[Bernie Sanders]

On 8/14/2021 at 9:10 PM, Governor said:

Comrade, I want you to do me a favor. Find an old person and ask them if they like their Medicare and believe that would be a fix to our HC system. 
 

Most blue-hairs have to carry supplemental private insurance on top of Medicare because it doesn’t cover anything. There’s also no dental and vision presently, so most are forced to do without.

 

Biden expanding on that is a HUGE deal until we can move onto a better system. 
 

Yes, it’s going to collapse. Passing M4A tomorrow won’t prevent that. The problem is cost.

 

Did you know that your insurance is billed 17,000 for a routine colonoscopy?

 

You can’t fix that unless government drops a huge hammer on the system and sets the prices.

 

That’s not happening anytime soon. It doesn’t matter what model of coverage we use if we’re going to let doctors get away with that. That simply isn’t sustainable.

 

Apologies, Mr. Governor. I should have clarified: whenever I propose M4A, I’m referring specifically to Jayapal’s bill. Her plan includes dental and vision and happens to be slightly more comprehensive than Bernie’s 2020 campaign proposal.

 

Your point of focusing on price control measures is duly noted, but the broader point I’m trying to make here is that no one should be voting for Democratic Party politicians with any expectation that they intend to eventually move the country to universal health care. Yes, I’m even including the Squad. As long as party leaders like Pelosi accept corporate donations, the party’s fundamental agenda will be to remain intrinsically hostile to universal health care. It’s not just the health care insurance industry and their campaign contributions/bribes that are the problem. I’m including any uber-wealthy establishment donor who already has health care and who would stand to lose something from federal budget alterations needed to accommodate M4A (i.e. the MIC, vulture capitalists, etc.).

 

I suppose one could even make a Lenin-esque “worse is better” tactical argument that voting Republican instead of Democrat brings us closer to policies like M4A. I would never go that far because I don’t believe in enabling either of the two major parties. I only advocate for third party pressure until the two main parties respond with substantive anti-establishment policy reforms.

 

Now what if a so-called progressive actually prefers ACA on merit over M4A? Then by all means, they should consider voting Democrat. But then they should also stop calling themselves a “progressive” because “neoliberal” would be more fitting and I’m a stickler for proper labels. Same goes for anyone preferring any perceived incremental improvements on Obamacare. Really, I see nothing more ethical about wasting time rearranging chairs on the Titanic for a few when there’s still a bunch of people on the ship without ring buoys. I’d rather focus on plugging up the gaping hole in the hull.

 

On 8/14/2021 at 9:20 PM, TSOL said:

Hy crap commander, did you get the WHOLE trailer park together to come up with that?

 

I want the last 1m 25s of my life back from reading that rubbish 

 

Ouch. That post may not have been among my greatest hits, but your words are still hurtful. Whatever. At least I’m not a stupid poopyface doodoohead like you are. Oh and by the way, I don’t care for your socioeconomic elitism. It’s gross and I see way too much of it in this subforum. As a current resident of the popular American trailer park known as Manhattan Island, I think it would be lovely to live in a more rural minimalist setting with less judgmental neighbors and a reasonable cost of living.

 

 

18 hours ago, Governor said:

I’m in the center. Commie Kay is on the left, and the rest of you are way off the reservation right and can no longer recognize center. I haven’t moved.

 

Oooh another shout-out to Kay! I crave attention and relish my newfound political supervillain role!

 

So here’s what I recommend instead: ditch your standard American political spectrum line and apply the more traditional Euro-centric economics-based one where the left includes the socialists, the center includes the mixed economy types, and the right includes the classical liberals. This is the line that I believe most world historians use. I find it to be much more illuminating when applied to this wonderful little forum of ours. It puts me somewhat squarely in the center*, you (Mr. Governor) on the far right of the center portion, and much of the rest of the PPP members so far right that a few of them might have accidentally fallen off the line and somehow landed on the very far left (as anarchists, I guess?). Now you see, this kind of illustrates why we can’t have productive health care debates on this forum. This is kind of why a thread about Bernie ends up as an interrogation of your eccentric friend Andy’s life choices.

 

With my deliberately provocative line reframing, we can also see that there are actually very few genuine leftists in American politics and none at the national level. I believe Kshama Sawant from Washington state is the furthest left. Buffalo’s very own aspiring mayor, India Walton, calls herself one, but who knows? Brooklyn’s pride and joy, Julia Salazar and Jabari Brisport, may be among the biggest leftist rising stars in the country. I consider AOC, the Squad, and Bernie as all falling within the left half of the center portion but definitely trending rightward since last March. I’m judging them strictly by their voting records, of course, and not their democratic socialist rhetoric.

