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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
The full list is there. It's uh, underwhelming.
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I must confess, I'm somewhat impressed they didn't just make an intern copy-paste the wikipedia article for list of Islamist terror attacks and instead curated the list...somehow? Arbitrarily? Considering they just say "most" of them didn't get enough attention and they threw in some for funsies?
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
elliott abrams is at the epicenter of that thing known as neoconservatism. genuine neoconism mind you, not the diluted label applied to everybody nowadays.
these are the people who unironically think judeochristian persecution is the most serious middle east issue.
constantinople by 2019?
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As the press secretary for a president who's obsessed with how things play on cable TV, Sean Spicer’s real audience during his daily televised press briefings has always been an audience of one.
And the devastating “Saturday Night Live” caricature of Spicer that aired over the weekend — in which a belligerent Spicer was spoofed by a gum-chomping, super soaker-wielding Melissa McCarthy in drag — did not go over well internally at a White House in which looks matter.
More than being lampooned as a press secretary who makes up facts, it was Spicer’s portrayal by a woman that was most problematic in the president’s eyes, according to sources close to him. And the unflattering send-up by a female comedian was not considered helpful for Spicer’s longevity in the grueling, high-profile job in which he has struggled to strike the right balance between representing an administration that considers the media the "opposition party," and developing a functional relationship with the press.
"Trump doesn't like his people to look weak," added a top Trump donor.
Trump’s uncharacteristic Twitter silence over the weekend about the “Saturday Night Live” sketch was seen internally as a sign of how uncomfortable it made the White House feel. Sources said the caricature of Spicer by McCarthy struck a nerve and was upsetting to the press secretary and to his allies, who immediately saw how damaging it could be in Trump world.
Spicer on Monday was traveling aboard Air Force One from Florida to Washington, D.C., and gamely shrugged off the spoof that was playing in loops on cable news throughout the day.
McCarthy, he said, “needs to slow down on the gum chewing; way too many pieces in there,” he joked in an interview with Extra.
And on Monday, Spicer’s allies were trying to put a happy face on the incident. "He takes the job seriously but doesn't take himself that seriously," said a person close to Spicer, who said he also understood the instant-viral skit helped him reach a new level of fame. "He knows that put him up on the stratosphere of recognition on a level," this person said. "You've got to embrace it."
But on Tuesday, Spicer has the uncomfortable task of facing reporters once again in the briefing room — where the elephant in the room will be the unflattering McCarthy caricature.
Source
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On February 07 2017 12:56 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +As the press secretary for a president who's obsessed with how things play on cable TV, Sean Spicer’s real audience during his daily televised press briefings has always been an audience of one.
And the devastating “Saturday Night Live” caricature of Spicer that aired over the weekend — in which a belligerent Spicer was spoofed by a gum-chomping, super soaker-wielding Melissa McCarthy in drag — did not go over well internally at a White House in which looks matter.
More than being lampooned as a press secretary who makes up facts, it was Spicer’s portrayal by a woman that was most problematic in the president’s eyes, according to sources close to him. And the unflattering send-up by a female comedian was not considered helpful for Spicer’s longevity in the grueling, high-profile job in which he has struggled to strike the right balance between representing an administration that considers the media the "opposition party," and developing a functional relationship with the press.
"Trump doesn't like his people to look weak," added a top Trump donor.
Trump’s uncharacteristic Twitter silence over the weekend about the “Saturday Night Live” sketch was seen internally as a sign of how uncomfortable it made the White House feel. Sources said the caricature of Spicer by McCarthy struck a nerve and was upsetting to the press secretary and to his allies, who immediately saw how damaging it could be in Trump world.
Spicer on Monday was traveling aboard Air Force One from Florida to Washington, D.C., and gamely shrugged off the spoof that was playing in loops on cable news throughout the day.
McCarthy, he said, “needs to slow down on the gum chewing; way too many pieces in there,” he joked in an interview with Extra.
And on Monday, Spicer’s allies were trying to put a happy face on the incident. "He takes the job seriously but doesn't take himself that seriously," said a person close to Spicer, who said he also understood the instant-viral skit helped him reach a new level of fame. "He knows that put him up on the stratosphere of recognition on a level," this person said. "You've got to embrace it."
