It's certainly one of the easier "conspiracy theories" to believe. There were almost certainly a number of powerful people who wanted what Epstein knew to remain secret, and were thrilled that he died. It's super plausible that someone would arrange for him to be killed. Hell, there could've been competing hit-persons all trying to get the job done first for their particular wealthy child-diddling client.

Compare that to something like flat earth - why the fuck would anyone bother to hide that? Who would actually benefit from conspiring to make people think the earth is round rather than flat?

Lol. Nice.

Don't forget, they stormed into closed door hearings live streaming the whole thing, even though electronic devices are 100% not allowed in such hearings by law to maintain state secrets, protect witnesses, and even to protect the president from baseless or unproven accusations becoming public. Closed door hearings are like classified information, and the Republicans just tried to broadcast them to the world.

Hilariously, hypocritically, the thing they're so faux outraged about today is the rules Republicans enacted so they could make it easier to impeach Clintons....

https://crooksandliars.com/2019/10/karma-republicans-clinton-rules-apply

Just a taste.....
Andrew Napolitano reminded Fox and Friends viewers...that Republicans wrote the rules on impeachment proceedings during the Bill Clinton years. Uh oh.

I'm not sure if it's harder or easier after the course gets knocked down more and more as they go. The constant change makes it different for each driver.

I think the fun is all in how much dirt you can kick up! I can live with that.

I think---and it's just a guess---that this is supposed to be simpler and easier to maintain and use? In part because the engines are outboard and there aren't all the shafts going to and fro that the V-22 has.

However, I had thought that the criss crossing shafts were part of the military redundancy plan (like, shoot out an engine and limp home on a one---or at least, limp to a better sort of crash landing)---so I don't really know.

Anything that simplifies maintenance will make the fleet cheaper to operate.

How do you solve something that's going apeshit in another country? For starters, in the case of Ukraine and Crimea, we keep our obligations we agreed to and support them with the U.S. military from day one when Russia invaded Crimea, and again in Ukraine proper. Had we done that as we specifically and unambiguously agreed to do when they gave up their nukes in return, the "civil war" (that's clearly a foreign invasion) wouldn't have occurred. That's an Obama administration failure, one that seriously harmed our international standing and trustworthiness, imo. If we had just put 100 Marines on the borders, Russia wouldn't have risked WW3 to invade either country.
My point is human political or boundary issues are nothing compared to intentionally reengineering the makeup of the atmosphere and getting enough cooperation to implement the desired (required) changes.

If she changes policy in the west, that will impact the East....and South. What America does is more often than not mirrored, especially when we're successful.
Her impact is more for the public than governments. Sway enough of the public, get them to vote on your issue, and politics will evolve at light speed.

Her delivery is exactly what's needed. An angry, educated young woman (they called me young man at 14, so don't balk), being unpleasant about having her future stolen makes exponentially more impact to the audience she targets than a thousand dry, factual, statistic rich talks by scientists. (Those are a dime a dozen today) Kids telling their parents that when the shit hits the fan, the kids are tossing them in the swollen river, not supporting them through their old age, is exactly the kick in the face many need. Kids of today will blame adults of today for the future they live in. Adults of today clearly don't consider that enough.

Something is better than nothing, she's demanding something. She's 16, do you expect her to have all the answers? (Some feasible solutions would be nice) She's well ahead of the curve just understanding the severity of the problem. I'm sure if we listened to all her speeches she gives some suggestions of action we could take to move in the right direction, but I doubt any one person has answers that solve every major effect of climate change, much less all the secondary and tertiary effects. I certainly don't expect her, at that age, to do more than demand those in power take it seriously and find solutions....and act. Chastising a major polluter who walked away from the weak, insufficient Paris agreement is a good start if it works, but I agree it's only barely a start.

You should consider it, she got millions to March for her cause worldwide. Even if she is a willing tool for some adults, it's clear more adults are tools for her. Consider, she isn't talking to kids, she's talking to adults, and some at least are listening to her, not her parents.

Personally it disturbs me that emotional delivery like this is required for many to even consider the issue beyond "what does my political party say on this issue, that's what I say too." I wish scientific issues like climate change were immune to politics, propaganda, and emotion, but they aren't. That's why we're hosed imo, humans are too willing to be deceived if the lie is more pleasant than reality, and denying there's a problem or need for change is quite pleasant to lazy Americans, far easier than facing facts and implementing difficult solutions....until it's not at least, by which time it's far too late.

@newtboy,

"Ok, but don't discount the factual arguments because they are presented with passion. Ignore the emotion and focus on verifying or debunking the facts presented. Because someone on Fox presents their denial argument flatly and dispassionately doesn't make it more correct."

Obviously agreed, exactly what I was saying.

"if the facts are presented clearly and in totality, which she does better than most if not all professional scientific lecturers....sadly"

I think here you are selling scientific lecturers short, or at the least including folks I wouldn't consider scientific at all in the group.

When I think scientific lecturer, I think an actual scientific researcher giving a lecture related to their field of expertise. That even excludes scientific researchers giving lectures outside their field of expertise. I've seen how badly interdisciplinary study types can misjudge their own knowledge of a field. In the hard sciences they can get rooted out faster, but in softer sciences and humanities it's easier for them to keep finding a niche that hides their ignorance.

If you get the CERES team to give a talk on the global energy budget, they will give a lecture a thousand times more complete and accurate, than you, I or Greta ever could. They will confirm the planet is taking in more energy than is leaving. They will confirm their data is corroborated between satellite and ocean heat content measurements. They can say with authority how much energy is being gained, and can even confirm it largely corresponds to what we'd expect from the increased CO2 contributions. If you asked, they would even also admit that the uncertainties on the measured imbalance are larger than the imbalance itself.

