The equivalence you muster on these subjects always bemuses. Trump is convicted in a court of law of running a fraudulent foundation and is legally barred from operating another. But you personally can imagine scenarios wherein the Clinton foundation, despite being regularly audited and never found to be crooked in any way, is shady so the two sides must be equivalent.
Likewise Trump and his kids nakedly grifted and operate their offices as revenue streams but you believe in public view but you can think of a round about way that Hunter, evidently operating on his own and delivering no benefit to his purported employers, would be breaking the law If he were a foreign national [narrators voice: Hunter Biden is not a foreign national] so the two sides must be equivalent.
The stuff that was on the copy that everyone and their mother fiddled with was awful and very artfully vague. Alarming enough to give the conspiracy theorists much to inveigle about but vague enough that it never drew the FBI out into affirming that it was all fabricated. The stuff that was on the original that the FBI got apparently had none of that stuff since nothing was ginned up for charges using it under Trump and his lot, despite much desperate searching.
Except no one can find any explicit examples of Hunters employers getting any bang for their buck. Heck, they so far can't find things suggesting his employers got even close to obtaining a return on the money they spent on him.
The laptop seems to have existed, yes. Outside of having some stuff specifically embarrassing to Hunter Biden on it everything else about its contents seems to be a fabrication.
It's been a while since I watched TGP but my impression was not that the Bad Place denizens caused the point system to produce the outcome so much as that they merely aggressively defended its status quos once it, of its own accord, began sending everyone to the Bad Place.
My impression was that her placement in the Medium place was not so much that she "Got close enough to doing it" so much as that freak chance caused her death to occur within a tiny window of events that caused her virtue score to briefly achieve the "lofty heights of zero" instead of a negative number. Thus necessitating the medium place.
Yeah the Jeremy Bearimy thing was simultaneously brilliant on a comedic level but undercutting on the moral/overarching theme of infinity level. Agreed.
My primary take away from the Good Place was it was one quarter comedy show, one quarter low rent philosophical existential meditation and one half philosophy education video tucked under the coat tails of the other two quarters.
I found it fun and clever but I didn't feel like it had anything deep to say.
This nonsense dates back to 2020. If AG Bill fishin Bar, under Donald fishin Trump with the full investigative resources of the entire Federal Government couldn't find anything that they could throw against Biden then then recycling this pap now is a sign of utter flop sweat desperation now. A pathetic effort to change the subject.
I am assuming the latter part of that word salad is referring to depleted uranium rounds? If so characterizing them as "hot goods" is especially incoherent for you.
Yup, no denying it. We basically handed off our second string gear and obliterated the military of a rival and the country providing the bodies to do it is GRATEFUL to us. That's before we even factor in Brent F's most pertinent point about how it's doing wonders for our standing.
Off the dollar to what? Bitcoin? Gold? Most countries want to use their currencies to buy and sell things or to store value and for those purposes the dollar has been and remains the only game in town at the moment. China has a long way to go before they'll ever have a hope of being a plausible alternative and they're virtually the only other game in town.
Oh I believe it but some states here and there go on "alternatives to the dollar" kicks periodically and always have (and often end up quietly slinking back or spectacularly losing their shirts). That doesn't make for a global dedollarization trend.
A curious non-sequitur; I have no idea whatsoever how many doctors exist in America right now. But if one has beef with that number I'd suspect you'd need to take it up with the AMA, not the Fed.
I'm actually observing that your dedollarization nonsense is, in of itself, utter nonsense and betrays your incoherent or malevolent biases simply by being expressed. States are moving away from using the dollar as a reserve currency eh? To what, pray tell? Yuan? Artificially pegged to the dollar and shackled with capital controls. Rubles? Heheh, they might as well put the dough into subway coupons (at least then you might get a sandwich out of the deal). Euros? Any beef you have with Greenbacks would be double that for Euros but with less dynamic economies and more inflation to boot. You can't do-dollarize into nothing and there're no alternatives currently.
Dedollarization: I'll take "tell us you're either a delusional krank or a pro-russian troll without saying 'hey I'm a delusional krank or possibly a Putinista sock puppet!' for 500 dollars Alex.
