eudemonist
8mo ago
Wowza. Faked registration forms had correct names,addresses, DOBs, SSNs, Driver's License numbers, and phone numbers, but told detectives they didn't send it and that wasn't their signature. Detectives aren't usually coming around and asking about registration forms.
Also, they notified two other counties, who then both found forms with similar issues? Did they maybe then notify the rest of the counties, one would hope? And did the two counties catch the fakes on their own, or only after being notified? I'm curious...
Either way, scary. Even scarier that I suggested this in a comment here earlier asking about how to create disruptions.
A mixed-color group of high school footballers was going to toilet-paper the house of a girl on the same cul-de-sac as the school athletic director. Seems the house had been TP'd at least once already, and cars may or may not have been egged, during the school's homecoming week shenanigans. When the group pulled into the circle, dad was already in the yard, with what I'm guessing was one of these but may have been one of these. Adults step out in front of the kids' jeep, wave them down, tell them to turn the car off and maybe get out, maybe get on the ground. Maybe the torch gets pointed at them, and they definitely get cussed out. The athletic director intervenes, speaks quietly to the kids (per the recording described in the police report, final section), and they are leave in less than three minutes.
Of course, it's suspected that this is racially motivated, despite it being (it seems) a white kid driving the Jeep. (EDIT: I was wrong about who was driving, as pointed out below by /u/Gdanning) I guess had the other four individuals also been white, Mr. Kolar would have put away his torch and enjoyed watching people toilet paper his house? Or perhaps that neighbors don't mind people hauling ass through the cul-de-sac as long as there aren't colored folks in the car? I really don't know. But the AD will probably lose his job behind the deal.
eudemonist
2yr 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
2yr 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
2yr ago
But in those cases, I've parked somewhere, or broken my contract with the library--there is a punishable action.
eudemonist
1yr ago
No law is perfect to the letter. The spirit of the rules would certainly prohibit backhanded insinuations via second helpings just as it prevents backhanded compliments--in fact I'd argue that clause does cover such a situation in letter, but that is debatable. Nonetheless, calling someone fat isn't okay just because you don't use the word fat.
eudemonist
2yr 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
2yr 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
2yr ago
The neighbors audio recording described at the very end supports the guy's (AD's) story, too. He's said to be talking softly, not telling, and not using profanity. That officer takes a bit of a swipe at the detectives who were supposed to find video, heh.
I think it's amusing that some of the kids say they weren't going there to TP but only to look at how bad the house had been "got", and another kid is like, "Man, it happened so fast we hadn't even opened our toilet paper yet!"
eudemonist
8mo ago
A few off the top of my head:
Power substation attacks on Election Day, killing power to polling stations in a major metro for an extended period, say a few days.
A flood of mail-in ballots using the names of registered voters and info gleaned from credit agency data leaks, not necessarily with the intention of having them counted but to overwhelm the various crosscheck and verification systems. Bonus if lots of voters get to the polls on election day only to learn a ballot has already been submitted in their name.
Theft of a significant proportion of a large jurisdiction's paper ballot supply. Again, bonus if not discovered until late. Alternatively, a supply chain attack causing a significant fraction of ballots mixed into the overall supply to be slightly misprinted, requiring checking each blank manually to ensure it is correct.
Radio/cellular signal jammers covering polling places: as I understand it, the vast majority of machines use some type of communications signal to report results at the very least.
Exposure of a poorly concealed scheme to outright buy votes for cash (false flag, of course).
eudemonist
1yr ago
Generally don't smoke leaves, mate. The good stuff concentrates in the flowering portion, the female sex organs specifically.
eudemonist
1yr ago
I'm curious about the effects of a 536-like event once 40% of the world's energy production is solar.
eudemonist
2yr ago
The Corner
You've seen the shows?
eudemonist
1yr ago
Beg pardon? I'm missing a reference I believe.
