jeudi 31 mai 2018

It is okay to be white!

If you are like me then you were probably concerned that there isn't a song written that makes it explicitly clear that you can be white and exist. Because hardships and prejudice have never befallen any other race quite like the current public scourging random white people get. What with being asked if they want options with their iced lattes when they just want plain! Or checking out real estate and having nosy neighbors walk up and start talking up the neighborhood. And don't get me started on how people will accost them while outdoor grilling to ask them the exact make and model of their barbecue.



Well white people can rejoice. There is now an official anthem. via Wonkette


[YT]7h8L7c3R-hE[/YT]



Sunbeams rest in suspension,
Like heavenly blades.
Berthing at the surface,
Of her tender, pale skin.


The sound of our children’s voices,
Rings the air.
The little rumble caused by their running,
Reverberates my spine.


It’s okay to be white

My wife rises to dance with me,
We go together in the light,
The little ones surround us below,
Singing out their hearts delight.


And out in the garden,
I’ve been laboring
The fragrance of grass fills our noses.
We play with the garden hose
Nothing like a day of rest well earned.


It’s okay to be white

I take my wife’s hand,
The one I love.
She wears a flowered dress.
And we run with the kids,
The sun is setting now,
The sky is pink and orange,
Our children’s faces light up like they are candles.


It’s okay to be white


In the history of everything no truer or more poetic an expression of words has ever been authored in defense of a most put upon racial or ethnic construct. I'd cry at the pure majesty of it if botox hadn't made it impossible. I think I'll go dunk white bread in milk as an act of celebration.



Remember folks. You can be white and exist. Peace.


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mercredi 30 mai 2018

Jet thruster motorcycle

Bosch has a system that uses thrusters near the bottom of the motorcycle to blast it out of a skid. https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/18/...lide-recovery/

Even though it's mounted low, it still seems like the lever arm it has isn't very large. I suppose it's fine for someone tooling around the town that isn't leaning over much.

I wonder if someone will hack the control system to try and fire their machine into another lane on command.


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Police faked 258,000 breath tests

The new head of Victoria Police’s Professional Standards Command is very cross indeed. I can understand his frustration but can't quite agree.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/v...30-p4zii8.html

The suggestion is that, perhaps to fill quotas for random breath tests, the cops were sometimes just blowing into the breathalysers themselves. Over 5½ years, about 1.5% of tests might be ********.

Now as a personal rule of thumb, I expect the results of letting human beings collect data to be easily 5% garbage. So with a mere 1.5% of junk data, I'd like to congratulate the Victoria police as they're clearly exemplars of scrupulous dedication.


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What are some of the most underrated women painters around the world?

So I've been commissioned to write an article about some of the most important and underrated women painters in the world so I'm looking for recommendations. However, before any fellow female painter forumites want to suggest themselves, the requirement for the article is specifically, women who began art movements around the world. Who influenced entire cultures and help to establish new artistic tendencies. Ideally, this would be women who come from places where it's difficult to pursue a painting career. Who had to struggle against all odds to be able to break through with their art.

Any feedback, info, would be appreciated.


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Missouri governor to resign

Quote:

Facing impeachment over an extramarital affair and campaign finance inquiry, Missouri Governor Eric Greitens has announced he will quit on Friday.
He should have just continued to deny, deny, deny IMO

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44297378

A Republican rising star brought down by the deep state ?

Or maybe a political grifter.....

Quote:

He was charged last month with felony computer data tampering to obtain a donor list for a veterans' charity he founded in 2007 without permission for his own political gain.

Earlier on Tuesday, a court ruling added to Mr Greitens' problems.

A judge gave the governor's political non-profit group, A New Missouri, until Friday to turn over communications between it and Mr Greitens' office.

Investigators are looking into whether his campaign illegally co-ordinated with A New Missouri to conceal donors by using shell companies to funnel money.


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mardi 29 mai 2018

Roseanne Barr off the air

Roseanne Barr calls Valerie Jarrett an ape, loses show.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/05/29/medi...ton/index.html


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Stuff Won't Upload on LinkedIn

Much to my social media-hating dismay, I have to make a LinkedIn profile for my business writing class. Extra credit is offered for uploading writing samples, PowerPoints, photographs (besides the profile pic), etc. I barely have an A in this class, so I need the extra credit.

Anyway, I made the profile and it's all fine. I uploaded two writing samples I had on my laptop. No problems. I went to bed. Today, I dug through some old hard drives and found photos from my last job, a letter of endorsement, and two suitable PowerPoint presentations. Logged in, and LinkedIn won't let me upload ANY of them. When I click on the Upload option, just... nothing happens. I tried about a million times.

In the case of the photos, I get that they might need resizing. So I'll deal with that. But the interface won't take a PowerPoint either. It won't even take the tiny little letter of endorsement, which is a 1-page Word document.

To experiment, I removed one of the two (long) writing samples I'd posted and tried uploading a PowerPoint again. Still nothing. I switched browsers. Nothing. Finally, I tried to re-upload the writing sample I'd removed. Now it won't take that either.

Does anyone know WTF?


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Things that don't, actually, trigger me

Trolling conservative groups on facebook and subreddits has opened my eye to what supposedly triggers me. Trigger a liberal is one of their favorite pastimes. But....I don't think they actually trigger many liberals.



Things they seem to think will trigger me:


The American Flag.
A married heterosexual couple.
A married couple period.
Cisgenders using their restroom.

Anyone in a military uniform.



Anyone else find it odd what conservatives think triggers liberals?


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lundi 28 mai 2018

Some Immigrants...

Can become heroes. When Mamoudou Gassama, a French immigrant from Mali, spotted a four-year-old child dangling from a balcony in Paris, he didn't hesitate. He quickly climbed the facade of the building four stories up and rescued the youngster:

[yt]WISmbOw_bMk[/yt]

Gassama has been granted French citizenship and given a job in the Paris Fire Brigade.
:thumbsup:


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dimanche 27 mai 2018

Scam alert. In Home I.V. Rehydration service, from $200 dollars. Are they mad?

https://www.theivdoc.com/

the I.V. Doc will come to your home and stick some salty water in you for as little as $199 and up to $449 dollars a pop.


Quote:

When you're sick, distressed, dehydrated, or just exhausted…the last thing you want is to travel to a medical office, endure long waits and expose yourself to infections.

We come to you. Through Telehealth, a licensed physician or medical provider will consult with you prior to your treatment. Then, one of our network's highly trained medical professionals (from registered nurses to physicians) will hook you up to an I.V. specially formulated to relieve the condition you're suffering from, or deliver the wellness treatment you desire.

The I.V. Doc's service is prompt (rush available), affordable and most of all lets you relax and recuperate in the comfort of your home, private office or hotel room.
What a scam!


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Could someone please explain this?

OK, this was weird, but please know that I am in no way suggesting anything paranormal.

The other morning as I was up drinking coffee, I thought I saw my phone message blinking red, which was strange because I always hear the phone. As I approached the phone, I noticed it was no longer blinking, but I decided to hit 'play-back-msg'.

Then it got strange. It was a message I had never heard before, left by a man I loved, a beautiful message, but he has been dead for 5 months.

