I agree Mexico is the much tastier target. In my personal assessment, Mexico is more culturally compatible with the US than Canada. The US could sort out the corruption and drugs, Mexico would get a massive infusion of cash. I’d gladly support a 10 trillion dollar buyout of Mexico, and it will come with a canal, so what’s not to love?
As to your question of Trumps seriousness for acquiring Canada… he appears to be quite serious. However, approximately no one else in the US body or government holds that position including other Republicans (as evidenced by that line in his speech getting notably no applause)… and as ever, I feel obliged to apologize for the shameful treatment of your country, assuming you are Canadian.
ajuuiomml
3mo ago
The Ukrainians at the front were abducted off the street. It’s a conscript army. If I lived in Ukraine, I would have fled by now.
Ukraine may not win - not morally or practically, but because it’s too dangerous. Ukrainian troops approaching Russia or taking back Crimea will see nuclear weapons flying. Pushing Russia to the brink is a bad idea.
ajuuiomml
2mo ago
It wouldn’t take many - I have to imagine a few good men exist in the house and senate who care for country first. The perhaps bigger problem is that the current Democratic leadership is content to watch the world burn to pick up seats in the midterms.
ajuuiomml
10mo ago
I’d need a more careful analysis to ascertain whose delusions are more delusional. In terms of harmful narratives, the notion that we could round up over ten million people, deport them, and we’d like the result is on top of the list. I’d consider that equally harmful to forgiving all student debt or further expanded entitlements when the current ones are insolvent.
In terms of party cohesion, the left is very strongly aligned against Trump but is split hard on Gaza (not in numbers but in terms of unwillingness to compromise). Once again, we could use some charts I think.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
Disregarding pimp my ride, it’s hard to say the platonic ideal is male or female, right? Why would going from the one to the other violate that ideal, so long as you arrive at the right spot (theoretically)? We could claim the ideal is that of a man for a man, etc, but then we are back to disagreeing about the initial state.
To my non-catholic understanding, I’d be down with someone transitioning if it is to serve God. That’s a pretty damn high bar, but who knows.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
Thank you for translating.
What would you say the pope would say if we had actual etiology with a highly predictive biological test for trans? I also wonder what progressives would say for those who tested negative and want to claim the identity.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
I don’t understand the distinction between curing congenital defects and sex changes? Surely the person undergoing the procedure would consider them one and the same? If the one doesn’t affect the unique dignity of the person, why should the other? Why does the natural order of the human person exclude some chromosomal ”abnormalities” but not others?
I’m not Catholic, but I’d readily accept some argument to this end. This one feels really light on God.
ajuuiomml
2yr ago
Your reasoning reminds me of the classic "Just make your own Reddit if you don't like its moderation!" line, in that it retreats into the technicalities of what is formally not impossible to pretend that it is not so blatantly improbable, unwieldy, and unreasonably/unduly burdensome for their interlocutors to be worth seriously advancing as any sort of solution to them
We are quite literally having this discussion on a “your own Reddit”! As Scott pointed out a while ago, any argument is made better with made up numbers, so let’s make some up!
I’ll claim that at least 10% of teachers would actually meet the criteria, which I believe to be an underestimate as some students will take those classes looking for trouble. Teachers would be aware of that; a few would probably aim for martyrdom… which brings us to avoiding a discussion in the concrete as shrewd politics. Allowing for an argument over the merits of “favorite teacher”, students rallied around, after the fact would be a strong and effective nucleation site for dissent. Canceling the class is comparatively easy - the courts could reinstate it, but they can’t turn back time to before the semester.
ajuuiomml
11mo ago
Rape charges would move the needle. The FBI/CIA are still in play and, I don’t think there is any way to push out Biden if he doesn’t want to go. Biden has stated he doesn’t care what pundits think, he doesn’t believe in polls, and doesn’t really care what other leaders in his own party think either - it would literally take the direct intervention of God to get him to step down. I’d buy Biden at those odds.
ajuuiomml
9mo ago
I agree this is directionally true, at least in feeling. How true is it if we do the math? One counter example was women falling out of the workforce during Covid. Although that was decentralized decision making.