But on Tuesday, Spicer has the uncomfortable task of facing reporters once again in the briefing room — where the elephant in the room will be the unflattering McCarthy caricature. Source
Lol wtf elephant in the room that a comedy show made fun of him? It's a comedy show.
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that was quite an interesting read indeed. albeit rather long. but not too dense.
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Are technica penning about as slanted a reply as Daily Mail in its initial write up, from scare-quoting the whistleblower on down. I congratulate Lamar Smith for his efforts on the matter. The pause quickly went from being explained away (even in this thread, that models accounted for a long halt) to there never having been a pause at all many years after the fact. That's a big enough deal in my opinion to look at. If this is science fact, there should be transparency on outside analysis, not claiming fishing expeditions and the like.
Fact is, Trump's EPA pick is highly critical of how the issue has been handled governmentally up until now. The next four years will almost certainly have a doubter as head of the environmental protection agency. So everyone best get ready to convince rather than shut down debate. Especially talking from an economic perspective, because Perry Smith and Tillerson won't be crusaders on the issue.
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In a lawsuit filed today, First Lady Melania Trump revealed her intention to leverage the presidency to ink new “licensing, branding, and endorsement” deals worth many millions of dollars. In the filing, Melania Trump’s lawyer described the position of First Lady as a “once-in-a-lifetime” money making opportunity. She told the court she intended to pursue deals in “apparel, accessories, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, hair care, skin care, and fragrance.”
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Donald Trump maintains full ownership over his businesses and recently doubled the initiation fee for his private club in Florida, Mar-a-lago, from $100,000 to $200,000. He then spent last weekend at Mar-a-lago attending events with members. Trump is effectively using his position as president to make membership at Mar-a-lago more attractive and then monetizing the increased demand.
Trump is also taking advantage of the increased prominence of his brand and plans to triple the number of hotels with his name in the United States.
Think Progress
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Canada11475 Posts
...well, I guess when you elect a businessman into the White House, you get a businessman in the White House. In many ways, this is looking like patronage politics from the 1800's where you had rail tycoons in government, securing federal contracts for their own companies to build transcontinental rails. I mean, it's not quite there, but it seems to be in the same vein.
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On February 07 2017 14:40 Falling wrote:
...well, I guess when you elect a businessman into the White House, you get a businessman in the White House. In many ways, this is looking like patronage politics from the 1800's where you had rail tycoons in government, securing federal contracts for their own companies to build transcontinental rails. I mean, it's not quite there, but it seems to be in the same vein.
Same vein indeed, but I refer more to stories like Carrier and the American automotive industry. Big business gets courted and backroom access, small business has no chance at the presiden's ear and falls by the wayside. And we know the coming promised infrastructure pork-stimulus will be for the politically connected companies.
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On February 07 2017 14:21 Danglars wrote:Are technica penning about as slanted a reply as Daily Mail in its initial write up, from scare-quoting the whistleblower on down. I congratulate Lamar Smith for his efforts on the matter. The pause quickly went from being explained away (even in this thread, that models accounted for a long halt) to there never having been a pause at all many years after the fact. That's a big enough deal in my opinion to look at. If this is science fact, there should be transparency on outside analysis, not claiming fishing expeditions and the like. Fact is, Trump's EPA pick is highly critical of how the issue has been handled governmentally up until now. The next four years will almost certainly have a doubter as head of the environmental protection agency. So everyone best get ready to convince rather than shut down debate. Especially talking from an economic perspective, because Perry Smith and Tillerson won't be crusaders on the issue.
I don't think I've ever seen that debate be productive. The opposing side is denialist at its root - the whole anti-environmentalist movement is essentially bound together by disbelief of the scientific consensus, rather than belief in some alternative hypothesis which can be proven or disproven. What are the alternative explanations for the data? Sun cycles? Wobble in Earth's orbit? God toying with us? They're all either already disproven or unfalsifiable non-explanations.
So instead of pushing another hypothesis the denialists prefer to watch the climate scientists and heckle when something goes differently than expected. Of course none of the unexpected developments actually disprove the consensus like they seem to think; it's like flat earthers celebrating because someone miscalculated the radius of the Earth. The evidence isn't actually more in their favor just because someone's climate model mispredicted something, but they figure if they sow enough doubt and mistrust about the science in general (notably without any effort to distinguish between the more speculative predictions and the more ironclad discoveries), they can convince an ill-informed public thru shouldn't trust anything the scientists say, regardless of evidence, no matter how emphatically they state their discovery. That "debate" has never been productive, at least not that I've seen.
