I can only comprehend Hitler as a comic book villain.
To plagiarize, reality should be the nitpicky fan's dream, as it prioritizes continuity over story and plot.
Agreed with Heebie's take. The rage and viciousness of the right is not realistic.
Also the VW subplot is silly. Nobody is stupid enough to think they can get away with that.
Our response to the ongoing environmental collapse feels like something out of Game of Thrones. Mean and petty plotting in ignorance of a looming extinction threat.
Now that I think of it, an ending to GoT where everyone in Westeros dies of starvation due to not preparing for winter, while narratively dissatisfying, could be quite the galvanizing event IRL.
I think 4, whether or not it's intended as an allegory, is a pretty big thing in the books and very clearly intentional. You've got not just a very hard winter coming on in the middle of a resource draining conflict, but a massive threat terrifying threat sliding in slowly but ruthlessly from the north that practically everyone is just ignoring entirely. I wouldn't be at all surprised if things turn out badly for Westeros generally.
I doubt it would galvanize much of anything in the real world, though.
I rooting for the skraeling or whatever he's calling them.
Am I the only one who's never heard of "21st Century"?
Don't even try asking people about 58th century.
Oh, wait.
Huh.
I see.
Well, hey, I've always been gullible, awright? I try and I try, but still it gets me, though I like to think less often.
10: It's an insurance company.
Meanwhile, speaking of social media, I found it interesting to read that It only takes 30 social media posts to influence your congressman.
Hm. Maybe Facebook and twitter should be taken more seriously.
That would explain why my congressman is trying so many new slow-cooker recipes.
14: I recommend the post criticizing the plot and writing of the History Channel's series called "World War II." Funny stuff, IMO, and more obvious than the link in the OP. Here's a link, and Stross linked to it as well.
If I can make this into a political thread for a moment, I've been most interested, in all the post-Dem debate chatter, in the fact checking.
This site alleges that Sanders misrepresented his Social Security claims:
Sanders claimed Social Security's finances could be extended and benefits expanded by simply taxing incomes above the current cap of $118,500.
Sanders: And the way you expand [Social Security] is by lifting the cap on taxable incomes so that you do away with the absurdity of a millionaire paying the same amount into the system as somebody making $118,000. You do that, Social Security is solvent until 2061 and you can expand benefits....
But Sanders failed to mention two key points.
First, those subjected to the higher taxes would see no benefit from them. Unlike current payroll taxes, the new levies would not be used as a basis for calculating future benefits for those paying them, a sharp break from historical practice.
Second, benefits would eventually have to be cut anyway.
The actuary estimated that under current law the system could pay only 77 percent of scheduled benefits starting in 2033. Under the Sanders plan to tax the affluent, expanded benefits could be paid for 32 years longer, but then Social Security could support only 88 percent of promised benefits.
Look again at that last paragraph. This 'correction' doesn't seem to me like much of one: it states that (a) those paying the additional payroll taxes won't see any increase in benefits themselves (boo-hoo), and (b) under Sanders' plan, expanded benefits could be paid until 2065, but thereafter they'd have to reduced.
Uh, what am I missing about what's bad or misleading about Sanders' statement?
19: Gullible, but not gullible enough for FactCheck.org.
Wait, so the problem is that Sanders said 2061, but their calculation was 2065?
As much as I long for better fact checking in the press, it's hard to ignore how much false equivalence goes on when you do see any.
Also wow that general analysis is a whole lot of bullshit. Like half their 'falsehoods and misleading claims' are just 'but they didn't say something different'.
It seems to boil down to "he shouldn't have put a positive spin on increased solvency."
He neglected to mention that having the rich pay higher taxes might involve the rich having less money.
Right, thanks for the corroboration: I read that thing a few times trying to be sure that I wasn't just missing something.
This is a substantive, significant policy proposal on Sanders' part, and for all one hears people pointing out that raising the goddamn cap on payroll taxes would address the problem for some time, I hadn't realized Bernie had actual proposed legislation.