 

* - personal fun fact: I know literally hundreds of Bernie Bros. Many of them consider me to be a closet right-winger because I’m open to all sorts of privatized/market-based solutions for social welfare issues (aside from health care). They say I also don’t criticize Trump enough. Go figure.

[Afghanistan]

12 hours ago, Chef Jim said:

So my thought all along is the reason why there have not been any major coordinated attacks is because we've kept them busy fighting our soldiers there vs our civilians here. 

 

I think it has way more to do with the fact that the U.S. intelligence community became much better at their jobs after 9/11: improvements in immigration vetting processes, stronger communication between different intelligence agencies, and better collaboration with other countries. The widespread adoption of social media since the mid-2000’s has also made terrorist activities more transparent. And no, none of this should be interpreted as any endorsement of Patriot Act mischief!

 

The specious war theory that “we fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here” validates all sorts of horrible aggressive acts. The notion that we can just funnel terror like that also doesn’t hold up, for example, when you take our allies into consideration who are not separated from Muslim countries by oceans (see: Syria, mid-2010’s, effects of European migration crisis). Our military presence in Muslim countries like Afghanistan is doing nothing productive for us in the long-term war on terror. It is the primary source of recruitment for radical Islamic terrorism. But even if we immediately evacuated all of our Middle East military bases, our propping up of various dictatorships and monarchies like the House of Saud still fosters extreme discontent among oppressed Muslims.

 

Sort of my main thesis here: American empire, in whatever manifestation, creates unwanted blowback such as radical Islamic terrorism. My solution: stop all forms of regime change, stop all coups, stop all unilateral embargos and sanctions, no banana republics either, keep emerging Chinese imperialism (they’re doing it in a unique way…with indebtedness through infrastructure projects) in check with multilateral trade deals, stop carrying out ~95% of drone strikes, close down ~75% of all U.S. military bases worldwide for starters, and immediately trim ~33% of the defense budget (which would still be double China’s). Use that money to reinvest in America. Make America the best domestic version of itself and thus the envy of the rest of the world. Spread American ideals abroad by way of example, living as awesome peaceful people and not greedy bullies. Pro-democracy and pro-capitalism revolutions are almost always best carried out by a country’s own citizens. We can inspire and encourage from afar, but their internal will must be there.

 

 

7 hours ago, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

Reportedly Billions of dollars in weapons left behind. 

 

the whole thing is so odd, unprofessional and poorly executed. 
 

Then “surprise” gotta send thousands of troops back in to the now completely destabilized mess.  
 

Commander in chief looks pretty bad on this one, even if you’re normally programmed by their msm. 

 

Yeah, there’s something very convenient about such a poorly executed troop withdrawal like the one we’re seeing. It showcases the human rights horror potential of the opposing regime in rapid succession. This can generate a humanitarian-themed rallying effect among the American public for returning troops. The military-industrial complex knows that war has become increasingly unpopular with the American people since the mid-2000’s, so maybe this is their new way of perpetuating the racket. Or maybe my tinfoil hat is on too tight. I dunno. I feel like I’m taking CRAZY PILLS. Sociopathic oligarchs don’t think like the rest of us, so I don’t want to put it past them. We do have conclusive evidence that the government has misled us throughout the Afghanistan conflict (see: SIGAR Afghanistan Papers, 2019, Washington Post).

[Bernie Sanders]

On 8/13/2021 at 9:53 AM, Irv said:

With the way Demented Biden has screwed thing up so badly, so quickly, I would take take Bernie or  idiot pantsuit Clinton over mush-for-brains.  Everything he touches goes to crap.  What a mess. 

 

Once again, Irv…you completely nailed it! I especially enjoyed this insightful gem: “idiot pantsuit Clinton.” She is indeed a frumpy sartorial disaster. The Benghazi of fashion, if you will. Total mess. Blazer dresses are where it’s at! MACA: Make America Chic Again. Make us less of a mess.

 

On 8/13/2021 at 1:28 PM, Governor said:

Green Party? So you’re an anti-Vaver?

 

You are so busted!

 

Just so you know, I’m wearing my Greta Thunberg “how dare you” resting b!tch face as I type: I’m not an anti-vaxxer and never have been at any point during my life. The science is compelling. Everyone who can get COVID vaccinated should have done so ASAP. The percentage of anti-vaxxers within the Green movement is no different from that among Democratic Party voters. 2016 Green presidential candidate, Jill Stein, is a physician and has long maintained a pro-vaccination stance. Clintonistas deliberately took Jill’s words out of context in 2016 in order to marginalize her presidential run and her third-party voters.

 

On 8/13/2021 at 1:40 PM, Governor said:

Bernie is Trump on the left. Both of their campaigns were specifically designed to appeal to people’s victimhood complex.

