Once the Rubicon was crossed, it would be crossed countless times until the whole decadent spectacle ended in collapse.
Our society is in a period of extreme elite overproduction. With income inequality getting worse and household income not keeping up with rises in prices (over generations, not just right now), a lot of people think the answer is more education and so we end up with more and more people highly educated. As more people end up in the elite class, naturally the people already in elite positions need to find ways to keep people out of elite positions to reduce competition. First they do that by rejecting anyone with "commoner attitudes", then by trying to find ways to reject other people in group of elites. For this purpose, all this junk is perfect. The sign over Auschwitz doesn't say "We need to gatekeep a bit", it says "Abreit macht frei" -- an aspirational positive message at the gate to a death camp.
As an example, my brother is a guy has a masters in English literature and is working as a local newspaper reporter for peanuts -- that's fine, but the fact is our society is creating way too many masters in English literature and there aren't enough positions for them all.
This is one reason why we've got the strange culture we have right now, because there's a lot of jostling for position, people playing musical chairs hoping to get into a seat before the music stops. Arbitrary, contradictory, ever-changing and draconian rules and such start to show up because with so many people there needs to be ways to exclude many of them.
As an example, my brother is a guy has a masters in English literature and is working as a local newspaper reporter for peanuts -- that's fine, but the fact is our society is creating way too many masters in English literature and there aren't enough positions for them all.
This is one reason why we've got the strange culture we have right now, because there's a lot of jostling for position, people playing musical chairs hoping to get into a seat before the music stops. Arbitrary, contradictory, ever-changing and draconian rules and such start to show up because with so many people there needs to be ways to exclude many of them.
Seems like this scenario is quickly losing a lot of the high speed in high speed rail, we've just got more expensive trains going slow.
There's additional risks to lines where you're constantly having to change speed. A lot of rail accidents have occurred over the years where trains were supposed to slow down for a certain corner and didn't, which can result in derailments which have both a large human cost and a large environmental cost if there's a bad accident you're going to have to replace whatever is destroyed.
I've criticized people for jumping immediately to a safety argument when it comes to things like small EVs because if it's as people say and the environmental impact is an urgent existential threat to humanity then additional risks are something we need to consider and perhaps make a decision to accept (put another way, does your right to personal safety trump humanity's right to safety as a species?), but I do think the calculus changes somewhat if you're talking about overwhelming environmental consequences in the event of an accident, and it's another thing to plug into an equation considering the cost between the two.
Up here in Canada we have a little airline called Bearskin (Also known as "scareskin", but that's another story) that does a milk run of all the different communities, compared to the big airlines which tend to just hop between major centers. It does take a lot more resources to do a milk run (and presumably would also be so with a high speed rail line that does a milk run), so flights with bearskin tend to be an order of magnitude more expensive than standard flights, representing in part the fact that hitting each little community between new york and la isn't free, either economically or environmentally.
There's additional risks to lines where you're constantly having to change speed. A lot of rail accidents have occurred over the years where trains were supposed to slow down for a certain corner and didn't, which can result in derailments which have both a large human cost and a large environmental cost if there's a bad accident you're going to have to replace whatever is destroyed.
I've criticized people for jumping immediately to a safety argument when it comes to things like small EVs because if it's as people say and the environmental impact is an urgent existential threat to humanity then additional risks are something we need to consider and perhaps make a decision to accept (put another way, does your right to personal safety trump humanity's right to safety as a species?), but I do think the calculus changes somewhat if you're talking about overwhelming environmental consequences in the event of an accident, and it's another thing to plug into an equation considering the cost between the two.
Up here in Canada we have a little airline called Bearskin (Also known as "scareskin", but that's another story) that does a milk run of all the different communities, compared to the big airlines which tend to just hop between major centers. It does take a lot more resources to do a milk run (and presumably would also be so with a high speed rail line that does a milk run), so flights with bearskin tend to be an order of magnitude more expensive than standard flights, representing in part the fact that hitting each little community between new york and la isn't free, either economically or environmentally.
