Now, the third thing that this legislation does is it brings down the cost of health care for families and businesses and the federal government. Americans who are buying comparable coverage in the individual market would end up seeing their premiums go down 14 to 20 percent. Americans who get their insurance through the workplace, cost savings could be as much as $3,000 less per employer than if we do nothing. Now, think about that. Thatâ(TM)s $3,000 your employer doesnâ(TM)t have to pay, which means maybe she can afford to give you a raise.
Maybe I am misreading, but it sure seems like President Obama is saying there that everybody's costs (premiums for families) were going to go down. While I know of plenty of people getting raises after the recent Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts helped boost the economy, I have never heard of a single person getting a raise from their employer because of all the money Obamacare saved them.
Yes, this was at a public state university. The scope of my change was confined entirely to a single course, so it is a bit different from the more holistic changes you describe. I suppose if I were a tenured professor, I might be more involved to where I would try to make some of those more impactful changes.
I think you might be painting too bleak a picture. Yes, curriculum changes can take time. No, they don't take 6+ years all the time. I have successfully reworked an entire course in one year. I did it as an adjunct, meaning I was not part of the normal school process because adjuncts don't do things like curriculum updates. Please see my other comment below with some useful advice to the OP. You may find some of it illuminating.
What's the best way for a student in my situation to get this fixed so the school stops wasting student's time with outdated and wrong information?
I am not a student, but an adjunct faculty member. That said, as an adjunct I have very little official authority when it comes to curriculum matters, but I have managed to find success in updating woefully outdated curriculum. I will share some things based on my experience.
First, I recommend you start by talking with the instructor(s) of the class(es) in question. Request a copy of the master syllabus. This is not the master copy of the syllabus handed out each term, but is actually a specially formatted and fairly detailed documented that describes precisely how the course will meet all of the educational objectives required by the school (and/or any accrediting body). Also get a copy of the course catalog description (you can probably get this yourself from your school catalog online). Also ask the instructor if they are willing to support your effort and advocate for the change before any school personnel or committees involved in the process (as a student you may not be permitted to appear before those personnel or committees to request a curriculum change). Find out if there are minor changes that you can make that satisfy your objective for updating the course without triggering a full academic revision of the course. There may processes in place for smaller changes that require lesser review and approval.
Then, get to work. Update the master syllabus to reflect what you think would be a better course composition, sequence of topics, etc. Ensure that all required school objectives are still being met or exceeded. Provide supporting documentation. That might include attachments that describe academic developments in the field, analyses about emerging new topics that are shaping the field, etc. Throughout the process work closely with the instructor involved. If you are fortunate enough to be able to interact directly with the course director, then you will have fewer layers to go through. If not, the instructor you are working with will need to make a proposal to the course director, probably the department, and either an undergraduate or graduate committee that reviews and approves curriculum changes.
You will need to ensure to get buy in from the instructor involved and/or the course director as appropriate before the matter will come before the right committee. Offer to be a TA for the updated course to help get things off to a good start. Offer to write up lecture notes and slides for the new material, offer to write sample homeworks, projects, quizzes, exams, etc., as appropriate for the subject matter.
You will also need to patient. Keep in mind that for traditional semester schools, Spring registration is already underway (meaning your change would almost certainly not be considered for Spring) and Fall registration will probably open sometime in February or March. That means that if you want to get a course updated for the Fall of next year (which would be the earliest possible update if you started working on it today), you probably only have something like a month to get it all in order. Between Thanksgiving, Christmas/New Year's break, and Spring semester start up, you really don't have a big time window to get the job done, so you would have to hustle to have a chance.
That said, be prepared to wait as well. The committees probably only meet every few months, so you may have to request a special review for something to make it in time for next Fall. That may or may not be feasible depending on your institution and its policies.
I hear plenty of students complain about stuff like this, but I have not yet seen one actually try to tackle the problem rather than just complain about it. Best of luck.
as opposed to 13% of those who speak Spanish as their dominant language at home.
Not only that. I worked with a guy whose father immigrated to the US from Mexico in the 1950s or 1960s. He went into the Army and after he was dinged on a fitrep for his thick accent being a barrier to effective communication with other soldiers, he decided that his kids weren't going to go through that. He instituted a strict English-only policy at home and as a consequence, my co-worker (who had a very Latino name) speaks only English (and that with a Texas accent).
Not every immigrant family has an English-only policy at home, but I have interacted with enough people who grew up with that to conclude that it is not all that uncommon. Even the homes where there is not an explicit English-only policy, the kids frequently don't master their parents' native language, perhaps gaining only limited conversational ability. Face it, with television, radio, other media, their friends at school, etc. all speaking English there is usually only a very weak incentive (from the point of a child) to learn another language. Their kids, in turn, will almost certainly not speak the grandparents' native language.
