both of them said Vance's address was the most shocking speech they'd seen in their respective diplomatic careers
They are illiberal in a way shaped perfectly to block people like Vance or more traditional American Republicans from winning elections. Very selectively applied laws used to round up critics of leftists using police raids. A political Overton window enforced through state action and without any input from voters. Vance rightfully points out that Europe's true threats are just this sort of action.
The response is predictably shock, outrage and literal weeping.
I think many Americans just don't realise how visceral and close and frightening the Ukraine war is for many people in Europe
Europe buys Russian gas and contributes only the most meager and hesitant support for Ukraine. I notice the revealed preference here. "Apparently not very important."
TIRM
2yr ago
The Donald Trump-appointed judge’s
Confirmed 98-0 by the senate. This guilt by association for judges is ridiculous. Yes, Republicans also appoint judges when in office. No, those judges are not uniquely compromised.
TIRM
1yr ago
The idea that the government should step into that
Public universities are, well, public. Once my tax dollars get roped into this I would like the government to be a wise steward of our finances. So I would like the government to police its own institutions.
TIRM
1yr ago
Yeah. It is a matter of routine for politicians or rich people who are strong advocates for gun control to have private armed security and even concealed carry licenses. Famously Dianne Feinstein had a CCW issued in San Francisco, which is about as common as unicorns when it comes to exclusive gun rights.
They don't want to disarm all of society. They want unimportant people like you and me to be disarmed. Important people such as them and their important possessions will still be defended with privately owned guns.
TIRM
2yr ago
I had the misfortune of going to grad school. I can hardly exaggerate the sneering contempt for Chinese research papers among American researchers. I've evaluated quite a few Chinese papers since graduating and confirm their general lack of quality and rigor.
I'm pretty blackpilled on Chinese research output. They can't be all wrong, but if you were evaluating research papers a great rule of thumb would be to blindly assume that Chinese papers were all wrong.
TIRM
11mo ago
Last I saw Wikipedia renamed "Gamergate" as the "Gamergate harassment campaign". They've chosen a side. So on a larger sense this is asking why they don't punish one of their own soldiers for attacking.
TIRM
1yr ago
Agreed. Why is an American teacher flying a foreign flag?
I could understand a Japanese flag in Japanese language class or something. But just flying a foreign flag in some unrelated class is jivey at best.
Progressives "long marched through institutions". They got it. Mission Accomplished.
Now having sowed, they get to reap. This important societal institution is being bogged down in partisan culture waring, but now also from the other direction. Who could have forseen this.
I've been to grad school. In some meager way I contributed to this important endeavor and lived in it for a bit. It is valuable and we need it. At least some of it. Too bad certain people made it partisan and now are shocked that there is a price for ideological capture.
TIRM
2yr ago
"I've been saying we need this feature for years. Google: please flag the homos next."
-David Duke
TIRM
1yr ago
"Let's shut down some nuclear power plants and replace the energy with imported Russian fuel."
-Actual for-real recent German policy.
It's like they read Frank Herbert's bit about hydraulic despotism and decided to become the dependant helpless party in that exchange.
TIRM
10mo ago
I have a low effort quip I've used for years. Something alone the lines of:
Build more? Afraid we can't do that. Best we can offer is subsidizing demand.
It keeps exactly characterizing a significant portion of politicians, so I'm going to keep using it.
TIRM
1yr ago
the make up of colleges since the 2000s
Women outnumbered men in college since the early 80s. I bet most people posting here never lived in an era in which men outnumbered women in college.
There was a question asked during the 2021 New York City mayoral race: what is the median sale price for a home in Brooklyn?
A few candidates gave answers of varying comical inaccuracy. One candidate was Shaun Donovan who has many years of housing policy experience.
As Wikipedia summarizes Donovan:
served as the 15th United States secretary of housing and urban development from 2009 to 2014, and Director of the US Office of Management and Budget from 2014 to 2017. Prior to that, he was the Commissioner of the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development from 2004 to 2009
Many years of directly relevant experience including years working this at the highest level on this topic for New York City. His estimate for the median Brooklyn home sale price in 2021 was $100,000. Wrong order of magnitude. The cheapest listed unit on real estate websites for Brooklyn at that time was $100k for a parking spot. The very cheapest actual homes were many hundreds of thousands of dollars with the median sale price over $900k.
