I want one unapologetically.

It's fun and different. There's an ATV you can plug in the back.

We need to move this direction.

Proceed the anti-Tesla, anti-Elon sentiment that I'm sure someone is holding on to for a good reason.

I think it's ugly, but ugly in a cool way. I give Tesla credit for being bold. I find most cars to be slight variations on a very common theme.

I don't have any predictions about commercial success, however.

Chance of impeachment at this point is 1 in 10.

Pompeo is going to be in for a rough ride in his Senate bid.

It will be interesting to see how Jim Jordan's presence on the committee and his alleged protection of a serial sex assaulter mix in his reelection bid.

I think the real game is for who wins the Senate and Presidency in the next election.

I think there will be some damaging revelations in Trumps financial documents in the case currently going to the SCOTUS or he wouldn't have worked so hard to keep the information private. Will we see that information? I hope so but we might have to wait for a leak.

pointless angular lines to impress teenagers and the emotionally stunted

ouch.

but I'll take it.

Perhaps I'm more sanguine about the hearings than everyone else because I'm more jaded about their purpose.

Team Trump sent out a nasty-gram yesterday entitled "It’s official: Americans are tuning out the Swamp—and the ratings prove it". Their proof:

The ratings prove it. Simply put, they’re stunning. Despite wall-to-wall media coverage and attention, the first televised impeachment hearing last week drew an estimated 13.8 million viewers—nearly 6 million fewer than when former FBI Director James Comey testified before the Senate two years ago. And this is for impeachment.

Even more telling is what’s happened to viewership as the hearings pressed on. Once it became clear that no real evidence was forthcoming—only more opinions about President Trump from the Swamp—Americans tuned out. Tuesday’s morning session this week averaged 11.4 million viewers. By noon Wednesday, “the local ABC affiliate had ditched impeachment coverage and was airing its regular newscast instead. The Fox station had a daytime talk show,” The Washington Times reported.

For perspective, "11.4 million viewers" is Monday Night Football numbers. That's "American Idol Live Eliminations in 2007" numbers. For a Tuesday fuckin' morning of talking heads preening slowly and deliberately about procedure and phone calls. 3.6 million people watch Good Morning America. Fox & Friends? About a million and a half. Drawing anything during the day is a major accomplishment and here's Team trump's spin:

Or think of it this way: “There are about 330 million Americans. According to the ratings, nearly 320 million of them aren’t watching the House impeachment proceedings.”

Team Trump recognizes that this is a battle of public opinion. The Democrats have finally done the same. The fact that Jeffrey Katzenberg produced The Apprentice while at NBC and then went over to CNN while Trump was running says a lot: news is spectacle. And for the past four years, Trump has been able to say whatever the fuck he wants while the news media "tells both sides of the story". The whole purpose of these hearings has been to give the public some pithy soundbites that demonstrate it's a pretty one-sided story.

It's going to go to the Senate and the Senate will acquit. We all know this. I think the difference is that the Democrats aren't playing to win, they're playing to cost the Republicans as much credibility as possible. The Republicans hitched their wagon to Trump and the Democrats appear to have found a strategy that makes that expensive. It's not going to be quick but it's already causing some serious attrition: if Trump is contentious in your district, and if you have been backing Trump, then your re-election campaign is going to be expensive and draining. Perhaps it's time to find yourself a corporate board or two? Meanwhile the paradigm adopted by the Democrats is AOC - young, mad, media-savvy and hungry.

Mr. McNamara, you were never going to win. You were fighting for your ideals. We were fighting for our homes.

- unnamed Viet Cong general, The Fog of War (paraphrased)

The goal has never been to eliminate Trump. The goal has been to make Trumpism expensive. It's fair to characterize the 2016 election as a battle of competing apathy and while the Democratic electorate is waking up to patriotism, the Republican electorate is facing a schism between "base" and "humans" that the Democrats wish to make as hard to bridge as possible.

I find the hearings ruthlessly effective at this. Really, it's the Democrats learning how to TV. 'cuz the thing is? Yeah the kidz are all tictocin' and snapchattin' and retweetin' but the people you want to stay home in shame in November?

They watch daytime TV.

I appreciate where you're coming from, and I appreciate your thoughts on the matter. Rhetorically speaking, though, you're discussing rules as if they were norms and norms as if they were rules and at a basic level, "impeachment' is not so much a ruling of law as it is a measure of popular opinion. There's no "judge" in an impeachment. There's votes. I mean, objectively, Clinton lied under oath. The framework you must accept to believe he didn't lie under oath is tortuous at best. He was under oath for reasons utterly unrelated to his performance as an executive, however, so a majority of legislators voted to acquit him.

Your teacher-student example isn't apt because there's an authority over them that enforces their code of conduct. This whole impeachment kerfuffle is complicated because there isn't. So the Hobbes/Machiavelli question comes to the fore: what is the cost of eroding the norms of the executive?

The cost to Harvey Weinstein was negligible until it wasn't. Societal norms shifted under him. Please read this carefully because it's important to me: I was there. I lived in that ecosystem. Friend of mine was molested by a Hollywood icon in front of a producer, a cameraman and two PAs. And they all laughed it off because that was the world. That's the water we swam in.

