pigeonburger
2d ago
Indians specifically seem to have a particular penchant for online drama.
This is wild speculation on my part, but I would hasard a guess that it might be because Indians on average don't particularly look big or imposing compared to others, and thus feel like they are often disrespected in person. But online, theoretically, no one knows what you look like, so they inflate their online egos to compensate.
pigeonburger
3d ago
Does it count as "abnormal working conditions" for a police officer in a very peaceful municipality to shoot a suspect to death as part of an intense physical struggle?
I'll be honest that's a tough one I don't really have a clear answer to. On one side, that's unlikely to be what they ever had in mind would happen that that day, even with decades of experience. Then, I think how silly it would sound for infantrymen to make the same claim, that having to shoot at people in a warzone is abnormal for a soldier, even if they're from a country that hasn't had a combat deployment in decades. I think on balance I would err on the side of the dissent, no matter how unlikely it is to happen, using deadly force is something police officers train and prepare for as it is a possible outcome of an intervention. If it was so unlikely and abnormal, then they wouldn't be armed at all times in the exercise of their functions, they'd have guns at the station or in their cars for "abnormal" emergencies.
That said it seems a quite a bit shitty to refuse compensation because it would not be "abnormal working conditions" and I'll echo the sigh of relief that that law has been amended, even if I can imagine situations where people abuse those claims or get into jobs they should be gently discouraged to be in due to being a poor emotional fit for it. Hopefully there's other criteria that would stop an EMT from claiming PTSD compensation from simply seeing blood.
pigeonburger
4d ago
I think every classic Trek (TOS to ENT) is very different from the other.
And holy cannoli the first episode of DS9 has to be the heaviest ever.
TNG's first episode literally puts humanity on trial, though.
pigeonburger
4d ago
DS9 gives a lot of screentime to characters from outside the federation who don't automatically accept it's ideals. Even those who do wrestle with federation values and the existence of dilemmas with no easy answers - see 'In the pale moonlight', as others have said.
That's some of the best moments in DS9, TBH, when one of the characters starts going into a classic Star Trek moralizing speech, and then they get knocked down their pedestal.
pigeonburger
4d ago
You could drop a bullet off per garbage can as you travel around PA.
I'm not sure if splitting the bullets is a smart idea or not. If they find one that matches what they're looking for in a garbage can on a highway, they're gonna look through all the stops along the same way. Every place you leave evidence is giving the police more material to spot correlations. They then need to identify which vehicules were spotted around NYC, then along the same path since the last time that trash can was emptied. Each bullet you drop off is an extra chance they have to match you, maybe at some point they'll be able to find there's only one car that stopped at all those stops. Maybe surveillance cameras have spotted you going to some of the trash cans and they can even confirm that there's only one person that roughly matches the profile they're looking for, or they correlate with cellphone data around the crime scene. Or they correlate cellphone data with license plate readers along the route you left breadcrumbs on, and become interested in the few (or only) car that had been driving that route without a cellphone at all!
pigeonburger
5d ago
Small children play in the yard with their dads. By the time they're six, they're old enough to play with friends on their own. Options for autonomous play are extremely limited in suburbia which means that kids basically play in front of the house on the driveway or, if the street is quiet enough, on the street.
As an early millenial who grew up in an american-style suburb (in Canada), I didn't quite have the kind of feral childhood that boomers describe fondly, but I would usually just play in the streets around my block. I had an understanding with my parents that if I wasn't at home and I didn't tell them where I was going, I'd be somewhere around the block. This was from about 6 to 12. I had 3 friends living within seconds walking distance from me. If I wanted to go see a friend that lived further or go play at a park, or whatever, my parents would expect me to tell them where I was going, but in general it was more so that they could tell me when to come back for lunch/supper, or where to look if I wasn't back when I was expected.
Kids under sixteen rely on their parents to drive them to every single activity since they have no other means of transportation. That means those activities are usually planned by the parents too. So much for intellectual growth.
I would go places by bike or rollerblade, or by walking when I had ample time (and suburban teens usually have a lot of time). By the time I finished high school, I would also start taking the local buses, which, while they were not an efficient method of transportation between two points in the suburbs (they would still work in a pinch, but in general having to go to a larger hub in between extended travel time by at least 30 minutes), did the job.
pigeonburger
6d ago
Glad some of these are being overturned on appeal, I guess?
Yeah, though these reaching appeal is still 4 steps too far. They shouldn't have been 1. convicted, 2. charged, 3. investigated, 4. reported to the police.
