Favorite recent post by the previous poster

[Torrain]

Couldn't decide between the effort post and the meme, so I'm including both.

Created this little diagram just to visualize how volatile Slovenia's party system is. Background color indicates the Prime Minister's party (grey: SKD, light blue: LDS, green/grey: SLS/NSi, yellow: SDS, red: SD, green/blue: PS/SAB, dark blue: SMC; have to add the new governments since 2018).

The question about the inevitability of death was already raised back in 2017, so I felt it was necessary to include the first preliminary draft of this masterpiece:

It's how you look at death, is it going home to be with the Lord or your body shutting down and cease to exist.

We all suffer from grief, but we all have to go sometime.  But, science is getting better so that our lives are extended significantly.

On The Inevitability Of Death

Death: Is it going home to be with the Lord or your body shutting down and cease to exist?

A philosophical treatise

Written by: olawakandi
Published by: the Atlas blog

Chapter One: Death is inevitable
Chapter Two: Death isn't inevitable anymore
Chapter Three: You are going to die, but 65 is now the age of retirement, not a death date
Chapter Four: Death is becoming less inevitable lately
Chapter Five: We have already stopped death but not the aging process
Chapter Six: Death isn't inevitable for the vast majority (unless you give up)
Chapter Seven: You can't know for sure when you will die, Only the divine, knows when you will die
Chapter Eight: The only ones that will die are Feinstein, Leahy, Inhofe, unless there is a plain crash

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

In the last three months Georgia has:
- Helped put Biden in the White House
- Given Democrats control of the Senate
- Provided recorded evidence of Trump's attempts to overturn the election
- Opened a case to directly charge Trump for his election interference

10/10 redemption arc.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

(In regards to Donald Trump)

among the most easy HP votes I've ever cast.

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Only because I'm in the exact same boat.

Only his love for Dairy Queen. I’d love to have a grandpa to go get Dairy Queen with, but both of mine are dead. ;(

[SevenEleven]

Great poster.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

AOC is a f---ing sellout.  We were promised $2600 and she only wants to give us $2,000.  $2,600 means $2,600.


But seriously, she is doing so much harm with this.  She's going out there kneecapping the Democrats' messaging on this, giving credence to bad-faith gaslighting on Twitter, and attacking the Biden administration.  And for what?

This damages the Democrats politically, to have her saying this.  And what do we as the party gain from it?  Absolutely nothing.

What does she gain from it?  I don't see that she gains much of anything either, other than to be preach to her choir of ignorant morons on Twitter.  I guess she has to start reeling the morons back in since Jimmy Dore attacked her over some other stupid thing.

I’m gonna have to disagree with you here. This isn’t about what the Democrats or AOC “gain” from pushing for a full $2000 instead of $1400+$600. It’ll help the American people and the Democratic brand if we send $2000.

We don’t gain props from the media or the deficit-hawks for sending $1400 instead. There’s literally nothing to gain from not going big.

I think your dislike of AOC is blinding you to the fact that she’s right this time.

50 seats and a narrow House majority...actually, playing this game is bad politics. Lower expectations and then exceed. We can do that and score a big win.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

TIL Trump has a Snapchat account

[Estrella]

Scott,

Please.  PLEASE don't ever think that your life doesn't have value.  I can promise you that it does. 

My inbox is always open if you ever need anything.  And I know there are scores of other Atlas users who offer the same outlet. 

Rab rakhkha (May God take care of you)

[Astatine]

The most populist part of Slovakia is probably the northeast. Places like Medzilaborce, Stropkov and Snina gave massive margins to HZDS, then Smer and today to all sorts of far-right parties (Sme Rodina, Kotleba, also Štefan Harabin in last presidential election). There are similar places in south-central Slovakia, like Rožňava, Revúca and Lučenec. During the waning years of Austria-Hungary and Great Depression, these places used to be called "valleys of hunger" and the best employment opportunity was emigration to America. During Communist rule, massive factories were built here, but after 1989 came a total economic collapse.

