Huh, I didn’t think to use that as a reward - might be too late for our 13-year-old. Currently he makes it extremely difficult to cut his claws because he extremely vigorously attacks the clippers as soon as he sees them.
I mean actually, you already said you were, so I take it that you support government censorship of humor and satire. So I guess when you call other people "fascists", you're not criticizing them so much as saying "one of us!"
Chip, just to make sure -- you accept that the Biden administration did what Zuckerberg says they did per the above, and you're totally fine with every individual part of it?
If you need a bit of accommodation, I'm sure Jaybird is happy to grant you the extra time required to read all the content he posted before you comment.
I think the steelman version of the “have a beer with” criterion is: this person is going to be responsible for a ton of decisions in many different areas and is going to have access to way more info than I do about them. So rather than trying to figure out which one agrees with me the most as of right now, the best thing I can do to distinguish between them is to see which one seems to understand my life and my struggles the most — that way at least I feel like people like me will be considered in the decision-making.
In a similar vein, my wife has generally chosen her healthcare providers based on bedside manner (“I’m never going back there, everyone at the office was kind of rude”), and I used to point out that having a pleasant encounter is not the primary reason to go to the doctor. But she would point out in return that it’s pretty difficult for a non-medical person to assess relative differences in doctoring ability, so she falls back to a metric that she does have an opinion on.
A conspiracy theory I saw was that right after the fundraiser that Clooney mentioned in his op ed, a bunch of scheming was initiated (including Obama) to nudge Joe out, including pushing for the early debate.
My group was happy to discover Board Game Arena — not only was it a lifesaver during lockdown, it’s a great way to try out a pricey game before plunking down the cash for the physical copy. It’s saved us from some expensive white elephants, as we discovered after a couple online games that no one felt much like playing that one again.
There have also been several cases where it’s shown us that we were playing a game wrong, after we got over our “WTF? It’s broken!!” reaction and checked the rulebook.
OK I guess we’re agreed on the ultimate uncertainty anyway. I don’t think your examples of evidence are very powerful — in the case that he’s not “with it” enough to exercise much control, it’s his CoS and cabinet (all of whom he picked) that are running things, and the differences would be too subtle to notice. He has in fact tacked left on several things compared to where he was in 2020 (e.g. student loan forgiveness) but there’s no way to know whether that’s because he personally thought there was political gain in that direction or he was being led by the nose.
A president is basically Chief Vision Officer and doesn’t touch most of what the government does anyway — I doubt it would make much difference either way up until there’s a real crisis.
“ there’s been no evidence of Biden [not] being able to run his administration which is why GOP inveigling on that subject has gone nowhere. ”
What exactly would constitute evidence? Everyone acknowledges that he looks pretty bad in the public-facing parts of the job - but we are all definitionally ignorant of what’s happening with the non-public parts. The fact that things are still running reasonably well is evidence only that the job is being done, not that Biden is the one doing it, and obviously those who are in a position to see and comment on the non public activity have a strong interest to downplay any of his deficiencies, so we can’t take their statements at face value.
All any of us can do is take our best guess based on what we do get to see. But let’s all stop with the “evidence” game, there’s no proving one side or the other until maybe after he’s out of office and the books start coming out.
FWIW, I wasn't exactly sure how to interpret your first comment, but scare quotes to me suggests not just "let's wait and see" but actual skepticism. Sounds like that's not what you meant by it though.
Re RtMI, sounds like you hit the pause button about the same place I did. It was a little investment of time to catch back up (and it had been a long enough time that i didn't get a couple of later references to the first part of the game), but as is often the case with these things, what at first seemed like a huge map with too many possibilities ended up being quite manageable.
Just finished the game (I didn't totally solve a couple of the last bits, just experimented enough and lucked out). It was a fun trip down memory lane.
I succumbed to the temptations of the Steam Summer Sale (after you waved temptation right in my face) and picked up Celeste, a decade-old game that was highly-rated and on sale for two bucks and in the “metroidvania” category, my favorite. So far it’s enjoyable enough, but someone put it on the wrong shelf — it’s a platformer but not a Metroidvania in any way I can tell.
Also returned to Return to Monkey Island yesterday after a several-month break and am now close to the end (I think).
Basically all my IRL social circle is made up of non-terminally-online liberal Democrats. They have generally been aware of and increasingly nervous about Biden's signs of decline, and fully aware that the official white house spokespeople should be believed about as much as your average sales guy, but they were hoping for the best. Once they saw unfiltered Biden at the debate, they now fear the worst. Some of them are quite upset at Biden now for clinging to the candidacy and potentially handing the election to Trump.
I don't know where Pinky is finding people who thought "there were absolutely no signs of trouble from Biden at all" who now think that he needs to go.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Weekend Plans Post: The MRI”
As of two years ago we had four, now we’re down to one - it’s been a rough couple years, though two of the three we lost had quite long lives.
"
Huh, I didn’t think to use that as a reward - might be too late for our 13-year-old. Currently he makes it extremely difficult to cut his claws because he extremely vigorously attacks the clippers as soon as he sees them.
On “Open Mic for the week of 8/26/2024”
Including humor and satire. You seem to keep editing out that part.
"
I mean actually, you already said you were, so I take it that you support government censorship of humor and satire. So I guess when you call other people "fascists", you're not criticizing them so much as saying "one of us!"
"
Chip, just to make sure -- you accept that the Biden administration did what Zuckerberg says they did per the above, and you're totally fine with every individual part of it?
"
If you need a bit of accommodation, I'm sure Jaybird is happy to grant you the extra time required to read all the content he posted before you comment.
"
Let's not bicker and argue about "who killed who".
