If you know anything about the history of punk music and east coast hardcore, Ian MacKaye was clearly one of the most principled people in the scene, and a genuinely good and decent person. So it’s really weird to hear that people ever got the weird idea that he was pro-racism or something.

Then again, The Dead Kennedys had to make “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” because they were sick of their shows being infiltrated by the wrong kind of skinheads.

An old soul in a new world… Dude the south lost and slavery is bad. I’m sorry

I think that’s an uncharitable reading. Which is understandable, but still.

I think that there are a lot of people–myself included–that would like to be able to make a living doing something that seems to matter, or where you make something. Like, factory work sucks in most ways, but it still feels like you’re doing something. Spreadsheets and order projections? Staring at a screen all day, sending polite emails to people you’ll never meet about ways to spend a lot of money electronically?

This “new world” of work and socializing ain’t great. I think it snuck up on a lot of people, and now a lot of people are feeling like they don’t know how to navigate the new reality of depersonalization.

Here’s another song that explicitly references it. Better song too, IMO.

Maybe for some things, like working in fields. (Maybe. That would be a preeeeeettttttty good time for someone to pull a runner.) Probably not for construction, where you’d have to be giving inmates access to things that readily be used as weapons. Same with meat packing, where they’d literally be working with knives.

If people that are left of center can get their shit together some day, they really need to rewrite that amendment to ban all involuntary servitude.

Yeah, but does he like his step dad? Maybe he’s planning on ratting his dad out, ever think about that?

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There’s no need.

Really.

If Trump does what he says he was going to do-and I don’t doubt he will–then the economy will crash on its own.

Tariffs will raise prices, and will drive inflation. Why will tariffs raise prices? Because the people selling will just add the price of the tariff to the goods sold. And unless the tariffs are the result of a new law, any incoming president can cancel them. That means that it would be a very risky environment to try and build domestic production in. The place I work for uses aluminum extrusion; we get it from a domestic supplier, and they get all their raw aluminum stock from China. When tariffs were enacted on Chinese aluminum, our supplier passed the cost on to us, and we had to raise our prices to account for our increased costs. So our customers had to pay more to get exactly the same product.

Deporting all of the undocumented immigrants will mean that we’ll suddenly have lots of jobs not getting done; most produce is picked by undocumented immigrants, a ton of general construction is done by undocumented immigrants, most meat-packing plants are full of undocumented immigrants laborers. We’ll suddenly be a negative unemployment; there won’t be enough workers in the workforce to fill demand. That means wages will have to rise, which will drive inflation, and housing costs will rise sharply because new construction will be so expensive with undocumented immigrants. One of the people I work with is undocumented; if he gets deported, then we’re up shit creek, because no one else can do his job as efficiently as he can, if anyone can do it at all (yay, lean manufacturing…).

I would place a financial bet on the economy crashing if Trump actually does what he says he will.

It’s really shocking how many Philip K. Dick stories have been made into films. Off the top of my head, the ones I can remember are:

Total Recall (two versions)

Blade Runner

Screamers

A Scanner Darkly

Paycheck

Imposter

The Man in the High Castle (a streaming series, not a film)

The Minority Report

…And I’m sure that I’m missing at least some. If he hadn’t died so young, he would have been insanely wealthy from how many times his stories have been adapted into major films.

Since the ACA was passed, Democrats have not held all three branches of the gov’t. (In fact, Mitch McConnell refused to take up Obama’s nomination of a SCOTUS justice because he thought that eight months was too close to the election. Or, that was his claim.) They haven’t had any opportunities to make significant reforms to the ACA–or pass something better–because they haven’t had the power to do so. Republicans came close to overturning it, but blew their chances in 2018. So, to be more accurate, the party that wants to fix healthcare has not had the political ability to do so.

Short of a political change, there is no way to change the system.

Fair enough.

I don’t really think that D.C. should be a state, but I think that it should have more autonomy for the administration of the city than it has.

I’ll keep that in mind. I live at a high enough altitude that I’m literally in the clouds pretty often (e.g., when it’s overcast everywhere else, I’m in pea-soup fog), so cedar is one of the prime choices for anything that’s going to be outside, just to keep it from rotting.

If Trump wins, expect it to be much, much worse. The ACA/Obamacare guarantees that certain things must be covered, that you can’t be denied covered based on pre-existing conditions, and that you can’t be charged more due to age, gender, etc. It also gives subsidies to people that are buying their own covered on the marketplace, which was set up by the federal gov’t.

