People asked if I would post opportunities to watch ballroom dance. I plan to post the when there are free livestreams. I’m going to make an exception for the “free” part: The USDC (Dance Championships) are taking place. There is an opportunity to watch livestreams, provided you pay. I’ll be watching Saturday Evening only– that’s when my teacher Vlad Nalyvaychuk and his wife Brianna Nalyvaychuk are competing Professional Smooth ($25). I’ll be rooting for them! I’ll probably be on messenger rooting with their other students. If you plan to watch, friend me on facebook, and we can messenger during the breaks.
They won “Rising Star” at the championships last year; once you win that you can’t compete Rising Star anymore. I think their main goal this year is to make the finals; they made the semi-finals last year. Of course, everyone’s goal is to come in first. I’m hoping for that. 🙂
I’ve got a short video of them below. As you can see, in ballroom dance the follow tends to present very, very feminine, and the lead super masculine. Brianna and Vlad don’t really have any difficulties presenting as these genders. 🙂
Also: if you do plan to watch, these are the times. Bear in mind: these events are not run like clockwork. I’ll be fused to my screen by 8 pm Eastern.
Session 11 – Saturday Evening@08:25PM Saturday EASTERN!!
Later rounds:
12@09:55PM Saturday
12@10:35PM Saturday
12@11:20PM Saturday
Thanks Lucia!
You smooth talking devil, I was going to watch anyway. But now that I know they will reinforce my cisnormative gender stereotypes I’m even more eager to view. :>
Ohh… the false eyelashes, lip stick, highly coiffed hair. The skin bearing fashions (especially in Latin and Rhythm.) The
legpanty reveals as the women twirl..
There is no rule barring women from dancing as leads or men as follows. And there is a male-male pro couple who sometimes competes. Sometimes I’ve seen a woman-follow with a female pro-lead. And I know one woman who competes lead.
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But the partnership does tend to work better if the lead is larger, stronger, with a sturdier muscle-skeletal system and the follow is smaller, lighter, more flexible. And Smooth dancing is prettier when the follow wears skirts the fly out during some of the moves.
Now this is slick. Russia has left millions of TM-62 anti tank mines in the soil. As the Ukrainians advance they remove the mines. They are modifying them and dropping them from drones. They have 15 pounds of explosives and make a huge fireball when they go off.
Videos:
https://x.com/defmon3/status/1698312653901373667?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
https://x.com/itsartoir/status/1699389546088005638?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
Lucia,
So the deal is it costs $25 to watch the livestream? Can you set me up with a link? $25 seems a little steep but I’m thinking about it.
This is the correct link (in US$
https://unitedstatesdancechampionships.com/product/2023-usdc-livestream/
$25/day is steep. Boston was free but I didn’t think to tell you guys.
There will be free live streams later on.
My friend did watch (because her teacher was dancing rhythm yesterday.) She found it a little frustrating (because the camera man didn’t focus on her teacher. 🙂 )
The way it will work is there will be heats for different competitions interlaced. So you’ll see whatever is on tonight. My teacher is dancing “smooth”. But you probably won’t care which people you see.
If there is a choice, saturday EVENING is the pro stuff. (There is stuff all day.)
This is the schedule: Florida time and NOT like clockwork. At least most competitions are NOT like clockwork. Cabaret is cool. Awards are a good time to skip. You will like the costumes in Latin!
6:40PM – US Open to the World Adult Amateur Championships
7:00PM – World Professional Cabaret/Exhibition Championship
7:35PM Awards: Awards – Presentation of Top Students, Teachers & Studios
8:00PM Awards: Presentation of the Patti Troy Award for Top Kids Studio
8:05PM Awards: Jane Chiang Award
8:10PM – US Open to the World Adult Amateur Championships
8:25PM – US National Professional American Smooth Championship
9:00PM – US Open to the World Adult Amateur Championships
9:15PM -US National Professional International Latin Championship
9:30PM – Special Exhibition: Wheelchair Ballroom Dance performance by Giola Reni & Rafael Castellano
11:00PM Awards: Perpetual Trophy of Dance Excellence
11:05PM Awards: Hall of Fame
11:10PM Awards: Life Time Achievement Award
11:15PM – US National Professional Events
12:00AM – END OF SESSION
Ok. Thanks. I’ll see.
OMG! And AYFKM?
Poland has vowed to have the most powerful military in Europe… and they are well on their way, From ORYX:
“The cumulative result of Poland’s investments will ultimately be an army that is both quantitatively as well as qualitatively superior to any ground force in Europe. In fact, up to 1,500 active tanks is not only twice more than what Germany, France and the United Kingdom operate combined, but also more than fielded by all European NATO members together.”
By the numbers:
-400 of those new 1500 tanks are Top-Of-The-Line [TOTL] US Abrams
-76 new fighter aircraft including 32 TOTL US F-35A
– a boatload of new helicopters, including 108 TOTL US Apachie and 32 S-70i Black Hawk Gunships
And a lot more. Full list:
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/11/a-21st-century-powerhouse-listing.html
From ORYX: “The Russian invasion of Ukraine has seen NATO countries scrambling to strengthen their defensive posture by acquiring additional weaponry. For no country is this more true than for Poland, which has embarked on a military shopping spree unprecedented in modern European history. “
Heat one half way through… now on Fox trot… 🙂
I can’t record the screen… It’s blocked!! Arghhh.
Russell
I still vividly remember a statement by the west German chancellor on reunification of Germany to the effect that now the true German / Polish border needs to be determined. Sphincters slammed shut all over Europe.
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With German reunification finally within reach in 1990, the Allies of World War II made full sovereignty for Germany conditional on the final recognition of the Oder–Neisse border (Wiki). This reduced Germany to approximately three quarters of the territory as of 1937.
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I wonder what Germanys true feelings on a militant Poland are? .
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The EU is starting to fray politically and historical national pressures could become active once more. Exciting times.
Lucia,
I believe you can use the VLC media player to record anything that appears on your computer screen. The program is freeware. To record at more than a couple frames per second you need to have a very fast computer.
Ed Forbes,
The treatment of civilians in occupied territories (German, Polish, and others) during and after WWII was horrible. Few people today understand how terrible the situation was for civilians. Some 11 million German civilians were driven out of German territory (25% of Germany) and that territory given to Poland. An even larger area of Poland was taken from Poland and given by the Russians to Belarus, Ukraine, and Lithuania. There was widespread use of organized forced labor, along with looting, murder and rape, mostly by Russian troops, with hundreds of thousands of German and Polish civilians known dead or missing. Terrible.
Ed, Steve F,
A bellicose Polan-armed to the teeth-what could go wrong!
I don’t have any insight as to Polish intentions. But… There has been a lot of public anti-Russian rhetoric in Poland lately. There is still hatred for the atrocities the Russian army committed in WW2 and the Soviet occupation too, of course.
A recent Pew Research study highlighted this:
“Spotlight on Poland: Negative Views of Russia Surge, but Ratings for U.S., NATO, EU Improve”
And:
“More than nine-in-ten Poles see Russia as a major threat and have no confidence at all in Putin”
https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/06/22/spotlight-on-poland-negative-views-of-russia-surge-but-ratings-for-u-s-nato-eu-improve/
In Belarus, Poland has been politically active in supporting opposition to Putin’s hand-picked leader Lukashenko.
“Poland is one of the leading countries pushing the EU to take action against the authoritarian government in Belarus, after a disputed presidential election triggered massive street protests and a crackdown on the opposition.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54090389
Putin is pushing Lukashenko toward a “Union State’ between the countries.
I think Poland is targeting Belarus.
Thanks Steve,
One of Brianna’s students knows how to get around this. 🙂
Brianna and Vlad were edged out and did not make the Semi finals. (Twelve make the semis; they were 13 . Honestly. They were robbed…. I said that when I saw who did make it.)
Lucia,
Maybe the judges were Republicans who want to reduce funding for the Ukraine…. No, only joking.
Lucia, I’m still interested in watching a dance-off. I just wasn’t $25.00 interested. Please keep me informed when the next free on is on.
Russel,
I”ll let you know!
SteveF,
I assure the judges are not anti-Ukraine!!! The ballroom dance community is close to 100% pro-Ukraine. That includes most the Russian and Russian American dancers.
Lucia,
I really was only joking.
angech,
Stainless steel tends to hang around pretty well. So does glass and big blocks of concrete like the Hoover dam. Certainly these are more durable than bones, and we find plenty of dinosaur bones. So, seems very unlikely there were dinosaur foundries, ships, airplanes, rockets, etc. Nor it seems were they planning to deflect dangerous meteors. 😉 Besides, we know from their skulls (and brain size) that they weren’t finding solutions to differential equations.
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My point was perhaps not well stated: As you noted, Earth has had creatures with the same basic biology and the same potential for greater intellect and development of technology for at least 250 million years. Yet technology on Earth, even simple technology, is only a few thousand years old. With biologically advanced organisms present, the odds of technological development look pretty slim. If we could find 1,000 planets with biologically advanced life forms, how many would have developed a technological civilization? I would guess the odds are very low for even a single one.
SteveF,
You make a really excellent point re: no SauroDyne Industries.
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Intelligent life doesn’t seem to be an inevitable extension of life itself.
john ferguson,
“Intelligent life doesn’t seem to be an inevitable extension of life itself.”
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No, and we need only consider the city of Washington DC to be sure of it. 😉
Was it Calvin and Hobbes who suggested that a proof of intelligent life in the universe was that we had not been contacted?
SteveF (Comment #224268): “If we could find 1,000 planets with biologically advanced life forms, how many would have developed a technological civilization? I would guess the odds are very low for even a single one.”
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If the odds are not exactly zero, then probably a bunch. What are the odds of getting 20 heads in a row when flipping a coin? 100%, if you flip it enough times. Many of those 1000 planets would be lot older than ours. So they would have had a lot of time for mass extinctions to give the right type of organisms a chance.
I don’t think we have enough information to estimate. I don’t think we know the probability of life arising at all with any confidence. Maybe we can estimate that intelligent life (sort of scrambling intelligence with technological advancement) is improbable, but still.
One of the solid pieces of the puzzle is this — we know that there are an awful lot of stars out there. At the risk of sounding like an Austin Powers villain or a Saturday Night Live skit, Google seems to think there are 200 billion trillion stars in the universe.
Universe is a big place, communications and travel essentially impossible across such distances in timeframes useful to humans, no doubt – those are a different issue. But there could be intelligent life elsewhere for all we know. Or not.
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In the absence of enough information to meaningfully estimate, the error I prefer is to reason that because there are so many damn stars, if we are the only intelligent life in the universe with technology, it seems to me we are out of the starting gate assuming that an insanely improbable event has occurred. That doesn’t seem like the simplest explanation to me, but admittedly we don’t have enough information to really figure this out.
john ferguson,
“….a proof of intelligent life in the universe was that we had not been contacted?”
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Could be, but I think it is more that there aren’t many technological civilizations out there trying to find other civilizations.
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Just the communication times (and signal intensity issues!) are daunting. There are about 1,000 stars within 50 light years (many are very fait red dwarfs). Even if there were a 50% chance of a technological civilization among that 1,000 stars (and I doubt there is even a 1% chance!) then the 100 years waiting from
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“Calling from Earth. Hi, how you doing?”
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to the reply of
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“Oh, so you call it Earth. Listen, your species sounds tasty. See you in 100,000 years….”
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would be tedious, considering that nobody who sent the message would be around to receive the reply.
Mark Bofill,
Don’t get me wrong: With 200 billion galaxies within the visible universe, and an unknowable number beyond that, and each galaxy with many billions of stars, it is virtually certain there are intelligent technological civilizations… lots of them. But finding one within 100,000 years physical travel time seems to me to have close to zero probability.
Yup. I see it the same way.
In my mind estimating odds of intelligent life on other planets in the universe would have to start with the odds that intelligent life developed on earth (how lucky were we) and go from there to the odds of something approximating earth’s conditions existing in what we currently know about planets discovered(how unique is earth) and from there an estimate of the number of earthlike planets in the universe. These estimates could include well developed theoretical considerations as well as empirical ones. Wishful thinking influences on estimates should be strictly avoided.
There are obviously an extremely large number of total planets in the universe, but that number must be reduced to a number representing conditions we judge can support life that could eventually become intelligent. At that point we could use the earth’s odds of developing intelligent life.
It needs noting that since these estimates of odds include numbers the final estimate is odds of another planet in the universe having earth like intelligent beings. As Mark notes we may not have sufficient knowledge currently to make the necessary estimates.
angech, maybe I owe you an apology. I have become fairly intolerant of what I consider to be malformed comments directed at me, and maybe that’s just my problem and I ought to deal with it. So, I’m sorry about my earlier response.
[Edit: Funny. Here is a paper for which the summary seems to support our intuitions: https://news.columbia.edu/life-intelligence-universe-earth-bayesian-statistics. It caught my eye because it seems to use Steve’s argument that most of the life we’ve seen on Earth hasn’t been all that intelligent or advanced.]
Interesting article linked below that uses the estimated time for intelligent life to develop versus the estimated time a planet has to support life in a Bayesian analysis. Concludes that intelligent life, as we know it, in the universe is exceedingly rare.
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2019.2149
Thanks Ken, interesting link! The lifetime of a star is a limiting factor for the evolution of intelligence, and in our singular instance, we popped up pretty late in the game. Doesn’t bode well.
[Edit: I may have misunderstood. The authors seem to be hanging a lot on this: It is estimated that the increased luminosity of the Sun will make complex eukaryotic life impossible on Earth in about 0.8 to 1.3 billion years (Ga) (Caldeira and Kasting, 1992; Franck et al., 2006). . Our star is going to last another 5 billion years, and other sources seem to think conditions are going to be favorable for life for another 4 billion of those years… hmm]
The number of planets in the universe is … ummm … biggish. This will likely overcome the lowish odds of life in the grand scheme. But the original point stands that the odds of the Webb telescope finding signs of intelligent life in the first few planets it can actually measure is very low. Both that it would find one of those planets, and that planet is at the right moment in time of development.
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To me it is the vast, vast, vast, distances involved that is the main limitation of contact, combined with our short biological life span. Perhaps someday an alien species might find one our spacecraft trolling through their system, but we will very likely be long gone by that time, or perhaps evolved.
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Human brains have a hard time dealing with numbers so large as the number of planets in the universe and the actual distances involved. It just abandons analytics and devolves to very big, ha ha.
Yeah no I take back what I said. Most sources seem to agree we have about a billion habitable years left, give or take a bit.
DUH! Wormholes.
“In 1935, Einstein and physicist Nathan Rosen used the theory of general relativity to elaborate on the idea, proposing the existence of “bridges” through space-time. These bridges connect two different points in space-time, theoretically creating a shortcut that could reduce travel time and distance. The shortcuts came to be called Einstein-Rosen bridges, or wormholes.”
Warp factor 10 also works great as long you have inertial dampeners.
Ludicrous speed!
https://youtu.be/ygE01sOhzz0?si=dRL3hrF8BMZ6MKAc
The Ukrainian MOD is claiming it has converted another Russian surface ship to submarine duty. The patrol ship “Sergey Kotov“ was 300 feet long. Russia claims the ship was only damaged. Ukraine used a marine kamikaze drone in the attack.
Image of the ship:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1704210647167201340?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
Unconfirmed video of the attack:
https://x.com/euromaidanpress/status/1702382971951395232?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
Russell Klier (Comment #224284)
September 19th, 2023 at 10:49 am
I was wondering when wormholes would be broached here.
Warp10 would only get a look around our Milky Way galaxy in a human life time.
mark bofill,
1 billion years? 5 billion years? Doesn’t matter much if nuclear war or a giant asteroid kills all of us.
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The idea that an advanced species (AKA humans) would let a brightening sun (or too much GHG in the atmosphere) kill off most of life forms is absurd on its face. They would block whatever fraction of solar radiation needed to maintain livable temperatures. After 5 billion years? Well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. ;-0
In the case of the Einstein-Rosen bridge, the wormholes were supposed to connect two separate Universes. Wormholes in the same Universe were Wheeler’s contribution.
https://jila.colorado.edu/~ajsh/bh/schww.html
mark bofill,
BTW, I think it doubtful anything that remotely resembles a human of today will be around in a billion years… hell, maybe not in 100,000 years! Better bet: our “descendants” in a million years will not be biological at all, and will have indefinite lifespan. Maybe humans will be maintained as an entertaining zoo species, like chimps. 😉
Steve,
Yes to all of that. My ramblings probably obscured the point, which was that humans evolving late in the habitability time window [of] Earth might imply that we were luckier and less likely than one might first imagine. Which then has implications for estimating the odds elsewhere..
Which is pretty similar to your original point actually. Anyway.
SteveF (Comment #224268)
“Stainless steel tends to hang around pretty well. So does glass and big blocks of concrete like the Hoover dam. Certainly these are more durable than bones, and we find plenty of dinosaur bones. So, seems very unlikely there were dinosaur foundries, ships, airplanes, rockets, etc”
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On the surface this argument seems watertight but the ravages of deep time like 200 million years combined with subduction rust inundation and erosion on substances that are non organic, let alone organic warrant examination.
A Hoover dam across an early Grand Canyon left alone for 50 years still there.
200 years with no maintenance yep.
Roman aqueducts and bridges and roads 2000 years still there but in part
Pyramids bodies and artifacts 5000 years but looking a bit tatty.
Forgot to mention scavengers and Taliban.
50000 years and there is no Hoover Dam standing Glaciers Flooding Earthquakes and erosion have reduced it to concrete with concrete rot
The stainless steel has stained and turned to deposits of iron ore.
The earth is covered with lava flows kilometers deep over New York Dinosaur City, 200 Million years later we arrive and build a new human city on the original basalt bedrock now exposed again.
True we find mammoth fossils (10000 years old) in the sea off Long Island, proof of a catastrophic flood that opened up the deep Hudson River Glacier gouged harbour, but Dinosaur City?
Ground to dust and iron atoms eons ago.
A bit outside the normal discourse on here, but this struck me as bizarre :-
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“A Downside to Removing Race Corrections from Spirometry Results
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In the face of mounting evidence about care disparities caused by race corrected spirometry results, the American Thoracic Society now recommends against the practice.
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A new study out of Michigan Medicine suggests the recommendation could hurt African-Americans being considered for lung cancer surgery.
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The investigators arrived at that conclusion after presenting cardiothoracic surgeons with hypothetical cases for African-American patients, some of which included race corrected spirometry and others of which did not. Results showed the removal of race correction caused a significant reduction in the estimation of lung function among African-Americans, leading the surgeons to be less likely to recommend lung cancer resection.
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“The removal of race correction for African-American patients has the potential to change who surgeons consider to be candidates for surgical intervention and what type of surgery may be performed,” said study author Sidra Bonner, MD, PHF, MS. “The change in pulmonary function test numbers could lead surgeons to believe that patients are at a higher risk for post-operative complications or mortality than they actually are.”
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So, it would appear to me, the “race corrections” make the lung function numbers look better. If you remove them, this makes people look worse, therefore, they require more care than they would otherwise be given. However, making these people look worse than they actually are has the knock-on effect that they now don’t qualify for surgery, and so the numbers should be reinstated in this instance. Unbeduckinglievable.
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The huge irony is were told that white science creates these problems because it doesn’t care to educate itself about race (which simultaneously doesn’t exist when convenient) in biology but when specific corrections are implemented based on the measurements, and the desired outcome is not evident, they just make shit up anyway.
angech,
“erosion have reduced it to concrete with concrete rot”
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This is nonsense. “Concrete rot” is a surface effect related to diffusion of CO2 into the concrete. Doesn’t happen over even geological timespans with very large concrete structures. You can check on this is you want.
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Glass lasts for billions of years. So would burried concrete and burried metals… little or no corrosion. There would be many artifacts from any earlier civilization among the dinosaurs.
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Are you seriously suggesting there was a technologically advanced civilization of dinosaurs? I sure hope not. Or maybe you are just trying to provoke people; donno. Dinosaurs were stupid, sort of like birds, and zero evidence suggests otherwise. In any case, it is a silly conversation, and not one I want to participate in further.
Dave JR,
Some links to the background studies would be useful.
ken fritsch,
I agree with that article you link to: intelligent life is likely exceedingly rare. That rarity can be overcome by the brute force of enough stars and planets, but that doesn’t suggest intelligent life is likely to be found anywhere close to Earth.
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Or as Elon Musk likes to say: we should try to make sure humanity survives.
“Clinical implications of removing race-corrected pulmonary function tests for African American patients requiring surgery for lung cancer,” JAMA Surgery. DOI: 10.1001/jamasurg.2023.3239
WSJ Today: Justice Department Probe Scrutinizes Elon Musk Perks at Tesla Going Back Years
Federal prosecutors also have sought information about transactions between Tesla and other entities related to the billionaire
https://www.wsj.com/tech/justice-department-probe-scrutinizes-elon-musk-perks-at-tesla-going-back-years-3493e321?st=oyo3lo8evqs8kim&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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NY prosecutor offices are getting a bit biased in targeting IMO. I’m completely sure this has nothing to do with Musk’s anti-left rhetoric, free speech stance and so on. At least I’m sure I can’t prove that. If they keep this up he will probably run for President just to annoy them further.
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The irony is pretty deep that this guy has done more for their climate agenda than any single person alive and a few careless tweets turns him into persona non grata in an over the top way. Maybe Greta can make an EV.
DaveJR,
The article summary strikes me as more than a bit obscure. As best I can figure, the decision to operate on lung cancer in African-Americans increases in frequency when pulmonary function tests include a “correction” for patient race (that correction being to make the stated pulmonary function better than the actual test result, and removing the race correction will lead to far fewer instances of surgery among African-Americans. That much is clear.
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What’s not clear to me is if the authors think this is a good thing or a bad thing. I would hope that likely patient health outcome (eg 5-year survival rate) would guide the recommendation for surgery, but unless I am missing something, that is not discussed at all. If having fewer surgeries improves outcomes, then removing the race adjustment would make sense. If having fewer surgeries worsens outcomes, then removing the race adjustment would make no sense. Strange paper.
Tom Scharf,
Government sanctioned struggle sessions are not allowed, so politically motivated prosecutions are used instead. The left never compromises and never relents. The left is amoral and focused only on gaining power over everything, leading ultimately to eating its own (after all, Musk is a classic liberal!), much like the French revolution. The damage the left can do to civil society, and indeed, to civilization itself, is potentially unlimited. That is why they must be denied power via the ballot box.
I noticed that when Musk verbally went against some of the progressive orthodoxy he went from a sometimes hero to a pariah. That was evident with the WSJ news section. This change happens with the media when entertainers and athletes suddenly blurt out statements that appear to go against the intelligentsia party line.
I tried to move yesterday’s comments here. It’s a new plugin. Don’t think it worked.
Ok… they moved here…. 🙂
If they start doing more surgeries based on a correction to the correction then the race baiters will declare that “greedy surgeons are exploiting African Americans by artificially making them get unnecessary surgeries”. This is what happened with real estate loans, it went from minorities not able to get loans to minorities being targeted by greedy banks without a nanosecond in between.
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There is a reason why race neutral policies are the best policy.
If got a bit comical when the usual suspects freaked out with “Musk must not be allowed to buy Twitter” and then when Musk wanted to back out they said “Musk must be forced to buy Twitter!”. Then the Twitter death watch was covered daily after he fired 80% of employees then … silence. Musk released emails showing obvious ideological based censorship and the usual suspects declared “this is old news”. What a circus. I have seen a lot of card carrying progressives declare they will NEVER buy a Tesla now, ha ha.
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I think it is a mistake for Musk to dive into petty politics, it’s just a distraction.
Way more than you want to know on Musk opinions.
Book review:
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-elon-musk
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Responses to that post:
https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-elon
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The comments sections at that site are still the least corrupt on the entire internet as far as I can tell.
Tom Scharf (Comment #224309): “I think it is a mistake for Musk to dive into petty politics, it’s just a distraction.”
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Even billionaires need the occasional distraction. After all, there is overlap between entertainment and distraction. I think Musk finds the political kerfuffles to be entertaining.
Mike M,
Yes, he probably does find it entertaining. But maybe will not so much when they try to throw him into prison on absurd charges in a place where everyone hates him…. which is the almost inevitable result of having a large megaphone and not sticking to the party line on every issue. I do fear for his future.
Musk’s reason to avoid petty politics is the same as Bud Light’s, it unnecessarily hurts sales for Tesla / X. Not so much for SpaceX. He has a boatload of FU money so it is his prerogative (and his right…) but I bet the brand managers at those companies cringe every time a new post goes out at 3 am.
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In my vision of a just world, people’s out of work opinions would not be reflected on their careers / companies. I find this trend rather distressing. I don’t care that Jeff Bezos also runs the Washington Post, I still like Amazon because of that product’s capabilities. I can separate these things.
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But I agree, watching the spectacle that is Musk is entertaining for me as well.
SteveF (Comment #224312): “when they try to throw him into prison”.
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But that is not because of Musk’s tweets or other comments. It is because of his attempt to make Twitter/X a freer speech platform and exposing past criminal government activity.
In an attempt to compartmentalize Musk, I look at his hands-on technical involvement as a top executive as something problematic. I have been involved in such projects where a top executive gets involved to the point of micro managing. The bed on the manufacturing floor and all nighters are familiar features.
In such situations the executive is not a particularly good manager and while technically competent not particularly good at getting the most out of the technical people involved in the project. Their tenacity, cheerleading, energy and dedication to see the project through are their strong points and can energized and inspire individuals who under different circumstances would not be so disposed. Fits of anger can tend to have a positive or negative effect, but seem to go with the executive who wants to be intimately involved in projects.
While projects can succeed under these conditions and where the executive becomes a corporate hero, it is my veiw that there are more efficient ways of getting the same results. To do this you need excellent management that can get the best out of its technical people, communicate and understand and listen to individual inputs. Unfortunately sometimes finding that combination of skills is a rarer event than having a corporate hero.
Lucia, I enjoy watching the clips of your friends Vlad and Brianna dancing and the interview after winning a competition. This is probably just my view. On the dance floor Vlad seemed in charge as I assume male does in these dances, but Brianna seemed very much in charge during the interview.
Neither is ‘in charge’ on the dance floor, but the lead does, largely dictate direction and timing. That’s the leads “job”. So he is the one who has to navigate around others (and he’s excellent. They almost never end up in some of the “traffic jams” you’ll see on the dance floor.) The follow is supposed to “sell it”! He has to give her “room” to do that, then she has to take advantage of that “room”.
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I would agree as a dancing pair, he looks more “in charge”. That’s partly his style, and partly his build. I don’t know if you can tell, but he has just about the broadest shoulders I’ve ever seen. (We joke about this fitting issue– and it’s hard for him to get jackets.)
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I also noticed Brianna was the one speaking. Not quite sure why that is. He isn’t reticent about speaking at all! I don’t know if they agree about that in advance or what. (His accent is quite mild. So I don’t think he’s worried about that– he certainly shouldn’t be.)
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I’ve never gotten the impression one is “the boss” of the other.
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By the way…. the way they came to be married is this….
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He invited her to dinner at his place. First date. On the date, he proposed. She said yes. They eloped. (They had known each other a while.) It’s about 7 years now.
From both Russian and Ukrainian sources and visual evidence that I found on the NASA FIRMS fire map:
“Last night, the Security Service of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Navy launched a massive fire strike on the “Saky” military airfield in occupied Crimea.”
There has been a pattern to the Ukrainian success lately:
“To strike the enemy, drones were used which overwhelmed the Russian air defense, followed by the launch of “Neptune” missiles.”
I am wondering if all this recent attention Ukraine has focused on destroying air defenses has something to do with the anticipated arrival of F-16s?
https://x.com/maria_drutska/status/1704780737788977169?s=20
Ken Fritsch,
Interesting comment. The ideal manager by your description would be Jack Welsh, who generated great and steady profits for GE during his time there. Of course, GE was not and will never be a revolutionary company; much more an incrementalist organization, with slowly evolving technology that produces things like ultra-reliable turbine engines. GE engines are what you want on the plane when your fight departs O’Hare. But GE is never going to send people to Mars, nor develop fusion power. I think there is much to be said for visionaries who change the boundaries by quantum leaps.
Lucia thanks, for the reply on Vlad and Brianna. I sometimes think my questions might be too personal, but I tend to do that with people I do not know because I like to get their backgrounds – that sometimes can be fascinating.
Their date and marriage would meet the definition of love at first sight.
SteveF (Comment #224320)
September 21st, 2023 at 4:59 am
Steve, I was referring to managing projects that would be considered visionary. Musk had an advantage of more direct ownership of his visions and not being as much hindered by corporate bureaucracy. He also had the disadvantage of being in a position to micro manage and in doing so not getting the efficiency advantages of a well managed project that gets the most out of the talent and skills of everyone working on the project.
I have followed Musk’s project work closely and have awareness of his personality traits. I would often comment to myself that I know that guy from my past work experience.
I would separate the visionaries I have known and worked with from those who were charged with making those visions a practical product or process. They were always fascinating people to talk to and sometimes had practical suggestions on how to implement their visions, but certainly not someone to lead the implementing project. Their personalities tended to be more laid back than someone like a Musk.
Ken,
“Their personalities tended to be more laid back than someone like a Musk.”
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There seems to be only one musk, so comparisons are less than perfect. 😉
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But sure, he seems a lot less laid back than most everyone, visionary or not. And has enough money to insist on his vision and how it is implemented, at least in the early stages. I think SpaceX and Tesla are now so big that there has to be less micromanaging.
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The interviews I have heard make it sound like he insists people think of alternative approaches and find ways to dramatically reduce costs and to make progress more quickly. I am sure he reacts badly when he thinks people aren’t doing that.
Saw an interesting question on “X”…
“If genitals do not define gender, how does removing them define it?”
Russell,
That is (IMO) an excellent, succinct way to get to the heart of that issue quickly.
Very interesting conclusion. Simple number, GDP per capita from “Our World in Data”, but it looks to me like there was some mathematical slight of hand in the fudge factors applied to the data.
Any of you eggheads got an opinion?
“This graph tells a lot. At the beginning of the transition 30 years ago, Russians were richer than people in all newly-market East and North European countries. Now, they are poorer, on average, than all of them. For two major reasons: first, the depth of the 1990s crisis, and, no less important, second, the failure to grow after 2009. Putin first failed economic development, then started a war.”
https://x.com/k_sonin/status/1704601898370609439?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
Since GDP includes government spending it can be a misleading indicator of the private sector. A government can print money out of thin air, spend it and bolster its GDP..
Better measures are standard of living, productivity (which relates to standard of living) and private capital investment (which relates to productivity). A Keynesian economy where saving and private investment are secondary to consumer spending, can have relatively higher GDPs and lower standards of living.
Adjusting it for inflation and into a common currency metric pretty much negates that in a country-to-country comparison over time. Whether those adjustments are handled properly is obviously still a concern.
Ken,
They claim to be adjusting by expressing in “International Dollars”, whatever that is, as a fudge factor….see the fine print.
SteveF,
You have your own company. When you were starting out and maybe still, you probably have no prob lem struggling wiht some problem for 12-16 hours and wonder a bit why the troops want to go home.
I find Musk’s methods perfectly undersantdable particularly since I suspect that he pours out ideas which ought to be pursued.
John ferguson,
When I was much younger (30 years ago) and my company was new, I did spend many hours without any hesitation. Fortunately, most of my efforts were related to software development and customer support, which I was doing alone, so I didn’t have to get people to join me in long hours. Production environments are different, and even today I get a bit pissed when there seems a ‘lack of urgency’ to meet promised product shipping schedules and lack of attention to things like critical parts inventories. There is no substitute for being an owner, at least in terms of motivation. Profit sharing helps, but even with that, most people seem to me not all that motivated.
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I’m pretty well burned out these days after 8 or 9 hours…. everyone succumbs to age I think.
Russell Klier (Comment #224324
Saw an interesting question on “X”…
“If genitals do not define gender, how does removing them define it?”
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At some stage in the last 70 years some people have tried to seperate the previously identical words sex and gender.
Both meant the same thing, sex and gender, such as whether one is male or female on biological grounds like the genitals and chromosomes and defined behavioural traits.
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Now gender alone has been redefined to mean not what one is born with but what one aspires to.
Poor old sex is left alone in the bed but gender can now be whatever you want it to be sans reasoning.
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Sad but extremely funny inconvenient truth, your comment.
SteveF,
I was converted by owning a company to feeling that the world consisted of owners and employees. Occasionally I could be lucky and hire an employee who thought like an owner, someone for whom a problem did not go away at 5:00PM.
I suspect that Musk is very good at hiring and is able to surround himself with these sorts.
Coming up on 81, I’m still busy trying to do things I don’t quite
understand. I think I make more mistakes than I used to; not sure maybe more out of my depth. Method is the same though. keep trying different things. work at remembering what you’ve already tried to avoid looping, and never give up.
A drama playing out on social media:
David Brooks, a New York Times columnist posted on “X”:
“This meal just cost me $78 at Newark Airport. This is why Americans think the economy is terrible.” with a picture of a burger and fries.
https://x.com/nytdavidbrooks/status/1704668479259820413?s=20
The owner of the establishment,1911 Smoke House Barbeque, responded on Facebook:
“Looks like someone was knocking back some serious drinks – Bar tab was almost 80% and he’s complaining about the cost of his meal keep drinking buddy – we get paid off everything.”
Brooks’ post was still up at 4 AM. Over 17,000 people commented on Brooks’ post on “X” and some are hilarious, including:
“The David Brooks challenge: Drink 4 double whiskeys with your burger and then tweet political opinions”
The restaurant added a David Brooks Special, and a lot more.
john ferguson,
Musk probably does hire people who are highly motivated.
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Of course, at Twitter he told all the programmers that if they didn’t want to work long hours they should quit…. and lots of them did. And he fired all the censors, most of human resources, public relations, and other dead wood staffers. Now renamed X, the company and Musk are so loathed by the left that other companies are constantly pressured to stop advertising there, so X may not survive. Turns out free speech is really not liked by the left. Who knew?!?! Will be interesting to see what happens.
A few days back I said the Ukrainian war had changed the nature of naval warfare…. It looks like the US Navy thinks so too:
“US Navy ‘Ghost Fleet’ ships make first-of-its-kind visit in the Western Pacific as Pentagon looks to counter China’s military mass with drones”
“The two ships, like several others, are part of a project called Ghost Fleet Overlord, which began in 2018 and is a way to integrate large unmanned surface vessels into the Navy. Ranger and Mariner are part of Unmanned Surface Vessel Division ONE (USVDIV-1), a unit that manages drone boat integration and experimentation. ”
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-navy-ghost-fleet-drone-ships-western-pacific-counter-china-2023-9?amp
What the Ukraine war should tell the US Navy is that if cheap drones can disable Russian warships, then “large” aka expensive/complex, drones are already obsolete.
The measurement of price inflation, as opposed to money inflation, does not include asset inflation whereby printing money out of thin air and government spending it can increase GDP without having, at least, short term affects on price inflation. Price inflation as calculated by various governments can be subjective and changing. Germany recently changed the weighting used for their sub index that includes housing, fuel and food, as I recall, from something around 25% to something around 16%.
DaveJR
“ “large” aka expensive/complex, drones are already obsolete”
I agree. But at least the US Navy is acknowledging drones have a seat at the table. The USN fought even the concept of unmanned ships and planes for a decade. The next task is to get them to embrace small and cheap. [Wishfull thinking]
Musk in my view is exceptional primarily for his entrepreneurial skills and in a special area where government subsidies and payments are concerned. I would be more impressed if he were operating in the area of free markets, although dealing with governments that have little regard or knowledge of what makes private corporations work has to be a special talent.
Musk’s other skills are over rated in my opinion because in his financial successes they get mixed with the entrepreneurial ones.
Not that long ago Musk considered himself a “middle of the road” Obama Democrat. From his public comments he would never be mistaken for a deep thinker.
The rejection of free speech will likely come back to haunt the left. Either politically (my preference) or by having the authoritarian tools they want to implement used against them.
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Not that I’m great at predictions, but I would say favoring these ideological struggle sessions is not going to be looked upon kindly in a few decades. Of course everyone involved will deny they were part of them.
I’d be drinking 4 double whiskeys at dinner every night if I had to work with the people at the NYT’s opinion section on a daily basis. David Brooks has become increasingly incoherent over the past 10 years and this may actually explain a lot.
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My assessment from afar is that he tried to sort of negotiate with the ideologues at the NYT’s and have a real discussion and became disoriented. He was always a moderate (a far right to the NYT) but his columns at least had a point, now they are meandering messes of indecipherable logic. Pretty much unreadable.
If Musk is benefiting from federal subsidies then at least he is providing the government better value for the money than they get from just about everyone else. I’d be more than happy to turn over some other industries to Musk for retrofitting.
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Take high speed rail for example …
Tom Scharf (Comment #224343)
September 22nd, 2023 at 10:48 am
If Musk is that much better than other EV makers perhaps the government needs to drop the subsidies for Teslas or as would probably be the instinctual government action give the other manufactors a bigger subsidy.
Doing a great job of making something that is encouraged by governments’ bad ideas does not necessarily end well for anybody.
Where are Musk’s tunneling projects. Real question.
The boring project is discussed extensively in the comment sections of those blog posts. I didn’t pay much attention to it. Probably not panning out AFAICT.
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Musk isn’t the man with the always golden touch who demands hero worship, however he also has a better track record than almost anyone alive. You are comparing him to a model of perfection. Who does it better? You are going to have to go to Steve Jobs, Gates, Bezos and I think Musk wins those comparisons.
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There are plenty of people smarter than Musk depending on how you define it. Maybe Musk is just luckier or more likely he has a combination of traits and luck that make him successful. Repeated demonstrated competence counts.
Fact:
Ukraine has hit the HQ of the Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol with two Storm Shadow cruise missiles. There are videos of the missiles striking in broad daylight, the large edifice in flames, and collapsing in on itself.
Last week ISW said Ukraine was systematically destroying the Russian air defenses in Crimea. Attacks on the harbor, airfields, and now the HQ confirms this.
Rumor:
Caution, the following are just rumors; some or all may be false.
Black Sea Fleet commander Admiral Viktor Sokolov was killed
Many high-level naval officials were killed or injured
Ambulances were rushing to and from the building
Russia reports one serviceman missing
I think that taking the advances in partially reusable rockets alone, Musk has earned a position worthy of some appreciation and respect. I don’t particularly care if credit is due his entrepreneurial skills or his management skills or whatever.
If he substantially helps shove humanity to the point of permanent habitations off planet, I may build a shrine and teach my grandkids to worship at his altar. Just saying.
mark bofill,
“I think that taking the advances in partially reusable rockets alone, Musk has earned a position worthy of some appreciation and respect.”
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Yes, and if Musk gets to a fully reusable rocket system, that will be an even greater achievement. Use a rocket once, and it is horribly expensive; use it a hundred times, then not so expensive. SpaceX’s private competitors are not even close. NASA? A very bad joke; they can’t build anything that is not long delayed, has serious problems, and costs so much it is not practical to use. NASA’s budget should be sharply cut. Maybe Congress could start by cutting GISS in Manhattan.
Musk has some interesting but untested ideas about making boring/tunneling less expensive and with it making city travel much less congested. I think his projects have run into the ever growing problem of obtaining permits from governments in a timely fashion.
This is far out, but plausible:
Atesh, which means “fire” in Crimean Tatar, was created last September by Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars to carry out acts of sabotage against Russians. A Telegram social media post claims Atesh and Sevastopol residents guided the hit on the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. They claim to have coordinated the arrival of the missiles to correspond with a high-level gathering of Russian military brass.
The Space Shuttle and its engines were reusable, as were the solid rocket boosters. The main tank was not. The recent Artemis mission to the moon used space shuttle engines that had flown many times.
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NASA didn’t quite crack the economic part of that model, ha ha, but one could only say it would have even been more expensive otherwise.
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SpaceX now says it can fly boosters 20 times.
The large scale tunnel thing is an interesting concept. Build a tunnel and run cars inside a vacuum where speeds can be much higher. Even riding a bike at 18 mph 80% of your energy is overcoming wind resistance. It probably works better as a concept than reality.
Tom Scharf (Comment #224351): “The Space Shuttle and its engines were reusable, as were the solid rocket boosters.”
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The engines needed to be torn down and rebuilt after each use. More like recyclable than reusable, especially since they were much more complex than disposable engines. I read somewhere that the cost of recovering the boosters was about the same as making new ones. It seems that the big cost of solid fuel rockets is making the fuel and packing the rocket with it.
Tom,
That’s true enough. I suppose it’s just that boosters landing so cleanly and beautifully drove the memory of the splashdown ocean recoveries of boosters from my mind.
[Mike, yeah I read that too. I’m not sure what SpaceX has to do to refurb though.]
mark bofil,
The Falcon 9 engines (LOX and kerosene) generate coke and have to be completely cleaned, along with repair of any wear/tear/damage that might happen. The next generation engine (‘Raptor’, LOX and liquid methane) will not generate coke, and so absent physical damage, should be able to fly again immediately after recovery. At least that is the plan. Methane/LOX also has considerably higher specific impulse, so the engines are more efficient (more payload per ton of fuel/oxidizer).
I see. Thanks Steve.
From my favorite Ukrainian government official, Maria Drutska [she has never been wrong]:
“The audacious work of the SOF [Special Operations Forces] allowed for a timely and precise strike on the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet during a meeting of the fleet’s leadership of the Russian Federation in the temporarily occupied city of Sevastopol.”
And:
“Details of the operation will be revealed when possible, and the result – dozens of killed and injured occupiers, including the higher leadership of the fleet.”
Interesting comparisons for Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk who have 360, 313, 336 and 23 patents, respectively. That might change with later updates but probably not that much.
I personally have been more positively affected by Gates, Jobs and Bezos than Musk. I am not sure how much I benefit by Musk’s satellites but I know I am negatively affected by the indirect tax subsidies his EV’s receive. In the future this may change if he can make his EV’s competitive with combustion engine cars without subsidies. His space vehicles should compete very well with anything that is run by the government – that is a low bar. It will depend for me on the benefits derived from how the vehicles are used.
Ken,
I’m not sure that number of patents is a good metric. A patent does several good things; publishes evovling technology and provides Warren Buffet’s moat, at least for a while.
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But the rate of evolution of a part of technology and the height of the cost of admission could provide the moat and maybe if the techology is not obvious, not patenting it slows down its dissimination.
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And this is not to forget that Musk has been at it for a much briefer period than Gates or Jobs.
As far as I know SpaceX has never disclosed how much it costs them to recycle boosters. It’s certainly not free, but I’m guessing maybe 30% of the new cost to recycle.
Unlike John I’m quite sure patents are a bad metric for innovation, ha. Once you have had the pleasure of defending against BS patents you know that.
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SpaceX competes and easily wins against all commercial satellite providers including those heavily subsidized by their governments in the EU, China, and Russia.
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Very wealthy people tend to invest in business areas with high boundaries to entry, especially those where the current players have gotten fat and lazy.
The UAW needs to be bit careful, if they “win” a big contract upgrade then they might cripple their industry’s competitiveness again. I’m not against unions in theory, just against the implementation in the US for the most part.
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Whatever the UAW Strike Outcome, Elon Musk Has Already Won
Detroit automakers entered labor talks at cost disadvantage to Tesla
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/uaw-strike-tesla-labor-costs-baf8b897?st=319den33ajtvti3&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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I seriously considered buying an electric car this last car upgrade cycle, but ultimately deciding on an ICE again. Probably will go electric next time. I think the charging infrastructure is still a bit immature and may be heading for a bad few years ahead. At home charging is fine, but on the road looks sketchy for non-Tesla cars. Surprisingly I read that the electric costs for on the road chargers is now about the same as gas. Still cheaper at home.
Tom,
No, actually Musk claims it’s less (here):
They are motivated to advertise a small number, it would be interesting to see an end to end full accounting on that. You have to pay for the recovery boat, etc. 10% sounds low, but I suppose it’s possible.
There is a good accounting of the harassment of Elon Musk by the regulators after he became critical of the progressive crowd in this morning’s WSJ. He went from hero to pariah. I pointed to this change in an earlier post in how that crowd changed there regard for Musk based on his more recent political comments. Not mentioned in the editorial, but it should be noted that this change with public figures is not an unusual occurrence.
While I think there is a miss-accounting of Musk’s talents, I feel it is wrong or at least misdirected to go after someone in this way because of their politics. Think Trump going after Bezos. Heck some of my best friends are Democrats.
I have known individuals with 20 to 30 patents where that metric would not hold – some had an in with the patent department. On the other end I have known those with few patents who were excellent researchers and developers. Those I have known with 100 plus patents were never a fluke. They were brilliant by any measure.
The WSJ’s news side today running an article saying Americans are tired of impeachments was a rather humorous slant. I don’t recall that was the favored framing a few years ago. The comments section wasn’t buying it. Oh brother:
“Voters say partisan battles are distracting lawmakers from fixing the country’s problems.”
Tom Scharf (Comment #224364): “They are motivated to advertise a small number”.
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NASA had political reasons to reuse even if it did not make economic sense. SpaceX has no incentive to lose money on launches, unless they expect it to be temporary while they perfect procedures.
Pay for the recovery boat? It’s almost like you didn’t watch the video I linked of the boosters landing neatly on landing pads.
Shrug.
Most of the time they recover using a barge landing. It depends on orbits and payload weights and so forth.
I can find more discussion of the costs associated with those barges, but if you’ve already decided Musk is blowing smoke about the refurb costs, there’s probably not much point. So, OK.
From British Intelligence:
“In recent weeks, Russian customers have highly likely been experiencing localised petrol and diesel shortages.
On 21 September 2023, Russia suspended nearly all diesel and petrol exports in order to stabilise its internal markets.”
So, “Europe’s Gas Station” had to shut down exports because it couldn’t keep up with domestic demand. Russia is a mighty different place this year.