Working in Hollywood when Weinstein broke was interesting because we were indignant. I mean, fuckin' hell who doesn't have stories about Harvey Weinstein being a rapacious fuck? it was known. We all knew this. We all knew someone with a first- or second-hand story. And we knew them for a broad spectrum of Hollywood. Fuckin' Bryan Singer? Fuckin' Natalie Wood? My career didn't go as far as it could have because I was judged inappropriate for certain drug-fueled orgies where deals were made. Maybe six of my cohort from back then have gotten movies in the interim. No, you haven't watched any of them. But this is just what we fucking put up with because it was the world. So you look around and you see how outraged the normies are and you listen to what they have to say and you go

wait. It's me. I'm the problem.

And then you immediately go LIKE I COULD HAVE FUCKING DONE ANYTHING ABOUT IT!

And see, that's what shifting norms are: they're enough people with enough juice saying "i want to do something about it."

Ronan Farrow came for my boss. And that was that. And he was right to do so. And whatever personal benefit I received from working for a sexual predator it's appropriate that the accolades and power go to people who don't abuse it.

But the norms had to shift.

So eyes on the prize: 2016-2017 were about norms shifting towards totalitarianism. 2019-2020 have been about norms shifting back. Don't get hung up on the procedurals. What you're watching is the Democrats asking the country "are you on board with this guy" and some will never leave.

But he did lose the popular vote in the worst attended general election in modern history and they did lose the vote in the best attended midterm election in modern history. What you're watching is the Democratic Party holding a mirror up to the country and asking

"Is this who you are?"

...and I don't think it is.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to sit through six hours of sexual harassment training for the second time in two years because momentous changes happen from a million incremental shifts and if this is what we need to do to save Mira Sorvino's career next time, it's worth it.

It looks like a good truck for the kind of person who doesn't really need a truck but wants one anyway.

Delorean owners know how impossible it is to keep flat brushed stainless looking good. Why is it trying to be so tacticool? Who needs bulletproof glass windows but doesn't want an easy to repair body?

Slate's 50 affiliate links we pulled out of our ass?

I read The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood . It's like Godel, Escher and Bach in that information theory is something that it's easy for a math geek to get mystical about, and like Godel, Escher and Bach in that it's like listening to someone describe their first acid trip to you at great, tedious length.

Rep. Nunes met with ex-Ukrainian official to investigate the Bidens. It should be in the headline, NBC.

To reiterate this, very clearly, for everyone: Nunes, the second-ranking member on the House committee leading the impeachment inquiry into Trump's secret attempts to open a Ukrainian investigation into the Bidens, was involved in secret attempts to open a Ukrainian investigation into the Bidens. "Undisclosed conflict of interest" barely begins to scratch the surface.

Parnas really throws a wrench into everything. Although the case for impeachment is already airtight, Parnas offers a possible route to sway public opinion. However, trusting any information from Parnas could be perilous, and any mistake will be weaponized by the GOP to discredit the whole inquiry. A Congressional hearing would also be a nightmare to coordinate with SDNY, regarding immunity, jurisdiction, etc.

I'd vastly underestimated how much Zelensky's election matters. It's clear that Trump & co. had already greased the previous Ukrainian administration (Poroshenko), and then had to re-do their efforts after the underdog, Zelensky, notched the W. That may have been the difference between Trump getting away with this vs. where we are now.

I slept on this, I wake up, it's still the first thing on my mind. Truly, this is a new level of absurdity.

Nothing brings people out of the woodwork like self-reflection. At this point, I'm not sure it makes a lot of difference. The traffic has slowed to a crawl, so I'm not sure whatever choice you make is going to get a lot of support or pushback. It's basically a half dozen of us reverberating ideas into a large echo-y cave at this point.

I think you leave it open. I know sometimes my phone logs me out so I peruse not logged in sometimes for weeks at a time. There's also quite a few folks who pop in a few times per year or once every few years and while they're not active here frequently they might appreciate being able to check in without logging in and if they want to contribute they can just log in real quick and contribute.

From the poster:

“Eight-hour TRE was significantly associated with higher risk of cardiovascular mortality in the general population”

People who restrict their eating to eight hours per day may be more likely to have extra weight they hope to lose, and that extra weight may put them at greater risk of cardiovascular mortality compared to the general population.

“Surely they controlled for weight” one thinks, before clicking on the link…

Actually I don’t think that journalist captures the biggest flaw of all, which is the sample size. 20,000 people sounds kind of big, but it’s actually tiny. The problem is that the average age of the population was 49. Heart attacks among people below old age are relatively rare to begin with, and when you are sorting out people who self-report eating on a time-restricted schedule your numbers are going to be minuscule. “91%” is the relative risk, but I don’t see where they report the absolute risk or the absolute numbers. My guess is that a couple instances could be driving that seemingly large figure. Relative risk is meaningless in almost any context (of data reporting) without also understanding absolute risk.

If only you put impossible to activate gmail, put different domain on registration page, then you would have more new users. Hi, long time lurker, finally made this account with other email.

I have seen worse situations rebound.

Thanks for finally joining! It's slow moving around here, but there are good people with some really interesting and niche expertise.

I DREAM'D in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the

attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth;

I dream'd that was the new City of Friends;

Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust

love—it led the rest;

It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of

that city,

And in all their looks and words.

To this day, there are substantial tin deposits in Cornwall, exploited almost continuously since the early British bronze age around 2000 BCE. There's isotope ratio-based evidence they were amongst the suppliers to both Cyprus and Anatolia up until the bronze age collapse around 1200 BCE, and it's a well established possibility that their reach extended farther and earlier than that.

I think I've seen more new spam accounts than legitimate users joining recently, so it seems like the current open/growth model is not working.

The site is pretty much already a quiet little club in a corner of the Internet, so this seems to be better acknowledging that reality.