Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[jonottawa]

*consensus*

 

As for climate change, assuming it's real & man-made, I'm still waiting to hear solutions that address the #1 driver of environmental devastation: 3rd world overpopulation.

[jonottawa]

Duplicate post. I might as well put something here:

 

Good article on Breitbart about letting Hillary & Bill off the hook. I completely concur with Schweizer.

 

Peter Schweizer: Letting Hillary off the Hook Is ‘Definition of a Rigged System’

 

"“My bottom line position, Alex, is, look, he should not even be commenting on this. It’s not appropriate for a President of the United States to be talking about a possible criminal investigation that’s taking place by the FBI at this point. It’s just simply not his place,” Schweizer said."

 

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[kenberg]

Perhaps this is why we should be more willing to accept the concensus about climate change.

 

The "vested interests" want to suppress information about climate change. They should be able to pay plenty of scientists to spread their party line, much like the tobacco industry did decades ago. But with all their money, they haven't been able to suppress the overwhelming scientific concensus that human-caused climate change is real.

 

Someone suggested that the naysayers are being muffled. Who would be doing all that muffling, and how would they achieve it when there's so much money on the other side?

 

The general problem with conspiracy theories is that it's really hard to maintain all the secrecy that they require. It's probably more plausible that 9/11 or the JFK assassinations were inside jobs than that all the scientists with evidence against climate change are being suppressed. The former just require a conspiracy of a small handful of people within some government organization, not a worldwide network of scientists and journals.

 

I see ths as a "How do we know what we know" issue, and my outlook agrees with yours. I was in a conversation the other day at Starbucks with a guy younger than I but not a lot younger. The age matters because I was 24 when Kennedy was shot. The conversation hopped around and he had come to learn that the Warren Commision report was not to be trusted. Well, sort of. I read Mark Lane's Rush to Judgment. lane was good at poking holes in this and that aspect of the Commission's report, he was muc less effective in putting together an alternative possibility. Of course the latter is much tougher than the former. I had friends who really got into this, I figured I had a thesis to write. And a two year old daughter.

 

This is important. We only have so much time, we have liited resources and, frankly, only so m uch interest. Of course i care who killed Kennedy, but in practical terms I have to decide whom I am going to trust. Sometimes things look vary fishy. Bu sometimes it is the skeptics who look fishy.

 

So I want to be right about climate change. It's important. But the realistic choices area. going with the broadly held scientific view, b. going with the minority report, or c. devoting my life to working it all through. The latter might be the best path, but then turn to another to[pic. I can only devote my life to one or two, three at most, things.

 

 

People lie. I got that. Still, we must choose. And going with the broad consensus of scientific opinion is a very plausible approach. It doesn't stop us from exercising a little skepticism, but it allows us to move forward.

[andrei]

Life might get interesting

 

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/activists-urge-hillary-clinton-to-challenge-election-results.html

 

Note that Halderman has some serious chops in this area.

 

Please note: Much as I despise the thought of a Trump Presidency, I'm not sure whether this fight is a good one to wage.

Its very unclear whether you could come to a definitive finding.

Its possible that the fight could be more destructive than the alternative.

 

At the same time, if this is legitimate then we have some serious issues to figure out.

 

FWIW, I think that we'd all be a lot happier if the entire country was using a voting system like the one in use in Arizona.

It has some very good properties and seems well designed. (For example, it uses electronic voting machines that produce a physical/audit-able paper ballot)

 

 

This is "horrifying".

 

While it’s important to note the group has not found proof of hacking or manipulation

 

The academics presented findings showing that in Wisconsin, Clinton received 7 percent fewer votes in counties that relied on electronic-voting machines compared with counties that used optical scanners and paper ballots. Based on this statistical analysis, Clinton may have been denied as many as 30,000 votes; she lost Wisconsin by 27,000

 

So Trump received 7 percent fewer votes in counties that relied on optical scanners and paper ballots compared with counties that used electronic-voting machines. Based on my statistical analysis, due to ballot stuffing Clinton have been awarded as many as 30,000 votes which she was not entitled to.

[hrothgar]

 

 

So Trump received 7 percent fewer votes in counties that relied on optical scanners and paper ballots compared with counties that used electronic-voting machines. Based on my statistical analysis, due to ballot stuffing Clinton have been awarded as many as 30,000 votes which she was not entitled to.

