omw_68
1mo ago
TIL. Now I am wondering if any hostile foreign head of state (e.g. an Ayatollah or North Korean) was ever willing to bet his freedom on the US sticking to the letter of the law.
I'm not sure if you would call him a head of state, but Mahmoud Ahmedinijad (former president of Iran) famously visited New York multiple times in the late 2000s. I think doing so is a pretty safe bet given that the US still, more or less, has rule of law. And the law is pretty clear that such persons are immune.
So as long as Bibi only came to NY to visit the UN headquarters and not spend his holidays there, he would likely be fine.
I would imagine that regardless of any UN activity, Bibi (or any other foreign head of state) would not travel to the US (or any other foreign country) without being allowed to enter with diplomatic status.
omw_68
1mo ago
My reading of 18 USC 878 in connection with 18 USC 1201 is that it refers to illegal kidnappings only. The key operative word in 1201 is "unlawful".
Arrests by police are almost never so blatantly unlawful that we prosecute the police for kidnapping.
I agree, although I suspect part of that is that a different statute would be used -- the one forbidding deprivation of rights under color of law.
More generally, threatening to have someone arrested is not considered threatening a crime.
I think it would be difficult to prosecute, but I can think of situations where it would be seen as criminal wrongdoing. And I can't think of any categorical reason why threatening to have someone arrested could never be considered threatening a crime.
I think that the arrest of foreign officials wanted by entities outside the US is obviously a federal matter, and absent specific legislation from Congress entirely up to the executive.
I'm not so sure about that. I suspect that Netanyahu's visit would come under the UN Headquarters Agreement. As far as I know, the Headquarters Agreement has the force of a federal statute and provides as follows:
The federal, state or local authorities of the United States shall not impose any impediments to transit to or from the headquarters district of representatives of Members or officials of the United Nations
+++
But if Trump did an 180 tomorrow and told Netanyahu that he is not welcome in the US and would be shipped to the Hague in he appeared on US soil, that would be entirely within his power.
As a legal matter, I think the Israelis could start a proceeding in Manhattan Federal Court and have Trump enjoined from impeding or interfering in any way with Netanyahu's visit to the UN.
omw_68
1mo ago
I'm not VIM but what exactly do you mean by that? Because Norway etc has non-citizens in its territory?
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Palestinian Arabs living in Lebanon (even for generations) don't get citizenship. They are considered "refugees," they are not allowed to vote, own land, or work in various professions.
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The situation is similar in Syria and Egypt.
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Norway exercises sovereignty over the Russian town of Barentsburg. As far as I know, Russians living there don't get Norwegian citizenship even if they are born there.
but Israel really does look like a pretty damn clear example of an apartheid state to me.
If you want to make that claim, fine, but it's reasonable to ask how you are defining "apartheid." Because if you have a special, broader, definition which applies only to Israel, it undermines your point. To use your words, it suggests that you are stretching the definition of a nasty word for political goals.
ETA: As an alternative, you could simply argue that it's improper for Israel to rule over the Palestinian Arabs living in Judea & Samaria without giving them a voice in Israeli government. In response, I could point out that doing so is the best among various bad alternatives; and so on. But as soon as you start throwing the word "apartheid" around, you've opened a door. To use your words, you've stripped context.
A city mayor with no authority to conduct foreign relations proposing the arrest of an internationally protected person in violation of both US federal law and a UN treaty that the US is party to does not seem to me to be a simple "discussion of public policy". It feels like a line has been crossed quite decisively.
As much as I hate Mamdani (that's actually an understatement -- I think Mamdani is a vile contemptible human being) I would have to disagree with this. If the Trump Administration got an indictment of Mamdani and I were the assigned federal judge, I would dismiss the indictment. I'm not sure what legal doctrine I would hang my hat on, but the basic idea is that this sort of political trash-talking is protected.
omw_68
1mo ago
Yes, but this is that thing you do when you strip things of all context
I think the context-stripping door was opened by those who want to use a specific, principled-sounding words such as "apartheid" or "terrorism" to tar Israel.