Tom Scharf (Comment #224366)
September 23rd, 2023 at 12:05 pm
There were a couple of anecdotal comments that would reinforce the article heading. Finding an individual that can be labeled a conservative to support their message is part of the framing.
In my reading of the WSJ news section over the years it’s as if someone says here is the article heading now write an article that expands on it. That there is not infrequent instances when the article and heading do not appear to coincide shows that making the available evidence reinforce the heading can be a difficult task even with best efforts to spin it. Counter evidence is often buried in a sentence or two at the end of the article.
These tactics are seen so often that using them must have become part of journalism.
Yes, I wonder if anyone ever grew weary of Trump Russia Collusion as it was breathlessly covered for literally years without hardly any evidence whatsoever. Perhaps people wanted the government to do their job back then too, we will never know.
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Journalism seems to be rather proud of themselves that they rarely outright lie but traffic in selection bias and framing bias continuously. One would think that would be covered in journalism class at some point.
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Their latest fetish of policing misinformation is laughable. Being a journalist now is a hard job for many reasons, the first being a broken economic model, but they must realize reform is necessary to regain some trust.
Many headlines in the Washington Post are not written by the authors of the columns. This practice was confirmed in the comment columns after a particular headline completely missed the point of the piece.
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Something like Bad Breath traced to Climate Change.
SpaceX now (I believe) certifies their Falcon 9 boosters for up to 20 flights, so there must be some degradation of the engines and/or overall structure with each launch. There is a price discount for the lighter payload that comes with booster return (compared to expending the booster), but from what I have read, it sounds like the discount is about proportional to the payload weight, so not a huge difference. Since SpaceX is privately held, there is no way to know what their actual costs and margins are. Until they have a real commercial competitor, their pricing is likely closer to whatever the market will bear than to their cost.
Tom Scharf,
“….but they must realize reform is necessary to regain some trust.”
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I hope so, but so far there is not a lot of evidence for that. Anyone who suggests that reform is needed (like Matt Taibbi) are instantly denounced (and usually fired). Journalism may be a bit like climate science: mostly people with certain political and philosophical views are interested. The homogeneity of views in the field makes reform from within very difficult.
john ferguson,
Climate change causes all the worlds problems, according to authoritative sources (AKA activist climate scientists).
First I heard of this. Vice (now bankrupt) was going to run a documentary on Showtime alleging DeSantis “oversaw torture” at Guantanamo. It was cancelled a month before its premiere. It was randomly scheduled to be shown near the time DeSantis was going to announce his candidacy.
https://www.semafor.com/article/07/19/2023/how-paramount-buried-a-vice-documentary-on-ron-desantis-at-guantanamo-bay
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The never wrong Rolling Stone of course picked up the story:
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/desantis-guantanamo-force-feedings-canceled-documentary-1234793826/
“I cannot forget when he was there watching us with the force-feeding. You cannot forget that because those people left really bad scars in your soul,” one former detainee said
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The NYT today ran a story on it:
“A former prisoner’s story of mistreatment at the hands of Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, made headlines. But The Times found no evidence to back it up.”
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We should be hearing from our trusted IC people that this has all the classic signs of Russian disinformation, ha ha.
It’s entirely possible trust and revenue are very loosely correlated in journalism.
Tom Scharf,
Yes, DeSantis is the reincarnation of Mengele, and Hillary liked to abuse children in the basement of a pizza shop.
CNBC:
“the Kremlin said Thursday that it would introduce “temporary” restrictions on diesel exports to stabilize fuel prices on the domestic market.
The ban, which came into immediate effect and applies to all countries apart from four former Soviet states, does not have an end date.”
I remember being told on these pages how robust and stable the Russian energy industry was. The sanctions and war wouldn’t affect the Russian economy, I was told, because China and India would slurp up all the Russian exports previously going to Europe. Hah! To elude sanctions, Russia had been shipping oil halfway around the world and selling it at a deep discount. Now they can’t keep their own citizen’s tanks full. Export income falling to zero gotta hurt.
I read that much of the Russian tycoons’ pilfered lucre was coming from international petrodollars. I’ll bet the oligarchs are not happy with Putin’s folly.
Russell Klier (Comment #224381),
Russia mostly exports petroleum. They still seem to be exporting all they can, albeit at a discount price. The current shortages in Russia and export bans are for *refined* petroleum products. The shortages seem to be due to poor refinery maintenance and price controls at the pump.
Mike M,
Yup.
Sudden loss of imported parts for sure impacts the refinery and petrochemical businesses more than crude production, especially since most Russian crude is being pumped from existing conventional (not fracked) wells, which have much longer production lives than fracked wells.
Mike,
I’m no business guru but I would guess there is a premium markup on the refined products…. Just more examples of how this SMO is hurting Russian money people.
Also, I have seen countless videos of diesel storage depots engulfed in flames. I bet that is digging into the domestic supply too.
This article offers some explanation of the Russian fuel shortage: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/russia-faces-domestic-fuel-crunch-braces-more-shortages-2023-08-31/
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It says most of the issue appears to be maintenance shut-downs at some refineries and the fact that the Russian government caps fuel prices at the pump, making exports of refined products now more attractive than selling domestically. Russian refiners normally export a couple million tons of diesel per month.
Here are headlines from just the last few weeks. Russian energy facilities have been under attack across the country for months…. soft targets for saboteurs and Ukrainian drones. Some of the fuel fires have been spectacular.
“Fire at fuel tank in Russia’s Sochi sea resort extinguished, mayor says”
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/fire-fuel-tank-russias-sochi-sea-resort-extinguished-mayor-2023-09-20/
“Oil depot on fire in Russian St Petersburg”
https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/09/3/7418230/
“Video Shows Huge Fire Engulf Gas Pipeline After Blast in Central Russia”
https://www.newsweek.com/video-huge-fire-engulf-gas-pipeline-blast-central-russia-saratov-1826912
John, I believe it is common practice for most newspapers to have headline writers separate from the article writers. The WSJ headlines are uniformly more biased than the authors writings, although some writers are quite good at toeing the party line.
It was much the same when I was reading the Chicago Tribune. They had one writer when Obama Care was having initial problems who had no problem always putting it in the best light. The local paper and TV press in the Chicaglo metro area are in bed with the Democrat party, although they try hard to appear neutral. Investigative journalism in my area is a thing of the past – and not to be mistaken for obvious hit pieces.
Ken,
I can remember being very upset the day I opened what turned out to be the last issue of the Chicago Daily News.
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If you remember Peter Lisagor, you might appreciate our discovering his grave at Arlington National Cemetary. He’d been a sargeant in WW2.
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I don’t remember the divergence between headline and copy in those days, but maybe it was there and I wasn’t sufficiently cynical.
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i sure am now.
The corrupt corporate media is a system insulated from economic reality. How can CNN stay in business with their terrible ratings? They are part of a larger corporate entity. This terrible situation will only be remedied by the rise of alternative media. Taibbi for example has a sub stack and I’m a paying subscriber. Same for Glenn Greenwald who I like more and more. He is a consistent harsh critic of the ‘establishment’ over decades and has detailed documentation for what he says. Rumble is another example of media devoted to free speech. You can support and frequent these platforms.
For me Scarborough is the perfect example of a totally corrupt habitual liar and hypocrit. He gave Trump hundreds of million of free air time in 2016 but as soon as he won, he became a cesspool of personal hatred and a down the line liar for the elites and Biden.
John, when I was a kid growing up on a farm 40 miles from Chicago, we subscribed to the Chicago Tribune and the Sun-Times. The papers were delivered in the mail. The Sun-Times would have the previous night game results while the Tribune would not.
The Tribune was politically to the right and the Sun-Times to the left. When I was married and living in the south suburbs of Chicago we subscribed to the Tribune and the Daily News. The News was center left politically although they had reporters like Mike Royko, who was a Democrat, but who would take on corrupt Democrat politicians. The print media has changed dramatically over the years in the metro area with a trending definitely to the left.
Although I have some good memories of the media back in the day, I think the internet today can be a much more fulfilling and informative conduit for getting news including the all important back stories. Of course, people can still look unquestioning at the news they receive no matter the source.
This is interesting [to me anyway]:
“Exercise BAANA” is annually conducted by the Finnish Air Force. They convert a rural road into an airstrip. This is to be able to disperse their aircraft and hide them remotely in times of war.
“The objectives of flight training are to perform take-offs and landings based on the flight training syllabus at a road base in day and night-time conditions and to enable operational pilots to conduct advanced training flights. All Air Force aircraft types can be seen in the sky during the exercise. Most of the aircraft involved in the exercise will be F/A-18 Hornet multi-role fighters and Hawk jet trainers.”
This year, NATO is part of the war game:
“Two of the RAF’s frontline Typhoon jets tested and proved the capability in Finland as part of Exercise Baana. The Finnish Air Force’s annual training exercise took place on a single-lane road in Tervo, which is usually used for normal road traffic but specially designed as an emergency landing strip to sustain aircraft activity if required.”
“The Norwegian Air Force, also taking part for the first time, tested their F-35A Lightning aircraft, a 5th generation fighter jet also operated by the UK and 15 other allied countries.”
https://raf.mod.uk/news/articles/raf-typhoons-land-and-take-off-from-a-road-for-the-first-time/
https://puolustusvoimat.fi/en/-//1951206/baana-22-en
Russell,
Maybe they should have gone with the F35-B. The U.S. Marines have them. Handy, short takeoff lengths and the ability to land vertically. Good for disappearing into the countryside.
Before everyone jumps in to point out the logistical and maintenance problems involved with doing this – yeah. I know. It’s not that easy, obviously. It’s not impossible though. Just complicated and sub-optimal by certain metrics.
Mark,
I was thinking the same thing. But, the landing strip is needed because they have a lot of other stuff that needs a landing strip.
Well, Ukraine just released this:
“Commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet Admiral Viktor Sokolov died in the missile strike on the Fleet’s headquarters, along with 34 more officers. 105 more were wounded. The building is not suitable for restoration – Special Operations Forces of Ukraine.”
Anton Gerashchenko, @Gerashchenko_en, Advisor to the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine.
Yesterday, Kyrylo Budanov [Ukraine’s Top Spook] told VOA:
“Commander of the Russian Army at Zaporizhzhia, Colonel-General Alexander Romanchuk, and his Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-General Oleg Tsekov were in very serious condition” [Dead as doornails!]
This may be Monday morning quarterbacking but it seems having 145 of your top military brass meet in hostile territory during a war is not smart.
Both Gerashchenko and Budanov are reliable sources.
EDIT: the initial rumors are proving to be true
Video of RAF Typhoon landing and taking off on a rural road in Finland….
https://x.com/royalairforce/status/1705854586827792709?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
Here’s a fine example of world class shameless framing bias, ha ha.
.
CNN: Democrats’ response to the (Democrat) Menendez indictment tells all you need to know about today’s GOP
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/24/opinions/bob-menendez-indictment-democratic-response-obeidallah/index.html
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So a Democrat Senator being indicted for a second time on corruption charges (first resulted in a hung jury in NJ) is a poor reflection on the Republicans. Got it. The article mentions Trump 24 times. I get that somebody can make that argument, but I don’t get a CNN editor running it without a bunch of accompanying breathless opinions from very serious people condemning blatant corruption in the government or attempting to tie it to the rest of the party. That narrative isn’t even covered.
.
It is not lost on anybody how corrupt Democrat big city politics can be, especially in NY and NJ. This has been going on for over a 100 years. It’s basically the culture there.
Killing high profile commanders in Ukraine can very easily be seen as an escalation, especially after Biden just OK’d long(er) range missiles. I would anticipate a response from Russia to this if it is true.
.
It would appear Odesa got a response.
Consider this an “informed” rumor:
More information about yesterday’s Khalino military airfield incident. As per Main Directorate of Intelligence of Ukraine:
At the airfield “Khalino” in the Kursk region, a Ukrainian drone was landed by Russian electronic warfare systems on the runway. When the leadership of the aviation regiment and FSB officers arrived for closer inspection drone exploded. As claimed, the following were killed or injured during the explosion:
? commander of the 14th aviation regiment;
? one of his deputies;
? a group of aviator officers;
? a representative of the FSB military counterintelligence;
? airport employees.
Another thought on the Russian top army and navy brass being taken out…
Theses were the guys that survived Putin’s purge. These were the ones Putin trusted…. The military was recovering from the purge and now they have another round of vacancies. They may have to promote a few janitors to general.
So a Democrat Senator being indicted for a second time on corruption charges (first resulted in a hung jury in NJ) is a poor reflection on the Republicans.
.
In 2022, the NYT’s gave Menendez the headline “The Democrat the White House fears the most”, and in 2023, he’s “stepped down” from his position. Lucky for them!
DaveJR,
Menendez is not going to resign from the Senate. He will continue to be a distraction from Biden’s own corruption issues for a long time; which one might speculate is why the DOJ decided to charge him now….. if one thinks the DOJ is less pure than newly fallen snow.
.
Menendez probably figures he can get another hung jury in NJ, and can return to taking bribes after his trial. He may be right.
Steve: “Menendez is not going to resign from the Senate.”
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He was chairman of the foreign affairs committee and is now, not.
DaveJR,
Sure. But it just means his power to command bribes is reduced, at least for a while.
Looks like those Trump indictments are working their magic.
.
ABC/WashPost poll:
Trump edges out Biden 51-42 in head-to-head matchup: POLL
The president’s job approval rating is 19 points underwater.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/troubles-biden-age-reelection-campaign-poll/story?id=103436611
“Comparison with Biden may be a factor. Among the 56% of Americans who disapprove of Biden’s work in office, a wide 75% say that, looking back, they approve of Trump.”
“A remarkable 62% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say the party should pick someone other than Biden as its nominee”
“In one example of message-sending, among people who say Trump should be prohibited by the U.S. Constitution from serving again as president, 18% also support him over Biden for 2024.”
.
It’s getting pretty weird. My reaction is pretty much UGH, the same as the ABC newsroom I would guess, but for different reasons.
Tom Scharf,
It is true that Biden is widely viewed as demented and incompetent, and has horrible policies, both domestic and foreign.
.
But two things to remember: 1) People could say they would vote for Trump to try to make Biden quit, even if they have no intention of ever voting for Trump, and 2) what matters are the voters in the 6 swing states that will determine the outcome in 2024, not the national vote. We in Florida are not going to get much attention, but Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan are going to be smothered in advertising, with most of it screaming 24/7 how Trump is far, far worse than Hitler ever was, loves Putin, and is a “threat to our democracy”. Those states will bathe in a sea of ‘get-out-the-democrat-vote’ money. Any other Republican is likely to be outspent 3:1 in every swing state, but Trump maybe 4:1 or 5:1.
.
Will it work again? Donno, but I’d bet Trump will have much less than a 50% chance of winning in 2024.
SteveF (Comment #224401): “Menendez probably figures he can get another hung jury in NJ, and can return to taking bribes after his trial. He may be right.”
.
Perhaps. But the first indictment was based on gray area stuff, like accepting trips. Accepting cash, gold bars, and a luxury car are a bit different. And a half million in cash in his home pretty much screams “ill gotten gains”.
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I have never purchased gold. Is one supposed to retain bills of sale?
.
A lot different from the mostly bogus and entirely questionable Trump indictments.
SteveF (Comment #224405): “Any other Republican is likely to be outspent 3:1 in every swing state, but Trump maybe 4:1 or 5:1.”
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Beyond a certain point, the effect of campaign spending saturates.
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SteveF: “Will it work again? Donno, but I’d bet Trump will have much less than a 50% chance of winning in 2024.”
.
That would be my guess, but my guesses are notoriously bad. The big unknown is turnout. A lot of people will turn out to vote for Trump but not for other Republicans. It used to be that Trump would also boost Democrat turnout. That might no longer be true. They have gotten so good at ballot harvesting that it might not matter who is on the Republican ticket.
.
I am not proud of this, but more an more I want to see a vengeful Trump back in the Oval Office. That is largely down to the Deep State shenanigans protecting Hunter Biden.
Mike,
Me too. I don’t have the first clue what’s going to happen this time around, honestly. No idea.
I suppose that Dem politicians are afraid to challenge Biden since that could be political suicide. But i am surprised that the race has not attracted an outsider who is less outside than RFK or Williamson. Someone like Mark Cuban or Howard Schultz, with a big ego and a ton of money.
Mike M,
Yes, cash and gold bars scream ‘ill-gotten gains’. But so does a wire to your personal account for $150K to buy that exotic car your have a hankering for. The Bidens are a bunch of crooks, but I will be shocked if any of them ever spends a day in prison. Being a crooked pol doesn’t mean jail time.
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Menendez just needs one person on the jury who thinks he is being targeted because he is Hispanic to get off again. Menendez is already making a claim of prejudice agains hispanics, loudly and repeatedly; there are 19% hispanics in New Jersey.
Mike M,
We don’t need vengeance, we need the reversal of a lot of very bad, very damaging policies. If Trump should win, and then wastes his time on political payback, history will not treat him kindly.
https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-condemns-menendez-for-taking-bribes-in-gold-rather-than-fungible-assets-laundered-by-20-different-shell-companies
What an amateur that Menendez guy is.
SteveF (Comment #224411): “We don’t need vengeance, we need the reversal of a lot of very bad, very damaging policies.”
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The former may be a requirement for the latter.
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I should have made it clear that I am tempted to want a vengeful Trump going after the Deep State, not political opponents. Changing policies will be difficult, if not impossible, without cutting out the Deep State cancer. It should be done with a scalpel, not a machete. But if the choice is between the machete or nothing, I much prefer the machete.
Careful what you wish for…
[Edit: Probably everyone knows this but in case they don’t, I’m afraid of Trump. I think he defines ‘right’ essentially as whatever seems like a good idea to him at the time and ‘wrong’ as anyone who opposes him. His interests and mine coincided in the past. I’m not at all confident they will continue to coincide in the future. Not to say that it’s impossible that they might, merely that I wouldn’t take it for granted.]
Mark bofill,
I’m with you. I don’t want Trump as president.
I’d add that Trump will never succeed in “cutting out the Deep State cancer.”
Lucia,
I don’t think he will either. I think he’ll punish his enemies to the extent he can. I don’t see any reason to think he’ll be any more effective against ‘the swamp’ or ‘the deep state’ than he was last time around. I’ve been wrong before, I’ll be wrong again. I’d love to be wrong this time.
Shrug.
mark bofill (Comment #224414): “Careful what you wish for…”.
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Indeed. That is a big part of why I hope that Trump is not the nominee. But on the other hand, we were told over and over that Trump was a wannabe dictator and he did not govern that way. Even during all his bad behavior post election, he stayed within the rules.
——-
mark bofill (Comment #224416) : ” I don’t see any reason to think he’ll be any more effective against ‘the swamp’ or ‘the deep state’ than he was last time around. ”
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I think that the first time he did not initially realize just how entrenched the Deep State is; so it was not his focus. Also, a lot of his initial appointees were in bed with the Deep State; it took time to sort them out. And it seems he was careful to follow “norms” in dealing with the bureaucracy.
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A vengeful Trump could be a lot more effective. But even better might be someone with both determination and guile.
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DeSantis might have both. Ramaswamy might not have the guile. Haley, I think, would be happy to work with the Deep State.
——–
Note: By “Deep State” I mean bureaucrats who think that they are the decision makers in the government and that elected politicians are just a nuisance to be managed. That includes the apparatus that enables and protects such “public servants” (sarcasm intended).
Mike,
One thing I sort of tentatively believe is this: I don’t think DeSantis is nearly as likely as Trump or Biden. I figure DeSantis is a one in six or something. One in eight? Something like that.
I used to think Trump has essentially no chance. I really don’t know anymore. For all I can tell maybe he’s a sure thing. Really don’t know.
MikeM,
I think you are mis-identifying the cause of his failure. It’s true he might not realize how entrenched things are. But he also simply doesn’t have the skillz to dislodge it. Dislodging it requires some degree of negotiation, and working with others– e.g. congress. He doesn’t have those skillz.
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A vengeful Trump will be less effective. Those with more diplomatic sense and guile will evade him and the deep state will be stronger if Trump wins.
Sure. But it’s necessary for Congress to be involved in dealing with this because it requires legislation. The Executive simply can’t unilatirally do much.
Lucia (Comment #224415)
“I’d add that Trump will never succeed in “cutting out the Deep State cancer.”
–
True.
Reminds me of efforts here to remove overservicing doctors.
Try to target and charge or remove the top 3% a year.
Problem?
A new 3% reach the top 3 every year and some doctors appear to overservice because they work long hours in remote communities so good doctors are sanctioned.
–
Just because the Deep State is a large collection of different nefarious types is not a reason to try to reduce the load.
Cutting out cancer should prolong life and quality of life.
Ok I made that up but it sounds right.
–
Oil up.
Impeachment on ( in the news).
Will those polls ever move to the next level?
“Haley, I think, would be happy to work with the Deep State.”
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Haley is part of the deep state. I think her foreign policy views are perfectly congruent with those of “career diplomats” at the State Department, and her domestic policies would be Obama-lite; the Federal government would become ever more onerous and costly if she were elected, just a but more slowly than with Joe Alzheimers’ administration. p She is better than Hutchinson, but not a lot better.
angech,
“Oil up.
Impeachment on ( in the news).”
.
I guess ‘oil up’ is an Aussie expression. There will be further investigation of Biden, but he and his administration are refusing to turn over key (likely incriminating) information Congress has requested. Biden may even refuse if the Supreme Court tells him he has to turn it over; that would itself be an impeachable offense, but The Senate would never vote to remove Biden unless someone has a video of him accepting bags of cash from a Ukrainian oligarch. Politicians in Washington accept political corruption. It is business as usual. What they don’t accept is losing power.
lucia makes a good point that the best way to reign in the deep state would be via legislation. Trump is probably not the best nominee for getting Republican majorities in Congress. But even with majorities, reigning in the Deep State via legislation might be a problem even if only simple majorities were needed in the Senate.
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Thinking about this is ruining my day. 🙁
SteveF (Comment #224422): “The Senate would never vote to remove Biden”.
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Sure. But with sufficient evidence the public might turn on Biden like they turned on Nixon. That would catch Dem Senators on the horns of a dilemma: Ditch Biden or face the wrath of the voters. The way between the horns would be the path used with Nixon: Pressure Biden to resign. The resignation would, of course, be due to his health.
A small piece of good news: Asa Hutchinson will not be on the stage for Wednesday’s debate.
DeSantis, combined with his large legislative majority in Florida, pretty much eliminated the entire woke bureaucracy in Florida. He literally outlawed it, mostly in education. Hardly a tear was shed in this process down here because it was so unpopular. He has also sacked several “prosecutors” for cause who were overtly choosing to not enforce certain laws. It has all stood up to legal muster.
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So things like this can happen, but no doubt will take more work in Washington. The “deep state” isn’t very popular either. A couple high profile convictions of deep state misbehavior combined with reigning in the agencies with an administrative regulatory hammer (that tool works in both directions) will have bureaucrats running for self preservation quickly. There aren’t any prosecutors down here calling virtue signaling press conferences lately.
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Trump’s probably the wrong guy to do it, but it’s possible.
SteveF, I think something else might be going on. The same poll I believe showed that approval of Trump as president was 48% while Biden’s was37%. That 48 is a lot higher than at any time during his Presidency. I think people are feeling a lot of pain economically and no amount of media and big tech lying can change that. Credit card defaults are rising fast, inflation is worse than the official numbers and real wages are falling. The invasion of migrants is becoming visible to ordinary people. New Yorkers are going to feel the pain of 15% cuts for city services. I’m still betting that most care about fixing this more than care about whether Trump is boorish.
DeSantis proved that a smart President could reign in the deep state without legislation. But we need someone who willl be extremely motivated to do it.
Yes SteveF, I agree that Haley is part of the deep state. She totally turned me off at the debate with her demonization of Russia and demands for endless war. She will not get my vote. I also think that at heart she wants to be a “nice” person and be liked by both sides. That’s fatal in our current cold civil war climate. DeSantis was my choice because I think he would be more effective than Trump at doing the most important thing, cleaning out the deep state. But I think Trump was pretty effective in his term too. He didn’t realize the depth of the deep state conspiracy against him until it was too late to fire the whole bunch. This time around, he knows exactly what to do and more importantly there is a new breed of Republicans who hate the deep state and will know exactly what to do if appointed to head an agency.
It’s easy to forget the political environment in 2017-2018. Republicans in Congress strongly supported the appointment of Meuller and many believed Trump was dangerously soft on Putin. Many in Trump’s administration were standard Republicans who wanted to just tweak around the edges. In 2019 after the Nunes report and the media total lies about it did Republicans like Lindsey Graham wake up. Now there is a large group of “awake” Republicans who are just itching to destroy the deep state. If we win in 2024, we will hit the ground running. Also the use of Executive orders to do things that in an earlier era would have required legislation is now normalized. Trump or DeSantis will quickly do a lot of things using this new normal.
I don’t know why, but there are a lot of NATO military aircraft in the air over Europe today….. even joined by a spy plane from Sweden over the Baltic Sea. And they are flying in locations where I don’t normally see NATO aircraft. e.g. there is a USAF Boeing RC-135W Rivet Joint spy plane over the Barents Sea off the coast of Russia and an Italian spy plane flying a pattern over Lithuania, perhaps watching Kaliningrad. I’m guessing they are playing war games, but I haven’t found any info on it.
Two other curiosities this AM: I watched a Grumman C-2 Greyhound make a landing approach and disappear over the Adriatic Sea. It’s a mail and supply plane for aircraft carriers and the USS Gerald R. Ford has been spotted nearby. So that explains that. I also watch a US F-15 fighter nose up to a Boeing KC-135R Stratotanker and take on fuel over Germany. Here’s a screenshot:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1706613422450987426?s=20
EDIT
Just found it on Twitter [X], exercise Ramstein Alloy:
“Spanish Air Force @EjercitoAire Eurofighter take off at Estonian Air Base Ämari @Kaitsevagi during @NATO exercise Ramstein Alloy. @NATO_AIRCOM”
Mike M,
The issues with controlling the Federal bureaucracy are twofold: 1) Congress has written a multitude of laws which are vague and open to ‘plausible’ interpretations, even if these are wildly disconnected from the original intent of the laws; ‘waters of the United States’ and the ‘clean air act’ immediately come to mind as examples where the bureaucracy has adopted interpretations and promulgated costly regulations that are bizarre distortions of the law as written. 2) Until the last 2 years, the Supreme Court has refused to tell the bureaucracy to stop making regulations unrelated to Congressional intent (the infamous 1984 ‘Chevron’ deferral defines this problem).
.
The SC has finally started the process of controlling the bureaucrats, and at least 4 votes are already there to reverse Chevron, with a 5th likely and even a 6th (Roberts) possibly supporting that reversal this term. But it is a slow and difficult process which will be resisted by several circuit courts, including, of course, the 9th. The Court’s emerging ‘major questions’ doctrine is just the beginning of the fight.
.
But Congress needs to stop writing vague laws, and needs to modify or retract the worst of the existing ones. A broad solution could be something like “No Federal regulation with an economic impact of more than $2 billion shall take effect without explicit approval of that regulation by majority vote of both houses of Congress.” This would put a stop to all the crazy Biden attempts to forgive student debt and allowing people to live rent free in someone else’s apartment…. not to mention the crazy EPA regulations. But that law could only happen with 60 votes in the Senate, so I am not holding my breath.
MikeM
Getting congress to act will be difficult. But my point is it can’t be done without getting Congress to act. It is simply not possible for the executive to dissolve things like the FBI, EPA yada, yada. Trump could try all sorts of things you might consider using a “machete”– but SCOTUS would reverse him.
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Perhaps Trump could succeed with armed rebellion, but after that, things would be worse, not better.
David young
I don’t understand (a) how demonizing Russia is bad nor (b) how that has anything to do with being part of “the deep state”.
The president can’t just “fire the whole bunch”.
DeSantis will know he needs the legislature involved. That’s why he could do it and Trump cannot. Trump is absolutely the wrong guy to get rid of “the deep state”.
SteveF
Yep. Congress needs to do a lot of the heavy lifting. To fix the problem of “the deep state” we need a President who knows Congress needs to act and lead them to act. It can’t be a President who just spouts nasty tweets, makes snide remarks and issues poorly crafted orders that will be set aside.
David Young (Comment #224430)
“did Republicans like Lindsey Graham wake up.”
–
Lindsay Graham?
Paul Ryan RINO in disguise!
Covers it up not well.
–
Lucia did you see David McCallum passed away.
Very sad, as a lovely actor
Tom Scharf,
Firing and replacing prosecutors who flatly refused to prosecute people for breaking laws those prosecutors disagree with was one of the most constructive things DeSantis ever did. There will be no Soros prosecutors in Florida while DeSantis (or another Republican) is governor. The education bureaucracy is mostly gone, but the teachers’ unions are not; they will sometimes try to avoid following the laws covering proscribed subjects (explaining homosexual ‘techniques’ to 2nd graders, for example). Since Florida is a ‘right to work’ state, lots of teachers don’t join the unions, which weakens the ability of the unions to protect a relative handful of ‘renegade’ teachers.
I loved Ilya Kuryakin! He was sooooo cute!
Administrative fiat just results in whiplash changes every time power changes hands.
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I don’t really want to see it done any other way than through Congress. When done this way, it sticks. Clearly we have gridlock over the past few decades which is suffocating. I also don’t mind a slow grind toward a better world. Over confident radicals of any stripe are generally wrong on a lot of items.
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Immigration needs to be formally dealt with. I don’t think I’m against immigration, I’m just against the open borders version.
angech,
My impression of Lindsey Graham is that he is unprincipled and dumb; those two are often found in the same person, of course.
Lucia,
The problem with all the snide remarks, nasty tweets, and executive orders that will be instantly blocked by courts, aside from being dumb, is that they distracted both Trump and most everybody else from focusing on real solutions to problems. In spite of all the nonsense, Trump did make significant progress on reducing illegal immigration through executive orders which were not blocked by the courts. But that progress was instantly reversed by President Alzheimers. Only Congress can return a measure of sanity to how the Federal government operates. The prospect for that seems, unfortunately, bleak.
Trump and Biden are at their political best merely useful idiots for something representing differences in how much power should be ceded to government. The difference on the side of less government is in my veiw not nearly sufficiently large to make immediate differences. It is more an effort to stop government growth and it has not been very effective.
Biden has been a much more effective idiot for the more-government side, while Trump with his self promotion approach detracting from changing government was a less effective idiot.
I believe Biden’s mental state and image as a frail old man has made him a more efficient progressive messenger. His mental state may get in the way but his gray personality does not. Trump’s personality and character foibles will black out any reasoned discussion of the size of government
I liked him better as Ducky. Probably something to do with aging. I did not realize how old he was.
Well, it’s official… we’re doomed in around 250 million years, according to https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/mammals-may-be-driven-to-extinction-by-volcanic-new-supercontinent-pangaea-ultima
It must be true, because it’s all just physics, right?
lucia (Comment #224433): “Getting congress to act will be difficult. But my point is it can’t be done without getting Congress to act. It is simply not possible for the executive to dissolve things like the FBI, EPA yada, yada.
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A great deal CAN be done without action from Congress. He can not eliminate agencies, but He can leave positions unfilled. He get rules such that bureaucrats who undermine their bosses get punished. He can block the issuing of bad regulations and roll back regulations on the books. He can appoint judges who are willing to rule against the administrative state.
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As Tom points out, the big problem with executive action is that it can be undone by the next guy. To really make a difference would take at least two or three consecutive terms by Presidents who are on the same page.
.
Durable change would require acts of Congress. But executive action can set the stage for that. For instance, the President can take actions to keep agencies from spending their full budgets. If done wisely, the public won’t notice the effect or might even like the effect. Then the reduced spending sets the starting point for next year’s budget. Rinse and repeat.
lucia (Comment #224434): “I don’t understand (a) how demonizing Russia is bad”.
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Demonizing foreign countries and/or leaders leads to bad policy. Demonizing Saddam got us into two wars both with horrid consequences for the Iraqi people, and the second with horrid consequences for us. Demonizing Putin was used by the Deep State as a weapon against Trump. Demonizing Russia blocks reasonable attempts at peace in Ukraine even if events develop to where a reasonable peace might be available. Demagoguery is no way to run a country.
Poll shows Trump beating Biden. NPR devotes 2400 words to eliminating him using the 14th amendment the next day. Just a coincidence from our defenders of democracy.
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/25/1200130870/14th-amendment-disqualify-trump-explained
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A host of other news outlets also saying the Supreme Court needs to rule on this now! States need to ban Trump just to get this to the SC. Scholars support this, very serious LEGAL SCHOLARS!
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Somehow … these very same scholars were not available during the NM gun ban edict. I guess they were on vacation, but they are answering the phone now.
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It’s conceivable that Trump would get kicked off the ballot in a few large blue states (NY, CA, IL) allowing another Republican contender to win the primary. I still don’t support it, period.
HaroldW,
“Well, it’s official… we’re doomed in around 250 million years”
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Or as Keynes said “In the Long Run we are all dead.”
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That was one of the few sensible things he ever said.
Mike M. (Comment #224446),
Exactly right.
Here’s a new spin, ha ha:
“Baude and Paulsen sketch out scenarios under which an already elected president would be disqualified or removed from office. “If a candidate for President, or an already-elected President, is constitutionally disqualified from office by Section Three, then that disqualification should be enforced by state election officials …”
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One can imagine the 14th amendment argument will get turned up to 11 if Trump wins the election with a post-election attempt to remove him before he takes office. Democracy demands that unelected partisan officials should get to decide who runs for office.
Tom Scharf,
“It’s conceivable that Trump would get kicked off the ballot in a few large blue states (NY, CA, IL)”
.
If so, I suspect the SC ‘shadow docket’ will go into high gear issuing immediate stays. I keep wondering: what the hell is wrong with all these people who think you can keep someone off the ballot because you really don’t like him?
Tom Scharf,
That NPR article is laughably stupid. A true recto-cranial inversion. NPR should be defunded by Congress; maybe George Soros can help fund them. That would be a lot more honest.
Tom Scharf,
That NPR article is laughably stup!d. A true recto-cran!al inversion. NPR should be defunded by Congress; maybe George Soros can help fund them. That would be a lot more honest.
.
The exclamations because the original was trapped in moderation.
Weekend at Bernie’s!
According to Ukrainian authorities, Admiral Victor Sokolov, the commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, was killed during their attack on the Black Sea Fleet Headquarters in Sevastopol.
Yesterday a picture of him appeared on a video screen at a large conference of military brass in Moscow. Trouble is, he looks dead in the picture, here:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1706703081893699966?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
Time will tell if it really is “Weekend at Bernie’s”.
Flying under the radar here is the Supreme Court case on a decades old ruling granting broad latitude to the agencies to interpret very broadly Congress’ language. If this rule is struck down it could invalidate half of the deep state’s current rules. It’s called the Chevron rule.
Mike,
“Demonizing foreign countries and/or leaders leads to bad policy.”
What should we do if foreign countries and/or leaders really are evil?
Lucia, I’ve been listening to quite a bit of Glenn Greenwald and he has changed my mind about American foreign policy. His argument is basically an echo of President Eisenhower’s farewell address warming about the military industrial complex and the administrative state. There is a long list of wars we have gotten involved in over the last 30 years which we lost or which turned out badly. Part of the elite game plan is to demonize the enemy. Often there are lies constructed as part of this campaign such as that Sadam Hussein was involved in 9-11 or that he had weapons of mass destruction. As with most good lies, there is always a grain of truth in these campaigns. Hussein was a ruthless dictator. Same with Putin. I doubt however that Putin is any worse than any other Russian government of the last 500 years. Russian culture is just quite corrupt with bribery an accepted part of daily life. But Ukraine is not any better in this regard. Bottom line: these demonization campaigns have a grain of truth that rapidly is expanded to include lies and distortions.
In reality one can trace this pattern back to WWI. Wilson used this opportunity to get the Sedition Act passed. This has been a stain on the Republic ever since. It is only used against “enemies of the state” who have often done nothing wrong. Wilson was a terrible President whose views were deeply troubling. This is where the administrative state and its stranglehold on American life started.
Lucia, I’ve been listening to quite a bit of Glenn Greenwald and he has changed my mind about American foreign policy. His argument is basically an echo of President Eisenhower’s farewell address warming about the military industrial complex and the administrative state. There is a long list of wars we have gotten involved in over the last 30 years which we lost or which turned out badly. Part of the elite game plan is to demonize the enemy. Often there are lies constructed as part of this campaign such as that Sadam Hussein was involved in 9-11 or that he had weapons of mass destruction. As with most good lies, there is always a grain of truth in these campaigns. Hussein was a ruthless dictator. Same with Putin. I doubt however that Putin is any worse than any other Russian government of the last 500 years. Russian culture is just quite corrupt with bribery an accepted part of daily life. But Ukraine is not any better in this regard. Bottom line: these demonization campaigns have a grain of truth that rapidly is expanded to include lies and distortions.
In reality one can trace this pattern back to WWI. Wilson used this opportunity to get the Sedition Act passed. This has been a stain on the Republic ever since. It is only used against “enemies of the state” who have often done nothing wrong. Wilson was a terrible President whose views were deeply troubling. This is where the administrative state and its stranglehold on American life started.
Lucia, I’ve been listening to quite a bit of Glenn Greenwald and he has changed my mind about American foreign policy. His argument is basically an echo of President Eisenhower’s farewell address warming about the military industrial complex and the administrative state. There is a long list of wars we have gotten involved in over the last 30 years which we lost or which turned out badly. Part of the elite game plan is to demonize the enemy. Often there are lies constructed as part of this campaign such as that Sadam Hussein was involved in 9-11 or that he had weapons of mass destruction. As with most good lies, there is always a grain of truth in these campaigns. Hussein was a ruthless dictator. Same with Putin. I doubt however that Putin is any worse than any other Russian government of the last 500 years. Russian culture is just quite corrupt with bribery an accepted part of daily life. But Ukraine is not any better in this regard. Bottom line: these demonization campaigns have a grain of truth that rapidly is expanded to include lies and distortions.
In reality one can trace this pattern back to WWI. Wilson used this opportunity to get the Sedition Act passed. This has been a stain on the Republic ever since. It is only used against “enemies of the state” who have often done nothing wrong. Wilson was a terrible President whose views were deeply troubling. This is where the administrative state and its stranglehold on American life started.
David Young,
Not flying too far under the radar; lots of people are aware of the issue with Chevron. See my Comment #224432.
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“Wilson was a terrible President whose views were deeply troubling.”
Agreed. He was factually wrong on almost everything, yet acted as if he was incapable of error and his opponents all obvious fools; he was the first quintessential progressive.
I think I understand the ‘demonization’ argument. This said, Russia invaded Ukraine. We can talk about how the Ukrainians are no less corrupt than the Russians and how Putin is no more corrupt than other Russian leaders and dance around equivocating all day long. Still, Russia invaded Ukraine; that can only be spun so far.
David Young,
Seems you heard how to do a speech right: Tell them what you are going to tell them , then tell them, then tell them what you told them. 😉
Today, even the friggin’ UN is accusing Russia of genocide. “U.N. experts decry war crimes by Russia in Ukraine and look into genocide allegations”
https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-09-25/un-rights-experts-decry-war-crimes-by-russia-in-ukraine-and-look-into-genocide-allegations
The UN is late to the party, trailing the ICC and others.
Sorry about the duplicate comments. My computer was hung and I hit the submit button multiple times.
mark bofill,
Yes, Russia invaded the Ukraine; most everyone in the west thinks the invasion was not justified.
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But the relevant issue is not ONLY if we think that invasion was justified, it is also if the Russians (and others, like India, China, and many others) think it was justified. The history of the region is plenty complicated enough to understand there are no pure white nor pure black cats involved. For example: at the end of WWII, Russia took about 25% of German territory and gave it to Poland (driving all the millions of native Germans out) and at the same time took an even bigger piece of Poland and declared that land to be Ukrainian (also driving out most of the native Poles). Does that eastern part of the Ukraine (about 1/4) really belong to the Ukraine, or to Poland? Does the Crimea, which has been Russian territory for most all of the past 300 years, really belong to the Ukraine, just because Stalin decided one day to declare it so? Russia made as series of decisions after WWII which enlarged Ukrainian territory enormously. Are we going to say that Stalin was a stand-up guy for the Ukrainians? Those are not rhetorical questions, they are real ones that need to be taken into account if the war is going end any time soon. I think people who try to simplify the situation in the Ukraine to a simple black and white question of right and wrong are making an end to the war very difficult, and are doing the Ukrainians a disservice….. especially the thousands who are going to die in battle over the coming months. Trump has a lot of crazy ideas (and he is an a$$hole), but here I think he is right: the killing needs to stop. We are wasting our money and tens of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian lives.
Steve,
The war needs to stop, no argument. That ought to be enough.
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If you think those other issues have something to do with it, OK. I don’t. There would never be any peace anywhere – there is always something inequitable that happened in the past that might change borders and territories. I don’t think Putin gives two shits about any of these old injustices.
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The war needs to stop, but that doesn’t suddenly turn a bunch of rationalized hooey into gold.
Russell Klier (Comment #224456): “What should we do if foreign countries and/or leaders really are evil?”
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I don’t see why we should do anything.
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That does not mean that we should not help Ukraine. But the reasons for doing so have nothing to do with Putin being evil or Zelensky being good.
The important thing about China, North Korea, and Iran is not the moral character of their leaders. The important thing is that they are threats.
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mark bofill (Comment #224461): “We can talk about how the Ukrainians are no less corrupt than the Russians”.
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We could, but I don’t think that is more than a minor issue. It becomes a major issue if our reason for supporting Ukraine is dependent on Putin’s character.
Condemnation of Putin and Russia can be separate and independent from the perfectly legitimate observation that the war needs to stop and that nobody is going to be happy with whatever ends up being negotiated, is what I’m trying to say.
The context was demonization, not war support. See my response to Steve.
marck bofill,
” I don’t think Putin gives two shits about any of these old injustices.”
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I rather suspect the Russians do give a shit. And that is one of the factors which matters in brining the war to an end.
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“The war needs to stop, but that doesn’t suddenly turn a bunch of rationalized hooey into gold.”
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We can agree to disagree. That you and so many others think the history of the region (including since the end of the cold war) is hooey is one of the main reasons why the war will not likely end any time soon. I do agree nobody is going to be happy with what is negotiated to end the war; that has always been my position. And why I say better to negotiate sooner rather than later.
Steve,
I did not say I thought the history of the region was hooey. I think that using the history of the region as a means of legitimizing Putin’s war is hooey. As you say, we can agree to disagree.
Mike,
“That does not mean that we should not help Ukraine. But the reasons for doing so have nothing to do with Putin being evil or Zelensky being good.”
I agree. I have repeatedly stated on these pages my reason for supporting sending arms to Ukraine. Lindsey Graham stated it more concisely than I do:
“Ukraine used 3% of US defense budget to destroy half of the Russian army”
I think identifying Russia and Putin as evil is worthwhile independently of justifying arming Ukraine. It reminds us we need to be prepared militarily for whatever aggression Russia and Putin send our way, most particularly a nuclear attack.
Russia did invade Ukraine but its complicated by the way the US has interfered in Ukraine’s internal politics prior to that. I believe there is evidence that the US has scuttled at least one possible peace deal and we were deeply involved in the coup in 2013 I think. In reality all countries in that part of the world have had large changes in their borders for hundreds of years. I don’t really care whether Ukraine or Russia controls Donbas or Crimea and I don’t see why the US elites seem to care so much. In fact, I don’t really care if Ukraine is a country at all.
Greenwald’s theory is the same one I advanced in my Climate Etc. blog post. Western elites are in a crisis of legitimacy. Brexit and Trump brought this to an active cold war between “populists” and the elites. This is true in Europe also. My thinking is that the Ukraine war is like all our 21st Century wars a way for Western elites to distract from their corruption by keeping people excited and devoted to hatred of a foreign devil rather than concentrating on the elites. This wouldn’t be possible without a compliant media that are now partially state run. This cold civil war is going to come to a head in 2024. Biden is no better than Putin in terms of trying to put his political opponents in prison. At least Putin only gives them 15 years. Biden’s DOJ wants Trump to die in prison. Not to mention the perhaps by now 40 Trump associated people who are getting swept up in this banana republic dragnet. This is a situation that is worse than even Wilson’s violations of the Bill or Rights during WWI. It is much worse than during the Civil War when the Bill of Rights was in full force outside areas in open rebellion.
I agree with SteveF’s points about the history of this part of the world and why it is deluded to insist on the sacredness of the current mostly accidental borders of countries.
MikeM
I don’t think calling Putin a thug is going to lead to bad policy.
SteveF
Yeah…. I was going to delete the duplicates for him. But now I just can’t! 🙂
David Young,
I should note you are discussing the war issue.
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I said I don’t see anything wrong with demonizing Putin. Especially when “demonizing” really translates into she called him a thug. Explaining that lots of Russian leaders have been thugs doesn’t make him not a thug. Vacarelli was a thug before Capone was a thug. That doesn’t make it wrong to call Capone a thug. And Lucky Luciano was also a thug.
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Putin is a thug. Pretending he’s not a thug isn’t going to achieve anything useful as far as I can tell.
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Even if his thuggishness is not a reason to help, there is also no reason why a candidate for president or a president should not point out that Putin is a thug. The guy is a thug. And he isn’t going to suddenly stop being a thug if people start saying “Oh… but really, he’s a nice guy!”
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I’d rather have a president who at least recognized Putin is a thug and is willing to say so. I don’t think “being diplomatic” by not saying it helps anyone.
Russell, It is cynical to use Ukrainian youth as cannon fodder to “destroy half the Russian army.” First that’s probably not really true. Casualties have been high on both sides. Ukraine’s economy has suffered enormously. I think I read GDP was down 30%. If you count up all the indirect costs, this war has had a price tag way higher than the amount of Western aid.
