mistercwood

Outstanding. He quoted your exact words about how people would attack the messenger and not address the video content (no one attacked, content was addressed), and you interpreted it as your hurricane prediction from a half dozen pages ago. It's no wonder you get dunked on so much for posting shit that doesn't actually support your views, given you can't read what's right in front of you...

Of course the Dems wanted to push it through - precedent was that a nomination would never be delayed that long, as it never had been. Republicans made up an argument about it being inappropriate in an election year (based on nothing), and won that argument. That is now precedent, so there is zero hypocrisy in Dem's calling for the same precedent to now be upheld.

I presumed it was app only, didn't know there was a web version? I just wouldn't use it based on what I've read. Same reason I've been lucky being unemployed this year (in some respects), because I wouldn't want to use Zoom either given their track record on security.

Just chiming in again to provide some background for the security concerns: https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/fxgi06/not_new_news_but_tbh_if_you_have_tiktiok_just_get/?sort=top

I honestly haven't kept up with the political side of things, but from a security perspective I lean towards "erase Tiktok from existence ASAP". Every cyber-security opinion I've read on it screams that it's doing data-harvesting on a way bigger scale than anything Facebook or Google are doing, but with barely a fraction of the transparency. Not remotely trustworthy.

There's no hard date. People are just pointing out that the timeframes are: Wildly disproportionate. If I slept with my wife the day Scalia died, we could have a fully formed bouncing baby by election day. If we did it yesterday, we couldn't even know we were pregnant by election day. It's a dumb analogy but I stand by it. Wildly hypocritical. Republicans made hard arguments in one direction for Scalia's position, and won. Now that we have an even tighter timeframe than last time they have flipped completely and abandoned any precept of observing the will of the people. It is probably the most brazen power grab to date and that's saying something. Honestly you should be just as mad as the rest of us. I guarantee you that the next few Democratic admins are just going to completely abandon any attempt at bipartisanship. Mitch et al have stonewalled at every opportunity for over a decade, what's the fucking point anymore?

9 months, vs 6 weeks (actually I think only 2 weeks of sitting congress?). It would be the fastest confirmation process in history. The two scenarios aren't remotely comparable, especially considering the GOP stance was that it was absolutely critical to not fill the seat until after the election. Regardless of what arguments people made at the time, the Republican's were the ones who ultimately set the precedent. They get to own the hypocrisy too.

I feel like you're overcomplicating things when my point was a lot more straightforward - don't make arguments from the stance of free markets and eradicating subsidies, if your preferred industry reached its position due substantially to a century of subsidies (that you would categorically deny to the other industry). I don't think some massive flip in funding is actually viable politically, I'm just pointing out the overwhelming hypocrisy Brent either hasn't recognised for himself, or otherwise seems to think people will overlook. Lastly I have no idea what you're trying to do with my trust-fund scholarship analogy but it doesn't look legal. Step away. Bad Turtle! :P

Almost. For a true level playing field you'd strip the subsidies from fossil fuels completely now, but continue providing them to green energy for about another century, so that they've each had roughly the same support overall. This is my *massive* bugbear with Brent's constant crying about subsidies and how big oil doesn't need them - he never, ever, ever acknowledges that the fact they're viable now without them is also a product of how long they've had them in the past. It's the equivalent of a trust fund kid whose parents bought their way into Harvard, complaining that their poorer classmate shouldn't be allowed in if they're using any scholarship funds.

I didn't read this correctly the first time but I think... yes? Assuming that stat rape was not a felony for hetero engagements, yes. My understanding is the explicit change in the language of the existing law was to add anal and oral intercourse, whereas it had previously only stated vaginal.

There's a difference between a percentage of all fires, spread over time, being attributable to arson, versus a specific set of fires in one season that grew and combined to make for a national catastrophe. Not disputing that arson happens or that overall figures are important. It's more a case of, were there arson cases last year? Absolutely! But none of them got out of control. Were any of the massive fires that killed billions of animals and made international headlines traced back to arson? No. I raise this primarily because the Murdoch media here are heavily conservative and toe the anti-AGW line hard. Arson was an easy scapegoat to deflect attention from examining climate change as a trigger, and pushed extensively as a narrative. I am subsequently extremely wary of arson claims without further evidence.

For what it's worth, conservative mouthpieces in Australia pushed the arson narrative very, very hard during our bushfire season at the start of the year. Fast forward to now, investigations have concluded that exactly zero bushfires were arson related.

You're not listening. If it was your daughter, and a dude, the law *already* is like this. It has been amended to not unevenly penalise LBGT people for the exact same actions. EDIT: Just to be super clear - by all means have an issue with the current law and penalties in question. I'm saying to not be sucked in with the clickbait telling you that Cali lawmakers are making it easier for pedos to dodge the register. That's a lie.

No one "agrees" with it in the sense that that's not the laws purpose. It in actuality brings penalties for same-sex encounters into the same scope as they have been for straight ones - specifically whether the SO registration for life is mandatory or at discretion of the judge. In practical terms and as an example, say you have a 16 year old and an 18 year old dating, and they get busy (by choice). Under the previous laws, if they were straight it might be a smack on the wrist at most. If they were gay, the 18yo is now branded a sex offender for the rest of their life. The amended law addresses that imbalance. The judge can still apply the SO registration if the facts of the case warrant it, nothing has changed there. Ultimately, this has been the usual outrage bait that makes for wonderfully incendiary headlines but doesn't hold up when you look at the actual details.

