TIRM
1yr ago
I read a long quote from an early 20th century anarchist. He lived with a bunch of other anarchists in Europe according to their principles. Almost all of them went to Russia during the revolution and then were murdered by Soviets. According to that guy Europe was cleaned out of anarchists by them going to Russia and then not making it out alive.
I can't find the quote now, but other anarchists have similar sentiments. George Orwell wrote about the Soviet backed communists purging the various sorts of anarchists in revolutionary Spain in Homage to Catalonia. Soviet communists were a much greater threat to George Orwell's life than the actual fascists he fought in trench warfare against.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/goldman/works/1920s/disillusionment/ch28.htm
TIRM
1yr ago
Aziz Ansari
A bit off topic perhaps, but let me just say that Aziz's me-tooing was the most ridiculous of all. He clearly stated what he wanted to do and stopped when he felt she was uncomfortable. He proactively questioned her about her comfort. He then sent her away when she said she wasn't comfortable.
What I really learned from that debacle is that Aziz is a gentleman.
TIRM
3mo ago
"For legal purposes these are not slaves. They and their descendants are tied to whoever owns this plot of land. They are also not allowed to leave or owed any pay for their obligated labor. Those who shirk their duties will be punished accordingly. But at least we aren't like barbarous colonials forcing slaves to work under the lash."
I levee corvée. He has indentured servants. You are a slavemaster.
TIRM
4mo ago
intelligence tests
Completely poisoned in the educated upstanding progressive brain. Back in college we were thoroughly taught how bullshit intelligence tests are. I believed it for a bit before I understood college misled me.
Posters on reddit commonly recite the thought-defeating sneers against intelligence tests that I learned in school. This has really sunk its claws into the broader progressive consciousness.
There but for the grace of God go I. Good thing I was born a contrarian.
TIRM
8mo ago
I'm going to with this:
"Why become a monk?"
"Because your oldest brother inherits your dad's estate, your 2nd oldest brother got some sort of paid commission or lump sum early inheritance and now has a career worthy of his status, etc, etc until it comes down to you. Your parents are out of land and money to give to kids. You instead get put into the respectable home for high class lads with no inheritance. People make polite noises about how noble your devotion to God is."
TIRM
11mo ago
cognitive research has shown that many farm animals (cows, sheep, chickens come to mind) show many signs of intelligence similar to young children and pet animals
If you said pigs I would agree. But those examples are of very dumb animals. Chickens are dumb and extremely mean.
But sure, some food animals are of comparable intelligence to some pet animals. That's why I'm okay with Koreans eating dogs and Europeans eating horses. I find our meat taboos in America to be ridiculous. Legalize horse meat and the hunting of feral horses. Animals have virtually no moral worth so let's get them on the dinner table.
TIRM
1yr ago
The Williams Institute study says 1.3% of the pop 18-24 are trans
I dispute this number. Not that I have quantified values on hand contradicting this, but I just don't believe it. I'm going to interpret this number as "youths enormously over-report being trans".
TIRM
1yr ago
more space for your children to grow up physically and socially distant from their peers, in places without sidewalks, where mom has to deliver them to and pick them up from soccer practice or their friends house ... A place where you have to drive to walk your dog in sanctioned green space nearby. Hell, a place where you have to drive to walk at all.
I've lived in many suburbs in a few states. This describes zero of them. My son's friends are right down our walkable suburban street. A really nice and large park is a few minutes walk away. It even has a large dogs-only section. It conveniently lacks a drug den/homeless encampment, so I can actually bring my young son there.
As a lifelong suburban dweller, I'm not suffering from childhood social and physical isolation. Suburbs are overrun with children who visit each other's houses and go to local parks. Most houses in my neighborhood have kids.
The bank and the Starbucks are indeed too far to practically walk to. The high school is much too far away for walking. I'll gladly bear that burden.
TIRM
1yr ago
This is it. I don't care about the "benefits" of living in the local major city. Trash and shit strewn homeless encampments, dirty needles, shit on the sidewalks, comical levels of property crime, did I mention the Hep-A infected shit?
But none of that exists in any suburb that I have lived in. The lack of effective public transportation is an effective filter to all those problems. I have a family to raise, so I live outside of city limits.
TIRM
3mo ago
For years I've read about the many abuses of "navigable waterways". Clearly meant to protect actual rivers or bodies of water so large that boats could cross them. But commonly applied to any dry ditch that sometimes becomes a little stream in heavy rain. This and other examples of bureaucracies stretching limited narrow text into extremely broad powers is why I don't like the Chevron deference.
I listen to news commentary talk radio every day. This story has dominated coverage. Also front page articles in American newspapers. It's the big deal this week.
After the American Civil War they passed a Constitutional ammendment banning former-Confederates who also were former civil officers or military officers. These people swore oaths to defend the Constitution and the Republic and then betrayed those oaths.
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.
