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a left-wing agitator

He tried selling the same BS to the left but they weren't buying. "Coler says they've tried to write fake news for liberals, but they never take the bait." He went where the money was and ended up earning tens of thousands of dollars a month. He's not so much an agitator as an opportunist.

Nah, it's just you failing to exercise a bit of intellectual curiosity/honesty and actually read the last article she wrote, which, amazingly enough, just so happens to be about the subject at hand. One of several relevant excerpts:

Tell me a little about why you started Disinfomedia?

Late 2012, early 2013 I was spending a lot of time researching what is now being referred to as the alt-right. I identified a problem with the news that they were spreading and created Disinfomedia as a response to that. The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly false or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction.

I think you missed the point of this whole "fake news" controversy. These twenty-something goofballs start a fake news site to make money off the alt-right, and alt-right news sites who don't do any fact checking immediately pick up the stories.

In the past few days, there have been several interesting interviews with some of the people who run fake news sites. The reason th doing it. Alsoey say that fake news doesn't work on the Left will blow your mind.

I heard about this story yesterday on NPR, about an alt-right fake-news writer living in Los Angeles.

TL/DR: Jestin Coler (the fake-news writer) claimed that he does it to show how easily hoodwinked people are by fake news, but when pressed, he admitted he could make lots of money doing this. A few interesting quotes from his interview:

The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly false or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction.
[...]
We've tried to do similar things to liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You'll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out.

A presumably liberal minded poster quotes a source they are specifically noting as a self admitted liar and pusher of false news, to demonstrate that interestingly enough liberals don't bite on false news because it gets debunked in the first two comments.

This presumably is meant to show that liberals are more honest and/or less gullible. Of course, in debunking this with my own post perhaps I've proven it right?

I'm confused now.

NPR tracked down one of the fake news sources. It was basically some guy who figured out how to use the traffic to make $10,000 to $30,000 a month.

Damn, the denial is strong with you. You just tried to discredit original research. Do you even realize how denialist that is? If doing your own research isn't good enough, then damn what is?

Did you even read the article? Please do, it's important. The subject admits he's a leftist and confirms he's running a false flag operation. Read the whole thing from top to bottom, it is well worth five minutes of your (and everyone else's) time. Especially read the byline.

By Laura Sydell
NPR

Laura Sydell fell in love with the intimate storytelling qualities of radio, which combined her passion for theatre and writing with her addiction to news. Over her career she has covered politics, arts, media, religion, and entrepreneurship. Currently Sydell is the Digital Culture Correspondent for NPR's All Things Considered, Morning Edition, Weekend Edition, and NPR.org.

I think you missed the point of this whole "fake news" controversy. These twenty-something goofballs start a fake news site to make money off the alt-right, and alt-right news sites who don't do any fact checking immediately pick up the stories.

In the past few days, there have been several interesting interviews with some of the people who run fake news sites. The reason th doing it. Alsoey say that fake news doesn't work on the Left will blow your mind.

I heard about this story yesterday on NPR, about an alt-right fake-news writer living in Los Angeles.

TL/DR: Jestin Coler (the fake-news writer) claimed that he does it to show how easily hoodwinked people are by fake news, but when pressed, he admitted he could make lots of money doing this. A few interesting quotes from his interview:

The whole idea from the start was to build a site that could infiltrate the echo chambers of the alt-right, publish blatantly false or fictional stories and then be able to publicly denounce those stories and point out the fact that they were fiction.
[...]
We've tried to do similar things to liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You'll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out.

"Since my letter, the FBI investigative team has been working around the clock to process and review a large volume of emails from a device obtained in connection with an unrelated criminal investigation...we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton." -James Comey, Director FBI, Sunday, November 6

http://www.npr.org/sections/th...

http://www.usatoday.com/story/...

http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/06/...

I actually pity you, that you imagine that a mere politician has the power to restrain progress for any great length of time.

This is exactly the case, 100%. Trump sold a bill of goods saying he'll bring jobs back and people bought it. There's actually a really great article over at Cracked about Trump's popularity. The TL;DR summary is that "Make America Great Again" means "bring back the manufacturing jobs", not necessarily "let's have racism again". At least that's the theory, anyways.

