lores

The Traction Avant is a thing of beauty. Literally the only car I ever lusted after. Pure class, with a slight air of lawful evil.

I don't have any number on murder, but rape is a fantasy shared by 55% of Americans, women more than men, many/most of whom necessarily thinking about its logistics in at least some detail without ever doing anything to anyone non-consenting. On murder, the popularity of true crime media means many people enjoy thinking about motives and logistics. I don't think it's a small fraction.

I think the zero-risk approach common nowadays is insanely corrosive to democracy and freedom. If a million people fantasise about shooting the sheriff, and one ever goes on to do it, I don't believe avoiding it warrants creating an apparatus of mass surveillance. After all, if people were really serious about zero murder, the only practical solution would be to lock up everyone. Some (most?) tradeoffs have exponential costs at the limit and we/lawmakers should recognise that.

Nah. The first thing I saw when I walked out of Anchorage airport is a truck with a bumper sticker saying "my truck is worth more than your life."

Every bad thing in the US is a caricature of what caricatures were 50 years ago.

I like to tell people I grew up 10km from Canada, in northern France.

I admit I'm not a whole lot of fun.

Abandoned matches are reviewed by the relevant league, and depending on the reason and circumstances the match can be replayed, resumed, or adjudicated. When a side is judged to be at fault, the outcome is often a default 3-0 loss for them, on top of assorted punishments for the players/coaches/teams involved.

PPP the EU is also about 30 trillions, which is probably the better measure since we're comparing production for domestic purposes.

There's really very little you can do bar booking an alternative flight at great expense. If you're lucky and you know the delay in advance, at least you may have a chance to take the Elizabeth Line into town and go for a stroll. I'd count a fat hour to go from the terminal to, say, Paddington. It's a pretty area and there are excellent Persian restaurants around.

Or it would be gone. Or it would be in the hands of psychopaths. Europe trades off the extremes for a better middle. It doesn't produce quite as many big names, but US and EU economies are roughly the same size.

Yes, you're entirely right. One further, I was at a talk from a law professor at a big uni once, where he had printed the entire text of the Medicare bill on a giant pile of paper. He explained that it had taken him, a professor, several months full-time to understand everything at stake; what chance has a representative to do so, let alone on every bill? What chance has a voter? What does it mean for democracy that no one with decision powers understands what they decide?

"Educated" and "informed" aren't the same.

Democracy requires an informed electorate. Just having the right to vote isn't enough.

That's a common belief, but that duty is not absolute and does not imply the executive must choose money over morals.

These conversations about EU regulations, bureaucracy or general slowness and carefulness contrasted to American ease of doing business and raising capital always make me think "but... look at the state of America! Is it really something to emulate?"

My humble view: at high level in large firms, everything is politics. Even assuming high-level managers with the common good in mind, someone will sponsor with millions of dollars 10 useless but good-looking and inoffensive projects, just so they have the political capital to start one that is useful but may ruffle feathers. Your direct subordinate's failure is _your_ failure, and that will set back your ambitions. Peers turning against peers is frowned upon, for the same reason. And besides, you know them, maybe you even like them, the lower-level people are just anonymous faces, it's emotionally much easier.

And assuming they have the common good in mind is of course ridiculous.