What I find really interesting is the places like New York, San Antonio, Miami, etc., where there are significant ethnic populations and neighborhoods. You can typically walk around and see signage and hear people speaking where words of the immigrant community's language are interspersed among English. From what I have observed children who grow up in those sorts of neighborhoods, whether their parents are immigrants or natives, tend to develop a sort of pidgin that mixes English with the popular ethnic words used in shops, restaurants, etc.
I suspect that if I had not ended up in IT I would have become a linguist or etymologist.
The Redmond, Wash., company defended its position in a blog post Friday, claiming that technologists should be involved in government adoption of new innovations to ensure they are not misused. Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote in the post that "to withdraw from this market is to reduce our opportunity to engage in the public debate about how new technologies can best be used in a responsible way."
Hmmm...the same logic Google used to defend jumping into bed with the Chinese government. Sort of hard to argue with that.
The left is very much in favor of large companies (and states) having power over regular people. The key is that it's a highly-regulated power, managed by someone with the regular people's best interests in mind, because history has shown that the regular people very rarely understand how to actually accomplish their goals. Those that do aggressively pursue their goals will usually end up doing so by preventing others from pursuing theirs.
You have paternalism, elitism, classism, and corporatism (maybe some other -isms that I missed) all wrapped up into one. Let me rephrase your statement:
The left is very much in favor of un-freedom.
If anything, history has shown that while people do at times make the wrong decision, both individually and at the levels of various local/national political entities, they often are able to accomplish their goals. What happens, though, is that sometimes once they accomplish their goals they realize that maybe they should not have accomplished their goals.
Discounting for the moment revolutions that have been fomented by other countries (notably the US poking around in Latin America and the Caribbean), in the last few hundred years you have had significant revolutions in the US, Russia, France, Cuba, Venezuela, China, and others. Each of those seems to be a very clear example of the people accomplishing their goals, with some turning out better than others. Cuba and Venezuela, however, seem to also be shining examples of "buyers remorse".
What you describe is what we have seen Cuba and Venezuela turn into, with the government controlling not just big business, but also small businesses and individuals. Surprise surprise, people there found out that they were not so fond of losing their self-determination (i.e., liberty) to the government even though they gave it away to start with!
So, how is that different from Hillary Clinton waiting to "condemn" Harvey Weinstein? If it takes 5 days of "et tu Hillary?"'s to get her to say something... well, it is reasonably to conclude that she had no intention of saying anything until it turned into bad press.
Facts have obviously fallen out of fashion around here. From the opening paragraph of the same CNN article:
Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama condemned disgraced Hollywood executive Harvey Weinstein on Tuesday, marking their first public comments on the matter since reports of his alleged predatory behavior broke five days ago.
You will note that Clinton, Obama, and plenty of other progressives wasted no time criticizing Trump for waiting more than five minutes to repudiate the Unite the Right rally. Yet they waited five days to repudiate Weinstein. In the day of the 24/7 news cycle, waiting five days to make a statement on something, especially when you criticize your opponents for waiting too long to make their own statements, makes everyone wonder why you even bothered.
So, yes, based on that, Clinton did not actually condemn Weinstein.
when you're objectively [vox.com] wrong [washingtonpost.com] it's important to keep pushing an opposing narrative. The American right wing figured this out in the 80s.
The left wing has figured this out as well. For example, Hillary Clinton did all of the following:
attack/discredit every woman that accused Bill Clinton of rape/assault/sexual impropriety
claim that the encounter (I won't call it a relationship) between Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky was not abuse of power by Bill
did not at least publicly condemn Harvey Weinstein
Endorsed Cuomo over Cynthia Nixon in the NY governor's race
remained silent on the heinous allegations against Rep. Keith Ellison
accuse white suburban women of voting for Donald Trump because some man told them too, and by implication of being unable to think for themselves
Every single one of those things is an objective fact. Her narrative: to continue to hold herself up as a champion of progressive feminism. By the way, it is working.
So, yeah, the "push a counter-narrative when all the facts oppose you" approach is a thing. Your characterization that it is used by the right wing exclusively is disingenuous, as it is used just as much on the left.
"Total bias?" So basically what happened is "Trump asked whether Twitter has bias." And of course all right-wing news sites will run with the story.
You say that like the bias is imagined. Here is one recent example.
Here, I'll save you the trouble of reading it: Candace Owens, a black woman who is a conservative, took anti-white racist tweets by the newly hired member of the NYT editorial board, Sarah Jeong, and replaced "white" with "black". Result? Twitter did nothing to Sarah Jeong for her original tweets, but locked out Candace Owens' account for violating Twitter's rules. Twitter claims it was a "mistake."
This sort of thing has happened enough times that it sure seems like there is a bias problem.
The real value from lawyers is to explain the legal issues, their ramifications and advise on courses of action.
