i think you are onto something there about the reasons for the political extremes gaining traction.

people are far more isolated in today's world,which ironic considering how open everything is.

but now they have the option to:ignore,block or defriend.

creating a nice,warm and comfy bubble in which to reside in and never have to deal with those who may disagree,criticize or challenge anything in their pretty little head.

during the presidential election i had liberals defriend me because i was critical of hillary.

oh they LOVED me when i was telling them that sanders was going be exposed to the "ron paul" treatment.the fact that the primary was obviously rigged made no difference to them.

but when i continued to be critical of their golden child?

misogynist traitor (actual quote).

the trump supporters adored me when i was breaking down the reasons why some people may vote for trump,and that people should not simply dismiss trump out of hand.

my liberal friends despised me for this,thinking that somehow me pointing to the political climate of my country translated to support for trump.

but i was just a cis gender white privileged male who did not deserve and opinion (another actual quote).

and those trump supporters turned on me in an instant when i began pointing out the more disturbing aspects of trump,his history and politics.oh..they didn't like that.

fucking commie fucking libtard.i thought you were on "our" side! (another quote).

all in all...over 400 people,from both sides of the political spectrum,called me some impressive names..and defriended me.

all because what i was posting conflicted or challenged their cult of personality,which they had attached their ideology.

so now they all sit in their little circles and smell each others farts and call them good and righteous.

i think charlottesville,virginia,seattle are just the beginning.....i fear things are going to get much MUCH worse.

ECB Research Bulletin:

In an economy with its own fiat currency, the monetary authority and the fiscal authority can ensure that public debt denominated in the national fiat currency is non-defaultable, i.e. maturing government bonds are convertible into currency at par. With this arrangement in place, fiscal policy can focus on business cycle stabilisation when monetary policy hits the lower bound constraint. However, the fiscal authorities of the euro area countries have given up the ability to issue non-defaultable debt. As a consequence, effective macroeconomic stabilisation has been difficult to achieve.

Translation:
- all members of the eurozone effectively use a foreign currency
- they can default, because they do not and cannot issue debt in their currency
- fiscal policy has thus been completely neutered

Ergo, national parliaments have a significantly smaller policy space compared to countries with their own currency. Our parliaments intentionally surrender power to unelected technocrats, even control of the national budget, which is the primary power available to any parliament anywhere.

"Sorry, lad. We cannot pay for healthcare/pension/infrastructure/education/wages/X, we have to maintain a balanced budget to appease the market." Yet it is still illegal to call for the guillotine...

Meanwhile, Japan doesn't give a fuck. The BoJ has been vacuuming up outstanding debt like there's no tomorrow. It currently holds in excess of 40% of all government debt, effectively canceling it. It's just book-keeping. The Treasury issues the debt, the CB buys the debt. Both are part of the consolidated government sector, ergo no debt. "Hyperinflation!", they scream. Can you hear them? Except Japan has been fighting deflation for two decades, with no end in sight.

Yet the inflation-hawks are still treated as persons of authority. Flat-earthers, the lot of 'em.

And my country wants the rest of Europe to sign on to the most moronic law in German history: the "Schuldenbremse", which makes running a deficit illegal at the constitutional level (except for undefined "emergencies"). They are either a) brainwashed, b) idiots, or c) straight up evil. And I'm not sure which one I prefer.

This is mom on her absolute BEST behaviour.
Does anyone think she behaves better when not in court? Does anyone think her family members don't physically inject themselves when not in court?
This seemed like a good reason for the judge to reverse his decision and give dad primary custody and mom supervised visitation, along with anger management classes, and tack on an order requiring uncle (or whoever the guy from the back is) to not be present.
Poor kid. This is far from the end of it's nightmare.

this video nails it in my opinion,and i respect those who have chimed in but i notice there is a glaring omission in the discussion,and i think it should be the primary focus:

intent.

words are just symbols.
scratchings on a wall meant to convey meaning.
a meaning that can easily be misconstrued because we all inject our own subjectivity within the abstract nature of words.

it is the INTENT that drives the true meaning of the words we use.
the engine that moves that vehicle forward,with our emotions and thoughts as the fuel.

now there are some words that should never be used,as chaos mentioned,simply due to their vile nature and the history of oppression,suffering and vileness.there are some words where you simply cannot wash the stain of bloodied,vile corruption off of due to their inherent nature.