So. Where to start. The machine is a vetech and about 2 years old, just a simple digital machine. I am wondering about the tape - as I'm unsure of how they work, but may have been the cause?

Thanks,
Julia


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interesting proof, for me

I actually had an experience that made me notice why so many people believe in paranormal-type events.

On a hot day I was outside in the garden with my dog, Allie. Ready to come in, I went to hook the leash onto her collar, but I saw no collar on her neck. I was mystified at how it could have come off. Looked again. No collar. I started to search the garden, but when Allie came up and nudged me - her red collar was on.

OK. I thought about tricks of the eye, I thought about sun reflection, even mild hallucination from the heat of the day as the reason, and I was fine with that. However, it also made me think that it is also an example of people feeling they saw or something paranormal.

People will visualize, but not really question. Hence, seeing diseased? Seeing and hearing things?


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Homework Help - Accounting

Hello, smarties.

I'm taking a compressed accounting class, and I'm not going to lie, it's moving pretty fast. And I'm feeling a bit unsure.

Today, I am working on Adjustments. I'm on my last homework problem. Usually, I can figure out what to do even if I'm panicking at first, but I've tried this problem a million ways. I cannot get it. And this particular lesson doesn't have any clickable hints available or accompanying text-help provided.

I'm not asking anyone to do my homework for me, but if anyone's around, could you maybe look at this problem and nudge me in the right direction? I'm missing something, and I'm sure it's something obvious. Here is the problem:

Arnez Co. follows the practice of recording prepaid expenses and unearned revenues in balance sheet accounts. The company’s annual accounting period ends on December 31, 2016. The following information concerns the adjusting entries to be recorded as of that date.

An analysis of the company's insurance policies provided the following facts.

Policy A - purchased April 1, 2014 - covers 24 months - cost $9600
Policy B - purchased April 1, 2015 - covers 36 months - cost $8424
Policy C - purchased August 1, 2016 - covers 12 months - cost $7200




I'm to record an adjusted journal worksheet entry for that info. I know it's an Insurance Expense debit and a Prepaid Insurance credit, but I can't figure out how to do the math. I know I must be missing something stupid.


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Drug Companies Lie To Sell Drugs

This is an ad seen a while back, touting the benefits of Lipitor.



In 2011, sales from Lipitor had averaged about $11 billion a year since 1996.
Rest assured that thousands of medical doctors saw this ad in a glossy brochure,
provided by a $100k+ a year Pfizer sales rep..

We must wonder if they would have even put it on the market if
their ad had looked like this:



When you take a look at the fine print, you see that they actually told the truth
about the drugs effectiveness in reducing risk of heart attack..




How do the math wizards at Pfizer get 36% out of a 1% difference between their drug and a placebo?

Here is a graph of the data from the study the ad is based on.



At the top, you see where the actual 3% ( placebo ) vs 2% ( Lipitor ) numbers came from.
They divided 2 by 3 and came up with 36%..

The calculation they used is to produce a number called ' relative risk ' , which has virtually nothing
to do with the actual effectiveness of the drug.

A little digging will show you how drug companies do this all the time..

Reporting the findings: Absolute vs relative risk


Since it's legal, why not? Do you give up $11 billion dollars if you don't have to.

Would you have a problem with a financial advisor who touted a 36% return on your investment,
while only showing a 1% ?
How about a Dr. who wants you to take a drug based on the same numbers?

Meanwhile, millions of people take a drug whose effectiveness in doing what it claims is questionable,
while the possible debilitating and life threatening side effects are not.

Statin side effects:


This topic was inspired by a recent lecture by David Diamond Ph.D
( A real doctorate in biology )

[yt]uc1XsO3mxX8[/yt]

( If you watch the lecture, my images will look familiar.. )


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What has happened to the UK

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/05...ing-trial.html
Quote:

U.K. right-wing activist and journalist Tommy Robinson was arrested and reportedly jailed Friday after he filmed members of an alleged child grooming gang entering a court for trial -- but the details of his purported sentence remain murky after the judge ordered the press not to report on the case.


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Has the state spent 21 Trillion without notification?



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samedi 26 mai 2018

RFK Jr. suspects a second gunman killed his dad.

RFK Jr. is investigating his dad's murder, including meeting with Sirhan Sirhan, and he believes that RFK was killed by a second gunman. Others disagree.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.e93d919817fd


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Strange problem with images.

I am getting this very strange bug that causes random corruption of images.

I scanned some slides, and when I went to crop them, they got corrupted without even being saved to disk. Here are three samples


Original uncropped scan of slide.


Corrupted image when cropped.


Uncorrupted image cropped on another computer.

Now originally, I thought this was a problem with Adobe Photoshop, but it is also happening in ACDSee, Lightroom and IrfanView.

Here are a couple of other things I have noticed

1. I open an image and it is corrupted immediately. I close it without saving, and open it again, and its OK.

2. I open an image on Photoshop, and it looks fine. I use CTRL+ to zoom in and it corrupts right there on the screen. I zoom out using CTRL- and the corruption disappears. I zoom in again, and sometime the exact same corruption appears, sometimes is a different looking corruption and sometimes there is no apparent corruption at all. Whatever corruption is there, if I save the image at that point, the corruption is saved and I cannot get the uncorrupted image back.

I have three physical HDDs on the computer, and it happens when loading from all of them, or from a USB Stick. It even happens with images loaded across the network from a different computer.

The fact that these corruptions happen even when no HDD is involved leads me to believe I might have a faulty stick of RAM, but hardware bugs are not my strong-suit, so I'd like to run it past some of you computer experts and see what you think.

I don't believe this is likely to be an on board would be a graphics memory problem because its my understanding that this kind of problem would not be saved to the image, the graphics only drives the display (am I right?).

FYI, my system is has an ASUS B150M-A micro-ATX (mATX) motherboard with Intel B150 chipset, and single 4GB stick of DDR4 RAM. It is running Win10 Home with latest update.

The other computer that the good uncorrupted image was processed on has an identical set up.

Thoughts?


PS: Here are some more examples at higher resolution.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sax2zhc8zi...-orig.jpg?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2ndd0aye1i...-corr.jpg?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/t7v028pwyo...-orig.jpg?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bx0g1rn5fi...-corr.jpg?dl=0


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vendredi 25 mai 2018

Trump Administration Loses Nearly 1500 Children

Federal Agencies Lost Track of Nearly 1,500 Migrant Children Placed With Sponsors

Quote:

A top official with the Department of Health and Human Services told members of Congress on Thursday that the agency had lost track of nearly 1,500 migrant children it placed with sponsors in the United States, raising concerns they could end up in the hands of human traffickers or be used as laborers by people posing as relatives.

The official, Steven Wagner, the acting assistant secretary of the agency’s Administration for Children and Families, disclosed during testimony before a Senate homeland security subcommittee that the agency had learned of the missing children after placing calls to the people who took responsibility for them when they were released from government custody.

The children were taken into government care after they showed up alone at the Southwest border. Most of the children are from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala, and were fleeing drug cartels, gang violence and domestic abuse, government data shows.

