eudemonist
1yr 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
1yr 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.
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
1yr ago
unsubstantiated at best
Nitpicking phrasing (though I disagree overall as well), "at best"? So, at moderate, it's worse than unsubstantiated? Which (to me) means actually the inverse of truth? So, at moderate, mobile quarterbacks are less injury-prone, is the hypothesis?
Brady, Young, Fahurev, his benchwarmer Rogers or whatever, Montana, Aikman, were thus the injury-prone cohort, while the less-injury-prone cohort spearheaded by Randall Cunningham (who in the o-fkn-riginal Madden Football is the greatest player to ever fondle a pigskin), Michael Vick, Cam Newton, and Robert Griffin III's surgical team.
Sorry, I'm being tipsy and a bit smarmy. Base point is that, of the top ten qbs in rush yds/game, two have played 100+ games. Of the top twenty, same two. Top 25 qbs in rush yds/gm, a total of three have played over 100 games.
Statistical analysis fails here because of the changing nature of the game, small sample sizes, and an inordinate number of confounding factors. Some mobility is good and contributes to longevity, but turning the passer into a runner exposes them to blows of a fundamentally different nature than those a passer takes--this isn't theoretical or statistical, but real, in a very tangible way for the guy getting smashed by a few hundred flying pounds. This isn't to say pocket qbs don't get laid out, but the repetitive stresses simply cannot be ignored, and the most holistic grand-scale view possible of "do running qbs hold up?" says, no, they do not. RBs have a lifespan of maybe six years...to play a QB like an RB and expect a twenty year lifespan is foolish.
eudemonist
5mo 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.
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
1yr ago
Wow, a Martha's Vineyard homeowner reached into his wallet and gave a migrant a $100 bill. Then there's the guy who spent $100 on candy for the kids...
Let's not forget one guys says a $26 hamburger is "much more" than he could earn in a month in Venezuela (if he could find work). Four months salary worth of candy, passed out by a guy who seems relatively poor. Yeah, I'd try too.
22 out of 60 survived traversing the Darien Gap. That's rough.
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
3mo ago
This is well put.
It seems like most of the responses you've gotten are questioning the severity of the events rather than occurrence, which seems to be "non-news" to most. Maybe it's just understood they're cheaty mfers and just don't put such a fine point on it?
eudemonist
5mo ago
I'm curious about the effects of a 536-like event once 40% of the world's energy production is solar.
eudemonist
1yr ago
An order in backlog is better than an order that switches to a substitute good, namely a used vehicle. Besides which, Dealer Agreements often are in the form of a promise to buy X units at Y prices over 24 months or whatever, so may limit steep hikes.
From an economic actor standpoint, if I expect price hikes to be temporary, I'm gonna postpone my transaction. If I expect a slow but steady rise in prices, I'm gonna move it forward.
eudemonist
1yr 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
1yr ago
It's not the most important story in the world, I agree, but I felt it was an example of "Culture War" so shared it to the Roundup.
To me it's pretty emblematic of the larger CW on a very micro scale. In the culture I grew up in, teenagers TPing houses and grownups trying to catch them was a common trope, as was the "extra-grumpy old man" whose land/lawn nobody cut across or messed with. These were experiences universal among my peer cohort, regardless of ethnic or economic background--everybody knew That Guy, he was a dick to everybody, and that shared experience helped create peer bonds across ethnic barriers. Everybody pranked somebody, whether having their car sitting on blocks when the bus got back from an away game, or TPing a house, or dying coach's dog green, or saran wrapping a car, or pennying a new teacher's door shut, or whatever. There was pretty much a peace convention on egging dating back to before my time due to some severe paint damage, but being rowdy and having fun is great for kids....as is getting hemmed up by some grown folk when they go a bit too far.
I see no reason to read, or even suspect, racial bias in this incident, and based on what I read in the police report, I see no reason for Langkamp, or anyone really, to be arrested or lose a job. This is, or was, a pretty run-of-the-mill enactment of an old drama with deep roots in my culture.
