I boycotted due to rampant doping.
I always knew you were a rampant dope.
Hello new user titl… DAMMIT all these years later you still get me with that!
I boycotted due to rampant doping.
The concept of ‘speaking in tongues’ is another failed attempt to make every single word of scripture applicable to today. And you’re right it is super weird amd creepy.
It’s like something you’d see in The Exorcist.
Or Pootie Tang.
Well, that’s it. Mueller can go home now. There’s no basis to any of it. Cue the pardons!
Well, there’s also just hostile people unrelated to political leanings. But yeah, IMO liberals are used to a pretty unfiltered sort of argument where you’re even free to say dumb things, but with the expectation that those dumb things will be pointed out to you. Liberals argue, but it’s because there’s an implicit expectation that you argue back.
There’s some truth behind some of these political stereotypes.
Liberals are famous for infighting and never being able to come to an agreement on anything. Not that they don’t occasionally find a point of agreement, but voicing any opinion on anything at all is asking for an argument, simply because that’s how it works on that side of the fence. Put any two liberals in a room and they will quickly find something they disagree strongly about. It’s the “diversity is strength” way of looking at things. The differences are laid bare for all too see, because it’s the differences that define the group.
Conservatives are famous for showing a united front. They may disagree about things behind the scenes, certainly, but open disagreement is unseemly (Reagan’s Eleventh Commandment). If they can find enough to get along about, they’ll march forward with that and work out the differences quietly, in private. When it comes to changing their minds, it can appear as if they all change their minds simultaneously, but that isn’t true. There’s still an underlying disagreement, but the working ideological coalition has simply shifted.
So when a conservative encounters a liberal, they get met with arguments, and that seems like hostility. When a liberal encounters a conservative, they get met with the same restrained unified front they get with other conservatives, which seems very creepy in a polite automaton sort of way. From a distance, liberals appear to zealously eat their own (Al Franken), while conservatives appear to welcome monsters (Roy Moore), but really there are disagreements on both sides, just different ways of expressing them.
My grandmother for years said we were like 1/32 native american… something about her having a grandmother named “Hawk” or some such. Well, my sister just took a test and it turns out we have absolutely zero native american DNA. Apparently this is a common story.
Doesn’t mean you don’t have a Native ancestor that far back but at that point the amount inherited can be negligible/undetectable. And that grandmother’s grandmother might have only been half, making less likely to find. It’s even possible to have no DNA from an ancestor (which seems paradoxical). There is a lot of pride taken in the possibility of a Native ancestor.
So you’re saying even if Warren took the test and had no Native DNA, she still might have a Native ancestor? If that’s the case, why would she risk seeming wrong even if she isn’t?
And that’s one of the better scenarios. When you game this out, the opposition can have a line of attack prepped that works regardless of the test’s outcome. One such attack could be “DelayGate” – why did she hold off on getting a blood test for so long? Could she have detectable Syphilis antibodies from a previous infection? Is that why she did one of those “ancestry-only” tests instead of a full medical bloodwork analysis? Instead of “Pocahontas” she’s now called “Syphilitic Liz” and so on. Now just like Obama’s birth certificate, the media can go on about how Syphilis doesn’t make you crazy if you catch it early enough, and that Warren’s policy positions are unlikely affected by her medical history.
Dom, I don’t think there is a DNA test that will reliably indicate a person to be French. The testing simply isn’t attuned to that.
Well, if the test shows no European ancestry at all, you can safely check France off the list.
All my life my dad’s told me he’s half French (therefore I a quarter). A few months ago he took a DNA test. Turns out he’s not French at all.
Look at the bright side. You might be 1/4 conehead.
But what is Warren’s claim exactly? Her claim is that “These are my family stories. This is what my brothers and I were told by my mom and my dad.” That her mom’s family was part Native American, that her Dad’s family opposed their relationship on those grounds, etc, etc. Could be true, could be a boilerplate star-struck lovers romance story using Native American ancestry as some gloss for something less interesting. Native Americans have been used symbolically in storytelling for centuries, why should family histories be exempt?
So let’s say Warren takes the test, and she’s got no Native American ancestry. It may or may not mean that her parents were liars, it may just mean they were mistaken, or that someone even further back was a liar. I don’t see how it says much about Warren herself other than she believed a story her parents told her, considering (and I disagree with Warb here) that it was pretty plausible. A small amount of ancestry from any source is unlikely to be visible at all.
Let’s say she takes the test, and she’s got Native American ancestry. That’s just time to move the goalposts. Do the tests have an error rate? (yes they do, BTW) Was the percentage detected lower than that required to claim tribal membership? Why did she wait so long to take it? Does she have some sort of embarrassing medical condition that could be detected in her blood? Did she fake the test with someone else’s blood? Benghazi!
I think Warren believes, correctly, that taking the blood test will no more end the story than being thoroughly investigated and cleared by the FBI. There is no upside to being an active part of the story. The only possible outcomes are that she may prove that her parents were mistaken and get called a liar for it, or prove that they weren’t and get called a liar for it.
Oh, we’ve had a few nibbles, including by the person who handled Project Threepio’s Japanese subtitles. But frankly it’s a big job. I understand there’s serious dialect/intonation and vocabulary issues (casual Japanese may be insufficient), and it’s over an hour of dialogue to translate on top of that. Crossover between hardcore Python fans (those who would commit to this level of work for this little payoff) and people with advanced Japanese linguistic skills (not just anime fans) may not be as big as you’d think.
