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Comment Re:Wireless seems like a great way to cause pain (Score 1) 79

>> My city gives me a choice of which power generators I can subscribe to: a "green" provider and the incumbent traditional utility. Let's hope that trend continues.

Yeah, it works so well in Texas. We have an unaccountable patchwork of providers, power plants, suppliers, etc with zero incentive to "innovate". Hundreds died during the freeze (including my 5-yr-old nephew's classmate).

Comment Re:So what's the reaction? (Score 1) 184

I appreciate the thoughtful reply, and for being candid about your political leanings. A few points:

>>The interesting challenge for politicians attempting to court those people, though, is that there seems to be nothing that anyone actually could or should do for them. They are mostly all better off than they were years ago.

They're definitely NOT better off. We've got 2 generations now (millenials and zoomers) who can't afford to marry, buy houses, or have kids. Conservatives typically think this is a moral shortcoming, but it's actually economic. The yawning gap of inequality is turning us into a third-world shithole.

  >>Those working-class voters don't want the government to help them, they want the government to make sure they don't need help, by rolling the clock back to a world in which blue collar labor was the core of American prosperity

You'd be surprised. Oklahoma and Idaho just passed Medicaid expansions. Florida overwhelmingly passed the $15 minimum wage. Healthcare and a living wage are consensus issues in this country. The only ones holding us back are our politicians.

Comment Re:Partly insightful [Re:So what's the reaction?] (Score 1, Insightful) 184

First of all, thank you for the thoughtful reply. Allow me to retort:

>> Not clear, especially without detailed knowledge of the Russian hacking, much of which is not fully disclosed. The 2016 election was extraordinarily close; it turns out that pretty much everything mattered that time.

Let's be clear: nothing Russia did affected the outcome of the '16 or '20 election. Sure, they tried to influence it. As they have tried with every election after WWII. You can obsess about Russia all you like, but it just takes focus away from the real culprits: the Electoral College system and the imperious losers at the DNC. The RNC is actually more democratic than the DNC. They allowed the overwhelmingly popular candidate (Trump) to run for president, and were rewarded with a victory.

>> Now you're just parroting Republican talking points. If they don't have anything else to say, they say "oh, that person is senile".

Does it not bother you that the average age of our elected representatives is like 80? We used to call the Soviet Union a geruntocracy when they elected premiers that were in their LATE SIXTIES. Andropov is a spring chicken compared to Trump, Biden, Pelosi, etc. Are you seriously telling me you aren't a little bit worried that all these oldsters are being propped up by their unaccountable and hyper-ambitious staffers?

>> Classic whataboutism. Saying "what about Saudi Arabia and Israel?!?" does not in any way excuse Russia or China.

It helps illustrate who's really driving the boat. We watched China run over peaceful protestors with tanks, but that didn't stop us from outsourcing everything there. NOW all of a sudden we're worried about the Chinese government? Wonder why that is, hmmm? The Endless Warriors in the military/industrial complex realize that the War on Terror isn't enough to justify their giant budgets anymore.

>>Acknowledging the Russian attacks on the US electoral system is nevertheless worth doing.

Not really, obsessing about something that's been at about the same level for decades is just a distraction from the real problems in this country. Don't be complicit in this game. We need to demand real, tangible action from the ruling Democratic party, as they are just fine with being losers and doing absolutely nothing for the working people of the US.

Comment Re:So what's the reaction? (Score 1, Insightful) 184

The question isn't whether or not Russia wants to influence our elections (they always have) or if they prefer Trump to Hilary or Biden (they do).

The question is whether a few hundred thousand impressions on Facebook ads caused Hilary to lose the election in '16. And if you believe that, yes, you've been mislead (I hate to say sheep, since it's been promoted by just about everyone in the media).


Democrats have yet to confront the fact that they ran the only person in the world who could've lost to a fucking dim-bulb reality TV show star. If Russia is such a serious threat, why the fuck did the Democrats have 87-yr-old Dianne Feinstein running the Russiagate committees? You know, the lady who loses her train of thought in mid-sentence and often can't find her own office?
Meanwhile, the military/industrial complex is pivoting away from the War on Terror and back to the Cold War, and so we've decided to start caring about Russian and Chinese human rights violations. (But let's not talk about what Saudi Arabia and Israel do constantly, out in the open).

If you want anything to change, you have to stop blaming Russia and realize that Trump won because he spoke to the working-class people that have been hurt by neoliberal policies, which have been pushed by both parties since Jimmy Carter. Now, Trump didn't DO anything for those people, but he at least acknowledged they exist, which is more than we can say for Hilary.
Those policies have to change if we want a functional country again.

Comment Re:We already tried that (Score 1) 63

Yeah, and if it weren't for that oppressive SOCIALIST central planning, the US wouldn't have had the best electric, phone, and road infrastructure in the First World until the late 20th century. They even forced city dwellers to pay the same amount as rural folks, even though running lines in rural areas was many times more costly. Now, after 40+ years of neoliberalism, our infrastructure is just the opposite: a crumbling patchwork that no one wants to take responsbility for. The American people deserve better.

Comment Re:News Flash: Texas Hates Austin Too (Score 1) 222

>>Also, fuck you and the power grid...All states have issues and rare weather causes issues. No, fuck YOU. My 5-yr-old nephew's classmate and her entire family burned to death during the freeze. Hundreds lost their lives in an entirely preventable tragedy, because our worthless elected officials thought it would be OK to let the energy companies police themselves.

Comment Re:Only if it's economically viable (Score 1) 106

Veganism ain't carbon-neutral. Tearing down forests to plow fields releases massive amounts of carbon dioxide. Fertilizer is some combination of blood and bone meal or fossil fuel-based. In contrast, pasture-raised, grass-fed beef IS carbon neutral. Vegans harbor the dangerous fantasy that it is possible to live without killing other animals. What do you think kills more animals? Hunting, or plowing down forests? Which is ACTUALLY a more sustainable practice?

Comment Re: Lovely. You'll need a lot of (Score 1) 161

>> No one is going to compete for a revenue stream of size zero. Break up ISPs all you want, but it won't make them pull fiber or coax or whatever out into the sticks.

The ISPs will also send a fleet of lobbyists to the state house capital, begging the legislature to make municipal broadband illegal. I saw it happen in North Carolina after a small town (Wilson) built a fiber network that was 50 times faster than the commercial offerings, for pennies on the dollar. This was after years of begging and pleading with ISPs to expand to their town.

This is terrifying for Republicans, because it puts the lie to "government can do no right" and reveals what public/private partnerships are really all about: self-dealing, inefficiency and middlemen. We've done that for 40 years, and our government has only become more openly venal and dysfunctional. It's time to go back to New Deal-style efficiency and competence.

Comment Re: The constitution is a practical tool (Score 1) 153

>> I do not disagree with the literal words at face value and devoid of context, but I very much object to the baggage that is strongly correlated with those words.

OK, so you treat the Constitution as a religious document. Something the founders certainly didn't do (and never intended anyone else to do, either). Speaking as a True Originalist (aka a medium that can talk to the Spirits of the Founders), I can tell you with perfect certainty that they (the Founding Fathers) think you're a weirdo. Also, Benjamin Franklin wishes he were still corporeal, so he could smell your hair and write dirty poems about it.

Comment Re:Dereliction of duty (Score 2) 168

>>but substantial amounts of their GDP that pays for the cost of socialism is non-renewable and non sustainable.

Who cares? For a pittance of what we spend on military bases and private prisons for marijuana offenders, we could have a social safety net that puts the Nordic countries to shame. That is what the majority of Americans want. Not trillions of dollars for endless wars and oil subsidies.

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