I came here to say essentially the same thing. I am not a lawyer but I can generally spot potential issues in legal documents presented to me. I would feel totally comfortable with an AI doing the same thing (as the summary points out, it does so much faster). However, whenever I have involved a lawyer in something it is because I also need to ask "what does this actually mean for em?" and then "so what do I do about it?" The AI is definitely not that far along yet.
Who's Behind ICE?: The Tech and Data Companies Fueling Deportations.
Why not publish a report on Who's Behind the County Sheriffs?: The Video Equipment Companies Fueling Breaking and Entering Arrests
Seriously, the deportation issue is a combination of people who do not respect the law and a broken immigration system which nobody seems to really want to fix.
Sure, progressives make a lot of noise about it, but you can bet that they have no interest in actually seeing it fixed, as at the moment it is one of the few things they can use to rally their base. Besides, when Democrats had both houses of Congress and the presidency, they did not lift a finger to fix the immigration problem. Here is an excerpt from Obama's 2010 State of the Union:
And we should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system â" to secure our borders, enforce our laws, and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nations.
Of course, if he said those same words today he would be branded a xenophobic racist by his own party. In fact, if I had not said up front that they were Obama's words from just 8 years ago, most would probably assume they were Trump's words from 8 days ago. And, of course, nobody wants to mention how ICE under Obama deported far more illegal immigrants that ICE under Trump. Clearly, the "abolish ICE" crowd only cares now because they don't like Trump.
Of course, the Republicans right now have both houses of congress and the White House and don't seem to have much interest in fixing immigration either.
But you can wipe Windows off your hard drive, so I don't get your point. Paul Allen was a great guy in many, many ways.
Agreed. Even if you could "blame" him for all or part of Windows, he did start the Museum of Pop Culture. If you are ever in Seattle, it is a must see. I mean, they have what is probably the best Star Trek museum display anywhere (which is saying a lot since the Smithsonian has a very nice one as well), including most of the original series set pieces and I believe one of the only actual Enterprise models used for filming. In my mind, that gives him a great deal of geek cred. Plus, as I understand it, he either loaned or donated many of the guitars on display in the various music exhibits in the museum.
You're Portuguese -- when your government does corrupt and wasteful things, people turn out into the streets and shut things down. It's a shame that Americans aren't as proactive when seeing government waste and graft.
That's right, people here were busy protesting a judge's high school drinking habits, scribbles in his yearbook, and which parties he may or may not have attended.
I read a fascinating analysis about how the Democrat gambit to keep Justice Kavanaugh's nomination from succeeding went wrong in so many different ways. The interesting thing that this particular commentator pointed out was that their insistence on making high school hijinks into the center point of the opposition means that nobody was talking about what they should have been talking about: his judicial philosophy. The analysis went on to point out that Kavanaugh's support for some of the government practices that arose from 9/11 and the PATRIOT Act but which have sense become viewed unfavorably by a large majority of Americans would have been enough to prevent his nomination.
He went on to say that instead of pursuing an opposition based on something like that, which probably would have won over at least a few sensible Republicans and made the nomination moot, the Democrats instead went with a character-based attack, which managed to push away moderates who were most likely to want to work with the Democrats, unite the Republicans, energize the Republican base, and get the nomination across the finish line.
Come to think of it, it is probably good that Americans don't protest more often.
Unless, of course, their thinking is that this will help them support the "What?!?! Liberal bias?!?! Not us. Nope. Just look at how we are willing to jump into bed with the Chinese government."
Seriously, it seems like no manufacturer on the Android side of things cares about smaller phones. Where are the 4.5" Android phones with decent specs? I had a difficult time finding one a couple of years ago. I ended up with a Sony Xperia X Comact, which I felt was a tad overpriced for what I got, though have been very happy with it (especially because no carrier sells it directly, so it can only be purchased unlocked and with a relatively uncluttered Android implementation). I am wondering what I can expect to find (or not find) when I need to eventually replace it.
It's possible, even likely, that the Watch could tell I was faking.
If your Apple Watch can detect when you fake fall versus when you real fall, then it is sentient. In the future, you will have to ask it nicely to do anything which may result in harm or damage to your Apple Watch. Please watch this documentary for additional details.
Doesn't consumer protection run contrary to basic Republican ideals of personal responsibility? They seem to mostly push policies that companies can do what they like, and it's up to individuals to avoid getting screwed by them.
Interesting. I see consumer protection as running contrary to basic Democratic ideals of personal choice. They seem to mostly push policies that individuals can do what they like, and it's up to those same individuals to avoid making bad choices.
As much as I hate government regulation and big government (something always goes wrong and power gets abused), this is one of those instances where the actors (tech companies) have proved over and over again that they cannot act like grown ups. It is clearly time to risk government intrusion here because there is apparently no other way to fix the train wreck that privacy (or lack of) has become in the US.
