it would've been a great experience. When I was in college (following the usual path of going right after high school), I was a little in awe of the older students who had lived some life first. They were generally much more outspoken and more interesting things to say about the material and the world.
I gently suggested to my kids to consider working a couple years before going to college, but they were determined to do what all their friends were doing. As was I at the same age.
He had direct experience that they lacked, but they, though youthfully overconfident, had the received wisdom distilled from higher-level retrospective analysis that he might have dismissed or ignored because of his experience. Can't say either definitively has the higher ground.
The two interesting questions (to me) are:
* Did Scott just not do his homework or did he decide to ride a wave?
* By responding this way, what audience is he chasing? It's not a message that would resonate with most Republicans, but might among the more hardcore Never-Trumpers who are also seeing only the kneejerk anti-DeSantis take.
That's where i am too, as a man of no party -- it seems perfectly credible to me (though certainly not proven) that Joe Biden might have either greased some wheels for his son or even personally benefited, because it's the sort of thing we know some politicians do to varying degrees. It's also credible that he did not do any of that stuff and there's no fire despite any of the smoke.
For calibration purposes, do you think that Blasey Ford's accusations against Kavanaugh were "credible"?
Just to show my hand up front, it seems like the usage of that word in connection with public figures has a lot to do with the political party of the target.
So for fun i clicked your link, and then clicked the first "Irina Shayk" link because I'd never heard of her, and the links sidebar on that page includes a headline "Gisele Bundchen Not Bothered by Tom Brady Moving On with Irina Shayk".
I'm starting to think they may not actually 100% know what Gisele thinks about this.
Wow, Saul comes out swinging at a black female Democrat!
I think the tweeter (and you) are missing some of her message here in the eagerness to dunk -- not to completely forgive it, but the overall context is about overcoming adversity, the vagaries of fate, and the ways that God uses these events for ultimate good. She also says "I thank God for slavery", because the many long twists and turns ended up meaning that she gets to be an American.
It's essentially a sermon with dramatic language and with an overarching point, and this point is particularly a religious one. It's bad of the tweeter to strip these phrases out of their context* and pretend that she just said these things in their strongest form out of the blue. It's the flip side of what conservatives did in 2008 with Jeremiah Wright, the pastor at Obama's church who said all that "anti-American" stuff.
ETA: *though s/he helpfully includes a video which provides some of the context that was missed
Harris' statement is of course ridiculously misleading, but because one of the 150 bullets did sort of match what she's saying, if you pull it out of the long list and squint a little, it's overstatement to say that she's "lying" -- it falls more into the "technically not demonstrably 100% false" area, kind of like what Scott Alexander said about media "lies". Just enough of a tiny scrap of truth for the partisans to find a way to defend her statement.
This kind of thing always reminds me of a Dave Barry bit:
Let's say your wedding ring falls into your toaster, and when you stick
your hand in to retrieve it, you suffer Pain and Suffering as well as
Mental Anguish. You would sue:
* The toaster manufacturer, for failure to include, in the instructions
section that says you should never never never ever stick you hand
into the toaster, the statement "Not even if your wedding ring falls
in there"
* The store where you bought the toaster, for selling it to an obvious
cretin like yourself.
* Union Carbide Corporation, which is not directly responsible in this
case, but which is feeling so guilty that it would probably send you
a large cash settlement anyway.
". It probably never occurred to her that what she got produced could offend anyone. "
That's a pretty bad mistake for someone in charge of marketing a mass-appeal product. As an internet commenter you're free to just judge these conservatives and stop there, but someone whose job it is to protect a brand should damn well think about the potential effect of her choices.
I do think (as I said when this first came up) that it's a little unfair just because you never know what might go viral, but still, it's what she was getting paid for.
So i was curious about this and read a few more articles, and my takeaway is that Lee's gloss and the JNS article are at the opposite extremes and neither is trustworthy. I see a community that's sincerely wrestling with how to balance acceptance of diversity in thought & values with acceptance of diversity in sexual orientation -- while there are a few extreme voices on either side, overall it seems that these are people who largely know each other and want to avoid a major rift. Having this story get picked up and used in the larger culture wars will probably not help that process.
No one's stopping you from hating those backward evil conservatives -- but maybe you could just take it as accepted here and not insist on making it the topic of every conversation? Your monomania makes for dull threads.
I suppose for those of us who are concerned about regret among minors due to faddism or excessive zeal, it's a fair question to ask what post-op timeframe we would expect the regret to show up.
Thanks, that's helpful. I think it's specifically minors who are the population of concern, but it's good to see both such a small regret rate and also (based on the intro) evidence of people in the profession taking the concern very seriously. Unfortunately a lot of the online discussion of these issues is dominated by zealots who are quick to dismiss every potential concern that cuts against their own opinion (and vilify people for even mentioning them).
