US Politics Mega-thread - Page 6614

On January 22 2017 06:14 ChristianS wrote:
Interesting that Trump's singlehandedly crashed the peso, and that it makes many of his campaign issues he wanted to solve actually worsen. On illegal immigration you could imagine it helping him politically; problem gets worse, people retroactively think he was right to focus on it.

On the jobs side, I don't see how he can come out looking good. He promised the sky, and the measures he wants (e.g. 35% tariffs) would probably do a lot of harm both here and abroad. If in addition, he crashes the peso so hard that even with the tariffs it's still more efficient to manufacture in Mexico, we could wind up with the worst of both worlds, with all blame landing squarely on Trump.

A crack in an ice shelf in Antarctica grew by six miles in the past few weeks, British scientists say, and now measures more than 100 miles long.

Once the crack is complete, a giant iceberg larger than Rhode Island will break or "calve" off of Antarctica. The iceberg would be one of the biggest on record.

The break "will fundamentally change the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula," according to Project MIDAS, a British Antarctic research project that's tracking the crack.

Only a final 12 miles of ice now connects the future iceberg to its parent ice shelf.

Ice shelves are permanent floating sheets of ice that connect to a land mass, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Most of the world's ice shelves hug the coast of Antarctica. The Larsen C shelf is on the Antarctic Peninsula, the portion of the continent that juts out toward South America.

If the iceberg did break off, it wouldn't contribute to sea-level rise since it's already floating, said Ted Scambos, a scientist with the data center. (If a chunk of ice that big did drop into the sea, it would raise sea levels about 1/16 of an inch, he said.)

However, once that iceberg breaks off, land ice that had been blocked by the berg would plop into the sea. It's that ice that would eventually raise sea levels, NASA scientist Thomas Wagner said. "Ice shelves serve a critical role in buttressing ice that's on land," he said.

There is not enough information to know whether the split is a result of climate change or not, but there is "good scientific evidence" climate change has caused thinning of the ice shelf, the British researchers say.

Once the iceberg sheared off, it would float along the coast of Antarctica, then head out into the Southern Ocean.

"As it moved north, ocean temperatures both at the surface and at the base of the berg would begin to thin it and erode it from the edges," Scambos said. It would eventually break apart into smaller chunks that would melt into the ocean.

On January 22 2017 07:28 Doodsmack wrote:
Hope trumps voters are tracking his promises. Yesterday he added eradicating all radical Islamic terrorism.

On January 22 2017 07:29 zlefin wrote:

From what I can tell, he uses a very different speaking style, where words don't mean what they are.
I wish they had someone assigned to translating what he says into normal speak or academic speak, so we could know what he was trying to say.

On January 22 2017 07:45 On_Slaught wrote:
So Trump has officially declared war on the press. Such is expected.

On January 22 2017 02:25 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:


That reminds me of the whole "If it's a legitimate rape, the body will shut down the pregnancy without need for an abortion" statement of Todd Akin lol. So embarrassing, but is apparently a reasonable argument for some Republican leaders.

On January 22 2017 07:45 On_Slaught wrote:
So Trump has officially declared war on the press. Such is expected.

Expect a lot of lies from Trump's twitter is the take away message.

On January 22 2017 07:46 IyMoon wrote:


What happened?

On January 22 2017 07:47 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Kind of shows how desperate the Corporate Press is for the appearance of validation. Meanwhile the online press keeps growing.

On January 22 2017 07:45 On_Slaught wrote:
So Trump has officially declared war on the press. Such is expected.

Expect a lot of lies from Trump's twitter is the take away message.