As for neighbouring countries, the most populist part of Hungary is the northeast, with postindustrial dystopias in North Hungarian Mountains (Salgótarján*, Ózd) and around Tisza river (Tiszaújváros, Hajdúböszörmény). These places used to vote strongly Socialist, but after the party was swept out of power and reoriented themselves towards Budapest liberals, they switched to Fidesz and especially Jobbik.

For Czechia, it's the former Sudetenland, especially the northern parts near Saxon border. The ethnic German population was displaced after WW2, which broke the social fabric and perhaps led to more nationalist feelings. In the 90s, Communist-build factories collapsed and with them the local economy. Most is the stereotypical example of this kind of rust belt town, with the added problem of tensions between "whites" and local Roma population. KSČM, aka unreconstructed Commies used to do very well here, but lately it's an area of strength for SPD, aka an anti-immigration party led by a Japanese businessman.

Least populist is probably the same for all three: rich city centres of Bratislava, Budapest and Prague.

* definitely the ugliest city I've ever been to

[PSOL]

Oh and let’s not forget Marianne Williamson calling for the power of love to beat Trump on the debate stage.

Orb Mother be praised

Girlfriend, you're so on.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Ok, this is just getting dumb as ••••. It seems that once Glenn left for Brazil his takes got even more deluded.

It’s sad to see such a titan fall down, but outside of his far better and saner takes on Brazil, Glenn has entered into the same idiocy that befalls upon foreigners with zero knowledge of US politics and has fell down the populism rabbit hole

[lfromnj]

Governor Kristi Noem and the Republican state Attorney General were also behind the lawsuit.

Former Atlas poster Jason Ravnsborg strikes again!

I don't know what that means. Is Jason Ravnsborg somebody you worship?

Far from it, friend.

I suspected otherwise. I'm not sure why you have a problem with my post given that I was providing additional facts.

I don't have a problem with it; the additional facts are helpful. The fact that Jason Ravnsborg is a former Atlas poster has been a common point of amusement on the forum for months now.

Also, I'm not your friend.

Genuine question: Do you ever lighten up?

[2952-0-0]

Made this over the past couple days. A political compass of California.

Holy sh**t its accurate,
the 2nd from left and 3rd from top!

[Joseph Cao]

The media are all fixated on the slow vaccine rollout, and the Conservatives are gleefully making hay over this.

This will bite them in the ass, for the 63452nd time. Within a few months, production capacity will have ramped up, and the (rich) world will be awash with vaccines. Supply will no longer be an issue.

As usual, the Conservatives ridicule Trudeau and lower public expectations towards him, so that when Trudeau greatly exceeds these expectations but still doesn't perform as well as he could, these attacks backfire on them again and again.

[PSOL]

You will pry my blue avatar from my cold, dead hands.

[Never Made it to Graceland]

AIPAC cancel culture has been a thing for a long time.

It’s only going to get far, far worse. Considering we had people on this forum saying that US BDS participants shouldn’t get humanitarian aid in the course of a hurricane, who knows what lengths the politicians are gonna take this.

[WD]

Biggest cheater and recipient of officiating bias in NFL history throwing to a rapist and people somehow think it's a cool story. F**k Brady. He'll never be the greatest anything except greatest embarrassment to the game.

[2952-0-0]

This man should not be governor.

[JoeInator]

TIL that Russians actually eat ice cream in the winter.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Kind of wins by default given the context but this:

Hey Scott, I'm really glad you're safe. If you need some time off, take all the time you need. If you ever need to talk my inbox will always be open. We love you Scott! I wish you all the best! 

[Mr. Smith]

Welcome back, Scott. I am glad that you are safe. I think we would all be very sad if you decided to leave - I certainly would - but in the end you should do whatever is best for your health. And please don't say that you deserve this 'punishment', because you don't.
May the Lord bless you.

Yeah, this is hard to top, though I admit the next good post I put here will from somewhere lighter-hearted.

[_.]

On the topic of Baby Shark:

Evil. Pure. Unfiltered Evil.

Never heard of it (but then, this is a BRTD thread, so I shouldn't be surprised).

You live in Marin, don't interact with kids, haven't set foot in a Mickey D's or Mall Wart....you're pretty much as good as under a rock.

In this case, you're a lucky b$%tard for it.