Part of the Biden administration record of lies (and hardly anything Biden says is really true) is that the “severe” sanctions have hurt Russia. They have helped to drive up energy prices which helps Russia because they can just sell their energy to the rest of the world. In fact, if BRICS succeeds an indirect result of these sanctions could be a serious blow to the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. The sanctions have hurt Europe too because of the increases of energy costs caused by the shutoff of Russian natural gas.
Lucia, Yes Putin and millions of punks around the globe are thugs. But this category is not very meaningful. Exactly how do you define the term? I don’t see the benefit of saying this over and over again. I outlined how Biden and his DOJ are worse than Putin’s regime in terms of free speech and persecution of political opponents. We are not materially better in terms of proxy wars around the world either.
The West, I think needs to accept that the cultures in that part of the world are highly tolerant of corruption, bribery, and violence. That has been true for literally 500 years. We had a Boeing division in Russia for 20 years starting in 1996. We went there and saw this first hand. The vast majority of Russians are marvelous people. But corruption is everywhere. The first American Boeing manager to live in Russia full time had to be pulled out because of danger to his family. Generally Moscow is a depressing place with lots and lots of quite run down apartment buildings that date from the Soviet era. The apartments are really small. The food is not good by Western standards. We went to a run down aviation museum northeast of Moscow which is an airfield with hundreds of planes and helicopters parked and rusting. We drove through northeast Moscow which reminded me of films of industrial Tokyo in the 1930’s. However, Moscow’s south is nicer and the WWII museum was very interesting. Russia has lots of big problems including rampant alcohol abuse, poverty, and a lack of housing, severe income inequality, and entrenched corruption. It is really not a serious economic or military threat except for nuclear weapons. In my opinion we should be working to help Russia, not demonizing the country and its leaders. Part of that can be putting pressure on politicians to try to clean up the corruption. Speaking of which, we have our own problems as the Biden influence peddling and money laundering operations and Senator Menendez show.
lucia (Comment #224475): “I don’t think calling Putin a thug is going to lead to bad policy.”
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It most certainly can lead to bad policy if you base policy on calling Putin a thug.
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That is where this thread started. Somebody complained about Haley demonizing Russia. She did that for the sole purpose of justifying our policy in Ukraine.
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Yes, Putin is a thug. That does not justify our policy.
Russell Klier (Comment #224472): “Lindsey Graham stated it more concisely than I do: ‘Ukraine used 3% of US defense budget to destroy half of the Russian army’.
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Lindsey Graham is despicable. If we are using Ukraine as a cat’s paw against Russia, then Putin and Biden deserve to be cellmates in hell.
I’m going to go way out on a limb here. I’d bet money I don’t even have that Lucia doesn’t think we should base policy on calling Putin a thug. I’m quite sure that’s not what I was trying to argue, anyway.
[Edit: This is much more complicated than it needs to be. I call Putin a thug, because I think he’s a thug. Honest political speech and thought here. There is no need for any agenda beyond this – honestly saying what we think.]
lucia
“I loved Ilya Kuryakin! He was sooooo cute!”
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My wife’s first crush.
At 10.
In black and white TV.
She spent last night watching U.N.C.L.E
replays
Mike M. Listen to a little Greenwald from the last 3 months to come up to speed on the neo-con bipartisan Washington uniparty and their support for war. Graham is high on the list. I’m surprised a little because he seemed to have seen the light on the road to Damascus once the conspiracy against Trump and anyone associated with him was out in the open. Greenwald is correct that advocating war from a safe distance is really goulish when its other people’s families that will do the fighting and dying.
The one thing Trump did was flush out a bunch of “Conservatives” who were really not Conservatives but who were united by their advocacy of wars others would fight. When Trump questioned NATO I think was the moment when the war of the elites against him became a crusade. Bill Kristal and David French stand out in my mind as debased human beings who voted for Biden I think knowing he would have a left wing administration. Most of the most rabid neo-cons were shown the Trump cross and turned into raving liars and abandoned conservativism. Liz and Dick Cheney come to mind as two more examples even though I don’t know how they voted. Maybe a more accurate description is that Trump and his movement has redefined conservatism and changed the Republican party. DeSantis would have been unthinkable to and perhaps still is to many of these so-called “conservatives.”
Heh. Trump is a populist. Merely because he has indeed had a large impact on the Republican party does not mean the word ‘conservative’ gets redefined to mean populist.
I always felt changing the meaning of well defined words was a leftist trick that ought to be beneath honest people.
The willingness to engage in Ukraine against Russia isn’t really about their domestic evil and their leader’s thug-ness IMO, it’s about whether Russia is an ongoing threat to the US or its NATO allies. It was a judgment call that Russia needed to be deterred or else they would continue their aggressive military moves. Putin may be defined a thug for this very behavior so there is some bidirectional cause/effect.
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I would say we continue to engage in Ukraine until that threat has been deterred. It’s my opinion it has already been deterred based on Russia’s slog of an effort so far. They can’t realistically believe they can take on NATO after this performance. However it is a mystery about how to end the war nonetheless if Russia doesn’t want to negotiate.
I like Greenwald but it needs to be pointed out that most of the foreign policy positions he chooses to engage on align with Russian interests. That doesn’t mean he is wrong or doesn’t make valid points. He called out Trump Russia collusion as a hoax early, has been adamant about Wikileaks, and of course was a major player in the Snowden affair, Snowden ending up in Russia. He resigned from the Intercept after they refused to print his Hunter Biden story which we all know was Russia disinformation, ha ha.
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Greenwald has been right a lot more often than he is wrong. Example:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/01/glenn-greenwald-russia-investigation.html
“And even if claims about Russian meddling are corroborated by Robert Mueller’s investigation, Greenwald’s not sure it adds up to much — some hacked emails changing hands, none all that damaging in their content, maybe some malevolent Twitter bots. In his eyes, the Russia-Trump story is a shiny red herring — one that distracts from the failures, corruption, and malice of the very Establishment so invested in promoting it.”
https://substack.com/inbox/post/137179945
Speaking of demonizing Russia, it now appears that not only was the Alpha bank “scandal” a hoax but the DNC hack attribution to Russia may have relied on the same discredited Georgia Tech researchers using the same methods and not on Crowdstrike as we were told by both the government and the media.
Another instance that comes to mind is Mueller indicting at least 10 Russians for election interference who he conveniently knew would never stand trial so that they would never get to defend themselves.
“Dismissed, the Alfa fiasco added to a growing pile of elaborate media fakes, one that came to include the Steele dossier, the so-called “Project Birmingham” stunt in which a company called New Knowledge assigned fake Russian Twitter accounts to Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore, and the “Hamilton 68” site funded by the German Marshall Fund which used a bogus tracking tool to make figures like Republican congressman Devin Nunes appear tied to “Russian bots.””
Mark, Conservative has never been a well defined term. Generally Trump’s administration aligned pretty well with Reagan conservatism but now always.
Tom, There was a proposal from Putin called the Minsk accords that Zelensky originally was going to accept. According to Greenwald he got a visit from Victoria Nuland and then changed his mind. I’ve forgotten if Greenwald had documentation for this or not. Biden and the neo-con rhetoric on this war is pretty extreme in demanding kicking Russia out of pre-2014 Ukraine. That is not going to happen short of a coup in Russia.
I would just point out that Russia has lost tremendous territory and influence in Europe since the fall of the Soviet Union. They do do foreign interventions like in Georgia and Chechnia and Syria. But the US does this kind of stuff too. Aside from nuclear weapons, the Russian military is a paper tiger, pretty good on the defense from prepared positions but terrible at mobil warfare. In the air, Western aircraft and systems are dramatically superior. I think I read that Russia’s military budget was $80 billion a year. We I think are on track for $800 billion.
“..I think I read that Russia’s military budget was $80 billion a year. We I think are on track for $800 billion…?
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To put this in a bit different context using, for an example of 150mm scale artillery ammunition, NATO cost is about $5,000 each. Russian cost is about $600 each.
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Russia generally owns a major portion of its military production companies and tends not to charge itself $600 for hammers and such as seen in US and NATO contractor billings.
Trump lost in court in a NY civil case about fraud in loan applications.
I haven’t read it all, but I think there is a math error on page 19. It states overvaluation between 17% and 38%, or $812 million to $2.2 billion.
The result of the case is the judge ordered the Trump Org to be dissolved in 10 days.
Comment on the affirmative action case-
The Supreme Court had previously ruled essentially that affirmative action was invalid but they were going to accept the universities’ claim that discrimination by means of pushing diversity is needed to boost the university’s quality. They added some language that they expected the discrimination to go away in 25 years.
In the current case, the Supreme Court did not overturn that ruling, though Clarence Thomas said that case is effectively dead.
Instead. the court noted that none of the universities presented any evidence of benefits from having this discrimination. They presented benefits to society, but nothing about benefits to education. Thus the court did not have to overturn their previous case. For all his emotional writing here, John Roberts loves making minimal decisions.
Ed, I don’t know what internal pricing in Russia is like. It could be that they massively subsidize military products. When Boeing was there, Russia had a lot of really good mathematicians but rather primitive computing and not much in the way of computer programmers. They had no capacity to build or use the sophisticated engineering design software Boeing has. We had to train some of them. They might be able to lease some of this software if sanctions and export laws permit it. I really doubt that Russian military hardware and particularly electronics is anywhere near as good as ours. Just think of how much sophistication in materials and computer software sent into developing stealth aircraft.
David Young (Comment #224479)
The Ukrainian people are speaking in one voice that they intend to liberate all of their compatriots living under Russian rule. It is not up to me to decide when Ukrainians should stop fighting [it’s none of your business either].
I think back to the columns of elite Russian tank battalions bearing down on Kyiv. This was before Western arms had arrived. The Ukrainians turned out with whatever weapons they had, often farm tools and bottles of gasoline, and slayed them. If we cut off their arms supplies the Ukrainians would go back to killing Russians with shovels.
Russell,
I agree with your sentiment. Whether or not we should support the Ukrainians with weapons and money is one question. A completely separate question as far as I am concerned is how long they should fight for their independence against the Russian invasion. You are quite right in my view to state that this decision is and should be entirely theirs.
I think there is a lot of superficial rationalization going on here that would never stand if it was a question of US territory rather than Ukrainian.
Ed Forbes (Comment #224492): “an example of 150mm scale artillery ammunition, NATO cost is about $5,000 each.”
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I think that is for the fancy guided shells. The normal they-land-where-they-land shells are an order of magnitude cheaper.
Russell Klier (Comment #224496): “The Ukrainians turned out with whatever weapons they had, often farm tools and bottles of gasoline, and slayed them.”
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That is silly. The Ukrainians stopped the Kiev offensive by unleashing Stalin’s “God of War”. But it took most of their stock of artillery shells.
As of 2020, 40% of the population of Texas is of Hispanic or Latino origin. Texas was in fact part of Mexico up until the 1840’s. We do not control the border of Texas today. If someone were to make an argument that we need to renegotiate an agreement with Mexico and cede some part of Texas to them, that would be absolutely and utterly out of the question.
Vladimir Putin has won territorial gains for Russia by right of conquest, and that’s fine, that’s the way the world works sometimes. Let’s not dress it up though. He has no more right to Ukrainian territory than Mexico has to Texas. Let’s not play pretend here.
Mike,
Yes, my comment “killing Russians with shovels” was an exaggeration. The Ukrainian army did use artillery, but ordinary citizens were part of the winning the Battle of Kyiv. Washington Post says “Ukrainians of all ages who had never held a gun rushed to take up arms after officials decided within days of the invasion to hand out weapons and arm a potential guerrilla resistance.” Wikipedia says “18,000 guns were handed out to citizens in the first days of the invasion.”
More from WP:
“The visible determination of ordinary citizens underscored that Ukraine couldn’t be forcibly removed from Europe the way the Kremlin wanted”
“Many of those who died were part of Ukraine’s Territorial Defense Forces — volunteers who signed up by the thousands in the first days of the war. Though the majority were inexperienced fighters, they took on crucial and dangerous roles, providing critical extra manpower.”
This became a rallying cry:
“They have brought a lot of suffering to my family,” he said. “Now I hate them.”
Mark,
“He has no more right to Ukrainian territory than Mexico has to Texas. Let’s not play pretend here.”
Well said.
mark bofill (Comment #224500): “[Putin] has no more right to Ukrainian territory than Mexico has to Texas.”
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Excellent example. Not to mention New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
mark bofill,
As I keep saying, it is not just the opinion of people in the west that matters. Do you think that Russians agree with you? I suspect they don’t. And they are not playing pretend.
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There are only two plausible ways the war can end: Russia withdraws, giving Crimea to the Ukraine, or there is a negotiated settlement, no matter how distasteful that negotiation may be. If the Russians think Crimea is just as much part of Russia as you think Texas is part of the USA, and I believe many do, then they are unlikely to ever withdraw. That leaves negotiation (with a thug like Putin!!!) as the only option for ending the war. Escalation by the USA and NATO runs the risk that Russia will use nuclear weapons to keep Crimea, and they have not been shy about saying that.
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I believe refusal to suggest a negotiated settlement should be considered (the current US policy) means the war does not end for a long time. At some point taxpayers will tire of 3 million illegal aliens entering the USA each year, with no significant expenditure (or even effort!) to stop it, and reject spending $100 billion a year we don’t have to support the Ukraine, which will likely end the war on terms far less favorable to the Ukraine.
China looks to be well ahead in battery technology. Apparently Ford has no idea how to manufacture EV batteries. They want to do a joint venture with a Chinese firm to teach them how. Oh, and they also want those EV’s to qualify for taxpayer subsidies.
https://www.wsj.com/business/autos/this-ford-vs-gm-feud-could-shape-the-future-of-evs-in-america-ed9a98ae?st=t5aisp1cr098jpm&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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Stories like these make me wonder what all those other taxpayer subsidies for climate change and green energy programs were spent on. It seems there has been one failure after another. Maybe the US government can do a joint venture with the Chinese government to learn how to subsidize industry more effectively. This is looking to be a gigantic mess, I can’t believe Ford thinks it has to learn how to build batteries from China. Embarrassing.
Steve,
We don’t disagree about how this ends. I just don’t like [] pretending that this is something other than what (I think) it is.
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I get what you’re saying, everybody has their own perspective. I’m sure there are Russians who have a different perspective, just as I’m sure that there are Mexicans who have a different perspective. But this isn’t about them. It’s not like this was a spontaneous popular uprising. This was (and remains) something that is happening by Putin’s will, maybe Putin and a relatively small number of Russian leaders. I don’t think you really believe Putin cares about anything here except his own hide and the political, economic and military power of Russia. That’s what this is about.
But YES. If we want this to end, we need to negotiate with the thug. No doubt. I sneer at right of conquest, but like I acknowledged before it IS the way the world works.
We can’t negotiate an end to the war with Russia. This war ain’t over till Ukraine says it’s over. (apologies to Brother Bluto)
One point of reference…Before the war started, the majority ethnic group in Crimea was Russian. The majority was Ukrainian in the other areas captured by Russia.
Russell,
While I agree with you in a literal sense, in a practical sense[] I don’t believe Ukraine would continue to find the will to fight without support. I think that US aid is a powerful source of hope that helps keep them going, and that if we withdrew our support, it’d become much more likely that Ukraine would realize a willingness to negotiate sooner.
Maybe I’m wrong, and more power to them if they’d like to defy Russia forever. But I’ll admit, while I’m sympathetic to Ukraine, I’m not clear on why they should get to fight forever on the U.S. taxpayer’s dime.
mark bofill,
Lets hope native Americans don’t start demanding that everyone other than native Americans leave North America. 😉
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The legitimacy of all national borders is based on a combination of history, individual opinion, realpolitik, and, of course, economic and military power. Maintaining national borders is probably the biggest reason most countries have armed forces. I think it is naive to imagine all current national borders around the world are ‘morally correct’ and never going to change…. but that is a big part of the ‘rules based international order’ the Biden administration is insisting on. That way lies debacles of death and destruction like Afghanistan, Iraq, and now the war in Ukraine.
Steve,
Our positions are probably closer than either of us realize. Maybe our difference is just this – is it ‘morally correct’ for one nation to invade another? Or maybe a better way to ask is, can we not agree that it is ‘morally incorrect‘ for one nation to invade another, all other things held equal?
I’ll freely admit that there are probably cases where I am wrong. Would it be ‘morally incorrect’ for us to liberate North Korea? I think an argument could be made that maybe it would NOT be morally incorrect. I think in the cases we are discussing though (and in the general use case throughout the world) – yes. It’s wrong. If we believe the moral foundation of government is the consent of the governed or anything even similar to that, it seems to me that we believe humans have the right to chose their government. Invasion is a forceful violation of that right.
Rights and morals aside, because they have little to do with what is and what will be. I simultaneously support condemning the thug for his evil behavior and reckoning with the practical reality of his powers.
One more thing, and it’s not all that important, but still.
The Indians issue you point out is, IMO, an example for why I tend to just support the current status quo. Practically everywhere belonged to somebody else at some point in time. Injustices abounded throughout history. We WILL NOT set them [all of the historical injustices] straight today, and trying to do so would only create new injustices.
So. I know it’s not very satisfactory. I don’t know what else to do though than say – how about we go no further. Let’s NOT commit new injustices. We are where we are, we’re going to let the past be the past, and try to be civilized today and from this point forward, to the extent we can actually make that work.
Just how I view it anyway.
In another sign the woke apocalypse is ebbing…
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A New Yorker writer fact checks a high profile comedian who bases most of his comedy on personal identity politics stories and audience shaming. It didn’t go well for him.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/hasan-minhajs-emotional-truths
“When we met on a recent afternoon, at a comedy club in the West Village, Minhaj acknowledged, for the first time, that many of the anecdotes he related in his Netflix specials were untrue. Still, he said that he stood by his work. “Every story in my style is built around a seed of truth,” he said. “My comedy Arnold Palmer is seventy per cent emotional truth—this happened—and then thirty per cent hyperbole, exaggeration, fiction.””
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Fact checking a comedian is a bit bizarre, but the point here is a left wing publication actually did this at all, and actually printed the story. We are a lot closer to “equity” when everyone is open to the same level of criticism based on their character. Identity grifters are increasingly getting taken down.
“..Russia’s production costs are also far lower than the West’s, in part because Moscow is sacrificing safety and quality in its effort to build weapons more cheaply, Mr. Salm said. For instance, it costs a Western country $5,000 to $6,000 to make a 155-millimeter artillery round, whereas it costs Russia about $600 to produce a comparable 152-millimeter artillery shell, he said…”
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https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/us/politics/russia-sanctions-missile-production.html
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“.. However, guided 155 mm shells, like the M982 Excalibur, are significantly more expensive. It is estimated that one Excalibur shell costs more than 110 thousand US dollars – around 103 thousand euros. This is because Excalibur has GPS, inertial navigation systems that significantly increase the chances of a direct hit. Ukraine has received some Excalibur rounds as well, but the majority of the shells it uses are conventional…”
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https://www.technology.org/2023/01/05/how-much-do-155-mm-artillery-rounds-cost-now-and-how-many-are-fired-in-ukraine/
I agree with SteveF. A couple of points:
1. Zelensky ran on a peace platform. After being elected, he changed his mind and Glenn Greenwald makes a good case that this was because of US pressure.
2. I have read credible reports that Putin agreed to the Minsk accords that basically ratified the current situation on the ground. Zelensky was going to agree but reneged under US pressure.
3. The US promoted the coup in 2013 or 2014 that replaced a Russia friendly government with an unfriendly one. It appears that US officials were effectively picking cabinet ministers for the new government.
4. The propagandist narrative of the brave Ukrainian citizens taking a rifle and defeating the Russian army is naive. It has an element of truth, but realities have changed. Ukraine is having trouble filling the ranks and has imposed draconian penalties for desertion and draft resistance.
5. Pushing NATO right up to Russia’s borders is quite a provocation that earlier American administrations resisted. Why did we do this now?
6. It is important to understand the dynamic of the demonization campaign of the Democrat party and the media against Russia and Putin. I earlier referenced a detailed investigative journalism piece by Matt Taibbi calling into question whether it was the Russians who hacked the DNC server. There has been a pattern here of lies and fabrications to support this narrative that seems to be mostly a disinformation campaign.
This looks to me more and more like a US inspired proxy war designed to “weaken” Russia and its military. But its a cowardly and ghoulish effort with the war cheerleaders and their families staying at a safe distance while we fight to the last Ukrainian. We are also spending money we don’t have.
I think the case to be made against resorting to wars has to be a straight out anti-war argument. Wars are simply the worst and wrong way to settle disputes. Getting into rationalizations based on politics and geopolitical arguments do not convince because of a plethora of counter arguments.
A current rationalizations for continuing the war is that for some low percentage (so far) of our defense budget we are killing hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers. Prolonging the war is also killing, maiming, displacing and impoverishing millions of Ukranians.
I also do not see a contradiction being anti-war and calling out the politicians involved in the war. Calling a deserving soul an SOB is not the same as initiating force or violence against him.
“This looks to me more and more like a US inspired proxy war designed to “weaken” Russia and its military.”
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Yes. That’s not a secret, nor is it a shameful objective. Exactly how much we invest in that effort is worth debate.
Tom Scharf,
“This is looking to be a gigantic mess, I can’t believe Ford thinks it has to learn how to build batteries from China. Embarrassing.”
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The “big three” US auto companies are not big-time innovators; it would be shocking if they did (or even could!) develop competitive battery technology on their own. To start, they have high labor costs, which will only grow, putting them at a disadvantage. Foreign-owned companies are producing cars in the USA in places like South Carolina, and have lower labor costs.
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WRT to the Biden administration and the $7,500 credit for EVs: they are between a rock and a hard place. Tesla sources most of its batteries outside the USA from multiple companies, including the biggest Chinese battery maker that also makes the cheapest (“pyramid”) cells; these cheap cells are going into Tesla’s cheaper models. The premium Tesla models continue to use mostly Panasonic cells that cost more but have greater capacity.
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But here is the problem for President Alzheimer’s: the US car manufacturers will not be competitive with Tesla, in spite of Tesla cars not being eligible for the $7,500 credit, if they have to develop the technology for making cells on their own… and will be many (many!) years behind in technology. If Ford is allowed to use foreign technology to make cells (which is what they are doing at their “giga-factories”), then President Alzheimer’s would have to give Tesla cars the credit as well (at least the cars with batteries produced in the USA using foreign technology)…. likely making the USA car companies again not competitive with Tesla. There is no good way to finesse this; they could try to say only “union represented” companies could participate in the credit program, but that would likely be struck by the courts.
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I have a better idea: stop giving credits for purchasing an EV; let them compete in the car market on their own. I know, that is not going to happen any time soon.
Tom, I think you need to expand and detail your thinking on this matter. For example:
Would the policy makers use the term proxy war?
Are you saying that prolonging the war with the turmoil and destruction that involves is justified as long as the Russian military is being degraded?
Is Russia with a degraded military more likely to resort to nuclear threats, tactics associated with terrorist groups and serious hacking?
David Young (Comment #224514)
“The propagandist narrative of the brave Ukrainian citizens taking a rifle and defeating the Russian army is naive.”
‘propagandist and naive’, I must admit this is the first time I have been insulted twice in one sentence. I am going to add it to my Hall of Fame.
This comes to mind:
“Don’t use a five-dollar word when a fifty-cent word will do.” — Mark Twain
You also wrote:
“But its [sic] a cowardly and ghoulish effort with the war cheerleaders and their families staying at a safe distance while we fight to the last Ukrainian.”
‘cowardly and ghoulish’ is another sentence with a double ad hominem. You are very good at this, hurling aggression while staying at a safe distance.
Another thing I noticed is that your insults are words that can be used in polite company. I often am at the receiving end of profanity. Like this recent classy one:
“Russell, I don’t think anyone would be entertained by my ripping you a new asshole.”
Russell,
I am so sorry. I had no idea that you were such a delicate snowflake that reading profanity would disturb you so. I will make a special effort to convey my contempt for you in the future without resorting to language which is inappropriate for polite company.
Proxy war: a war instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved.
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I would not use the term “instigated” or “inspired” here, although I have seen those arguments. I don’t think the US was looking for this war, but it is a war they “are not involved in” via the aspect that US forces are not directly involved. So probably not the right word for my thinking now that I read the exact definition. I was only loosely thinking “proxy war” as others fighting for US objectives.
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A clear objective of the war in my view was to degrade Russia if they didn’t leave Ukraine, which never looked likely. The war is justified if it stops Russia from any further incursions. This view is based on a likelihood that Russia wasn’t going to stop until they were forced to militarily. They did not stop at Crimea. If you want to make the argument that Russia was just going to conquer Ukraine and then everlasting peace was going to happen, make that argument. I don’t buy it.
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A degraded Russia incapable of European land wars makes NATO safer. We have nuclear weapons too and the same nuclear deterrent we had before the war still exists.
Mark,
Best laugh I had all day!
CNN, ha ha ha ha:
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/27/us/philadelphia-looting-arrests/index.html
“All liquor stores in Philadelphia were closed Wednesday after several locations were looted shortly following the conclusion of peaceful protests against a judge’s decision to dismiss all charges against a former Philadelphia police officer in a fatal traffic stop shooting.
The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board closed 49 retail wine and liquor stores – 48 in Philadelphia – after 18 stores were looted overnight, Shawn Kelly, press secretary for the board, told CNN.”
“The city’s interim police commissioner said he believes the looters were “opportunists” that were not directly connected to the protests.”
“Stanford said it was unclear how many businesses were hit Tuesday, but that targeted stores included clothing and sneaker shops, high-end stores, wine and spirit stores and pharmacies.”
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I thought the official euphemism was mostly peaceful protests. Here we have peaceful protests randomly and coincidentally immediately followed by looting of stores. No True Scotsman.
Tom,
“A degraded Russia incapable of European land wars makes NATO safer.”
Well said.
I suggest two thoughts for your consideration:
One, Russia will probably not be able to rebuild its war machine to the point that it threatens Europe for a long time. Maybe ten or twenty years.
Two, Europe is supplying more arms to Ukraine than the US. Europe may be less willing to appease Putin’s aggression with territorial spoils than the US is. Europe had a terrible experience with appeasement to Hitler.
Russell, My comment was not specifically about you but the neo-con uniparty in Washington and in the corrupt media. I don’t know you and didn’t mean to insult you personally. I’m not even sure you rise to the level of someone whose opinions should be worthy of a response from me. As far as I can see you are following the war closely but have no special sources of information. Am I missing something?
David Young (Comment #224525)
” …. Am I missing something?”
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Grace?
Does anyone here take Russia seriously as a military power outside their huge nuclear stockpile? The Russian military has a terrible track record in actual hot wars starting in WWI. They only won in WWII because of German mistakes and sheer numbers and the help of their Western allies. I believe most of their weapons systems are out of date and certainly lack the sophisticated control and guidance systems of our weapons. So far in Ukraine they have demonstrated complete inability to conduct a mobile offensive successfully.
To make the case that we should try to weaken the Russian military you first need to show that this military is an actual threat to the West. I just don’t see it.
I doubt Putin’s ambitions extend beyond the areas that were in the old Soviet Union. Probably the only countries that might on his target list besides Ukraine are the Baltic states. Beloruss is already a friendly government.
My nephew works for a big consulting firm in DC and one of their big areas is electric vehicles. The government is paying them to tell them how to electrify their fleet of vehicles, I’m assuming even military ones.
He says that EV’s are a way that upper middle class white folks signal their virtue to their peer group but that they are not very practical in reality.
Darn it, I don’t feel like watching the debates tonight. It seems so pointless; Trump will very probably crush them like ants and secure the nomination regardless.
Anyone want to hazard a guess as to whether Trump will be the Republican nominee from jail? I could imagine either Fulton County or Washington DC finding him guilty and locking him up. Two bites at the apple; probably better than even odds the guy is going to jail. Anyone?
I do not know if it were reported here but Poland has stopped supplying weapons to Ukraine in order to resupply themselves. It was not received well by Zelensky. I believe it is part of a grain transport dispute between those nations. Poland has been Ukraine’s staunchest ally during the war and has done a heroic effort with Ukrainian war refugees.
I think a possible outcome for this war could be similar to other outcomes for recent wars in which the US has been involved. That being the US will be the bad guy – not that that possible outcome will change anybody’s mind about this war or another one.
I find the argument that the US / NATO proxy war against Russia with Ukraine is making the Russian army weaker amusing.
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Russian war production is admitted by the west to be much larger and much more efficient than western production in the items that matter in a land war against Russia. US Aircraft carriers, for one example, have little use against Russia.
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Wars have the ability to degrade a nations military as well as making it hyper dominant. For every example of wars making a nation weaker, I can give a counter example.
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The US Civil war ended with the US having the most powerful army in the world at the cessation of hostilities. The US forced France forces out of Mexico when the US focused its attention on the southern border by the very real threat of war. A war France would have had no chance of success in.
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WWII saw both the US and the Soviet Union hyper dominate militarily over the entire world at the end of the conflict.
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The war in Ukraine is piling up huge debts for the NATO alliance where Russia is paying for the war almost entirely from revenue. Russia has a very low national debt where the US has an enormous debt to finance and is increasing their debt heavily over time.
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The Russian army is both increasing in size and becoming more professional as it transitions from a mostly conscript force during this war.
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I see this war ending as did WWI, with the collapse of the Ukraine army due to casualties sustained by the overwhelming Russian superiority in air, artillery, missiles, and drone systems. As long as Ukraine is willing to either stand or advance against Russian overwhelming fire supremacy, Russia will be happy to sit in their trenches and pound the Ukraine army into extermination. This might take 1 year or several years, but unless NATO comes over the border in force, it will happen.
Teslas are still eligible for $7500 credits. Had something to do with a recent bill and they made Teslas eligible as well. I know of one recent purchaser who got the credit.
Trump is not inevitable as the Republican nominee. Unless, of course, everybody decides that Trump is inevitable and that the primaries are pointless.
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As the field narrows, most of the support of failed candidates will likely go to non-Trump candidates, narrowing Trump’s lead. As that happens, the average voter will pay more attention to the alternatives, possibly resulting in voters moving away from Trump.
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Trump does have a formidable advantage in that he has an unshakable base of support; maybe 30% of Republicans. But that leaves open the possibility that he will not get a majority in a head-to-head match up against a suitable opponent. Of course, the fact that it might be possible for a Republican candidate to beat Trump head-to-head does not mean that any of the others are up to the job. Time will tell.
Thanks Mike. I know abstractly he’s not a certainty. He’s just distressingly probable. Time will tell, as you say.
Mark, I doubt Trump will get to sentencing in any of these cases before the election. These are all very complex cases with mountains of evidence and multiple defendants which means just discovery will take months. Now a partisan judge can cut these things short but if its too blatant higher courts can slap that down. I’m not an expert so I could be wrong on this.
I can envision a strategy where as the prosecutorial and judicial abuses pile up Trump appeals to the Supreme court and the cases are thrown out. Jack Smith has a tract record as a partisan hack. He prosecuted Bob McDonald while he was running for President and convicted him. The Supreme Court threw it out on a unanimous vote. I am hoping that these cases will get to Federal court soon as I believe they will get tossed with the possible exception of the classified documents case which is where Trump has the most exposure. Of course, there is the Hillary standard set by Comey.
During WWI, Wilson’s DOJ put Eugene Debbs the socialist candidate for President in jail and he campaigned from jail. I think he got 10% of the vote. His sentence was commuted by Harding. The law used was the Sedition Act which criminalized opposition to the war and various vaguely defined acts of political speech and there were quite a few prosecutions. This Act is a stain on our Republic. When there is no obvious crime, its a go to option for corrupt prosecutors. One of these cases went to the Supreme Court where the “yelling fire in a crowded theatre” opinion came from. The author quickly made it clear he was a little off in that opinion. Was Holmes the justice? I forget. But the Supreme Court has never overturned this law perhaps because prosecutions are very rare in the modern era.
Ed, You have a good point. However, I read somewhere however that Russian tank production was 1000 per year. They also have limited capacity to produce artillery rounds. If this is correct, it would seem that the army will be weaker in the next 5 years or so at least. I wish I could remember the exact numbers which I think came from the BBC or the Wall Street Journal.
Thanks David.
I don’t really understand the strategy against Trump. I believe the prosecutions are intended to somehow keep him out of the Oval Office, but I don’t see how they plan to get from point A to point B. I was familiar with Debs, yes. Trump might go from jail to the White House. If they actually jail him, I think the odds of his winning might actually increase.
We live in unusual times.
Ed,
“The Kremlin often claimed it had the second strongest military in the world — and many believed it,” Blinken said during a speech in Helsinki, Finland.
“Today, many see Russia’s military as the second strongest in Ukraine.”
All true!
Mark, I also believe that the deep state/media/ big tech censorship industrial complex is playing a very dangerous game. Yoel Roth had an oped in the NYT complaining that there was rapidly increasing resistance and opposition to this complex’s recent efforts. They are also panicing about the rise of independent media like Substack and Rumble. There really is now a critical mass of real reporters on this. Greenwald for example is now being extremely critical of the Democrat party for betraying its former principles. If Republicans return to power there is going to be a Biblical retribution of these corrupt liars. Either DeSantis or Trump will know what to do on day 1. No more Jeff Sessions or Bill Barr’s I’m guessing. I also believe that mass pardons will come for the thousands of people who are being persecuted by the DOJ including peaceful grandmother abortion protestors.
Mike N,
It’s complicated: https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/2/23747511/tesla-model-3-7500-tax-credit-ev
Apparently the less expensive Teslas do qualify for the credit because their batteries meet the minimum required USA sourced/processed levels. These levels rise each year, so there is no easy way to know if/when the cheaper Teslas will no longer qualify.
DeSantis seems to be really on his game tonight.
This debate seems better than the first one. But the moderators are worse.
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Well, that didn’t last long. Scott(!) getting nasty.
Mike M,
Asa being gone must help. 😉
The second block not nearly as good. The moderators are bad, especially the ESL lady from Univision.
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I think DeSantis has pulled into a clear lead. Vivek also doing well. Haley not replicating her earlier performance.
It will be critical for the Republicans to thin the herd early to get one challenger against Trump. Not sure they are organized enough to do that. Perhaps the top two challengers can combine their ticket. Otherwise it is obvious there is a Trump vote and everyone else will split the not-Trump vote. If they don’t thin the herd then Trump wins easily, if they do then I think it will be a tight race.
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Trump’s strategy to not debate is wise, people think he is crazy, but he is not.
My inexpert and biased review.
DeSantis was easily the star of the show.
Burgum had a good night and might have improved his position a lot. He could hardly hurt it.
Ramaswamy was much more restrained, but still had his moments. Probably helped himself.
Scott tried going nasty a couple times. I don’t think he helped himself.
Haley had some moments, but nothing like the first debate.
Christie and Pence as expected. Not that it matters.
The moderators were lousy.
I tuned in for a couple of minutes but got tired of everyone trying to talk at the same time. Very bad moderators. They should have kill switches for the mics.
The judge in the DC case seems very partisan. Appeals for Bob McDonnell, Tom Delay, Newt Gingrich took many years. In the meantime Trump can lose the election and probably be in jail.
Consolidating support against Trump seems unlikely because they can’t chose a candidate. You can’t wait until the primaries are started.
MikeN,
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It doesn’t look like any of the candidates has the support for a consolidation.
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Does it make sense that if the sum of the non_trump support doesn’t equal his, no-one now running can do anything beyond represent the 40-45% that doesn’t want him?
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It would be different if he had 30%, but he has more than enough to fend off any of the others failing some mass stumble on the road to Damascus, which seems unlikely given that nonew of his current troubles has bothered his supporters.
David Young (Comment #224546): “I tuned in for a couple of minutes but got tired of everyone trying to talk at the same time. Very bad moderators. They should have kill switches for the mics.”
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You must have turned in at some point in the middle. For the most part, the debate was more orderly than the first one, although it did go off the rails a few times. I don’t think the moderators should get any credit for that. Instead, it seemed like 6 of the 7 candidates decided that they would be better served by attacking Biden and/or Trump rather than each other. The big exception was Tim Scott, although some of the others occasionally couldn’t help themselves.
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The big problem with the moderators was that they had a loooong list of questions they wanted to get through. So they would get responses from one or two candidates, then move on to the next question. And some of the questions were quite bad, especially from the (apparent) Democrat reporter from Univision.
MikeN (Comment #224547): “Consolidating support against Trump seems unlikely because they can’t chose a candidate. You can’t wait until the primaries are started.”
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That is a really silly claim, amounting to saying that the primary voters should not get a say. The field will need to be winnowed to one or two challengers by Super Tuesday, which is still more than 5 months away.
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john ferguson (Comment #224548): “It would be different if he had 30%”
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That is roughly the amount of solid support Trump does have.
It’s a long way to the election still. Trump can be beaten, but not by 4 anti-Trumps. I’d like to pretend that Trump will stumble on his own, but his support doesn’t really seem to be about Trump himself, but about what he represents. Anti-elite, anti-media, anti-politics, anti-intellectual, anti-woke, anti-deep state, anti-establishment. One can take issue with whether Trump is really those things, but his followers believe it so it doesn’t matter.
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It’s kind of like Obama at the start, he just projected vague things and people believe what they wanted. Now the media establishment has become completely neutered and cannot even move the vote (their own fault), even by reporting the truth fairly, which they won’t.
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Ugh. Trump’s old. Something may happen.
Mike M,
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30% “solid” ? I’m sure you are right, but is the 30% a figure from a survey in which the other candidates’ support was also surveyed?
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I had thought Trump’s support among likely Repbulican voters was more like 52%. I suppose the wording of the surveys deeply affects the balance of the results.
WSJ news side with another hit job on Musk, arguing that Tesla stock is way overvalued. This article is poorly written and amounts to opinion.
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How Much Is Tesla Worth? You Decide
It is hard to justify the company’s $859-billion valuation without assuming that the car industry will change almost beyond recognition
https://www.wsj.com/finance/stocks/how-much-is-tesla-worth-you-decide-78b25ab1?st=8pkapg2m9w5abum&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“But investors shouldn’t let the familiarity of such comparisons blind them to their strangeness. It is weird that a company that makes money from cars derives much of its value from something else.”
“If we can only stretch those numbers far enough to justify about half of Tesla’s current valuation based on potential cash flows from car sales, the stock is either hugely overvalued or investors are factoring in cash flows from elsewhere.”
“Only Tesla gets the vast valuation benefit of the doubt.”
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I don’t recall them ever doing this type of article before, maybe they have. A stock is worth exactly as much as people are willing to pay for it. There have been loads of stocks way overvalued before, see the internet bubble or GameStop. This is a news industry that has been huge fans of green energy and electric vehicles for at least a decade. This is about Musk and the illuminati’s distaste for him.
Tom,
Aren’t peoples valuation claims always opinions? (Yes….)
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I don’t know if Tesla is overvalued or not. I don’t try to estimate correct valuations much.
john ferguson (Comment #224552): “I had thought Trump’s support among likely Repbulican voters was more like 52%. I suppose the wording of the surveys deeply affects the balance of the results.”
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The last I saw, Trump’s support among Republicans was something like 75% with DeSantis having around 80% support. The latter number may have slipped.
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I think that polls tend to get top-of-mind answers. So if you ask for ONE name, then you will get “Trump” from a lot of people who might or might not vote for Trump in the primary.
Mike M.(Comment #224555)
DeSantis 80% support? Recently?
More typically the WSJ doesn’t report its journalist’s * personal * opinion on valuation as a news article. It reports material financial news and lets investors make up their own mind. Perhaps it would have been a good thing for them to go down the “credit default swaps on overleveraged real estate is crazy” path 15 years ago. When news organizations traffic in this stuff (“analysis”) then they typically parrot outside expert’s opinions that they happen to agree with. This one was just a bit odd in presentation and its target selection, if not making a valid point that is obvious to anyone on rudimentary analysis.
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People over invest in Tesla because they are the best bet for an electric car transition. Who else are you going to bet on in this space?
john ferguson (Comment #224556): “DeSantis 80% support? Recently?”
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Yes. Well, 4 months ago; like I said, it might have slipped.
https://wirepoints.org/new-m3-poll-shows-trump-and-desantis-in-the-lead-in-early-primary-states-m3/
Ah, I see I was remembering the New Hampshire numbers.
Of course, he might have some supporters among those who has him lower on their list. And there is this:
Re: Tom Scharf (Comment #224553)
Tesla has a market cap bigger than the top ten other automakers with about 5% of the sales. IMO, this is built upon something other than company fundamentals. Time will tell.
More proof that the US steel companies are managed by idiots (not to mention the reporters covering up the story)
A Futuristic Plan to Make Steel With Nuclear Fusion
Helion Energy and Nucor are teaming up to build a power plant at one of Nucor’s U.S. steel mills
https://www.wsj.com/business/a-futuristic-plan-to-make-steel-with-nuclear-fusion-2a18ac35?st=xvwbkkzih2944z0&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
*sigh*
There are so many problems with this that it would take way too long to list them even if I had a keyboard rather than just one finger. Helion claims they can fuse 2H with 3He without emitting neutrons. Wrong! At the conditions required to do that reaction, you’ll get 2H+2H fusion, which does produce a neutron. And that’s not to mention where you’re going to get 3He. It’s only a tiny fraction of the amount of 4He.
It’s definitely going to be interesting to see this EV market play out. There will be winners and losers, I just hope China doesn’t end up dominating. The US manufacturers need to consider this a mortal threat, not sure I’m seeing urgency on their part yet.
BYD is growing fast, getting close to Tesla’s share of the global EV market. Projections are for BYD to become the market leader in EV sales in 2024.
Because of all the winner take all primaries, consolidating after Super Tuesday is too late. It is how you end up with Romney or McCain before voters have really made up their minds. To have a chance to beat Trump in 2016, they would have had to get Rubio to drop out a few weeks before, rather than continue to split the vote. Democrats have more of a chance with this logic because they have more primaries where the delegates are distributed among the candidates.
It looks like Toyota spent too long in the hydrogen wilderness, they are way behind.
I have been going through all the specifics of how modern internal combustion engines work. It’s amazing these things work reliably at all, ha ha. So many moving parts, liquids, gases, pumps, vacuums, exhausts, chains, cams, pistons, spark plugs, valves, fuel injectors, turbos, radiators, starters, alternators, fans, batteries, ecu’s, etc. And they easily last over a 100K miles now with massive vibration/shock and extreme temperatures. Good thing we had a 100 years to perfect them.
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They are crazy complicated relative to electric drivetrains (which are complex in other ways but not to the same scale). There isn’t enough data yet but it seems electric drivetrains are actually holding up OK which is pretty good for early generation products.
Tom Scharf,
IC engines don’t have to be complicated. SAAB made three cylinder two cycle engine with only seven moving parts: a crankshaft, three pistons and three connecting rods. Intake and exhaust ports were slots in the cylinder walls exposed by piston movement, so no cam. IIRC, it used glow plugs, so no distributor. I doubt you could get one to pass emission standards, though. You would have a moving throttle plate somewhere.
Tom, It amazes me how much better ICE cars have gotten. In the 1980’s Detroit was producing junk that broke down frequently. My Acura TSX has about 100,000 miles and has never had any issues except routine maintenance. I think perhaps this has something to do with fuel injection.
What I’ve heard is that the battery is the weak link in EV technology. Electric motors are long lasting and reliable. You hear these horror stories of people trying to do road trips in EV’s being unable to find a working charging station.
What little I’ve seen indicates that expert opinion is that DeSantis won the debate. That’s fine with me. I find it odd that all these minor candidates who have no prospects are attacking Trump but don’t seem to realize that their continued candidacy makes Trump inevitable. These fringe candidates should drop out. That includes Cristy, Scott, Pence, and perhaps Ramiswamy who is competing for Trump voters.
My wife told me this evening that DeSantis was endorsed by Liz Cheney, Karl Rove, and Paul Ryan. This does give me pause and raises a nagging fear that DeSantis might govern as a typical old style Republican moderate and end up supporting the regime of endless foreign wars. It is too late to return to politics as it was in the 1990’s in my opinion. The country must choose between populism and authoritarianism. This same choice faces Europe and especially Canada where Trudeau is showing himself to be a real authoritarian. I am actually seeing some hopeful signs that CRT and ESG are dying. Similarly the climate hysteria may be dying too after the denouement of RCP 8.5. Yoel Roth had an editorial in the NYT bemoaning that there was effective and growing resistance to the Censorship Industrial Complex. We are one election away from doing at a national level to a large extent what DeSantis did in Florida. There may be riots and protests but law and order must be maintained.
I cannot vote for Haley after her shrill endorsement of essentially Bush foreign policy. I also don’t trust her character as a compromiser. That worked in South Carolina where there really were “good people on both sides.” That won’t work nationally.
David Young (Comment #224568): “don’t seem to realize that their continued candidacy makes Trump inevitable.”
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No, they just think the other ones are doing that. There is no need to rush candidates out, but there is a danger to doing so if a precipitate choice is made.
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David Young: “DeSantis was endorsed by Liz Cheney, Karl Rove, and Paul Ryan. This does give me pause”.
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Why should the fact that those three agree with you give you pause about DeSantis? They are just trying to promote the candidate they think has the best shot to beat Trump.
The average age of a car on the road now is 12.5 years old, it was 5.8 years in 1974. They have made a lot of progress. It is an industry where reliability improvements are tracked and highly valued by the consumer.
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That means the average car now has >100K miles. Back in the 1970’s the odometers only had 5 digits.
Mike M
“David Young: “DeSantis was endorsed by Liz Cheney, Karl Rove, and Paul Ryan. This does give me pause”.
Why should the fact that those three agree with you give you pause about DeSantis? They are just trying to promote the candidate they think has the best shot to beat Trump.”
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Please, Mike.
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The concern is not due to the fact that he had the best shot to defeat Trump minus his abortion views and large initial traction now gone.
David is referring to the fact that no Republican worthy of being elected as a Republican would want Hilary Clinton, Liz Cheney, Karl Rove, Mueller, Paul Ryan, or Senator Menendez rooting for you.
