Timmerov's Blog
timmer for president manifesto
at some point timmer-for-president is going to stop being a running gag. and will become a run for office. so best be prepared. ;->
laws, edicts, executive orders, etc:
1. switch to international units. long overdue. use the competitive market. 1% per year progressive tax on all products and services that use archaic units.
2. legalize marijuana. long overdue. criminalizing cannabis is unscientific, racist, and political.
3. abolish for-profit prisons. it turns out that a system where i get paid when you go to jail is just plain bad.
4. abolish the unreasonable seizure known as civil asset forfeiture. it's unconstitutional. period.
5. equal protection under the law freaking means exactly that. equal protection for everyone under the law. sheehs. this isn't rocket science.
6. abolish social security and welfare. replaced by the taxation amendment.
7. intellectual property (copyrights and patents) may be owned by an individual or corporation indefinitely. deprecated by the taxation amendment. allows disney to own mickey mouse forever without making orphan works toxic.
8. apply the minimal amount of regulation to ensure markets are as close to competitive as practical. recognize that some services and commodities cannot be traded in a competitive market regardless of quantity of regulation. like fire, police, some health care. socialize them. and only those.
9. deal with the homeless and mental health problem. crazy people living on the streets is unhealthy, unwise, and expensive. gather them up. we as society must decide if they should be euthanized, drugged, sterilized, educated, rehabilitated, other.
10. replace our punitive justice system with restitution and rehabilitation. implement policies that minimize recidivism instead of maximize it. sheehs. this isn't rocket science.
11. choose life. human life begins at conception. period. anyone who says different is a freaking idiot. no person can be forced to sacrifice their life, body, health, organs, future, wealth for another. period. anyone who says different is a freaking idiot. we can force people to be soldiers during times of national existential crisis. we can never force people to be parents.
12. all treaties with native americans will be re-negotiated. the substance may change a little or a lot. but the focus will be that native americans are in fact not just human beings but are honest to god united states citizens and are fully entitled to all of the privileges and obligations thereby granted. ffs. this isn't rocket science.
13. tax on added sugar. doubled for liquids. easiest possible way to reduce health care costs.
14. rape kits will be used to identify and prosecute rapists. instead of used to pacify the raped.
15. mass shooters will be identified only as some asshole. their faces will never be shown on tv. their ideology will never be repeated on mass media.
16. people cannot be charged with resisting arrest unless they actually resist being legally arrested for some charge other than resisting arrest.
17. switching to and from daylight savings time is stupid. pick one. live with it.
18. abolish qualified immunity - the civil asset forfeiture of your life. it's not just unconstitutional. it's morally wrong.
19. when you exercise your constitutional right to bear arms - you are morally, ethically, and legally obligated to de-escalate situations. escalating to violence is a federal offence. it applies to citizens as well as police.
constitutional amendments:
A. voting rights. if you are subject to our laws, you get a say in what those laws are. you may not vote if:
i. you are a minor.
ii. you are not a permanent resident.
iii. you've been convicted of cheating during a previous election.
B. gun rights. replace the second amendment with the following:
i. states have the right to raise and maintain a milita/army to defend itself from existential threats both external and internal.
ii. states have the right to raise and maintain a police force to enforce its laws and to protect its citizens.
iii. the right of the people to keep, bear, and employ arms on parity with the forces that police them shall not be infringed.
C. inalienable rights. it's embarrassing that this isn't already in the constitution. note: this legalizes gay marriage.
i. the right of the people to define for themselves and pursue happiness shall not be infringed.
ii. neither congress nor any state may pass a law that restricts the actions of individuals unless those actions cause real tangible harm to other individuals.
