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Comparatively Superlative

@comparativelysuperlative / comparativelysuperlative.tumblr.com

More Adjective Than Most

God she is so fucking incredible!

She is my fucking idol. Here's a link to the song that has tim pools panties in a bunch btw.

Incredible song. I lowkey wonder how she convinced bernie to let her play it at his event. Like, was "Are his balls filled with lightning" a surprise for him too, or did he just give the thumbs up?

she has a pretty decent point. Executive Order 14168 accidentally declared God trans, section 2(g) is pretty clear about that, and that was maybe a little bit catastrophically dumb.

It sort of slipped by among all the other outrages. But I want to point that not only did the Vice President of the US say that his boss should intentionally violate court orders, he did it by quoting Andrew Jackson.

The context of that quote? The thing the Supreme Court told Jackson was unconstitutional, but he did it anyway? It was a Georgia state law granting the state legal control over Cherokee lands. The Supreme Court ruled that the United States only has exclusive negotiating rights with Indian nations, not political dominion over them.

Both Georgia and Jackson disregarded this ruling and continued the illegal takeover of Cherokee lands. Eventually culminating in the Cherokee removal, part of the infamous Trail of Tears.

So take it very seriously when Vance quotes this (most likely fictitious) saying. Or when Trump says Jackson is his favorite president. Especially when they're talking about mass deportation, ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and the annexation of other countries.

Important pedantry note: despite what Vance is saying, we are not (yet, as of morning on 3/18/25) living in insane Jackson how-many-legions-does-the-Court-have world.

This is important because violating court orders is not just "highly unusual" like the link says. It's the red line for whether we have a wannabe tyrant who's doing whatever he can get away with, or a serious attempt at destroying any authority that might get in his way. That pretense about "what he can get away with" matters a lot, in terms of how bad things get how fast. Legal systems are made of people playing pretend.

And in this case, they're still pretending! The current level of fig leaf is "the first two planes were already in the air, and the order to turn them around wasn't in the written order, obviously we stopped sending more as soon as the court said to."

Same story with Rasha Alawieh. "Oops we had already done it by the time we heard the court said not to."

Is that bullshit, absolutely. (Maybe true, definitely bullshit.) We all know they'll ignore court orders if they feel like it and make the lawyers come up with something. But as long as they know they have to do that, it does limit them. It's the reason why they stopped after two planes, and why there aren't headlines every week about the latest 400 people getting disappeared.

This is one of those situations where there's a huge difference between violating a court order openly as in "everyone knows," or openly as in "publicly admitting it." We are obviously headed toward that line very fast. If we cross it, and if crossing it feels to Trump like it was no big deal, then we can expect things to get a lot worse. And probably not literally the end of the Republic, but, you know. Probably.

Update: what the fuck

Correction: as of morning on 3/18/25, they have announced that we are living in insane Jackson how-many-divisions-does-the-Court-have world.

"They have announced" isn't quite the same thing as "we are." This bunch lies a lot. It's two days later and they haven't actually started ignoring the order, but if they do then this definitely counts as doing it openly.

This would be a good time to call your Congressors. They ought to know that this isn't about the specific people getting deported (though it also is-- if these are dangerous gang members then the administration can go ahead and prove that in court first). It's mostly about whether Congress can pass laws that matter at all. If your representative is a Republican, it's probably also about how you hated a bunch of Biden's executive orders and you're really glad there were laws limiting what he could do, and didn't we have a Revolution about this once or (if they're very Republican) twice.

If Pam Bondi or any other Cabinet member intentionally violates a court order just because they disagree with it--as distinct from saying they're confident it'll be overturned and they'll be allowed to disobey it then--then I want to see articles of impeachment against them. That day.

Since it seems that almost nobody I know has actually read the concerning hobbits bit of the lord of the rings prologue here’s some lore about hobbit politics™

