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Delta1212

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Posts posted by Delta1212

  1. John McCain is giving by far the weirdest line of questioning of the whole hearing so far.

     

    He questioned why Comey announced that no charges would be filed over Clinton's use of the email server, but the investigation of Trump's campaign is on going and this is a double standard because both candidates were part of the election where Russia interfered.

     

    He was attempting to imply that 1: Clinton should be under investigation for collusion with the Russians just like Trump is. 2: clearing Clinton of criminal wrong-doing in the email situation is the same as clearing her of collusion with the Russians and 3: that clearing her of wrong-doing with the Russians while continuing to investigate Trump shows that the investigation is biased.

     

     

    There are so many false connections in there that it took me several minutes to figure out how to properly summarize it in a way that outlined the chain of logic he was attempting to draw.

  2. Any of my American friends think this is terminal for the Donald?

    I agree with zapatos. This doesn't paint a favorable picture of him, but it's largely an enhanced picture of things that are already known about him with reasonable certainty, and it will take something significant and new in terms of evidence to prompt any real sort of action.

     

    I don't think even if Comey testified that Trump had committed obstruction of justice that it would be terminal on its own. It would take tangible evidence of a crime rather than an opinion from a former FBI director to have even a chance of that, and the testimony hasn't even gone so far as to directly characterize Trump's actions as criminal in that way.

     

    I'd say it hurts him politically by increasing the pressure of the current situation and by failing to relieve it as it could have if the testimony were different than what has been given so far, but it's not a final bullet by any stretch, especially given what the Trump administration has been weathering so far.

  3. Thanks for the link!

     

    I watched for a while and wish I didn't have to do actual work today. Fascinating stuff.

     

    My quick impression is that Comey is professional and truthful. I also get the feeling that Trump's lack of a basic understanding of how government works is a cornerstone of his ongoing problems. He seems to think being elected President means he gets to 'manage' the US like he was able to manage his companies.

    I've been able to keep it on in the background throughout and have only missed a couple of brief sections so far, and this closely tracks with my impression.

  4. Fromer FBI Director James Comey is set to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee today on the subject of Russian interference in the US election. His testimony begins in about 20 minutes at 10 am Eastern Time. Here's a link to the C-SPAN live stream for anyone who is interested.

     

     

    His prepared opening statement has been entered into the record and can be viewed ahead of time here.

     

    Edit for comments:

    Comey just called Trump a liar under oath.

  5. The problem is people being killed by terrorists. Therefore the number of people killed by terrorists is a good metric for how big of a problem it is.

     

     

    Also,

     

    This image misses the point badly and it has nothing to do with the topic.

    Rape very rarely results in death afterwards, so that means that rape shouldn't be battled? It isn't an issue. That's how it sounds the way you are putting it. You may not mean it, but you are saying it.

     

     

     

    This is a new form of terrorism, unseen (in the western world at least). We are familiar with military terrorism, but this is civilian terrorism. The most obvious difference being that you can more easily identify armed terrorists and shoot them down, while the same cannot be applied in this case.

    What history are you familiar with that you think "civilian terrorism" is a heretofore unseen phenomenon in the Western world?

  6. Theresa May:

    From previous attempts, this likely means longer detention without trial, curfews etc.

     

    In South Africa during apartheid, there were 90 day detention orders, renewed every 90 days.

     

    In Guantanamo Bay, there is lifetime detention for some, although even Trump so far has approved nothing worse than waterboarding.

     

    Anyone who criticizes such things will be constantly wondering if their speech qualifies them as terrorist suspects.

     

    Detention etc is of course likely to convert wrong thinking people who were not a threat into a threat.

     

    Supporters of such policies usually think it will never happen to them; trials are an unnecessary impediment to justice.

    The destruction of the lives of innocent people is a small price to pay to avoid the destruction of the lives of innocent people.

  7.  

    Unfortunately this mindset isn't so strange, however misguided.

    It's like insisting that the only way to increase the survival rate of people who require ambulance rides to the hospital is to remove the brakes from the ambulances so they can't slow down and cost people precious time.

     

    And then accusing anyone who thinks this is a bad idea of not valuing human life.

