@newtboy,

Per my very first sentence in thread, I also oppose gov using this as a wedge issue to rally their base.

Meaning, I 100% am in agreement that nobody(gov or otherwise) should be banning trans kids(and adults) from anything, competitive sports included.

I did point out a single biological fact:
-Whether a person is born with XX or XY chromosomes has a significant impact on development that impacts performance in sports.

You jump all over that observation though, like raising it is hateful, denying peoples right to exist, and on. It is not.

And your observation that the performance advantages aren’t 100% of the time favouring XY folks is the red herring. Of course there are areas were the difference is an advantage, others were it’s neutral, and yet others a disadvantage. In a large population you also always have the possibility of individuals overcoming those odds.

Pointing to those facts though like they mean specific advantages don’t exist is the red herring.

In addition to that one fact, I also proposed applying the same standards for fairness in competition equally to everyone.

And it’s on this point I am automatically decried as hateful, evil and maliciously acting against people’s right to exist….

If your only looking for a villain to demonize there’s no point attempting further discussion.

We’ve been over this. Repeatedly.
He was trolling them, as he often did. This was his style. It just goes over your head.
If he’s one of the dumb ones, Democrats are hyper intelligent super brains. I certainly don’t think that.

Johnson grew up in Washington, D.C. His father worked for the Bureau of Prisons and was the director of classifications and paroles. Up to that time, he was the highest ranking African-American in the bureau.
Johnson received his B.A. degree from Clark College (now Clark Atlanta University) in 1976, is a member of Omega Psi Phi Kappa Alpha Alpha Chapter, Decatur, Georgia, and received his J.D. degree from Texas Southern University Thurgood Marshall School of Law in Houston in 1979; he practiced law in Decatur, Georgia, for more than 25 years.

From 1989 to 2001, Johnson served as an associate judge of the DeKalb County magistrate's court. He was elected to the DeKalb County Commission in 2000 and served from 2001 to 2006.

Edit: "The subtle humor of this obviously metaphorical reference to a ship capsizing illustrated my concern about the impact of the planned military buildup on this small tropical island," Johnson said in a statement at the time.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last year that Johnson has battled Hepatitis C for more than a decade, an ailment that causes him to get "lost in thought in the middle of a discussion."

He’s hardly dumb. I know it’s hard to know from your viewpoint, but you’ve been well informed before….you could TRY to remember a few facts you are taught.

That said, there do seem to be real reasons why he should retire, not the least of which is hep C that’s recently left him sick and weak. You don’t need to be dishonest to make your point, bob. Why are you?

Always dishonest Bob. Every time you post. It’s really sad. Sour grapes have rotted your brain.

Edit: BTW, this isn’t just two out of control, violent Retrumpicans, they are representative of all Trumpists, and this display was done to appeal to people just like you, Bobby, and be your actual representatives.

Reports I read said between the loss of control and impact was over 3 minutes of abject terror for all involved. Yikes!!!

*snuff?

I don't understand the point that's being made here. She's objecting to him describing it as the "latest" invasion rather than the more generic "an invasion"?

Bob, can you explain what we're supposed to find upsetting about this? It seems like incredibly nitpicky fluff, but perhaps there's some subtlety I'm missing that would have a real impact in some way...?

Russia clearly has invaded Ukraine at this point. And that's bad, I hope you'd agree, as Ukraine is a sovereign democracy and has done nothing to warrant a hostile invasion of this sort. The Biden admin has correctly recognized it as a hostile and unwarranted invasion, and appears to be responding in a manner which is reasonable for the situation, given our relationship with Ukraine.

Where's the beef?

The protests you mentioned didn’t halt commerce for huge swaths of your, and our country, did they? Severity and ubiquity of impacts matter.

Lemme ask you, did this protest ask for dialog, or outright refuse it?

None of the other protests intentionally caused as much collateral damage as possible. It’s not their cause, it’s their methodology and severity of the results.

It’s not about their cause du jure, it’s about their methods, causing economic damage as deep and widespread as possible. I’ll ask, did the other protests you mentioned try to shut the country down for their cause, or were they targeted against the industries/entities they were protesting?

I’m pretty certain that, had they not blocked freeways, border crossings, cities, and industries their protests wouldn’t be being broken up and protesters wouldn’t be arrested. Again, it’s not the why, it’s the how that’s an issue. Their methods aren’t the same as other tolerated protests in severity nor focus.

BUT…there is a significant difference, morally, ethically, and logically between protesting being murdered by police or protesting your last tiny bit of sovereign land or water sources being taken and permanently destroyed by oil companies, and protesting not getting a shot to have the privilege of traveling to another country. I’m far more prepared to be patient for life and death causes than ignorant inconvenience causes.

