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Huckleberry

Certifiably Surly
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Posts posted by Huckleberry

  1. I got into poker after I'd already had a kid and the other was on the way so online was how I played almost exclusively for a long time. Then I had some time to play live and the second cash game I ever played live (aside from with a small group of friends at one of our houses) I ended up with AA over KK postflop (three blanks) and the other guy asked if we could run it twice. So I had to actually say basically "I'm not gonna lie, this is the second time I've played live, are you asking if we can run the turn and river twice?" After a quick confirmation I had to use the ol' noodle to make sure that shouldn't make a difference before agreeing. The rest of the table kind of chuckled but they were helpful and a couple of them told me it was somewhat impressive that I was willing to own up to not knowing what the hell he was talking about. Funny memory.

  2. 1 minute ago, JBJ said:

    The ontological definitions have been consistent all the way back to Plato. Trying to make this a semantic argument is a losing proposition.  The semantics are contained in both underlying axioms.

     

    This is the problem posed:

    If (1) only natural objects exist and (2) numbers do not exist naturally, then (3)?

    Aleph can successfully turn any semantic argument for (2) back on (1). The definition has to be consistent across both for there to be any meaning.  You guys should instead be trying to solve for (3).

    The obvious alternative answer is (3) = numbers do not exist, which is a stance that can actually be argued.

    Well there's a huge blinding example of begging the question.

    Start with proving that only natural objects exist.

  3. 1 minute ago, RandomIdoit said:

    I knew he was a narcissist and an asshole, but I thought he was an American first. 

    The issue is that he's not a narcissist in the sense that the term is often used against self-centered jerks. He is literally a full-blown narcissist who cares about nobody but himself. It doesn't matter if it was Putin or Chavez. The actual political leanings don't matter. Whoever got the dirt on him then told him they could help him consolidate power because he's super awesome was going to be able to control him.

    You and many others just thought he was a sort of off-putting ass. No, he has a serious pathology.

    • Like 3
  4. Just now, jimmyjazz said:

    I'm pretty sure it would be trivially easy to come up with an algorithm that iterates on a spatial distribution of districts within a given state, adjusting the radius of each district until every one of them converged on an equal population.  A step beyond would be to adjust the center point of each district.  The point would be to remove party or voter demographics from the calculation.  It would take about 2 minutes to run on the average desktop workstation.

    Ah, who am I kidding.  Nobody wants that, especially those in power.  But it could still be done.

    Yep, there's no way this isn't possible at this point, even if you add constraints of natural borders such as rivers, county lines, major roads and highways, etc. In fact it should be easily possible with only a single starting point which could be established by law. Computers could take it from there based only on the number of districts and the number of people living at each address in the State.

  5. 1 minute ago, RandomIdoit said:

    I never thought he would go this far. I admit, it didn't bother me when he was pissing off some Brits and Germans but now he's turning on his own people. Ridiculous.

    I appreciate your admission on this one, but holy shit this is funny.

    Donald Trump is a piece of shit human being, a megalomaniacal narcissist, and he was only ever rich (although not ever as rich as he's claimed) because he was born with money and then short-paid vendors and played the game of corruption in NYC. He bragged about sexual assault, mocked a reporter's physical disability, and talked shit about a veteran's family.

    But you never thought he'd go this far.

    • Like 1
  6. I know people hate the "both sides" but here you go- 
    Whether left-leaning reform activists admit it or not, Democrats haven’t gerrymandered any less aggressively than Republicans. They just had less than a quarter of the power to do so in 2011, hence the GOP’s current advantage. Need proof? Just try to decipher the Rorschach test-like maps that Democrats passed in states like Georgia in 2001 and Illinois and Maryland in 2011.
    https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/hating-gerrymandering-is-easy-fixing-it-is-harder/
     
     
    That's a fantastic rebuttal to the argument that Democrats don't gerrymander as badly as Republicans.

    Unfortunately nobody here has made that argument but good job all the same.
  7. 1 minute ago, slorch said:

     I'm not confused about why I hate Trump though… LOL.   One post y'all are saying Trump is alienating the governmental personnel who work for him, and then another poster says Trump is taking over the world through military and governmental power. So which way is it going to be lefties?

     

     When you don't have anything else to argue, then come the IQ jabs. Don't get pissed at me because y'all's bullshit doesn't make sense. And unlike the trolls, I do try to read your shit and get where you're coming from. No fucking diceAnd unlike the trolls, I do try to read your shit and get where you're coming from. No fucking dice

    This should be a big clue on where your logic fails, slorch. If Person A says something and then Person B says something that contradicts it that's not hypocritical or a logical issue. That's two different people with different opinions.

    That kind of thing happens when people think for themselves.

