lejos's recent activity
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Comment on US voters were right about the economy. The data was wrong. in ~finance
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Comment on US voters were right about the economy. The data was wrong. in ~finance
lejos LinkI was fairly unimpressed with the article. The Biden Administration didn't start using new measurements to arrive at artificial unemployment or inflation numbers. The BLS has reasoning behind the...I was fairly unimpressed with the article. The Biden Administration didn't start using new measurements to arrive at artificial unemployment or inflation numbers. The BLS has reasoning behind the statistics it uses and the methods it uses to collect them, and while they don't tell the whole story, the measurements are generally good at least for comparison.
It's always been possible to use the alternative unemployment statistics to tell whatever story you want, though, and that's what the author does here to arrive at a "shockingly" higher unemployment number. The author has this white paper on his site in basically claiming that the "true" unemployment rate has been between 20 - 35% since 1995 (and I assume before that). I just wish the data extend enough to show Biden's record low True Unemployment Rate of 20% or whatever this guy would have arrived at.
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Comment on Is there a reason that we aren't seeing pushback to US President Donald Trump's blitzkreig? in ~society
lejos Link ParentExcept we're already in a new race now, and the competitors thought they could jump straight to 4th gear without stalling out. There's a golden opportunity to take advantage and get out ahead of...Except we're already in a new race now, and the competitors thought they could jump straight to 4th gear without stalling out. There's a golden opportunity to take advantage and get out ahead of the competition. But at some point it starts to seems like you're arguing that instead, we should trade our car for a horse, kill it, and then beat the dead horse until the next race.
Not that there's nothing to be gained by some introspection on the Democrat's, but Trump is already proven he won't be governing in a way that helps the average person, or even attempting to govern at all, except by decree. It would be a mistake to not go after the outright fumbles the Republicans are making in their mess that the executive orders, tariffs, and billionaire interference is creating already. There's no reason messaging for the next election can't and shouldn't start now, with the added bonus that we can hopefully limit the damage to our institutions and economy.
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Comment on The US Senate is considering the Laken Riley Act. Here's what it would do if fully implemented and upheld by the courts. in ~society
lejos Link ParentI replied with a source here, that's incorrect and you could even have been granted asylum and still fall under this law. Simply tipping off ICE about someone's status may or may not make them any...If they have a legitimate, pending asylum request and authorization from immigration courts to reside in the US in the duration of, then they are not unauthorized and aren’t included in the bill to begin with.
I replied with a source here, that's incorrect and you could even have been granted asylum and still fall under this law.
If they don’t, you don’t need to falsely accuse them of shoplifting, you can just truthfully accuse them of being in the US illegally…
Simply tipping off ICE about someone's status may or may not make them any kind of priority, and if they've got DACA status the government already knows their undocumented status and specifically de-prioritizes it. This law mandates prioritizing people accused of theft crimes, and part of the problem is it takes away prosecutor's discretion to say, prioritize deporting undocumented murderers over shoplifters.
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Comment on The US Senate is considering the Laken Riley Act. Here's what it would do if fully implemented and upheld by the courts. in ~society
lejos Link ParentApparently, in the same scenario you could have already been granted asylum and you aren't exempted from the law, where just being arrested or accused of a crime is enough to trigger detention. So...Apparently, in the same scenario you could have already been granted asylum and you aren't exempted from the law, where just being arrested or accused of a crime is enough to trigger detention. So even if your case isn't pending and you have asylum already, ICE is supposed to prioritize detention if you've even been accused or arrested (and it's not clear if it matters if there's no charges brought or you're cleared). So if I'm wrong and they wouldn't be using this law to deport you in that scenario, the alternative is that they'd just hold you indefinitely. It's a due process problem either way.
One problem is the breadth of the inadmissibility grounds which, together with any charge or arrest for burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting, would trigger the mandatory detention. The reference to one “inadmissible under paragraph (6)(A). . . of section 212(a)” would cover anyone who entered without inspection, even if they have since been, for example, granted asylum, at least as the law has been interpreted by the Board of Immigration Appeals.
