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Sadly, this seems to happen in many societies. There are examples from England, Ireland and Germany.

And so for many people Trump is a racist, blowing a dog whistle that racists and liberals can hear clearly. For others, Trump is a practical leader doing what's best for the nation.

Which is the correct view?

The one where Trump is a racist blowing a dog whistle (and then telling people that he's blowing a dog whistle incase they didn't hear).

Everyone who isn't lying or in denial should agree that Trump has said and done racist things. The disagreement is about the second part, whether he's "a practical leader doing what's best for the nation".

His supporters think that racism is doing something practical that is best for the nation, his opponents disagree.

Which brings me to the Mueller investigation, which I have always believed to be based on nothing.

Which is incorrect. Just based on publicly available information there's more than enough cause to investigate, and Mueller knows a lot that isn't public.

It seems perfectly obvious that the *amount* of Russian involvement in the election is well into the noise - to the tune of something like $13 million over several months, compared to $3 billion (-ish, depends on what you count) spent by Clinton and Trump.

Am I (and half the country) dismissing something important because of cognitive dissonance?

Yes you are.

You characterized the Russian involvement solely in terms of ad buys, then used the relatively small cash value to trivialize the importance overall. But in doing so you completely ignored the large scale social media campaign and the email hacking which is what everyone actually means by Russian interference.

Of course, I don't know if that's your "cognitive dissonance" or just an effort to mislead.

On the other side, Julian Assange has stated several times that the leaks didn't come from Russia. Julian never identified the actual leaks, speculation has it that it was Seth Rich.

Julian Assange is a sufficiently trustworthy source not to be dismissed out of hand, and the US justice system should allow the evidence to be combed through by the media.

My hunch is that Russia passed the files to an intermediary who fed their Wikileaks contact the "DNC insider" story and Assange is happy to be the "useful idiot" role and play along. Assange doesn't want the repercussions from admitting that Wikileaks was used by Russia, and depending on his future legal situation he might want to pull a Snowden and settle there long term.

I've been wondering lately whether I'm the subject of cognitive dissonance.

If you follow Scott Adams, he talks about cognitive dissonance as two people watching the same movie and seeing different plots. When called to describe the plots, the two views are wildly different, sometimes polar opposite.

And so for many people Trump is a racist, blowing a dog whistle that racists and liberals can hear clearly. For others, Trump is a practical leader doing what's best for the nation.

Which is the correct view? At this point, probably no one knows - there's no unbiased source of information. Best we can do is get unbiased statistics and raw facts (such as immigration numbers, unemployment, reputable polling) and come to our own conclusions.

Which brings me to the Mueller investigation, which I have always believed to be based on nothing. It seems perfectly obvious that the *amount* of Russian involvement in the election is well into the noise - to the tune of something like $13 million over several months, compared to $3 billion (-ish, depends on what you count) spent by Clinton and Trump.

Am I (and half the country) dismissing something important because of cognitive dissonance?

We might just find out.

The Mueller indictments will be based on evidence which can be examined, and accuses specific Russians of hacking and leaking the DNC through wikileaks.

On the other side, Julian Assange has stated several times that the leaks didn't come from Russia. Julian never identified the actual leaks, speculation has it that it was Seth Rich.

Julian Assange is a sufficiently trustworthy source not to be dismissed out of hand, and the US justice system should allow the evidence to be combed through by the media.

This could turn out to be a good touch-stone for validating one side of the cognitive dissonance claim.

I look forward to the public investigations of the evidence.

It will be good to finally see which movie we're actually watching.

Like all those that apologized for communism?

"Can I have a glass of water, please?" "Sure, would you like to see our menu of premium bottled rain, or is water from our private indoor river okay?"

You joke, but some people are serious about their water...

I think a lot of people associate a NAS with storage locked to your local network and associate "cloud" with stuff accessed over the internet. Home NAS systems set up for access beyond your home just seems to be spoken about as if they're a totally different product, as if they've got little in common with local-network-only storage.

What makes you think post-brexit UK will opt out of the open border policy?

If you mean Northern Ireland, there is little impetus there to change what people are seeing as peace. Factions on the far sides might want to play it that way but it's basically not going to happen.

Nope, no one wants to change the situation in Northern Ireland. Oh, wait -

"Sinn Fein calls for a referendum on Irish reunification"
"Northern Irish people are scrambling for Irish passports after Brexit"
"Brexit: The same recklessness that has tipped us out of the EU could cause Northern Ireland's departure from UK"

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co...