That said, you are 100%, without a doubt spot on:
This stuff is perfectly fine to bluster about before the elections. In fact it's good politics to make promises like this.
Look for lots of noise now, but no real action after the election.
For example, both of Obama's successful campaigns (and many successful Democrat campaigns during those years) had lots of big talk about immigration reform. Funny thing is that during the time the Democrats had the Congress and the White House, nothing was done. Of course, the Hispanic vote was (and still is) important to Democrats, so they have to make the "good politics" by promising to do something. But that didn't even result in a meaningful token gesture. It was just a whole bunch of nothing. (No, Obama's executive actions don't count because, as can be seen now with Trump, a previous president's executive actions can be undone by the next president; plus executive orders don't count as reform.)
Republicans did the exact same thing where they all campaigned on fiscal conservatism to get the Tea Party vote. Then Republicans had both houses of Congress during 6 of Obama's 8 years and not a spending cut in sight. In fact, every time the President wanted a debt ceiling increase, the Republicans obliged. Every time he wanted a larger budget deficit, the Republicans again obliged. Sure they made noise about "next time," but the "next time" they just did they same thing they had been doing all along. Even now with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress and the White House there still hasn't been a meaningful spending cut.
Conservative pundits love to point out that Obama accumulated more debt/deficit than every president before him combined. While it is a true statement and it is true that Obama bears the responsibility as the one who makes the budget requests, the Republicans were happy to stand by with gas cans and matches and help out.
Interestingly, if you go back to Obama's campaign speeches, especially from his first campaign, he actually talked quite a bit about "reigning in out of control spending in Washington." I don't think he actually even made an attempt in that regard.
We're talking about an island of 3 million vs the United States Government. The US Gov'ts response should have dwarfed any mistakes made by local staff. It didn't because, well, we put people in charge who don't believe in government.
Wow. I don't even understand the mental contortions you put yourself through. You obviously know next to nothing about Puerto Rico, so I will help you out, inform you a bit to help you not be ignorant, and I will recommend that you stop making a fool of yourself.
The infrastructure in Puerto Rico has been a dumpster fire for decades. Power, roads, everything, except for maybe the areas in around the touristy part of San Juan and the part in and around the Navy base. It has been nothing but local political and fiscal mismanagement since just about forever. Then Hurricane Maria came in and finished the job. Now, and this seems to be the part that is causing you a problem, it is simply not possible for a disaster response, no matter how large, to correct 40+ years of infrastructure neglect. I am not engaging in victim blaming here; I am simply pointing out that blaming the federal government for doing the best possible job given the circumstances (which included active resistance from the local politicians) is disingenuous.
So they screw it up. Badly. The only reason they didn't screw up in Florida is that's a swing state and nobody fucks with a swing state, so their usual chronyism gets put on the back burner.
You seriously must jump at every shadow you see. The reason the relief outcome in Florida was good compared to the relief outcome in Puerto Rico has everything to do with Florida typically sustaining hits from multiple hurricanes per season and having infrastructure that accounts for that. I would expect that if Florida had mismanaged their infrastructure and allowed their public utility to become insolvent to a point comparable to what Puerto Rico had done, that the response would have been vastly different. Especially considering that something like 3 times as many Floridians were affected by Irma as Puerto Ricans were affected by Maria. Incidentally, the governor of Florida mobilized 7,000 national guard troops (apparently, the entire Florida national guard) in the days following the storm there. As far as I can tell, the governor of Puerto Rico did not do the same, only activating something like 1/3 of the Puerto Rico national guard. Sounds like there was quite a bit local mismanagement going on there.
Of course, the only answer that fits your preconceived notion is that Trump is evil and he deliberately plotted to snub Puerto Rico because he could afford to politically and was "good" to Florida to score political points. Oh well. I don't know why I am even wasting my time.
And they just let PR twist in the wind for politics.
I am just going to take a stab in the dark and guess that you do not have any family in Puerto Rico or actually even know anybody there. The problems with Hurricane Maria response were much more to do with problems arising from local politics than with any shortcoming on the part of the federal government.
Still, the GOP has been pretty pro-surveillance (not that the Dems have been helping in that regard, even Bernie's voted on the wrong side at times)
Awwww...you are so cute with your disingenuous characterization of the Democrats!
Buddy, please. The Patriot Act passed a Democrat majority Senate with a 98-1 vote and a Republic majority House with 70% of House Democrats voting for it. Then the Democrat golden child President Obama signed two extensions of it into law.
And you say, "not that the Dems have been helping."
Slashdot Mirror
No. Obamacare was always about the rich/healthy subsidizing the poor/sick. Nobody ever said that everyone's premiums would go down.