They liked the direction that Bush -> Obama signaled, but there's this idea amongst European elite class that the US is so far right that the Democrats would still be considered a right-wing party in Europe.
Which is neither right nor wrong, the axis of left and right in America and Europe are not parallels. On economic policy for the most part Democrats still seem to consider having a functioning economy requires letting businesses operate without overly burdensome regulation, something which even "center-right" european parties often struggle with. Yes, sometimes Democrats will strangle some sectors with regulation, but the strangulation is the point and the regulation is the tool, there's full understanding of what will happen, whereas europeans appear unaware of the link between lack of competitiveness of their companies and the regulations they keep piling on them. But on some social policy, Democrats have pushed further left, for instance the previous status quo in the Roe v Wade era of abortion rights went much further than most European countries.
This is why I also brought up Operation Valkyrie. The plan was murdering Hitler, not killing him in battle, or not even as an enemy at war, but as officers whom he ostensibly trusted. Yet few would think the officers involved were wrong to attempt it. Only extreme pacifists, which the vast majority of people outside of monasteries aren't, would object to murdering Litterally Hitler. Which is a problem when you also call half of your fellow citizens Litterally Hitler.
pigeonburger
8d ago
But again, what if they genuinely do just believe murder is bad in and of itself, for no more elaborate reasons than feeling "Thou shalt not kill" is carved upon their conscience in letters of gold that no circumstances can alter? What do you expect someone like that to say?
In most cases, the same people would celebrate killing someone if a certain threshold of evil is attained. Ask them if, had Japan not attacked first, the US should have gotten involved in WW2 in Europe (so endorsing killing not in self-defense but in defense of others or of principles). Or if Operation Valkyrie was righteous. It's not that it would be wrong of them to say yes in either or all cases, it's that if you couple it, the idea that some level of evil needs to be opposed by killing if necessary, with a tendancy to frame every political opposition (even the tamest) as maximally evil, you're constantly creating the justification for murder.
pigeonburger
11d ago
Trump threatened to declare the airspace "above and surrounding" Venezuela to be "closed in its entirety," causing Venezuela to cancel the twice-weekly flights of migrants from the U.S. on Saturday. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced on Tuesday that, at the request of the Trump administration, those flights have now resumed.
Seems likely to me you're right. This is not the deal itself, but if Maduro wanted to be defiant he'd say "fuck you and your deportation flights" and hold this as a bargaining chip against Trump, especially since it's short of escalation by any measure, but affects something important to Trump and his base. That he capitulated on this makes me think he's already decided to go, he's just working on the details of his exit.
A good test for this would be to see if current Inuit cultures seem to have similar 'high trust' norms.
Inuit cultures might not be a useful example, though they don't invalidate your guess either. They didn't grow crops, so the whole food supply thing didn't apply as much. Their survival is an amazing adaptation of opportunistic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to an extreme environment, but they could not sustain a large, growing civilization as we understand it that way. As for current, their population are still low, and any anthropoclimatologic (I'm proud I've actually legit used this word now) study of them, at least here in Quebec, is hopelessly tainted by their interaction with europeans and their descendants.
pigeonburger
14d ago
think that the prospect of an AI revolution makes this issue especially salient. If everyone has the time and money to visit some beautiful beach on a tropical island paradise, how pleasant will that beach end up being? If everyone can afford a Bugati Veron, what will the rich do to show off?
Outside of the other residents of the neighborhood, and barring large scale terraforming/geoengineering/landscaping, quality real estate remains scarce even with fully automated extraction and production of material goods. By that, I mean quality of the plot of land, beauty of the views from the plot of land, climate, likelihood of natural disasters, distance from other desirable land (beaches, forests, etc...).
pigeonburger
17d ago
Playing bass guitar, it took me about 6-7 years until I properly gave up.
Sometimes it's hard to justify why we're arguing about details of how to properly punish someone for whom our instincts are telling us we should just punish them to the maximum allowed. Anyway, I don't quite follow the argument of the dissenting judge here, isn't he inverting an enhancement and a mitigating factor? If the burden of the proof was meant to be on the defendant, wouldn't it be mitigating factor for non-sadism? If it's an enhancement, it seems obvious to me that it's not the default unless the prosecution proves it's there.
pigeonburger
21d ago
The worst is that I actually can feel for the ID thief. It sucks that he probably does have his ducks in a row now and that he has dependants yet can't get a stable, legal status to support them.