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There is no single, canonical 'denialist' viewpoint. Just a bunch of people who found that their concerns about the consensus, legitimate or otherwise, could not be seriously discussed. Actual points of disagreement range from "the earth isn't actually warming" to "the warming is (mostly) caused by a variety of non-CO2 factors" to "warming is a good thing" to "the data isn't solid enough to draw conclusions from". All those claims are treated identically - they're insulted and otherwise ignored.
Insults aren't convincing to the people being insulted. What we need are debates up and down the entire chain of claims.
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On February 07 2017 14:13 zlefin wrote:that was quite an interesting read indeed. albeit rather long. but not too dense.
Pretty obvious stuff to anyone paying attention.
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On February 07 2017 15:16 ChristianS wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2017 14:21 Danglars wrote:Are technica penning about as slanted a reply as Daily Mail in its initial write up, from scare-quoting the whistleblower on down. I congratulate Lamar Smith for his efforts on the matter. The pause quickly went from being explained away (even in this thread, that models accounted for a long halt) to there never having been a pause at all many years after the fact. That's a big enough deal in my opinion to look at. If this is science fact, there should be transparency on outside analysis, not claiming fishing expeditions and the like. Fact is, Trump's EPA pick is highly critical of how the issue has been handled governmentally up until now. The next four years will almost certainly have a doubter as head of the environmental protection agency. So everyone best get ready to convince rather than shut down debate. Especially talking from an economic perspective, because Perry Smith and Tillerson won't be crusaders on the issue. I don't think I've ever seen that debate be productive. The opposing side is denialist at its root - the whole anti-environmentalist movement is essentially bound together by disbelief of the scientific consensus, rather than belief in some alternative hypothesis which can be proven or disproven. What are the alternative explanations for the data? Sun cycles? Wobble in Earth's orbit? God toying with us? They're all either already disproven or unfalsifiable non-explanations. So instead of pushing another hypothesis the denialists prefer to watch the climate scientists and heckle when something goes differently than expected. Of course none of the unexpected developments actually disprove the consensus like they seem to think; it's like flat earthers celebrating because someone miscalculated the radius of the Earth. The evidence isn't actually more in their favor just because someone's climate model mispredicted something, but they figure if they sow enough doubt and mistrust about the science in general (notably without any effort to distinguish between the more speculative predictions and the more ironclad discoveries), they can convince an ill-informed public thru shouldn't trust anything the scientists say, regardless of evidence, no matter how emphatically they state their discovery. That "debate" has never been productive, at least not that I've seen.
Well have fun the next four years. Denialist is coming to be the slur with no substance. If scientists cannot practice science with examination at this stage, they invite criticism and deserve incredulity. It's entirely the style of argumentation without consideration that tries to turn whistleblowers into pariahs and activists into saints. The latest was Shrodinger's Climate Pause: it's an explainable pause and a data artifact at the same time, and the field is so advanced it takes a decade of explaining away the data before the data suddenly changes to not need an explanation.
Wake up and smell what reeks. A modern field with accepted explanations shouldn't need this level of CYA and blaming-the-whistleblower. Keep this up and the environment/climate change might drop to poll from 12th most pressing issue facing the nation to 13th-15th to 18th and below.
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On February 07 2017 16:03 Buckyman wrote:
There is no single, canonical 'denialist' viewpoint. Just a bunch of people who found that their concerns about the consensus, legitimate or otherwise, could not be seriously discussed. Actual points of disagreement range from "the earth isn't actually warming" to "the warming is (mostly) caused by a variety of non-CO2 factors" to "warming is a good thing" to "the data isn't solid enough to draw conclusions from". All those claims are treated identically - they're insulted and otherwise ignored.
Insults aren't convincing to the people being insulted. What we need are debates up and down the entire chain of claims.
Those debats ended 15 to 10 years ago in the rest of the world, I remember when it was discussed a lot in the medias. At one point you have to move forward. The only reason this debate is still going in the US is because you have your weird lobby system. On the other hand, the US have been the the fastest country to use mass GMO without proper independant studies. That's all there is to it, you adapt fast or not in the US based a lot on lobbies' work at Washington.