From last October to the end of the year, officials at the agency’s Office of Refugee Resettlement tried to reach 7,635 children and their sponsors, Mr. Wagner testified. From these calls, officials learned that 6,075 children remained with their sponsors. Twenty-eight had run away, five had been removed from the United States and 52 had relocated to live with a nonsponsor.


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Good guy with a gun actually stops mass shooting.

It doesn't happen often, but it seems to have happened this time:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/civilian-s...ry?id=55424657


(For those not wanting to click, man walks into restaurant and starts shooting. Civilian with handgun kills shooter.)

Developing story.


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jeudi 24 mai 2018

Trump Denies that immigrants have Due Process rights

Said this morning in an interview aired on the Brian Kilmeade Show. Trump says we only need "security people" who stand at the border and say "you can't come in".

Another brick in the fascist wall...


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conspiracy theories in movies... post them here

Conspiracy theories in movies... post them here.


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All things Trump + Russia Part 4

Quote:

Originally Posted by logger (Post 12303442)
Actually....what it shows is how important the electoral college is.

So much for the argument that the majority of the country wanted Trump, eh?

Mod InfoNew thread for continuing discussions from: http://www.internationalskeptics.com...d.php?t=325745
Posted By:kmortis


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A terrorist, an "authentically evil man," dies

Quote:

An authentically evil man, and an authentic terrorist if anyone ever was, died in a bed at the age of 90 on Wednesday. Luis Posada Carriles should have died in a cell at Leavenworth. He was an anti-Castro terrorist on the CIA payroll.
Thus Passed a True American-Made Terrorist: Luis Posada Carriles was a "CIA-created Frankenstein." (Esquire, May 23, 2018)

The U.S. 'War on Terror' was never a war on terror!

A terrorist walks - Luis Posada Carriles has boasted of bombing Havana hotels, yet American justice lets him go free (L.A. Times, Apr. 20, 2007)


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Do you turn your PC off?

Every day? Every so often? Never? Are there any implications for any of these choices?

I no longer turn mine off, unless a re-start is necessary for an update or a new piece of software. It goes into a snooze mode after a few minutes unattended. I just grew tired of the time it took to boot, and of the worry that something would go wrong. Am I making a mistake?


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[Split Thread] USA Gun control/regulation

The US could never do things half-way: one day, when there is an actual will to reduce the number of gun deaths, the US will have to implement much harsher gun restrictions than most European countries currently have to achieve the same effect.



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mercredi 23 mai 2018

Being denied British citizenship whilst a Danish ex-mayor of English town...

Ipswich Star: Home Office denies citizenship to ex-Ipswich mayor Inga Lockington

"Former Ipswich mayor Inga Lockington has had her application for British citizenship turned down by the Home Office – because officials will not accept that she is a UK resident!

The news has caused disbelief in the town – and local MP Sandy Martin is hoping to raise it as an emergency matter at Prime Minister’s Question Time today.

Mrs Lockington, who has been a Liberal Democrat councillor for 19 years and was mayor of her adopted town ten years ago, is Danish. She married Dr Tim Lockington in 1979 and has lived in this country ever since.

She had not applied for UK citizenship until now because as an EU citizen she had the right to live here – and until two years ago Denmark had laws which said she would lose the citizenship of her homeland if she became a naturalised Briton.

The Brexit vote, and a change to Danish law, persuaded her to apply for UK citizenship and she spent £1,282 making the application. After rejecting her application, the Home Office refunded £80 because she will not be required to attend a citizenship ceremony."

This isn't low-hanging fruit, it's the windfalls....


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mardi 22 mai 2018

Don't go chasing waterfalls or why you shouldn't poop teh gay and teh autizms away!

... Or you may regrow missing limbs just like a damn salamander (or like was alleged to happen in the Miracle of CalandaWP)!

https://www.buzzfeed.com/nidhisubbaraman/facebook-jilly-juice-cabbage-epperly
Quote:

“I'm proud of being a leader of a poop cult,” Jillian Mai Thi Epperly once joked to fans of her signature recipe: a fermented slurry of salted cabbage that produces “waterfalls” of diarrhea. Here's the wild story of how she convinced thousands to believe her dangerous science, and how a grassroots movement shut her down when Facebook wouldn't.
Yup, this woman thinks explosive diarrhea (the "waterfalls") from drinking improperly fermented cabbage and overdosing on salt is a Good Thing(TM)! Yup, she thinks it will cure everything. Yup, she thinks all will benefit (except for organ transplant recipients). Yup, her justification on her thinking that this will allow you to regrow missing limbs is basically "why not?". Yup, her justification on her thinking as to why this will cure cancer is,... actually, I don't have a *********** clue!

Apparently she has charged $70/hour for phone consultations and now she operates on a subscription based model.

I think Oprah and her TV spawnlings are a plague on all of us. However, while I'm ambivalent about the exposure it's giving her (on the other hand, that particular horse might already be out of the barn as it seems like Facebook has produced enough exposure on its own), Dr. Phil below looks to be very critical of this Jillian person and Phil McGrath definitely calls her on her BS. I also have to say that another time I was concerned about the coverage he'd give a certain story (I'm not a Dr. Phil viewer so I don't know what his stories are generally like) he ended up doing the right thing (it's a rather tragic story mentioned on these forums ).

Most (maybe all?) of the Dr. Phil Jilly juice stuff seems to be available in the various embedded videos on the pages linked below.

https://www.drphil.com/videos/woman-claims-her-fermented-cabbage-drink-has-potential-to-regrow-limbs/

https://www.drphil.com/videos/why-dr-phil-says-jilly-juice-creators-claims-are-outrageous-and-offensive/

https://www.drphil.com/videos/why-a-self-described-debunker-of-pseudoscience-claims-creator-of-jilly-juice-is-preying-on-vulnerable-people/
Note: this one features YouTuber Jeff Holiday who, in my opinion, tends to make good skeptical videos (though I have not watched this particular series of videos).

https://www.drphil.com/videos/jilly-juice-creator-responds-to-critics-either-join-us-or-you-can-go-and-live-your-controlled-life-span-and-be-sick-for-the-rest-of-your-life/

https://www.drphil.com/videos/jilly-juice-creator-denies-claims-her-beverage-caused-strokes/

https://www.drphil.com/videos/medical-professional-explains-potential-dangers-of-controversial-health-beverage/

https://www.drphil.com/videos/proceed-with-caution-says-dr-phil-on-unsubstantiated-benefits-of-claimed-health-beverage/


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Words we can't use.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-44209119


A white fan of a black artist gets boo'd off stage for singing the words the artist wrote.

This makes no sense to me.

The whole taboo around the word makes less sense to me as the US connotations of the word are not the same as those in the UK.

Either a word is so offensive no-one should use it or, like all swearing, it's audience dependent.

Reserving the word for one particular subset of society just seems mental to me.

Getting pissed when someone sings your own lyrics back to you is just mental.


(can open, worms everywhere)


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Windows Update Disaster

I've heard the stories. it just never happened to me, till today.

Windows Update. I selected Update and Shut Down. When I turned on my PC this morning it did the usual updating and getting your PC ready stuff.
However it through up a blue screen that asked me my keyboard type. OK.I selected U.S. Stuff stated happening, but then it came another blue screen giving me the option to continue with "Windows Rollback" or restoring to the previous update. "Rollback" simply got me back to the same selections. So I chose previous Windows 10 5. it was never able to complete the process with that. It was unable to load the desktop or the windows file system.