  • Hobbits are mainly ruled by clan law. What family you’re officially apart of is very important and pretty much everyone has everyone else’s family histories memorized
  • Hobbits like reading very boring books full of information they already know about their own family lines
  • There’s hobbit wealth inequality. Rich hobbits live in holes because they can afford to make very big ones that fill up entire hills and it’s a way of showing off. Poor hobbits live in holes because they can’t afford houses so they just start digging into a hill. Middle class hobbits live in built structures made of wood.
  • A very long time ago there used to be a king in the area that gave the region of the shire to the hobbits if they promised to maintain the roads and bridges of the region
  • That king and kingdom hasn’t existed for over a thousand years but the hobbits still act like he’s around and follow his laws
  • They know he’s not there. They just act like he still is.
  • The hobbits claim they sent a bunch of archers to help in a war a long time ago but nobody else has this in their records of that war
  • Hobbits’ main methods of killing things usually involves either archery or throwing stones at things. Apparently they’re really really good at killing things by throwing rocks at them.
  • Bree hobbits live side by side with men and have lived there for a very long time
  • Bree hobbits call shire hobbits “colonizers”
  • They’ve got a leader called a thane but he’s only relevant during times of crisis to convene a moot of clan leaders but hobbits don’t generally have times of crisis so he’s mostly a figurehead
  • The thane is almost always from the Took family
  • There’s a mayor of the shire that’s elected. He mostly plans events and appoints the sheriff
  • There’s twelve police officers in the entirely of the shire that mostly act as animal control
  • The book makes a point of letting you know that the police officers don’t have uniforms but they do put little feathers in their hats

Also there’s a very long section in the concerning hobbits prologue about pipe weed. Like there’s a whole bit explaining it and its cultural significance and then an additional excerpt from a fictional in-universe book about the history of smoking.

Also in The Hobbit Tolkien explicitly refers to it as tobacco whereas in the Lord of the Rings it’s just referred to as pipe weed.

And yes it’s probably still tobacco but it’s no longer referred to as that and they call it a weed and an herb and say there’s a lot of different varieties of it and talk about the history of those varieties and all I’m saying is that maybe Bilbo is smoking tobacco but that’s probably not the only kind of herb available to smoke alright. We don’t know what kind of drugs these little guys are capable of growing.

note that the mayor (sam gets elected to this job for like twenty consecutive terms after Frodo elevates him to the gentry by giving him his house) is mayor of hobbiton, the largest town, not the whole shire.

especially not Buckland, which is the domain of the Brandybuck clan and more recently inhabited than the rest of the shire. (merry becomes Master of Buckland.)

the thaneship is hereditary, it's always the head of the Tooks; it does technically cover the whole shire because the thaneship is the deputized authority from the king. but since the king isn't there (technically the king is Aragorn; his claim to the Shire is actually way stronger than his claim to Gondor) this is a very abstract sort of authority, and seems likely to have been considered a war-leader-only sort of role even back in the day.

it makes pippin's position in minas tirith much funnier though, because he's in line to inherit the thaneship (this happens) which makes him technically the same rank as Faramir, whose father is also the hereditary deputy of a vanished monarch of the other half of the divided lineage of Elendil.

there wasn't very likely to be any great fuss made in the Shire about acknowledging the King returned, even if absolutely no one thought that would ever happen and used it as an equivalent of 'when pigs fly.' but the Fellowship alumni assumed all the highest positions of leadership, so the Shire was probably the most reliably loyal province in the new greater gondor for aragorn's entire very long life.

...until 2-3 generations later when some successor asks why we even have that province if Elessar said we can't even go there and tries collecting taxes.

It sort of slipped by among all the other outrages. But I want to point that not only did the Vice President of the US say that his boss should intentionally violate court orders, he did it by quoting Andrew Jackson.

The context of that quote? The thing the Supreme Court told Jackson was unconstitutional, but he did it anyway? It was a Georgia state law granting the state legal control over Cherokee lands. The Supreme Court ruled that the United States only has exclusive negotiating rights with Indian nations, not political dominion over them.

Both Georgia and Jackson disregarded this ruling and continued the illegal takeover of Cherokee lands. Eventually culminating in the Cherokee removal, part of the infamous Trail of Tears.

So take it very seriously when Vance quotes this (most likely fictitious) saying. Or when Trump says Jackson is his favorite president. Especially when they're talking about mass deportation, ethnic cleansing of Gaza, and the annexation of other countries.

Important pedantry note: despite what Vance is saying, we are not (yet, as of morning on 3/18/25) living in insane Jackson how-many-legions-does-the-Court-have world.

This is important because violating court orders is not just "highly unusual" like the link says. It's the red line for whether we have a wannabe tyrant who's doing whatever he can get away with, or a serious attempt at destroying any authority that might get in his way. That pretense about "what he can get away with" matters a lot, in terms of how bad things get how fast. Legal systems are made of people playing pretend.

And in this case, they're still pretending! The current level of fig leaf is "the first two planes were already in the air, and the order to turn them around wasn't in the written order, obviously we stopped sending more as soon as the court said to."

Same story with Rasha Alawieh. "Oops we had already done it by the time we heard the court said not to."