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
2yr ago
Would you agree that borrowing a library book is a type of contract one enters into with the library?
eudemonist
2yr ago
Very generally speaking, Conservatism is based in risk avoidance: the core conflict is basically a risk/reward evaluation of courses of action, weighing potential benefits of further societal optimization against potential dangers of disrupting a currently-mostly-functional complex dynamic system. It seems like such a thing might well have genetic components.
Individualism vs. Collectivism also seems as though it could well be genetically influenced: different species are gregarious to different extents, and that almost certainly interplays with genetics. Williams syndrome in humans is a clear display of genetic changes to sociability and desire for the presence of others.
Besides, if we accept that genetics affect I.Q., well then obviously--the genes that give the low IQs are the liberal genes, duh! (jkjk don't hurt me)
eudemonist
2yr ago
Are you an auditor? What you did with the names would be referred to as "vouching": taking a sample from your population and finding the source documents for those in the sample, to verify management's assertion that those transactions actually exist.
eudemonist
2yr ago
Those are the same bucket. Hispanic isn't considered a race (anymore); most Hispanics are actually white.
eudemonist
2yr ago
We must love each other, show affection for each other and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry and violence. We must rediscover the bonds of love and loyalty that bring us together as Americans.
Racism is evil and those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs including the KKK, neo Nazis, white supremacists and other hate groups that are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans.
We are a nation founded on the truth, that all of us are created equal. We are equal in the eyes of our creator, we are equal under the law and we are equal under our Constitution.
eudemonist
2yr ago
But we're trying to sell Optimeme performance-enhancing "cognition supplements" to twitchy med students who find mainlining Adderall doesn't do it for them any more, which takes more sophisticated online marketing.
Is...is this an ad? Because I want some Optimeme now.
eudemonist
8mo ago
So, I had suggested this in response to someone asking about ways to disrupt the process rather than accomplish actual fraud, and so I tossed it out there with that in mind, thinking that the investigations and sorting of good from bad ballots post-hoc would be a wrench in the gears to sow discord. Application to successful fraud with this method would be somewhat limited.
However, in Pennsylvania any registered voter can "Vote In Person By Mail Before Election Day" by providing a valid Penn driver's license number--not a license, but a number--in person at a designated location, and apply for, receive, complete, and submit a ballot all at one time. Problems with this approach are that 1) in-person limits the number you can crank out to one per visit; 2) employees at the designated locations are finite in number, so while you could maybe get away with a couple visits depending on the size of the office, even that would be pushing it, and 3) if those voters ended up trying to vote on Election Day, they wouldn't be able to because a ballot had already been submitted in their name--which is fine for chaos, but not good for successful fraud. The latter of those could perhaps be gotten around if the fraudster limits themselves to inactive voters, but would require eithier getting really lucky none of them pick this year to become active or somehow having knowledge they won't, like perhaps knowing they're dead or have moved states. Alternatively, an associate in the Clerk's office would make things a lot easier.
Generally speaking, though, I think for successful fraud you'd be almost better inventing voters from whole cloth.
eudemonist
1yr ago
Interesting take. Nonetheless, we should acknowledge that the letter of the law prohibits implied insults, does it not? One such insult is illustrated, but it seems obvious there are innumerable forms such an insult could take. So we are left with two propositions: either the clause applies to all such implications, or it applies specifically and only to compliments given directly to an individual directly and exempts other forms of breach not specifically mentioned. The latter would support your premise of "secretly evil", I suppose, but it makes me wonder why outlaw backhanded compliments in one specific use case, and not outlaw, for example, complimenting the horse fatty rides riding for its perseverance? Is it that complimenting the mount is less obvious somehow? I think not. Thus I'm forced to believe implied insults, of whatever form, are prohibited by the letter of the law.
Although the question of the spirit of the law seems moot, given the explicit callouts in the text, I'm curious if there are other laws which you believe have a spirit diametrically opposed to their text? If we want people to stop at a given intersection, should we install Yield signs, or no signs? I don't quite understand how this works.
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
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.
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