@argumate

jesin00:

argumate:

do presidential pardons have to specify exactly what you’re being pardoned for? do they have to be written very carefully, like genie wishes, so they don’t immediately arrest you for something else?

Oh not at all. The pardon power is very broad. The founders hardly restricted it at all.

invertedporcupine said: Ford’s pardon of Nixon basically blanket pardoned anything he might have done between 1968 and 1974. (Which effectively ended discovery, so we don’t even necessarily know all of Nixon’s crimes.)

*sweating* thank goodness they didn’t ask what I was doing last Thursday night!

do presidential pardons have to specify exactly what you’re being pardoned for? do they have to be written very carefully, like genie wishes, so they don’t immediately arrest you for something else?

at the most basic level all power is simply abstracted human relationships, just like all wealth is.

collapsedsquid :

Scientists are telling me that they have developed a top secret technology, a quantum field generator that can prevent the inauguration from happening.  Biden can try to take the presidential oath all day and it will do nothing!

I keep thinking about the Magical Misconception of Power, whether it’s sovereign citizens who believe the constitution is a scroll imbued with arcane magic that has a tangible effect on reality or the way characters in poorly written fantasy settings often mistake titles for abilities, like the way that becoming emperor will instantly give you incredible powers even though many historical emperors were virtual hostages of warlords, generals, or their relatives, and the powerful ones were constantly tending to their power base like a mafia don, who faces almost identical issues.

anyway, how can one person possibly have power over a hundred people? it only works because if someone attempts to challenge them, the other ninety nine will drag them down, but why would they do that? because if they don’t, the other ninety eight will drag them down!

so the emperor is powerful because they maintain an incentive structure in which any unilateral challenge is guaranteed to fail and thus will not be attempted and any attempt to coordinate a multilateral challenge that could possibly succeed is discouraged by threats, rewards for defection, spying, interdiction of communications, sowing mistrust between confederates, and whatever other means are available.

this all takes difficult and ongoing work! assuming that power brings rewards that encourage other people to seek it, you would expect that the work required to defend its possession would be similarly costly, including externalities that cost society at large, like war and persecution.

while granting someone the title of “emperor” or “president” does enhance their power by virtue of social norms in how someone with this title must be treated, it’s a small thing compared to the necessary work that follows.

anarcho-malarkyist :

afloweroutofstone :

collapsedsquid :

Sources are telling me that Biden has been swapped out for a body double, they’re going to inaugurate him instead.

They’ll have 25 Biden look-alikes all agressively running in zig-zag patterns around the real Biden while he’s being sworn in, to trick any marksmen

the first thing they brief incoming presidents on is the clone jutsu

afloweroutofstone:

anarchistmemecollective:

Donald Trump was the fifth consecutive US President to bomb the country of Iraq, and there’s little doubt that Biden will soon be the sixth. The only reason it doesn’t go back further is that, before HW Bush began bombing Saddam Hussein, Reagan was arming him.

Iraq, America’s official OPFOR / Red Team partner!

yeah, why DO we even have presidential pardons, is it just a job perk that you can get your cronies out of jail or what

I’m sure it made sense at some point, checks and balances and all, and I guess it’s a consolation prize for getting kicked out of the White House.

“Wait a second. Only the owner can see her playlist’s contents. I have the tools to play any playlist in the name of the owner (since the embedded player is also “logged in” to YouTube), and I also have the tools to get the videos from the currently playing playlist. What? Is it this easy?”

allows any hostile site with an embedded YouTube video to access your private playlists and uploads, seems like YouTube has a lot of these delegation bugs.

cargopantsman:

the-real-numbers:

argumate:

the-real-numbers:

the-imaginary-numbers:

the-real-numbers:

Quick someone help me make a sea shanty joke

Quick someone help me make a sea shanty joke (but at the same time as your post so it’s a capella style)

Quick someone help me make a sea shanty joke (doesn’t matke the joke noticably funnier but does add a gentle thiccness)

actually this kind of joke is problematic

Gonna file this one under “posts that are equivalent to sucking dick”

Once this tonguing is done I'ma take my cash and go.

zvaigzdelasas :

gosh maybe someone should send in some independent investigators

the-real-numbers:

the-imaginary-numbers:

the-real-numbers:

Quick someone help me make a sea shanty joke

Quick someone help me make a sea shanty joke (but at the same time as your post so it’s a capella style)

Quick someone help me make a sea shanty joke (doesn’t matke the joke noticably funnier but does add a gentle thiccness)

actually this kind of joke is problematic

posts that are the opposite of sucking dick

cargopantsman :

cargopantsman :

argumate :

argumate :

sugar, tea, rum, tobacco, opium, cotton,

discoursedrome said: rubber!

palm oil!

I want the Wellerman to give a buncha of dopamine triggers but not anything that will let me live for two- three years tops.

King James (Anglican): man can not live on tea alone.

