It's just kind of difficult to understate that in the absence of a shit ton of people going to jail and major institutional reform in 2029, the U.S. is completely fucked. Like, "these things have to happen or the country has no future" levels of fucked.

If annexing Greenland plays out as the bloodless fait accompli the Trump administration hopes it will, there's a non-zero chance that emboldens them to make a move towards Canada or Mexico before the end of his term.

The way the U.S. system of government functions de facto is best summarized as "the president can do whatever he wants until someone with the power to stop him tells him he can't and he choses to back down." It's wild that people still don't fully understand this. Article II was a mistake.

It should be a stark reminder that a mere restoration of the deeply insufficient status quo ante will not be enough. If the devastations wrought by Trumpism in power are followed yet again by a failure to hold anyone to account and pretensions of returning to “normalcy,” democracy cannot survive.

Is there an arbitrary rule of thumb cutoff for what you'd characterize as a cross-sectional time series data set versus a panel dataset? "Panel" is typically used to refer to a smaller T dimension per unit, but at what granularity does it become a CSTS? #econsky #statssky

I am once again begging people to possess a minimum understanding of how federal tax collection *actually works in practice* before touting ideas for which there is no practical mechanism for implementing

If we're being honest, the best time for Canada and Mexico to start actively working on enriching weapons grade uranium was probably ~2016. The second best time is now.

Two things can be true. One one hand, removing Maduro by force was probably categorically a good thing. On the other, the way it was done--as a unilateral move by the U.S. without any effort to build a coalition around regional interests or any clear plan for improving Venezuela, is bad and stupid.

A lot of this site's problem is that it has become less of an alternative to X and more of an alternative to Tumblr, and as bad as X is, it beats Tumblr pretty much any day of the week.

The incels being so unlovable that even the sex robots find them repulsive is kind of poetic

I'm not saying this is the time for the rest of the civilized world to give some serious thought to forming a united coalition and undertaking some good old fashioned nation-building in the U.S., but we're still less than 25% of the way through Trump's second term 😬

If you find yourself saying "Hey, I have more in common with Will Stancil, Sky Marchini, and Bill Kristol than random anonymous online leftists who make this site hell," congratulations you're a normie by bluesky standards.

There is a faction of the online left, as clearly evidenced in Sky's QTs over the last 24 hours that is functionally indistinguishable from the worst of the Nazis on the far right. Like just absolute trash people for whom any civilized or rationale discussion based on evidence is a non-starter.

Any paper under review where the authors refuse a request for the code should be an automatic reject

Has anyone made one of those moderation lists for mass blocking incompetent leftist randos with anime profile pictures? Seems like a thing that would be really useful

Lol, so this is in fact literally the plan bsky.app/profile/maxb...

FML. Doing some minor upgrades to one of my custom loops and 12mm fittings have doubled in price since I last had to buy them in 2021 (pictured cost is for a single pack of four)

My relatives felt the same when a U.S.-led coalition deposed Qaddafi in late 2011 and yet a decade and a half later most of them now agree that was probably a stupid move. Deposing a dictator without a carefully laid plan for what comes next is seldom a move worth celebrating

Assassinating Maduro is functionally what they've done, which I guess raises the question is the plan to just keep assassinating each of his successors until someone willing to bow to U.S. policy interests and be a puppet steps up to bat? It's a very Stalin-esque approach to foreign policy

Did they really depose Maduro with zero short-term plan? Leaving Maduro's VP and party in power doesn't seem like it leads to policy change because she doesn't exactly look like a willing puppet. So this whole shitshow actually achieving anything probably requires a protracted invasion.

"Trust nothing and no one" still undefeated as career advice

if i was running a political party and every time my opponents held power they started illegal wars for oil and crashed the economy i would simply say that repeatedly

There exist single-celled organisms with more of a spine than Schumer and Jeffries possess. Hard to imagine any two people more entirely unequipped for the period in which they find themselves

I'm calling on the Canadian military to capture noted pedo terrorist Donald Trump so that he can stand trial in Toronto for his role in the international rape gang Tren de Epstein. Pro-democracy Americans have suffered long enough under Trump who was elected illegally and unconstitutionally.

