I recently watched an award winning documentary about fungi that mentioned this phenomenon.

Fungi is the third form of life but is sadly not as well known as flora and fauna, as it is every bit as diverse and fascinating as them both.

MAGA isn't anything. It's as vague as "Hope and Change". It's a slogan.

Starting trade wars that wreck the economy is a bad thing. Deregulation that harms the economy is a bad thing. A lot of his policies are bad things.

And before you say, "well, the economy is doing great!" or "black unemployment is at an all time low", or whatever fact that completely ignores the macroeconomic phenomenon known as the business cycle, remember that national economic policy takes time to take effect. Instituted properly, it keeps the economic dips at recession level lows and duration, not 2008 level catastrophes. Aside from emergency measures such as those instituted during 2009, the federal government can't generally have immediate impacts. It'll take awhile.

I'll even go on record as saying that a recession under Trump is virtually inevitable even if he conducted good policy. The measure of his policies will turn into how bad the recession ends up being, and how well the damage is contained.

And that's the problem. Because of his tax cuts, he's put us into larger deficit spending mode in a time that we didn't need it. Macroeconomically, it was time to run surpluses. But he didn't care. In fact, he cared so little, he didn't even just keep deficit spending at where it was. He made it worse.

So when the other shoe drops, there won't be many mechanisms left to do other than lower interest rates when they're already low aside from sacrifice future economic growth when we have to deficit spend out the ass to stimulate the economy.

And the worst part is his poor decisions, when it's evident they were poor, reversing them won't help end a recession. If you realize a trade war screwed us, removing the tariffs doesn't in the short run increase consumer spending because people won't have jobs to buy those goods, and if the recession is globally felt (which it will be), Chinese people will have less money to buy American goods.

Taxing the rich more in the short run doesn't put more money into consumers' hands who would actually spend it. In fact, that reduces capital at a time when capital would help build new businesses to hire more people.

Not that any of this is surprising. Trump has no idea how macroeconomics work. He talks like he does, but he doesn't. Just says stuff that sounds obvious and easy to understand, and too many people fell for it.

But the reckoning is coming. It always does.

also @eric3579

To clarify a Thousand Year Storm isn't only going to happen once in a thousand years. There is always a probability that it can happen. Some of this could easily be 'bad luck'.

The phenomenon that created this situation is known as cell training, and happens all over the place. However, it is worthwhile noting what else they say, "...scientific studies have shown a statistically meaningful uptick in the frequency of extreme rain events over the eastern United States. Statistically, over the long term, these types of extreme floods are probably becoming more common, in areas that are normally rainy as a result of global warming."

What this means, at least the way I understand it, is that statistically in this region we can expect a higher probability of these 'xxx year storms' every time conditions are favorable for cell training style weather.

We can expect more of these types of storms, simply because the climate is in a format that creates more ideal conditions. These ideal conditions are not limited to just this type of weather, either. Gulf hurricanes, tornado alley tornadoes, and other 'regional' weather patterns are also experiencing 'ideal' conditions to allow stronger, more damaging storms to develop.

I am open to rational answers, but not hokum. Using mythos to prove mythos is no answer.
I've said I'm not open to suspending rationality or sanity, you say that means I won't listen to you....um.....

The entirety of Christianity hinges on one thing; the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is a historical event and can be investigated that way. Jesus Christ is a real person who lived 2000 years ago in Israel. This isn't mythos and there is good evidence to believe it happened.

How do you know there's no FSM? I've seen exponentially more evidence of his existence than Yahweh's. I've eaten pasta. I absolutely believe in it more than Yahweh, but that's not a high bar.
Edit: How do you know there's no Allah? Odin? Zeus? Mythra? Mot? Cthulhu?

We both know that the fsm is a joke religion invented to mock Christianity.

The scripture tells us that men have worshiped other gods for thousands of years, but that what they worship are demons. So I believe those beings exist, but they aren't what they claim to be. One of Satans primary tools to deceive mankind is false religion. He provides supernatural confirmation of these religions. There is a desire in mans heart to worship God, and it gets corrupted so that man is willing to worship just about anything. In western culture, men idolize money, materialism, carnal lusts, even themselves. Our idols are less obvious but they are still idols.

