Advice, not advise.

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By Joel Clement July 19 at 4:10 PM

Joel Clement was director of the Office of Policy Analysis at the U.S. Interior Department until last week. He is now a senior adviser at the department’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue.

I am not a member of the deep state. I am not big government.

I am a scientist, a policy expert, a civil servant and a worried citizen. Reluctantly, as of today, I am also a whistleblower on an administration that chooses silence over science.

Nearly seven years ago, I came to work for the Interior Department, where, among other things, I’ve helped endangered communities in Alaska prepare for and adapt to a changing climate. But on June 15, I was one of about 50 senior department employees who received letters informing us of involuntary reassignments. Citing a need to “improve talent development, mission delivery and collaboration,” the letter informed me that I was reassigned to an unrelated job in the accounting office that collects royalty checks from fossil fuel companies.

The deeply conservative (!) "Die Welt" in Germany has two pieces by Sy Hersh, completely debunking the supposed chemical attack by the Syrians at Khan Sheikhoun. It also paints a highly disturbing picture of the decision-making process in both the White House and the Pentagon.

The first one is a rather short conversation that includes all the goodies: the chemical attack in Syria was, once again, not a chemical attack by Syrian forces -- they hit a stash, just like both the Syrians and the Russians claimed at the time.

The piece also details that US forces are keenly aware that it was not a chemical attack, that the response (Tomahawk strike on Syrian airfield) was equally ridiculous and dangerous, and that the bellicose stance of the US vis-a-vis Russia is complete lunacy.

The longer piece by Hersh himself and displays in great details the disconnect between Trump and his military advisers, as well as between the upper echelons of the military and the troops in the region.

Just a snippet about the strike itself:

A Bomb Damage Assessment (BDA) by the U.S. military later determined that the heat and force of the 500-pound Syrian bomb triggered a series of secondary explosions that could have generated a huge toxic cloud that began to spread over the town, formed by the release of the fertilizers, disinfectants and other goods stored in the basement, its effect magnified by the dense morning air, which trapped the fumes close to the ground.

And the media went along for the ride, for the umpteenth time. Remember Brian Williams fawning about the beauty of the weapons?

At some point, this volatile mixture of warmongering and McCarthyism is going to start WW3, and they'll blame it on the Russians.

I think this quote illustrates the issue quite nicely:
“Did the Syrians plan the attack on Khan Sheikhoun? Absolutely. Do we have intercepts to prove it? Absolutely. Did they plan to use sarin? No. But the president did not say: ‘We have a problem and let’s look into it.’ He wanted to bomb the shit out of Syria.”

The article I read had a little over 1 gram of salt in a 30g serve of cheese for one Halloumi cheese tested, which is indeed over 25% of the heart foundation's recommendation of a 4g limit for salt if you have hypertension (although not over 25% of the far more generous limits advised for the healthy).

That was only one cheese though, and there's really no need for cheese producers to add quite that much.

This. I'm fairly sure he can read, but I don't think he can read well. He may pass a reading test, and may read at the level most Americans can read at (though perhaps slower... unless reading tests are timed), but he clearly has issues. There was the report the other day how he wants reports to be limited to just a page or two and with lots of maps and the like, which seems to indicate he can't read well. Now, as he's pointed out, he knows lots of business leaders who can't read well and they are very smart people, and this doesn't make things bad for him as a business man, perhaps a bit funny, but as President of the United States, who has to read some serious stuff... we, the people of this Earth, are then at the mercy of his advisers on what things mean. This puts a lot of the power on Bannon and this should frighten everyone who isn't a far right fascist, it should frighten all the bread and butter Republicans and the former hard working people who voted for him in the false hope they'd get their jobs back.

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Why does it have to be one or the other? It's pretty clear a huge group of racist/misogynistic people rallied around Trump for saying the things that they thought but couldn't say out loud in public. Him saying those things and not getting absolutely destroyed for it (thanks to mass media which just ate it up as fuel for ratings) brought them out of the woodwork, if not the woods exactly.

On the other hand, Hillary herself failed time and again to capitalize on his gaffs. Clearly her strategy of just letting him implode without actually trying to push him off a cliff herself backfired. Burr is right that the advice she got not to sink to his level, not to outright challenge the outrageous stuff he was saying (and now doing) was wrong. She picked the wrong team of people to advise her. She didn't campaign in key swing states. She (and to honest most Americans) vastly underestimated the desperation of the poorest blue collar workers around the U.S. She never had a clear campaign platform other than to show up, look smug, and essentially say "Hey, at least I'm not THAT guy!" There were people who took that to mean she represented the status quo. They might have hated what Trump was saying but they hated the status quo even more and voted accordingly.

So, in my mind, it's both things. She absolutely made mistakes AND a shitload of emboldened bigots came out to vote. It was the combination of these things that caused her downfall.

Here is the problem, Mr. Schlosser is a journalist, not a Nuclear Scientist. He does not understand, or has chosen to ignore for propaganda reasons, that an unarmed warhead is EXTREMELY unlikely to perform the exact sequence of events that need to take place to have a nuclear reaction happen.

Yes, he is fully correct in that we have had numerous 'butt-clenching' moments in which we could have started WW3 due to a malfunction or human error. But in the other cases he mentions, such as the bombs that landed on Spain, the lightning bolt on the tower, and the wrench on the rocket, the chance of the warhead going up while being unarmed is infinitesimal. They simply don't go 'boom' because of a collision or explosion. Now you could have a 'dirty bomb' type incident where the radioactive materials could be spread and come into contact with humans, but that is about it.

The cases that have been officially listed as Broken Arrows were because they involved an active bomb, like the one in Florida. Everything else he mentions in this video is his 'belief' and is conjecture.

