Linky Friday: Truth and Lies

Andrew Donaldson

Born and raised in West Virginia, Andrew has since lived and traveled around the world several times over. Though frequently writing about politics out of a sense of duty and love of country, most of the time he would prefer discussions on history, culture, occasionally nerding on aviation, and his amateur foodie tendencies. He can usually be found misspelling/misusing words on Twitter @four4thefire and his food writing website Yonder and Home. Andrew is the host of Heard Tell podcast. Subscribe to Andrew's Heard Tell SubStack for free here:

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16 Responses

  1. LTL FTC says:

    Co2: I’m surprised the collapse of taxi medallion prices hasn’t shook out more bad actors and dirty dealing.

    Gr1: If the only solution to exclusionary after-work fraternization is to ban it, my guess is that it will just go underground. People spend most of their waking hours with co-workers, So friendship and common interests are inevitable. If anything, policing golf outings and happy hours will cut off the opportunity for “outsider” workers to get involved in these too-white-male activities at all.Report

  2. Saul Degraw says:

    Gr1: Tech companies seem to encourage more socialization than other companies and it seems to occur at the office more. At least this is my anecdotal observation. They also often seem better(ish) at avoiding the old traps of having all the guys go to a Strip Club ala I-banking.

    Here is another Truthhammer, NIMBY is a bipartisan cry. No one likes building even though it is probably the only thing that reduces housing costs.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/21/upshot/home-ownership-nimby-bipartisan.htmlReport

    • James K in reply to Saul Degraw says:

      @saul-degraw

      Indeed, NIMBY polices would be much less robust if they did not enjoy bipartisan support. The housing market has a strong insider-outsider dynamic, and is often the case with such markets, the relevant political split is insiders vs outsiders.Report

  3. Oscar Gordon says:

    Tr8: Ooooooh, that’s nifty!Report

    • Maybe you can explain it because I got an bit lost reading it, to be honest. Report

      • Oscar Gordon in reply to Andrew Donaldson says:

        You have to start by understanding what a material dislocation is within the crystalline structure. The exist every, and the more able they are to slide along the layers, the more ductile a material is (likewise, the harder it is for a dislocation to slide, the harder a material is).

        The big deal is that until now, you could only manipulate a dislocation by manipulating the whole test piece (bending it). Now they can manipulate a single identified dislocation and watch it, which improves our understanding of how these nano-scale structures interact when under load and when deforming.

        This probably won’t directly result in any new technology, but it could result in new alloys and other materials (composites and ceramics, for instance), or reduce the time and cost of developing new materials, since researchers will be able to see more directly what is happening and tweak things until they get it just right.Report

  4. Kolohe says:

    Tr7-

    The War in Afghanistan began with the invasion of the country by U.S. forces on October 7th, 2001. It followed the shock of 9/11 and the decision by President George W. Bush to destroy the terrorist network al-Qaeda, headed by Osama bin Laden, which was blamed for the horrendous attack on American soil. Bin Laden was reportedly hiding in Afghanistan, protected by the Taliban, which then ruled the country.

    This is a really weird way to start an article, as if these facts are substantially disputed or unknown.Report

    • Kolohe in reply to Kolohe says:

      It must be noted that the Taliban, now numbering about 60,000 fighters, rules over a larger amount of land now than it did since when it was kicked out by the initial U.S. war effort in 2001.

      This is another odd one. It literally isn’t true that the Taliban controls more territory now than it did in Summer 2001 (when it ran the county and Kabul, though didn’t have firm control of the north). It’s possible that they have more land area now than in, say December 2001, when they had largely melted away and decamped to Pakistan. & ‘land area’ is a little misleading, because as everyone is fond of saying in politics, people matter, not dirt. Also, the population of Afghanistan has gone from about 21 million in 2001 to 35 million today, witg almost all the growth in urban areas controled by the government (not like they’re oasises of paradise though)

      Notably, the U.S. Congress did not pass a tax to finance the war and instead passed the Bush tax cuts.

      The gd cojones of someone from the Charles Koch Foundation writing this sentence!Report

  5. Stillwater says:

    Em Carpenter alert!

    If you haven’t followed, the West Virginia GOP has conducted a coup against their state’s judiciary. Impeached their entire state Supreme Court at once, then the very pols who led impeachment were appointed to the Court, flipping partisan control

    GOP governor names GOP House speaker and GOP congressman temporary justices for W. Va. Supreme Court (replacing 2 Dems who resigned). Three remaining justices under impeachment.

    Unbelievable. What the hell has happened to conservatives in this country? They’re f***ing insane.Report

    • Will Truman in reply to Stillwater says:

      The blurb is kind of misleading. Leaving out the federal indictments for example, and making it sound as though the basis for impeachment was without merit. Here are the four articles she’s written on it, for anyone looking to get caught up. Report

      • Stillwater in reply to Will Truman says:

        Will,

        I’ve read em. Two parts stand out: that they impeached sitting justices who weren’t directly implicated in the finance scandal and that the temp appointments are folks who led the charge to impeach. Given the timing here, as Em outlined in her posts, the GOP governor can appoint justices until the next election cycle. 2 years from now. That’s the entire court.

        Maybe I don’t understand your comment, tho. Are you suggesting that all is well in the camp? That this is just SOP? Seems to me it’s exactly what the person I quoted said it is: a coup on the judiciary. I’m more than happy to get talked out of that tree, tho. I just need to hear a reason to climb down.Report

        • Will Truman in reply to Stillwater says:

          No, doesn’t look kosher to me. Looks like at best they’re using corruption as an opportunity to clean house in their favor. At worst it is some sort of coup where the three remaining justices did absolutely nothing wrong and with no basis. It looks to me more like a pretty messy situation somewhere in between the two, where they are definitely (inappropriately) fiddling with the timing but did not wake up one day and decide to clean house (including the Republican) for partisan benefit. Which would be my impression from the blurb.Report

          • Stillwater in reply to Will Truman says:

            I gotta admit that if this incident occurred in isolation I wouldn’t reflexively think the worst, but on the heels of the Penssylvania gerry-mander case (where the R legislature threatened to impeach the state SC because of their ruling) and the voter-id/voter-fraud/voter-booth shenanigans occurring all over, I’m sorta primed to think the worst of the state-level GOP right now. 🙁Report

        • Em will have a piece on all this soon.

          It’s far more to it than that. To say it’s a “coup against the judiciary” is coming at it way to high. The corruption in the court is very real. Gov. Justice’s appointment of Armstead and Jenkins is at best idiotic and at worst politically motivated, but is only good till the election, which both are standing for. Lot of moving parts to this.Report