pigeonburger
21hr ago
Even if the US President and most of his successors were to be taken out at once, there are a set of planes ("Nightwatch", also known as the "doomsday planes"), at least one of which is kept ready to launch at a moment's notice (and would likely be launched once a specific DEFCON level is reached) that is presumed to have the capability to relay launch codes to remaining nuclear assets.
pigeonburger
5d ago
Back when I was an adult virgin, I would have easily paid 500$, or up to four times that, if it could permanently dispel the feeling of shame I would sometimes feel being virgin. The point would not have been to enjoy myself, but to break a psychological barrier that I saw as a blocker for all my attempts at dating. The reason I didn't is not because of the opportunity cost, but because I didn't believe it would dispel that feeling, and perhaps pile on a whole new shame on to it.
pigeonburger
6d ago
I think it's simple; you mostly apply mistake theory and are trying to understand a particularly pathological strain of conflict theory. One that sees any deviation from what is considered the obvious good viewpoint and belief as being driven by malice and thus proof that the deviant is an enemy.
It's hardly unique to the left, but I'd agree in recent times, it's been mostly observable in them, as it has a hard time growing without a certain level of social and cultural dominance. It's hard to blind yourself to not everyone who disagree with you being Hitler if you constantly have people who disagree with you who obviously aren't Hitler shoved in your face; it was much easier for the left to insulate their filter bubbles. As their cultural and social peaked has likely peaked and is in decline, we're likely (hopefully) going to see this strain recede as well. I think that can be seen in Gavin Newsome trying to front run it and having mostly agreable discussions with people quite far outside of the left's overton window.
pigeonburger
6d ago
I would excuse innumeracy to some degree. Knowing specific percentages or numbers has very little value outside of being a factoid to recite. There is value in having an idea of what category of the following something goes in: None, almost none, few, some, about half, a majority, a vast majority, almost everyone, everyone. But even then, off-by-one category in some circumstances I don't think is a major failure.
But there's some examples where I have a hard time making that excuse, like in the OP the examples they mention of unarmed blacks killed by police and population size of Israel, you would presume that if something is a huge crusade for these people they would at least have an idea of the order of magnitude of their problem. Eneasz Brodski probably only had this opinion about men and women in sports in passing, if it had been a big issue for him I would assume he would have ended up on the correct opinion faster.
pigeonburger
8d ago
I know about the "drawing on the right side of the brain" already
Before I read this sentence I was already preparing to mention it. Any reason why you'd need something else? For me, it unlocked a "non-verbal" mode in my brain that I didn't even know it could do.
pigeonburger
8d ago
For some reason, my mind automagically starts wondering if perhaps these artists (that's a dogwhistle for lefty activists, btw) had some Interwebz posts that somebody didn't like.
That's not impossible, but it seems more likely that these are people that are motivated to assume that any negative interaction at the border is proof that Trump's america is fascist, and would be calling the news immediately if it happened.
I'm not going to assume that these people also made this happen on purpose so that it can be used against the administration and/or raise their public profile, but I'll point out that it's also possible. Couple of weeks in detention to become internationally known is a deal many people would take, especially since the left tends to reward its martyrs and turncoats handsomely (though we'll see if perhaps cuts to some organisations might make them less free with the rewards).
pigeonburger
8d ago
No? The Bloc has voted with and propped up minority governments before many many times. The PPC is being kept out.
pigeonburger
9d ago
I'm far from convinced he seriously thinks of doing it, but I don't think changes in the electorate have anything to do with it; he's not going to be judged by an election anymore, but by the history books.
pigeonburger
10d ago
Being term-limited and on his last term, Trump is unmoved by the electoral concerns of other, future Republicans. What he cares about at this point is legacy, and integrating the second largest country on earth, becoming the largest country on earth in the process, is pretty legacy-setting.
pigeonburger
11d ago
I don't think you can disentangle housing from a whole host of factors. For working adults, the supply of housing is only one part of an equation, and the other half of that equation contains within it a pretty good proxy for economic vibrancy and economic libertarianism. If I were looking to live in a place where the cheapest apartment for rent is 3000$ but where I can easily find a job with a high salary that makes it trivial to pay that, then why would I even complain about the price of housing?
