See for yourself, the "Evidence" section is very telling, and it's dishonest to say "they found nothing"

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/18/us/politics/mueller-report-document.html#g-page-188

^searchable doc

I understand. I'll grant that it seems a little "helicopter-parent" like to worry about this sort of thing. However, I do not agree that the transgressions are as harmful OR harmless as you suggest.

The Toy Story Examples again.
The one from Sid is itself an allusion to Star Wars where Darth Vader is torturing a soldier for information about the rebel base locations. If I'm not mistaken, that person is force-choked to death after his mind betrays him and gives Vader the info he needs.

Buzz approaches Woody after Sid steps out and commends him after the fact. "A lesser man would have talked under such torture."

Here is the encouragement. It doesn't matter if Sid is a good or a bad guy. Although, arguably, Sid isn't really a villain - just a kid who likes to play rough with his toys. But that's a different argument. I believe the encouragement is in the promotion of the idea that, put bluntly, torture is effective.

It's this idea, whatever the character motivation is at the time, nomatter who the character is, that encourages the use of torture as an acceptable means of extracting some kind of cooperation from the person being tortured- which is simply NOT true.

Why the pattern? why can't he be just ripping apart his toys like he did with the doll earlier?

I'm not fishing for 'micro agressions' - I'm against promoting the idea that torture works.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/12/08/world/does-torture-work-the-cias-claims-and-what-the-committee-found.html

"Time and time again, people with actual experience with interrogating terror suspects and actual experience and knowledge about the effectiveness of torture techniques have come out to explain that they are ineffective and that their use threatens national security more than it helps."
https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/an_fbi_interrogator_on_the_effectiveness_of_torture/

I argue that presenting torture as something that DOES work encourages policy decisions that allow for torture as a means to an end. When in reality it's simply just some kind of revenge driven harm propaganda.


https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-rsquo-ve-known-for-400-years-that-torture-doesn-rsquo-t-work/

They sort of had to...there have been multiple sensationalized reports of rapes and murders of young Chinese women...which have dented their PR world a bit...

Understand, in China---this is a remarkable and terrifying idea to put into the public sphere...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/business/didi-chuxing-murder-rape-women.html

@newtboy

Your being dishonest and unfair to people with stuff like this:
"predicting so many of the educated would go along for short sighted, purely tribal reasoning, that's tougher."
and
"people have been claiming white men are the downtrodden powerless whipping boys.

I saw an op-ed in the nytimes back when the supreme court nomination was hot and had hoped the author's opinion were a minority. Segments of this Daily Show clip and your own feedback make rethink that. The op-ed wanted to concisely show how dangerously right wing and extremist current Justice Roberts was. To do this, the author stated that the Justice own chilling rationale for one of his decisions should tell us everything we need to know about him: "To stop discrimination based upon race, we need to stop discriminating based upon race"

Being insulting and dismissive of people's frustrations at being racially discriminated against as your post appears to do just makes for more division still.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/11/magazine/black-mothers-babies-death-maternal-mortality.html

Bob, you are a bigot. So is this person.

http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2018/jun/19/matt-schlapp/no-donald-trumps-separation-immigrant-families-was/

"Immigration experts we spoke to said Obama-era policies did lead to some family separations, but only relatively rarely, and nowhere near the rate of the Trump administration."

and "Obama generally refrained from prosecution in cases involving adults who crossed the border with their kids"

There is no hypocrisy. Do you not understand the difference between something rarely happened, that Obama actively tried to avoid, and widespread enforcement by Trump which affected thousands of families?

But hey, Trump signed an order and everything's good right? Wrong. No relief in sight for those he already separated.

What's hypocritical is that conservatives cry about fake news and then you put a link to this blatant propaganda bullshit. This video makes CNN looks like a beacon of impartial wisdom and reason and communists can learn a thing or two about brainwashing from OAN.

