CatBus

Tyrphanax said:

CatBus said:

chyron8472 said:

chyron8472 said:

Continuing my thought re: immigration: In my opinion, we have laws for a reason, and we should make use of them and enforce them. We should not overlook people breaking immigration laws because they’re in a bad spot or because they do jobs we don’t want to do; and we should not have lax gun laws because “criminals don’t obey them anyway.”

CatBus said:

We have what I’d call a “nod-and-wink” economy regarding undocumented workers, basically meaning we have two labor markets. We have one above-board market where workers have protections, safety regulations, legal recourse, and so on. And we have another market where workers have none of those things.

Well, we’re certainly not going to establish laws that overtly create second-class citizens (or second-class because-they’re-not-citizens). Just to begin with, the Declaration of Independence itself says “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

Words written without any irony whatsoever by a slaveholder.

So… we just throw them out then?

I’m saying some people today also see no problem between “all men are created equal” and the overt creation of an underclass, so the conflict does not necessarily indicate any sort of political infeasibility. Yeah, we had slavery before, and we don’t now, but I don’t believe the arc of the moral universe bends toward anything in particular unless we keep pushing it there ourselves.

moviefreakedmind said:

I don’t like the attitude some on the left have toward the founding documents. I don’t like the way the right fetishizes them, but it’s completely sane and rational to accept and live by the great words of some of the Founding Fathers without ignoring the problematic aspects of their history.

It wasn’t about the words themselves, but how the words were being presented in a “this could never happen in America” defense. Frankly, I had a few things I was pretty sure could never have happened in America not so long ago, and the list is a lot emptier than it used to be.

chyron8472 said:

chyron8472 said:

Continuing my thought re: immigration: In my opinion, we have laws for a reason, and we should make use of them and enforce them. We should not overlook people breaking immigration laws because they’re in a bad spot or because they do jobs we don’t want to do; and we should not have lax gun laws because “criminals don’t obey them anyway.”

CatBus said:

We have what I’d call a “nod-and-wink” economy regarding undocumented workers, basically meaning we have two labor markets. We have one above-board market where workers have protections, safety regulations, legal recourse, and so on. And we have another market where workers have none of those things.

Well, we’re certainly not going to establish laws that overtly create second-class citizens (or second-class because-they’re-not-citizens). Just to begin with, the Declaration of Independence itself says “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

Words written without any irony whatsoever by a slaveholder.

Also it would be a political nightmare.

I’d certainly hope so.

In related news:

Farmers say they’re having trouble hiring enough people to work during harvest season, causing some crops to rot before they can be picked. Already, the situation has triggered losses of more than $13 million in two California counties alone, according to NBC News.

The ongoing battle about U.S. immigration policies is blamed for the shortage. The vast majority of California’s farm workers are foreign born, with many coming from Mexico. However, the PEW Research Center reports more Mexicans are leaving the U.S. than coming here.

To make the jobs more attractive, farmers are offering salaries above minimum wage, along with paid time off and 401(k) plans, but even that’s not proving enough.

It’s unclear exactly how widespread the labor shortage is for farmers throughout the country, which would have a bigger impact on prices consumers pay. Ultimately, drought and flooding have a more significant impact on farms. Low oil prices could also offset any impact of the worker shortage.

But for farmers, who have seen net farm income fall 50% since 2013, any lost income could be potentially devastating.

“Salaries above minimum wage”?!? Wow, they’re really pulling out all the stops now… I wonder what they were earning before? That’s curiously absent from the article.

The story is California-specific, and the immigration policy driving this is not new, as the article seems to imply. It’s part of a decade-long trend of what happens when that secondary labor market you relied on for cheap labor goes away, in this case due to the aggressive deportation policies of multiple successive administrations.

TV’s Frink said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2018/04/05/trump-conjures-yet-another-immigrant-rape-epidemic/?utm_term=.51f6da9a480e

1. Idiot must have watched Birth of a Nation (1915) and thought it was a documentary.
2. Knows it’s not true and says it anyway to pander to racists.

I used to be a lot more certain it was #2.

chyron8472 said:

I felt that if I hadn’t reported him, I would be validating it. If he didn’t want to risk people reporting him, he shouldn’t insist on cash. Let him take up the ethical violations with the IRS.

My point was not about whether you made the right call or not, but that the law itself is a problem if the point of it is to be loosely enforced. Individual enforcement actions aren’t really relevant in the big picture when the law itself is the primary problem.

