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bobknight33 (Member Profile)

newtboy says...

Wow. My stream must be so strong that red wave seems to have turned around and become blue. So much for gaining 60 seats and a senate super majority. That giant red wave was barely a ripple so far, with a lot of blue mixed in. Once again, reality doesn’t resemble your predictions.

Fetterman just won. A Democratic gain in the senate.
Cortez Masto is well ahead, a predicted easy target for Republicans. The senate is looking safer already.
Warnock leads, but it’s likely there’s going to be a runoff.
Bohbert is losing.

Mastriano lost. Lake lost. Oz lost. Dixon lost. Trump lost.

Dems are ahead in most contested races, with mostly democratic leaning areas left to count.

Abortion rights propositions are winning.

Americans are apparently buying what Democrats were selling, even stroke ridden Democrats, and it’s being reflected in today’s votes so far.

Thank you Supreme Court. Your far right activism drove young people to the polls.

Edit: I guess you all are tired of winning?
Ouch, your red wave fails to materialize the same day Tesla stock tanks because Musk sold the first 10% payment for Twitter. Condolences.

bobknight33 said:

You pissing into the RED wave and it does not matter.

Americans are not buying what Democrats are selling and will be reflected in todays vote.

Whatever Happened to the Bee Apocalypse?

newtboy says...

Um, I notice their data ends in 2012 - 2015, while CCD was just becoming a serious issue. My last 3 hives had CCD.
Can bees be repopulated, yes, by splitting remaining hives and ramping up distribution channels, but that’s not sustainable and lowers the hive production to dangerously low levels. Hives can produce honey or new bees, but not both in large quantities.
Also, it’s an expensive proposition, rehiving. A nuc costs $200, a new clean hive another $250+- with a near 50% chance it won’t survive each year, it’s an expensive hobby and a real loss when they go down. Eventually people will give up trying in large quantities, then what?
And, as mentioned, wild bees pollinate most plants, and no one is working hard and making money producing large quantities of wild bee hives.

Over the last decade, the numbers have changed. There has been a severe decline in domestic bee population while demand has risen. Also, the commercial hives left often have been split many times, meaning 20000 is a far more normal population of a hive than 80000, and clearly does less pollinating, less honey production, and less new bee production.

It doesn’t have to be an either or choice, I’ve had beehives and fostered wild bee habitat at the same time. I have 30 fruit trees, I need all the bees I can get to visit.

I think the real answer to why you don’t hear about it as much lately is 1) War in Europe and 2) Coup in America, both of which dominate any news reports.

newtboy (Member Profile)

StukaFox says...

Newt,

This is in response to your comment on my statement about Biden needing to lose in '20.

I recently wrote this as a reply to one of my readers (I write under a number of different names in other places).:

Dear <name>,

>I took some time to absorb what you wrote. It's a lot to juggle. The Atlantic has an article in the July-August issue on the worst and best case scenario in CLO defaults. I'll read more.

I read the article you mentioned, and while it's certainly good, it also misses a very important point that explains the mess we're in: the collapse of Lehman and Bear-Stearns, while catastrophic in their own ways, were not the nightmare that caused the Fed to freak out in 2008 -- AIG was. Had AIG gone under and the counterparty default contracts triggered, we'd be on the barter system right now. We came within hours of not having an economy in the western world. The $700b ($.7t) the Fed coughed up to stop this from happening calmed the panic, but did nothing to resolve the underlying issues. These issues continued to compound during the 2011-2020 stock run-up and now we're at the point where the Fed is throwing trillions of dollars at every piece of bad debt they can find just to keep the whole thing from imploding into an economic black hole. It is important to note that in September '19, the credit markets started freezing because of the debt that was already on the books then, -before- CV-19 started rolling, and it took $3t just to get them unlocked again. Absolutely nothing has gotten better since then, and I would argue things have gotten dangerously worse.

