Rov_Scam
5d ago
As part of a Catholic family we don't believe in any particular sanctity of the body once the soul leaves it. Accordingly, we don't visit graves, because nobody is there to see. So having an actual gravesite isn't important to me. Given that, I want my body to return to the earth, and I see no reason for it to be preserved for eternity with embalming chemicals and entombed in a large metal coffin. Unfortunately, state and local laws make it very difficult for one to obtain a natural burial, so I want those close to me to steal my body and bury it in an undisclosed location in the woods. That way, it can help germinate a tree or perform some other useful function. This would seem to obviate a funeral but I definitely want a funeral, not for my own benefit but for the benefit of those close to me. I've had several friends and family members who have died and requested no funeral, usually on the grounds that it's too much of a hassle. While I can't say I'm a fan of the whole traditional funeral thing, it is nice to have an opportunity to gather together in a time of need. I remember when my aunt died and there was no funeral and it was just an empty feeling. So I want there to be some kind of memorial, but I'll leave the details to the discretion of my heirs.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
As much as Kamala Harris was criticized for not going on podcasts or sitting for interviews, stuff like this makes it clear that it was probably the right decision. Dealing with such criticism is probably better than dealing with the fallout of an unexpected gaffe. Trump can get away with this, because he's already demonstrated that nothing he says will faze his supporters, but conventional politicians don't have that luxury. Hell, Vance only has that luxury because he's joined at the hip with Trump. Doing the podcast circuit is the kind of thing fringe candidates like Andrew Yang do because it gets them airtime they don't have to pay for, and the exposure is worth the gaffe potential. Once you've already made major candidate status there's little upside and huge downside to going on a freewheeling 3-hour podcast where the conversation could go in any direction. Tucker Carlson can say shit like this because he isn't running for anything and nobody is poring over his every word looking for ammunition against him. Imagine what would happen if Tim Walz went on Rogan and said the same thing.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
No one is changing internal policies based on polling predictions on who is going to win the next election. Even if Candidate X is posing sweeping regulatory changes to your particular industry, you're not going to start changing your policies because Candidate X is favored to win. You're not even going to start changing your policies after Candidate X wins. You're going to start changing your policies when the new regulations are actually enacted, because a lot can happen between proposals and final legislation.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
Terry Bradshaw is one guy out of many many people giving opinions, I wouldn't say that his opinion alone is the basis that people's futures ride on, but when Brandon Staley goes for it on 4th down, and Terry Bradshaw says that he's the reason the Chargers lost (everytime that happens, a guys livelihood is on the line), when the Rams lose a game and Terry Bradshaw says the Jared Goff is the reason why they lost (a guys livelihood is on the line).
I don't see what this has to do with anything I said. I'm talking about predictions, not post-mortem analysis.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
I didn't mean to suggest I was doubting that. But I can't conceive of how any election prediction would have any effect on anything I do, in any circumstance.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
No, because being granted parole isn't the end of things. If you're sentenced to 10 years and are granted parole after 5, you're still under the supervision of the Department of Corrections for the remainder of the sentence. If you violate the terms of your parole you could get thrown back into jail for the remainder of your sentence. The other angle to thinking about it is that parole isn't a right; it's at the discretion of the parole board. You could be a model prisoner but be denied parole for other reasons. Saying that you're sentenced to 5 years with a possible extension of up to 10 would imply that the parole board would need an affirmative finding of some kind of bad behavior in order to keep you in jail longer than 5 years, which they don't need.
Rov_Scam
5d ago
On Prognostication
Over the past several weeks, I've become increasingly irritated by discussions, both here and elsewhere, involving election predictions. While I agree that speculation can be fun, I think too many people try to read too much into the day-to-day ups and downs of the election cycle. While I agree with Nate Silver on a lot of things, there's something I find inherently off-putting about his schtick. I read The Signal and the Noise around the time it hit the bestseller lists and had an addendum about the 2012 election. One of the themes of the book is that the so-called experts who make predictions on television don't base their predictions on rational evidence and don't face any consequences when their predictions fail. No in-studio commentator on The NFL Today is losing his job solely because he picked too many losers.
