IamSparticles

joined 1 year ago
[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 14 points 32 minutes ago* (last edited 32 minutes ago)

Presented with the details re: how CNN determined the comments came from him, Robinson responded: “I’m not going to get into the minutia of how somebody manufactured this, these salacious tabloid lies.”

Sure, buddy. Somebody in 2008 spent 4 years writing posts on an obscure web forum using an account registered to your email address, just so they could have a "gotcha!" moment when you decided to run for governor over a decade later.

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 hour ago

The closest approach is about 600,000 Km away. That's more than twice the distance to the moon. At that distance, to be (just barely) visible to the naked eye, it would have to be about 170km across, which would put it among the largest asteroids in the solar system. In fact, 2024 PT5 is only about 11m across (~36ft). You would need quite a powerful telescope, indeed, to see an object that small at that distance.

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 14 points 1 hour ago

I'm going to file a police report claiming JD Vance murdered and cannibalized a family of Haitian immigrants. That's proof it actually happened, right?

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 19 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Here's what happened at my daughter's school last week:

  • Child 1 made a sarcastic remark to child 2, suggesting that child 3 might bring a gun to school the next day.
  • Child 4 overheard the remark and reported it.
  • Police showed up, in full force, at child 3's home. Child 3 had made no such threat, did not own a gun, and had no idea what was going on.
  • The district assured everyone that there was no credible threat.
  • Social media blew up with distraught parents wanting to know why the school hadn't been immediately shut down and everyone notified, kids arrested, etc.

If police made the identities of any of these children public knowledge, their parents would be rightfully pissed off and well within their rights to sue for damages, because I assure you that those kids and their parents would be made social pariahs and would probably have to leave the district, even though the only thing that happened was someone made a very ill-advised joke that someone else overheard and took seriously.

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 days ago

It is, indeed, funny business.

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 days ago (1 children)

To be completely fair here: the reports are all saying that Trump's location that day was not public information. So either this guy got real lucky to show up on a day Trump was playing golf, or else he had some information that very few other people had. Okay, granted, Trump plays golf a lot, so it could just be a coincidence. Still, it would be kind of ironic if it turned out someone in his own campaign was leaking info to the crazies.

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Didn't you read it? To their "counties of origin." Oh, excuse me: "TO THEIR COUNTIES OF ORIGIN."

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

Lucy is setting up the football again, I see.

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)

After traveling four hours to see her husband at a correctional facility in Tehachapi, California, on Sept. 6, 2019, Christina Cardenas was subject to a strip search by prison officials, drug and pregnancy tests, X-ray and CT scans at a hospital, and another strip search by a male doctor who sexually violated her, a lawsuit said.

What the hell kind of facility is this? Are they holding Magneto in the basement?

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago

Your experience is very different to mine. I went to high school in the 90s. Even back then, both JV and varsity were cut teams for most sports. Some sports were popular enough that they had no-cut teams for underclass kids. But that cost money for extra coaches, equipment, gym time, travel, etc... I was able to play basketball on the freshman and sophomore teams, but I was never good enough to make JV, let alone varsity. Now my kids are in high school and it is even more competitive, because the schools in our area have more students and less money per student for sports. My son tried out for freshman basketball. There were 60 kids trying out for 10 spots. He didn't make the cut. Only kids who had already been playing on district select teams for years did.

I want to be clear: I don't think it's fair to ban trans kids from playing sports on any team. But I also don't think we can expect people to just get over it. In their minds, at least, there's too much at stake.

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 25 points 1 week ago (5 children)

In theory, I agree, but the reality is not that simple. There aren't enough resources for everyone to play on every team, so there is selection, and tons of kids in high school pin their future hopes on doing well in sports. It's ridiculous, and I hate the fact that school sports are so competitive as a result, but that's the world we live in. Nobody is allowed to just play for fun. So as long as someone thinks their kid might be excluded or overshadowed because some other kid is "cheating", there will continue to be conflict. It's another aspect of the zero sum mentality.

[–] IamSparticles@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

Nah, you only need that level of approval for a constitutional amendment. Something like this just needs to get through congress.

To be fair, I should amend my earlier statement to say that there kinda-sorta is a federal standard. It just isn't very good. In 2005, congress passed the Real ID act, which was intended to allow state-issued IDs to include a special rider that indicates it is approved at the federal level. The implementation of this law has been pushed back several times, but it goes into effect sometime next year, at which point it will not be possible to board an airplane in the US without a passport or some other Real ID-compliant form of ID.

It sounds great on the surface, but the downside is that the cost of implementing these IDs is being passed on to the individuals, and it requires a bunch of extra documentation. So getting a Real ID is nearly as expensive and difficult as getting a US passport. But it's less useful because it's only recognized inside the US. So if they require one to vote, that's yet another way to disenfranchise the poor.

What we should be doing is issuing passports to anyone that qualifies for free. But doing that would require a huge expansion of the state department because they can barely keep up with the current demand as it is.

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