Now, before I get unloaded on, I wish we didn't have nuclear weapons. I don't agree with Trump that we should renew the arms race, I think he is nuts since we have more than enough weapons to blanket the cities of the world more than a couple of times. If you add all the nukes from the Big 3 (USA/Russia/France...yes, France) there are enough to cover every single inch of the world.

The problem is, who bells the cat? If we give up all of our weapons, we are at risk. I wish we weren't, but we would be. If we bring down our numbers gradually, there are still other countries that may not, like North Korea. How do we trust the other country is actually following through? In a perfect world, we would all lay down our weapons and sing kumbaya, but as Heinlein wrote: "...Anyone who clings to the historically untrue and thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never settles anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms."

PS...Yes, I know Starship Troopers is a controversial novel with overtones of Militarism and Fascism. However, there are quotes that ring true no matter what 'ism' people attach to the overall story. If you doubt that, look at the utter disbelief and depression that overcame liberals when Trump won. "He simply was supposed to, it was impossible, not like this, we have no hope, etc" were the feelings of the people who gave him no hope of winning. I, having lived and read enough to get a fair picture of how fucked up we are as a species, had little doubt he could pull it off. We elected a former Wrestler as governor, a former actor as governor, and a former actor as President. We overlook mass genocide in other countries. We ignore climate change. We spend hundreds of billions on defense and less than 10 on space exploration, all the while living on a planet that is already critically overpopulated (and is growing almost exponentially).

As great as John Oliver is, he spent more time there mocking them over petty things as opposed to really concentrating on the (admittedly real) flaws in their platforms.

OK, Stein's "music" is cringeworthy. And Johnson's "skirt" comment is creepy and ill advised, but clearly meant in a metaphorical way.

It kinda bothers me when people (not just Oliver) do it to Trump and Clinton also. Like Trump having "tiny hands", or bringing up cankles or pantsuits for Clinton.

All of those things can be funny, a few times. But bringing them up constantly makes it seem like we have nothing of actual substance to criticize them for -- which is clearly not the case.


He did bring up legitimate concerns for some of Stein and Johnson's signature platforms. In both cases, that criticism boiled down to "you can't actually do that", as in the president doesn't actually have the power to implement the policy that they want. That's fair ... BUT, pretty much every single politician ever makes campaign promises that they don't actually have the power to implement. You pretty much have to if you want to get elected.

That doesn't mean that setting those policies as goals can't have value. Obama wanted a much more thorough overhaul of healthcare and insurance, but he didn't have the power to make it happen unilaterally. So we ended up with a watered-down version of Obamacare after the Republicans in the legislature did everything they could to obstruct it. But still, even though it isn't exactly what Obama originally had in mind, there are plenty of people now with some health coverage who had none before. That's a tangible positive result.

Trump will never build his wall, even if he ends up in the White House (not likely). I offer no defense for this idiotic idea, but it is at least possible for massive public works projects to be used to create jobs, improve infrastructure, and have other tangible positive effects; like FDR's New Deal.

Hillary would face lots of obstruction if she attempts to implement her plan to let people attend public universities for free. Probably more than Obama did on Obamacare. But trying to do something to make post-secondary education more available to everyone is a good goal. Even if the cynic in me thinks she only produced this "plan" as a way to try to win support of Sanders voters.

Johnson couldn't eliminate income tax, or abolish all those departments he mentioned. But he could rein in a lot of spending that the Executive branch does have power over. That could be a good thing in many cases (I'd be happy to see the TSA eliminated and military spending drastically reduced), but there are also a lot of potential problems. See Kansas transformation to "Brownbackistan" as a result of Sam Brownback's drastic tax cuts.

And Stein couldn't forgive student loan debt for this "entire generation". But just like Clinton's proposal to make public universities free, there is potential value to be found in just trying to do something about the insane problems with our university system. Hillary is a savvy enough politician to know not to say too much about her plan, which would open it up to scrutiny and criticism. Stein stepped into that by revealing her political inexperience, but I tend to trust that she does actually want to do something as opposed to Hillary just saying what she needs to say to get more votes.

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I enjoyed the movie. I read the book first, but only because I saw the trailers and wanted to see the movie, but I was advised to go to the source first. Perhaps because it was all fresh to me etc, that when I saw Zac's "moment montage" I was able to fill in the gaps.

I guess it depends on your definition of adaption. I feel that implicit in adaption is transformation or evolution. The story is in the telling no? Can you cut the story out, leaving behind all context, and still call it "Watchmen"?

The homage to Batman's suit is perhaps not literally true to the source material, but I think in some ways it is kind of true to the spirit of it. Here's Watchman, the graphic novel, was playing with our preconceptions of what makes a superhero comic book. Perhaps Snyder's intention was to use motifs of superhero movies in the same way Watchmen used preconceptions of its medium. maybe.

Wait and see. One of the reasons so many politicians are robotic (ha! @notarobot) is because of soundbites and things taken out of context.

I mean, look at Trump and his joke about asking Russia to find Hillary's emails. I watched more than just the one sentence. It was clearly a joke. Poor taste. Unpresidential. Ill advised. But a joke.

And now it is touted as possible treason. Silliness.

There might be some relaxed honest speech in there, thought to be private, that people are going to make out to be Horrendous and Horrible. Instead of just being someone thinking they could be honest in private.

You watch for it. Remember what I am saying and if I am more prophetic than you. "Unguarded" can sink a political career. But if a politician never allowed to EVER have privacy to be unguarded?

The death of democracy.

Your mom is open to the air. Few retards shoot AT her...

Not building something because someone can destroy it means constructing any building over 12-15 stories since 9/11 is ill-advised, yet people are still doing it...