Politics

“I’m automatically attracted to beautiful women — I just start kissing them, it’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything, grab 'em by the pussy." Trump was not only boasting of his sexual prowess to Billy Bush, but he was advocating this kind of behavior for "stars." “You [Billy Bush] can do anything when you’re a star.” Implying that Billy Bush could grab women, like Trump does, IF he is a star. “Are you important enough, a real star, to grab women by their private parts?” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-hot-mic-when-you-re-star-you-can-do-n662116 It is funny how Trum…

According to reports from Iranian officials, it sounds like they recognize a subtle "state of war" exists between Iran and the USA. The Iranians will retaliate somehow because of the US killing of their general Soleimani. They already destroyed a $100M drone, attacked shipping, and attacked Saudi oil production. Here is what Trump tweeted in 2012: "Polls are starting to look really bad for Obama. Looks like he'll have to start a war or major conflict to win. Don't put it past him!" https://heavy.com/news/2017/08/trump-twitter-obama-north-korea-war-poll-approval/ Is this insight into the mind of Trump? DOES HE BELIEVE that starting a war will help hi…

The process that I learned when I took government about a president that was accused of abuse of power is similar to what is happening now. There is supposed to be an article that prevents impeachment if we are in a state of emergency, so the act of impeachment cannot infringe on the protection of the US. The only card the house has against the senate and presidency if they both are seen to be corrupt is to hold the articles until they comply. It can potentially shut down the government if they hold on to them while not allowing any other bills to go through the house. Then the other branches have to comply if they wish to pass anything through the house. (It could b…

What are the current laws in different countries (particularly Canada, US) about remote car steering? Are there any plans to legalize it? It could be helpful to those people who cannot and do not want to drive themselves.

we got Brexit… survive, being the operative word...

Evidence..seems to be a talking point of yours. Well, let me share something with you as a student of the social sciences; when it comes to the study of all of man's social mechanisms there are no absolutes, no 'proofs'. All one can do is cite what we hold to be accurate dates and events of history or facts/extracts from texts- like the Constitution for example. Everything else is subjective, fleeting and subject to change based on change-like how public opinion can be readily changed by events, especially in the days of the 24 hour news cycle. As a American Government professor of mine liked to joke "the professor over there in the (hard) sciences…

We’re pretty off topic, and this could be interesting to pursue elsewhere as a separate thread, but I’m less concerned with apathy/lack of passion among the populace and far more concerned with passions rooted in misconceptions, falsehoods, and/or nationalism and cult-like mindsets. This is at odds with what the data shows. It’s the passionate margins that drive the action AND the discussion. Those temperate moderates just get carried along by the currents and waves generated by those margins. Again though... the topic here is impeachment. Please let’s focus on that and split other topics into their own threads.

Just waiting around on the results of our election. I assume you've already voted and got results for your area, JC, and if you haven't gotten out yet Rangerx, make sure you go vote. I may have a preference of our 5 main parties ( depending on criteria for 'party' ) but I sure am glad none of ours sink to the level of some American parties ( and even some of the Brits' ). "Get over it" you Americans. ( to quote your President's Chief of Staff )

We commonly hear that eyewitness testimony is not reliable, in fact it is often portrayed as the worst type of evidence. But you or I can be sent to death by eyewitness testimony. In the courtroom eyewitness testimony is often touted as fundamental in many if not most criminal cases, yet when we judge something outside the courtroom such assertions are poo pooed as not to be believed and cannot be used to judge any aspect of the natural world. Is this bias against eyewitness testimony only applicable if there is only one eyewitness? Does Two make it better? Does multiple independent eyewitnesses lend more credence to the testimony? Should we consider eyewitness test…

This was a sad case and it's just got sadder. A UK cop has been charged with murder for the death of a former professional footballer, Dalian Atkinson, after police were called to the home of his father. Atkinson died of a heart attack on the way to hospital. I can't shed any light on the actual sequence of incidents that led to him being tasered. It's a very odd situation where a cop is charged with murder. A second cop, a woman pc, is charged with causing Actual Bodily Harm. Wikipedia says this about his death "Police had responded to a call as Atkinson threatened to kill his father, Ernest. Atkinson's older brother Kenroy said "My brother had lost it. He was in a …

https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/21/17764480/facebook-ad-targeting-options-removal-housing-racial-discrimination https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/08/17/facebook-could-be-responsible-how-advertisers-use-its-platform-justice-department-says/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.aa51c1a63918 So I was arguing with a friend of mine Sunday about the tools FB has that let an advertiser discriminate regarding who sees their ads. My friend is a hairdresser who specializes in hard-to-treat black women's hair. I told him the same tools he uses to target his clientele is being used to discriminate against people some advertisers don't want to do business with. FB allows…

Northern Ireland. List what you think Unionist and Republican leaders have each most feared in trying to negotiate a compromise. What do you think the feared most from their own side? People say it's more political question, than historical

Apparently while we were sleeping, Ohio has passed a bill that students can't be penalized for mathematically or scientifically incorrect answers for reasons based on their beliefs. ( my religion teaches the Trinity; three goes into one evenly !!! ) https://local12.com/news/local/ohio-house-passes-bill-allowing-student-answers-to-be-scientifically-wrong-due-to-religion Can't offend their vulnerable sensitivities with facts and evidence now, can we ? When you combine this with right-wing hate groups, anti-vaxxers, and your politics, the once great America is spiralling the toilet bowl. Please come back to sanity; the world needs you