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On February 07 2017 14:13 zlefin wrote:that was quite an interesting read indeed. albeit rather long. but not too dense.
Its not really a mystery at all, although the writer treats this as some sort of enigmatic game of cat and mouse. The reason antitrust law's interpretation changed to being consumer-centric is because some legal scholars (like Judge Posner) brought a modicum of economic literacy to legal analysis (that a large contingent of math-illiterate professors of law have been trying to stamp out ever since).
The reasons we use a consumer-based analysis is because: 1) It has been consistently shown that focusing on competitors makes the legal proceedings subjective and subject to regulatory capture; and 2) The Standard Oil and Ma-Bell cases showed how easy it is to break up a true monopoly when it starts exerting its market power in anti-competitive ways. Amazon, if it becomes what some fear will just be made to become 3+ Ecommerce platforms.
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On February 07 2017 17:01 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2017 15:16 ChristianS wrote:On February 07 2017 14:21 Danglars wrote:Are technica penning about as slanted a reply as Daily Mail in its initial write up, from scare-quoting the whistleblower on down. I congratulate Lamar Smith for his efforts on the matter. The pause quickly went from being explained away (even in this thread, that models accounted for a long halt) to there never having been a pause at all many years after the fact. That's a big enough deal in my opinion to look at. If this is science fact, there should be transparency on outside analysis, not claiming fishing expeditions and the like. Fact is, Trump's EPA pick is highly critical of how the issue has been handled governmentally up until now. The next four years will almost certainly have a doubter as head of the environmental protection agency. So everyone best get ready to convince rather than shut down debate. Especially talking from an economic perspective, because Perry Smith and Tillerson won't be crusaders on the issue. I don't think I've ever seen that debate be productive. The opposing side is denialist at its root - the whole anti-environmentalist movement is essentially bound together by disbelief of the scientific consensus, rather than belief in some alternative hypothesis which can be proven or disproven. What are the alternative explanations for the data? Sun cycles? Wobble in Earth's orbit? God toying with us? They're all either already disproven or unfalsifiable non-explanations. So instead of pushing another hypothesis the denialists prefer to watch the climate scientists and heckle when something goes differently than expected. Of course none of the unexpected developments actually disprove the consensus like they seem to think; it's like flat earthers celebrating because someone miscalculated the radius of the Earth. The evidence isn't actually more in their favor just because someone's climate model mispredicted something, but they figure if they sow enough doubt and mistrust about the science in general (notably without any effort to distinguish between the more speculative predictions and the more ironclad discoveries), they can convince an ill-informed public thru shouldn't trust anything the scientists say, regardless of evidence, no matter how emphatically they state their discovery. That "debate" has never been productive, at least not that I've seen. Well have fun the next four years. Denialist is coming to be the slur with no substance. If scientists cannot practice science with examination at this stage, they invite criticism and deserve incredulity. It's entirely the style of argumentation without consideration that tries to turn whistleblowers into pariahs and activists into saints. The latest was Shrodinger's Climate Pause: it's an explainable pause and a data artifact at the same time, and the field is so advanced it takes a decade of explaining away the data before the data suddenly changes to not need an explanation. Wake up and smell what reeks. A modern field with accepted explanations shouldn't need this level of CYA and blaming-the-whistleblower. Keep this up and the environment/climate change might drop to poll from 12th most pressing issue facing the nation to 13th-15th to 18th and below.
Well.. you're wrong. Just because the daily mail tried to put it like that, doesn't mean any scientist tried to say anything even remotely like that. You're conflating 3 different things to paint a disingenuous picture of climate science. Let's deconstruct.
1) First and foremost, there's the science itself.
