“An EBT card does nothing to promote nutrition at a time when childhood obesity has become an epidemic.”

Reynolds has done something impressive. She has said one of the most stupid things I’ve ever heard from a republican. That’s a very high bar to clear, saying something so inconceivably stupid that it has special distinction from all of the other inconceivably stupid things republicans say. Yet somehow she managed to pull it off.

Yep. We can look at the source to see what their metrics are. They have economic freedoms and personal freedoms.

The metrics for economic freedoms they used are fiscal and regulatory freedom. Focusing on fiscal, that branches down into: state taxes, local taxes, government spending, government employment, government debt, and “cash & security assets.” It’s obviously a libertarian based definition of “economic freedom”, wherein they feel someone with $5 to their name and no obligations is more economically free than someone with $100 to their name and $10 of taxes. Completely illogical bullshit.

But you can look at it and see that a lot of them are incoherent or intentionally overlapping even if you buy into their base ideology.

Why are government spending and government taxation separate entries? Is someone with low taxes less “economically free” because their government budget is able to afford to be larger anyway? Why does government employment factor in at all? Surely — especially after you’ve accounted for any budgetary, taxation, and debt based impacts — there’s nothing inherent to government employees existing that can be argued to impact someone’s “economic freedom.” Even within their base libertarian fantasies, the overlap and design of the categories will specifically make a richer, but otherwise completely identical, state less free than a poorer copy-cat.

The rest of their categories are even more bullshit. They have an entire section under personal freedom categorized as “Travel Freedom.” A sane person might define that as both the right and the capacity to travel places. They define it as “This category includes seat belt laws, helmet laws, mandatory insurance coverage, and cell phone usage laws.” So a state is less “free” according to Cato if it makes it illegal to text while driving.

tl;dr it’s all libertarian bullshit.

Do you have data on that? A modern nuclear power plant is going to be in the 500-1000+ MW range. I have a hard time imagining that even operating at half capacity that they do not offset the carbon used for concrete within a relatively short order. But if that is in fact the case I'd love to see data saying so, so that I can correct my thinking.

Election law varies from state to state. But generally from what I gather, a write-in candidate is only valid if the candidate registers with the state in advance.

If there's a winning plurality for Mickey Mouse in your state for a statewide office, it won't matter. The state won't be forced to see if there's anyone there that has the name Mickey Mouse and then pick which (if more than one) was the individual meant by the voters. Someone has to register with the state saying that they're going to run a write-in campaign for office with name XYZ.

Note that these details are a bit of a side track. The above person was talking about Trump being excluded due to the 14th amendment. However that doesn't say "not on the ballot" — it invalidates people from office entirely. If applied to Trump, the not being on the ballot would be a consequence of being determined ineligible for office, not a method to make him unable to win. Also it's all moot: while I think on the face of it the correct action would be to apply the 14th amendment to Trump, the fact of the matter is that this will not happen. States are not going to be willing to risk the political backlash from going down that path, so they will not.

I don't think Kotick is at all certain to be kicked out. As easily as I can see MS letting him go with an enormous golden parachute, I can just as easily imagine them keeping him onboard because all they care about is Activision's ability to make money.

In all likelihood Blizzard isn't going to be managed any differently. Microsoft's modus operandi with gaming acquisitions is to leave the leadership in place and let the dev/publisher run itself. Why is everyone expecting different here? The most likely outcome is MS does nothing to Blizzard and Blizzard continues on more or less the same trajectory as before.

They're fixing the last line of that. Republicans parred it back some it's still seeing substantial budget increases. You can see the 10 year timelines.

The tax enforcement budget would see a 69.2% increase relative to the pre-IRA projection. I forget what the size of the debt limit deal cutback was, but my recollection is that it was not enough to change the core fact that the IRS is going to see substantial improvements to its budget and especially to its enforcement arm.

EDIT: Worth highlighting that stories like this one are exactly why republicans hate the idea of the IRS being properly funded.

It’s also because their current shows suck, and because any shows that are actually good get shitcanned after season 2, because Netflix sees less consumer growth after two seasons.

I'm always surprised at how often other people (not you) will defend this practice from Netflix. It's classic case of following the data in a stupid way. If their data shows that interest drops off after two seasons, I don't doubt it.

But… that comes with a cost. They have built a reputation as a company that doesn't properly finish shows that they start, that will leave viewers hanging. That makes it harder to get people invested in a new series, even one that's well reviewed. Why get interested in something you know will end on a cliffhanger?

