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On July 03 2016 00:47 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 02 2016 22:07 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:On July 01 2016 12:54 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Sounds very much an underreported figure. Can you elaborate on what makes you think this is under reported? Which figures are you basing that on?
It is severely under reported. Local reports over the years have the number in Waziristan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone at nearly 100 odd people a year. You could argue who was a combatant and who wasnt, but the true number with the information available is probably somewhere in the middle.
But thats to be expected. I looked at the report. They left out a bunch of confirmed civilian deaths (im talking old village ladies) from at least 4-5 strikes from 2015 alone while I was there.
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On July 03 2016 00:52 Rebs wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2016 00:47 Mohdoo wrote:On July 02 2016 22:07 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Sounds very much an underreported figure. Can you elaborate on what makes you think this is under reported? Which figures are you basing that on? It is severely under reported. Local reports over the years have the number in Waziristan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone at nearly 100 odd people a year. You could argue who was a combatant and who wasnt, but the true number with the information available is probably somewhere in the middle. But thats to be expected. I looked at the report. They left out a bunch of confirmed civilian deaths (im talking old village ladies) from at least 4-5 strikes from 2015 alone while I was there.
It's in some jargon too so people might have missed the vast swaths of drone strikes not counted at all. I haven't dug in enough to say whether it is technically accurate or not but it's clearly misleading to most people.
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On July 03 2016 00:52 Rebs wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2016 00:47 Mohdoo wrote:On July 02 2016 22:07 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Sounds very much an underreported figure. Can you elaborate on what makes you think this is under reported? Which figures are you basing that on? It is severely under reported. Local reports over the years have the number in Waziristan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone at nearly 100 odd people a year. You could argue who was a combatant and who wasnt, but the true number with the information available is probably somewhere in the middle. But thats to be expected. I looked at the report. They left out a bunch of confirmed civilian deaths (im talking old village ladies) from at least 4-5 strikes from 2015 alone while I was there.
How do we determine which reports are trustworthy? "People on the ground" is kind of misleading because it assumes that all of these people around the area are reputable, impartial, etc. Some dude watches his kid get blown up, and we assume he doesn't inflate the number?
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On July 03 2016 01:12 Mohdoo wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2016 00:52 Rebs wrote:On July 03 2016 00:47 Mohdoo wrote:On July 02 2016 22:07 iPlaY.NettleS wrote:Sounds very much an underreported figure. Can you elaborate on what makes you think this is under reported? Which figures are you basing that on? It is severely under reported. Local reports over the years have the number in Waziristan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa alone at nearly 100 odd people a year. You could argue who was a combatant and who wasnt, but the true number with the information available is probably somewhere in the middle. But thats to be expected. I looked at the report. They left out a bunch of confirmed civilian deaths (im talking old village ladies) from at least 4-5 strikes from 2015 alone while I was there. How do we determine which reports are trustworthy? "People on the ground" is kind of misleading because it assumes that all of these people around the area are reputable, impartial, etc. Some dude watches his kid get blown up, and we assume he doesn't inflate the number?
I think the point is that neither numbers are trustworthy and that the truth lay between them. But even the most skeptical review of the numbers, indicates the administration is underestimating civilian casualties, which is altogether unsurprising.
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There is a big problem in assuming that contentious issues where numbers, conclusions or methodologies vary widely not only in their outcome but also their purpose that the truth has to be by default somewhere in the middle.
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San Franciscans, bid adieu to Styrofoam. On Tuesday, the city unanimously passed an ordinance banning the sale of any product made from polystyrene, the petroleum-based compound that's molded into disposable dishware, packing materials, and beach toys—among other things. Even though it's commonly known as Styrofoam, that's just a name-brand owned by the Dow Chemical Company.
It's not SF's first such restriction. In 2007, the city prohibited the use of polystyrene use in all to-go food containers. More than 100 cities, along with Washington, DC, now have similar laws in place. (The first Styrofoam ban was passed in 1988 by the city of Berkeley.) But San Francisco's new ordinance, part of the city's goal of "zero waste" by 2020, is the broadest yet. As of January 1, 2017, it will be unlawful to sell polystyrene packing materials (those infuriating foam peanuts, for instance), day-use coolers, trays used in meat and fish packaging, and even foam dock floats and mooring buoys.
Polystyrene's story begins in the first half of the 20th century, but it didn't become a staple of our everyday lives until the second half, when world production of plastic resins increased 25 fold. Before long, polystyrene was synonymous with take-out food, barbeque plates, and disposable coffee cups—Americans today still use an estimated 25 billion foam cups each year.
