I agree with all that, especially the Republican Party (of personal liberties fame) losing their mind. But to be fair, we have spent lots of resources on most of that list. Drunk driving is way down due to harsher penalties, stronger enforcement (including lots of checkpoints on holidays), and changing culture. Cancer is very tough but lots of government funding has given us good treatments for a few forms and lots of promising research; same with the other diseases. Accidents; well, you know those nasty toxic chinese products that are recalled on a regular basis? It used to be our factories putting those out and no recalls. We all survived them, but lots of kids from the 40s-80s didn't. A lawsuit culture has lots of problems but a few side benefits.
Still, I don't think any of those problems have received the continuing media panic and funding bonanza as the wars on drugs and terror. As well as we've done, think about how much better we could be doing with many fewer people working rather than rotting in jail, with better information sharing and liberties, and with money spent on improving the country rather than locking it down and tracking us all.
Minorities and women are sure welcome, but ideologues from the outside marched in and started telling everyone on the outside that they don't seem to be welcome enough
Citation needed.
Fans are part of society. They have always been rather more welcoming of minorities and women than society (if tri-gendered species can be competent, then stating that women cannot be competent is odd), but as society has become more accepting of others so has fandom.
Now some puppies (who are part of fandom, but not the whole) have started saying that fandom is TOO accepting. Which confused many people. And the puppies nominated works based on the political views of the authors rather than on the qualities of the work. So when you don't select works based on quality, those works don't tend to win awards given to the best-quality works. Seems reasonable.
Note that nobody came from outside. And the people who tried to "change" fandom were the puppies, not the rest of fandom. Turns out that a majority of fans are happy with diversity; if you're not, well, that's fine, but please stop blaming "ideologues from the outside".
A while back the Hugos stopped being about the best science fiction and started being about social justice.
1970: Best Novel: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Hugos have always been about the best science fiction. Much of the best science fiction, like the 1970 best novel, is also about "social justice". But it sounds like you never read the old Hugo winners, so how would you know that?
opposed to what they perceive as Breitbart's political leaning
I don't think Breitbart (either the person or the group he formed) ever made any secret of their political leanings. What you perceive is what you get. Breitbart's reporting has always been in service of that agenda, and I'm not sure how you can pretend otherwise. Sure, others also do that, but that doesn't change the fact that Breitbart does it.
They want "no awards" they can have no awards. Forever.
Yeah, when my step-son was 6 years old he felt the same way. "If I can't win the game, then nobody can win!" just before he turned the board over and stormed out of the room.
Fortunately, he's matured.
FYI, "no award" meant that a majority of fans thought that none of the works rose to the level of an award. This only happened in categories which only had puppy works. Since the puppies picked their works based on political views of the authors rather than quality, this seems like a valid result.
By "elite rich" you actually mean "religious idiots who don't read the Bible". The elite rich just use those folks as voting mass for their tax cuts.
If the religious voters were truly righteous they would refuse any treatment which was developed with fetal cells, but of course the only sort of righteous that they are is self-righteous.
This stethoscope sounds fantastic, as does the whole project. In the US we whine about medical costs; it's nice to see that people elsewhere are working to actually solve (or at least improve) the problem.
Seriously, though, the tone about this has generally not been outrage or condemnation. Mostly amusement and derision. After the "Scroogled" campaign, Microsoft cannot really whine about baseless accusations for a while...
That may explain Afghanistan but not Iraq. "Wanting greatness" doesn't explain or excuse lying to your citizens to start a war, spying on them on (at the time) flimsy-to-nonexistent legal reasons (and similar useful results), or the economic carnage wrought by war and trickle-down economics. Sorry, competent presidents may trip into one of those but not all of them.
Does it matter? Since he turned a budget surplus into huge deficits, started two expensive wars he couldn't end, and helped cause the worst economic recession since WW2, I don't think he qualifies as "governing more effectively (for everyone)".
Personally I'd go with "weak willed and easily led" rather than "stupid". But it's hard to be sure. "Not competent" seems well supported by facts though.
Agreed, taxing coal is the way forward, and Obama's new plan does just that. But another way forward would be to have subsidies to make renewable (like solar) more affordable, and now we're back to the subject of TFA..
Really, you probably want both. Some small extra taxes or limits on coal, so that you discourage it without causing major economic harm, and some subsidies on renewables, so that you encourage them without distorting the market too badly. The "government's big hand" is powerful but imprecise; better to have a few small pushes rather than one big push.