It turns out, that Obama (you know, the guy after whom "Obamacare" was named), gave an Address on Health Care at George Mason University on March 19, 2010, where he said this:
Now, the third thing that this legislation does is it brings down the cost of health care for families and businesses and the federal government. Americans who are buying comparable coverage in the individual market would end up seeing their premiums go down 14 to 20 percent. Americans who get their insurance through the workplace, cost savings could be as much as $3,000 less per employer than if we do nothing. Now, think about that. Thatâ(TM)s $3,000 your employer doesnâ(TM)t have to pay, which means maybe she can afford to give you a raise.
Maybe I am misreading, but it sure seems like President Obama is saying there that everybody's costs (premiums for families) were going to go down. While I know of plenty of people getting raises after the recent Tax Cuts and Jobs Acts helped boost the economy, I have never heard of a single person getting a raise from their employer because of all the money Obamacare saved them.
Care to comment?
Yes, this was at a public state university. The scope of my change was confined entirely to a single course, so it is a bit different from the more holistic changes you describe. I suppose if I were a tenured professor, I might be more involved to where I would try to make some of those more impactful changes.
I think you might be painting too bleak a picture. Yes, curriculum changes can take time. No, they don't take 6+ years all the time. I have successfully reworked an entire course in one year. I did it as an adjunct, meaning I was not part of the normal school process because adjuncts don't do things like curriculum updates. Please see my other comment below with some useful advice to the OP. You may find some of it illuminating.
What's the best way for a student in my situation to get this fixed so the school stops wasting student's time with outdated and wrong information?
I am not a student, but an adjunct faculty member. That said, as an adjunct I have very little official authority when it comes to curriculum matters, but I have managed to find success in updating woefully outdated curriculum. I will share some things based on my experience.
First, I recommend you start by talking with the instructor(s) of the class(es) in question. Request a copy of the master syllabus. This is not the master copy of the syllabus handed out each term, but is actually a specially formatted and fairly detailed documented that describes precisely how the course will meet all of the educational objectives required by the school (and/or any accrediting body). Also get a copy of the course catalog description (you can probably get this yourself from your school catalog online). Also ask the instructor if they are willing to support your effort and advocate for the change before any school personnel or committees involved in the process (as a student you may not be permitted to appear before those personnel or committees to request a curriculum change). Find out if there are minor changes that you can make that satisfy your objective for updating the course without triggering a full academic revision of the course. There may processes in place for smaller changes that require lesser review and approval.
Then, get to work. Update the master syllabus to reflect what you think would be a better course composition, sequence of topics, etc. Ensure that all required school objectives are still being met or exceeded. Provide supporting documentation. That might include attachments that describe academic developments in the field, analyses about emerging new topics that are shaping the field, etc. Throughout the process work closely with the instructor involved. If you are fortunate enough to be able to interact directly with the course director, then you will have fewer layers to go through. If not, the instructor you are working with will need to make a proposal to the course director, probably the department, and either an undergraduate or graduate committee that reviews and approves curriculum changes.
You will need to ensure to get buy in from the instructor involved and/or the course director as appropriate before the matter will come before the right committee. Offer to be a TA for the updated course to help get things off to a good start. Offer to write up lecture notes and slides for the new material, offer to write sample homeworks, projects, quizzes, exams, etc., as appropriate for the subject matter.
You will also need to patient. Keep in mind that for traditional semester schools, Spring registration is already underway (meaning your change would almost certainly not be considered for Spring) and Fall registration will probably open sometime in February or March. That means that if you want to get a course updated for the Fall of next year (which would be the earliest possible update if you started working on it today), you probably only have something like a month to get it all in order. Between Thanksgiving, Christmas/New Year's break, and Spring semester start up, you really don't have a big time window to get the job done, so you would have to hustle to have a chance.
That said, be prepared to wait as well. The committees probably only meet every few months, so you may have to request a special review for something to make it in time for next Fall. That may or may not be feasible depending on your institution and its policies.
I hear plenty of students complain about stuff like this, but I have not yet seen one actually try to tackle the problem rather than just complain about it. Best of luck.
as opposed to 13% of those who speak Spanish as their dominant language at home.
Not only that. I worked with a guy whose father immigrated to the US from Mexico in the 1950s or 1960s. He went into the Army and after he was dinged on a fitrep for his thick accent being a barrier to effective communication with other soldiers, he decided that his kids weren't going to go through that. He instituted a strict English-only policy at home and as a consequence, my co-worker (who had a very Latino name) speaks only English (and that with a Texas accent).
Not every immigrant family has an English-only policy at home, but I have interacted with enough people who grew up with that to conclude that it is not all that uncommon. Even the homes where there is not an explicit English-only policy, the kids frequently don't master their parents' native language, perhaps gaining only limited conversational ability. Face it, with television, radio, other media, their friends at school, etc. all speaking English there is usually only a very weak incentive (from the point of a child) to learn another language. Their kids, in turn, will almost certainly not speak the grandparents' native language.
