It’s also similar to a court jester. They were often one of the only ones who could mock the king and get away with it. Often that meant they were the only ones who could get away with telling the truth.

I don’t have a state, but my province is very affected by all the states.

Who wouldn’t? The people who live in the Hague? Of course not, they’re kind and friendly people, and will tolerate him for a while.

It would require a constitutional amendment, so that’s going to be a pretty big challenge.

In the early days, mages were less powerful because there was less power in the Aether. Their most powerful spells could only destroy small houses. Plenty of small houses were destroyed as these mages learned their skills, but it was mostly their own houses, and they learned from their mistakes. Over time, these mages not only became more skilled at their craft, they also improved the power all mages had to draw on, weaving isolated pockets of Aether together into one large Aether-net.

Through this, the mages were able to accomplish much, much more. But it meant that new mages could draw on power far greater than a new mage knows how to control.

99% of the time it’s fine, because 99% of the time the person who wrote the Makefile undertands Makefiles and knows that the first thing you do is define a default target. A default target that’s chosen reasonably is a very nice feature of make because there are no standard names for targets, and no easy way to find out the names of targets other than trying to read the Makefile, which can be a pain in the ass.

Ha, and no #1 “ghoulish child”, but there is one “ghastly child”.

They probably should have called the Korean women who were part of Kim’s harem “women” rather than “girls” in the credits.

I wonder if there are any rules or anything in Hollywood for that. It could be that the actresses wanted to be listed as “girls” because it’s better for their career. It could also be weird Hollywood rules. Apparently the rules around credits are extremely deep and complicated. For example if it’s “Foo & Bar”, they worked as a writing team. If it’s “Foo and Bar” they worked separately.

I know it’s especially complicated for title credits. Normally the most “important” actor is listed first, and in some cases both actors want to be first, so they do some funny things like have the first name in the upper right corner and the second name in the lower left, so one actor is above the other in the credits, but the other is more to the left, so also important.

Send Hegseth to the Hague, then we’ll talk.

The US would have to join the ICC first. That’s one massive stain on the US in itself.

There’s an international criminal court that 125 nations are a party to, but the US decides “nah” and so Americans can’t be tried there and effectively have immunity for any international crimes they commit.

Well done, good sleuthing.

It’s the red patch on the lapel that looks really out of place for what I’d expect of a British-derived uniform.

This is the kind of uniform I was thinking of

Some searching leads me to think these are called “gorget patches”, but I’m not sure of all the details.

That’s not even the worst of it.

I went to an NFL game and the fans were constantly being prompted what to do. The fans saying “De-fence” weren’t saying that on their own. We all know about the cheerleaders, who at least started as a group of people who were there to lead cheers. But, these days they mostly just put on short, entertaining dance / gymnastics shows during the periods when nothing much is happening in the game. But, the real “cheer leaders” these days are the screens. There are immense screens in the stadium that tell the fans when to chant “De-fence”. Or “Make some noize” (with the mis-spelling of noise on purpose). Or, there was a constant honking from the kind of horn you’d expect on a cargo ship when the other team had the ball and were in a huddle. It’s not even the fans trying to disrupt things at that point, it’s some guy in the stadium, employed by the home team whose job it is to sound that fog horn.

Now, a lot of that is probably because it’s gridiron football and there is more down-time than there is actual time in play. If fans were not constantly prompted to cheer or boo or “make some noize” they’d probably be chatting with their neighbours. That’s what tends to happen with slow-paced games in Britain (and elsewhere) like cricket.

As for soccer / football / futbol, in the UK they do really sing about things like someone’s drunk driving charge, or someone cheating on their wife with another player’s wife, and fun things like that. But, not Debussy’s Clair de Lune. What’s interesting is that there are so few tunes that are actually used for chants. The oldest, most established ones are based on church hymns because everybody knew those from hearing them in church every week. These days even though people don’t go to church much, those tunes are well established for chants. There are also pop songs from the 1950s (That’s Amore), 1960s (Hey Jude, Yellow Submarine), 1970s (Go West), 1980s (Just Can’t Get Enough), but it’s rare to hear a song that’s less than 40 years old being used for a chant. Something has to be so well known by fans of all ages for it to actually work as a chant.