Man: thank fucking god

Wellerman handing out Apple Appstore vouchers like candy

argumate :

sugar, tea, rum, tobacco, opium, cotton,

discoursedrome said: rubber!

palm oil!

brazenautomaton:

argumate:

at this point it seems safe to conclude that Donald Trump was a worse US president than George W. Bush on every possible metric besides those that relate to launching aggressive wars of invasion and torturing Iraqi civilians, although even now I’m looking at the clock and wondering if it’s too soon to call it.

do you have any reason to think that it’s too soon to say he didn’t launch an aggressive war of invasion other than “that would be bad, and he is also bad”? because there’s absolutely no interpretation of anything at all where that makes sense

not least of which is that he’s the least interested in starting wars of any president in like at least 40 years

also aggressive wars of invasion are really really really really really bad don’t just shove that off to the side so you can shore up your lame-ass Trump Own

well it’s mostly a joke based on seeing “Alleged US airstrike targets Iran-backed militia in Iraq” headlines with the inauguration merely hours away, but yes his aversion to war is his one redeeming feature, which is why I specifically called it out.

(it’s specifically an aversion to losing wars though I think, the fear of looking weak, so if aides had managed to convince him that he could take Tehran without a serious fight then I think the world would have been in trouble; this is where Bush being the pawn of Team Cheney and Rumsfeld and of course his own father comes back to bite him).

yeah, why DO we even have presidential pardons, is it just a job perk that you can get your cronies out of jail or what

I’m sure it made sense at some point, checks and balances and all, and I guess it’s a consolation prize for getting kicked out of the White House.

andmaybegayer:

argumate:

argumate:

cargopantsman:

whydoeseveryonethinkiamaskeleton:

so who submits ideas for new emojis? like new batches come out all the time so could i just send my ideas to Apple and maybe get them approved? somebody clarify this for me

I think we’re at the mercy of the Unicode Consortium but @argumate might have some ideas…

yep, all you gotta do is ask:

This is a request for the inclusion of a broccoli emoji. There are currently very few vegetable emojis, and this is one of the most iconic vegetables in the United States, if not the world.

https://unicode.org/L2/L2016/16375-broccoli-emoji.pdf

I’ll kill you, but you can still do it.

whydoeseveryonethinkiamaskeleton said: why in the world do we need a broccoli emoji

they literally wrote an explanation right there: it’s one of the most iconic vegetables in the United States, if not the world!

Broccoli also has the additional meaning of marijuana in popular culture, which could be helpful until marijuana gets its own Emoji. This usage became widespread through the song “Broccoli” by hip-hop artists Lil Yachty and D.R.A.M., that has over 68 million views on YouTube . Below you can see that these alternate meanings might cause even more usage than that for the food itself.

good to know.

Eternally torn between “this is insane, the unicode consortium shouldn’t be creating new glyphs, this goes against the will of the scribes” and “haha emoji machine go 🤠”

radioactivecallista :

argumate:

at this point it seems safe to conclude that Donald Trump was a worse US president than George W. Bush on every possible metric besides those that relate to launching aggressive wars of invasion and torturing Iraqi civilians, although even now I’m looking at the clock and wondering if it’s too soon to call it.

Disagree. Trump was much better than either of the Bushes or Obama. Not sure about a comparison to Clinton or Reagan; I was a newbie to the workforce during the Clinton years, it seemed OK but I wasn’t aware of much beyond finishing school and working, and don’t remember much of Reagan’s first term at all.

on which metrics?

"a salesman promoting health products to the elderly" jesus christ, dude!

ironically selling them covid antidote

transhumanoid :

argumate :

the highly extreme nature of superspreader events continues to confound a lot of the coronavirus discourse I think, the way you can either get zero cases or hundreds, it’s so variable.

was just thinking about how, while R_0 is good for the most basic “will everyone get it or not” calculation, what would be way better is having the whole distribution of the reproductive rate, not just the average. ideally the conditional distributions based on anything policy can affect, I guess.

the chad NEET vs. the virgin partygoer

at this point it seems safe to conclude that Donald Trump was a worse US president than George W. Bush on every possible metric besides those that relate to launching aggressive wars of invasion and torturing Iraqi civilians, although even now I’m looking at the clock and wondering if it’s too soon to call it.

the highly extreme nature of superspreader events continues to confound a lot of the coronavirus discourse I think, the way you can either get zero cases or hundreds, it’s so variable.

A so-called COVID-19 “superspreader” who travelled around northeastern China has been linked to 102 confirmed infections, according to Chinese officials.

The individual, who worked as a salesman promoting health products to the elderly, had travelled from his home province of Heilongjiang to neighbouring Jilin province, bringing the virus with him.

Authorities claim he unknowingly spread the virus among elderly residents for several days before he was tracked down by health officials as a close contact of a confirmed case.

Over four days, the man held four “health seminars,” or marketing sessions, in community health clubs targeting elderly residents in the cities of Gongzhuling and Tonghua in Jilin.