but do we avoid those words due to political correctness?
or basic,simple human decency and politeness?

this video points to very root of the problem,and that is our very nature.
political correctness seeks to demand we change our vocabulary,our very lexicon,all in the lofty goals of being more sensitive and compassionate,but it ultimately fails because it does not recognize the very nature of who we are.

a polite person has no issue discarding words from his/her lexicon in the name of politeness,but there are those who ARE vile,racist,misogynistic and grotesque...and they simply adhere to this new social norm to avoid detection,and then create NEW scratchings on the wall to convey their loathing and beligerent ignorance,now done in secret.

because it is the INTENT that is the driving force,which then lends itself to situational context to help us all understand the why's and the what-for's.

political correctness does not take this into account because it views the WORDS as being the culprit to societies woes,whereas politeness addresses this problem head-on.

basically it is this:
political correctness=you are being an asshole.
politeness=don't be an asshole.
enoch=already an asshole

too late fuckers!

intent is everything.
because you can call someone a motherfucker!
a MOTHER-FUCKER!
or a hey mothafucker!

intent my friends..intent.

@Diogenes

I'm not sure I'm following what you're saying. Why should a reasonable person be pissed off at a third party calling out offensive language use? To use a hypothetical:

I jokingly call my brother a "retard" because he locks his keys in the car. We grew up in the 80s, so this this pejorative is something we are comfortable with and feel no inhibitions about using. My brother laughs it off.

Now let's assume this happens in a parking lot as we're standing outside my brother's car and a woman passing by overhears my comment and chastises me for equating stupid actions with people who have mental disabilities.

Should reasonable bystanders watching all this be pissed off, since my comment wasn't directed at the woman? On the one hand, my brother and I weren't offended by the use of the word "retard" to mean stupid. On the other hand, our very usage of the word "retard" in that particular way promotes and sustains a culture that already heavily looks down on mental illness and mental disabilities.

I'm genuinely curious about your answer to this. If I'm reading your comment correctly, the primary negative of PC language that you see is that some people feel smug when they call out other people on their language usage. But does the fact that some people are smug about it make them wrong in pointing out the offender?

Boo hoo...

Comey best testimony is that Trump lied on why he was fired... Boo hoo..
Trump is Comey boss. he can be fired for any reason or for no reason. Grow up this is the same in any business.

The testimony also indicated that Trump IS NOT under investigation. Flynn was looked at but not as a primary target of the investigation.

Comey was one of the inside leakers. He leaked his own memo.


https://videosift.com/video/Chris-Matthews-Admits-Russia-Collusion-Narrative-Destroyed

Boo hoo...

Comey best testimony is that Trump lied on why he was fired... Boo hoo..
Trump is Comey boss. he can be fired for any reason or for no reason. grow up this is the same in any business.

The testimony also indicated that Trump IS NOT under investigation. Flynn was looked at but not as a primary target of the investigation.

Comey was one of the inside leakers. He leaked his own memo.


https://videosift.com/video/Chris-Matthews-Admits-Russia-Collusion-Narrative-Destroyed

Waaaaah?

This video gets so many things wrong it is truly cringe-worthy.

The country has been covered by vending machines since the 1960s--long before there were problems with an aging population and birthrates. The primary reason for vending machines being installed everywhere is, surprise, convenience! Who wants to go to the store and stand in line to buy a drink when you can just go downstairs from your apartment and grab one from outside your front door?

Another thing to consider is that Japan late at night basically completely shuts down--even in major cities like Tokyo the trains stop running around 1AM or so and won't start again until 5AM. Nowadays their are 24-hour convenient stores on practically every other urban street corner but back when vending machines first started getting installed nothing was open late besides bars. If you caught the last train home from work and wanted to buy a coke or something on your walk back from the station you were SOL. Vending machines helped solve that problem.

Which brings us to another point--VERY few Japanese people in urban areas commute by car. Mass transit is fast and efficient and a huge number of people just walk/bike everywhere. Since there is so much foot traffic vending machines make total sense, especially in the summer when temperatures are going to rise into the mid-90s (30+ degrees Celsius) with high humidity and people who are walking/biking are going to get thirsty pretty damn quick.