Around this time, I became interested in probabilities, and I was regularly hitting up a friend who had majored in math and was pursuing a doctorate in economics at Ohio State. At one point he told me "Probability is interesting, but when it comes down to it, the only thing it's good for is gambling. We say there's a 50/50 chance of drawing a black ball from an urn when we know that the urn has 50 black balls and 50 white balls. When we talk about probabilities in the real world, it's like talking about the chances of drawing a black ball from an urn we don't know the size of." When discussing cards or dice, we're discussing random events based on repeatable starting conditions. When discussing elections, we're discussing a non-random event that will only happen once.
Beyond that, though, the broader question is: What's the point of all of this? This isn't a football game where scoring points confers an obvious advantage. If Trump is up by 5 points in June or Harris is up by 5 points in July, it has absolutely no effect on the actual election. My irritation with this started a couple weeks ago when someone posted here about Trump having large odds of winning on some betting site. I mean, okay, but who cares? What am I supposed to do with this information? I guess it's marginally useful if I'm thinking of putting a little money on the line, but I'm not much of a gambler, and the poster wasn't sharing this information to spark discussion on good betting opportunities. I pretty much lost it, though, last weekend, when news of the Selzer poll showing Harris winning Iowa hit and had everyone speculating whether Ms. Selzer was a canary in a coal mine or hopelessly off. Again, who cares? Selzer's prediction may be correct, or it may be incorrect, but it has no bearing on the actual election. Harris doesn't get any extra votes because Selzer shows her doing better than ABC or whoever. Trump doesn't get any extra votes because of his odds on PredictIt.
I will admit that polling is useful to campaigns trying to allocate resources and determine what works and what doesn't. But they have their own internal polling for that. But unless you're actively employed by a campaign, there's nothing you can do with this information. As much as arguing about politics in general may be an exercise in futility, there's at least some chance you can influence someone else's position. Arguing about who's going to win the election doesn't even go this far, since no one is arguing that you should vote based on polling averages. The only utility I see in any of this is entertainment for the small subset of people who find politics entertaining. Which brings me back to my original criticism of Silver: The reason these professional prognosticators don't get called out on their inaccuracies is because their employers understand that their predictions are ultimately meaningless. Terry Bradshaw may predict the Browns to beat the Bengals, but at a certain time we'll know the winner and if the Bengals win the sun will rise the next morning and his being wrong about it will have no effect on anything.
For the record, a think Harris will probably win, but my prediction is low-confidence and isn't based on anything that's happened since campaign season started. In 2016, a lot of people in swing states voted for Trump because he was an unknown quantity and they preferred taking a chance with him rather than Clinton. In 2020, a certain percentage of these people regretted their decision and voted for Biden. I haven't seen anything in the past four years that suggests that any of these people are moving back to Trump. Electorally, the Republicans haven't shown anything, despite the fact that the first half of the Biden presidency wasn't exactly a cakewalk. But that's just my opinion. I don't know what you're supposed to do with it. You can disagree with it, and you may have a point, but after tomorrow what I think and what you think won't matter. The votes will be counted, a winner declared, and Dr. Oz's midterm performance won't matter, and my being wrong about it won't have an effect on anything.
Rov_Scam
7d ago
They might prosecute, but realistically they won't get anywhere unless there's other evidence, like the cop witnessing the assault as he arrives at the scene.
Rov_Scam
7d ago
I thought there would be some exception for evidence that is effectively self-documenting.
The rules of evidence consider some items self-authenticating, but this is limited to things like public records where it's obvious to tell what the document is from looking at it. The only time this might apply to video is if it's an episode of a TV show or something like that. A CCTV video isn't self-authenticating in the slightest. I don't have time to get into every piece of information that the jury would need to know about the tape before we can show it to them, but, at the very least, you need someone to identify the location that's actually being filmed. A random store interior isn't going to be immediately and obviously recognizable as Aisle 6 of the Springfield Try n' Save.
Rov_Scam
8d ago
The point isn't that it's representative. I did not hang out with a particularly bad crowd or anything; these were normal, middle class kids who all thought the whole thing was a big goof. The point is that normally good kids from good families occasionally make stupid mistakes when they're younger but grow out of them and are otherwise successful, law-abiding members of society. So when I hear people here unironically spouting moronic ideas like mandatory hanging for petty theft, I want them to at least pause and consider the possibility that they might be signing the death warrant for someone close to them, and for countless other people who aren't the complete trash they assume members of certain groups are.