This one is good, too, even though I disagree with its contents (the post is on the topic of which major European foreign languages should be learned, I disagree as my list goes Spanish, Russian, French, Italian, Portuguese, German):

1. Deutsch (ich lerne jetzt...oder vielleicht  ist umlernen besser adaequat geeignet. Vielen einfacher Woerten, manchmal sieht es aus wie Englisch. Ausser natuerlich den Faellen...gut Gott den Fallen.)
2. Espanol  (estoy aprendiendo ya para mis clases, entonces no tenia otras opciones...pero es muy...no...extremadamemte dificil como aleman... pero me todavia encantada)[The verbs are so f*(ked up that German declension looks easy!]

Since those two are under work in some way or another as is... I'll skip to ones I've never actually made a coherent sentence or held asimple conversation with.

3. Русский  [This one feels like bragging rights, and I watch a lot of Russian YouTube channels as of late and the Cyrillic alphabet seems more intuitive at points. Too bad it appears to have adapted all the terrible parts of Romance and Germanic languages...but it all sounds so cool. Also very useful for the internet.]

4. Italiano [Ancestral reasons for this, and this would probably be higher up if Spanish hadn't forced its way in...as is, I think I could safely just use Spanish and fill in the blanks if necessary. I pretty much only learned enough to eat out like a tourist...but that was more than a lifetime ago anyway. Still, it seems whenever cognates exist in English, here, and other Romance languages...Italian always looks and sounds the most elegant]

5. Francais [This one seems like it'd be cool to speak, but I refuse to deal with that spelling...oh and the numbers...how do you f*(k that up?]

6. Português [Forget it! The only thing that piques my interest here is that it sounds like Russian.]

... I wouldn't. USA all the way, baby!

This seems like a recipe to be verbally a*&-kicked and not know it. F*(k that.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

I appreciate the attempt at trying to be an actuary

How much is your life expectancy?

Well, mathematically, according to the U.S. Mortality Database, the life expectancy of a 78-year old District of Columbia man such as Joe Biden is 11.33 remaining years.

However, for probability statistics like the one asked about in the poll above, it'd be a better idea to check out the mortality rate.

The mortality rate for a 78-year old man in D.C. is 39.98 out of 1,000 as of the latest data. So we can say Joe Biden has approximately a 4% chance of death this year.

However, Joe Biden needs to make it to age 82 to see the 2024 election, and his odds of dying increase every single year as he grows older.

When you add up the mortality rates of men in D.C. for ages 78, 79, 80, and 81, you get a 17.85% chance of Joe Biden dying.

Joe Biden on top of this has the incredibly stressful job of the presidency.


The numbers look slightly lower for Trump, but I chose 40 - 60% just because he's Obese.

[TheReckoning]

It's incredible how Uncle Joe is delivering on substantial policy. At least within the range of possibilities of a narrow congressional majority. They need to push Manchin and Sinema now to get it done for all workers by the virtue of law. A higher minimum wage not just helps people getting out of poverty, but also strengthens purchasing power and widely popular.

Being "widely popular" isn't good justification for a policy. $15 minimum wage is a bad policy because it distorts the equilibrium wage by imposing an arbitrary regulation. A relatively low minimum wage (say, $10-$12) should exist because in some circumstances firms have monopsony power over the wages they give their employers, but most employers do not have this power. Many small businesses will be negatively impacted because they have trouble paying $15 minimum wage with their small profit margins. This also reduces employment opportunities for high schoolers and people who are freshly entering the job market because they may not have the skills necessary yet to justify being employed under a $15 wage, but would be hired if the wage was only $10.

It will weaken purchasing power for people who are not the beneficiaries of the higher minimum wage. Firms will raise prices because people have higher wages.

[beesley]

After Parkland we knoe the truth about Secular v Tradtl, and Russia are s a Tradtl Govt which means Red that have consistentky interfered in our Elections, due to Cuban Missle Crisis to killing 4 CR it wasn't an accident that the also got a Palestinian to kill Bobby Kennedy, Palestian Marxist are close to Iran, and Syria and Russia is an ally of both, KGB was a Terroritorists group, just like QANON and KKK

I have no idea what any of this means, but I’ll recommend it anyways.