Re: More fault lines
 

I have no problem with a law forbidding people from sleeping under bridges. But I do wish it would be applied to the rich and poor alike as equally as possible.

Re: More fault lines
 

Yeah, although I'm sympathetic to the dual concerns that doing more would provoke the Russians into doing yet more and avoiding the appearance that action was politically motivated to help Hillary, especially tempered with the expectation that it wasn't going to matter.

Hindsight does not let those concerns hold up very well.

Re: More fault lines
 

Messing with our elections is a great assymetric warfare technique to use against us and other similar countries. It works even when it doesn't work, it tends to divide the country, and it's hard to turn back on Russia. Responding to it is a true challenge.

Re: More fault lines
 

You replied before my edit. I agree that one sided interference is bad. It should be two sided. I can't think of anything better than both parties' internal info being relentlessly hacked. How much more transparency can you get than that?

Something shady did happen at the DNC. The party engaged in a systemic effort to kneecap a Clinton competitor. That's not illegal, or even surprising, but to a lot of people who believe these parties' lies about impartiality, that's a revelation. And we all know the RNC did the same thing in favor of Jeb and against Cruz, Rubio, and Trump.

Re: More fault lines
 

Apples and ora-- err, Winnebagos.

Re: More fault lines
 

Do you think hacking of political parties is great if in fact hackers don't target everyone equally in the spirit of radical, universal transparency, but are instead seeking to accomplish something else in the world and are hacking in a more discriminatory fashion to that end? The first is naive and utopian, and the second is the actual world outside your windows.

Re: More fault lines
 

It didn't. You're rounding up a ton from some very minor staff chatter.

Re: More fault lines
 

Sebby is pro-whining. He always supports the whiner.

Re: More fault lines
 

I represented a company Amazon invested in and nearly acquired back in its early years. It was actually pretty fun to deal with both him and his lawyer, they clearly enjoyed what they were doing. And rather than rush to close our deal before the end of the year, they both (yes, the lawyer too) were down on the line madly packing and mailing stuff for the holiday rush.

It's the only time I've had someone's assistant tell me, I'm sorry, he can't get back to you today, because he's at the warehouse loading boxes today.

FYI, that lawyer now lives on his own little island in Seattle's harbor, and retired from the practice of law in his forties.

Re: More fault lines
 

Conspiracy. Different from Amazon monopolizing.

However, all of these cases go to the SJ stage which means $$$$.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Re whether Medicaid helps anyone:

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-dru...bout-medicaid/

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Hey Sebby, I was reading Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire this morning and I have some bad news -- it appears that maybe the Roman decline and fall was correlated with automation. Apropos of (military siege) machines, Gibbon writes:

That's from Chapter 1, page 20, fn 2 of the Everyman's Library edition.

hey, where did everyone go?
 

Re: hey, where did everyone go?
 

Everybody is probably vacationing somewhere awesome, where somewhat anonymous lawyer chatting board disputes are of little or no concern. Because they are assholes. I learned that Sebastian is correct about one aspect of the future. Robots have all the jobs. But there is an upside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLP9f4jsq0M

Back to the funk tomorrow.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Y'all are kinda letting me down lately.

AON: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DDao_aGWsAIzBHh.jpg

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

cnn

ha!

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Republicans do care about other people. They care about other Republicans. And they believe that people should be able to care about other people through churches and charities and other voluntary organizations. And perhaps through local government, which serves mostly people like them and can be controlled by them. Just not the federal government, which can be taken over by people not like them, and serves everybody, not just people like them.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Does the Senate Health Care not have enough R votes because it is too drastic, or not drastic enough?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Or at least they say that. They also say in opposition to rail transit investments that they support buses, but when they get the chance, they slash funding for buses because poors and why doesn't everyone just get a car.

Again, when given control, all they do is cut, so no.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Yes.

Collins and Heller are no because it's too drastic.

Cruz, Johnson, Paul and the other guy I'm forgetting are no because it's not drastic enough.

ETA: And Johnson may not be firmly no even though he wrote a NYT op-ed laying out why he's a no.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Both. And also because Senators are worried that it won't have enough votes. It will either get fifty votes or maybe thirty-five, as Lindsey Graham said. Fifty if McConnell has the votes to pass it and can let two moderates vote against to try to get re-elected. Thirty-five if it doesn't, and other Senators can vote against to try to protect themselves in upcoming elections.

None of them have actually voted yet. It's hard to imagine the conservatives voting against the bill in the end -- they are just trying to push it to the right, or posturing. One thinks McConnell could call their bluff. He also could win a vote without Collins and Heller. So the key action is with other Senators, probably not in public. Even if they are inclined to vote for it anyway, they may be able to get more out of McConnell for their vote. If they are disinclined to vote for it, they might stay quiet to avoid pissing off conservatives.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Tyler Cowen, from a longer and worthwhile post:

I don't agree with all of it, but think there's some value here.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Where's that leave those of us who'll happily give time and money directly to those in need, but don't want to give more of it to state, fed, or muni govt, and would sooner spend it on fidget spinners than give it to any religious organization?