Scott Walker says he will fix the US's economy and cut the deficit. The economy of Scott Walker's state, Wisconsin, has done notably worse than some nearby similar states. Do we know, 100%, that Walker will help or hurt the US economy if he becomes president? No. But can we guess based on how he has handled Wisconsin? Sure can..
Do I hold President Walker blameless if he explodes the federal deficit? No. But do I say that anyone who believed him and voted for him based on that belief, while ignoring the evidence of Wisconsin, is a gullible fool? Sure.
Do you follow sites like politifact where they rate what politicians say (and give reasons and sources, so you can check their facts yourself)? I expect all politicians to twist the facts; honest men don't win elections, sadly. But some politicians speak facts in the most favorable light (for themselves), and some just make shit up. If a politician regularly makes shit up, well, he's a scoundrel for lying, but you're not blameless if you believe him. Your brain works. Use it please!
Clinton ran a (small) surplus for 3-4 years, which means a negative deficit for 3-4 years. He didn't have a big effect on the debt, true, but considering that Reagan, Bush I, Bush II and Obama all ran deficits (the Rs mostly increasing-per-year, the D decreasing-per-year) not growing the debt is a pretty impressive deal.
I wish I could expect Clinton II to run a surplus the same as her husband did, but that seems unlikely. Bill's budget involved both parties compromising plus Bill raising taxes. Both of those (compromise and raising taxes) are completely rejected by the Rs in congress now. I expect Hillary to lower the deficit but not zero it. But I'd love to be proven wrong.
No it wasn't. IT was designed from the beginning to snooker the American people into a broken "insurance" scam designed to break the medical/insurance industry.
Errr... what?
The insurance industry loves the ACA. They have a lot more customers than before; they are making money hand-over-fist. Look up the estimates on repealing the ACA; the health insurance industry would crash (and the deficit would grow).
You're welcome to your own opinion, but not your own (false) facts. There are a lot of reasons to dislike the ACA, but "breaking the medical/insurance industry" sure ain't one.
Same here. I had an estimate done last year; I have a flat roof with a perfect view of the sky; and at best I might break even after 15 years, assuming the panels and electronics last that long and no branches drop on the system in the second year.
In my area most of the power comes from coal plants. And coal power is cheap, cheap, cheap. Because the power plants pay for the coal, but they don't pay for the external costs. Burning coal puts crazy amounts of mercury, radioactive uranium, and other toxic chemicals in the air, which cause many health problems. Burning coal puts CO2 in the air. It puts particulate matter in the air which makes people with light asthma get bad asthma. It causes acid rain (though much less now).
And the coal plants don't pay for all that damage. We do, you and I, in our taxes and our health insurance and our health problems which are made worse by coal. So yeah, solar doesn't make economic sense if you are looking at "this year" or "this decade", but it makes a hell of a lot of economic sense if you care about the longer term: "your kid's economy" or "your kids health" or "your old age". The damage is done to my body, but I don't see why I should inflict that same damage on my grandkids.
RIghts of way are pretty easy in the desert, actually...
But you're right that this will take some major changes in the power distribution grid. Some of those changes are already being done. Slapping solar panels on a house doesn't magically solve all of your problems. But the problems it causes are solvable (and in ways that involve burning few hydrocarbons).
All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the government^WRomans ever done for us?
About half of promises kept and a quarter partially kept; doesn't really match "broken like almost all...". Perhaps the problem is that you only vote for politicians who plan on breaking their promises? If so, then the problem is probably not with the politicians.
Sometimes because of ACA, though I've heard rumors that in the decades before the ACA insurance companies sometimes changed their policy offerings without Obama causing it! Seems unlikely I know...
But yeah, the ACA did change a lot of "good if you never needed them" plans. You would think that the free market would have weeded out either the shysters who offered those plans or the gullible marks who bought them, but that never seems to happen in practice.
The ACA doesn't kill insurance plans, insurance companies kill insurance plans. (Yeah, this version is just as nonsensical).
Or maybe because hydro is mature and already close to peak, so giving it incentives would not help the overall energy picture? The point of most of the "renewable energy bills" is to drive development and deployment of a large range of renewables. If solar panels become much cheaper/better (such that "the market" will handle it) then I'd expect solar panel subsidies to dry up. To my uninformed view, it looks like wind may be approaching that level?
It's hard to charge the local steel mills (which closed 30+ years ago) for the current respiratory problems of people who played outside as kids back when the mills were running. Most externalities have long time lags.
