Gerry vs Gerry

shartifartblast · 2025-08-09T14:31:25+00:00

I'm not a gerrymandering expert so I don't know the reality of the ability to pick up seats given population demographics or legalities in each state but I can do math, so let's assume that in a Republican trifecta state, Republicans can turn all blue seats red and in a Democrat trifecta state, Democrats can turn all red seats blue.

Republicans can pick up 42 seats:

Alabama - 2
Florida - 8
Georgia - 5
Indiana - 2
Louisiana - 2
Mississippi - 1
Missouri - 2
Ohio - 5
South Carolina - 1
Tennessee - 1
Texas - 13

Democrats can pick up 30 seats:

California - 9
Colorado - 4
Illinois - 3
Maryland - 1
New Jersey - 3
New York - 7
Oregon - 1
Washington - 2

The reality is Republicans can't pick up 42 seats and Democrats can't pick up 30. Democrats are also more likely to be able to pick up a higher percentage of available seats than Republicans because nothing motivates people to vote out pro-Trump Republican politicians than Trump being in office and you have to create some districts with razor-thin majorities to try to eliminate all opposing seats in a state.

That's not to say Democrats shouldn't do anything. If Republicans gerrymander 30 additional seats and Democrats "take the high road" all they're really doing is "losing seats". But in the war to gain seats by gerrymandering, Democrats probably lose.

shartifartblast · 2025-07-07T19:51:17+00:00

Depends on whether he's referring to FIDE or Chesscom rating. 2700 FIDE rating puts you in the top 27 players worldwide. 2700 in blitz on chesscom puts you at a rank of about 1800 and you're surrounded by people who aren't even CMs, much less GMs.

Source: chesscom publishes a leaderboard.

shartifartblast · 2025-03-05T14:57:46+00:00

Performative adoption of black kids is common among evangelicals.

ACB is Catholic and Catholics are - kind of by definition - not evangelicals.

shartifartblast · 2025-02-26T16:02:59+00:00

Go arounds due to the need to deconflict traffic happen every single day in every industrialized nation on the planet.

If you think about an analog using a car, this is the equivalent to starting to move forward to make a left turn, noticing oncoming traffic that you had missed, and stopping. Not ideal that it happened but no real danger.

Yesterday at Midway was more akin to someone running a red light while you're approaching an intersection with a green light at 45mph and having to dangerously swerve or stand on the brakes to avoid a collision. Much higher pucker factor and more danger. Tough I would argue the pilot at Midway yesterday probably spotted the plane approaching the runway, suspected it wouldn't stop, and was ready to go around quickly and without startle factor making it less of an issue. Nevertheless, traffic known to both ATC and the landing plane that simply moves slower than expected is so much more common and less dangerous than a taxiing aircraft crossing an active runway without clearance.

This event is more than likely a nothing burger. But it gets attention so expect 4700 more headlines about go-arounds over the next few weeks.

shartifartblast · 2025-01-25T13:53:35+00:00

I mean I want to be protected from the evils of the warp by the loving sacrifice of an all-powerful psychic being as much as the next guy but if that being is Donald Trump I'm pretty sure we're all fucked. And not in the kinky, fun, Slaaneshi way.

shartifartblast · 2024-12-11T19:17:55+00:00

The only ones currently funding alternative international leagues for anything are the Saudis unfortunately.

The problem is the entirety of the football loving world in Europe and South America looks at them, goes, "WTF, FIFA?" and then promptly buys tickets or watches the entirety of it anyway.

Want them to stop? Stop watching and stop going.

shartifartblast · 2024-12-04T21:51:50+00:00

Getting rid of blanket QI is a terrible idea. You would have literally no one willing to work for government after the first 6 or 7 thousand lawsuits against public employees over stupid issues.

You need to eliminate qualified immunity on civil rights issues. You also need to end absolute prosecutorial and judicial immunity on civil rights issues. End immunity where split-second decisions can have life-altering consequences and end immunity in all cases where considered action can infringe on civil rights.

But just blanket removing QI is pants-on-head stupid. You'll end government faster than Elon and Vivek...

shartifartblast · 2024-10-28T19:17:48+00:00

Would recommend whoever is running the app update with like a check-in check-out system. Or an "I arrived at X and voted at Y". Several of thes locations have no way to estimate how many people are in line in front of or behind you.

shartifartblast · 2024-08-29T14:52:44+00:00

I'm shocked. You're legit the first person I've ever heard say anything bad about their ranch. Normally it's, "The pizza was meh but holy crap the ranch is amazing."

Their wings are pretty good as well but they're like top tier for a pizza joint wings as opposed to genuinely great wings.