And I probably don’t advertise as much as I probably should and have certainly missed some opportunities due to that.
The audio glitch we could probably have resolved by now if I hadn’t scared away so many potential helpers with the translation portion. I’ll try to finesse that a little better this time 😉
At this point the project’s still officially on ice (and it’s been stalled for some time), having both a small conservatively-defined scope (due to me not being much of a video editor) and a crazy-ass ill-defined scope (due to me being a language geek).
On the A/V end, here’s the small scope as of now:
On the pain-in-the-ass one last feature that just will not make up its mind to live or die front, we’ve got:
The latter two require some sort of Japanese translator, and I recently managed to have suckered someone into at least considering it. We’ll see how this goes. So far I’ve waited years for the Japanese stuff alone, and I’m willing to wait a few more.
That’s okay. You got a good analogue capture which served as the basis for this project’s audio. That’s plenty.
PM sent.
Ehm… https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/09/us/nra-sues-florida-gun-law/index.html
(CNN) - The National Rifle Association is suing the state of Florida after Gov. Rick Scott signed Senate Bill 7026 into law Friday, the first gun control legislation enacted in the state after the Parkland school massacre on February 14.
“This bill punishes law-abiding gun owners for the criminal acts of a deranged individual,” executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action Chris W. Cox said. “Securing our schools and protecting the constitutional rights of Americans are not mutually exclusive.”
I’m staying on the sidelines of this one. That law probably makes Florida schools more dangerous, just not due to the provisions that are being challenged by the NRA.
This may be of use/interest to some of you discussing Pardons etc…
https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardon-information-and-instructions
and the ‘Contact Us’ section may help get you some of the answers you are seeking (there is also an FAQ section too).
That page is for the “normal” pardon process, which Saucier wasn’t actually eligible for. What he got was a “political” pardon, which bypasses the whole vetting process described on that page. Whether the political pardons are qualitatively different than normal pardons in terms of their implications is an issue people could argue about, but I’d say most don’t.
I don’t think that’s right at all. There’s the presidential pardon. That page outlines the procedures for seeking it. The president may waive the requirements but that doesn’t make them irrelevant either.
I think what I said matches what you said, just with different words. There’s one pardon with different paths to getting it. The terms “normal” and “political” refer to the paths, not the pardons. Some might argue that the path you followed to get the pardon colors the pardon, but not me.
This may be of use/interest to some of you discussing Pardons etc…
https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardon-information-and-instructions
and the ‘Contact Us’ section may help get you some of the answers you are seeking (there is also an FAQ section too).
That page is for the “normal” pardon process, which Saucier wasn’t actually eligible for. What he got was a “political” pardon, which bypasses the whole vetting process described on that page. Whether the political pardons are qualitatively different than normal pardons in terms of their implications is an issue people could argue about, but I’d say most don’t.
Does a pardon wipe a record clean?
No, a pardon counts as an admission of guilt (which apparently came as a surprise to Arpaio). So all the stuff you can’t do for having engaged in such-and-such an activity, you still can’t do, because you admitted to doing it in order to get the pardon. A lot of people believe this “admission of guilt” factor is why Don Siegelman never got a pardon.
There is some disagreement on this issue, but I wouldn’t characterize it at all the way Volokh does.
I’m a big believer in second chances.
So’s everyone who didn’t seek the death penalty on this case.
Sometimes you say something ridiculous and I don’t respond. This will be one of those times, starting now.
Uh huh. And a six year sentence means you don’t get a second chance. Sure.
Does a pardon wipe a record clean?
No, a pardon counts as an admission of guilt (which apparently came as a surprise to Arpaio). So all the stuff you can’t do for having engaged in such-and-such an activity, you still can’t do, because you admitted to doing it in order to get the pardon. A lot of people believe this “admission of guilt” factor is why Don Siegelman never got a pardon.
Freaking out != destruction of evidence.
Yes…I think we’ve established that. And that he served his prison sentence for that act.
His 12 month sentence was for mishandling classified information. Prosecutors were seeking a longer sentence due to the aggravating factors. So no, he really didn’t serve any time at all for destruction of evidence.
I’m a big believer in second chances.
So’s everyone who didn’t seek the death penalty on this case.
Freaking out != destruction of evidence.
How dumb do you have to be to take photos in a classified area and then try to destroy evidence you’ve done so?
Like the joke about outrunning the bear… it’s okay to be stupid, you just have to be smarter than the guy who handles the pardons.
This is pretty classic. Backstory not necessarily covered in the article: the guy gets investigated for mishandling classified info, probably on the pretty minor end of the scale, nothing at all akin to Snowden. Instead of allowing the investigation to reach this natural conclusion, however, he goes out and destroys his camera and computer’s hard drive immediately after he’s interviewed by the FBI. Suddenly this minor case got very serious, and he was charged and convicted after the FBI recovered bits of hard drive in the woods outside his house.
So he and his lawyers concoct a strategy to get him a pardon. Say “This is just like Hillary! Double standard! So unfair!” (focusing on the pretty low-level mishandling that started the investigation, not really mentioning the hard drive smashing incident at all) and get on FOX News so that they get some exclusive and uninterrupted Executive Time with the President.
Crazy plan? Stupid plan? It worked. He has now been pardoned. Lesson? Don’t fuck with the FBI, but the President can be played like a cheap fiddle by complete amateurs.
Dangit. The joke was that people would actually transcode their low-bitrate MP3’s to FLAC and think it would improve their quality.
Well if you ever find it… let me know too 😉