In an odd coincidence, the NYT ran an article today about the looming bankruptcy crisis. They're calling for 30-60 days before things start imploding, but I'll stick to my estimate of ~90 days. There's some talk about extending the $600 benefits (we'll see) and chatter about another stimulus check, but that's kicking the can as well as telegraphing how bad things really are. When the Republicans are getting behind free money, you know we're in some uncharted territory. For all intents and purposes, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) -- the reason the Fed is backstopping debt and printing money like crazy -- is the hill the US economy will live or die on. Should the US dollar come unpegged as the world's de facto currency or should inflation begin (and there's already worrying signs this is happening), that's game over.

Please don't take anything I say as the Word of God; please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Everything I've said is an opinion based on my education, experience and way of thinking. Your mileage may vary.

Here is the article I mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/business/corporate-bankruptcy-coronavirus.html -- might be paywalled, but clear your cookies for the NYT and you should be able to read it.


>Frankly, it's the physical danger in my area of the States that concerns me. There are the guns and bullying. During some BLM demonstrations in the Midwest, locals were standing around with semi-automatics. I drive a Prius for the fuel efficiency. Pick up trucks enjoy tailgating, trying to intimidate me. This behavior isn't going to change with a change of President but will get worse is we don't change. This ideological push to takeover the country instead of ruling by compromise started around the same time we came to the US in 1981, Reagan's first year. I was so shocked when I heard talk radio for the first time; this wasn't the country I had left in the 1970s.


And now we come to the giant pile of sweaty dynamite that's just waiting for the right shock to set it off. I could give you a prolonged lecture about how this all started in 1978 with California's Proposition 13, or how David Stockman's tragically prescient warnings were blatantly ignored, but Haynes Johnson does a far better job at this than I ever could in his 1991 book "Sleepwalking Through History", as does Kevin Phillips in 2006's "American Theocracy". Honestly, at this point, the prelude is academic. The reality of the situation is that a large swath of adult Americans are appalling ill-educated, innumerate and devoid of even the most basic critical-thinking skills. These people are now locked out of the Information Economy. They lack the most basic skills required to compete in the 21st century job market and thus will watch their standard of living sink into the abyss. These people are not blind to this fact because they're living with the reality of their situation every single day. They're totally without hope, cut off from all avenues of control over their own lives and they feel utterly abandoned by the very people who're supposed to be helping them. The reason you're seeing bullying and behavior like that is because these same people are totally removed from any avenues of recourse and the only people they can take their anger out on are people like you and me. Their anger is being stoked on a daily basis. FOX News and the GOP are experts at this and have a host of boogeymen to keep the anger from being pointed their way: ANTIFA, BLM (black Americans have always made a perfect target), "coastal elites" and, of course, Liberals.

Trump's election was a warning, not an outlier. Trump was the primal scream of these people and Liberals and the Democrats as a whole chose not to listen because they found the sound so abhorrent. The rage will only get worse and the number of people enveloped by this rage will only grow as economic conditions worsen. At this point, it no longer matters who wins in '20. Winning the election will be like winning the deed to the World Trade Center one second after the first jet hit. The damage has already been done and no steps are being taken to repair it; if anything, people are actively making it worse either through ideological blindness, deliberate malfeasance or outright stupidity. It took almost 50 years to get to this point and the endemic issues will not be undone in a single generation, much less a single election. Until the people who voted for Trump feel a sense of real hope, a sense of control over their lives and a genuine expectation of recourse for their grievances, they will keep right on voting for Trump, or people like him.

My unfortunate suspicion is that this country will rip itself to shreds long before those reforms are enacted.

Side note: the fundamental difference between the United States and Europe is that European history has forced the nations of Europe to live with the consequences of their actions. Not so the United States. Europe has suffered for her sins. Not so the United States. The two bloodiest wars in human history were fought on European soil. Not so the United States. The United States has never faced true suffering, nor has it ever had to live with the ramifications of its own actions. Both these facts are about to change and a nation whose character is built on a mythology of individual action and violence is going to have to face reality. The people of this nation are not prepared for this and they will not like it.

Second side note: many people are erroneously comparing the current situation to the Wiemar Republic. This is a lack of historical understanding. A more apt comparison would be to Spain in late 1935.


