Viewing profile — village-idiot

What a strange thing to get angry at me for.

The difference between "politics" and "world events" typically comes down to the geography of the observer.

> Well, they have to give your location information to the government. It's not like this requirement was an inevitable outcome of governments. We can change laws.

This is why I included the bit about direct observation. Before dragnet surveillance, you would need to travel near someone who had an active interest in you specifically in order …

DNA also just ends up all over the place for innocent reasons. If someone gets murdered in a rental car that I rented last month, chances are my dna will be there. DNA evidence oft…

Turns out even genetic databases need an index.

Your location isn’t private if you’re observed in a location where you have no expectation of privacy, i.e. outside. But if I’m at a friends house, I absolutely have an expectation…

USDA guides have historically referred to “sweets” as something to consume “sparingly” without any concrete recommendations around maximum grams per day. Up until 2015 they have pr…

How many people do you know that have replaced a personal car with Uber? I’ve known two people like that, and everyone else I know uses them in place of traditional taxis.

This is a strong argument for a second car, which would be much cheaper than a divorce.

This isn’t terribly surprising. First, we always overestimate new technology’s ability to solve problems, while underestimating the side effects. So any grandiose claims about self…

I remain shocked at how many people eat in their cars, especially messy or aromatic Foods. I love in ‘n out, but I sure as heck don’t want the inside of my car to smell like it.

All of these seem preventable to me. Especially the juice, don’t give your kids sweet drinks in the car. Also, juice is basically just soda. All sugar with very little redeeming va…

> I don't know that you can attribute bad eating habits to the recommendations of public health organisations. Americans have actually followed the recommendations of the USDA for …

It’s easy; evaluate based on the results. Since the 1970s the US government and other public health organizations has attempted tell Americans what to eat more of, and what to eat …

That would be a good argument if many states weren’t also dependent on the federal government to maintain their own budgets. If you’re a tax payer in Connecticut, you’re absolutely…

I figured the goal was revenue, hence my dismissal of it as an effective tax for funding public services. What’s the difference between avoidance and evasion with regards to taxati…

I’m not sure how you got to politics from what I said.

And the very ugly optics of pushing homeless out of sight and out of mind.

The article makes it very clear that the place was an attraction because of his antics. The only people involved I feel bad for were unsuspecting dates taken there for the entertai…

I think you’re making up why homeless advocates don’t want to literally ship the homeless out of the city. There are a lot of reasonable objections to that plan.

Consumption taxes on luxury goods usually aren’t very distorting at the local level, especially since its pretty easy to define luxury goods that aren’t locally made. The problem i…

Leaning towards plant based is far too close to the “meat is bad, minimize it” camp for my taste. I think meat is not only good for humans, but strictly necessary for healthy devel…

I’m not sure about power lines, but that’s certainly not true for roads. A large portion of road maintenance is paid for by state and federal budgets out of the general tax funds, …