Politics

This seems like a no brainer but she had to get it wrong. "Be Best" suggests that we should all strive to be THE BEST. That is absurd. People should strive to be THEIR best. It should be "Be Your Best." But they had to screw it up and make it sound like you need to be THE best, which is very hard to accomplish, a fool's errand. This is probably because Trump always talks in generalizations and hyperbolic absolutes. So Melania follows her husband's example and sounds as stupid as Trump does. If you are not THE best it means you are a LOSER, which is a permanent condition for a lifetime of failure which Trump uses as a curse to his enemies. Trump's base are WINNERS…

In California, I have voted by mail for decades. If it was such an unreliable method, why was it allowed in many states for so many years? The criticism of voting by mail, comes from the GOP mostly, more chances of fraud happening. They believe that voters could not be identified properly as they are when they vote in person when they show their IDs. So I propose that there could be mass identification of voters which could be done quickly in the safety of your car. You drive up, show your IDs through the window, and you are issued a unique code to use when you vote at home later. That would be much more efficient than standing in line for hours, spaced 6 fe…

People who have right-wing views seem to be more vulnerable to manipulation based on fear, e.g. terrorists want to attack us and therefore we need to increase domestic security at the putative expense of liberty. People who have left-wing views seem to be more vulnerable to manipulation based on shame, e.g. excluding outsiders is xenophobic and therefore we need to import migrants at the putative expense of the domestic population's safety. There is no judgement here about the merits of increasing domestic security or importing migrants, only a question about the differential efficacy of using fear or shame between the left and right wings in order to coerce behavior. Are…

Who do you think Joe Biden will announce as his running mate? Not who you WANT him to pick, but who you PREDICT he will pick. Polls show Elizabeth Warren as the favorite among people polled, but I doubt that’s the direction he chooses. My top picks are Susan Rice or Kamala Harris. I’d like to see Stacey Abrams, but am unsure she’ll click with Biden as the person with whom he’ll want to enjoy weekly lunch dates. Tammy Duckworth and Val Jennings seem possible, but IMO are not probable. The announcement will likely happen within the next week or two. Who do you think will be chosen? Maybe Obama? If so, which one? Lol

"Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929, fixing the number of Representatives at 435. The U.S. Constitution called for at least one Representative per state and that no more than one for every 30,000 persons." Here The 1911 House Reappointment Act increased "membership of the House from 391 to 433, with provisions to add two more Members when New Mexico and Arizona became states." Here The 1911 House Reappointment Act was the last time the number of House members has been expanded. At that time there was roughly a House Representative per 200k citizens. The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929 capped the number of House representatives at the size outline in by the…

I know it is still early but candidates are already throwing their hats in the ring. So let's discuss it. At present the following candidates (in last name alphabetical order) have already announced their candicacy or filed the necessary paperwork to begin organizing their campaigns. There will be more candidates to come but for now I would like to discuss the ones currently in rather than speculate about others. How does everyone feel about these candidates? Julian Castro Tulsi Gabbard Kristen Gillbrand Elizabeth Warren

Instead of doing science, let's see what the highest number the average Murrciann can count to and make that the price for everything. Grow the fuck up, I won't participate in this idiocracy

Its always nice to jump on a science forum and see the activity stream filled, mostly, with politics. If we read the Politics topic, we see under it "....and how it relates to science". I almost wonder how much of it spills over into this side of the internet community by design. Facebook and Youtube are full of posts and comments designed purely to insight anger and frustration amongst a common people and the ignorance of those people rapidly takes over. Foreign entities intent on having us destroy ourselves clearly have the "science" of it figured out. Democrat vs republican, white vs black, police department funding, etc etc etc ~ none of it belongs here.

This story is dated June 26. "In a seeming slip of the tongue, President Donald Trump said Friday that his opponent Joe Biden was "going to be" elected president in November — a rare acknowledgement of the difficulty he faces seeking re-election. "Trump's disapproval hit a high this week, according to a new poll from NPR, PBS News hour and Marist that shows his approval at 40 percent overall and a 58 percent disapproval rating." https://people.com/politics/trump-says-biden-going-to-be-your-president-because-some-people-dont-love-me/ Trump speaking to Sean Hannity: "I don’t want to be nice or un-nice, okay? But I mean, the man [Biden] can’t speak,"…

Imagine living in a decent house rent free. We already should be doing this and we don't need a venus project to do so. All the places exist, all the replacement parts, the electrical grid. This is an issue of incentive, money doesn't actually do anything but grow in number as resources run out, in essence it doesn't do anything but grow like a parasite in your pocket. No, no, enough of that nonsense. Here's to the future, [url=https://www.thevenusproject.com/faq/what-is-the-plan/]coming along at a snail's pace[/url]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QorK2X7GsVU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYodgWapmgc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-M_kVZTf50 The …

Science projects can be expensive. Just look at how costly NASA is and even putting NASA aside, other science projects are expensive too such as the Hadron Collider in France/Switzerland. And back to NASA, they're now apparently going to try to create Oxygen on Mars, which will be expensive. Anyway, as expensive as pursuing science projects might be, a great benefit to putting more money into science is that doing so will create more jobs. If we're going to pursue science projects we obviously need people to do the projects and that means more jobs, so pursuing more science projects would mean more employment.

