Oh that's just some good old garden variety Trump corruption.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Sometimes the Oval Office Occupant makes even Our Very Serious Media uneasy…
Under the Trump administration, NO ONE is above the LAW– until NOW, thanks to the all-new "PALACE IN THE SKY," flying high above the petty "laws" of congress and the Fake News Constitution. THANK YOU! L'ÉTAT C'EST MOI!!
— Hemry, Local Bartender (@bartenderhemry.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 2:13 PM
It’s especially galling that AG Pam Bondi personally wrote the memo approving the gift of the Qatari airplane. Her last job was as a lobbyist for Qatar! efile.fara.gov/docs/6415-Ex…
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 1:46 PM
But remember, *you* can only have two dolls and five pencils
— Chris Kluwe (@chriswarcraft.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 9:09 AM
Stealing our money to give to Trump's private luxury plane. Hail to the thief
It’s fine, they gifted each nut and bolt individually.
— Starfish Who Can’t Think Something Witty (@irhottakes.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 9:26 AM
Two key differences:
1) Reagan’s Air Force One was outmoded and had been effectively replaced for more than a decade by the current 747s before its donation
2) It’s been built into a pavilion as part of the museum piece of the Reagan Library, giving the public access.— City Nolan (@ndhapple.bsky.social) May 11, 2025 at 1:49 PM
Belafon
I don’t think Fox is talking about it. My conservative coworker hadn’t heard much about it.
JML
Grifters all the way down.
mappy!
Nobody here but us crickets.
jonas
I’m sure Rep. James Comer (R-Soooeee!) will be all over this blatant violation of about a million anti-corruption laws in addition to the constitutional ban on foreign emoluments.
Baud
Love seeing AL back to full strength. The country needs you!
danielx
I’ve heard that airplane described as a flying brothel, decor-wise. Which would fit.
Belafon
@danielx: The Grand Master’s ship from Thor.
stinger
@Baud:
Amen!
suzanne
@danielx: Remember in his first maladministration, when he referred to the White House as a dump?
God. Ugh.
H.E.Wolf
Likely not. But Electoral-Vote.com sure is! It’s the lead article on their blog today.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/May12-1.html
WTFGhost
For another scary thought, from Crooks and Liars:
https://crooksandliars.com/2025/05/why-does-keep-happening-nbc-host-grills
Key quote:
“Glitches in our software?” “Telecom issues?
This is a horrifyingly scary scenario, where the software – which has been glitch-free for a long time! – and the telecom – which worked fine until Trump came in – might have been “upgraded” by the Musk-ovites, with all the capability of building enterprise ready software that they’ve demonstrated so far, which is to say, “none, they’re a bunch of script-kiddies with delusions of grandeur.”
I’ll be the first to admit, I can make a database enterprise ready, but I can’t build an enterprise-ready application. I can build a bug free, simple, application that could be run trivially easily, but, for example, I couldn’t tell you how to model tens of thousands of copies of that app on anywhere from one, to tens of thousands, of clients, and how to make sure that the app survives beautifully, no matter how much stress it’s put under, until a bug is hit.
(I know, I said “bug free” but people will use your app in ways you never imagined, so, now, I say “there’s a usability bug, for people using this tool in a way I never intended! I’m a teeny bit embarrassed that it’s this bug, but not embarrassed that I found a new bug.”)
So: keep your eye out for stories of upgrades to our Air Traffic Control system, and make sure you remember our moronic transportation secretary is willing to blame bugs in the software, and telecom issues, both of which any decent engineer would have avoided.
Betty Cracker
If these criminal chucklefucks had explicitly set out to test the extreme limits of voter tolerance for corrupt acts, I don’t know what they’d be doing differently.
neabinorb
The “flying palace” deal with Qatar is so transparent we can all see right through it to the corruption.
Baud
Maybe we should start calling the plane Lolita Express 2.
No One of Consequence
@WTFGhost: In my (admittedly limited) experience: No codebase survives first contact with the userbase.
YMMV, but I am guessing not by much.
-NOoC
Betty Cracker
@WTFGhost: I saw a clip of Real World Guy (Duffy) on that topic early this morning and wondered if Pete Buttigieg would have something to say about it since he was in that job earlier and probably has an informed perspective on what’s happening. Not so far that I can find.
NotMax
As it’s a personal, not official, plane surely the gummint won’t be shelling out for fuel and maintenance, right?