But those jobs are gone and not coming back, no matter what Trump does. Or if Hillary or Bernie or Stein or Vermin Supreme or anyone else who happened to win would be able to do. Progress isn't partisan and doesn't care who the President is.

Trump's "clean coal" bit? Even if Congress rubber stamps everything he proposes, the coal industry is still doomed, jobs wise. The coal industry is set to drop half its workforce through automation over the next 10 years. That's not theoretical either. The tech is already there. Coal industry will drop 300,000 jobs at least over the next decade, and nothing can stop it. If some crazy "mandatory-buggy-whip-for-each-automobile" type law gets passed here mandating mines can't use robots - still doomed. All that would do is drive up the price of our coal as the rest of the world digs it up cheaper and cheaper.

Best thing we can do is accept it and move on. And plan for it. You're right - people should be *far* more worried about robots than the Chinese. Nobody is talking about how the coal industry is set to drop those 300,000 jobs. Everyone in the rural areas are all aglow with Trump getting elected. They're about to be sorely disappointed though when the robots take over those jobs. Don't think I'm bashing Trump there either - I'm not. Again, it'll happen no matter who the President is. It's just that with Trump he promised to fix things, and he can't. It'll be more bitter.

And the worst is yet to come. Nobody is talking about Google's self-driving car and what stands to happen when that gets perfected. We have 3,500,000 truck drivers employed in the USA. It's the most common profession today, truck driver. And pretty soon most of those people will be unemployed too. It absolutely will happen. What then?

We need to focus more on the future, what we know it will hold, and make our plans for it in the here-and-now.

While looking at my post, (on a Windows-based machine) press Ctrl+F (Find) and search for "doubt" "Hillary" "she" "entertainment" "industry" "money" "Clinton" "Foundation."

I've posted to the wrong thread before, so I feel yer pain.

However, here's this:

"...Republicans made it clear they wouldn't consider it during the lame duck session."

and

"The TPP, which had been championed by Republicans just a year ago, fell victim to a wave of opposition to globalization ..."

--

From here.

The first thing that jumps to my mind is this:

figures released Tuesday by the Alzheimer's Association show that deaths from the disease increased by 68 percent between 2000 and 2010.

"It's an epidemic, it's on the rise, and currently [there is] no way to delay it, prevent it or cure it," says Maria Carrillo, a neuroscientist with the Alzheimer's Association. More than 5 million people in the U.S. have the disease, she says, and that number could reach nearly 14 million by 2050. -- NPR 2013

So the studies cover comparable time spans and come to widely diverging results -- unless there is some unknown factor that has made Alzheimer's less detectable and more lethal. Before that is explained I would not draw any conclusions.

You need to link credible news sources, not fake news sites.

I realize you're joking, but it's actually a gaslighting maneuver by the alt-right neo-nazis to say that any of the actual, professional news sources that they don't agree with are really "fake news sites". The real Nazis even had a word for it: Lügenpresse. See, if they can convince enough people that nothing is true, and everyone's lying, they can fill their heads with any old kind of bullshit and aim them at whichever group they want.

And it should be no surprise that lügenpresse is a term that has been adopted by the alt-right neo-nazis in the US. The funny part is, that while at the same time denying that they're neo-nazis, they actually use the term in the original German.

There was a joke from the late, great writer Molly Ivers about really enjoying a speech by George W. Bush and how it was probably even better in the original German. Little did she know that just over a decade later, we'd actually have right-wing political movements in the United States that are heil-ing and quoting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and that mainstream Republicans would be cool with it.

http://www.npr.org/2016/11/20/...

http://www.latimes.com/nation/...

You say "no one" knows what the issue is

Bzzz, caught. I said, I no one knows, what the problem is, not issue. The terms are almost synonyms, but not quite... So, allow me to reiterate. We do know — from TFA — that only 13% of Dutch Science Academy are women. We do not know why — what is the problem the ladies have (though I suspect, it is their selfish desire to have children).