    • Like 5
  8. 4 minutes ago, babysdaddy said:

    How does this even happen?  One assumption I've always had when reading about gerrymandering is it is done specifically to help republicans.  Maybe this does help them out overall but I was surprised to see this district was represented by Dogett who is a D.

    The gerrymandering party concentrates all the votes for the other party in a few districts so they can win more of the remaining districts.

    If you have 100 voters for each party in an area and 4 districts then if you're gerrymandering you put 50 of those voters in one district and 16 or 17 in each of the remaining three districts. This way despite having a 50/50 split in votes you guarantee your party a 3-to-1 advantage.

    That's the general theory, at least.

  9. Just now, AnonymousInternetPoster said:


    It wouldn’t matter to me. Just like it doesn’t matter to me about rep. Dumbass.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    That's the 7th time you've told us you don't care. Maybe you can get together with my 8-year-old niece and hang out. Y'all have a lot in common.

  10. 4 minutes ago, AnonymousInternetPoster said:


    Good. I’ll keep it there then. I’m on my phone because I’m at the dealership, where I came straight from lunch. Dumbass.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    Sounds good, enjoy your time at the dealership. Have you noticed that it's not even necessary for me to call you names? Ever wonder why that is?

  11. Just now, AnonymousInternetPoster said:

    Still better than HRC with a huge helping of snowflake, deranged Never Trumpers with full on TDS and pansy Liberal tears for dessert!

    Run an IP check if you think I have any other username on this site because I don’t.

    Now, fuck off, intolerant cry baby traitors. Hahahahaha!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

    That's an interesting thing to ask for now that you've switched to using your phone for posting.

    Also, I negged you again. And I'll neg you every time you have a Tapatalk signature in your post.

  12. Just now, Johnny Sack said:

    Most of that is not due to gerrymandering.  It is because liberals are super concentrated in urban precincts.

    Yes, they just happen to be concentrated in single locations like this:

    O1L3Djh.png

    Wait, that doesn't seem very concentrated. I meant like this:

    g2Ux5eB.png

    Oh, that's right. Population concentration wouldn't cause what you're claiming on its own because the districts would simply be smaller. You're just full of shit.

    • Like 1
  13. 1 minute ago, Chad Fuck said:

    Are you arguing for a military coup?  Or is this a "but Obama"?  Both?

    I'm struggling to see the relevance.

    The relevance is that there actually is a history of military coups returning power to the people (in terms of democratic rule). You claimed that military coups never work out like that when in fact they have in the past in certain cases.

    Also, important clarification, I agree with you that a military coup is a terrible awful idea that I hope never happens in the US.

    • Like 3
  14. 4 minutes ago, Chad Fuck said:

    That's not how military coups work. Unless you want to quickly be ruled by a general or junta...

    That's how they worked in Turkey until Obama bitched out in 2016.

    Well I suppose that the bitching out happened after the coup failed, but the bottom line is that it's how they have worked in Turkey when successful.

  15. There's too much other shit going on for me to rehash this debate. Here's what I wrote in March 2016 on the site that will not be named and to which I refuse to provide a link:

    Obviously this topic comes up every four years, so here we are in 2016. In an effort to keep what could be a ridiculously long post as short as possible I will list some of the alternatives below, discussing each briefly, then conclude with the one I would favor most. This is intended to be a thought exercise where hopefully adult-type people can discuss things on a theoretical level and do so civilly. If you come into this thread and start any partisan shit then fuck you and stay out.

    A. Current system

    Nobody seems to like it all that much, but the people that really hate it are the ones that lose each election. I like the current system in one respect in that it is based on the idea that each State has an inherent value simply by being a member of the union but also reflects the idea that more heavily populated States reflect the will of a greater number of citizens. Detractors of the first part of that sentence like to say things like "land shouldn't have a vote" but I simply view that as far too dismissive of the idea that the nation is a union of distinct States. Those that are familiar with the political posts I've made over the years are well aware that I am a huge fan of the Federal concept in that I believe that the various States should be free to have far different laws on many topics because that presents American citizens with 50 choices of where they want to live. They can vote with their residence in such a system, and the voice of migration would over the long haul have a major say in laws and political developments.

    Why do I not like it? Because despite each State's ability to determine how they apportion the delegates the vast majority go with a winner-take-all approach and I simply don't like how that completely devalues votes in States that are solidly one party or the other. I think there is a happy medium in there somewhere.

    B. Straight popular vote

    Nonstarter for me because as noted above I like the fact that States have inherent value. Plus logistically at some point there will be a race so close that a recount is needed and all ballots nationwide will need to be transported to one location. Just an absurd visual. Plus then you raise the question of runoff elections if it's a straight popular vote considering that 17 times nobody has received more than 50% of the popular vote. Two-round systems are used in dozens of nations where a popular vote decides the chief executive.