But we *are* trying to charge industries for externalities. We use cap-and-trade, carbon credits, etc. But that only works when the companies don't control the re-election funds of those who create and enforce those programs. Sure, charging the coal plants more would be the right choice, but that's not an option, so we can either subsidize solar (and wind, waves, nuclear, etc) or we can do nothing. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Nope. We became a world superpower around WW1 and WW2, well after the unions came around. It's harder to be a superpower when your citizens are wage slaves. (Not impossible, but harder.)
And we gained access to manufactured goods and became affluent when unions raised the factory wages from poverty to middle class. Seriously, look this stuff up; look at when unions gained power and when the median lifestyle in the US improved and when the US began projecting power around the world. Your comments show that you really don't know US history at all.
Why does personal responsibility only apply to the poor, not the bankers?
Blaming the people who took out loans they could not repay is a good idea. (Though it seems that many of those people were lied to by their mortgage brokers about variable rates and balloon loans, but still, people should know better.)
But I'm surprised that you don't blame the mortgage brokers who falsified the mortgage applications. Or the bank approval officers who approved the applications which contained ludicrous data. Or the people who chopped up the mortgages into tranches, or who rated the crap mortgages AAA, or who bought them for their pensions funds, etc.
You are blaming the people with absolutely no financial training and who only saw a tiny piece of the landscape, but are giving a free pass to all of the financial experts who saw the whole rotten thing. Why?
Oh, right, because we bailed out the banks so bankers' only repercussions were 6-8 figure annual bonuses. Once again, why do you want personal responsibility to only apply to the poor, not the bankers?
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I agree with all that, especially the Republican Party (of personal liberties fame) losing their mind. But to be fair, we have spent lots of resources on most of that list. Drunk driving is way down due to harsher penalties, stronger enforcement (including lots of checkpoints on holidays), and changing culture. Cancer is very tough but lots of government funding has given us good treatments for a few forms and lots of promising research; same with the other diseases. Accidents; well, you know those nasty toxic chinese products that are recalled on a regular basis? It used to be our factories putting those out and no recalls. We all survived them, but lots of kids from the 40s-80s didn't. A lawsuit culture has lots of problems but a few side benefits.
Still, I don't think any of those problems have received the continuing media panic and funding bonanza as the wars on drugs and terror. As well as we've done, think about how much better we could be doing with many fewer people working rather than rotting in jail, with better information sharing and liberties, and with money spent on improving the country rather than locking it down and tracking us all.
Minorities and women are sure welcome, but ideologues from the outside marched in and started telling everyone on the outside that they don't seem to be welcome enough
Citation needed.
Fans are part of society. They have always been rather more welcoming of minorities and women than society (if tri-gendered species can be competent, then stating that women cannot be competent is odd), but as society has become more accepting of others so has fandom.
Now some puppies (who are part of fandom, but not the whole) have started saying that fandom is TOO accepting. Which confused many people. And the puppies nominated works based on the political views of the authors rather than on the qualities of the work. So when you don't select works based on quality, those works don't tend to win awards given to the best-quality works. Seems reasonable.
Note that nobody came from outside. And the people who tried to "change" fandom were the puppies, not the rest of fandom. Turns out that a majority of fans are happy with diversity; if you're not, well, that's fine, but please stop blaming "ideologues from the outside".
A while back the Hugos stopped being about the best science fiction and started being about social justice.
1970: Best Novel: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Hugos have always been about the best science fiction. Much of the best science fiction, like the 1970 best novel, is also about "social justice". But it sounds like you never read the old Hugo winners, so how would you know that?
opposed to what they perceive as Breitbart's political leaning
I don't think Breitbart (either the person or the group he formed) ever made any secret of their political leanings. What you perceive is what you get. Breitbart's reporting has always been in service of that agenda, and I'm not sure how you can pretend otherwise. Sure, others also do that, but that doesn't change the fact that Breitbart does it.
They want "no awards" they can have no awards. Forever.
Yeah, when my step-son was 6 years old he felt the same way. "If I can't win the game, then nobody can win!" just before he turned the board over and stormed out of the room.
Fortunately, he's matured.
FYI, "no award" meant that a majority of fans thought that none of the works rose to the level of an award. This only happened in categories which only had puppy works. Since the puppies picked their works based on political views of the authors rather than quality, this seems like a valid result.