This week's ban is a victory for environmentalists, who since the late 1970s have been up in arms over polystyrene's impacts on marine life and waterways. (Recent evidence suggests the resins may be problematic for human health.) Polystyrene breaks down into tiny pieces, easily blown into the sea, where birds and fish often mistake them for food. The nonprofit Agalita Marine Research and Education found that about 44 percent of seabirds have ingested plastic, and 267 species of marine life are affected in various ways by plastic trash.
While polystyrene is said to never completely break down in landfills, it actually can decompose in the oceans. The stuff eventually sinks, which makes it difficult to know how much of it exists. And polystyrene contributes to the horrifying notion that by 2050, we may have more plastics in the ocean than fish.
Critics of the new ban are quick to point out that polystyrene is recyclable—a judge actually overturned New York City's ban on to-go containers last year, ruling that the city could make big money recycling the stuff. But while San Francisco residents can bring large pieces of polystyrene to a transfer station free of charge, it rarely gets recycled. The problem, says Robert Reed, a local project manager for Recology, a company that helps cities manage solid waste, is that few people bother to bring in their Styrofoam, and when they do, it's usually not in good enough condition to be repurposed. (It can be melted down and used as trim or molding for building construction.) "The few buyers who exist demand that the material be very clean," Reed says in an email. "They don't even want dust on it."
The American Chemistry Council, the trade group for chemical makers, opposed the city's ban, arguing that polystyrene's light weight results in less carbon emissions when products are transported. The group urged the city to consider the environmental costs of all packaging materials, as polystyrene will likely be replaced with compostable foams. "All packaging leaves an environmental footprint," Tim Shestek, the council's senior director, said in a statement.
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On July 03 2016 01:32 puerk wrote:
There is a big problem in assuming that contentious issues where numbers, conclusions or methodologies vary widely not only in their outcome but also their purpose that the truth has to be by default somewhere in the middle.
Perhaps in general but when you're talking about civilian deaths it's pretty absurd to suggest they are actually less than the acting government estimates, and I think it's pretty fair to assume the people getting bombed aren't drastically underestimating how many people are dying. But if we're to consider where it might escape those bounds, it's definitely on the upper side, not the lower. Where exactly the number falls between those general bounds is much harder to say, but I think it's safe to estimate it's between the highest count and the government count (which not so coincidentally is almost always around the lowest estimates available).
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Wow...
Donald Trump shared an image depicting Hillary Clinton, a pile of cash and the Star of David on Twitter Saturday, drawing a rapid and critical response.
Trump tweeted “Crooked Hillary - - Makes History!” along with a photoshopped image of Clinton’s one-time avatar, which reads “History made.” Clinton’s face appears over a pile of hundred dollar bills, and a six-pointed star that reads, “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!” Below the image was a screenshot of a Fox News poll that asked voters how “honest/trustworthy” or “corrupt” they found the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Many critics, including political commentators and journalists, were quick to point out the shape of the Star of David, questioning Trump’s motive for tweeting such an image. Trump later tweeted a new image that featured the same text over a red circle instead of a star. The original tweet and image has since been deleted.
Republican strategist and CNN contributor Ana Navarro brought up the fact that Trump often makes appeals to the Jewish community by saying he has Jewish grandchildren. His daughter, Ivanka Trump, converted to Judaism before marrying her husband, Jared Kushner.
“‘I have Jewish grandchildren’ is the new, ‘Some of my best-friends are black’ defense to an offensive comment,” she tweeted in response to the image.
Marc Lamont Hill, host of BET News and a CNN commentator, said the image Trump shared “is textbook anti-Semitic imagery. #louderthanadogwhistle.”
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I like to beat up on Trump for things, but let's be real. That wasn't a dog whistle, if for no other reason than the Trump campaign is too incompetent to come up with that. Someone just cut and pasted a star.
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On July 03 2016 02:21 Introvert wrote:
I like to beat up on Trump for things, but let's be real. That wasn't a dog whistle, if for no other reason than the Trump campaign is too incompetent to come up with that. Someone just cut and pasted a star.
I agree, I doubt they intended to piss of the jews for laughs.
It just means whoever made and posted the image is utterly incompetent.
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Normal people, no matter who they support, look at that pic and take away that it's anti... Hillary. It's a star because it's mocking that she won the corruption contest. This is the grasping-at-straws media we have.
+ Show Spoiler +
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@ greenhorizons
I was not citing your post directly as i was not contradicting what you wrote... it just reminded me of several arguments over the years that happened in this thread and its predecessor. Even when "the truth is somewhere in the middle" is correct in the situation it is to pervasive a phrase to not take on a life of its own and become the default in discussions.
In the last days we had conversations telling us that MSF was bombed because they are gainst TPP, DDT has no influence on bird populations and starting "culture wars" on a single religion and its billion adherents is a good idea.
People most of the time have not enough time, resources, and context to sort out the topics, where the truth is not in the middle.