Heheh, yeah, sure, that's why Russia's been desperately dragging T-62's and T-55's out of storage and why the T-72's and T-90's are vanishing from the field. Because the ball bearings and chips for the 72's and 90's are hard to obtain now whereas the old 55's and 72's don't use as much of that stuff. Yeesh, it's like you're not even trying.
Except, of course, that the Russian tanks depend on chips and machine tools they've, so far, not been able to make or obtain in any quantity. There's a reason the Russians have been dragging increasingly old antiques out of storage to throw into the battlefield- they're flat out running out of tanks and can't make very many new ones.
Saw the new Spiderverse film today. Audibly gasped multiple times at the panoramas and eye orgy of gorgeous animation while my mind reeled, drunk, on the tight excellent writing. I was staggered- the film is pure artistry.
Absolutely but, look, if you have a person you jive with then you could have fun playing group solitaire or pog or pick up sticks. You'd just have more fun playing some game intrinsically more enjoyable.
What, I feel, Bowling Alone tiptoes around is that we have reached a level of social freedom and entertainment abundance such that people are free to choose to do things they genuinely personally like instead of things that they say "ehh, it's better than sitting in my room doing nothing". LIkewise people now have a degree of personal freedom sufficient that they can choose to hang out with people they say "I genuinely like hanging out with this person" rather than people who they say "Ehh they're better then solitude." or "Ehh I'll get peer pressured or punished by my community if I don't endure this person."
For most people this is a huge net win in utility and happiness but for a certain subset of awkward people this means that no one is being forced to hang out with/date/marry them and they're sitting around alone and unhappy/angry.
Bringing about a greater use of mediocre but readily accessible card game isn't the challenge. Getting people to interact with people they, given their druthers, wouldn't prefer to bother interacting with outside of work is the challenge.
On “Hunter Biden Takes Plea Deal On Tax, Gun Charges”
The equivalence you muster on these subjects always bemuses. Trump is convicted in a court of law of running a fraudulent foundation and is legally barred from operating another. But you personally can imagine scenarios wherein the Clinton foundation, despite being regularly audited and never found to be crooked in any way, is shady so the two sides must be equivalent.
Likewise Trump and his kids nakedly grifted and operate their offices as revenue streams but you believe in public view but you can think of a round about way that Hunter, evidently operating on his own and delivering no benefit to his purported employers, would be breaking the law If he were a foreign national [narrators voice: Hunter Biden is not a foreign national] so the two sides must be equivalent.
"
The stuff that was on the copy that everyone and their mother fiddled with was awful and very artfully vague. Alarming enough to give the conspiracy theorists much to inveigle about but vague enough that it never drew the FBI out into affirming that it was all fabricated. The stuff that was on the original that the FBI got apparently had none of that stuff since nothing was ginned up for charges using it under Trump and his lot, despite much desperate searching.
"
Except no one can find any explicit examples of Hunters employers getting any bang for their buck. Heck, they so far can't find things suggesting his employers got even close to obtaining a return on the money they spent on him.
"
The laptop seems to have existed, yes. Outside of having some stuff specifically embarrassing to Hunter Biden on it everything else about its contents seems to be a fabrication.
On “The Good Place, Ethics 101, and Spoilers, Spoilers, Spoilers”
It's been a while since I watched TGP but my impression was not that the Bad Place denizens caused the point system to produce the outcome so much as that they merely aggressively defended its status quos once it, of its own accord, began sending everyone to the Bad Place.
"
My impression was that her placement in the Medium place was not so much that she "Got close enough to doing it" so much as that freak chance caused her death to occur within a tiny window of events that caused her virtue score to briefly achieve the "lofty heights of zero" instead of a negative number. Thus necessitating the medium place.
"
Oh my God(ess?) don't even joke about that!
"
Yeah the Jeremy Bearimy thing was simultaneously brilliant on a comedic level but undercutting on the moral/overarching theme of infinity level. Agreed.
"
My primary take away from the Good Place was it was one quarter comedy show, one quarter low rent philosophical existential meditation and one half philosophy education video tucked under the coat tails of the other two quarters.
I found it fun and clever but I didn't feel like it had anything deep to say.
On “Open Mic for the week of 6/12/2023”
That was great fun.
On “Republicans Tout Biden Recordings, But Do They Exist?”