Is that bullshit, absolutely. (Maybe true, definitely bullshit.) We all know they'll ignore court orders if they feel like it and make the lawyers come up with something. But as long as they know they have to do that, it does limit them. It's the reason why they stopped after two planes, and why there aren't headlines every week about the latest 400 people getting disappeared.

This is one of those situations where there's a huge difference between violating a court order openly as in "everyone knows," or openly as in "publicly admitting it." We are obviously headed toward that line very fast. If we cross it, and if crossing it feels to Trump like it was no big deal, then we can expect things to get a lot worse. And probably not literally the end of the Republic, but, you know. Probably.

How would you feel about a Worm fighting game, ala Jojo's All-Star Battle?

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Seems like the wrong way to go about it, to me. A huge part of the tone of parahuman's combat is dependent on radical power imbalances, dirty tricks, rock-paper-scissors counters, clever use of the environment, and, crucially, exploitation of the fog of war generated by teamfights. I just don't think you could capture any of the parts I care about in a two-player fighting game, even if you incorporated the assists/quasi-3d rotational fighting space on display in the clips I watched. 

In terms of “games I’d want to play,” you're inching in the correct direction if you make it a team-based multiplayer thing, a hero shooter or a MOBA or an asymmetrical multiplayer game, which allow for greater integration of positioning, environment, and fog of war; the bank job as a five-on-five teamfight scenario, Payday style, or the Endbringer fights as an exaggerated version of the dynamic on display in Evolve. Honestly, for years I’ve wanted a game in that space that more unabashedly leans into straight-up superheroism, even further than Overwatch does, so this is tempting. But the wall that this hits in my mind is twofold. First, a lot of the tropes, conventions, moral assumptions, etc. that Worm is commenting on aren’t as salient in the mutliplayer game space, so I think something, probably a lot of things, would get lost in translation. Second, the act of producing a novel live-service hero shooter in 2025 results in your soul immediately getting sent directly to hell without you even dying first

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Imo the right video game for worm would be

  • Single player autobattler
  • You're managing a team of 3 to 8 capes
  • Battles on an open empty field are very rare.
  • Still, most missions involve the potential for combat.
  • You have to care about the personal goals and relationships between your team members

and of course

  • is absolutely not fun to play

This is some of the more creative news slop recycling I've seen in a while.

Headline: "NSA warns iPhone and Android users -- disable location tracking."

Text: -Some other outlet reports there was a recent leak -Quote from EFF saying relevant privacy things, copied from a real reporter -Some other outlet's list of hacked apps -And finally, "NSA’s warning comes by way of an advisory it last updated in 2000. But it’s still live..."

As home computers become more powerful and tools for 3D modelling more accessible, we're entering an era of animated porn where the characters are still stiff and awkward, but the environments are top-notch. Like, check out the grain pattern on that cabinetry. I was so mesmerised by the rich subtlety of the sub-surface scattering in the varnish, I almost forgot about the twelve-inch dick.

There's a love scene on a bearskin rug; they say it's marvellous. Every hair of the bear reproduced.

Last week, it emerged that health insurance leaders pressured the DOJ to bring federal charges against Luigi Mangione. This week, I discovered the top 3 officials at DOJ all collected paychecks from healthcare companies before serving in government: shorturl.at/lgLIU

Because an alleged terrorist has no right to a jury; they are blocking jury nullification.

Back on my criminal procedural soapbox to tell you that the linked article (which is scary! and good to know!) does not in the slightest entail any part of "Because an alleged terrorist has no right to a jury; they are blocking jury nullification."

It is scary and good to know that health insurance leaders have the ability to pressure DOJ officials into bringing federal charges against someone (which appear at first glance to be factually solid, even if it ends up being a bad tactical move to bring them, as I suspect). It is scary and good to know that that ability comes from financial leverage over the top of the federal justice system.

But terrorism charges don't take away a defendant's right to a jury. That's not a thing. He's an American citizen accused of crimes on US soil--he's not getting a military tribunal like the ones so common during the "War on Terror." The DOJ and NYS officials are certainly worried about jury nullification, but they're not "blocking" it. By definition, it's pretty hard to block, and often to detect.

Anyway, misinfo is everywhere, and just because you agree with someone's big-picture opinion doesn't mean they're right. Check your sources.

They will definitely do their best to prevent jury nullification. Which is exactly what they do in every case, all the time. There won't be any major new anti-nullification steps here (beyond maybe the level of tweaked jury instructions), because if they had more ideas for that they'd already be using them.

Does blocking nullification amount to denying the right to a jury? Debatable! Depends on what you think the point of a jury is, which is a big question. But wherever you fall on that, the fact that the system fights nullification is bigger than one guy.