The link is to a meta-analysis that incorporates studies crossing multiple decades (several are in the 80s and 90s) and countries. The rapidly increasing acceptance and visibility over the last few years especially in the US would naturally be expected to affect the rate of post-op regret. It would be good to have a sense of what the "current" rate is (over, say, the last 5 years). Though in the current climate, it's hard to trust any particular study anyway -- I'd expect there to be a thumb on the scale somewhere.
I guess it's an open question whether people who would support a policy like this are motivated more by compassion/empathy or by the possibility that they themselves might be in the same situation. My intuition is that it's more the former -- people who instinctively want to help and who aren't used to thinking about incentives, consequences, budgets etc.
You get more of what you subsidize -- why should we encourage people to live in & move into areas so high risk that the insurance companies are running away? Let's let the market signal do its work properly.
Do you have any good sources for an analysis of the forgiveness based on the Higher Ed Act? I found this one, which makes it sound clearly not applicable, but that was just from a random search.
its why Thomas’ and Alitos’ antics that have been coming out really are such a problem.
I think this cuts both ways -- entities that care about the legitimacy of the court should make sure a full accounting has been done, ideally with representation from both sides, before releasing such reports.
When the CT article came out, several here said with confidence that Thomas was an outlier -- now lo and behold, the same left-leaning outlet has found fault with another conservative justice. Will the people who said Thomas was a one-off react to this by calling their prior confidence into question, or will they just point to it and say "see? conservatives are even more corrupt than we thought!"?
As an independent observer, i'm even less ready to take these at face value as antics that are specific to conservative justices -- it looks more like people on the left are actively undermining confidence in the conservatives on the court, perhaps to push for court-packing again when the time is right. Let's see a full accounting by an independent or cross-partisan entity please.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Dropping the Atomic Bombs Was Good, Actually”
it would've been a great experience. When I was in college (following the usual path of going right after high school), I was a little in awe of the older students who had lived some life first. They were generally much more outspoken and more interesting things to say about the material and the world.
I gently suggested to my kids to consider working a couple years before going to college, but they were determined to do what all their friends were doing. As was I at the same age.
"
He had direct experience that they lacked, but they, though youthfully overconfident, had the received wisdom distilled from higher-level retrospective analysis that he might have dismissed or ignored because of his experience. Can't say either definitively has the higher ground.
On “Weekend Plans Post: Batchin’ It Again”
That one is excellent for those of a certain age and set of experiences. It’s what sucked my wife in, so to speak (my gateway drug was Code Monkey).
On “Open Mic for the week of 7/24/2023”
The two interesting questions (to me) are:
* Did Scott just not do his homework or did he decide to ride a wave?
* By responding this way, what audience is he chasing? It's not a message that would resonate with most Republicans, but might among the more hardcore Never-Trumpers who are also seeing only the kneejerk anti-DeSantis take.
On “The Hollywood Strikes: Contract Law”
They should pivot to doing Bella Venezia instead. No pesky American tradition to worry about.
"
I recommend this Ben Dreyfuss reprise of an earlier piece:
On “Open Mic for the week of 7/24/2023”
That's where i am too, as a man of no party -- it seems perfectly credible to me (though certainly not proven) that Joe Biden might have either greased some wheels for his son or even personally benefited, because it's the sort of thing we know some politicians do to varying degrees. It's also credible that he did not do any of that stuff and there's no fire despite any of the smoke.
"
For calibration purposes, do you think that Blasey Ford's accusations against Kavanaugh were "credible"?
Just to show my hand up front, it seems like the usage of that word in connection with public figures has a lot to do with the political party of the target.
"
So for fun i clicked your link, and then clicked the first "Irina Shayk" link because I'd never heard of her, and the links sidebar on that page includes a headline "Gisele Bundchen Not Bothered by Tom Brady Moving On with Irina Shayk".
I'm starting to think they may not actually 100% know what Gisele thinks about this.
"
Wow, Saul comes out swinging at a black female Democrat!
I think the tweeter (and you) are missing some of her message here in the eagerness to dunk -- not to completely forgive it, but the overall context is about overcoming adversity, the vagaries of fate, and the ways that God uses these events for ultimate good. She also says "I thank God for slavery", because the many long twists and turns ended up meaning that she gets to be an American.
It's essentially a sermon with dramatic language and with an overarching point, and this point is particularly a religious one. It's bad of the tweeter to strip these phrases out of their context* and pretend that she just said these things in their strongest form out of the blue. It's the flip side of what conservatives did in 2008 with Jeremiah Wright, the pastor at Obama's church who said all that "anti-American" stuff.