BTW, what’s the tariff on importing a 747?
//
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: Hey, how did the lobster tails turn out? I read your comment about the birthday treat in an overnight thread, and it set my mind to wandering in a circuitous route to the old Hilltop Steakhouse in Saugus, MA and its famous lobster pie.
Splitting Image
Unless and until Republicans call this out for what it is, I will continue to believe that Trump is the least corrupt and most honest person in the entire Republican party.
jonas
They appear to be betting on Fox and other MAGA media just ignoring it and if the MSM covers it, they can just throw a tantrum about Hunter Biden or whatever and Joe Normievoter will just roll his eyes and wish a pox on both their houses.
See? The system works!
Professor Bigfoot
“You are now free to bribe across the country.”
Members of the Party are above the law. They are murdering the US Constitution right in front of our eyes.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Actually he did, within this extended interview.
Professor Bigfoot
@WTFGhost: “Any sufficiently complex software system is beyond the ability of any given human to fully understand it.”
Thar be ghosts in yonder machines.
russell
The Qataris valued that 747 at $480, so it’s all good
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Superb meal.
No One of Consequence
If we survive all of this as a nation, I am thinking we should take a long hard look at replacing congress with a parliament. Not sure what impacts this would have stability-wise nor financial-stability-wise, but I’d sure like the ability to check a captured government somehow. On a timeline more frequent than every 2-4-6 years. I understand the need for patience and deliberative pace with democracy, but I really don’t think a lot of aged argument stands up to logical scrutiny when faced with the advances in technology over time since a lot of this stuff was codified. We can do more direct democracy than we do currently, we have the means.
As I posited earlier, perhaps a day or two ago, Apathy needs to be addressed. If engagement is the issue, that we cannot seem to overcome, then the only way to increased participation is to ease the access and lower the barriers of that participation.
Apathy will reduce in times of hardship, but we will always wonder until the votes get counted whether or not there was enough hardship being felt to result in participation.
I am sure I am missing something. Thoughts?
-NOoC
Jackie
@danielx: ”Interior decor designed by Saddam and Liberace” —Rick Wilson
trollhattan
401(k) down, whooping cough up. Thanks, Trump!
Belafon
@No One of Consequence: As we’ve seen in England and Israel, a parliamentary system can be held hostage by the governing party if they refuse to call for a new vote to find out what the people think of their choices.
WTFGhost
@Belafon: I’m sure they’ll talk about it as soon as they can come up with triumphalist sound bites to describe it. “He shook down Qatar for a new AF1!!!”
One thing everyone should be aware of for talking points: gifts to the President are give to the USA, not the man. Once he accepts the gift, that’s it – it belongs wholly to the USA, unless he wants to buy it with his own money. (There might be some tchotchke limit, but for the most part, “no gifts; they belong to US, no, not the United States, US as in you and me and our fellow people, “us”. Not Trump – he has no more right to a gift given the President (even when he holds the office) than we do.
So this is a transfer of $400 million dollars, plus more, to a private citizen, for no lawful reason. Plus, it violates the foreign emoluments clause in every single way one could imagine. It even demonstrates guilty state of mind by pretending a jet-for-use is the same as a “jet-for-display.” No lawyer would ever make that mistake on behalf of a paying client, but Bondi “made that mistake” for someone who is emphatically *not* her client, which makes this a double-whammy of corruption.
See, Bondi, as a lawyer, must provide her best possible service to the USofA. She must not let herself be swayed by the thought of doing favors for her Trumpie-bear. Here, it’s obvious she did exactly that. I don’t know why this isn’t grounds for the bar to have her house TPed while they deliver the summons to a disciplinary hearing.
On second thought, the bar shouldn’t have her house TPed. That’s too childish. A flaming bag of d…
(Sorry – this is the Washington State Bar. Please pardon the interruption while we try to beat this ghost senseless for revealing our secrets.)
suzanne
@No One of Consequence:
I have serious doubt that this is a good idea.
jonas
@trollhattan: Pertussis is a horrible illness. It’s the worst kind of negligence not to get one’s kids vaccinated for it.
The mind reels at these people.
Harrison Wesley
@trollhattan: Glad I got the shot last year. Guess I should check with pharmacy to see if there’s anything else I need.