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I'll bet I spend time with more Republicans than most people here, and this is spot on. They use the church and charity thing as cover for selfishness. Collapse the fed govt tomorrow and they'll complain about state taxes.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Note the use of "more correct."

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Yeah, I read that at the time and am highly dubious about the central factual claim. Sure, Utah's great and all, but Wisconsin is most definitely not better run than Minnesota while the two states share a whole bunch of similarities, aside from Minnesota managing to elect Dem governors and majorities from time to time to clean up the mess the GOP made.

Meanwhile, do we really think Louisiana or Mississippi or Alabama are any worse run than Illinois, even granting that Illinois is a mess? And if you're tempted to answer "yes" do you think their black residents would agree?

(As an aside, The Blood of Emmett Till had some interesting comparison on that front, including some that did not shed favorable light on some of Chicago's black politicians.)

Also, how well do you think the 2012 rankings he linked to stand up a few years and an energy collapse later? North Dakota is definitely not one of the best run states, for example.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I think the survey that he links to is hardly worth reading. E.g., a state's economy will depend on things that have nothing to do with how the government is run, though the opposite may not be true.

That said, you're focusing on states, not municipalities, and smaller governments will appear better run than larger governments. But also, when government funds your own group, it doesn't look like a transfer or subsidy, and when government funds other people, it does. So more heterogenous populations will appear to have less efficient governments.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Hm. I do not think that's at all true. I mean, the residents of Blue Earth, MN (pop. 3,269) might have a better view of their city government that residents of Minneapolis, but without saying anything specific about Blue Earth, I'd suggest that's almost certainly because its residents know all the people in city government, not because they are objectively better at it.

Or, to put it another way, my experience is that with few exceptions, the quality, capability and efficiency of government shrinks with the size of entity governed.

Right. Appear. People like their government better when it's only governing people they identify with. That's not the claim Cowen made, which was that state and local government are better run when run by the GOP.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Three more retroactive "no" votes.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I think you fail to grasp that evolved society lives in a Post-Morality Pragmatic Utopia in which empathy has become obsolete.

If you only had to read only one article to try to understand the complete upside down fucking absurdist clown show of a disaster that is our country, it might be this one:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...=.64c1ca9aae9d

The Daily Dose is Sly and the Family Stone. "Stand!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7Yakl_xIkc

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

It seems like "better run" is pretty value-laden when you drill into it. But. There are functions that most people think government should be doing, and it seems fair to me that governments are likely to do these better. There are other functions that have less consensus around them, partly but not entirely because they benefit a heterogenous population; e.g., trying to solve harder problems. Governments that take these functions on will be less successful with them, if only because they are harder. Democrats are more likely to want their governments to do this stuff, and more accepting of only partial success. Republican places are less likely to do these things at all, and so will have the higher batting average that comes with only facing poor pitching.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

When I saw the WaPo url, I figured you were going to link to the story about how Minnesota has the most obese pets.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I think that's probably right, although another wrinkle of the homogeneity thing you mention is that Republicans might try to do hard things when they identify with the people hard things benefit. I'm thinking in particular of Salt Lake City as a pioneer in housing first approaches to homelessness.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I'll have you know that Anxious Schnauzer is quite svelte.

Probably doesn't hurt that one manifestation of her anxiety is not eating unless the conditions are to her liking (primarily meaning my wife is home and someone is in the kitchen).

ETA: I cannot make any claims one way or another about the BMI of Flower's pets.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

One super skinny, but very fluffy cat. One mildy obese and generally ornery cat. Dog of healthy weight. There may be more pets, but I have lost track.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

Headline for Hank:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DDfPB3BUMAUJ9Np.jpg

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

OMG. That shit is dire AF!

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

This, of course, can be said about almost anything.

When you look at those red states that are supposedly well governed, look to a few metrics, like number of people living in poverty, number of people insured, number of gun deaths, crime rates (Alabama beats NYC for violent crime by a country mile), etc.

Try it. Identify five metrics that you think are important. Pick five diverse red states (say, Utah, Texas, Alabama, Nebraska, and Kentucky) and five diverse blue states (say, California, NY, Virginia, Colorado and Vermont). Compare them.

Then let's talk.

I think you'll find the Red Staters who feel like Red States are such great models are people who are well off and mostly white. You'll get a very different view in El Paso than you will in rural Utah.

Re: Mother, mother, mother - there's too many of you crying.
 

I don't agree with you on everything, but think there's some value here.

It's hard enough to measure how state governments are doing, and much harder still if you measure characteristics of the state itself as a proxy.