 

Trump: Brown people are going to kick your door down and take your wife if we don’t stop these evil democrats.

 

Bernie: You’re all victims of oppression and the eVIl corporations are trying to kill you.

 

I prefer candidates that don’t run unethical campaigns and have a positive message because I don’t live my life as a victim.

 

My problem isn’t his policies, it’s with HIM and the 2 campaigns her ran. He isn’t the right guy to deliver the message.

 

ALL politicians play into a victimhood complex...not just Bernie and Trump. They all run on proposed solutions to fix alleged problems. Those alleged problems are negatively affecting someone somewhere, no? I.e., victims, no? Biden ran on the fear that Donald Trump is a dangerous fascist who will permanently destroy American democracy if allowed one more term. So all of America and the world = victims, according to Biden, no?

 

On 8/13/2021 at 3:26 PM, Governor said:

Progressives AND Trumpers don’t realize that Nancy already delivered a long wish list full of progressive policies. She stuck them in Trump’s stimulus packages because she knew that he was scared and panicked and needed to address the economy early on in the pandemic.

 
(PUA)Pandemic Unemployment (framework for eventual UBI)

 

money for states

ACA expansion (now free for low income people)

 

Child tax credit(also UBI)

soon….Medicare expansion.

 

The list goes on and on.

 

We already got those things!

 

Those policies were all in Bernie’s platform.

 

We aren’t finished yet either! We’ve come a very long way in 2 years.

 

A lot of the COVID bill goodies fall into the category of “absolute bare minimum” (relative to what the rest of the industrialized world was offering their people) so to stave off a populist uprising. They were the legislative equivalent of writing one’s own name on the front page of a test. I won’t give credit to Pelosi and to the Democratic Party for that stuff, minus a select few exceptions like the nice child tax credit that you mentioned.

 

I could easily write a very long-winded and very angry dissertation right now which obliterates your claim that Pelosi and the Dems have delivered on progressive policies. I would do it if I had confidence that anyone here carefully reads what I write lol. Instead, I will select one policy you mentioned that should be paramount to any self-described progressive: health care.

 

Like AOC, Pelosi once began her own political career as a wide-eyed pro-M4A “progressive.” But as she quickly rose to power, she just as quickly abandoned the universal health care idea and gobbled up massive corporate bribes a.k.a. “campaign donations,” including ones from the health insurance industry. Medicare expansion from age 65 to 60 ends up being nothing more than another cleverly disguised gift to these health insurance companies because it shifts the coverage burden of what tends to be their most costly patient subset under 65 over to the taxpayers. You speak highly of ACA expansion, but it is akin to replacing a band-aid over a gunshot wound with a bigger band-aid. It does little to reduce incurred individual costs. For that, you need to eradicate the entire health insurance industry altogether which has no business existing in a civilized society in the first place.

 

But we’re not even getting Medicare expansion to 60 under Biden, let alone a public option, let alone M4A!!! Hillary Rodham Pantsuit ran on Medicare expansion to 55 back in 2016, so we’ve somehow moved a bit further to the right between presidential election cycles on this important issue. Furthermore, AOC and the Squad already seem to be on the same political career trajectory as Pelosi. Earlier this year they refused to leverage their collective voting bloc on the House floor in order to extract anything of importance related to health care, such as an up/down vote on Jayapal’s M4A bill that would have quickly exposed all of the M4A traitors during a once-in-a-century pandemic. Wonderful. Or rather…to paraphrase a famous new friend of mine, “mess.”

 

Random PPP Subforum A-Hole: “Ha! M4A?! Cool idea, baby Kay. But for such grandiose desires, how do you intend to pay? With leprechaun pots, unicorn farts, and fairy dust?”

ComradeKayAdams: “We’ve covered this like a million times here, Random PPP Subforum A-Hole. Reductions in wasteful MIC budgets, speculation taxes, tax codes that counter trickle-down economics, and MMT.”

Random PPP Subforum A-Hole: “Ah! My sincerest apologies, dearest Kay. In the future, I shall strive to be less of a condescending a-hole to you.”

ComradeKayAdams: “Oh no worries! We good!”

 

 

On 8/13/2021 at 5:53 PM, leh-nerd skin-erd said:

You did, however, catch the political eye of the politically seductive @ComradeKayAdams, soon to beguiling you with Green New Deals where you eat only free range goat cheese brioche and wear Earth Shoes made from recycled tires from 2015 and newer Beemers, likely the car Bernie or his spouse drives when the lens is not shined on him.

 

Goat cheese is just as unethical as cow cheese. Free-range animal farming is no good, either, because you’re accepting only a slightly more humane practice at the expense of so much more required land use that is globally unsustainable.