By "elite rich" you actually mean "religious idiots who don't read the Bible". The elite rich just use those folks as voting mass for their tax cuts.
If the religious voters were truly righteous they would refuse any treatment which was developed with fetal cells, but of course the only sort of righteous that they are is self-righteous.
This stethoscope sounds fantastic, as does the whole project. In the US we whine about medical costs; it's nice to see that people elsewhere are working to actually solve (or at least improve) the problem.
"You're copying Google!"
"No, no, we're copying everyone."
"Oh, well, that's okay then."
Seriously, though, the tone about this has generally not been outrage or condemnation. Mostly amusement and derision. After the "Scroogled" campaign, Microsoft cannot really whine about baseless accusations for a while...
That may explain Afghanistan but not Iraq. "Wanting greatness" doesn't explain or excuse lying to your citizens to start a war, spying on them on (at the time) flimsy-to-nonexistent legal reasons (and similar useful results), or the economic carnage wrought by war and trickle-down economics. Sorry, competent presidents may trip into one of those but not all of them.
Does it matter? Since he turned a budget surplus into huge deficits, started two expensive wars he couldn't end, and helped cause the worst economic recession since WW2, I don't think he qualifies as "governing more effectively (for everyone)".
Personally I'd go with "weak willed and easily led" rather than "stupid". But it's hard to be sure. "Not competent" seems well supported by facts though.
It's been suggested if this was someone filming a Koch brother feeding money to a Republican candidate,
I can put a dog biscuit on my dog's nose and he'll sit absolutely still until I say "okay" when he'll snap his head back and eat the biscuit.
I really want to see Scott Walker kneeling with a million-dollar check on his nose. Roll over, boy! Now pander. Good boy!
Agreed, taxing coal is the way forward, and Obama's new plan does just that. But another way forward would be to have subsidies to make renewable (like solar) more affordable, and now we're back to the subject of TFA..
Really, you probably want both. Some small extra taxes or limits on coal, so that you discourage it without causing major economic harm, and some subsidies on renewables, so that you encourage them without distorting the market too badly. The "government's big hand" is powerful but imprecise; better to have a few small pushes rather than one big push.
An example:
Scott Walker says he will fix the US's economy and cut the deficit. The economy of Scott Walker's state, Wisconsin, has done notably worse than some nearby similar states. Do we know, 100%, that Walker will help or hurt the US economy if he becomes president? No. But can we guess based on how he has handled Wisconsin? Sure can..
Do I hold President Walker blameless if he explodes the federal deficit? No. But do I say that anyone who believed him and voted for him based on that belief, while ignoring the evidence of Wisconsin, is a gullible fool? Sure.
Do you follow sites like politifact where they rate what politicians say (and give reasons and sources, so you can check their facts yourself)? I expect all politicians to twist the facts; honest men don't win elections, sadly. But some politicians speak facts in the most favorable light (for themselves), and some just make shit up. If a politician regularly makes shit up, well, he's a scoundrel for lying, but you're not blameless if you believe him. Your brain works. Use it please!
Debt != deficit. Deficit is per year; debt is "sum of all yearly deficits (plus interest and some other crud, I'm not an economist)".
Also, see one of the many deficit sites like: http://www.davemanuel.com/hist...
Clinton ran a (small) surplus for 3-4 years, which means a negative deficit for 3-4 years. He didn't have a big effect on the debt, true, but considering that Reagan, Bush I, Bush II and Obama all ran deficits (the Rs mostly increasing-per-year, the D decreasing-per-year) not growing the debt is a pretty impressive deal.
I wish I could expect Clinton II to run a surplus the same as her husband did, but that seems unlikely. Bill's budget involved both parties compromising plus Bill raising taxes. Both of those (compromise and raising taxes) are completely rejected by the Rs in congress now. I expect Hillary to lower the deficit but not zero it. But I'd love to be proven wrong.
No it wasn't. IT was designed from the beginning to snooker the American people into a broken "insurance" scam designed to break the medical/insurance industry.
Errr... what?
The insurance industry loves the ACA. They have a lot more customers than before; they are making money hand-over-fist. Look up the estimates on repealing the ACA; the health insurance industry would crash (and the deficit would grow).
You're welcome to your own opinion, but not your own (false) facts. There are a lot of reasons to dislike the ACA, but "breaking the medical/insurance industry" sure ain't one.
Same here. I had an estimate done last year; I have a flat roof with a perfect view of the sky; and at best I might break even after 15 years, assuming the panels and electronics last that long and no branches drop on the system in the second year.
