RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
No bio...
User ID: 3756
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
20d ago
Because the legislature refused to do it and voters pushed it through via the ballot measure.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
20d ago
Combine it with red states not being dumb enough to establish independent redistricting commissions
Well, one formerly red state did. It turns out that "the Legislature" and "the People" in the U.S. Constitution mean the same thing (or so 5 Supreme Court justices thought).
It's worth reading Roberts' dissent if you enjoy that kind of thing. (starting at 2678 by the pagination on the left side).
Just over a century ago, Arizona became the second State in the Union to ratify the Seventeenth Amendment. That Amendment transferred power to choose United States Senators from "the Legislature" of each State, Art. I, § 3, to "the people thereof." The Amendment resulted from an arduous, decades-long campaign in which reformers across the country worked hard to garner approval from Congress and three-quarters of the States.
What chumps! Didn't they realize that all they had to do was interpret the constitutional term "the Legislature" to mean "the people"? The Court today performs just such a magic trick with the Elections Clause. Art. I, § 4. That Clause vests congressional redistricting authority in "the Legislature" of each State. An Arizona ballot initiative transferred that authority from "the Legislature" to an "Independent Redistricting Commission." The majority approves this deliberate constitutional evasion by doing what the proponents of the Seventeenth Amendment dared not: revising "the Legislature" to mean "the people."
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
20d ago
After around 2003, he lost a bit of that sparkle.
I thought it was even earlier. The first 3 Dark Tower novels are quite the ride, but then I found Wizard and Glass (to say nothing of the even worse 3 books that followed) to be weak. In hindsight, all the people talking about it being great was a warning that a certain segment of fandom will go gaga over "lore" even when it's terrible.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
20d ago
Her problems stemmed primarily from extreme naivety.
Many such cases. I knew an attractive, intelligent woman who was incredibly sheltered and naive (raised wealthy and insulated). She ended up dating a rather oafish guy for several years (who similar to your example, was also offered the keys to the kingdom by her wealthy father but turned it down because he was "going to make it on his own" [he did not]), and seemed to date him because he was the first man to speak to her at the first student mixer before classes started. It was fascinating to watch someone so intelligent at coursework and tests have zero practical intelligence for interacting with people who might have ulterior motives.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
20d ago
You need to take triple the dose they say though: you need at least 10,000 FU to see what they saw in the study, which means 6 tablets not 2.
Any gastric side effects?
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
21d ago
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
21d ago
This may be low-effort but... why do so many people glaze Terrance Tao...!?
Prior to this discussion, I don't think I had heard of him. But I don't work in a STEM field.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
21d ago
What I do is go to some online retailer and look specifically for extralong shirts and order a bunch.
The length isn't the issue. It's how big around the shirts are in the waist. Anything that fits the chest/shoulders has a waist big enough for putting away a 12pack a day.
For dress shirts I just have them tailored and always have, there has never been a brand that fit me well.
Yeah, that's what I figured the answer would be.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
21d ago
I've also found it very difficult to find nice pants that fit my quads, but aren't cinched up like a sack cloth.
When I bought some new suits a year ago, I had to buy the pants with the biggest possible waist (56 or something) and have them taken in a ridiculous amount, and they still barely fit my thighs.
There are some jeans brands out there that are okay for simultaneously fitting waist/ass/thighs, but those are jeans, not nice pants.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
21d ago
Over the past ten years, I've watched Progressivism attempt a full-fledged social revolution through methodical weaponization of our society's institutions and centers of value. The revolution they attempted was merciless and insane, caused incalculable harm, and cannot at this date truly be said to have failed. They are on the back foot, momentarily, but they very clearly have learned nothing and will go right back to their revolutionary march the instant they see an opportunity to do so.
Whenever I hear cries of "help help I'm being repressed for my speech" from the left, I think about Masterpiece Cakeshop and the neverending litigation the owner has been put through, the mocking phrase "freeze peach," the national ACLU changing its guidelines for case selection to avoid representing right-wingers (that internal memo from way back in 2018), state chapters of the ACLU refusing to represent right-wing groups, and the infamous xkcd comic about being shown the door. They demonstrated their true principles when they had power and I have no reason to think anything has changed.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
21d ago
Any other tall guys who lift here who have had success finding work or casual shirts? I'm getting tired of my two best options being "get everything tailored" or "mostly fits in the chest/shoulders/arms, but big enough in the waist for 2-3 of me."
State and Liberty used to be my go-to for short sleeves (their long sleeve shirts had sleeves that were way too short), but their fit and quality control has collapsed. Where the shirts used to fit well everywhere, they are now massive in the waist, and I've had Ls that were too big and XLs that were too small. Other companies I've tried seem to view "athletic fit" as "guy who lifts once a month and has a beer gut." "Slim fit" fits in the waist and nowhere else.