 

Bullshit

 

(Please note, I'm not claim that there might not have been ballots stuffed by Clinton loyalists, rather the thought that you performed any kind of statistical analysis is laughable...)

 

Put up or shut up...

 

Let's see the numbers

Let's see the regression analysis

 

Or,, alternatively, please feel free to admit that you lie when its convenient

[helene_t]

zip

[helene_t]

I agree. I believe there is massive suppression of discoveries (or research of) alternative medicines and supplements to keep the drug companies bringing in the big bucks.

I find it extremely unlikely that there is widespread suppression of discoveries. Surely anyone who invests in a research project does so in order to publish, especially if the results are positive. and it is not against any scientific dogma that alternative therapies could work.. Many established drugs are derived from Chinese herbal medicine etc. journals are eager to publish findings that would allow more alternative treatments tobecomy established.

 

but as for the research itself being suppressed, yes. it is expensive and usually the manufacturers of alternative drug mmanufacturers are not willing to pay for it. I can understand. most d experimental drug turn out to be ineffective so if you can sell your hetbs without presenting evidence you have no reason to change your business model.

 

if you want more research on alternative medicine you will have to vote for a party that will give taxpayer money to it. in the usa that is probably only the green party.

[Kaitlyn S]

There seems to be a major consensus among this group that man-made climate change is real and needs to be addressed. I presented two very real questions a while ago and rather than anybody even suggesting an answer, the only direct responses I received is that I'm presenting nonsense.

 

Now, I don't know that the drug companies are making it more difficult for alternative medicine solutions to come to light. I could do all the research I wanted and I still wouldn't know. Why not? Because I personally don't know enough about medicine to do the correct research and draw the correct conclusions, and there is much money in big pharma and they have incentive to stifle competition.

 

Mike, you can't have it both ways. Didn't you say (I'll look back and make sure, and retract this if I have you confused with someone else) that there is much money in the coal and oil industry that is trying to stifle the climate change argument, and now you're saying that big pharma isn't doing the same thing? If this is true, while it is possible you are right on both counts, you have to agree that it looks disingenuous.

[Kaitlyn S]

Hmmmm....the Republican Party has controlled the House for years, and the Senate for some time, and they have climate change deniers on influential committees. The coal industry has its very existence at stake, and surely paying a few hundred million or more on science to save their businesses would make sense to the coal companies/ What about the oil companies? Hmm....they'd love to show that reliance on oil isn't causing mass species extinctions, I'd think. What do you think? Do you think that the Republican controlled administrations of Bush Jr. were muffling scientists?

 

In Canada, we did indeed have government censorship of climate science. Our former right wing government banned federally employed scientists from any public comment. Why? Because they agreed that our Oil Sanda are major contributors to global warming, and the government wanted to keep that under wraps. Thus the only evidence of muffling of which I am aware is to the opposite effect of your story.

 

 

I found the post (that got 4 positive reps mind you) and indeed you did imply that big coal and big oil were doing their part to save their businesses. Why wouldn't big pharma do the same? Is it not possible that the climate change scientists have been better or more fortunate in being able to counteract big coal and big oil than other scientists have been against big pharma?

 

You see to ignore my arguments citing that I know nothing and yet, knowing nothing, I seem to have caught you in a contradiction. But if you are elitist and condescending enough, maybe nobody will notice.

[jonottawa]

Weird. My Internet has been terrible/sluggish all day (I've even downloaded a virus scanner to see if I have a bug.) I made a duplicate post in here. Now I see Helene & Kaitlyn both making duplicate posts. Coincidence?

 

[andrei]

Bullshit

 

(Please note, I'm not claim that there might not have been ballots stuffed by Clinton loyalists, rather the thought that you performed any kind of statistical analysis is laughable...)

 

Put up or shut up...

 

Let's see the numbers

Let's see the regression analysis

 

I have used the same regression analysis as the "academics".

Don't you have it?

[hrothgar]

I have used the same regression analysis as the "academics".

Don't you have it?

 

Just as I thought...

 

You're a lying sack of shiite

[Winstonm]

There seems to be a major consensus among this group that man-made climate change is real and needs to be addressed. I presented two very real questions a while ago and rather than anybody even suggesting an answer, the only direct responses I received is that I'm presenting nonsense.

 

Now, I don't know that the drug companies are making it more difficult for alternative medicine solutions to come to light. I could do all the research I wanted and I still wouldn't know. Why not? Because I personally don't know enough about medicine to do the correct research and draw the correct conclusions, and there is much money in big pharma and they have incentive to stifle competition.

