amalcon

5 ms·

31.
by amalcon 5mo ago
I mean, I followed the 2020 primary. Basically everyone who thought they had an outside chance seemed to be running there. I liked Buttigeg and Booker then, because they most fit the Obama mold -- well-spoken, charismatic, unifying rhetor
32.
by amalcon 5mo ago
What would you have them do in that period? Give Trump a 100% chance of winning? Make up a candidate who wasn't actually running? Arguably the most realistic thing to do would be to give X% Trump, Y% Some Democrat -- but had they do
33.
by amalcon 5mo ago
Obama is a very unique case. I wouldn't exactly call him a firebrand, but his public persona managed to give the perception of being a steady hand on the tiller who also had big ideas. The only other presidential candidate in my li
34.
by amalcon 5mo ago
So, I would actually agree with you that 538 was a mess in that period. I would actually trace the first problems back to Enten's departure, but it did get worse when Silver left. It's just that this particular criticism (that
35.
by amalcon 5mo ago
Hell, when it comes to government, I easily prefer boring to not-boring in an executive all else being equal . Which it wasn't here, but still. I want the firebrands with big ideas to improve things in the legislature, and steady han
36.
by amalcon 5mo ago
538: "We have no idea who will win. It seems like basically a coin toss." Reality: someone wins. Internet: "How did 538 mess this up so badly?"
37.
by amalcon 5mo ago
The simpler variant of this is to obtain a gift certificate. They are required to let you spend it it, so you can get into the store that way. Bring cash, though -- they don't love that people do this, so they don't always take
38.
by amalcon 5mo ago
Sending a letter containing public information to a place that hasn't heard yet is not insider trading, even if you own the post office. Algorithmic trading firms are doing the modern equivalent of this at all times to arbitrage the N
39.
by amalcon 5mo ago
Important that it was not "during school". The student in question had not even been to school that day. He just showed up at an event that was near the school, that school officials were also at. But your overall point - that n
40.
by amalcon 5mo ago
Not quite the same thing since it was a school official rather than police, but we had something similar in the US. Right down to confiscation of a juvenille sign. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morse_v._Frederick
41.
by amalcon 5mo ago
It's definitely possible for a job to have negative expected value for the employee, even if looking only at cash flow. MLMs are the most obvious way, but e.g. hairdressers often need to rent their station in the store -- while this
42.
by amalcon 6mo ago
For inflammatory pain (most headaches, most pain from injuries), ibuprofen absolutely works better. For migraines, neither works at all on its own -- though ibuprofen plus caffeine (I generally drink tea) does a little. For overexertion a
43.
by amalcon 6mo ago
You can sometimes get a prescription for a different form or different dosage than what's available OTC. These are most commonly administered in hospitals (and insurance will cover it there), when you're at home it's usually
44.
by amalcon 6mo ago
If you own all of it, yes. If you only own most of it, the minority owners do have some rights -- just fewer than you do.
45.
by amalcon 6mo ago
I'd be careful normalizing bribery. It's very micro-efficient, almost definitionally, but the macro effects of normalized bribery are well known and not good.
46.
by amalcon 6mo ago
The fundamental problem is that "staying alert for tricky situations" is essentially an exercise in prediction. FSD effectively hides a bunch of variables from you, making the prediction harder. Have you ever been a passenger of
47.
by amalcon 6mo ago
I'm just not sure how to respond to this, because this criticism doesn't seem to actually address the point. I suppose I could have communicated poorly, but I'm not sure how I could have been more clear. "Almost all of
48.
by amalcon 6mo ago
Yes? "Workable basis on which to negotiate" generally does not include things that directly contradict existing agreements, though. I am pointing to "Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to
49.
by amalcon 6mo ago
Clearly you do, since Donald Trump has been aggressively doing this for his whole political career. I agree that it's a morally problematic thing to do, and it can be bad tactically depending on the situation. Practically, it does ha
50.
by amalcon 6mo ago
If you get into the details, the two biggest "points of past contention" (nuclear enrichment and sanctions) are in the ten point proposal. I only see four ways to resolve that conflict: 1) The US agrees to the resolution of tho
51.
by amalcon 6mo ago
Trump's tweets are low effort. Just like most of his rally speeches, which are also unhinged. Other presidents, especially e.g. FDR, put effort into all of their communications. Including speeches and, when available, tweets.
52.
by amalcon 6mo ago
Republicans have been calling democratic voters baby-killers for the entire time I have been aware of what a republican is. This sort of behavior has only gotten worse over time. They still manage to win elections. I get that there are re
53.
by amalcon 6mo ago
If you're in a situation where the thing you're doing can be meaningfully called an "execution", a firearm is a convenience, not a necessity. There are also plenty of effective attacks on logistics trains that don'
54.
by amalcon 6mo ago
I think you misunderstand me. I have never owned a gun, fired one exactly once more than 20 years ago (Boy Scouts), and advocate for more gun control (not less). I would be totally useless in any realistic fight. The argument has so
55.
by amalcon 6mo ago
The thing that makes the large quantity of American gun owners potentially useful in that sort of scenario is not that they possess guns. That matters a little, but usually most of the equipment a resistance uses is captured and/or
56.
by amalcon 7mo ago
"No such thing as bad publicity" is a very old idea. That quote is usually attributed to PT Barnum, but the idea is much older than him.
57.
by amalcon 7mo ago
The Iran-Contra scandal from the Reagan administration comes to mind. Congress explicitly de-authorized the executive from funding the Contras in Nicaragua. The executive kept doing it anyway. Nobody faced any consequences, though Congre
58.
by amalcon 7mo ago
The Department of Defense is so named by legislation. Executive orders cannot override legislation.
59.
by amalcon 8mo ago
It might surprise some people that courts are wise to this sort of thing. Lawmakers generally empower them to ignore such legal fictions.
60.
by amalcon 8mo ago
Absolutely. The Quebec secessionist movement is relatively much older and much stronger than the Alberta one, but they are not natural allies of the Trumpists. Or at least that's my understanding, as someone who's not Canadian b

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