Edit: P.S. also, “fuck your feelings” goes both ways. These are the same people that took that stance for 4 years here (some still do). When you tell people “fuck your feelings” in response to any subject, any complaints, it’s pretty ridiculous to expect those same people to respect your feelings, especially while you honk a truck horn in their back yard all night for weeks. In my neighborhood, there would have been burning trucks night one, and peace night 2….but I’m a native Texan, kind of the opposite of a Canadian.

After impact it took 29 seconds for the train to stop. Engineer will need a cab ride back to the crash site.

A dollar has value if you can buy shit for a dollar.

Gold likewise has no exchange value if you cant exchange it for goods and services. Its rare and chemically stable and good for memorial coins, has many technical uses and looks cute, but otherwise it hardly matters what symbol for money you choose. There is 200 years of experience with fiat money and gold and silver standards and fiat money has been better, not just usually better or better in some scenario, universally better.

Symbolic money is practical and facilitates quicker turn around prevents deflation makes speculative runs on currency harder and smoothes the economic bumps in the road in general.

GDP is just a metric. Not a bad one but not the actual goal.

USofA is teh most developed. Should have used growing. Deflation in an economy that is growing kills growth.

Restarting countries not only get to ignore their debts, they immediatelly start borrowing again.

The only countries that dont borrow are countries no-one will lend to and countries so rich in some silly resource they can float high in the international currency system without borrowing. Borrowing is good for bussiness.

What is outrageous idiotic bullshit? Believing pegging the value of your paper note to some hoarded luxury makes it a better representation of the mean value of goods and services bought and sold? I could do without gold except for the jacks on my audio cables (just kidding). It does not matter what I exchange for food and gas, if it gets me food and gas, its good money.

Money is what you can pay taxes with. Do they take gold?

If you insist your dollar has the value of some weight of gold how does that influence the willingness of someone else to sell you shit? Unless they specifically intend to buy gold at a fixed price they dont care. They are going to use your dolar to buy some other shit from someone else. So if you take the actual currency out of the equation, when you decide on buying and selling shit you are intuitively comparing that decision with all the other decisions about buying and sellin that you know of. The currency is just a good way to count the measure of usefullness of a product or service and compare among many. Pebbles, bottletops, dollars, gold, pearls, all just a number.

A dollar could be backed by gold or it could not, this has zero impact on the transactions made. What matters is how many transactions are made, at what value, and how much money is available to the entire marketplace in a given period of time. Transactions quickly pass the ability of a gold standard to keep up. If you want a gold standard you have to slow transactions down because you dont have the money for them.

This is why markets need some regulation, otherwise someone might sell the universe twice and then default on one. But a gold standard, at least the type of gold standard I believe was talked about in this thread as a miracle cure, would be too limiting.

So, Trump has now publicly promised to pardon the murderous cop killing seditionists if he’s re-elected.

It makes me wonder, do they even know that they admit guilt by accepting a pardon, and that unlikely to be president Trump can’t pardon them from most of the consequences of admitting to being a seditionist traitor…only the prison time? Anyone pardoned will have a nice red “T” tattooed on their foreheads for life. (The scarlet letter for traitors)

Accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt, offering a pardon is an admission of recognition of their guilt. Their lives are going to be seriously impacted by admitting to being treasonous seditionists, relegated to pure Trumpist events, businesses, and employment because most companies don’t serve or employ known traitors….only the Trump loving ones do.

BTW….Trump just also admitted publicly to pushing Pence to CHANGE the election results, claims he had the power to overturn verified and certified election results, and complaining that unfortunately, Pence didn’t “overturn the election” and call it for the loser. This is Trump admitting he lost (you don’t change the results when you won), and whining that they should have been allowed to steal the office anyway.

I guess according to Trumpsters, Biden already won 2024 because Harris can hand all votes to him no matter what the states say, then to whatever democrat comes after him in 28, even herself.

Forget 2024, in fact forget all elections…you KNOW the process is rigged and now Biden is president, might as well not vote, since he rigged the last one so masterfully from the outside that no evidence of tampering exists….how well do you think he’ll do now that he controls the election? Zero votes for Republicans? Better stay home in protest, your vote won’t count anyway. Even if he loses, Harris will hand him the win, totally above board and legally. That’s what Trump wants you to believe….so believe it.
This is you guy? This is you pick?
🤦‍♂️

Oh yeah, and Biden’s first year in office was the fastest growth of the economy in 40 years! D’oh!

The Hunga Tonga undersea volcanic eruption was the largest on earth over the last 30 years, according to Research Physical Scientist Brian Brettschneider with the National Weather Service Alaska region.