ETA: *though s/he helpfully includes a video which provides some of the context that was missed
On “The $800K McNugget: A Legal Discussion”
That’s new info to me - can you share the source? All my searches just turn up the standard story.
On “Open Mic for the week of 7/17/2023”
Harris' statement is of course ridiculously misleading, but because one of the 150 bullets did sort of match what she's saying, if you pull it out of the long list and squint a little, it's overstatement to say that she's "lying" -- it falls more into the "technically not demonstrably 100% false" area, kind of like what Scott Alexander said about media "lies". Just enough of a tiny scrap of truth for the partisans to find a way to defend her statement.
On “The $800K McNugget: A Legal Discussion”
This kind of thing always reminds me of a Dave Barry bit:
On “That’s Not How That Works: “The New Right’s Theory of Power””
LOL. There’s clearly a selection effect among blog commenters - wild overconfidence is heavily over-represented.
"
". It probably never occurred to her that what she got produced could offend anyone. "
That's a pretty bad mistake for someone in charge of marketing a mass-appeal product. As an internet commenter you're free to just judge these conservatives and stop there, but someone whose job it is to protect a brand should damn well think about the potential effect of her choices.
I do think (as I said when this first came up) that it's a little unfair just because you never know what might go viral, but still, it's what she was getting paid for.
On “Open Mic for the week of 7/17/2023”
So i was curious about this and read a few more articles, and my takeaway is that Lee's gloss and the JNS article are at the opposite extremes and neither is trustworthy. I see a community that's sincerely wrestling with how to balance acceptance of diversity in thought & values with acceptance of diversity in sexual orientation -- while there are a few extreme voices on either side, overall it seems that these are people who largely know each other and want to avoid a major rift. Having this story get picked up and used in the larger culture wars will probably not help that process.
On “That’s Not How That Works: “The New Right’s Theory of Power””
No one's stopping you from hating those backward evil conservatives -- but maybe you could just take it as accepted here and not insist on making it the topic of every conversation? Your monomania makes for dull threads.
On “Transgender Treatments and Parental Rights”
I suppose for those of us who are concerned about regret among minors due to faddism or excessive zeal, it's a fair question to ask what post-op timeframe we would expect the regret to show up.
"
Thanks, that's helpful. I think it's specifically minors who are the population of concern, but it's good to see both such a small regret rate and also (based on the intro) evidence of people in the profession taking the concern very seriously. Unfortunately a lot of the online discussion of these issues is dominated by zealots who are quick to dismiss every potential concern that cuts against their own opinion (and vilify people for even mentioning them).
"
The link is to a meta-analysis that incorporates studies crossing multiple decades (several are in the 80s and 90s) and countries. The rapidly increasing acceptance and visibility over the last few years especially in the US would naturally be expected to affect the rate of post-op regret. It would be good to have a sense of what the "current" rate is (over, say, the last 5 years). Though in the current climate, it's hard to trust any particular study anyway -- I'd expect there to be a thumb on the scale somewhere.
On “Open Mic for the week of 7/10/2023”
I guess it's an open question whether people who would support a policy like this are motivated more by compassion/empathy or by the possibility that they themselves might be in the same situation. My intuition is that it's more the former -- people who instinctively want to help and who aren't used to thinking about incentives, consequences, budgets etc.
"
I can never argue with the point that there are more stupid/ignorant voters than smart voters.
"
You get more of what you subsidize -- why should we encourage people to live in & move into areas so high risk that the insurance companies are running away? Let's let the market signal do its work properly.
On “Student Debt, Free College, and William Edward Hickson”
Do you have any good sources for an analysis of the forgiveness based on the Higher Ed Act? I found this one, which makes it sound clearly not applicable, but that was just from a random search.
On “SCOTUS Ruling on Affirmative Action & Admissions: Read It For Yourself”
I think this cuts both ways -- entities that care about the legitimacy of the court should make sure a full accounting has been done, ideally with representation from both sides, before releasing such reports.
When the CT article came out, several here said with confidence that Thomas was an outlier -- now lo and behold, the same left-leaning outlet has found fault with another conservative justice. Will the people who said Thomas was a one-off react to this by calling their prior confidence into question, or will they just point to it and say "see? conservatives are even more corrupt than we thought!"?
As an independent observer, i'm even less ready to take these at face value as antics that are specific to conservative justices -- it looks more like people on the left are actively undermining confidence in the conservatives on the court, perhaps to push for court-packing again when the time is right. Let's see a full accounting by an independent or cross-partisan entity please.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.