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https://thinkprogress.org/elec...

Plummeting battery prices to make electric cars cheaper than gas cars in 3 years
A Bloomberg bombshell.
Achieving parity for upfront, initial cost means that the buying decision for electric vehicles (EVs) is about to become a no-brainer.
That’s because EVs are already superior to gasoline cars in many key respects: they have faster acceleration, much lower maintenance costs, zero tail-pipe emissions, and a much lower per-mile fueling cost than petrol cars, even when running on carbon-free fuel.

It's going to be stopped by the Senate because Mitch McConnell has never denied being bribed by the telco/ISP industry. He has been bribed by the Coal industry - he's the one who started the lie about the "War on Coal" and then backtracked.

I haven't seen anything that Mitch has done for the people of Kentucky. Nothing. Plenty for the moneyed interests that back him - but nothing for the average Kentuckian.

What does that tell you?

Mitch sure loves his private jet - how do you afford that on a Senate Majority Leader's pay?

I'm waiting for a climate change hedge fund like this one to become available in my area.

https://thinkprogress.org/stud... ... From TFA:
Climate change from human activities mainly results from the energy imbalance in Earth's climate system caused by rising concentrations of heat-trapping gases. About 93% of the energy imbalance accumulates in the ocean as increased ocean heat content (OHC). The ocean record of this imbalance is much less affected by internal variability and is thus better suited for detecting and attributing human influences (1) than more commonly used surface temperature records. Recent observation-based estimates show rapid warming of Earth's oceans over the past few decades (see the figure) (1, 2). This warming has contributed to increases in rainfall intensity, rising sea levels, the destruction of coral reefs, declining ocean oxygen levels, and declines in ice sheets; glaciers; and ice caps in the polar regions (3, 4). Recent estimates of observed warming resemble those seen in models, indicating that models reliably project changes in OHC.
Last year was very likely the hottest year on record, according to the authors of a new study in the journal Science.

The study examined “multiple lines of evidence from four independent groups” measuring ocean heat and concluded “ocean warming is accelerating.” Researchers found the rate of warming for the upper 2,000 meters of ocean has increased by more than 50 percent since 1991.

As a result, “2018 is shaping up to be the hottest for the oceans as a whole, and therefore for the Earth,” a press release accompanying the study explains.

Yet again, the Democrats provide ample precedent for what occurred: https://thinkprogress.org/sena...

Nukes are useful, necessary even for a number of reasons. First and foremost nukes deliver power and lots of it all the time, which heavy industry absolutely requires;

Bullshit.

"Advanced grid management technology" is a nice way of saying shutting off the customer's power. Very few heavy industries can put up with that. Very few people will put up with that.

And also bullshit.

The dilemma of cooling nuclear power plants is an artificial one. "Ecologically sensitive" is code for animals are more important than people. A choice between rolling backouts and a lower standard of living versus insignificant ecological damage is not going to be good for the ecology.

Why not apply a Pigovian tax to encourage a market friendly solution which prevents ecological damage? Because they have no interest in such a thing; they just want nuclear power gone at any cost. Isn't it odd that a Pigovian tax is not used on fossil fuels? I wonder why that is.

batteries are not yet capacious or cheap enough to store power in sufficient quantity to make up for the patchiness of renewables.

Bullshit.

Others disagree and it is difficult to get trustworthy numbers.

Electro-chemical storage has always been very expensive but with high power density making it suitable for load balancing once the power electronics became economical but not so good for bulk storage and this is *with* the advantages of flow batteries in bulk applications. Maybe the economy of scale available to lithium batteries in traction applications will change this.

Secondly, the world still has a lot of high-level nuclear waste that really needs destroying in fast-neutron reactors;

They are expensive and dangerous. It would make more sense to just drop the waste into a subduction (The word "subduction" is not in the Moz dictionary... WTF) zone and wave goodbye to it.

I agree but it would be wasteful. High level radioactive waste has almost all of the original nuclear energy in it and it is not that difficult or expensive to store compared to dumping it into subduction zone.

Nukes are useful, necessary even for a number of reasons. First and foremost nukes deliver power and lots of it all the time, which heavy industry absolutely requires;

Bullshit. And also bullshit.

batteries are not yet capacious or cheap enough to store power in sufficient quantity to make up for the patchiness of renewables.

Bullshit.

Secondly, the world still has a lot of high-level nuclear waste that really needs destroying in fast-neutron reactors;

They are expensive and dangerous. It would make more sense to just drop the waste into a subduction (The word "subduction" is not in the Moz dictionary... WTF) zone and wave goodbye to it.

Finally, apart from vehicle fuel much of the world's energy requirement is heat, rather than electrical or chemical power. Small, sealed-for-life nuclear reactors powering district steam heating would go a long way towards replacing gas as a heating fuel.

Heat comes from a number of sources. Much of that energy requirement could be substantially reduced by simply implementing more insulation, which doesn't have to be done every day like heating a space does.

For your second point; homeless people don't tend to travel far from where they live. Often they lack the means to. A large percent suffer from mental disorders (which is why they're homeless in the first place) and many become addict to drugs or alcohol as a crutch. They're not going to leave their suppliers.

Bussed out: How America moves its homeless is an article from last year which shows how the homeless can end up thousands of miles away. Many cities offer 1-way tickets to the homeless based on the promise the homeless won't come back. A 2013 news article announced that Nevada Gets Sued For Dumping Homeless Patients With Mental Illnesses Onto Buses. A stark quote in that article claims that Nevada "may have systematically sent away as many as 1,500 patients over five years".

Just in case you still think you have some sort of argument that the current system or some version of it is the way to go.