It's old 4 years, and I don't have back up disks or whatever. Fortunately I have my newer laptop.

I suppose It could be repaired, but I don't want to spend the bucks on it.

It was a Lenovo btw.


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Is Elon Musk the PT Barnum of Technology in the 21st century?

Given all his wildly improbable (and outright impossible) schemes, I don't understand why people keep believing him. He's very good at re-branding and repackaging old ideas with new names but they're the same old failed ideas. Even the ones that work "on paper" have obstacles that make them virtually impossible to realize in actuality (see Hyperloop, surface to surface rocket travel, and the "tunnel" scheme for examples).


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EPA Security goons bar AP, CNN from gov't conference, physically attack reporter

https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/201...he-latest.html

Just another day in fascist Trumperica...


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Pope reportedly tells gay man his sexuality doesn't matter

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/21/e..._medium=social

Quote:

Describing his encounter with the Pope to CNN, Cruz said: "You know Juan Carlos, that does not matter. God made you like this. God loves you like this. The Pope loves you like this and you should love yourself and not worry about what people say."

The Pope's words would amount to a significant departure from the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church, which considers homosexuality "objectively disordered" and contrary to God's law.


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Belarus seethes as UK flies the flag

BBC News: Belarus slams UK embassy over rainbow flag on day against homophobia

"Belarus has slammed the UK embassy in Minsk for flying a rainbow flag on the International Day Against Homophobia, calling LGBT relationships "fake".

In a lengthy statement, the Interior Ministry said the UK was challenging the country's "traditional values".

"The LGBT community, and all this fight for 'their rights', and the very day of the community are just a fake!"

A spokeswoman for the embassy said it would not comment."


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lundi 21 mai 2018

Abortion, sex and the assumption of risk

Sorry if this has been discussed umpteem times.

I think I am generally pro choice. I would struggle a bit with supporting someones choice to abort. That being said I am most likely be hypocritical and go ahead and support the decision if it were me and my wife.

I think my ick factor in it all is that we would be taking action to interfere with a process that has a good chance of resulting in a live birth.
I don't object on religious grounds, I just have a nagging feeling that it is screwing with nature.

I also think, when you decide to have sex and employ contraception, you are accepting a risk that the contraception might fail (remote risk but risk none the less) and result in a pregnancy.

If you aren't will willing to accept that risk and accept the child, maybe you should not have sex rather than terminate the resultant pregnancy?

My views are pretty jumbled and inconsistent and emotionally driven on this. I really just want to hear some counter arguments to help me make my position more rationally founded.

My gut feel is it all smacks of people not willing to deal with the consequences of their actions.

I don't know. Don't bash me. I am really just looking for counter arguments to what I have said. Point out the flaws in my viewpoint please.


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Am I being scammed?

Out of the blue I got an email from someone in the UK who claims to have found my name in an ad. He supposedly has a son visiting my part of the country and he wants his son to get 3 two-hour tutoring sessions each week for two weeks.

The problem is, I don't know what ad he's talking about! It's possible I posted my résumé on a jobs site, or craigslist ... but I don't remember doing so.

I'm trying to figure out if there's any angle for a scam. His English did not seem perfect, even though he has an English name, but he wasn't asking for my bank account number or trying to hook me up with a Nigerian prince. It could be just what it seems. I did write back, because I did not see the harm in it. I'm just curious to see if anybody here sees an angle for a scam.

It would be weird if someone were just writing to random people ... because most people aren't tutors ... so in that way it did not see random.


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Speaking Spanish while shopping

Because all Spanish Speakers are illegals and have lots of problems, like bringing drugs, bringing crime. Being rapists. And some, assumably, are good people too.

https://twitter.com/Matsamon/status/998356370456952834


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dimanche 20 mai 2018

Shopping while speaking Spanish

This woman was at a grocery store in Montana when a Border Patrol overheard her speaking Spanish with a friend and detained her, demanding to know where she was born. She took out her phone and began to record the incident.

Quote:

"He asked where I was born, so I looked at him and I said, 'Are you serious?' He's, like, 'Yes, I'm serious,' but, you know, with a very authoritative voice," Suda said.

Suda said she asked if she could pay for her items.

"He's, like, 'No, give me your I.D.' I said, 'I will give you my I.D. and I will go and pick up my cellular phone because I'm going to record you,'" Suda said.

Suda did just that. She recorded the incident and asked the agent why she was being detained.

"M'am, the reason I asked you for your I.D. is because I came and saw that you guys were speaking Spanish which is very unheard of up here," said the agent who identified himself as Agent O'Neal.

"I was shocked. I was like, 'Just because I speak Spanish?' I was waiting for something else," Suda said.


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It it time to give up on grammar, punctuation, spelling, etc.?

I know it's bad form to complain to much about punctuation, spelling etc. on an Internet message board, but it seems to me there has been a drop-off lately on some pretty basic conventions on ISF. There are some comments I have to read twice to figure out what they are saying. Some of it is auto-correction gone amuck, as when a completely different word is substituted for the author's meaning, but some of it seems like sheer carelessness to me.

Here's the question. How much should I emphasize proper usage when I coach high school students on such conventions? Is it a lost cause? I've been calling kids out on it more, and some of them actually seem to like it - having some set of rules that they can learn. Plus, a lot of them have a fairly good grasp of the rules but don't bother applying them, perhaps a habit from texting. They seem to like "sentence repair" exercises because they really are sometimes relieved to be told there is one correct answer in this area.

Of course having said that, I'm sure I've made at least one error in this post.


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Just stating facts

So I noticed a debating tactic where a person with use a fact that may be true or uncontroversial but they will use to to justify horrible or wrong beliefs and when called out on it they fall back on "but I'm just stating facts".

For example:

Person 1: There are Jewish elites who are harming our country.
Person 2: Hey that's anti-semitic.
Person 1: No it isn't. Are you denying that some elites are Jewish?

Is there a name for this type of arguing?


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samedi 19 mai 2018

Home inspecting while black (A semi-good result for a change)

A video has gone viral showing officers threatening to arrest a woman who called the police on an African American real estate investor in Memphis who was inspecting a for sale property after continuing to scream at and harass the man, demanding he "get out of the neighborhood."

https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2018/0...his-police.hln

Quote:

“You keep the camera rolling. If you have any problems with her, what I want you to do is call me back over here,” a white male officer reassures Hayes. “She will go to jail for that.”

The woman says something that sounds like, “I’m friends with the sheriff,” but the same officer shuts her down.

“I don’t care if you’re friends with the president,” he snaps. “You’re going to let him do what he’s going to do. If you try to do anything to stop him, I’m going to take you to jail.”

“Hurry up, do it and get out!” the woman sneers in Hayes’ direction.

Again, the cops were not having it.

“No, no. He can take his time,” a female officer chimes in.

“He can take all day,” the male officer agrees.


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What did Trump think his Presidency would be like?

Not like this, I'm sure. He most likely expected he could just give orders and everyone would fall in line.


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Fishing While White

I went fishing two days ago and I'm white.


