Politics

Lets say you're driving a car, as you're doing so you're converting energy into lots of different forms. The energy starts out with the gasoline in the gas tank. The gasoline has chemical energy. As the gasoline burns the chemical energy is released and converted into kinetic energy as it drives the pistons. The pistons turn gears which turns the crank shaft which finally turns the wheels that sends the car forward. Now each time the energy is converted some of the energy is lost. When the gasoline burns not all of the energy it gives off goes towards driving the pistons, when the piston turns the gears not all of the energy goes towards turning the gears. When one …

My competency has been maligned by the USA, so I'll begin with a defense of my competency. I was elected student body president at the U.S. boarding school with the highest SAT scores. I applied to 3 of the top five U.S. universities and was admitted to all. I got a bachelor's degree in cognitive science, with academic honors. I dated a sitting U.S. Vice President's daughter for several years. Then I got physically sick. I saw M.D.'s at the most reputable hospitals (doctors with lower science grades than I got, M.D.'s who haven't read Euclid, Gauss, and Godel). and they behaved irrationally and arrived at nonsensical conclusions. The laziest M.D.'s diagnosed me with …

My thoughts go out to the recent cold weather in continental North America. Especially since we in the UK have benefitted with unseasonally warm weather from the outer circulation of this weather system. So it is sad to see climate science deniers or just the anti green energy lobby hard at work. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-56085733

Haven't seen this type of behavior since ( video clips of ) the late 60s. Seems violent protest is the new normal for American society. This past year has seen an insurrection on the elected Government of the Country, as well as a Summer of violent protests against authority/Judicial system, while cities were taken over, and held, by unlawful protesters. D Trump just lit the fuse ( or recognized the flaw ), it can't all be blamed on him; this is uncharacteristic behavior for the American people, on both sides of the political spectrum. Does the end justify the means now? Is violence and destruction warranted when you think your cause is just ? Whatever happene…

Any thoughts on Ivanka Trumps future in politics. From the little I've seen she seems to be serious about it. Does anyone think she can actually gain enough support to achieve anything?

Quite possibly, but how would we know that? If it's more than a comment we can look at opening a thread. If it's because, say, Yang doesn't wear ties that would hardly be worthwhile. https://www.yang2020.com/policies/student-loan-debt/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55760673 "Google has threatened to remove its search engine from Australia over the nation's attempt to make the tech giant share royalties with news publishers" Google appears to be flexing its muscle against Australian plans to make laws that will affect its position . Is this tenable? Google is accountable to whom? Its shareholders? Any legal requirements? More generally ,what is the responsibility of multinationals to the countries that they operate in? Do they avoid local laws by resettling ( or making the threat to do s…

https://phys.org/news/2021-01-science-rival-covid-health-threat.html Attacks on science rival COVID-19 as a public health threat: As public health experts feared, COVID-19 cases and deaths surged in the US following the Thanksgiving holiday, when millions of Americans ignored pleas to forego traditional gatherings. In a new Essay published 28th January in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, "Anti-science kills: from Soviet embrace of pseudoscience to accelerated attacks on US biomedicine," vaccine and infectious disease expert Dr. Peter Hotez explains how the richest country in the world allowed the pandemic to spiral out of control. extract: …

So the pandemic has cast much about education in a whole new light. For all people's virtue-signaling about lofty ideals of education, it seems a lot of people were just using the education system as a de facto babysitting centre. Makes one wonder what else people have to say about it they might not really mean. While we're re-evaluating voters' reasons for supporting the education system, (or at least its continued existence) let's re-evaluate our ideas on what to do with it. 1. I think standardized testing should be lower-stakes, but more frequent. Disagreement among teachers about "how good is good" as far as student answers go, let alone which …

I keep hearing from proponents of so-called "traditional gender roles" that bringing women into the workforce "diluted" the labour pool by giving employers so many more prospective employees from which to choose. The idea, as put forth by gender role proponents, is that this so reduced upward pressure on wages that it is partly responsible for the fact that wages are low enough to make both partners need to work; and that, in turn, women in the workforce are (supposedly) at fault for women who would prefer to be housewives not having that option. Of course, I can already think of three reasons why an increase in the minimum wage sounds to me like a better solu…

The story from a non-political medium: https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/22/dutch-hacker-trump-twitter-account-password/ If seven tries is all it took Victor Gevers to use the psychological method to crack the US president's Twitter account. How bad is that for the Western world? Your thoughts eagerly awaited.

Just had this posted to me by an old mate...frightening, horrible, disturbing, hard to believe.... https://anightatthegarden.com/ from the link..... “As chilling and disorienting to watch as the most inventive full-length horror movie.” –The New Yorker “In a scant six minutes of archival footage, director Marshall Curry delivers an emotional wallop.” –NPR “In the current climate of intolerance, this footage is especially chilling.” –The New York Times “A taut, dramatic seven-minute film.” –The Washington Post “Eerily relevant.” –Rolling Stone “Strictly remarkable.” –Los Angeles Times In 1939, 20,000 Americans ral…

I wasn't aware of this, but apparently the number of inmates scheduled for the death penalty has decreased by 13 ( almost a quarter ) since D Trump assumed power, after a 17 year hiatus. No other president in over 10 years has allowed the execution of so many inmates. D Higgs was executed by lethal injection in Indiana, for ordering the killing of three women. Higgs, a black man, was sentenced to death, even though he didn't actually kill the women; the other man, who did the killing, got a life sentence. Trump administration carries out 13th and final execution (msn.com) Seems this president is even more blood-thirsty than we thought