>As for re-opening, we could have gotten some control if the "leader" had simply donned a mask and used realistic thinking. People could go back to work more safely, wash hands, stay a certain distance. But his hubris led the way, so now we'll have a roller coaster for months and years that will affect the economy even more. France is a good comparison because they were unprepared also, having slashed the public healthcare budget for the last twenty years. But when they laid down the rules, troops patrolled the streets to be sure they were followed. So far, they've flattened the curve (for now), and used different economic incentives, such as paying part of employees' salaries to keep them employed.

At this point, the pace of re-opening is a difference between very bad and much worse. Had $3t been used to pay the yearly salary of every American, we could have saved lives and the economy, but we didn't. The history of 2020 will be littered with "what-ifs". However, the first thing you learn when studying history is that what-ifs are useless because things are what they are and you can't change that. It's already obvious we're going into a second wave. If previous pandemics are any indication of what's to come, this second wave will be many times worse than the first. The wait for a vaccine is indeterminate, but if we're going for herd immunity, ~70% of Americans will need to catch the virus. To date, ~1.5% have. If the US population is ~330 million, ~230 million will need to catch the virus. Call the mortality rate 2%, that means ~4.6 million Americans will die. That's a lot of dead Americans and grieving families.

Take care,

(my actual name)

Kurzgesagt - Is Organic Food Really Better or is It a Scam?

newtboy says...

I recently saw a news piece that said in America there are standards for "organic" vegetables fruits and grains, but any fish can be called organic because there is no standard at all.

To be fair, GMO is a bit of a nonsense term as well, technically encompassing everything from crops selectively bred for taste and yield to those with various animal and or bacteria genes spliced in. I wish there were GMO labels and levels, telling us the method of modification, the source of the new genes if any, and even the expected benefits and hazards so we could make informed choices. I still can't believe the ballot proposition to require such labels in California failed.

ChaosEngine said:

Part of the problem with “organic” food (nonsense term, all food is organic by definition) is the fear-mongering around GMOs.

GMOs are going to be a big part of how we feed a population of 7 billion plus. Between the increased yield and lower requirement for pesticides, they have undeniable benefits.

Vegan Diet or Mediterranean Diet: Which Is Healthier?

newtboy says...

No sir....we KNOW vegans are lying.
What I can't understand is why.
There's plenty of evidence that plant based (not vegetarian or vegan) diets are the healthiest choice.
There's plenty of evidence that vegan diets are almost always lacking in nutrition....they can be healthy but it's a full time and expensive proposition.
You are wrong, studies on cultures that eat large amounts of fish show it's good, and most weren't funded by the fishing industries. The Massai are pretty healthy too, and they eat and drink beef, blood, and milk almost exclusively. They have been studied extensively. You seem to always feel compelled to exaggerate enough to be wrong.

transmorpher said:

You guys think that vegans are lying?

Every single study that shows animal products are good, or neutral are funded by the people that sell them.

It's a shame you do not scrutinize the sellers of these products, as much as you do with vegans who simple want to make the world a more hospitable place for you, and all of the inhabitants.

(There are also plenty of doctors who aren't vegans (like John McDougall, Caldwell Esselstyn, Dean Ornish) who all make very strong points about avoiding animal products.)

TED Talk: Whitopia

Drachen_Jager says...

Can you show me where I argued against the statement, "Blanket racial statements are wrong and racist."

If not, perhaps you should go back and take some refresher English classes (preferably some Logic classes too).

Just like Newtboy, you're trying to put words in my mouth. Until you learn how to actually parse sentences and assemble a logical argument there's just no point.

And, in case you had trouble figuring it out, words like "likely" and "could" tend to defuse the "blanket" nature of statements. I can make a ton of statements using those words that are 100% correct.

"A randomly-selected group of Black Americans likely has a lower income than an equal-sized group of White Americans."

Explain to me how that's wrong. For that matter, explain to me how it's a "blanket" statement.

And, just to be clear, there's a wide chasm between using such a statement and arguing against the proposition that such statements are bad. People do bad things all the time that they fully acknowledge are bad. Simply doing a thing does not mean you think it's good.

greatgooglymoogly said:

So "not entirely inaccurate, though" equals "that statement is wrong" to you? I can see why it's so hard to have a discussion in the English language with you. Is it not your original language?