In total, the individual infected 79 people who attended the seminars, who then went on to infect 23 of their close contacts, Zhang Yan, deputy director of the commission, said at a news conference Sunday. The average age of those infected is 63, with the oldest being 87, Zhang said.

oops

But by and large, Trump’s pardon record has broken with historical norms. Many of the high-profile criminals he has pardoned have shown little contrition or remorse for their crimes and few have argued they were wrongfully convicted.

He is expected to adhere to that record on Tuesday when he issues around 100 pardons or commutations. The final batch of clemency actions is expected to include a mix of criminal justice reform-minded pardons and more controversial ones secured or doled out to political allies. White collar criminals, high-profile rappers and a prominent eye doctor from Palm Beach, Florida, who is in prison after being convicted on dozens of counts of health care fraud, are expected to be on the list.

There has been a crush of pardon requests during Trump’s final days in office from allies, lobbyists and others hoping to cash in on their loyalty to Trump. The New York Times reported Sunday some of those people were getting paid tens of thousands of dollars to lobby on behalf of felons hoping for pardons.

“Everyone assumed there’s no formal process and they should reach out to the administration directly,” a person familiar with the matter has told CNN. “Everyone hopes they have a friend of a friend of a friend of a cousin who they hope will get them to read their email.”

The 11th-hour batch of clemency is in keeping with presidential tradition.

it’s almost endearing how America sticks with medieval traditions like this.

at least you’ll be spared scenes of all the ex-presidents hobnobbing together

multiheaded1793 :

flakmaniak :

argumate :

afloweroutofstone :

This fact breaks my brain every time I think about it

that’s okay it breaks every political pundit’s brain too

Political pundits: “This is the most important election of our lifetimes; clearly people will be really engaged. After all, we’re glued to our screens here!”

Voters: “We hate both of these assholes; why should we turn out for either one?”

the real awful, awful news for the left here is the massive turnout surge for BOTH campaigns in 2020, one that e.g. Bernie Sanders was unable to obtain in the primary. the culture war is eating everything to the extent that dozens of millions of *working class people whose life has been getting worse like everything under American decline* looked at the facts of the matter and soyfaced 😮 and went “fuck yeah I’m vooooting for Biden/Trump to stop Trump/Biden”

the working class is more in mental chains in today’s America than perhaps at any point in history where it wasn’t in literal chains. one awful but plausible theory I’ve seen on twitter is that, since the people have no political education and cannot really tell what the difference is between a Sanders and a Biden (or a Corbyn and a Starmer for that), the left’s get out the vote campaigns have mostly been boosting the latter! need real political education BEFORE engagement and agitation, and/or LSD in the water supply or something, because holy fuck, when it’s not Literal Hitlery Clinton vs Phase One Donald Trump, people are doom cult zombie sheeple and reformism is doomed with them

well if you don’t know what you want, you certainly won’t get it!

argumate:

cargopantsman:

whydoeseveryonethinkiamaskeleton:

so who submits ideas for new emojis? like new batches come out all the time so could i just send my ideas to Apple and maybe get them approved? somebody clarify this for me

I think we’re at the mercy of the Unicode Consortium but @argumate might have some ideas…

yep, all you gotta do is ask:

This is a request for the inclusion of a broccoli emoji. There are currently very few vegetable emojis, and this is one of the most iconic vegetables in the United States, if not the world.

https://unicode.org/L2/L2016/16375-broccoli-emoji.pdf

I’ll kill you, but you can still do it.

whydoeseveryonethinkiamaskeleton said: why in the world do we need a broccoli emoji

they literally wrote an explanation right there: it’s one of the most iconic vegetables in the United States, if not the world!

Broccoli also has the additional meaning of marijuana in popular culture, which could be helpful until marijuana gets its own Emoji. This usage became widespread through the song “Broccoli” by hip-hop artists Lil Yachty and D.R.A.M., that has over 68 million views on YouTube . Below you can see that these alternate meanings might cause even more usage than that for the food itself.

good to know.

People already do kinda fetishize colonialism in some of the more nostalgic period pieces. Oh, and do Vikings, Romans, and Alexander the Great count as "European colonists"? 'Cause they already get hella romanticized despite all the atrocities they committed.

you can safely fetishise it as long as it doesn’t have real world political ramifications, so Romans are on thin ice given their inspiration to fascist movements, Vikings were fine until they weren’t Alexander the Great is okay unless you’re Greek Macedonian in which case it’s fraught, and fetishising Polynesians or Native Americans or any African groups is going to get treated as racism pretty much however it’s expressed.

religious batshittery, homophobia, Israeli efficiency, Palestinian genocide, this story has something for everyone

cargopantsman:

whydoeseveryonethinkiamaskeleton:

so who submits ideas for new emojis? like new batches come out all the time so could i just send my ideas to Apple and maybe get them approved? somebody clarify this for me

I think we’re at the mercy of the Unicode Consortium but @argumate might have some ideas…

yep, all you gotta do is ask:

This is a request for the inclusion of a broccoli emoji. There are currently very few vegetable emojis, and this is one of the most iconic vegetables in the United States, if not the world.

https://unicode.org/L2/L2016/16375-broccoli-emoji.pdf

I’ll kill you, but you can still do it.