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: I meant specifically about the screen failure situation in Newark. Is that addressed in the two week-old interview? I don’t want to endure Mustache Guy’s blather if not. ;-)
ETA: Glad the meal turned out well!
allium
@Belafon: I swing by Free Republic on occasion to lurk and see what insanity is percolating there, and the wendigos are NOT happy about it.
WTFGhost
@Jackie: Did you see the reveal video, showing that the Oval’s decor is not “24 karat gold” like Trump proclaims, and just gold painted cheap crap you can buy at home depot?
I remember a joke that “Actually, I think we’d ALL be snobs, if we had the required taste!” and I kinda-groove on that. I’d love to be a music snob, even if my favored category was “nursery rhymes and other children’s tunes,” and my famous opus was on the differences between the original Banana Splits theme song, and all variants.
(Didn’t *you* search for a version, so you could learn the line “flipping like a pancake, popping like a cork?” That had too much background noise for me to discern, as a child, and what I could discern made no sense.)
Well – Trump is exactly like a snob who doesn’t have the taste to pull it off. I mean, if Trump were half the man he thought he was, he’d have been both the fashion plate of the papal funeral, and, equally stunning in how he just blew off how he had the sharpest, snazziest, black suit and somber tie for a state funeral.
Instead, he shows up in blue and red, played on his phone, and fell asleep. Tired Trumpie-bear!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Harrison Wesley:
I’ve been on my folks to check to see if they still have measles immunity or ever had the measles vaccine. I’m sure they would’ve had to in order to get into school in the mid-60s.
It’s something I’m worried about. At least it’s something I have some degree of control over at least
Professor Bigfoot
@No One of Consequence: That would involve a complete rewrite of the Constitution, and that’s a can of worms I’d rather not open.
I’d suggest this: make voting easy and, a la the Australians, make voting mandatory. (oh, not onerous, just a small fine for not participating).
The thing being to drive home that We The People have to do our part, and that includes being informed and participating: voting, serving on juries (not trying to avoid them)— doing the work of self governance.
Make voting universal and mandatory.
sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): If they had the early measles vaccine they will need a booster, because back then they only got one shot.
I am guessing I am about ten years older, and had actual measles in the late 1950s. So no booster needed. But the first measles vaccines were single shots with no followup. Those wane in effectiveness
ETA Good for you for reminding them.
sab
@Professor Bigfoot: As Aussie jackals have commented, it is very difficult to suppress the vote when voting is mandatory.
Librettist
The airframe has zero value. It is old, and the operating costs are insane.
Option B was to send it off to Tuscon to get chopped into beer cans.
I can’t imagine anyone bothering with his garish entombment plans once he croaks. The money promised will vanish, leaving the family on the hook, and they won’t pay for anything beyond the basic package.
narya
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I actually had my titers tested about 7 years ago. I had the mumps as a child, AND rubella, maybe; all three were fine in 2018, but I’m still tempted to get a booster. The two things that scare me about measles are that it is INSANELY transmittable and that it can/does wipe out your immune system, so IIUC, it basically makes you not immune to all of the other things you’ve been vaccinated for.
sab
@jonas: Risking their own actual children’s lives to protect imaginary fetuses.
No One of Consequence
@Belafon: Yeah, that system isn’t perfect either, for sure. Include mandatory periods for maximum days without an X vote?
Belafon
@allium: Loomer said it was a bad idea. So now we’re caught in this paradox where we can’t tell if the opposite of what she says is a good thing or a bad thing.
No One of Consequence
@suzanne:
Oh there are certainly considerations for downsides, but what ones do you envision? Or perhaps elaborate on your serious doubts? (This isn’t baiting, but you didn’t provide anything further. Rather than assuming your concerns center around the intellectual viability of your average electorate, I thought it best to ask for clarification.)
-NOoC
WTFGhost
@No One of Consequence: The trouble with changing the system, is, our problem isn’t the system. It’s bad faith.
A lawyer can’t argue, in good faith, that Trump can accept a new AF1, and then convert it for personal use after he leaves office. That’s a bad faith opinion. In this respect, a lawyer is like an engineer – there’s a strict rule, with no real exceptions, so you apply it.
Now: if the AG refuses to act in good faith, Congress should call her and demand answers, under oath, and refuse to let her decision stand. This is checks-and-balances, executive versus legislative style. But the Congress is also acting in bad faith.