I further question, whether this objectively known figure of 13% is in any way problematic to begin with.

but you seem damn certain what the solution isn't.

Your remark pretends to be snark and seems to imply, my stance is somehow illogical. But it is perfectly possible to reject certain "solutions" without knowing, what exactly the problem is (or whether, indeed, there is one). For example, I may have a mole on my skin — I do not know, whether it is benign or cancerous, but I certainly am not going to listen to proposals to "solve" it by redefining it as "skin pigmentation" or something else. Changing the criteria will neither tell me, whether I have a problem, nor solve it, if I do.

And that — changing the criteria — is what the discussed action does. If there is sexism in Dutch society, it is not addressing it. It simply lowers the requirements for women.

"lowering the quality of science" bullshit

It is perfectly real. It is safe to assume, membership in the Academy is not purely honorific — it bestows certain financial and otherwise tangible rewards and adds weight to the person's statements. If simply having a uterus helps someone achieve the distinction they would not otherwise have achieved, those rewards will be undeserved. Worse — someone else more deserving may be passed on, and thus unable to communicate his insights as comfortably and to as receptive an audience.

This is no different (if less dramatic) from American SJWs' efforts to increase the number of women in combat roles — even if that means lowering the requirements . Certainly you agree, that such lowering will mean a weaker force?

http://www.npr.org/2015/03/30/...

If you're murdered in America, there's a 1 in 3 chance that the police won't identify your killer.

To use the FBI's terminology, the national "clearance rate" for homicide today is 64.1 percent. Fifty years ago, it was more than 90 percent.

And that's worse than it sounds, because "clearance" doesn't equal conviction: It's just the term that police use to describe cases that end with an arrest, or in which a culprit is otherwise identified without the possibility of arrest — if the suspect has died, for example.

That's just murder, but it was easy to find.

Then I found this:

http://www.governing.com/topic...

Data recorded in the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program show just how widely clearance rates vary across larger police departments. Of the 100 cities reporting the most murders in 2013, 11 cleared less than a quarter of their cases. Meanwhile, eight departments registered clearance rates of 90 percent or more. The national murder clearance rate was 64 percent for 2013.

It probably varies widely by crime as well.

I mean, it's really odd. Everybody who's so fucking concerned about fake news now didn't seem to be too upset when Dan Rather was pushing fake news.

Kind of like everybody who's so bothered by Trump being a pervert didn't seem to mind when Bill Clinton was being a pervert.

Weird, like there's a double standard or something.

What happened to Dan Rather?

His career was basically over.

What happened to Brian Williams when it turned out one of his anecdotes was false, and likely made up?

He was suspended and demoted.

What happened to Bill O'Reilly after he made multiple false claims of witnessing war zones?

Not a damn thing.

What happened to FOX News when, as part of their Ground Zero Mosque coverage, they started demonizing a Saudi prince who was a major News Corp shareholder without disclosing that relationship?

They kept doing it.
(Oh, they obviously didn't mention the guy's name because they don't really want to demonize their boss or have people find the awkward connection, they just wanted a generic evil Muslim).

Kind of like everybody who's so bothered by Trump being a pervert didn't seem to mind when Bill Clinton was being a pervert.

Trump ran in 2016, Bill Clinton ran in the 90's, standards change over time.

I'd bring up Penny Arcade's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, but anonymity seems to be only part of the equation.

Earlier this year, NPR closed their comment system. A few different reasons were given, but two large reasons were that they felt the comments weren't used enough and the apparent negativity and abusiveness of some commenters:

"We've reached the point where we've realized that there are other, better ways to achieve the same kind of community discussion around the issues we raise in our journalism," [Scott Montgomery, managing editor for digital news] said, with money, and spending it efficiently, part of the issue. More than 5 million people each month engage with NPR on Twitter, compared to just a fraction of that number in the NPR.org comments. "In relative terms, as we set priorities, it becomes increasingly clear that the market has spoken. This is where people want to engage with us. So that's what we're going to emphasize," he said

Mike Durio, of Phoenix, seemed to sum it up in an email to my office back in April. "Have you considered doing away with the comments sections, or tighter moderation?" he wrote. "The comments have devolved into the Punch-and-Judy-Fest of moronic, un-illuminating observations and petty insults I've seen on other pretty much every other Internet site that allows comments." He added, "This is not in keeping with NPR's take-a-step-back, take-a-deep-breath reporting," and noted, "Now, thread hijacking and personal insults are becoming the stock in trade. Frequent posters use the forums to duke it out with one another."