"they are likely mistrustful of people who don't look like them and could be swayed by one or two strong voices to persecute those they see as "other""

Seems like you're fine making large behavioral generalizations based on skin color, or am I reading that one wrong too?

A handy guide to what actually constitutes sexual harassment

HenningKO says...

Right, well these are all pretty easy, and the point was exaggeration for comedic effect...

It's not funny, but if one wanted to actually be instructional, the fine line now would be something like: can I ask a woman out a third time after she turned me down twice, the difference between telling a woman "You look great" and "that dress looks great on you" + looking her up and down, should you ever tell a woman you work with you're attracted to her, can I proposition a woman a second time if she's still at my place after a date and said no once? If not, can I ask her to leave then? Can I play that song Baby its cold Outside or Blurred Lines at the office party? Can I tell a joke about sex and should I stop when a woman enters the room, or does that make it worse?

IMO, it's not helpful to pretend it should be obvious and everyone who doesn't get it is a laughable idiot or creep. Or to insist that there's a definite line and you're either a "decent person" or a "complete wanker"... most of us are somewhere in between and vary day to day. Or to say "if it feels wrong it IS wrong"... obviously some men have their feels calibrated differently and would benefit from the rules to being more explicit.

Either that, or the answer to all of these is "depends on the woman..." you just need to get to know them, and even then you probably will make a mistake.

enoch (Member Profile)

radx says...

A snippet from Lord Beveridge's "Full Employment in a Free Society":

The proposition that there should always be more vacant jobs than unemployed men means that the labour market should always be a seller’s market rather than a buyer’s market. For this, on the view of society underlying this Report — that society exists for the individual — there is a decisive reason of principle. The reason is that difficulty in selling labour has consequences of a different order of harmfulness from those associated with difficulty in buying labour. A person who has difficulty in buying the labour he wants suffers inconvenience or reduction in profits. A person who cannot sell his labour is, in effect, told that he is of no use. The first difficulty causes annoyance or loss. The other is a personal catastrophe. This difference remains even if an adequate income is provided by insurance or otherwise, during unemployment; the idleness even on an income corrupts; the feeling of not being wanted demoralizes. The difference remains even if most people are unemployed only for relatively short periods. As long as there is any long-term unemployment not obviously due to personal deficiency, anybody who loses his job fears that he may be one of the unlucky ones who will not get another job quickly. The short-term unemployed do not know that they are short-term unemployed till their unemployment is over.

Most Lives Matter | Full Frontal with Samantha Bee

ChaosEngine says...

@SDGundamX, first up, it was a throwaway line, you're reading way too much into it.

I'm not going to go over Jim Jeffries joke (it's been discussed to death already), except to say that, yeah, I got what he was trying to do and no, it still wasn't that funny or clever.

Besides, I wasn't trying to compare the two. Mine was a throwaway line, his was an extended sketch by a touring professional comedian. My point was simply that taste is in the eye of the beholder.

And would you please do me the courtesy of not telling me what I'm thinking. I'm not angry about ignorance, I'm angry about woolly thinking (specifically, lack of critical thinking).

If you're ignorant, then you just need to be taught. I'm not angry at ignorant people, I'm sorry for them and I want to help them.

My problem is with people (like the guy in the video) who have been presented with evidence, but ignore it because it doesn't fit their worldview.

200 years ago, if you believed that disease was a result of demonic possession, that's unfortunate. If you believe that today, you're deliberately ignoring knowledge.

As far as viewing people who reject evidence as a dangerous "other", I'm ok with that. As I've said before, I don't believe in "tolerance" as a virtue. If someone isn't bothering me, or someone is doing something I don't like, but it doesn't harm anyone, then I'm fine with them; I have no need to "tolerate" them.

But if people are doing something that causes harm (racism, homophobia, misogyny, etc), I don't tolerate that at all, and will speak out against it.