He's being prosecuted for hate speech - he hasn't been convicted, much less sentenced - and he lives in the United Kingdom, not Quebec.

But other than those minute details, you're absolutely right!

Norway's Christians didn't have to apologise for Anders Breivik, and it's the same for Muslims now.

They probably farm their profits through Ireland.

Oh look, I was right.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/business-news/facebook-defends-its-double-irish-tax-reduction-deal-29007504.html

Gilad Sharon, the son of former Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, has called for Israel to 'flatten' Gaza as the US flattened the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945 with an atomic bomb.

Writing in The Jerusalem Post Sharon, an activist for the opposition Kadima party, said: “The residents of Gaza are not innocent, they elected Hamas. The Gazans aren’t hostages; they chose this freely, and must live with the consequences.

"We need to flatten entire neighborhoods in Gaza. Flatten all of Gaza. The Americans didn’t stop with Hiroshima – the Japanese weren’t surrendering fast enough, so they hit Nagasaki, too.

"There should be no electricity in Gaza, no gasoline or moving vehicles, nothing.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/flatten-gaza-like-hiroshima-says-ariel-sharons-son-gilad-16239945.html#ixzz2Cpdw9FJh

I'm tired, TIRED of ignorant simpletons and their rhetoric.

But when somebody talks about Palestinians you make the ignorant assumption that every Palestian is a Hamas militant or an extremist... . It would be the same as saying that every jew wants every palestian killed and Gaza flattened because you have some nutjobs wanting this. http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/flatten-gaza-like-hiroshima-says-ariel-sharons-son-gilad-16239945.html .

Let me guess American I presume, because talking of simplistic rhetoric there seems to be only one nationality that you can pick based on the same arguments from miles away. To be honest as an non Arab European guy it really sometimes doesn't surprise me that the US is such a hatred country in those parts of the world. I know that some of you are really convinced it has something to do with "Freedom", but come on... . Some of you guys are so notorious of not knowing what is happening about the world and the sad part is, that it sometimes really shows.

I condemn terrorism of any kind btw. Islamic extremist like Hamas and state terrorism. With regarding the last this is very interesting or are you gonna tell me that these people also want to destroy every jew or Israël.http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il. There is extremism at both sides.

Unlike America, European regulators take their privacy seriously.

No, they don't. European regulators like to cause trouble to US companies, while European governments and many European companies get a free pass.

No, they don't -- but I doubt the stories hit the US news.

http://positivepulse.co.uk/482/482/ (NHS, presumably, i.e. British government)
http://www.yourlocalguardian.co.uk/news/local/kingstonnews/9687652.Kingston_Council_faces_privacy_breach_claim/ (Local government near London)
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/uk/probe-into-airline-privacy-breach-16141298.html (British airline)

Of course, as with many local European issues, it's more difficult for me to find stories from other countries as they're usually in another language.
Here's some kind of summary from Ireland: http://www.algoodbody.ie/knowledge.jsp?i=1846
And here's one from Germany http://www.dw.de/deutsche-telekom-suspected-of-privacy-breaches/a-3357090-1 (German telecoms)

That's because they've got new damage-control issues to worry about...

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/popersquos-child-porn-normal-claim-sparks-outrage-among-victims-15035449.html

Do this many people really not want truly guilty people caught and prosecuted?

Guilty of what and at the expense of what? Could you cite specific examples, as you seem so eager to chastise others for failing to provide?

I don't want people truly guilty of possessing marijuana to be caught and prosecuted. I don't want people truly guilty of indulging in whimsical fantasies involving fictional characters to be caught and prosecuted. I don't want people truly guilty of copyright infringement to be caught and prosecuted. Had this been some years ago I would not have wanted people truly guilty of being gay to be caught and prosecuted. I do not want people truly guilty of sexting to be caught and prosecuted. I do not want people truly guilty of being mistaken for a terrorist to be shot on the London Underground. I do not want people truly guilty of possessing a knife to be caught and prosecuted. I do not want people truly guilty of breast feeding to be caught and prosecuted. I do not want people truly guilty of disobeying school authorities to be caught and prosecuted.

Aside from that, I'd rather rot in prison than have some moron telling me that my privacy is less important than their fishing expedition for child pornography or bomb making recipes. Note from that article a detective is quoted as saying "Unless you tell us we're never gonna know... What is anybody gonna think?". I'd rather be water-boarded than cooperate with that sort of pond life. If a detective wants me to cooperate then they will need a better reason than 'we hope you're guilty of something, let us pry into your private life or we will presume the worse'.

