wisdomoftheages

7 ms·

1.
by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
The executive nominates judges, but they hold tenure for life and after confirmation operate with complete independence as a separate branch of government with their own budget etc. The Supreme Court is also irrelevant to this because they
2.
by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
The crime is not trading with Iran, the crime is defrauding the US financial system in order to do it. For some reason, this is framed as though Huawei is accused of trading with Iran completely independently of the United States. That&#x
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by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
No doubt he was an extremely serious and devout Catholic. That's why I want to push back against 'catholicherald' propaganda that being a good Catholic requires you to either heterosexual or celibate.
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by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
The idea that Meng was arrested as part of a ploy in the 'trade war' is completely unfounded. These investigations take years and are initiated by the independent justice system. Trump can run his mouth off as much as he likes, bu
5.
by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
Meng was arrested for fraud, lying to U.S. banks and violating financial disclosure laws; no different than any garden variety money-launderer. Most importantly, she's had a day in court, been granted bail in a hearing that was open to
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by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
“Letting the local market compete” is not among the listed reasons, so if that were the true reason the listed reasons would indeed be “bullshit”
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by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
Companies pay the lowest amount that workers accept. Some employers can hold down wages because their workers have no other options. Ours have to resort to marginally more sophisticated stratagems.
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by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
Well, in the Xi era China has a) become more of an overtly fascist dictatorship and b) harder for Westerners to make money in, so because of b) there's more incentive to focus on a) Still lots of great stuff happening there, so long as
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by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
"Competitive" company cultures are an enormous red flag for me, almost always a mechanism to help executives drain employees to a lifeless husk without having to actually pay for the privilege. In my experience, companies have thr
10.
by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
This is only partially true; he was devoutly Catholic, but he also had numerous male sexual partners.
11.
by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
I didn't say that there has never been a democratic government in all of history. I said that the Roman Republic could not in any sense of the word be described as democratic. It was fundamentally and wholly governed by wealthy land-ow
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by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
Leaving aside the historiographical issue of how projecting modern descriptive terms onto the past fundamentally distorts our understanding of how people back then conceived of their society, I'm afraid you're laboring under some
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by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
To refer to "democratic norms" or "progressives and reactionaries" is an anachronistic stretch to say the least. A more accurate summation is that the Gracchi championed land reform for the poor (specifically, redistribu
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by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
To be fair to her, she played it because she heard her daughter listening to it and thought they would be able to bond over it. It must feel terrible to have your kid actively reject something they previously liked because they found out yo
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by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
This reminded me of a classic essay on how a lot of "luxury" branding is meant to appeal, not to the true elite (the kind of people who are born with seven or more figures in a trust fund and / or live off capital gains), but
16.
by wisdomoftheages 8y ago
There is a book, a mapping project, and a museum exhibit all linked in the first couple paragraphs of TFA. I encourage you to look at them as a jumping-off point into the 40 or 50 years of accumulated historical scholarship on the subject.