Obviously, when I was a gym-goer instead of a home gym guy, I should've been asking all the super-jacked guys where they were getting shirts.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
22d ago
Good god it’s a slow news cycle.
APnews has had a week of breathless reporting about Ukraine ceasefire negotiations. Pretty, pretty slow.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
22d ago
Pros: all thinking machines destroyed
Cons: Earth terraformed into another Arrakis so sandworms can produce more spice
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
26d ago
Regarding 3/4/5, there has to be a name for this trope. No matter how alien or unusual the scifi or fantasy setting, somehow the main character is a Perfectly Modern Progressive with all the Correct Opinions on race/sex/religion/whatever, all the good guys share those opinions, and all the bad guys oppose them. It's not quite A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court but along those lines.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
26d ago
I'll admit it's the long trail that interests me least (western U.S. supremacist, sorry), but I'll certainly read it. I do find the contrast between "generally close to towns and amenities" and "terribly routed trail with steep ascents/descents over awful terrain" to be fascinating.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
26d ago
anomalously high fertility rate into very recent times
Huh, no kidding (only goes back to 1960). ~3 until the early 90s, then a slow decline to about 2.4 until about 2014, and then a dramatic fall.
Here's a more historical one (by 5-year increments). That late 70s/early 80s bump is intriguing.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
26d ago
Nazism did value motherhood, and does seem to have increased the birthrate, but unfortunately also massively increased the death rate.
This prompted me to look at other fascist/military dictator states around then. It looks like Italy crashed hard, Portugal stayed about flat, and Spain was flat with a small increase. I haven't found a good chart for Peronist Argentina specifically. I had seen the Franco chart before, but interesting to see that Italy was so different.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
26d ago
One problem with family law cases is that the guiding standard is often "the best interests of the child." It's about as vague as one can get, and unless a state legislature has clearly laid out what counts as best interests and how to weigh factors against each other, it leads to judges speculating and pontificating on what those best interests are. Knowing the biological father, not knowing the biological father when knowing would upset the stable conditions of a lifelong relationship, avoiding the appearance of illegitimacy, taking the kid away from this dysfunctional trio and giving him to a high-income, photogenic couple who has already successfully fostered 3 kids, and a dozen other things could all be in the best interests of the child, but somehow judges are supposed to sensibly pick among them.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
26d ago
At the time of filming he was a 43-year-old playing a 37-year-old character: looking at his face, I got the distinct impression that he's undergone a lot of Botox and/or cosmetic surgery to maintain a youthful appearance.
... That's not all that big of a gap. The average person would probably have difficult reliably telling those ages apart, and especially so when looking at Hollywood actors who presumably take good care of themselves. A 43yo playing a 27yo, or 53yo playing 40yo, would start to be more obvious.
Also, I had to look up who he is, because apparently Chris Evans, Chris Pine, and Chris Hemsworth are all different people but my brain had combined them.
Sadly, Johnson and Evans have very little chemistry with one another.
I wonder how much control a director (vs the studio) has over this kind of thing (that is, the casting of the main actors). A movie about romantic love with two leads with no chemistry is quite the miss.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
27d ago
I believe you're correct that it was him. Good recall. Truly a shame that no one saved that conversation.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
27d ago
But how horrifying is it to hear that, since we must treat women as indistinguishable from men, and since that's clearly untenable, the solution is to abolish women‽
This reminds me of a pair of comments on either /r/SSC or /r/TheMotte (sadly I did not save them) where 2 philosophers of the highest kind had a discussion about how consciousness in women was a mistake by evolution. In the ensuing fallout, both comments were deleted, and quite possibly both accounts as well. One of my favorite "elmo watching the nuclear blast" moments.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
27d ago
hail mary to game the stats
Or maybe it was a way to keep them busy and out of the way of people doing actual work.
Why not both? And I don't mean game the stats to get more white offenders or whatever, I mean it in the usual sense that police departments game the stats by going out trying to write lots of citations to hit their quotas for the week. These lady cops (or their supervisor) had the bright idea to go out doing this to generate some citations and pump the numbers, and the supervisor might have signed off on it to help his employees hit their numbers, as well getting them out of the way for some actual work being done. Unremarkable business as usual for police departments.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
27d ago
I've done a fair bit of solo travel both on and off the bike,
Done any interesting distance hiking? I'm contemplating a long trail (CDT or PCT) for next year.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
28d ago
I cannot recommend The Secret History highly enough, incidentally.
I'm happy to put it on the list. If you have a few other recommendations for someone who enjoys Ellis and is open to Tartt, then please fire away.
If anything, it's a compliment to the actual lawyer denizens here. Or at least compared to the many other insults I've heard.
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