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Messages - da_nang

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1
Darkness descends upon Finland as the majority-rightwing Finnish Parliament votes to restrict the right to strike. In particular, they've restricted political strikes, which are necessary to counter the government's involvement in labor disputes and politics, and sympathy strikes, which are necessary to counter scabs and other strikebreaking activities.

I have no hope that the rightwing president will veto it (not that it will do anything given the rightwing majority).

2
DF Adventure Mode Discussion / Re: What's going on in your adventure?
« on: April 17, 2024, 07:04:02 pm »
Tried out the beta because why not.

This is the tale of the Lizardman:

Jump.
Start an Elven civil war.
Refuse to elaborate.
Encased in ice while hunting a sturgeon.

I fucking love DF.

Things to know for the future:
You'll never have the points for it in vanilla, but I saw dragons as pet options in character creation.
Trade is not implemented yet, or at least not the UI for it. Same goes for crafting and butchering. Plan accordingly.
BEWARE OF LOCKED DOORS. The UI is not implemented, but you'll get thrown into a UI limbo where it tries to give you the old UI, except you can't exit it because the controls for it (bash or pick) are either not implemented or overlaps with the new controls. I was saved by a pet opening the door, I think. Either that or my button spam worked somehow.

Beta pains.

3
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: March 20, 2024, 05:34:13 pm »
If Congress had made such a law, states would in fact be obliged to enforce it;
This is incorrect. States are not, and cannot be, obliged to enforce federal law. That would be commandeering, which SCOTUS has considered verboten. Persuaded, certainly, by e.g. tying highway funds to drinking age, but not forced to enforce it.

In the case of the immigration law from Texas, there are a few things to consider.

First is Texas's argument on "invasion" under Article IV §4 cl.2., which on its face only imposes a duty on the federal government, and it's highly unlikely the border crisis satisfies the criteria for an invasion. It is true that under the Tenth Amendment, powers not delegated by the Constitution to Congress nor prohibited by the same to the states would be reserved by the states or the people. Congress has been delegated power to create a uniform rule of naturalization, as well as power to make all laws necessary and proper for the execution of the enumerated powers. "Uniform" would by definition make the power to legislate laws on naturalization exclusive, though the border crisis is not a question of naturalization per se. Necessary and Proper would also require some further exclusivity regarding the border and ports of entry. Additionally, the Commerce Clause (and its pre-emption) imposes additional limitation on state action, and the Compact Clause outright strips state power on various border questions that are inherently agreements or contracts with other states or a foreign power (e.g. Mexico). The Compact Clause is conditioned on there not being an invasion (or an imminent danger thereof), but again, the border crisis is unlikely to be considered as such.

That brings us to the second point. The current relevant precedent is Arizona et al. v. United States from 2012. It operates on pre-emption. Is there any leeway or loophole for Texas to implement its law?

What are the components of the law? There's a criminal component (10 Penal Code Chapter 51), enforcement and deportation components (1 Code of Criminal Procedure Chapter 5B), and an indemnity component (Title 5 Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 117). I will ignore the indemnity and enforcement components; the former is irrelevant, and the latter is just a prohibition of enforcement.

The deportation component would run afoul of the Compact Clause, at minimum, and it's unlikely to be saved by an "invasion" argument. It would also likely be pre-empted by federal law, either by conflict or occupation of the field. Arizona et al. v. United States supports an analogous argument.

The criminal component criminalizes illegal entry (§51.02), illegal reentry (§51.03), and refusal to comply with an order to return to foreign nation (§51.04). Criminalizing refusal to comply is likely to be pre-empted per the previous paragraph.

Parts of §51.02 and §51.03 might be constitutional on their faces. A substantial difference from Arizona et al. v. United States was that Arizona SB1070 §3 was regulating the federal alien registration by criminalizing the failure to register. The federal alien registration framework was considered by SCOTUS to be pervasive enough to trigger field pre-emption. On the other hand, §51.02 and §51.03 at their cores don't touch any federal regulatory framework, though §51.02 does create affirmative defenses based on some, and §51.03 uses some federal action to pin down a timeline. The first comparison that comes to mind would be the state regulation of NFA weapons. Disregarding the Second Amendment for a moment, several states have banned NFA weapons and criminalized their ownership without running into pre-emption issues. So, Texas may even have written §51.02 and §51.03 with Arizona et al. v. United States in mind.