Let's not forget what started America down this dark path that led to a coup attempt; a Presidential candidate fearmongering about immigration. They spoke of "come back legally" (and then broke the law) but somehow making it easier to immigrate legally wasn't considered a legitimate option. One thing that always struck me as odd about America's usual opposition to making it easier to come legally was the notion that they'd "take our jobs." (Which they can do anyway.) A: Whatever happened to the idea that one isn't owed a job? B: Why not just raise and/or better enforce the minimum wage, then? If they can afford to hire migrants at highe…

💢 This poem was created by me sometime back but is very much relevant even today. I have posted it here below. It is about a Governance Model which is perhaps better than the existing ones including Capitalism Socialism etc and bring Betterment to Humanity and improve Democracy. We can discuss it out and improve it further as we see fit. I may not rewrite the poetry but can modify the Model as required. 💢 India of my dreams ! I dream of the India that stands for GOOD and eliminates EVIL A Haven for all Creative People with peaceful pursuits A Nursery of Humanity which brings out World Winners. Whe…

Geraldo Riviera went to Brooklyn Law School and says Trump's acquittal is as inevitable as the impeachment itself because what he said was covered under the first amendment. If both that and expressions of love are covered under the first amendment, by what standard do we distinguish which we get to discriminate against? Again, this is meant only for those who opposed that baker's right to discriminate and supported Facebook and Twitter's right to.

Trump spent one hour on the phone with GA sec of state, with lawyers, and Mark Meadows. This was after 18 attempts by Trump to talk with Raffensperger. Trump has a complete list of the lies that were thrown out of over 50 courts in front of him on the call. That is why it sounds like he "knows" something. First listen to the short 5-minute Youtube and if you have the stomach for it, you can listen to the full one hour of insanity. Audio: Trump berates Ga. secretary of state, urges him to ‘find’ votes - YouTube Now buckle up for one hour of insanity! Full Phone Call: Trump Pressures Georgia Secretary of State To Recount Election Votes | NBC News - YouTub…

The FiveThirtyEight model is currently giving Biden an ~87% chance of winning. My own model gives Biden a ~74% chance of winning, details below. I ran 1,000,000 simulations Monte Carlo style, where the outcomes in each state are independent of one another. I split states into five categories: 1) Safe Republican - Assigned a probability of 1 to vote Republican 2) Safe Democrat - Assigned a probability of 0 to vote Republican 3) Won by Trump in 2016 but leans Democrat (Maine 2, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin) - Assigned a probability of 0.4 to vote Republican 4) Won by Trump in 2016 and leans Republican (Florida, Iowa, Ohio) - Assigned a probability o…

Hong Kong is the most expensive city in the world, at least as far as rent goes. Certainly more expensive than Shanghai or Beijing. Presumably, in addition to comparably close proximity to the rest of east Asia, it has much to offer that mainland China doesn't, like freedom of speech, or democracy, or (relatively) cleaner air. But the former two are in doubt, as China enacts more and more restrictions on them. Evidently, they aren't getting their money's worth anymore. There are an estimated 17 million housing units vacant in the USA. That's already more than the number of people who live in Hong Kong. Why can't the USA offer transportation of the …

From http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/100641-trump-protestors/?p=957919 I think it would be more accurate to say that your caricature of Sharia might not be compatible with our constitution and separation of church and state, but even that would be a stretch I will copy this rather than rewriting it, from another thread So Sharia is not "compatible with our constitution and separation of church and state" in the same way that wearing a yarmulke is not, wearing a cross necklace is not, not eating meat on Friday is not (if people still do that) or avoiding pork is not, or avoiding getting a tattoo or eating shellfish is not (if people actually avoid the things…

Take a look at this red/blue map of the 2020 US election. Click on any state and it gives you a breakdown of the red and blue counties of each state. Notice how the wide-open spaces are overwhelmingly red and population centers are overwhelmingly blue. If you click on a blue state you will see most of the counties are red. Population centers are blue. Why is this? Is it true that "blue" policies are generally more popular in the US than "red" policies? election map red blue - Bing The "traveling salesman jokes" are about a city-slicker, conman, salesman (Trump) who travels across the nation taking advantage of the local country bumpkins, especially farmers…

Have you ever had your opinions dismissed out of hand, on other webforums, by people who invoke the other things you've gotten wrong as justification for dismissing them out of hand? Have you ever noticed that a majority of people on these sites either made, or failed to distance themselves from, a comparable number of incorrect statements, and ignore your comparisons of these to the things you yourself got wrong? I feel reminded of this by recent political trends. The right spent the late 90s howling at the moon over Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, yet lets Trump get away with something similar. A majority of Republican voters let them…

For the record, I say this as someone who believes China needs to be called out more on its disproportionate role in foreign overfishing, in ozone depletion, etc... yet finds it odd that people deflect criticism of American greenhouse gas emissions by comparing them to total Chinese greenhouse gas emissions, instead of per-capita ones. Why is it that the total country's emissions matter more than the per capita emissions? Wouldn't it be more meaningful to compare the USA to, let's say, a randomly selected region of China containing a comparable number of people to the USA? For that matter, China's "one-child policy;" though implemented more for economic reason…

I don't have any objection to lawsuits against Facebook for antitrust violations, but shouldn't Wal-Mart be first?

On other sites, back when I didn't value honesty as much, I used to have a nasty habit of throwing various things associated with leftism (cannabis culture, criticism of capitalism, etc...) under the bus to see if people respect a non-liberal anti-theist more than a liberal one. It seems not to have worked. As if to drive the point home, religious-but-otherwise-leftist colleagues of mine IRL seem to get (relatively) more respect than centrist anti-theists. Over the years my disagreements with the rest of the left have increased for real anyway, yet I regret trying to throw it under the bus more than ever before. As if on cue, it's now down to a few…