The above link is worth a read, from what I can tell, there's no "faster processing" at all. If you're accused of shoplifting while applying for asylum or applying for a green card, the law mandates detention which could last years.
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Comment on The US Senate is considering the Laken Riley Act. Here's what it would do if fully implemented and upheld by the courts. in ~society
lejos Link ParentIn a roundabout way, you're answering your own question here, you just seem to be characterizing due process as some sort of accidental perk of a slow system. Someone could have entered the...are they essentially arguing that they are being deprived of the benefit of the “last come, last serve” policy of the overburdened immigration courts?
In a roundabout way, you're answering your own question here, you just seem to be characterizing due process as some sort of accidental perk of a slow system. Someone could have entered the country illegally, still have a valid asylum case, and get deported for being falsely accused of shoplifting before they get their asylum case decided.
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Comment on It's time to abandon the cargo cult metaphor in ~science
lejos Link ParentMaster recording itself is based on the same master/slave analogy, and "masters" are tied directly to ownership in the music / entertainment industries. Here's one article on the subject. A couple...Master recording itself is based on the same master/slave analogy, and "masters" are tied directly to ownership in the music / entertainment industries.
Here's one article on the subject. A couple of relevant quotes (including one from one of the footnotes in the Wikipedia article you posted).
“Master” and “slave” are terms that have long been commonly linked to indicate a dominant/subservient relationship in electrical engineering and in many a recording studio. In the pre-digital era, in the context of recorded music, the terminology referred to the duplication process; it was a way of distinguishing between source recordings and the physical copies that were pressed from them and distributed for retail sale.
As recently as the ninth edition of Donald Passman’s industry bible “All You Need to Know About the Music Business,” released in 2015, the veteran attorney wrote that a master is the “controlling entity from which all copies are made — the machines making the copies are slaves. master/slave; get it?” The passage was removed from the current edition, released in 2019. “In updating my book, I realized this long-used industry term was inappropriate in the 21st century,” Passman tells Variety. “I felt bad that I had previously been tone deaf to the issue and wish I had thought more seriously about it earlier.”
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Comment on What sound did I hear while hiking through Tucson's Pima Canyon? in ~talk
lejos LinkMy guess would be a rattlesnake. The tail getting up to speed would sound kind of like a lawnmower starting, and instinctively, the point is that you feel threatened.My guess would be a rattlesnake. The tail getting up to speed would sound kind of like a lawnmower starting, and instinctively, the point is that you feel threatened.
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Comment on Sorry for the mess (post mortem for a Topic that went sideways?) in ~tildes
lejos Link ParentWhich in that case, I suppose "blue maga" includes Bernie Sanders himself.Which in that case, I suppose "blue maga" includes Bernie Sanders himself.
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Comment on Sorry for the mess (post mortem for a Topic that went sideways?) in ~tildes
lejos Link ParentIt seems like it's actually the opposite. It's a term that apparently "leftist" "Bernie supporters" have created to try to brand the "blue no matter who" segment of Democrats as being cultists....blue MAGA
It seems like it's actually the opposite. It's a term that apparently "leftist" "Bernie supporters" have created to try to brand the "blue no matter who" segment of Democrats as being cultists.
I've mentioned elsewhere in this topic, but I don't trust a lot of the pro-Bernie commentary I've seen the last few days on tildes or reddit, and this term seems to be suddenly popping up among the same people. None of it is not constructive, and just feeds into the same grievance politics the right is using to sway other groups.
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Comment on Sorry for the mess (post mortem for a Topic that went sideways?) in ~tildes
lejos Link ParentI was about to reply to you or someone else on the thread when I discovered it was locked. I've been lurking and catching up on the latest election threads on tildes, and have been getting the gut...I was about to reply to you or someone else on the thread when I discovered it was locked. I've been lurking and catching up on the latest election threads on tildes, and have been getting the gut feeling that Bernie's image is being coopted by right wingers and reopening 2016 grievances for their own purposes, and noticed the same on reddit.
