WoodScientist

I like how practically the whole article is people who just fucked it, in absolutely historic fashion, sharing their wisdom.

Exactly. Here's an idea. How about a simple rule for accountability? If you are a high-ranking leader in the DNC or a hired consultant in an election season, and the party loses the presidency? You are ineligible to serve in such a role for the next 5 years at least. If you are holding such a role and the party loses complete control of government, a Republican trifecta? You are permanently prohibited from holding such a role.

Yes, this is a bit harsh. But the purpose of these high level positions is not to provide jobs to people or to be fair. It's about winning elections. Sometimes there very well be elections that simply can't be won, and this rule might throw out some reasonably qualified people. But that is simply a necessary cost to pay for holding leadership accountable. There are no shortage of potential leaders out there. There are tens of thousands of people who can work their way up to roles like this. Being at the top of political organizing should be like holding a world leader athletic position - incredibly hard to get and easy to lose. Because in politics, like in sports, winning really matters.

Before seeing this was the Onion, my enthusiasm at the headline diminished precipitously as I read each word past the first few.

I don't really follow what you're trying to say. "Sex marker" does describe the meaning in the most straight forward way one can.

"Sex marker" has a pretty unambiguous meaning. It's something anyone of even low intelligence should be able to figure out from context. It's a marker that indicates sex on a document. If not, the term is easily searchable. And the term applies to any ID document, not just passports.

People need to learn new words all the time; we're not born knowing vocabulary. This isn't even something that requires a lot of theory or justification like oddball neopronouns or something. It's a pretty straightforward thing. If you have any kind of ID, it almost certainly has a sex marker on it.

Do we need to exhaustively define every word in a headline? There will always be some people who don't know the meaning of any given word. What if someone grew up in the tropics, never had an education, and doesn't know what freeze means? Should we expect the headline to provide a definition for that word as well? Or hell, why should we simply assume the reader knows what a passport is? "Sex marker" is a pretty common term. More people probably need to look up who Marco Rubio is than need to search what "sex marker" means.

Ultimately in order to make text at all readable and headlines at all concise, you need to assume some basic intelligence by the reader. You cannot exhaustively define each and every term. You don't want to use incredibly obscure terms. But "sex marker" is hardly obscure. And it is something that can be learned very quickly with even an iota of effort.

Did you really think sex was binary? "Male" and "female" are just two ends of a bimodal distribution. But about 1% of the population has some form of intersex condition. The X market is for intersex people and those who identity with a nonbinary gender.

Oh dear lord in heaven, I've apparently become a Dickensian villain...Did I just recreate the poor houses? Oh dear. Yeah, maybe separate rooms are better. There's spartan, and then there's "we built a prison."

Seriously. I want a world where everyone can have the basics of subsistence without qualifications. UBI is one way to do it, but even direct provision is fine.

Universal healthcare is an obvious one, but for as wealthy as developed countries are, providing basic food and shelter shouldn't be that difficult either. For food and shelter, I think we should just offer anyone that wants it the basics of life.

Every county should have a government depot in it that you can go and get a certain quantity of basic staples per month. Rice, beans, flour, that kind of thing. It need not be fancy or the best food on Earth, but enough of what people need to keep them alive. And you keep the demand for the service reasonable not by putting in place applications and qualifications, but simply by personal preference. Not many millionaires are going to go down to the depot every month and get their government-issued bag of rice, even if they could if they wanted.

Same thing with housing. There should be state-run dorms or boarding houses in every city in the country. Need a place to stay? Go down to the city dorm. I would build them just like college dorms - small shared rooms with bunk beds and communal cooking/bathing facilities. And anyone, from the richest to the poorest, can stay there if they need to. If Bezos wants to go live in the government dorm, he can. You keep demand for it low, and the cost of providing it reasonable, through personal choice. Most people don't actually want to live their whole life in a dorm room. Keep things clean. Keep them sanitary. But keep them simple and utilitarian.

Even within existing capitalist societies, we can provide for the basics of life for everyone. And instead of putting strict requirements, you open the programs up to all. You keep the demand for the services low by focusing on utilitarian versions of the benefits you provide. Anyone down on their luck can stay in the government dorm if they want, but very few people actually want to unless they really need to.

Saint Luigi of Baltimore, forgive us our debts. Deliver us from the greed of the Wicked. Protect us in sickness and in health. Lead us from the labyrinth of insurance denials. Bring Justice to the Merchants of Death.

If you reach the end of your days, and you haven't ever been on at least one watch list...Can you really even say you have ever lived at all?

You have to be willing to walk away from and ignore corporate media platforms, or else they'll never be defeated. And content creators need to also learn to not post their stuff to these platforms.

Biden also announced he wasn't enforcing the law. The TikTok operators saw the writing on the wall and realized they need to bend the knee to Trump.

Don't get too hung up on specific dates. Laws are not some physical law like gravity that are present and universal. They exist within a fuzzy context of enforcement and interpretation.

Biden made clear he wasn't going to enforce the law. Trump made clear he was going to make a decision based on how well Tiktok flattered and bribed him. So that's exactly what they've done.

Due to two facts:

1. The samurai class in Japan officially lasted way later than you probably think

2. The earliest primitive fax machine existed much earlier than you probably think.

It is technically possible for Abraham Lincoln to have received a fax from a samurai.

There's no evidence it ever happened, but it technically could have happened.

Democrats when they lose 49-51: Which minority do we sacrifice?