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vendredi 18 mai 2018

The problem is really the 9.9 percent...

A lengthy but compelling assessment about how the real measure of inequality in the U.S. is not at the level of the superrich 0.1 percent, but the self-selected, self-anointed, self-perpetuating "meritocracy" of the next 9.9 percent on the economic scale that holds more economic power and social influence than the 90 percent beneath them.
Quote:

Every piece of the pie picked up by the 0.1 percent, in relative terms, had to come from the people below. But not everyone in the 99.9 percent gave up a slice. Only those in the bottom 90 percent did. At their peak, in the mid-1980s, people in this group held 35 percent of the nation’s wealth. Three decades later that had fallen 12 points—exactly as much as the wealth of the 0.1 percent rose.

In between the top 0.1 percent and the bottom 90 percent is a group that has been doing just fine. It has held on to its share of a growing pie decade after decade. And as a group, it owns substantially more wealth than do the other two combined. In the tale of three classes (see Figure 1), it is represented by the gold line floating high and steady while the other two duke it out. You’ll find the new aristocracy there. We are the 9.9 percent.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine...ocracy/559130/


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GOP Gubernatorial candidate suggests food stamps recipients be euthanized

Oklahoma Gubernatorial candidate Christopher Barnett suggests euthanasia is a solution for the poor and disabled on a Facebook question for how to address food stamps. He now says his account was hacked.

You knew it would come to this some day.


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Wim Hof - Cold Water cures all ills?

Anyone heard of the Wim Hof method? He says if you use cold water therapy with deep breathing you can cure all major diseases.

Apparently he has mastered the cold and climbed Mt. Kilaminjaro with just shorts and no nerve damage.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=389c...ature=youtu.be

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24799686
http://www.icemanwimhof.com/files/pnas.pdf

Briefly, sustained deep breathing mimics and breath retention stimulates the production of epinephrin/adrenalin and influences the autonomic nervous system.

Here is something I dug up:

Quote:

As for the method itself, like I wrote before, it is nothing new. It is controlled hyperventilation (and cold showers). Like many kids, I discovered it when competing with friends in who could hold their breath the longest.

It has also been used by free-divers for a long time, and there is evidence that it may cause brain injury when done repeatedly (in addition to blacking out and drowning). Which is why I would not recommend anyone to "just try it".
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13513485

And

https://www.parool.nl/binnenland/-ic...leven~a4332186
Quote:

Thousands of people swear by the breathing exercises of 'Iceman' Wim Hof

Again a man drowned doing the breathing exercises of 'Iceman' Wim Hof. Last year at least three followers of the Wim Hof ​​Method died.
By: Roelf Jan Duin 2 July 2016, 08:44

The most recent death is a 33-year-old Dutchman who drowned in a swimming pool on the Chinese island of Hainan on May 13, where he lived.

Since December he followed the Wim Hof ​​Method via an online course. It consists of a number of series of deep inhalation and not completely exhale, followed by a period in which there is no breathing.

This way, the breath can be kept longer and longer, which is why some participants also apply the technique while swimming.

However, the technique can also result in hyperventilation, and sometimes even loss of consciousness. If people go 'out' under water, the consequences can be fatal.

Nuclear
The man, whose name remains unmentioned at the request of his family, was perfectly healthy, says his sister. "He was very sporty and has been very fanatically engaged in Hof's breathing exercises since a few months, and he felt stronger than ever." Most likely he did the breathing exercises in the pool, where there were more people. The autopsy report showed that he died due to drowning.

At the end of May Het Parool reported on the death of three practitioners of Hof's breathing techniques: a Dutchman, a South African and a Canadian. They too were found dead in a swimming pool and also with them autopsy reports showed that drowning was the cause of death.

Relatives of all deceased people accuse Hof that he does not sufficiently warn of the risk of a shallow water blackout, drowning in shallow water due to lack of oxygen in the brain.

Tip of the iceberg
The sister of the Dutchman who died in China, fears that the four deaths that are now known only form the tip of the iceberg. "Thousands of people follow the method, I think they are not aware of the dangers, but my brother was not."

Hof, who gained world fame by, for example, sitting in a bowl of ice for almost two hours and swimming fifty meters under polar ice, had regretted the deaths as a result of earlier reports. Innerfire, Hof's company, would make it clear in all possible ways that the exercises should not be done in the vicinity of water. According to the surviving relatives, this has only happened since a few months after people died.

Enahm Hof, son of Wim and director of Innerfire, says in connection with the latest death: "It's pretty awkward, but then you should not do the exercises under water." Everywhere on our site and in all our expressions we warn people, we can not do more.


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The behaviour of UK police officers.

This is the UK sleep walking into major problems whereby a 47 year old female police officer, who does not look like she could fight her way out of a wet paper bag, tazers a 64 year old man, who also does not look like he could do much in a fight.

https://www.aol.co.uk/news/2018/05/1...relations-adv/

The the key part incident is in the video at 01.20, after a shoving match, which the police officers win as the male is unable to get through the gate he wants to go through. The police officer tazers him in the face.

She was charged with assault, but was found not guilty as the Judge stated;

"The issue for me is whether the prosecution have persuaded me that she didn't act in self-defence.
"The prosecution failed to persuade me and she is found not guilty of assault for that reason."

I do not see what she did as self defence. The two police officers were never at any threat. She tazers him because she wants no risk at all to her. She should not be in the police if she cannot deal with such a minor problem without resorting to the tazer.

At least she is still to face misconduct charges.


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Help Your Graduate Continue Family Traditions

Western Digital, well the WD Store actually, sends me the occasional email. Recently, I received on that was trying to promote WD MY Passport hard drives as the perfect graduation gift.

The attached photo appeared at the very top of the email. I have yet to find someone who had a positive reaction to the email.

Attached Images
File Type: jpg WD barefoot and pregnant.jpg (69.7 KB)


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Spending A $10 Bill While Black

A homeless black guy used a $10 Bill at Burger King in Boston in 2015. He got arrested and spent over 3 months in jail because they thought that the bill was counterfeit. It wasn't. Now he's suing and arguing that it never would have happened if he was white.

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Washington Post
...This week, Emory Ellis, 37, sued Burger King and the store franchisee for nearly $1 million, saying he was discriminated against for being black and homeless. The lawsuit comes amid a resurgence in a national debate about the treatment of black people in businesses and public spaces. From the two men who left a Philadelphia Starbucks in handcuffs, to five women reported to the police for golfing too slowly, to the graduate student who fell asleep in her dorm’s common room, the stories have refocused public attention on the risks and daily struggles of simply living while black.

“I know that had I walked into the Burger King with the exact same $10 bill, nobody would have scrutinized it,” said Ellis’s attorney, Justin Drechsler. “I never would have been accused of anything. I certainly wouldn’t have had the police called on me, no matter what the series of events.”

Drechsler said he is the same age, to the day, as Ellis — but Drechsler is white. Given his appearance alone, Drechsler said he believes that had the Burger King employee doubted whether his cash was authentic, the employee would have politely asked whether Drechsler could pay with something else.

