You can find just about anybody’s Social Security number. (Equivalently, they can find yours.) Amazingly, some institutions still use knowledge of this number as proof of identity for purposes of extending credit to a stranger.

Historically, it’s been alleged that some ‘celibate’ Catholic bishops fucked women. When the resulting bastard children grew up, they were rewarded with coveted Church appointments. If anyone noticed the apparent favoritism, they blamed the adultery on their brother, saying the appointee was a nephew (it: nipote) rather than the priest’s own illegitimate son. Thus the origin of the term nepotism.

Probably some of them had different tastes and realized that fucking boys leaves less evidence.

Not encouraging violence against anybody. Just observing that some businesses routinely treat their customers worse than prostitutes treat theirs, and that courtesy isn’t always reciprocal.

I think sex work is more honorable than many lawful professions. It’s really unfair that prostitutes have higher rates of workplace violence than insurance sales.

Not nationally, but because Maine uses both Instant runoff voting for presidential elections, and the Congressional district method of assigning electors, it’s mathematically possibly for Maine to split its electors 2-2. eg, the Republican wins both districts individually, while the Democrat wins statewide. Not this year though – needs a competitive 3-way race so the runoffs matter.

Phil Ochs says it better than I can:

In every American community there are varying shades of political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects, ten degrees to the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally.

The issues have changed slightly from the 1960s, but his song’s accusations of hypocrisy and NIMBYism among those who publicly espouse progressive causes still hit close enough to home.

Gotta shake a tit.

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It’s hard to predict this in advance, since it’s sensitive to things like voter turnout in non-competitive states. For instance, a blizzard in New England could affect the popular vote without impacting the electoral college vote. So I’ll just tell you how to calculate it.

First, identify the tipping point state. Some guys think it might be Michigan this year. Meaning either candidate can win by winning Michigan and every state more favorable to them than Michigan. Other good guesses are Pennsylvania and maybe Arizona. Then take the difference between a candidate’s margin in Michigan verses their national average.

2020: The tipping point state was Wisconsin. Biden won WI by 0.6% and nationally by 4.5% representing a 3.9% electoral college advantage to the Republican.

2012: The tipping point state was Colorado. Obama won CO by 5.4% and nationally by 3.9% representing a 1.5% electoral college advantage to the Democrat.

So the electoral college doesn’t intrinsically benefit the Republicans, but it probably will this year.

Becoming a victim of one also works.

Don’t correct that. He’s wrong. It’s way more than 46, most multi-term presidents defeated several different contenders.

Edit: I got 63 white men and 1 white woman, not counting pre 12th amendment elections, not counting minor candidates who didn’t win any states electors. There’s a lot more if you include minor candidates, but then one of them would be Cynthia McKinney who is a black woman.

You can read it out loud that way too. KiloGOP has three syllables.

Invariant of the day: In any square mile of the USA, there are 25 Republican voters, the rest of them either vote Democrat or not at all.

It doesn’t work of course. Suffolk County, MA (Boston) has a partial pressure of about 1kGOP/mi². Nevertheless, it’s closer than you might expect considering how many square miles don’t even have 25 human beings.

Seems like these sort of hacks always involve the company’s data about its users, and never their own confidential contracts, trade secrets, or other leaks that could directly damage their own operations.

It makes a guy suspect they actually have a very good understanding of information security, but just don’t think yours is worth the bother.

This might have been 20 years ago. Some civic organization, probably on Martin Luther King weekend, held a tribute honoring some famous black men. One of the most prominent famous black men they invited was actor James Earl Jones – reasonable enough so far. So they called him up to the stage to present him with his honorary plaque made out to James Earl … Ray.

Sometimes it means “We don’t want to spend a lot of money training this guy who we won’t be able to retain if he gets a better offer.”

At really entry-level jobs like fast food, where training is quick and turnover is always high, it sometimes also means "This guy might be able to read the workers’ rights poster on the door and explain the workers’ comp program to the idiot who spilled boiling grease on his foot.

I think FDA rules explicitly prohibit paying blood donors in the US. Ostensibly because if you do, the donation centers fill up with junkies who’ll lie about not having hepatitis so they can get paid, or steal IDs so they can go twice a week until they die of anemia, raising the costs of safety testing and generally being injurious to public health. Of course, everyone else involved in the process gets paid, just not the donors – quite dearly, as you’ll learn if you’re ever on the receiving end of a transfusion.

Plasma is paid because it falls under a different regulation and their research and industrial customers don’t care that the plasma came from a crack whore.

I really like approval among single-winner methods. It’s a clear improvement over plurality and encourages honest over strategic voting with 3+ candidates. Promoting candidate diversity without punishing voters for supporting them is the best way to help minor third parties become relevant.

Among ranked voting methods, I prefer Condorcet methods over others.

Instant runoff voting / single transferrable vote has some merit in the multi-winner proportional representation case, but isn’t fit for purpose as a single-winner method.

Party affiliation as listed on voter registration isn’t a loyalty oath either. It’s just a way of asking which primaries you want to vote in. You might as well pick a party with relevant primaries in your area whether you agree with their platform or not.

(Voter registration is public information and may affect which candidates and PACs send you mail.)

This phrasing is so weaselly you baited me into fact-checking it. Congratulations!

on track to

meaning it’s crediting Biden with things that haven’t happened yet? I didn’t investigate how many future acres he needs to make this meme true.

more land … first-term persident

The Pacific Remote Islands are much larger, but mostly water. Created by Dubya, expanded by Obama, both times in their respective second terms.

modern

Personally, I’d have counted Carter as modern. His Alaska Conservation Act weighed in at 157 million acres. I think that one got Congressional approval too, so maybe they’re only counting land protected by executive fiat.