People leave California not because the price of housing in a vacuum is too high, but because the californian economy cannot pay people enough to support those high prices.
pigeonburger
14d ago
Israel is not the entirety of the reason for all of the hatred of America, especially not for Iran which as you point out has separate beef with the US, but it's surely the main reason every Muslim in the middle east's default opinion of the US is negative, why it's easy for Iran to cultivate allies in the region, etc...
The pardons themselves are not the only thing this would affect. The narrative is that Americans in 2020 voted for Biden to "restore normality", anything that shatters this idea that the Biden administration was "normal" is good for Trump. Shows that "normality" is not a product of an administration but of its media coverage. That if the media is uninterested in presenting an administration as "chaotic", then it will seem "normal".
pigeonburger
14d ago
It also helps that Israel's enemies also have a habit of chanting "Death to America" and have frequently killed American servicemen over the past several decades.
While in general I agree with your point, I'd point out that there's likely a reversed cause and effect here. America doesn't support Israel because its enemies chant "Death to America", Israel's enemies chant "Death to America" because America supports Israel.
He's immune from having to testify, maybe, but it would be so trivial for him to show up, say "yep, I authorized this" that refusing to do so would raise questions. His refusal to testify on its own would not push towards a verdict that goes Trump's way in the courtroom, but it would certainly go Trump's way in the public opinion.
pigeonburger
14d ago
On saturday I was out with my wife and she asked me if I could identify a bird that was close. I didn't know, so I picked up my phone, took a picture, used the Google Lens AI search (not sure how to call that feature) selected the bird in the picture, and it IDed the bird immediately, I had the answer within seconds. That felt close to the experience that ads make the latest "AI features" on phones to be. It has to be said though that this was probably the most perfect use of that feature I've had; I've had this phone for 9 months I think and there was never a better use for it.
Trump announced in a post last night that he was considering voiding the last minute preemptive Biden pardons of Fauci, members of January 6 House committee, and others, because an "autopen" was used to sign the pardons. Presidential authority to grant pardons is very broad, and apparently autopen has been used by prior presidents; looks like a losing case if it goes before the Supreme Court.
Whether it wins or lose, at the very least it'll force out in the open discussion of just how incapacitated Joe Biden was at the end of his term, which is likely to be very damaging to Democracts and to the Biden admin people involved, so good for Trump. As for whether it wins, there's rumors that an aide was just running the show with no input from Biden, not just using an autopen; if that's true, and Biden is not willing to lie to cover it up, who knows how that ends?
Like, Luke is never actually tempted by the dark side. There is nothing the dark side ever has to offer him that he wants
It's not much, but he does show a lot of curiosity with Obi Wan about his father. I imagine that's the tentation, to get to know about his father. The movie doesn't do a good job of showing the internal struggle, but when he confronts Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back, at that point, he has lost his uncle and aunt, he has lost Obi Wan and the closest to a father figure he has left is a tiny green puppet who talks funny with the same voice actor as Miss Piggy.
Even if he did obey the Emperor and strike down Darth Vader in anger, there's no plausible reason he would switch sides, he'd just strike down the Emperor too.
I think the point is a variant of the idea of "the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house". It could be taken in a philosophical sense, that if Luke strikes down Darth Vader in anger, he'll probably strike down the Emperor in anger too, and will be going down the path of normalizing striking down his enemies in anger, which will eventually lead to him becoming just as bad as Darth Vader and the Emperor. Letting the anger drive + the overwhelming power of being a trained force user = bad times for everyone. This is the what the prequels show with Anakin, the turning point that sets him down a dark path is getting revenge on sand people (who most likely had it coming, this is before primary canon had shown the sand people to be anything but murderous barbarian raiders). It also makes the "Only Siths deal in absolutes" quote stupid because Jedi deal in absolutes all the freaking time; it's their commitment to absolutist ethics that seemingly keeps them from turning into power-hungry murder machines.
Then there's the more literal sense of it, that if Luke had stricken down Darth Vader in anger, that this anger through some force bullshit would somehow literally feed the Emperor's power and Luke would then lose the ensuing battle. Maybe it'd give the Emperor a hold to Force Mind Break him or something.
The trend has been going for a little while, 2069 years and a day at least to my estimation.