That kind of secondary order impact from their decision isn't going to show up in data. Doesn't change that it happens all the same.

It should be done, but Biden has never had the opportunity.

The size of SCOTUS is set by statute, and would need a law passed by the house and senate to do so. Democrats don't hold the house today, but did in the prior congress. That vote likely could have succeeded. It would have failed in the senate. At the time the senate was 50-50 and I cannot possibly imagine any scenario where Manchin and Sinema would have voted for that law. King and Feinstein wouldn't have been certain votes either, but likely winnable if it came down to the wire. Even if all of them did vote aye, regular legislation can be filibustered and there is definitely 0% chance that Manchin+Sinema would have voted to kill the filibuster.

Dems need a house majority and at least a 52-48 senate majority for this to happen. I suspect that rage has already faded enough that it won't happen even then, barring SCOTUS doing more Dobbs sized awful decisions.

The pressure campaign for RBG to retire was when democrats still held a senate majority with 53 seats. Republicans blocked Obama's SCOTUS appointment when they held the senate majority. In 2016, republicans simply just didn't allow a vote to happen because the senate leader sets the vote schedule. The nuclear option had already been invoked by that very same dem caucus on all other presidential nominations too.

The scenarios look similar on a surface level but in the details that matter they are leagues apart. If RBG had retired in 2013 or (most of) 2014, her replacement would been confirmed, barring a Kavanaugh-sized scandal. Either republicans would have provided the seven votes needed to secure cloture, or Reid would have invoked the nuclear option to lower the cloture requirement on SCOTUS nominees to a bare majority, like all other positions. Either way the nominee would have been confirmed.

I'm more willing to forgive members of the house running despite their old age than I am senators.

Representatives only serve two years, so they're making a shorter commitment. It's substantially easier for someone to think they can keep doing something for another two years than it is for them to think they can do it for another six years. Especially on health matters. But also, individual representatives are simply just less important. In our current political environment, an individual senator leaving office is going to be a huge disruption for any balance of power that's less than 54-46, with another critical point reached at the 60-40 balance. In the house it won't matter for any caucus that's ahead by ~5+ seats. Even in today's razor close house, it was elected as 222-213 seats — a nine seat gap.

There's a decent number of older representatives out there. I wouldn't have minded Lee sticking around there for a bit longer. The only real issue with older representatives is that by staying in office they block the pipeline for new blood and building a bench for future offices. Running for senate in her late 70s is ridiculous though, especially for a first term.

For Pelosi specifically, I'd put it at 50-50 odds that she retires shortly after the 2024 election. If it wasn't for her personal feud with Hoyer I'd put it at near-certain. When she decides to retire, I expect she'll stick around for one last campaign solely because it will improve her ability to fundraise for the DCCC. She's a team player through and through.

But did you ever stop to think about how Italy's system impacts the most important among us: the wealthy shareholders? A truly humane system would prioritize them at all costs.

/s (should be obvious, but I'll put it there to be safe.)

That and the EGS seem to be where Epic funneled all their profits from the height of Fornite. That neither has worked out puts them on shakier ground. How many billions of dollars has been spent on EGS with it being way behind their revenue targets?

As things stand, Epic has very little in the way of a next big revenue source when Fortnite starts to fade as something new takes its place. That (probably) isn't right around the corner but it will happen eventually. Their bet was on running major digital storefronts; that hasn't worked out. UE will continue to make good money but not anywhere near enough to sustain the company as it is. UE is simply far smaller than something like FN.

This is likely them realizing this in conjunction with what you said. They need a new big revenue source in the pipeline, since digital storefronts won't be it. Whatever that next thing is will need lots of money.

Curious why everyone in the comments (as of my own comment) is happy about this?

Sure, he exudes C-suite personality and doesn't act like he's a gamer. But that doesn't matter. He oversaw Sony's rise to dominance in the console market. That dominance is built on the foundation of their first party AAA games — which is a less than ten year old change for them. Sony porting their big games to PC was a project that was fully embraced under his leadership.

Point being, as a gamer it seems like he's done a fairly decent job. I don't care how boring his interviews or speeches are or that he looks and acts like he belongs in a board room — they're all like that anyway even if their public persona says otherwise. I care about games and treatment of consumers.

Kissinger is 100. He can't last that much longer… can he?

Aviation is one of the smallest contributions to greenhouse gas emissions as-is: in 2016 it was 1.9% of global emissions.