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Steve F oil (as in the fossil fuel) not the Australian slang “I’ll be oil right” is surging for 100 dollars a barrel. If it hits and stays no Democrat is safe.
angech,
Thanks for clarifying; the price of oil is up. A part of that is inflation of ~18% over the past two years…. a barrel of Saudi oil, at the same price in US dollars, doesn’t buy what it used to. Of course, the Saudis and Russia have reduced production (slightly), which immediately drives the price up.
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The political implications for Biden are not good, because the higher price for gasoline and diesel make the inflation of the past few years more obvious (and more economically damaging). President Alzheimers will never encourage more domestic production, but higher prices for petroleum will for certain increase domestic drilling, at least everywhere the Biden administration can’t stop it, so continued large price increases are unlikely in the long run. The Biden administration has already sold half the strategic petroleum reserve (300+ million barrels, which helped reduce prices) but that can’t continue without putting the USA at considerable risk.
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So, yes, the inflation caused by Biden administration policies will be more evident to voters, and that can’t make Biden more popular. Whether that will be enough for Biden to lose in 2024 is not clear. I think his blatant corruption and politicization of prosecution are more likely to hurt him at the polls. Dishonesty, corruption, being demented, and instituting terrible policies together may be enough for Biden to lose. But with Trump as his opponent, maybe not.
Angech,
I see you added Hilary Clinton, Mueler, and Menendez to your list. Yeah…. few republicans like them.
angech (Comment #224571): “The concern is not due to the fact that he had the best shot to defeat Trump … no Republican worthy of being elected as a Republican would want … Liz Cheney, Karl Rove, … Paul Ryan, … rooting for you.”
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Who said anything about those people “rooting for” DeSantis? They want a Republican to win and they don’t want Trump to win. So they have endorsed the only Republican with a chance to beat Trump.
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Note: I think that is the first time in my life that I have used ellipses to alter the meaning of something I quoted. Angech gave me little choice when he deliberately misstated what I said. Thanks to lucia for calling angech on that.
Senator Feinstein has died. I cannot find a single thing she ever did which I support, but still she was a long serving US Senator and for that if nothing else I think she deserves a moment of respect at her end.
Mike M. (Comment #224574)
Firstly thank you for increasing my knowledge of English, tricky things these ellipses.
Second in response to Who said anything about those people “rooting for” DeSantis?
I did.
it was “David Young: who said “DeSantis was endorsed by Liz Cheney, Karl Rove, and Paul Ryan. This does give me pause”.
I do believe both endorsed and rooting for could both be used interchangeably at times. An endorsement is pretty strong support in my opinion. So I wrote a reply to you.
angech “The concern is not due to the fact that he had the best shot to defeat Trump … no Republican worthy of being elected as a Republican would want … Liz Cheney, Karl Rove, … Paul Ryan, … rooting for you.”
“Who said anything about those people “rooting for” DeSantis?
They want a Republican to win and they don’t want Trump to win.”
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Exactly.
Hence they are barracking for, touting, strongly supporting and rooting for DeSantis.
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“Note: I think that is the first time in my life that I have used ellipses to alter the meaning of something I quoted. Angech gave me little choice when he deliberately misstated what I said.”
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I think I added my take to David Young’s comment to make it even more clear what the effect of having known RINO’S [you would agree those 3 are RINO’s I guess] by comparing them to well known swamp Democrats.
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Anyway, sorry to be so pedantic and Brandonish.
I understand what you were saying.
angech,
I had been given to understand years ago that ‘rooting’ was slang for oral sex in Australia (not joking). Was I misinformed? Since the subject has come up..
This post is taking a frustration of mine out at the Blackboard that I have with Xfinity (Comcast).
I had my siding replaced on my house and I needed some cables relocated for appearances and better reception at one of the 3 entry points to the house. My frustrations with Comcast are the long communication routes to getting a technician to my house and then once the appointment is made dealing with many phone and text messages where I confirm the appointment or cancel or reschedule it – and one slip of my clumsy finger and I have to start all over again.
I have found the easiest route is getting the initial robotic conversation to a human is answering no, no NO, NO , NO. When a human intermediary is put on the phone, I immediately take over the discussion explaining the situation from a written and detailed script and then ask for an appointment to have a technician come to my house. I listen to the human intermediary scripted words and then repeat that only a technician will understand and solve my problem. I get the appointment but not after several times having to repeat what I thought was being said at the other end of the line.
After the appointment I get many phone and text messages to confirm or cancel the appointment and the request for the ever-frustrating diagnostic tests. I get around the test by explaining that my problem is not amenable to the test and only a technician could solve it.
And now for the good part. The technician was a young Ukrainian who was in the US for 4 months with his wife and baby. He looked young enough to me to be in high school. His English was a little rough, but we could understand one another. He listened to what I wanted done, ran some tests, found a bad connection, and redid the cabling as I thought would be required. He was very polite and easy to work with.
When asked he told me that he was from western Ukraine near the border with Romania and that the winter had been hell because of the lack of utilities. He added when asked that his parents have no plans for leaving. He said he was thankful for the US without going into detail. When I ask him about all the difficulties the Ukrainians are experiencing, he seemed to be saying: it is what it is and something to be endured, but I could have misunderstood.
Wasn’t the old Oz observation about typical US servicemen during the Pacific War that he eats, roots and leaves?
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probably not quite right, angech?
Feinstein was walking into walls there at the end. They gave her what she apparently wanted, to keep working.
Social media censorship has reached the Supreme Court. In this case it is whether states can pass laws restricting a private company’s censorship policies. My guess is the states will lose based on a private company’s right to (restrict) speech, the particular laws in Texas and Florida are an overreach IMO. Private media companies censor viewpoints constantly.
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The more interesting potential future case is what is the threshold for a government crossing the line to influencing censorship by private companies, and just as important, what is the proper punishment when they do so?
WSJ: “The court has yet to act on another high-profile social-media case, in which lower courts blocked federal officials from pressuring social-media companies to suppress misleading content about Covid and other subjects. But the present docket already is heavy with cases involving social media, including whether officials can block individuals from following their accounts on platforms such as X, formerly known as Twitter.”
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Fixed it for them: ” to suppress (potentially) misleading content”
Tom Scharf,
The only issue with social media companies censoring views they don’t like is that they still are never held liable for what is on their platform. They want their cake and eat it too. I don’t know what will happen at the SC, but I don’t think the Florida and Texas laws are over the top considering that the companies are otherwise treated like internet or cell phone providers….. not responsible for what information they carry.
Ket Fritsch,
I have twice had similar experiences with Comcast…. endless requests to run tests of equipment already tested multiple times, and each call about the same problem starting off as if you never contacted them before. In both of my problems the issue was Comcast hardware, nothing inside my house. The technician fixed it inside 30 minutes once he measured the signal strength reaching the house (both times with a swap of street hardware). I think Comcast could save their customers a lot of hassle by incorporating signal strength diagnostics inside their modems…. with a local indicator light to indicate a too-weak signal. But maybe that is just too expensive.
mark bofill,
Probably any kind of sex: https://australiatravelquestions.com/practicalities/meaning-root-australia/
Ken and Steve,
And that’s why I have satellite TV and DSL internet. Cable may be faster when it’s working, but it’s not worth having to deal with Charter Spectrum. There’s no excuse for not having remotely accessible signal strength measurement in the set top box.
The Philadelphia Enquirer documents how “unconnected” the looting was to the peaceful protests.
https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-looting-2023-center-city-apple-store-20230927.html
“The plans to break into, vandalize and steal from Philadelphia businesses on Tuesday night were not much of a secret.
As word spread that a Philadelphia judge had dismissed all criminal charges against the former police officer who shot and killed Eddie Irizarry last month, people took to Instagram to share their anger and plan a response.
“WHAT TIME WE GOING “SHOPPING”???” one person asked.
“We looting or not??!!” wrote another.
“I know they say tearing up our stuff ain’t right,” someone said, “but that’s the only way they hear us.”
…
“Basically, people saw an opportunity and they took it,” said Benjamin Nachum, manager of Patriot Pharmacy in North Philly, which was looted Tuesday night for the third time since it opened in 2019.”
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This … ummmm … whitewashing … of culpability is mostly just humorous. It gets a little more serious when you compare how Jan 6th rioters were treated, the book was thrown at them with millions spent on tracking them all down.
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There were a fair number of arrests in Philadelphia though, at least 50. It will be interesting to see what ultimately happens with their very progressive prosecutor in charge there. Check out how casual this theft and vandalism is:
https://twitter.com/KeeleyFox29/status/1706927504211030095
I have Wow and Spectrum cable internet on my street, which makes all the difference with competition. I use Wow at $35/month for 200 Mbits/sec, then choose to get gored by YouTube TV for access to live sports. The service has been very good with tiny downtime for both Spectrum and Wow. We have underground utilities and that likely helps a lot.
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Meanwhile …
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My Dad has Suddenlink / Optimum in WV and it has been a complete nightmare for at least a decade. Very high rates, $80 for internet, lots of service disruptions, and quality of service is terrible with little ability to diagnose problems as local or cable provider. He has had people come to the house multiple times with little improvement.
DeWitt,
My cable here (Cape Cod, massachusetts) averages about 200 megabits down and 25 up. The only problem is that at high traffic times (this is a seasonal vacation area) it can easily drop to <10% of that, sometimes even interfering with VoIP calls. How fast is your DSL, and how much does it cost?
UPDATE: The person (social media influencer) who livestreamed herself in a series of lootings including the above video has been arrested and charged with six felonies.
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Her apparent defense is going to be that she was just a citizen journalist documenting the crimes.
SteveF,
I’ll have to look up the cost when I get back home. The speed is 10Mbps down and 750kbps up. That’s fast enough to stream 1080p but probably not enough for 4K. But I don’t have a 4K tv so that doesn’t matter. I could probably get 20Mbps and maybe 40Mbps, but I haven’t checked to see how much more it would cost. I need to keep my land line phone too.
Tom Scharf,
“Her apparent defense is going to be that she was just a citizen journalist documenting the crimes.”
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She didn’t sound like a disinterested journalist. 😉 More like someone inviting everyone to join in the theft.
Tom Scharf,
If someone doubts there is a destructive criminal culture present in many big US cities, they need only watch that video.
I’m reading about Biden’s impeachment inquiry and thinking to myself that I really wish there was some mechanism by which both parties could enforce an agreement if voters arrived at it voluntarily that neither Trump nor Biden would run in 2024. If there was such a mechanism, would you take it [this deal]? I don’t think everyone would, but maybe clear majorities on both sides would.
Alas for the unhappy world, there is no such device.
Tom: “UPDATE: The person (social media influencer) who livestreamed herself in a series of lootings including the above video has been arrested and charged with six felonies.”
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Gas for the gaslighters. When you film it all and go viral, now you’ve made them have to pretend to care.
mark bofill (Comment #224594): “I really wish there was some mechanism by which both parties could enforce an agreement if voters arrived at it voluntarily that neither Trump nor Biden would run in 2024”.
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I think we have such a mechanism, called “primaries”.
Tom Scharf,
Since you are a golfer, you are probably aware that the US Ryder Cup team looks to get another drubbing from the Europeans in Europe (they have not won in Europe for 30 years). There is always a lot of speculation why, since the US teams are usually stronger (on paper at least). In thinking about this, I thought about my many trips to Europe on business. I always feel poorly (tired, a little dizzy) for at least 5 days, and research suggests full recovery going East 6 time zones takes up to 8 or 9 days. Going West (Europeans traveling to the States) takes two or three days less to recover, and a bunch of Europeans live in the USA…. so have no jet lag, but all if them go to Europe a few Weeks before the Ruder Cup starts, eliminating jet lag as a factor. The US team arrived on Tuesday, so for sure all still suffering jet lag.
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Contrast this to how most US based players prepare for the (UK) Open Championship: they usually travel to the UK and play a couple of tournaments in the weeks before…. ridding themselves of jet lag.
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The US squad will no doubt play better tomorrow and Sunday, but they are already in a very deep hole, and so probably can’t win. I think the US team needs to spend at least 10 days on European time to give themselves the best chance of winning in Europe.
Mike,
Uhm, no. Maybe you didn’t understand what I said, because the primaries are going to lead to both of them being nominated and there’s no agreement mechanism between the two parties to avoid this, which is pretty much the entirety of what I was talking about.
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[Edit: Maybe I was unclear. Sorry.
https://rollcall.com/2023/06/21/trump-vs-biden-ii-the-rematch-voters-dont-want/
Most voters don’t want a choice between Biden and Trump. It is precisely the primary process that will give rise to this though. National Review has a piece suggesting we should do away with primaries and go back to State legislators selecting the party candidate (I think anyway, it’s paywalled and I read it earlier today).]
I have cable for 3 TVs and WiFi for my computer and streaming when the occasion arises. I live alone and sometimes think I am wasting money, but I have always had a TV for the family room, the master bedroom and a guest room. Old habits are hard to break. I have tried to get interested in what streaming has to offer but really cannot find anything for free or pay. Actually not much available on TV interest me these days, although I have found some good mystery shows on PBS.
Internet on my computer slows when there is a lot of local traffic, otherwise I cannot complain. I do wish we had competition for Comcast. Comcast technicians as a whole are good but communications are frustrating even after I figured out a strategy that works for me. After my recent experience I received a request from Comcast for a review. I detailed how great the technician was and how horrible their communications are. I do not expect to hear from Comcast on my review.
mark bofill (Comment #224598): “Maybe you didn’t understand what I said”.
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It turns out I did understand what you said, but I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt.
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mark bofill: “because the primaries are going to lead to both of them being nominated”
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There is a good chance that primaries will lead to Trump being nominated. Not ideal, but far worse can happen. The Dem nominee will be chosen in the back rooms, not by primaries, just like in 2020. Remember how all the mainstream candidates were forced out shortly after Biden won one primary. It is not clear if Biden will be the Dem nominee this year, or if he is being used as a stalking horse to ensure the primaries are not meaningful.
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mark bofill: “there’s no agreement mechanism between the two parties to avoid this”.
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In other words, let backroom pols collude to effectively fix the election. That would be way worse than a Trump vs. Biden rematch. It used to be that both parties used to have something like that. It gave us candidates like Bush, Romney, Kerry, and Hillary (just a partial list). That made Trump NECESSARY and it is why we will likely have Trump again. No thanks.
I don’t know if you have shit in your ears or what, because that’s not remotely what I said. Piss off, jerk.
FFS, I thought it was clear I was speculating on a mechanism I thought didn’t exist, by which voters could agree to avoid being saddled with Biden or Trump. Obviously, I’d have thought, I’m not advocating back room pols colluding. I wasn’t advocating anything. I was wondering whether if by promising to forgo Trump I could guarantee no Biden and by dems promising to forgo Biden we could avoid Trump, if that wouldn’t be something people around here would go for. If I meant back room pols colluding, I’d have been talking about back room pols colluding.
mark bofill (Comment #224602)
September 29th, 2023 at 6:10 pm
Interesting, Mark, I just tonight had the following thoughts:
1. The constitution says nothing about nominating candidates to run for President.
2. Minor political parties do not have primaries.
3. A political party really does not stand for anything if it’s organization does not have the final say in who represents it in elections.
4. 70 percent of polled individuals say that neither Trump or Biden should run for President.
5. States evidently set the rules/laws for primaries, but I am unsure whether that is legally binding at the party conventions.
6. In the spirit of bipartisanship the Repulicans and Democrats should find a way to keep both Trump and Biden from running for President, perhaps with a referendum with language similar to: Donald Trump and Joseph Biden shall be disqualified from being candidates of the Republican and Democrat parties, respectively, for the 2024 presidential election.
7. Some would say this proposal would be abrogating the democratic process and I would say in reply that having Trump and Biden as candidates is having democracy good and hard.
Fair enough Ken, thank you. I’m sure you’re correct. Somehow, despite the fact that majorities of voters want neither, we will get one or the other and it will be us getting what we deserve I suppose.
Steve, would that be from jet lag or imbibing.
Mark.
I was trying to use the term in its American meaning only.
We drink Sarsparilla (well a small number do), Americans drink root beer.
The term “rooting for a team”used commonly in America, would induce stunned silence and then a gale of laughter from the blokes.
It is not polite.
The term in Australia is a slang generality, not specific as SteveF’s reference may explain.
I think both you and Mike M generally engage well so not sure why everyone is a bit tetchy recently.
I do think the level of political partisanship, behaviour and criminality is getting on everyone’s nerves as both Trump and Biden appear headed for the rocks.
mark bofill (Comment #224602): “\I thought it was clear I was speculating on a mechanism I thought didn’t exist, by which voters could agree to avoid being saddled with Biden or Trump.”
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That was not at all clear. When I try to understand what someone writes, I tend to use reality, or at least things that could conceivably be real, as a supplemental source of information. I don’t think that getting all voters on the same telepathic wavelength fits that and I don’t see any other way to get all “voters to agree”.
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So I still have no idea what you are talking about. Excuse me for trying to understand.
I wasn’t with my group when it happened, I heard afterwards. The story was something along these lines: a burly rugby player giving my coworkers a very disturbed look after they cheerfully shouted to him that they were rooting for him’, and the Australians we were working with quickly explaining the impropriety behind the remark. Something like that. It was 20-30 years ago.
Ken Fritsch (Comment #224603): “2. Minor political parties do not have primaries.”
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Not so. Maybe some don’t.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Libertarian_Party_presidential_primaries
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Ken Fritsch: “4. 70 percent of polled individuals say that neither Trump or Biden should run for President.”
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I am disinclined to believe that without a link that givers the exact wording of the question.
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Ken Fritsch: “5. States evidently set the rules/laws for primaries, but I am unsure whether that is legally binding at the party conventions.”
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I think the parties set rules that the states have to abide by if they want their delegates seated.
Okay Mike.
You answered my admittedly dumb question with a condescending answer and you pissed me off. Your condescending answer about ‘primaries’ didn’t even attempt to address what I was trying to get at, and when I pointed this out you doubled down on talking down to me by making up an issue that had nothing whatsoever to do with what I was saying.
So, you win buddy. You got me. I’m trying to subvert democracy and keep that bastard Trump out of office by advocating on obscure blogs for backroom wheeling and dealing. I can’t get anything past you.
I’ve seen the light! I’m voting Trump. How could I have been so stupid! Trump will put a stop to the backroom deals and clean up the deep state and save America!
Thanks so much! The scales have fallen from my eyes! I can seeeeee!
I’ll clarify one more time and I’ll try to drop it.
The situation voters are in seems to me to be similar to Prisoner’s Dilemma from game theory. Many people, many voters, are intelligent enough to understand Prisoner’s Dilemma. I was lamenting that there is no practical mechanism by which people of different political tribes could coordinate with and trust each other enough to escape the dilemma. That’s what I was trying to get at. I am sorry that I screwed up expressing myself so badly that obviously I must have been talking about back room politico’s disenfranchising everyone.
Good night!
I think the Ryder Cup problem may be more to do with home field advantage. This is the only real team golf event and the crowds get raucous for the home squad. Not quite college football level but more than enough to make it matter.
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Historically the US also does poorly during the two-man team events and does better on the final day in singles. A five point deficit is very large though and I’m not optimistic. Europe has a very strong team, it won’t be much of an upset IMO.
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Jet lag might be a problem but these guys do this every year for The (British) Open so should know how to do it. It would be unwise to not show up several days early.
Why didn’t somebody challenge Trump in 2020 primary? Why doesn’t somebody challenge Biden in 2024? It blows my mind. There are apparently bigger forces at play I don’t quite understand, maybe those smokey back rooms.
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Obviously the only reason we will get Trump vs Biden this time is because all the crazy people vote for them. Unlike Biden, Trump is being challenged this time and he may still win anyway. I think the system is about as fair as it gets though, I just ain’t liking the results either.
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Once again this is an optimal situation for a 3rd party win, but that looks rather unlikely too. I guess it is still better than Hillary Clinton.
In college football home field is a 63%/37% advantage for evenly matched teams, it is very real. This dropped during the pandemic year, but was not eliminated, so it is multifaceted. This is also a big factor in soccer in Europe.
Tom Scharf,
For sure home field is an advantage, but the team arrived late Monday, and started play Friday morning early… a little over 4 days. Research suggest more like 6 to 8 is needed going 6 hours east. They usually go over to the UK a couple weeks ahead of the Open, and play a tournament there before the open.
Has anyone suggested turning two chatbots loose on each other?
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I suppose there would have to be a seed to start the “conversation” but if we took two of these systems neither of which was coached for this sort of discussion, I wonder how long it wojuld take them to spin down, or ???
mark bofill,
I agree a majority of voters probably would prefer neither Trump nor Biden. But members of that majority still would prefer a Republican or a Democrat. They are not going to work together to eliminate the two most likely candidates. Everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. 😉
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I voted for Perot in 1992 because I like neither other candidate. It was a mistake… we got 8 years of the Clintons, their corruption, and some very bad government policies (and Hillary worked full time for even worse policies the Congress fortunately refused to enact!).
SteveF (Comment #224618): “I agree a majority of voters probably would prefer neither Trump nor Biden.”
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I am skeptical. At present, a clear majority of Republicans voters prefer Trump over any other Republican candidate. The portion who would be fine with Trump is surely much larger. So it would seem like at least 30-40% of voters of voters would be fine with Trump. Maybe 20-30% are fine with Biden? There is no overlap between those groups , so combined they likely form a clear majority.
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Of course, if you ask how many have Trump or Biden as first choice among all possible candidates, then that is almost surely less than 50%. And probably higher than any other pair of candidates you can name.
Tom Scharf (Comment #224614): “Why didn’t somebody challenge Trump in 2020 primary? Why doesn’t somebody challenge Biden in 2024?”
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Nobody challenged Trump because there was no chance of getting more than 20% of the vote, if that. Nobody decent challenging Biden is a bit more of a mystery. I think it is because the Dem party has become a political machine with such decisions made by people behind the scenes.
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One might say that RFK Jr. is a decent candidate, but his try for the Dem nomination is rumored to be over, with him deciding to try a third party bid.
The stopgap spending bill has failed in the House.
198 Republicans voted for it.
21 Republicans and 211 Democrats voted against it.
So of course, the failure to pass the bill is the Republicans fault.
Question: What do Kazakhstan, Turkey, Armenia, and Georgia have in common?
Answer: These four central Asian countries have all publicly shifted away from Russia in the last few months. While not an earthshaking event, perhaps they are the beginning of a revolution. Can the Independent States of Russia be far behind? I hope not.
It prompted this from Russian State TV:
“Kremlin propagandist Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the Russian state-controlled media organization RT, acknowledged on state TV earlier this month that Russia has no allies in the war launched by Putin.
Simonyan said Russia is waging the “most difficult…toughest and generally unprecedented war in our history.”
“It is the most difficult and the toughest because it is the first war in our history in which we have no allies at all,” Simonyan said.”
Related news stories from the last three months:
Another Neighbor Turns Back on Russia. Another ally appeared to turn its back on Moscow on Thursday when Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said his country would not help Russia circumvent Western sanctions imposed over Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
In July, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, who is considered close to Putin, also seemingly turned his back on the Russian president when he dropped Ankara’s objection to Sweden’s NATO membership. Also, Turkey released the Azov prisoners.
Tension has also mounted between Armenia and Russia, which have long been close allies. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said this month that Putin failed to support his country
Kazakhstan’s president said during a visit to Berlin on Thursday that his country was willing to increase oil deliveries to German over the long term, as resource-poor Berlin seeks alternatives to imports from Russia amid the invasion of Ukraine.
Long in Russian orbit, Georgia tilts West
“This is, without exaggeration, a very important historic moment for Georgia,” says Ana Natsvlishvili, an opposition party member of Georgia’s Parliament. “We are at a crossroads.”
Perhaps nowhere is this more critically clear than in Georgia, which faces a key inflection point later this year: The European Union will decide whether to grant the Caucasian nation’s long-coveted candidacy status in the Western partnership.
Primaries have yielded one mentally deficient and one mentally deranged candidates not once but very possibly twice. Enough already with primaries.
Primaries have it backwards. When voters get to decide what the party is by selecting their candidates there is no clear cut political philosophy of the party. It becomes a mishmash of mostly fleeting thoughts that are not presented in a well thought out process. A political party, that can select its candidates based on a stated philosophy and a candidate’s ability to convey it to the public, can make the voters’ final decision in the election of opposing parties clearer cut.
Ken Fritsch,
I would add to that: The primaries are almost always decided by the voters who are the most extreme. Turnout is usually a small fraction of the party’s voters. As a result, extreme candidates are often selected over more moderate ones. The situation is worse for Republicans because most primaries are winner take all, even when the winner gets only a plurality of votes. Result: Trump is the candidate. Democrats proportional allotment of delegates prevents a lunatic like Sanders or Warren from taking an insurmountable lead based on appeal to only the most extreme on the left. It gives the Democrats more leeway (and time) to stop a crazy. At the level of House candidates, that doesn’t work (they get extreme left candidates like Ocassio-Cortez) but for president it seems a better approach.
The fallout of Putin’s Folly, Russia is severely weakened in Central Asia.
New York Post, September 30, 2023:
Now NATO members should tell the truth to the world that Putin is shunning its allies and risking losing them, and that Russia can no longer be seen as regional power broker.
https://nypost.com/2023/09/22/russia-failed-to-weaken-nato-its-own-security-alliance-is-falling-apart/
Center for European Policy Analysis, September 6, 2023:
Two decades after it was founded, the post-Soviet Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) is fracturing, emphasizing the Kremlin’s weakening hold on its neighbors.
https://cepa.org/article/the-demise-of-putins-little-non-nato/
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD, September 22, 2023:
Russia failed to weaken NATO — but its own security alliance is now falling apart
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/09/22/russia-failed-to-weaken-nato-but-its-own-security-alliance-is-now-falling-apart/
Shunning their allies, or protecting them from unnecessary political fallout? Depends what sort of allies they are, I suppose.
Ken Fritsch: “A political party, that can select its candidates based on a stated philosophy and a candidate’s ability to convey it to the public…”
Therein lies the rub — who selects the “stated philosophy”? While a party has (theoretically at least) a common general principle (e.g., limited government), the range of opinions within a party is quite broad. The purpose of primaries is ostensibly to select the candidate who best expresses the party members’ viewpoints.
I agree with SteveF that a proportional system seems preferable to winner-take-all.
Here he’s at it again. The great man; our savior, and the defender of our country:
I don’t understand how anybody can publicly support this guy and not straight up die from the shame. The would-be leader of the executive branch wants to investigate the media as soon as he gets back into power because the media is one sided and vicious towards him, treasonous even, and he can say that publicly, and somehow we all give him a pass for that.
Unbelievable. Not me man, no way.
Trump was already President, already called the media the enemy of state, and already did effectively nothing about it as they abused him throughout his term. This has so far proven to be nothing but empty rhetoric. The media does treat him unfairly, that doesn’t make him the good guy, but he can fairly call them out (Trump Russia Collusion?). I don’t like Trump, but I don’t take those threats seriously. He is a gasbag.
Yah I know. None of Trump’s supporters him seriously when he’s saying anything they don’t want to hear. It’s part of his magic. Well, if we elect this bozo, we will certainly deserve what we get.
[Edit: But it used to be inexcusable. We seem to have lowered our standards because reasons. Well, there will be prices we’ll pay for that.]
I don’t take him seriously in the sense that I believe he will be able to carry out any of his threats. But words have power, ideas have power. You can’t say certain things and carry my support and approval. It’s a dark day when a popular candidate can get away with saying that and everyone goes along with it.
The WSJ news division continues its journey to the dark side. Two, two newspapers in one!
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How Polarization Sent Washington Hurtling Into a Shutdown
GOP rebels, fueled by social media and online fundraising, feel empowered to block their leaders from cutting deals with Democrats.
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… meanwhile two stories down …
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America’s Debt Problem Is Too Big for the Bond Vigilantes
Surging deficits and bond yields create an opening, but investors are likely to take a painful hit this
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Obstruction! Deficits are out of control! Wait, what? I think it’s pretty clear the WSJ opinion side has a firm rule in place they are not allowed to call out their own newspaper.
HaroldW (Comment #224627)
September 30th, 2023 at 9:15 am
When voting for a political party candidate it would be informative to have that party state where they stand on the basic and important issues and how they want to communicate that to the public. If the candidates of the party do not mostly adhere to the tenets of the party and how to communicate those tenets they should disqualified.
Trump is an excellent example of someone obviously running for own narcistic benefit and with a personal agenda. The populist position that he somehow represents defiance of the status quo is in my mind a wet dream.
The party has to decide on that for which they stand. If they decide to be wishy washy on the basic issues that will become clear to the voter. Here I am not talking about the platform from the convention but something more permanent and serious. This won’t occur willingly but must be pushed by the public and the intelligentsia.
If the Republicans kick Trump out he will almost certainly run as 3rd party and kill any chances of a Republican win. It will also make him even more sympathetic to most of his supporters, Trump against the world! Not a lot of good options here. Unlike many people I call this the very definition of democracy working as designed even if I can’t stand the results. The system is working. Changing the rules because you don’t like the potential outcome adds legitimate fuel to Trump’s fire.
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If the media had not disgraced themselves so thoroughly in the eyes of the citizens then we might have more hope. Having a level 12 temper tantrum isn’t useful when level 11 didn’t work either.
HaroldW (Comment #224627): “Therein lies the rub — who selects the “stated philosophy”? While a party has (theoretically at least) a common general principle (e.g., limited government), the range of opinions within a party is quite broad.”
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Exactly right. In a multiparty system, one could have parties with well defined philosophies and let voters choose between a wide variety of parties. But we don’t have such a system, so we need to allow for diverse viewpoints within each party.
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A multiparty system might be theoretically appealing, but in practice there are a host of problems. It is hard to make an evidence based case that such a system would be better.
As I recall the parties adopt formal platforms during their conventions but nobody actually cares.
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A potential solution to minority viewpoints winning because the majority splits the vote is a ranked choice system. This has been used experimentally in some states lately (Alaska?). It’s too late to change the rules now IMO. Most people have Trump as either first or last, ha ha.
It is interesting to watch the evolution of someone like Glenn Greenwald on Trump. In 2016 he was critical of Trump as someone who was not a moral person. But as it became evident that Trump was the most viable challenge to the neo-con uni-party and the deep state/media/big tech censorship industrial complex, Greenwald became a lot more friendly to Trump. Greenwald has been consistent throughout his career. He is a strong advocate for the Bill of Rights. He hates the war machine and thus the deep state. He despises people like Liz Chaney and Bill Kristol. And he now thinks the Democrat party and the corporate media are a giant threat to democracy. His arguments are persuasive to me.
And it is inarguable that Trump has permanently changed the Republican party. DeSantis for example is every bit as provocative in calling out the media and the deep state and he has changed Florida vastly for the better. It is true that the neo-con “conservatives” now find the Democrat party the natural home for their war friendly views. I say “conservative” because most of this lot were always totally mercenary in exploiting their pro-war views for personal gain and were never sincere conservatives in any sense. I actually prefer DeSantis because I think he is more effective than Trump but it is very easy to dismiss Trump’s unique impact on our politics.
You have to go back to Teddy Roosevelt to find someone as egotistical and hated by the elites as Trump. Roosevelt however started a revolution in the US that permanently altered the power of the malefactors of great wealth and changed the balance of power between labor and corporations. This revolution also did a lot to clean up corrupt politicians by for example making government employees civil servants and not political appointees. This change gave birth to modern America.
I really think it is a big mistake to focus on Trump’s personality. The important issues are vastly more important. If you trust the corporate media or the deep state, you are not being honest with yourself.
Tom Scharf,
Ranked choice in the Republican primaries could make a huge difference. In the general election for President? Probably not so much.
If you dig deep, you will find DeSantis says similar things about the media, woke corporations, and big tech as Trump. DeSantis says them in a more restrained manner. DeSantis recently promised to deport every single one of Biden’s “migrants.” He has promised to clean out the deep state too. I like the fact that De
Santis doesn’t do the personal attacks the way Trump does. But Trump is a charismatic figure who has started a movement that we need to win.
In fact, we do need to take action against our corrupt elites. Whether “treason” is the right word or not, we have a totally corrupt elite that is a threat to the Bill or Rights and our democracy. We have total dominance of monopolies like Google and Fakebook. It’s as bad as the Gilded Age. We need independent media more than ever and brave journalists like Taibbi, Greenwald, and Schellenberger.
Please, focusing on optics in this situation is a total distraction. The two party system is what it is. The reality is that there is a very stark choice in front of us that is vastly more important than who our “ideal” candidate is.
Ranked choice would tighten up the Republican primaries immensely.
David,
Would you supply a link where DeSantis suggests that after he is elected he will use his office to investigate the press because of their ‘country threatening treason’?
Do we still believe a free press is a good thing? If not, fine. Trump is your man. But if you still do believe in freedom of the press, you shouldn’t condone or support this man who speaks in defiance against what you believe. Don’t degrade yourselves that way.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/23/florida-gop-desantis-proposal-sue-media-00084023
Politico seems to regard DeSantis as an existential threat to the media. This is just the second link that came up when I searched “Desantis and the media.”
The problem Mark is that we don’t have a “free press.” We have a propagandistic media that simply parrot the talking points of the deep state, academics, and the Democrat party. They are no better than media in Russia. Doing something to elevate independent media and reduce the influence of our partially state run media would help to restore a diverse press that actually reported the news. Have you followed the Twitter files or the Missouri v. Biden law suite?
David, thanks. I read your link. Could you quote for me the part where he suggests investigating the press for their ‘country threatening treason,’? because I can’t seem to find that.
mark bofill (Comment #224642): “Do we still believe a free press is a good thing?”
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I certainly do believe that a free press is a good thing. The two main threats to a free press are the Democrats, who want the press to do their bidding, and the main stream media, who want to do the Democrats’ bidding.
Our media, crappy and biased as it is, is free to indulge in one sided vicious coverage that politicians don’t like. This is a feature, not a bug. This is very basic stuff that has a long tradition in our country.
Look, we don’t need to argue. Better men than us covered this ground thoroughly during the Enlightenment. It’s sufficient in my view to make plain where one stands. I stand with the traditional view of the freedoms, rights and responsibilities in this country. If you agree with Trump’s rhetoric, fine. If you don’t but think it’s excusable personality, fine.
David Young
I’d also like an answer to mark’s question
David
Perhaps this is a real question. But I have a feeling you think you are making a point. If so, could you tell us what it is. If possible, make the point in less than 3 sentences.
David Young
As far as I can tell, the movement Trump started is “Trump worship”.
Whatever that actually means. This always strikes me as very vague and non-specific.
First: Criticizing Trump for many of his specific actions is not focusing on optics. Second, Not sure who you are accusing of focusing on optics nor what those optics are.
Uhmm… yeah. Sure. But who our candidate is dramatically affects what choices we make. And if Trump is our candidates, we are certain to make wrong choices about the direction of the GOP. If he wins, the we’ll have made the wrong choice about the direction of the country.
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And, come on. We are discussing who should be nominated in the primary. Of course we are going to discuss who should be nominated.
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If part of the argument for your candidate is that we should pick him rather than discuss whether other candidates are better, that suggests you must know other candidates are better. I mean…. if you’ve got nothing…. “pound the table” ….
Lucia,
To the extent I’ve followed the Twitter files (and I haven’t much), my impression is that the story is about the government interfering with free speech. How this supports the idea that Trump [assuming he regains office as President] should interfere with freedom of the press is something of a mystery to me.
The media is free to be biased, that is part of the freedom. People are free to complain about it. People are free to disregard their findings to the extent they don’t trust them. Everybody is better off with a responsible media. Market forces are enough to keep them from going too far off the reservation (oops, microaggression!), and government intervention would make things much worse IMO.
I regard Trump’s reckless speech as a major negative. But I refuse to focus exclusively on one aspect of his personality.
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Does Trump’s reckless speech mean that there are Republicans that I would much prefer to see in the White House? Absolutely.
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Does his reckless speech mean that I might choose to vote for a different Republican whose policy positions do not align as well with my own? Yes.
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Does his reckless speech mean that I might consider voting for a rational Democrat, like Tulsi Gabbard, over Trump? Yep.
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Does his reckless speech mean that I might consider voting for a third party candidate if Trump gets the nomination? Maybe, but only if I think that candidate might actually win.
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Does his reckless speech mean that I might consider voting for, or even not voting against, the likes of Biden or Harris? No, no, no; a thousand times no.
Mike,
I actually respect your position and where you’re coming from. I don’t get why you think Trump is indulging in ‘reckless’ speech. I mean, he doesn’t have Tourette syndrome as far as I know. He appears to be an intelligent, successful guy. Certainly this implies some self discipline. For my part, I think he’s calculating about it. I think he says exactly what he means to say. I don’t think he believes what he says, but that doesn’t actually help my view of things.
Trump very intentionally doesn’t hold himself to the same standard of speech as other politicians. These rules of conduct are in fact just arbitrary norms. He didn’t lock-up Clinton in the end. He is a BS artist and apparently people love him sticking the stick in the governing class’s eye. It doesn’t really bother me (much) at all, I just care what he does. Unfortunately what he did is fail to concede a lost election which is well beyond BS artistry in my view.
Tom,
He is a BS artist, or to put it in a more friendly way, he’s acting. My impression of it is that he’s playing the role of the ‘everyman’, pissed off at whatever is convenient for him. He had a reality show, he’s had some practice at this.
It’s manipulative as heck. I don’t think he honestly believes the press should be investigated, I think he’s saying that because a bunch of moronic supporters out there lov[ed] hearing it. Somebody famously wrote that propaganda must appeal to the emotions, and that the intellectual level should be ‘ the lowest mental common denominator among the public it is desired to reach.’ So, okay. What does this guy actually believe in then?
Beats me. I was willing to ride along because he made many policy decisions I agreed with. Once he pulled the stunt on leaving office where he decided his holding office was more important than anything else, I came to suspect he believes he should hold power, price no object, cost to the country longterm no object.
I can’t get behind this guy. Not anymore anyway.
mark bofill (Comment #224655): “He appears to be an intelligent, successful guy. Certainly this implies some self discipline. For my part, I think he’s calculating about it. I think he says exactly what he means to say.”
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I think that is right. What Trump says has a purpose.
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So what is wrong with what he says? I think it is that his purpose is not always what some people might infer from his words. There is no question that different people react to Trump’s words in very different ways. So his words might have consequences beyond what he intends. I don’t think he much cares about that. To the extent that the unintended consequences might be serious, his speech is reckless.
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So he wants to make a point about how dishonest CNN is and he makes it in flamboyant, attention getting language. But without worrying much about whether some people might interpret it as advocating government restrictions on press freedom. Reckless.
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Please note that I am only guessing. Trump frequently mystifies me.
Mike,
Thanks for your answer.
I think we’ve pretty much beaten this to death, maybe I can make this one of my last remarks. I’d like to believe that with freedom comes matching responsibility. I have free speech, and I must take personal responsibility for what I say. It’s a serious thing. I don’t give myself a pass to say whatever the heck seems convenient to me, and I don’t give others in day to day life a pass to say whatever without there being consequences, at least in regards to how I view them. I hold Trump to the same standard I hold everybody. You’re responsible for what you say. If you don’t mean it, don’t say it. So, that’s why I have such a problem with it. I particularly have a problem with it because I think it’s a deliberate act – it’s on purpose. It’s just not excusable in my view.
Okay, I’m done beating this to death. YMMV.
I think this cartoon does a pretty good job of explaining why so many Republican voters are sticking with Trump:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2023/09/IMG_7414.jpg
“The two main threats to a free press are the Democrats, who want the press to do their bidding, and the main stream media, who want to do the Democrats’ bidding.”
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I like this analysis. 😉
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Yes, the MSM is essentially the propaganda arm of progressives. The only positive development is that there are quite a few relatively well known people form the MSM (Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Shollenberger, Turley, and others) who can see the danger to the USA the current situation represents.
How would a typical Trump supporter’s life change for the worse if Trump was elected?
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I have a hard time answering that at all, and an even harder time coming up with an answer they would likely believe.
SteveF (Comment #224662): “there are quite a few relatively well known people form the MSM (Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Shollenberger, Turley, and others) who can see the danger to the USA the current situation represents.”
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Perhaps you mean refugees from the MSM? 🙂
Mark, you made me laugh. You can reply with one of your last remarks -maybe.
🙂 sorry Ken. I meant one of my last remarks on that specific immediate subject. I know, I’m as big a gasbag as Trump. Being able to eventually shut my trap is an aspirational goal for me. 🙂
There is hope. Apparently they have charged an (the!) IRS leaker who apparently leaked Trump’s and other high profile people’s tax returns to news organizations. Lock him up and throw away the key as an example. No plea deal, go to trial. This is an egregious violation of privacy for political gain.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/29/irs-leak-charge-00119190
If you have to frequently do a self-interpretation of what an individual means by what he says he is probably a shitty communicator.
If Trump’s supporters like how he says it more than what he says they are probably susceptible to supporting a demagogue. While lots of politicians use demagoguery, Trump does it in spades and that should make it readily apparent to his audiences.
mark bofill (Comment #224666)
September 30th, 2023 at 3:04 pm
No, I did not think that. It is just that I have read the last of your last remarks before and I thought you finally were indicating that there would be more last remarks. In my younger years I use to do many last remarks because of whom I was talking/arguing had a counter last remark that needed my countering with a last remark.
mark bofill
Which is why I wonder what point DAvid Young might have thought he was making. I mean…. most people’s answer to his question would be “yes” (at least to some extent). But my impression is he thinks that we are supposed to conclude something specific if we followed it. I just don’t know what we were supposed to conclude. As far as I can see, it’s certainly not “well, we need Trump!”
Commonly known as the Progressive era that continues today as progressive movement.
Apparently the American Anthropological Association does not agree with Lucia.
https://americananthro.org/news/no-place-for-transphobia-in-anthropology-session-pulled-from-annual-meeting-program/
“On the contrary, anthropologists and others have long shown sex and gender to be historically and geographically contextual, deeply entangled, and dynamically mutable categories. The function of the “gender critical” scholarship advocated in this session, like the function of the “race science” of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, is to advance a “scientific” reason to question the humanity of already marginalized groups of people, in this case, those who exist outside a strict and narrow sex / gender binary.”
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Science! Just for reference: Anthropology is the systematic study of humanity, with the goal of understanding our evolutionary origins, our distinctiveness as a species, and the great diversity in our forms of social existence across the world and through time.
Ken Fritsch (Comment #224668): “If you have to frequently do a self-interpretation of what an individual means by what he says he is probably a shitty communicator. ”
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Or it means that he does care about communicating with *you*.
Oops.
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Ken Fritsch (Comment #224668): “If you have to frequently do a self-interpretation of what an individual means by what he says he is probably a shitty communicator. ”
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Or it means that he does NOT care about communicating with *you*.
I think excessive focus on the use of the word “treason” is not helpful. Trump’s opus of public statements is huge and he says different things at different times.
Desantis has not used the same language as Trump but as I said the media consider him just as much of a threat. DeSantis has spoken of “slitting throats on day one” with regard to the deep state. That was not meant literally I’m sure. But its extreme language.
Words matter, but in the modern internet era, the outrage machine will bring forward any stray statement to get people outraged. I doubt Trump wants to have DOJ charge journalists with treason, even though I explain below why he might feel they are traitors. He’s on firmer ground on prosecuting deep state leakers. I also note that DOJ is completely inconsistent in terms of prosecuting journalists who report leaks. Take the case of Assange. Glenn Greenwald fled the country because he feared the Snowdon leaks could get him charged.
Trump has also been lied about relentlessly and you need to be careful about the source. The biggest one is the Charlotesville “good people on both sides” lie. In context, it was a reference to the Confederate statutes issue. But Biden started his campaign by repeating this big lie. And the media also repeated in endlessly to say Trump was a white supremacist which is really an obvious lie.
With regard to the 4 year soft coup against Trump, the media certainly bear some responsibility for that. The Durham report lays bare a massive conspiracy based on lies and recycled partisan opposition research. The street violence was part of this coup. It was just allowed to happen in blue areas.
We now know that Trump’s first impeachment was based on the lie that Biden was not worthy of investigating. Biden’s crime family has run perhaps the biggest influence peddling and money laundering scheme in American history. They were dealing with some of the worst and corrupt people on earth who paid for access to Joe Biden and possibly for things like Biden calling an audible and changing US policy concerning Shokin. We have Devon Archer saying that if not for the Biden’s, Burisma would have gone out of business.
Lucia, with regard to your question, its all laid out in my blog post at Climate Etc. with copious citations of the original sources. Basically, the deep state, the media, and big tech ran the biggest and most consequential disinformation and election interference campaign in American history starting in 2016 and continuing into 2020. A lot of innocent people like Mike Flynn were ruined by this campaign of lies and distortions. Now they are trying to ruin the lives of perhaps 40 of the most prominent people associated with Trump, some of them members of his cabinet. They almost indicted sitting US Senators for political speech. It’s comparable to what happens in Russia.
In the post, you will find details about the covid hysteria and how it totally distorted the institutions of science. It’s pretty shocking if you weren’t paying attention. If you thought climate science was politicized, covid caused an atmosphere of intellectual witch hunting unprecedented since the Renaissance and the persecution of Galileo. Once again, the post goes to the original sources.
I cannot emphasize too strongly that you will not know any of this if you rely on the New York Times for your information. SteveF’s list of journalists who have been red pilled is the same as mine. I am still in shock that Glenn Greenwald has totally turned the corner and I think his reporting is the best and most honest. Greenwald likes Trump largely because he kept the US out of new foreign wars and takes on the corrupt elites.
David,
There’s no equivalence between Trump’s promise to use the government to investigate the press for ‘Country Threatening Treason’ and anything you linked that DeSantis said that’s meaningful to me. I do understand that you think the media considers both of them to be a threat, but this observation is neither here nor there from my perspective. Thanks though.