The problem is that the solution was decades ago, when he should have been prevented from moving in, prevented to work and prevented from coming back when deported. Or even earlier, by Reagan not making that amnesty deal, not giving illegals hope that their situation will eventually be regularized. He would be working and taking care of his dependants in Guatemala, and if he's as good a guy as the journalist tries to make him out to be, would be making Guatemala a slightly better place by his presence. But now, unless you're giving up any pretention to controlling immigration, the damage from regularizing this guy's situation now would be felt 10-20-30 years from now by the people enboldened into sticking their heads into the same trap by his outcome.
pigeonburger
23d ago
Tartare is not rare (well, not in that way, haha!) in french and french adjascent cuisine. It's typical bistro fare, and it's not considered particularly risky. Just need fresh beef, remove exposed surfaces and then the rest is considered safe enough. On the other hand, fish is likelier to host parasites, so proper handling from fishing to the plate for sashimi is more crucial.
pigeonburger
25d ago
Trump wanted Sessions to engage in lawfare against Clinton and Sessions refused.
The case against her existed before Trump wanted to prosecute it. The FBI simply declined to pursue it. Is ignoring the political shield that protects a politician from prosecution that actually anyone else would be subject to the same as lawfare?
pigeonburger
26d ago
But Trump HAS found a prosecutor willing to go ahead with the prosecution for him. In the future, it might just mean that the Red Tribe might have to look to outsiders, sometimes at the cost of not being able to rely on the person with the most inside/institutional knowledge. I don't think you've quite reached the point where the Red Tribe is unable to find anyone loyal to it.
pigeonburger
26d ago
I think few voters have illusions that their politicians have more loyalty to them than they have class loyalty to one another. The amount of knives buried in Trump's back attests to that.
pigeonburger
26d ago
My wife swears by drinking a shot glass of olive oil for this. I can't speak as to whether or not it helps much, but it's a simple enough thing to try.
Do I need to do something more drastic and mechanical like an enema?
Have you tried a bidet seat? Even the cheap ones with no electronics at all that just shoot cold water up there are a game changer. Angling yourself just right it serves as a poor man's enema (now I wonder if enemas are a rich man's thing), and the mechanical action it provides in there helps a lot!
pigeonburger
26d ago
Yeah, but by asking them to be the instrument to teach this lesson, you're asking a lot personally from Republican-aligned prosecutors, you're asking them to make themselves a named, direct target for the next cycle. You're asking them to stand up to draw enemy fire. James probably felt safe because she thought that Trump would not come back and that the next Republican administration will want to distance themselves from Trump and so they wouldn't retaliate on his behalf. But I don't think any Republican-aligned prosecutor can feel quite so confident that the Democrats are not going to get back into power before this fades from memory, and that they will not be in a revanchist mood.
pigeonburger
26d ago
I'd suggest a possible alternative reason for why prosecutors might want to avoid prosecuting James regardless of the merit of the case: the standard that it establishes exposes them. James is a prosecutor. You're a prosecutor. James did politically motivated prosecutions of your boss. Your boss asks you to prosecute her in retaliation. What's gonna happen to you in 4-8-12 years when the political pendulum swings? You've just walked directly in front of the crosshairs. In contrast, you know your boss' reputation, if you refuse he'll fire you, he might badmouth you a bit, but if you lay low and shut your mouth afterwards, he's not gonna come after you.
pigeonburger
27d ago
Something that always gave me pause in A New Hope in the officer meeting where Vader chokes the guy while saying "I find your lack of faith disturbing", is the way the Empire got rid of the last vestiges of the old republic. According to Tarkin, regional governors are taking over for the republic bureaucracy.
If we ignore the big villain energy he adds with the whole "fear" line, the change sounds... positive to me? In my mind an evil empire would be centralizing power, not decentralizing it. Bureaucracy is at the very best a necessary evil, usually closer to evil than to necessary.
Ultimately, the way things shake out in the prequel trilogy, I find myself rooting against the republic. Fighting separatists? Separatists are people who don't WANT to be in your republic, crushing them puts you on the side of meddling interventionist empires, not freedom fighters.
I mean, I don't literally root against the republic, because since it's work of fiction, it's written so all the cool people are that side, and all the kitten stranglers are on the other. But if you were describe to me in neutral terms with no loaded language and no villain speech about fear the political systems in the Star Wars universe, I don't think I would identify the good guys and the bad guys the way Lucas and Disney seem to think I would.
That's definitely a possibility too!
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