I have no stake in this other than that the sentencing for non-production child porn is stupid.

And since you cited a USSC report to me, please consider that USSC also thinks the sentencing structure is stupid.

https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/federal-sentencing-child-pornography-non-production-offenses

The enhancements that USSC talks about in that report as being problematic are the exact ones that were applied here, as they are in most cases. They're not truly "enhancements." They function instead as Draconian minimum sentencing guidelines.

The whole PROTECT Act is part of Bush era policy and attitudes that spawned the "super predator" and things like that. It came about because the USSC guidelines were considered too soft and because the Supreme Court had struck down an earlier child porn bill. So congress basically overrode the USSC and required them to add those "enhancements" because while the alleged purpose was to separate the mythical superpredator types from the oops I didn't realize I had this Traci Lords on VHS, the reality is they didn't care and felt like all pervs are just rapists-in-waiting.

>explain to me why someone who is not sexually attracted to children would download that many photos/videos.

Well one obvious reason would be that they are running a child porn business. And if that's the case, Maher should be put in jail for much longer than 9 years. But he should also be charged for that and not this.

But maybe he is fixated on it in a non-sexual way because of what allegedly happened to him as child. Or maybe he really is sexually attracted to children, but that is not a crime, nor should it be.

I don't know the facts of this case. It could be he is a shitty guy and maybe he has done sketchy stuff that he has not been charged for. He could be a total shitbag. I only know him like most people do, he served me some drinks and we chatted a bit a few times.

But I believe he pled guilty to basically ONE single count of receiving (not distributing) child porn. And I believe the person he "received" it from was himself via putting a file on drop box and then downloading it like how everyone uses drop box (just not for porn).

And that alone pretty much gets him or anyone else 9 years, regardless of any other circumstance. That is what is fucked up.

If he did something horrible enough to warrant 9 years, then he should be charged and have to plead specifically to whatever that was. Charge him 1,000 counts of possessing child pornography. But you shouldn't be able to charge someone with one count of receiving child pornography and put them away for 9 years.

Would you make the argument that someone who buys some meth should be charged the same as large meth producer because their possession and use of drugs are what drive the production?

>There’s a huge line in the sand if your fantasies include children being used, in any degree.

Based on what? We don't punish people for having fantasies.

You wondered how the forensic psychologist could reach the conclusion that he was not sexually attracted to children and was a low risk to reoffend. The answer is that is a not an unreasonable conclusion based on his history and best statistical evidence.

Whether he should get 9 years regardless of potential for recidivism simply because of the shittiness of the crime is different issue.

The recidivism rates for sexual offenses is pretty low in general. I'm sure this is partly due to under-reporting but that's still what the data says.

The biggest red flag risk factor here is the sexual abuse as a child. But we don't put people in jail for 9 years for that, we give them therapy and it usually helps. We also don't punish people for being poor, or having drug addictions which are correlated risk factors.

If you have no history of prior inappropriate behaviors, no alcohol or drug issues, no mental health/personality problems, and no socioeconomic factors working against you, the evidence points at you not being a big risk.

Basically, most people can and do look at and fantasize about all kinds of weird shit and still never act on it. And they can even stop looking at that weird shit if the future consequences are dire enough or they get treatment for their addiction.

I only care because of the actual children involved in the making of it. If someone has deep fake child porn, or whatever I don't care how much they have or how often they look at it.

Honestly 9 years when there's no evidence that the person has ever had any inappropriate contact with a minor is ridiculous.

I don't think we really have a place like that. There are places in Carytown that are probably mediocre and overpriced, but those are mainly for tourists.

I think we also have several places downtown that cater to professionals where they were once what passed for nice here but have been eclipsed long ago or at least are kind of outdated in terms of style.

But I don't think we don't have a stereotypical "fancy" restaurant for professors (or students when their parents visit at graduation). I'm thinking like Strawberry Street here and The Trellis in Williamsburg but they are both closed now.

Thar's exactly what happened. Car drove into it.

Source: Another customer asked the cashier about it when I was in there last week.

It's one thing when you are maybe stealing from one job to pay for the next job just hoping that somehow you'll get a break and everyone will end up paid.

It's another when you are stealing from one contractor or one customer and buying yourself a country club membership with it.