However, it is also possible for those sections to be conflict pre-empted by existing federal legislation on illegal entry. Yet, given the dual sovereign doctrine, I'd say its a toss up on conflict pre-emption. At the very least, if the federal government provides the state with no leeway on the time of deportation, then conflict pre-emption would require the state sentence to end the moment federal officers come to pick up the deportee. Given that there is already interaction between deportation and various other state crimes, however, I imagine it won't be too much of a problem.

Regardless, SCOTUS has merely judged on the injunction and not the merits of the Texas law.

4
General Discussion / Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« on: March 20, 2024, 03:10:43 pm »
For some reason, my curiosity was piqued by the lunar phases of March on my paper calendar. It's showing that it would take twice as long in March to reach full moon from half moon than it would take to reach half moon from new moon.

I briefly wondered what eldritch orbital shenanigans could cause that before I verified online that the calendar is, in fact, wrong.

Either I deftly aborted the nerd snipe, or times are about to get quite interesting.

5
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: Finding rivers
« on: March 13, 2024, 11:23:58 am »
If DF imitates life: more rainfall, less drainage, maybe less elevation X/Y variance. Basically, more water and a larger watershed ought to lead to more major rivers. You'll probably also need more land tiles for that, so either larger map size or go for continent maps.

6
DF Dwarf Mode Discussion / Re: What's going on in your fort?
« on: March 12, 2024, 04:10:05 pm »
Monkeyhall was meant to return to monke, but the fort retired when the "wet" fort design severely underestimated the throughput needed to drain the expanding light aquifer. The Drunian goddess won't be pleased.

Faithhalls, from the southern neighbouring civilization has instead setup shop in the isthmus mountains, guarding the easy passage to the Mountainhome, and forcing the enemies to take the longer route across the lake to the north and near the humans. Alas, the fort has been cursed. For while we have plenty of magnetite and flux to build an army of steel, the only sources of fuel are either far below us, or in the savage forest. Cursed we are, for more than sixty dwarves have already fallen, at least half of which, I'm sure, due to our own hands. For if the forest doesn't claim us, the endlessly tantruming dwarves, who have been driven schizophrenically mad by their polytheist mania, while watching over us as we fell tree after tree, will pummel us to death with their own bare hands, starting with the bookkeeper.

It's always the bookkeeper. I don't know why he keeps dying. Appoint a new one, he'll be dead soon enough. Fucking Voldemort over here cursing our shit.

Maybe I should've assigned a captain of the guard after all, we even had a dungeon fully equipped, but damn it, 29 days in prison was too unreasonable at the time for missing the popup to make the mayor's stupid traction benches. Back then I couldn't afford to send Zas, my mechanic, to prison! He's my best glassworker and engraver. How would I ever have managed to engrave and encrust with glass all the slabs I needed for the graveyard? We had enough ghosts to storm the armies of Mordor. Well, maybe a few ships, but still. Or doors, as it were. They kept opening the doors to the mist pumps and flooding the place.

Sigh, but now my best stone carver and gem setter is dead. Murdered! Maybe it is time, indeed.

7
Nutu Bufonis reversum est!

Nutu Bufonis reversum est!
Translated from latin to english, Google says thats: He returned with a nod to the buffoon

" Bufonis reversum est" returns 'the toad is back'
Google Translate isn't always the best, and the forums don't like ALT codes.

"Nūtū Būfōnis reversum est." = nod.ABL toad.GEN return.PPA.N.SG 3SG.PRES.COP =  "By the Toad's will, it has returned."

Nūtus means nod, but contextually is another word for divine will. Nūtū is the instrumental ablative case.

Latin is pro-drop, and forum is neuter, hence reversum.

I wanted to use an adjectival form of toad, but Būfōnīnō sounded ridiculous, and it's only one genitive anyway.

8
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: March 06, 2024, 08:39:39 am »
* da_nang stares intently at Garland, waiting for 18 U.S.C. §2383 indictment to land.

Ahem.