We also know that the SCOTUS acts in bad faith, rewriting the laws as needed to give Republicans an advantage. We should count ourselves fortunate that they decided Trump can’t arbitrarily suspend habeus corpus.
Under a parliamentary system, Republicans would likely have even more power. Under a democratic republic run ethically, this situation never would have arisen. Trump would be in jail, because of course he would be! He not only tried to overthrow the lawful government of the United States, he swiped some of our most sensitive secrets and blabbed his lips off, and he defrauded the state of NY to cover up a crime. (Are there more charges? It’s hard to remember!)
But under a corrupt system, with roughly half the actors acting in bad faith? Well, I believe the French would say “voila!” but they’d say it so it sounded much, much cooler.
Old Man Shadow
@No One of Consequence: Engineers and programmers generally underestimate just how illogical customers can be.
Jeffro
the Emoluments Clause:
make. Congress. weigh. in.
what say you, MAGA GOP majorities? will you grant your consent for trumpov to accept a nearly half-billion dollar bribe?
#CallCongress
trollhattan
@Professor Bigfoot:
Guessing the you can’t make me do a lifesaving vaccine because mah freedum! nation would recoil at mandatory voting. That out of the way I’d be fine with moving the vote to the weekend or making election day a holiday. I mean, Tuesday? WTF? (Admittedly we were an agrarian nation when the rule was set and every day was a work day.)
schrodingers_cat
Well and David Hogg is badmouthing Ds on Bill Maher and wants get rid black Ds in positions of power. But its all just a messaging problem when the 30 to 35% of white men who vote D can’t stand black people in the leadership. And somehow this is labeled progressive.
No One of Consequence
@Professor Bigfoot: Oh yeah, this idea would be a ginormous undertaking for sure. And indeed require Constitutional alteration. Onerous tasks at best.
Still, the founders made it a living document. It was MEANT to be altered according to needs. I posit needs have changed. Or perhaps the ramifications for leaving the gaming of our systems unaddressed.
Voting national holiday? Hell yeah. Penalizing not voting like the Aussies? Maybe. But I’d sure love a push to enable voting for the citizenry.
As Suzanne suggests, I may come to regret that faith in the electorate, but I lack the requisite money or power sufficient to alter the path of our government, at present.
-NOoC
karen gail
@WTFGhost:
I had a friend who created software; he would bring a copy to me and ask me to play with it, his reasoning? I thought differently than normal users and testers and tried things they would have never dreamed of. Didn’t intend to but it was that part of my brain that says, “what happens if we do this?”
Professor Bigfoot
@sab: Which is precisely why conservatives will fight it tooth and nail.
Their Confederate worldview is that they (straight white Christian men) and ONLY they are true citizens who should be able to participate.
Jeffro
hell YES
I know it would take a Constitutional amendment (nearly impossible) and of course there are eighty gazillion lobbyists, Reps, and Senators who’d oppose it…but we HAVE to start the conversation someplace
our government doesn’t need reform…it needs wholesale restructuring
No One of Consequence
@Old Man Shadow: As a veteran application support analyst of 13 years, I can attest to lived experience that this is TRUE.
-NOoC
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
He outlined, chapter and verse, the steps already taken and plans in the pipeline when he left the office for upgrading, expanding and modernizing the system.
suzanne
@No One of Consequence: So I am skeptical of direct democracy w/r/t the need for expertise and the need to protect vulnerable populations. I am really good at my job, but I don’t know much about others’ areas of expertise. And we are in a period of very low trust. Example: IMO, asking the general public about vaccines or climate change is going to produce terrible outcomes. I don’t need the general public’s opinion on engineering or fire safety or any of dozens of other topics.
And, as someone who works on implementing the design provisions of the ADA on a weekly basis…. I can tell you that this type of protection for a minority population would be gone in about ten seconds if we opened it up to a vote. It’s expensive to implement. I think it’s worth it, but many others don’t. And they would not do so, but for the law.
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: Instead of seeing his promotion by the DNC as the gift it was, David Hogg has decided he wants to be the James Carville for a new generation. Not everyone thinks he has his pulse on the zeitgeist of people within his generation, but self-promotion can take you very far in the political landscape. E.g., James Carville. Not sure how this one plays out.
No One of Consequence
@WTFGhost: Stood on my chair to read this, because this is a CENTRAL problem right now. Bad faith. A fuggin’ men.