Rov_Scam
8d ago
I think you misunderstand my point. The police will make arrests for retail theft. District attorneys will prosecute. There's no reluctance whatsoever on the part of those who are tasked with enforcing the law. These are, on paper, some of the easiest cases to prosecute. The problem is that the victims of these crimes are unwilling to make a minimal effort to engage in necessary participation. Police and prosecutors aren't going to waste their time and the taxpayer's money pursing cases where they can't get a conviction because the victim won't participate. I have no interest in upending centuries of well-established constitutional protections because of the apathy of those the laws are designed to protect.
Rov_Scam
8d ago
You'd honestly have to do more than that. I'm a litigator, and I regularly attend Plaintiff's depositions. Most of the deponents understand that, while unpleasant, it's part of the process. A few however, act like the whole thing is bullshit and get annoyed any time a lawyer jumps in and wants to ask questions. I want to tell these people that they're suing my company and that they're probably going to get a large settlement so the least they can do is answer ten minutes of questions and if that's too much to ask then they can drop the case and go home right now.
I understand that testifying is inconvenient, but it's part of the process. If we could snap our fingers and put the bad guys in jail, we'd do that, but that isn't how it works. If a shop owner expects the legal system to convict shoplifters, then participating in the system isn't too much to ask.
Rov_Scam
8d ago
It includes more people than you think it does. I can recall the following instances from high school where I was either aware of or partially complicit in theft:
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One friend of mine would steal practically anything he could out of museum gift shops whenever we were on field trips. I don't even know that he necessarily wanted the stuff he was stealing. He was a good kid who got good grades and came from a good family. He's currently some kind of engineer for General Electric.
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A group of us decided to whitewash the local graffiti tunnel just after all the seniors in our graduating class painted their names on it. A friend who worked at Wal Mart put several hundred dollars worth of white paint on the loading dock for us to steal. We kept joking about it being a heist. I wasn't there for the actual heist, but I participated in the whitewashing.
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Two friends of mine were convicted in juvie court for stealing plants from a local nursery that they intended to give as Mother's Day gifts.
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On the band trip junior year my roommates and a few other friends did a grab and run of beer cans out of the cooler in the hotel bar. My role was to create a distraction by trying to get served underage and getting into an argument with the bartender.
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I was at a Halloween party and a bunch of us piled into a Dodge Neon and drove to a farm field nearby where we proceeded to grab pumpkins and throw them in the back of this one kid's El Camino. This fat, black cop who was the local fuzz showed up and started chasing us while running with a flashlight. I remember I had to jump a fence at the edge of the field and I actually stopped to let him catch up because I wanted to see how he negotiated it; he was trying to wriggle his fat ass underneath it and I started laughing before continuing running. We all had to walk back to the party, and when the officer showed up and saw all the pumpkins my friend's parents said that they told everyone to bring a pumpkin to the party.
I'm not aware of any of the people involved in the above incidents having any contact with the law whatsoever as adults. I also spent 4 years working for the Boy Scouts and dealing with kids all the time who, while I don't have any specific knowledge of criminal activities, they were the kind of jackwagons who I wouldn't be surprised if they stole something. The entitled rich kid brats who are bound and determined to see how close to the line they can get before I have a talk with their scoutmaster about my ending their participation in my program.
When people say shit like this I always get an image of the naive mom who says "well certainly my David would never do anything like that!" Kids are idiots, and if you think that the impact of harsh punishments for petty crime among teenagers would be limited to minorities and poor people, well, I have some swampland in Jersey for sale.
Rov_Scam
8d ago
I mean, yeah. Boost pay for prosecutors and hire more of them. Same for public defenders. Expand the courts. Give police enough money that they can actually investigate all of the crimes that are reported to them. Make juror compensation $500/day so people will stop trying to get out of it. I don't have any problem with any of this. But that's not the world we live in. the point I was making wasn't that you can't make changes to fix these things, but that the reason for this goes beyond woke prosecutors deciding they don't want to charge shoplifting.
Rov_Scam
8d ago
Okay then, replace it with a six pack of beer from Sheetz, or a candy bar, or whatever the hell else you think kids steal these days.
Rov_Scam
9d ago
Yeah, we could do that. But when your 13-year-old gets caught stealing a dirty magazine from a convenience store, don't come crying to the court.
