Messages

1

General Comments / Re: A Good Question.

« on: January 13, 2023, 09:12:08 PM »

Dickens lied about savage employers in his books. Those workers were far better off than those barely existing on unsuccessful farms. That's why they moved to the city.

Every time I think you've got nothing new to offer, you pull off a gem like this. It's like you've actually read Dickens but completely swapped the protagonist for the antagonist. But then I remembered that the cartoon version of "A Christmas Carol" has been on recently, and you were somehow rooting for Scrooge to stay mean and miserly.

Amazingly, the fact that subsisting under savage employers in urban settings may have in fact been better than staying in rural work is the literal definition of wage slavery. It means you make this choice because it's the best option, while simultaneously being a bad option. It almost sounds like the argument being put forward is that there's no such thing as exploitation, since if they've chosen an option superior to death it must mean they like it. What a curious piece of logic.

.
Don't know if we have a Hall of Fame for posts. If not, look at this. It's my argument

2

General Comments / Re: The Santos lesson

« on: January 13, 2023, 07:25:50 PM »

Lol. He could actually be arrested for this one.

https://www.mediaite.com/politics/video-of-george-santos-boasting-he-managed-1-5-billion-in-capital-for-fund-sec-labeled-a-ponzi-scheme-revealed-by-cnns-kfile/

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General Comments / Re: A Good Question.

« on: January 13, 2023, 07:51:12 AM »

"Stop calling it "minimum wage jobs" as if a first-time employee must support a family with the wages"

My friend, please stop putting words into my mouth. What I said was the vast majority of the country, this hypothetical person wouldn't even be able to afford a studio apartment on minimum wage. I didn't even bring up kids and a wife. You're the one bringing that up.

4

General Comments / Re: A Good Question.

« on: January 13, 2023, 01:41:53 AM »

Dickens lied about savage employers in his books. Those workers were far better off than those barely existing on unsuccessful farms. That's why they moved to the city.

Every time I think you've got nothing new to offer, you pull off a gem like this. It's like you've actually read Dickens but completely swapped the protagonist for the antagonist. But then I remembered that the cartoon version of "A Christmas Carol" has been on recently, and you were somehow rooting for Scrooge to stay mean and miserly.

He's old, and he grew up in a Boomer economy where he literally had everything handed to him. He's unable to understand that things have changed. Perhaps a bit blunt, but that's your answer.

5

General Comments / Re: A Good Question.

« on: January 13, 2023, 01:39:02 AM »

Lambert, I really am curious about this.

Why is the federal minimum wage not linked to inflation, and why hasn't it ever been?

Just making up numbers now, but if the minimum wage is 7.50 and inflation is reported to be ten percent...seems to me minimum wage should go up by 75 cents. Can you explain why you think this shouldn't happen?

6

General Comments / Re: The Santos lesson

« on: January 12, 2023, 04:45:56 PM »

I'm actually kind of legitimately interested. How much is the vote of a congressman worth? Especially in the House, they are only guaranteed for two years. Do you think they get paid off on retainer, like one big sum? Or do they get paid off vote by vote?

7

General Comments / Re: GOP nutbag of the week

« on: January 12, 2023, 04:37:58 PM »

I have to admit that I have never once experienced a city-wide power outage and thought, "I bet this is because someone really doesn't like that business downtown."

Genuine lol

8

General Comments / Re: McCarthy and the House Speakership

« on: January 12, 2023, 04:34:01 PM »

I grew up in Arizona. Trust me. You gerrymander up a mythical House district and you'll find all of the crazies you'll ever need. This *censored* didn't just get voted in, he won in a landslide.

9

General Comments / Re: McCarthy and the House Speakership

« on: January 12, 2023, 03:49:50 PM »

Conservatives - The national debt is important.

Also Conservatives - Increased funding to find people who are dodging taxes, and not paying their share to national expenses, is a gross injustice.

10

General Comments / Re: McCarthy and the House Speakership

« on: January 12, 2023, 02:11:07 PM »

No, I won't list out what we both know about. There's an argumentative technique where you throw so much BS at the other side that they spend all of their time defending against obvious BS. I'm not going to get involved with that here. If you think that means you won, congrats.

11

General Comments / Re: McCarthy and the House Speakership

« on: January 12, 2023, 02:08:10 PM »

Sorry. If you didn't understand, that's my fault. Perhaps I jumped the gun.

