Commenter Archive

Comments by Dark Matter in reply to Dark Matter*

On “Open Mic for the week of 12/9/2024

I don't think "snaps". I think we're looking at idealism. It's like how a lot of terrorists are engineers.

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True all that.

Case looked pretty strong, but ultimately we couldn't fully convince a jury. Maybe some of them felt that would be punishing what should be rewarded.

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Chris: I don’t have AI glasses that tell me a person’s criminal history...

We are after the fact quarter backing. But Neely's history shows that Penny judged Neely correctly.

Ergo we have the problem that the people in the subway were (correctly) scared and (correctly) believed Neely was going to start attacking random people.

Chris: the precedent we’re setting here is a disturbing one.

The people here were locked in a room with this guy.

The root problem is they're in this situation to begin with, i.e. that the city is allowing this guy to live in the subway and continually subject the passengers to this. This was his 43rd mental health crisis.

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It was disputed how many minutes Penny held him down. If it was 12-15, then that's a problem. If it was "too the next station so 3-5" then less so.

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There's a lot of temptation to claim the situation is something different we can look the other way.

However I question whether looking the other way is virtuous.

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Correct. However if we assume no one needed to use any force we have a different problem than the reality.

The guy with a history of attacking random people was at it again. The random people needed to figure out what to do about this. The amount of force used to stop him from being violent was also enough to kill him.

It is indeed a question whether the force used was excessive. Jury couldn't make up it's mind. It's seriously unfair to put random people in that situation and expect no problems.

City knew Neely was a problem and living in the subway. He'd been arrested 42+ times and was thought to be one of the 50 craziest homeless people in the city.

If we want the subway to be used, then we can't also be asking random people to deal with Neely and also tell them they'll go to jail if they don't deal with him correctly.

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If we're talking about Jordan Neely then "harmless but scary spider" isn't the correct comparison.

Neely had a cycle of mental health crises, arrests, hospitalization, (presumably then release) and then repeat. His criminal record includes three unprovoked assaults on women in the subway.

Penny stepped in to prevent what would have been his fourth. The problem isn't that the people are scared. The problem is they should be scared because that's where Neely was in his cycle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Jordan_Neely#Jordan_Neely

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This guy had a history of randomly attacking women on the subway. If the state wants to keep its monopoly on violence then they have to keep people like that locked up.

On “From the New York Post: UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson fatally shot outside Hilton hotel in Midtown in targeted attack: cops

The majority of our assassins are lunatics and incoherent politically.

The majority of our civil disorder and the occasional accompanying riots is from the Left. If you are looking for "excuses to crack down", look there.

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One hopes they're just being quiet about what they know.

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2nd degree murder is still called "murder" even if the "intention" wasn't to kill anyone.

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There are categories other than "filled with rage right now" and "professional".

Thus far it looks planned and well thought out.

Planned suggests a fair bit of time. Well thought out suggests relatively high functioning and not a random lunatic.

I can think of somethings which would have made his escape go better but I don't post "how to commit a good murder" ideas in public. However it looks like he had a plan, followed it, and thus far it seems to have worked.

We can speculate on his motives, but typically we're wrong so maybe we shouldn't.

The part that suggests it's not a pro is I'd think a real professional wouldn't want to end up in the national news with entire departments looking for him. Killing a CEO openly in public can reasonably be predicted to do that.

The cops have the resources to solve close to any crime. They just don't have the resources to solve all of them.

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Google's robot says there are 4 different categories.

1st Degree, i.e. intentional and done with forethought. (This was clearly that).

2nd: A killing committed during a felony. So you're robbing a store and your partner kills the clerk.

Manslaughter: Not the previous ones and often resulting from reckless or negligent behavior.

Justifiable: Self defense or defense of others.

On “Open Mic for the week of 12/2/2024

She didn't run as moderate or progressive. She ran as undefined.

On “Joe Biden Pardons Local Man

Certainly not- we both agree Hunter is guilty of the tax charge and the picayune gun form charge.

The Biden pardon covers everything, including crimes we both agree upon.

President Biden could have trivially had the pardon only cover whatever Trump might do. He choose to have it cover everything that his own Justice Department found.

