Lord Ratner
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Everything posted by Lord Ratner
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Is this the part where we pretend, regardless of the intentional or unintentional nature of the squib kick, that this makes sense. Take the top male kickers and pit them against the top female kickers. There will be no surprises. The fact they had to put a female into the weakest position on the weakest team does more damage to the cause. Absurd. There are plenty of sports where gender is irrelevant. Why pick one where it's most relevant? Remember this gem? https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/australian-womens-national-team-lose-70-to-team-of-15yearold-boys-a3257266.html -
And that's exactly why the American system works. Because if people are left to pursue their self-interests, their fundamentally good nature will be freed to impact those around them. But we will suppress that good nature if required in order to protect our self-interest. Thus the failure of communism over capitalism. Even the best mannered dog will bite you if provoked enough. Doesn't mean it's not a good dog. One of the most unfortunate results of the era of limitless and instant communication is the proliferation of bad news over good news, even though the latter exceeds the former in every way. Can you even name a movie or TV show that is set in the future that doesn't have some sort of dystopian hellscape as the backdrop? For some reason we are fascinated with the idea that the future, even the immediate future, is doom on our doorstep. Yet overwhelmingly the evidence is that across the globe it has only gotten better for humanity over time. Anyone who's interested in the data supporting this concept should read "Enlightenment Now" by Stephen Pinker. Great book.
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If people were fundamentally evil, society would trend downward. It hasn't. There are evil people. There are more good people. Over time the good have beaten the evil. Our system protects the good from the evil to allow the good to flourish and continue doing good. If you've seen little evidence of altruism, you've been limiting your view to a TV screen. Look around, it's literally everywhere.
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You'd need a special investigator to handle 3 years of no hard evidence.
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Shapiro is the most honest conservative in the media, hands down. This is the primary problem with politics now, and it's probably due to the lack of a third (and fourth, and fifth...) party. Way too many Americans view their party as a team. And you don't stop rooting for your team just because a player fucks up. You also don't give the other team credit over your own. I don't see an end in sight in the short term, but we probably need to get away from the idea that a voter has a party affiliation. Why? You vote for whoever represents your interests best during that election cycle. Political parties are for the politicians. Convincing we-the-people that we are in the party as well is a cynical way of protecting votes without having to keep promises or follow through. Trump is one of the most successful presidents on a policy and effects basis in decades. He's also a miserable piece of shit who makes up for his wild inadequacies by being a delegation savant. He lost because of shitty luck. Who expects a pandemic? But he still lost.
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I'll check that one out, thanks.
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Is it hand cranked?
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Then why mention it? And there was no legally mandated recount, the supreme court stopped it before it could finish, and only then did Gore concede. Trump is a fool for what he's doing, but let's not pretend like the others were noble leaders who conceded for the good of the country. They concede when they run out of options.
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You had me till there. She quit because she didn't see a path to victory. And Gore didn't concede until December 13th, *after* the supreme court had to weigh in! This is exactly the double standard that the right is constantly whining about, and they're correct.
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I'll translate: No, he didn't lead anything.
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What part of the tea party was radical? Real question, that was a while ago.
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I like him too. Important to remember that he's not talking about (D) voters, he's talking about the (D) media and politicians. I also like that he actively makes fun of his profession with things like the "Period!" animation at the end. The sooner we can realize, as voters on both sides, that there is no longer a connection between the political/media class and the citizenship, the better.
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Doesn't matter. In that alternate world the EC would protect the rural Democrats, as intended. As you say, politicians, with few exceptions, say whatever they think will win. So if course the (R) would be complaining. Doesn't affect the merits of the system.
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The difference is "our" (I'm not really a Republican) wackos aren't mainstreamed by the party. Seriously, you don't see proud boys or white nationalists doing interviews on Fox news. And you don't have a hard time finding Republican politicians who actively condemn them. Conversely, critical race theory and all the other harmful, lunatic propositions are advocated for at the highest levels of power within the Democratic party. And it's a lot easier to find mainstream politicians who will outright refuse to acknowledge the violence of antifa. As usual, Bill Maher is spot on in his criticisms of his own party.