D. taxes. the current system is unstable.
i. neither the federal government nor the states may tax income. neither individual nor corporate income.
ii. congress shall implement a progressive wealth tax. the rate for each tax tier is fixed. the brackets for the tax tiers are determined by a non-increasing multiplier. for example: 1% of net worth over $1 million, plus another 1% of net worth over $10 million, plus another 1% over $100 million, plus another 1% over $1 billion, plus another 1% over $10 billion, plus another 1% over $100 billion, etc.
iii. 50% of government revenue from all sources are uniformly returned to the people. this replaces social security and welfare. if more is needed, the people may direct the government to fund it from the remaining 50%.
iv. individuals must file tax returns if the total value of their assets is greater than the lowest tax tier. randomly selected individuals must also file tax returns as is necessary to statistically determine the distribution of net worth of the population.
v. tax returns are public records.
vi. tax returns enumerate the values of the filer's largest assets and liabilities.
vii. listing an asset or liability in a tax filing is an offer to sell the asset or liability at the listed value. individuals have the option of adjusting the value of an asset or liability and their taxes prior to a forced sale.
viii. certain assets may be exempt from forced sale in limited ways in order to preserve singular family items like a primary home or business, and to preserve communities like parks and mixed income neighborhoods.
ix. charitable and religious organizations are not exempt from taxation.
E. voting. covers state and federal elections. including president, senators, representatives, governors, state legislatures. but not county or local elections. get the extremists out of government.
i. an open primary is held around three months before the general election.
ii. the three or more candidates with the most primary votes advance to the general election. the actual number is determined by applicable state or federal law.
ii. rank order voting. voters order candidates from first choice to last choice. in a three candidate system, voters may vote for a candidate and vote against another candidate. the candidate with the fewest first choice votes is removed from the ballot. the process is repeated with the smaller ballot until there is a winner.
iv. voting days are state and national holidays.
F. oddly enough, maintaining an air force is not one of the government's enumerated powers.
i. the congress shall have the power to maintain an air force.
ii. the congress shall have the power to make rules for the government and regulation of the air forces.
G. implied congressional approval.
i. the congress has 90 days to vote to approve a presidential nominee. failure is approval.
ii. the house and the senate have 30 days to vote on legislation passed by the other. failure is approval.
H. supreme court justices must be re-confirmed periodically by the senate. every calendar year before a date set by law, one vacant seat is filled. if there are no vacant seats then the justice whose most recent confirmation was the furthest in the past must be re-confirmed. otherwise the seat becomes vacant.
I. replace the 13th amendment with one that actually completely abolishes slavery.
J. government.
i. the census includes how many people voted per year during the past 10 years. every state gets one representative in the house per 100,000 voters.
ii. house representatives are elected as per section E every odd numbered year.
iii. the senate has a number of members equal to the number of members of the house. seats are assigned proportionally by party in a general election.
iv. senators are elected every four years, two years after a presidential election.
v. the president and vice president are elected by the electoral college on years divisible by 4.
vi. the electoral college is composed of one member for each member of the senate, one member for each member of the house, and one member for each non-state territory controlled by united states per 100,000 voters.
vii. senate electors are appointed proportionally by party.
viii. each state and territory allocates its house electors by any combination of winner take all, proportional, or by district.
ix. voters may vote in their assigned district or any physically adjacent district; including districts adjacent at a single point.
x. house leadership, senate leadership, and the president and vice president are selected by their respective bodies by reverse rank order voting. candidates are ranked in order by each member. the candidate with the most last place votes is removed from the ballot. the process repeats until a winner is selected.
K. congress may delegate its policy making decisions to entities it creates for that purpose. - such as the epa. it's embarrassing we need this amendment.
L. people born in us territories are us citizens. it's embarrassing they are not.
thankfulness
i am thankful i live in a country where:
- people sincerely believe the world is flat.
- and that vaccines cause autism.
- water has magical healing properties when you dilute away the active ingredients.
- the moon landing was faked.
- climate change is a hoax.
- but supply side economics is not.
- soviet socialism and democratic socialism are the same: bad.
- capitalists are job-creators and are therefore exempt from taxation.
- support for a president who wants to fuck his daughter.
- you can be healthy or rich. or you can die from lack of health care.
- health insurance is the same as health care.