 

Mike, you can't have it both ways. Didn't you say (I'll look back and make sure, and retract this if I have you confused with someone else) that there is much money in the coal and oil industry that is trying to stifle the climate change argument, and now you're saying that big pharma isn't doing the same thing? If this is true, while it is possible you are right on both counts, you have to agree that it looks disingenuous.

 

I don't mean to answer for Mike but there is a huge difference between suppressing science (which is virtually impossible) and trying to confuse the public about the science. The latter is what has been done with tobacco, ozone depletion, acid rain, and climate change.

[andrei]

Just as I thought...

 

You're a lying sack of shiite

 

lol, it was sarcasm, you know what that is, don't you?

Russians, huh?

[hrothgar]

lol, it was sarcasm, you know what that is, don't you?

Russians, huh?

 

What I know is that you have admitted to deliberately making ***** up.

Why would I care how you chose to justify the behavior?

 

With this said and done, Halderman did some real analysis. Other folks have also done real analysis and pushed back against his claim.

For example, Nate SIlver claims that if you also build race and education into the model, the results that that Halderman claims are not longer significant.

 

You just made up a farcical claim to avoid dealing with facts that you don't like.

[Winstonm]

I found the post (that got 4 positive reps mind you) and indeed you did imply that big coal and big oil were doing their part to save their businesses. Why wouldn't big pharma do the same? Is it not possible that the climate change scientists have been better or more fortunate in being able to counteract big coal and big oil than other scientists have been against big pharma?

 

You see to ignore my arguments citing that I know nothing and yet, knowing nothing, I seem to have caught you in a contradiction. But if you are elitist and condescending enough, maybe nobody will notice.

 

Again, not meaning to answer for Mike (who is more than capable) but I am curious if a different tack may work: can you explain how Pfizer would go about suppressing information - what would be the mechanisms used to accomplish this goal?

 

On the other hand, it is well-established that the U.S. tobacco industry could not suppress the information of the link between cancer and tobacco so they used an orchestrated campaign to create doubt about the strength of the evidence.

[mikeh]

I found the post (that got 4 positive reps mind you) and indeed you did imply that big coal and big oil were doing their part to save their businesses. Why wouldn't big pharma do the same? Is it not possible that the climate change scientists have been better or more fortunate in being able to counteract big coal and big oil than other scientists have been against big pharma?

 

You see to ignore my arguments citing that I know nothing and yet, knowing nothing, I seem to have caught you in a contradiction. But if you are elitist and condescending enough, maybe nobody will notice.

What contradiction?

My point, which you apparently didn't get, was that you were claiming, with no supporting evidence, that there were many climate scientists who rejected the consensus of those whose views are known, but that those dissenting voices were muffled. I asked you: who was doing the muffling? I pointed out that there were powerful and wealthy forces in the US who have been doing their best to silence the consensus, and I suggested that those forces would ensure that the 'muffled' voices, that you seen convinced must exist, were heard. Since despite the existence and very well known efforts of the climate change-deniers, in the republican party, the coal industry, and the oil industry, no such group of previously muffled scientists have come forward, the logical inference is that your evidence-free claim that they exist is pure fantasy.

 

In a similar vein, the consensus of scientifically valid, ie peer-reviewed and published, studies of virtually all 'alternative' therapies, including the ones I listed, show no therapeutic value beyond some placebo effects. Chiro is slightly different because some chiro treatment does appear to provide real relief...relief that a properly qualified physiotherapist would also provide by much the same method. Chiros sometimes do the right thing, but they do it for the wrong reason: the 'theories' that underlie their beliefs are un-scientific, being based on ideas from the 19th century. Fortunately, so long as they stay away from the neck and so long as they get x-rays and pay attention to the findings, chiros do little actual harm and quite a bit of good, at least symptomatically.

 

To parallel what I wrote about climate change, I observed that the proponents of quack therapies make millions, and indeed in total, billions from marketing unregulated 'supplements' and 'herbal remedies' and such 'therapies' as acupuncture, reiki, reflexology etc.

 

A proper blinded study is not that expensive to run if one is simply testing efficacy. Where pharma runs into huge expense is in trying to rule out side effects.