Under Trump, expect all of that to be tossed out. If Trump wins, it’s highly likely that Republicans with flip the Senate, and retain control of the House, which means Republicans will have all three branches of the federal government captured, and there will be no brakes to repealing the ACA and going back to the old, much shittier system.

If Harris wins, don’t expect to see many changes. If she wins, it’s unlikely that Democrats would also have control of both the House and Senate. While it’s true that she was in favor of a single-payer system five years ago, it’s unlikely that she would be able to get that through the House and Senate unless they were both controlled by a Democratic majority. (In the case of the Senate, they would need to nuke the filibuster, which–IMO–is not a good idea in the long run).

Sadly: no attic. I need try making an attractive bat roost for them. I wonder how bats feel about cedar, since cedar is rot resistant?

To be fair, Harris had a contentious relationship with cops, when–IIRC–she didn’t pursue the death penalty for a cop killer.

Prosecutors have to work with police, but aren’t police. Prosecutors want to win, because that’s how they get elected. When cops do dumb, illegal shit, prosecutors get pissed because then they can’t win a case. Cops usually blame prosecutors for not locking everyone up. Prosecutors get pissed at cops, because cops botch investigations and make stupid, illegal arrests.

Of the two, I have much more respect for prosecutors. Prosecutors are often very good attorneys (in their field).

To reiterate a point: district attorney are elected. The public expects them to win cases. When they don’t, even if it’s because cops are handing them steaming piles of garbage, they tend to lose their jobs. Shitty, but true. We may say ACAB, but when it comes down to it, a prosecutor that refuses to, for instance, prosecute certain low-level crimes will tend to get voted out of office because it pisses off the constituents.

Unless either candidate OVERWHELMINGLY wins, there’s not going to be anything tonight, and probably not tomorrow. The last of the swing states won’t close polls until 8p (Mountain time, I think). Trump is almost certainly going to declare that he is the winner “by a lot”. Best case, we’ll know tomorrow morning.

So take a couple alprazolam, drink a couple shots, and black out until tomorrow.

If I remember correctly, Republicans in Georgia have consolidated voting locations in Atlanta–which is heavily Democratic–despite there being long line and hours of waiting in 2020. Is it intentional? 100%. In the rural parts of Georgia–and I’m pretty rural–you’re in and out in only slightly longer than it takes to read the ballot.

About 45 minutes, as I recall, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I think that was the year that marriage equality (e.g., gay marriage) was on the ballot in Michigan. (I just looked it up; it was a vote to amend the state constitution to ban civil unions and marriage equality.) That was in 2004. Since then, I don’t remember ever having to wait more than 10 minutes when voting in person.

I love seeing the bats coming out at night in the summer; I can see them in the front clearing, swooping around after moths. I’ve got a bat house, but I think that it’s been vacant for years; I need to find a better way to attract them to my home.

In the US, you would need to start off by determining that the care was below standard before you can sue for malpractice. In the case of the dentist, it sounds like the dentist did what he was capable of doing; unless there were oral surgeons that were on-call, what would you reasonable expect? In the US, that wouldn’t be an emergency, because it’s not going to kill you to wait–in pain, admittedly–for 12 hours for an oral surgeon. I suspect you’d have a hard time winning a malpractice claim under US law. (Malpractice usually has to be pretty egregious to win.)

Sure, you can sue. But my guess is that most attorneys are going to look at that, and charge you, rather than working on contingency. That means that you pay up-front, rather than them taking a percentage of winnings. That’s what usually happens when they don’t think they’ll win.

The police also broke my rights and abused me, and the supreme court sided with me.

That would be quite rare in the US. The overwhelming majority of police abuse cases are decided in favor of the police, and when they aren’t, someone is usually dead or permanently crippled. The financial payout is usually going to the survivors. Wrongful arrest? That’s usually met with a shrug. People regularly die in police custody in the US, and the police investigate and find themselves innocent.

Is it bullshit? Of course. Police should be trustworthy. Doctors should be trying to offer the highest standard of care at all time. Wealth and power shouldn’t play into any of that, and it’s despicable that it usually does. Is what Finland has still better than what the US has, and is likely to have (esp. if Trump ends up winning)? Absolutely. Would I emigrate to Finland if I had a job that was in-demand and thought there was any possibility I could learn Suomi fluently, even if it meant conscription? Absolutely, without hesitation.

I’m very surprised that you haven’t heard of Ghost of Tsushima; it has been a highly successful game.

But maybe I am mistaken? I would swear that I had to accept EA terms and conditions to play, but it’s by Sony and Sucker Punch. I dunno.