Take a look at this. Our price per capita is almost 2.5x the average for OECD countries. So, ask yourself, is the quality of care that we receive also 2.5x better? Because it should be. Is the quality of care here double that in Japan? Because it should be, or else we're getting ripped off. If you're wondering whether or not we're getting ripped off, go look at the salaries of health insurance CEOs.

Take a look at the Koch brothers study as well. Don't focus too much on that scary $32 trillion number though, instead understand that we would pay $33 trillion over the same period under the current system. It is NOT more expensive, and anyone trying to sell that line has no faith in the capabilities of Americans.

And, since I've already made the point, let me allow Bernie to re-state it for me:

If every major country on earth can guarantee health care to all, and achieve better health outcomes, while spending substantially less per capita than we do, it is absurd for anyone to suggest that the United States cannot do the same.

So tell me again that it's not really the federal government's job to provide quality health care for its citizens. Whose job do you think that is, private industry? The "free market?" Because we have plenty of data showing how well that's been working out. Why is the term "pre-existing condition" so high up in the health insurance debate? Is it maybe, just maybe, because the common experience of everyone who has to deal with the health insurance industry is that they are known specifically for denying coverage on procedures that people require to be healthy?

It is absurd to act like it is NOT a government's job to ensure that the people that it serves are healthy. If we depend on the government for our nation's security, why is depending on them for our health so foreign and scary to you?

Face it, there's no good argument to support the current health care system. And I'm not even talking about free college education at this point because I think that one is so self-evident.

Trump's Lies

All False statements involving Donald Trump

Trump’s Lies Have Grown Far More Frequent—and More Dangerous

The 25 Worst Lies From Donald Trump’s First 200 Days

Donald Trump has said 3084 false things as U.S. president

How Trump Gets Away with Lying, as Explained by a Magician

The Other Side: President Trump’s lies a clear and present danger

Trump lies about having ‘no financial interests in Saudi Arabia’

Trump's Relentless Lying Threatens Our Democracy.

This Is as Obvious and Blatant a Presidential Lie as You're Going to See

It’s True: Trump Is Lying More, and He’s Doing It on Purpose

President Trump Made 1,950 Untrue Claims in 2017. That's Making His Job Harder

Trump hired a prostitute. Bill Clinton raped a powerless intern in the Oval Office. If you can't see a wide, yawning gulf between the two, that's on you. There can be no consent between a powerful man and a woman underneath him. It is always rape.

You Shouldn’t Tell Monica Lewinsky She Was Raped

Do not infantilize Monica Lewinsky.
At the time, she was a 22 year old woman.
A full grown adult capable of making her own decisions about her personal life.

We may not like or agree with those decisions, but they were hers to make, and she made them freely.

Here's an explanation of what's going on... same method used by tobacco industry.
https://thinkprogress.org/sena...

So you don't dispute sea rise has been negative for about six years?

That's a start I guess.

The rest of your argument pretty much doesn't matter after that now does it? You haven't found fault with either the data or the logic here, and merely sought clarification of one part you don't understand.

So in case you don't resistant quite what what you're looking at, here goes.

Because nominal sea was was unchanged for about 8000 years, never went up, that was an error, and six years ago flipped when ice began growing again.

Perhaps I explained that badly in my post. Please allow me to try again.

If you look at the longer term map you can see the sea rise for the past 8000 years was pretty constant. Then, six years ago it began falling. I did not try to make a graph like that with only six years but if you were t try the tool at nasa to get just the last 10 years it gives you this, at least it did with my browser, why don't you try it?

Now, there were spurious reports of "sea rise" in Miami but not, only 50 miles away, in the Florida Keys it was not rising. This was found out to be because Miami was sinking, as was Beijing, by about four inches a year because the silly fucks pumped all the groundwater out. You know how nature abhors a vacuum.

Here's the long history of sea rise:
http://rs79.vrx.palo-alto.ca.u...
Look around 8000 years back. See that? That's the 33,3 century nominal sea rise.

That stopped a few years ago.

Now, if you look at the same time period in the NSIDC graph is ice, you'll see there's a corresponding uptick in sea ice:
http://rs79.vrx.palo-alto.ca.u...

Ok? So uptick in ice, seas fall. Got that now?
Nore that carbon dioxide also flarlines 6 years ago.

Here's the stuff on the error in sea rise measurement in Miami:
Here's a picture of it:
http://geologylearn.blogspot.c...
Here's thr article in Nature about Florida.
http://www.nature.com/news/sou...
Here's the article about Beijing.
http://www.theweek.co.uk/73907...

Here's the Co2 flatline stuff:

2015 CO2 has flatlined.
13 March 2015 Data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) indicate that global emissions of carbon dioxide from the energy sector stalled in 2014, marking the first time in 40 years in which there was a halt or reduction in emissions of the greenhouse gas that was not tied to an economic downturn.
http://www.iea.org/newsroomand...

2016 CO2 flatlined for a second year in a row.
"The IEA reports that for the second year in a row, the world economy has grown while energy-related CO2 emissionsremained flat."
http://thinkprogress.org/clima...

2017 CO2 emissions remain flat for a third year.
IEA finds CO2 emissions flat for third straight year even as global economy grew in 2016 17 March 2017.
https://www.iea.org/newsroom/n...

MIT Technology Review also reported the fact CO2 stopped rising as well.
https://www.iea.org/newsroom/n...

It doesn't matter what you "believe". The facts are, seas a falling, ice is growing and coe

That's what your official @senate.gov email is for, which IS secured by law enforcement.

Unfortunately those official email accounts are getting hacked too.