But on the contrary as i have realized again and again in this thread: facts, data and consequences are always assumed to be tainted but principles, convictions and policy proposals are unshakeable truths and immune to compromise.
This whole approach makes this thread so burdensome, as it turns the rational world upside down. The principle comes first, then comes the conviction, then the supported policies and the facts are assumed to follow.
Almost every discussion seems to end in an agree to disagree stalemate.
When in my opinion "agree to disagree" is not a valid state of affairs for the proposed.
I would even go so far that it is hopeless to try to argue about facts in this thread, as it creates the illusion that those are mutable and subject to discussion and agreement, when in actuality policy and principles should be the ones discussed and mutable.
My biggest issue with politics right now is growing inequality, declining economic participation in the gains of society and the following disenfrenchisement of growing numbers of people. To me this results in the question of which method of redistribution can remedy that problem.
In this question it is open if the redistribution is achived through government (for example tax and spend) or other means (emerging properties of a changed market environment where capitalist actors change their perceived values of humans, labour and other factors of societal impact).
This ties into an issue i have with wage labour in general: the work is not valued according to its importance to be done, or even its productivity, but only by the replaceability of the individual worker. Supply and demand is a terrible method of price finding when it is not about abstract widgets but humans needing to eat to survive and not able to negotiate "i wont eat and need housing for 3 years until you make me a better offer". Furthermore the supply of workers is not controlled by the actual worker in a meaningful sense, as is necessary to apply a supply and demand model with him as actor. His freedom of choice not to have existed (be available in the general pool of labour force) is as limited as is his choice to multiply himself.
Some might argue he can influence his education and therefore better his negotiation position. But i would argue that with this being a huge resource commitment it is insufficient as it does mainly change his replaceability (seperating himself from the competitors) and not automatically his productivity or importance of the job to be done by him. To make it more clear: this strategy is fundamentally incapable of improving everyone as it just pits people against eachother and the number of winners and losers stays roughly the same (depending on the economy as a whole and not on the individual effort), and swaps around the unfairly disparate gains between individuals.
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On July 03 2016 02:47 oBlade wrote:Normal people, no matter who they support, look at that pic and take away that it's anti... Hillary. It's a star because it's mocking that she won the corruption contest. This is the grasping-at-straws media we have. + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9PRCIdJ_v4
Grasping at straws you say! Okay, why did he pull it back? If it was just a star, couldn't big bad trump have stood by his campaign's words? The real grasping is the pathetic spinning by Trumpkins trying to pretend a big red star of David on a pile of money isn't just like a certain big blue star of David.
EDIT: it is red
![[image loading]](http://takao-sato.up.n.seesaa.net/takao-sato/image/E382A4E382B9E383A9E382A8E383ABE381AEE59BBDE69797-thumbnail2.jpg?d=a1)
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On July 03 2016 02:47 oBlade wrote:https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/749262238658260992Normal people, no matter who they support, look at that pic and take away that it's anti... Hillary. It's a star because it's mocking that she won the corruption contest. This is the grasping-at-straws media we have. + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9PRCIdJ_v4 Talk about a hyper-politicized environment. It's her corruption on a star like she won an award. Like holy cow we're reposting this nonsense in this forum? It's like we're making Trump look classy and sophisticated by comparison.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
I have said before that Trump gets a lot of credit to his name when people overreact stupidly to his mildly provocative actions, in a way that makes him seem as if he were worse than he actually is. The whole "Trump is promoting fascism" line of garbage reporting was completely out of line and made his detractors look like idiots. This too.
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On July 03 2016 03:48 Danglars wrote:Talk about a hyper-politicized environment. It's her corruption on a star like she won an award. Like holy cow we're reposting this nonsense in this forum? It's like we're making Trump look classy and sophisticated by comparison.
googled award clipart
I wonder why no one seems to use that particular star for awards?
Do you know who uses that star in lame image posts about corruption? people who post "this is what the world would look like if it was controlled by tesla instead of rotschilds" on their facebook wall. (I am serious, I just saw one with that label in hungarian on my feed).
I mean, if it was a single off thing, sure, it is over politicized. But this is the man who suggested muslims should wear a mark...
But what I initially wanted to write in: I saw a video of Hillary lying for 13 minutes, and it's all well and good, I am not in any place to dispute it. I just wish to see a video of trump telling the truth for 13 minutes straight :D (and cutting together 40 scenes where he says his name does not count)
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Trump's campaign is far too poorly run to understand the implications of a six pointed star on a backdrop of a pile of money, it's just a stupid fuckup that would have been easily avoided if they weren't incompetent (hence the decision to retract and repost).
Even if you argue it's "just fine" to use a star of David, there's absolutely no fucking reason to do it in this scenario if you think about it for more than a split second (and no, this was not "being non-PC" it was just stupid).
