapable, given that that is who Ken is, in the Barbie universe? And, after all,
So far, much of the essay is a summary of Shattered Sword: The Untold Story of the Battle of Midway (as the essay implies). Though I don't think the part about Japanese public opinion is covered. I would highly recommend the book if you are interested in this subject.
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