The danger the rich pose to the planet isn’t being first in line for the second generation of supersonic transoceanic flights.

The danger the rich pose to the planet is them keeping coal and natural gas plants open longer because they personally profit from it. It’s them keeping their taxes low, reducing our ability to fund renewable energy. It’s them fighting tooth and nail against any new energy efficiency regulation (remember the incandescent lightbulb ban fight?) because it “hurts profits.” It’s them fighting against public transportation.

This? This isn’t even in the top 50 of their ills against the climate. The hate for the rich is well placed. Applying that hate to basic science is dangerously misplaced. The rich love when people push-back on funding science efforts.

Faster transportation is quality of life too. Just like cars were, or railroads before them. Yeah, this one is currently worthless for anyone that isn’t rich. But if it proves successful it will become useful for more of us. Like you say, there’s also just the material and other sciences being done to make it possible that will filter out elsewhere. So much of early space exploration was Cold War dick waving, and now think about how much we rely on satellites. I couldn’t navigate anywhere without GPS, personally…

People here take their hate of the rich (which is well placed) and aim it at all the wrong things. Don’t like the rich? Tax 'em more. That’s what I want. Higher income taxes and even a wealth tax on the top. And way more meaningful inheritance taxes. Instead they’re bitching about investments in science.

Technology filters down. Once upon a time only the rich could afford corrective lenses, but that wasn’t a waste of resources. How many of non-wealthy people will read this comment and wear glasses or contacts? I do. BEVs were limited to the wealthy at first too, and now are solidly affordable to much of the middle class: dependent more on their access to charging and their driving requirements than on their budget. The first residential fridges cost more than a brand new Model T when they came out: the inflation adjusted 1922 price was ~$13,000 today. Was inventing fridges worthless?

It’s NASA developing new technologies. New stuff starts off more expensive, which means it will start off limited to the wealthy. If you don’t want any new tech to come out that starts with rich people being the primary users, then you should go find your local luddite club to join.

It is and it isn’t, the reasons are in my comment.

The problem is that it depends on how you assess it. There are two, both perfectly valid, ways to look at this.

The way you’re looking at it is you see it as a state-only contest. B got the fewest votes, B’s votes go to C, C wins the state. The end. From an administrative level this is the simplest approach. I don’t feel any need to expand on this assessment as you’re in favor of it and seem to grok the principles behind it.

The other, equally correct, way to look at it is to assess this as a national contest. In that case, C is the one that actually gets the fewest votes because they have 0 electoral votes in any other state. C is incapable of winning, so C would be eliminated in the first round of the state level contest. After all, one of the points of RCV is to eliminate the impact of spoiler candidates that cannot win. With that in mind, it’d be dumb to design an RCV system that increases the impact of a spoiler candidate that cannot win.

The issue with the first interpretation is the risk of magnifying the impact of a spoiler candidate who cannot win. The issue with the second interpretation is the sheer administrative difficulty (if C were competitive in multiple states then each state needs to take into account how other states are doing their RCV process, etc.). Both flaws would be unlikely to matter >99% of the time, but that one time the flaw would matter could lead to a constitutional crisis or less dangerously result in fundamental dislike of RCV systems. That one time might also become more likely if voters feel more comfortable voting for third parties due to this system.

The problem here is that both systems are fair, logical, and valid; they also each present major issues in edge scenarios. That’s why it’s important to go for a popular vote first. That way the election is one election, which RCV is explicitly designed for. The current two layer 51-elections that lead to another election that we have for the US presidency is basically a nightmare scenario for an effective RCV system.

Some democrats don’t like RCV (see the DC thread from the other day), but many do. NYC has RCV, and I assure you it didn’t get there without democrats supporting it. So does Maine.

RCV wouldn’t work well for presidential elections as they are anyway, because it’s a two-stage election. What would RCV mean in an individual state? Pretend a 3rd party is in contention in that state but has no chance nationally. Candidates A and B are the major parties, and C is our third party. If the results are C=40, A=35, B=25, and B’s support transfers to C, and C’s support would transfer to C, does that mean B should be eliminated so C can win the state, or should C be eliminated (because they won’t win any other states) and B should win the state? There’s no obvious answer and it just invites more of a clusterfuck.

RCV is great for popular vote elections, which is what everything else is (mostly… there’s… I think it’s Mississippi governor?) and what the presidential election should be.

Popular vote first, RCV second.