I was going to complain about Huckabee, Romney and Trump making me want to throw up.

Here's a positive spin instead. Who would you rather have, Giuliani or Trump? I think this is a pretty decent improvement with respect to 2008! Just don't ruin it by having Sarah Palin join the race.

Gay marriage?

It bothers me that lesser issues completely polarize the debate, while multiple wars (including the war on drugs) and violations of civil liberties (Patriot Act, Guantanamo, the TSA) are left unchallenged, and have been implemented in countries all over the world.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
If it can be extended to both parties, what's the Democratic party's version of bringing abortion into every policy debate?

>> ^NetRunner:

I say getting a solid economic recovery is job #1. A huge portion of the deficit right now is due to the recession itself -- it lowers our GDP (and therefore the tax revenues), and it means a lot more people going on government assistance because they're unemployed and can't find a job.

Once you compensate for deficit spending, nominal GDP declined approximately 10% per year over the last 3 years, and oscillated around 0% for the 7 years before that. This has been masked by borrowing trillions of USD, which is the only way the government can stimulate anything. I believe the US does not have the production capacity you expect it to have, which would be required to produce a true economic recovery and not have GDP merely return to pre-2000 levels.

>> ^NetRunner:

It's also just one step shy from suggesting that we euthanize our elderly, process them into soylent green, and sell it to pay down our debt.

I completely agree, and so does Karl in his latest video. The recovery process is going to be very painful, because Congress will most likely not enact a decent healthcare solution or a widespread reform to the tax code, and will defend special interests and military spending at all costs.

I'm from Brazil (but I've been around, and I've worked in the U.S.).

>> ^bmacs27:

Also, if our balance sheet is so bad, why aren't the bond markets punishing us?


Because quantitative easing pushes down the yield on short-term bonds. On the other hand, it increases the yield on long-term bonds (since QE is essentially printing money, it raises the expectation of inflation in the long term).

That's the typical level of debate I've seen in FOX News.

This summarizes my impression of the last presidential campaigns: http://imgur.com/gallery/YjisN

While this is a caricature of the GOP, it can be easily extended to both parties in the sense that the political discourse is constantly deadlocked by controversial yet less important issues.

In reply to this comment by NetRunner:
@flavioribeiro, just after I posted that, I came across this comic, which I think pretty much perfectly illustrates the problem we have here in the US:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/11/965457/-Language-is-a-Virus

>> ^NetRunner:

If you mean it in a broader sense, and mean more people need to be aware of FPTP problems and the issues with supermajority rules, then yeah I'm in complete agreement. I mostly get push back about those from right-wing people though, who either say "the Founding Fathers made it that way for a reason, and we shouldn't mess with their perfection" or just generally cheer the idea that those things make it hard for the government to do anything at all, even though it really just makes it nearly impossible for people to have a voice in what it does. A desire to make the system work right, rather than a desire to sabotage it would be nice.

(...)

Okay, so let's unpack this. What do you think should be the top priority of the US Congress over the next year? If it's the national debt, why is that the most pressing issue right now? Why do you reference spending specifically? Aren't revenues at a 60-year low? What factors make our spending "unsustainable"? Does the fact that we're still mired in a recession affect the answer to any of these questions?

Yes, I mean it in the broader sense. FPTP degenerates too often into regimes where there is very little opposition, even if there are (formally) more than two parties.

As for the top priority of the US Congress, I believe it should be balancing the budget. The national debt is the most pressing issue because especially over the last 4 years, US GDP growth has been fueled with borrowed money. Rolling over this debt will already cause a significant drop in the American standard of living, especially as inflation and interest rates start to rise.

To make things short, I refer you to Karl Denninger's blog (who I agree with). He posted short video about this today. To answer your question more precisely, the US Congress must 1) revise the tax code and 2) enact significant cuts to government programs. (1) is nearly impossible to pass because it effectively taxes everyone the same. We will at best see a weak version of (2), which will be insufficient and more painful in the long run.

From Wikipedia: "A false dilemma (also called false dichotomy, the either-or fallacy, fallacy of false choice, black and white thinking or the fallacy of exhaustive hypotheses) is a type of logical fallacy that involves a situation in which only two alternatives are considered, when in fact there are additional options."

Thus, by definition "a choice between a moderate right-wing party and a hard-right nationalist party" is a false dichotomy. I agree that FPTP voting is the major reason for this in presidential elections, which creates a two party system on other other spheres of government. But without seeing the underlying false dichotomy, the general population will stay under the illusion that their votes represent a significant choice, and will keep playing red-vs-blue.

As for me being part of the problem, I respectfully disagree. I'm not an American citizen, and I'm not residing in the U.S. I maintain that the U.S. balance sheet looks ridiculous and current levels of government spending are not sustainable whether you like it or not.

>> ^NetRunner:

Did you even read the comment you're responding to?
The problem is that there's no left in this country's governance at all. It's not a false dichotomy between the parties, it's just a choice between a moderate right-wing party and a hard-right nationalist party. I feel pretty strongly about wanting to have the moderates over the fascists, even though I'm not particularly happy with the moderates.
Why aren't there more than two choices? Because that's just how first past the post voting works. More than that though, it's because there's a really big propaganda machine that constantly demonizes anyone who's even slightly left, and constantly pushes the idea that all suffering in the world is the fault of government, and it'll all get better if we just vote in people who mouth those same words while they cut taxes on businesses, slash government aid to the poor, and make worker safety laws a thing of the past...
Incidentally, you're part of the problem as a person who proclaims that deficit "spending" is the issue. The problem in this country isn't the government's balance sheet, it's high unemployment, and ridiculous concentration of wealth coupled with the growing formalization of the idea that our corporate rulers may commit any atrocity they please with impunity.