I wonder if the Supremes intended to give Cheeto Benito immunity going forward, but they certainly wanted to get acme tent and awning to cover his never understated backside.
I think when they decided it, that it was unlikely the OompaLoompa would regain the office.
At least that is my charitable explanation for the majority opinion (minus 2-3 fuckers who think he should be king).
Anywhoo, the norms and best practices have not been codified because they were understood GentlePerson Agreements. The short-fingered vulgarian has put the lie to polite society such that we have arguments about things the current president has little (if any demonstrated) awareness of, let alone CONCERN about.
Fucker’s astride the World’s Greatest Grift, and believes himself untouchable.
We’ll see about that.
-NOoC
Professor Bigfoot
@trollhattan: TO BE SURE— I mean, Americans* really are that stupid, after all.
But supposedly we have open, free and fair elections now; and we all know damned well how the decks get stacked in various locales.
Making participation mandatory actually makes sense from the perspective of “you want to live free, you have to do some of the work yourself.”
Americans* will boast about how they don’t vote because they don’t want to do jury duty. They are completely unwilling to participate in their own governance.
So you don’t want to vote? That’s okay, here’s your $2.00 fine and begone with ya; but if voting is mandatory then you have no excuse for putting roadblocks in the way of anyone else voting.
But it still all comes back to individual Americans understanding the concept of self government, as opposed to rule by dictators and kings.
Lots of Americans* are “proud to be an American” but have absolutely no idea what that entails, because “at least Ah know Ah’m free…”
Baud
Constitutional monarchy.
One Nation Under Baud!
Belafon
@Jeffro: You can’t build a system where everyone gets to participate but half of the people elected decide they’re not going to follow the rules anymore.
satby
@Baud: that goes double for me!
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: I haven’t seen any evidence that he is popular amongst his cohort. That he is the voice of the youth. Badmouthing Clyburn on TV is a bad look for a DNC official and the party
Ken Klippenstein, a journobro was calling Clyburn senile on Twitter this morning. This bros want the Ds to be a mirror image of Rs with some leftie politics thrown in. They would like to push out black people, Jewish people and women out of the leadership positions
That’s what Hogg’s PAC is really about. We see you.
Ocotillo
@No One of Consequence: You are hitting on something I have been thinking about a bit. In some ways, we have had it so good in this country despite all the things that could improve that apathy is the reason we find ourselves in this moment. On the left side of the aisle, we are outnumbered by the right-wing media consumers and consequently, we have to pray that the people that don’t pay attention to what is really going on in the weeds but vote nonetheless are feeling the “vibe” that causes them to vote for Ds.
The right-wing media is so prevalent that it has been successful infiltrating the “mainstream media” which puts out the “vibe” whether its, prices are skyrocketing (their favorite descriptor during the Biden years) or Biden is sooooo old.
But what do you do with the ninnies who not only don’t pay attention but can’t be bothered to vote? Short of descending into a hellscape economy, I am not sure what will awake these people from their slumber.
CaseyL
Just a note that I got my MMR/Tdap boosters a couple months ago – 5 years early – precisely because of the resurgence of those diseases… and also because I’m not sure how reliable the US vaccination regime will be, going forward. Quality control and efficacy will no longer be something you can count on.
I heard about a cluster of Hep A infections in California, and got that vaccine as well.
Thanks to the outbreak of TB in Kansas, FFS, I’d like to get a TB vaccine, if only they were available (apparently, those are special order and your primary care provider has to agree to get them).
Polio and smallpox vaxes are on my wish list. Not sure how to get either one.
Harrison Wesley
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I don’t remember whether or not I had measles so I got the MMR anyway. Trying to cover as many bases as I can before Bearcub Bobby says vax is bad and insurers have an excuse to stop paying for them.
No One of Consequence
@suzanne: OK, now we’re talking. All good points, and I agree. Current existence is quite technical, and even the polymaths cannot keep up. (I wouldn’t know, I am a failed polymath and aspiring Generalist.)
You are also correct, in that our educational system appears insufficient in the teaching of critical thinking, logical fallacies and basic economics (both macro and micro). One could posit that civics is also poorly taught at present. This dearth in General Understanding is significant. Carlin said something to the effect of stupid, greedy electorates will elect stupid, greedy representatives.
I think I understand your concerns, in that I could think slightly ahead and see how the marketing/markup/language of bills/laws would obviously affect approval/downvote.