Ask them about mating habits for European swallows and you, I or Gretta might well know better than them.

It is relatively easy to get a quite common pre 1986 machine gun.

The whole process is cheap. $200. Fill out a ATF form 4 and attach a passport sized photo. There are only a few questions to answer (that take up about 2.5 pages). This took about 30 seconds on google to find out. It is not more difficult to pass this background audit than that of a federal agent. I've looked into applying to be a federal agent and their process is an order of magnitude more stringent.

https://www.atf.gov/firearms/docs/form/form-4-application-tax-paid-transfer-and-registration-firearm-atf-form-53204/download

"What you, me, or others consider firearms means nothing."

You asked me what I considered a firearm. I answered both my personal opinion, and then specifically said that what the government considers a firearm to be is what it is. I'm surprised you seem to have missed this.

Registries are a step towards being able to confiscate guns en-masse. If you know who has what it is much easier to take it away from them. This sentiment is well documented on pro-gun forums.

"It doesn't take any money to ban certain firearms, certainly not a boatload"

Very true. I was tempted to point this out but I didn't. I believe that this is one of the core reasons they want to do it. It makes you think they are doing something when they aren't, and it costs sweet fuck all compared to say, spending money on anything else that will genuinely improve the average man's lot.

'your off hand assumption that, without your derisive "warning", he would be "dumb" enough to make an assumption'

Now that's the thing about warnings, you aren't assuming the behaviour of anyone. You only know it is a possibility that you don't want to happen. You don't know if it will happen or not. So you put up a warning. That's how warnings work.

But hey, this is your house right? Make no mistake, you've stamped yourself all over videosift like a dog marking its territory. Outsiders who don't comply with your way of thinking basically aren't welcome.

I once wondered if we should promote particularly dirty cars (before 'rolling coal' became a thing), thinking they could shock people into realisation.

I don't believe as much that people are waiting to be shocked into significant change. Instead, I think that the herd will gradually move - more quickly the easier it is to do so.

If Shell's endorsing moving towards green, I support that: if they get a bit better, they take a lot of people in the right direction. If they're jumped on for trying this, the people whose idea it was will be fired: they won't try again for a while.

I'm Canadian, so as much as American politics and media is pervasive up here, some of it still foreign to me.

That said, it feels like I'm observing a not undeserved observation that white-national and anti-immigrant ideologies are dominating mass shootings in the US. I guess where I get wary is with the sources most adamant about demanding that leadership on the 'right' acknowledge and address it as their own problem. Those same sources when discussing terrorism dominated by those claiming Islamic ideologies are adamant that Islam not be unfairly tarred by bad actors.

I'd have an easier time swallowing the line if either side were consistent in their approach. Either you blame BOTH Islam AND the 'right' for terrorist acts claiming common cause, or you reject BOTH Islam AND the 'right' being blamed for a few bad actors...

From what I have been told many of the smaller county's budgets are directly tied to arrest and conviction statistics.

This creates a multitude of problems.
Officers literally have to score X convictions or their buddy might "loose his job".
Similarily, the only way out of traffic duty up the career ladder might be a high conviction rate.
The sick thing is that this just the tip of the iceberg. AFAIK departments have been doctoring their statistics for so long it has widely become accepted that you literally go "fishing" once the next review period comes up (usually its more like speeding/broken tail lights, etc) and is widely viewed as common practice.
However after 9/11 a lot of departments have inflated their expenses with more equipment/personel (go look how many redneck county police deparments have their own Special Tactics Squads...) - combine that with poor budgeting and you can see where this goes...
Not all the blame can be put on the police though - a lot of it comes down to the way the review process works (i.e. convictions vs crimes prevented - go figure which is the easier statistic to use/present).
This problem really isn't new unfortunately.

The vertical axis of the graph at 0:45 is fake news.

No mention of import tariffs and border walls - easily the dumbest Trump presidential ideas from an economic viewpoint.
The tax cut for the rich is in the same league, but I dont think he promised that, he snuck it in under the radar mostly.

Most of the other "failures" are just nonsense claims or the POTUS has no power over them, it was just stupid to make such claims. Or maybe it was clever in an evil way.

Regarding population control I lay a lot of hope on self driving cars - if they become intelligent enough to actually drive in traffic they might realize at that point that if they kill 9/10ths of the population the traffic will become much more bearable and easier to navigate.

Didn't see any obvious evidence of two technologies but I sort of assume they are there---
1) "Bubblers" under the bow to put air under the ice before the weight of the ship cracks it and pushes it aside (ice with air under it is easier to break)
2) bow design that take the weight of the ship up above and onto the ice to crush from above (complements #1)...

I sometimes tell them "My forefathers fought and died for my right to remain silent. Discarding that right would be outrageously disrespectful and insulting to their sacrifice, and I'm certainly not going to do that to make a stranger's job a little easier and my life harder."

That's good. Easier, but good.

I think we both know that doubling the previous record would be impossible under the conditions the pros compete in. Plus the pros make their record on indoor tracks if I'm not mistaken.

I made my trip on the east coast as I wanted stay closer to home if something unexpected happened.

This map shows my round trip route from Cape Canaveral to High Point NC and back. The blue was created with my GPS tracker which caused some lost data due to battery drain and poor signal. I flipped the image so the text was easier to read.

https://imgur.com/a/GhrmEkA

I met a lot of nice people. If you like to travel you might like this sight.

https://www.couchsurfing.com/

I was able to stay with people who invited me into their homes on 5 different occasions and never actually had to sleep on a couch.



EDIT: Someone else brought up the possible invasive species point so I'm on the fence with that. I don't want to be blamed for the next BIG earthquake that gives birth to the new Godzilla. Although, it's California. He could probably get a SAG card.