As for your torture example, it is flawed. You're saying that you wouldn't reconsider the ethics of torture, even if evidence of its efficacy was available. Do you see the problem?

You proposition was that torture is unethical, and your hypothetical evidence states that it is effective. The two are orthogonal properties. It is possible to be both effective and unethical.

Besides, I didn't say you had to change your position, I said you had to reconsider. If someone presented you with a philosophical argument arguing for the ethics of torture, are you saying you wouldn't even hear it out?

I hold positions like that myself. Despite everything, I believe that one day, people will overcome their petty differences and venture out into the stars. That doesn't mean I don't question it..

Racism in UK -- Rapper Akala

newtboy says...

I understand your point and mostly agree, but not completely.
First, I'll totally disagree with the proposition that white culture is the least racist...as a culture, it may be one of the most racist, and as individuals we certainly aren't the least. (yes, I do understand you said it for the sake of argument, not as a claim you're making, but still, I disagree with the suggestion that it might be true)
Secondly, racism from the black community towards white people does effect many white people significantly.
I, as an 18 year old white male, lived in East Palo Alto in the late 80's when it was called the murder capital of the US and was over 95% 'minorities'. I was often confronted just for being there, and on more than one occasion was attacked/chased for being a white guy in "their neighborhood" (clearly it wasn't theirs or they would have know I lived there). Granted, the racism I experienced was not systemic (except when the police assumed I was there to buy drugs and repeatedly harassed me for being the wrong color in the neighborhood), and not a daily occurrence, but it happened way more than once, and I didn't go out of my way to let it effect me. I went out of my way to ignore it.

kir_mokum said:

even if modern western [white] culture is the least racist, the problems seem to stem from the fact that it is the dominant culture. so whatever racism there is, it's magnified significantly.

for example: the internet often likes to claim that black american culture is way more racist than white american culture. assuming this to be true, look at how little an effect this has. black communities, groups, event, whatever organization can be as racist as they want and we as white people essentially laugh it off as being funny or ignore it or use it as political leverage. it doesn't effect us unless we go out of our way to let it effect us.

then look at the reverse, assuming white culture is the least racist. it categorically devastates communities, groups, generations, events, etc. even after decades of us collectively and actively trying to not be racist, systemic or otherwise.

Two Veterans Debate Trump and his beliefs. Wowser.

Mordhaus says...

I think you will find that most veterans, and currently serving men and women, simply want a clear objective that allows them to win the conflict and return home. Unfortunately the nature of terrorism means that while we follow long held rules that prevent collateral damage, or seek to limit it, the enemy we are fighting do not.

Just as we learned to our sorrow in Vietnam, as the British learned in fighting the IRA, the Russians in fighting the Mujaheddin, and we are learning again in our current battles, terrorists do not feel the need to adhere to the laws of warfare. They use civilians to support them, protect targets, or provide them escape methods. They attack civilians gleefully, knowing we cannot respond in kind.

While I do not support Trump, I do think we seriously need to have a new Geneva Convention to clarify how to treat terrorists and their civilian supporters. I think that is what the ex-Seal meant at the heart of his argument, that fighting terrorists using the old "Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, we have rules here" is an absolute losing proposition. Even Obama found that we needed to work outside the rules sometimes to be successful, hence his invasion into a sovereign allied nation to kill or capture Bin Laden, and his current extremely heavy use of drone attacks on suspected targets.

As far as the second veteran, I feel it is absolutely valid to question his integrity. He could have claimed CO status prior to going to conflict or simply not joined the military in the first place. Instead, he decided to claim it after experiencing combat, something my friends who have served noticed happening in the first gulf war. You really don't want a recap of some of the things they called people who left the service after seeing combat.

Words We Invented By Getting Them Wrong

AeroMechanical says...

I find sentences that have two 'that's in them annoying. It's annoying that that works that way.

My proposition is to create a new single word, thithat, which has the same meaning as two that's next to eachother. I pronounce it that way when I'm speaking. Two that's in a row doesn't seem odd when spoken, only when written down. Therefore: thithtat. It won't be annoying anymore thithat works that way.

ed: And yes I know, you can just use one 'that' but that's not often done when speaking.

ed2: Dammit. The first usage in history of the word thitthat, and I spelled it wrong.