Conservatives have been pushing a bunch of BS because they weren't in charge. They didn't have to follow through. They have the House now, and a good portion of what they've been running their mouths on will be super embarrassing if they apply any kind of real consideration to it. So...they won't. It will have just disappeared.

12

General Comments / Re: McCarthy and the House Speakership

« on: January 12, 2023, 01:41:11 PM »

Lloyd. Do us both a favor, would you?

A) You've shown yourself perfectly willing to play the willing idiot on defense of conservative BS. Is it your hobby? Eh. Nevermind.

B) I can be a bit of a dick at times. It's literally saved on the server of our little party here. Choose your battles carefully.

This is a really stupid hill to die on. Do us both a favor and don't.

13

General Comments / Re: McCarthy and the House Speakership

« on: January 12, 2023, 10:39:41 AM »

Eh. Went out there and pushed it in their faces, conservatives looking for literally anything to argue against. You and us know how they really are.

14

General Comments / Re: McCarthy and the House Speakership

« on: January 11, 2023, 06:40:55 PM »

Retroactive censure of Liz Cheney?
[/quote


If need be, sure.

She made up the new rules, as she went along. Lol. Reps are in charge now, they'll be protecting their own

15

General Comments / Re: McCarthy and the House Speakership

« on: January 11, 2023, 05:37:23 PM »

The three page addendum is what McCarthy paid to get those last few votes. There are going to be a few people, and probably their friends/family, making a lot of money out of it. They set a price for their votes, and they received it.

I'm curious to learn if the various Democratic Houses ever put something like this in place. If they did, fair enough, at that level they all tend to get kind of scummy.

16

General Comments / Re: A Good Question.

« on: January 11, 2023, 05:25:50 PM »

So, a couple of things.

You take every other category of theft, and I mean *every* one, add them all up, and it is significantly less then estimated wage theft. As in, employees being screwed out of the agreed upon compensation that they are due for their labor. I don't think shoplifting is moral or right. I also don't think it's a sign of the apocalypse. Lots of other, higher level theft going on that is actually hurting working class people, not a corporation's bottom line.

I'm also not getting the conservative kickback on the economy here. They all complain about how no one wants to work anymore, meantime they're complaining about minimum wage jobs. Good lord, if you go off of federal minimum wage I'd be very interested to see what parts of the country you could even rent a studio apartment on minimum wage. It's not flagged to increase with inflation, and every time a vote comes up to increase it conservatives get on the House floor tearing their shirts about how it will destroy America.

I mean...okay? Obvious BS, but where I get confused is ya'll immediately turn around and fight against bringing in immigrants to work for super low wages, because they're used to being treated like *censored*.

Pick a lane, guys.

17

General Comments / Re: The Santos lesson

« on: January 11, 2023, 05:11:43 PM »

He's being surprisingly stubborn. Is the vote of one House member valued highly enough that he's willing to put up with all of the scorn? How much is he selling his vote for? God knows his career as a politician is over. He gets these two years, and that's it.

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General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: December 21, 2022, 02:30:43 PM »

Or it's just people putting in nothing votes against the ruling party, so they can go to their constituents and tell them how they bravely voted against the Democratic scourge.

Support for Ukraine is a bipartisan thing, not only in Congress but across the country. It may be lowering, slowly, but not to this extent. They're doing this so they have valid video clips about how they fought the Leftist Agenda. Nothing else.

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General Comments / Re: 2024

« on: December 15, 2022, 02:11:28 PM »

Not a fan of Harris' work as AG of California.

20

General Comments / Re: Guns

« on: December 03, 2022, 07:14:30 PM »

Nah. Lived in the States before, had a colleague who barely got up to five feet. Lived in a bad neighborhood. She had a gun in her purse and good for her, best of luck to anyone trying to drag her down an alleyway.

21

General Comments / Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?

« on: December 03, 2022, 07:06:25 PM »

Whilst being technically correct is often acknowledged as being the most satisfying type of correct, there was a ten year old girl who was raped and then struggled to not have to go through the incredibly dangerous prospect of pregnancy at ten and wanted an abortion. Also, she was raped. She might not want a momento of that.

That she had to cross state lines to get what she needed makes me think of other times people had to cross state lines to get what they needed.

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General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: November 09, 2022, 02:20:04 PM »

Now, I will usually say Russian claims of PR are BS.

The last week there have been several claims that hundreds of Russians have been dieing every day. Do I hope it's true? I mean, it's complicated, conscripts and then blah blah. They're invading a democraticly elected country and raping, murdering, and doing Gad knows what else.