One more time, my questions were 1.why is God's word so easily misstated, misunderstood, misidentified, misused, confused, and used for evil and hate? (Edit: especially given that properly interpreting it is allegedly the only way to escape eternal torture, seems like a set up.)

Any truth is easily misstated, misunderstood, misidentified, misused, confused, and used for evil and hate. This isn't a phenomenon unique to the scriptures; this is the reality of living in a fallen world. Corrupt men distort truth for their own gain. Look at the political situation in our country; how is what politicians do different from what prosperity preachers do? It really isn't.

The fact is that the gospel is very simple to understand; even a child could understand it, and they do. Gods word is very clear about our need for salvation and how to obtain it. It's man who overcomplicates it, distorts it for gain, or deliberately conceals the truth. Trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and believe He was raised from the dead. You don't need to be a theologian to understand that.

2.why is disbelief apparently worse than murder, rape, and slavery and so not covered by Jesus's sin erasing sacrifice and the only sin that's totally unforgivable.

How did you come to the conclusion that Jesus didn't die for unbelief? We all have unbelief that needs forgiveness which we receive by repentance. His atonement is not automatically transferred to everyone; the condition of receiving forgiveness is to believe. If you don't believe you won't receive forgiveness because you failed to meet the condition, not because unbelief is worse than murder necessarily. Dying without forgiveness for your sin is the problem, not that it can't be forgiven, but it can't be forgiven without repentance. It's kind of like this:

Let's say you had cancer and the only cure was in Los Angeles. You had no way to get there but God sent you a car to get you to Los Angeles and get the cure. When it arrived you didn't believe it would take you there so you didn't get in. A short time later you died of cancer.

So what was the reason you died? It was your unbelief that stopped you receiving the cure, but it was your cancer that killed you. In the same way it is your unbelief that keeps you from coming to Jesus Christ for forgiveness, so you will die in your sin.

I am interested in and open to an actual answer to either or both if you have one. It won't make me believe, but it might help me understand those who do a little better.

I'm happy to answer your questions newtboy..I just didn't want it to turn into another internet argument. I appreciate your candor

"The hottest temperature I've measured was over 210 degrees Fahrenheit. To put that in to everyday terms is 99 degrees Celsius."

Fixed that for you.

...

(This is a really interesting phenomenon but whoever wrote the voice-over is an idiot.)

It's an interesting social phenomenon that the only people who can speak ACCURATELY about the experience of being a parent are those who have done it, but the only people who are allowed speak HONESTLY about being a parent are those who haven't.

I have only ever met one person who said "look, I love my kids and I'm glad they exist but given the choice again.... I wouldn't have had them." And when they said that, the conversation just died.

Personally, I love kids. I teach a kids Aikido class, I love playing with my friends kids and most of all, I love loading them up on sugar and adrenaline and then handing them back to their parents while I go home for a beer and a nap

According to the JH website, it's not only wrong, the study could not show what you claim by it's design.
Excuse me...let me use their exact words....

Food Hypersensitivities and Their Link to RA

In some patients, specific foods have been shown to exacerbate the symptoms of RA.(ref 5) Avoiding these foods or food groups has been shown to have limited, short term benefits but no benefits long term. Even though different forms of dietary modification have reportedly improved symptoms in some patients, people with RA may have spontaneous temporary remissions. Therefore, it is important to perform double-blind, placebo controlled trials to differentiate diet effect from spontaneous remission. You may identify a food that is a particular trigger for you, and this phenomenon is real. However, the science is not able to reliably identify specific triggers for individuals.

Diet elimination therapy is a method of determining food hypersensitivities with patients. Elimination diets avoid a specific food or group of foods such as milk, meat or processed foods that are known to be prime allergy suspects. These foods are eliminated from the diet for a specific period of time. Foods are then gradually reintroduced one at a time, to determine whether any of them causes a reaction.

Panush and colleagues, demonstrated temporary improvement in the signs and symptoms of RA with diet elimination and modification in a controlled study where the symptoms associated with food sensitivities were studied.(ref 5) During this study when the patient was fasting or on a severely restricted diet, the patients symptoms improved significantly. However, when the patient had milk reintroduced into the diet, episodes of pain, swollen and tender joints and stiffness were experienced. Similarly, Kjeldsen-Kragh and colleagues(ref 6) noted that fasting may be effective in reducing the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, however most patients relapsed as new foods were reintroduced into the diet. Pain and discomfort frequently returned once a patient reverted to a normal diet. These studies are few in number and should be interpreted and extrapolated to real life only with careful thought and caution.