Also, it's like if you expanded too fast and couldn't do all the work but at least the work that you did manage to do was good, then maybe you just got in over your head. But if the work you did was shit, and you actively lied about it and ripped people off even when you had the funds, then the whole thing was never anything more than a rip off scheme.

Also he was mainly stealing from his own partners, leaving them in the lurch financially instead of him, and then on top of that he threw them under the bus in his legal defense.

If you want coherent arguments, why are you reading Nietzsche?

To me, he's a concept guy. Like Will to Power. Is is it just a metaphorical concept or does it actually exist? If it exists, does it exist metaphysically or as a psychological concept? Nietszche never clarifies. Eternal recurrence is another one. There are dozens.

That said, will to power is an interesting and potentially useful concept. Which is why I think Nietzsche influenced a lot of schools of thought. He's got a shit ton of concepts that allow people to pick and choose which ones work and how to interpret them. But it's up to those others to do the heavy lifting.

Thankfully, Rouse won the Senate. The GOP is probably somewhat relived as well.

Morrissey is no longer a controlling vote which means neither side has to make a deal with him.

Also, probably puts a big dent in the Petersburg casino plans, though possibly it just passes the hot potato back to us.

Yeah, nothing will happen to him.

Like she says herself, she lied to everyone to protect Joe, and I believe her mother and grandmother did as well. They didn't just defend him, they accused prosecuters of politically persecuting them and wrote in support of his pardon.

I am not blaming the victim. But the reality is, the reason he didn't end up in prison or out of office is because of her. There's a reason Morrissey makes sure to send out all those happy family cards and photos and making sure they were in the papers. For the last 10 years she has been presented as a perfectly happy wife and mother wants everyone to butt out of her affairs. If she changes her story now, they will tear her apart in court. She may have some potential perjury charges even. Not to mention fairly grim job prospects and likely very little income to support her large family. She's pretty much screwed. Morrissey knows exactly what he's doing.

I am a Nietzsche hater, so probably biased. But I don't view him as the Father of anything.

I used to hate Nietzsche a lot more, because I think his writing is a mess. But as I have gotten older I appreciate him more than I used to.

I still think his philosophy is trash as a whole. But now I see him more as a guy who was pretty smart and very creative and also had a way of writing that captured the imagination. Some of his stuff was where philosophy was heading anyway, and someone else would have said it or had already said but Nietzsche wrote it cooler. And some of his stuff is cool ideas that do not form a coherent whole and were poorly expounded on. But he did have a shit ton of cool ideas.

It makes him very thought provoking and a good seed planter. And easy for the philosophers (both good and bad) who followed to borrow bits and pieces from him.

So I see him as influential to a whole ton of modern thought-- maybe more than any other philosopher-- while at the same time the father of none.

General Tso’s chicken is not a Sichuan dish. It’s most likely not even a Chinese dish.

If it’s deep-fried, it’s mostly likely not authentic. So go the other way and instead of looking for a place that seems authentic, look for a very fake takeout type of place that caters to mostly Americans. Like it might be best if they actually serve regular American food like French Fries or Fried Chicken. Then you will know they have a deep fryer.

Either because the cops are jerks and want to keep an eye on minorities/the poors so they can bust them… or because it just makes sense to put the cameras where the most crime occurs or where stolen property ends up and they are helping to keep everyone safe.

Probably a little of both.

It's a combination of movie theaters being in the shitter as an industry and Bowtie's location/escalating land prices.

As others have said, pre-pandemic Criterion was a decent place for indie cinema. And before Bowtie opened Criterion, they were decent about devoting a couple screens to indie flicks. They were so good that they probably put the last nail in the coffin for other places like Westhampton that would show indie films. Bowtie and Criterion were the shit up until 2015 or so.

Anyway, Bowtie is sitting on a land goldmine now in Scott's Addition and it makes more sense to sell the land than to pay for renovations to what is now probably an overly large multiplex.

Bowtie does own another piece of property in the city. So if the movie industry holds up, I expect they will sell the current theater and move to the other property. Or perhaps sell both and take the massive cash profit and find a cheaper property.

But in the meantime, no one is going to invest in a new theater given the state of the industry and that they probably cannot defeat Bowtie if they opt to stay in the city. We had a multiplex so good it wiped out all the competition, and now that one remaining multiplex is contemplating its next move so we're all in limbo.

You have to look at the total traffic flow, not just the impact on one lane.