No matter the rhetoric, the black letter of the pardon isn't designed to prevent Trump from misusing justice, it's designed to prevent his own Justice Department (yes, and Trump's later) from doing anything.

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AI making stuff up is a known issue.

The AI is supposed to make stuff up. That's it's job. It creates a rough draft that is spell checked.

When you ask for anything from an English paper to the bare bones of a program, it's making stuff up. It's strengths are speed of content creation and grammar/syntax. It's weakness is it doesn't understand what you want.

I've used it professionally. It's great, but it's a tool I use and not a thinking entity that could replace me.

Those idiot lawyers were trying to use it as a search engine and not an intern.

On “Joe Biden Pardons Local Man

The "out of fear" explanation doesn't cover what Biden actually did.

For that to work, we need to believe Hunter is an innocent lamb and Joe Biden's Justice Department's findings and actions were politically motivated.

This is a helicopter parent saying "not my child".

"Out of fear" is an excuse, not an explanation.

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also admitting that all the spilled ink and investigations and also Trumps foreign policy interventions on the subject were all baseless.

No. Hunter's resume and the behavior of the people hiring him look a lot like he's selling political favors. The investigations were well deserved. Adding to that the whole sex, drugs, and criminals angles made them doubly so.

But ultimately it’s a gesture, as I originally said, of fear and despair from Joe who doesn’t believe the Justice system under Trump will be Just towards his son.

This is total nonsense.

Biden had the ability to pardon him for anything Trump could have done but also let Hunter serve his time for the things his own justice department found. Biden could have also not pardoned him for the things he's already been found guilty of but then zapped everything else.

Hunter has been given a breathtakingly large scope of a pardon when normally those are extremely narrow. It was also done without involving the people who normally vet and write these things.

This was a favor to his son.

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Sure. All of that is true.

But the conclusion is only that Joe is clean. According to the Biden Justice department, Hunter is not.

And this wouldn't have come up if Hunter himself (yes, and the GOP) hadn't shined a spotlight on this.

The legal system is then faced with the problem of what to do. If we follow the normal laws and rules, Hunter ends up doing time.

This is pretty normal for someone who burns his life down, does a lot of things we've criminalized, and then writes a book about it.

That's what the pardon is protecting him from. Not the GOP weaponizing the justice system, but the justice system functioning as it normally would at this point.

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I think Biden would have pardoned Hunter no matter what happened. His own Justice department has found enough to lock him up for years, and that's bad enough.

Hunter went through a period of time when he burned his life down. He's much better now.

The argument for a pardon isn't that the GOP is coming after him. With Biden stepping down there is no point and we saw what Trump did with HRC after she lost power, i.e. nothing.

Hunter's problem has been with the Joe Biden Justice department. Trump won't change that... but as part of burning his life down he crossed lines and then his tell all book broadcast them.

The argument is that he is a different person now and deserves a second (or 3rd, or however many chances Joe has given him) chance. Joe Biden has been helping him his entire life, this is just once more.

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Charges were -only- brought on these cases because of who Hunters’ father was.

Hunter has lived his life capitalizing on his father's political influence. That's everything from his highly paid college "internship" to his series of jobs for various people who pretty nakedly want to influence his father.

He then wrote a tell all book going over his coke addition and some of the things he did during that time.

It is awkward to claim he's not a player when he's clearly been claiming the reverse for his entire adult life. It's also awkward to claim there is no evidence when he wrote a book about the things he's charged with.

On “Huffpo reports that Harris internals *NEVER* had her ahead.

The key point is this is why we have VPs.

We don't have time for a full state-by-state. We don't use the smoke filled room anymore.

I think they didn't think it through. These are people who knew Harris. Ergo they knew she wasn't a great choice.

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"The plan" hadn't been created yet and was still subject to negotiations and pressure by various interested parties.

There is no one, other than Biden, who has the ability to select one specific candidate and/or rules and the party needs to be unified.

We're also going to have the problem of "what is wrong with Harris" and not taking her isn't going to sit well. Her supporters will claim it's because she's a black female. Figuring out that she's really bad at this will take longer than they have.

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