David
Who is focusing on this word? Not me.
You are the one who brought that word specific word up here. And claimed DeSantis had brought it up…. somewhere…. sometime. You are merely asked to tell us where DeSantis (a specific) person brought it up and when.
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That should be easy for you to do if he did it. It need not take a bunch of paragraphs about lots of other irrelevant stuff. Just tell us where, when.
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Otherwise: I get you might think that might be an unhelpful word, but if so, it might be best if you didn’t inject that word into the conversation where no one else has.
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Could you provide a quote where De Santis used it?
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If he has not: Admit it’s you who are focusing on the word “treason” and not him.
Uhmmm… so you are bringing it up here. Please indulge me and point out where DeSantis said what you claimed. If he said it, it should be possible to do in 2 or 3 sentences. Directly. Without telling me to go search an entire blog post.
Thanks.
mark bofill
I saw no link. I so no answer to the question asked
David has claimed
Of course, there is some deniability about what that is even supposed to mean. Because… well… “similar things”. But Trump is saying this sort of thing
Both mark and I have asked David to point to where DeSantis has said the press should be investigated for it’s “Country Threatening Treason”.
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It’s all well and good for David to know what to say focusing on the word “treason” is not helpful. But it’s the word Trump used. And David tells us DeSantis has said “similar” things. As voters some of us would like to know if DeSantis has gone so far as to use this totally unhelpful word…. or not…
This is a good summary of why this war is not going to go the way we were led to expect.
https://mearsheimer.substack.com/p/bound-to-lose
Lucia,
Yeah. A Presidential candidate [well, a potential one anyway] says the media should be investigated. The ‘why’ matters a lot here. Treason was Trump’s word. It was in crazy quotes and capital letters as if it was a proper noun of some kind, so it’s hard to avoid quoting here. I don’t really know why Trump decided to emphasize it that way.
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In point of fact though, it wouldn’t improve matters for me if Trump hadn’t specifically said ‘treason’. It’s icing on the cake really; the problem IMO is that Trump says he wants to use the government to punish the press for vicious and one sided coverage that wasn’t favorable to him.
Here is the whole dollop of crazy Trump put forward. I’ll post it here just for reference:
I think it was Mark who brought this word up. I was unaware of it until it was mentioned here at least I don’t remember reading the quote in question. At 72 maybe my memory isn’t perfect though. I generally don’t read Trump’s statements unless my wife shows them to me.
Here’s what I said at 7:51PM:
“Desantis has not used the same language as Trump but as I said the media consider him just as much of a threat. DeSantis has spoken of “slitting throats on day one” with regard to the deep state. That was not meant literally I’m sure. But its extreme language.”
Trump says many many things and it seems to me to be one of the hallmarks of Trump Derangement Syndrome to focus on single words or sentences taken out of context. This really is unfair to anyone with a massive public opus. You could go back 12 years and find some comment I made at Judith’s blog that was wrong or maybe even rude but that means virtually nothing. It’s what Joshua likes to do. Remember that childish doofus? Are we into Joshua territory here? This is what the corrupt media has been doing to Trump for 7 years and it really is tedious and dishonest. It’s similar to Joshua’s and Willard’s insistence on a single sentence from the new paper by Stevens and Palmer admitting that climate models are junk and need very massive improvement.
There is so much disinformation out there that it takes a big effort to find good sources that bring the receipts. That’s why I like Glenn Greenwald. He always plays or quotes at length from the sources for his claims.
If you really want to understand this you can read my blog post. It goes back to the original sources and is very well sourced.
I find it hard to believe that otherwise seemingly well informed people here are not familiar with the Durham report and the Twitter files.
I do really think that the corporate media has gotten used to their priviledged position to selectively report deep state leaks of often classified material that support their narratives. As I say the DOJ is really guilty of a deep double standard on prosecuting journalists. I would personally like to see a dramatic increase of firings and prosecution of deep state leakers. They are every bit as dangerous to national security as Assange or Greenwald (who was never a threat to national security really). I see they found out who leaked Trump’s and many others tax returns. I guarantee he will get a slap on the wrist. If you think the Assange case is justified, why not hundreds of corrupt corporate media types? Answer: deep staters like to further their narratives and their careers by leaking classified information and the reporters benefit by getting “scoops.”
Meanwhile I read DeSantis did a good job on Bill Mayer’s show. Night and day, comparing Trump with DeSantis. It’s a shame that Trump’s demagoguery is probably going to prevail and win him the nomination, if the polls keep going the way they’ve been.
mark
Yes. As usual, Trump choice of words are, to use David Young’s adjective, id ” not nhelpful”.
But setting aside the specific word Trump elected to use, the Trump appears to have expressed sound dangerous and anti-american. If DeSantis has expressed “similar” types of things — as David Young reports– I’d like to read whatever DeSantis said in context.
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And David telling me there is some sort of discussion at Climate Etc….. well… not helpful. I would think if David diagnoses something specific DeSantis said as “similar”, David could link to an article or a quote rather than just giving the name of a blog that has numerous years of posts and lengthy comments blocks.
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Absent any specific link, I’m guessing diagnosis definition of “similar” might not be something you or I consider “similar”. But who knows? Still, my Bayesian sense is: DeSantis probably didn’t say anything sufficiently similar for David to consider it worth to actually quote and link.. Also, my Bayesian sense is were we to read what DeSantis acututally said , you and I, would conclude… “uhmm… not really similar. I mean… no. Not… just not…”
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And my Bayesian sense is: Not worth my time to do David’s homework for him.
Holy smokes.
For the record, I consider Joshua a friend of mine. We still discuss things from time to time. I most certainly don’t think these aspersions are justified or relevant. He can and often does answer succinctly when I ask him something.
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Anyway. I supplied Trump’s full post from Truth Social. Readers can judge for themselves if I’ve taken Trump out of context somehow.
Mark, I think you are wrong on Trump’s reasons for hating the media. I suspect it’s not really about him but everyone in his movement who the media have lied about, maligned, and accused of being racists, white supremecists, fascists, deplorables, etc.
You know Trump was loved by the New York elites until he ran for President and built his movement. My wife found a book that has long quotes from literally hundreds of people saying very positive things about Trump (all before 2016). Included were Andrew Cuomo, Jesse Jackson, and almost every important person in New York. Were these people lying then or are they lying now? They are lying now.
In any case, I do think changing some of the rules for corporate media is needed. Reimpose the fairness doctrine? Perhaps. Allowing people who are slandered to sue with broader rules? And for heavens sake break up some of these media corporate giants that own NBC, CBS, and ABC. Force them to spin off these networks so they have to operate in a real marketplace where there are penalties for making serious mistakes.
Mark, You are so wrong about Joshua. He is a troll who is obsessed with Judith Curry and Nic Lewis. He has spent literally thousands of hours of his valuable [sic] life energy generating thousands of comments reciting their supposed “errors.” Often they are taken out of context or not errors at all. And then he expects these things to make us distrust two people who are generally excellent scientists. And his lying about what other people say is inexcusable. And the endless repetition is a sign of a childish mind.
I think that’s why Joshua was effectively banned here. His comments are extremely repetitions word salads that are totally devoid of technical scientific content.
David,
Did I advance a theory regarding Trump’s reasons for hating the media? It’s getting late, maybe I’ve lost track. I didn’t think I even stated that I thought Trump hated the media. I’m not sure I think that’s true.
Regarding the rest, I think it is obviously and trivially true that the media is biased against Trump and favors his opposition. Yes. Obviously. This absolutely in no way justifies Trump’s desire to throttle the freedom of the press to unjustly criticize him, as far as I am concerned.
We can agree to disagree if you like. I have nothing new to add and I feel like I’ve covered pretty clearly what my problems are with this, and why this is unacceptable. It really ought to be obvious anyway.
[Edit: Look, I’m not talking further about Joshua. You don’t like him, that’s fine. Lots of people don’t, I don’t have an issue with people not liking him.]
https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/2023/02/24/desantis-libel-public-defamation-press-media-freedom/
Here’s another one on DeSantis’ bill to make it easier to sue the media. I strongly favor this type of reform.
Mark, You said “Trump’s desire to throttle the freedom of the press to unjustly criticize him,” which repeats your earlier comment. That seems to me to ascribe a motive to Trump. I disagree with your assessment.
With respect, I do think you are really living in a fantasy world where the current media constitute a “free press.”
Fortress Europe, From Janes: “Romania to acquire 48 F-35s”
One of the consequences of Putin’s Folley is that NATO is stronger than it has ever been.
Little ol’ Romania is contracting 6.5 Billion dollars for 32 top-of-the-line stealth fighter jets in 2023, with 16 more in the future. Romania might be able to take on what’s left of the Russian air force by itself.
https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/romania-to-acquire-48-f-35s-in-two-tranches
Coincidently, on the demise of the Russian air force, this just happened::
“Russian Su-35 Fighter Jet Downed by Own Air Defense”
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-su35-fighter-jet-downed-own-air-defense-friendly-fire-zaporizhzhia-tokmak-1830844
Crash photo:
#Ukraine: The crash site of a Russian Su-35S fighter jet near Tokmak, #Zaporizhzhia Oblast, which was apparently shot down by the Russian air defense forces in a friendly fire incident two days ago.
https://x.com/UAWeapons/status/1708040649381978615?s=20
Another Su-35 went on his ‘eternal flight’ according to Russian Air Force affiliated channel Fighterbomber. What exactly happened is unknow yet but yesterday it became known that in the Tokmak direction, Russia lost a fighter jet due to friendly fire.
https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1707680962358743206?s=20
David,
No, I’m not living in a fantasy world. ‘Free press’ means free from government censorship and control. Free to criticize the government. Plenty of conservative outlets exist which criticize Democratic governance.
Trump’s rhetoric crudely and idiotically opposes this. I’ve said before and I will say again, one doesn’t save the country by destroying it. Using the office to investigate the media for vicious one-sided coverage is directly destroying freedom of the press.
David, surely you must know that Trump used the word “treason” to gain attention. He wants his audience to focus on that word. It is common practice for him to communicate in this manner.
Your constant defense of what Trump says comes across to me as someone explaining why a friend or family member of an afflicted one might react to their strange comments by saying: Pay no attention he has (fill in the blank). By doing this your credibility of viewing Trump’s credentials goes out the window.
I am not pulling your legs. This post and my previous two posts on the Russian Air Force this morning all just happened coincidentally in the last two days.
From the UK MOD Defence Intelligence Report:
“The Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) have lost approximately 90 fixed-wing aircraft in combat since February 2022. It has also been flying some of its combat aircraft types far more intensively than in peace time.”
And:
“The need for extra maintenance is complicated by a shortage of spare parts because of increasing demand and international sanctions.”
And:
“However, as the war continues much longer than the Russian Ministry of Defence originally planned for, wear and tear of airframes is likely to have reduced the viability of the VKS’s long-term tactical air power.”
https://x.com/DefenceHQ/status/1707277098677629239?s=20
With the recent death of David McCallum, I thought I’d take a nostalgic look at The Man From UNCLE. Used to love it as a kid. Oh, boy! Gives me a new appreciation of “common sense gun control”! Everytime Mr Solo draws his gun, no one is safe!
The “take Trump literally” narrative has been tried many times already and hasn’t had much success.
Tom,
I don’t know what that even means. The ‘take Trump literally’ narrative. I guess you mean, Trump can say whatever the hell he wants and we should all pretend his words mean something besides what they plainly say. Because actually holding his supporters accountable for what he says ‘hasn’t had much success’. No thanks! Maybe people will wake the hell up eventually. Even if they don’t, I’m not going to quit expressing my outrage over it.
David Young
huh? Sorry, but I’m having trouble taking you seriously at this point.
A populist party in Slovakia has won the most seats in parliament, and its leader will try to form a coalition government. Like Hungarian Prime Minister Orban, the head of the Slovakian populist party wants to end all military support for the Ukraine and drop NATO sanctions on Russia. That won’t make a huge difference, because the last government already gave the Ukraine most of Slovakia’s weapons. Of greater import: now two NATO countries will likely oppose NATO membership for the Ukraine.
mark
Agreed. Yes– he picked the word “treason” for hyperbolic effect. But if we take the word out, what he is advocating still seems anti-American, anti-freedom, and bound to cause serious harm.
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If he wanted to clarify that he really means something quite modest, he could do that. But he hasn’t. He’s picked the words he wants to use, and those words sound like he wants to do something draconian and harmful.
David
Nice theory. But. Nope.
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I’m trying to figure out why you brought up Joshua. I mean… is the argument “The press is wrong about Trump because they are like Joshua? In some way.”
Davide Young,
The Substack you linked to was way too long just to say a couple of things: 1) the war in Ukraine is very likely to go on indefinitely as a war of attrition, and 2) The prospects for negotiation appear nil, so the likely outcomes of the war are a “frozen conflict”, as in Korea, and permanently damaged diplomatic relationships between Russia and those counties supporting the Ukrainian government.
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I suspect the author is right about that, but he could have made is points with about 5% as many words.
Lucia,
Yeah, me too. I’m embarrassed now that I chased that squirrel for a minute. What on earth does Joshua have to do with anything we are talking about? Nothing, obviously.
It’s sort of odd. If David doesn’t want to talk about what Trump said, he doesn’t have to. But to engage on the topic and then start dodging like this is .. what, I don’t even know what that is. It’s strange is what it is.
Tom Scharf,
The news reports say the tax return leaker has not yet been charged with specific crimes, which usually means a plea bargain agreement is being negotiated or has already been struck. I’m betting the deal involves little if any prison time, not the 5 years he could have gotten. When the DOJ is being run by a bunch of near Jacobins, prosecutorial decisions are mostly political decisions.
Returning from David’s Joshua-squirrel digression…. He did manage to link to an news article about DeSantis vs. the press. (No, it is not an article where DeSantis accused the press of ‘treason’ as Trump did.)
The news article is the usual vague thing, but did link the bill. I’ll provide the bill so those of us interested in specifics can read it. Here’s the bill.
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/991
I’m reading it– and also refreshing my memory on NYT v. Sullivan.
(First reaction…. Bill writes “Provides that journalist’s privilege does not apply to defamation claims when defendant is professional journalist or media entity”)
I’m not sure if “journalists privlege” was involved in NYT v. Sullivan because that involved an advertisement. So… NYT is a newspaper, but their journalists did not write the story. OTOH: I don’t know what “journalists privilege” really means in terms of law.)
The DeSantis bill relating to defamation cases against the press seems to be specifically here
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/991/BillText/Filed/PDF
I’ll be adding other links that might be necessary to understand it.
At line 44 we have:
Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Florida:
Section 1. Subsection (9) is added to section 90.5015,
Florida Statutes, to read:
90.5015 Journalist’s privilege.
(9) This section does not apply to defamation claims
brought under chapter 770 when the defendant is a professional
journalist or media entity.
To understand that we need to read 90.5015 which appears to be here:
https://casetext.com/statute/florida-statutes/title-vii-evidence/chapter-90-evidence-code/section-905015-journalists-privilege
I’ll move onto the changes in “section 2” after reading 90.5015.
Lucia,
Let me know what you find out.
To regroup for a minute, I was sincere when I asked David earlier where DeSantis had made similar claims. If DeSantis overstepped by supporting this bill (and I’ve certainly found people who claim he did online), that’s worth knowing. I don’t a-priori assume DeSantis is the savior. Maybe he’s just a mini-Trump, who knows. If he is essentially no different in his views than Trump, that’s certainly something I need to find out about if I can.
[Edit: Maybe I was assuming a-priori that DeSantis was the savior. If so, shrug. We all make mistakes, maybe this was another one of mine. Anyway]
It sounds like this is “the journalist privilege”
I suppose the intention is to revoke that privilege in the specific situation where someone alleges the journalist defamed them.
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I think this bit doesn’t touch NYT. v. Sullivan per se. It reduces a privilege the state is currently giving journalists to keep their sources anonymous. That privilege doesn’t spring from NYT v. Sullivan.
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I think it does eliminate a possible defense strategy under NYT v. Sullvan. Hypothetical e.g. “We didn’t act with malice when we reported that Senator X was seen doing the rumpy-pumpy on the beach with a 14 year old boy. Our journalist learned that from our eyewitness whose identity we are keeping confidential.” It looks like absent the new bill Senator X could have made the specific showing of (a)-(c) to force the journalist to reveal names of the eyewitnesses. With the change it looks like Senator X could force the journalist to reveal the name of the eyewitness.
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First impression: this would make it less difficult and expensive for Senator X to sue a newspaper for defamation. Newspapers wouldn’t be able to fully shield their sources. But I don’t think this change would destroy freedom of the press as we know it.
On to Section 2.
Biden signed a continuing resolution near midnight last night. It includes no additional funding for Ukraine, but added funding for disaster relief in HI. It runs for 45 days. So all Federal employees will stay on the job until at least mid November.
Need a legal eagle for section 2. I think the bit under Section 2 effectively
* clarifies or extends the right to sue the author of publisher for defamation if the material is delivered by means of ‘internet’ to a reader in FL.
* the person suing can’t forum shop for different venues. (It think?) So they find a court that has jurisdiction and file. They can’t file in a bunch of courts. (Not quite sure…). However, the court can then assess damages arising in all jurisdictions.So… in the above Senator X example, he could sue in a court in, say, Miami. But his damages could be based on harms that arise everywhere– so all of FL and possible the world. (Maybe?) He doesn’t have to sue in Miami and only collect damages for the harms in Miami, and then in Sarasota for the harms there and, perhaps, New York for the harms that arise for him in NY?
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If I read that right, it sounds fair enough. But maybe it means something else.
Section 4: This is an addition.
Just says whoever win bears the costs. I don’t see how this is unfair to either party. If you sue for defamation and lose, you pay the defendants costs. If you win, they pay yours. I don’t see a huge problem with that. (Though… perhaps it’s a bit tough on poor people who get defamed. The newspapers have bigger pockets.)
I don’t think Lucia or Mark has responded to the substance of what I have said. Joshua is the king of this genre. You vaguely attack the “skeptic” mind set without addressing any substance. You pull a single sentence out of a vast opus of public statements to smear people.
Our corporate media is totally corrupt and partly state run. No response to this point. Just outrage that anyone would suggest investigating the media.
Section 5: Specifically exempts some people from being “public figures” for the purpose of defamation claims when they really aren’t public figures. Category (1) actually helps avoid a catch-22 situation. You aren’t a public figure if your noteriety stems only from
“(1) Defending him or herself publicly against accusations.”
So… in the above, Senator X would be a public figure because they are Senator X. But “mild mannered Mr. X.” does not become a public figure merely because the newspaper published the article accusing him of doing the rumpy-pumpy with the 14 year old.
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And further, he wouldn’t become a public figure if he granted an interview denying the story. Nor do all firefighers, police, administrative assistants to senators, teachers etc become public figures by virtue of being employed by “the government”. And having uploaded a video that went viral doesn’t make you a public figure.
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So lots of people who no one knows about and honest aren’t “public figures” don’t have to worry they will be blocked from suing because they would be deemed “public figures”.
(I think Sullivan in NYT v. Sullivan would still be a public figure. He was a police commissioner which would likely either be appointed by an elected official or elected. I haven’t checked. though.)
It was reported the IRS leaker has only one count of releasing unauthorized documents even though he leaked thousands of returns. They could charge him with a count for every one he released. This was announced late Friday so it is possible they are trying to bury a plea deal. Actual information is pretty spotty.
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I don’t understand why the media doesn’t latch on to this. I suppose they are incentivized to not have leakers punished but this is ridiculous. They can’t allow government agencies to do this.
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The IRS is getting sued by one of the leakees and it was stalled in court because it could not be proven an IRS employee did the leak. The suit can now go forward but how would this work? Taxpayers are punished for IRS malfeasance? This guy really needs to go to jail.
I get that you think your point is more worthy of discussion than what Trump had to say, but frankly who gives two shits about this point you’re making? I was talking about what Trump had to say, not about this other thing you’d like to discuss instead. You’re not going to be the republican nominee.
And yes. I am expressing outrage that the presumptive Republican nominee thinks it is a good idea to say this:
What Trump is saying is outrageous. It’s not the way our country has ever worked. Freedom of the press is important, and Trump’s rhetoric is damaging and tarnishing people’s understanding of this. People need to call this out.
Tom, I agree this leaker should get jail time.
To me this points to the corrupt relationship between corporate media and the deep state. It really is a symbiotic relationship. The leakers are trying to put out a narrative that benefits them or their agenda and the media (who generally support the deep state narratives) get scoops. Trump is right that we need to investigate this corrupt bargain.
Mark, Please read my blog post. I think your view is based on an easily proven false narrative that our current media are a “free press.” It’s a little bit like opposing the Sherman anti-trust act on the basis that free markets work and attacking free markets is shameful and dangerous. Complete BS. The system in the Gilded Age was totally corrupt and needed strong reforms. Teddy Roosevelt was completely right in this regard. Apologists for corrupt power always express outrage when the truth is told and refuse to review the evidence that the system is totally corrupt.
Dishonest and corrupt are perfectly legitimate expressions of free speech. Speech that is wrong, false, misleading, and damaging – all of it is perfectly legitimate. Trump does not need to be silenced. Trump needs to be answered.
Nobody needs to be silenced. Let the corrupt, dishonest corporate media spin. They are going down the tubes – look at the ratings for CNN these days. So long as speech is free, the ship will right itself. Once the government silences us – and make no mistake, government censorship of the media is a huge step in that direction – we’re in serious trouble.
David
I don’t think you have said much of anything substantive. Maybe you have.
Perhaps, if there is a specific point you want addressed, you can make it in less than 4 sentences? If it has substance, people may engage it.
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I’ve said nothing about the ‘ “skeptic” mind set’ and have no idea what you think I am attacking.
Not sure what sentence you think I’ve pulled out of a vast opus to smear who. Are you referring to mark saying Trump used the word “treason” as reported by The Hill on Sept 25, 2023? Mentioning a recent quote by leading candidate for the GOP nomination for president doesn’t seem to be untoward to me. I’m not sure what “rule” you think there ought to be for quoting former presidents or current candidates for president, but if we can’t mention current speech by the candidate when discussing him, that pretty much leaves voters with nothing on which to evaluate candidates. That’s unreasonable.
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But if you want to create an unreasonable rule, go ahead– and then enforce it at your blog.
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The above is an example of your word salad. I think all of this has been addressed— to the extent possible. But I can repeat:
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(a) I’m not entirely sure what you mean by “corrupt”. You’ve posted lots of ranting but I don’t know what the specific corrupt practices you mean. Are they bribing senators? Something else? If you can clarify the specific actions that are corrupt, perhaps you get responses to more specific claims.
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(b) I don’t know what you specifically mean by “partly state run”. (I don’t even now if this is separate from the “corruption” or if you intend this to be the same complaining as (a).) Are you upset about NPR? Some agencies and executive branch communicating their wishes to Twitter etc.? I approve of those investigations proceeding and people contemplating doing something about it. If you mean something else, be more specific, and edit out the rants. Then your substance might get noticed.
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(c) I haven’t expressed outrage at anyone suggesting investigating the media. (I’m not even sure what sort of investigation you propose. I think there is an ongoing one– about the executive branch trying to tailor what social media reports.) I don’t think anyone else has expressed outrage over that. But perhaps there is something else you think you have proposed that people consider outrageous. I mean… there are some sorts of investigations I would be outraged by.
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Look: I’m honestly not trying to be disingenuous here. I’m not trying to “not engage your points”. I know you likely think you are being perfectly clear and that everyone knows what you “must” mean when you refer to “the corrupt press” or “partly state run”. No one can really engage those “points” you brought up because it’s not entirely possible to understand what you mean.
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I also suspect you probably actually think someone has expressed outrage at the idea of “investigating the media”. But… I think no one has.
There may be an effort here to discriminate between “professional” journalists and bloggers / citizens who leak information that subsequently claim to be a “citizen journalist” by self decree who get the same default protection from divulging sources of irresponsible information that may not even be true.
David,
Do you understand what the words ‘free press’ mean? What, in your own words, does ‘free press’ mean?
David
Oh. Sheesh… Look, it’s really not good etiquette to come here and demand people go read your post somewhere else. If someone thought your posts were worthy of reading, they’d be following you and reading them whereever it is you post. And they can discuss your post over there where you wrote it.
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I’m not going to engage the rest of your rant about the Gilded age and Sherman anti-trust here. And as long as what you are writing is “read my blog post” followed by rants that contain zero substance, I’m going to suggest that anyone who wants to read your musings on the Gilded Age, Teddy Roosevelt and the Sherman anti-trust act figure out where you post is, read it there and discuss it there.
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Lucia,
No, I have. The government shouldn’t be investigating the media in my view for the reasons Trump cited. I think it’s outrageous, yup.
David,
Would I be misrepresenting you if I restated my understanding of your position by saying this – that you think our system is totally corrupt, and that there is no free press anymore, and therefore there is no need to stand up for freedom of the press? Is this an accurate summary of what you are saying.
mark
Yep.
Yep. Which is one of the reasons it is perfectly legitimate to engage what he is currently writing on his blog. That means it’s perfectly legitimate to quote this Trump quote from last week:
It’s also perfectly reasonable to note the word “treason”. And it’s perfectly fine for us to point out Trump himself is picking the word “treason” even if “David Young” thinks Trumps word choice was unhelpful . Or even if he thinks quoting something Trump wrote last week is behaving “like Joshua” who supposedly would mine someones ‘opus’ of work to find 12 year old quotes. Sorry, but last week is not years or decades ago. (Note: I included supposedly because I honestly don’t remember Joshua constantly trolling through to find 12 year old quotes. )
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It’s also perfectly reasonable to point out that David objecting to people quoting what Trump wrote last week has made us disucuss what Trump wrote more that we otherwise would have.
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Yep. I’m fine with investigating things to find out what happened. And to tailoring laws after knowing what happened we can write things to curb abuses. Based on what we see in the Twitter files, the curbs need to be on the government.
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Accusing the media of “treason” is unhelpful. But that’s what Trump did. Obviously, it’s incumbant on us to discuss the unhelpful language and actions a presidential candidate is advancing.
David,
Keep talking. Do elaborate for us on how precisely the government should regulate free speech and how that’s a good idea. Tie Trump into your thinking as much as possible, please. By all means. People need to hear this.
Mark,
Do you object to people like MO attorney general Schmitt LA AG Landry filing a lawsuit? Getting discovery? Would you object to the government investigating the interactions between the executive branch and the press if it occurs? That’s the sort of investigation I favor. But it’s really an investigation of the government, not “the media”.
I don’t know what sorts of “investigations” David Young or Trump are proposing because they remain vague.
Here’s more to the sort of ‘investigation’ , “lawsuits” or actions I’m talking about.
https://docs.house.gov/meetings/GO/GO02/20220914/115106/HHRG-117-GO02-20220914-SD012.pdf
Lucia,
No, I don’t object to those things. It goes back to what I was saying earlier, the ‘why’ matters a lot. The press is made up of people and people break laws and do things wrong. Of course they shouldn’t be immune to investigation. But ‘corrupt, dishonest, vicious, one-sided’ coverage of the sort that Trump specifically mentioned in his rant doesn’t constitute legitimate grounds to investigate the press.
This social media censorship by the government is currently not an allegation, it is a fact proven in court.
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The government has already been investigating and silencing social media under the guise of misinformation (aka knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events). Certain agencies have been banned from further contact at this time. This will likely end up in front of the SC.
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Just because the government didn’t make some irrational hyperbolic announcement on X about their intentions and instead executed it in secret private meetings doesn’t mean they aren’t doing the same thing.
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If Trump’s bluster turns into action then the same court system will restrict him in the same way. There is a gray area between the government expressing their opinion and them unlawfully suppressing speech.
Electronic messages between government officials and social media executives about censoring viewpoints sounds like a pretty good reason to investigate to me. But the transgressors there are the government I think.
mark bofill
Precisely.
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I’m not saying there could never be transgression on the part of the media. But the evidence we have is of the government being the transgressor. I have nothing against investigating the governmental interactions with the media.
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I agree with you that Trumps rants– to the extent one can parse what he means– are to claim it’s just “the media”.
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To some extent, Trumps opacity may be intentional. I mean… decreeing the media “treasonous” clearly suggest he wants to the government to be more involved in dictating what they cover. That would be wrong.
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Well, You guys are not reading what I wrote. I summarized my blog post in several long comments here. I’m just saying that if you want proof its in the post.
I object to this idea that “free speech” is self correcting. In an ideal world yes. The problem here is that our corrupt media are a cartel which is essentially state run just as in Russia. The evidence which Mark and Lucia you refuse to look at. There is little else to say. You deny reality and refuse to look at any evidence I guess for fear your naive ideas will be contradicted. With respect, if you haven’t looked at the Durham report and the Twitter files reporting, you are speaking from ignorance.
mark bofill,
“But the transgressors there are the government I think.”
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Of course, and that is what the district court and the 5th circuit said in their orders: the government must stop pressuring media companies to take down information which the government thinks is not accurate or disagrees with.
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But in reality, the situation is much worse than just pressuring media companies: the FBI knew the Hunter Biden laptop was not fake information, and knew that a copy of the hard drive was given to Biden’s political opponents, so “warned” all the social media companies that they might receive “Russian disinformation” about Hunter Biden and should be “very careful” about allowing that disinformation to be seen on their sites. When directly asked by social media companies if the laptop was genuine (and the FBI had the laptop and new it was genuine!) the FBI staff replied with “no comment”, ensuring the laptop story was suppressed. That was BOTH willful dishonesty AND blatant, willful interference in the 2020 election. These are bad people doing bad things.
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That nobody in the FBI has been held to account for any of it tells me the FBI needs a major housecleaning; the Federal government’s principle law enforcement agency is committing politically motivated, criminal acts, just as they did during the 2016 election and through much of Trump’s presidency. Many heads must roll at the FBI, starting with the director. The janitorial staff should be safe… but nobody else.
I think you are wrong on this too Mark. The government officials are only a part of the problem which is that Google, Fakebook, etc. are effective monopolies just like Standard Oil or US Steel. Free market absolutism is very wrong and leads to real abuses like child labor (which is making a comeback thanks to Biden’s open border), adulteration of food products, and unsafe railroads.
Whoa, wait. The twitter files reporting – is that free press or the government controlled cartel? Matt Taibbi? Greenwald, is he free press?
Because it sort of seems to me like you’re asking me to read the products of the free press to correct this corrupt system. Or is it the government cartel controlled press I should read to become enlightened so we can correct this corrupt system?
And you call me naive. Heh.
I get what mark bofill is saying re the free press, but I can also see the other side.
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The press is often called the “fourth estate” or even, in the U.S., the””fourth branch of government”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_branch_of_government#The_press
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For most of our history, there were a massive number of newspapers that were usually highly partisan. If one wanted balance, one had to read a variety of sources. With the internet, we are arguably returning to that.
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In the mid 20th century, there was an enormous consolidation of newspapers as well as the creation of just THREE national television networks. Diversity in the media largely vanished and was replaced by the concept (misguided, IMO) of the press as an honest broker.
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Those days are over. But there are many people who think that is the way it should be and also many who believe that is still the way it is. The Left wants a return to uniformity with their “experts” in control. Many on the Right are frustrated by the fact that the MSM are no longer honest brokers but are still widely regarded as such. So some want (foolishly, IMO) to “fix” that.
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I think the only way forward is the let the media be, without government interference, and let the reader beware. But he transition is messy, so I get why many people are not comfortable with it.
Steve, Lucia, thanks. I agree with both of your comments. It’s unfortunate that I’m devoting my attention and responses to the comments I appreciate least, in a way.
[Edit: Mike, I agree with that as well.]
Rather obviously David Young is for more government intervention. He extolls the Progressive Era where government went from non interventionist to interventionist in private dealings with many of the trappings of the current progressive movement.
Trump would use anti-trust to go after his percieved enemies. He talks about imposing a 10% tariff on all imports into the US. He slings treason around as if it is ready tool of the government.
I can see why David would be in bed with Trump.
Mike M,
I think the media companies are going through something of a convulsion before death. Their (dishonest) partisanship will eventually mean most people just don’t believe what they publish and they will wither. The rise of Substack, Rumble, and other alternative sources of information will do them in eventually. How long that will take is unclear.
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Even a company like Google will lose business to more honest search engines like DuckDuckGo. I haven’t done a Google search in years, because I don’t trust Google to present information accurately or honestly. In any search that involves commercial products, Google always (suprise!) presents links to companies who just happen to be spending a lot of money on Google advertising, even if those companies are only peripheral to the search terms, and presents links to non-advertisers, even those perfectly matched to the search terms, way below (second or third page or later). I don’t see that at all with DuckDuckGo; the links presented high seem always well connected to the actual search terms. I think Google searches are self-dealing to increase their own profits.
David,
You are writing word salads. Write something specific and people will know what you mean.
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Don’t expect us to go out and read your blog post. I
(a) don’t know where it is
(b) have no inclination to hunt for it and
(c) doubt it’s any better quality than a previous blog post you wrote which you came here to tell us to read.
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This is a bald claim. And worse, it’s a vague one.
(a) define what you mean by “corrupt”.
(b) tell us who is in the ‘cartel’.
(c) tell us in what way it is “state run”.
Otherwise, you’ve said pretty much nothing of substance.
You haven’t stated any clear claim and certainly haven’t provided “evidence”. We can’t look at your evidence if you don’t provide it. And we can’t really evaluate your claims if they are so vague as to be meaningless.
Looked at them.
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Please try to make a clear points, meaningful claims and provide evidence for those specific claims. Perpetually telling us to just read the Durham report and Twitter files does none of those things.
Mark, I’m assuming you are intelligent enough to read original sources and examine evidence and come to a determination. If you won’t or can’t do that I can’t help you. Greenwald for example always brings the evidence for his reporting. The Durham report is carefully sourced and based on sworn testimony.
David Young
Yeah… ‘cuz reddit doesn’t exist.
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Look, facebook is big. But it’s still mostly people posting images of them doing hobbies, celebrating birthday parties, posting jokes and so on. I mean, yeah, right now facebook is trying to get me to read about “Carlos I of Spain and V of the Holy German Roman Empire Territories inherited and conquered by Carlos in Europe.” And my neigbhor is posting an article about Swedish gangs and open borders. And someone wants me to buy a laser hair removal device. And I’m seeing a video showing last friday’s dance party at a studio where I used to take lessons.
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I think you are getting a little unhinged about google and facebook. Specifically, you are mistaking “large amount of traffic” at social media with “impacting ‘news reporting'”.
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Does Facebook have some impact on news? Sure. But it’s just not that dominant as far as “news media” goes.
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I know reddit is smaller. But people actually discuss politics on reddit. Well, that and show cat videos. But then, newspapers show puff pieces too. And sports.
Don’t misunderstand me David. You’ve said, “The problem Mark is that we don’t have a “free press.” ” and “With respect, I do think you are really living in a fantasy world where the current media constitute a “free press.”” and “ I think your view is based on an easily proven false narrative that our current media are a “free press.” and particularly “I object to this idea that “free speech” is self correcting. In an ideal world yes. The problem here is that our corrupt media are a cartel which is essentially state run just as in Russia.“.
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Yet you propose I read reporting as some kind of remedy. You can’t have this both ways David. Either there is a free press with free speech and there’s stuff out there I need to read that will help ‘right the ship’, or there isn’t.
David
I don’t understand why you are constantly accusing people of not reading “original source”.
Sure. Unlike you– at least when you are here–, Greenwald brings evidence. And unlike you, the Durham report is source. Maybe you point to original sources elsewhere. But as far as I can tell, all you do here is drop names of people you admire.
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Lucia, What previous blog post are you attacking? There are only two. The first was about CFD and was deeply sourced in the literature. I’ve been doing CFD for 45 years and have about 50 publications, most of them peer reviewed. There were no substantive comments that questioned any technical point I made. My bosses have always encouraged me to speak out about uncertainty in CFD. I know we have discussed turbulence and chaos here many years ago. It is quite fallacious to attack something you refuse to read.
https://judithcurry.com/2022/12/02/colorful-fluid-dynamics-and-overconfidence-in-global-climate-models/
https://judithcurry.com/2023/04/23/how-the-disinformation-industrial-complex-is-destroying-trust-in-science/
Yes Ken, The capitalist system in the Gilded Age was very corrupt and government intervention made things much better. Yes, our elites are corrupt now and we can do many things to correct these excesses such as the Florida bill Lucia has commented on. I really don’t think anyone seriously believes that the Sherman anti-trust act was wrong or had bad effects. I also don’t think anyone serious questions the outlawing of child labor or giving voting rights to women. Many good things happened during Roosevelt’s presidency. Likewise I don’t think anyone seriously questions that the FDA or the SEC are good things, albeit not perfect.
Trump is not my first choice, but I do agree with Greenwald that Trump has very unique political skills in terms of convincing people he cares about them. I supported Cruz in 2016 because I though Trump might be a closet progressive. After seeing how Trump governed, that concern is gone. I’m also concerned that DeSantis might not be as effective on the stump as Trump.
Mark, There is no contradiction. Independent media exists in spite of the corrupt media cartel. The media/deep state/ big tech cartel have done everything they can do to shut them down. As I think Ken pointed out, in the 19th century there were tens of thousands of newpapers and there was a very broad diversity all the way from ardent supporters of the Gilded Age to socialists and communists. That’s no longer true.
1. The British government recently attacked Rumble for allowing Russell Brand to post his podcasts despite the fact that Brand hasn’t even been charged with anything. Now some advertisers have heard the call of their authoritarian overlords and are pulling their advertisements.
2. There have been constant attacks by elected officials on Matt Taibbi with Congressmen suggesting he should be prosecuted. He received a visit to his home by an IRS agent the morning of his testimony. Looks like a campaign of intimidation.
3. Glen Greenwald moved to Brazil so he could feel safe from malicious prosecution. He quit the Intercept (an outlet he largely founded) because they refused to run his story on the Hunter Biden laptop. The media and deep state and big tech successfully lied and lied about this. It’s an obvious example of propaganda. And yet the media is trying to ignore their previous errors and lies.
4. The media mostly ignores independent media but when they pay attention it’s always baseless attacks and lies such as suggesting that they are spreading “Russian disinformation.”
Mark, I am really surprised that you haven’t discovered any of this on your own.
David,
See, that’s great. You’re making progress. So there is a free press and free speech that helps set society back on course after all, alongside a lot of media outlets you do not consider free press.
Maybe we could make further progress by agreeing on what the words ‘free press’ and ‘freedom of the press’ mean. I reiterate – what those words mean are ‘free from government control and censorship’. Can we agree on that?
Mark
Well, the way normal reporting goes, they inteview someone who says the bill is going to destroy freedom of the press and report their characterization. They then interview someone who thinks the bill just reigns in too much freedom to defame.
I’m not sure I have a full opinion on which direction it goes. But I haven’t seen anything I think destroys freedom of the press. It is trying to trim back the extent of immunity. But you know… a case can be made that the immunity is too far.
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And honestly, I’m not sure whether there are bill-of-rights foundations for allowing the press to keep sources confidential. I see it can be a nice privilege. But is it a guaranteed one? By the constitution? Not so sure— but then I’d have to read history on that and I haven’t.
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I got interrupted I think I’m at section 4? Going back.
Thanks Lucia!
SteveF (Comment #224741): “Even a company like Google will lose business to more honest search engines like DuckDuckGo.”
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I thought that DuckDuckGo was just an anonymized Google search. Am I mistaken?
This is a whole new addition to define “malice” to include stuff that, often, ordinary people might consider malicious or at least carelessly reckless or… something not good. And calling that malice if the journalist does it. Some of it might be called “reporting mal practice”.
(It goes on to describe what “obvious reasons to doubt” might be.)
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So… going back to my Senator X accused of rumpy-pumpy with minor on the beach example. It looks like (a) says the press had darn well better be correct about the story or they better have had some evidence other than the “anoymous informant” (who might turn out to be the candidate running against Senator X. Or Senator X’s wife who wants a divorce. Or…
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(b) would seem to say if Senator X was frail, wheel chair bound and unable to walk or frolic at the beach, then maybe it’s pretty impossible to believe he somehow got there to engage is said rumpy-pumpying.
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(c) and once again, if the source is the campaign of the guy running against Senator X, perhaps the press better find an additional source.
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Since this is the definition of malice only matters if the press story is false it strikes me these are pretty much enforcing “if you got it wrong, you better have really had solid reasons to believe this false story. No “heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend….” along with “What? You think I should have checked?”
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Now. If the press is already checking none of this should matter much. They can just show why they thought what they thought. But if it really was ‘heard it from an (anonymous) friend who heard it from a friend who…”
—–\\
One to (2) next.
Well, I read here:
At least, they claim they don’t.
lucia,
There is no constitutional protection for keeping sources confidential, but the government must “convincingly show a substantial relation between the information sought and a subject of overriding and compelling state interest.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branzburg_v._Hayes
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Most states have press shield laws that allow journalists to protect sources.
Speaking of the mainstream media trashing “alternative” media, I came across this in the Sacramento Bee today. You will note the mixing up of whether warming is caused by humans (true) with increasing severe weather events (not happening). This is a pretty bald smear in which they confuse “denial” with saying that severe weather is not getting worse. And there is “fear mongering” on Fox as if climate catastrophism is not fear mongering.
Mark, No I don’t agree that we have a free press. The Censorship Industrial Complex that has grown up since 2016 imposes a large degree of control on big tech with the media playing a role too. But the media with the possible exception of Fox are already ideological gate keepers for the deep state. The Twitter files prove it and in fact the Feds are not hiding it either.
You keep on making assertions of libertarian idealism without doing any of the research needed to ascertain whether the press is free or not. I keep pointing out the sources to go to. Someone who is honestly engaging would at least spend a little time looking at it.
Now 6(2)
They are adding to the list of statements that can be defamation per se. So the plaintiff doesn’t need to prove harm.
I think now a days accusation of discriminating against others for those things probably should be added to the list of what’s defamation per se. I’m not seeing how expanding the list to include that would violate freedom of speech. I do see how it would force newspapers and journalists to be careful about reporting this sort of thing. But given some news articles in the past two decades, perhaps they should be more careful.
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(a) seems to merely say something like you can’t use “being Catholic” as evidence someone discriminated against someone gay. Other examples could come to mind. You’ll need to find actual concrete evidence. That seems fair enough. This is especially so because…. well… not all Catholics agree with every doctrine of Catholicism. I’m sure similar things can be said of all religious people.
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(b) seems to say if– say– you did a study of IQ and race and found a link, that in and of itself can’t be used to show you discriminated against them in some way. Or merely believing the link exists. Presumably if you actually decide to not hire people of “race A” because of the study, then you would have discriminated against the individual or group. But merely believing there was a link wouldn’t be sufficient.
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(c) This is just damages.
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Well, if previously, one could defend against a defamation case by saying “Of course he discriminated, he’s Catholic!” and that was seen as sufficient to prove the plaintiff did discriminate, this will make it harder for defendants who accused someone (employer X) of discriminating against people of “race A” or “gender identity B” since the evidence has to show the discrimination itself. On the other hand, if no one every did that, then the explicit text makes no difference.
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Still, this is a big dicier. Because if a person thinks there is scientific reason to believe all those of “race X” are, say, morons, they very well may discriminate. Nevertheless, I do suspect if they did so, it should be possible to uncover evidence of the actual discrimination. If an actual journalist is working on an article it might not be unreasonable to expect they should do the work to find the evidence.
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I guess I’m a little undecided here. I guess I’d like to hear one way or the other on Section 6(2). Perhaps with examples of what’s happened in past cases.
Section 7 is an addition. “Presumption regarding anonymous sources”
Ohh… now I can see why the press wouldn’t like (1). Presumptions can be rebutted. But they have to do it. And they aren’t going to be able to overturn the presumption with a second anonymous source which is also presumed false. They are going to need someone on record. Or they are going to have to get that person to de-anonymize and likely testify so the jury can evaluate their credibility.
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I can see how they wouldn’t like (2) either. This does seem to be touching on Sullivan somewhat since it’s decreeing something is “negligence” rather than “malice”. So it’s saying the plaintiff only needs to prove negligence in this particular case.
Mind you… Sullivan did not involve “anonymous sources” (nor did it actually involve “a journalist”. It was a paid advertisement. But I don’t think that ruling really leant on that as a distinction. Perhaps they should have? Dunno. )
Okay, what are your definitions?
David young
Diagnosis of the above: It is a belief statement. Followed by name calling (Censorship Industrial Complex). Followed by bald claim that this bad-name (whose identity is misterious) did something. Followed by more name calling (gate keepers and deep state). And then glancing allusion to something that might contain evidence for something. Just not any claim that preceeded it.
I don’t know where you think you pointed to a source. Not in the prior paragraph.
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Either you don’t know what constitutes a “source”, you are being pretty lazy, or you are doing what you accuse Mark of: not engaging honestly.
mark
Are you asking me? (I’ve been posting stuff about DeSantis’s bill.)
Or David?
— edit, I’m guessing you want David to define “free press”. Possibly he could define “liberal idealism” and “sources”.
Mike M,
Just to be sure, I did a side-by-side Google vs DuckDuckGo, using the exact same search words. Completely different results; DuckDuckGo was right on the search terms with every hit, Google was disconnected from reality, pushing links to their advertisers. Finding useful (accurate!) hits on Google meant scrolling down 4 pages. This was one of the reasons I switched a couple years ago. (The other was privacy…. I got chased by advertisers every time I did a Google search.)
More on the DeSantis defation bill
Hmm… I think I dislilke this. In my Senator X rumpy-pumpy with minor example, the sex crime doesn’t actually relate to the reason for their public status. But if true, this would certainly be a matter of great public concern. Not sure this is a good reason to set aside the “actual malice” standard.
Section 9 is an addition about false light.
SteveF
I get chased by ads when I buy from Amazon. It can be pretty funny sometimes. I’m like “But I already bought a vacuum cleaner. I don’t need another one.”
Sorry Lucia. Cooking dinner. Got sloppy.