It's also intentional because he doesn't need to dogwhistle for people that are conspiracy theorists/anti-Semites, they are deep in his camp anyway.
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On July 03 2016 03:00 JW_DTLA wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2016 02:47 oBlade wrote:Normal people, no matter who they support, look at that pic and take away that it's anti... Hillary. It's a star because it's mocking that she won the corruption contest. This is the grasping-at-straws media we have. + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9PRCIdJ_v4 Grasping at straws you say! Okay, why did he pull it back? If it was just a star, couldn't big bad trump have stood by his campaign's words? The real grasping is the pathetic spinning by Trumpkins trying to pretend a big red star of David on a pile of money isn't just like a certain big blue star of David. EDIT: it is red
Indeed, they should have left it up and let the people complaining, which is mainly journalists themselves manufacturing controversy, implode with sanctimony.
The bigots were the people who saw money and a six pointed star in the same image and couldn't stop themselves from thinking there must be anti-Semitism afoot. Perpetuating a tired, ugly stereotype to try to score a cheap political victory. It's the same attitude of people who think Buddhist temples are Nazi headquarters. Nobody "owns" the symbol of a six-pointed star, just think about how absurd it is that we wouldn't be here with any other star. You know what would give a semblance of truth to the charge of inappropriateness? If the huge face of his political opponent on the image, instead of Hillary Clinton, were some other politician, like for example if there was a famous Jewish candidate who had been one of most serious contenders during the campaign. Then you would have had my attention. But no, DJT has never the least bit implied or dogwhistled anything anti-Semitic about Bernie Sanders. And one of the criteria of the GOP primary, along with checking off pro life, is being the person to most emphatically be pro-Israel. And yes, there's his Jewish son-in-law and grandchildren.
Trump's not a designer, so what do people who buy bait like this actually believe? That the campaign held a meeting, maybe Trump, Ivanka, and Manafort were all there, and they said, we need to get someone to design a pic attacking our rival, the nominee of the only other major party. But you know what this pic needs most of all? It needs a subtle way to dogwhistle to the critical anti-Semitic vote, a crucial demographic for anybody who wants to be president, that's who we really need to target. Maybe a memo went out to that effect. And nobody's paying close attention to the campaign; there isn't an army of journalists scrutinizing every aspect of it, quote mining every soundbyte that the candidate says, so they're able to slip things like this right under the noses of the American people. That's the brilliant part of their strategy, surely. 
The media is overflowing with things like this. They're either incompetent or they know better, but in any case it's bringing down the entire level of political discourse in the USA. CBS reporting something that belongs in a tabloid. Even trying to explain this, instead of ignoring it, might be adding to the culture of non-issues.
I mean, the alleged anti-Semites would already have to be following him on Twitter, and being brainless anti-Semites, they probably wouldn't even notice the (rotated) star. So if, hypothetically, the narrative that this is dogwhistling were true, the media is the one broadcasting his message to a wider audience for free, shouldn't they be outraged at themselves? Why isn't the headline "CBS Recirculates Nazi Graphic" if it's so offensive?
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On July 03 2016 04:24 Evotroid wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2016 03:48 Danglars wrote:On July 03 2016 02:47 oBlade wrote:https://twitter.com/BraddJaffy/status/749262238658260992Normal people, no matter who they support, look at that pic and take away that it's anti... Hillary. It's a star because it's mocking that she won the corruption contest. This is the grasping-at-straws media we have. + Show Spoiler +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9PRCIdJ_v4 Talk about a hyper-politicized environment. It's her corruption on a star like she won an award. Like holy cow we're reposting this nonsense in this forum? It's like we're making Trump look classy and sophisticated by comparison. googled award clipartI wonder why no one seems to use that particular star for awards? Do you know who uses that star in lame image posts about corruption? people who post "this is what the world would look like if it was controlled by tesla instead of rotschilds" on their facebook wall. (I am serious, I just saw one with that label in hungarian on my feed). I mean, if it was a single off thing, sure, it is over politicized. But this is the man who suggested muslims should wear a mark... But what I initially wanted to write in: I saw a video of Hillary lying for 13 minutes, and it's all well and good, I am not in any place to dispute it. I just wish to see a video of trump telling the truth for 13 minutes straight :D (and cutting together 40 scenes where he says his name does not count) Take off the tin foil hat. You're leaping from one circumstantial point to another to try to draw out a point with so many strings stretching across miles of gaps. You might as well allege Trump is secretly a Jew and communicating to his sinister Jewish conspiracy to turn his people against Clinton. I hear that the Bildebergs use "Evotroid" as a code word for .. ...
Stow the global conspiracy crap. You can take it up when Trump makes Jewish allusions a key part of his campaign. Or when Clinton exchanges Methodism for Judaism. Trump should've left it up.
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EPT