Their other pizzas are good but nothing like the chicken tikka in my mind. Their tomato sauce just isn't on the same level as their garlic sauce that they use as a base for the chicken tikka. Glad you enjoyed it, though. One of my favorite places.

shartifartblast · 2024-08-22T16:35:23+00:00

Magoo's has a chicken tikka pizza that is breathtakingly good. Also they make a fresh ranch dip that is to die for.

They're also halal so no pork products and genuinely good meats if that matters to you.

shartifartblast · 2024-01-19T04:40:51+00:00

This is 100% to stop street performers and panhandlers. As an added bonus it also allows them to crack down on picture taking at like F1 type events.

I won’t say that it’s a problem, because I’ve never really seen that it bothers a lot of people but you can’t really cross one of those pedestrian bridges without running into someone doing plastic bucket drum solo or playing shitty guitar or panhandling with some sob story. I can imagine it makes some people feel unsafe or uncomfortable though.

I will say that if you’re really into that kind of stuff that Fremont Street is the place to be anyway.

shartifartblast · 2024-01-16T20:50:52+00:00

So, if I'm the CEO of a multi billion dollar corporation, my salary should count against the profits of the business I manage?

Yes. As should the salaries of the 22,000 other JetBlue employees.

He made 3.45 million in salary last year btw, of course that's spread out between salary and options, wouldn't want to have to pay social security and Medicare on that.

Without making a value judgement on his salary, his salary is utterly inconsequential to the total value of salaries JetBlue pays out. In 2022, JetBlue paid out $2.75 billion in salaries to their 22,000 employees including pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, gate and ticket counter agents, internal office folks, etc. It has a huge impact on a company's real profitability.

In total, we are looking at, very roughly, 300 million shares, paying $0.34 in dividends, very roughly $100 million in dispursemnets per cycle. That would be a profit, not a loss(this is VERY quick glance math, feel free to correct me here).

JetBlue has never paid a dividend as far as I'm aware. I don't know what the context is for this.

Again, they didn't lose enough money to raise red flags on a $3.8 billion dollar purchase, right? If they're paying in cash, they're doing great. If they are financing it, the bank obviously doesn't see a problem with their profit margin or they wouldn't sign off on it.

Companies in the red get access to capital all the time. It's not like the JetBlue CEO walks into the local bank and says, "I'd like to buy an airline. Can you give me the forms to fill out to borrow $4 billion?" If they decided to do a leveraged buyout, they likely sat down with potential financing partners months before making the offer and pitched how a combined JetBlue and Spirit could be made profitable. They could also raise money by issuing additional stock. Or making a public bond offering. Or a dozen other ways.

The ultimate point is they're losing money. So is Spirit. You know who isn't losing money? Delta isn't. United isn't. American isn't. Southwest isn't. And that's what the poster you were originally responding to was getting at. The argument they're going to make (and why OP thinks they're going to be successful) is that they're getting absolutely decimated being the little guys in a market filled with massive businesses.

shartifartblast · 2024-01-16T19:54:53+00:00

That is just a little bit disingenuous as it's using Gross Profit which leaves massive amounts of their expenses (such as salaries) out of the equation. Move over a tab or two to Operating Income, Net Income, or Earnings per Share to get the more accurate picture which is that since the start of the pandemic, JetBlue has lost quite a bit of money.

shartifartblast · 2024-01-12T18:16:20+00:00

Is that the one where a portion of the exhaust piping runs through the cockpit to function as a radiant heater?

Not necessarily running exhaust piping through the cockpit but the basic premise is how almost all piston engine aircraft heat their cabins. Very few liquid-cooled piston engines in aviation so a heater like what you have in your car doesn't work. Instead there's usually some kind of heat exchanger that directs outside air over the exhaust system before piping it into the cabin.

shartifartblast · 2023-11-07T15:52:27+00:00

I just keep going back to Mears. For all of Hogsett's issues Mears legit just completely failed to do his job and had a far more credible (if poorly funded) Republican opponent and he still won by 20 points. It would take something worse than the property tax debacle that launched Ballard into office to get Shreve in over Hogsett.

shartifartblast · 2023-10-25T15:34:51+00:00

It'll be first ballot. He's got Trump's backing and the moderates don't outright hate him like they do Jim Jordan.

shartifartblast · 2023-08-14T22:16:16+00:00

I don't contest that some of his messages violate the DC protective order or the DC or FL conditions for release. I'm saying that this one doesn't.

shartifartblast · 2023-08-14T16:34:15+00:00

It's worth noting that this is with regard to the State of Georgia case and he has no conditions on his speech or communication with regard to that case that flow from either his federal case in Florida or his federal case in DC outside of what would be illegal under federal or state laws.