>> ^NetRunner:

It'd be more possible if people everywhere realized that right-wing/conservative/libertarian ideology is entirely about consolidating the dominion of the rich and powerful over the rest of us, and adopted a generally left-wing view of the world.
Once that happens, yes, people would notice that Democrats aren't really left-wing, but this is something the left says all the time.
The issue here isn't that an insufficient number of liberals will talk smack about Obama, it's the millions of people who think the biggest problems in our country are that taxes are too high on businesses, government aid to the poor is too generous, and worker safety regulation is a tyrannical imposition on liberty.


I think the first step is to eliminate the Democrat/Republican false dichotomy. I'm not American, and almost every time I criticize the Obama administration, I hear "yeah, but the Republicans...". First of all, who said anything about the Republicans? And second, it's not as if they have a fundamentally different way of running the country.

Also, given the current levels of deficit spending, it's irrelevant whether you call yourself a Democrat, Republican or Libertarian. The U.S. has a very grim long-term outlook, and the budget cuts proposed by the Congress are insufficient. And to see why actual budget cuts aren't enacted, you only need to follow the money. Things will never change as long as the population thinks the "other party" represents the opposition.

>> ^bcglorf:

They didn't specifically test for pre-planted terrorist agents with arc welders cutting the buildings support beams either, but why should they?


Because if this video isn't omitting fundamental parts of the NIST report, the theory of structural failure fails to explain significant evidence, including the molten steel girders, the yellow molten substance (which seems unlikely to have been aluminum with burning furniture), the white flashes and the iron microspheres.

By selectively discarding evidence, an otherwise weak theory can be promoted as the most plausible explanation. For example, if we discard nonrelativistic phenomena, Newtonian physics fit observation quite well.

But as I said, I'm terribly unqualified to take a position on this issue. I have an easy job being a skeptic because whenever I see the media being horribly incompetent when decrying "truthers", I have the tendency of taking the opposing side. I should at the very least read the NIST report.

Thanks. I just read Cole's notes, and they actually agree with the quotes from this video.

My most serious concern is summarized by these paragraphs:

NIST did not test for the residue of these compounds [explosives or thermite residues] in the steel.

The responses to questions number 2, 4, 5 and 11 demonstrate why NIST concluded that there were no explosives or controlled demolition involved in the collapses of the WTC towers.

While the responses to questions 2, 4, 5 and 11 are consistent with the explanation that no explosives were used, they aren't strong enough to imply that there were no explosives.

I'm surprised that they chose not to test the steel for explosive residue, when the tests involved are well known and this was a terrorist attack.

It looks like NIST chose not to test the theory that explosives were used, and tried to find a model which explained the collapse using remaining factors. But this video strongly suggests that their model doesn't properly fit the evidence.

>> ^bcglorf:

But if this video is accurate and NIST didn't explain convincingly how the steel melted, then their report is disturbingly incomplete.
If you want a quick place to start, here's some Cole's notes that NIST put together specifically for truthers too lazy to follow the original report before outright rejecting it.

Most people debating on the Internet know nothing about steel, explosives or the official report. Yet they somehow have very well defined opinions.

Yes, I'm looking at you, sifters.

I have BS degrees in electrical engineering and pure math. I'm finishing my Ph.D. in electrical engineering. However, I know very little about steel, explosives and I haven't read the NIST report. Next to an expert, my opinion is as good as a high school dropout's.

But if this video is accurate and NIST didn't explain convincingly how the steel melted, then their report is disturbingly incomplete. And by convincingly, I mean experimentally -- NOT with handwaiving and computer models based on guesswork.

During my career as a practicing engineer and a researcher, I've seen way too many computer simulations designed to "prove" something which is in fact false. Many of the papers I reject have some kind of bullshit assumption or simulation. By using the wrong model, it's possible to show pretty much anything, and in the end, nothing can replace real-world experiments, especially if you're trying to overcome skepticism and confusion.

I suppose I should read the NIST report and stop taking other people's word for it. Because if the quotes from this video are correct, then he's right and NIST's work is unconvincing at best.

>> ^messenger:

It's quite unlikely they are in Brasilia, since Brasilia is a large city and metropolitan area, whereas these settlements seem as remote as you can get.
Indeed. Brasilia is about 3000 km away from the border with Peru (where this tribe supposedly is).

>> ^Yogi:

Believe it or not this actually served a diagnostic purpose. House is a great show I'm constantly impressed by how good it is for being a network show that really should be crap. Crap like Lost. But it's consistently funny and fun to watch and maintains my interest.
Back to The Trip.


Indeed. The writing is usually good and Hugh Laurie is fantastic. With Lost, the plot was absolutely stupid, and it was obvious that the writers were improvising as they went along.

>> ^reiwan:

Did it suddenly stop because a transformer blew somewhere along the power line?

The overcurrent condition was detected and automatically activated a circuit breaker (it stopped too quickly to have blown out a transformer).

*dead

*kill