Rov_Scam
9d ago
What you're essentially advocating for is the abolition of the 6th Amendment, which gives the right to confront one's accusers. Even if we eliminated this requirement, though, it still doesn't solve the problem, as the witness still needs to be present, it's just the judge doing the questioning and not the lawyers. As for your specific evidentiary examples, the video is actually the least persuasive piece of evidence in the scenario, since it probably doesn't show enough to convict. I grabbed the first shoplifting video I could find from YouTube; it's a news report about a theft from a liquor store in Kenya. https://youtube.com/watch?v=ErfIL-_UOiA This is actually a better video than I originally pictured — it's in color, has reasonably high resolution, and appears to show most of the store. Now tell me, without looking at the transcript, what items are being stolen and how much do they cost? Would you be confident in being able to identify someone you had never seen before as the person in this video? Would you be okay with someone you've never met before identifying you in this video? Now imagine that the only video we have just shows you removing an item from a shelf, and all you can see is the aisle that you're in. It's good evidence in that it buttresses other testimony, but it's pretty useless on its own.
or even just by the police finding a shoplifted item on the person of a shoplifter.
This is even worse evidence. A police finds an item on you. What basis does he have to determine that it was stolen? How would you feel about the following scenario: A shopkeeper reports that he observed a white male stealing a pair of expensive headphones from an electronics store. The police see you a block away listening to a pair of headphones that match the shopkeeper's description. The shopkeeper does not identify you in court, but you are nonetheless convicted on the cop's testimony that you had the shoplifted merchandise in your possession?
Rov_Scam
9d ago
They are, but if the complaining witness isn't motivated enough to show up for 15 minutes of questioning, then the prosecutor isn't going to waste their time with the case either.
Rov_Scam
9d ago
I work with a few former prosecutors, and this topic has come up a number of times. It's easy to look at the number of dismissals and non-prosecutions of shoplifting and conclude that the prosecutors are being wishy-washy, but the realities of the situation often leave them with no real alternative. Consider the following case: A store clerk observes a thief stealing an item and calls the police. The suspect is arrested, and a body search uncovers the item. There is video of the suspect stealing the item. This is the perfect case, a slam-dunk to convict right?
In theory, yes; the evidence is incontrovertible. But think about what's actually required for a conviction:
- The clerk needs to testify that she saw the subject steal the item
- Someone familiar with the CCTV system needs to authenticate the video
- The cop needs to testify that the item was in the suspect's possession
The only witness who has a reasonable chance of actually testifying at trial is the cop, but unless he also happened to be there when the item was stolen, his testimony is useless on its own. A clerk making ten bucks an hour is unlikely to spend her day off testifying in court, and her employer is unlikely to pay her to not work. And unless the clerk is also the manager or has some familiarity with the CCTV system, they're going to need a manager to testify if they want to use the video, and good luck with a manager taking the day off to testify. With small convenience stores, there may be one guy running the whole place who would have to close for the day if he were required to be in court. The prosecutor's best bet in these cases is to confront the defendant with the evidence, offer a deal, and if they take it they take it and if they don't, drop the charges. Of course, defense attorneys know this as well, and they know why prosecutors do this, so they can be fairly confident that even if the charges aren't dropped that their client won't be convicted anyway, and the prosecutors aren't stupid so they can just skip the first step and dismiss the case before they waste any time on it, unless the victim is adamant about prosecution. Some are, but when a store proprietor finds out how much it's going to cost him to prosecute over a few hundred dollars in merchandise he usually decides it isn't worth it. Keep in mind that in most of these cases the merchandise is actually recovered, so there isn't even much of a tangible loss. Paying two employees a day's wages to testify is an expensive way of proving an abstract point.
Now combine this with the fact that DA's offices are chronically short-staffed and have high turnover rates. Some people love it, but most people burn out pretty quickly. You make less money for more work. They don't exactly have the manpower to take on every single theft case that gets reported. It's similar to the solution you give of building more prisons — it's easy to say "hire more DAs", it's quite another to actually be willing to pay for it. We're dealing with this situation right now in Allegheny County. County Executive Sara Innamorato is the exact kind of single, progressive, tattooed, DSA-supporting lefty that J.D. Vance hates. The county is currently facing a budget crisis, and she wants to increase property taxes to cover the deficit and give a small bump to the DA's office budget. County Council has describes her plan (which would increase property taxes by $182 for the average homeowner) as dead on arrival, and she's basically thrown down the gauntlet and told them that if they had any better ideas she'd consider them.