If you haven't guessed, I'm not by definition a 'law-abiding' citizen. Were laws in perfect alignment with my principles then I would still only be law abiding by circumstance, not choice. I'd feel much safer around a person who doesn't try to kill me because they choose not to than someone who is just abiding by the law. So, here's me. Sticking it to the man. And proud of it. With long hair. But not a hippy.

"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."

It's sourced from his autobiography, apparently. Rather ironic that the Indians got their independence and then continued to disarm their population. Then their cops cowered in fear and didn't return fire while their fellow citizens were being gunned down during the Mumbai attacks.

I'd like to hear the anti crowd rationalize away a gun ban in the face of that kind of violence. Armed citizens could have halted those attacks in the early stages and saved lives.

Show me a graph with the last 20 years. Or the last 50. Or the last 5. Quoting an unusual number like that is a tactic of political hacks known as "selecting data", and it's a fairly well-known slander.

IIRC, 2001 was the hottest year EVER. It was an outlier, a data point some ten to fifteen years ahead of us. It does not, by itself, disprove the the larger trend.

Actually, 1998 was the hottest year on record, 2001 lost it's place when it was discovered that there was an error in the way they averaged the temps in the US.

As for the graph, if you can find one that matches between different agencies. Anyways, we will simply go with this and this

I had not heard this before. Got a link?

Lol.. You haven't been paying attention then. That or you have only been listening to the quire and not the sermon. You can find this information on any temp map. Most of the glacier melting is caused by volcanic activity and sublimation. This was a point brought out by the misleading claims of Al Gore's reeducation movie where it incorrectly listed Mount Kilimanjaro as a global warming poster child. The glaciers in the antarctic where the temp averages 70 below use a combination of a process called super cooling and warning but through water and water vapor not anthropogenic green house gasses.

Only 700? Are any of them climatologists, with a proven record of predicting climate change on any level? Among this 700, is there a consensus borne about by study, or are they what politics would suggest they are -- shills paid for by those who profit from the status quo.

If you continuously discount someone or something because of where it came from, then you will continuously not know the entire truth. The so called concensus in the first place was only 300 scientists with not all of them meeting your criteria. Hell, most of them didn't even know they were participating until they were told what some of their work was being used for.

In fact, this entire consensus thing is a crock of shit to begin with, science doesn't take a popular vote to determine if something is valid or not. Science doesn't ignore the facts (observations) that screw the experiments up because they don't like the political associations or funding sources of the people bringing it forward. Think about where we would be if we did lock everything into one way because of a consensus. The world would probably still be flat, the sun would still orbit the earth, and Leaches would probably still be the best way to cure serious illnesses. Take your consensus and your criteria and apply it to days of future's past. You can easily see how silly it is.

There are over 6 billion people in the world. (I can provide a link for that if you doubt it.) Even if we assume that only one in a million is a publishing climatologist qualified to speak on the topic, that gives us a body of over 6,000. If the score is 5300 v 700, then the 88.3% have consensus.

Lol.. You making the mistake of assuming that everyone qualified is commenting on it. I can see how obvious but misleading mistakes like this surround you. Not all qualified scientists are commenting, the original consensus existed because a list of papers did not say man was not the cause of global warming. Now many of these papers were there before the concept of global warming existed and I say it's fraudulent to attempt to manipulate the data in that way, but hey, you accept it right? Sure you are, you are automatically assuming that every qualified scientist is working in that area and is commenting on anthropogenic global warming and that a list of 700 who don't agree with the current model or findings, many of which a

I'm quite aware of the SA review, however I specified that I was talking about the shitstorm over it, not some humorous review on some website that nobody in the media or government noticed and raged over.

This, however, all started with an article back in early February, almost exactly four whole months before now. Slashdot is very much late to this.

Sorry but that's bullshit.

It has been demonstrated in the UK quite successfully that speed limits and cameras do increase safety so saying it's about revenue generation is simply ignorant. I'm not even convinced they make more money sitting an officer on a road that is quite clearly signed that speed cameras may be in operation really nets them enough money to make up for the cost of paying that officer to sit there all day and paying for the costs of running the camera etc. anyway. If it was really about revenue you a) wouldn't get points for speeding so that you could be banned, they'd want you to keep getting caught and paying fines indefinitely and b) they wouldn't have to legally have signs up pointing out that speed cameras are in operation on a specific stretch of road. See here:

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/news/Cameras-help-slash-Notts-road-deaths-injuriesarticle-900689-details/article.html

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/lawandorder/Speed-cameras-lose-money-save.5230243.jp