 

They need to jump through extremely prolonged stages of investigation, with multiple trials, involving many patients over several years. However, the maker of a non-FDA approved supplement doesn't have to do anything at all. So if they wanted to do a study, they could probably get a reputable scientist to do one for a few hundred thousand, or at most a couple of million, because sample size and duration of the study would be a small fraction of what it takes to run a drug through the FDA gamut.

 

Yet none of these highly profitable peddlers of fake remedies bother to attempt this. In the meantime, those researchers who do study these things uniformly conclude that the remedies are bogus.

 

You have an evidence-free belief that somehow big pharma is suppressing the research. How on earth are they doing this? By paying the fakes money not to study? By bribing every researcher in the country to refuse money from the fake remedy industry? By bribing the editors of every health-related journal in the world to refuse to publish studies showing the remedies to be effective?

 

When one makes claims that fly in the face of simple logic, it remains possible that the claims are valid, but there is a heavy evidentiary burden on the proponent of the claim. It isn't that you advance evidence that seems inadequate....it is that you advance NO evidence. Btw, claims by others that this muffling exists, when those claimants also fail to provide evidence, is not evidence!

 

So saying that your friends or the talk show hosts from whom you get most of your understanding of the world tell you these things is not evidence that these things are true. I don't think you understand this.

 

I did say I was done with you, but when you write such claptrap as claiming to have caught me in a contradiction, I admit I rise to the bait. I may sometimes contradict myself, if for no other reason than that I tend to change my views when I learn something that renders my earlier position untenable. But not here.

 

Btw, I wasted more minutes of my life trying to find the two 'very real questions' that you posted, and was unable to find any 'real' questions buried in your posts. By all means repeat them. However, if they are the sort of 'questions' that I expect, you may be disappointed in the response. Let me suggest something. Look at your 'very real questions' and then google the questions and look for references to evidence-based answers. Now, that only makes sense if we are speaking of matters that are fact-dependent as opposed to value-dependent. But as I have tried, with apparent failure, to say to you in the past, a values discussion is a waste of time unless both sides approach the issues based on reality as revealed by evidence, rather than belief. Belief and opinon are fine, and worth debating, but reality is not a matter of opinion (save at the most esoteric level).

[Winstonm]

Life might get interesting

 

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/activists-urge-hillary-clinton-to-challenge-election-results.html

 

Note that Halderman has some serious chops in this area.

 

Please note: Much as I despise the thought of a Trump Presidency, I'm not sure whether this fight is a good one to wage.

Its very unclear whether you could come to a definitive finding.

Its possible that the fight could be more destructive than the alternative.

 

At the same time, if this is legitimate then we have some serious issues to figure out.

 

FWIW, I think that we'd all be a lot happier if the entire country was using a voting system like the one in use in Arizona.

It has some very good properties and seems well designed. (For example, it uses electronic voting machines that produce a physical/audit-able paper ballot)

 

Richard, would there be no "footprint" to find as per the DNC hack or would you have to dig into the machines in order to find the footprint of a hack?

[Vampyr]

*consensus*

 

As for climate change, assuming it's real & man-made, I'm still waiting to hear solutions that address the #1 driver of environmental devastation: 3rd world overpopulation.

 

Third-world residents are not the people who are eating meat, driving cars, using air-conditioning, and buying lots of manufactured and transported goods. They are not eating Peruvian asparagus in December, nor do they have the TV, the blow-dryer and ten lights on all at the same time. They do not take airplane flights.

 

It is the people in richer nations who are mainly burning fossil fuels and depleting the planet's resources. Read this article and take this test before you point the finger at others.

[hrothgar]

Richard, would there be no "footprint" to find as per the DNC hack or would you have to dig into the machines in order to find the footprint of a hack?

 

the following provides some useful context

 

https://medium.com/@jhalderm/want-to-know-if-the-election-was-hacked-look-at-the-ballots-c61a6113b0ba#.aa8vm23os

[Winstonm]

the following provides some useful context

 

https://medium.com/@jhalderm/want-to-know-if-the-election-was-hacked-look-at-the-ballots-c61a6113b0ba#.aa8vm23os

Thx

[jonottawa]

Third-world residents are not the people who are eating meat, driving cars, using air-conditioning, and buying lots of manufactured and transported goods. They are not eating Peruvian asparagus in December, nor do they have the TV, the blow-dryer and ten lights on all at the same time. They do not take airplane flights.