Why do you old dinosaurs keep pushing nuclear? Solar is already cheaper than coal or nuclear, with far fewer long term environmental negatives.

Wow go to a political site that has no bones about fabricating shit whole cloth to get your points ?

Why do you old dinosaurs keep pushing nuclear? Solar is already cheaper than coal or nuclear, with far fewer long term environmental negatives.

The BBC is just acting like almost every other corporation out there. Even the vaunted Baen (which specifically released media to the public share) made efforts to shut down some distribution after their own mistakes.

Besides, if you want something repugnant to complain about, there are better examples. Now that's something that matters.

Most did not vote for him because they like him, but because they hate the utter hypocrisy, corruption, and inefficiency of the standard political class. [...] people have rational decisions as to why they do what they do.

The problem with your argument is that there is nothing rational about voting for Trump because you are against hypocrisy, corruption, or inefficiency — because Trump's whole life has been based on those things. He says things about revering women, but he abuses them and has raped at least one, by definition if not conviction. He runs businesses into the ground deliberately in schemes which leave him holding the bag and his investors holding their dicks. And his repeated bankruptcies have cost us all money, due to the many court proceedings which decreased the efficiency of the legal system. Supporting Trump because you don't approve of the status quo is cutting off your face to spite your face. And the proof is in the pudding, because Trump voters are hurt most by Trump's policies.

Trump voters want to believe that they are as intelligent as other voters, so they are defending their decision to vote for Trump to the bitter end in spite of the ample evidence that it was a terrible idea, since Trump as president is actually worse than the status quo. This is known as cognitive dissonance.

I am not a Clinton fan. I am not even inclined to give her a pass on her email server. However, Trump is provably worse as president than Clinton would have been. He is literally a worse president than Richard Nixon.

Trying to reach Trump voters who refuse to acknowledge reality is a fat waste of time. The goal now is to reach people who didn't bother to vote, and convince them to vote against Trump to avoid more of this shit-show.

TL;DR: Voting for Trump because you don't like corruption is goddamned stupid, and no amount of polishing makes a turd into a diamond.

They note that Twitter doesn't shadow ban at all, and to the extent that Twitter’s new algorithm doesn't auto-populate the search box with some links, that is only because they're trying to improve the quality of their data by not showing (by default) accounts that troll or help to spread false information.

You might as well attack Slashdot for hiding "Obama is a Kenyan muslim who is responsible for 9/11" posts, when they're voted as Troll/Flamebait.

Not only did he call a guy who rescued kids a "pedo" (https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/16/british-diver-mulls-legal-action-after-elon-musk-calls-him-pedo-guy.html) he also turns out to be one of the biggest contributors to Republican PAC's: https://thinkprogress.org/elon...

Totally indefensible, but I guess Rei and Bruce will try!

The left aren't the ones making travel bans for muslims.

Islam is the most intolerant, violent, and supremacist religion on Earth. Sane people want to limit immigration, which is not a right, from this violent and supremacist culture. The left wants to import them in massive numbers, and will call you an "Islamophobe" and "xenophobe" if you don't.

They aren't the ones ostracizing LGBT people.

The left wants 99.9% of society to re-engineer itself to recognize the delusions of the 0.1% of transgender people. Some guy "identifies" as a woman, and he wants to hang out with biological women with his male genitalia hanging out.

They aren't the ones advocating for police brutality.

Black Lies Matter was a phony narrative that did not stand up to scrutiny. The end result has been dead cops and more dead blacks due to less policing in crime-ridden neighborhoods.

They aren't the ones trying to disenfranchise minorities from voting.

The left wants to disenfranchise American citizens by flooding the country with illegals and making it harder to reserve rights for American citizens. That's why they put up a big stink when the US Census was going to ask about citizenship status, because they're afraid illegals won't be counted for congressional representation and the electoral college.

By the way, even the majority of minorities support voter id laws.

They aren't the ones pushing against womens rights to control their reproductive systems.

Just ignore the human life that's terminated by these "womens rights".

You think the left is intolerant?

Yes, I think harassing people in public, hounding them out of their jobs, and shutting down their free speech events is massively intolerant.

When over 90% of black people and the majority of other minorities vote for the left it's because they think (correctly) that the right is actively working against them.

No, it's because they are on the Democrat welfare plantation.

Tell you what, go ahead and tell a conservative christian that you are gay and that jesus is a lie and see what happens to you.

For fuck's sake, "piss christ" was an actual thing, and nothing happened. Do you know what would happen if you actually performed this experiment? They would probably politely tell you to stop bothering them.

Now go post a sign that says, "It's okay to be white", and see what happens.

And yet all the neo-nazi's voted for Trump instead of their own Nazi party candidate. And lets not forget:

https://www.aol.com/article/20...

https://www.motherjones.com/po...

https://www.vice.com/en_us/art...

https://thinkprogress.org/gop-...

So, this begs the question about your statement: Are you a fucking idiot, a fucking liar, or both?

Why would climate change solutions kill people? There's a fairly clear path forward on fixing climate change now. The first step doesn't even touch oil or other farm chemicals.

The first step is a massive build-out of renewable electricity generation, mainly solar and wind. We're not even close to the maximum capacity of renewables across the country, even without grid changes.

The second step is including 12 hours' worth of battery storage to get to 80% renewable electricity, whether next to the power generation - which is already economical - or even better in the batteries of electric vehicles. This can include...electric farm equipment!

Where we want to go from there, such as combined hydrogen generation for ammonia and CO2 collection from seawater or synthesizing oil from CO2 directly from the air, is up in the air right now. But the concrete steps above, if implemented aggressively, could easily meet our Paris 2025 commitment.