Tiberius Gracchus was a populist during the roman republic. He was assassinated by the elites, one of the first notable assassinations of the age. In a historical sense it wasn't long until Caesar effectively ended the republic and created the roman empire. Thus began 400 years of military emperors sacking Rome to show how cool they were.
If the fed is admitting to it 6 months before an election, it might be the worst stagflation in us history. Zimbabwe hoooooo
Problem with a lot of the analysts is they're looking in the rearview mirror thinking because 15 years ago young people voted one way they'll do the same today, not realizing that people who could vote 15 years ago aren't young people anymore.
Trigun is still in my top anime of all time list, and one of the few anime ever to have some memorable vocal performances in English.
Just in case anyone makes the mistake: Fast food prices increased massively because prices are going up massively because the inflation number from the government is a lie, and everyone who doesn't have their butler do the shopping knows it.
There's a story out there saying people are too stupid to realize how good they have it and the economy is doing great and employment has never been better and inflation is almost back to normal, and yeah -- people know what's going on regardless of what the government and the media try to pretend is going on.
There's a story out there saying people are too stupid to realize how good they have it and the economy is doing great and employment has never been better and inflation is almost back to normal, and yeah -- people know what's going on regardless of what the government and the media try to pretend is going on.
Nobody tell the Democrats that the hammer and sickle represent people who work for a living.
Even if you take everything else at entirely the most charitable face value...
... It's really fucked up autographing not just one of the bombs for the photo op, but it says all of them.
Even if these shells were intended for a purely good and just purpose, taking out a worthy target nobody would miss like NYC, LA, or Washington DC, signing each individual shell before sending them out is still a bit much.
... It's really fucked up autographing not just one of the bombs for the photo op, but it says all of them.
Even if these shells were intended for a purely good and just purpose, taking out a worthy target nobody would miss like NYC, LA, or Washington DC, signing each individual shell before sending them out is still a bit much.
I remember last year which was really nice and temperate, I spent much of nearly every day off outside, and meanwhile I kept reading apocalyptic headlines about how it was the hottest day ever and we were all gonna die.
Unfortunately, Matt was eaten by an NPR reporter for a story.
Sorry to be the one to break the news....
Sorry to be the one to break the news....
I don't remember the case, but there was one of the big church and state ones I think, and the lawyer was a straight stereotypical big texas lawyer and he seemed to think he could just win the case through sheer force of personality, and that just wasn't happening.
Actually, it was often surprising that you couldn't predict based on who seemed to be doing better at oral arguments who would win the case.
Actually, it was often surprising that you couldn't predict based on who seemed to be doing better at oral arguments who would win the case.
It's often interesting listening to cases (I had a hobby of listening to supreme court cases for a long time) that the individual people involved don't matter as much as they think they do because the court is setting rules that affect everyone.
It should be mentioned that I'm just a retard on the Internet, and so anything I say about damn near anything is as such.
It should be mentioned that I'm just a retard on the Internet, and so anything I say about damn near anything is as such.
"COME TO CANADA! NOW YOU TOO CAN LIVE WITH 25 STRANGERS IN AN OLD LADY'S UNFINISHED BASEMENT FOR ONLY 1200 A MONTH!"
The scope would be anything that would be considered "official duties". If you're acting in your capacity as an agent of the state, then you would not be liable.
Clinton v. Jones (1997) is relevant, because it says that while presidential immunity exists, it doesn't apply to actions taken before entering office or "alleged misconduct of petitioner was unrelated to any of his official duties as President of the United States". The next question in these cases would be whether the prosecuted actions are related to official duties as president, and I could imagine that question ultimately going back to the supreme court, given that the court could either be very broad or very narrow and that would be important to consistent legal outcomes.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/520/681/
Clinton v. Jones (1997) is relevant, because it says that while presidential immunity exists, it doesn't apply to actions taken before entering office or "alleged misconduct of petitioner was unrelated to any of his official duties as President of the United States". The next question in these cases would be whether the prosecuted actions are related to official duties as president, and I could imagine that question ultimately going back to the supreme court, given that the court could either be very broad or very narrow and that would be important to consistent legal outcomes.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/520/681/