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Texas is freedom land

6 followers   follows 3 users  
joined 2022 September 05 17:27:40 UTC

				

User ID: 647

netstack

Texas is freedom land

6 followers   follows 3 users   joined 2022 September 05 17:27:40 UTC

					

No bio...


					

User ID: 647

God.

Paxton represents everything I dislike about this state. Setting aside his little scandal, he’s a shameless partisan who grandstands whenever he gets the chance. Every AG statement just drips with condescension and/or righteous anger at the opposition. I suppose, given our political climate, that makes him a savvy political operator.

While we have various stupid and offensive laws, I can’t really blame him for enforcing them. But I do not look forward to seeing how he operates with a more deadlocked legislature. Especially if Trump is looking for opportunities to get even.

Too general.

Communists also have a ‘product’ they want to sell to ‘everybody.’ After decades with half the planet locked behind their ideology, has this co-opted MBAs into a fifth column? No, because there is a competing ideology, and it has a much more credible route to MBA-approved outcomes, like actually having markets or not getting purged.

I actually agree that social justice gains in corporations involve the motives you describe. They’re viewed as money on the sidewalk, better image with little to no downside. I argued such when the Bud Light business demonstrated the downside and when people were reading Super Bowl ads like tea leaves.

The interesting question isn’t “why do MBAs adopt social justice?” It’s “why doesn’t social justice have a credible competitor?”

Maybe it’s down to maintenance?

How long does the conventional rental serve before getting sold off as a used car? I know when I was car shopping, you could pretty low-mileage examples which had that history.

The insurance for rentals has already got to be crazy, so I could see fuel/maint costs making the difference.

There are lots of reasons to oppose Russia/push back on (perceived) Russia partisans even if one thinks Ukraine is doomed. But you may be right if I’m typical-minding.

Interesting that you blame corruption. My intuition at the start was Russia rolling in and destroying major C&C. Maybe not on Desert Storm level, but something relatively fast. In that case, the industry of either side wouldn’t matter too much. Frankly, I assume that’s what Russia expected, too. If they’d known how much money and experience they’d lose to get this far, I would like to think it wouldn’t have happened.

But given that Ukraine didn’t shatter, and instead got this awful slog—now the production is key. And they sure can’t do it on their own dime. As critics have observed, we dumped most of our old and cheap munitions, and are struggling to spin up new production. So is this failure because of corrupt or incompetent procurement? Or were we just not expecting it to come to this?

I realize this sounds like I’m saying “nah, we’d totally win if we weren’t holding back.” Hubristic, right? But there really is a lack of political will. Our politicians even fought over sending the old stuff to this small, faraway, non-NATO country. If that level of intervention was unpopular, is it so surprising that we haven’t kept up in shell production?

Who is his audience? Covid warriors?

I predict less success than Johnson. The libertarian bloc surely benefited from running against a populist and a Clinton. A protest vote against the current choices isn’t going to look like RFK.

Seriously, I don’t know anyone IRL who supports him. That’s not true for the libertarians, who apparently adopt streets (?!) near me.

Oy. At least cite the stats directly!

You’re coming in a bit too hot, here.

Huh. This is actually your first mod warning at all. I guess that means you definitely know better, and just hate tattoos that much.

Almost finished With the Old Breed. Vivid and chilling. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in war memoirs.

Thank God we don’t have to experience this. I don’t just mean American civilians—I suspect no one on the planet faces such a level of industrialized brutality. Two hundred thousand men crammed into 5 miles of front.

No, the day job is American enough.

My family has been in the Carolinas since the 1700s. We’re pretty firmly integrated.

Go for it. Nothing wrong with having the extra data, and I believe it’s actually more important than the (directional) volunteer sorting.

Yeah, fuck that guy in particular.

Does the solar farm actually make things worse than whatever salt flat or scrub was there before? I’m thinking the total energy in has to be the same.

And what’s wrong with wind farms?

I had a similar reaction to learning about Project Plowshare. Doesn’t seem like they tried creating mountains, sadly.

I don’t have the bar either. Just the usual iPhone clock/signal/batter indicators.

Tell us a bit more about your phone and browser?

Nope.

“Why are women so bad at judging distance?”

Gesture with thumb and forefinger.

“They’ve spent half their lives being told that this is six inches.”

Palestinian casualties have always far exceeded Israeli ones

It’s not for lack of trying, though.

Hamas appears to be limited more by Israeli tech and funding advantages than by its own morality. Israel…it’s less clear. I would argue they are operating further from their maximum capability than Hamas. Whether that’s due to conscience or to realpolitik, I’d still call it “restraint.”

Or to put it another way: if Hamas wanted to cause more casualties among Israeli civilians, what would it do differently? Because I get the impression it’s taking all the opportunities it can. The scarcity of such opportunities, and the horrific penalties it pays in return, doesn’t excuse much.

What was the law that made this a temporary exception? Your link only shows the removal.

Anyway, you missed a couple options.

  • Support for protestors concealing their identity while behaving correctly. I.e. honest-to-god peaceful speech as protected under the 1st amendment.
  • Support for the actual, as-written exemption. No loophole, simply the belief that “physical health and safety” protections are still worth privileging.
  • Distrust that right-leaning leaders will assume intent to conceal identity even when there are other plausible reasons.
  • Objection to the pure chilling effect, regardless of any actual abuse.

Now, I agree with your prediction. At least the strict form, where you mean people committing crimes other than mask-wearing. I do not expect the law to be used against sympathetic chemo patients. I think it would quite likely be applied to the mythical peaceful (but still masked) protest. As in—near 100% that, if a protest were shut down with arrests, some of the perps would only be charged under this statute. It’s just too easy to insist that they were aiming for intimidation and thus must have been concealing identity. Ask @gattsuru if it’s a good idea, generally speaking, to rely on police discretion.

Of course, I don’t really expect such arrests, because I expect the law to have its intended chilling effect.

Again, I’m not asking you to agree with objectors. You probably have a very different level of trust in the police, and you certainly have a different evaluation of health risks. I’m simply imagining the alternate universe where this has the complete opposite valence. Where it’s seen as legal chicanery comparable to NY handgun law, or a state power grab along the lines of wiretapping. Where the same users who cry foul about liberal bias ask why this time, the ambiguity is okay.

Generally agreed. We certainly have the ability. I assume there is some sort of treaty with each (functional) country. It’s devilishly hard to search, though.

Good story, by the way.

I like it.

Specifically, I like it a lot better than the pseudo-stratification that we’re getting by relying on high deductible health plans.

That…isn’t that how it already works? It’s definitely true for speeding and vehicular manslaughter sentencing. I don’t really want to spend my afternoon looking for overpass suicides, but I would not expect the truck to be blamed in that scenario, either.

And people say the U.S. is too car-centric!

This would be a terrible policy. People already burn their cars for insurance fraud. This adds an obvious incentive to cause personal injuries while you’re at it.

Maybe there’s a problem with repatriation? I don’t actually know if countries have to accept criminals if they’re originally citizens.

Wait, really?

Maybe I’m just making assumptions from my time in the schools here.

Please tone down the outgroup-booing. This is waging the culture war, not discussing it.