@badnewsbandit's banner p

badnewsbandit

lol 🦂 lmao

0 followers   follows 0 users  
joined 2022 September 08 20:36:59 UTC 

				
User ID: 1038


				
				
				

			

		

	














	


		


			



	

		

			

			

				

					

						

							
						

						

							
							

								
badnewsbandit


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				
lol 🦂 lmao

				
				
				

				

					0 followers  

					follows 0 users  

					joined 2022 September 08 20:36:59 UTC
				


				
					

					
No bio...

				

				

				

				

				

					

					

					
					
					

					
User ID: 1038


					
					
					
				

			


					

						
					



		

	

 











			
			

			
			

			




	


		

			
‎

			

				
				

					Hour
					Day
					Week
					Month
					Year
					
				

			


			
‎

			

	
	

	 Hot Bump Top Bottom New Old Controversial
	



		

	






	

		
		

		
		
	

	

  







		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
People latch on to magic incantations because sometimes you have to be saying things "sufficiently clearly that a reasonable police officer in the circumstances would understand" dawg.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
From the Military Times 9/2021: The future of special operations may look a lot different than the GWOT aesthetic we’ve come to know


The article is old at this point, but I've seen recent discussion about it in various Twitter/YouTube areas and while that discussion was definitely one-sided, it was very much culture war.




The days of the burly, bearded dude in Oakleys as the face of special operations might be waning. Special operations forces need a different focus, the director of strategy, plans and policy for Special Operations Command Central said Monday




...


This following section got attention interpreted as saying that SOCOM was going to prioritize diversity hiring over meritocratic hiring




The other part could reflect SOCOM’s recent commitment to diversity and inclusion, which most notably, aims to recruit more women and minorities into SOF organizations.






“... but I think it is difficult for them to promote and bring on talent that looks different than them,” Crombe said of existing leadership, who came up not only in the time of the burly, bearded operator, but in a time where combat deployments meant more than any other measure of skill or leadership.






When someone has taken time out of the deployment churn to further their education or take a position outside the prescribed pipeline, “it just, it doesn’t compute somehow in these [selection and promotion] boards,” she said.




...


Emphasis added below, has been interpreted in the context of SOCOM as meaning people dying.




To do that, SOCOM will have to put people it wouldn’t normally select into leadership positions, but also learn to be okay with the results if it doesn’t all go smoothly.






“And I think that that’s probably the biggest diverse takeaway,” Haver said. “It’s going to look different than probably a lot of people are comfortable with, and we’re going to have to be uncomfortable moving forward. The goodness and that is that it’s a team effort.”




The article does a bad job of contextualizing it, but SOCOM historically was not just direct-action combatants. US Army Special Forces (Green Berets) got their start as the eponymous "military advisors" working with and training various US friendly guerilla groups or US friendly governments dealing with US unfriendly guerillas/rebellions across Asia and South America. During GWOT (global war on terror), something like extracting/apprehending intelligence targets became much more common1 and the need for highly trained door kickers to do that work grew. In a post-GWOT environment, there could be an argument for going back to roots, deemphasizing combat experience and emphasizing ability to integrate with local forces but this is not that.


It's notable that the main thrust of the article is that what has been considered one of the more meritocratic parts of the military will need to go the DEI route and seems to try to caveat that any potential reductions in effectiveness are acceptable costs. This in the background of a looming recruitment crisis.


1: linking only as a point of reference on operational tempo, rest of that story is a whole different iceberg. The related increase in operational tempo at the bottom of the pyramid and pulling in other MOSs to meet demands is where the "basically infantry" meme comes from.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Every once in a while I'll get random YouTube pre-rolls for very vague pharmaceutical ads that are generally targeted at LGBTQ communities. Entire ad campaigns that are purely aspirational and don't even mention what the drug is supposed to do. I'm thinking there might be a bit of an info bubble where people in those communities have a decent idea about the different drugs as products and it's more about establishing brand identity. More recently at my office in the break area where all manner of magazines are left lying around I noticed a full page advertisement in a similar vein (Men's Health May-June 2022 issue, pg41 so not that old). Effectively the same as the first page of this brochure.