  8. The thing I find most bizarre, and this is more of a US thing than a UK thing for obvious reasons, is the number of people who would eagerly give up innumerable rights and throw money at the government in the name of protecting them from terrorism but who, at the suggestion that maybe it would be a good idea to give the government some money and authority to deal with something orders of magnitude more likely to actually kill them like, say, heart disease, suddenly start screaming about tyranny.

  9. It's not a social construct.

     

    The differences between people are real biological differences and not social differences.

     

    Regardless how you want to paint the world, the world is a not a rosy and heart-warming place like you want it to be.

    You are mistaking what is meant by social construct.

     

    If I have a red triangle, a blue circle and a red sphere, I have three objects that are all different from each other.

     

    I can group them in various ways. I can say I have two flats and a solid, two rounds and a pointy or two reds and a blue.

     

    Those are all categories based on real physical differences, but which differences and similarities I choose to emphasize is an arbitrary choice. I can categorize them in different ways and wind up with completely different groupings.

     

    But, given an arbitrary grouping, I can certainly identify which shapes fit into which group.

     

     

    It is not that you cannot find shared traits to use to categorize people. It is that there is a near infinite number of ways to define those categories that will give you very different groupings.

     

    It is not the physical traits that are socially constructed. It is the way in which we choose to group those traits, and which traits we choose to emphasize as determiners of group status, that are socially constructed. There is no objectively correct definition of human race, and different people will fall under different groupings depending on how one chooses to define race.

  10. So only the same small set of genes in any person could potentially be Neanderthal? We don't find Neanderthal genes in large stretches of human DNA?

     

    Assuming I understood that correctly, why do you think that is? Why aren't Neanderthal genes found throughout our genome, but instead found only in a small subset?

    The question is what percent of the overall Neanderthal genome is retained within the human population.

     

    I would suspect that you would not be able to reconstitute anywhere close to a full Neanderthal.

  11. An in person class or tutor is very helpful.

     

    The most important factor is consistency. 1 hour every day of practice is going to be more valuable than 7 hours one day a week even though it's the same amount of time.

     

    I try to set aside time to read news in another language, and watch/listen to news in it daily. And listening to music, obviously. First just to get used to the sound of the language but as you progress it's important to listen actively and try to pick out words or eventually just understand as much of what you are hearing as possible.

     

    If you can find an online discussion forum that you can participate in, especially in an area of interest, that is very helpful. Try to make a friend or two with native speakers and encourage them to critique your use of the language.

     

    And there are plenty of online resources, too.

     

    I've found Memrise good for drilling vocabulary, and I personally find Duolingo fun, and a very good refresher if you'be ever had some exposure to a language and need to get the rust off and expand on your skills a bit in order to start engaging in more practical usage. Starting a language from scratch with it is a bit trickier unless you're really dedicated, but I have done it personally and enjoyed it.

  12. I use basic physics on a rough conceptual level constantly in my daily life. How things move, acceleration, unbalanced forces, torque, thermal expansion; these are all things I think about whenever I move things, drive, open things from jars to doors or just walking around. Without doing any math, just an understanding of basic principles is immensely helpful in a wide variety of situations.

     

    And even beyond the practical, from an aesthetic point of view, understanding physics fundamentally alters the way you perceive the world around. The more you know, the more your view changes. The physical laws you learn are literally applicable to everything around you every moment of every day. If that isn't mind-blowing to you, I would suggest that you are failing to use the proper degree of imagination in applying what you've learned.

  13.  

    I wasn't commenting on who you're supporting. It's the assumption that extremism is tolerated if it's on your own side, which is at the heart of whataboutism. The argument assumes that I would tolerate (or possibly applaud) someone who chopped off Trump's head, or killed someone who was harassing minorities, or any other act attempting a favorable end (for me) using extreme means. It's a misplaced appeal to hypocrisy that allows those who use it to avoid dealing with criticism.

     

    As much as I want it, if we had to execute all the Trumps of the world in order to have free education for all, I would want to fight against that just as strongly. It's not accurate, fair, or just to wave at the other side and say extremism exists as an argument against a specific piece of extremism on your own side.

    I think the idea that it is easier to overlook extremism from people who are closer to your own beliefs than from those who are diametrically opposed to them is straightforwardly true. That does not say anything about who has a bigger problem with extremism running through their particular ideological grouping at any given time, and the post in question was specifically calling out May for accepting extremism in her own allies while criticising it in her enemies.