I haven't seen a followup on if the changes they made did what they wanted, but looking at Facebook comments on their stories (where people are supposedly using their real name and accounts) it's obvious that the "Punch-and-Judy-Fest" is still in full swing, but now people can also say "fuck" because NPR can't put censors in place.

I don't like to reward churlishness, but here you go:

http://www.npr.org/2016/11/17/...

Well, in a perfect world the, the government would not have created ghettos in American cities. Since the did, don't you think they should be obligated to help remove them?

Citations that will be requested, although I'm sure they will be disregarded:
http://www.npr.org/2015/05/14/...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/13/how-we-built-the-ghettos.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/the-racist-housing-policy-that-made-your-neighborhood/371439/

Conservatard sources (sorry, my bias is showing, but this fact is not disputed):
http://www.independentsentinel...
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865633377/How-government-policy-created-ghettos-according-to-one-historian.html?pg=all

That isn't right - businesses have more stakeholders than simple investors and there are frequent cooperatiosn between Unions and management to maintain operations and training.

Came here to to say this. When self-driving trucks start rolling out (har har) en masse, we're going to need to find new jobs for a LOT of people. A large percentage of the 1.3 million truck drivers will need to find new jobs or else. What they'll do, I just don't know.

Funny how the map of the most common job per state looks similar to the map of the 2016 presidential election results when you compare "Truck Driver" states and red states. I wonder if this will play out during Trump's presidency or his successor's and how they'll handle it..

Do you realize NYT is less credible than InfoWars?

Yep. Especially their poster child Paul Krugman. Claimed that the markets will never recover, then this happened.

Referring to http://www.npr.org/2016/11/09/...: You dont think Trump has some (likely massive) backing from some combination of the utility/energy wealthy, prison-for-pay companies, or healthcare companies?

Here's a list of the things Trump has promised to do in the first 100 days.

Of particular note is this item in the 3rd grouping:

Additionally, on the first day, I will take the following five actions to restore security and the constitutional rule of law:

* FIRST, cancel every unconstitutional executive action, memorandum and order issued by President Obama(*)

That is something the president can do on his own, without getting permission from congress. That alone is probably worth the price of admission.

Additionally, Ben Carson said he's willing to help Trump find a replacement for Obamacare.

Dr. Carson is smart and has first-hand knowledge of the healthcare system. He's not a career politician, and would make a good HHS secretary or surgeon general.

Check out the comments to that 2nd article, and see what people are saying about Carson.

(*) He doesn't say how he will determine whether something is unconstitutional, but in my view any reasonable method would work. Such as getting a consensus from a panel of legal scholars, or simply cancelling anything that orders the government to do something. We'll have to wait and see.

After eight years of being racist, dissent is patriotic once again. Congratulations, America.

See the gender gap for an explanation. A Florida doctor (a scientist, so read it with a hushed reverence) has a theory about the outliers.

Not one links to an actual investigation showing proof that even a single citizen was unable to vote because of voter ID laws.

Don't, worry, the courts are blocking those impediments.

It's almost as if they're being prevented from malfeasance by some unknown means.

It's weird how this story made the front page and not the story about the FBI dedicating as many resources as possible to investigate Hillary's emails. And notice that story is on NPR, so it's not something that can be brushed off as "right-wing propaganda."

I have no idea what this story is supposed to be suggesting, other than I guess it's possible a Trump server was hacked by Russians? Maybe? So what?

It's not that the riders were black, but rather that the names chosen "sounded black". This is significant as it introduces culture as a possible data point which wasn't controlled for.

The whole experiment was about culture. Race is a cultural artifact. The most compelling example of that is the study that found that being arrested makes you black. Racial identification -- both by self and by others -- is often influenced by both culture and by life experiences, and often changes throughout individuals' lives.