    C. Electors assigned proportionally to popular vote

    This is just putting a different label on the straight popular vote. Basically holding on to the 538 electors simply for tradition's sake. Nah.

    D. Assign 2 electors to each State winner, the rest assigned proportionally

    This is an attempt to mimic the fact that the electors for each State represent their two Senators and their current Representative count. The reason I don't like this one is because it ignores the fact that Congress was actually set up so that bills must pass both the Senate and the House, so while the Senate is considered the upper chamber the fact remains that they are at least nominally equal in effecting laws. Which leads me to my two favorite options, one of which is I absolutely do not favor due to political realities.

    E. 2 electors assigned to each State winner, one elector assigned to the winner of each Congressional district

    This one gets to the heart of the people electing the President by speaking in place of their elected Congressmen. This would actually be great in a world where Congressional districts are drawn by computer based on population maps that are devoid of political or demographic information. But holy shit can you imagine the gerrymandering fights when each district helps decide the entire Executive branch instead of merely 1/535th of Congress? So it's a no-go for now. Which leaves me with...

    F. Half of a State's electors (rounded up for States with an odd number) to the winner, the remainder assigned proportionally

    The Senate being traditionally the upper chamber as mentioned, a State with an odd number of electors will assign the extra elector to the State winner. The remaining electors are assigned proportionally to the popular vote within the state. For example, in 2012 the Presidential results in Texas were

    Mitt Romney - 57.17%
    Barack Obama - 41.38%
    Other People - 1.45%

    In this system that would give Romney 19 electors for the State victory, then the remaining 19 would be assigned proportionally. Romney 10.86, Obama 7.86, Other People 0.28 which leaves us with Romney 11 and Obama 8. Romney takes the Texas electors 30-8 in that election instead of 38-0. Similarly California becomes Obama 44, Romney 10, Johnson 1 instead of Obama 55-0. Since I know people will wonder, the overall count in 2012 was originally 332-206 in favor of Obama, with this system it would have been Obama 303, Romney 234, Johnson 1.

    I'd be willing to calculate other elections if anyone's interested.

    Obviously this will never happen but I like it best so that means it's best.

    • Like 6
  16. 42 minutes ago, FondrenRoad said:

    W also lost the popular vote in 2000. And Trump could very well win electoral victory in 2020 while losing by a landslide in the popular vote.  I also think that the GOP,  if it continues with its current platform, will never again win the popular vote for the Presidency, but will still have some Presidents.

    Regardless, we have exactly one nationwide election.  A nationwide election should be won by the person who gets the majority of votes nationwide.  I see no reason for a rural state vote to be worth more than an urban state vote for that office.  I'm fine with the Senate the way it is.

    Rural states have never been disenfranchised.  They have always had outsized voting power, and they typically receive from the federal gov't way more than they put in.  They simply vote against their best interests most of the time, especially when they voted for Trump.  Rural voters in urban states are disenfranchised, however.

    We have zero nationwide elections. The election of the POTUS is 50 separate statewide elections.

    • Like 2
  17. 11 minutes ago, JBJ said:

    It made me laugh because he explicitly and specifically stated that there is no natural number 11 before he launched his argument to the opposite.

    It's no use arguing with someone who doesn't understand the topic, I guess that would include "a lot of people."

    Natural and supernatural are not exhaustive of all things. The longer a conversation or debate goes the higher the likelihood that words and terms will change meaning throughout.

    Man-made items are neither natural nor supernatural, they are artificial.

  18. 2 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

    This has to result in the end of the Republican party as we know it, right?

    For the first time today I see an avenue toward a Democrat takeover of all branches. I can see Trump taking this so far that the upcoming election and also 2020 see either old-school Republicans or Trumpkins splitting off into a third party just to get on the ballot. Or else a bunch of them running as independents, which in either case would split the standard GOP votes.

    The good news for the country if that happens, at least in my opinion, is that Democrats couldn't possibly rule effectively and efficiently for more than 4 years and we'd be back to a standard two party split by the time the 2024 election finishes.

    And here is where I'll throw in my dream of the new Republican party actually being conservative in terms of spending, government size, and personal liberties. Yeah, yeah, I know.

    • Like 1
  19. Just now, Captainant said:

    I haven't seen it yet, was he "extremely concerned"?

    https://www.speaker.gov/press-release/statement-russia

    "There is no question that Russia interfered in our election and continues attempts to undermine democracy here and around the world. That is not just the finding of the American intelligence community but also the House Committee on Intelligence. The president must appreciate that Russia is not our ally. There is no moral equivalence between the United States and Russia, which remains hostile to our most basic values and ideals. The United States must be focused on holding Russia accountable and putting an end to its vile attacks on democracy."

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