Lucia,
I am beginning to believe you missed your calling. Did you ever think about going into law? 😉
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My oldest son got a PhD in molecular biology, then went to law school.
Lucia,
If Senator X is a sex criminal, then that means they have been convicted (or “accused of being a sex criminal” if charged but not yet convicted). I suspect the issue the law is addressing is published accusations of criminal conduct where there is nothing but some anonymous source. This can be (hell, is!) used to damage political opponents with fact-free allegations, and the politician has no recourse as a “public figure”. Kavanaugh was accused of being a sex criminal without any evidence, and by people who had never even met him. He could not legally pursue those who were lying to damage him politically because he is a public figure.
SteveF
In high school. Not after.
But I”m not really doing law. I’m just trying to read what it says. Maybe things are more “nuanced”. But I read the news articles and could tell they weren’t really telling us what was in the bill.
SteveF,
I should add: I can see why somethings are best addressed explicitly in a law. Old law doesn’t mention internet explicitly. If the “online news paper X” defames a Floridian and the article is online only, someone had to interpret whether the defamation was actionable in Florida, New York, both or neither. And some things are more possible now– at the end they have something about edited items. I didn’t put that there because it seemed to now go into something we aren’t thinking about so much here– freedom of the press. So some of these extension are just warranted by technology.
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Others are to deal with what DeSantis thinks must be excessive protection for the press in situations related to Defamation.
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FWIW: NTY v. Sullivan has this as “held”.
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I’m going to have to hunt for what extended things to mere “public figures” or conduct outside “official conduct” (or a public official). There must be some sort of ruling. I just don’t know what it is… should be findable.
Lucia,
“But I read the news articles and could tell they weren’t really telling us what was in the bill.”
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That does not surprise me at all. When Florida passed a law prohibiting discussion of sexual subjects by public school teachers from kindergarten to third grade, those who opposed the bill took to calling it the ‘Don’t say gay’ bill. But no news organization ever showed the actual text in the law, which was simple, clear, and pretty innocuous. Failure to show the real information and substitute a biased (and dishonest) summary is standard operation procedure for ‘progressives’.
As I said to Mark Lucia, its disrespectful to not go to the linked sources and then claim I didn’t cite any. For those too lazy to click a link here are the sources for my second blog post.
References
[1] Yaffa Shir-Raz, Ety Elisha, Brian Martin, Natti Ronel, and Josh Guetzkow, “Censorship and suppression of Covid-19 Heterodoxy: Tactics and Counter-Tactics, Minerva (2022), https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024- 022-09479-4.
[2] Cannell JJ, Zasloff M, Garland CF, Scragg R, Giovannucci E, “On the epidemiology of influenza,” Virol J 2008, 5: 29. 10.1186/1743-422X-5-29.
7
[3] Bari Weiss https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter
[4] Matt Taibbi, “Capsule Summaries of all Twitter Files Threads to Date, With Links and a Glossary,” https://https://www.racket.news/p/capsule-summaries-of-all-twitter
[5] John P. A. Ioannidis, “How the Pandemic Is Changing the Norms of Science”, Tablet, September 8,2021.
[6] K. Bardosh, A. Krug, E. Jamrozid, T. Lemmens, S. Keshavjee, V. Prasad, M. A. Makary, S. Baral, T. B. Hoeg, “COVID-19 vaccine boosters for young adults: a risk benefit assessment and ethical analysis of mandate policies at universities,” BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics, 2022.
[7] Emily Oster, “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty,” The Atlantic, October 31, 2022.
[8] J.P.A.Ioannidis,“Hundreds of thousands of zombie randomised trials circulate among us,”Anaesthesia, Vol. 76, Issue 4, April 2021.
[9] Richard Smith, “Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?,” The BMJOpinion, July 5, 2021.
[10] David Young, ““Colorful fluid dynamics” and overconfidence in global climate models,” Climate Etc., December 2,2022. https://judithcurry.com/2022/12/02/colorful-fluid-dynamics-and-overconfidence-in- global-climate-models/
[11] Jay Battacharia, “How Stanford Failed the Academic Freedom Test,” Tablet Magazine, Jan. 10, 2023.
[12] Michael Shellenberger and Leighton Woodhouse, “Inside the Censorship Industrial Complex,” Substack, April 13,1023.
https://public.substack.com/p/inside-the-censorship-industrial?utm source=substack&utm medium=email#play$
[13] Jacob Seigel, “A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century,” Tablet, March 28, 2023. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/guide-understanding-hoax-century-thirteen- ways-looking-disinformation
[14] David Zweig, Twitter, Dec. 26,2022. https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607378386338340867
[15] Matthew Taibbi, https://www.racket.news/p/move-over-jayson-blair-meet-hamilton
[16] Jeff Gerth, Columbia Journalism Review, Jan. 30, 2023, Parts 1-4. https://www.cjr.org/special report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-1.php https://www.cjr.org/special report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-2.php https://www.cjr.org/special report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-3.php https://www.cjr.org/special report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-4.php
[17] Kyle Pope, Columbia Journalism Review, Jan. 30, 2023 https://www.cjr.org/special report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-ed-note.php
[18] Andrea Santelli and Daniel Sarawetz, “Reformation of the Church of Science”, The New Atlantis, Spring 2022,
[19] Vinay Prasad, “The Misinformation Police Strike Out,” Sensible Medicine on Substack, November 15, 2022.
[20] J. P. A. Ioannidis and M. C. Shippers “Saving Democracy From the Pandemic,” Tablet, January 23, 2022.
Also since we are playing the game of “prove it” and “your blog posts are not worthwhile.” Here’s the reference list for my CFD post from last year. Most are probably too technical for those without serious mathematical training.
References
[1] Leszek Demkowicz, “Computing with Hp-Adaptive finite Elements: Volume 1: One and Two Dimen- sional Elliptic and Maxwell Problems”, Chapman & Hall CRC, 2006.
[2] Leszek Demkowicz, “Computing with Hp-Adaptive finite Elements: Volume 2: Frontiers Three Dimen- sional Elliptic and Maxwell Problems With Applications”, Chapman & Hall CRC, 2007.
[3] Barna Szabo and Ivo Babuska, “Finite Element Analysis”, Wiley-Interscience, 1991.
[4] ”Boeing 787 wing flaw extends inside plane,” The Seattle Times, July 30, 2009. http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/ boeing-787-wing-flaw-extends-inside-plane/
[5] F., Hourdin, T. Mauritsen, A. Gettelman, J. Golaz, V. Balaji, Q. Duan, D. Folini, D. Ji, D. Klocke, Y. Qian, F. Rauser, C. Rio, L. Tomassini, M. Watanabe, and D. Williamson, “The art and science of climate model tuning” Bull. Amer. Meteor. Soc., doi:10.1175/BAMS-D-15-00135.1.
[6] D. P. Young, R. G. Melvin, W. P. Huffman, E. Arian, M. Hong, and M. Drela, “Implementation of a Separated Flow Capability in TRANAIR”, AIAA Journal, Vol. 52, Issue 8, pp. 1699–1716, August 2014.
[7] D. P. Young, A. Booker, and T. Maravina, “Some First Steps in Estimating Uncertainty in CFD Simulations of High Reynolds Number Compressible Flows”, unpublished report, July 2016. (available upon request)
[8] D. Sarewitz, “Beware the creeping cracks of bias,” Nature, Vol. 485, Issue 7397, 10 May, 2012.
[9] “Problems With Scientific Research, How Science Goes Wrong,” The Economist, 19 October, 2013.
[10] Regina Nuzzo, “How Scientists Fool Themselves – and How They Can Stop,” Nature, Vol. 526, 7 October, 2015.
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[11] R. M. Kaplan and V. L. Irvin, “Liklihood of Null Effects of Large NHLBI Climical Trials Has Increased over Time,” PLoS ONE 10(8): e0132382. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0132382, 2015.
[12] Chris Woolston, “Registered climincal trails make positive findings vanish,” Nature, Vol. 524, Issue 7565, 13 October 2015.
[13] C. S. Morawetz, “On the Non-Existence of Continuous Transonic Flows Past Profiles II”,Comm. Pure Appl. Math., Vol. 10, pp. 107–131, 1957.
[14] C. S. Morawetz, “On the Non-Existence of Continuous Transonic Flows Past Profiles III”,Comm. Pure Appl. Math., Vol. 11, pp. 129-144, 1958.
[15] S. T. LeDoux, J. C. Vassberg, D. P. Young, S. Fugal, D. S. Kamenetskiy, R. G. Melvin, W. P. Huffman, and M. F. Smith, “A Study Based on the AIAA Aerodynamic Design Optimization Discussion Group Test Cases”, AIAA Journal, Vol. 53, Issue 7, July 2015.
[16] D. S. Kamenetskiy, J. E. Bussoletti, C. L. Hilmes, V. Venkatakrishnan, L. B. Wigton, and F. T. Johnson, “Numerical Evidence of Multiple Solutions for the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Equations,” AIAA Journal, Vol. 52, Issue 8, pp. 1686–1698, August 2014.
[17] E. M. Lee-Rausch, C. L. Rumsey, and B. Eisfeld, “Application of a Full Reynolds Stress Model to High Lift Flows”, AIAA 2016-3944, 46th AIAA Fluid Dynamics Conference, 13-17 June, 2016, Washington DC, USA.
[18] D. J. Mavriplis, “Grid Resolution Study of a Drag Prediction Workshop Configuration Using the NSU3D Unstructured Mesh Solver,” AIAA 2005-4729, 23rd AIAA Applied Aerodynamics Conference, June 6-9, 2005, Toronto, Canada.
[19] S. T. LeDoux, D. P. Young, S. Fugal, J. Elliot, W. P. Huffman, and R. G. Melvin, “An Updated Study for the AIAA Aerodynamic Design Optimization Discussion Group Test Case-4”, AIAA 2015-1717, 53rd AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, 5-9 January, 2015, Kissimmee, Florida, USA.
[20] J. Slingo and T. Palmer, “Uncertainty in Weather and Climate Prediction,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A , 13 December, 2011.
[21] E. N. Tinoco, “Validation and Minimizing CFD Uncertainty for Commercial Aircraft Applications,” AIAA 2008-6902, 26th AIAA Applied Aerodynamics Conference, August 18-21, 2008. Honolulu, Hawaii.
[22] J. P. Slotnick, A. Khodadoust, J. J. Alonso, D. L. Darmofal, W. D. Gropp, E. A. Lurie, D. J. Mavriplis, and V. Venkatakrishnan, “Enabling the Environmentally Clean Transportation of the Future: a Vision of Computational Fluid Dynamnics in 2030,” Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society A, Vol. 372, Issue 2022, August, 2014.
[23] P. R. Spalart and V. Venkatakrishnan, “On the role and challenges of CFD in the aerospace industry,” The Aeronautical Journal, Vol. 120, Special Issue 1223, January 2016, pp. 209-232.
[24] F. M. Payne , “Low Speed Wind Tunnel Testing Facility Requirements: A Customer’s Perspective,” AIAA 99-0306, 37th Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit, January 11-14, 1999, Reno, NV.
[25] F. T. Johnson, D. S. Kamenetskiy, R. G. Melvin, V. Venkatakrishnan, L. B. Wigton, D. P. Young, S. R. Allmaras, J. E. Bussoletti, and C. L.Hilmes, “Observations Regarding Algorithms Required for Robust CFD Codes,” Mathematical Modeling of Natural Phenomena, Vol. 6, Jan. 2011 pp. 2–27.
[26] Alexandre Joel Chorin, “Numerical solution of the Navier-Stokes equations,” Mathematics of Compu- tation, Vol. 22, 1968, pp. 745-762.
[27] A. J. Chorin and J. E. Marsden, “A Mathematical Introduction to Fluid Mechanics,” Springer-Verlag, New York, 1979.
[28] Robert D. Richtmyer and K. W. Morton, “Difference Methods for Initial-Value Problems,” 2nd Edition, Krieger Pub Co, June 1994.
[29] D. C. Wilcox, “Turbulence Modeling for CFD”, 3rd edition, DCW Industries, 2006.
[30] J. D. Lambert, “Numerical Methods for Ordinary Differential Equations”, Wiley, 1991.
[31] L. F. Shampine, “Numerical Solution of Ordinary Differential Equations”, Chapman and Hall/CRC, 1994.
[32] E. N. Lorenz, “Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow”, Journal of Atmospheric Sciences, Vol. 20, pp. 130–141, 1963.
[33] P. Williams, “The Importance of Numerical Time-Stepping Errors,” Newton Institute, 2010. http://www-old.newton.ac.uk/programmes/CLP/seminars/2010120815301.html
[34] V. N. Vatsa, D. P. Lockard, and P. R. Spalart, “Grid Sensitivity of SA-Based Delayed-Detached-Eddy- Simulation Model for Blunt-Body Flows,” AIAA Journal, Vol. 55, No. 8, August 2017, pp. 2842–2847.
[35] Q. Wang, “Convergence of the Least Squares Shadowing Method for Computing Derivative of Ergodic Averages,” SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis, Vol. 52, No. 1, 2014, pp. 156–170.
[36] J. A. Krakos and D. L. Darmofal, “Effect of Small-Scale Output Unsteadiness on Adjoint-Based Sensi- tivity”, AIAA Journal, Vol. 48, Issue 11, pp. 2611–2623, November 2010.
[37] Tim Palmer and Bjorn Stevens, “The Scientific Challenge of Understanding and Estimating Climate Change,” PNAS, Vol. 116, No. 49, December 3, 2019.
[38] Ryan S. Glasby, J. Taylor Erwin, Douglas L. Stefanski, Steven R. Allmaras, Marshall C. Galbraith, W. Kyle Anderson, and Robert H. Nichols, “Introduction to COFFE: The Next-Generation HPCMP CREATE-AV CFD Solver,” AIAA Paper 2016-0567, 54th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting, 4-8 Jan- uary 2016, San Diego, California, USA
[39] P. R. Spalart and S. R. Allmaras, “A One-Equation Turbulence Model for Aerodynamic Flows,” Recherche Aerospatiale, No. 1, 1994, pp. 5-21.
[40] M. A. Leschziner and K. Drikakis, “Turbulence Modelling and Turbulent-Flow Computations in Aero- nautics,” The Aeronautical Journal, July 2002, pp. 349-383.
[41] P. R. Spalart, “Philosophies and fallacies in turbulence modelling,” Progress in Aerospace Sciences, Vol. 74, April 2015, pp. 1-15.
[42] M. Drela. Two-Dimensional Transonic Aerodynamic Design and Analysis Using The Euler Equations. PhD Dissertation, MIT, 1985.
[43] M. Zhao, “Uncertainty in Model Climate Sensitivity Traced to Representations of Cumulus Precipitation Microphysics,” Journal of Climate, Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 543-560, 7 January, 2016.
[44] A. S. Donahue and P. M. Caldwell, “Impact of Physics Parameterization Ordering in a Global Atmo- sphere Model,” Journal of Advances in Modeling Earth Systems, Vol. 10, Issue 2, 2 February 2018.
[45] P. E. Smaldino and R. McElreath, “The Natural Selection of Bad Science,” Royal Society Open Science, 21 September, 2016.
[46] J. A. Shaefer, T. West, S. Hosder, C. L. Rumsey, J-R Carlson, and W. L. Kleb, “Uncertainty Quantifi- cation of Turbulence Model Closure Coefficients for Transonic Wall-Bounded Flows,” AIAA 2015-2461, 22nd AIAA Computational Fluid Dynamics Conference, 22-26 June, 2015, Dallas, Tx.
[47] Philippe Spalart, “Conjectures of a Generalized Law of the Wall and a Structural Limitation for Classical Turbulence Models,” NASA 2022 Symposium on Turbulence Modeling: Roadblocks, and the Potential for Machine Learning, 2729 July, 2022. https://turbmodels.larc.nasa.gov/Turb- prs2022/Slide presentations/Day 3/08 Spalart invitedtalk 2.pdf
[48] David Matthews, “Science Editor-in-Chief Sounds Alarm Over Falling Public Trust,” Times Higher Education, August 18,2016.
I made a comment containing all the original sources from my blog posts. But the first one seems to have gone into moderation. Don’t know why.
I’ll try again. Here are the original sources including all the Twitter files and the exposure of the Russia collusion hoax.
References
[1] Yaffa Shir-Raz, Ety Elisha, Brian Martin, Natti Ronel, and Josh Guetzkow, “Censorship and suppression of Covid-19 Heterodoxy: Tactics and Counter-Tactics, Minerva (2022), https://doi.org/10.1007/s11024- 022-09479-4.
[2] Cannell JJ, Zasloff M, Garland CF, Scragg R, Giovannucci E, “On the epidemiology of influenza,” Virol J 2008, 5: 29. 10.1186/1743-422X-5-29.
[3] Bari Weiss https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter
[4] Matt Taibbi, “Capsule Summaries of all Twitter Files Threads to Date, With Links and a Glossary,” https://https://www.racket.news/p/capsule-summaries-of-all-twitter
[5] John P. A. Ioannidis, “How the Pandemic Is Changing the Norms of Science”, Tablet, September 8,2021.
[6] K. Bardosh, A. Krug, E. Jamrozid, T. Lemmens, S. Keshavjee, V. Prasad, M. A. Makary, S. Baral, T. B. Hoeg, “COVID-19 vaccine boosters for young adults: a risk benefit assessment and ethical analysis of mandate policies at universities,” BMJ Journal of Medical Ethics, 2022.
[7] Emily Oster, “Let’s Declare a Pandemic Amnesty,” The Atlantic, October 31, 2022.
[8] J.P.A.Ioannidis,“Hundredsofthousandsofzombierandomisedtrialscirculateamongus,”Anaesthesia, Vol. 76, Issue 4, April 2021.
[9] Richard Smith, “Time to assume that health research is fraudulent until proven otherwise?,” The BMJOpinion, July 5, 2021.
[10] David Young, ““Colorful fluid dynamics” and overconfidence in global climate models,” Climate Etc., December 2,2022. https://judithcurry.com/2022/12/02/colorful-fluid-dynamics-and-overconfidence-in- global-climate-models/
[11] Jay Battacharia, “How Stanford Failed the Academic Freedom Test,” Tablet Magazine, Jan. 10, 2023.
[12] Michael Shellenberger and Leighton Woodhouse, “Inside the Censorship Industrial Complex,” Substack, April 13,1023.
https://public.substack.com/p/inside-the-censorship-industrial?utm source=substack&utm medium=email#play$
[13] Jacob Seigel, “A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century,” Tablet, March 28, 2023. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/guide-understanding-hoax-century-thirteen- ways-looking-disinformation
[14] David Zweig, Twitter, Dec. 26,2022. https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607378386338340867
[15] Matthew Taibbi, https://www.racket.news/p/move-over-jayson-blair-meet-hamilton
[16] Jeff Gerth, Columbia Journalism Review, Jan. 30, 2023, Parts 1-4. https://www.cjr.org/special report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-1.php https://www.cjr.org/special report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-2.php https://www.cjr.org/special report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-3.php https://www.cjr.org/special report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-4.php
[17] Kyle Pope, Columbia Journalism Review, Jan. 30, 2023 https://www.cjr.org/special report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-ed-note.php
[18] Andrea Santelli and Daniel Sarawetz, “Reformation of the Church of Science”, The New Atlantis, Spring 2022,
[19] Vinay Prasad, “The Misinformation Police Strike Out,” Sensible Medicine on Substack, November 15, 2022.
[20] J. P. A. Ioannidis and M. C. Shippers “Saving Democracy From the Pandemic,” Tablet, January 23, 2022.
An important defamation case with “public figures” seems to be Butts
Curtis Publishing Co. v. Butts, 388 U.S. 130 (1967)
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/388/130/#tab-opinion-1946732
If I grasp the bread crumbs on the intertubes correctly, this identifies what “public figures” is. But note: “may accrue” the “without checking their accuracy”. In contrast, the NYT was free and clear in Sullivan even though the did nothing to check for accuracy.
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DeSantis’s defamation law has a lot of stuff in there emphasizing that the journalists need to check for accuracy.
David Young,
Why did you post a long list of references? Really, I have not a clue what motivated you to do that.
David,
Our conversation seems to have derailed. I asked you if we agreed on what some words mean:
to which you gave this non-responsive reply:
Look – before we can decide if we have a free press or not, we have to agree on what the words ‘free press’ means. So – if you don’t agree with my definition, out of curiosity, what do those words mean to you? What are you actually trying to say when you say ‘there is no free press’?
Lucia,
You may have seen published reports that DeSantis “has been accused” in publications of supervising torture of detainees at Guantanamo, and covering up murders of three detainees, when he was a junior lawyer in the army. He was also anonymously accused, many years later, of ‘inappropriate relationships’ with students when he worked for a year as a teacher. I suspect DeSantis is pretty sensitive about allegations made recklessly and without regard to facts. In DeSantis’s case, most of the phony allegations are politically motivated, of course.
The comment was released from moderation. Perhaps there is a total number of links issue.
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I think you are a bit confused about what “providing evidence” actually means. A flat list of references for everything in all your blog posts is not “providing evidence” of any specific claim made here.
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If it did, someone could say, want evidence? Here’s a link to the encyclopedia brittanica. Read it and you’ll find evidence to show everything I’ve said is correct.
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You need to
(a) state a specific claim and (b) provide evidence for that claim— and do both pretty much together. And the evidence has to be pretty easy to find. That is not just a link to the encyclopedia, but provide the quote and point to the evidence so others can see it.
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You don’t get to be totally lazy and pretend your job is to assign homework to others. Connecting specific evidence to your specific claim is your job.
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And I mean…. seriously, you are arguing about Trump and the free press, and posting a link of evidence that includes ““Numerical Evidence of Multiple Solutions for the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Equations,””
Really? Come. On.
SteveF,
I told him he hasn’t provided any evidence for his claims– meaning the ones posted in comments on this blog post.
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I think he may deluded enough to think providing a list that includes “““Numerical Evidence of Multiple Solutions for the Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes Equations,”” somehow shoes he is providing evidence of his claims. (Which as most of us here are aware are about Trump, DeSantish, The “Censorship Industrial Complex”, Joshua, Willard, the Gilded age yada yada. Not really about RANS equations. )
David Young
I seem to recall seeing this one and thinking it’s pretty much just a disorganized rant that goes all over the place:
https://judithcurry.com/2023/04/23/how-the-disinformation-industrial-complex-is-destroying-trust-in-science/
I commented on your links previously here:
http://rankexploits.com/musings/2023/open-thread-may-17/#comment-221525
I’ll repost below so people don’t need to hunt back:
_______ below is my earlier comment on looking at the links provided in Ron’s Climate etc. post —
..
.
Ron
Sure. And now for more on David’s chosen links.
Oh, the joys of even trying to follow David’s rabbit-hole links. I chose this paragraph haphazardly. It’s the only one I “dug into”. But I think it’s useful for illustrating a point about David’s links to “primary sources” being little more than rabbit holes.
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Here is a paragraph by David:
.
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Let’s look at the “primary sources”.
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Start with [12] https://public.substack.com/p/inside-the-censorship-industrial
I visited the link. It’s pay walled. I clicked…. gave my email in the hopes of some sort of access. I got an email that says
“Dear Friend, Welcome to Public! We hope you enjoy it! Warmly, Michael and Leighton ”
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I revisited the link. It still asked me to upgrade to pay. I have no clue how to access my free view. I am asked to upgrade to paid. (No. I’m not going to pay.)
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Well… sorry David, but this is a pretty big effort the read what you promise will be a “excellent deep dive into the way the leaders of this complex view themselves.” For the time being, I’ll have to take your word for it being an excellent deep dive.
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On to [14]
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/guide-understanding-hoax-century-thirteen-
ways-looking-disinformation
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This is an article called:
.
A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the Century
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This is a long rambling opinion piece whose author clearly wants to write “colorfully” on the topic of “the Hoax of the Century”. It starts “In 1950, Sen. Joseph McCarthy claimed that he had proof of a communist spy ring operating inside the government.” Oh great… McCarthyism. This is never going to make a point. We are treated to sentences like “Something in the looming specter of Donald Trump and the populist movements of 2016 reawakened sleeping monsters in the West. ”
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We are treated to a snippet of a poem…
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“When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.”
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Followed by a 13 roman indexed sections on…. the author’s opinions.
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I guess this ginormously long winded polemic becomes a “primary source” when cited as [13] after David’s claim: “This is just a new and much more pervasive form of Red baiting [13]”. I mean, [13] did start by alluding to McCarthy.
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And now for [14]. https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607378386338340867
It is a tweetstream discussing Twitter’s secret blacklists. It’s perhaps worth reading.
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People here can visit the tweet stream and wonder how that link makes sense as support the extremely general and rather broad claim of ” Of course, science often is the subject of these censors”.
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My reaction to these David’s links:
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They give the appearance of “scholarly” and “researched” while pointing to rambling items that are not germain to the specific points David is trying to make. These links appear to be what David refers to as “primary sources” which he criticises us for not being interested in reading. Of course they are “primary sources”– after all anything written can be a primary source in the correct context.
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They are nevertheless tangential rabbit holes that seems to be digressing from the claims that would otherwise appear bald. In essence David’s claims remain bald since merely writing [3] after a statement doesn’t automatically provide “support”.
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Is it possible I’d have found wonderful links had I picked some other paragraph. I just picked at random. But honestly, I don’t buy the notion that I am failing to inform myself on important matters because I don’t follow David’s links.. Following those links is just a tiring waste of time.
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So yes, Ron, you are correct that what one reads matters. But when I visit links David gives, I discover they are not worth reading.
—-
David
Let me reitterate: you are not citing evidence to support your claims. Merely providing a list of links to random stuff does not amount to providing evidence.
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It is not “disrespectful” to claim you don’t provide evidence because you don’t. Showing you post links to stuff is not showing you provided evidence for your claims.
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None of us are “too lazy” to click your links. And we’ve all visited your rabbit hole links and seen that (a) they are a waste of time and generally speaking (b) do not provide relevant evidence for your claims.
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If you want to convince people of your claims (a) make them clearly and (b) provide evidence adjacent to the claim. Not a list of unsorted links most of which are utterly irrelevant.
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OK, to save Lucia having to look up from her deep dive into the Florida bill to spend 5 minutes scanning the titles, here are specific references that support my assertions above.
1. You could start with Schellenberger’s long article on the Censorship Industrial Complex, reference 12. This to me really is proof that this entity exists, and that it has a vast influence on what people get to say on social media.
2. Barri Weiss’ resignation letter to the NYT also documents how the NYT has given up journalism to pursue selective reporting that supports their left wing narratives. Reference 3.
3. Taibbi’s capsule summary of the Twitter Files even has a glossary so you can find a place you might start. Reference 4. This documents how broad this Censorship regime is and how deep it goes.
4. Reference 16 is Jeff Greth’s opus on the Russian collusion hoax and shows it was a total hoax and a politically motivated fraud perpetrated by the deep state, the media, and big tech.
5. Both of the Ioannidis papers are worth reading particularly the last essay on “threats to Democracy.” Reference 20. Ioannidis is perhaps the most cited scientist of the 21st century and carries a lot of weight for me.
Taken together Marc, 1 to 4 are very convincing evidence we do not have a free press in this country. You will note that all these things did not appear in the corporate media but in alternative media such as Tablet or on substack. Perhaps the Columbia Journalism Review is an exception even though the media is simply ignoring this excellent reporting. There is a reason for that. Our overlords and masters don’t us being pointed to this material proving how corrupt they are. In fact, most of these brave authors and reporters have been savaged in the media and online. Perhaps that’s why many people are in the dark.
David,
We can take nothing as evidence for or against the existence of a free press in this country until we agree what the words ‘free press’ mean.
[Edit: Merriam Webster:
Sometimes definitions have problems. Sometimes activists rewrite them, for example. If there is some specific issue, let’s discuss it. Otherwise, let’s agree what the term means and move on.]
I would like to see you Lucia prove that my links are a waste of time and don’t provide evidence for my claims. This is so laughably false that it makes me question why you say these things. It’s dishonest because you say you haven’t read any of them.
BTW, you earlier said my CFD post was not worth reading. RANS equations are totally relevant to that false accusation and why your claim is garbage. I know a lot more about CFD than you do by a country mile.
Maybe TDS is a disease affecting Marc and Lucia too.
David Young
Ok… I’ll comment on (1):
If you weren’t utterly lazy, you could provide quotes from the long article and take the effort to assemble them so that others could discover
(a) what you think the “Censorship Industrial Complex” is and
(b) pull out the specific proof of it’s existing from thethe long article, and also
(c) pull out the evidence “Censorship Industrial Complex” has “vast influence”.
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I’m pretty sure you won’t because you persist in not doing so. Nevertheless, until you’ve done so, you have not provided evidence for your claim. Heck, you haven’t even stated a claim. You are just giving us rabbit holes.
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I’m not going to risk wearing the finger tips off my fingers by addressing your 2-5 which have similar issues. (3 is particular hilarious. it even has a glossary? So someone other than David can start to find evidence for…. whatever….? )
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What I’m going to say is what you just did above is neither (a) stating a specific claim nor (b) providing evidence for that claim.
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Either you don’t know how to do those things or you’re are exhibiting bad faith in any conversation going on here.
David
Oh gosh. You’d like me to do something….
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Please see “lucia (Comment #224782) “. I really think it’s rather ballsy for you to suggest that I need to look through all your links to see if every single one is a “waste of time”.
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Also: My claim isn’t every single one of them is a “waste of time”– especially not in in the sense that no one could ever find something interesting in them.
I said: you haven’t provided evidence of the specific claims you are making here. A list of links doesn’t do that.
Uhm, for whatever it’s worth, linking a media article that supports someone’s position doesn’t prove a point. All it means is that somebody has written something that someone else agrees with.
Here look. Donald Trump is similar to Hitler. No wait, Donald Trump is NOT Hitler.. Hey, how about that. I can find articles people have written that contradict each other! I guess I’ve ripped a hole in the space time continuum!
No, I haven’t. These links prove nothing.
So Lucia, out of curiosity, did you say someplace that David’s CFD post was not worth reading and I just missed it? I rescanned the comments and couldn’t figure out where David got this, but maybe I’m just not seeing it.
mark bofill (Comment #224785)
“We can take nothing as evidence for or against the existence of a free press in this country until we agree what the words ‘free press’ mean. Merriam Webster
: the right of newspapers, magazines, etc., to report news without being controlled by the government”
If there is some specific issue, let’s discuss it. Otherwise, let’s agree what the term means and move on.”
–
Well said.
Everyone appears to be right in their own definitions of freedom so they are arguing past each other.
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My thoughts are if something is said to be free there is often a catch.
Things that are truly free are not things that can be granted by other people.
The right to speak freely, the air that we breath, love and hate.
We accept them and we do not value them unless they are taken away from us.
They are just expected.
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So called Freedoms that give a catch exist.
Is it good manners or good business sense to give someone a “free” gift?
What good is a “free”newspaper?
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News and Newspapers and the Press confuse the issue of their “freedom to express a view” and our freedom to want that view or not.
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The Press has never been truly free, in that what is being sold, opinions and supposedly truth, are a marketable commodity and hence have never been free.
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David believes that alerting us to this fact might somehow change things.
Forgetting that we already know how the world works and have each adapted in our own ways to it.
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Our local drama company put on the play “Fiddler on the roof” a few weeks ago. Fantastic lead with a strong voice and very well done.
Basically through all his troubles, a modern day Job, the message was to stick to good principles and courtesy to other people where you can. It does not change misfortunes in the world, but it makes your world a better place.
Thanks angech. I don’t think I disagree with your assessment in any important way, except that personally I’d avoid presuming to speak for David.
mark,
I didn’t say anything about his CFD post. I said I seemed to recall there was a recent post that I thought was worthless. He then said he’s only posted twice at Climate etc. and provided two links. I clicked and the worthless post I recalled was
https://judithcurry.com/2023/04/23/how-the-disinformation-industrial-complex-is-destroying-trust-in-science/
It’s not his CFD post.
My comments on his “citations” is given in a comment above. See
“lucia (Comment #224782) ” where I reposted my review of the links in his “disinformation” article a while back.
Thanks Lucia. That’s what I thought. David goes off half cocked quite a bit, AFAICT.
Whatever.
David,
Ok… I bit. I looked your shorter list.
Well.. Let’s see. I visit and
PAYWALLED.. And even though you must know this is paywalled, you are too lazy to dig out
(a) the definition of the “Censorship Industrial Complex” (or ever give the tiniest hint what it is or who might be in it
(b) the specific bits that prove it exist and
(c) the specific evidence whatever it is has vast influnce.
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The article may be splendid. It’s remotely possible it contains some eviences for one of you manu vague claims. But you have not providid evidence for your claim. Because you are being too lazy.
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Well… as you were too lazy to include the link, I had to find it. It’s here.
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Yeah. Bari Weiss criticizes the NYT. These are familiar criticisms. Nothing about it has anything to do with whether we have a “free press” though.
Not sure how that anything about her criticism proves your claims about “Censorship Industrial Complex” or lack of a free press. Bari is still writing and in fact running The Free Press. The existance of publications outside the NYT would seem to to support Mark’s position that we have a rather vigorous free press. (Well, unless you think both the NYT and the free press are being directed by the US government. You’ve shown nothing to suggest either, or any other paper is. )
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When I clicked the link in your list it was broken. Not too big a surprise given your poor linking habigs. But at least I could use google. Inside The Censorship Industrial Complex . Also pay walled. And worse– it seems to be a video?!!!
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At least I’m getting a hint about what the “Censorship Industrial Complex” might be.
A “network”. Which government agencies? Which private academic and think tank organizations? Dunno. Cuz even though you must know this is…. oh, but I repeat myself.
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You could presumably tell us which agencies and organizations are in the “complex” during your rants. But. You. Don’t. And you could snip the evidence you find convincing. But. You. Don’t.
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So even if the article is splendid, you haven’t provided evidence for your claims. You are giving links to a paywalled article we can’t read without paying. And not even providing quotes about anything. Sorry. No. It’s your claim you have provided evidence that’s worthless. (The article may be splendind. dunno. ‘Cuz… paywalled.)
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Oh, a four part “opus”. I bet that’s tight!
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Your first of four links (https://archives.cjr.org/special%20report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-1.php) goes to… file not found . The second link… https://archives.cjr.org/special%20report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-2.php… also file not found. Third link… https://archives.cjr.org/special%20report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-3.php and fourth link? https://archives.cjr.org/special%20report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-part-4.php .
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Maybe I could guess how to fix up the link. Maybe I could google. But truly, your links are unhelpful. Maybe you could do a little more work? (And as we are all familiar with Russian collusion hoax perhaps you could tell us which of your claims about the free press, or Joshua or something we should be thinking about finding evidence for at the four long papers in this four part “opus”. Or not. (I’m guessing not. Since you don’t actualy like to connect whatever you think is evidence for “something” to an actual claim.)
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Both?
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Those seem to be “20] J. P. A. Ioannidis and M. C. Shippers “Saving Democracy From the Pandemic,” Tablet, January 23, 2022.”
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and [8] J.P.A.Ioannidis,“Hundredsofthousandsofzombierandomisedtrialscirculateamongus,”Anaesthesia, Vol. 76, Issue 4, April 2021.
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[5] John P. A. Ioannidis, “How the Pandemic Is Changing the Norms of Science”, Tablet, September 8,2021.
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I guess I could go read those. They appear to be about Covid? Not sure how that is going to relate to the claims here. I am intrigued by “Hundredsofthousandsofzombierandomisedtrialscirculateamongus” It might be nice if you gave a link.
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Yeah…
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https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/science/articles/saving-democracy-from-pandemic is an opinion piece. I don’t see how this opinion pice relates to your claims about “”Censorship Industrial Complex”, freedom of the press, Trump, or, most importantly, how Joshua behaves at blogs.
.
https://www.tabletmag.com/contributors/john-ioannidis
Also don’t see how this opinion pice relates to your claims about “”Censorship Industrial Complex”, freedom of the press, Trump, or, most importantly, how Joshua behaves at blogs.
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I mean you could try to tell us how these relate to your claims. Or not. But you continue to not provide evidence for your claims.
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And no, I don’t have to prove everything in those papers is “worthless” because, among other things, I never claimed everything in your links is worthless.
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What I have said is you provide rabbit hole links that assign readings to things that are irrelevant to your claims. They waste people’s time because they tend to be unconnected to your claims, you leave it to people to try to dig through and “discover” evidence for yoru claims in long tomes, and as far as I can tell, evidence for your specific claim generally not at the link you provide.
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Look. If you want to advance claims and convince people they are true: Do better.
(a) Make clear claims.
(b) Provide the support for your claims adjacent to your claim.
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It is not other people’s job to do that for you.
Well Mark, This definition is not meaningful today when newspapers are a tiny space in the media world. What has happened is that hundreds of government buerocrats forward their lists of things they want taken down to the FBI which holds weekly telecons with big tech companies to convey this. There is often a rather demanding tone to these requests and in many cases big tech complies with the deep state officials. That’s not exactly the same thing as government censors writing articles, but it is a form of control.
Another thing that has happened as corporate media has gotten very strong competition from independent media is that they tend to operate in a pack to purvey narratives favorable to themselves and portray true reporting as disinformation. Read Bari Weiss’ letter, reference 3 in the list.
In the 19th Century there was a really diverse and free press. That is no longer the case. When there can be a voluntary conspiracy to kill a true and important story of deep Biden corruption (the laptop), you know there is no diversity. When the Intercept refuses to run Glenn’s true reporting on it, and Greenwald feels morally constrained to quit, you know something is not right. When media columnists produce an elaborate web of lies about Matt Taibbi to discredit him, that’s not a diverse media.
David,
If you reject that definition, what is the definition you propose? When you say the words ‘there is no free press’, if you are not saying ‘there is no press free of government interference and censorship’, then what are you saying?
There is no going forward until we at least understand what the other means by the term.
See, I’d prefer you actually use whatever other appropriate term might exist that actually means whatever it is you’re trying to say. If you’re talking about this:
It sounds like what you are talking about indeed might be a problem. But the term for the problem isn’t a lack of a ‘free press’.
mark bofill
And to use linking to support your claim you actually have to say or repeat in what way what the article says supports your claim. Or in your case, why the mere existence of both article supports what you just said. And also what that means.
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I mean I could point out that Gandhi and Hitler “shared similarities”. I could provide links to encyclopedia entries discussing both and leave it to you to figure out they both were vegetarian! Both died of gunshot wounds! Both were men! Both had two parents! count ’em, two! Both had numerous followers! Neither was a US Citizen! Or of African! Or Chinese!
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And if you told me my vague links didn’t amount to me providing “evidence” they were “shared similarities” I could criticize you for not visiting my links, reading and finding the unstated features they shared.
But my whining about you not visiting my links would be ridiculous: my “the shared similarities” claim is too vague to mean much of anything. (I mean… a horse and a fly are “similar”… right…? Four legs? Members of the animal kingdon?…)
And there is no way someone else can figure out what part of long articles about the two men constituted evidence they “shared similarities”.
Lucia, You are just attacking me and my sources.
Perhaps you are so biased that you don’t think Ioannidis is a very top scientist whose opinions matter.
Yes Schellenberger and Taibbi are paywalled so they can fund their reporting enterprises and put bread on the table. That criticism is Bs.
I’ll copy and paste parts of the DIC piece if you want so you don’t have to lift one delicate finger.
https://public.substack.com/p/why-renee-diresta-leads-the-censorship?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web
Since the 2016 elections, politicians, journalists, and many others have raised the alarm about “foreign election influence” and “disinformation,” demanding greater “content moderation” by social media platforms. It is too easy, they argued, for foreign and malign actors to quickly “go viral” at low cost, leaving the good guys unable to correct bad information. We must become more “resilient” to disinformation.
Edit by Lucia: David posted a full article with no discussion. I’ve snipped it to avoid copyright violations. Further down you’ll see I do quote/comment– as permitted by fair use. I am trying to get David to make a point and then insert quotes rather than just post entire articles or links to entire articles. (He doesn’t seem to grasp the point.)
Lucia, absolutely. It sort of staggers belief that these things need to be explained. I’m so sorry you’ve had to waste your time that way.
David, do you know what the term ‘gish gallop’ means?
Here’s an example of the millions of dollars the government gives to fund these censors.
DiResta claims that Stanford Internet Observatory has not been using government funding for censorship. Writes DiResta, “we received an NSF grant after our 2020 election and 2021 covid projects had ended and no government funding went into this work.”
But the National Science Foundation awarded its grant to Stanford, through the University of Washington, in July 2021, when the Virality Project was underway. And in DiResta’s October 2021 video presentation about “partnering,” she said, “Over the spring and summer of 2021,” she says, “VP partnered with federal, state, and local stakeholders, as well as civil society organizations and coalitions of medical professionals, to support their efforts to understand encounter vaccine hesitancy.”
The whole thing is worthwhile and very detailed.
In all honesty I find it hard to believe that otherwise smart and well informed people have managed to not see any of this reporting seeing as how important it is.
You should find that hard to believe. It’s incorrect. What gave you the impression that we have managed not to see any of this reporting?
David
This is too vague to tell us anything about whether the press is free or not. Please elaborate. Flesh out with details. Flesh them out with quotes– and provide links to those quotes.
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We all agree there was a problem with the government trying to interfere with and control the press, twitter and big tech firms. that’s a problem. And it’s a big story. Mark and I have discussed this in comments above.
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But this is a problem with the government. And Trump’s approach seems to be to make things worse because he seems to be advocating more government control and interference, not less.
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Well, choosing what to report and focusing on what’s favorable to themselves would certainly amount to being a free press. You are accusing them of being free to report as they please. That is: your complaint is they are too free!!
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Voluntary. If the press did what they wanted to do, that’s still what we call free (from government obligation). There is certainly criticism to be lodged. But the press is still free.
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“Diversity” is not the same thing as “Freedom”.
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You are making a very strong case that the press retains freedom of the press. Requiring the Intercept to run reporting they object to would be an example of not having freedom of the press.
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And at least as far as I’m aware, Greenwald wasn’t shot, imprisoned, silenced yada, yada. The government hasn’t prevented him from publishing. He’s publishing on Substack.
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You appear to be very confused about the difference between “freedom of the press” and “diversity of opinions among widely read medea”.
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Now, what specific claims of yours does the extensive verbiage you pasted from ‘the DIC piece’ support?
And finally:
Twitter Files #19: by @mtaibbi, March 17, 2023
The Great Covid-19 Lie Machine
Stanford, the Virality Project, and the Censorship of “True Stories”
Following up on the finding by Andrew Lowenthal (@NAffacts) from the week before, TF 19 recounts how Stanford worked with four think-tanks (several the recipients of state awards) and multiple government agencies to create a cross-platform JIRA ticketing system for seven major Internet platforms, including Twitter, Facebook/Instagram, Google/YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, and Medium.
Key revelations: Multiple instances of the Virality Project recommending action against true stories deemed “standard misinformation on your platform,” from “celebrity deaths after vaccine” to a story about a school in Central New York that closed after teachers reported post-vaccine side effects. VP continually desrbed opposition to Vaccine Passports as anti-vaccine behavior and would describe as disinformation “events” things like a news story that ‘increased distrust in Fauci’s expert guidance.” A report by Graphika forwarded to Twitter explained that “seeding doubt and uncertainty in authoritative voices” like Facui’s “leads to a society that finds it too challenging to identify what’s true or false.” Therefore, people need to be shielded from difficult truths. With additional help from @ShellenbergerMD, @Techno_Fog, @bergerbell, @SchmidtSue1, @tw6384, @AaronJMate, and @MikeBenzCyber
David
You specifically asked me to evaluate those specific sources. I commented on them. You don’t like my evaluation.
I didn’t criticize them for being pay walled. I criticized you for not making any sort of case or connecting the contents of the article to your claims. You are claiming that article provides evidence of your claims — and you could dig out the specific bits. But. You. Don’t.
Marc, Lucia hasn’t seen any of it. I just assumed you didn’t because you apparently didn’t change your naive libertarian thinking about the press because of it.
I posted the Summaries of the Twitter Files but it went to moderation.
Lucia,
The part about this that’s really mindless is that David relies on us to keep track of his nonsense and try to impose some sort of structure on his mess. I mean, what in actual fuck was all that verbiage in 224800 by David supposed to mean? What did it support, what did it prove or disprove? He won’t say! In a moment he’ll gish gallop off someplace else!
Ridiculous. I haven’t been able to get him to even answer the question of what he means when he talks about a free press.
David,
Since you must gish gallop around, gish gallop here next, would you?
Lucia cut to the chase well with this.
David,
Ok. You still aren’g toing to explain how this article supports your specific claims. You are just going to regurgitate the whole article.Typical Lazy David… as I’ve come to expect. Still.
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Okie Dokie. So Shellenberger also doesn’t tell us what government agencies, or think tanks are in the network! So we still don’t know. Kinda hard to “prove” what “they” do when we don’t know who “they” are.
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This paragraph make a claim they have coordinated dofrot to…. But no evidence.
Let me read on….
Ok.. a professor exists who advocates for something she’d like to happen. She’s written articles criticizing Joe Rogan and Sam Harris . Both these people continue to have video blogs and podcasts. Sounds like an example of robust free press to me.
Some people like her. … Okay. Yeah….. (I’m guessing some people don’t. Likely Shelleberger. I’m guessing Joe Rogan and Sam Harris don’t like her either.
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Look, I’m reading and re-reading. I don’t see how that article shows how we don’t have freedom of the press. Or that the press is treasonous. Or that we need to have the government interfere with the press even more.
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I do see how some government officials over stepped and tried to make it unfree– but the story is uncovered. Mark and I have been discussing this particular problem above. And, by the way, the reason this story is out there is that the press reported it. The press is a collective thing. And the government has stepped in and rounded up all the people reporting it.
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I can’t really engage whatever argument you think you are making because you persist in not making it. But…whatever.