What's hypocritical is that you pretend to love Jesus and abide his teachings, but you are complicit in Trump's transgressions against humanity. The IG report is the real distraction, letting you ignore the evil that you're condoning. The only thing damning is your soul.

Ah, I see you didn't read the links.

Else you would know :

* The post 1990 borders of Ukraine include historically Russian lands populated by Russian people.

* Ukraine's nukes could not be to guard against Russia because Russia had the crypto keys and guidance control over Ukrainian nukes.

* U.S. support for the 2014 coup against Ukraine's government was arguably also a treaty violation. (I don't actually care about this one)

* Government corruption, rising nationalism, and anti-Russian sentiment, are what led to the coup, which kicked off the fighting, which led to Russian intervention, which led to the "land grabs".


(Anti-Russian sentiment was brewing for years before the 2014 coup. You can see it play out in the 2012 language law issue, which was one of the historical turning points leading up to conflict: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_policy_in_Ukraine#Proposals_for_repeal_and_revision)


Sidenote, this statement is pure insanity : "We should be at war with Russia today over it's murderous expansions"
War with Russia would last less than an hour, and the only winner would be South America and Africa.
Nuclear powers can never go to war. I mean _never_ never.






Regarding collusion, here :
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/02/opinion/collusion-meaning-trump-.html

"
President Trump declared on Twitter: “There is NO COLLUSION!”
"
There ya go. A Trump declaration that the campaign was not illegally secretly coordinated (i.e. no collusion). Not backwards at all.

The link also explains the irrelevance of the term regarding legal issues.

-scheherazade

Brochu has now been kicked out of school and the "Police Department said it would be requesting that Brochu be slapped with a felony charge of intimidation based on bigotry or bias," in addition to the two misdemeanor charges already filed.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/us/brianna-brochu-hartford.html?_r=0

New York Times article https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/us/prison-reform-steve-prator.html

Here is the full press conference. https://youtu.be/qbI_wz1iXQA

Sorry, that's pretty culturally-ignorant thinking right there.

Japanese people are not "meek" or "inhibited" any more so than Americans are. There are different cultural rules about self-expression but there are most certainly loud, aggressive, and flamboyant people here. They just express themselves in different ways than your typically loud, aggressive, and flamboyant American would.

You might think socioeconomic factors were a reason for the lack of crime, but you'd be wrong there too. Japan has a higher poverty rate and lower median income than the U.S.

The low crime rates here can much better be attributed to cultural factors. Every Japanese person is raised with the belief that it is shameful cause problems to the people around them, whether that be family, schoolmates, or co-workers. Getting arrested is about the most shameful thing you could do here. Just being suspected of a crime will likely get you fired from your job, before you are even tried.

And let's not forget the role the justice system here plays. If you get arrested you are almost 100% going to get convicted because the odds are massively stacked against you in the court system. You are basically guilty until proven innocent. Read this for more info about it.

And people here know this. They also know that Japanese prison is hellish. You won't be raped or assaulted there like in the U.S. but you will know exactly what is like to have all of your freedom stripped completely away.

You add to all of this the low unemployment rate of Japan, the high regulation of all weapons (including knives), a robust social system for helping the unemployed (although unfortunately lately a lot of people seem to be falling through the cracks), a nationalized health insurance plan (I pay a $1 co-pay to take my daughter to the doctor and all prescribed medicines are free), a strong social stigma against drug use, and the ability as an island nation to strictly police the borders to prevent the influx of illegal goods (i.e. drugs/guns) and you get the low crime rates in Japan.

tl;dr

There is little incentive to commit crime in Japan because the both social and legal repercussions are extremely severe, and there is little need to resort to crime to survive (plentiful jobs and robust social security). Likewise the opportunity to commit crime is lessened because of the strict regulation of weapons, drugs, and borders.