The inversion of responsibility, the holding of instigators up as heroes, the apparent compulsion to shove race into every possible story, the fact that the arresting officer found it necessary to take all three dudes into custody immediately, without even allowing them to put on shoes, the failure of the detectives to find any video when the lady next door had some....all of these are things I find interesting. But not everyone shares my interests, I do understand. Hope you find a more interesting story to engage with!
eudemonist
3mo ago
I think it's important to make a distinction between "supplying information (especially when clearly lacking)" and "opining on a course of action". The difficulty is often in evaluating what information others do and don't have, as repeating already-known information borders on emphasizing it and thus suggesting a course of action.
eudemonist
3mo ago
Increased ethnic diversity is ruinous for popular support of redistributive social programs
I really think the key here is cultural diversity rather than racial/ethnic (though of course the two correlate strongly).
If we imagine Protestants and Catholics, or assistance going to the Irish or Italians (yes, different ethnicity, but still pretty white), or French and Spaniards, or squares and potheads, or broad-brush USA history and "approved work ethic" Jesús-loving Asians, I think only the last group is gonna get the government cheese.
eudemonist
11mo ago
Music fest is a good choice.
Sand and salt water.
Morning sun on fresh powder.
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
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
Rarely is it mentioned that Shokin was then replaced with a prosecutor who dropped those prosecutions entirely.
eudemonist
1yr ago
Might be good to note that, in the case of No Country For Old Men, Moss' death occurring offstage is true to the source material, the novel by Cormac McCarthy. The film was notable for very tight adherence to the book, almost scene-for scene, and using McCarthy's dialogue line-for-line in many places.
Not showing Moss' death, as part of that keeping to the source, does very much go against "standard" movie storytelling and audience instinct, leaving the viewer with a weird sense of incompletion. Something in our brains likes resolution, a phenomenon we can see in music as well, where chord progressions "return home" and conflicting passages resolve into harmony. McCarthy's subversion of that internal expectation is absolutely intentional, another iteration of the themes of the novel, that our pasts are inescapable and our futures subject to influences beyond control: we don't always, or even most of the time, get things wrapped up tidily with a bow on top, even if they're things we don't like (sad endings for protagonists), and the world moves whether we are paying attention or not. It's a "brave" choice by the filmmakers to stick with the script perhaps, but I don't think Moss' offscreen death is the, or really even a, reason the film is highly regarded.
One thing I would like to add with regard to the climax: the film actually pisses me off a bit in that regard. It's been a while since I've seen it, but as I recall in the film Moss, at his final hotel, is sitting outside drinking a beer when a pretty girl walks by, and he whistles at her or some such. In the novel, Moss picked up a 15-year-old hitchhiker runaway girl headed to California, who offers herself to him for sex, more than once. He books them separate rooms at the ultimate hotel, and the absolute last word we hear from him is him turning the underage runaway down once more:
There's a lot of good salesmen around, and you might buy somethin yet.
Well darlin you're just a little late. Cause I done bought. And I think I'll stick with what I got.
The climax is Moss' internal struggle, really, and it's emphasized again in the description of the gun battle: the Mexican has a gun to the girl's head, and Moss has him in his sights. Moss, being the ultimate Good Guy, puts his gun on the ground. At which point the Mexican shoots the girl, then shoots Moss. The whole hitchhiker subplot (and it's gorgeous dialogue) are all excised, and we end up seeing a lecherous Llewellyn, an ugly representation of our Hero, as the last interaction with him.
Chigurh getting hit by a car is manifestation of, no matter how badass we are, we really don't run shit.
Gotcha, I'll edit that--I wasn't clear on that detail, thank you!
I very much agree it was "assholes gonna asshole", for sure. But the guy was already standing outside when the Jeep pulled onto the street, before knowing what color of kids were coming to TP his house, so I have a hard time attributing it to racial bias.
eudemonist
3mo ago
Wow. That's a heck of a story, bud. Thank you for sharing.
eudemonist
3mo ago
Generally don't smoke leaves, mate. The good stuff concentrates in the flowering portion, the female sex organs specifically.
eudemonist
5mo 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.
Doin' a fkn bang-up job, yo. Thank you.
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