The Corner, but more particularly, The Wire, which is the fully flourished version. Without overstatement, one of the best television shows ever made.
EDIT: Looks like The Corner is on YouTube, free. https://youtube.com/watch?v=iMJMOoW8y6o
eudemonist
1yr ago
essentially no one thought of as a "tax."
Wait, what? Who thought that? My sense is that everyone knew it was a tax, but that label had been avoided by proponents of the bill.
It sure felt a lot like a tax, given that it was a box to check or uncheck when filing a federal tax return which changed the amount of the check one had to write to the treasury.
eudemonist
1yr ago
The government started giving a bunch of money to companies, and telling individuals they must do the same; I didn't give any money to any companies so the IRS made me give them money instead. Questions to determine the amount I had to pay were based on things like AGI, part of my tax calculation, and the resulting amounts were entered back into my tax calculation. If I increased my withholding, I had to write less of a check in April--but I only ever wrote one check, to the same people I'd always written checks to when paying my taxes.
Is there any other thing where one can be "fined" or punished for doing nothing? Aren't negative consequences usually to deter behavior, not compel it?
eudemonist
1yr ago
Yeah, I agree with everything you've said here. "Multiple genes could likely prejudice toward ideologies" is a better way to put it than "liberal gene", with the relative strength of that prejudice tough to decouple.
eudemonist
1yr ago
But in those cases, I've parked somewhere, or broken my contract with the library--there is a punishable action.
eudemonist
1yr ago
Your examples are actions one is duty-bound to take by the terms of the contract that was entered into, by parking in the spot or by checking out the book. Don't you see the difference?
"Breaking a contract" is an "action", and in either of these cases is directly comparable to petty theft of the equivalent funds--the library has a loss of the use of its book, or the city has loss of its parking space (or remuneration therefor). Someone who never did anything but sit at home, and consequently never used the streets or the library, would never be subject to those fines.
eudemonist
1yr ago
When neither the proponents nor the opponents of the bill claim it's a proper tax
I'm not sure if you're making a distinction with "proper" tax, but opponents, heck even Democrats, definitely claimed it was a tax, and it was a live enough question to get addressed in a one-on-one (sorry, it's an amp link):
STEPHANOPOULOS: That may be, but it's still a tax increase.
OBAMA: No. that's not true, George. the -- for us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase....
STEPHANOPOULOS: But it may be fair, it may be good public policy...
OBAMA: No, but -- but, George, you -- you can't just make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I -- I don't think I'm making it up. Merriam Webster's Dictionary: Tax -- "a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes."
OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam's Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you're stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn't have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what...
eudemonist
1yr ago
They're not talking about something else, though. Did you read the full conversation? I just quoted that bit (and elided some) because I found Stepho's pulling out a dictionary and President Obama's swift about-face on "words have a meaning" amusing. But prior to that bit, it's quite clear they're discussing a penalty (Shared Responsibility Payment, "responsibility" being the buzzword) for not buying insurance:
STEPHANOPOULOS: ...during the campaign. Under this mandate, the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don't. How is that not a tax?
OBAMA: (evasion evasion)... we've driven down the costs, we've done everything we can and you actually can afford health insurance, but you've just decided, you know what, I want to take my chances. And then you get hit by a bus and you and I have to pay for the emergency room care, that's...
STEPHANOPOULOS: That may be, but it's still a tax increase.
OBAMA: No. That's not true, George.
You're correct that in 2012 SCOTUS ruled the penalty (which is what makes the purchase a "mandate" rather than a friendly request) a tax--it's the only way Congress has power to impose such a thing. It's simply amusing because of how hard the administration has pushed "it's not a tax!", then subsequently had to go to court and argue it was a tax.
eudemonist
1yr ago
Would you agree that borrowing a library book is a type of contract one enters into with the library?
eudemonist
1yr ago
Would you agree it's an arrangement or agreement or deal between parties? What would you call it?
the "it's a tax" argument was widely regarded as pretextual at best.
Again I'm gonna have to differ here, and I think the Stephanopoulos interview bears me out. George brought out a dictionary and Obama handwaved away the meaning of "tax", for gosh sake.
was up to my eyeballs in debates (mostly with other lawyers) about this issue at the time and I just never encountered a serious and well-developed claim that the question turned on "it's a tax."
