Lewis
1yr ago
Nazi Germany was not the only “specifically racist state.” At minimum, you need to add Rhodesia and South Africa, which both had successful white minority rule until international pressure forced them to change.
Lewis
1yr ago
It takes two to tango, but somehow only one side ever gets accused of dancing.
Lewis
1yr ago
I’m typing this on my phone, so I’m not going to mess with links.
First, the county assessor lists Mar a Lago’s market value as $37 million. If it’s true that the judge valued it at $17–25 million, there’s already a major discrepancy. It’s worth noting that Trump paid $12 million for it in 1995, equivalent to $24.3 million today. For the property to be only worth $25 million, the judge has to assume that property values haven’t risen faster than inflation, which seems awfully dubious from where I sit. He also has to assume that the county assessor overvalued the property by 1.5–2.2 times its actual worth, which is interesting given his complaint that Trump has been overvaluing his property. Perhaps he felt the best way to compensate for Trump’s overvaluation was to opt for a noticeable undervaluation?
Secondly, some neighboring properties’ asking and sale prices are instructive. 168 King Rd. (4,874 sq. ft., not ocean-front) just sold for $14 million, against an assessed value of $4.1 million (and a market value of $8.4 million; I’m not clear what the difference between the two is). Another nearby property (500 Regents Park Rd—6,488 sq. ft., ocean-front) is listed for sale at $40 million, against an assessed value of $6.4 million ($12 million market value).
Mar-a-Lago’s main building, by contrast, is 37,414 sq. ft. The property also contains five more buildings, two pools, and five tennis courts, to say nothing of the land. That it’s all worth a measly $17–25 million doesn’t pass the smell test.
Lewis
1yr ago
If beach front property assessments in Florida are anything like farmland assessments in the Midwest, such a valuation might not be completely ridiculous. Around me, pretty much all farmland is assessed at $1,500–$2,000 per acre, even though land hasn’t sold for that since the 1990s. One large farm near me recently sold for $20,000 an acre, but the assessed value is only $1,931 an acre. No farmer would (or should) get in trouble for valuing his land at 2023 rates, no matter what the assessor thinks. I’m not saying Trump’s properties are definitely the same, but it doesn’t seem immediately ridiculous to assume they might be.
Lewis
1yr ago
While iPhones don’t autocorrect “i.e.” and “e.g.” on their own, you can set up text replacements for both if it’s something you care about (I use them often enough that it seemed worthwhile to me). Go to Settings, General, Keyboard, Text Replacement, then enter whatever shortcut you like and the resulting phrase. I have it set up so that “ie” will autocorrect to “i.e.,” (including the comma), and likewise with “eg.” The whole thing takes about a minute for both.
Lewis
1yr ago
Why do you see it as such a problem that you of all people had to bring it up? Every topic on this board was initially brought up by someone. Why is it bad that, in this case, that person happened to be you?
Lewis
1yr ago
The journalist/author in this case might have assumed that many of his readers wouldn’t know that Jesuit=Catholic.
Lewis
1yr ago
Doesn’t anorexia also arise spontaneously in some people? All social contagions have to start somewhere.
Lewis
1yr ago
I’ve had to put up with my share of snooty Brahmins before, so I definitely understand where you’re coming from. I just don’t get the sense that self_made_human would be nearly as insufferable and off-putting to the red tribe as some of his countrymen. In my experience, as long as a stranger makes a good-faith effort to fit in, most rednecks will welcome him no matter his color or nationality. Shooting, drinking, and badmouthing Biden are probably the quickest ways to gain acceptance in the red tribe. I don’t think self_made_human would have a problem with any of those three.
Lewis
1yr ago
the rednecks you describe are unlikely to provide a particularly warm welcome to even the most English speaking and talented Hindu(they'll resort to interpretive dance to befriend Jose the undocumented day laborer long before they offer to share their non-bud light beer with non-Christian H1Bs)
Have you ever met any rednecks? Because this sounds more like a San Franciscan or New Yorker’s extremely stereotyped mental image of a redneck than it does my many experiences with them.
If an Indian guy showed up to any of the gun clubs I’ve been to, brought some beer, and was happy to talk shit about Democrats, I’m willing to bet he’d be welcomed with open arms.
Lewis
1yr ago
Not just the elders either. One of my parents’ next door neighbors was born in the mid-1930s; he didn’t speak a lick of English until he started the first grade. His family, neighbors, and fellow church members all spoke mostly German.
Lewis
1yr ago
I think the geographical distribution of German-descended Americans does a lot to explain that.
The more conservative areas of the country are and have been the South and the Midwest, with the latter full of Germans and the former full of British Islanders. Southern conservatives were anxious to beat the Hun again, while Midwestern conservatives still had a lot of residual sympathy for the Fatherland.
Lewis
1yr ago
Some of this may be confounded by the fact that blacks marry at much lower rates than other races. If, on top of that, interracial couples are less likely to marry than intraracial couples (true in my anecdotal experience), the true interracial coupling rate could be quite a bit higher than the marriage rates you quoted would indicate.
Lewis
1yr ago
Urbanization is huge, but it can’t be the whole picture, as even farm families typically don’t have eight kids anymore. Fertility in rural areas has been falling just as surely as in urban areas; it just hasn’t fallen as far (but then, it also started off higher).
As an illustration, my uncle is a semi-retired farmer. He had three kids. My grandparents had four (plus one stillbirth and one miscarriage); my great-grandparents, seven; and my great-great-grandparents, ten. Not counting the Amish, I think all the farmers I know have between two and five kids. Heck, even among the Amish it’s relatively rare to have 8–10 kids today.
Lewis
1yr ago
If qualified immunity protects government officials who knowingly break the law, but who do so in a way that hasn’t yet been ruled to clearly violate their victims’ constitutional rights (e.g., police who steal $225,000 while on the job), wouldn’t you agree that a sane legal system should likewise protect non-government officials in a similar way?
Two reasons:
The Japanese were not displaced from their homeland and only temporarily lost control of Japan after their defeat. The Palestinians lost both their homes and control of Palestine permanently.
The emperor surrendered unilaterally against the wishes of his advisors. There is no god emperor in Gaza to make the Palestinians surrender against popular sentiment.
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