[QUOTE=kladner;564174][B]OMFG!!! [/B]So long past time. Not that I have great, or even kinda, sorta, mediocre expectations for our newest Mr Big, AKA Fearless Leader. Better than the hoped-for departing T-Thing is an exceedingly low bar. Now that B-Thing is elected the gloves have to come off from the Left. Progressives have to out-pressure the Right.

However, depending on the Georgia Senate outcomes, pressure on Joe will be pretty meaningless, even if it is effective.[/QUOTE]As indicated in [url=https://www.mersenneforum.org/showpost.php?p=563486&postcount=478]this post[/url], such pressure would [i]not[/i] be meaningless. The Republicans plan to use it in the 2022 campaign, and expect it would enable them to regain control of the US House of Representatives.

During the campaign season, I was beset with TV ads for the candidates in a US House race in a District I'm not in. The R-incumbent won, as expected. The D-challenger campaigned on the theme that the incumbent was in the pocket of Big Pharma, and was more interested in helping his friends than helping ordinary people. It didn't work. I reckon a lot of folks, seeing such ads, think somethiung like "Pot, meet kettle." Indeed, the R-candidate's ads painted the D-candidate as corrupt, via "guilt by association" with a prominent D-politician caught up in a huge bribery scandal.

In my district, the R-incumbent retired, and was replaced by a young gal who campaigned as a (right-wing buzzphrase) (right-wing buzzphrase) (right-wing buzzphrase) (right-wing buzzphrase) Republican, who in robocall campaign calls actually described herself as [i]one of us.[/i] I'm sure she had never heard of a movie entitled [i]Freaks[/i]. But she won election by a large margin.

You may not think highly of people who are swayed by R-campaigning such as the above, or by alarm calls of "Socialism!" But you should at least acknowledge the fact that such people [i]vote.[/i] And that they vote as they do, despite it being in some regards (such as health care) against their own interests. The D's are not going to get their votes by condemning Republicans as corrupt, heartless monsters. They are not going to gain their votes by claiming that progressive government policies will solve, or even alleviate, their problems. If Joe D-Candidate does not show these people that they have an active role to play in dealing with the problems at hand, and that "business as usual" is off the table, then Joe D-Candidate is not going to get their votes. They will instead turn out to vote for the other party's candidate, Hugh R-Screwed.

Some of you might have read about [URL="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/23/politics/florida-dark-money-mystery-invs/index.html"]this[/URL].

I just read where Pennsylvania has certified their election results.

Giuliani's slew of lawsuits on Trumphus' behalf are being called an "embarrassment" to the legal community, at large. Disgrace, would be the word I would use. In other parts of the world, people are probably laughing their a**es off at how totally ridiculous all this has been. I believe the proper phrase is "laughing stock."

[QUOTE=storm5510;564226]I just read where Pennsylvania has certified their election results.

Giuliani's slew of lawsuits on Trumphus' behalf are being called an "embarrassment" to the legal community, at large. Disgrace, would be the word I would use. In other parts of the world, people are probably laughing their a**es off at how totally ridiculous all this has been. I believe the proper phrase is "laughing stock."[/QUOTE]Yes, "laughingstock" is an appropriate term. [b]M[/b]ake [b]A[/b]dversaries [b]G[/b]rin [b]A[/b]vidly!

After the ruling came down (like the storied ton of bricks) on the great Pennsylvania "This is not a fraud case", our Great Leader tweeted:[quote]@realDonaldTrump

Thanks Mark. It's all a continuation of the never ending Witch Hunt. Judge Brann, who would not even allow us to present our case or evidence, is a product of Senator Pat "No Tariffs" Toomey of Pennsylvania, no friend of mine, & Obama - No wonder. 900,000 Fraudulent Votes! https://t.co/<snip>

Saturday at 6:54 pm[/quote]This reminds me of a stock plot element in Western movies, continued into modern settings, where the Sheriff has put the rich bad guy's kid in jail. When Daddy comes to visit, the kid says he's been mistreated. In one movie (the 1970 "Tick, tick, tick" with George Kennedy and Jim Brown if memory serves), the kid had declined repeated offers to let him make a phone call. When Daddy got to the jail and asked why he hadn't called, the kid said something like, "I wanted to, but they wouldn't let me." Not a great movie by any stretch, but the opening scene was IMO quite good. And, though the movie was a drama, there was a nice dose of intentional comedy in the dialog.

The sad part is, a lot of the Jobbernowl-who-is-God's supporters actually [i]believe[/i] his blatant lies such as the above.

But at least it is now clear to all that the Great Leader is going to be the Great Leaver. The Biden campaign trolled him a while back, saying that "The United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House." Perhaps they could arrange to have one of their people carrying a sign near the White House that says

[center][size=5][b]TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT[/b][/size][/center]

[QUOTE=mathwiz;564156]My take is that there's too much tech debt to even attempt a refactoring, and it's better to throw everything out and start from scratch with a ground-up rewrite.[/QUOTE]

I hear you. I re-read [URL="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month"]Brooks[/URL] at least one every five years.