It’s hard to imagine in today’s world of completely imaginary immigration crises, but there was actually a time when there was a non-imaginary illegal immigration crisis of sorts in the US. Before Reagan tightened up immigration laws, we had something more akin to migrant labor. People would come across the border, work for a season, and go home. But then crossing the border became a non-trivial endeavor, and migrant workers who were in the country decided it was less risky to live in the US year-round than to cross the border every year. So, under Reagan, the ebb and flow of undocumented workers turned into a more static environment, where once you got across, you stayed.

And this, more than anything, led to your Trumpite boogeymen of “anchor babies” and “chain migration”. Reagan. And of course illegal immigration has declined quite a bit since, and pretty much effectively stopped ten years ago before Obama even took office, so those boogeymen are more of a racist dog whistle than fact these days anyway.

chyron8472 said:

Continuing my thought re: immigration: In my opinion, we have laws for a reason, and we should make use of them and enforce them. We should not overlook people breaking immigration laws because they’re in a bad spot or because they do jobs we don’t want to do; and we should not have lax gun laws because “criminals don’t obey them anyway.”

Well, IMO there’s a problem with that. Not in the abstract, but in practice, because our laws in this area don’t align with what we actually want in a practical OR ethical sense.

We have what I’d call a “nod-and-wink” economy regarding undocumented workers, basically meaning we have two labor markets. We have one above-board market where workers have protections, safety regulations, legal recourse, and so on. And we have another market where workers have none of those things. The benefit of having that second market is we get cheap labor-intensive products, such as food, construction, etc. The point of the laws, in my opinion, is not to prevent certain people from entering the country. In my view, the point of the laws is to prevent those people from getting decent wages and working conditions once they’re here. So I agree we have laws for a reason, but sometimes that reason isn’t straightforward.

This is a trade-off: we give up a little ethical high ground and in return we get cheap stuff. Now, if we didn’t have this secondary labor market, either via booting people out (R) or path to citizenship (D), the result would be the same: higher prices. I’m not saying some people wouldn’t be willing to choose this path, but I don’t think most are. And sure, the two-tier labor market is deeply unethical. I’m not arguing against that point at all.

Apparently 203’s and 205’s are flying out the doors from all resellers – the less-popular 205’s may already be gone, 203’s may last a few more days. IMO this probably includes a lot of people buying in bulk to resell at a profit once they’re completely unavailable.

Mrebo said:

SilverWook said:

Mrebo said:

oojason said:

‘Former Trump aide approved ‘black ops’ to help Ukraine president’…

Paul Manafort authorised secret media operation that sought to discredit key opponent of then Ukrainian president

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/apr/05/ex-trump-aide-paul-manafort-approved-black-ops-to-help-ukraine-president

I find it ridiculous to refer to a media campaign as “black ops.”

Psy-op then?

To the extent any political campaign is, sure. Getting stories run doesnt strike me as terrible.

Depending on how much is done to hide the sources and methods behind a psy-op, I’d say it could be classified as a black op. Black ops don’t all involve helicopters, IMO the term just marks an certain level of compartmentalized secrecy.

Dek Rollins said:

CatBus said:

As we enter our second decade of continuous zero-to-subzero net illegal immigration from Mexico, Trump is celebrating by sending the National Guard to the southern border.

Presumably while there, they can pick up some litter and rescue some cats from trees, as they contemplate their fate as a sentient but equally pointless wall.

Maybe they’re going to stop the massive caravan of people that are currently traveling through Mexico with the intention of entering the US.

Good point, just because existing border security stops the Spring caravan every year doesn’t mean we can’t stop it biglier this year. Or maybe maintaining net-zero illegal immigration for ten years has made our border security so sleepy that the National Guard can take over while they nap.

chyron8472 said:

There are dangerous people. Period. Whether or not a few of them exist in a group that crosses the border has little point. We already have lots of dangerous people in this country who were born in this country to people who were also born in this country. It’s paranoia to single out illegal immigrants as some sort of significant threat worthy of mobilizing armed forces. As though there isn’t something better the Guard could be doing.

This dismissal, while attractive, ignores more interesting crime-and-immigration-related data though. Percentage-wise, illegal immigrants (and immigrants in general) are less likely to commit crimes than their native-born counterparts. This makes sense because illegal immigrants go to great lengths to avoid contact with law enforcement (such as not reporting when they are victims of crime, which is why sanctuary city/state laws improve public safety). So, theoretically, more immigrants means less crime per capita. That’s overall crime rates, though – there might be per-crime exceptions. For example, I suspect hate crimes may go up in areas experiencing increased immigration rates, but again that says less about the immigrants than the native-born citizens.