It leads me to wonder: if (when) Bernie doesn't become the Democratic nominee for President, can he hang on to his Senate seat? I haven't heard anything about that. I know that Vermont doesn't have official party affiliations: perhaps he is simultaneously running for Pres. and running for reelection as VT Senator.
Fact checking the fact checkers, the most useless pasttime on the internet.
They got this totally wrong:
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley claimed that "70 percent of us are earning the same, or less than we were 12 years ago." Not true. Average weekly earnings for rank-and-file workers are up 5.8 percent.
Sanders is not up for reelection in 2016, Leahy is.
Technically, I think the median might be closer to 50% of us than 70% of us.
27: Oh. Thanks. So ... he hangs on to his Senate seat. Thank god.
Uh, what am I missing about what's bad or misleading about Sanders' statement?
I agree that it seems mostly seems like they're quibbling. But the way in which I see Sanders' statement is misleading is if you think the two options people are deciding between are (1) increase the payroll tax and count that as part of the SS budget or (2) allow SS to run a deficit and finance the difference out of general revenues.
The decision isn't usually framed that way (it's usually presented as a choice between (1) above or (3) cut benefits). But from that perspective his proposal looks like it's closer to being a general tax increase and then funding SS out of the main budget. Here's the description from the link:
It would increase future benefit payments and partially pay for that by applying employment and self-employment payroll tax not only to earnings up to the current cap, but also over $250,000, and by levying a new 6.2 percent tax on investment income over $200,000 for a single person or $250,000 for married couples filing jointly, with no upper limit on the amount to be taxed.
Now, note the weasel "average earnings" in the response.
The thing that I was suspicious of, in their response, is that it didn't mention inflation. It would be possible for dollar incomes to be up 5.8% and for purchasing power to nevertheless decline.
26: Now, note the weasel "average earnings" in the response.
Yeah, I did notice that. Who are these factcheck.org people?
it didn't mention inflation
Reading further I see that they do clarify that their statistic uses inflation-adjusted values. That's good.
31- Yeah, I don't know what data they're using. FRED has weekly wage data non-inflation adjusted for non-supervisory (which I guess is "rank-and-file") but it's actually up much more than 5.8% over 12 year, since inflation is up way over 5.8% in 12 years (about 30% to be precise.)
Yeah, I don't know what data they're using.
They link to this data: Data Type: AVERAGE WEEKLY EARNINGS OF PRODUCTION AND NONSUPERVISORY EMPLOYEES, 1982-84 DOLLARS
Moving the start date on that series back to 1975 or so is interesting.
Either way, moving the goalposts to averages is very shady.
Back to 21st Century... What is up with the storyline about futuristic things like flying cars. When do we get those again? Also hoverboards?
We all have hoverboards and agreed not to tell you.
If by interesting you mean really depressing.
We have a global communications network, which people mostly use to watch other people play video games.
18: Ha, thanks for reminding me about that. Going to go post a link to that on the other place (maybe I'll influence my congressman).
26 - My immediate reaction to that "check" was to be really suspicious about the shift from 70% to "Average" but I was too lazy to actually go digging around for data. I'm glad to see that my skepticism was on the mark and that they're a bunch of dishonest hacks.
Somebody very recently put up a new Little Free Library near me. The bastards.
I guess it could be a birdhouse with a poorly planned door so far as usefulness to birds is considered. I rode by quickly.
It's close enough to the bar that I could grab something if people are boring me.
They probably have a rule about "no birds" or something.
At the bar? It's just as well. Nothing looks as loaned as a loaned bird.
Plus, they need to be careful not to let in a mynah.
Zeitgeist is lovely anyway, for its central conceit, for name-chacking bin Laden back in 1999, for the American One and the German One, and best of all for its extremely meta final confrontation.
Only thing better than an engineer is an opinionated engineer.
That guy didn't even consider a cob wall.
Only thing better than an engineer is an opinionated engineer.
See also this.
And as I noted in a comment below, the design of this program really wasn't easy; they had to iterate through quite a lot of trial solutions before they could come up with a final one.
Yipes.