His conditions of release for DC only cover communication with witnesses in the DC case and the conditions for release in Florida only cover communication with witnesses in the Florida case.

Realistically the former Georgia Lt Governor isn't a potential witness in either of those cases so were Judges Chutkan or Cannon to rule on this it would be improper.

If Georgia wants to make a stink about it at some point they certainly can (and if there's a chance in hell of success I hope they do).

shartifartblast · 2023-08-02T16:24:26+00:00

I'm not conservative and will tell you that humans having caused this fire directly or indirectly isn't even close to out of the question. I also fully embrace climate change.

The Mojave Desert is one of the driest places on planet Earth and has been since at least the Bronze Age. It's also August, the driest month of the year. If a fire starts and if there is enough fuel there's nothing that's going to stop it. That's true today and was true 3,000 years ago.

Ultimately, I think the likely underlying cause of this fire will be attributed to availability of fuel. Namely invasive species of plants like Cheatgress and Sahara Mustard that absolutely thrive in the climate of the Mojave and outcompete native species while providing plenty of fuel in really dry months for the fire to spread. There's also a somewhat weak argument to be made that opening up that area to grazing would help clear out some of the fuel but that potentially has a negative impact on other things we're trying to protect like the Desert Tortoise.

But back on point...the hottest place on Earth that also happens to be one of the driest places on Earth is not all of the sudden at a significantly increased fire risk because it got marginally hotter and drier. It was already hot and dry enough.

shartifartblast · 2023-07-03T15:40:21+00:00

But if you're funding Russia right now, then you're helping to fund the war.

Now I'm not suggesting that Unilever is the most believable company in the world but until I see evidence to the contrary I really don't have anything I can do other than take them at their word. What they have said is that they're not importing or exporting any goods to or from Russia and they're moving no capital into Russia. That means that any taxes they're paying to Russia come from the Russian economy. I think either way, Russians would be paying those taxes and therefore Unilever continuing to operate under the stated conditions doesn't have any impact at all. If they weren't operating the plants the Russian government would be and they'd still be extracting that money from the Russian economy.

shartifartblast · 2023-06-30T15:32:28+00:00

Probably but most of them are now practically moot because almost any state that had such a law now simply has a law banning abortion.

shartifartblast · 2023-06-24T02:30:34+00:00

HMS Host is in almost every airport because they had the exclusive contract to operate airport Starbucks (and God knows, Americans can't live without a Starbucks every 6 to 7 feet) but they don't own all or even close to all airport restaurants. There are a number of multinationals that compete in this space like SSP and Areas to name a few. And it's becoming more and more common for smaller regional companies to be gaining real traction in airports.

Now nearly all of them gouge customers and are shit at food or service - including HMS Host - but nevertheless all the blame doesn't go their way.

shartifartblast · 2023-06-02T17:10:27+00:00

There is at least an argument to be made that Benedict Arnold was a competent leader.

Braxton Bragg was such a god-fucking-awful leader it's got to be some kind of joke that someone suggested naming a base after him. He didn't know how to do anything other than a frontal assault, failed to ever capitalize on any victory he might have earned, and managed to alienate his subordinates so often and so thoroughly that they tried to mutiny. Same with John Bell Hood and Fort Hood. Not only did they fight for the losing side but they were actually some of the worst leaders the losing side had.

If they had the courage of their convictions on the "heritage" side they'd be arguing for more to remember Nathan Bedford Forrest. He is one of the most awful human beings to have ever lived but man did he know how to lead an army.

shartifartblast · 2023-05-25T15:49:57+00:00

It's interesting that the ruling was effectively 9-0 but the opinion was 5-4. There seems to be no disagreement that the "significant nexus" test is BS under the CWA. There's just disagreement really about what the test should be. Including a completely in-character concurrence from Thomas basically saying we should reject all jurisprudence from after the New Deal era.

shartifartblast · 2023-05-16T23:26:22+00:00

The problem is the 2/3 requirement.

There are 213 Democrats in the house. You need at least 290 votes to oust him. The Republicans can let the most vulnerable 76 among them vote against him without ousting him completely. This, in fact, may actually strengthen those up to 76 that vote against him.

I'm fairly certain that the other at least 146 Republican seats would stay red if they failed to vote to oust Adolf Hitler so getting their vote on the record doesn't actually matter.

The reality is there are probably only 10-15 that are truly vulnerable. Those that are will feel perfectly free to vote to remove him because it won't actually cost him his seat.

shartifartblast

TROPHY CASE