Larry of the Lawn

My girlfriend saw the "x" logo on our tablet and asked if I found a new porn app.

How someone can write that with a straight face is beyond me.

The Enclosure Acts fucked everything up

That's right, nepotist corruption sucks. I'm glad you picked up on this - was worried you'd given up on shedding light on it after the radio silence around Jared and Ivanka.

Additionally, if you look at the distribution of UFO sightings worldwide, there's an interesting pattern: https://studyfinds.org/aliens-ufo-sightings-united-states/

No way they'd let this out otherwise. Emailing my landlord right now to tell him he's cut out of the loop and my money is going direct to the cacogens from here on out.

Was hoping for a few more months to get into shape and laser off all my body hair so I can look hot for the aliens when they show up to take over. Oh well.

Inspiring more confidence in statistics and data collection by the police: https://www.ctpublic.org/news/2023-07-24/thousands-of-fake-traffic-tickets-recorded-by-ct-state-police-to-be-formally-reviewed Many of the tickets had drivers incorrectly recorded as being white when they weren't. Can't imagine why police would want anyone to think they were pulling over fewer non-white people.

Focusing on the positives is good. It's easy to assume people are embarrassed of knowing you when you're not feeling great about yourself, but it's rarely the case. As mentioned previously, there are plenty of reasons for people to be short, embarrassed, distracted, uncomfortable, and sometimes it's a good idea to step back and remember that it probably actually has nothing to do with you. You're probably much more normal and socially innocuous than you feel. You're clearly an intelligent and insightful guy that cares about the world and feels things pretty deeply. Other people are going to feel just as awkward and uncomfortable in some social situations as you do. Easy as it is to do, I know it's not great for my mental health to ascribe intent to people's social behavior in a casual social seetting unless it's an established pattern or a clear reaction to something I've done. There are so many reasons for someone not to behave exactly as we expect and it's not usually helpful to let the imagination dream up worst case scenarios as to why that might be the case. It's not going to be productive to dwell or speculate about her stand-off-ish-ness.

Probably an anecdotal fluke considering how popular they are right now. Seems like most of my customers have an EV now and most of those are Tesla's.

The Patrick Tull narrated Aubrey-Maturin books are a work of art unto themselves.

I like to live dangerously and challenge myself so I've actually switched over from listening to audiobooks to reading actual books while driving and operating heavy equipment at work. But it's not for most people. It's an acquired skill.

Re: bolded- a reasonable conclusion here would be that Rowling and co think there are many trans people who aren't "truly trans", no?

In the US actually going to trial for a criminal proceeding is not common. Prosecutors are gunning for plea deals. I don't think there's much of a shortage in this country with prosecutors trying cases on scant or shitty evidence.

Hey c'mon, NYC public school teachers can get $80k a year with a masters and 8+ years teaching experience, that's almost half what that rookie cop was making

Probably a good rule of thumb to resist doing in general for all things political and governmental.

US Attorney seeks to get Rikers Island placed into receivership: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/statement-us-attorney-damian-williams-intention-file-contempt-and-seek-court-appointed

If you limit the Golden Rule to humans you don't run into that contradiction except in very extreme circumstances.

Not to speak for Z but in 2016 Trump was seen by many pundits as the weakest of GOP primary candidates for the general election. This is also a prominent sentiment looking at 2024. The comment you were responding to was referring to electability in the general vs Biden, not an assessment of who's worse.

I'm guessing it's a pink triangle reference? I don't feel like clicking through a bunch of shit to find out though. Maybe varys can explain.

And what's the sentence for that?

I'm not just taking about Cop City in Atlanta, we have already convicted several people of domestic terrorism for vandalizing oil pipelines. That's kind of my entire point.

To the bolded, I think anything over say a ten year sentence for anyone is too long, but that's not relevant. The sentence was within the sentencing parameters. I have zero thoughts on what's an appropriate sentence for this specific guy. I'm making a macro argument because the issue of the state being able to appeal a sentence for not being harsh enough is a macro issue. My opinion on an 18 year sentence being a long time or harsh has, and I'll say it again since you apparently missed it the first couple times, absolutely nothing to do with Rhodes specifically. As far as the parole or not goes, the sentence is 18 years. You seem to think he's going to serve less than half of that. I disagree. You're probably more familiar than I am with examples of cases where convicted terrorists have been paroled early. The problem with trying to say that there are some cases that deserve certain consideration but not others is you have to explicitly define what makes them different. But you can't just say well, this situation is different because I feel like it is. If you want to make that argument, make that argument.

Ok. 1. Please show me some evidence that people facing seditious conspiracy/ terrorism charges don't serve a full sentence. This guy has already been spouting off since his conviction. Not exactly demonstrating an inclination to keep his nose clean for the parole board. Even half of that sentence is a long time! 2. Ok, this guy is awful. I wouldn't bat an eye if he died tomorrow. My argument isn't about him. For any prisoner there are always going to be people who consider that individual to be the Biggest Piece of Shit Ever. I'd rather not the state be able to insist on a longer sentence than ordered just based on the grounds the person sucks. How do you determine when and how that special consideration is justified? We're already using domestic terrorism laws against environmental protesters and vandals. Using an edge case to argue for more draconian state authority is asinine even if it feels appropriate.

Yeah but why? Why is the max punishment allowable necessary here? On the spectrum of sedition, was this the absolute worst they could have done? Genuinely curious here. Like what about this crime puts it on the most egregious end of the sedition scale? Edit: and of course your opinion counts, if it didn't I wouldn't even respond