I kinda want these claims to be true. I want these fascist invaders to be made to shut down.

If they were all conscripts, not wanting to go, given little equipment and no command...I feel sorry for them.

23

General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: November 04, 2022, 04:52:11 PM »

I stand corrected.

24

General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: November 04, 2022, 12:42:05 PM »

I mean, you say that. China has shut the hell up. Anyone? Heard China saying a word?

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General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: November 03, 2022, 12:04:30 PM »

Certainly not until it's solved the problem of Big and Modern in a legacy army. Like Russia, the part of China's army that's Modern isn't Big and the part that's Big isn't Modern. Ukraine proved you can't rely on the Modern part lasting long enough for the Big part to be telling.

It takes a moment. I get it.

That's what Russia is banking on. Their thoughts. They think they can kill enough young men and when the men die the women just put up a storie .

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General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: November 03, 2022, 11:48:09 AM »

If only Leaders were always relational
More and more now I wonder is their isn't a general 'mood'/'energy'  to burn it all down. Its like we want to screw ourselves over.

You alright mate?

27

General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: November 03, 2022, 11:45:20 AM »

China was thinking about how it could engage the US.

The US reached across the Atlantic Ocean and slapped the Russian Army directly in the face.

China now knows to shut up about Taiwan.

28

General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: November 03, 2022, 11:10:00 AM »

Not to be that guy, but have you looked at Taiwan's land recently?

It's an island completely made up of mountains. They've had decades to bring up their defenses.

Ukraine is just flat fields, willing and able to put forth barges full of grain and we're bending back to give them weapons and social support. Howeventy amount of computer chips is gonna come out of Taiwan and you think for a *censored* second  we're going to allow that to be interrupted?

Taiwan isn't getting invaded. Not today, not tomorrow. It's all posturing.

29

General Comments / Re: price fixing through shared algorithmic price setting

« on: October 17, 2022, 02:28:29 PM »

Was clever enough to trick you into admitting you're a liberal landlord.

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General Comments / Re: price fixing through shared algorithmic price setting

« on: October 17, 2022, 02:06:13 PM »

Alright. What are you saying. And just so you know, I'm clever enough.

31

General Comments / Re: price fixing through shared algorithmic price setting

« on: October 17, 2022, 02:00:02 PM »

Crunch would be proud of your moneymaking.

32

General Comments / Re: price fixing through shared algorithmic price setting

« on: October 17, 2022, 01:47:14 PM »

Uh huh. I'm too stupid to read. Meanwhile, you're the landlord.

33

General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: October 17, 2022, 01:44:21 PM »

First last and final warning, do *not* make me defend Lloyd *censored* Perma.

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General Comments / Re: price fixing through shared algorithmic price setting

« on: October 17, 2022, 01:37:48 PM »

It was a question about your reading comprehension skills

Yes, yes, you want to tell me how I can't read whilst simultaneously taking advantage of poor people. And then you pop up here to try to talk down to everyone else.

We see what you are.

35

General Comments / Re: price fixing through shared algorithmic price setting

« on: October 17, 2022, 01:23:33 PM »

...

Do you think I support using the algorithm?

That wasn't a no.

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General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: October 17, 2022, 01:22:19 PM »

I keep reading about the current thing about suicide drone attacks.  Really?  I mean I guess the drone does not exist any more, but if the drone was designed to be a one use weapon, as compared to one that normally goes back for refueling and does many missions, how is it a suicide drone?

It's just the evolution of warfare.

How awesome is this? We don't have to fight anymore. My uncle gets to tell some drone to kill an old lady.

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General Comments / Re: price fixing through shared algorithmic price setting

« on: October 17, 2022, 12:54:10 PM »

You're a landlord. I mean, tell me if you're not, but I'm pretty sure.

Oh. There's two of you. Pretty sure it covers ya both so let's sit back on that

38

General Comments / Re: price fixing through shared algorithmic price setting

« on: October 17, 2022, 12:04:20 PM »

You could make an argument about that for just about any BI tool. Collision would imply sharing of private sharing and plans. Rental pricing is very transparent. Would this be any different than a landlord going to rent.com and looking up pricing for comparable units? Real estate agents will have a good idea about the market value per square foot, are they doing something wrong if they inform the owner off an office building about prevailing rates?

Found the rich guy.