If tax increases are a nonstarter in a place that elected Innamorato as executive, they aren't going to play much better elsewhere. Demanding increased funding for police and prosecutors sounds good, but the people making these arguments out of one side of their mouth are bitching about taxes being to high out of the other side. It's basically like the school board meeting from The Simpsons. Where is this money supposed to come from, exactly? take it out of the highway budget? EMS? The board of elections? Parks and recreation? It's easy to blame bullshit on your political opponents, but it's hard to offer any realistic alternatives.
Rov_Scam
10d ago
So there is hope for Freddie Got Fingered? Some thing are bad and irredeemable. Or relegated to cult status. Has there been a piece that was poorly received and then gained widespread popularity?
No. The first thing you should be aware of is that the number of subscribers to Advanced Genius Theory is very small. The second thing is that it puts faith in the artist based on a prior evaluation of genius. For example, with a guy like Coltrane, he's already established himself as a genius, so we should give him the benefit of the doubt. Tom Green was never considered a genius by anyone. Finally, one of the requirements for a work to be Advanced is that it has to be presented without irony. Tom Green accepted the Razzie for Freddy Got fingered in person, which is not behavior that suggests he thought of the film as a serious piece of art that was deserving of respect.
Rov_Scam
11d ago
A Hail Mary isn't a typical pass play where the QB is trying to hit an open receiver. The idea is to bunch your receivers at the goal line and hope to create enough chaos for one of them to come down with the ball. The reason they don't rush 5, or even 4, for that matter, is that the play takes so long to develop that they should be able to get adequate pressure with 3. You need to post 3 DBs deep to defend the goal line, plus 4 CBs to jam the receivers at the line and provide trail coverage, plus a linebacker to spy or guard against the hook & ladder. Give up any one of these spots and you're creating a higher percentage play than if you make the WB throw the Hail Mary.
Rov_Scam
12d ago
Joe Flacco left the Ravens after 11 seasons, traded because a rookie named Lamar Jackson upstaged him while he was injured. He started another year and became a backup after failing a physical and having surgery at age 35. the Bucs dumped Jameis Winston at age 25 in favor of a 43-year-old Tom Brady, because the former threw too many picks. Winston would never be a regular starter again. People forget that the guy's only 30, because he feels like a has been. Flacco was able to give adequate QB play because being adequate is what he did all his life. Winston is athletic but turnover-prone. He's also similar stylistically to Watson, and a big part of the problem is that Cleveland runs more of a Joe Flacco type offense than a DeShaun Watson type offense. Watson's best years were running a spread offense where he threw a lot and was able to scramble if necessary. Cleveland runs heavy sets and wants to run the ball a lot. I don't know why they thought he'd be a good fit.
Rov_Scam
12d ago
Winston will go nowhere with the Browns because they're benefiting from what I call the New QB Effect. Every year, at least one quarterback who had been previously written off as a backup will play in a game or two where he puts up good numbers and surprises everyone. Then he eventually comes back down to earth and people remember why this guy isn't starting. The reason for this is simple: Any QB worth his salt will do well if the opponent doesn't have any tape on him. Once the guy plays a few games, opponents can figure out his tendencies and prepare for them. This is exactly what happened to Mike White with the Jets 2 years ago and to Mason Rudolph with the Steelers last year. It's why the first few weeks of the season are a crapshoot (since the preseason is all backups and coaches don't want to give away their gameplans it's pretty much useless as a study aid). So while I'm glad to see the nonthreatening Browns deliver Ravens loss that helps the Steelers in the standings, I'm not too worried that the Browns will be good enough to beat us when we play them. We'll have three weeks of tape by then, which is coincidentally around the amount it takes to figure a guy out.
They don't get their demographic data from the official tabulations of the last election. The official tabulation doesn't have demographic data. The adjust their weighting based on exit polling from the last election, among other things. For your theory to have any credence there would have to have been fraud in the exit polling, and efforts taken to eliminate fraud in exit polling.
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