While it was at least more straightforward about the purpose of the drug, the ad campaign slogan "detect this" and the 2017 "U=U" (Undetectable = Untransmissible) campaign (bonus CW, Fauci is apparently a big promoter) both seem to have a similar info bubble. In this case slightly different. I can understand how for people who are very aware of HIV and fret about things like detectable viral load then the messaging of undetectable being functionally untransmissible is more along the lines of "X rights are human rights" slogan.


But did anyone involved consider how a normie might parse "undetectable" in conjunction with HIV? That it might convey a sense of other people not being able to find out about the infection, even when those "other people" include partners? Which is not some hypothetical, the pull quotes from an article about a paywalled research article. Meanwhile an AMA Journal of Ethics article looking at the merits and drawbacks (reads like a position paper but apparently it merits peer review) didn't even consider whether or not attitudes about disclosure could be a drawback. Of course duty to disclose is itself an ethical question, so whether or not a campaign affects whether or not people fulfill it can be sidelined by not considering either of those questions relevant.


Not my circus, not my monkeys but from the outside I feel like the possible implication of encouraging sneaky fuckers who cannot be caught because they cannot be detected (especially since consent and disclosure get heavily emphasized in other areas of sexual ethics) might be a bad thing. And I'm sure there have been heated conversations about it internally but the polished, pharma+government+activist PR campaigns present a rather unified picture and criticism is hard to find (U=U also has terrible SEO and typed out is equally generic). From the U=U campaign presser I linked, here is how the opposition is presented:




But what about the naysayers? Those who don’t believe in U=U or have concerns? Some were contacted and declined to comment. However, Gina Brown, an activist from New Orleans who is living with HIV, says, “In the beginning I had some reservations about this message. I wasn’t really sure how it worked. To me it was almost too good to be true. I didn’t want to give PLHIV the wrong information or information that could get them into trouble. [Editor's Note: Louisiana is a state that criminalizes the intentional exposure of another person to HIV/ AIDS through sexual contact. But, despite the language in the statute, Louisiana courts have found that neither the intent to transmit HIV nor actual transmission is required. See hivlawandpolicy.org/states/louisiana]. You would think that I’d be an initial believer; after all, I had a daughter who was proof that treatment works. I was on 076 [the study demonstrating that giving AZT to pregnant moms and babies cut the risk of transmission by two-thirds], plus the fact I’d been in a relationship where we made a conscious decision to not use barriers and the guy never acquired HIV. I was undetectable during that time, as I am now. I happened to meet Bruce Richman in Florida at USCA [the U.S. Conference on AIDS] and we had an in-depth conversation about U=U. He told me where I could find credible information that would spell U=U out clearly. I devoured this information, joined the U=U Facebook page and became a member of the U=U Steering Committee. I am a true believer that if a PLHIV is undetectable they cannot transmit the virus. That’s why it’s important that every PLHIV have access to this information and the medications that makes U=U a possibility in their lives!”