As we enter our second decade of continuous zero-to-subzero net illegal immigration from Mexico, Trump is celebrating by sending the National Guard to the southern border.

Presumably while there, they can pick up some litter and rescue some cats from trees, as they contemplate their fate as a sentient but equally pointless wall.

CHEWBAKAspelledwrong said:

An Oppo would have been overkill for my 32” Samsung LED set and Sony shelf system stereo, but I probably wouldn’t have had to spend an hour trying to get the TLJ BD to play if I had one.

Well, the 203 is overkill for my current system as well, but maybe over the next 10-15 years, that story will change.

SilverWook said:

CatBus said:

TV’s Frink said:

CatBus said:

3. Twitching.

This is an internet thing right?

Not if I said it, it’s not. I just meant being nervous and unsettled.

Sad to see so few had heard of Oppo. They’ve pretty consistently sat at #1 or #2 on every single ratings/roundup of disc players for the past decade or so. But disc players are so commodity I guess nobody looks at reviews – disc goes in, video comes out, that’s your complete feature set, and you can get that plus streaming for about fifty bucks these days. And I imagine that’s a large part of why they’re shutting down.

They also were never sold in electronics stores AFAIK.

They were, but not major box/chain stores. You pretty much had to go to one of those boutique audiophile sort of places (“excuse me, sir, would you like to schedule a time for one of our demo rooms?”), probably because the SACD/DVD-Audio support was a big feature for that crowd. Frankly those places make my skin crawl more than a little bit, but I managed to brave it long enough to walk out with a 203 yesterday, and of course they tried to upsell me to a 205.

TV’s Frink said:

CatBus said:

TV’s Frink said:

CatBus said:

3. Twitching.

This is an internet thing right?

Not if I said it, it’s not. I just meant being nervous and unsettled.

[ric pic]

Just when I thought someone thought I was hip and with it for a second.

TV’s Frink said:

CatBus said:

3. Twitching.

This is an internet thing right?

Not if I said it, it’s not. I just meant being nervous and unsettled.

Sad to see so few had heard of Oppo. They’ve pretty consistently sat at #1 or #2 on every single ratings/roundup of disc players for the past decade or so. But disc players are so commodity I guess nobody looks at reviews – disc goes in, video comes out, that’s your complete feature set, and you can get that plus streaming for about fifty bucks these days. And I imagine that’s a large part of why they’re shutting down.

Oppo Digital is closing down operations. How are you preparing for your Oppo-free digital future?

1. Buying the latest available hardware and praying that it lasts forever.
2. Shopping around for other vendors.
3. Twitching.
4. Lowering your standards.
5. Streaming.
6. What’s an Oppo?

At the moment, my plans involve a mix of #1 and #3.

That’s fine, so far I’m in no hurry. If there’s ever a time crunch, I’ll post here for people to send in whatever they’ve got, if they’ve got anything ready.

PM sent.

CatBus said:

Thanks Frink. Jerk.

zpekholtz said:

hoover40 said:

Could I get a link to the Enlgish subtitles for all three movies? This is incredible btw, thanks!

can I get the subtitles too? please?

PM sent.

PM sent.

moviefreakedmind said:

What does “not taking chances” have to do with pessimism?

I was taking that to mean that the assumption that things could always get worse makes you more risk-averse than the assumption that things could always get better (in the case of making a decision without many facts to support either position, gut feelings rank higher).

Mrebo said:

Trouble with pessimism is not taking chances or appreciating a good thing until after it’s gone.

However, the benefits of pessimism include not taking chances, and seeing rose-tinted nostalgia glasses for what they are.

Possessed said:

So really being a pessimist is the most win-win way to live life up the fullest.

Pretty much have to agree with this. A life with no disappointments and some happy surprises, what’s not to like?

moviefreakedmind said:

Warbler said:

TV’s Frink said:

yhwx said:

TV’s Frink said:

FWIW I do not want my daughters to go to an all-female school, I think in general it’s not a good thing for well-rounded development. I just think there are exceptions.

This is probably true at the younger levels.

High school and college students are still developing.

except that most college student have developed to a point of adulthood(at least legally speaking).

The Brian isn’t done developing until age 25.

WIR

ray_afraid said:

Maybe I’m looking at this wrong, but if you don’t identify as a woman, why go to a “college for women”?
And if a person with a penis identifies as a woman, will they admit this person?

Hard to say. Women’s colleges are especially appealing if you’ve undergone some sort of trauma involving men, as many have, and I’m sure there are other reasons. Policies would vary from school to school. My guess is a lot of college-aged people are also still working on self-identity, and things may change between admission and graduation.