Why would climate change solutions kill people? There's a fairly clear path forward on fixing climate change now. The first step doesn't even touch oil or other farm chemicals.

The first step is a massive build-out of renewable electricity generation, mainly solar and wind. We're not even close to the maximum capacity of renewables across the country, even without grid changes.

The second step is including 12 hours' worth of battery storage to get to 80% renewable electricity, whether next to the power generation - which is already economical - or even better in the batteries of electric vehicles. This can include...electric farm equipment!

Where we want to go from there, such as combined hydrogen generation for ammonia and CO2 collection from seawater or synthesizing oil from CO2 directly from the air, is up in the air right now. But the concrete steps above, if implemented aggressively, could easily meet our Paris 2025 commitment.

Read it again. His point is that the "reasonable expectation of privacy" test which the majority upheld is being used to justify warrantless searches.

Except, that's not what he said, at all.

https://thinkprogress.org/gors...

His point is that the "reasonable expectation of privacy" test which the majority upheld is being used to justify warrantless searches.

And he felt so strongly about it that he voted to let warrantless searches continue.

There's just no way to spin this one. Face it, Gorsuch is one of those authoritarian ideologues who likes to dress himself in the rhetoric of liberty, but deep down inside loves his big, wet daddy. And like Scalia, he's not nearly as smart as he thinks he is.

IIRC pumped hydro has a few drawbacks though.
It tends to require ideal geographical features: aka a steep hill with a large reservoir up top to pump the water to, and streams to replenish the water in the reservoirs that gets lost to evaporation.
It can cause impact on local wildlife (but, I suppose the same it true for most anything)
But it also has a lag in it's ability to provide power on demand. The big one in Bath County Virginia that gets mentioned when the subject comes up still has a five to ten minute lag time https://thinkprogress.org/the-...
This is still advantageous over traditional 20-30 minutes of coal/natural gas, but nothing compared to the Tesla Australia battery, which can respond is as little as 4 seconds. https://www.washingtonpost.com...

A mixing of the two solutions (when and where possible) might be the most ideal approach. Pumped Hydro for capacity and cost, with a large enough battery capacity that can respond to outages quickly and last long enough until the hydro manages to spin up.

The US EPA just released a study showing that it's 60% cheaper to drive an EV than ICE car... and that's just the cost of the fuel.
https://thinkprogress.org/driv...

Sad trombone...
try again..

THE DOCTRINE OF FASCISM-BENITO MUSSOLINI (1932)

Accepting mussolini's propaganda as an accurate description of fascism is like taking The Democratic Republic of North Korea's word that they are a democracy.

Instead, lets take the word of more neutral sources:

Although fascist parties and movements differed significantly from one another, they had many characteristics in common, including extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites, and the desire to create a Volksgemeinschaft (German: “people’s community”), in which individual interests would be subordinated to the good of the nation.
Encyclopedia Britannica

An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization.
Oxford English Dictionary

> Now of all the players in American politics today, which group does this best describe?

These players:
The people who absolutely lose their shit at the thought of black people kneeling that they walk out of a football game.
The television network that fired a reporter who would not toe the line on climate change reporting
Colorado Republican lawmakers want to punish striking teachers with jail time.
Harper’s Editor Insists He Was Fired Over Katie Roiphe Essay - The New York Times
Professor celebrating Barbara Bush’s death deserves to be fired | Fox News
Joyce Peterson on Twitter: "Happening in Nashville right now: lawmakers trying to penalize the @CityOfMemphis for removing confederate statues by slashing a quarter million dollars in funding. https://t.co/ZAg0ntZl30"
Law Enforcement Has Quietly Backed Anti-Protest Bills in at Least 8 States Since Trump’s Election
Memphis-Based Journalist Taken Into ICE Custody After Arrest While Covering Protest (Updated) - Rewire.News
Sinclair producer in Nebraska resigns to protest 'obvious bias'
‘Black-ish’ Political Episode on Kneeling Canceled Over ‘Creative Differences’ – Variety
Republican governor forced to stop blocking Facebook users who criticize him | Ars Technica
AprilDRyan on Twitter: "It is back again. Not called on today for a question. It has been how long? Oh, my last question was about @StormyDaniels! And, I was just told I am on a list. Whatever! I have been doing this for 21 years. I am not new to the rode
Trump attends event about campus political correctness crisis, accidental

Poor minorities who tend to vote Democrat are disproportionately likely to lack government issued IDs.

Having a valid government issued ID is also a pre-requisite to work legally in the United States. So instead of whining about lost votes, you could also argue for a federal law that provides no or low-cost ID options to low-income households.

Arguing that there is no need to use ID when voting is equal to arguing that there should be no border controls: now those poor, poor minorities are not even able to go to Canada. And I'm not even mentioning that they can't legally buy alcohol until they're 30. Are you going to stand in front of your local Bevmo with a sign?

Money isn't the only issue and whatever the cause there is a big discrepancy.

I do agree with you that not having ID is a problem for those who don't have one, but that is the problem that needs to be fixed. Not having an ID causes a shitton of issue, and not being able to vote should be the least of their worries.

I wouldn't have an issue if every legal voter had an ID, though getting minorities IDs isn't a Republican priority and they seem to actively make it more difficult.

I have an overwhelming suspicion that the moment you get all the minorities photo IDs the GOP suddenly stops caring about it.

So yes, the Florida election was stolen by exactly the anti-Democratic voter suppression tactics for which you are now advocating!

For the record, being an immigrant I'm a left-leaning moderate. I'm an favor of universal healthcare and free education. I don't like the policies of our current Supreme Leader. I never liked Bush Jr (Sr was a bit better). I liked Obama and would vote for him with my eyes closed.