Still miffed that SCOTUS used a handwavy implied narrow constitutional pre-emption rather than a more textually-robust (by original public meaning) Article VI conflict pre-emption, implied by existing legislation enforcing 14A§3 using concurrent 14A§5 power.

Naturally, MSM is going ballistic.

9
Nutu Bufonis reversum est!

Touching grass is difficult in winter.

10
General Discussion / Re: Israel-Gaza/Palestine war thread
« on: February 14, 2024, 08:08:04 am »
Adjusted civilian death rates:
    Siege of Leningrad (Germany attacking USSR): 0.56 per day    (most deaths due to starvation)
    Battle of Berlin (USSR attacking Germany): 2.1 per day
    Battle of Manila (Allies/USA attacking Japan): 0.18 per day    (most deaths due to the Manila massacre by Japan)

Given the uncertainty of the data for these, I used the nearest population statistic I could find, and used the smallest area given by Wikipedia. It's also difficult to gauge the proper size of the area of conflict. In Leningrad, for instance, the Germans got no closer than 10 km to the city.

11
General Discussion / Re: Israel-Gaza/Palestine war thread
« on: February 13, 2024, 04:59:51 pm »
It's been four months. Anyone up for some cold calculus?

Spoiler: Cold calculus (click to show/hide)

12
Second round of Finnish Presidential election is counting the last few votes. Alexander Stubb is in the lead with about 100k more votes than Pekka Haavisto. With 98% votes counted (less than 100k left based on turnout), it looks like Stubb is the new President of Finland.

EDIT: More strikes this week against the Finnish government's reforms, starting today. Prime Minister Orpo is stubbornly remaining on his high horse.

EDIT2: More strikes starting week 11. Port workers will be striking for two weeks in protest against the government's reforms.

13
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: February 10, 2024, 03:45:50 am »
-snip-
With regards to the whole "officer" discussion, one thing that wasn't brought up in the oral arguments was the difference in spelling of "office" and "officer" between the Fourteenth Amendment and Article II. Article II capitalizes them, the Fourteenth Amendment does not, yet Senator and Representative retain their capitalization from Article I. We also see that "Congress" retains its spelling, but "elector" does not.

This tells us it could not be due to changes in spelling rules (older English used a more German-like capitalization), for if "office" and "officer" were some kind of special title, proper noun, or legal term of art, then they would've been spelled "Office" and "Officer". This suggests that the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment intended to use the plain language meaning for "office" and "officer", and at least one contemporary dictionary ("An American dictionary of the English Language", Webster, Noah, 1865) suggests that the President is in fact an "officer", and by the of-genitive construction he is therefore an "officer of the United States". Similarly, the presidency is also an "office, civil or military, under the United States".

14
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: February 08, 2024, 02:48:14 pm »
Colorado disqualification oral arguments in SCOTUS have begun.

TL;DR: Eight justices favored arguments made by the defendant (Trump), little interest in arguing about the Colorado factual determination of insurrection (punt from the looks of it) and more about the questions of law. Law-interested redditors are predicting 8-1 or 7-2 in favor of the defendant, and also criticizing the plaintiff (Colorado) for poor arguments.

A first glance at Reddit suggests SCOTUS seems likely to rule that a federal pre-emption exists in a similar vein to the 14A§5 argument I've made in this thread before: that although the §5 power is a concurrent power, the existing federal process implicitly pre-empts (by conflict or occupying the field) a parallel state process (analogous to the Commerce Clause). Arguments based on the Civil War and Reconstruction can be explained with the Confiscation Act of 1862, the Enforcement Act of 1870, and—ignoring any gentleman's agreements—the numerous pardons issued by Lincoln (64) and Johnson (thousands prior to adoption of 14A, and everyone else unconditionally a few months after the adoption of 14A) and current SCOTUS dicta that pardons carry an imputation of guilt (though they constitutionally cannot override the disqualification, which is reserved by Congress per 14A§3).

I don't think SCOTUS will touch the factual determination (other than maybe deem it improperly made due to pre-emption), nor do I think they will touch any question on a conviction requirement.

15
Stubb and Haavisto going to the second round.

EDIT: Three days of waves of strikes across multiple sectors and unions in Finland, in protest against the government's planned reforms of the economy and restrictions on the right to strike, begin today.

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