I don't know if there's an earlier example of an event referred to by when it happened instead of what happened that stuck to popular culture, but yesterday was the Ides of March, infamously the day of Julius Caesar's assassination.
pigeonburger
20d ago
My (nominally) fellow Canadians' response to this is possibly the stupidest thing I've seen them do in recent years. Clearly the 51th state ribs are a joke, but in the case they were not and there was a clear intent to annex then the answer is not to act defiant. Canada has no power, no military, no economic leverage on America.
If I were named Canada's Trump wrangler, I'd call him up and have frank negociations on what he really wants (as opposed to the excuse to give him the power to do it, Fentanyl). What he wants and expects tariffs to do is reshoring, right? Canada can help! Canada could offer to match US tariffs on China; we've been having a tense relationship with China in recent years anyway, and it would increase the market for american manufactured goods. If necessary get some Canadian companies to sweeten the pot by promising some investments or partnerships with the US.
pigeonburger
25d ago
It conflates them for good reason, because what was being suggested is tariffs instead of taxes. Removing corporate taxes would lower the price of domestically produced goods. In a context where they benefit from government provided services (roads, law enforcement, the stability of being protected by the army, courts that parse and enforce contracts), being exempt of taxes for it does amount to a subsidy. Of course, it's not the tariffs part that reduces the cost, but it offers an alternative to taxes for funding the government.
Personally I'm doubtful that the Trump administration will manage to get enough cuts, enough tariffs, enough deregulation-fuelled growth to actually balance the budget, but getting at least part of the way is an improvement.
pigeonburger
27d ago
My impression is that Donald Trump wants to win, to be the greatest, better than anyone has been before, and that his affinity for Putin is because he looks like someone who is winning.
I don't think it's so much an obsession with winning. Putin looks like someone who would like to make a deal.
Members of the atlanticist world order (NATO, Europe) seems to want to the world to just magically be different than what it is and the unstable post Cold War world to be maintained forever, even as they mortgage increasingly large chunks of their population's future for diminishing returns. They do not want to make deals with Trump; they don't think he's serious, they want him to disappear and the world to just go back the way it was. Both of these are non-starters for Trump. They don't call him to negociate their place in the next world order, they act outraged that Trump is not bound by the imperative of keeping the atlanticist world order intact. Putin at least takes those negociations seriously. Of course, Russia didn't have much of a place after the end of the Cold War so it's no wonder that they are open to discussions.
pigeonburger
1mo ago
Ultimately I think you're right, but it hardly reflects well on the people of these countries that they would reverse their positions on domestic and international issues entirely to maintain their self-image of being better and more enlightened than americans. It really shames me that I see this exact train of throught so clearly in my compatriots (Canadians). Our entire country's identity is just this.
pigeonburger
1mo ago
Oh, okay, yeah that makes more sense.
I don't think anyone would need to stop at considering the specific goal achieved; the healthcare that the absolutely poorest westerners can get by showing up to a hospital today, even americans, is orders of magnitude better than that which kings and emperors could get only a few centuries ago. We all want to see that trend continuing, and it will continue to be a treadmill, one on which I hope everyone agrees on the direction, even if they disagree on speed, technique, etc...
pigeonburger
1mo ago
If we have decades of it being legal, will weed culture disappear?
With less than a decade of it being legal in Canada, yes, I believe so to some extent. It took some time because of the "exhuberant release" of legalization lasted a little while, but I rarely smell it in public anymore. In the first year of so, stoners would just smoke anywhere, including places that explicitly disallowed cigarettes, but now I rarely smell it in public. Once in a while you see some guy who thinks he's being super stealthy at a show/event with his THC vape, but you also see that with nicotine vapes.
Officially, indeed.
But since they have to be ready to launch at a moment's notice, probably aren't close enough at all time for the president or vice-president to be taken up in one within a couple of minutes, there's some guesses that can be made as for what purpose they are kept on a hair trigger to launch for.
The system as it's officially defined and depicted in public media, that only the President can authorize nuclear weapons using specifically the "football" that follows him, is nonsensical and does little to deter an adversary that believes it can do a decapitating strike on DC. It seems highly likely (although we probably won't have confirmation of such) that it is symbolic and that authority to launch is delegated. It has already been revealed that it has been delegated in the past. There's only three people in the line of succession being likely prepared and ready to act decisively within minutes (VP, SoS, SoD). Should the authority fall on another, getting a football to their location, codes, onboarding them, explaining their options, etc... is impractical, if a response is required within minutes.
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