BUT. You can not have democracy without fair elections, and showing proof of eligibility to vote is one of the necessary safeguards.

I understand why it sounds like a reasonable safeguard, but until you get everyone photo IDs you will end up disenfranchising eligible voters.

And the only thing that photo IDs fix is in-person voter impersonation at the polls, but if that kind of voter fraud were happening at a large scale we'd see the signs, and they're simply not there.

You're advocating a policy that will disenfranchise people to fix a problem that is not happening.

Really, if you're that concerned about the integrity of the vote go after mail-in ballots, there is way more potential for not only voter impersonation but coerced votes as well.

But you'll never hear about trying to take away absentee voting, largely because absentee voting skews Republican.

Their Mueller investigation must truly be going poorly. It's been over a year and they haven't found anything that says Trump colluded. They've found wrong doing by various underlings but, considering the average person commits three felonies a day.... Now the Democrats want their own investigation where they themselves can run it and leak with impunity.

On the contrary Mueller's investigation seems to be moving fairly quickly.

And he's gotten a bunch of guilty pleas, including from Flynn, Papadopoulos, Gates who were some fairly important campaign members. Not to mention having Manafort absolutely dead-to-rights on really serious money laundering. Cohen, Trump's lawyer/fixer, being under direct investigation and having his documents seized. Not to mention Kushner, Trump's son in law, is now being investigated for both his company's long history of fishy dealings (submitting fraudulent docs for renovation permits), not to mention the question of who gave Kushner 1.2 billion to bail out the family business and why?

You are correct that we don't have any public indictments connecting the Trump campaign with Russian intelligence, but the investigation is far from over, and Mueller isn't likely to show his hand until he's ready to charge someone.

For instance, there's already rumours that Mueller has evidence that Cohen made a secret trip to Prague, an major allegation from the Steele Dossier that Cohen has denied. But Mueller may not want to make that evidence public at this point in the investigation, nor may he want to do it in October when he might be accused of inappropriate interference like Comey did. But if that evidence doesn't come out till after the election it doesn't help Democrats till 2020, and if they don't win a house they won't be able to launch congressional investigations.

More likely the suit has 3 objectives.
1) See if they can use subpoenas to get their hands on any proof of collusion before the midterms.
2) Open a line of legal inquiry going that Trump can't pardon/fire his was out of.
3) Keep generating Trump-Russia news. As they learned from the Clinton emails once the narrative is established all you need to do it trigger the keywords to be effective.

So you think that a previous relationship does imply continuing consent?

I think that if you are married to a woman, you do not have to ask her "May we hold hands?......may I kiss you?..... May I hug you?.... every time I wish to engage in sex. That previous consent thing means every time, it means every step, and makes no exceptions for happily married couples.

In real life, it does make almost all married men into criminals, and if my sex life is any indication, a lot of married women. Call them latent criminals if you like. But in a divorce proceeding, if a man in a Yes means Yes state cannot answer affrmitively that every time he had sex with his wife, and at all stages, he has raped her.

Nor does holding hands constitute sexual assault, at least not where I live.

https://thinkprogress.org/tenn... I'll just leave this here....

Grabbing a breast would, but that law lists "intimate areas". explicitly.

Define an intimate area. Many women find it very erotic to have their fingers caressed. Many find a male touching them to be assault. Many laws define assault as any touch any where. Better get permission.

So, suppose you want to do something with a girl friend, and you don't want to ask incessant questions. There's ways to hint that you want a response, and the response doesn't have to be verbal to be consent under that standard.

What is a non-verbal consent that would hold up in a court of law if the man was being charged with rape?

It's also apparently only for campus sexual assault cases.

Do you think that the young women are going to come out of college and suddenly stop thinking that anything other than yes means yes no longer means they are being raped? Of course she will, which is why I note the uselessness of a non-verbal claim of consent.

In addition, what of a young woman in college dating a townie - who's rules govern their interactions? the college cannot touch him, but the courts can. There will be test cases.

Assuming a woman likes those fantasies, she isn't likely to want to get ravished at any moment of any day, so there should be some way for the husband to know when it's OK and when it isn't. Even under the rules you quoted, the husband can start with something short of a gross misdemeanor and let the wife respond.

"Something short of a gross misdemeanor." That's hilarious. You know what happens when you have to second guess your every move? "Could this come back to get me in trouble?" You think about some impromptu fun with the wife, she's looking good today, you second guess it, then go out ot the garage and work on the lawnmower.

If I were in college now, (and single) I'd simply avoid contact with women other than that needed to complete my studies, and definitely stay away from any relationships. I'm there to get an education anyhow, and if sex is a such a minefield, then I'm going to focus on that. 4 years of celibacy will not only keep me out of trouble, but the young ladies will appreciate me not sexually assaulting them, so its a win-win situation.

So can you give me some links to the "Pentagon trolls?

Sure, here is some relevant reading:

Military's 'sock puppet' software creates fake online identities to spread pro-American propaganda
Pentagon ramping up public relations offensive: Agency moves to bolster image in face of mounting criticism of Iraq war
U.S. Media Knew Kosovo Reports Were Propaganda
Meet The State Department Team Trying To Troll ISIS Into Oblivion
Military Plays Up Role of Zarqawi -- "The U.S. military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, according to internal military documents and officers..."
Pentagon Paid for Fake âAl Qaedaâ(TM) Videos
The Government's Social Media Propaganda Machine
âoeOn the Offensiveâ: US State Dept. Gives $40M Boost to âoeTroll Farmâ Propaganda Efforts
How the American government is trying to control what you think

That should get you started.