Having a black-sounding name is a strong indicator of being a member of black culture, and apparently Uber and Lyft drivers don't want to pick up blacks.

I actually feel bad for the more moderate GOP elements. I grew up in a conservative family in the US (no longer live in the US - but US politics affects us all). While there's many in the party who love Trump, there's also a lot who despise him and all he stands for - but feel they have no other option.

I don't. For at least two decades now its been plainly obvious to me - someone who grew up in a state with practically zero black people - that the republican party actively courted racists, misogynists and homophobes. That's not to say that the democratic party didn't have some of them, but not only were they being driven out over time, the party itself was officially embarrassed by them.

The "moderate" GOP people decided that bigotry was not a disqualifier, that instead it was a useful part of their coalition. Now the chickens have come home to roost. If "winning" is more important to you than a baseline level of decency then that makes you indecent too. You can negotiate with neo-nazis, even cooperate on issues that do not violate your ethics, but once you start wearing the same uniform you are a neo-nazi.

The evangelical christians who have embraced Trump are especially egregious, Trump has destroyed their facade that they care about issues like abortion (evangelicals welcomed roe v wade, until it became politically useful to oppose it) rather than tribalism, and that recent denunciations of racism are barely more than lip service (did you know that the southern baptist convention was created specifically to support slave-owners? and that it wasn't until 1995 that they finally got around to apologizing for supporting slavery and segregation? I didn't know that either, but I sure got that vibe from them despite my ignorance of history.)

After Trump is when we'll see who is moral and who are just venal opportunists. The trumpkins need to be purged. Either the trumpkins will own the GOP and the principled people will leave for a brand new party (and attract some 'liberals' for whom the bigotry was a disqualifier) or the trumpkins will leave for their own Trump Party. But if they continue to stay in the same party for the sake of expediency then they will all be deplorable. Freedom isn't free means standing up for your principles even when it means taking it on the chin.

captcha: inequity

He was labeled anti-black for reasons I have yet to be able to find.

Donald Trump violated the civil rights act by refusing to rent homes to black people.

* http://www.nytimes.com/times-i...
* http://new.www.huffingtonpost....
* http://www.thedailybeast.com/a...
* http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

Trump continued to refuse to rent homes to black people three years after Justice Department ruling on the matter sides against Trump.

* http://www.nytimes.com/1978/03...
* http://www.nytimes.com/1983/10...

Trump ordered blacks to leave casino floor whenever him or wife arrives on property.

* http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...

1991 book written by Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino President quotes Trump as saying:

"I've got black accountants at Trump Castle and Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day⦠. I think the guy is lazy. And it's probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It's not anything they can control."

* http://articles.philly.com/199...

Trump built a casino in black majority city and breaks promise to mayor about hiring locals, refrains to hire the minorities and opting to staff the casino with almost exclusively all Caucasian employees.

* http://www.nydailynews.com/arc...

Trump was asked about replacing TSA's 'heebeejabis' with veterans, responded with:

"We're looking at it"

* http://www.npr.org/2016/06/30/...
* http://www.businessinsider.com...
* http://time.com/4039658/trump-...

Trump responded to accusations of racism by hiring a former aid for Joseph McCarthy to sue the government for half a billion dollars.

* http://www.salon.com/2011/04/2...

Trump kept books of Hitler Speeches by his bed.

* http://www.businessinsider.com...
* http://forward.com/the-assimil...
* http://www.gq.com/story/donald...

Trump's campaign photoshopped a white model black.

* http://www.huffington

http://www.npr.org/sections/mo...

Flip the chart to 2014.

There's going to be a lot of disaffected out-of-work folks in the future.

Precisely..

To add to the quote from the headline... "We're just thrilled. We do think this is the future of transportation where we can save a shit ton of money by firing all the truck drivers that are working for us now".

Just need a minimum wage scrub riding along to load and unload the truck.

http://www.npr.org/sections/mo...

Flip the chart to 2014.

There's going to be a lot of disaffected out-of-work folks in the future.

Now go by some reading glasses, millenials, you're getting old. Stop pretending you're young.