Colorado state court says Trump is ineligible based on this. He's an insurrectionist. And that ammendment mentions nothing about needing a conviction. So they've ordered him removed from the state primary ballots, which will be printed in a few days. The Supreme Court needs to rush to block this or Trump's won't be on the primary ballot. And given this logic to keep him off the primary, surely they'd have to keep him off of the general election ballot. Which is actually a callback to states pre-Civil War not putting Lincoln on the ballot. Just don't even pretend anyone is allowed to vote for your opponents.
Plaintiffs in at least seven states have tried to get state courts to remove Trump from the ballot using this reasoning. They finally found a venue willing to do it. Just barely, the judges that ruled on this are all Democratic appointees and even they only barely majority support this. So it is not that popular yet, unless the people pushing for it can convice more states.
I would say removing a candidate from the ballot like this is not inside baseball and is actually a rather big deal. We already have Republicans threatening to remove Biden from ballots in retaliation. Could be idle threats. Could be a bad path for our nation to go down. Also going to wound the Supreme Court's credibility among half the nation when they rule on this. This is corrosive.
TIRM
4mo ago
But we actually had Romney as a candidate and he was smeared as a misogynistic devil, "vulture capitalist", etc. The mildest possible Republican was the presidential candidate and it didn't matter. They'll be just as hysterical in their smears. Then, years later, they'll reminisce about how Republicans used to not be so bad, like Romney.
TIRM
5mo ago
as is their right to do
But it certainly isn't their right to use Starbucks branding in their controversial political statement. They aren't Starbucks and can't use Starbucks IP without permission. Which is what the lawsuit is about.
TIRM
8mo ago
There's the obvious response that these particular people probably don't think about resumes. Or pop sci articles. Or gainful employment in general.
TIRM
11mo ago
The only ingredients you need are to levy an accusation and wait for your target's inevitable protest.
And a crucial third ingredient: have the intended victim of this trap be Donald Trump. Other people in other situations, such as Hillary Clinton defaming the women who accused Bill Clinton of raping them, are not dragged into civil cases.
Are we to interpret this as a consistent principle that judges would apply to prominent Democratic politicians when they deny accusations? Or just a weapon to be used on Trump and then put away?
TIRM
1yr ago
I took a baby care class a few years ago. They plainly stated that most SIDS is people accidentally smothering their babies. Like falling asleep holding the baby and then turning a bit so the baby's face is pressed against something. They presented this as advice to not fall asleep holding your baby.
So acknowledging that it is sort of the parent's fault, but avoiding making it sound intentional. Which maybe helps avoid some social contagion.
TIRM
1yr ago
Is preservation of the status quo worth any amount of blood or treasure?
No, but in Ukraine's case it isn't our blood and only a miniscule portion of our treasure. Bleeding Russia is on sale right now, so we bought a little.
bump us to the next tax bracket
Geeze. Not showing the quality of their education here.
There's a real principal agent problems between United Auto Workers Union and the grad students. You get silliness of grad students wildcat striking against their own recently approved union contract and in opposition to the will of their union reps.
because the strike is happening without the authorization of the graduate student union, United Auto Workers Union 2865, it is the “official line of the Office of the President” that it is “illegal for the university to negotiate with the students.”
Union approves of far too little pay to live in Santa Barbara on. Workers are obviously not allowed to negotiate for higher pay independently from the union. Time to illegally strike.
You correctly point out that everyone involved is a government employee or a union representative. They don't have the taxpayer's or general public's interests at heart. I'll go a step further and say they may not have a lot of the worker's interests at heart. Just principal agent problems all the way down.
I'll climb aboard this train. I saw the recent Dune movies and she is a very plain woman. She's lean in a bad way I don't like. She's entirely flat and lacks a feminine figure. Her face looks decent in photos. But I'm wondering how much careful makeup and editing went into the photoshoots. Her face looks much worse on film.
Comparing her against women her age: she's in the bottom third. Not ugly, but aggressively plain and flat in a unattractive way.
And that's fine for an actress. Not every woman in Hollywood needs to shapely and big breasted.
TIRM
4mo ago
No clue how this would shake up politically
Unrelenting disaster as the Democrats merged with the majority of Canadians and screwed up American politics.
TIRM
4mo ago
There was a draw Muhammed day in a town in Texas in 2015.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Culwell_Center_attack
Two muslims road tripped to the event to mass murder the attendees. They were both killed by Texans while getting out of their car.
TIRM
8mo ago
They were mocked on the internet and issued an apology, but as best I know they paid no price for it. Not even a performative firing of a scapegoat.
They too plainly and in a much too accessible manner stated these norms are actually "white". But others state similar claims outside of the context of an easy to read poster. There's some woke subset of society that casually denounces positive social norms as "whiteness". Poor Smithsonian got unlucky in getting mocked over it.
TIRM
11mo ago
I believe that Christine Blasey Ford was not lying about Judge Kavanagh sexually assaulting her. I believe she has extremely vague memories of being grabbed and groped by a drunk guy 40+ years ago and believes Kavanagh did it.
My best estimation is that she is factually wrong, but indeed not a liar.
The Smithsonian museum's poster about "white culture" was exactly this.
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