Brettschneider said that the ash created by the eruption will likely cause a slight cooling effect on the climate, though not as dramatic as short-term climate changes from past volcanic eruptions. In 1815, the climate impacts caused by the Mount Tambora volcanic eruption caused what was called “the year without a summer.”

“What we’re seeing so far is a fairly minor amount of climate altering stratospheric sulfur particles have been detected so far,” Brettschneider said. “A pretty small amount relative to the size of the eruption, so kind of our first initial best guess is that there is going to be a pretty minor climate impact over the next few years.”

Of course, that can only account for the estimates of the blast so far, not any future eruptions that may or may not happen.
Estimates say the Hunga Tonga eruption was equivalent to 2% of the pressure released in the Krakatoa eruption for comparison.

Timestamps:
0:01 - 3:08 Peru
3:09 - 7:56 California
7:57 - 12:11 Japan
12:12 - 15:46 Chile
15:47 - 17:13 Ecuador
17:14 - 18:34 Hawaii
18:35 - 19:34 Oregon
19:35 - 20:19 Mexico

Has anyone heard/read if and how the eruption may impact global temperatures over the next few years? Curious what the climate scientist are predicting, but maybe to soon to know anything.

I don’t KNOW, but reports I’ve seen said the police were extremely close, reacted instantly, rushed to the scene, and barely managed to pull him out before impact. Maybe there was more time, but the reports implied there wasn’t.

These drones light shows are feeling samey-samey real fast, no "wow" factor anymore to me just like fireworks, though they can convey any messages (propaganda?) far more clearly and inventively if done right. But at least these drones get reused events after events. Hopefully the environmental impact is less than fireworks at the end of the their days.

Far less chance of severe mishaps too.

There’s a difference between “racist” and “biased”. IMO, that’s what Bill is saying.

(To be clear, the difference I’m standing on here is racist implies it intentionally targets one race, biased in this context means while it may inadvertently impact one group, that is not the intent.)

Standardized testing is biased towards those with better educational opportunities….not any particular race. It just so happens one “race” is far more likely to have fewer educational opportunities on average….but that’s not the test’s fault or design, nor the student’s, and is not MEANT to target anyone by race. It just measures what you know….what you’ve been taught.

When it comes to SATs, they don’t take into account the educational opportunities people may not have had, and so aren’t a great measure of a student’s ability to learn, but are a measure of what they’ve learned. As such, they are a good metric for colleges to use in admissions, but are also sorely lacking when it comes to identifying ability. That means they should not be the ONLY measure used in admissions, but are still a useful tool for colleges.

I’m all for color blind admissions, if they measure ability as well as wrote knowledge, finding a way to measure how well they made use of the opportunities to learn they were presented….no matter what their skin color or economic status. So far, I don’t believe any such measure exists.

Really, I’m all for free jr college for anyone. It’s cheap, $150 a semester the last time I went, probably double that now, still a bargain. Most people drop out before year 3, so that’s a great way to allow everyone the opportunity for higher education without the expense…and frees up 4 year colleges to eliminate year 1&2 and teach more people who might graduate.

I don't know, but there's a few things that concern me:

1. Underestimating your advisory. We did this with Japan in the lead up to WW2. Great powers always fight the last war they won. In our case, that's WW2. China learned from the war they lost as well: WW2, and they're not going to make the same mistakes twice.

2. Ambiguous defense posture. This is how England got dragged into WW1 due to an uncertain position if Germany invaded France. Germany gambled that England wouldn't get involved because it had no spoken mutual defense agreement with France. Had the defense pact been made readily clear, it's possible Germany wouldn't have invaded.

2. Use it or lose it weapons. In WW1, one of the main issues with the initial invasion was train schedules. Things had to go perfectly to get men and material to the front line and any hiccup could delay a military victory. Once the very first German troop train left the station, there was no way to stop the invasion. Now we've got a situation where a war over Taiwan would be won or lost in about an hour of the first shot. China knows that should the US get involved, China's military assets are going to be blown up and fast. This puts China in a situation where they might choose the launch everything in a maximum impact first strike. Faced with overwhelming damage, the US would be forced to make some hard choices about how to respond. Would it go nuclear? It's according to how much Taiwan means to us.

"It won't happen". Go to Europe and see how many tombstones bear that inscription.

I'd say 50/50.

I believe the train engine is built to withstand a crash like this one, meaning it will not explode or come apart in large heavy pieces. Also it is a passenger train. To apply full braking could cause more injuries for the passengers onboard.

I also think any passengers in a stuck vehicle on the tracks will more times than not have plenty of time to abandon the vehicle before impact. An 8-car passenger train moving at 80 miles an hour needs about a mile to stop.

If an engineer sees that a bridge up ahead is out, he would probably apply full braking and deal with the injuries to passengers rather than risk deaths.

That's my uneducated reasoning and I'm sticking to it.