Millenials are probably* going to have poorer eyesight, earlier in life, than prior generations did for two reasons... the wavelength of standard LED lighting (mostly blue ~ 400nm) and the fact that myopia will set in earlier from not exercising the iris enough. *Probably –because they might discover the errors of the previous generations, earlier, and not go down that path!

LED lighting:

http://articles.mercola.com/si...

Myopia:

http://www.npr.org/sections/13...

Solutions:

https://iristech.co/

Some people think it is going to be gradual but there are people who think it could be sudden for a few reasons.

Antartic ice sheets are melting at this time, but it is currently trapped by the ice there.

Most people don't think these sorts of things happen regularly, but glacial floods have been seen in the earth's history (as long as you believe the earth older than 6000 years).

Also, the reason that ocean sea level rise has not been seen everywhere up to this point is because the Arctic ice was over water, which meant that no water was added to the ocean. Antarctica and Greenland's ice are not currently a part of the ocean, so when this makes it to the ocean, things are going to go bad around the world.

Aside from the climate change aspect the more immediate problem is acidifcation and warming of the sea which has already killed off a quarter of the barrier reef and is having serious effects elsewhere with plankton.

And this is the other point, we have no idea what effects we are having on plankton populations. But then again, why do we need plankton, it isn't like we need to breathe.

If computer programmer Barbie involves the girl doing some design, but the actual coding being done by boys.

It was worse than that, Computer Engineer Barbie said:
" 'I'm only creating the design ideas,' Barbie says, laughing. 'I'll need Steven's and Brian's help to turn it into a real game.' "
Barbie then gets a virus on the computer, which then infects another computer, and the boys wind up fixing it for her.
After class, Barbie meets with Steven and Brian in the library.
" 'Hi, guys,' says Barbie. 'I tried to send you my designs, but I ended up crashing my laptop — and Skipper's, too! I need to get back the lost files and repair both of our laptops.'
" 'It will go faster if Brian and I help,' offers Steven."
Brian and Steven take over — and, at the end of the day, Barbie takes credit for the boys' work.

Note that this wasn't an actual Barbie, it was a book "Barbie: I can be a computer engineer". Amusingly enough on the book cover it had a computer monitor with a bunch of 1s and 0s, and a Tux Penguin sitting underneath it!
Picture Here

If computer programmer Barbie involves the girl doing some design, but the actual coding being done by boys.

It was worse than that, Computer Engineer Barbie said:
" 'I'm only creating the design ideas,' Barbie says, laughing. 'I'll need Steven's and Brian's help to turn it into a real game.' "
Barbie then gets a virus on the computer, which then infects another computer, and the boys wind up fixing it for her.
After class, Barbie meets with Steven and Brian in the library.
" 'Hi, guys,' says Barbie. 'I tried to send you my designs, but I ended up crashing my laptop — and Skipper's, too! I need to get back the lost files and repair both of our laptops.'
" 'It will go faster if Brian and I help,' offers Steven."
Brian and Steven take over — and, at the end of the day, Barbie takes credit for the boys' work.

Note that this wasn't an actual Barbie, it was a book "Barbie: I can be a computer engineer". Amusingly enough on the book cover it had a computer monitor with a bunch of 1s and 0s, and a Tux Penguin sitting underneath it!
Picture Here

Workout accessory? Hardly adds much.

It's worse than that, it's actively useless. Recent research indicates that fitness trackers are actively harmful - you lose more weight without a tracker than with one!

I got an Apple Watch primarily to use as a fitness tracker/heart rate monitor, because I figured if I was going to have to have something around my wrist, I might as well get something that integrates with my phone. Boy was that a mistake. (Oh, and I haven't lost any weight since getting it - in fact I've gained weight - so that NPR article seems accurate to me.)

Remember the Fitbit class action lawsuit about the heart rate monitor being useless? Yeah, that applies to the Apple Watch too. I've had it read as low as 38BPM during a workout. As I'm not dead, I'm pretty sure it was wrong. It will frequently switch to "Measuring..." during a workout too, because apparently movement prevents it from reading correctly.