What question, precisely? "Can Congress make people pay this" or "Is a penalty for inaction constitutional"? Because, if it's the latter, your lawyer friends missed the forest for the trees, I'd say.
this is all a weirdly autistic tangent
You know, I seem to be called/implied to be autistic fairly frequently online. Maybe I should get checked or something. Is there a test? To me, if it was important enough for you to use as a point in your post, it's important enough to warrant accuracy, or further exploration if needed. If we retcon the shit out of history, we can't learn much from it.
eudemonist
11mo ago
I tried that fest and got a 49, pretty well below the bar. I got some points for not using a lot of movie or television quotes in my daily conversation, which I found odd. An online test at Clinical Partners was also pretty sure I'm not autistic. I wonder if it's simply my online persona: I do tend to care about details.
To me, though, details matter: in this case, the detail that
1, Yes, plenty of people claimed it was a tax from the get-go, and
B. Democrats swore up one wall and down the other it wasn't, and the President, ridiculed people for "making up words", then when shown the word in the dictionary ridiculed more instead of addressing the argument.
It was signature, huge legislation passed while wilfully deceiving the American public. I don't see it as an "autistic" or irrelevant detail at all.
eudemonist
11mo ago
At bars/restaurants, a driver comes around once a week and restocks as necessary, entering the data on a handheld. So granular to weekly at the distributor level.
Most likely, sales data is sampled from a selection of retailers almost real-time and statisticified by paid analysts.
eudemonist
11mo ago
Let's keep in mind the context here--the examples given of rightist/right wing policies are tough-on-crime things like Three Strikes. Whether that's "right wing government" or not is not really relevant: it's a less-progressive stance than the alternative at the time.
eudemonist
11mo ago
Music fest is a good choice.
Sand and salt water.
Morning sun on fresh powder.
eudemonist
11mo ago
Please give the Urban Pioneers a spin: https://youtube.com/watch?v=exykZ5Cfuso
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_md8hhW9khqUen3RVFkurQfLJO01d2CQoI
eudemonist
11mo ago
Industrialization of marijuana production has resulted in steroid-bulked flowers that bear little resemblance to pot, which are subsequently relieved of much of what THC they do sprout before being shipped.
I used to smoke a LOT more than I do now, and so had a much higher tolerance, but killer buds would take maybe three hits and be wrecked. Now we pass around blunts of what looks like it should be as good or better--but it ain't.
Despite being so theoretically awesome, stuff usually doesn't even leave my fingers sticky these days. Hell, my roaches fall apart because they're so not-sticky, even after burning through 'em. They ain't s'posta do that.
eudemonist
11mo ago
Is there any reason to think one of the numbers is more accurate than the other?
Absolutely! They can't both be accurate, and the odds of them being equally inaccurate are small, s it seems likely one is more accurate than the other.
Which is which, now, that's a toughie.
eudemonist
10mo ago
Sure, and many of the early Levittown suburbs were built this way, effectively on a production line. Why did we stop doing it?
We didn't, really. We upgraded a bit to where there are a handful of floor plans and some modularity, but the vast majority of new developments are cookie-cutter repetitions of their neighbors, pre-cut and packaged, to be assembled simply.
eudemonist
9mo ago
Doin' a fkn bang-up job, yo. Thank you.
eudemonist
8mo ago
Beg pardon? I'm missing a reference I believe.
eudemonist
8mo ago
Okay, not missing one then. I suppose I just don't know Hobbes well enough to understand what hole in the discourse you're referring to.
eudemonist
6mo ago
My revelatory moment about God-as-reality came while thinking through the implications of the Trinity and the multi-omni-ness of God
SAME. More specifically, it was the realization that the term in the original text, Elohim, is plural.
therefore causal sequence must either be a creation or an inseparable attribute of God
Nail on head.
eudemonist
6mo ago
It actually pertains to restricting the zoning ability of municipalities: the impetus is that Bob the Farmer, who's been in the country his whole life, has suburbs expanding around him, and all the dang suburbanites want to rezone his place so he can't keep a chicken coop.
You've seen the shows?
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