Instigate

It’s really up to the media to bring the receipts. Any time they voted; anything they said in public; any sign of capitulation needs to be compiled and thrown at them the instant they try this backdown bullshit.

Somehow I don’t have much faith in the US Fourth Estate to actually do this.

100% of the time it gets it right 40% of the time

Is that a thing that can happen? Here in Australia our parliament is designed in such a way that the chamber (House or Senate) is no more than three minutes walk from every parliamentarian’s office and, when a vote is held where a formal division is required, they ‘ring the bells’ (literally a ringing bell with alarms in every office) for exactly four minutes so every parliamentarian has the ability to make it to the chamber for the vote before they lock the doors. To design a parliament or congress building in any other way seems insane to me.

Genuinely unsure about this, but what happens if Congress impeaches, convicts and removes him and then chooses not to confirm any of the new candidates put forward for the next two years? Does the department just operate without a secretary?

I don’t know what the hell is wrong with the USA but neither I nor anyone I know was made to have physicals at school, much less have our genitals inspected or fondled. Your experience should not have happened, much as the experience of girls just wanting to play sports shouldn’t involve any sex or gender inquiry beyond checking a box when you fill in the forms.

crickets growing louder in volume

“An international treaty isn’t the right way to do this; billionaires will just find another solar system to move to. We can’t tax them unless it’s done by the galactic government”

Both is a great idea. Both should be the suggestion for every reasonable person.

The US has never had a single ally, maybe except Israel. Only vassals.

Okay, I’ll bite.

In what ways has Australia been, and does Australia continue to be, a vassal of the USA? From our perspective, the USA has always been an ally for a long time (both militarily and economically), but the G.W. Bush and Trump presidencies, as well as the shambles of the AUKUS deal, have tested the resolve of the Australian public.

Generally speaking, Australian politicians - including governments - have never acted towards the USA as being a governing force over our vassal-like nature, nor outside the realms of an ally, so I’m wondering where your supposition comes from in our context.

You can fairly reliably tell whether or not such a post/comment is made genuinely (albeit perhaps astroturfically) or sardonically by merit of the instance from which the commenter posts.

1/3 of the country will either blindly support Trump or the broader Republican Party. Because of a confluence of a lack of mandatory voting; first past the post voting; and the electoral college, 1/3 of eligible voters often decide the outcome of elections. This isn’t so much Trump being DEMOLISHED and EVISCERATED as it is a warning to the rest of the country: show up and vote or they’ll still win, even when Trump is this unpopular. Show up again in 2028. Show up to the primaries.

If your vote literally was meaningless, billionaires wouldn’t spend crazy amounts of money on elections; they’d consider that wasted money which is anathema to their existence.

Why does there even need to be a bill (in the sense of keeping track of costs on a per-patient basis) to begin with?

There doesn’t need to be a bill that the patient sees or has access to, but the costs need to be tracked so that governments can adequately budget for healthcare. Governments need to be able to make educated assumptions about future costs so that they can align their tax schedules to ensure that the monies are there to pay for the costs involved in healthcare. Individualising the costs per-patient and per-issue assists with forecasting costs when governments also have access to good data about prevalence. It also assists with ensuring that the correct number of specialists are available for a given issue.

A non-lethal stroke would just make him more of a Republican and more appealing to Republican voters.

While I take your point and agree with the merits of power imbalances inherently muddying the waters of consent, at what stage are we infantilising adults with the capacity to consent? Without knowing the particulars of the circumstances, it’s very difficult to say that she acted in a predatory manner towards these people. In your comment, you suggest the idea that Boebert was the one ‘making moves’ on her staffers. Is there any verified information to suggest this was the case?

My broader question is this: are there any circumstances in which an employee can truly consent to sexual activity with their employer? I worry that answering ‘no’ to that question unfairly infantilises people, while I simultaneously worry that answering ‘yes’ justifies abuse of power to extract sexual favours.

It’s a very difficult puzzle, and one that I would personally argue heavily relies on context and the accounts of those who we fear may have been sexually abused. I’m reminded of the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky saga which posed very similar questions, and to which you’ve also alluded in your comment.

Mike Schur wrote a great companion book to the series called How To Be Perfect that details all of the philosophy he got into while writing the show. Very entry-level stuff and quite accessible while still being an interesting meta-analysis of a few branches of philosophy. Definitely worth a read if you enjoyed The Good Place.

Yep, the pro move would be to wait for the food to come out; politely ask your server if you could speak to the manager about the discrepancy between the photos and the actual food; ream the manager loudly once they arrive; and then leave without eating or paying. Super pro move would be to leave a small tip for the server as well.

Nah, the shithole country is the one he was deported from.

I’m not the same person you’ve been replying to, but I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. I’d just go one step further to suggest that a lot of people instinctively or subconsciously know this but aren’t willing to be one of the ones who dies or is maimed before it’s all over. Hell, if I were USian I’d probably feel that way, but the US populace has been so deeply fed a propaganda diet of individualism that they’re even more susceptible to that way of thinking.

Very, very few Aussie politicians have ever understood technology to a degree necessary to legislate about it. We’ve had a handful of independent Members and Senators who show real interest and understanding (like former AFL legend David Pocock) but they’re definitely an extremely small minority. We produce some amazing technologies, especially medical tech and quantum computing where we’re world-leading, but our best and brightest very rarely ever end up in government. As an Aussie tech and privacy enthusiast it can be supremely frustrating.

I mean, no country has the ‘right’ to trade with anyone. If I don’t agree with what another country does, it’s perfectly reasonable for me to choose to not trade with them or only agree to trade with them under certain circumstances. It’s not so much extortion as it is a ‘no shirt, no shoes, no service’ policy. Extortion is more using the threat of physical consequences to get someone to acquiesce to a position - essentially what the US is doing right now.