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“But this is a problem with the government.” No its not just the government. The corrupt media is deeply involved in getting big tech to cancel and censor Americans. We can quibble about what “free press” means but Marc’s definition is a 19th Century one. I think that lack of diversity is a sign that some strong forces are acting to enforce an orthodoxy and that’s not freedom. The long comments here have primary source evidence of that.
Please Lucia you are really over the top with this one.
“You are making a very strong case that the press retains freedom of the press. Requiring the Intercept to run reporting they object to would be an example of not having freedom of the press.”
Why are you putting words in my mouth. I just think that this decision by the Intercept is further proof of a media culture of conformity and fear of retribution and that is not a free press.
You really have a strange prejudice that we have a free press. I know libertarians want to believe that because they distrust government much more than they do the malefactors of great wealth. First you lectured me about providing sources. Then you whined that some of the links were old or paywalled. Then I copied and pasted and you apparently haven’t read much yet so maybe I need to give you some time to catch up.
“Voluntary. If the press did what they wanted to do, that’s still what we call free (from government obligation). There is certainly criticism to be lodged. But the press is still free.” I misspoke. It was not entirely voluntary. There is always a subtext that you don’t want to cross the deep state. Democrats are constantly threatening big tech with government action if they don’t censor more. But your logic is twisted. Freedom is a relative term. No one is completely free. We are all constrained by the law for example.
The lack of diversity in corporate media is good evidence there are powerful mechanisms enforcing narratives and an “approved” position. Yes, I do believe the media needs much stronger constraints that will favor viewpoint diversity.
You obviously like the word freedom even though I doubt you could define it in a modern context. Why do you keep focusing on this? The levers of power developed in the last 12 years act as an enforcement mechanism. If you read Ioannidis’ opinion pieces or Battacharia’s you would see how both of them experienced the consequences of not following the establishment line even when it was manifestly a lie. But I forgot, my links are worthwhile. What childish behaviour Lucia. It’s gotten a lot worse than the good old days of climategate.
“You specifically asked me to evaluate those specific sources. I commented on them. You don’t like my evaluation.” Your evaluation is based on ignorance (by your own admission).
You still haven’t retracted your smear of my CFD post and indirectly of my expertise.
David,
This has been one of the most pathetic spectacles I’ve witnessed in quite a while. My definition is a 19’th century one, but even though I’ve asked repeatedly you won’t supply your definition. Instead all you’ve got apparently are insults and whining.
Since you think Lucia is exhibiting childish behavior at her blog, why don’t you piss off?
A free press is one that operates outside establishment constraints. Our current media are the establishment constraints and obey the government most often.
I apologize to Lucia if I offended her. She is a big girl last time I checked. I just get so tired of the baseless ad hominem attacks on my CFD post and myself.
But I find Marc that you seem unable to focus on the big picture here. I posted some rather strong evidence that we don’t have a free press.
Finally! Thank you David. Another small step forward, now we have your definition. I’ve had enough for this evening. Maybe we will continue tomorrow.
[Edit: BTW, let the CFD thing go, and read more carefully next time.
https://rankexploits.com/musings/2023/us-dance-championships-vlad-and-brianna/#comment-224793
]
My day was definitively better spent watching football, ha ha.
David
Well… if you are going to claim we don’t have one, you need to give definition of what you mean. Otherwise, you are not actually communicating anything.
Ok. You are confused. Lots of people think murder is wrong. Big lack of diversity on that. That lack of diversity is not evidence of not being free.
I’ve not put a single workd in your mouth. I’m reading your words and giving you my interpretation of what the facts you relate mean regarding whether we do or don’t have freedom of the press. Yo
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You can think what you want about what the incident at the Intercept “means”. But you haven’t made any case that the Intercept did not do precisely what they wanted to do. They exercised their freedom to do something you don’t like. But that means the exercised their freedom.
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It’s not a “prejudice” to note that you described the Intercept– a member of the press– doing precisely what they wanted to do, subject to no government pressure, and conclude they acted freely. That’s what happened. That you would have done something else doesn’t make their actions “not free”.
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I wasn’t aware I was a “libertarian”. I lean libertarian– as opposed to socialist yada yada. I don’t distrust government more than malefactors of great wealth. I distrust both.
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But I’m also becoming mystified at your argument. I mean… you just got done complaining about the government leaning on Twitter. So is your position government interference with the press is a problem? Or is your position it’s not a problem? Because honestly, I can’t tell.
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Huh I read it. Wrote some comments in “lucia (Comment #224814) “.
I don’t think it’s useful to comment on every paragraphs– especially since you haven’t told us how you think all that connects to your specific claims.
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This is nonesense. Since you repeat yourself, let me repeat myself ” Lots of people think murder is wrong. Big lack of diversity on that. That lack of diversity is not evidence of not being free.”
Ok. Well.. so you like governments to act like the Russians and like the Biden adminsitration was described to behave in the Twitter files. You want the government to decide what to report.
I consider that “no freedom of the press”. Where as I consider the press (and individuals) to be free to report what they want to be “freedom of the press”.
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Oh? honestly, I don’t think the meaning of freedom has changed in the “modern context”. I think this is just fine in both the modern and more traditional context:
The government not dictating what the press may or may not write is “freedom of the press”.
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I read it.
You keep grossly misstating what I wrote. I said your links do not provide evidence for your claims. Shall I call your persistent insistance on putting words in my mouth despite my repeatedly correcting you childish? It does seem so.
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I didn’t smear your CFD post. I didn’t say anything about your CFD post.
Anonymous media sources are definitively an increasing problem. Not being able to cross examine them in a defamation case is problematic for obvious reasons.
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The NYT public facing explanation on anonymous sources:
“Our reporting is based on sources. They can be officials, witnesses, records — essentially anyone or anything that can offer information on a particular topic. When we don’t disclose a human source by name, that person is considered an anonymous source. Under our guidelines, these sources should be used only for information that we believe is newsworthy and credible, and that we are not able to report any other way.
But why does The Times shield the identity of some sources? We recognize that the use of anonymous sources is sometimes crucial to our journalistic mission. It can give readers genuine insight into the uses and abuses of power — in Washington, on Wall Street and beyond. In sensitive areas like national security reporting, it can be unavoidable. Sources sometimes risk their careers, their freedom and even their lives by talking to us.
What we consider before using anonymous sources:
How do they know the information?
What’s their motivation for telling us?
Have they proved reliable in the past?
Can we corroborate the information they provide?
Because using anonymous sources puts great strain on our most valuable asset: our readers’ trust, the reporter and at least one editor is required to know the identity of the source. A senior newsroom editor must also approve the use of the information the source provides.”
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My view after reading these media reports for decades now is that the system has become pretty corrupt, as in the sources know the game and know how to exploit it for their objectives, and the media knows they are being played but does it for the “scoop” and ultimately financial returns.
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Sources are now likely granted anonymity with a simple request, and a lot of the time the media could force them to put their names on the record. Lots of media reports have anonymous sources for farcical reasons. The media’s threshold for granting anonymity is very low to non-existent AFAICT. There is no price to pay for doing it.
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That being said they do make an effort I think to verify information and will stop using sources that lie to them. What we don’t see is the times when they decline to use anonymous sourced information. An example is the Trump Dossier was reportedly shopped to most media outlets and they all initially declined to report on it. But … everyone knows the anonymous game and will do this repeatedly in a self reinforcing way to support preferred narratives.
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I don’t presume anonymous sources are wrong but I presume they are biased and not telling the whole story. They are leaking information with a specific intent that is not related to their goodwill in most cases.
Tom
I agree.
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I think a legal presumption that what the information the anonymous source provided is false is a reasonable presumption. That’s rebuttable. The defendant knows they are using an anonymous source when they report. They will need to be careful to have evidence to rebut the presumption.
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This makes things harder for the press; that’s why they won’t like it. But I don’t see that making things easy for the press is the governing principle of freedom of the press.
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DeSantis law doesn’t force readers to make that presumption. It’s just a presumption at law.
Did the bill pass? (I guess I could go look.)
Here’s another Taibbi piece on Fauci
Anthony Fauci Was America’s Warmup Dictator
He institutionalized the purposeful lie, suppressed critics, mastered emergency politics, even sold himself as a sex symbol. Anthony Fauci gave the next monster a playbook
MATT TAIBBI
SEP 30, 2023
Exposés in Public and Racket this week showed Anthony Fauci engaged in the bureaucratic version of witness tampering, using a dubious “Proximal Origin” paper he helped engineer to divert attention from the possibility that Covid-19, too, was a viral Frankenstein’s monster. Apart from a few conservative outlets, no one picked up the story.
edit by Lucia– snipped…. to avoid getting sued for copyright violation. See below for my discussion.
David
I didn’t say anything about your CFD post.
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I’ve criticized your other climate etc. post, and the links at that post. I stand by that. People can read my evaluation of your links on that post above. I stand by that and you “tiring” of it doesn’t change my mind about that post.
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I’ve also criticized you for posting long list of links here when those links are utterly irrelevant to the claims posted here. I stand by that and you tiring of that… doesn’ t bother me one bit.
David,
You now appear to be committing copyright violations. Posting entire articles is not “fair use”. Prefacing them with zero opinion of your own, and no comments of your own…. not acceptable.
.
Please refrain from that.
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I think I have been pretty clear about what you need to do:
1) State your point/claim.
2) If the evidence of support for your claim is in an article, quote selectively picking out the bits that support your claim.
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Don’t just post entire articles with no discussion of indication of what point you are trying to make.
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I am going to have to delete your full articles to avoid being sued for copyright!
Money quote from this piece:
Apart from a few conservative outlets, no one picked up the story. How screwed up is the U.S. right now? The nation’s top medical official for years worked in public and private to stifle investigation of our worst health crisis, which increasingly looks like a unparalleled man-made catastrophe. He’s going to skate on it, because upper-class America is now so deep into mass mental illness that it’s more likely to make a sex symbol of corruption than punish it.
David,
Translation: other than those outless that picked up the story, no one picked up the story. Duh.
Vis-a-vis sufficient diversity or freedom, the important points are:
1) the story was picked up.
2) Those who picked up the story were free to do so.
And now for a totally new subject/claim…..
Look lots of people have criticize Fauci– some of them here. But you seem to be floating all over the place.
David,
There is another copyright violation post held up in comments.
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Let me reitterate:
1) State whatever claim you are making and wish to support.
2) In the same comment where you are making the claim, quote those portions of articles that support your claim. Provide the link where useful. (You don’t need to know html. just copy/paste. The blog will make it a link.) This will let readers know how the source you are using relates to your claim.
You can quote a huge amount of material if you doing so to comment on it. So alternating quoting and inserting your comments is allowable.
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I’m not going to have my blog kicked off my server for copyright violations just because you are too lazy to do the work of connecting your claims to specific quotes that relate to your claims.
(And you whining that we could go ahead and spend our money to subscribe to the people you admire does not forgive your utter laziness on citation protocol.)
Florida bill 991 wasn’t voted on this session. It might be revived next year, maybe not.
“Ok. You are confused. Lots of people think murder is wrong. Big lack of diversity on that. That lack of diversity is not evidence of not being free.”
Lucia this is really very fallacious. On political issues there is always a broad diversity of opinion. Surely you are an adult and know that.
“Ok. Well.. so you like governments to act like the Russians and like the Biden adminsitration was described to behave in the Twitter files. You want the government to decide what to report.”
Another instance of unethical mind reading. There are lots of things that can be done like the fairness doctrine to ensure diversity short of direct censorship.
“necessity, coercion, or constraint in choice or action”. That’s exactly what we have with the media, coercion or constraint by the government and the media lynch mob. If you don’t know these things are very real, you are not well informed.
You are just very brazen to ask me to support my claims with sources and then delete the comments with the sources and then complain that many of them are paywalled. I’ll buy you a subscription to Taibbi if you agree to actually read some of it and stop stonewalling a very strong evidentiary case. You can use my credit card.
don’t know what to say Lucia. I don’t think you are honestly engaging either the evidence or the arguments.
Your assertion that my blog post was worthless is an ignorant comment. You admitted you didn’t really read it or the original sources. Smearing something you haven’t looked into is not ethical.
Lucia, I’m not floating all over the place. There is a common theme here and that is that our elites institutions are totally corrupt. Fauci is just another example of insanity by our elites.
David
What’s fallacious? Do you think there is diversity of thought on whether murder is wrong? Do you think the lack of diversity on that opinion means people aren’t free?
Bringing up some irrelevant fact doesn’t make what I said fallacious. It is simply a fact that lack of diversity is not evidence of lack of freedom.
It’s not mind reading. It’s interpreting what you wrote, which was this:
Strong constraints is what the Russians and the Biden administration want. You say you think we need these. That’s wanting the government to act like Russians and Biden.
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We have all agreed that the Biden administration attempted to coerce Twitter.
But you are seeing coercion and constraint where there is none. And lynch mobs. I mean… seriously. Someone quitting a job at the NYT and continuing to report somewhere else is not coercion.
And what you are proposing is coercion– by the government.
I have explained the correct, standard way to provide support for your claims. I had done so before you decided to create an entirely different method– a method that violate copyright, but which would spare you work of actually making arguments and supporting them.
The method I have explained repeatedly is standard. I do not want a subscription to Taibbi and even if I had one, it would not cure the problem. Others who read cannot then use my subscription.
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Face the fact that you need to use standard methods of of supporting your arguments rather than being lazy about this. You should already know this.
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Well, each of us gets to decide the value of a blog post. You think highly of your own writing. I think rather less of it– and provided an explanation of problems with how you seem to want to make it seem scholarly by including numerical citations that, when followed, are just… rabbit holes that show nothing.
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Others can decide if my assessment is correct and whether or not your citation/links are rabbit holes. I continue to hold my opinion. You chiding me isn’t going to change my opinion and probably won’t influence that of anyone else either. And if what I said did not hold up, I think you could have engaged my criticism and shown precisely how those link/citations did support your points. But. They. Don’t.
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Look, you need to stop being quite so silly and making obviously false accusations. I did look at your blog post. Everyone can go back to my comment https://rankexploits.com/musings/2023/us-dance-championships-vlad-and-brianna/#comment-224782 and see that I clearly did look at your blog post, quoted it and posted links. What I did obviously required looking at your blog post.
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And if they look further, they can see that you visited this blog in May 2023 telling us to “Read my Climate Etc. post and get back to me.”
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And now you returned here once again and again and try to promote your own writing, once again giving no link. And in this current comments block you tried to promote your post more than once:
* ” I summarized my blog post in several long comments here. I’m just saying that if you want proof its in the post.”,
*” If you really want to understand this you can read my blog post. It goes back to the original sources and is very well sourced.”,
* “Mark, Please read my blog post.”
(Those are the ones I found doing a word search on “my blog”.)
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And now you are grumpified that I criticize the blog post you keep pestering us to read, and which you keep telling us is so great. And you seem to have forgotten I already pointed out how poorly sourced it was back in May when you wanted to brag about how great that post was back then.
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Look: I’m going to use much plainer language. I think it’s a crap post. Crap. It’s all over the place. It’s badly sourced. The links that supposedly act as “sources” are rabbit holes. I showed that in May– quoting it and describing links. If you keep coming back in December telling us how great it is again, I’ll still think it’s crap. And now that I have been practically forced to be blunt, I will not hesitate to continue to be so. That. Blog. Post. Was. Crap.
David,
We’d be making a mistake in redefining ‘free press’. Indeed the correct definition for this word is old, it’s actually older than 19’th century. The reason the definition isn’t up for grabs is that our government is actually built around the 18’th century meaning:
One of the long standing tenets of conservatism is that the Constitution is not open to reinterpretation – if it needs to be changed, there is an amendment process. We don’t redefine terms to alter the way the government works. Redefining terms to alter the way the government works is a progressive idea, not a conservative one. So – we won’t be doing that. Free press means free from government interference or censorship.
Lucia,
I agree for the record. Glad to have that put straight.
mark,
You know…. the more you look at it, the worse it is. What’s with the digressions into “History”. I’m not a big fan of Woodrow Wilson, but the reader is has to wade through these self indulgent passages that seem place to do little more “show of” knowledge of historical details and demonstrate pretty much nothing. Example
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Though David leaves it uncited, the above is not untrue [1]. But problem is that pointless digression into Wilson tells us nothing about the current state of affairs and …. well…. it’s just an example of how article just goes all over the place. Eugene Debbs? Daneils Ellsberg? More “all over the place”.
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When the thing finally seems to get back to discussing what is going on now, also no citation or source! We are treated to claims like:
Who are “some politicians or activists”? Which specific acts of “censorship collusion” are “they “defending? With which “outdated Supreme Court decisions” are “they citing? And in what venue? No link to give the reader a clue. Or maybe we are supposed to guess at that, go read Matt T’s Twitter glossary and figure out those important details on your own? Dunno. ‘Cuz David’s April 2023 article is a mess.
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Now, it may well be that “some” are quoting outdated SCOTUS decisions to justify something they want the government to do. Happens all the time. But David can delude himself that this article is ” It […] is very well sourced”. It’s not. It is sooooo, sooooo… sooo bad.
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And David’s silly accusations that my “smearing” his article or his “original sources” is “not ethical” because I haven’t looked into it? So bogus. I mean, I’d quoted from the darn thing and discussed specific sources when “smearing” it!!
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Was his complaint that I didn’t quote and criticize every dang paragraph? Come on David: your long disorganized screed is crap. Even when I share some of the opinions you advance, or agree with some of the (well known) historical detaisl, I can see it’s a disorganized, poorly sourced, randomly cited pile of stinking ordure.
References
[1] “Woodrow Wilson and race”, wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodrow_Wilson_and_race
Lucia,
I think what he’s using is an advanced form of gish galloping. You’re not supposed to be able to address the problems with his stuff.
There’s a positive lesson for me in this. I need to try to make my point in 3 sentences or less. I’ll fail, but it would improve my writing if I’d try.
Mark,
It is definitely sometimes good to make a point in 3 sentences or less. But it’s not always possible to support it fully– you are left with bald claims. And of course, sometimes you want to make several points.
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However, if someone ask you to state your point or points, you should be able to say what it is.
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True.
What do you think about demagoguery, do you think it’s a neutral tool that can be used for good or bad political purposes or is there something about it that inherently leads to ruin?
I have an intuitive idea that it might be the latter, but I’m not sure what I think yet.
Sorry. No segues. Heh. It’s not necessarily an easy question to answer succinctly of the cuff. Apologies for that.
Mark,
To elaborate and show an example of “stating a claim or point” succinctly and but needing much more verbiage to support it, I’ll make a point about david’s interactions here.
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THE CLAIM: David also doesn’t seem to be registering statements of facts, even when they are stated repeated.
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The above is “a claim or point”.
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Now to support it, I will provide a series of comments, in the order in which they appeared. I will include time stamps.
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THE SUPPORT: I think the following shows David’s inability to register that, contrary to his impression, I did not comment on his CFD blog post.
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———— ———-
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David
David Young (Comment #224747) October 1st, 2023 at 2:18 pm
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———— ———-
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I quote his question and answer.
lucia (Comment #224782) October 1st, 2023 at 5:26 pm
David Young
(I snipped text reposting of a discussion of his links which I wrote last May.)
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———— ———-
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And in response to that, he writes:
Well…I’d just told him which post I’d commented on. I even linked it: The post I linked was the stinking pile of ordure that is his “misinformation” post.
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——- —–
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And then, of course, you, Mark, ask me whether I said something about the CFD post (noting you can’t find whatever it is David accuses me of having said.)
mark bofill (Comment #224790) October 1st, 2023 at 6:04 pm
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——- —–
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Mu response (lucia (Comment #224793) October 1st, 2023 at 6:39 pm )
In that comment I refer back to the post I did criticize. That would be the craptastic “misinformation” article.
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——- —–
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And despite the repeated discussion of my not having critcized his CFD post or discussed it at all we have
David Young (Comment #224816) October 1st, 2023 at 8:05 pm
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Well… no. I haven’t retracted that “smear” because I didn’t discuss his CFD post.
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——- —–
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And then 12 minute later…. again….
David Young (Comment #224820) October 1st, 2023 at 8:17 pm
So here we are: it should be pretty clear to anyone that I have not attacked his CFD posts. (In fact: Mark, who remembered what I wrote quotes it again– which should presumably remind David I had not criticized his CFD post.)
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——- —–
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Neverthless, rather than just snorting, I respond to his accusation:
lucia (Comment #224823) October 1st, 2023 at 8:36 pm
Me
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——- —–
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This seems to have finally put an end to his repeated accusations that I smeared his CFD post or indirectly his expertise.
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The above is the “evidence”. I felt to support my claim (i.e. “David also doesn’t seem to be registering statements of facts, even when they are stated repeated.”), I ndded to show that certain statements of facts where made repeatedly, but he doesn’t seem to register them. To do that, I had to show the statements were made repeatedly and that, his comments indicate he doesn’t register them. That took more than 3 sentences.
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I will now add another claim that I will not bother to support. David is also resorting to lots of personal attacks, mistatements of fact and various logical fallacies. (e.g. calling me childish, claiming I admitted I hadn’t read the article I criticized, suggesting I am unethical because I critcized his article without reading it, and arguing by appeal to authority. I’m sure I’ve left lots of other bad behaviors out.
I leave it to the reader to find those things.
MIkeM,
SteveF brought up the article, so he’s the one who will know. I merely commented on an aspect of physics. I don’t honestly know how it is discussed in the article SteveF mentioned.
~grins~
Fair enough. Some points require a bit of legwork to support properly.
From the “Sanctions will have no effect “ department:
“Russia’s Gas Production Collapses to Late-Stage USSR Levels”
“Russian gas production so far this year has slumped to levels not seen since the 1970s.”
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-gas-production-collapse-ussr-levels-1831087#:~:text=The country’s state energy giant,billion cubic meters (bcm)
mark
I don’t really know if demagoguery can or can’t ever be used for good. I’m sure some people who resort to it think it could be in some instance. I mean… it’s really an appear to emotion and prejudice instead of reason. Possibly such appears might be used to elicit some short term action that is good. I could probably dream up some hypothetical if I tried hard enough.
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But I do think demagoguery is generally resorted to when one either doesn’t have time for a rational argument or one can’t think of one. In the latter case, it’s entirely possible no good rational argument exists. If so, the strong likelihood is influencing using demagoguery will result in bad outcomes– sometimes very bad.
Thanks Lucia.
Lucia, I sometimes think the Antagonists that post here are all one person posting under different aliases. There seems to be a repetition of prose style and approach….. personal attacks, slight of hand with references, rambling sentences, et alia.
Exactly one year after the big hurricane, my son in Venice Florida is getting his new roof. His house was a lower priority because the damage was not severe. Also, my neighborhood farmers market just reopened, they had to almost totally rebuild. We are getting back to normal.
Russell,
Because I ended up going back to my post from May, I could see similarities between Ron and David. But I don’t think they are the same person. I think they likely pull “arguments” (if you can call them that) from similar sources. They hang out in certain places so long that they don’t encounter true counter arguments. Alternatively, they just don’t pay attention to what is said (see example of David not registering a fact repeated over and over and over above.).
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In anycase, there are lots of logical fallacies and demagogic[1] practices. Because Mark brought up “Gish Gallop” I’m reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop . I notice under See also:
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Signal-to-noise ratio – Ratio of the desired signal to the background noise.
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I low signal to noise ratio is one of the contributors to the sky-high craptasticity{1] of Davin’s climate etc. misinformation post. This low signal to noise ratio is achieved by the “all over the place” nature of the post itself and the “rick-roll-links” to (usually) very long posts and sometimes pay walled ones which, when visited seem disconnected for the point they are attached to in the post [2].
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I also think his repeated directives to go read his long winded post which supposedly make the point he won’t state in comments are a mechanism to achieve a very low signal to noise ratio.
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References:
[1] https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/spellcheck/english/?q=craptasticity . Look, I’ve sourced that word!
[2] https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/demagogic . See, my comment is carefully sourced. That’s a second link!!
[3] Yes. That link was to Rick Astley whose song is fun and perfectly nice. Yes, you are allowed to point out that Rick’s lyrics do not include any discussion of proper citation or linking. No, I could not successfully rebut that by demanding you criticize the song itself and tell me what is wrong with the score, lyrics, singing or Rick’s dancing.
I forgot to post the reference above:
Detwiler’s Farm Market to reopen 1 year after Ian
https://www.snntv.com/story/49743019/detwilers-farm-market-to-reopen-1-year-after-ian
Interesting story on some academics apparently finding fraud in Harvard’s Francesca Gino’s study data. They analyzed the Excel files and found some compelling evidence that data was altered, and those alterations made material differences in the results. It was rather clumsy p-hacking as it turns out.
https://datacolada.org/
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Francesca Gino then of course did the “right thing” after Harvard completed an investigation and asked the journals to retract the papers, she chose to sue the original people who uncovered the apparent fraud. The NYT ran an article on her, not quite a puff piece but not engaging in the evidence, stating her defense was plausible.
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It all kind of reeks of Climate Audit fame. The researchers created a GoFundMe account for their legal defense, it’s at $368K at the moment.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/uhbka-support-data-coladas-legal-defense
Mike M. (Comment #224844)
That is the paper that SteveF, Lucia and I have referenced here. I believe David Young had a comment also.
Specific claim: There is a vast collusion between governments, big tech, and the legacy media to silence or deplatform large numbers of Americans who post true things that run counter to the favored narratives of the collusion.
The blog post goes on to provide a mountain of evidence for this claim.
Specific claim: Dr. Fauci used his connections to tip the scales against the lab leak theory, both in the scientific literature and in government agencies assessing the thoery.
I already provided the source for this but you dismissed it as being “all over the place.” This however fits perfectly my blog posts claim that science took a big hit during the pandemic with a flood of zombie studies, politically motivated papers, and the emergence of a witch hunt mentality that harmed some of our best scientists. You can read the Ioannidis and Battacharia pieces for the evidence.
Lucia, I simply didn’t see your comment saying which post you were referring to. I was wrong in interpreting what you said about my “previous blog post.”
But your proof by a single instance is very fallacious and in fact a smear.
Lucia, I get that you didn’t like my blog post while admitting that you didn’t really read it. We can disagree on that.
But smearing me as having a low signal to noise ratio is a distortion.
Criticizing my supporting evidence without knowing what is in them is a little over the top don’t you think?
The references I cite are often quoted at length in the blog. By definition that gives the lie to your statement that the links are often disconnected from what I say.
But once again you can’t even be honest enough to read something before leveling trivial criticisms and attacking the author.
I think I’m done responding to you Lucia on this topic as I find your engagement with me on this subject neither honest nor constructive.
It’s your blog and you can run it however you want. I still will interact with the other commenters if you will allow that.
Ken Fritsch,
“Unfortunately this one instance will probably be used by the consensus crowd to discredit alternative views on climate change.”
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Or as I have said many times to people who are very confused about basic physics and chemistry: “Please stop helping so much!”
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All they do by writing stupid articles is give ammunition to Climate zealots to discredit legitimate arguments against climate hysteria.
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I am also very disappointed Judith allowed that post on her blog without pointing out how technically weak the argument is. I hope that is only because she didn’t give it much thought, rather than that she is herself confused about the basics.
David Young (Comment #224859)
That’s the right idea! Now we don’t need to hunt through a mountain of stuff to identify which molehill you think supports your specific claimm
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But sadly, the quote you posted does not support that specific claim. It just tells us some anonymous person agrees with you.
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The specific claim your evidene supports is more like:
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“PersonX has claimed there is is a sweeping censorchip effort by the federal government and government contractors. And furthermore personX has that some growing group of (unnamed) journalsits, analyists and researchers have docmented the rise of something person X dubbs the ““Censorship Industrial Complex”, which is a network of unnamed goverent agencies and unnamed think tanks. Person X also claims these entities have coordinated efforts to spread somesort of unspecificed disinformation and censor people … (and so on.) ”
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And I or others here could point out that the fact that PersonX claims something is not really evidence.
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So now that you have the general idea, what you need to do is go through PersonX’s material and find the actual evidence< they gave for their claim. Just quoting their claim is not evidence for their claim. It’s only evidence for a claim that they said that.
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But good try. Try again and maybe next time, you can show us you know what evidence for a your claim is and can find it!
SteveF, In collaborating with Judith on my blog posts, I have found that she is a strong believer in allowing all viewpoints to be aired without a lot of extra commentary even if the views are questionable.
Judith has always had a very low bar for accepting comments even if they are content free. She tolerated a torrent of abuse from Joshua who decided one fine day that Judith didn’t exhibit the proper respect for uncertainty. She has recently tightened up the moderation policy and brooms Joshua’s usual content free or ad hominem comments. It’s hilarious to compare the now mild mannered Joshua to his former pit bull self. The typical argument from him was “Nic Lewis predicted something about covid that while interesting was wrong. Therefore you shouldn’t take his word for anything.” This is how the culture of censorship and cancellation works these days. You find a few trivial errors and blow them up to get that person’s posts deleted or even better get them deplatformed. That’s what happened to Jay Battacharia. I don’t know if Ioannidis was deplatformed or not but he certainly received a caning both online and in personal threats to his family.
I actually rather admire Judith’s patience and tolerance. I would not be so tolerant.
https://jonathanturley.org/2023/09/30/the-green-scare-and-the-new-mccarthyism-a-response-to-rep-raja-krishnamoorthi/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email#more-210165
This is a good summary of how our current witch hunt culture works. No wonder the Democrats seem to want more censorship and not less.
I believe similar mechanisms are at work in the media, the deep state, and big tech and result in a remarkable lack of viewpoint diversity.
David
I think you are back tracking: I note you claim “provided a source” for the claim. But if that’s your claim, what you need to do is provide evidence the claim is in fact true.
Providing a “source” for that claim is only “evidence” if your specific claim started with “According to [sourceX] Dr. Fauci used …. “. Then, your citation would provide evidence that “source X” made that claim.
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With respect to your complaint that I dismissed your “source” as being “all over place”, I will correct you:
(1) I described your dreadful post as “all over the place”. And I described you as floating all over the place.
(2) Your your dreadful post does not mention the name Fauci. It doesn’t appear to talk about Fauci. If you included a “source” for a claim about Fauci, that would be more evidence your post is “all over the place”.
(3) I assume you are not suggesting you yourself are the source for your own claim. That would be…. odd.
David
You keep claiming this. In fact: I read it. I quoted the post — last May. As is obvious with more than two functioning brain cells in their skull: I read that post.
Now, I do think I may understand the origin of your misunderstanding. It might be from “lucia (Comment #224742) ” where — in response to your pestring us to read your post, I wrote
First: That is not “admitting I hadn’t read it”. It’s telling you I didn’t intend to read it–based on having read a “previous post”.
Second: My mistake was that I didn’t realize that the post you were pestering us to read was the same dreadful post you came here to tell us to read back in May.
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In fact, it turns out I had already read it. It was the dreadful post.
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I think it’s been manifestly apparent to everyone other than you that I (a) did not “admit” I hadn’t read this post. I said I wasn’t going to read what would have been a third post (had you written one. ). It honestly did not occur to me that you were trying go get us to read that stale old, and totally dreadful post again. And (b) I read that post– and quoted it– and commented on it. I told you it was dreadful last May.
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And now: I have actually mentioned the fact that I did read the post several times in comments her. But just as you someone could not register the fact that I did not smear your CFD post despite repeated claims that I had not, you seem unable to register that I have told you I did read that the dreadful post. I first read it last May— when I even quoted it!
David,
You previously advanced your special theory of why Joshua was sort of banned from this blog. You’re notion about the “why” was utterly wrong. This is my recollection:
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The reason Joshua seemed banned is he said he intended to comment here while not interacting with me. That is not allowed. So he quite graciously complied and went away. So he was not actually banned.
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He came back after a while, no longer refusing to interact with me, but decided to stop coming by after a particular discussion. He was not banned.
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So no, I do not allow people to come here and refuse to interact with me. If you comment here and refuse to interact with me, I will ban you.
Below is a link to a different look at the Progressive Era than the more romantic view of many leftist historians and economists. The current intelligentsia is doing the same with the current progressive era with the same push for more government.
https://mises.org/library/progressive-era-0/html/c/615
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-preapproved-narratives-corrupt-science-false-studies-covid-climate-change-5bee0844?mod=hp_trending_now_opn_pos5
Just saw this. It makes a strong case that science is deteriorating since covid, kind of the theme of my blog post.
Lucia, I just don’t want to respond to your smears and attacks on my blog post. On other subjects I will respond if you mention me or something interesting to me. Is that OK?
SteveF (Comment #224863)
October 2nd, 2023 at 1:58 pm
Steve, I like your: “Please stop helping us so much”.
Those who are a bridge or five too far in opposition to the consensus crowd on climate change are remindful of the likes of Trump and his proxy here, David Young. I agree with some of their complaints about the current political situation, but yeah, “Please stop helping us so much”.
I looked at your reference Ken and it contains a much different version of the early 20th Century that Samuel Morrison did in his Oxford History of the American People.
If I understand it correctly it is being argued that in reality business wanted government regulation and protection and the result was a cartelization of America. I do agree that this has been true for perhaps the last 30 years. Government and big business have established a co-dependent relationship. I think its hard to argue that J D Rockefeller welcomed the antitrust action against Standard Oil. I don’t think breaking it up had any negative consequences. Similarly, while ultimately going too far, regulation of railroads resulted in a much safer industry. Likewise its hard to argue that the FDA doesn’t contribute to a safe food supply. We all rely for example on the system for grading beef.
I believe that the welfare state really didn’t start until the 1930’s with the enactment of Social Security but its been a long time since I read Morrison.
The ultimate source for Fauci’s unethical behavior is in fact public.
1. the extensive emails between Fauci and the authors of the proximal origins paper.
2. Whistle blower accounts and internal emails from the CIA. That’s the evidence for Fauci’s secret visit to lobby the analysts charged with evaluating the lab lead theory. In fact, those analysts were offered financial incentives to produce a neutral report.
3. Rand Paul has a lot of this evidence from the Senate hearings.
Fauci did not appear in my blog except indirectly. He was the author of some of the failed policies I mentioned.
David,
(a) I never said anything about the CFD post.
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(b)I don’t consider what I’ve written about your post “smears and attacks”. In comments here you made claims about that post. That is an invitation to discuss the contents of that blog post. I simply corrected your claims, posting my evaluation. If you don’t want to explain how or why my comments on the dreadful blog post are wrong or unfair, that’s ok. I totally understand. I know you can’t really rebutt what I’ve written because what I’ve written is true.
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(c) Obvious, if you keep bringing up your posts here, then I will feel free to discuss them. If you don’t bring them up, I am perfectly happy to ignore what you wrote elsewhere just as I did back in April. Your post became a matter of discussion here only because you came here in May and instructed us to read it and then returned again to ask us to read it again. If you don’t want your post discussed here, don’t ask us to read it.
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It’s fine with me if you drop the subject of your posts, stop asking us to read them. If you don’t speak of them, I won’t either. But if you do bring up the subject of your posts in anyway, I will certainly comment on it. If you accuse me of “smearing and attacking”, I will also engage that.
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So: of course you don’t need to discuss your blog posts in anyway. Feel free to start now.
David,
The way to get Lucia and everyone else to stop talking about your blog post is to stop referencing your blog post every couple of comments. We’re only talking about it because you keep referring back to it. I promise you, if I never read you saying ‘read my blog post’ again, I will gladly forget about your blog post.
Heh. Cross posted. Sorry lucia.
It’s a week for bad news for the Russian energy industry:
“Moldova will no longer buy gas from Russia’s Gazprom – energy minister”
…and here’s the kicker:
“Parlicov said Moldova had been able to procure gas from European suppliers at a better price than Gazprom offered”
I think the energy minister may just be goofing with the Ruskies on that one.
While these are individually not big items, it’s like the proverbial “Death by a Thousand Cuts”… each one hurts a little.
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/moldova-will-no-longer-buy-gas-russias-gazprom-energy-minister-2023-10-02/
Ron
Thank you for admitting that you did not make that claim about Fauci in your dreadful blog post.
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If you now make that claim, fine. As I previously stated, “Look lots of people have criticize Fauci– some of them here.”
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Setting aside the disagreement over the quality of your blog post, our main disagreements have been with Trumps calling the press “treasonous” and his ideas about reigning in freedom of the press.
Ken Fritsch,
Here is the weird thing: those who are not helping at all (indeed, making rational argument against climate hysteria much more difficult) seem unable to recognize their own allies. They carry on as if someone like me or you (adamantly opposed to climate craziness) are the problem, rather than recognizing that accepting basic physics and chemistry (and rejecting absolutely crazy stuff) doesn’t make somebody the enemy.
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Like I said above, I fear there are a lot of technically educated people who have not the slightest idea of how things actually work. Which is very discouraging. Had they worked for me when I ran an engineering department, I would have fired their asses forthwith. I actually did end up firing a couple of utter technical incompetents, one a PhD from a reputable school, now that I think about it.
I do agree that public discourse has gotten a lot cruder over the last 20 years, starting with the very harsh language used about Bush and Cheney. There has been a lot of talk of treason ever since.
I saw a good article about how Trump’s supporters take him seriously but not literally. This appeared in the Atlantic of all places in 2016 before the country collectively lost its mind.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/trump-makes-his-case-in-pittsburgh/501335/
But I’ve said many times I’m not an avid Trump supporter. I liked his policies a lot but I also think he harms himself sometimes by attacking perceived enemies who are his friends and using technically in accurate language to make a point. I would say that totally corrupt and ideologically uniformly left wing would better words for the media.
I also see a lot of TDS in which people (mostly women) just hate the guy personally because he is not their ideal husband. My wife is a very hard core Trump supporter. She is the daughter of an Air Force colonel who was raised on a farm in north Georgia and plowed the fields with a mule.
Even Glenn Greenwald who disliked Trump as a person when he lived in New York has now changed his mind a little and believes that Trump has an almost supernatural ability to get people to think he is on their side.
David
It’s even easier to understate it.
There is a difference between “trying to purge” and simply “not promoting”. There is also a difference between putting something up as a post and allowing something in comments.
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I haven’t read the paper. If they are saying the current rise in CO2 is caused by the temperature rise, my Bayesian detector is saying “BS”.
From Turley’s article on his testimony. He is not a conservative by any means. I believe along with Turley that this is the new normal for Democrats and the media.
All movements have a fringe who believe false things or traffic in conspiracy theories. I believe that if you go to any of the thousands of activist sites promoting the climate scare, you will find a very high proportion of what is said to be false or misleading. If they allow comments it will be worse still.
We all know from the climate wars that sites like Skeptical Science and DeSmog often traffic in falsehoods or half truths and smear people unjustly. Does that turn off some people? I doubt it makes much difference.
Again, the paper did in my reading contain some interesting methods and conclusions about short term variability. Ken Rice, the newly polite hall monitor of everything failed to get the editors to retract it.
Lucia –
I guess my virtual ears were burning…
Imagine my surprise in coming over here to see if y’all had anything to say about the post from the dude who sez everyone’s got it back asswards, and that actually it’s warming that increases atmospheric CO2, only to find that my old friend David was writing love letters to me in the comments here..
Anyway, not that it really matters much but my recollection is that you “disinvited” me to continue commenting here after I had said I considered some of your engagement with me to be in bad faith (by which I meant attributing dishonesty or mal-intent to my comments).
I never considered it a “banning,” and in fact my take-away was that although of course my comments wouldn’t likely be well-received (what else is new?) there wouldn’t be any particular problem if I continued to comment as long as I didn’t insist you engaged in bad faith.
If you have an organization that stands for something by way of principles and how those principles are communicated and a member of your organization defies those standards, you can call it what you want but I see nothing wrong in kicking/purging that person out of your organization. That this does not happen with the major political parties vis a vis the nominating process, in my mind, means that the parties have no real principles. Primaries are supposed to be a nod to democracy, but in effect it is like having random individuals vote on how to run a company and who its leaders would be. Not even socialists are tempted to do that.
Just to close this loop a bit…
> The reason Joshua seemed banned is he said he intended to comment here while not interacting with me.
I think it was along the lines of, I don’t bother engaging with serious intent with people whom I believe interact with me in bad faith (i.e., think I’m interacting with dishonesty or mal-intent).. which is what I think got morphed into an intent to comment here without interacting with you (because I had judged you as engaging with me in bad faith – as I use the term).
Again, FWIW (and my recollection could certainly be wrong).
Oh, and hey Mark. How’s tricks?
Hello Joshua. Good of you to drop by. How’s life?
[Edit: Cross post. Decent. I don’t like what I’m working on at work. It’s evident by my excessive posting around here recently.]
[edit: looks like I deleted where I meant to edit. I’ll add this now:
COVID finally got me, the bastard.
But fortunately it was quite mild. I fully recovered in a just few days but still testing positive so it’s put a hitch in my ability to get around.]
It’s funny though, I didn’t anticipate the feeling of (temporary, relative) invulnerability that comes from recovering from an infection. Since we have custody of a six-year old germ factory who hangs out with a bunch of other germ factories in school every day, I’m looking forward to at least a few months of luxuriating in not having much concern about getting covid
Joshua
Honestly, our recollections sound ” not inconsistent”. Sounds sort of like your recollection is your reason for not wanting to interacting with me. Mine is for the fact of the decision to not do so. But those do line up somewhat. (It was a long time ago. But I knew it wasn’t the reason David dreamed up.)
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Anyway, I imagine your ears were burning! You must have had fun word searching “Joshua” on this thread!
Is suggesting that Turley is not conservative akin to a strawman argument?
Of course he’s conservative.
Joshua
Wow! Only now?!
I got it a year ago last summer. I had the absolute mildest case possible. I only tested because my husband got it. I coughed a few times and so little it wouldn’t have occurred to me to test (because honestly, I cough a few times every morning, then stop.)
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His case was fairly mild. (We were both vaccinated.)
Joshua,
Glad to hear it was mild. Covid is making the rounds again here too, probably just a matter of time till I catch it again. Hopefully I get hit with the same strain.
> Anyway, I imagine your ears were burning! You must have had fun word searching “Joshua” on this thread!
Lol.
Indeed. Once I saw the tail end of the convo I kind of had to do that search, although with my much beloved David involved it’s not like I didn’t know what to expect.
Joshua–
And oh yeah… now that you remember more details, our memories align more specifically. I (think I) remember you thinking I assumed your comments were in bad intent… back and forth… yada, yada….. I’d really have to do research to figure out more specifics. (It’s all there in comments after all.) But.. nah.
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Joshua
But I suspect some of it was not what you expected. 🙂
Lucia –
> Wow! Only now?!
Interestingly, I saw a study that suggests people who live with young kids have gotten infected at a LOWER rate than an age-matched cohort. Or maybe it was that they tend to get milder infections? Can’t remember which, although the latter might make more sense as I also think I read from research early on in the pandemic that t-cell cross immunity (of the sort you might expect among people who live with germ factories) likely lowers the severity of infection but not so much the likelihood of getting infected.
Either way, maybe a bit counterintuitive.
Lucia –
> But I suspect some of it was not what you expected.
Hmmm. Looked like the comments went pretty much as I’d have expected, actually. Not sure what you were thinking of.
Joshua,
I thought you might have expected “everyone” joined in to take about how horrible you and willard were. David added willard to some of those posts.
Joshua,
~grins~ Well, thank you Joshua. I’m going to take that as a back handed compliment. No need to disabuse me if I have this wrong, lol!
Here’s something unique to this war… regular internet geeks scouring OSINT, like satellite photos, and discerning secret Russian military moves. They then publish the information for Ukrainian targeting. Here one found a new S-400 anti aircraft battery:
“New Russian S-400 launch site located at 44.705877, 33.598860 just east of Belbek Air Base is now active, with 5x 5P85 TELs in launch configuration! Both a 92N6 engagement radar and a 96L6 acquisition radar are present on elevated berms.”
Perhaps the Ukrainians already had this intel, but maybe not.
Complete intel dump:
https://x.com/hamwa07/status/1708922669637284022?s=46&t=ZvqHpxBnQGny72gLoGhKXw
Hmmmm.
Ok, I see now.
But I’ve seen y’all rip into David in the past. As much as there’s a strong divergence (from me) on a lot of political or even other issues, there are are also consistent alignments i’ve seen in the past in dealing with certain aspects of David, say, or Brandon or Rud.
So yeah, I guess if I hadn’t seen y’all rip into David in the past I might have have mistakenly (false stereotyping along a political axis) expected a different outcome than what occurred, but then again it’s not really surprising (given the whole David/Rud/Brandon axis). So in another sense I might have expected exactly what happened despite the political constellation – if that makes sense (trying to speak a bit in code here so as to not rile anyone up).
And it’s not exactly like Steve F jumped in to aggressively defend my honor. ????
Way too deep for a simpleton such as myself.
Anyways – gotta go change the cat litter before I call it a night. It was good chatting with you.
Joshua,
“I guess my virtual ears were burning…”
…. or maybe there is an internet troll network and you give each other a heads up, like honor among thieves
Mark –
You might recall we were ALSO taking care of my mother-in-law (in an attached apartment we built). Well, (before dying earlier this year) she had a cat and after a bit (well, 93 years) didn’t have the mobility to handle the litter and since we were doing, as my people say a “mitzvah,” we splurged on a litter robot. Ridiculously expensive and I thought immorally extravagant but, man, that was nice. Consider a splurge.
Have a good night.
Russell –
> or maybe there is an internet troll network and you give each other a heads up, like honor among thieves
Well, as it happens my super sekret troll network monitoring device has been on the fritz for the last couple of weeks, so in this case it really was just because I was curious to see if there were comments about the Climate Etc. post.
Ken, You are correct that our political parties don’t have real principles. That’s been true since the founding of the Republic. Generally however, smart politicians try to build a big tent to enable a better chance of victory.
Joshua,
Immorally extravagant? Don’t take up ballroom dance. Especially don’t compete.
.
Most of the time Jim changes the litter. Sometimes I do.
.