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of August 21, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Pretty sure it's Egypt that makes that decision not Israel. Aside from the occasional boat oopsie.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's a weird thing noticed in a lot of newer fiction. Villains, even of the no redeeming qualities and reveling in their villainy variety, are not allowed to violate certain modern social taboos. To depict the bad thing, even as a negative example, is usually not allowed or contemplated (sometimes out of a "don't cause emotional harm to audience who can be affected by this" desire). In the Disney case it's probably more complicated given that lots of people like the villains as characters, identify with them (often bundled up in reading Queer coding into many villains) and the whole genre of essentially fanfiction retellings of villains weren't the bad guy books/plays/movies (Grendel, Wicked, Maleficent) from very simple classic stories with black and white morality.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 28, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It wouldn't be that surprising if Apple or Google removed Twitter for similar reasons that they removed Parler (since reinstated) and Truth Social (removed on Google at least) given the current state of activism and information warfare. That it also provides leverage in terms of an advertisement business relationship might make it more likely.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The costs of moving freight and supplies like water become pretty important. Beijing has been piping in water from pretty far away (800+mi, 1400+km) and has committed to one of the largest infrastructure projects in the world to sustain the city. A very rough approximation for freight has planes costing ten times as much as trucks costing twice as much as rail costing three times as much as barge. When multiplied across everything a city needs, that ends up costing a lot raising costs of living in a big way. There's a reason most major cities that arose from non-political pressures are on ports. Political capitals might be placed elsewhere for military or historic (read whims/personal history of rulers) reasons but extracting resources from the provinces to feed and fuel the capital has been known to cause trouble when resources become scarce.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
It's funny since Crystal Skull was clearly set up to have Shia LeBoeuf take over for a continuation series (that you could even have completely different writers and directors since it should be somewhat tonally shifted) but for various reasons it just didn't work out. So they're doing another Indy is old, should be able to retire and there's a young one to take the reins movie but this time with modern sensibilities.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
While yes Rahimi is about a conviction under 922(g)(8) for possession while under a DVRO, it's complicated by Rahimi being an exceptionally unsympathetic individual which makes it politically very easy to paint his defense as a bad thing. The firearms that he is being charged with possessing in violation of the order were discovered while his premises were searched under warrant for other crimes.




DOJ said he has been accused of taking part in at least five different shootings over the course of six weeks between December 2020 and January 2021. Those incidents ranged from Rahimi shooting at someone he’s also accused of selling Percocet to, shooting at another person he cut off in traffic, and firing a gun into the air at a Whataburger because his friend’s credit card had been declined.




The DVRO was issued Feb 2020 for context.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


because the things coming by port first need shipped to a major port




Major manufacturing in China is in port cities around Shanghai, Zhejiang and Guangdong for the most part, particularly for things shipped abroad. If you wanted to you could build up some place like Omaha but aside from odd balls like Denver or Cheyenne, most of the big existent Great Plains cities are on tributaries to the Missouri for a reason. (Even those two are on forks of the Platte but not really navigable.)


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of December 5, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Eisenhower




Well at least for his military service. Politically there are plenty who would disavow him on policies.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of April 24, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


It was imposed by law. You haven't seen photos of 101st Airborne escorting blacks into a white school ?




That's not quite fair, they also escorted white students.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of February 20, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Python is the scripting language that every non-software-engineering STEM grad probably worked with once in college unless they're one of those R/Octave types (or worse MATLAB). Everyone from Astrophysicists to Zoologists will likely be touching a bit of python for anything from data analysis to running the tools themselves. Many of them are not computer programmers though occasionally they do get hired into software positions based on resumes where their lack of training in things like source control, software architecture design or using descriptive variable and function names (or even functions) cause problems. Maybe not 5 million strong but likely more than a million. It's the PHP for scientists and engineers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


I am not a medical doctor. For all I know, Fetterman will make a full recovery, eventually.




