MirthfulAlembic

It's crazy. He was already tied for sixth most SC justices appointed (with seven other presidents). If Alito and Thomas retire and he replaces them, he'll only be behind Washington, FDR, and Taft. His numbers for other judicial appointments were already very high as well.

People really do not appreciate how long we'll be feeling the consequences of this if we survive this term and move on to someone sane.

It's a good vibe movie. The most I can say of the plot is that it does exist. It succeeds for being very quotable and an interesting window into a certain time and place. I would actually recommend it to young people if they want to understand what mall culture used to be like.

I ate the onion with this one.

The solutions here don't seem to really be solutions in my opinion, especially the third one. It's like if the problem a patent solves was "being able to individually package sandwiches on a conveyor belt" and the solution was "have a machine that recognizes where one sandwich ends and another begins so it can stop and start packaging appropriately." Like, no kidding, but how?

A Canadian I used to know told me their family would have some cheaper items in the back seat that they'd declare and hide the more expensive stuff. Apparently it did work.

Reading that article is a serious indictment of economic literacy in the United States. People don't understand what role the president plays in the economy, what causes inflation, or how and why interest rates change. They draw really superficial causal links and don't think about it after that; it's fact to them.

It's reasons like this education may be the single most critical issue, since we can't make progress on the climate or anything else if the population is incapable of critical thinking. I hate to say it like this because it feels patronizing, but Jesus fucking Christ.

Indeed. I think it's why cults of personality are so dangerous. You don't need to convince that many people if you can get a large enough, dedicated number to consistently do what the leader says and push others around.

I'm not sure that love is the word for Bernie, but I was certainly much more enthusiastic about him. Some people did get weird about it which made me uncomfortable, though. The policy should always come before the politician.

I think the problem is that plenty of people might like Harris, but not so much that turnout for her matched Biden. The people who like Trump love him, and they turned out in the same numbers as 2020 basically. He didn't need to meaningfully grow his base if people weren't motivated to show up for his opponent.

It's definitely a demonstration that having the most palatable candidate doesn't matter. It might if voting were compulsory, but it isn't.

The red mirage/blue shift will probably be much smaller than prior elections, since it seems Trump supporters are using early or mail in voting more than before. The splits by party for these methods are smaller so far this year.

There are some municipalities where landowners are required to remove graffiti in a timely fashion or be fined by the city. In such places, the landlord would definitely pass those costs to tenants. Not that they would lower rents if the problem went away, of course. One year of a graffiti problem would likely permanently raise rents unless you live somewhere with a glut of available affordable rentals.

Not that it affects your point, but it's the other way around. CVS is Aetna's parent company.

Agreed. It's basically the political version of reading tea leaves.