Once you accuse Israel of these things, it's completely reasonable to ask for definitions of those words. And to see if the word is applied universally or if there is a special definition for Israel.
omw_68
1mo ago
If the people of NYC can't keep their moral principles in their pants for this higher purpose, maybe they should in fact not be allowed to host the UN,
One could argue that in practice it doesn't matter since the Supremacy Clause strips NYC of any power to do anything. Heck, it's difficult for NYC to enforce its parking laws against UN diplomats.
But yeah, as a general principle the Mayor of NYC should refrain from this kind of talk.
omw_68
1mo ago
The essential element is that the West Bank and Gaza are under effectively under Israeli sovereignty yet their people have no citizenship, the textbook example of apartheid.
I think it's worth pointing out that under your definition, Lebanon is an apartheid state; Syria is an apartheid state; Egypt is an apartheid state; heck, even Norway is an apartheid state.
omw_68
1mo ago
He's obviously not going to seriously try to do this. He'll go to Florence if he does, and he knows it. Equally obviously, he has lots of supporters who eat this stuff up. This is a political stunt, and he knows better than to try.
I tend to agree with this, but from a tactical point of view, it seems misguided to me. What happens when Netanyahu visits NYC and nothing happens? Seems to me that Mamdani loses face with his supporters. Because it's not a situation where Mamdani can have Netanyahu arrested; wait for the courts to order him released; and then shrug his shoulders and tell his supporters that he gave it his best shot.
I kinda hope that Netanyahu comes to New York and really rubs his visit in Mamdani's face. Apparently Gracie Mansion is open to the public for tours. I hope Netanyahu signs up for a tour and pins up an Israeli flag on the wall.
omw_68
1mo ago
I think the implication is "if my lawyers say I can" is roughly the same as "in Minecraft". I'm not sure I buy it completely here, but "I'm going to murder [person] if my lawyers say I can" does seem dumb enough to express such an intent.
I would give Mamdani leeway for the exact same reason I would give Netanyahu leeway: People who serve executive functions in government need to be able to discuss, debate, and effectuate public policies without the constant threat of prosecution by their political enemies. You can always look at a controversial prime minister, president, big city mayor, etc. and twist something he's done into an arguable crime (or war crime). (Well, not always, but still.)
To be sure, I'm willing to make an exception for extremely egregious behavior, but of Netanyahu, Trump, Mamdani, etc., none of them have come anywhere near doing anything which would justify prosecution. Partisan hacks from both sides might say otherwise, but that's exactly the point. We don't want partisan hacks running around pursuing political prosecutions.
I hope Trump announces that he's asked the DOJ to investigate whether Mamdani can be prosecuted for violating 18 USC 878 and afterwards everyone shuts up.
omw_68
1mo ago
Honest question - what's your number to retire today? Because for me a least, $4 million is fuck you money. Do you really need more?
I'm already semi-retired in the sense that the business I run has stopped accepting new projects, at least temporarily and possibly permanently. The other wrinkle is that I am engaged and my fiancee is from a wealthy family so she may end up being on the high-maintenance side of things. But anyway, my question is more about making the most of the big changes which seem to be on the horizon as opposed to budgeting for retirement.
I'm pretty confident that absent some doom type scenario, we'll all end up collecting UBI. My concern is that there is going to end up being some kind of permanent or semi-permanent aristocracy. Which would kind of suck, but if there's going to be an aristocracy, I think I'd rather be one of the aristocrats.
omw_68
1mo ago
This strikes as "Lemme at 'im, lemme at 'im!" behaviour. That is, getting fighty while your friends hold you back. It lets you broadcast your furious manly pride and aggression without any risk of having to follow through with it, and you can cast shade on the people holding you back for being cowards.
I tend to agree, but if Netanyahu shows up in New York and nothing happens, it arguably causes Mamdani to lose face and look ineffectual. In fact, if I were Netanyahu, I would make a point of going down to One Police Plaza to apply for a dog license or something. And take a tour of Gracie Mansion.
omw_68
1mo ago
So I made a successful tech play and I am trying to decide whether to (1) cash in; (2) re-balance; or (3) let it ride.