In a workout device.

Then there are the fitness notifications themselves being annoying and non-helpful. Shut up, Apple, I don't care to do a breathing exercise now. FFS, Apple, I AM currently standing, stop yelling at me! Just GO AWAY!

I know a lot of people at the gym who were excited for the Apple Watch because it sounded like a nice workout accessory, but the abysmal battery life in workout mode combined with it being horribly inaccurate and generally useless without an iPhone means a lot of people skipped it. The Series 2 Apple Watch addresses some of the more egregious problems (lack of GPS in the Watch, lack of waterproofing in a device clearly intended for people to go outside with), but by now, the damage is done. People who work out have heard from their friends: avoid the Apple Watch and avoid "fitness watches" in general. There are better options, and they aren't "smart watches."

11 years without a major hurricane strike. I was pretty sure the east coast and at least NYC were supposed to be under water by now

Parts of the East Coast are under water.

http://www.npr.org/2016/05/10/...

Any doctor or medical professional who supports mandatory vaccination should also be willing to accept liability for any complications that may occur.

That is, if you or your children become paralyzed, autistic or brain damaged after receiving a "safe" vaccine, you should be able to sue their pants off.

I wonder how many doctors (and vaccine manufacturers) would be supporting mandatory vaccinations then?

Yeah because children can become autistic from vaccines...oh wait that was thoroughly debunked -> http://www.npr.org/sections/he...

I imagine most would still support mandatory vaccines because they SAVE LIVES.

If there's an allergic reaction in 1 out of 10,000 patients then it's safe. Safer than driving a car that's for sure. Some vaccines are safer, and some have related complications, allergic reactions, specifics that are not because the vaccine is evil and causes paralysis but because a unique or extremely rare set of circumstances coincided to combine to a negative result. No, that's not a long winded way to say autism.

It should be mandatory when it's safer to take the miniscule chance of getting a vaccine related complications than not. Then it's safer. "safe" is relative. nothing is 100% safe, not walking in the street, taking a shower not even sleeping is 100% safe.

The first family to produce (with aid or not) evidence that a vaccine has caused their child autism will win a huge amount of money from big pharma. Because of that fact I assure you misguided parents that believe this have bankrupt themselves to prove it.

Many are likely voting one way or the other on the potential for the Supreme Court balance alone.

John McCain already came clean. They intend to oppose any nominee that Clinton makes.

Which sets the true stakes by showing the true attitude of the Republicans. They don't want to govern. They don't want to do their job properly. Not any more.

At a certain point, we have to realize how toxic the GOP has become that even a senator with years of experience can reveal the true character of the party with an intemperate remark. Sure, he tried to walk it back, but now he can't pretend he never said it.

I agree. Sadly, this is the atmosphere in many Western states. When citizen investigators infiltrated an animal processing plant in Idaho and came out with horrific footage of animal abuse (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN_YcWOuVqk), the state's response was to pass a law not against animal abuse, but against exposing animal abuse. The law was drafted by the Idaho Dairymen's Association.

Happily, the law was later determined to be unconstitutional, but the point is, in the Western US, we're much more likely to attempt to abridge first amendment rights than to try to deal with the ugly problems that are revealed by reporting, whether it's a dairy worker sexually molesting a cow, or private security contractors settings dogs on protesters.

SECRETARY CLINTON: That's a really interesting question. You know, I would like to see more successful business people run for office. I really would like to see that because I do think, you know, you don't have to have 30 billion, but you have a certain level of freedom. And there's that memorable phrase from a former member of the Senate: You can be maybe rented but never bought.

And of course, we never threaten to jail political opponents in this country. *That* would be a dictatorship!!!

I read that quote the other day, and my first response was "yeah, we totally fukken' do!".

I could think of a half dozen examples off the top, but here's a good list of previous Democratic examples.

From that article:

They seem to be forgetting that throwing the book at one’s political opponents is what Democrats do all the time. Here’s 16 times Democrats tried to prosecute their opponents for political gain, not justice.

Looking at the press bias in this election, we are totally boned as a nation. I expect we'll have rioting in several cities after the election.