What I find really interesting is the places like New York, San Antonio, Miami, etc., where there are significant ethnic populations and neighborhoods. You can typically walk around and see signage and hear people speaking where words of the immigrant community's language are interspersed among English. From what I have observed children who grow up in those sorts of neighborhoods, whether their parents are immigrants or natives, tend to develop a sort of pidgin that mixes English with the popular ethnic words used in shops, restaurants, etc.
I suspect that if I had not ended up in IT I would have become a linguist or etymologist.
Microsoft Says It Has Resolved an Issue With Bing Which Was Causing It To Push Malware When Users Searched for Chrome (emphasis added)
Glad to see MS finally admitting the true nature of Edge.
You know, after all, that the first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem.
The Redmond, Wash., company defended its position in a blog post Friday, claiming that technologists should be involved in government adoption of new innovations to ensure they are not misused. Microsoft President Brad Smith wrote in the post that "to withdraw from this market is to reduce our opportunity to engage in the public debate about how new technologies can best be used in a responsible way."
Hmmm...the same logic Google used to defend jumping into bed with the Chinese government. Sort of hard to argue with that.
Really, Slashdot readers? +5 Interesting!?!?!
The left is very much in favor of large companies (and states) having power over regular people. The key is that it's a highly-regulated power, managed by someone with the regular people's best interests in mind, because history has shown that the regular people very rarely understand how to actually accomplish their goals. Those that do aggressively pursue their goals will usually end up doing so by preventing others from pursuing theirs.
You have paternalism, elitism, classism, and corporatism (maybe some other -isms that I missed) all wrapped up into one. Let me rephrase your statement:
The left is very much in favor of un-freedom.
If anything, history has shown that while people do at times make the wrong decision, both individually and at the levels of various local/national political entities, they often are able to accomplish their goals. What happens, though, is that sometimes once they accomplish their goals they realize that maybe they should not have accomplished their goals.
Discounting for the moment revolutions that have been fomented by other countries (notably the US poking around in Latin America and the Caribbean), in the last few hundred years you have had significant revolutions in the US, Russia, France, Cuba, Venezuela, China, and others. Each of those seems to be a very clear example of the people accomplishing their goals, with some turning out better than others. Cuba and Venezuela, however, seem to also be shining examples of "buyers remorse".
What you describe is what we have seen Cuba and Venezuela turn into, with the government controlling not just big business, but also small businesses and individuals. Surprise surprise, people there found out that they were not so fond of losing their self-determination (i.e., liberty) to the government even though they gave it away to start with!
So, how is that different from Hillary Clinton waiting to "condemn" Harvey Weinstein? If it takes 5 days of "et tu Hillary?"'s to get her to say something ... well, it is reasonably to conclude that she had no intention of saying anything until it turned into bad press.
Facts have obviously fallen out of fashion around here. From the opening paragraph of the same CNN article:
Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama condemned disgraced Hollywood executive Harvey Weinstein on Tuesday, marking their first public comments on the matter since reports of his alleged predatory behavior broke five days ago.
You will note that Clinton, Obama, and plenty of other progressives wasted no time criticizing Trump for waiting more than five minutes to repudiate the Unite the Right rally. Yet they waited five days to repudiate Weinstein. In the day of the 24/7 news cycle, waiting five days to make a statement on something, especially when you criticize your opponents for waiting too long to make their own statements, makes everyone wonder why you even bothered.
So, yes, based on that, Clinton did not actually condemn Weinstein.
when you're objectively [vox.com] wrong [washingtonpost.com] it's important to keep pushing an opposing narrative. The American right wing figured this out in the 80s.
The left wing has figured this out as well. For example, Hillary Clinton did all of the following:
Every single one of those things is an objective fact. Her narrative: to continue to hold herself up as a champion of progressive feminism. By the way, it is working.
So, yeah, the "push a counter-narrative when all the facts oppose you" approach is a thing. Your characterization that it is used by the right wing exclusively is disingenuous, as it is used just as much on the left.
"Total bias?" So basically what happened is "Trump asked whether Twitter has bias." And of course all right-wing news sites will run with the story.
You say that like the bias is imagined. Here is one recent example.
Here, I'll save you the trouble of reading it: Candace Owens, a black woman who is a conservative, took anti-white racist tweets by the newly hired member of the NYT editorial board, Sarah Jeong, and replaced "white" with "black". Result? Twitter did nothing to Sarah Jeong for her original tweets, but locked out Candace Owens' account for violating Twitter's rules. Twitter claims it was a "mistake."
This sort of thing has happened enough times that it sure seems like there is a bias problem.
The real value from lawyers is to explain the legal issues, their ramifications and advise on courses of action.