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/speed-cameras--have-cut-road-carnage-by-over-40-psni-13409612.html

http://slower-speeds.org.uk/cameras_reduce_speeding

Yes, correlation is not causation, but it's pretty strong evidence, particularly when road deaths decrease at a greater proportion in areas where speed cameras exist than where they don't even if road conditions are effectively identical. Furthermore, when a fatal accident does occur, accident investigators have to report the speed the car was travelling at as calculated by evidence such as the skid marks which tell the breaking distance and so on. In a high proportion of these cases (iirc about 50%) the vehicle in question was speeding. The remaining cases were real accidents such as lorries getting blown over and that sort of thing. Of course, there are plenty of sites countering that speed cameras improve safety but I've yet to see any that are more than just an opinion peice, or making a mountain out of a single anomally. Statistics relating to improved safety through speed cameras exist for large data sets and repeatedly show that cameras, and hence forcing most people to stick to speed limits does increase safety.

You state the safest way to drive is in a manner safe for the road conditions presented to you, but are you telling me you know the road conditions of every single road you might travel down? Say you travel down a road at 5:30pm every day from work as I do, there is a road that is 30mph which you can easily go safely down at 60mph at that time. Try doing it at 3:30pm though and I gurantee you'll again plow into a bunch of kids that come out of a school that is set back just behind the houses lining that road. The fact is, speed limits are there because they have been created with the hidden dangers on that road you do not know about in mind. What about the one day of the year that that corner you go round at 50mph is known to be prone to black ice formation that you weren't aware of? What you think is a safe speed to drive might not necessarily be correct, and different people have different opinions on what is safe, that's why it's better to have a sign for everyone to adhere to that has been tested to be the best balance between speed and safety.

Now, that's not to say I agree with this measure. The issue I have with speed limits are not that they exist, but that the dangerous people are those that ignore them anyway. Safe drivers follow them, if you remove them, safe drivers no longer know how fast is safe unless they truly know that specific road and it's hazard

I thought all this "we live in a functional fascist theocracy" insanity was supposed to go away when Bu$hitler left office?

Had a little time. Googled a bit for you. Please explain these:

Israeli forces moved about 110 Palestinians into a house, told them to stay inside, and later shelled it repeatedly

"The evidence we've gathered in two of the cases so far is exceedingly strong," said Fred Abrahams, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch working in the Gaza Strip. "All the research so far suggests they shot civilians that were leaving their homes with white flags." Along with the white flag incidents, Human Rights Watch is calling for an international investigation into widespread charges that Israel prevented medical teams from helping wounded Palestinians trapped in their homes and needlessly demolished hundreds of houses, including dozens in Ezbt Abed Rabbo. "This was not a rogue unit," said Abrahams. "The needless civilian deaths resulted from concrete decisions made by the military."

Israeli soldiers entering the village: attempted to bulldoze houses with civilians inside; killed civilians trying to escape under the protection of white flags; opened fire on an ambulance attempting to reach the wounded; used indiscriminate force in a civilian area and fired white phosphorus shells.

At least 40 people were killed and 55 injured when Israeli artillery shells landed outside a United Nations-run school in Gaza, UN officials have said. [...] The UN says there were no militants in the compound

Yay, a school!

About 500 people including patients were huddled in a Gaza City hospital that suffered a "direct hit" in an Israeli air strike Thursday, the international Red Cross said, condemning the incident as unacceptable.

And a hospital. It just keeps getting better, doesn't it?

Outrage as Israel bombs UN HQ, hospital, school and media building

The U.N. suspended food deliveries to Gaza and the Red Cross accused Israel of blocking medical assistance after forces fired on aid workers, killing two

Israel denies Gaza access to clean water

- all that, plus shooting children directly in the head: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/4279102/Bullets-in-the-brain-shrapnel-in-the-spine-the-terrible-injuries-suffered-by-children-of-Gaza.html

Your country is a fascist state committing full scale genocide.

Obama had the most liberal voting record in the US Senate according to just about every metric

See, that I just don't buy. It makes a good soundbite but are you really going to tell me that Obama has a more liberal voting record than the self-described socialist? More liberal than Russ Feingold? These types of soundbites don't really contribute anything to the political discourse and I tend to tune them out.

and got an "F" rating from the NRA. And you, as a gun owner, actually thought he might be on your side?