> I think there was a comic villain who did this

You're thinking of the Dallas police department.

http://www.npr.org/sections/th...

I grabbed one from your list, because 1969 sounded odd... Here's the first thing I found: http://www.snopes.com/bill-cli...

So I grabbed the first one and found this NPR background: http://www.npr.org/2016/10/09/...

Confusing, at best. She has both claimed it did happen and specifically claimed it did not happen. If it did happen as the accusation suggests, that is terrible. However, with the amount of $$ being thrown around to falsify stuff about the Clintons for 30 years, we really need evidence.

You know, a tape of Clinton bragging about how he can assault women unsolicited and get away with it would be great. Oh wait, we only have that from Trump.

Regardless, it is also worth re-iterating that Bill isn't the opposing candidate here. The biggest claims against Hillary (again, mostly unproven) are that she was antagonistic toward the accusers of her husband and that she stood by him throughout all these incidents. Should she have divorced Bill? Probably, in my opinion. But for many people divorce isn't even an option, especially in religious circles.

Again, what we are talking about here and now is a candidate who wants to be President who has been on tape saying he could sexually assault women and get away with it AND then defending that on TV saying "its just locker room talk" and "you hear it all the time". That just compounds a misunderstanding or mistake about sexual assault with a complete endorsement that its a normal part of society and everyone should just be ok with it.

These Wikileaks releases do seem pretty one-sided.

Putin wants Trump for president.

But I doubt, this is even technically true — though this monitoring does not, as you say, directly violate the Second Amendment, that's not the accusation. All other objectionable surveillance and recording is usually denounced on the Fourth Amendment grounds — like NSA's snooping of your e-mails or phone-records, it, likely, constitutes an unreasonable search.

Actually, the fourth protects against unreasonable search and seizure, so absent a seizure as in the case of the NSA collecting records, scanning license plates may not violate the fourth. At any rate, the police observing and collecting information in plain view in public would not, IMHO, be unreasonable since you have no expectation of privacy in public.

Moreover, the very "crime", that this effort was supposed to catch/prevent — transport of the legally purchased guns across the state-lines into areas, where they are illegal — should not be a crime to begin with (unlike the terrorism NSA is after). Any State-laws banning certain kinds of weapons are themselves in violation of the Bill of Rights and ought to be protested and denounced at any opportunity far more noisily than the marijuana prohibition or "gay marriage" inequality.

The question is not can certain weapons be banned, but where to draw the line.

Monitoring =/= Rights Infringement

Even if technically true — the best kind of correct — the same folks, who usually denounce any and all "unwarranted surveillance", are surprisingly silent about this one. Silent or even approving, thus exposing themselves as hypocrites.

But I doubt, this is even technically true — though this monitoring does not, as you say, directly violate the Second Amendment, that's not the accusation. All other objectionable surveillance and recording is usually denounced on the Fourth Amendment grounds — like NSA's snooping of your e-mails or phone-records, it, likely, constitutes an unreasonable search.

Moreover, the very "crime", that this effort was supposed to catch/prevent — transport of the legally purchased guns across the state-lines into areas, where they are illegal — should not be a crime to begin with (unlike the terrorism NSA is after). Any State-laws banning certain kinds of weapons are themselves in violation of the Bill of Rights and ought to be protested and denounced at any opportunity far more noisily than the marijuana prohibition or "gay marriage" inequality.

The purchase and sale of firearms are not protected. What is, is the right to have firearms.

Distinction without difference. You can not have a weapon without buying it first. 3D-printed guns my tail — many States ban even swords and brass-knuckles, hand-made or purchased! Were we to apply this standard to the First Amendment, for example, we'd say, you have the right to speak (to yourself in the shower), but not giving a speech, nor to sell or buy a book or a magazine.

And in parts of Europe, free speech is trumped by "hate speech" laws and libel is a serious crime.

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/28/495760153/i-guess-we-need-to-talk-about-pepe-the-frog

I didn't know either... I HAD, however heard of THIS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect ... go figure...

This is the podcast that got me interested. Yes, NPR Planet Money (sounds really boring) but it's actually pretty good!