Of course, our mass media tends not to emphasize such American skulduggery and propaganda. They'll do an initial report on the issue, but it's rarely, if ever, put into the news loop and repeated over and over and over again. Funny how that works, eh? It makes one think of Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, who once bluntly said, "There's really five companies that control 90 percent of what we read, see and hear."

If you want any more you'll have to search for it.

Yes, because I should vote for a Left that is beyond convinced that we are greedy, racist, sexist, homophobe morons who hate science and love Hitler.

You mean Democrats. Democrats are not left, they're another crazy right wing party.

The American right wing owns the media. [imgur.com] OK. LOL! What, like the New York Times, Washington Post. CNN, NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, and all the rest? Those are all right wing?

Of course they are. Or haven't you not noticed that they've all jumped on the we-need-to-push-Trump-into-bombing-Syria-with-zero-evidence just within the last week? They've gone so far to the right that the only people pushing back are Fucker Carlson and Tomi Lahren of all people, and they're on Fox.

I think you represent some kind of tiny splinter group that has zero traction. The Left is about sound economic policies? It's about borrow and spend to buy votes.

As is usually the case, when wingers whine about leftists they're really complaining about their fellow right-wingers. Leftists would slash a trillion out of the annual imperial budget, which would eliminate the deficit overnight while giving everyone free-to-use UBE, medical care, and higher education.

OMG the Left invented identity politics and used it as a club to beat the crap out of us. It worked, too.

Again, you're complaining about your fellow right-wingers in the Democratic party. They're the ones smearing anyone to the left of them as sexist racists for not jumping onboard the next coronation of an ultra-corrupt corporatist who loves slave labor.

They encouraged the BLM riots and cheered as people were attacked and neighborhoods burned.

Now you're just talking out of your ass. And I'm betting this describes you to a T.

My mom's family were migrant workers. She was the first one born in the US.

https://thinkprogress.org/berr...

Which is FUCKING HILARIOUS.

Because someone DID JUST THAT.

Voat.

And you know what happened? They got DDoS'd for weeks (if not months). And when THAT didn't stop it? They posted child porn, and then called their ISP and said "Look, you're hosting a child porn website."

Yeah. All of those people who say "Start your own" are straight up liars. They don't want you to move... they want to "deplatform" you. A literal term, coined by the left. Once the PLATFORM changes? _They go after the next platform._

They don't even hide it anymore. Look at this one. Where they want their readers to harass any company that supports the NRA, and keep a constant update of who is still holding out, and who has collapsed:

https://thinkprogress.org/corp...

promotes such a toxic workplace...

I would hasten to add that toxic workplace is as most subjective as can be, and that this is *your* opinion. There are a lot of external references to Uber's toxic workplace. Try google searching Uber+toxic+workplace. A few hits I could dismiss as "a few haters", but I get 443 thousand hits.

Here are some of the top few. It looks pretty toxic to me: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... https://www.recode.net/2017/6/... https://thinkprogress.org/trav... https://www.recode.net/2017/6/... http://www.businessinsider.com... http://theconversation.com/fix... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/0... https://www.theguardian.com/te... https://qz.com/1010986/a-timel...

Maybe Alphabet doesn't believe that Google's results are accurate. ;-)

Strangely, I just ran the same search in Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Google: 157,000 hits

Bing: 3,690,000 hits

Yahoo: 21,000,000 hits

Apple doesn't do things out of the goodness of their heart.

Can you name a corporation that does?

Wells Fargo.

“Is it our goal to increase return to our shareholders and do we have an excess amount of capital? The answer to both is, yes,” Sloan told CNN Money. “So our expectation should be that we will continue to increase our dividend and our share buybacks next year and the year after that and the year after that.”

https://thinkprogress.org/wells-fargo-ceo-tax-reform-job-6b6b8462f239/

Thursday morning, Walmart had a flashy announcement: Thanks to corporate tax cuts, it was giving its employees bonuses of up to $1,000. Walmart and President Trump pointed to the announcement as proof that the corporate tax cuts are really a boon to working-class Americans.
This announcement, as ThinkProgress reported earlier, was much more complicated than it first sounds.

Walmart employees are eligible for the $1,000 bonus only if theyâ(TM)ve worked at the company for 20 years. Most Walmart employees, of course, havenâ(TM)t worked there that long. Those employees will receive a smaller bonus based on seniority. Walmart didnâ(TM)t explain exactly how the sliding scale will work, but said the total value of the bonuses will be $400 million. Walmart has about 2.1 million employees, which works out to be an average bonus of about $190.

The one-time bonus Walmart announced this morning amounts to just over 2 percent of the total value of the tax cut to the company.

In fiscal year 2017, Walmart had pre-tax profits of about $20.5 billion and paid an effective federal tax rate of around 30 percent. With a new corporate tax rate of 21 percent, the corporate tax cut is worth at least $1.85 billion to Walmart every year. Since this cut is permanent, the true benefits to Walmart will grow much larger over time. But itâ(TM)s safe to say that, over 10 years, this corporate tax cut will be worth over $18 billion to Walmart.

But now it appears the announcement was timed carefully to cover for thousands of unannounced layoffs.

Business Insider reports that today, Walmart is abruptly closing numerous Samâ(TM)s Clubs stores across the United States. In some cases âoeemployees were not informed of the closures prior to showing up to work on Thursdayâ and âoelearned that their store would be closing when they found the storeâ(TM)s doors locked and a notice announcing the closure.â

citation provided

"Chart of the month: Driven by Tesla, battery prices cut in half since 2014"
https://thinkprogress.org/char...