So, no vegan has arthritis, but the entire medical community just missed that fact? Not true.
One more total misrepresentation of the science by your guru....the ACTUAL science, from Hopkins, says....
"In some patients, specific foods have been shown to exacerbate the symptoms of RA.(ref 5) Avoiding these foods or food groups has been shown to have limited, short term benefits but no benefits long term. Even though different forms of dietary modification have reportedly improved symptoms in some patients, people with RA may have spontaneous temporary remissions. Therefore, it is important to perform double-blind, placebo controlled trials to differentiate diet effect from spontaneous remission. You may identify a food that is a particular trigger for you, and this phenomenon is real. However, the science is not able to reliably identify specific triggers for individuals."
So only in hyper sensitive patients that have allergies to dairy, meats, or processed foods has this appeared to be somewhat effective temporarily, not long term, not for everyone....and it seems only anecdotally at this point (they imply that there have not been double blind, placebo controlled studies yet).
Fish oils are FAR more effective, but, you know, that's an animal product, so McDougal (as he is want to do at every turn) dismisses it in favor of false claims about miraculous veganism and misrepresentation of the science.

I downvoted your comment for using misrepresentational propaganda and unverified anecdote masquerading as scientific data from a known liar with undeniable bias to support your unsupportable position(s), that veganism cures everything including cancer.

Before he gave the secret, I went back and got it the second time. Mind blowing? Eh.
It's similar to when you listen to so-called EVP (electric voice phenomenon, or ghost whispers). You hear it the first time, and you're like... "so what? That was some random noise." Then someone tells you what you're supposed to hear (listen it's saying "Get out now!" wooo creepy!), and after that you can't NOT hear that.

The reason this seems to work for most people is because they identify the tone/pitch of the notes relative from each other, thus making this very false rendition of this song suddenly 'click' and sound alright.

So my guess is that having great difficulty hearing the melody doesn't mean you're tone deaf. I think it means you're better than the average person at discerning the notes' pitch absolutely. The pinnacle of this phenomenon is called 'Perfect Pitch', which is quite rare. But we might have something close to it.

*quality circular phenomenon! This was on the local news recently about a spot on the Snoqualmie River ... a rare occurrence in Washington state:

What he's talking about here is "cliche", but cliche's have themselves become so cliche, it's no longer effective to use that term to describe them.
This same phenomenon is found extremely widely in literature and music. I stumbled onto this following college, after being trained to have a critical eye for creative work, when I found myself hating everything that humans produced but not understanding why.
My personal theory is that 1) we've not yet learned to teach creators how to identify and cultivate truly unique ideas, and 2) the structure of our current systems for fostering creative work require said work to appeal fundamentally to the largest possible audience, which is easiest when a universal language (visual, auditory or written) exists.
We're trained to build on existing ideas, which is critical for success, but not how to reject established ideas and instead find new ones that are capable of maintaining familiarity, or communicating their core concepts without need of educating the audience.
It's an interesting evolution of process that I'm sure we can find in other areas of the human experience, beyond the field of creative media.

Ah well yes, he did support Trump. So if that alone makes him persona non grata, thats fine.

For me he came closest to explaining the fascination that people have with this phenomenon of post-truth, from the actual angle of a republican. Or maybe I just share some insane traits with Scott.

I find neither Scott nor Trump "persuasive" BTW, just interesting.

I expect more nuanced explanations and information from this guy, so maybe I was just not expecting his little switcheroo on the initial story.

It's not that I'm doubting the reality of this in the least, but I'd really like to hear about the experiments where they tested and confirmed this phenomenon. I guess I expect science to be supported by facts.

I get sick of the "We found this principle out. Isn't that neat? Just take our word for it." It wasn't that long ago where we said "Today we understand that Dinosaurs are giant, scaly ancestors of reptiles".
We're never approaching things with "All the evidence we've discovered suggests this to be the case about 'X'", which is absolutely the way we need to address all knowledge, because we're constantly proving old findings wrong and that's a good thing for improving our understanding of the universe. This tone is present throughout today's science as well, and grates on me every time I hear it. History has shown us enough that we will eventually prove it wrong, so I wish we presented findings that way to begin with.
/Marginally related tangent!