This nonsense dates back to 2020. If AG Bill fishin Bar, under Donald fishin Trump with the full investigative resources of the entire Federal Government couldn't find anything that they could throw against Biden then then recycling this pap now is a sign of utter flop sweat desperation now. A pathetic effort to change the subject.
On “How Far Is Too Far In Supporting Ukraine?”
I am assuming the latter part of that word salad is referring to depleted uranium rounds? If so characterizing them as "hot goods" is especially incoherent for you.
"
Yup, no denying it. We basically handed off our second string gear and obliterated the military of a rival and the country providing the bodies to do it is GRATEFUL to us. That's before we even factor in Brent F's most pertinent point about how it's doing wonders for our standing.
"
It still boggles my mind that tankies are right wingers now.
"
Off the dollar to what? Bitcoin? Gold? Most countries want to use their currencies to buy and sell things or to store value and for those purposes the dollar has been and remains the only game in town at the moment. China has a long way to go before they'll ever have a hope of being a plausible alternative and they're virtually the only other game in town.
"
Oh I believe it but some states here and there go on "alternatives to the dollar" kicks periodically and always have (and often end up quietly slinking back or spectacularly losing their shirts). That doesn't make for a global dedollarization trend.
"
A curious non-sequitur; I have no idea whatsoever how many doctors exist in America right now. But if one has beef with that number I'd suspect you'd need to take it up with the AMA, not the Fed.
I'm actually observing that your dedollarization nonsense is, in of itself, utter nonsense and betrays your incoherent or malevolent biases simply by being expressed. States are moving away from using the dollar as a reserve currency eh? To what, pray tell? Yuan? Artificially pegged to the dollar and shackled with capital controls. Rubles? Heheh, they might as well put the dough into subway coupons (at least then you might get a sandwich out of the deal). Euros? Any beef you have with Greenbacks would be double that for Euros but with less dynamic economies and more inflation to boot. You can't do-dollarize into nothing and there're no alternatives currently.
"
Dedollarization: I'll take "tell us you're either a delusional krank or a pro-russian troll without saying 'hey I'm a delusional krank or possibly a Putinista sock puppet!' for 500 dollars Alex.
"
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Heheh, yeah, sure, that's why Russia's been desperately dragging T-62's and T-55's out of storage and why the T-72's and T-90's are vanishing from the field. Because the ball bearings and chips for the 72's and 90's are hard to obtain now whereas the old 55's and 72's don't use as much of that stuff. Yeesh, it's like you're not even trying.
"
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Except, of course, that the Russian tanks depend on chips and machine tools they've, so far, not been able to make or obtain in any quantity. There's a reason the Russians have been dragging increasingly old antiques out of storage to throw into the battlefield- they're flat out running out of tanks and can't make very many new ones.
On “Bring Back Playing Cards”
That is a good point.
On “Open Mic for the week of 6/5/2023”
Saw the new Spiderverse film today. Audibly gasped multiple times at the panoramas and eye orgy of gorgeous animation while my mind reeled, drunk, on the tight excellent writing. I was staggered- the film is pure artistry.
On “Bring Back Playing Cards”
Absolutely but, look, if you have a person you jive with then you could have fun playing group solitaire or pog or pick up sticks. You'd just have more fun playing some game intrinsically more enjoyable.
What, I feel, Bowling Alone tiptoes around is that we have reached a level of social freedom and entertainment abundance such that people are free to choose to do things they genuinely personally like instead of things that they say "ehh, it's better than sitting in my room doing nothing". LIkewise people now have a degree of personal freedom sufficient that they can choose to hang out with people they say "I genuinely like hanging out with this person" rather than people who they say "Ehh they're better then solitude." or "Ehh I'll get peer pressured or punished by my community if I don't endure this person."
For most people this is a huge net win in utility and happiness but for a certain subset of awkward people this means that no one is being forced to hang out with/date/marry them and they're sitting around alone and unhappy/angry.
Bringing about a greater use of mediocre but readily accessible card game isn't the challenge. Getting people to interact with people they, given their druthers, wouldn't prefer to bother interacting with outside of work is the challenge.
"
duplicate
On “Linky Friday: Feed Kill Chain”
Ah Zimbabwe and South Africa? I suppose that is plausible, I was thinking mostly in terms of the US and Canada.