I wasn't a gun owner until a friend of mine pointed out the hypocrisy in my position of shouting at the top of my lungs (1st amendment) on just about every issue while not bothering to exercise my 2nd amendment rights. My main motivation for getting a gun at this point is to exercise that right (rights not exercised will eventually cease to be rights). This also stuck out in my mind as a pretty compelling argument for gun ownership and reminded me of events in our own country where the police did nothing while innocent people were being murdered.

For what it's worth I'm now a convert to gun rights and will be doing my utmost to speak in favor of this issue and vote it at the ballot box in the future. I'm also going to try and bring some friends into the shooting sports. What else can you do?

How far do you think the gunmen in Bombay would have made it if they knew every man they came upon would shoot back?

Armed police weren't shooting... And in Greece they did shoot and the whole country is still struggling — perhaps, because they would not shoot again.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but simply arming everyone is not enough...

As a paleontology graduate student trained in both mass extinctions and the geology of climate change [...] current biodiversity crisis and the anthropogenic impact on climate are as true as the theory of evolution.

As a seminary graduate trained in Cosmology and Theology, I am telling you, that the current witchcraft crisis and the devil's impact on the fever-inducing solar eclipse are as true as the Bible. I know it is true, because my professors told me so, and they are all very respected experts in their fields.

I am confused how you have allowed yourselves to otherwise ignore modern science.

Those of us not trained in the "geology of climate change" would've been much easier to persuade, if the proponents of the "anthropogenic effect" were not universally thinly-veiled Leftists with a Che Guevara T-shirt in every closet. There are also counter-examples of the lands going arid, and species (including humans) dying out due to sudden climate changes long before anything, that's blamed for such changes today was invented. And occasional coldest seasons on record in various parts of the world need periodic augmentation of the "global warming" theories. But mostly it is the Leftism of nearly all advocates of the humans' responsibility for the climate change, that leaves me skeptical if not outright convinced in the opposite.

We just have to make our lives slightly less pleasant and be willing to say some things are hands off.

How about we start with the plastic water bottles, uhm? Popularized by fashion models (all of them "concerned about the environment", if asked), the crap is way out of hand. A New York Marathon, for another example, the famous transportation-stalling ritual gathering of professional runners and "environmentally-aware" progressive New Yorkers, consumes 63000 bottles of water, 32000 litters of Gatorade and 130 tons of trash. Not to mention the personal conduct of the most prominent figures of today's climate debate...

So is it safe to say that in most of the western world outside of the US there are no tidy rooms? Would I find myself struck with culture shock if I traveled north to Canada and witnessed the disarray of most the homes and the bright colors?

Actually, if you traveled to Canada you would be shocked to learn that they have some conservatives there.

You need to take it easy on those Republican speeches. The entire political spectrum has it's problems, of course, but Republican rhetoric has had very little contact with reality for a long time now. If you must be a xenophobe, try to avoid being an ignorant xenophobe: Conservatives gain seats in Canadian election

What do they do when they see swirly-faced guy walking down the street?

Gnome 2.22 Released

They wanted to bring the country into a civil war with the Golden Mosque bombings and related attacks, they have failed.

What news sources are you consuming? The amount of violence in Iraq certainly qualifies as low intensity civil war by any conventional measure. And the situation has been continuously deteriorating. Denying this will just set us up for a colossal failure. Even Alawi who has been the US most favorite Iraqi politician (not counting Chalabi) has said as much. Now even Basra is starting to come unglued. A trend that started last year when militias infiltrated the police force is now playing out. A development that was entirely predictable when the US failed to unarm and disband the Shia militias while dissolving the old Iraqi army (probably the worst blunder of the whole occupation saga - and there have been so many!).

The Basra security situation is very bad news.

Sorry my friend, but I will certainly take the former Iraqi PM's assement over yours. You may want to check out some broader spectrum of news sites to protect yourself from falling for spin.

Forget BND, the British BNP (fascist party) has far better things to hide given their hatred of all things different :)

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?s tory=690481

Appologies for wandering off topic :(

From the following snippet I can see that you guys are in much better shape than us.

UK will be first to monitor every car journey

By Steve Connor
26 December 2005

Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.

Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

The network will incorporate thousands of existing CCTV cameras which are being converted to read number plates automatically night and day to provide 24/7 coverage of all motorways and main roads, as well as towns, cities, ports and petrol-station forecourts.

Read the whole story

You mean conservatives don't protest?

And Russia: U.S. government-sponsored think tank, has identified five countries of strategic importance that have large populations at risk of HIV infection. Russia is one of those five, along with India, China, Nigeria and Ethiopia.

And India: India's hidden Aids epidemic: virus to infect 25m by 2010