Geoff A.

The Holy Trinity, aka The Celestial Polycule

In social movement studies, we talk about how marches and protests expand the threshold of acceptable risk so that people take more and bigger social risks IN PUBLIC, EN MASSE. This is extremely important for the bourgeois white folks holding signs and building social rapport.

My pet theory is that freezing the size of Congress raised the marginal cost of buying influence, locking us into this plutocratic arms race. A Congres too big and diverse to buy and beholden to local stakeholders is a democratic necessity.

Room 1, you've arrived "fashionably late" but are still first one there and the hosts aren't prepared yet. Room 2, you don't know anyone there, but they all work together doing corporate law and need to top each other's war stories. Room 3, you agree to cover bar for a staffer who doesn't return.

When I yawn, my eyes water. By a lot. That led more than one teacher to launch a well-meaning crusade to find my trauma when all I really needed was a nap.

"Let a billion Ed Woods bloom."

I’m a goddamn American don’t tell me what hole to use

As an online MAGA discussion continues, the probability of a laudatory reference or comparison to Hitler or to Nazis all-too-briskly approaches 1.

" The 85th Percentile Rule is perhaps unique in American law in empowering lawbreakers to activate a rewrite of the law to legalize their own unlawful conduct."
If only it were so... this is fascinating, thanks for sharing it.

His theory, maybe a bit conspiratorial but it made sense, was that if drivers had better line of site, they'd be held directly liable for fatalities they caused. So we kill people to preserve the ambiguity of driver culpability.

I once knew a giy in urban planning who was incandescent about corner crosswalks. Studies have apparently shown for years that if you put them in the middle of the street pedestrian fatalities plunge (due to fewer blind collisons on turn). Amazed me how cheap and low tech it'd be to cut fatalities.

Also, FWIW, the op's opening gambit of classifying everyone on the issue into ignorant blowhards or people who agree with him seems a bit like stepping on a rake if civil responses was the goal.

Is there any known method to prevent that kind of phenomenon? I'd guess an anti-ratio tripwire might work, like how they freeze stock trading if a panic stampede develops. The collective action problem seems baked in. Just 1% of 100k users having a lapse of disicipline is still a big dogpile.

Minister: "Do you solemnly swear to keep and abide to the terms of your spousal End User License Agreement until a competent tribunal of the designated jurisdiction rules you may part?"

"I do"

"Then I now declare you man and life."

Calling all Pirates... the US Navy is looking for new men.

Most catastrophes are preceded by alarms, so disable the alarm to avert the catastrophe. Smart.

Separate shows for separate tastes. For the haters, the "Jeers for Tears Clownshow" of true things making Cuomo cry. For the novelty crowd, "Adams and Silwa Go To White Castle." Public access television deserves a new Golden Age.

I'm sure there's a market for those toenail clippings on Etsy, or something. Ain't no trash so foul noone wants it.

I think Apple goes with the "build a better mousetrap" model. It commands a price premium, but it comes across as fair because it is perceived as being high quality for less work (at least by users who want as little friction as possible)

Isaac Chotiner. I've known some folks who should really have to explain themselves to a devastating interviewer.

Reagonomics sowed the wind. These days, we reap.

When I was in law school (c. 2005-2008) I used to joke that the "libertarianism" of the Federalist Society types was just authoritarianism in its larval state. Now our pupae are all grown up.

Well, that settles it.

Wasn't there a philosopher who had something about foxes and hedgehogs? The hedgehog only knows one thing. Why not their own backyard?

Refugee Blues really hits me hard these days. "A thousand windows ajnd a thousand doors. Not one of them was ours."

Troubled trail ahead for San Onofre’s spent nuclear fuel Trains carrying concrete rubble and steel leave weekly on troubled coastal rail route through San Clemente

What could possibly go wrong?

www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2024/08/11/t...

The red hats are coming! The red hats are coming! I-10 if by land, I-5 if by sea!

god if I had a house this is so the shit I’d get up to!!!

I got involved at the behest of parents in the neighborhood with the vacant school, who wanted it opened to local children after the renovations were completed. There were concerns of financial conflicts on the school board that I looked into. But the casual racism (in Oakland CA!) was wild.

I once got involved in an Oakland dispute. A predominately white school in the hills was being shut down for renovations, and the children were to be bused to an unused school near the Emeryville border. One white parent voiced concern Black residents would look at their kids on the schoolyard.