- love your neighbor means build a wall.
- hillary is a crook.
- but trump is not.
- fewer children die from cancer than from gun violence.
- your ignorance is better than my knowledge.
- the solution to crime is for-profit incarceration and recidivism.
- others are sued for our misfortune.
- delusion is king.
- life expectancy is falling.
- true is false. right is wrong. fact is fiction.
- third parties are barred from the ballot.
- homeless pets are funded better than homeless people.
- there is no public transportation.
- marijuana is illegal.
- but alcohol and nicotine aren't.
- 43% vote.
- debt is 105% of gdp.
- torture enemies.
- eggs must be refrigerated.
- borrow and spend.
- denial of obesity.
- truth is whatever we say it is.
books 1, tv 3
so the beautiful and talented alisa was commenting on the differences between watching the expanse on tv and reading the books. the tv version is third person. whereas the books are first person. and the point of view jumps between the characters. (game of thrones is the same way). i thought hrm... most people don't read books. they just watch tv. so, are we losing the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes? to see the world from a perspective not ours. possibly even an uncomfortable point of view. hrm...
"tax cuts"
tax cuts for the middle class are only good for the rich. i explain. today you make x dollars before taxes and y dollars after taxes. tomorrow i cut your taxes. next year you make z dollars before taxes and y dollars after taxes. by the miracle of free market economics, you get to keep exactly the same number of dollars. cause labor supply exceeds demand. the power to dictate prices is on the employer's side. so your gross wages before were greater than your gross wages after. the difference goes to your employer, the now richer guy.
snoitcurtsni
why do we give instructions backwards? the other day i was guiding my mother over the phone. says me, tap the key to the left of the space bar on the keyboard. which seems perfectly reasonable. except every piece of information is delivered in exactly the wrong order. she can't start processing the information until she gets all of it.then she has to play it back in reverse - keyboard, space bar, left, one key, tap. which is extremely concise. but looks completely horrid cause no one speaks that way.
un-fu windows
windows apparently "fixed" my previous rant. it's now back to the stupid way it was before. where you need to go through uac to remove an icon from the desktop.
farkin windows
f*ck you windows. seriously. just f*ck you. i explain:
i just installed turbotax. and itunes. which both put shortcuts on my desktop. cause of course they do. cause obviously they're THE MOST IMPORTANT THING i do on my computer. anywho, i don't want them there. it used to be i could just drag them into the recycle bin. and windows would pop up a user access thing demanding i enter an administrator password. cause you know, windows needs to be sure that i want to actually do what i told it to do. which was irritating. really frikken irritating. but they'd be gone. and good riddance. at least until next time. sigh.
anywho, so imagine my surprise today when i dragged the suckers into the recylcle bin and they frikken ignored me. no permission request. nothing. just fuck you. we're not going. you can't delete us. we're THE MOST IMPORTANT THING on you computer. sigh. so i started up a command shell as administrator. then i had to wander through the various user desktop to find the stupid links. they went quietly into the bit bucket.
i pretty much only use windows for taxes and 3d printing. and i wouldn't if i had a viable option. hint hint. is anyone hearing opportunity? you should be.
follow the leader
there are people saying, cut the political crap. follow the leader. be a good nazi. close your eyes, spread your legs, it'll be over soon. they're saying these things cause they don't want to hear me say i told you so in four years.
posza
posza is pronounced pizza shitza. it is the worst pizza i have ever made. sigh. i explain. the dough came out perfect. so good start. but i remembered i was making a large and small pizza after i cut the dough into two equal halves. sigh. then i forgot to pre-heat the oven. the pasta sauce was fine. but i meant to get the low salt salame. instead i got the low taste crap in confusingly similar packaging. sigh. and we had the generic mozzarella instead of the good stuff. sigh. then i did something like a smart person. i figured the large pizza would cook faster than the small one. so i put it in the oven first. but i forgot that i forgot to preheat the oven. so the broiler pretty much immediately burned the crust and cheese. oh shit. pulled it out. the dough is raw. but the oven is pre-heated. so the small one went in. which came out just fine. pizza shitza. zero stars. will not make again.
timmertopia
someone name the form of government with these features stolen from well known forms of government:
- like communism, The State, meaning The People, owns all property.
