So what’s the point of the metaphor about soccer? Just say “this guy is threatening my life. It’s me or him.” That’s a different conversation. And like I said, when force is used to displace a ruler, if the people who do it are like “we’ve rigged the elections so that we win every time moving forward” then they’re not generally welcomed as liberators.

I’m saying that supposing there was such a dire situation that cheating in an election or even shooting a gun to end the situation was necessary, I’d want to know what’s the plan to get back to a democratic order. Because otherwise we’re cheering for oligarchy. Sure, less immediately threatening than the current oligarchy. But ultimately people who answer to party elites rather than the public.

Even with a trifecta under Biden, Democrats didn’t make DC and Puerto Rico states. They didn’t pack the supreme court. They didn’t imprison Trump and his lieutenants responsible for Jan 6. (Yes, they got rank and file rioters) I’d like to see people who are talking about “gerrymandering for Democrats” also talk about what they’ll do to ensure MAGA never returns to power. I’d like to see them explicitly lay out a timeline for when they reverse gerrymandering for all states. And I’d like to see them advocate for policies that people actually want - healthcare for all, universal childcare, free higher education. So that people might want to vote for them, not just against the other guys.

Democrats rightfully trumpeted that Trump was a threat to the country in 2020, Biden won, they got a majority in Congress and the Senate, and then what did they do with it? They didn’t prevent Trump from coming back. I want to elect people who genuinely see Trump as a mortal threat, not just people who say that and then fuck around for four years until things are worse the next election. If we gerrymander, we’re making our democracy worse. And if it’s to elect the same type of people we got in 2020, then there will be no urgency to fix the nationwide problem of gerrymandering, or to really change the conditions that allowed MAGA to take over.

I’m curious to hear the plan on how the system gets unbroken. Because gerrymandering is further breaking it. Suppose Democrats win control of congress through gerrymandering. What is the plan to return to non crooked districts?

If you want to play soccer, and someone else picks up the ball, you’re not playing soccer. If you too pick up the ball, you’re still not playing soccer. If you somehow successfully forced the other team to return to kicking the ball (how does that work?) then you will be the one not playing soccer.

I want something to happen! I want to live in a democracy. It’s not a question of “should we do something extreme to save our country?” It could very easily destroy it. Doing “our own gerrymandering” is antidemocratic. That’s why I said something time bound or explicitly/legally tied to a bad action on the other side is at least a little better. Because otherwise how do we ever get back to “democracy”?

Even when a regime is overthrown by violence (another action that’s inherently undemocratic but sometimes in service of good) for the next administration to be recognized it’s expected they have elections. There has to be some consent from the governed, some legitimacy.

I’m reading that the state of Washington has ten representatives in Congress, and two of them are Republican. So best case, you get two more Democrat representatives.

Does more than 20% of Washington vote Republican? This page says that 27% of the population is registered Republican, and 20% are unaffiliated. Even if you could, seems pretty undemocratic to strip all those people of representation.

To be clear, I think Trump and Maga are clear threats to democracy. I think we are at the point where extreme measures are called for. I also think you don’t resolve threats to democracy by threatening democracy.

I’m more sympathetic to actions which are time bound, or tied to bad actions of other states. So for example “we’re redrawing these maps for five years” or “this new map will become effective if such and such legislation is passed in such and such state.”

But I would much rather see extreme actions taken which are consistent with democracy rather than disenfranchising people further.

Lol, I mean the focus on coincidence, like matching dates.

Do you guys remember email forwards? This is like something I’d get from my grandma

Besides what the other commenter replied, with Trump there’s a special value in controlling his agenda because often the last person he talks to will have the most sway. There have been stories about his appointees taking advantage of a rival appointee being away or in a meeting, and getting Trump to issue an order or even just tweet a position on something so it’s harder to walk back when someone else gets his ear.

The Cardassians really loved tripping hazards

Nice, thanks for sharing. I might have missed it but does it say how they handled audio?

Superimposing images would probably have more happy accidents than superimposing reversed audio, which would probably just make things unintelligible.

Yeah and what if we played it backward and with the colors inverted

I had someone say I used too many exclamation points in a specific email and it wasn’t professional. It was 2 or 3, which admittedly was high for me, but seemed warranted and mirrored the way the client was writing.

Wikipedia link

The only way to confirm these results is expose a different random region to radiation and see what they get horny for

Overthrow oligarchy

Would you have given the same advice about refugees from literal Nazi Germany

What the fuck kind of comment is this?

They’re not real, most importantly

The original post was about how it’s cheap to make long distance calls now versus in the past. That’s true! In that spirit I don’t see any benefit to distinguishing between analog and digital calls. But point taken about the time axis on the chart.

Tele for “far off”, phone for “voice”. I think internet calls count as telephone calls. Naturally this chart could not show separate pricing for Internet telephone calls in 1940.

I can’t read Chinese, but looks like the colors represent elevation, not how green an area is.