I came here to say essentially the same thing. I am not a lawyer but I can generally spot potential issues in legal documents presented to me. I would feel totally comfortable with an AI doing the same thing (as the summary points out, it does so much faster). However, whenever I have involved a lawyer in something it is because I also need to ask "what does this actually mean for em?" and then "so what do I do about it?" The AI is definitely not that far along yet.
Who's Behind ICE?: The Tech and Data Companies Fueling Deportations.
Why not publish a report on Who's Behind the County Sheriffs?: The Video Equipment Companies Fueling Breaking and Entering Arrests
Seriously, the deportation issue is a combination of people who do not respect the law and a broken immigration system which nobody seems to really want to fix.
Sure, progressives make a lot of noise about it, but you can bet that they have no interest in actually seeing it fixed, as at the moment it is one of the few things they can use to rally their base. Besides, when Democrats had both houses of Congress and the presidency, they did not lift a finger to fix the immigration problem. Here is an excerpt from Obama's 2010 State of the Union:
And we should continue the work of fixing our broken immigration system â" to secure our borders, enforce our laws, and ensure that everyone who plays by the rules can contribute to our economy and enrich our nations.
Of course, if he said those same words today he would be branded a xenophobic racist by his own party. In fact, if I had not said up front that they were Obama's words from just 8 years ago, most would probably assume they were Trump's words from 8 days ago. And, of course, nobody wants to mention how ICE under Obama deported far more illegal immigrants that ICE under Trump. Clearly, the "abolish ICE" crowd only cares now because they don't like Trump.
Of course, the Republicans right now have both houses of congress and the White House and don't seem to have much interest in fixing immigration either.
It sure makes a handy political prop.
But you can wipe Windows off your hard drive, so I don't get your point. Paul Allen was a great guy in many, many ways.
Agreed. Even if you could "blame" him for all or part of Windows, he did start the Museum of Pop Culture. If you are ever in Seattle, it is a must see. I mean, they have what is probably the best Star Trek museum display anywhere (which is saying a lot since the Smithsonian has a very nice one as well), including most of the original series set pieces and I believe one of the only actual Enterprise models used for filming. In my mind, that gives him a great deal of geek cred. Plus, as I understand it, he either loaned or donated many of the guitars on display in the various music exhibits in the museum.
You're Portuguese -- when your government does corrupt and wasteful things, people turn out into the streets and shut things down. It's a shame that Americans aren't as proactive when seeing government waste and graft.
That's right, people here were busy protesting a judge's high school drinking habits, scribbles in his yearbook, and which parties he may or may not have attended.
I read a fascinating analysis about how the Democrat gambit to keep Justice Kavanaugh's nomination from succeeding went wrong in so many different ways. The interesting thing that this particular commentator pointed out was that their insistence on making high school hijinks into the center point of the opposition means that nobody was talking about what they should have been talking about: his judicial philosophy. The analysis went on to point out that Kavanaugh's support for some of the government practices that arose from 9/11 and the PATRIOT Act but which have sense become viewed unfavorably by a large majority of Americans would have been enough to prevent his nomination.
He went on to say that instead of pursuing an opposition based on something like that, which probably would have won over at least a few sensible Republicans and made the nomination moot, the Democrats instead went with a character-based attack, which managed to push away moderates who were most likely to want to work with the Democrats, unite the Republicans, energize the Republican base, and get the nomination across the finish line.
Come to think of it, it is probably good that Americans don't protest more often.
Maybe rethink?
Unless, of course, their thinking is that this will help them support the "What?!?! Liberal bias?!?! Not us. Nope. Just look at how we are willing to jump into bed with the Chinese government."
Seriously, it seems like no manufacturer on the Android side of things cares about smaller phones. Where are the 4.5" Android phones with decent specs? I had a difficult time finding one a couple of years ago. I ended up with a Sony Xperia X Comact, which I felt was a tad overpriced for what I got, though have been very happy with it (especially because no carrier sells it directly, so it can only be purchased unlocked and with a relatively uncluttered Android implementation). I am wondering what I can expect to find (or not find) when I need to eventually replace it.
It's possible, even likely, that the Watch could tell I was faking.
If your Apple Watch can detect when you fake fall versus when you real fall, then it is sentient. In the future, you will have to ask it nicely to do anything which may result in harm or damage to your Apple Watch. Please watch this documentary for additional details.
Doesn't consumer protection run contrary to basic Republican ideals of personal responsibility? They seem to mostly push policies that companies can do what they like, and it's up to individuals to avoid getting screwed by them.
Interesting. I see consumer protection as running contrary to basic Democratic ideals of personal choice. They seem to mostly push policies that individuals can do what they like, and it's up to those same individuals to avoid making bad choices.
As much as I hate government regulation and big government (something always goes wrong and power gets abused), this is one of those instances where the actors (tech companies) have proved over and over again that they cannot act like grown ups. It is clearly time to risk government intrusion here because there is apparently no other way to fix the train wreck that privacy (or lack of) has become in the US.