The more cars that can flow through a given chokepoint as quickly as possible, the better.

If we drew a merge as a Y with two separate one lane roads merging into one and asked people how to handle it, they would instinctively say "Stagger it. One car from one of the roads, the next car from the other road."

The problem with most merges is one of the two lanes is perceived to have priority. Therefore everyone needs to get into the "correct" lane and line up. But from a traffic flow viewpoint, neither lane has priority. All that matters is getting as any cars through that chokepoint as quickly as possible.

It assumes drivers are not going to be assholes. But that is a big assumption.

But the idea is that it neutralizes speed disparities between lanes and allows for an organized pattern that people can anticipate. This makes it both faster and safer.

If you have two lines of people approaching a choke point, you just all agree to alternate where one person from one line goes through, then the person from the other line, and back and forth.

Without that, it's a mess because five people in a row from one line might try to shove into the space, or two people from two lines go at the same time, and then it rapidly devolves into every person for themselves because you can't anticipate what others will so.

That's not how the zipper merge works though. Even though it is extremely annoying sometimes to let someone in, you have to do it. Otherwise they are blocking a lane.

If someone can drive right past a mile long lane of cars right to the merge point, the zipper merge is already fucked. That shouldn't happen, and the problem is actually with too many early mergers.

What holds up traffic the most is everyone jumping to one lane early and then not letting anyone else in. The only fix is to let anyone who wants to merge in, as quickly and as easily as possible even if they are dickheads who are trying to cut in line.

For slander? I can't think of another cause of action.

The report actually says the police acted appropriately, so it supports the case that his civil rights have not been violated. Police raid people all the time without obtaining the evidence necessary to support certain criminal charges.

The stupid shit was Smith's press conference, not the raid and arrest itself. If he doesn't open his idiot mouth, then it's just a routine seizure of illegal firearms based on a tip and we never even knew this happened.

The problem is, this guy is not going to be in the country to pursue the case. I suspect that even if he had the means, he would want to keep a very low profile.

All we can do is just remember what assholes Stoney and Smith were about this and pressure the city to elect a competent police chief.

People were already trickling out of urban areas before the pandemic.

I’m not saying cities will become ghost towns. Just that the peak of urbanism as a trend is probably here or already past and we won’t see the kind of growth we saw from 2010-2015.

Asa small city, I think Richmond will probably stay fairly stable. We’ll gain some population from people moving out of larger, more expensive cities. But we will leak people out to the surrounding suburbs and exurbs.

I bet it doesn’t even last for the next ten years. I think could even buy an argument that it’s already over.

>I just find it baffling that the "just legalize more housing" as a solution to a housing shortage is the most controversial take.

Because the problem is more complicated than that. Ultimately, yes there needs to be more housing but there is not one simple path to get there.

No matter what you build someone will complain. If you build a small apartment unit, people will complain it's not a high rise. If you build a high rise, people will complain about corporate landlords.

If we issue vouchers or reserve some units for. affordable housing, people complain. If it has too much parking, people complain. If it's not in the city, people complain about car culture. If you upzone an area and the wrong business moves in, people complain.

No one actually wants more housing in a generic sense. They just want more housing of the kind they personally want, at a price that is affordable for them. And if they cannot get it...they'd rather have no housing.

I don't hate them for being right.

We need way more landlords, not less.

>This should still mean there's an improvement over what would happen otherwise.

Yes, but in this case it most likely means prices would be going up even more without that construction. So new construction helps, but it's not going to slow rent increases much.

>However, if a person did want to push faster creation of new housing as a solution to housing affordability, preventing price fixing is a definite pre-requisite to that working as a solution.

Increasing new housing is the solution to price fixing. The more landlords in the market, and the more options available, the harder it is to control supply.

It's if the price setting is a result of stifling of competition.

The way collusion distorts free markets is if the colluding companies have enough clout to gang up and stop those that want to undercut them.

If you decide to charge $10k for your apartment, and I see that you are able to rent it and I then raise my rent to $10k, that's not an efficiency problem.

If you decide to charge $10k for your apartment and I decide that you are an idiot and I will take your customers by undercutting your prices, but then you are able to start hassling my tenants or making frivolous charges about alleged violations then it is an issue.

That's the problem. Not that companies cooperate in some fashion against consumers, but that they cooperate in some fashion against potential competitors... which then obviously creates higher prices and hurts consumers.