- unlike communism, The State controls nothing.
- like capitalism, Individuals control everything.
- unlike capitalism, Individuals rent from The State the exclusive right to use property.
- this rent is a progressive wealth tax. the more property The Individual controls, the higher the rate. for example, 6% at $1 billion. but only 1% at $1 million.
- 50% of the revenues collected by The State is directly paid equally to The People without regard to means or needs. kinda like a basic income guarantee.
- The State uses the remainder to fulfill its obligations to the The People.
- The State is responsible for the welfare of The Individuals. including but not limited to: defense, education, health, infrastructure.
- The Individual must satisfy their obligations to The State. including but not limited to: voting, health, education, taxes.
- The People elect representatives using reverse rank order voting. ie. the candidate with the most last place votes is removed from the ballot.
- Elections of equal magnitude are held annually.
- Every Individual subject to the laws of The State is a member of The State. as such, The Individual may vote, collect benefits, etc. the concept of restricted citizenship is recognized as a means for The State to violate its contract with The People.
- The Individual has the right to put themselves at risk to pursue happiness. The Individual, not The State, gets to decide how much risk and what pursuing happiness means.
- The Individual may not put other Individuals at risk.
- The State may not restrict any activity by an Individual unless it directly causes real tangible harm to other Individuals.
- Individuals have the right to arm themselves on par with the forces that police them.
- the justice system progresses through: education, rehabilitation, restitution, exile, and execution. imprisonment is recognized as counter-productive.
recount 2
something happened during the last election. the polls said clinton big time. yet trump won. so what happened? two hypotheses: 1) the election was rigged 2) the polls were wrong. rigging the election across the nation would be hard. not impossible. but the scale of such an operation would be vast. and one assumes would leave a detectable trail. on the other hand, we've been doing polling for 100 years. wrong allegedly. okay, this is how science works. you put forward a hypothesis. then you test it. and by that i mean you set out to prove yourself wrong. which seems like a very strange thing to non-scientists. oddly you can't prove something correct. you can only prove it's wrong. anywho. this is why it's so important to do the recounts. regardless of the outcome... one of the hypotheses is going to be shown to be wrong. either way, science wins! with bonus practical results too. we can fix either of the problems. but we need to know which one.
recount
i'm very happy we're doing recounts in wisconsin, michigan, and pennsylvania. but but but partisan crap!!! well, yes and no. i explain. something unexpected happened the last election. scientists hate that. cause they can't stand to not know why. scientists love this sort of thing cause it's a juicy new puzzle to chew on. so from that point of view, not at all partisan. but we're only recounting states narrowly won by trump. why not virginia? cause recounts are expensive. who's gonna pay to recount virgina? not clinton cause she won virginia. not trump cause he won the electoral college. so pretty much the only people willing to pay are people hoping to flip the outcome of the election. so yeah, partisan.
left v right
lefties freak out when the rich get handouts. whereas the right is all meh.
righties freak out when the poor get handouts. whereas the left is all meh.
[ed- i like this definition. i'm inclined to keep it. however a righty friend insisted i was wrong cause the rich don't get handouts. um... okay. so the amended definition:
lefties freak out when the rich get handouts. whereas the right refuses acknowledge that the rich get handouts at all.]
int v wis
intelligence is being able to define cognitive dissonance. wisdom is observing it in yourself.
trumposcopes
trump speaks in horoscopes. i explain. his speeches make no sense. literally. the transcripts of his speeches make no grammatical sense. he does not speak in sentences. he starts a sentence. then wanders around. the reader is confused. but the listener completes the thought with whatever makes sense to them. eventually trump starts another sentence. and the process repeats. at the end of the day, the listener is left believing that trump said exactly what they needed him to say.