On “Kamala Harris DNC Speech: Watch It For Yourself”
It’s been interesting seeing the reactions to this - a quick way to see who bothers to read more than a headline before posting about it.
On “Open Mic for the week of 8/12/2024”
See this article proposing the term “neotoddlerism”.
On “Open Mic for the week of 8/5/2024”
I think the steelman version of the “have a beer with” criterion is: this person is going to be responsible for a ton of decisions in many different areas and is going to have access to way more info than I do about them. So rather than trying to figure out which one agrees with me the most as of right now, the best thing I can do to distinguish between them is to see which one seems to understand my life and my struggles the most — that way at least I feel like people like me will be considered in the decision-making.
In a similar vein, my wife has generally chosen her healthcare providers based on bedside manner (“I’m never going back there, everyone at the office was kind of rude”), and I used to point out that having a pleasant encounter is not the primary reason to go to the doctor. But she would point out in return that it’s pretty difficult for a non-medical person to assess relative differences in doctoring ability, so she falls back to a metric that she does have an opinion on.
On “Tim Walz Tapped to be VP Kamala Harris Running Mate”
Did you commandeer your spouse’s toes when evaluating Blasey Ford’s accusation against Kavanaugh?
On “None Dare Call It A Conspiracy, Because It Wasn’t”
A conspiracy theory I saw was that right after the fundraiser that Clooney mentioned in his op ed, a bunch of scheming was initiated (including Obama) to nudge Joe out, including pushing for the early debate.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: The Agony and Ecstasy of Out of Print Board Games”
My group was happy to discover Board Game Arena — not only was it a lifesaver during lockdown, it’s a great way to try out a pricey game before plunking down the cash for the physical copy. It’s saved us from some expensive white elephants, as we discovered after a couple online games that no one felt much like playing that one again.
There have also been several cases where it’s shown us that we were playing a game wrong, after we got over our “WTF? It’s broken!!” reaction and checked the rulebook.
On “President Biden Addresses the Nation Regarding Not Seeking Re-election”
OK I guess we’re agreed on the ultimate uncertainty anyway. I don’t think your examples of evidence are very powerful — in the case that he’s not “with it” enough to exercise much control, it’s his CoS and cabinet (all of whom he picked) that are running things, and the differences would be too subtle to notice. He has in fact tacked left on several things compared to where he was in 2020 (e.g. student loan forgiveness) but there’s no way to know whether that’s because he personally thought there was political gain in that direction or he was being led by the nose.
A president is basically Chief Vision Officer and doesn’t touch most of what the government does anyway — I doubt it would make much difference either way up until there’s a real crisis.
"
“ there’s been no evidence of Biden [not] being able to run his administration which is why GOP inveigling on that subject has gone nowhere. ”
What exactly would constitute evidence? Everyone acknowledges that he looks pretty bad in the public-facing parts of the job - but we are all definitionally ignorant of what’s happening with the non-public parts. The fact that things are still running reasonably well is evidence only that the job is being done, not that Biden is the one doing it, and obviously those who are in a position to see and comment on the non public activity have a strong interest to downplay any of his deficiencies, so we can’t take their statements at face value.
All any of us can do is take our best guess based on what we do get to see. But let’s all stop with the “evidence” game, there’s no proving one side or the other until maybe after he’s out of office and the books start coming out.
On “Open Mic for the week of 7/22/2024”
Hmm four asterisks - a “pastry”?
On “Trump was just shot at a rally. He appears to be fine.”
FWIW, I wasn't exactly sure how to interpret your first comment, but scare quotes to me suggests not just "let's wait and see" but actual skepticism. Sounds like that's not what you meant by it though.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Returning to the House of Hell”
Re RtMI, sounds like you hit the pause button about the same place I did. It was a little investment of time to catch back up (and it had been a long enough time that i didn't get a couple of later references to the first part of the game), but as is often the case with these things, what at first seemed like a huge map with too many possibilities ended up being quite manageable.
Just finished the game (I didn't totally solve a couple of the last bits, just experimented enough and lucked out). It was a fun trip down memory lane.
On “Trump was just shot at a rally. He appears to be fine.”
It’s about time - their silence was deafening.
"
Neat, will be interesting to see how accurate it is. Hopefully some creative high school math teachers are already adapting this for a fall quiz.
On “Saturday Morning Gaming: Returning to the House of Hell”
I succumbed to the temptations of the Steam Summer Sale (after you waved temptation right in my face) and picked up Celeste, a decade-old game that was highly-rated and on sale for two bucks and in the “metroidvania” category, my favorite. So far it’s enjoyable enough, but someone put it on the wrong shelf — it’s a platformer but not a Metroidvania in any way I can tell.
Also returned to Return to Monkey Island yesterday after a several-month break and am now close to the end (I think).
On “Trump was just shot at a rally. He appears to be fine.”
Here is a good explainer against one of the theories that has popped up (that I in my naïveté had not even considered).
On “From WaPo: Post-debate Battleground State Polling”
"Because if they end up voting Biden anyway, all the “worry” is just pointless."
What a stupid idea, that what liberal Democrats do with this information is all that matters.
"
Why do you ask?
"
Basically all my IRL social circle is made up of non-terminally-online liberal Democrats. They have generally been aware of and increasingly nervous about Biden's signs of decline, and fully aware that the official white house spokespeople should be believed about as much as your average sales guy, but they were hoping for the best. Once they saw unfiltered Biden at the debate, they now fear the worst. Some of them are quite upset at Biden now for clinging to the candidacy and potentially handing the election to Trump.
I don't know where Pinky is finding people who thought "there were absolutely no signs of trouble from Biden at all" who now think that he needs to go.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.