domain:arjunpanickssery.substack.com
WhiningCoil
just now
It's a distinct possibility!
campfire
1m ago
Vampire does shamelessly rip off Creep but that song also rips off an older 70s hit so I can’t complain
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
7m ago
I have been repeatedly told by people arguing for support of Ukraine that our policy is and should be to drag the war out as long as possible to maximize harm to Russia. The fact that this also maximizes harm to Ukraine is waved off as Ukraine is volunteering for the honor. The fact that Ukraine is volunteering for the honor based on their belief that we will help them win, when in fact we have no intention of doing that is likewise dismissed.
And of course, actually providing them the resources needed to win, presuming those resources actually exist, risks escalating into direct warfare with a nuclear power.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
7m ago
abrasive, transparently insincere, and has had consistent staff turnover issues for her entire political career
If those are dealbreakers for you, boy, do I have some bad news for you!
gattsuru
7m ago
I'd be pretty surprised. There are gay frats, and not just in the explicitly LGBTQWTFBBQ sense, but SAE neither advertises itself nor has a reputation along those lines, at least from what I can see as someone not hugely familiar with frat life. And Salisbury is a pretty tiny school to start with; the statistics would only give around 50-100ish gay (or bisexual) men across campus in total.
aardvark2
14m ago
I am not sure if I am correct, but I think that 18-25 range is not subject to war mobilization, but they are subject to common draft as they were in pre-war times (unless they get exemption like getting education or something), so maybe changing it won't do much
netstack
Texas is freedom land
15m ago
Man. I want to argue with you, but I think you enjoy being miserable.
aardvark2
16m ago
Manpower might not matter if people do not want to fight and Russian propaganda faces much more difficult task than Ukrainian. Russia relies on increasingly large money to hire people for war. The 18-25 range is not subject to war mobilization, but they are subject to common draft as they were in pre-war times (unless they get exemption like getting education or something), so maybe changing it won't do much
gattsuru
16m ago
NBC News has reached out to attorneys for Aird and Leinemann. The others had no attorney information listed. All of the students were released this week on recognizance bonds, except Pietuszka who has his bond hearing Friday.
The Baltimore Banner:
Attorney James L. Britt said the alleged victim is a man in his 40s who propositioned what he thought was a 16-year-old. “Once all of the facts see the light of day, this case will be shown to be an ill-advised attempt to expose someone willing to travel to have sexual relations with a 16-year-old child,” he wrote in an email.
I don't particularly trust any news media or defense attorneys (and their clients), and even if they were being honest there's a lot of ways for people to have tried to portray their character as 16 and failed, but if true, it's not sounding like a Romeo and Romeo sorta situation. And given SAE's reputation, I expect their students would not be especially unfamiliar with the local laws regarding age of consent.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
17m ago
Nothing.
He’s known he wouldn’t be president again since August. If he had an uncontroversial, good-vibes project in mind, why not start it earlier?
For 1, he’s not going to get anything resembling a compromise. Not without something bringing Putin to the table.
Trump has already tarred 3 for Democrats.
I guess digging up another park would be a decent option. It doesn’t involve him giving MAGA exactly what they want, though, so I assume it’s dead on arrival. Maybe that’s too pessimistic.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
21m ago
It would be great if it were true, but I think the end result of any peace talks would be Trump coming home in disgust and urging congress to send more military aid to Ukraine, possible including the kind of offensive weapons that Biden has been reluctant to give.
If you want peace, that would be a good result! I've never understood our constant policy of half-measures. If we're going to back Ukraine against Russia by providing weapons then we should be providing the best weapons and in quantity. Limiting our support just keeps the war going as long as possible. Do we want Ukraine to have a strong position or not? If not, then why supply weapons at all?
roystgnr
22m ago
Nah; the popular vote is a relative rating rather than absolute. E.g. if I'd been in a swing state I'd have voted for Harris, not because she is a non-awful candidate I approved of, but because she seemed like the less awful of the two. I suspect a lot of Trump voters feel the same way in reverse.
On the other hand, one reason for disapproving of a candidate you'd vote for is that you think their weaknesses will cost your team an election, and if that's the case it's possible that Trump's approval rating is shooting up right now as his more pessimistic voters realize he wasn't too much of a liability this time after all. I'm only seeing one poll post-election so far, and it's still got him at Unfavorable +1 among registered voters, but that's within the margin of error of 0 and it's a big jump from the same pollster's Unfavorable +8 a week or so earlier, so maybe he's actually up in the positive numbers now.
marinuso
24m ago
Sotomayor could and probably should retire and let Biden appoint her replacement
Why should she do that? She's no RBG, who held on long past her expiry date only to finally keel over for real under a Republican government. RBG was already old and in bad health under Obama and should have let him replace her. Sotomayor is only 57 years old, she's good for another two decades at least, and there's certainly going to be another Democratic government during that time.
Biden can replace her with another progressive, but that doesn't matter for the political composition of the court. She'd only be giving up her position for no real gain.