The reason that former US allies are still not going to trust the US after this vote is that after the absolute shit-show that is a Trump presidency with a GOP house and GOP senate, 50% of American men are STILL voting Republican.

And, that’s the vote. That’s not the people who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for the GOP this time, but stayed home rather than vote Democratic.

It’s just a matter of time before the US swings back to MAGA again. If that happens the US might once again renege on its treaties, threaten allies, start wars, and break international laws.

Which English-speaking country has uniforms that look like that? That looks Russian or Spanish or something.

Nothing you have mentioned is socialism

Of course it’s socialism. It’s genuinely astonishing how people don’t understand that virtually every country in the world right now has a Mixed Economy: “A mixed economy is an economic system that includes both elements associated with capitalism, such as private businesses, and ones associated with socialism, such as nationalized government services.”

Providing social welfare programs is a fundamental function of virtually every form of government

And the mechanism through which that is done is… socialism. The government could choose not to do any of those things and let the free market sort it out and it would be… capitalism. This isn’t rocket surgery.

Your argument that every economy in the world is a hybrid

The correct term is Mixed Economy.

specifically incorporate socialism, is fundamentally incorrect

No, it is a standard view, as you can see if you just read that Wikipedia entry.

What’s amazing is that Americans don’t live in a purely capitalist state. Nobody does. Every major country in the world has a mix of capitalism and socialism. AFAIK no country has purely private firefighters. UPS and FedEx exist, but so does the national postal service. In many countries various utilities like water, sewer, electrical, etc are publicly owned, but in most places the phone service is private.

China initially went full publicly owned, but it was a disaster, so they now have a mix of public and private. Cuba has had to open up its economy to allow privately owned businesses. Meanwhile, the US learned long ago that purely private is a disaster. Policing used to be private, run by companies like the Pinkertons. Firefighting used to be for-profit only.

90% of people campaigning for “socialism” are talking about European-style socalism, at least as a first step. A social safety net. Healthcare provided by the state. Utilities owned by the state, or at least heavily regulated, etc.

But, Americans, while they love the fire department and couldn’t imagine replacing it with a for-profit fire service, somehow think the economy will collapse if the government opens a grocery store.

I think she is, but I don’t think she’d convince enough people she is. She needs a higher office than congress to convince people, ideally one with executive experience, like governor. It’s too bad that she won’t have a chance to run for NY governor before 2030. And, she has no real ties to any other state, so she can’t go to her second home state and run there.

Those are some hard-working mofos.

Based on the one guy you know.

since a state by state solution is basically like the honor system.

One of the strengths and also weaknesses of the US system is that states handle their own elections. If there’s a problem with how elections are run, at least it doesn’t become national. OTOH, you have things like this, where a state can decide to do the right thing, but another state can be dishonest and gerrymander for one party.

I wonder if there’s a solution you can do where it’s the honour system backed up by a nuclear option if other states don’t follow the rules. Like, say that an electoral commission should create 3 maps, one gerrymandered for Ds, one gerrymandered for Rs, and one fair one. If other states play fair, the fair one will be used. If any state defects and gerrymanders to favour one party, then the map that combats that gerrymandering goes into effect.

It could be really effective if a bunch of states band together and say that they will all issue fair maps, but they all agree to switch in case another state doesn’t play fair. That way you could have something like the Republicans gerrymandering Texas, or the Democrats gerrymandering California, and either way this defensive pact is activated. Maybe by doing it this way, you could even get typically Republican states to enter the pact.

The tough part then is proving that another state is gerrymandering to favour a specific party, and deciding if that crosses the threshold. But, at least it’s not just the honour system.

That’s like believing that the bunnies were with Hugh Hefner for his sexual prowess.

It’s a bit tricky to understand, and to explain. But, if you don’t understand it, you think it’s just a way of ensuring that you get more R districts.

IMO, it’s important to know how it can backfire if you underestimate the number of R voters you need to add to the D districts to flip them.

Anyhow, I hope that one result of this election is that more places go with laws to ensure gerrymandering can’t happen. It’s absolutely bullshit that parties get to draw districts to pick the voters they want. There are some places (Minnesota?) that have non-partisan commissions that draw the maps. That’s how it should be done.