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Peter Thiel Is Joining Donald Trump's Transition Team (theverge.com)
Peter Thiel's time spent campaigning for Donald Trump during the election season has paid off. According to a statement released today, Donald Trump has named Thiel to the executive committee of his presidential transition team. The Verge reports: Thiel, who donated $1.25 million to Trump's campaign late in the election cycle, mostly stood alone among colleagues in his support for Trump, who was publicly disdained in the Valley. Thiel's support came at a cost to businesses like startup accelerator Y Combinator, which soon attracted negative publicity for having Thiel as a part-time adviser. Thiel also brought criticism to Facebook, where he is a board member, although Mark Zuckerberg defended his place at the company. Thiel further angered First Amendment supporters by bankrolling the Hulk Hogan lawsuit that brought down Gawker. Thiel said before the election that he would find some way of working with the Trump administration, and although his final role is unclear, his appointment to Trump's executive committee signals the relationship will indeed continue.
Trump chose his vice-president to lead his transition team.
This is a guy who, as governor of Indiana, when facing a breakout of AIDS in the rural community due to drug use, chose "prayer" as his only solution.
This is a guy who signed a bill with a government mandate that families hold funerals for miscarried or aborted fetuses.
This is a guy who as governor, instructed law enforcement to investigate women who miscarried to make sure they weren't aborting their fetuses.
You are welcome on my lawn.
mandate that families hold funerals for miscarried or aborted fetuses
This was so crazy that I had to look it up. Turns out "hold a funeral" is "dispose of remains properly" -- the bill required that fetal remains be either interred or incinerated. Generally speaking that would be the responsibility of the healthcare facility in custody of the remains.
Tell me straight, is "require families to hold a funeral" truly the most accurate and reasonable way you could come up with to indicate the nature of the bill, or is it a purposeful deception?
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
is he really that weird and creepy?
I have met Peter a few times, and listened to him talk many times. He is certainly weird, but I don't think he is creepy. He has a lot of original idea and insights, although many of them are ... well, weird ... like his idea to start an independent libertarian utopia on an ocean platform. He is a self-described libertarian, so I was surprised to see him endorse Donald. But the American people voted for change, and if Peter lands a spot in Trump's administration, it certainly won't be business as usual.
How many years before the gas runs out- 5 years, 10 years?
Most estimates are that America has at least enough to last a century at current usage rates.
As more areas are explored, and recovery techniques are improved, that estimate is likely to grow.
There are plenty of good reasons to stop using fossil fuels, but "we are running out" isn't one of them.
"If they're so anti-abortion, why not work on ways to make it much less needed by offering more birth control and pre-natal healthcare to women?"
Because the opposition to abortion doesn't exist in isolation. It has to coexist with other ideological commitments, and two of them are in opposition to this action.
There's a libertarian ideology which overlaps with abortion opposition. This one doesn't actually care about abortion either way, but it strongly opposes any form of government-imposed intervention. This one says that the government should not have the power to dictate what medical services an insurance company or healthcare provider should be required to provide: This is a transaction between a service provider and customer.
There's also a religious ideology. This one opposes abortion, but it also opposes contraception - something seen as an enabler of sinful fornication. From the religious perspective, non-marital sex is an inherently immoral action: Even if contraception reduced the number of abortions greatly, you'd only be exchanging one evil for another.
There are many ideologies competing, and individuals often subscribe to multiple ones which partially conflict - this means there must be some form of compromise or reconciliation to make them fit together.