Another thing he gets wrong is that retailers are not the ones primarily profiting off of vending machines: land owners are. Either they purchase and stock the machines themselves (thereby keeping all the profits) or they make a contract with the retail company in which the company stocks and services the machine but compensates the landowner for use of the space.

Oh, almost forgot something not mentioned in the video--the low crime rates. Another reason for the proliferation of vending machines is that whoever puts them out can be reasonably sure they won't be damaged, defaced, or robbed.

Finally, while he is right that credit cards are not as big here as in, say, the U.S., e-money is huge. And all of the newer vending machines produced in the last few years will take either cash or e-money, such as Suica or Pasmo cards.

By the way, all of this information that I've posted here is available from a simple Google search and there have actually been several articles written on vending machines in Japan over the last couple of years. It's like this guy just came over here and tried to guess why there were so many vending machines around....

@harlequinn

Why should you re-read the bible? Because, like most Christians, you clearly demonstrated that you don't know what it actually says (which is the point of the video), and yet here you are telling @newtboy that he doesn't know anything about it except for hearsay. So... hypocrisy much?

But then you double-down and are now trying to argue with me that the Christian god is not actually considered omnipotent--despite me pointing out three places in the bible where it explicitly states "he" is. Although I'm not at all surprised that a religious person is arguing against facts, I actually agree with the sentiment. If a Christian god truly existed, one look at the state of the world would tell you that "incompetent" is a better descriptive adjective than "omnipotent."

Look man, I get it. You're invested in your religion. I was once too, and just like you argued with atheists about these kinds of arcane points (i.e. is the Christian god omnipotent?) before slowly realizing it is all bullshit and that humanity at this stage of development would be much better off without religion (and by religion I mean any philosophical way of life that uses "faith" as it's primary source for finding truth instead of rational thinking). I don't deny it served a purpose once as a unifying social force, but its day is done. One day you'll either come to the same conclusion or you'll ignore the mountains of problems it causes in the world because you feel it brings you some measure of peace or clarity or whatever. I hope it's the former for you.

Unfortunately, knowing a lot of religious people, I expect it will be the latter. In which case, I can only hope your religion brings you only happiness and you keep it from damaging others' lives as much as possible.

What are you talking about? The people who argued that tobacco was safe are the exact same people that now argue climate change isn't real, isn't caused by humans. They are in the small minority of scientists that say it isn't happening, and they can all be ignored as they aren't climate scientists. When it comes to discussions on climate, you only pay attention to what research comes from those who's job it is to study it. If you had 90 brain surgeons saying to remove a tumor from your brain, but a podiatrist said, don't worry, you wouldn't listen to the podiatrist. Science is the same. Now among those climate scientists you have a 97% consensus that the primary cause in the uptick (uptick being a keyword, as it is not from baseline, but up from the expected natural rise, and that uptick is HUGE) in the undeniable warming of the planet, is caused by humans burning fossil fuels. There is no denying that climate change is real, there's no denying it is primarily caused by humans, there's no denying it will have a huge impact on billions of people. It is the idiot who doesn't believe that it is real.

Now I'd agree that some of the comments may seem extreme, and said suggestions may not be the best. That is an argument best left for a show like Utopia, a rather great show that sadly didn't make it to a second season. However, there a billions of lives at risk if we don't act soon on halting climate change. Perhaps not billions of lives conservatives care about, as they are poor, third and second world lives, but lives none the less. Droughts will get worse, deserts will expand, hurricanes will increase, tornadoes will increase, hotter hots, and colder colds, there are a ton of changes coming that will make it harder on the poorest of people, people who can't adapt as quickly as the top few percent in the US.

Should people have concern about wars, and the conservative powers that be that love them? Yes, and those issues have been raised by many scientists, especially the big name ones who appear on TV. However, you can't ignore the wars that will start if we don't fight climate change either. Resources will become scarce, and this will cause conflicts that may eventually embroil the US, a concern that the US military has over climate change... this may be why conservatives ignore it, because nothing makes conservatives more happy than murdering people via war. You want to stop war, then stooping climate change has to be a huge priority.

Despite the wars, we are still at the most peaceful time in all history. Yes, we need to do more. Moving off fossil fuels alone would stop a lot of the wars, as that's why the US has an interest in the region. If we could stop giving a fuck about oil, and the US oil market, then we'd have less reason to pick a side on which form of Islam is best for US interests... which of course is why the US was targeted in the first place (that, and our unwavering support of Israel's illegal actions).