“That’s not what happened here,” Drechsler said. He said Ellis could not comment for this article because of ongoing litigation...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...-now-hes-suing


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Mo Brooks (R–AL) says Says sea level rise is caused by rocks falling into the ocean

Brooks, a Republican member of House Committee for Science, Space, and Technology "explains" sea level rise:

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/...sea-level-rise

"Every time you have that soil or rock or whatever it is that is deposited into the seas, that forces the sea levels to rise, because now you have less space in those oceans, because the bottom is moving up"


Another gem:

"We have satellite records clearly documenting a shrinkage of the Antarctic ice sheet and an acceleration of that shrinkage," Duffy said.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know where you're getting your information, but the data I have seen suggests — " Brooks said.

Duffy answered: "The National Snow and Ice Data Center and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration."

"Well, I've got a NASA base in my district, and apparently, they're telling you one thing and me a different thing,"


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100 decillion pascal: Can you stand the pressure?

First measurement of subatomic particle mechanical property reveals distribution of pressure inside proton


Nuclear physicists have found that the proton building blocks, the quarks, are subjected to a pressure of 100 decillion Pascal (10^35) near the center of a proton, which is about 10 times greater than the pressure in the heart of a neutron star. Credit: DOE Jefferson Lab

https://m.phys.org/news/2018-05-suba...y-reveals.html


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Third private train operator fails to run major British rail route

Yes another triumph for the glorious private sector!

BBC News: Why has East Coast Mainline hit the buffers again?

"For the third time in just over a decade the government has called a halt to the East Coast Main Line rail franchise.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling says it will be run by his department until 2020 after which it will be in the hands of a public-private partnership."

In summary:

British Rail: 1948-1996 [from nationalisation until privatisation]
Great Northern Railway: 1996-2005 [original seven-year franchise extended to nine]
Great Northern Railway: 2005-2007 [stripped of second seven-year franchise]
National Express East Coast: 2007-2009 [defaulted on ten-year franchise]
East Coast: 2009-2015 [re-nationalised; run profitably until re-privatised]
Virgin Trains East Coast: 2015-2018 [eight-year franchise terminated]
London and North Eastern Railway: 2018-????? [DfT-appointed "operator of last resort": Arup Group, Ernst & Young, and SNC-Lavalin]

Effectively, in all three cases, the private operators bid more than the profits that the line generated for them. In the second and third cases, the government accepted obviously unrealistic overbids, despite past experience.


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Open carrying whilst graduating at Kent State - too soon?!

BBC News: Kaitlin Bennett - Why she wore a rifle for graduation photos

"A woman who slung an assault-style rifle across her shoulder for her graduation photos in the US has sparked a fierce debate over personal freedom, student protests and white privilege.

Kaitlin Bennett graduated from Kent State University in Ohio with a degree in biology.

The following day, the 22-year-old returned to the campus with an AR-10 semi-automatic rifle strapped to her back and posed for photographs while holding a graduation cap emblazoned with the words "come and take it".

Bennett, who later posted the photographs on Twitter, says she was protesting against a university policy that prohibited students, professors and employees from carrying "lethal weapons" on campus - but allows "guests" to possess them on school grounds (but not in buildings).

She noted that Kent State was the location where "four unarmed students were shot and killed by the government" - a reference to the 1970 incident where soldiers clashed with Vietnam War protesters, firing shots that hit 13 protesters and bystanders."

So what's the sub-text of the last paragraph? The students should have got into a firefight with the National Guard?


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New Ozone Emissions

What (who) might cause something like this and why?


Quote:

a 25% rise in global emissions.
(…)
“If the increased emissions were to go away [soon], its influence on the recovery date for the ozone layer would be minor,” he said. “If it doesn’t go away, there could be a 10-year delay, and if it continued to increase, the delay would be even longer.”
Mysterious rise in banned ozone-destroying chemical shocks scientists (The Guardian, May 16, 2018)

Also in Washington Post, May 17: Someone, somewhere, is making a banned chemical that destroys the ozone layer, scientists suspect

[yt]lnw05q5hunk[/yt]


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jeudi 17 mai 2018

White woman denied bathroom use - Has solution

Apparently denying bathroom use is a thing. This woman had an interesting solution.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...age/618333002/


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Giving Birth While British

This seems like a particularly horrific outcome:

http://politicalhat.com/2018/05/16/b...apitates-baby/

If the headline makes you squeamish, don't read the article.


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mercredi 16 mai 2018

"Progressives" Win Big Over Establishment Democrats

Are they overreaching?

Quote:

The biggest — and most surprising — news of the night was nonprofit executive Kara Eastman’s nomination in Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District. Although former U.S. Rep. Brad Ashford had both the money and the backing of national Democrats, Eastman defeated him 51 percent to 49 percent. Like many of Tuesday’s victorious Democrats, Eastman won by throwing red (blue?) meat to the liberal base: Where Ashford touted his ability to build consensus in Congress, Eastman promised confrontation and, well, resistance to President Trump.

The potential problem for Democrats is that Eastman’s outspoken liberalism may turn off general-election voters in Nebraska’s 2nd District, which, while not ruby red, is still red.
Some of these folks are really, really progressive:

Quote:

Two openly socialist candidates — as in, dues-paying members of Pittsburgh’s chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America — won Democratic primaries for the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives last night.
My take? If this turns out to be a wave election in favor of the Democrats, they can go for the gusto. But if it turns out to be closer, then they may regret not going for the establishment candidates.


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Question on the US being a parliament

Saw this on Quora and would be interested in the view of such a break down here:

How accurate?



Not sure how to link to a Quora question but this is the full question wording

What if the United States had proportional representation instead of a winner take all system?

https://www.quora.com/


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Playing an Instrument while White?

Quote:

A man approached by police who thought he had a gun was in fact playing his bassoon.

Someone called emergency services to report a man sitting on a car with a weapon in Springfield in Ohio, America, on April 5.


But when officers arrived at the scene, they found musician Eric Barga, 22, playing some scales on his bassoon.
I'm guessing the musician was White otherwise he would have been shot. (The only pictures with the article I saw were stock photos.)

https://au.news.yahoo.com/police-cal...043749199.html


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mardi 15 mai 2018

Wearing a MAGA Hat While Black

Sounds like the anti-Trump folks include quite a few racists:

Quote:

"Her finger was literally on top of his head, we were all looking at her like 'what is happening?'" one witness told The Daily Wire. "She was pointing at him, calling her other coworkers, telling them to look at this guy wearing a Make America Great Again hat."

At that point, approximately a dozen or so employees approached the table and began making comments about the hat, with some saying they wanted to punch Joseph in the face. Witnesses also allege that some of the employees also referred to him as a "n**ger" in their conversations among each other.
(note to mods: that is how the "n" word is spelled in the article; I am not trying to get around the autocensor).

Yeah, if you ever want to see the 'ever-so-tolerant' Left reveal their true racist nature, just check out how they react to black Republicans. Even the white ones think it is quite all right to refer to them as "house *******," as race traitors, etc.