not sure how much of that was intentional. and how much of it was just years of um... experience. doesn't matter. many americans (who are doing just fine), now believe that most americans are hurting. and it's all the president's fault.
math problems
so the other day after dinner b asked for a math problem. so i gave him some. #1 you are 50 meters away from a velociraptor. you immediately start running at 10 m/s. the velociraptor immediately starts chasing you at 30 m/s. how long do you live? #2 same as #1 except it's an injured velociraptor that runs at 20 m/s. #3 you're standing at the corner of an equilateral triangle 50m on a side with healthy velociraptors at the other two corners. you take off running in a straight line in any direction. so do the velociraptors. how long do you live? #4 same as #3 except one of the velociraptors is injured. #5 same setup as #4 except if the two velociraptors arrive at you at precisely the same moment, they will fight with each other allowing you to escape. what direction do you run? enjoy.
foxholes
people say there are no atheists in foxholes. and that's probably true. right up until the grenade lands in the foxhole. then suddenly everyone's an atheist. i explain. you're prayersquatting in the foxhole to the almighty to keep the grenades out of your foxhole. but one lands next to you anyway. god has ignored you. not cause you're not a good person. but because he doesn't exist. and all your beseechments were for naught. now you have a decision. you can have faith that god will save you. that grenade won't kill you. except it does. you and all your buddies are dead. and go to heaven. which i guess, isn't so bad.
or you can temporarily drop the charade that there's an omnipotent omniscient being that for some reason cares about a worthless shit like you. and smother that grenade to save your buddies from also dying the real true death. they'll immediately go back to their fantasy believing you've gone to heaven. and thanking god for making the grenade land next to you instead of them. because if you don't, all of you suffer permadeath.
trump's net worth
trump's net worth is hard to pin down. it depends on who's asking and who's answering. cause a big chunk of his net worth is the trump brand. which to him is worth $3b or more. depending on how he's feeling at the time. i'm paraphrasing his words here. i'm sure the trump brand would be very valuable to me. but i'm also pretty sure it wouldn't be worth $3b to me. course $1b is outside my world experience. so maybe.
anywho, trump's net worth doesn't seem to have changed much over the past 20 years. the trump haters said it's in the $300m range then. they say the same thing now too. the trump lickers said it was $3b then. they say the same thing now too. which is kinda odd for a self proclaimed genius businessman.
let's see how his wealth gains compare to other genius businessmen over the same period. bill gates went from $14b to $60b. warren buffett went from $17b to $66b. and he famously gave away $30b. liliane bettencourt went from $4b to $40b. so factor of 4 to 10. depending on how much you gave away.
the cold hard facts suggest trump's claim to being a genius businessman, like his net worth, are somewhat exaggerated.
debates
"smart" people can rapidly exchange complex ideas with words. "simple" people trying to follow along quickly get lost. not because they are stupid. but because the topic is outside their world experience. the simple person is aware of this. and promptly labels the smart people smart. the simple person can tell from cues, like being happy, who won the exchange. and hence who is smarter.
smart people talk to trump. quickly get frustrated. cause he's incoherent. he can't complete a sentence much less a thought. smart people get angry call him bad names. like idiot, scumbag, liar, crooked, etc. simple person watches the exchange. quickly gets lost. same as before. determines these two people must be smart. stops listening. starts watching to see who wins the exchange. and hence is smarter. the smart person is unhappy. trump is smiling. seems pretty clear trump won.
"fix"
if something isn't broken, don't fix it. yeah, i'm looking at you microsoft. windows 10 seems to have lost the ability to control volume of each app individually. that was a really nice feature. especially when every third web page has an auto start video. open a few pages and cacophony. sheehs. but the geniuses at micrsoft decided we don't need that in windows 10. i guess they get kickbacks from the obnoxious ads. or think they'd get more if i had to listen to them. which i don't. fortunately, the feature isn't gone for good. you just have add a registry key. i followed
these instructions. am happier now. fuck you microsoft.