In my area most of the power comes from coal plants. And coal power is cheap, cheap, cheap. Because the power plants pay for the coal, but they don't pay for the external costs. Burning coal puts crazy amounts of mercury, radioactive uranium, and other toxic chemicals in the air, which cause many health problems. Burning coal puts CO2 in the air. It puts particulate matter in the air which makes people with light asthma get bad asthma. It causes acid rain (though much less now).
And the coal plants don't pay for all that damage. We do, you and I, in our taxes and our health insurance and our health problems which are made worse by coal. So yeah, solar doesn't make economic sense if you are looking at "this year" or "this decade", but it makes a hell of a lot of economic sense if you care about the longer term: "your kid's economy" or "your kids health" or "your old age". The damage is done to my body, but I don't see why I should inflict that same damage on my grandkids.
RIghts of way are pretty easy in the desert, actually...
But you're right that this will take some major changes in the power distribution grid. Some of those changes are already being done. Slapping solar panels on a house doesn't magically solve all of your problems. But the problems it causes are solvable (and in ways that involve burning few hydrocarbons).
All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the government^WRomans ever done for us?
If Bush or Clinton are elected, exactly nothing will change.
Last time we had a Clinton, we shrunk the deficit down to zero and grew the middle class and the economy.
Last time we had a Bush, we exploded the deficit, started multiple wars that we couldn't end, and crippled the economy.
While I too wish that the parties and candidates were a bit more different, I'm not sure you can call them identical...
See: http://www.politifact.com/trut...
About half of promises kept and a quarter partially kept; doesn't really match "broken like almost all...". Perhaps the problem is that you only vote for politicians who plan on breaking their promises? If so, then the problem is probably not with the politicians.
Sometimes because of ACA, though I've heard rumors that in the decades before the ACA insurance companies sometimes changed their policy offerings without Obama causing it! Seems unlikely I know...
But yeah, the ACA did change a lot of "good if you never needed them" plans. You would think that the free market would have weeded out either the shysters who offered those plans or the gullible marks who bought them, but that never seems to happen in practice.
The ACA doesn't kill insurance plans, insurance companies kill insurance plans. (Yeah, this version is just as nonsensical).
Or maybe because hydro is mature and already close to peak, so giving it incentives would not help the overall energy picture? The point of most of the "renewable energy bills" is to drive development and deployment of a large range of renewables. If solar panels become much cheaper/better (such that "the market" will handle it) then I'd expect solar panel subsidies to dry up. To my uninformed view, it looks like wind may be approaching that level?
How dare PBS save taxpayer money by airing something that another group paid for. We must punish them for this outrage by removing their funding!
It's hard to charge the local steel mills (which closed 30+ years ago) for the current respiratory problems of people who played outside as kids back when the mills were running. Most externalities have long time lags.
But we *are* trying to charge industries for externalities. We use cap-and-trade, carbon credits, etc. But that only works when the companies don't control the re-election funds of those who create and enforce those programs. Sure, charging the coal plants more would be the right choice, but that's not an option, so we can either subsidize solar (and wind, waves, nuclear, etc) or we can do nothing. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Nope. We became a world superpower around WW1 and WW2, well after the unions came around. It's harder to be a superpower when your citizens are wage slaves. (Not impossible, but harder.)
And we gained access to manufactured goods and became affluent when unions raised the factory wages from poverty to middle class. Seriously, look this stuff up; look at when unions gained power and when the median lifestyle in the US improved and when the US began projecting power around the world. Your comments show that you really don't know US history at all.
Why does personal responsibility only apply to the poor, not the bankers?
Blaming the people who took out loans they could not repay is a good idea. (Though it seems that many of those people were lied to by their mortgage brokers about variable rates and balloon loans, but still, people should know better.)
But I'm surprised that you don't blame the mortgage brokers who falsified the mortgage applications. Or the bank approval officers who approved the applications which contained ludicrous data. Or the people who chopped up the mortgages into tranches, or who rated the crap mortgages AAA, or who bought them for their pensions funds, etc.
You are blaming the people with absolutely no financial training and who only saw a tiny piece of the landscape, but are giving a free pass to all of the financial experts who saw the whole rotten thing. Why?
Oh, right, because we bailed out the banks so bankers' only repercussions were 6-8 figure annual bonuses. Once again, why do you want personal responsibility to only apply to the poor, not the bankers?