https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-stopped-in-1998.htm
No pause. There is no Schrodinger's pause either. There was data, which seemed to indicate that atmospheric temperatures had stabilized, which obviously needed to be incorporated into models that also accounted for other temperatures (most notably sea) continuing to rise. The main effect, though, was a redoubled effort on data collection, because it mainly showed the sparsity of data we actually had. Turns out that the data was actually quite flawed, and a reanalysis showed the was no pause at all, even in atmospheric surface temperatures. The point is that:
2) Different scientists do, and say different things. People working on models use the available data. People working on data collection improve the available data. Different groups use different methods, and there is a lively discussion about what hypotheses are right. Generally every group is really good at a narrow area (such as modeling historical temperatures based on ice cores, or modeling the same temperature range based on tree rings). Eventually this all gets assimilated into "scientific progress". Taking a snapshot of the debate and claiming the is no consensus about climate change, because look at the debate ignores that the debate is about some technical details, and the vast majority of these scientists agree on almost everything, but disagree quite vehemently on a small part. Some people assumed the data was right and constructed models to account for a stabilized surface temperature. Others insisted the data must be wrong and went about reanalyzing the data, and collecting more. Progress in both areas (improved models and data) leads to an improved understanding, despite some wrong turns along the way. Which brings me to:
3) Scientific knowledge in 1998 was not the same it is now. We have had 18 years of progress in equipment, methodology and data. This has led to an improved understanding. Pointing to something that has recently shown that a hypothesis was wrong 10 years ago as evidence that scientists don't understand anything about what's going on is to misunderstand everything about how scientific progress works.
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Donald Trump’s comments on Sunday suggesting that a replacement for Obamacare may not arrive until 2018 coincides with crowds turning out to pressure Republicans not to scrap the system too hastily.
On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly promised one of his first actions as president would be to simultaneously repeal and replace the landmark healthcare legislation – a plan that was heartily endorsed by Republican lawmakers.
And as recently as mid-January he told the Washington Post he was near completing a plan which would provide “insurance for everybody”, without revealing details.
But in a Fox News interview that aired Sunday night, Trump said of replacing Obamacare: “In the process and maybe it will take till sometime into next year, but we are certainly going to be in the process. It’s very complicated.”
He continued to say it would “statutorily take a while” to get a new healthcare plan.
“We’re going to be putting it in fairly soon, I think that, yes, I would like to say by the end of the year at least the rudiments, but we should have something within the year and the following year,” Trump said.
Trump signed an executive order to begin the process of dismantling the Affordable Care Act (ACA), one of Barack Obama’s signature achievements, hours after taking office. But as the government works to tear down the law, polls have shown it is becoming more popular the closer it gets to being repealed.
Joe Antos, a healthcare scholar for the conservative American Enterprise Institute, said it was difficult to know whether Trump’s comments were a response to those polls, but he viewed his statements as a positive sign the administration is realizing how long it could take to implement campaign promises.
“I’m taking the more optimistic view that they’ve been talking about what it takes to change the existing law and it’s beginning to become clearer to him and everybody else that it’s just going to take some time,” Antos said.
Last month, Trump said a plan to repeal and replace the health law would be implemented once his pick for health and human services secretary, Georgia representative Tom Price, was sworn in.
“It will be essentially simultaneously,” Trump said on 11 January. “The same day or the same week ... could be the same hour.”
But as that hour approaches – Price could take the office as early as this week – Trump has now steered from his plan to immediately repeal and replace.
In recent weeks, Republican enthusiasm for repealing Obamacare has faced increasing backlash, reflected in the polls and on the streets.
Source
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On February 07 2017 17:03 nojok wrote:Show nested quote +On February 07 2017 16:03 Buckyman wrote:
There is no single, canonical 'denialist' viewpoint. Just a bunch of people who found that their concerns about the consensus, legitimate or otherwise, could not be seriously discussed. Actual points of disagreement range from "the earth isn't actually warming" to "the warming is (mostly) caused by a variety of non-CO2 factors" to "warming is a good thing" to "the data isn't solid enough to draw conclusions from". All those claims are treated identically - they're insulted and otherwise ignored.
Insults aren't convincing to the people being insulted. What we need are debates up and down the entire chain of claims.
Those debats ended 15 to 10 years ago in the rest of the world, I remember when it was discussed a lot in the medias. At one point you have to move forward. The only reason this debate is still going in the US is because you have your weird lobby system. On the other hand, the US have been the the fastest country to use mass GMO without proper independant studies. That's all there is to it, you adapt fast or not in the US based a lot on lobbies' work at Washington.
There is something else to this.
Once the climate precaution start affecting you in unpleasent ways, we could not care less about them. This is equally true for countries, companies and individual. Remember we are talking about potential consequences in the future with a high degree of uncertainty.
Even the most extreme climate activist I know flew to South-Africa for a gig. Once jobs in entire big industries are on the line, the CO2 emissions are forgotten about. When China has an unfair advantage by allowing more pollution, other countries need to do the same.
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EPT