"So you ability to have global communications,"

All feasible without space, Chris.

", the thousands of scientific discoveries that affect your every single day of existence"

They were discovered in space and affect my every single day? NAME ONE, Space Nutter.

"accurate weather forecasts.."

That's down to powerful computers, idiot.

"please go live in a shack in the woods somewhere without electricity."

Electricity comes from space?

Nope. Never will, either.

Sure, space is a fun thing, but it's far from the amazing frontier the propagandists want you to believe.

To support AC's point:
http://www.dollarsandsense.org...
https://www.energyandcapital.c...
https://www.huffingtonpost.com...

From the first one, discussing the US defense-related costs as just one aspect: "Put all these numbers in perspective: The price of a barrel of oil consumed in the United States would have to increase by $23.40 to offset military resources expended to secure oil. That translates to an additional 56 cents for a gallon of gas, or three times the federal gas tax that funds road construction. If $166 billion were spent on other priorities, the Boston public transportation system, the âoeT,â could have its operating expenses covered, with commuters riding for free. And there would still be money left over for another 100 public transport systems across the United States. Or, we could build and install nearly 50,000 wind turbines. Take your pick."

But there are many other external costs to fossil fuels like health care costs (the legacy of leaded gas is still taking a tremendous toll on our society, but air pollution in general is a killer). For example:
https://thinkprogress.org/here...
"The average cost of a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. right now is $2.47. If that cost took into account the environmental and human health costs of burning the gasoline, however, it would more than double, according to a new study. The study, published this week in the journal Climatic Change, created models for the âoesocial cost of atmospheric release,â a method of determining the costs of emissions beyond their market value. According to the study, accounting for the social costs of burning gasoline would add an average of $3.80 per gallon to the pump price, raising the price to $6.27. Diesel has an even higher social cost of $4.80 per gallon. The study also measured the social costs of other fossil fuels not used at the pump. Coal, for example, would jump from 10 cents per kilowatt hour to 42 cents per kilowatt hour, the study found. And natural gas, which has emerged in recent years as a cheap source of fuel, would see its price rise from 7 cents per kWh to 17 cents per kWh."

And on the legacy of leaded gas (and how it has contributed to the USA's huge prison populations): http://www.motherjones.com/env...

A related essay I wrote in 2009 on "Why luxury safer electric cars should be free-to-the-user":
https://groups.google.com/foru...
"This essay explain why luxury safer electric (or plug-in hybrid) cars should be free-to-the-user at the point of sale in the USA, and why this will reduce US taxes overall. Essentially, unsafe gasoline-powered automobiles in the USA pose a high cost on society (accidents, injuries, pollution, defense), and the costs of making better cars would pay for themselves and then some. This essay is an example of using post-scarcity ideology to understand the scarcity-oriented ideological assumptions in our society and how those outdated scarcity assumptions are costing our society in terms of creating and maintaining artificial scarcity."

But the real answer (if maybe not politically acceptable) is not to subsidize electric cars. It is to tax *all* the externalizes of fossil fuel use at the point of purchase, bringing the cost of gas to, perhaps, US$10 a gallon or more. The tax could be redistributed as a basic income to everyone.

Perhaps the deepest irony about all this (mentioned in the above essay) is mentioned here by B

So, you want to make the NRA a militia? Because that's what you'd accomplish here. You realize that, right?

At which point they would fall under control of the state governments, making them accountable to all voters, not just donors (which currently includes god damn russian oligarchs) So yeah, I'm OK with that.

heck I don't know. probably just making it up.

https://www.politico.com/story...
https://thinkprogress.org/stev...

http://www.motherjones.com/pol...

https://www.npr.org/sections/t...

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/con...

---

https://www.childtrends.org/in...

In 2015, more than 1 in 6 U.S. children (18 percent) lived in households that were food-insecure at some point during the year, and 0.7 percent experienced the most severe level of need, where food intake is reduced and regular eating patterns are disrupted.[1]

https://www.nokidhungry.org/si...

Child Hunger is a Health Problem
While every American is morally offended by the existence of childhood hunger, pediatricians and public health
professionals see the tragic effects of this unnecessary condition graphically imprinted on the bodies and minds
of children;
â Hungry children are sick more often, and more likely to have to be hospitalized (the costs
of which are passed along to the business community as insurance and tax burdens);
â Hungry children suffer growth impairment that precludes their reaching their full
physical potential,
â Hungry children incur developmental impairments that limit their physical, intellectual
and emotional development.

---

Cause I'm just crazy that way.

Much of this could be addressed for *PENNIES* on the dollar yet republicans have been targeting poor children for over a decade now (it really started under bush JR).

Punishing someone who can't afford to buy a new electric car by charging them with a regressive tax...

False.

A few more references for you to try to explain away... (It helps if you wave your arms)
https://thinkprogress.org/trum...
https://thinkprogress.org/comm...

A few more references for you to try to explain away... (It helps if you wave your arms)
https://thinkprogress.org/trum...
https://thinkprogress.org/comm...

Americans killed by guns in recorded history: 0

Is that like that philosopher who insisted that nobody was killed by a sword, they died from not avoiding the sword?

Here's a shock for you, guns do kill people.

On a side note, concealed carry warning and brandishing probably stops that many robberies, rapes and murders in a week...

Because...you must think that attempted robberies, rapes, and murders are so common that there are thousands a week! What kind of crime-ridden world of fear do you live in?

Americans killed by medical mistakes each year: about 250,000

And we've got a whole group of people arguing about that problem too!

Americans killed by antibiotic resistant bacteria each year: 23,000

Also discussed.