Fired up the vinyl cutter before I got sick last week and made this little decal for my wife's cousin for Christmas. It turned out pretty nicely.

Failing to vaccinate your child against [preventable highly-contagious disease] without some specific, valid medical reason as to why they can't be vaccinated that is signed off on by at least two different licensed physicians, should be child abuse and the government should take your child away.

“Trump and the MAGAGOP are a bunch of sex-pest weirdos who want to take away your healthcare, make sure everyone gets measles, and bust into daycares so they can take photos of toddlers and share them online” is a message Americans will understand and find repellent

On the upside flu and covid tests both came back negative. On the downside, generic upper respiratory infections suck so much ass 😫

I've been driving my mother's new F150 Lightning while she's been out of town for the last week and as someone who typically really isn't a fan of large SUVs/pickup trucks I'm surprised how much I like it. I would never choose it over my Dark Horse, but it's a very nice truck

No one deserves to die of an easily preventable disease, but if someone's poor decision results in the otherwise preventable deaths of others (especially WRT children), they should be both criminally and civilly liable for the consequences of those poor decisions.

🔥 take: It should be a felony for an individual to set off fireworks in a residential area after ~8PM 363 days of the years.

Unexpected upside to immigration: The ~11 restaurants within 2 miles of me that are opened on Christmas day are all immigrant owned businesses

This little plastic adapter to connect the orbital sander to the shop vac was sooooo worth the $15

In the case of most (all?) federal taxes, there's no mechanism for doing this because states don't directly collect those taxes. Employers withhold federal taxes on behalf of employees and remit payment to the IRS. Where does the misconception that states act as a pass-through come from?

There's pretty much zero chance of this happening because it makes civil war inevitable in an extremely obvious way. It's a great idea, but it won't happen.

Again, the back page of Onion a few weeks ago was spot fucking on

This is critically important. Democrats need to pass it if they retake Congress. Trump will veto it. So pass it again. Campaign on it. Given current polling, corruption of the FBI, and the brutality of ICE and BP, there’s no better time to say, “Federal police are not above the law.”

I'm not sure I've ever seen a sentence that better summarizes everything wrong with modern American society than "There's a genuine debate here" as if debating whether shipping people off to a concentration camp is an action with two legitimate sides

We're going to have the whole "AI is what shady companies do, ML is what researchers do" as a conversation at some point. and i wish people could just say they hate the companies rather than pretend they know things about ML

Stop scrolling and post two characters that bring you happiness

Gave micing my JVM410 a try again for the first time in the house and it didn't turn out too bad. Probably needs more volume than I gave it since running it through the GT1000 for FX takes a bit off the top. I still kind if prefer the emulated XLR line out though.

Bought tickets for a concert up in Madison, WI in March last night and JFC concert tickets have gotten expensive in the last few years.

We are only 22.8% of the way through Trump's second term 😮‍💨. It feels like it has been soooo much longer

People do not understand change in terms of relative percentages, exhibit 764

I don't know, Aaron. I think we need to take this seriously. In fact, after surveying hundreds of years of history in the past few days, I've written an article assessing the originalist case here: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Okay, so not at all overkill. Soooo much dust. Got all the 2×4s for the foundation sanded before I ran out of daylight though. Will probably hold off on the rest of the sanding until the adapter to connect the sander to my shop vac I ordered gets here.

Using the orbital sander for the first time and on one hand, this is probably overkill but on the other I finally have a use for all the N95s I bought in ~2022

The double standard here is insane. Someone on the right gets murdered and anyone who dares to suggest it isn't the biggest tragedy of the year or points out the guy was a terrible human being deserves to be canceled but someone on the left is murdered and the President of the United States cheers