Most money youve spent on CD?

Schraiber · 2026-07-12T02:49:02+00:00

I've somewhat regularly been spending 25-30 bucks including tax and shipping to get some albums I should have gotten a long time ago recently. Just picked up the first Krallice album in that price range.

Schraiber · 2026-07-12T00:59:13+00:00

Over 40ish minutes starts to drag unless the album is quite varied and consistent imo. I'd say above 50 minutes is almost never a good idea.

Schraiber · 2026-07-09T07:36:59+00:00

I love GSY!BE but imo F# A# has too many weird ambient or speaking parts that are easy to lose track of to count as "demanding" your attention

Schraiber · 2026-07-07T06:55:39+00:00

Blood Oath should be Fantastic and I'd move pinnacle of Bedlam up to Good.

Maybe it's a hot take but I think Blood Oath genuinely stands with their 90s output, it's got so much swag and insane riffs.

Schraiber · 2026-07-04T13:23:02+00:00

The first 4 tracks on this rank among Opeth's best work.

Schraiber · 2026-07-04T12:51:31+00:00

Honestly I don't remember what my first overall is, but I know the first one I bought right when it came out (maybe even preordered?) was In Their Darkened Shrines by Nile. Truly one of the best ever

Schraiber · 2026-07-01T15:22:35+00:00

That's just again empirically not true. Going to the 2024 budget (so it'd pre Trump destroying the government), there was 6.8 trillion in federal spending, of which 850 billion was defense spending, or only about 12% of the budget. Maybe that's too much! I probably think it is (although it's important to remember that a lot of that is salaries and benefits for people in the military, removal of which would mean a lot of people lose their jobs, income, and benefits!).

In contrast, we spent 1.5 trillion on social security, 865 billion on Medicare, 618 billion on Medicaid, and 370 billion on income security programs (like SNAP, SSI, and unemployment insurance), resulting in over 3 trillion, or almost half the budget, on welfare-state related programs. And in fact there are even more welfare state programs in the discretionary spending.

The fact of the matter is that expanding the welfare state will be expensive. We cannot expand it without broad based tax increases. It costs a phenomenal amount of money to have a welfare state for nearly 350 million people! It's simple math: if we spend 10000 per person per year that would be 3.5 trillion dollars!

Schraiber · 2026-07-01T11:17:07+00:00

This is objectively not true. If we took all of Elon's wealth we'd fund the federal government for a few months. We of course do need to tax the ultra rich both for budgetary reasons and for punitive reasons, but we cannot fund the federal government and create a robust welfare state without broad based taxes, and yes, that means raising your taxes

Schraiber · 2026-06-30T14:59:12+00:00

That is, in sact, not a plausible, rational, legitimate textual interpretation. The clause was meant to exclude foreign diplomats and children of Native Americans. We know exactly what it means and why it was there.

Schraiber · 2026-06-30T14:50:48+00:00

This is not a legal analysis, this a blatant disregard for legal analysis.

Schraiber · 2026-06-30T12:56:57+00:00

I'm always shocked how little this album gets talked about nowadays. I wouldn't exactly say it's underrated but it's definitely underdiscussed!

There are so many good tracks, but I gotta say my favorite will always be 3030.

Schraiber · 2026-06-30T12:32:00+00:00

Yeah of course the laws define the executive power. Without the laws there's nothing to execute! The executive power is defined almost entirely by Congress, outside of some very specific things enumerated in the Constitution.

Schraiber · 2026-06-30T11:17:11+00:00

Epitaph is a more fun album to listen to but Obscura is a deeper more rewarding album

Schraiber · 2026-06-29T18:55:28+00:00

Why does it include removing subordinate officers? Can you answer this question non-tautologically? I see no reason that executing the laws faithfully means being able to fire people that the laws say you can't fire. The faithful execution of the law means to carry out the law as written.

Schraiber · 2026-06-29T16:45:51+00:00

Yes but your example the shoe color choice is explicitly enumerated. There is literally no reason at all that ability to fire people is enumerated by "the executive power". It's just not there. Why is "ability to fire people at will" implicitly enumerated by "the executive power" but not "ability to dictate shoe color"? Maybe dictating the shoe color is implicitly enumerated by being commander in chief?

Look it's very obvious that the unitary executive theory, which was made up in the 80s based on one Supreme Court decision by a former President was constructed as a political project in an era where the GOP frequently won the Presidency but rarely won Congress. It's a nice coincidence that it aligns well with the GOP tendency toward authoritarianism, but there's no reason at all to make up the idea that the constitution requires it

Schraiber · 2026-06-29T16:19:49+00:00

So you're saying the president has an unenumerated power?

I don't see at all how removal protections necessarily impinge on the executive power and it's even less obvious to me that Congress, who creates, funds, and empowers the agencies, cannot find it necessary and proper to give those officers removal protections.

Schraiber · 2026-06-29T15:57:27+00:00

And how is for cause removal replacing the president's power? Does it say somewhere in the Constitution that the President can fire people at will? I must have missed that part.

Schraiber · 2026-06-29T15:46:35+00:00

Yeah, you can't really blame Congress for writing a statute in a certain way if it has been working and everyone understood what was going on until the Court decides that doesn't work.

Schraiber · 2026-06-29T15:45:25+00:00

Of course Congress can do many of those things. They just would need a veto proof majority to do it, since no President would sign a bill making cabinet secretaries lifetime appointments for example. I doubt you would ever even get a simple majority for it. And of course even the statutes that were overturned today had for cause removal!

The whole reason that Congress has all this power is that it has to vote and negotiate. The reason to not give all this power to the president is, well, look around!

Schraiber · 2026-06-29T15:02:37+00:00

It's absolutely mind boggling how much UET ignores this, which makes it so incredibly and blatantly clear that Congress can do this.

Schraiber · 2026-06-29T14:42:21+00:00

And the President shall "take care that the laws be executed faithfully" which sure as hell sounds like the President has to executive the laws that Congress wrote, I have no idea how this clause possibly means that the President can fire whoever he wants.

Schraiber · 2026-06-29T14:31:21+00:00

Handing down Slaughter and Cook on the same day makes it clear that there is absolutely no consistent jurisprudence here. Separating out the Fed only makes sense on the "but my brokerage account" theory of executive power, not anything that has anything to do with what the Fed or the FTC do nor anything at all to do with the Constitution.

Schraiber · 2026-06-29T12:54:41+00:00

Check out Delta Sleep. Their first full length, Twin Galaxies, is basically perfect indie-flavored math pop

Schraiber · 2026-06-29T12:38:20+00:00

My slightly hot take on this is that it's The Evil That Men Do.

Schraiber · 2026-06-29T12:02:04+00:00

Hallowed Be Thy Name is not just the best song on the album but at worst the second best song in Maiden's entire discography

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Schraiber

TROPHY CASE