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lundi 14 mai 2018

DeVos ends investigations into price-gouging private universities

NYT: For-profit college fraud investigations scaled back under Betsy DeVos
Quote:

An investigation into DeVry University, now known as Adtalem Global Education, "ground to a halt early last year," and later, over the summer, DeVos picked Julian Schmoke, a former dean at the school, to be the team's supervisor, the Times reported.
Meanwhile, probes into for-profit education companies Bridgepoint Education and Career Education Corp. also "went dark," the newspaper said. The Times reported that former employees of those institutions are working for DeVos as well, including Robert S. Eitel, a former Bridgepoint attorney who is now her senior counselor, and Diane Auer Jones, a former Career Education employee who is now a senior postsecondary education adviser at the department. The department's recently confirmed general counsel, Carlos G. Muñiz, provided consulting services to Career Education, the newspaper said.
Taking the cue from how Trump staffed departments like the EPA, DeVos has hired the people previously thought to be conning students, charging high tuition paid for with loans, by false claims of employment prospects after graduation that weren't forthcoming.


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Ford: Ending Production on Most Sedans

So, it looks like Ford is making a major change to its vehicle lineup.... Dropping most of its sedans in favor of Trucks, SUVs and similar vehicles.

From: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/bu...dans/34755947/
plans to cut its North American passenger car lineup by more than 80 percent, eliminating the Taurus, Fiesta, Fusion, C-Max and Focus sedans within a few years. Only the Mustang and a crossover version of the Focus will survive the cuts....The company plans for nearly 90 percent of its vehicles sold in 2020 to be a truck, SUV or commercial vehicle.

Now, they're not the only ones... Chrysler and GM have out some of the smaller cars from their product lines, but Ford seems to have the most extreme plans.

On one hand, it is understandable... people are just buying more SUVs/Trucks these days, and profit margins are higher on the larger vehicles. On the other hand, I'm really thinking this might really be a problem in the future. It reminds me of the time around the start of the recession, when the North American car companies had significant problems, and part of it was because they put so much effort into producing their large vehicles that they couldn't handle it when people at the time decided to switch to smaller cars.

Plus, there are 2 major problems that may greatly change the markets that should happen in the next few years (both of which can be traced back to a racist orangutan who happened to be made president thanks in part ot the Russians):
- Trump's cancelling of the Iran deal may cause oil prices to rise
- Trump had lowered emission/fuel economy standards, but in 2020 he is likely to lose the white house, and the Democrats will probably restore standards (if not make the more stringent)


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dimanche 13 mai 2018

Trump picks controversial “pastor” to lead appearance in Jerusalem

Pastor Jeffress, who appears to be rather violently against any religion other than his brand of Christianity, will accompany Trump to Jerusalem:

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/05/tru...salem-embassy/

CNN Played clips of this fellow denouncing Judaism, Islam, and other religions as “heresies from Hell” (among other wild statements).

Sometimes you just have to wonder.....


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samedi 12 mai 2018

Who suffered worse? Gay men or current Trump supporters

Here is a question to ponder: Who had it worse? Current Trump supporters or gay men in the 50's?

This question brought to you by the grand wisdom of the Proud Boys who never looked into a steaming pile of horse manure and didn't get an oracle like revelation that they would turn into hate words.

via Right Wing Watch
“Here in New York City, wearing a MAGA hat is like being openly gay in 1950, and I’m not exaggerating,” McInnes said on Tuesday’s episode of his CRTV program. “You will get your ass beat, you will not last at a bar in Harlem—we try it all the time and get booted out. There’s many bars that say, ‘You cannot openly be here.’ If you go into a bar wearing a MAGA hat, people start getting uncomfortable. The bartender will ask you to leave politely and people will yell at you on the street and spit on you.”

So, what's worse? Being hated because you are attracted to other men and have consensual sex with them? Or being hated because you hate gay men... and Muslims.... and women... and black people... etc?


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Republicans in Michigan Propose to Racial Gerrymander Medicaid

A bill that perfectly exemplifies Trumpism

Quote:

Under the bill, Medicaid recipients in 17 mostly white counties, all represented by Republican senators, would be exempt from the work requirements, according to an analysis by the Center for Michigan, a think tank. But Medicaid recipients in the six municipalities with the highest unemployment rates, including Detroit and Flint, would have to work at least 29 hours a week to keep their health benefits. All six cities have black majorities or significant numbers of black residents.

The disparity stems from a provision in the bill that would lift the work requirements in counties with unemployment rates of over 8.5 percent — but not from cities with similar joblessness rates. Since most urban counties in Michigan contain both high-unemployment cities and their richer suburbs, Michigan’s biggest cities would be subject to the work requirements.

Take Detroit. It’s in Wayne County, which had an unemployment rate of 5.4 percent in 2017. But the rate for the city itself was 9.3 percent, well over the 8.5 percent cutoff for counties. That means its majority African-American population would be subject to the Medicaid work requirement, while the mostly white residents of high-joblessness counties in the northern part of the state would not.
"Republicans don't hate big government, they just hate the idea of government benefits going to nonwhite people."


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Shopping While Black

Black mom and daughter call Brooklyn boutique clerks racist after being accused of shoplifting

Quote:

Originally Posted by New York Daily News
A black Brooklyn lawyer and her biracial daughter say they were accused of shoplifting by the white clerks of a Williamsburg vintage clothing store, then handcuffed by police blocks from the shop, only to be released when cops realized the pair was innocent.

A mother-daughter day out last Friday ended in Woodhull hospital after Nancy Bedard, an attorney with Brooklyn Legal Services Corp. B, and her college-age daughter decided to try on a couple of dresses in Amarcord Vintage Fashion in the heart of the hipster neighborhood...

..."Basically, there was some furtive behavior on the part of the patrons, an employee asked about an item of clothing and that question alone prompted the patron to pull the race card," Daniel Kron, the attorney for the store owners, said. "At no time was the word 'shoplifting' used except by the patron," he said.

According to Kron, Bedard said, "'Cause I'm black you think I'm stealing?"...


http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/...icle-1.3985284


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Don't Define "Secularist"!

It has already been done (Wikipedia), and who needs another one of those threads where people choose one of many definitions of a word and insist that it's the only one?!


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Split from: Too many John McCain threads but this doesn't fit in any of them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by logger (Post 12290261)
Yeah, that sure is easy to say now. But we all know the history of our military and the left.

What?

What does that even mean?

Let me guess, you have never done one thing to either fight the wars you support or try to stop them.

Color me not surprised.


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Is the Iraq War not the greatest proven secret government conspiracy?

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/27/w...memo-says.html

Read em and weep. The Bush-Blair 2003 memo is something straight out of a 9/11 conspiracy theory, but proven acknowledged fact. Similar to Operation Northwoods. Iraq was forced to happen under false pretenses, which makes the Bushes mass murderers. People don't realize how easy it is to prove. The intelligence heads on TV who claimed to see proof Iraq had WMDs and connections to Al Qaeta could also be considered an example of actual "crisis actors". The fact the Iraq war happened is worse than if 9/11 were an inside job. Phony war over lies for nothing but money, and then Bush tells jokes about not finding WMDs.

What is the response from We-Live-In-Freaking-Candyland conspiracy denialists?


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vendredi 11 mai 2018

Identifying racial bias

There have been a number of incidents in the news lately where black people have had the police called on them while they were acting normally.

In every discussion there's some variation of the question "How can you tell racial bias has anything to do with this?"