That said, you are 100%, without a doubt spot on:
This stuff is perfectly fine to bluster about before the elections. In fact it's good politics to make promises like this.
Look for lots of noise now, but no real action after the election.
For example, both of Obama's successful campaigns (and many successful Democrat campaigns during those years) had lots of big talk about immigration reform. Funny thing is that during the time the Democrats had the Congress and the White House, nothing was done. Of course, the Hispanic vote was (and still is) important to Democrats, so they have to make the "good politics" by promising to do something. But that didn't even result in a meaningful token gesture. It was just a whole bunch of nothing. (No, Obama's executive actions don't count because, as can be seen now with Trump, a previous president's executive actions can be undone by the next president; plus executive orders don't count as reform.)
Republicans did the exact same thing where they all campaigned on fiscal conservatism to get the Tea Party vote. Then Republicans had both houses of Congress during 6 of Obama's 8 years and not a spending cut in sight. In fact, every time the President wanted a debt ceiling increase, the Republicans obliged. Every time he wanted a larger budget deficit, the Republicans again obliged. Sure they made noise about "next time," but the "next time" they just did they same thing they had been doing all along. Even now with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress and the White House there still hasn't been a meaningful spending cut.
Conservative pundits love to point out that Obama accumulated more debt/deficit than every president before him combined. While it is a true statement and it is true that Obama bears the responsibility as the one who makes the budget requests, the Republicans were happy to stand by with gas cans and matches and help out.
Interestingly, if you go back to Obama's campaign speeches, especially from his first campaign, he actually talked quite a bit about "reigning in out of control spending in Washington." I don't think he actually even made an attempt in that regard.
We're talking about an island of 3 million vs the United States Government. The US Gov'ts response should have dwarfed any mistakes made by local staff. It didn't because, well, we put people in charge who don't believe in government.
Wow. I don't even understand the mental contortions you put yourself through. You obviously know next to nothing about Puerto Rico, so I will help you out, inform you a bit to help you not be ignorant, and I will recommend that you stop making a fool of yourself.
The infrastructure in Puerto Rico has been a dumpster fire for decades. Power, roads, everything, except for maybe the areas in around the touristy part of San Juan and the part in and around the Navy base. It has been nothing but local political and fiscal mismanagement since just about forever. Then Hurricane Maria came in and finished the job. Now, and this seems to be the part that is causing you a problem, it is simply not possible for a disaster response, no matter how large, to correct 40+ years of infrastructure neglect. I am not engaging in victim blaming here; I am simply pointing out that blaming the federal government for doing the best possible job given the circumstances (which included active resistance from the local politicians) is disingenuous.
So they screw it up. Badly. The only reason they didn't screw up in Florida is that's a swing state and nobody fucks with a swing state, so their usual chronyism gets put on the back burner.
You seriously must jump at every shadow you see. The reason the relief outcome in Florida was good compared to the relief outcome in Puerto Rico has everything to do with Florida typically sustaining hits from multiple hurricanes per season and having infrastructure that accounts for that. I would expect that if Florida had mismanaged their infrastructure and allowed their public utility to become insolvent to a point comparable to what Puerto Rico had done, that the response would have been vastly different. Especially considering that something like 3 times as many Floridians were affected by Irma as Puerto Ricans were affected by Maria. Incidentally, the governor of Florida mobilized 7,000 national guard troops (apparently, the entire Florida national guard) in the days following the storm there. As far as I can tell, the governor of Puerto Rico did not do the same, only activating something like 1/3 of the Puerto Rico national guard. Sounds like there was quite a bit local mismanagement going on there.
Of course, the only answer that fits your preconceived notion is that Trump is evil and he deliberately plotted to snub Puerto Rico because he could afford to politically and was "good" to Florida to score political points. Oh well. I don't know why I am even wasting my time.
And they just let PR twist in the wind for politics.
I am just going to take a stab in the dark and guess that you do not have any family in Puerto Rico or actually even know anybody there. The problems with Hurricane Maria response were much more to do with problems arising from local politics than with any shortcoming on the part of the federal government.
Ford is receiving death threats. You don't subject yourself to death threats if it isn't something that is very important to you.
You must have missed the part where either Senator Feinstein or Congresswoman Eshoo (or someone on their staffs) leaked the letter.
Dr. Ford did not subject herself to death threats. The Democrats helped her out on that one.
Still, the GOP has been pretty pro-surveillance (not that the Dems have been helping in that regard, even Bernie's voted on the wrong side at times)
Awwww...you are so cute with your disingenuous characterization of the Democrats!
Buddy, please. The Patriot Act passed a Democrat majority Senate with a 98-1 vote and a Republic majority House with 70% of House Democrats voting for it. Then the Democrat golden child President Obama signed two extensions of it into law.
And you say, "not that the Dems have been helping."