Deficits of Trust, and Surpluses of Doubt and Division. Surely somehow we can bake a better cake than this.
-NOoC
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: I honestly don’t know, but he is definitely operating like Carville, etc., in being egged on by the Bill Mahers of the world to say mean things about the Democratic party. And he’s stepping up to the challenge like a good little grifter. I mean, he seems to be singularly stupid if he actually thinks that he can keep a day job at the DNC of all organizations when his main goal is to primary “do nothing” Democrats, never mind that I find his strategy for doing so rather underwhelming — he seems to be recruiting out of district candidates known mostly for being influencers on TikTok.
No One of Consequence
And thanks for the convo all, I do appreciate it. I get so little opportunity to debate in Good Faith with people. Even those who disagree.
We should cherish this, if for no other reason than its increasing Rarity.
So, Thank You, One and All.
-NOoC
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: Temu James Carville is a good description for this guy. The other party wants to destroy the American experiment and this guy wants to start fights within the party. Not smart unless the goal is to destroy the party. Who is funding him?
sab
@schrodingers_cat: If it weren’t for guns Hogg would probably be a Republican.
Barbara
@Harrison Wesley: Insurers are never going to stop paying for vaccines. They, unlike RFK Jr., are not stupid and they still know that vaccines cost a lot less than hospitalizations for an avoidable disease. This isn’t true of all preventive care — for one thing, when we say “preventive” we often really mean “early detection” (in the case of cancer) or preventive in a long term not a short term sense — which might save money down the line but not in the here and now. Vaccines save money in the here and now. Insurers are fully able to understand that.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: He is a Republican in waiting.
Baud
@Barbara:
When is that debate between Hogg and Carville happening?
Anyway
Yes, to universal – meh to mandatory. I don’t see how getting more JoeRogan bros and Tiktok influencers to vote does anything Sure if they want to vote and are eligible they should and the state shouldn’t put up unnecessary hurdles- but mandatory?! what does it do? As it is given the number of elections for judges and school boards and midterms ad nauseum– voting fatigue is real. And it comes with a boatload of blegs about how THIS election is the one that will keep everything from collapsing. No thanks.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: What debate? They both seem to be in agreement.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Someone here mentioned they were going to debate on some talk show or podcast.
Poodle Mom (fka KM in NS)
@Belafon: Hi… not really. Opposition can call for a no confidence vote or bring the government down through the budget process. Majority governments are mostly stable but people leave their seats for various reasons. Then a majority becomes a minority and that opens up a chance for change.
No One of Consequence
@Ocotillo: I concur, and share your concerns. Part of this effect, I think can be attributed to Trump’s (begrudgingly admitted) abilities to leverage the media. Outrageous statements, ideas, actions sell better than normal (preGingrich and HateRadio) discourse. If it bleeds it leads, and Passionate Ignorance sells better than Metered Expertise. I would like to enter into evidence exhibits A through Zed: Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, etc. etc. etc.
The net result is a deafening cacophony of bullshit that requires Herculean efforts to distill and debunk. Most of the public has disengaged. I think that is fairly obvious.
A steady diet of Hate is going to have its consequences. The full measure of which, I do not believe we have yet experienced.
-NOoC
Professor Bigfoot
This is why I like the idea of mandatory voting— it means you can’t erect barriers to some people participating.
”Voting is mandatory, but if your religion/honor/politics require you to not participate, fine, here’s a small fine.”
But simple peer pressure will make more people actually vote. And more of THEM will take the time to inform themselves ABOUT the vote.
Again, I would put this forward as “this is part of the price of freedom— you must participate in your own governance to be an American.”
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Must-not-watch TV.
WTFGhost
@No One of Consequence: After working support on SQL Server, I’ve learned that quite well :-); I’ve learned, “never tell someone, they can do something, unless you’ve investigated the limits of that something.” Then, once you do that, remember: as soon as you write foolproof code, nature invents a better fool. Simple evolution!
@Betty Cracker: Yes; my thoughts are that Duffy just made up a few words that sounded good. Buttigieg might have more limits – he might know that what happened gives up information that an enemy would be glad to know about, so he might not speak about it. I’m still scared as eff that Trump okayed Starlink for all telecom, and, of course, we can’t expect space-based to be as clean and secure as redundant fiber (optics).
(Fiber optic is amazing; and in networking, as in the human body, you want more than sufficient fiber if you want everything to keep moving smoothly.)