I can't. Not with certainty. I can't look inside of people's minds. They generally don't pop on a Klan hood and shout "I did it because you're black!" and we'll always have incomplete evidence.

However these things seem to happen with a great regularity to people of color. I'm not just speaking of the news items. News stations will air what they think people want to hear about and that will be more patterns of popularity than prevalence.

This is my experience just knowing white people and non-white people. As a white guy, me and most of my white friends have a few, fairly rare set of experiences of being told we "don't belong" somewhere or treated that way. In most of these cases, there's a clear explanation, either circumstances paved the way for a misunderstanding or we were dealing with a mentally unbalanced person.

Friends who are non-white seem to experience "You don't belong here" incidents A LOT more frequently, and without those clear extenuating circumstances that explain the situation. And more of them have stories where things escalated.

There is always a "possible" alternative explanation, but at some point we have to acknowledge that this pattern exists. It's a little maddening for a skeptic or a person of color because you can never be sure in a particular situation, and bit like gaslighting to know that the frequency with which you experience your dignity being assaulted can only be explained by race but you can't absolutely prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt in any particular case.


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Even the powerful aren't safe when they get sick

Gen. McMaster's dad dies in nursing home, nurse charged with manslaughter.
Quote:

A nurse in Pennsylvania has been charged in the death of former Trump national security adviser H.R. McMaster’s father for failing to provide proper care at the senior living facility where the 84-year-old died, authorities say.

Herbert R. McMaster Sr., 84, was found dead in a wheelchair around 7 a.m. April 13 in the lobby of the Cathedral Village in Upper Roxborough, outside Philadelphia, after falling and suffering a head injury, state Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in a news release Thursday. Christann Gainey, 30, of Philadelphia, was arrested and charged with neglect of a care-dependent person, involuntary manslaughter and tampering with records stemming from the death, Shapiro said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.24df5fe5a3e6


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Barbecuing While Black

A white woman called the cops on a black family for barbecuing at a park in Oakland, California. After the family confronted her, she broke down in tears and complained about being harassed.

https://lawandcrime.com/race-relatio...becuing-watch/


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Black activist jailed for his Facebook posts

I found this story in the Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...i-surveillance

Excerpts:

Rakem Balogun spoke out against police brutality. Now he is believed to be the first prosecuted under a secretive US effort to track so-called ‘black identity extremists’

Rakem Balogun thought he was dreaming when armed agents in tactical gear stormed his apartment. Startled awake by a large crash and officers screaming commands, he soon realized his nightmare was real, and he and his 15-year-old son were forced outside of their Dallas home, wearing only underwear.

Handcuffed and shaking in the cold wind, Balogun thought a misunderstanding must have led the FBI to his door on 12 December 2017. The father of three said he was shocked to later learn that agents investigating “domestic terrorism” had been monitoring him for years and were arresting him that day in part because of his Facebook posts criticizing police.

“It’s tyranny at its finest,” said Balogun, 34. “I have not been doing anything illegal for them to have surveillance on me. I have not hurt anyone or threatened anyone.”


This is quite extraordinary, and more akin to repressive regimes than the USA. What do others here think?


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jeudi 10 mai 2018

Youtube policy on gun related videos.

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7667605?hl=en
Quote:

Policies on content featuring firearms

YouTube prohibits certain kinds of content featuring firearms. Specifically, we don’t allow content that:

Intends to sell firearms or certain firearms accessories through direct sales (e.g., private sales by individuals) or links to sites that sell these items. These accessories include but may not be limited to accessories that enable a firearm to simulate automatic fire or convert a firearm to automatic fire (e.g., bump stocks, gatling triggers, drop-in auto sears, conversion kits), and high capacity magazines (i.e., magazines or belts carrying more than 30 rounds).

Provides instructions on manufacturing a firearm, ammunition, high capacity magazine, homemade silencers/suppressors, or certain firearms accessories such as those listed above. This also includes instructions on how to convert a firearm to automatic or simulated automatic firing capabilities.

Shows users how to install the above-mentioned accessories or modifications.
I've spent a bit of time trying to educate the public on the benefits and limitations of silencers including home made ones. I've gone into detail about federal law and how a person fills out the applications to make (not manufacture) a silencer. I don't have that stupid "this video is for entertainment purposes only" crap on my videos.

I don't think Youtube is going to let me hide behind the fact that I legally make silencers and am not actually manufacturing them. I don't have a license for that.

Oh well, I guess my video production skills were limited anyway. My first attempt at educating the public with a silencer video led to an accusation from a ISP member that I was engaged in illegal activity. Sometimes you can't even put the law on a placard with a link in a video and convince a person it is true.

The policy is not exactly new; I've yet to experience the ban hammer. I suppose it will only take a few complaints though.

Ranb


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[Split Thread] Technology and Universal Income

Mod InfoThis thread split from here
Posted By:Loss Leader



Quote:

Originally Posted by 3point14 (Post 12287738)
Yes. The system we have isn't designed to work with that level of automation.

I think there's a reasonable argument that the more that is automated, the fewer hours everyone should work.

The major benefits of massive automation over the last 20 years seem to have accrued only to the very rich*. If that trend continues we're looking at a very dystopian future.




*Cheap tellys don't count as a 'major benefit'

In the long term, I think universal income is the solution.


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Identity politics is destroying enlightenment values

Radical liberal politics has been consumed by identity politics, and is now degenerating (rather ironically) into tribalism, in the process discarding the values that brought about the enlightenment.

Change my mind.


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mercredi 9 mai 2018

Stormy Daniels sues the President Part II

Mod Info This is a continuation of the previous thread. Participants are free to quote from the previous thread.
Posted By:Agatha



Quote:

Originally Posted by Squeegee Beckenheim (Post 12286869)
1,442,420 > 1,135,000

One may wish to review the timing of the deposits and withdrawals...


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Phone Call Etiquette

I have a situation where I am leaving my current position on good terms but my old boss whose position I took 4 years ago when she retired called me and offered to take me to lunch. She left a phone message so I couldn't answer. I am actually tempted to blow her off. She can be a very odious person and spent most of my time fixing the problems she created. After retiring, she tried to run somethings remotely and pissed her off when I told her I wouldn't do what she wanted. If I call her back I will either have to be blunt and tell her I can't talk anymore or make some kind of excuse because she will try to pump me for information about the organization. (I am the head of a non-profit). I will not use her for a reference.

My wife says to blow her off but it does feel rude and passive aggressive. However, if I am not firm she can eat a lot of my time and cause a lot of unnecessary stress.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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Question on shock in the 19th century

This question pertains to circulatory shock that often accompanies being shot or injured.

What was this condition called in the 19th century?

Even wikipedia has no real comment on this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shock_...-IrwinRippe-25


Thanks


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mardi 8 mai 2018

Abortion Referendum

On the 25th May voters in Ireland will go to the polls to decide whether or not to repeal the 8th Amendment to the Irish Constitution. The 8th Amendment is as follows...

"The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that right."

If its repealed it will be replaced by legislation allowing for unlimited abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and from then on in only if the mother's health is at serious risk on the evidence of two doctors, or if there is a severe abnormality in the foetus.

What way would you vote?


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