The question you posed is much more interesting than the actual topic.
ajuuiomml
3mo ago
xAI acquires X…
in an all stock transaction valuing xAI at 80 billion. This isn’t the first time Musk has bailed out one of his companies with another (Solar City -> Tesla) in 2016. That decision was upheld by Delaware courts and it’s hard to imagine this won’t end up in the (Nevada) courts again. Given xAI has raised at least 12 billion and put in an offer for OpenAI at 97, the valuation isn’t ridiculous on its face. It’s also hard to imagine this will do anything to buoy his rapidly declining public image.
So, what’s the play for the new XxAI? Presumably, xAI was already training on twitter data. Terrifying! Is this anything more than a self bailout to avoid margin calls on Tesla stock that leveraged the purchase of Twitter?
Perhaps no one has noticed given Trump, Ukraine, Yemen, Trump, and eggs: war in the Middle East is back! Very strong words from America in support of Israel:
All hell will break loose, and all of the terrorists in the Middle East – again, the Houthis, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iranian-backed terror proxies and Iran themselves – should take President Trump very seriously when he says he is not afraid to stand for law-abiding people. He is not afraid to stand up for the United States of America and our friend and our ally Israel.
as compared to “Canada only works as a state”. Israel’s reasoning is as follows:
Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement cited by Israeli media that the attacks had “the goal of achieving the war objectives as determined by the political leadership, including the release of all our hostages – both the living and the fallen”.
Prompt: what is it that makes Israel worthy of the friendship of the US whereas NATO is worthy of relegation given both would pull it into wars of choice half way around the world of no strategic importance? Follow-up: should Israel be the 51st state?
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/03/17/middleeast/israel-strikes-gaza-hamas-ceasefire-intl-hnk
Trump doesn’t need to fly the plane, he needs to sign the order to fly the plane. The Constitution lays it out:
The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States …
The office of the President isn’t vested with the authority to pardon, but the President himself. Ascertaining whether the President personally authorized or delegated a pardon is meet, just, and right given reasonable doubt.
ajuuiomml
4mo ago
Enforcement is an exercise for Congress, not the courts. We have been exactly in the presumptive, possibly apocryphal, here before: “Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it”.
What crisis?
Israel has hundreds of nuclear weapons including long range missiles and probably ICMBs and nuclear armed subs. They will without a doubt use them in the event that they are overrun on their own soil. Pardon the consensus building, but does anyone reasonably doubt they wouldn’t put them to use both preemptively and offensively to glass Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria in that case? Israel isn’t fighting wars of choice in which it can pack up and go home. There is no winning condition for their enemies, only death for everyone.
ajuuiomml
3mo ago
because they have somehow managed to take pride in avoiding anything to do with physical fitness
The more charitable explanation is that women and men never compete in sports directly past puberty . In the sports with comparable outcomes, it’s not clear if women do worse because there are so few of them or they are less competitive generally. Basically, anyone who grew up without a brother has no way of naturally disabusing themself of the notion that women are just as strong as men.
I strongly believe the US would act in exactly the same way as Russia if put in the same circumstances. Imagine if there were a coup revolution in Mexico tomorrow, throwing out the elected pro American government for one that is decidedly pro China. So much so that Mexico wants to join an alliance with China, stop trade with the US, possibly disallow the US military and civilian ships access to the Gulf of Mexico, provide accommodations for military bases for China in Mexico on the border, and possibly station Chinese nuclear weapons pointing north. While the US has never been to war directly with China, and they aren’t threatening to invade, we would invade Mexico and not think twice. We would field tactical nukes in the case we were losing ground with Mexican troops approaching San Diego and not think twice.
ajuuiomml
10mo ago
He isnt bad because republicans don’t like him sufficiently. He is bad because he is uniquely reviled by his opposition. The Democrats coalition is one of not-Trump.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
Do you really trust those numbers? 70s is can’t tell left from right putting on shoes is a struggle range. That implies literally half the population is literally retarded.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
You propose a new dichotomy between right and left in the US at least. A very common online critique of the right is that it is happy to eternalize the cost to companies who defect (food stamps for Walmart employees and bailouts for banks). Your addition would be that the left believes we should do so at the level of the individual (instead of demanding personal responsibility).
It’s a sort of measure of the things we shrug at.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
I agree it’s not an existential threat - quite possibly every actually does. The people on the other side of you on the issue are not making a claim on the grounds of Utilitarianism.
ajuuiomml
1yr ago
Carrots are quite sweet: https://amp.abc.net.au/article/9716612
Everyone pushing defect ends poorly. Beyond utility, there is virtue.
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