Clearly guns are not that big a threat unless you are an alt left fascist progressive looking to dominate and subjugate the American people.

Nope, guns are a big threat to the American people, what with deaths from toddlers with guns, whereas imaginary fears of alt-left fascist progressives looking to dominate and subjugate the American people aren't a threat at all, except so insofar as they lead right-wing pseudo-conservative trolls to instigate feigned outrage in America.

Every dictator in the last 100 years from Stalin to Mao on down the line disarmed their people first and then murdered millions of them.

Nope. In fact, many dictators armed their people, then told them to go forth and kill "not their people" because well, that's a great way for dictators to keep power.

You must not be familiar with history.

Guns are in fact inanimate objects controlled by their wielder, which is why every LEO in the country carries one.

Guns, are in fact, tools that ought to be regulated like many other tools, such as lawnmowers, chainsaws, pressure washers, and nail guns, and no, not every LEO in the country carries one. For example. And some shouldn't.

Any group that uses "gun deaths" are political shills with no interest in truth.

I wonder if you realize that group includes yourself.

Gun deaths usually include suicides (who just use different methods in gun free countries), criminals shot by police or citizens, and other justified shootings that are actually a good thing for society and end up saving lives.

Nope, actually, they're not using different methods, the suicide rates are often lower, self-defense and other justified shootings are excluded from the counts though actually...the number of such shootings is a problem, not even counting the various incidents.

Sorry, I know you don't want there to be any problem except not having enough bullets for all those dirty leftists who you hate with all you

Actually, Hillary won by less than 3 million votes: she won the popular vote by exactly 2,868,691 votes. It was close to it, but when trying state facts it's important to actually get them right rather than exaggerate.

Rounding happens, if you want to act like you care, go putz over Trump for once.

And greater than 100% of that amount came from a single state: California. She won California with 8,753,788 votes, while Trump only managed to get 4,483,810. That's a difference of 4,269,978 votes -- almost as many as he got himself in that state and that's 1,401,287 votes more than she won the national popular vote by!

Leading a wise man to ask, why did Trump crater so hard in California? Is it just because Republicans have been dropping since 2008?

So, no, the Electoral College did not ignore the will of the American people. The Electoral College ignored one dominant state. That's literally the exact reason that it exists.

No, it isn't. Stop lying. The reason it exists is because the Founding Fathers were not so secretly aghast at the idea of a national vote.

California is a state run by Democrats to get Democrats elected, regardless of what it means to the population of the state.

You seem to be confusing California and Democratrs with the Republican run states which disenfranchise voters, shut down medical clinics and ruin their own schools.

A state that will run around $1.5 - $2 billion (with a B) in deficit spending this year -- the year following record federal tax income (and presumably record California state tax income). A state whose debt is already greater than $130 billion (and it's about double that if you include localities within California!), even though it has the GDP of a large nation as it stands as an economic power house.

Debt of 130 billion? That's only slightly more than the deficit between the 280+ billion they sent to the federal coffers and the 180+ billion they got back. Red states enjoy California welfare.

In case you're interested, Trump won Texas with 4,685,047 votes, while Hillary picked up 3,877,868 -- a difference of 807,179. That means that if you dropped California and Texas, then Trump still won the electoral vote and the popular vote.

And moving three counties changes the electoral vote.

Frankly, it's an irrelevant point because it's an imaginary scenario, but it's far more interesting than crying about the Electoral College.

It isn't at all interesting, it is lame and tedious.

As a more interesting fact, Hillary also carried New Hampshire by fewer voters than the number of voters than voted illegally. This has nothing to do with illegal immigration: voters in New Hampshire can register and vote on the same day even without any proof of New Hampshire residency (it's a pretty dumb system to be honest) and 5,313 people took advantage of it while Hillary won by 2,736 votes. Scarily, the governor's race was decided by only 1,017 votes (and a Democrat won that too). Technically, some subset of that number would have been legitimate New Hampshire voters who are just too stupid and lazy to register to vote, but the fact that the number of "unknown" voters outnumbered the number of votes required to win the state for both the Presidential and Governor races (combined even!) is frightening.

Sorry, Kris Kobach was lying again.

There is probably some subset of illegal voters in this country. Remember the woman in north Carolina who voted Trump for her dead mother? But your evidence is not just thin, it is downright fraudulent.

If you don't believe me, go challenge those voters.

Look, I subscribe to the idea that climate change exists and man is a significant contributor to the effects; however, anyone who goes spouting off "moar hurricanes b/c climate change" or "werse hurricanes b/c climate change" undermines the climate conservation movement.
To make an allusion to the commercial markets, the changes can only appreciably be measured over years and decades. Case in point would be to look at the Accumulated Cyclone Energy tracked by Weather Underground. The trend is certainly up over a 3 decade sample, but small when averaged out over the sample. Compared to the hurricane cost trends, there is something of a mismatch. The line drawn between hurricanes and climate change does not match the when "the big one" swings through the US, but only in media clickbait. Scientist, at the same time have to politely tamp down their advocates because the selling point us unattainable. Namely: Hurricanes have existed long before humans messed with the environment and will continue to exist long after we (hopefully) stop. The cause is tied to the cost of the damage, and the damage is the result of our housing, city planning, and insurance policies that have supported risky investments in coastal areas. The US appears to be the only 1st world country that cannot seem to get its act together in matching planning and policy with the threat and impact of ANY disaster based on my travels through Asia, Canada, and Europe. The won't be a "Dust Bowl" moment for climate change so we need to stop chasing them. While US climate refugees are a small cost today, this will be an ever-increasing cost and we can make the economical argument today without all the other squawking.