The background: I normally invest in boring Vanguard style mutual funds, but a year or two ago a buddy convinced me to take a modest chunk of my overall investments and basically make an AI play. The thinking was that this is analogous to the dot com bubble and people who got in early on "infrastructure" type investments as well as the leading companies ended up doing very well. Some of the investments fizzled, some did rather well, and some did extraordinarily well. Probably the best example is Sandisk which went up more than 50-fold. The upshot of this is that my tech portfolio is now worth a little less than $4 million. It's no longer a small chunk of my overall portfolio but instead is a slight majority of the total value.
At this point, the obvious thing to do is to take some chips off the table, but the tricky part is that part of me thinks that AI is more than just a bubble, that it will have economic impacts which make the Internet seem like pet rocks, hula hoops, and Dutch tulip bulbs. So basically I am left with a question that has been kicking around here for a while: investing in a situation where there is a huge range of possible outcomes, up to and including the possibility of a full on technological singularity. Thoughts?
omw_68
1mo ago
As much as I try, I still can't get my head around the mindset of people that insist the government absolutely must prohibit them from filling their own car with gas, and only permit it to highly trained professionals (because all available evidence suggests filling up a car carries a deathly risk and requires very extensive professional expertise to accomplish).
In practice, as far as I can tell, the law isn't enforced. In the sense that if you are in a hurry you can typically pump your own gas and you won't be arrested or stopped or anything. So the practical effect of the law is that everyone has the option of having their gas pumped for them. If you are elderly; or dressed up; or it's a very cold day; etc. and you don't mind waiting a few extra minutes. Gas is relatively inexpensive in New Jersey compared to other states in the Northeast. So I think on balance people are okay with the status quo.
I think peoples' attitudes might change if (1) people were actually prevented from pumping their own gas; and (2) the price of gas in New Jersey caught up with the price in Pennsylvania or New York. (Keep in mind that the vast majority of people in New Jersey live near NYC or Philadelphia.) But absent that, the perception is that people in New Jersey are getting a good deal: The option of full service gas at a lower price.
omw_68
1mo ago
I just do not buy this. We live in the era of Miku Binder Thomas Jefferson. If people want to make progressive reinterpretations of characters they do so, openly and proudly.
There is no way that the fan artist here could have known that if they made slightly mannish images that so many people would go to bat for them, showing off their faces as "evidence" that teenage girls really do look like that.
I just see it as a combination of a bad artist, and teenage girls having low self esteem and body image issues, and accidentally creating the perfect toxoplasma moment.
After I made that comment, I went and looked at the other work of this creator. As an example, it includes illustrations of someone who is clearly a man who is wearing a cutesy little sailor outfit (including a miniskirt). Having had a chance to reflect, I would interpret this as art designed to appeal to those with a fetish for cross-dressing, autogynophilia, etc. That same fetish (in my opinion) drives much of the trans agenda, but given the context I am not ready to conclude that there's any political agenda being pushed by this particular creator.
omw_68
1mo ago
I honestly just chalk it up to the original fan artist not being very good at figure drawing. I read enough badly drawn webcomics in the early 2000's to not see much strange in an accidentally "mannish" or "ugly" drawing of a female.
That's also what I thought.
I genuinely feel like this is people making a mountain out of a molehill. Like, do we really need to transvestigate fan art that is in no way associated with the actual game?
For me, it's an interesting idea: That someone is using fan art to push a progressive pro-trans agenda. And to mix metaphors, perhaps the molehill has a slippery slope.
omw_68
1mo ago
The redesigns look like men. Some users pointed that out and redrew the design to look like 3d girls. Then some girls who look nothing like the men started gas lighting saying that they think they look like the men drawings and not like redrawn girl versions.
Thanks for clarifying this. For what it may be worth, when I saw the character renderings, it did not occur to me that there was a trans acceptance angle. The characters looked kinda unattractive and mannish to me but I would have guessed that it was due to the artist being a lousy artist.
That being said, I concede that progressives sometimes push their agenda in deniable ways.
omw_68
1mo ago
That last link says "fixing this ugly ass art cause they look like men" which sounds like girls are not denying it at all.