Seeing all these figures being thrown around, I cannot believe that you aren't all rioting for single-payer. This should not be a partisan issue, your "costs" for medical care are obscene. I challenge any one of you to calculate 1.5% of your taxable income, compare it against your annual premiums for healthcare, and tell me your plan costs less. Only plans you chose to get though, freebies and discounts you get through employers don't count - you could lose that at any point so doesn't really count as reliable cover.

It's genuinely amazing that this is the only lie* that is ever brought up in reply to 20,000 and counting from Trump. Never anything else, just "doctor, plan, haha checkmate lib!". It's almost like the well of counter-examples is bone fucking dry. *Wasn't "keep your plan" a factual statement at the time it was made? My understanding was that it was the constant rewrites and hacking away by the GOP in order to reach compromise that caused this to be a lie after the fact. Happy to be corrected.

It's quite reasonable to take advantage of the laws as they stand, and you're right that it has strategic uses. That said, if an enterprise has built almost it's *entire* model around abusing bankruptcy for profit, it really does kind of indicate they are completely incapable of making money by being successful - you know, the thing businesses are supposed to do?

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/racism-discrimination-health-care-providers-patients-2017011611015 https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_rights_magazine_home/the-state-of-healthcare-in-the-united-states/racial-disparities-in-health-care/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK220347/ Multiple factors relating to cause, but a core one would be implicit bias (as opposed to overt racism). This is what I meant by "Be better". You saw a call for more black medical staff to be available to treat black people and didn't even look into why that would be a priority - you just assumed it meant segregation and charged on with that assumption.

This would be because studies have shown repeatedly that black people have their health concerns diminished and dismissed at a much, much higher rate than white people when seeking medical care. Having black staff on hand is one way to try and address this and ensure people are getting adequate/appropriate care. To spin this as a demand for segregation is to seek the worst possible interpretation without investigating the rationale at all. Be better.

If they're trying to convince people that they're not Russian based they should probably hire a native English speaker for their rebuttal - that thing is *riddled* with grammar errors.

On the offchance you aren't aware, there's been two different live action versions of the show over the years - I have no idea where you could get ahold of the older one but I'm pretty sure the more recent take streams on Amazon Prime. Both quite good.

I think this is relevant, I've always liked the source book but it's been doing the rounds again recently so will drop this here:

No I think he raises a very valid point, albeit maybe not stated in a technically accurate format. Cookies were the first component of webpages to give "persistence" to a users presence online, designed to give a better user experience - remembering you're logged in, user preferences etc. Big tech over time took that basic concept and expanded it dramatically to build much more fleshed-out user ID's that would remain persistent over multiple sites (Facebook and Google being the two primary culprits). Again, the use-case is for a much better/easier experience for the user, but at this point the goal for the provider is also to be able to target ads at you in as many places online as they can. And now we have the addition of algorithms that will take note of your preferences and trends within your ID, and use that to spam the shit out of you with anything that looks remotely like it would appeal to you. As soon as you start looking down a rabbit hole of weirdness, now the tech originally designed for helping you will gleefully strap a rocket to your back and send you straight down the hole, without a care in the world about what dangers lie below. It doesn't matter if you are effected by what you find, only that you consume and consume and they get that sweet ad money.

It's also almost impossible to fight. A facebook friend yesterday shared a post with a massive list of celebrities and liberal types stating they'd been confirmed as pedo's (and some satanists) associated with Epstein, then a source link at the bottom. I checked the source, picked a bunch of names from the list (starting with Obama) - surprise surprise, nothing comes up from the document. I reply pointing out that the post they are sharing is literal fake news, the source doesn't match the claims in any way. They counter that there are other documents and that these people have definitely been named. I request a source, they provide a link to a 638 page doc of recently unsealed records from some of Maxwell's suits. I read it, all of it - much was legal preamble or duplicates, so thankfully wasn't as long as I feared. It confirmed my initial rebuttal - the lists are made up to bait people who just want to believe the left is full of baby-eaters. The majority of the docs are deposition transcripts from suits involving Jane Doe #3. I considered her a very credible witness by the end of the reading and learned a lot more about Epstein and Maxwell's activities. I reply to the Facebook thread with my full assessment - the list is made up, Bill Clinton *is* mentioned as present at times on the island but is not accused of abuse, Prince Andrew probably has some explaining to do, and pretty much every other celeb ever mentioned as part of Epstein's circle were just on his plane or at parties, they're not accused. Basically, I did the research my mate said he'd done to inform himself and concluded he hadn't researched shit, but held short of calling him out on that. He dug his heels in, said as part of his reply "While yeah ok maybe it will come out that all those names weren't guilty but who are you trying to defend, people are most likely pedos and a part of sex trafficking" then ended the conversation. No one wants to do the work.

In fairness, to make a call like that 4 months out, with so so many variables involved, and to still get within a ~10% margin of error is actually quite impressive.