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I've always loved him. Disagree on almost everything, but he's consistent and honest, and he's never bought the whole intersectional coalition BS his party adopted.
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Seriously one of the best. I really hope they can keep it strong to the finish
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I suspect he's just drunk.
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Awesome post. I'm not sensitive to the covid issues, because diseases happen and how we should respond is not at all consensus. Hell, I know *far* more young people who care than the old people who are actually at risk. Done care, some don't, and both sides are completely right in thinking the way they do. Which means there shouldn't be a national policy. Disagree with soft power. It's not a coincidence the strongest country has the most influence. Look how much influence China is gaining as their "hard power" increases. Agree with health care, but disagree that it will end there. Checkups and treatment for broken bones? Free. Birth control and IUDs, free. Under the age of 20? Free. But if you're 36 and get leukemia or you're 85 and your kidneys are failing, you better have insurance or you die. That's the gamble. The primary discriminator for if the government provides the coverage should be price and predictability. On social issues I'm 50/50. I don't agree with religious based edicts. However the "old knowledge" didn't come from God, it came from thousands of years of observation and adaptation resulting in the most successful societies. We have to understand why a social norm works before we tinker with it. The sexual revolution comes to mind. Income inequality is a pointless measure. But you're spot on with conflating the stock market and the economy. Because the boomers have their retirements in the stock market and real estate, that's exactly what the government has artificially inflated. And it's crushing entire generations. The boomers will go down as the most devastating generation in history. Some random caller on a podcast I heard (Femsplainers) nailed it on nasty politics. There are only two parties. If there's only two groups that are opposed to each other, there's no limit to how nasty the situation gets. He used his competition in business as an example. When there were just two of them, it was fierce and awful. Once there were a dozen competitors, it mellowed out. We might be programmed to recognize when there is an isolated threat and destroy it, who knows. But if we can't get some more diversity in the political arena, the nastiness will probably not abate.
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Hardly. If they are opening back up and plan on no vaccine, what exactly do we think is going to happen? This isn't the Andromeda Strain, it's still contagious and still fatal to old people. What happened here when we did that in Texas. How about Germany? We can't effectively compare responses until the virus has run its course. Once it's like the flu, just a thing we live with and pops off 50-100k per year. That will be either summer of 2021 or 2022. We can make comparisons now, they just won't be useful.
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Great post
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3.2 people/km² - Australia 36 people/km² - USA Melbourne - 500 people/km² (20,700± in Inner Melbourne, 15km² of dense area) https://www.businessinsider.com.au/australia-population-density-fastest-growing-regions-2019-3 NYC - 10,600 people/km² (28,000-38,000 in Manhattan, 783 km² of dense area) We have about double the number of Chinese visitors as Australia. They are an island. We have 13 times the population. And it looks like their plan, as many do, on a vaccine that it looks like the US will be responsible for. Trump's failure was allowing doctors to act as policy makers. But the opposition has staked their entire argument on trusting the science and listening to the doctors, so by their own words they would have made that mistake in even more spectacular fashion. But the real point is, perhaps Australia will have done better, even if you control for the innumerable differences in demographics. Surely someone will emerge the winner. But we're not going to know that for at least a year, once the virus has had a chance to run its course.
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She's not going to. She's the embodiment of a Useful Idiot.
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Precisely. There is effectively no comparison between the two countries, yet somehow we think the leadership is the reason for the disparities? That's like comparing NYC to Catalina island.
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Yeah, you just have to realize that he was also hitting a grand slam on conservative policy. History will tell which was more important. Agreed otherwise
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Who did? To claim that anyone's response can be graded thus far is premature. Europe is falling apart again. His response can't be bad if none of them were good. As with most things, if he could just keep his mouth shut and act like a president, his response wouldn't be discernable from any other