Also, it's not like anyone has said climate change should be our only concern. As I already said, all the wars has been brought up many times, as has the conservatives love of giving weapons to those most responsible for the 9/11 attacks, while blaming others for stuff they never did. And, as I've said, those concerns have been repeated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, and others who appear on TV, and are well known with the public. Other issues that many scientists in the public eye have been brought up beyond wars: the potential for global pandemics; the idiots not getting vaccinations for their children, for unfounded fears that were proven false; the need for clean drinking water in poor regions; the lack of concern for real science education, and many many other subjects are brought to the public's attention via their social channels, books, talks, or other means. When they are on TV, that is the subject the media pretends there's a debate about though, so if the media at large is all that one pays attention to, then yes, that would seem to be the only subject of concern. The TLDR of this is that they have brought up many concerns beyond just climate change, blame the media for not spreading their other concerns.

Read this rebuttle on a public forum on an ad from Purple when someone brought this up:

Purple:
Hi Caitlin, we didn't sue because we has questions, as he asserted. We filed action against Honest Mattress Reviews (HMR), Ryan Monahan & GhostBed for violating the law by spreading false and misleading statements online, including specific statements that GhostBed — a primary competitor of Purple — had previously agreed to remove from its website and various social media platforms. Now, however, those and other false and misleading statements are being made on HMR and Momahan's newly-created mattress-industry-related blog. We have reason to believe Monahan & GhostBed are "in bed together" — some of the connections we've found are here: https://onpurple.com/blog/connections-ryan-monahan-ghostbed.

HMR’s, Monahan’s and GhostBed’s campaign against Purple includes numerous false and misleading statements about Purple and its products and services, including false claims about the safety of Purple’s mattresses, the assumed lack of adequate safety testing for Purple’s products, and Purple’s alleged deception of its customers regarding safety. In fact, many of the statements go so far as to imply that Purple’s mattresses are dangerous and can lead to serious diseases. These statements have been proven to be false and unfounded, and yet, they continue to dishonestly proclaim that Purple's products are unsafe.

The suit is public record and why we sued is clearly spelled out in it, but to clear up what seems to be insinuated — we didn’t sue because he gave us a bad review or because of his 4 safety questions (as he’s asserted). On the contrary, we encourage third-party reviews as an important part of the consumer research process. We are merely protecting our company and intellectual property against a dishonest ”reviewer” with connections to a competitor.

Since every time we discuss the lawsuit publicly evidence of the connection seems to disappear, this is all we can say at this time. Again, the suit is public record and you're welcome to review it yourself.

Macarthur must have been terrified of being primaried by the Kochs---so F--ing terrified---to decide to back the second round of the Ryan/Trump bill knowing that this would be the result.

However, he did the 3rd district of NJ in 2016 60-40% versus a Democrat--that's basically a landslide---And Trump won it 51-45. So, he's probably going to win again in 2018 (I would predict with a smaller margin, but nonetheless, he should win)

But for some other marginal Republican guys---this might not end so well.

*promote.

No evidence of wrong doing from trump.

The only Russian involvement is Podesta emails leaked by a news source and the DNC was hacked confirming Clintion was cheating to win primary. And Flynn, $ for speaking for RT news and a conversation with a Russian and then lying to Pence about it, for witch he was fired.


No real evidence or facts. just "sources" for liberal media false hype to continue its 24/7 anti Trump narrative.

They simply need to quit pointing fingers and allow people to pick the candidate they want. If the Democratic machine hadn't busted their ass to force Clinton down everyone's throats, Sanders would have won the primary and I am fairly certain the Presidency.

But even that is water under the bridge at this point, and I think this guy has it right, the Democrats need to find a candidate that is anti-corporate. People bought into Trump's anti-corporate lies and elected him.

Did you somehow interpret his comment as an endorsement of Trump, or disqualification of Clinton? If so, I think you misread. He seemed to me to simply be pointing out that many of the issues people have with many of (not all) Trump's policies would be mirrored, if to a lesser extent, under Clinton. That is undeniable. That doesn't exclude her from being the better choice between the two of them, but it did exclude her from being the better choice in the primary.