 

It is the people in richer nations who are mainly burning fossil fuels and depleting the planet's resources. Read this article and take this test before you point the finger at others.

your ecological footprint is

1.42 global hectares

(estimated)

if everyone lived like you, we'd need

0.8 planets

to support global consumption

 

But 'third world residents' don't always stay in the third world. They migrate (and are currently doing so in massive numbers, with no end in sight.) And then they demand meat, cars, air-conditioning, the TV, the blow-dryer and lots of manufactured and transported goods. Besides, it's racist to plan a system where people who live (and remain) in the 3rd world don't eventually get access to something approaching a first world lifestyle, is it not? But that is INCONCEIVABLE when their population growth rate is so astronomical.

 

Edit: I see there's already a lengthy climate change thread. If I decide to continue this, I'll do it there.

[Kaitlyn S]

Btw, I wasted more minutes of my life trying to find the two 'very real questions' that you posted, and was unable to find any 'real' questions buried in your posts. By all means repeat them.

I apologize, I meant to repeat the two questions and got distracted by a disturbing phone call.

 

Anyway, let's make the assumption that man-made climate change is not only real but will have disastrous effects on the human race and the planet, so something needs to be done. (Ah yes, you did "answer" them; your answer was that my Kyoto protocol information was bullsh*t.)

 

1) When there are nations with many in poverty that are trying to industrialize, they will have more pressing needs than worrying about the planet; so if a country with more than three times our population continues to pollute and use oil and/or coal, how will our actions make a difference? Yes, I know they'll make a slight difference, but if we are headed to great devastation, how can we avoid it if other countries don't have the same agenda? (By the way, I have some answers to this question, you may not like them, but I'd like to hear answers from others first.)

 

2) Let's say your answer to #1 is going to be very expensive (I don't believe any of my solutions aren't.) What are you going to give up to take care of the climate change problem? You have to either take care of it using more tax money (which the American people will revolt against) or by printing more money (which the American people should revolt against, at least those with any savings for retirement), or give up currently funded programs.

 

Are you going to give up Social Security or cut it way below the poverty level and means test it? That will pay for some climate control but probably not enough and there's going to be some political fallout.

 

Are you going to cut military spending? That's cool, you won't have to worry about how the USA will pay for it because we may be one of Russia's conquests or part of the Islamic State, and 99.3% of Americans might be killed so that will reduce our entitlement spending by a fair amount so perhaps that will work. I'm sure you're going to argue that this is ridiculous, but there are a hell of a lot of Americans who want a strong defense, and probably 20-30% of Americans would ban Muslims because they fear exactly the ridiculous event I'm talking about, so politically that's not happening either. (I personally think we'd be okay with less military spending but I really don't want to find out if I'm wrong. But it doesn't matter what you or I think - as long as a boatload of Americans think ti's going to be like the Ottoman Empire attacks all over again, you're not going to get them to let you cut defense.)

 

Right now our national debt is almost $20T. (Try and tell me that's bullsh*t.) That's a few hundred thousand per taxpayer. Fortunately people are still lending our government money. If we start taking initiative on the climate change front, it will do no favors for our credit rating. We will only be able to fund climate change research and development as long as people are willing to support the US government. At some point, we might have to cough up that 20T because nobody will lend us money anymore. As a lawyer, you might be able to pay your share. Most of us can't pay our share. If you count unfunded Medicare and Social Security liabilities, the figure is much worse; a baby born today starts life maybe $400,000 in debt. Clearly if people lose faith in the US government's ability to pay, that baby isn't going to be able to pay up.

 

So it's not the actual cost of the climate change R&D that will financially kill us, it is the perceived effect it has on our creditworthiness. This one I have no answers for. But since you and many others here think it's necessary, maybe you can come up with a way to appease our creditors so we can fund the necessary R&D.

 

EDIT to add: It's possible people may have already discussed these issues in the climate change thread which I haven't looked at. Can somebody involved in that thread tell me if people have addressed these concerns?

[andrei]

You just made up a farcical claim to avoid dealing with facts that you don't like.

 

lol, yeah it's me who can't get over the fact that HC lost.

[andrei]

Right now our national debt is almost $20T. (Try and tell me that's bullsh*t.)

 

That's bullsh*t.

 

When GWB was president, we were using the whole figure, like 10T.

Once BO has become president, we were using the debt/gdp ratio, like 110%.

 

You have to wait until next Jan to start using debt/year number again.