Skydancer

joined 2 years ago
[–] Skydancer@pawb.social 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Can't pardon civil contempt. The judge declared probable cause for criminal contempt, and crimes can be pardoned

[–] Skydancer@pawb.social 4 points 4 days ago

Nah. He'll insist they swap the first two.

[–] Skydancer@pawb.social 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

At which point they stop being nazis

[–] Skydancer@pawb.social 6 points 6 days ago

I was skeptical of your numbers, so I did the math:

Taking the first article I found newer than 2022, US billionaires have about $6.22 trillion of wealth ± recent stock market changes. UBI of $1000/month is most commonly estimated to cost $4 trillion/year.

US budget in 2024 was 6.8 trillion, but 1.87 trillion is in social security and income security programs UBI would replace, so the net change would raise the budget by 2.17 trillion to 8.39T. So 8.896 months - more like nine months than eight, but surprisingly close.

Of course, that assumes all other taxes are wiped out, which nobody has ever proposed. I can't find a number anywhere for total income tax paid by billionaires, so we'll be generous. OMB estimates billionaires pay an average tax rate of only 8.2%. Their wealth increased 2.9 trillion over 7 years, so ignore compounding and call it 414B/yr. And pretend it's all taxed (which it isn't - most isn't considered income). That's 33.9B in income taxes the IRS doesn't collect after wiping out the billionaires. That reduces IRS revenues collected from 5.1T to 5.06T (being generous again with the rounding). That buys us another 7 months of government funding.

Alternatively, doubling the effective tax rate on the top 1% earning over 3.3M/yr from 26.09% to 52.18% would balance the budget including the new UBI. Get the effective tax rate on billionaires to match and you can start paying off the national debt. All without touching the middle class or even lowering anyone's income below 1.65M/yr.

Don't get me wrong - taxing billionaires out of existence is certainly a moral imperative - it just isn't necessary to fund UBI.

[–] Skydancer@pawb.social 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Staple it to job applications too. I suspect many blue state and private schools would see it as a commendation.

[–] Skydancer@pawb.social 1 points 1 week ago

Rodents. Most people don't compost properly - they leave out the cover material on the sides and top, and still believe the myth that compost needs to be turned.

The fruit smell attracts rodents. Enough cover material keeps the smell in and the edibles inaccessible. Then you can compost most of the foodstuffs you're normally told not to (fruit, animal products, dairy, etc.). Oil is still a no-no, as I recall.

[–] Skydancer@pawb.social 1 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I'm not so sure. I'd take a sock full of quarters over a sock with a 3.5" spinning disc hard drive in it any day of the week.

[–] Skydancer@pawb.social 44 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

This is an article about an article. The original Atlantic article that contains the messages themselves is here

[–] Skydancer@pawb.social 7 points 3 weeks ago

This is an article about an article. The original Atlantic article that contains the messages themselves is here

[–] Skydancer@pawb.social 4 points 3 weeks ago

Please don't spread FUD. That memo does NOT claim Signal has been compromised by Russia.

The actual claim is that Russia has used deceptive e-mail style tactics to trick people into authorizing a malicious "linked devices" request. This is a social engineering vulnerability, not a technical one.

[–] Skydancer@pawb.social 5 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Unsecure ≠ Insecure

Unsecure in this context generally means not in compliance with military and classified security practices and procedures for "securing" information.

Signal is secure in the sense of being strong end-to-end cryptography.

[–] Skydancer@pawb.social 2 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Hate to break it to you, but that's a longstanding practice.

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