EDIT: I will say that on more than one occasion I've thought that a career criminal in the U.S. who suddenly found himself in Japan would feel like a kid in a candy store. Because of the lack of crime, people here don't take precautions against it--some people leave doors and windows unlocked when leaving the house, you'll see laptops or iPads left in cars in plain view, and people carry ridiculous amounts of cash on them (I'm talking like on the order of $1000 or more in some cases). On the one hand it can be reassuring but on the other hand I seriously worry about these people when they travel overseas.

Two interesting articles on the nature of fiat currencies today.

First, Stephanie Kelton has an op-ed in the NYT titled How We Think About the Deficit Is Mostly Wrong.

Second, J.D. Alt notes that Italy is dipping its feet into MMT territory.

I had to read this op-ed. No fan of DT, however I am painfully aware that our news coverage of him is pretty much click-bait with little real substance. This photo is an example -- pictures can lie, they are but a moment in time.

I have to think that this op-ed is accurate -- there are some really horrendous things mentioned that are no credit to DT. And it would be too easily disproved if there were outright lies. (And yes, there is a whiff of BS, but nobody in politics can get by without a whiff of BS. NOBODY.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/opinion/the-trump-vision-for-america-abroad.html

Rememer the talking point that 17 intelligence agencies pointed their fingers at Russia for having orchestrated the hacks during the election?

Even the NYT has finally buried that one:

The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies — the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community.

Fascinating. I can't help but feel a bit sad for the man. But there are some aspects of his testimony that leave me scratching my head:

"[T]he administration then chose to defame me and more importantly the FBI by saying that the organization was in disarray, that it was poorly led, that the workforce had lost confidence in its leader. Those were lies, plain and simple."

http://www.politico.com/story/2017/06/08/full-text-james-comey-trump-russia-testimony-239295

"Yet there is a growing consensus that Comey has wielded the powers of the directorship more aggressively than anyone since Hoover—to the consternation, and even anger, of some of his colleagues."

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/james-comey-fbi-accountability-214234

"Mr. Comey got so many calls from former agents and others after he decided this summer not to pursue charges that he had to change his phone number posted online. And at a recent meeting with retired agents, he was still fielding tough questions about the decision."

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/29/us/politics/fbi-clinton-emails-james-comey.html

I think it's fair to say that Comey helped to create a "turbulent" atmosphere at the FBI during the past year, one probably not matched since the firing of William Sessions in 1993.

I wish someone had thought to ask him what he'd imagine the results of the "hopes, loyalty and leaks" would have been if he hadn't been fired.

While you can try to be idealistic and point the finger at total CO2 emissions, it's not a practical target for developing countries like China.

It's not a matter of them trying to "grow their economy faster than their emissions". They are a developing country, and their economy will grow fast, whether you like it or not. Telling China to limit their total CO2 emission to pre 2005 values is like telling a teenager in the middle of puberty to limit their food consumption to the same amount as when they were 9 years old. It's just not an option.

Now you may say "But their total emissions is still increasing! This is just a farce and they're doing nothing!" Well, saying that they're doing nothing is not true. Do you know what China's emissions would look like if they did nothing to limit them? Having China's emissions plateau is already quite an achievement, as the alternative is far far worse.

Now you may say "China's not putting funds towards green energy!" Well, that's also not true. China already surpassed the US, in spending on renewable energy. In fact, China spent $103 billion on renewable energy in 2015, far more than the US, which only spent $44 billion. Also, they will continue to pour enormous amounts of resources into renewable energy, far more than any other country.

"But China is building more coal plants!" Well that's not really true either. China just scrapped over 100 coal power projects with a combined power capacity of 100 GW . Instead, the aforementioned investments will add over 130GW in renewable energy. Overall, Chinese coal consumption may have already peaked back in in 2013.

So in the world of reality, how is China doing in terms of combating global warming? It's doing a decent job. So no "@Diogenes", China is NOT the single biggest factor in our future success/failure, because it is already on track to meeting its targets.

Don't let China distract us from our own responsibilities and how shitty of a job Trump is doing.