But there are some systems where you can't "Throw the first one away.

Perhaps Musk's Mars Colony and Bezos' Orbital Habitats is where lessons are learnt, and then applied. (A few experiments in Democracy have also gone relatively well here on Earth, also... :wink:)

This will not make the "election was stolen from Trump" people change their minds. The opinion folks over at Fox News are already suggesting that if the Republicans keep the Senate that they will completely stonewall Biden. One of the methods at their disposal will be to block as many of Biden's appointments as possible in order to "cut the legs" out from under the executive branch. I'm not talking about judicial appointments, which I'm sure they will slow down to a crawl, but to other appointed positions, such as Secretary of Defense, etc. unless Biden picks some conservative hack. I wonder if they will continue to take their marching orders from Trump regarding the appointments that they will approve. I doubt they will approve any federal budget from Biden that does anything outside of the bare minimum to keep the country running.

IMO, they would prefer to f*** the country under a Democrat POTUS then govern. We have seen similar behavior across states, such as Wisconsin, where the Republican legislature has not met since March.

This is not Democracy, it is tyranny.

[QUOTE=rogue;564264]This is not Democracy, it is tyranny.[/QUOTE]

I know this will be considered blasphemous by some, but...

It can be argued, referencing the empirical, that it has not yet been proven that Democracy (or even pure Capitalism) is the optimal solution for every situation.

I love asking those who argue that Socialism is the ultimate evil if they drove on a public road -- or used the Internet -- recently.

Anyone who's read Pratchett knows that sometimes benevolent dictatorships can just get things working better than "representational" governance.

(I know; it will never happen with our current or near-future set of Leaders. Limited to hard-fantasy for the moment.)

The US and UK both have a rather impoverished form of democracy: only 2 political parties of any size with a real chance of power, and a district/constituency system instead of proportional representation.

[QUOTE=chalsall;564268]...
Anyone who's read Pratchett knows that sometimes benevolent dictatorships can just get things working better than "representational" governance.
...[/QUOTE]There are at least four main problems with "benevolent" dictatorships or "enlightened" despots :
- with a mood change or the dimming of light, they turn in the ordinary kind of dictatorship or despotism ;
- the top might be benevolent or enlightened, those forms of government are maintained by an army of people that aren't ;
- that kind of system breaks at the time of succession ;
- last but not least, imposing a "good" system on people from outside doesn't work.

Jacob

[QUOTE=chalsall;564268]Anyone who's read Pratchett knows that sometimes benevolent dictatorships can just get things working better than "representational" governance.[/quote]If you're referring to the late Terry Pratchett, no, I haven't read his books. But -- and this may be relevant to what we can "know" from reading them -- weren't they [i]fiction?[/i]
[quote](I know; it will never happen with our current or near-future set of Leaders. Limited to hard-fantasy for the moment.)[/QUOTE]Not a problem -- our Jobbernowl-who-is-God and followers are [i]living[/i] in a world of hard-fantasy, a fool's paradise based on "alternative facts" or "delusions."

Aw, crikey -- not AGAIN!
 

[url=https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-madison-wisconsin-7882adcf4ed8fc941fa6948e1da9e5ab]Republicans sue to stop Wisconsin vote certification[/url][quote]MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Republicans filed a lawsuit Tuesday asking the Wisconsin Supreme Court to block certification of the presidential election results even as a recount over President-elect Joe Biden’s win over President Donald Trump is ongoing.

The lawsuit echoes many of the same arguments Trump is making in trying, unsuccessfully, to have tens of thousands of ballots discounted during the recount. It also seeks to give the power to name presidential electors to the Republican-controlled Legislature.
<snip>
The lawsuit also rehashes a claim that a federal court rejected in September that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg tried to “illegally circumvent Wisconsin absentee voting laws” through grants awarded by a nonprofit center he funds.
<snip>
Many of the same arguments alleging the money was illegally awarded and therefore the election results should be nullified are being made in the new lawsuit in state court.
<snip>[/quote]Reminds me of widely-misattributed quote, found in good company at [url=https://www.history.com/news/here-are-6-things-albert-einstein-never-said]Here Are 6 Things Albert Einstein Never Said[/url]
[quote][i]The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.[/i]

On his website, Quote Investigator, O'Toole [url=http://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/]traced[/url], the link between insanity and repetition back to at least the 19th century, but noted its use in a Narcotics Anonymous pamphlet as well as novels (including Brown's), TV shows and various other sources.[/quote]I know, there is actually a rational objective to the suit -- trying to stall certification -- but a lawsuit based on arguments that have [i]already[/i] been tried and thrown out of court, might qualify as "legally frivolous," and risk sanctions against the attorney from the Court.