TitaniumButterfly
24m ago
Well if there's any point in putting it in toothpaste, it must be to increase the concentration way above that which is naturally-occuring. So I repeat the question.
SophisticatedHillbilly
26m ago
We could have chosen differently
And in fact, some countries, or even states, did. I feel like this conflation of COVID with COVID-response is a huge issue.
ABigGuy4U
27m ago
Increasingly it seems like recommending any kind of media to anyone is a fools errand. People just have very little tolerance to anything outside of their media comfort zone. Even short YouTube videos are usually a dud.
Ditripar
34m ago
I just don't think that these sit-down interviews are that important when it comes to a presidential general election campaign.
I would say interviews are like debates: Normally they don't really matter. But if one candidate appears to be unable to handle interviews (not even good interviews, just unable/unwilling to do them) or unable to handle a debate (winning is nice but not necessary, just participating) then that raises massive red flags.
It seems like a basic duty of the job. An applicant for a job who can send and receive emails isn't noteworthy. An applicant who can't though, isn't likely to be hired.
Rosencrantz2
37m ago
Depends if it's a situation as unfamiliar as the first one, where medical establishments and governments were truly panicking. That fear is transmissible and I don't think there'd be that much resistance. If it's what looks like a repeat of Covid though, and there is less of a sense of the unknown, I do think people would likely resist.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
37m ago
I was imagining a CK2-ish game extending from the CK2 time period all the way through the V3 time period—like [insert one of the vaporware yet-to-be-released Paradox competitor games].
TheFooder
38m ago
Is this CNN's opening move in a "relentlessly show how Trump's America is a cesspit of bigotry and violence" campaign?
Heaven forfend that Trump's America not give CNN the ammunition they need to make this argument. This seems like an actual news story so it's fair game.
Amadan
I will be here longer than you
38m ago
I wonder if their genius idea was to stage a "predator catch," but they went full vigilante with it (because young dumb males).
If you're not aware, there are a ton of "pred-catcher" YouTube and Rumble channels. Basically doing the Chris Hansen thing (who has his own channel now as well): a decoy pretending to be a minor will hang out on dating apps or social media sites until some guy (a guy 99.9% of the time) takes the bait, and then they set him up to come meet the minor. They confront him, try to get him to confess, and then call the police - filming the entire thing.
The YouTubers, however, are familiar with the law and are generally very careful not to do anything that could get them arrested (especially not putting hands on the pred). They also make very sure their targets have thoroughly and unambiguously incriminated themselves. Their decoys usually pretend to be 12 or 13 - well below any possible age of consent - and they wait until they have hours and hours of sexually explicit messages, with the perp clearly stating he's aware of the decoy's (supposed) age.
Usually these are straight men going after young girls, but sometimes they get a gay guy trying to hook up with a boy.
Anyway, that's what this looks like to me: they got the idea from watching a pred-catcher video, but decided to beat the shit out of the perp instead. Very stupid, but probably not a hate crime, although since they found the perp on Grindr, I can imagine a DA who wants to make it a hate crime arguing that they were specifically targeting gay men.
Recursive_Enlightenment
42m ago
Trump would likely respond to this with a call the end the Senate filibuster.
What is the reality of Ukraine's position in the war? Is it in a strong position or a weak one? What is the reality of the US's position in Ukraine? Is it in a strong position or a weak one? What is the reality of Russia's position in the war? Is it in a strong position or a weak one?
Ukraine wants to retake their territory. Below is a war map. Ukraine has not had control of Donestk, Luhansk and Crimea since 2014. And everything not those areas, basically from Mariupol to Kherson, is separated from Ukraine by the Dnieper River. Ukraine has not taken much ground, when the US gave them a bunch of our equipment it did not move the needle. A lot of it got blown to bits. So a weak position to get what they want.
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/36a7f6a6f5a9448496de641cf64bd375
The US wants Ukraine to retake their territory. And from the above, they are in a weak position as well. I do not see much of a will for escalation. It does not seem all of the sanctions crippled Russia. And from a strategic prospective, we have driven the Russians into the arms of the Chinese. I do think that we will get them into NATO if a deal is cut, but that is just my guess. So overall a weak position to get what we want, at least out of the war.
Originally it seemed that Russia wanted to either annex Ukraine or set up a puppet government, but now I think they're just trying to secure Crimea and get what as much pro Russia Ukrainian territory as they can. Looks like they are in a very strong position to do this, the have de facto accomplished this, so they are in a strong position.
So if the US and Ukraine are in a weak position, then accepting weak peace terms would be an acknowledgement of reality more than creation of it. Ukraine is going to lose territory, Russia is going to gain it, Joe Biden forcing a deal is just recognizing this fact. I don't see this war as in our interest, or at least in our interest at the price tag, so I think Joe should be weak and sign the deal. That is the right call for US interest, and we should work to drive the Russians and Chinese apart. Obviously team NATO would want the best possible deal they can get, but if they are in a weak position to take (retake) what they want by force then why would they be able to take it through negotiation? I don't think they could.
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