This title is in quotation marks because I don't agree with it. I am only acknowledging the new motto of the GOP/Trump party. Trump's "ends" is stated as "Make America Great Again." That sounds good, but his real ends is constant attention he is getting for outrageous behavior. He loves the power and attention more than life itself. I learned about Trump in 2006 when he engaged in a twitter war with Rosie O'Donnell. She criticized his treatment of beauty pageant contestants, and he got down and dirty criticizing her as a loser, stupid, ugly, fat, etc. He sounded like a spoiled 8-year-old. How could such a person become a billionaire? I later found out h…

Watching Al Jazeera will introduce you to plenty of third-world problems: vaccination and antiboiotic resistance, contaminated water and landfill landslides, collapsed buildings and dams, tsunamis and earthquakes, sand mining and The Great Green Wall, air quality in Bangkok and New Delhi, and smuggled firearms and the direct sale of firearms, armoured vehicles, and fighter jets. Yet some of them still find time to invent, like Sounthirajan Kumarasamy and his team did, and I want to see more of it. Our planet is accelerating toward a mass extinction, and India by itself has three times more heads than the United States. Although foreign leaders favoring the status q…

US special forces staged a raid near the Syria/Turkey border and flushed out Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who then blew himself up with explosives when trapped. Apparently DNA confirmation of his identity is now possible 'in the field' and much quicker than the usual couple of weeks it takes for criminal cases. Obviously there is a need to be sure, as he has been 'reportedly' killed several times before. D Trump is either trying to draw attention from his escalating problems, or still trying to take wind from B Obama's sails ( the Osama bin-Laden takedown ), as apparently he posted a ( staged ) picture in the Situation Room from the wrong time; he was playing golf during th…

So reading in the news, Seattle has introduced legislation that would create a new math curriculum highlighting how math was used by western civilization in order to subjugate cultures of color. An example would be how numeracy tests were used to screen black voters in southern states. While this is, and will continue to be, taught in history class, it will now also be taught in math class. Additionally, questions will purposefully be framed to cast light on social issues such as the disparity in criminal sentencing, drug sentencing, etc. Furthermore, the math class would also teach students to use different bases, such as base 20, to help make up for …

In a different thread posters mentioned the excellent article "The case for Reparations" by Coates. Here, I urge everyone to read it. While there are points were folks are going to disagree, the overall article is excellent and provide important perspective. It is far more than only an argument, but rather an exquisite mix of historic and sociological characterization of a group interspersed with individual accounts. A summary would not do it proper justice, so again, I suggest folks to read it in whole. While not specifically this article, many of the contents and studies described within the article have over the years changed my mind on many things (including affirmat…

Yes and no, I honestly wanted to avoid that association in this thread but eventually i plan to open another thread that is more specific. This why i wanted to avoid discussing this problem in the context of UFOs. You have already decided the quality of the sighting by suggesting they are all "Insufficient Evidence", "Lights in the Sky", "Optical Illusion", not to mention suggested that no matter how "professional" the witnesses are being mistaken is most likely.

@iNow, Your comment "My intuition is that Rubio has formally begun positioning himself as a Republican primary challenger to Trump (or replacement if he’s removed from office beforehand)." interests me so I opened a new thread to discuss it. It does seem there are a a few different ways Trump's presidency might end and all seem possible in my opinion. - Trump is removed from office via impeachment. This could happen before 2020 or during a second term should he make to 2020 and win a second term. - Trump resigns as part of a deal to avoid impeachment. - Trump resigns as part of a deal he works out to spare some combination of Ivanka, Kushner, Don Jr, Eric…

Got it all into the title. When will politicians learn the difference between spending and investment ?

The attack on Saudi Arabian oil refineries appears to be a result of (relatively) low cost weapons. I recall reading SF stories by Donald Kingbury - "Courtship Rites", "The Moon Goddess and the Son" - that expressed a view of history of war of swings back and forth from elite professional soldiery, that are expensive to equip and train to peasant armies with cheap but effective weapons. (Hammers and knives and longbows in the hands of footsoldiers taking out armoured knights). The second of those stories (written before Gorbachev but set later with intact USSR) had a homemade drone-missile, made from parts on-line fired at the Kremlin and very nearly setting off all out n…

Today Trump walked out of a meeting about infrastructure and said he won't work with Dems until they stop all investigations. There are a dozen or more investigations of Trump continuing besides Mueller's. The Mueller investigation was of very narrow scope. The other investigations however, cover a broader area, going into all manner of financial dealings, and of many Trump entities and allies. My question is how much in substance do the remaining investigations compare to the Mueller project that took nearly 2 years? Do they all add up to be comparable to the Mueller report, or could the other investigations be much more for Trump and company to worry about? W…

For those who do not know. A very thorough review. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_College_(United_States) A shorter version with a quote. https://votesmart.org/education/electoral-college#.WguT9nNMG7N . So there are some who say our method of voting for POTUS is outdated and broken and needs to be replaced. I am agreeable to the concept if implemented in the right way. If the electoral college is abolished and everything else left pretty much the same my almost worthless vote would become completely worthless. So here is my proposal. 1. Abolish the electoral college. 2. Voting to take place the 1st of November…

Every state of the US gets 2 senators, no matter the state's population. I guess this is to protect against a tyranny of the majority. California has 68 times the population of Wyoming (CA 39,557,000 to WY 578,000 in 2018), but they have EQUAL representation in the senate. What I propose is a slight proportionality modification. The 5 most populous states (CA, TX, FL, NY, PN) each gets 3 senators, and the 5 least populous states (WY, VT, AK, ND, SD) each gets only ONE senator. The total number of senators remains 50, just a little more proportionately (and fairly) distributed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories_of_the_United_States_by_p…