     

    I think you are jumping on him over this a little prematurely. I understand the desire to react against the "both sides are bad" narrative, but I don't think that's what this was.

  14. Whoops, fell right back into whataboutism again. Amazingly prolific and effective propaganda technique. There are extremists on the left, so any arguments against right-wing extremism are suspect?! Scary scary scary how well it works, and how many people have been infected and are now carriers.

     

    Yeah, I didn't read his comment like that at all.

     

     

     

    Edit: And it continues: Theresa May says Internet must now be regulated following London Bridge terror attack

  15. Well, <insert favorite expletive>. I was just half-told, half-caused-to-remember that Steinbeck didn't write Gatsby - Fitzgerald did. I hate it when stuff like that happens. Thanks to everyone who refrained from giving me a wedgie over it. I feel silly enough quite on my own, thanks very much.

    It happens. Have you not read Of Mice and Men?

  16. You absolutely can have both. But that requires a nuanced view of a topic, and when people get scared, nuance tends to be the first casualty, especially in politics where there is always someone willing to drive the narrative that any kind of nuanced view is really being "weak" on a problem in order to bolster their own support.

  17. Um, the same thing that we did for hundreds of years prior? Your point is good re: "knowledge for the sheer sake of knowledge," but for ages upon ages people recognized that knowledge brought benefits as well as having a cost. Parents strove for their children to become educated even if they were not, so that their children could have access to better lives.

     

    Of course that is still why those that pursue these management paths do it - they've watched TV show after TV show where handsome / beautiful people in their 20's hold all the power and call all the shots. Absolutely not an accurate depiction of the world, nor should it be. Right along with it they've watched show after show teaching them that all that matters is coming out on top. Concepts such as honor and values have become passe. Results are all that matter to them, as opposed to the notion of a "life well lived."

     

    There is a danger here in romanticizing the past. For hundreds of years, the people who mostly pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge were people for whom the cost was not a factor, usually members of a wealthy leisure class or of a, generally, religious order whose cost was supported by the community to allow them to dedicate time toward study rather than survival.

     

    For everyone else, the most pervasive view has always been that education is a ticket to greater opportunity rather than something to seek for its own sake, and that is still precisely the view you are observing yourself. It's unfortunate but also understandable from a practical perspective.

     

    I always thought of that as a bedrock of American thinking. But then we get 9/11 and what do we go and do? The Patriot Act. :-(

    And this is precisely why attacks work. It is easier to goad a more powerful opponent into doing more damage to itself than you could ever hope to do yourself. Get them to take actions like Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo Bay that drives people to you. Get them to implement things like the PATRIOT Act that undermines the faith of their own citizens in their system of government. Provoke fear against refugees and immigrants to tear apart their unity in acts like Brexit or the Trump administration's consistently isolationist foreign policy moves.

     

    "Tougher" governments have a harder time cooperating with others than "understanding" ones, and that applies equally to their own potential allies as to the nominal enemy. See how effective the tough stands against ISIS ultimately wind up being when the West is bickering amongst itself instead of presenting a united front to global problems.

  18. Why would the terrorists want a less-negotiation-minded adversary in control? Surely they don't really think they can win a full-on showdown. If I were in their position I'd want the most conciliatory, discussion-minded adversary possible. Not that I think they really want to negotiate, but that would be the environment that would let them "get away with more."

    It's an intentional exploit of the cycle of violence phenomenon and has been utilized successfully by insurgent groups throughout human history. You launch an attack which inspires a crackdown, then use the crackdown to justify launching more attacks.

     

    The people who resort first to violence are always the hardliners. Negotiating is, as you say, not their goal. Having an understanding opponent who is willing to negotiate gives moderates cover to try negotiating, sapping strength from the hardliner cause. Having an opponent with whom no negotiation is possible pushes moderates toward the hardliner stance because they lack any other options, bolstering their support.

     

    You want an opponent who is going to turn away potential allies and remove the possibility for any solution other than the violent one you are advocating.

     

    Responses born of fear and anger tend to be stupid responses. This is no less true of governments than it is of people. Goading the opponent into becoming angry, fearful and stupid is a primary objective of most of these attacks.

  19. That's very possible. I don't really understand the logic they're expecting people to apply, though - this sort of thing would make me want a tougher-minded government in place, not a less-tough-minded one.

    That is exactly the logic right there.

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