For that matter, it's even bigger than the fact that the health insurance industry can pressure DOJ.

Anonymous asked:

Not even “making progress” because nobody ever said all bad things are terrorism. Painstakingly assassinating an innocent figurehead in order to foment political discord is quite literally terrorism, you’re just an idiot

There is a thing that normal people call terrorism in normal speech.

There is a thing, not necessarily the same thing, that New York penal law § 490.05 calls "an act of terrorism" when charging people with crimes.

Please be clear which of these things you mean when you say "literally terrorism." I have been talking exclusively about the second one, and keep saying so.

Obviously, arguing about definitions is normally pretty pointless! I do think it's a good time to make an exception if a powerful person just made a major decision that depends on the exact definition of a word. But then we'd have to be clear that we're arguing about that person's definition, not about what someone else might mean by the same syllables.

Anyway, tidings of comfort and joy to you too.

Anonymous asked:

“Trade you: I’ll agree killing people is bad if you agree not all bad things are terrorism.” Deal, I never claimed all bad things are terrorism. But Luigi Mangione is a terrorist, he committed a terrorist attack

Deal! Glad we can make progress. And that's a perfectly valid opinion, which I'm not gonna argue with right now.

Unless you mean legally. I care a lot about whether it's technically, legally terrorism by the law of the state where it happened, but unless you are DA Bragg you don't have to care about that at all.

My opinion is that whether or not it was (colloquially) terrorism, one guy doing a dramatic crime and getting caught is just one guy. Much more important is the duly elected DA announcing "I try to throw people in prison, for life, for crimes they did not commit, because I like to raise my public profile." That is a much bigger threat to rule of law!

And both of these people have a lot of public support, but only one of them has an against faction. The other is going to get away with it.

Anonymous asked:

"a violent act or acts dangerous to human life that are in violation of the criminal laws of this state” okay check, obviously his act falls under that sentence. “And are intended to:

(i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population;”

Again, check. There is no definition of combatants and civilians in which CEOs would not be an example of civilians. Unless Brian Thompson had a squadron of tanks I don’t know about, he was a civilian.

“(ii) influence the policy of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping."

Healthcare is a government policy, he was hoping to change the healthcare system using his assassination on a civilian. You and other leftists like you have cheered on this act of terrorism, hoping that the civilian population of CEOs would be so intimidated by his murder that it would coerce them into no longer denying claims.

Hopefully they make an example out of Mangione. Scum like this shouldn’t be tolerated.

That's the right kind of argument, at least. I don't think it goes very far, though.

CEOs are definitely civilians, yes. They aren't a population. They're smaller and more defined than "the rival gang," which we already know doesn't count. This is not a close question. A population would be, like, a demographic living in an area. [source, start at "we need not define the minimum size of "a civilian population""].

And "healthcare" is not a government policy. That's like saying food is a government policy. Or sports or the Internet or whatever. Healthcare is big enough the government has a lot of policies affecting it, sure. I'm sure Mangione has a lot of opinions on those. But what policy was he trying to change? From which entity? He didn't seem to consider any specific policies important enough to make the top page of his manifesto, even. To me the manifesto sounded like he had already given up on governments changing things. I don't really see how anyone could get "a specific government agency will make some specific decision differently" out of this, but prosecutors are creative. Remember, if they want to allege he intended to change some policy they would have to prove that. Me asking what policy is not rhetorical.

(If you're not from the US-- health insurers here aren't government entities or government policy-setters. Maybe they'd count if some other country used the same definition.)

...also you might have me confused with someone else. I have not been cheering him. I am saying he's not guilty of one of the crimes charged. I almost never show up to sports games waving a cardboard sign saying "my team's performance is not terrorism under New York law."

Anonymous asked:

“Our civilian population supported him murdering a civilian from their population, therefore it isn’t an act of terrorism” oh great, thank you for clarifying. I guess no terrorists come from Israel either

The civilian population of New York supported him, therefore it probably wasn’t intended to terrorize that civilian population. Intent is the entire point of that statute they charged. Theoretically he could have been aiming to terrorize the population and was just so bad at it that half of them instead loved him, but l don’t think that’s the allegation here.

Technically when the IDF genocides people it is not terrorism and is instead a war crime. International law cares a lot about whether the criminal is a state actor. You and I are free to think this is stupid.

Trade you: I’ll agree killing people is bad if you agree not all bad things are terrorism.