Looks like a “Self Cleaning Cat Litter Box – Anti-Pinch/Odor-Removal Design Automatic Cat Litter Box” is about the cost of 6 to 10 private dance lessons. (6 with Vlad; 7.5 with Britney; 8 with Devin. 10 with someone “cheap”.) No robot litter changer for us; save the money for lessons.
(Dance can be inexpensive. But you need to take group lessons. You don’t even want to know the price of the sorts of dresses aging women wear to compete in NDCA– that’s ‘ballroom’ dance events. It’s ridiculous. Country USWDC is cheaper. I might have to post on the eye-opening cultural things associated with hobbies of aging rich women. )
David
??? Did Kenneth say political parties don’t have principles?
I mean, yeah… maybe parties don’t. To some exent, only people can have principles. But did Kenneth say that? Where? Can you quote what he wrote?
I found this today in the WSJ. They talked to Ioannidis but it supports my main points.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-preapproved-narratives-corrupt-science-false-studies-covid-climate-change-5bee0844?mod=hp_trending_now_opn_pos5
David,
I enjoy reading opinion pieces in the WSJ while I eat my breakfast. The dead tree version arrives in my driveway every morning.
.
Opinion pieces are interesting. They are also opinion pieces with fairly “light” (i.e. nearly nonexistent) requirements for evidence.
.
Not saying the opinion is right or wrong– but that it’s an opinion.
.
You’ve found someone who shares your opinion. Whooo. Hooo!
The US military seems to finally be buying a clue to the realities in near peer conflict.
.
“A Call to Action: Lessons from Ukraine for the Future Force”
.
https://press.armywarcollege.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3240&context=parameters
.
“Army War College Report Predicts Mass Casualties in Near-Peer Fight Against [Russia] – Analysis”
.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/army-war-college-report-predicts?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=137402114&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=182d3m&utm_medium=email
.
A stark comment
“For context, the United States sustained about 50,000 casualties in two decades of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. In large-scale combat operations, the United States could experience that same number of casualties in two weeks.”
.
This gives a glimpse into what the casualty rates in Ukraine may actually be in the current war.
.
For US combat casualty replacements, here is a grim item:
77% of youths are not eligible to join the military due to health, fitness, and other issues.
.
And for the Ready Reserves:
.
“The Individual Ready Reserve, which stood at 700,000 in 1973 and 450,000 in 1994, now stands at 76,000.”
Lucia, It’s a very large group that agrees with me including Glenn Greenwald, David Zweig, Michael Schellenberger, Matt Taibbi, Victor Davis Hansen, Lee Fang, John Ioaddisis, Jay Batacharia, Marti Makaray, Martin Kuhldordff, Tucker Carlsen, Elon Musk and many many more. I’m still a little surprised you have insulated yourself from this vast body of evidence. I think you are willfully not interested in any new information and are exibiting strong biases.
David
(a) Given the population of the world, or even the smaller population of “educated people” that is not a “very large group”.
.
(b) Even if that were “very large”, the fact that someone shares your opinion is not “evidence”. Your argument form remains ‘state my opinion’->’show quote of someone who shares my opinion. If you want to convince people you need to show evidence. (Presumably some of those people above do, though I know Tucker Carlson does not.)
.
(c) You now seem to be trying to argue by authority. You do this pretty often. It’s a logical fallacy.
.
Look: you have posted a mega-shit-ton of links. But somehow you don’t seem to be able to identify anything inside your links that constitutes evidence for your claims.
.
And that really makes me wonder about you because some stuff in there is evidence for some claims that some of those guys on the list make. But. Mind you the claims they support are much less sweeping that you are actually making. (Other than, perhaps, Tucker Carlson. I don’t watch him. ).
.
For some reason, you can’t seem to distinguish between evidence and claims and opinions. I don’t know why that is, but now that you are posting smaller quotes, it sure seems like you don’t know the difference.
Russell,
I tried to inform Joshua of David’s remarks over at my ‘blog’ (heh) but apparently he didn’t see. I may rename the place the Internet Troll Network in honor of your comment though, that’s catchy.
The current discussion is much more interesting and has more merit [IOW I am not trying to spark discussion about this], I just wanted to avoid any appearance of deception.
Ok… WordPress autocloses a month after the posts. I’m going to make a new one and move all the discussions of the Kotsoyannis paper to the new post. The rest can stay here.)
The new post will be an open thread…. but I’m contemplating a stupid analysis to see what we would “get” if
* We KNOW there should be a trend in CO2 because of fossil fuels. (Like… uhmmm… we know the water level in a huge pool will rise if we turn on a small hose that adds water. This happens even if the pool is “big” and yada, yada, yada…)
* We posit that Temperature is a function of CO2 and some deterministic oscillation (e.g. el nino).
* We posit instantaneous CO2 is a function of the known trend plus temperature.
Then we make graphs like K’s and eyeball them. (That’s what he suggests we do in his blog post.) I want to see if this method *obviously* fails to get for certain sizes of the oscillation, trend in CO2 and interaction coefficients.
This is a test that should have been done. If someone knows it was let me know… But I’m just going to gin it up.
Lucia, What I am seeing here is that you attack me for not showing evidence but refuse to look at the evidence I point to. Instead you demand that I show detailed evidence. When I do that you delete it because of some BS concerns about being sued. I'm a subscriber to Taibbi for example. There is no way he is going to sue anyone for publicizing his work.
There is a growing group of influential and honest people who are waking up to our corrupt elites. You quibble but present no evidence. What a massive double standard.
David,
I didn’t “attack” you. I am pointing out a flaw in your arguments. You are not pointing to “evidence”. You are showing that there are other people who make the same claims and hold the same opinions you hold.
.
A said you don’t seem to grasp the difference.
.
The long posts you copied verbating also did not contain “evidence”. If you think they do, go back and find the portions that are evidence and for your claims and post that. What you are doing so far is posting claims to support your claims.
.
Argument by authority is not “evidence”. (It’s not clear those people are all “authorities”, nor that they are authorities for the specific claims you make, which are genereally wild extensions of what they actually claim.
.
Pointing out that claims are not evidence is is not a “quibble”.
Pointing out that argument by authority is not a “quibble”.
And pointing out that your claims are not identical to their claims– but often dramatic extensions is also not a “quibble”.
.
I’m astonished that you think I need “evidence’ for a simple statement that “claims are not evidence”. If you think claims are evidence, then just say so directly. Then people will have you on record and saying you think they are the same thing. That will clear things up for everyone. And we can all stop arguing about your evidence because everyone will just recognize you think claims are evidence.
.
Evidence is factual information that shows a claim is true. That’s a definition. (https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=claims+vs.+evidence , https://www.comm.pitt.edu/argument-claims-reasons-evidence .)
.
Mark,
I have a copyright on Internet Troll Network (ITN). I am willing to sell it to you.
Russell,
I suspect you need a trademark for that. 🙂
I offer two (2) quatloos. [Oh it’s not a trademark! I knew he was scamming me somehow…]
One (1) quatloos then.
Lucia –
.
> Immorally extravagant? Don’t take up ballroom dance. Especially don’t compete.
.
It’s interesting, I see a distinction there. For spending on a hobby, especially one that involves exercise, I see a different calculus than spending on a device that enables me to be lazy.
.
My parents grew up during the depression. My mother was one of the original recyclers, who washed out plastic bags and reused them from way back. For them, spending on (a lot) on avoiding minor inconvenience or minor labor was extravagant and yes, there was a kind of morality attached. Not to say I think that’s necessarily a healthy attitudez it’s definitely a piece of my inheritance. There wasn’t quite the same calculus attached to spending on a hobby or leisure activity (although there can cwerianky be overlap)
.
But it’s funny how spending while taking care of someone else gets a mom’s if special dispensation. I’m not sure any of it makes any sense, but it’s there. I think “Jewish guilt” is a component just as there might be with “catholic guilt.”
My collections guy is named Guido, and he will not be deterred by semantics.
Sheriff Grady Judd of Polk County Florida is a social media star. His frequent press conferences go viral all the time. Only in Florida!
Sheriff Judd’s greatest hits from last year (you will not be disappointed):
https://youtu.be/XQtLLaioo54?si=PL51YmcwA_btqOpo
Perhaps it would be easier to get discussion on track about evidence if there was discussion about what evidence (observations) would result in doing a Bayesnian update of beliefs. Things like rate of paper rejection by editors while all reviewers said publish being higher for one “narrative” than another. Taking into account the base rate of paper rejection.
Matt Taibbi points to this funny video about Ukraine and NATO. Orf has another hilarious one of Dr. Peter Hotez one of the very prolific commentators on CNN shifting his narrative all over the place regarding vaccinations. It’s reality as parody and the bankruptcy of the media.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf5xEBwBhds
Kevin McCarthy is out!
Lucia, The Twitter files are freely available on Twitter. Just go to Taibbis’ feed. I’ve read them and there is a mountain of evidence from internal emails and communications for what Taibbi and Schellenberger are alleging about the deep state /media/ big tech collusion to censor and cancel Americans.
I understand the difference between evidence that a large body of reporters with excellent reporters agree with me especially the ones who spent months poring over Twitter’s internal communications and first hand evidence. What surprises me is that you are quibbling about such a trivial point while remaining willfully ignorant of the mountain of evidence and delete it without bothering to evaluate it yourself.
Here is the link to the first Twitter File release. There are plenty of documentary evidence.
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1598822959866683394?lang=en
Here’s the first part. For some reasons the pictures of the Twitter documents didn’t appear on my pdf but there are in the link. This material is public reporting and its find to reproduce it here.
. Thread: THE TWITTER FILES
3:34 PM · Dec 2, 2022
21.1K 147.6K 359.6K
Replying to @mtaibbi Post your reply
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Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi · Dec 2, 2022
2. What you’re about to read is the first installment in a series, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by sources at Twitter.
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Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi · Dec 2, 2022
3. The “Twitter Files” tell an incredible story from inside one of the world’s
largest and most influential social media platforms. It is a Frankensteinian tale of a human-built mechanism grown out the control of its designer.
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Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi · Dec 2, 2022
4. Twitter in its conception was a brilliant tool for enabling instant mass
communication, making a true real-time global conversation possible for the first time.
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Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi · Dec 2, 2022
5. In an early conception, Twitter more than lived up to its mission
statement, giving people “the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers.”
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Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi · Dec 2, 2022
6. As time progressed, however, the company was slowly forced to add
those barriers. Some of the first tools for controlling speech were designed to combat the likes of spam and financial fraudsters.
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Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi · Dec 2, 2022
7. Slowly, over time, Twitter staff and executives began to find more and
more uses for these tools. Outsiders began petitioning the company to manipulate speech as well: first a little, then more often, then constantly.
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Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi · Dec 2, 2022
8. By 2020, requests from connected actors to delete tweets were routine.
One executive would write to another: “More to review from the Biden team.” The reply would come back: “Handled.”
Messages
20+
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Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi · Dec 2, 2022
9. Celebrities and unknowns alike could be removed or reviewed at the behest of a political party:
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Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi · Dec 2, 2022
10.Both parties had access to these tools. For instance, in 2020, requests
from both the Trump White House and the Biden campaign were received and honored. However:
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Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi · Dec 2, 2022
11. This system wasn’t balanced. It was based on contacts. Because
Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right. opensecrets.org/orgs/twitter/s…
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Matt Taibbi @mtaibbi · Dec 2, 2022
12. The resulting slant in content moderation decisions is visible in the
documents you’re about to read. However, it’s also the assessment of multiple current and former high-level executives.
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I will here link to all the twitter files in Taibbi’s summary. They are all free on Twitter. It really is a mountain of first hand evidence. Maybe you don’t like it or it goes against your prejudices about a “free” press.
https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1601007575633305600?lang=en
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1600243405841666048?lang=en
This one shows how James Baker (or Russiagate fame at the FBI) got fired by Musk for interfering with the production of this reporting. That’s one of the things most people don’t know. There is a revolving between Federal law enforcement and the CIA and the executive suites at big tech.
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1601352083617505281
https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1601720455005511680
https://twitter.com/bariweiss/status/1602364197194432515?lang=en
The next one documents the revolving door between Twitter and the FBI and proves the collusion happened.
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1603857534737072128
This next one proves that Twitter violated its own policies to ban the completely true and accurate Hunter Biden laptop story.
https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1604871630613753856
This one shows how Twitter aided one of the Pentagon’s disinformation efforts. This surprised even me.
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1605292454261182464
Continuing:
This one documents Twitter’s involvement with a range of Federal agencies.
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1606701397109796866
Next David Zweig documents how Twitter rigged the Covid debate. All in all Covid is in my view and dozens of our best scientists a total fiasco with massive disinformation and lies spread by the CDC and other elites in the corrupt media.
https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607378386338340867
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1610372352872783872
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1610394197730725889
Key Revelations for number 13 linked below: Twitter senior political liaison Todd O’Boyle feared that onetime acting FDA commission Brett Giroir’s correct observations about the effectiveness of natural immunity were “corrosive” and might “go viral,” and put a misleading label on the tweet. Gottlieb also pressured Twitter to remove Berenson himself.
https://twitter.com/AlexBerenson/status/1612526697038897167
This next one is about the Russiagate lies. Perhaps the biggest disinformation and election interference campaign in American history.
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1613589031773769739
This one exposes Adam Schiff as wanting to censor those critical of his actions.
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1613932017716195329
This shows that Hamilton 68 was a fraud but the basis for a massive campaign to claim massive Russian interference in our elections.
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1619029772977455105
https://twitter.com/davidzweig/status/1607378386338340867
Continuing:
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1631338650901389322
This one is about the Censorship Industrial Complex. It documents the personal and false attacks Democrats tried to push when Schellenberger and Taibbi testified before Congress. On that very morning an IFS agent visited Taibbi’s home, something that never happens. Intimidation anyone?
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1633830002742657027
And finally, the great Covid19 lie machine.
https://twitter.com/mtaibbi/status/1636729166631432195
David,
Look, I have no idea what you are trying to prove to just copy pasting some Twitter files.
(a) I and most the people you are arguing about have have read them.
(b) I and most people you are arguing with agree the government acted to pressure social media to censor and and some social media outlets did so to some extent. and
(c) We agree the Twitter files constitute evidence.
.
So no one has asked you to prove (b) above.
.
But your claims have gone well beyond that claim the government acted to pressure social media to censor. And it’s zillions of other claims you make:
.
Totally corrupt elite? That is a threat to your bill of rights? Well… I think Trump is that. But I don’t think most of SCOTUS is. And I think we have plenty of other elites who are not. Anyway: Not shown in the Twitter files.
A crisis of legitimacy? Really? Don’t think so. Anyway: Not shown in the Twitter files.
Biggest most consequential? Dubious. Twitter files at least touches on this. But biggest? Most consequential? Dubious.
“Free press” is a false narrative? Not if we use the actual definition of “free press”. Anyway: Not shown in the Twitter files.
No he hasn’t. Or at least you haven’t pointed to a scrap of evidence for “similar”. (Or at least nothing I find “similar”. And also: Not shown in the Twitter files.
These claims aren’t proven by “The twitter files” or “your blog post” or any evidence you post.
.
Trying to do “motte and bailey” by pulling back to the one claim people all agree with you one is just ridiculous. People are criticizing you for not supporting all the claims that amount to your “bailey”. We all know we are criticizing you for your “bailey”. And we all know that at best, you pull back to the motte and try to pretend don’t that will show you have proven your “bailey”.
OK. So this is a mountain of evidence presented by real reporters documenting the existence and massive scope of the Censorship Industrial Complex.
Perhaps some here can be forgiven for not knowing about this as the media have had a disinformation campaign smearing these reporters and have mostly refused to report on this. It takes a lot of time to wade into this but its a very important story.
Or maybe they don’t want to read alarming reporting that shows that the press is not “free” and they might have to do some real work to find independent media to hear about the most important stories. Maybe some are too tight to pay ~$50 per year to subscribe to Taibbi or Greenwald. BTW, both of these reporters are using their income to built a team of reporters, editors, etc.
And look: I’m not going to have my blog post takein down for copyright violations. So curb your copyright violations. I’m not going to take down Matts twitter roll because he’s not going to send a DMAC for that.
Mark
Is anyone in?
Patrick McHenry (not ringing any bells for me) is the temporary Speaker. I didn’t see it coming I thought he was safe, so now I have to go read once I get a minute and figure out what the heck.
Rep. Patrick McHenry of NC is the temporary speaker.
It took a *lot* of votes to elect McCarthy in the first place. I’m guessing it will take a while for support to coalesce behind any new candidate. The Democrats apparently are not going to provide any votes, and there seem to be enough rebels within the Republican contingent to preclude easily forming a majority.
David,
I agree with Lucia. What is it we’re arguing about now exactly? I’ve no idea at this point.
Harold,
I agree. It’s going to be interesting to see if they can get their act together and select new leadership quickly. Color me skeptical! But I haven’t been paying good attention so I don’t know.
mark bofill (Comment #225033)
He wants to show he knows what evidence is…. I think.
But now he seems to be posting “evidence” without telling us what claim it corresponds to.
.
The Twitter files are evidence for something. They are evidence for one of the few claims we’ve always agreed on: (b) above. I think David has repeatedly accused us of not reading them or not believing (b) or something. We’ve all repeatedly told us we’ve read the Twitter files and believe (b).
.
But whenever we criticize his other claims or opinions, we (used to get “his blog post” and now “the twitter files”.)
.
He seems very, very lost.
Just to prove one point about DeSantis which perhaps you missed while laying awake at night worrying that Trump might win again.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/04/ron-desantis-slitting-throats-federal-jobs-president-campaign
As to all the elites being corrupt, that may have been too broad. At least the deep state, the media, and big tech are corrupt. And Americans are starting to agree too. Especially the CDC has taken a big hit in public confidence.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/394817/media-confidence-ratings-record-lows.aspx
https://www.statista.com/chart/27962/us-trust-in-the-fbi/
https://hbr.org/2022/09/5-steps-to-restore-trust-in-u-s-health-care
A lot of these dangerous developments started under Obama who dramatically increased extra legal drone strikes overseas and also collected data on millions of Americans without due process. They persecuted journalists such as Julian Assange.
But Brexit and Trump caused a manifest meltdown in the media, the Democrat party, and the deep state. You will no doubt quibble about lack of evidence. But there is a mountain of in the Durham report and the Nunes report. You can easily find montages of media uniformly says Trump was a white supremecist, a racist, and a threat to NATO, etc. This kind of uniformity is not normal in America.
It’s also clear from these reports that the “Putin is an existential threat” disinformation campaign was in fact started by the Hillary campaign and the deep state based on lies for example the Steele dossier. And now the fanatical devotion to ensuring that we fight to the last Ukrainian is just the latest example of elite malfeasance.
But the idea that because Trump is so dangerous, its OK to discard the bill of rights and try to put him in prison for the rest of his life. In the opinion of Turley and Dershowitz, all these cases are garbage except perhaps for the classified documents one. There it is a clear injustice to prosecute Trump but not Clinton who actually destroyed tens of thousands of records under subbeona. There seems to be zero evidence that any of Trump’s papers found their way into hostile hands. Putin would be proud of Garland and Biden.
David,
You are absolutely murdering those strawmen.
1) Maybe DeSantis is a bigger butthole than Trump. I mean seriously, maybe he is. It’s almost beside the point, because Trump is much much more likely to win the primary. You don’t need to supply evidence about this, because I don’t care. It’s not a key tenet of mine that DeSantis is the savior.
2) No, I’ll quibble about a lack of concrete meaning and a double helping of so what. A manifest meltdown. Whatever that means. I mean say I accept that, so what?
3) Who here has made any argument that it’s OK to discard the bill of rights and put Trump in prison for the rest of his life? Seriously, who has said that? I’m pretty sure nobody has.
Marc, We are arguing about my conclusions from the facts such as the “elites are corrupt.” Lucia of course provides no evidence to contradict these assertions. She is wrong about DeSantis. You and she may not have read the TWitter files carefully, because they show the media was a big participant in pressuring Twitter to censor and deplatform. At the least this shows they don’t like free speech. Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi are even harsher because they were and are reporters who hate conformity and like the Bill of Rights. I tend to agree with them.
David
Please write one or two sentences that describes the point you are trying to make.
Yes. But that’s the claim you made.
.
I don’t know who the “deep state” is. Beyond that, media confidence dropping isn’t proof of this claim ” At least the deep state, the media, and big tech are corrupt”. I would dispute this broad claim of yours.
.
Links about trust would proof the other rather modest claim. ” And Americans are starting to agree too. Especially the CDC has taken a big hit in public confidence.” I wouldn’t have disputed this claim, don’t really need the proof because I’ve already seen it.
.
So you have provided no evidence for the overly broad claim I would dispute. And you’ve supported the trivial one I would never have disputed.
.
Well… your idea is that some sort of corruption is so broad we need to set aside freedom of the press and force people to publish your views. So…
I agree, some elites are corrupt.
I agree, some media supports censorship and deplatforming opposing views.
I agree, some media are unfriendly to free speech.
There.
mark bofill
I would expand for my version:
I agree some but not all elites are corrupt.
I think some but not all non-elites are corrupt.
I agree some, but not all, media are unfriendly to free speech.
I think some, but not all, non-media are unfriendly to free speech.
I agree that some, but not all, media supports censorship and deplatforming opposing views.
I think some, but not all, non-media support censorship and deplatforming opposing views.
.
But sweeping un-caveated statements like “elites are corrupt” sure sounds like someone is saying that all elites are corrupt and that the person making the claim is somehow outside the elite and not-corrupt.
I could say similar things for the other two items.
David
Are members of the media.
Lucia, agreed.
Struggling a bit here. What exactly does “corrupt media” mean? Accepting money from government to push a particular point of view? It seems that countries with large populations are able support very partisan media – certainly true of UK and USA – but partisan doesnt equal corrupt to me.
Phil Scadden,
One of my criticisms of David Young’s claims is that they are imprecise, to put it mildly. “Corrupt media”, falls in that category. It sounds bad– but what does someone need to prove to demonstrate “the media” or even “some specific news publication” is or is not “corrupt”? I have no idea because the phrase is illdefined.
.
“Censorship Industrial Complex” is also so ill-defined it is impossible to provide evidence of what they or it does or does not do. Supposedly it includes certain governemnt agencies. Does that include the social security administration? FEMA? NOAA? the IRS? If you name an agency and a specific action, you can provide evidence that agency did something. But I have no idea what evidence would prove the “Censorship Industrial Complex” did anything at all.
.
He wants to use the bombast of a demagogue. But then he gets grumpy if you ask him to provide evidence for claims that are so exaggerated and bombastic that they really mean nothing.
Phil, there’s no problem with partisan AFAIC. It’s like free speech, in my view it’s essentially all good. Obvious exceptions: libel, probably a few other limiting cases.
Mark – precisely. That is why I am struggling. And media organisations are businesses that need to provide content their market wants to read. Caveat emptor. I browse international media via google news in private browser – get a selection of viewpoints. For local media, the market here is too small for an outlet to alienate anyone with (perceived) partisan bias.
On Friday, it looked like Republicans were on the verge of a big win. About to pass a short term continuing resolution with significant budget cuts an forcing some action on the border. Put the Senate Dems in the bind of accepting it or shutting down the government.
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But the goofballs snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. They voted down the bill, rejecting 3/4 of a loaf and ended up with no loaf. And they blame McCarthy, so they kick him out with nobody to replace him.
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Maybe McCarthy was wrong to make a deal with the Dems to keep the government open. But I have yet to see what the goofballs think could have been done.
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Of course, the Dems are just as intransigent as the goofball Republicans. But they play their cards right, so the Republicans will get the blame.
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Very discouraging.
Phil Scadden (Comment #225045): “Struggling a bit here. What exactly does “corrupt media” mean?”
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One definition of “corrupt” is no longer serving its proper purpose. Bribery is corruption since it perverts officials and organizations from their proper purpose. But many other forces can corrupt individuals and organizations.
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If you think that the proper purpose of the news media is to be fair and balanced, then most of the legacy media outlets are corrupt.
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I have no idea that is what David Young means. I don’t care.
Lucia, I never said I want to force anyone to publish my views. I just want censorship and blacklisting by the government directly and through University contractors who get millions of dollars from the Feds to sniff out “disinformation.” And I want a re-examination of the fairness doctrine at least for broadcasters and possibly increasing the media’s exposure to lawsuits.
I’m going to go through exactly which elites I think are corrupt. I’m not going to give you the mountain of evidence because frankly I don’t think it will change your mind and it takes time to dig this out. I quite frankly believe that while you may be aware of the Twitter files generally I doubt you (or anyone else here) have examined the most explosive ones carefully since at first you didn’t know what the Censorship Industrial Complex was.
1. The deep state is really another name for the Federal buerocracy. It’s a very common term. Their corruption is proven by the Durham report, the Nunes report, and the Inspector General’s report as well as the bias of the Mueller investigation. These reports contain hundreds of pages and are supported by sworn testimony and government documents. You may not have heard much about these reports as there has been a concerted effort to keep them out of mainstream reporting. In the case of Nunes, there was a smear campaign against him and his staff. Kash Patel was investigated by the FBI. The way DOJ is going after peaceful Catholic pro-life activists is something my brother follows closely and it betrays a strong political motive. They are trying to lock up grandma’s for 11 years for standing on a sidewalk. The tactics are right out of Putin’s playbook. They are obviously trying to scare people into being silent. They send swat teams to arrest a father of 10 before dawn traumatizing his children. His only crime was pushing lightly a creep who was swearing at his young son. Local prosecutors didn’t press charges. They send SWAT teams for Guliani and Stone who would have surrendered if asked. They send a SWAT team to Mara Lago with a general warrant, a blatant violation of the bill of rights. The Twitter files show a systematic violation of the 1st amendment by literally hundreds of deep staters and their contractors. A mountain of evidence.
The two tier system of justice is very real. Trump and his advisors and associates have had the book thrown at them often with no basis (Turley’s analysis is good I think and he is not a conservative or a republican) and Democrats who do much worse corruption skate if they are part of the Biden or Clinton families.
We can go back even further in the annals of prosecutorial misconduct to the Ted Stevens case and the Bob McDonald case where the Supreme threw the case out unanimously. Jack Smith did the hit job on McDonald. He’s a partisan hack and that Garland picked him shows how corrupt he is. Special councils are supposed to have a strong reputation for honesty and integrity.
We could mention the Hunter Biden plea deal that collapsed in minutes under a few judicial questions. This could be just plain incompetance except the whistleblowers were the experts who recommended multiple felony charges and Weiss kicked them off the case.
Did any private media organization set out to be “fair and balanced” other than as a marketing strategy for getting the largest possible audience? My understanding was that “fourth estate” has it origins in the reporting on the affairs of government. It was and remains critical that such reporters can report and criticise the government without retribution from the state. Bad things happens when this is not so. But I think they have to be fair or balanced.
DeSantis issue:
Several people here were outraged by Trump’s use of the word treason. I said DeSantis was every bit as bad. You still denied it so I provided you the evidence ( after 2 minutes on duck duck go) you are so fond of demanding.
From Lucia, “Censorship Industrial Complex” is also so ill-defined it is impossible to provide evidence of what they or it does or does not do.”
This is totally wrong. One of the TWitter files threads is a long one detailing exactly what it is and how it operates and proves it with documentation. I guess you haven’t really read the Twitter files and just have a passing familiarity with some corporate media characterizations of them.
Phil and Mike, What Taibbi, Greenwald and myself mean by corrupt media are the constant lying, reporting obviously false things, never correcting any errors as used to happen in the good old days and total servitude to the deep state and its leakers. Taibbi has some great videos of montages of media repeating the same falsehoods literally thousands of times. The media was terrible during covid, spreading the worst falsehoods and phony science.
Russiagate was perhaps the biggest media fabricated lie in the last 60 years. The media response to the Laptop story was a lie and they knew it as Devine carefully authenticated that laptop information. I mean it had thousands of pictures of Hunter and girlfriends and thousands of emails to Hunter’s business associates and family. The media response to Trump’s first impeachment was a wonder of partisan hackery. To this day, we are only now finding out the facts about Burisma and Hunter and Joe.
Willful lying to further an ideological position or one political party or faction is certainly massive personal corruption. But the institutions themselves force in many cases this conformity to the lies and force more honest reporters out like Bari Weiss. The biggest falsehood of all is that these corrupt people are “jounalists” in a noble tradition. They are not.
I’m done for the day. I will post my writeups on science, the corporate media, and big tech. even the military is having a big problem with truth and lies these days.
David,
1) The primary issue was not Trump’s use of the word ‘treason’, as I have already explained here:
2) I don’t agree with you that DeSantis is every bit as bad in this regard but frankly I don’t care that you think this. I’ve got no interest in listening to more of your dull repetitive monomaniacal diatribes about DeSantis. DeSantis has less than 1/3’rd of Trump’s poll numbers and it really doesn’t make any difference if DeSantis is the very Devil himself. Trump is far more likely to win the nomination.
3) The SCOTUS has put a stop to the Biden administration interfering with social media, at least for now.
Regarding the ‘media corruption’ you refer to, maybe some outlets behave the way you describe. Others do not. What you have referred to as ‘alternative media’ presumably does not. So – it’s not clear to me how worked up anyone should get about this.
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I question this idea that things were so much better in the good old days. Frankly I doubt it. The media has been partisan in the U.S. since the beginning. The New York Post was not an impartial source of news, it purveyed the Federalist viewpoint. So on.
David
You wrote this
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Those proposed constraints are rules that would force them to publish views you agree with — those are the views you think are under represented.
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That doesn’t require any adjustment to the press. It requires monitoring the government.
And “re-examination”? Oh… whatever that means. You have been proposing making acgtual rule about what they must cover. That is: you want to force people to publish certain views– and the views you want force just so happen to be views you agree with.
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You may somehow thing what you keep saying you want isn’t forcing anyone to publish your views. But the rules you are suggesting are basically requiring them to publish views you prefer to the ones they want to publish.
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The call it “the Federal bureaucracy”, that’s well defined. It would then include the Social Security offices, HUD, Department or Energy, EPA and so on and so on.
Did any of those mention HUD? Social Security Administration? I think not. So, no, they don’t indict “the Federal bureaucracy”.
You keep saying this. And you have been told that we’ve all heard of them and had heard of them before you came around. The insinuation that I may not have heard of them is getting a bit stale and only makes it seem you are sliding into dementia, with it’s associated loss of memory.
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As for the rest of that: you might want to learn to not just write “they”. Be specific: The DOJ. The FBI. The Social Security Administration. Agents from HUD. Whichever they are. Learning to be specific might help you achieve more precise thinking. You have not shown that “the Federal bureaucracy” did all those things. Certain specific groups did things.
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And I’m skipping the rest because you are just going off on non-specific rant.
A last point. It is bootless to complain about people ‘willfully lying’. This is an inescapable part of free speech. People can no more be forced to be honest than they can be forced to be virtuous. Certainly we have seen totalitarian systems promise to deliver virtuous utopias in the 20’th century and instead make the lives of citizens a literal Hell on earth. In practice, what freedom means in the overwhelming majority of cases is the freedom to be wrong, the freedom to lie, the freedom to be small minded, petty, and evil. It’s still far better than every alternative.
David
And you can’t seem to pull out a specific tweet and defines what it is.
Partisan media vs corrupt media. These are kind of different measurements and lots of gray area. I would say the difference is along the lines of partisan being the media reporting things they actually believe to be true which is derived from low information, living in their own information bubble, and having different values as a group. Partisan media consistently prefers candidates from one party and covers them more favorably.
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Corrupt media is willfully misleading readers with a preferred narrative even when the facts no longer support the case and they are easy to assess. Hunter Biden coverage was corrupt because information basically delivered to their doorstep took them 2 years to confirm, Trump Russia Collusion coverage was corrupt for the opposite reason because there was never any material evidence. Kavanaugh coverage was corrupt because it excessively and credulously only looked at one side of the story. Fox News coverage of the election was corrupt. Most of these stories started as partisan and ended up corrupt. I call this corrupt because of the scale of coverage and how willfully wrong the story was when more information was available. It was partisan raised to the tenth power and that makes it corrupt in my view. Very important stories being overly slanted for trivial partisan advantage.
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Certainly we have partisan media most of the time and that by itself doesn’t mean much except to the extent they pretend otherwise when they lecture us and this is just annoying. I wouldn’t call them corrupt in a criminal sense, only morally and professionally corrupt when they fall into an undeniable group think pattern.
Wait, what?
Surely this isn’t what you meant to say?
Does any of the alleged corruption go beyond newspaper choosing to print or not print based on what their target audience is?
Beyond the government attempted crackdown on misinformation that is.
I am working on a scientific treatise on the carbon cycle. I hope to publish it in a pier reviewed journal. Please review and comment.
Once upon a time the earth was swaddled in a blanket of carbon dioxide (CO2). The earth was warm and cozy. The earth was in balance. Mother Nature was content. But, there arose a smothering hoard of green creatures that upset the balance. They devised a devious method called photosynthesis of stealing the earth’s cozy blanket of CO2 and converting into complex carbohydrates. They sequestered the carbohydrates in various materials called fossil fuels. The fossil fuels were hidden deep underground.
Mother Nature was not happy. But she had a plan. She nurtured a budding species called “humans”. Her purpose for humans was to stem the tide of CO2 depletion. The humans have just began to find the hidden fossil fuel and convert them back into CO2 by a process called burning. Their task is unfinished and the green creatures are mounting a counter offensive to reconvert the CO2 to complex carbohydrates. Time will tell if the industrious humans will be able to recycle enough fossil fuels back into CO2 and return the earth to balance. The end.
No Mark, I misspoke. I want censorship and blacklisting by the government directly and through their contractors who get millions from the Feds to “sniff out” disinformation to end.
Mark, The district court ruling was indeed excellent but the appeals court in part overturned the injunction. Right now its in limbo. In any case, the injunction only applies to a few specific Federal agencies and does nothing about the contractors paid by the Feds to do the work of finding disinformation and getting big tech to censor it. This is far from over. In any case, the lawsuit would not have been possible without the Twitter files to document the abuses.
Lucia, You are grasping at straws to try to disprove a statement I never made about OSHA or the Social Security Administration specifically. I think the big problem with the deep state and the threat to the Constitution is DOJ, the FBI, and the CIA. There are also some military agencies engaged in similar tactics. Perhaps its more correct to say the “national security state” which is what Greenwald calls it.
Your continuing to spin your incorrect statement about what I want by doing word twisting is not a good thing. I don’t want to force anyone print my views. The fairness doctrine was in force for many decades and had good public support and support from politicians. It was not in my view unconstitutional. The government owns the airwaves and probably the internet too.
You should read what I write. I have mentioned 4 specific elites that are corrupt. If I misspoke I correct myself or clarify. It’s a good mental habit to cultivate.
Marc, The problem here is that the media used to fairly reliable in telling the truth and providing balance. That has totally changed. Willful lying is corruption. People are usually free to do so, assuming that the lies don’t harm anyone or libel anyone. But there are limitations.
I think you are missing why Trump might feel media behavior was prosecutable. It was at the least a massive election interference and disinformation campaign. I thought election interference was really really bad, right? Did you read the Atlantic article from 2016? Trump’s supporters take him seriously but not literally. If you take it literally, you are not thinking very clearly. Likewise I don’t expect DeSantis to literally slit throats in the national security state and neither should you. These are silly word games and most people are smart enough to not be so bloody literal minded.
Tom, I agree with what you said and you said it more clearly than I did.
Tomorrow we’ll do science and there is a massive dump of evidence coming at that time.
Tom, Greenwald has convinced me that some of this willful lying and demonization of Putin and Russia is very harmful to humanity at large as it increases the chances of a world war. The Ukraine war is bad enough with probably a million casualties at least. The media line here is a prefect instantiation of neo-con ideology and Democrat Party orthodoxy and Russia demonization. Greenwald has some convincing evidence that in fact the US government put pressure on Zelenski to keep him from signing the Minks accords to end this war (as memory serves last year). Greenwald is also worth listening to on how provocative US policy has been towards Russia. We put the power of the US government behind an actual coup. Victoria Nuland was picking cabinet ministers for the new government. Imagine if Putin participated in a coup in Canada or Mexico.
I don’t know of a more intense campaign of demonization with the possible exceptions of WWI or WWII. And this campaign was a deliberate fabrication of the Clinton campaign and the deep state and the media. The lies were endless. Alpha bank, the DNC hack, Russiagate, pushing the lie that pushing NATO right up to Russia’s borders wasn’t a provocation, the Biden laptop lies, and the massive censorship of Americans based on flawed assessments that they are Russian trolls. Even Mueller indicting 10 Russians who he knew would never come to trial and couldn’t defend themselves.
One of the Twitter files documents how fraudulent this rounding up of Russian witches was. Even Twitter believed there was only a very small issue with Russian trolls. It is similar to anti-Israel propaganda in parts of the Middle East. It can cause a lot of casualties literally.
David,
1) What law do you think was violated, by what specific party, that merits prosecution?
2) Rhetorical questions are verboten here. I am particularly not going to take the time to address your rhetorical questions given the unfocused nature of your gish gallop.
3) You have missed the point of why I objected to what Trump said in the Truth Social post I quoted if you think taking Trump seriously vs literally has anything to do with it. This is perfectly fine by me; don’t care.
?? Will we.
I was discussing Trump’s Truth Social post. I’ve detoured into this tedious journey through your gish gallop because to some extent you appeared to be originally addressing my remarks on Trump’s post. It’s not clear to me why I should waste further time listening to you rant. I guess we’ll see.
Maybe you should reconsider and take your massive dump someplace else. Why not just give us a three or four sentence summary of what it’s all about and spare us the rest.
Russell Klier (Comment #225065)
October 3rd, 2023 at 9:22 pm
Russell, I found your dissertation more biblical than scientific, but I enjoy your sense of humor – something we need more of these days.
Tom Scharf (Comment #225062)
October 3rd, 2023 at 8:14 pm
Tom, I think you have the dividing line between partisan/biased and corrupt in line with my way of thinking.
With family and friends I have a keen ear for those who can see failures from both parties and those who do not. Those who do not have a penchant for coming up with imaginative rationalizations for their party’s shortcomings.
Also, though we sometimes see things differently, Tom, I do appreciate your efforts to bring news articles here on a regular basis for consumption without comment or to start a discussion.
David Young, you come across to me as though you judge the government should act against an entire entity labeled “corrupt press”. If corrupt in the sense you use it has a legal meaning than a government duty in our system would require determining whether there were illegal acts and to adjudicate them in a court of law.
I personally see biases in the media and biases that can reach the definition of corruption, but not corruption that would reach the level requiring government action. The mainstream media in my view tends to error in reporting more by omission than commission and they have the right to do that.
Ken,
Thank you. Do you have any recommendations for improvement? It really is my first draft and I may try to post it elsewhere.
I edited my comment above and the process was allowed and said it was updated, but the update never went through.
I will attempt to do the addendum here.
The answer to a biased media is for individuals to think more for themselves and garner information from the press but with a filter that takes into consideration potential biases involving both omission and commission. Also we need more insistence on discussion of political philosophies sans the interpretations of political parties.
Government involvement in this process would lead immediately to it attempting to do the thinking and deciding for us – as it already does too much.
Ken,
I’m getting a white screen after I submit comments… i need to look at that, but I’m going to be leaving the house for a while.
Russell Klier (Comment #225081)
October 4th, 2023 at 8:35 am Edit
No, Russell, it is the personal touch that works. Plus it appears to come down from High and who am I to change that.
Phil Scadden,
For the most part it is just over-coverage and under-coverage. Selection bias, framing bias. What stories get the analysis treatment, what stories get anonymous sources saying misleading things, what stories are basically stenography from favored groups. I would add that there is a further obvious coordination of story narratives now that wasn’t there 20 years ago. Part of a definition of corruption-lite would include this private ideological coordination.
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Social media now allows everyone to get their stories straight before committed to “print” and the different ideological media here are shockingly aligned in how they view a story, p < 0.01. This is more noticeable on the left because they have more mainstream media outlets versus just Fox News on the other side.
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An early version of this was JournoList
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JournoList
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Note that the Wikipedia description here is pretty … ummmm … one sided, you can imagine how the other side would write that up.
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Now the coordination is pretty much done in the open on Twitter.
Phil Scadden (Comment #225064): “Does any of the alleged corruption go beyond newspaper choosing to print or not print based on what their target audience is?”
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Yes. A great deal is selection, but there is also printing of falsehoods and covering up things of importance. I agree with mark that the remedy is not the government; let the reader beware.
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Phil Scadden: “Beyond the government attempted crackdown on misinformation that is.”
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Yes, unless you classify as “misinformation” anything the government or the left does not want published.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGRRHq8KeqA
I found this interesting. Midway through Matt talks about his testimony before Congress and the IRS’s attempt to intimidate him. This IRS corruption has been going on for at least a decade. Obama’s administration allowed it to begin. Remember Lois Lerner?
Later they discuss the conformity mechanisms that operate in the media especially for younger reporters. Of course at the New York Times the conformity mechanisms are strong and intimidating including actual harassment.
I think Steve McIntyre wrote quite a few blog posts on trying to sort out the DNC hack. Don’t remember what his conclusions were though.
Phil, I think its more than the Federal government. The Twitter files document that state and local governments also got into the act. Corporate media also had a massive footprint of censorship and cancellation demands. You can see the incentive structure for conformity in what happened to X after Musk went from Green hero to evil malefactor. Advertisers started pulling out from X and apparently the Feds are investigating Musk’s other businesses. This really is a corrupt system of incentives with real enforcement mechanisms. This all started with climate science of course as people like Steve McIntyre, Judith Curry and Lucia know.
By now the Disinformation Industrial Complex is firmly embedded in academia and the private sector too. The government paid over 3 million to Twitter to compensate them for their time to obey their orders to censor and deplatform. Millions go to Stanford and UW and probably by now other universities. Their job is to do the dirty work of “sniffing out” the disinformation witches and communicate with big tech.
Not to give the impression I don’t disagree with some of the above….. but I’m delving into the much more interesting “Hen, Egg paper.” ( First impression: There is no reason to believe its results. Second impression: There is no reason to believe it’s results are meaningful. But I’m having to read a number of papers, and scrawl some math.)
Have fun arguing.
Another hillarous montage on the media response to the Biden laptop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qQazyJ99OE
Was it literally true that no “journalists” failed to swallow and repeat the lie with a couple of exceptions on Fox and at the New York Post?
Ken, I’m not sure what government actions I would favor other than the fairness doctrine at least for broadcast TV networks. Cable is so vast, it couldn’t be implemented easily there. Making it easier to sue sounds good to me too. There are hundreds who have valid complaints about willfully false media coverage.
In general what we can do is encourage independent media. I never watch or read corporate media except to see how laughable their latest take is. I subscribe to quite a few alternative media.
Ken, Just had another idea. I’ve found RealClearPolitics to be a very unbiased aggregator. They also do their own investigations that seem evidence based to me. Why not defund NPR (which is extremely biased) and fund RealClear? They have Business, Science, and probably other pages as well. Also defund these academic disinformation groups too.
Summary for Marc, who seems not to care much anyway. You could contribute constructively by doing some looking for evidence to counter what I say. I would be interested in that.
Science has serious problems that were worsened dramatically by the pandemic.
1. There is a large positive results bias in the literature. In CFD, you just cannot believe results for separated flows without verifying them yourself. One paper documents a decrease in positive findings from about 67% to 8% after the requirement to preregister outcome measures was instituted.
2. This perhaps results from the rampant use of p hacking which involves examining many outcome measures until you find a positive correlation.
3. There was a epidemic of fraudulent papers and very flawed ones during the pandemic with many many nonmedical scientists publishing their work.
4. There was a massive censorship and cancellation campaign against some of our best scientists.
5. The soft money culture that has taken over academia leads to pedestrian and low value “research.” The best researchers don’t want to take on hard but very important research because that could damage their career.
6. There is a growing recognition among scientists that the institutions are broken but little stomach for taking risks to try to fix it.
7. The scientific publishing world is broken. There are vastly too many papers published period.
8. Peer review is really not of much value. I’ve gone through the process many many times. In most cases reviewers don’t read the paper. I have had little success with negative reviews that are well thought out and documented. Editors seem to have an incentive to publish a large number of papers.
9. A lot of the easier problems involved well posed problems have been solved. But the real world is dominated by nonlinearity and chaos. We are making very little progress here.
10. There are literally many hundreds of CFD codes around the world. Every institution has their own. That’s a huge amount of money being wasted.
Academic governing bodies could address this problem by removing soft money generation as a criteria in hiring and promotions.
Journals could start screening papers more vigorously and paying reviewers for their time. Some have started to require that you make your data available if possible.
Marc, I’m simply not interested in shirt ripping over sentences pulled out of context from a massive opus of public utterances, especially Trump’s. This is one of the most harmful aspects of cancellation culture. It may make you feel superior or confirm you in your opinions. It’s mostly interesting to partisan opposition researchers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0Mup2cs6Uw
It is easy to forget the hysteria and lying during the pandemic.
Another montage showing the media spreading fear and panic. It’s easy to forget how terrible the media were during the pandemic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI3yU5Z2adI
A deep dive into the Center for Countering Digital Hate and its founder. For Phil, this highlights the shadowy world of the Disinformation Industrial Complex and its ties to the Democrat party in the US.
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/censorship-center-guise-combating-hate-covid-elon-musk
This is a long article documenting how the Censorship Industrial Complex works through nonprofits and Democrat activists to get advertisers to pull their ads and intimidate Facebook to impose a heavier censorship hand on its platform. I assume this is all legal but it should be disturbing. Probably the only remedy is for Facebook to sue its intimidators. There is a similar and new campaign against Rumble led by a British MP over the Russel Brand allegations.
Hopefully, not paywalled.
https://public.substack.com/p/facebook-censors-our-accurate-story?utm_campaign=email-half-post&r=6jqh1&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
David,
Look, I apologize if I’ve been rude to you. Why don’t you quit posting to this empty thread and move on with us.