Thanks for the provided context. I try to do my duty and keep tabs on who the online rightwing influencers, but pretty rarely consume anything on youtube, so this was a new one.
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Comment on Who is allowed to practice identity politics? in ~society
lejos Link ParentI'd guess that LATAM spaces probably don't use "Latino" to describe themselves either, since it's pretty much only a US thing. I can't speak for Portuguese since I don't know it, but I personally...I'd guess that LATAM spaces probably don't use "Latino" to describe themselves either, since it's pretty much only a US thing. I can't speak for Portuguese since I don't know it, but I personally saw -x suffix as a gender convention in Mexico online and in political artwork well before Latinx in the English speaking world. I wouldn't say it's common, and the gender neutral -e suffix is will probably overtake -x in popularity, but -x is a language innovation that came from Spanish not the other way around.
Latino/a/x in English is just one of the few Spanish words in which Americans have also imported gendered variants, so it's likewise one of the few -x Spanish import words in the English speaking world. The people I know in the real world that use/have used Latinx all speak Spanish.
I'd say it makes less sense in English than it does in Spanish. In English it really only makes sense on a surface level. For someone that doesn't identify as a man or a woman, the grammar in Spanish forces them to do so. I think English misses the blunt, ugly protest against gender that replacing o/a with an x does in Spanish.
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Comment on Who is allowed to practice identity politics? in ~society
lejos Link ParentWhat factors? Does every single need of theirs need to match yours in order to get your support, and vise versa? If the answer is no, then what is the problem of making the distinction of BIPOC to...No one needs my approval to identify themselves with it. I just wouldnt think of that person as being an advocate for me or my needs, so they wouldnt get my support, unless there were other factors involved.
What factors? Does every single need of theirs need to match yours in order to get your support, and vise versa? If the answer is no, then what is the problem of making the distinction of BIPOC to capture the idea that they actually have some needs that are different and distinct from yours? How does that negate your needs at all?
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Comment on Who is allowed to practice identity politics? in ~society
lejos Link ParentWhy does someone who would identify themselves as BIPOC or Latinx need your approval to identify themselves? How does BIPOC "create a hierarchy" and put you at the bottom? And why does if feel...Why does someone who would identify themselves as BIPOC or Latinx need your approval to identify themselves? How does BIPOC "create a hierarchy" and put you at the bottom? And why does if feel like an "unnecessary slight", or even a slight at all? What is the supposed alternative?
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Comment on What have we liberals done to the US west coast? in ~society
lejos Link ParentSo much of what you've said here is simply inaccurate. I lived in Mexico in the early 2010s, and happened to make a few queer friends (who I have never spoken English with at all). I've see them...So much of what you've said here is simply inaccurate.
I lived in Mexico in the early 2010s, and happened to make a few queer friends (who I have never spoken English with at all). I've see them use both -@ and later -x on social media and and as far as I can tell, neither was ever pronounceable, and that was never the point (though the -e suffix is becoming more common with the benefit that it's more pronounceable). When you expect to see an -o/a and you see an -@ or -x instead, it visually communicates exactly what it's doing as far as including both/removing gender respectively.
If you speak Spanish, you should know it's not simply a grammatical gender issue. I can say "soy una persona masculina" and the fact that persona and its accompanying article/adjective are all feminine grammatically have nothing to do with my gender. But you quickly run into the necessity of identifying yourself as one gender or the other to say even the most mundane of things, like "I'm bored".
On the English side of things, I'm also just going to guess that any time a woman identifies herself as Latina, you don't respond with "Well ackshually English doesn't have grammatical gender so Latina is incorrect"; and if you do, please don't, for your own sake. Point being, Latino/a/x are all just words borrowed from Spanish anyway.
For what it's worth, I think it's a drawback of "Latinx" in English that it can be pronounced, because it doesn't confer the meaning that it has in Spanish.
Grammar and pronunciation arguments about it are really just red herrings that fall apart unless you just really don't think queer or non-binary people should exist in any language.