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I'm not sure that you need to intimidate everyone for it to qualify. NY v Morales mentions the Brooklyn Bridge shooting of a group of orthodox jews as a core example of terrorism, so it's enough to only try to intimidate Jews, not all New Yorkers. And separately, they mention that "the deliberate assassination of persons to strike fear into others to deter them from exercising their rights" is supposed to be terrorism. So I think there's an argument that it's enough to try to scare employees of insurance companies and deter them, not everyone in the city.

Ultimately they say the key is whether the crime "match[es] our collective understanding of what constitutes a terrorist act" so that the law covers "evil schemes [that] can threaten our society". So it may be hard to decide just based on the text of the law...

(I also think state actors can be charged under terrorism laws. E.g. the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization in the U.S. right now.)

Morales is the case I'm relying on to say it's very clear this isn't terrorism. If he was trying to scare healthcare employees--he wasn't, AFAIK he was targeting just the top, but if--then that's still members of a defined group. It's not more terrorism than a gang war is.

Yeah, the US designating an organization as terrorist follows US law (or just US politics), and international law can be different. And Israel hasn't ratified some of the relevant treaties, for Some Reason. If there's a specific charge filed in some court then it would be under a specific law and we'd know which definiton.

Anonymous asked:

If the guy's going to shoot a guy with all this bullshit pagentry and write a manifesto about it, he shouldn't be considering pleading guilty at all, regardless of what he's charged with.

Yeah it seems pretty likely he might want the trial for the chance to send his message. Separately, while I've been saying he's innocent of terrorism his best defense on the murder charge is probably just thoughts and prayers for nullification.

But whether to go to trial is very much up to the defendant, and can be unpredictable.

Anonymous asked:

Luigi Mangione is literally by the book a terrorist. I’m not sure what definition of terrorism you are going by, in which his act does not qualify as terrorism, but it is faulty. Mangione is a terrorist, and an example should be made of him to prevent future terrorists.

I'm using the definition in New York penal law § 490.05(1)(b), same as the DA. How about you?

Regardless of what you or I think the definition of terrorism ought to be, for a first-degree murder charge it's this:

"a violent act or acts dangerous to human life that are in violation of the criminal laws of this state and are intended to:

(i) intimidate or coerce a civilian population;

(ii) influence the policy of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion; or

(iii) affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping."

You can, if you want, read his manifesto here. It's very much not trying to influence government. If he pointed out some specific government policy, ideally one up for a vote or something, then maybe there'd be a case. But as far as I know he didn't even do that. His whole deal is apparently "government failed, guess I gotta do something myself."

(Don't bother arguing about whether this was likely to help anything; our opinions don't matter. The statute up there is talking about his intent.)

And the civilian population of New York was kind of the opposite of intimidated! There were rallies for the guy, while he was at large. Presumably you think pretty badly of those people, but my point is that the population definitely was not terrified they'd be next.

So. Literally, by the book--like, the relevant book, the one they throw at him--Mangione is not a terrorist. I don't think there's even much of a case for it, and I strongly suspect that Alvin Bragg doesn't either. If they want to make an example of him, they will have to do it by prosecuting him for something he actually did.

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'a civilian population' is defined such that the population of health insurance CEOs doesn't count? I don't think most of them are in the army or anything like that.

Now THAT is a better question.

Yes, “civilian population” means the population at large. Trying to terrorize a defined group of people the defendant thinks of as enemies is not that. (People v. Morales, 2011).

Apparently it was debatable whether “the Mexican-American residents of the St. James Park area” was broad enough to be a “population.” Maybe it has been decided one way or the other since 2011, but for Morales that didn’t matter. He was really targeting rival gang members, which is definitely more of an enemies list situation.

For Mangione, same deal: this was extremely targeted. It’s not clear if his goal was to scare anyone at all or if he expected this guy being dead to make a difference directly, but if he was trying to terrorize anyone it would be a defined group like “healthcare ceos.”

Anonymous asked:

“Our civilian population supported him murdering a civilian from their population, therefore it isn’t an act of terrorism” oh great, thank you for clarifying. I guess no terrorists come from Israel either

The civilian population of New York supported him, therefore it probably wasn’t intended to terrorize that civilian population. Intent is the entire point of that statute they charged. Theoretically he could have been aiming to terrorize the population and was just so bad at it that half of them instead loved him, but l don’t think that’s the allegation here.

Technically when the IDF genocides people it is not terrorism and is instead a war crime. International law cares a lot about whether the criminal is a state actor. You and I are free to think this is stupid.

Trade you: I’ll agree killing people is bad if you agree not all bad things are terrorism.

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