@Professor Bigfoot: Hee! Whoa, did I know it! I also worked corruption cases, you see :-). (In a database, corruption means bad data. Bad data in the system can cause some of the most entertaining crashes imaginable. “Entertaining” like a movie that beats you up, but you can’t stop watching until the end. That kind of entertaining.)
sab
@schrodingers_cat: Only if they give up their guns, which they won’t.
Professor Bigfoot
@Anyway: I understand, but again, I pitch it as “this is your duty as an American.”
If you want the benefits of freedom, you HAVE TO participate.
You cannot just collect the fruits of freedom without doing your own part to preserve it.
(a return to civics education would be a wonderful thing)
Harrison Wesley
@Barbara: Glad to hear that. I’ve got pretty limited resources, and wasn’t looking forward to treating illnesses with toasted frog anus or whatever remedy RFK Jr would be peddling.
No One of Consequence
@WTFGhost: I have a backpocket, memorized, canned response for requests of deletion of data.
Database Referential Integrity
If you have something that is linked to from the application, that data is actually rows and columns (and fields) in a database. Those rows and columns and fields are represented elsewhere, and referenced elsewhere. If one deletes them, and the application later goes to refer to them, the application fall down, go boom.
Instead of deletion, good applications allow for the de-activation of data, such that its existence can be hidden from the user, without actually being removed, avoiding the referential integrity problem.
I iz not programmer/coder much. But I know a little enough to be dangerous, yet EXTREMELY cautious when given access to the database directly. READ ONLY please, for your protection and mine. ;)
-NOoC
Soprano2
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Stay on them. I had my titers checked a few years ago, and I needed a booster! I’m so glad I did it, and it was an easy blood test my regular doctor could do.
OldDave
@No One of Consequence: Coming up on 47 years of software programming, including some hardware design and a decade or two of support work. One cannot underestimate the end user’s ability to not understand things.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: I heard about that, I haven’t listened to that one yet. *sigh* I can’t say I’m that surprised, the first time he was thwarted in something he wanted to do he blamed everyone except himself. I don’t know how he could ever become an R without renouncing all of his work about gun violence.
eclare
@Harrison Wesley:
Leeches.
Geminid
@Barbara: I’m waiting for David Hogg’s Leaders We Deserve PAC to put out it’s list of incumbents they are challenging. Hogg says they’ll spend $20 million in those districts. There’s low-hanging fruit like David Scott (GA), who already has challengers, and Henry Cuellar (TX), who is under indictment, but who else will Hogg target as an “asleep at the wheel Democrat?”
Maybe he’ll wait to see who is retiring; typically 20-30 incumbent Democrats retire each cycle.
No One of Consequence
@OldDave: My role was to help the users. However, my nature is to try to impart understanding. Often I would lead with, do you want me to solve your problem, or would you like to understand what is wrong?
Most of the time, like north of 75%, people (with me anyway) chose the Understanding route. I had a great deal of practice with trying to convey what I knew, to the level of interest/understanding the user has, and when finished, typically empowered them enough to be able to troubleshoot their own stuff. Seeing the lightbulb turn on (proverbially) for them was a special joy. Didn’t always work, but it worked more often than not, and by a meaningful distance.
I loved that job.
-NOoC
WTFGhost
@Barbara: Well – David Anderson did post a bit about expensive preventative treatments can distort the economic incentives.
Imagine you can create a treatment that will prevent breast cancer in 99% of the women who take it, and it’s available to women aged 18 and up. If it’s cheap, of course insurers will cover it! But what if it was a new fangled thing, and cost $20k? Well, $20k per person, now, might be a good bargain for preventing 99% of breast cancer cases 50, 60, 70 years down the line. But it might not be a good bargain if the patient is going to hop to another insurer in the next plan year.
And, of course, there’s a fine way to spread the actuarial cost of the treatment among all insurers in a pool, if you want to set the incentives the right way.
But it’s simpler with single payer, and similar systems. With the government ultimately bearing the cost, they’ll be glad to pay for prevention, to avoid paying for a more expensive cure.
Geminid
@Baud: I think that Carville/Hogg debate may have already happened, last week.
Baud
@Geminid:
Didn’t come across my radar, which I take as a good thing.
Parfigliano
@Ocotillo: I don’t think you will like the ninnies should they awake.