It's a word you only think to use if your only audience is English speaking people of Latin American descent in universities (aka the elite).
A lot of the backlash against "Latinx" is really no different than any other right-wing anti-queer / anti-"woke" talking points, and calling college-educated Latinos, the majority of whom are the first generation to attend college, "the elite" really makes no sense other than to understand it as simply being conflated with other right-wing talking points.
Sorry, but "the elites" are the people that benefit from you being angry about "Latinx", not the queer or non-binary college kids that use it to describe themselves.
But fuck me, it took like a decade of every news organisation hearing over and over that we bloody hated it (because it's language colonialism) before they took the message.
This sentence really struck me as hilarious, given how British it sounds, if "we" is understood to be people in the United States, and that's before considering the next layer of irony that Spanish itself is a colonial language.
On that note, literally the first time I ever saw -x removing gender from words in Spanish it was on Zapatista political artwork in Chiapas, which is an indigenous movement of people for whom Spanish is their second or maybe third or fourth language if they speak it at all. In their case, it's a response to colonialism.
Meanwhile, Trump takes a larger proportion of the Latin vote every time he runs, particularly men.
The right wing fuels itself on resentment and hate of queer people, particularly among men, be it trans people using the bathroom or playing sports, or trans kids taking puberty blockers, or queer Latinos using "Latinx" to describe themselves. It's not unique when it comes to Latino men, or any more justified.
I'm not saying you can't be performative. Performances are important to keep coalitions together, and let people know that they're heard. I'm saying that picking every single hill to die on is only a good strategy if you actually want to die on a hill.
I'd argue that even if you're cynical enough to think that anyone using Latinx is simply performative, and not simply, going out of their way to signal that they genuinely want to be inclusive of LGBTQ people, it's worse to be so anti-Latinx that you just propagate right-wing memes and disinformation.
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Comment on Spotify lowers artist royalties despite subscription price hike in ~music
lejos Link ParentThe amount spent on the Rogan deal is certainly less than payouts to all musicians, but he might be paid more than even the highest paid musicians on the platform. Taylor Swift currently tops that...The amount spent on the Rogan deal is certainly less than payouts to all musicians, but he might be paid more than even the highest paid musicians on the platform. Taylor Swift currently tops that list and is estimated to have earned just over $300M, which could be ultimately less than Rogan's deals.
The amount spent directly on Rogan doesn't capture the overall effect, though. Money spent on Rogan is basically marketing money to promote podcasts on Spotify, and the overall strategy for Spotify with podcasts is to increase subscribers with the Rogan exclusive, increase ad revenue on the platform from podcasts as well as pay out less to music artists by getting users to listen to podcasts instead of music. How good of a decision it is financially for Spotify depends on all of those things.
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Comment on NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism in ~society
lejos LinkI can't be the first one to speculate that Uri Berliner was recruited for this. He's a radio guy and he's now primed to start his own podcast. At least so far, he's following the right-wing...- Exemplary
I can't be the first one to speculate that Uri Berliner was recruited for this. He's a radio guy and he's now primed to start his own podcast. At least so far, he's following the right-wing podcast origin story template of Jordan Peterson, Bret Weinstein, and Bari Weiss (who published the NPR piece) where you manufacture some kind of "cancellation" stunt, and then get rich by joining the ranks of "anti-woke" podcasts, substacks, and the like.
He'll also no doubt make the rounds as a guest on Joe Rogan and various other podcasts in the same sphere of grifters that repeat ad nauseam right-wing talking points like Hunter Biden's laptop, the COVID lab leak, DEI / "wokeness" concerns.
Aside from the above speculation, the substance of his claims about NPR were stretched pretty thin to tailor it to a pretty specific audience. The facts were secondary to confirming the biases of the readers. This includes bias about bias in journalism itself, and the weakness of the evidence seems to get lost among various assumptions about what bias is present in journalism, what "diversity" of views is supposed to be included, etc.