My understanding of strokes, through some limited personal contacts, is that once the damage is done there is very little that can be undone. Successful recovery is measured in terms of activities of daily living from relearning/learning anew with different parts of the brain, not getting back to one's old self. It's literal brain cell death which is why so much of the medical emphasis is on identifying a stroke happening and quickly responding to reduce how many brain cells die from lack of blood flow.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 26, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I was hoping one of the resident fin* people here with connections to London would have a top level on what's going on with the pound in particular. Seen some analysis that the new governments financial policies were a mismatch for ground level economic realities especially combined with energy subsidies for the coming winter. Then a much further downstream technical analysis of how a volatile bond market might have almost nuked pension funds.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of November 6, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
There's an awful lot of "holidays" that bankers or government employees take off that the rest of the American public does not. Checking my own calendar (as a federal contractor leech no less) our expected holidays are New Years, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and then a week of days off crammed into the last week of the year to cover Christmas and typical end of year home-for-the-holidays time off. Expected and typicial but we can shift the time off/paid Holiday time to suit personal priorities if for example you find Labor Day morally abhorrent and wanted to celebrate Ayn Rands birthday instead. Aside from government workers (if you have children, arranging for them to be cared for comes up) I don't think I've ever seen something like MLK Day or Washingtons birthday (still the official federal name, everyone else calls it Presidents Day) as anything but advertising banners for some sort of sale, people still going to work like a normal day otherwise.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Far have we strayed from the origins of LW. Inconveniences are hardly trivial and many of them just coincidentally happen to most inconvenience the point of entry into the funnel of gun culture. Good faith at this point has to be proven and compromise has to involve give and take, not compromising on only taking 50% instead of 100% of the original ask.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of June 5, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I think it had plenty of good ideas with an on-paper plot/beat structure that could have worked but with some serious execution issues especially in terms of directing actors, dialog writing and CGI (very similar to StarWars prequels). The whole Aliens thing was apparently a George Lucas idea he really wanted to put in and there's no accounting for taste.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of May 15, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Heckler & Koch had a bit of a social media manager oopsie earlier this week piggybacking off of the Miller Lite ad. The since deleted tweets have been replaced by something more on brand for ze German weapons company.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of March 13, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Although there is probably plenty of online info on standardized tests and whatnot in its training set, if it's from scrubbing the internet, so I doubt you can infer a ton about how "smart" it is in general from these.




This has been an annoying aspect of LLM AI hype. There are plenty of indicators of something going on but many of the test results are not of that set. If you train them on the question sets and answer keys for repeatably mechanically gradable exams like the SAT, GRE or bar exams then it should be expected that they will perform well on them.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 9, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Isn't that what a price actually means though? How much people want a thing compared to how easily such a thing can be acquired. That's what pricing people out of cities is, allocating the scarce, desirable resource (living in the city) to the people most willing to pay for it, and encouraging people who may find living somewhere else while pocketing the sale of their living situation more valuable to sell. Trying to solve anything else with policy is trying to set some sort of alternate goal non? Whether it be to increase density without raising prices or maintaining high prices as a store of value for residents by restricting new/alternative products.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 31, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
The King of Canada still has the right to dissolve his parliament. So does the King of England apparently.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


the AR-15 platform is literally the best platform for doing what it does




The AR platform is only customizable to the degree it is in a post-GWOT, post-M4 carbine world. Even then you still have gas tuning peculiarities between various gas system lengths/blocks, buffer lengths/weights. Direct Impingement with the buffer system trades some weight and some softness in recoil for a lot of dirty gas in critical areas all the way down into the magazines. The buffer system also makes folding the stock for portability require an expensive adapter that still can't fire in that configuration so most folks disassemble the rifle for that use case. The design is mid and it survives because of half a century of government funding leading to wide availability of critical and add-on parts.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 23, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Bowman doesn’t try to open the door.




From the video that seems to be the first thing he does. Now given that the sign he takes down (one of them simply taken down, one in his hand as he walks away) says "Push Until Alarm Sounds (3 Seconds), Door Will Unlock In 30 Seconds" and that he did not try the door again after manually pulling the alarm there might be some conclusions to be drawn.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of October 2, 2023
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
You have your timeline confused. He was already under the DVRO before those other crimes occurred. While doing the needful in investigating those other crimes they found evidence for an easy conviction of possession of a firearm while under a court restraining order. His defense attorney is using Bruen to dispute that charge specifically. The case before SCOTUS doesn't actually touch those other charges at all.


To clarify the actual argument is whether or not the federal crime of possessing/acquiring a firearm (that interacts with interstate commerce but that's basically a fig leaf) while under a court issued restraining order is constitutional. This gets abbreviated to whether or not a restraining order with its lower standards of proof and potential one-sided issuance is sufficient and constitutional to deny someone their constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms. Shorter: restraining orders disarming gun owners constitutional yea/nay?