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General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: October 17, 2022, 11:26:05 AM »

So you all know how the Polish hate Russia, right? Centuries of warfare and then the whole USSR thing. If you want to find someone willing to blindly kill a Russian, no questions asked, go find a Polish person.its kind of hilarious. They really, really hate the Russians. You don't even have to give them money. They'll just kill them for fun.

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General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: October 17, 2022, 11:19:04 AM »

"Maybe we should have let the Russians open up Japan."

Don't go asking for miracles.

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General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: October 17, 2022, 04:38:45 AM »

So that's an interesting story and yet you're still trying to defend them.

You do you, brother.

I'll just go ahead and remind you how the Nazi ambassador had to tell them to turn their *censored* off.

42

General Comments / Re: price fixing through shared algorithmic price setting

« on: October 17, 2022, 04:31:45 AM »

Simple answer. Eat the rich.

43

General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: October 17, 2022, 01:46:22 AM »

So I guess you're going to get me started...

The U.S. invited Pearl Harbor when we didn't listen to Mark Twain and let the Philippines be free after we "won" it from Spain and further did the Bruce Lee nose thumb come at me gesture when we colonized Hawaii. So America colonized Hawaii and the Philippines, Britain colonized India, the French are in Vietnam, Russia is trying to instigate civil wars the world over including in Japan, and all Japan ever wanted was to be left alone but were forced to open their borders when "three black ships" started firing off their coast. Part of America's process of persuasion was to inform Japan about the true state of the world with European and American power colonizing vast swaths of it with the implication that they could be next, if not by us than by someone else. Japan took that threat to heart.

There is also an interpretation of history along the lines that Japan didn't really lose the war. Yes, the lost the war for conquest of Asia but they won the greater war because they are one of only two Asian countries that were never colonized and never suffered a commie civil war, either of which would have been worse than what they suffered in the war including the nukes, also noting that some countries experienced the pleasure of suffering both like Vietnam which today enjoys a GDP of 271 billion compared to Japan's 5 trillion.

It's also worth noting that our ships were sailing in Japanese waters trying to provoke an incident that would act as an excuse for war, and if none were forthcoming eventually we would have made one up ala The Gulf of Tonkin incident and Remember the Maine.

Disclaimer: Obviously none of that is any excuse for their evil barbaric behavior.

Jesus Christ dude what is with you and defending Japanese atrocities?

Britain, the US, Pakistan and India and all the other countries in the world, every last one has something in their history that they're not proud of. You know what makes you a leader? The ability to walk out there and say, "My bad."

44

General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: October 17, 2022, 12:52:40 AM »

It works well in a fictional universe where the baddest guys are able to be identified, game of thrones style with humans vs walkers.

Not to mention, then passing off GoT as a monochromatic presentation of morality in conflict, given the amount of *censored*tery committed by almost all factions and personalities, including the idea that the White Walkers were created due to genocide against the Children of the Forest. 

I mean, did you even watch the show?  Read the books? 

Next time you're going to throw someone under the bus on simplistic representations of good and evil, try Tolkien instead.

Not gonna lie, the fact that the White Walkers were created by the Children of the Forest as a last ditch effort to fend off the invasion of the First Men is just chefs kiss material.

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General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: October 16, 2022, 05:08:21 PM »

Oh dear. This is gonna be a fight.

46

General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: October 16, 2022, 02:51:50 PM »

I find it darkly amusing that forty odd rapes were happening everyday, and God knows what else, and the reaction of the Japanese public was relief because they feared the Americans would act like their own soldiers.

47

General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: October 16, 2022, 01:01:53 PM »

I'll also point out that to this day the Japanese don't really like to acknowledge what happened. You don't see that issue in Germany, every German kid grows up knowing what happened.

48

General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: October 16, 2022, 12:51:35 PM »

Unit 731. Yes. They were the bad guys.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731

49

General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: October 16, 2022, 12:43:43 PM »

The Japanese were *so* bad that the literal Nazi ambassador tried to tell them to chill with what they were doing in China. Think on that for a moment. Early 20th century Japan were the bad guys, no ifs ands or buts.

Just seeing a written overview or pictures of the rape of Nanking makes me wish they'd had a third nuke to throw at them.

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General Comments / Re: Ще́дрик, щедри́к, ще́дрівочка

« on: October 16, 2022, 11:51:29 AM »

Been a while since I heard a Westerner tell me how Pearl Harbour was really America's fault but Sunday comes around once a week, as they say.