If you do a google search with "site:npr.org", you can confirm that NPR did in fact have coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop and the COVID lab leak. Every place they discussed the "Don't Say Gay" bill, they used "so-called" or attributed the slogan to people opposed, in line with pretty typical journalistic standards. Even if you follow the links included in the story, it's hand-waving in the direction of "this is generally 'woke' so it must be bad", not examples of journalistic malfeasance.
In general, sweeping generalizations about "the (mainstream) media" or even the coverage of specific organizations should be treated with skepticism regardless of where it's coming from, because it's often someone looking to capture your attention for their own benefit.
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Comment on NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism in ~society
lejos Link ParentI mean I literally italicized the counterexample to your logically false argument. I offered a clear, realistic, and non-violent alternative that has worked before, both in terms of fascists...I mean I literally italicized the counterexample to your logically false argument. I offered a clear, realistic, and non-violent alternative that has worked before, both in terms of fascists previously losing elections and in terms of fascists previously existing on the fringe of even right-wing politics. The suggestion that violence is a necessity is quite simply against the facts.
You seem to just really want to depict people opposed to fascists as being violent. On top of that you seem also imply with the "self fulfilling prophecy" idea that if you "incorrectly" say someone is a fascist, they're then justified to use violence against you, which is similarly absurd.
For the record, I don't even think 40% of the population are fascist, just that 40% might vote for fascists, in part because of absurd arguments, such as the above, which distract and discourage people from addressing the fascist problem in the country. And again, I'm talking about voting, not violence.
If you intend to do anything but provide cover for fascists like Trump, I leave that for your own self-evaluation.
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Comment on NPR suspends veteran editor as it grapples with his public criticism in ~society
lejos Link ParentI'm sorry, but it simply doesn't logically follow that if you call a fascist a fascist, or if you call a racist a racist, you must therefore be willing to kill them. That's just absurd. Obviously...I'm sorry, but it simply doesn't logically follow that if you call a fascist a fascist, or if you call a racist a racist, you must therefore be willing to kill them. That's just absurd.
Obviously someone could say that fascists should be called fascists, racists should be called racists, and homophobes should be called homophobes, so they can be beaten at the ballot box and pushed to the fringes of society where they don't get to trample the rights of others by gaining power.
Pretending that fascists are not fascists only helps fascists, though.
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Comment on An honest assessment of American rural white resentment is long overdue in ~society
lejos Link ParentThere's a place for forgiveness and changing minds, sure. And simply calling people homophobes to their face is probably ineffective, but no one here is arguing that. You really seem to want to...There's a place for forgiveness and changing minds, sure. And simply calling people homophobes to their face is probably ineffective, but no one here is arguing that.
You really seem to want to rewrite the story of the LGBT rights movement with homophobes as the main character, like it's all some kind of redemption story for homophobic people who saw the error of their ways and then gave gay people their rights out of the goodness of their heart because gay people really went out of their way to not offend their homophobic sensibilities. That's just not the way things happened, and it really diminishes the efforts and bravery of LGBT people in the movement.
It's great to think that some of them can change, but it's not a prerequisite. Step one isn't get all the homophobes to see the light and accept gay people. You can't fight homophobia by pretending homophobes don't exist, or fight racism pretending that racists don't exist, and then euphemistically downplaying homophobia and racism when the evidence is clear.
Many rural folk love their neighbor José and even enjoy the local taqueria and Chinese restaurant.
What does it really count for if they vote to deport José? Does it matter that they have a gay "friend" if they vote for keeping gay people from getting married? What's it count for if, while being "nice" to gay or black or trans or immigrant people to their face, among different company, they perpetuate all of the racist bias that puts all of those groups in danger?
That's a good find. From the date posted, it looks like the r/BadEconomics breakdown is addressing the white paper I linked to, in much greater detail than I cared to. One point which I noticed as well, which is that the "true" measure that he promotes over time makes the COVID numbers look less bad. The U-3 line in the chart shows a much steeper increase in unemployment in 2020 precisely due to the fact that he's including so many people in the "true" numbers, it softens the impact.