Parfigliano
@sab: If it weren’t for being present at a high school mass shooting David Hogg is a name the public wouldn’t know.
No One of Consequence
@Professor Bigfoot: Not to let this slip, but I saw this Prof, and I get it. Force the system to allow full participation by mandatory requirement. I do like the access this would almost have to guarantee. That part is great.
-NOoC
JML
I feel like we’re seeing David Hogg going through the not-atypical political experimentation that you see a lot of people do in their early 20’s in real-time and in public. They have some strong core values but are still figuring out what they think on issues they haven’t been that exposed to (I had multiple friends who got attracted to communism in college; not socialism, but straight up communism…because they were still in college and didn’t have to deal with reality yet).
Hogg is a smart guy who was exposed to an unbelievable trauma far too early in life and has tried to use that for good and become a political activist with impressive influence at his age…but he also hasn’t really had the time or opportunity to take some of the hard political lessons outside the public that most people get before they’re a public figure and a vice-chair of the DNC.
And someone like Maher will certainly use him without a second thought. So I have some sympathy for Hogg and wouldn’t toss him under the bus immediately. But it’s a reminder why the AOC’s of the world are so rare, where they can push a broader agenda outside of their own personal story at a fairly young age without blundering in the media. Hogg isn’t really ready for this yet, but he’s shown the ability to raise money, so now he’s also a commodity for people and even some well-intentioned ones will be pushing and pulling him in directions that he may not be equipped to evaluate.
Still doesn’t make it ok to lose the plot like this. But you can see why.
Barbara
@WTFGhost: No, it’s not simple, even in a single payer environment. If we knew which women would get breast cancer it would be very simple, but we don’t, so we would be giving it to 100% of women to avoid breast cancer in — according to even the most pessimistic forecasts — 11% of women. And that assumes the preventive treatment has no side effects or adverse consequences of its own, which is almost never the case.
Single payer shouldn’t distract us from real issues in cost benefit analysis of health care spending. I am in favor of having a single risk pool, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into single payer.
Barbara
@JML: Yes, I agree with this.
Bill Arnold
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Have heard that doctors are very friendly to a request to measure measles immunity. They, at least, know about measles-caused immune amnesia. (Well, sample size one; my internist doctor, but it was with zero pushback.)
brantl
@Professor Bigfoot: This is untrue, unless you’re writing deliberately obfuscated code.
Boris Rasputin (The Evil Twin)
@Jackie: Which would take longer, Boeing finishing the overdue new Air Force One, or Boeing and the secret service taking the flying bordello completely apart, searching for bugs and various recording equipment, and rebuilding it as AF1?
Trojan horses are always pesky.
Geminid
@Boris Rasputin (The Evil Twin): Even without checking for and removing bugs, upgrading that 747 to make it suitable as Air Force 1 would be so difficult, expensive and protracted that I don’t think it will ever be done.
Boris Rasputin (The Evil Twin)
@Geminid: So, Trump’s stuck waiting for “his” new planes? They may be ready after he’s out of office/ in jail/ dead. Fine by me.
SeattleDem
@No One of Consequence: I spent 40 years designing and overseeing customer-facing application and database software. I was constantly amazed at the ability of customers to fail to read the imaginary instructions engineers wrote into the systems. Database designers were absolutely brilliant at creating pure systems in the belief that customers would enter data that reflecting the designer’s concept of how the world worked. God forbid a Brit would enter dates into a field designed for American users and thereby create an event in the future instead of the past. Daylight savings time? No problem; just shut the ER down for an hour. Non-binary? No problem; just pick a gender and move on. Non-english characters in the name? Hey, do the best you can, and hope the next person transcribes the sounds the same way.
sab
@Geminid: That plane is never happening. My take on Trump Admin. If it is in the news from them, it probably isn’t happening. It’s a distraction, the more outrageous the better.
So what else are they up to that they don’t want us to notice? The South Africans? Something else? Death threat pizza deliveries to Federal judges?
Professor Bigfoot
@brantl: Heh, I worked with engineers whose FIRST INSTINCT was ALWAYS to jump directly into hacking the code.
There was no design documentation; there was no design philosophy; there was no design.
It doesn’t have to be deliberately obfuscated; unless you’re disciplined AF wierdnesses are BOUND to creep into your code.
Chris T.
@Baud:
The Jeffrey Epstein. “The President took the Jeffrey Epstein to Mar-a-Lago.”