So yeah, somehow the head of multiple relevant agencies for years at the Federal and local level knows fuck all about the basics of his specialty.
I heard the audio from these interviews and interestingly Andrew Yang quickly reasoned that the median would not be significantly offset by the few super expensive homes in Brooklyn and guessed $900k which is within a few percent of the correct answer. Yang has of course never been appointed to be the head of any agency. Nerds may be right, but always be losing.
/r/somethingiswrong2024 posters keep wondering when the military and 3 letter agencies will take out Trump. Also more confusingly wondering how NATO can assist. Of course they use "saving democracy" type rhetoric.
They never use the word "coup" when describing this. And I don't think they get that democracy would not be restored post-coup. As though a cabal of CIA and military leaders would overthrow the elected government and then decide to appoint Kamala as President. They explicitly talk about Kamala being made President.
they leave as soon as they had a better opportunity
Such a common complaint. Usually with new junior hires. You train them for a year or two and then they bail for a much higher paying job. So you employ them when they aren't very productive and lose them when they are. Such a bad deal for the employer.
Which means these employers aren't paying market rates for well-trained employees. A large bump after they are well-trained would make them less want to leave. The fact that they leave for higher pay is indisputable proof that they were making below market rate at their previous job.
TIRM
2yr ago
When my wife was pregnant she was pretty weepy. She'd cry over sad news stories, etc. She'd never do that normally.
Maybe this woman is a "Karen" performatively crying as a means of social control. Or maybe in that forceful confrontation after a work shift and far into pregnancy, she honestly cried.
TIRM
2yr ago
The process is the punishment. Even if their imminent convictions are overturned because of the first Ammendment, they will have been enormously harmed by the long and expensive trial.
TIRM
11mo ago
I think Trump has always been a big outlier on gay issues. At least compared to mainstream Republicans.
He sold rainbow merchandise. He waived a rainbow flag. When asked about trans people using restrooms in Trump tower, he says he doesn't care where they go.
Trump is an irreligious life long New York Democrat with pre-NAFTA Democrat values.
TIRM
1yr ago
The heroes in ‘Starship Troopers’ are two White men leading the multicultural coalition of Earth against the brutalistic ‘bugs’
I read Starship Troopers. It is 100% from the point of view of the protagonist Juan Rico who is from the Philippines. He mumbles something in tagalog at one point and a non-Filipino character asks him what language that is.
TIRM
2yr ago
pay their fair share
Such a poisoned statement. So often used as an excuse to weaponize taxation. At this point I interpret it as the opposite of its literal meaning.
TIRM
2yr ago
CNN went big on the Steele Dossier. They don't need AI generated fake content. They already deliver old fashioned handmade artisanal fake content.
They seriously discussed a bit of (erotic?) fiction in which Trump paid Russian prostitutes to pee on a bed and then slept in the piss bed in order to defile something that Obama once used.
TIRM
2yr ago
What about the Hibernian conspiracy?
☘☘☘They☘☘☘ don't want you to know who's really in charge. The Jews take the heat, but the media, government and major companies are run by ☘☘☘them☘☘☘.
TIRM
1mo ago
There is some discussion of cost disease around here. Scott wrote a bit about it. May I present its cousin: schedule disease.
There is a particularly silly recent example. The city of Pasadena in California has a project to bury some power lines. That's the sort of thing you expect a local government to do. There are various benefits to buried power lines. All good so far. Not obviously silly or indicative of a broad societal failure.
Guess what the estimated schedule will be? This is a town of 133k people. 23 square miles. The scope of this project is small. Take your best guess and check the spoiler below.
We used to be able to build things. Infrastructure. Nuclear power plants. Trains. The California high speed train project is a much more impactful example of cost and schedule disease. But this Pasadena buried power line project stands out for the combination of small scope and deranged schedule.
I listened to the whole thing. They pretended that Kamala could not go on Rogan at any point in the campaign because it would consume too much time and she was too busy on the road campaigning. They really tried hard to make it seem like a sensible logistical issue.
They are of course lying their asses off. Harris took multiple multi-day breaks in the campaign. She really wasn't that busy, judging by presidential campaign standards.
As for the illegal trans prisoners' taxpayer-paid gender reassignment surgery issue: they said any direct response to that polled worse than generic talk about the economy. I believe that. Trying to justify or qualify that position is a losing proposal. So politicians should make sure not to state on video that they support such positions.
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