I think the person was being sarcastic.
omw_68
1mo ago
Now, what if they were designed to look like real girls? Obviously they would look like this, right (edit: this is one of the original redesign posts)? Well no, because they obviously look like cross dressing men here. The fact that those redesigns look like men is now being denied by real girls who look nothing like those men.
As someone who is not familiar with this style of art, I'm having a difficult time understanding what here is meant to be sarcastic and what isn't. Would you mind laying out your point a bit more plainly?
omw_68
1mo ago
Handmaid's Tale isn't horror, it's porn. Wishcasting.
As a side note, I tend to agree with this. I just don't think it's a coincidence that the lead character (1) is highly valued by society; (2) is forced into copulation (and concubinage) with a high status man; (3) these types of things are very common fantasies among women.
omw_68
1mo ago
Both you and @omw_68 are wrong, for the simple reason that non-Israeli Jews have very low fertility.
I would have to disagree with this: The Jewish population in the United States is exploding. Certainly among the ultra-religious, but even among the somewhat religious there is steady growth.
Israeli society is set up so that everyone is trying to imitate a higher fertility group
I don't think this is inconsistent with my hypothesis.
omw_68
1mo ago
Incorrect. Israel is interesting opposite case.
In theory I agree, but I think one needs to ask how Israel got around the problem. Because I'm not so sure it's that easy for other groups to copy, at least right away.
Here's my hypothesis: Lots of factors cause TFR to drop, but the main factors are modernity and urbanization. Certainly it's easy to see why these would be expected to be significant factors. Before the industrial revolution, most people worked in agriculture and lived in rural areas. In such areas, arguably there was a direct financial incentive to reproduce: More children meant more free help on the farm. So arguably cultures developed which put a high value on fertility.
When industrialization comes in and people start moving to cities, there is significantly less incentive to reproduce and thus with modernity fertility predictably falls.
Arguably, modernity and urbanization are analogous to putting antibiotics in the Petri dish. Yes, it will have an effect for a while but eventually the effect wears off as you select for resistance to the antibiotic.
Arguably, Jewish people were one of the first, and perhaps the first, population to get hit with the antibiotic effects of urbanization. Even in pre-industrial Europe and the Middle East, Jews were heavily concentrated in cities. So it's reasonable to think that Jews have a head start on developing cultural and/or genetic resistance to the fertility-depressing effects of urbanization compared to other groups.
Which is why it may not be so easy for other groups to just copy Israel. Possibly those other groups are 100 years behind.
omw_68
1mo ago
I think the actual point of the law was to allow lefty NGOs to get homes, though whether they'd move Democrats into them in a reverse-gerrymandering maneuver or just resell them for profit in an ordinary corruption maneuver could go either way in New Jersey.
Well what do you make of the fact that (apparently) anyone and his brother can just set up a not-for-profit and take advantage of the law? Since you are apparently familiar with New Jersey, you probably know which town in Ocean County would end up having 20 or 30 sketchy "community investment" non-profits set up. Is this something the lawmakers failed to consider? I don't know. The whole law seems pretty half-baked to me.
omw_68
1mo ago
Under these rules, why would anyone who is not the holder of the first mortgage grant the property owner the second mortgage?
Yes, in my view, there is a strong disincentive. And in fact I hypothesized elsewhere that this is the actual point of the law: To ban working class homeowners from taking out loans which are not in the homeowners' best interests and are often predator in nature.
Typically, I would expect that the total mortgages on a property are generally less than the house is worth (aside from market fluctuations). But then it would be in the interest of the owner to sell of the property before it gets foreclosed upon, so they at least make the difference between the sale price ant the outstanding mortgages back rather than nothing.
Yeah, and I think that foreclosures are strongly correlated with significant drops in the real estate market.
But still, this law would (arguably) offer distressed homeowners another option: Allow the house to go into foreclosure and then buy it back at the upset price with financing from another lender.
I'm not sure I see your point here, but I certainly concede that there are partisan hacks on both sides. By "partisan hack," I mean someone who is outraged by X when it's done by the enemy tribe and/or outgroup but defends a very similar (or far worse) X' when it's done by someone from his own tribe/ingroup/allied groups.
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