A short while back I recall quite a hullabaloo about Donald Trump Jr. meeting with a Russian lawyer about getting dirt on Hillary Clinton. The meeting turned out to be about a different topic and nothing became of it. News stories at the time assured us all that Don Jr would soon be heading to prison for collusion with a foreign power to influence the US election. Somehow Don Jr. is still walking around free. Today I’m reading about how Hillary Clinton and the DNC paid a lawyer to hire Fusion GPS which hired a foreign spy to collect uncorroborated intelligence (aka smears) from Russian sources on Donald Trump to influence the US election. Let’s call that uncorrob…

The only solution to this problem is for people to talk to each other, no matter their opinions, so that they are made aware of how others feel. Calling people 'racist' or continuously down-voting their opinions only entrenches their opinions. And banning them removes any opportunity to change their dissenting opinions. And the problem remains ... Just my opinion, for whatever it's worth. If only one viewpoint is 'allowed', as all other opinions are 'racist', then there is no discussion. So what then, is the point of this thread ? May as well lock it.

Government after government has committed increasing and enormous sums to the HS2 rail project so that a handful of businessmen can travel from London between Birmingham a few minutes more quickly. Apparantly they claim this is essential to the economic wellbeing of the UK, some even suggest the country would collapse economically without it. Along comes Covid and what do you know? Businessmen suddenly do not need to travel betwen London and Birnmingham. The age of videoworking has arrived. My question for discussion lies in the title to this thread.

Interesting to note that about 1/3 of US voters support Trump and what he says, but 2/3 want to KEEP civil war monuments. This makes sense to me because I lived my entire life in Southern California and have never seen a single civil war monument. They are all located in other states, especially southern states that erected most of the statues in the early 1900s, to subjugate the Afro-American population. It was a tyranny of the majority white over the minority black. Most Americans don't see or think about the statues much, so they don't care if they get removed or not. So why not keep the nice statues of handsome men on horses? Everyone loves statues of horses, so…

What % of a total white population in US white racists constitute? Those who are capable to cause any significant harm to blacks by beating, insulting, firing out of job for no reason, etc? Whites constitute 61.5 % of a total US population and blacks around 13%. It means that if number of white racists would constitute 20% of whites, then their total number would still be lower than the total number of blacks in US. How they would be able to organize a systematic racism? And there are always a lot of whites who are willing combat racism actively.

This was posted to "Trump and social media" which was off topic. Sorry for getting off topic over there. Would any mod please delete my post over there, and this will substitute for it. I think this should be a separate topic. Thank you. In the recent interview by Harris Faulkner of Fox News, an African-American, Trump stated that what Lincoln did (freeing slaves) "is always questionable." What the heck is he suggesting...that Lincoln freeing the slaves was a "questionable" thing?! The slaves should NOT have been freed in HIS opinion, it would seem. Trump used his mob-boss sign language on Faulkner: "Lincoln did good, although it's always questionable, yo…

I would be glad to know your opinion on possibility to use an airborne substance which is capable to reduce fertility rates in those countries where people cannot find a balance with surrounding environment and stabilize their population on their own. Such vaccine wouldn't be able to cause any harm to humans or even their purely sexual functions, but just make them infertile. I don't propose to use such a vaccine, of course, but would be glad to know an opinions on ethical and practical side of the question. There are predictions that all the tropical rainforests soon will gone forever, as well as majority of leaving species on Earth with them. Also there is a threat that…

Now I want to see her lip sync Trump's bizarre rant at the CDC in March, when he told us about his "super genius" uncle and the "beautiful Covid-19 tests" and how "Every one of those doctors said how do you know so much?" and Trump "really gets it." https://www.salon.com/2020/03/07/7-disturbing-moments-from-trumps-visit-to-the-cdc_partner/

After Twitter put the fact checker on this tweet Trumps now accusing them of stifling free speech. And Question: can he do this, should social media be worried? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52815552

Peter Navarro memo to Trump on Feb 23: “...increasing probability of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic that could infect as many as 100 million Americans, with a loss of life of as many as 1.2 million souls" The next day, Feb 24, Trump tweeted: "The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA." "Despite the warnings from Navarro, Trump in the past several weeks has claimed that "nobody" could have predicted the coronavirus pandemic." Trump said on March 19: "I would view it as something that just surprised the whole world. And if people would have known about it, it could have stopped – stopped being in place. Nobody knew there'd be a pandemic or…

My facebook feed had a lot of posts in it saying that although not perfect, Boris Johnson is doing the best he can and thank god Jeremy Corbyn isn't in charge. They suggest a clap for Boris as well as the NHS. Here is a timeline of events including some of his actions. Timeline: December 31st China alerts WHO to new virus. January 23rd Study reveals a third of China’s patients require intensive care. January 24th Boris Johnson misses first Cobra meeting. January 29th Boris Johnson misses second Cobra meeting. January 31st The NHS declares first ever ‘Level 4 critical incident’ Meanwhile, the government declines to join European scheme to so…

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/iq-rates-are-dropping-many-developed-countries-doesn-t-bode-ncna1008576 As a solution to this problem I can envision accepting as much as possible immigrants from the South of Tropic of Cancer and especially Papuans who are (it is well known) are very talented. What do you think?

The economy can suddenly afford to help the less fortunate. We have enough food to feed everyone (who knew). Our pollution of the atmosphere has been reduced, significantly. So my question is, how do we stop it changing back?