Heckler Gets Stomped

nock says...

That's why the joke is funny. The absurd juxtaposition of pizza delivery and childbirth with the proposition that the pizza delivery is the more difficult act is why this is comedy.

No one would laugh if someone got on stage and said, "Boy, childbirth sure is harder than pizza delivery".

diego said:

to be fair, she almost certainly objected to the idea that being pregnant and giving birth takes less effort than ordering a pizza.

his exact wording was that it takes more effort to order a pizza than to have a kid. i understand the joke fine, but pregnancy, wanted/planned or not is quite a bit more effort than ordering pizza- and thats without addressing the actual effort it takes to "have a kid". i think its normal for a mother to get defensive with this joke, and it does seem like he was fishing for the response.

Hollywood Whitewashing: Last Week Tonight, Feb2016

newtboy says...

If that were to happen, I would guess that the Japanese audience would be insulted by the proposition that they can't understand other cultures without a 'Japanese guide' helping them care and comprehend.
It's terribly sad to me that average Americans are so infantile that, for the most part, they don't even see that their intelligence is being insulted when an American is inserted into another countries history/mythology for their benefit.

Babymech said:

If a Japanese director were to make a movie about the civil war, but chose to make it about a Japanese fighter who comes to the US, becomes the most kickass soldier of the Union, makes personal friends with Lincoln, and convinces him to stay the course on emancipation... that would be pretty weird, even if the argument went that this was the only way a Japanese audience could identify with this obscure historic time.

tofucken-the vegan response to turducken

eoe says...

All right, I'm probably feeding a troll, but since I'm starting an advocacy group I'm inevitably going to have to deal with a lot of them so here goes. Wish me luck.

I've heard this argument so many times. So many times. Almost as many times as I hear "how do vegans get enough protein"? (I'll stop asking you about your fiber intake and cholesterol if you stop asking me about my protein levels). So, in retort, I thought I'd appeal to logic. I went to ol' wikipedia to find all the fallacies that you are using. I thought I'd find 1, 2, or maybe 3. Instead I found 8. And I crossed off the ones that were true, but not necessarily in this specific argument:


  1. Straw Man - I don't believe any vegan is proposing to save the whole world. We are trying to make a difference in the lives of animals. Your straw man is that our goal is to save the world. It is not.


  2. Tu Quoque/Appeal to Hypocrisy - Regardless of whether we're supposedly hypocritical or not, you have refused to address the moral question at hand. Not the morality of saving the world, but of the moral importance of animals.


  3. False Dilemma - Your proposition is that either we save the world or we do nothing. It is not a problem with only 2 solutions.


  4. Ignoratio Elenchi/Irrelevant Conclusion - Again, we are not discussing the saving of the world. We are talking about the moral treatment of animals.


  5. Nirvana Fallacy - You'll never have heaven on earth. That's not the argument.


  6. Red Herring - A favourite argument for many. We are not talking about human suffering.


  7. Vacuous Truth - Surprise! There will always be suffering in the world! I know that. We're not talking about that.


  8. Moral High Ground Fallacy - I think this one speaks for itself.




If you respond to any of these things, I'll respond. Otherwise, I realize it's a waste of my breath. Thanks!

enoch said:

i always love the vegan argument,especially when they attempt to trot out the morality tropes.

because when they pull that shit...i GOT em.

i just point to their shirt,or pants,shoes..or even their iphone and remind them the high percentage chance that the human who made those garments/phone was an 8 yr old.forced to work 14 hr shifts with no breaks,7 days a week..all so he could buy a bowl of rice,live in a 500 sq ft space with 25 other people and crap in a hole.(or on the beach..hmmm..lets go swimming).

so lets cut the crap with the moral absolutes.
thats just myopic,single minded pandering to give us the "feel goods"...because in reality we are all assholes in one aspect or another,sometimes knowingly,othertimes not,but still assholes.

which then brings the argument to the distinctive qualities and grade of asshole and thats just fucking boring.

my boy here has it right:



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