 

But thank you for acknowledging me as a political literary femme fatale, Leh-nerd. For sure, my tedious prose is as endless as my legs. My social democratic message clarity is as transparent as my negligee. My preferred marginal tax rate for the top income bracket is as high as my hem line. The TwoBillsDrive.com boys hate-read my posts with socialist red rage, yet they yearn during my BillsFans.com sabbaticals with Green New Deal envy. My dangerously subversive far-left manifestos titillate them in their dreams and haunt them in their nightmares. Such is the essence of ComradeKayAdams. Oh and I also like to write about Buffalo Bills history! Wooo! BILLS MAFIA TILL I DIE.

[Afghanistan]

On 8/10/2021 at 7:57 AM, All_Pro_Bills said:

You make a lot of great points.  And I agree with most of it.  But I think from the beginning defeat in Afghanistan was inevitable.  Its not called "the graveyard of empires" for nothing.  Its essentially a tribal society without any real concept of a powerful central government.  Defining one and setting it up based on some model of democracy was bound to fail.  And most of the "hostiles" just went over the border to Pakistan just waiting it out moving in and out of the country when required.  Once the primary mission was completed the decision should have been made to split.  But the DOD and the Pentagon never let a good opportunity to expand the defense budget go to waste.  So 20 years later an epic fail and in steps China and Russia.  Who could have seen that coming?

 

I have concluded US Middle East policy is based on the maintenance of "chaos", support for the State of Israel, and the continuation of the PetroDollar system of trade settlement in the oil markets.  In fact, I'd suggest that maintaining the global reverse and trade settlement status of the US Dollar is the fundamental objective of US foreign policy.  Its the system that creates foreign demand for US treasury paper and dollars.  Its the privilege to "print money" that no other country has.  Its the privilege that allows the US Congress and Presidents to pass multi-trillion dollar deficit spending bills without having to worry about where all that money comes from.  The reserve/trade settlement system is something Iran, Iraq, Libya and just about every other country that gets attacked or sanctioned has or is trying to remove themselves from participation.  It something the Saudi's still support.  That support is enhanced by US "protection" of the monarchy and the monarchies decisions to spend some $50B on defense spending.  A little less than what Russia spends.  This arrangement is just a traditional protection racket.  The US government protecting Saudi interests by refusing to declassify incriminating 9/11 information is one example of an element of this arrangement.  A government protecting a foreign government and its citizens that have committing terrorist and criminal acts against its own citizens.  What democratic government would do that?   

So US foreign policy is simply "follow the rules we set or else".  If you don't then political, economic, and if necessary either direct or indirect force through either the military or intelligence agencies will be applied to your nation and government and the most likely outcome will be the people currently in charge will be out of a job soon.

 

So while I agree with the Imperialism view who is calling the shots in the US?   Its not the political parties or the administration in power.  If you look at the political views of the Trump administration vs. the Biden administration you'd expect to see some tangible difference in their foreign policy approach.  But you don't.  In fact you see Biden's budget proposals actually looking to increase defense spending above what Trump budgeted. This appears in conflict with the "progressive" nature of the administration.  As they have no problem blowing up people of color on the international front and yet present themselves as the champion of minority rights domestically.  People are people no matter which side of the line on the map they stand on.  But policy never changes from one administration to another no matter the spot on the political spectrum those administrations represented. 

And truth be told, Trump wasn't impeached and harassed for 4 years because of some ethical, moral, or legal violations of law and the constitution.  He was harassed because he threatened the power of this establishment and pushed for policy change they saw as a threat to their agenda and power.  So there's an underlying force controlling the government and policy.  Some call it the establishment or the deep state.  Who's behind it all?  Some say the 1% or the .1%, the Davos crowd, Soros's NWO.  Me, I can't say I am sure.  I'm interested in getting some perspectives on this. 

 

What also seems strange is the current left supports this Imperialist model by bringing it home and imposing it on the domestic population.  There doesn't seem to be any issues or moral and ethical questions about imposing restrictions and punishment for non-compliance on US citizens through unilateral and undemocratic edicts and proclamations through the executive branch via executive orders or agency pronouncements.  So how can that be reconciled with their expressed woke and social justice views as "domestic imperialism" seems just fine to them.

 

Thank you for mentioning petrodollars! Yes, a huge component of American imperialism involves the maintenance of the dollar as the dominant international reserve currency. The petrodollar system best explains why we do what we do in places like the Middle East and Venezuela.

 

I see politicians in America as mostly controlled by their list of campaign donors. The voting constituents matter, too, but only to a much smaller extent. These campaign donors ultimately comprise the top of the “establishment.” Regarding foreign policy decisions, the “establishment” are usually executives and major shareholders within defense contracting companies and energy companies. This particular power network also extends into banking, media, and important government positions throughout the military and the executive branch (i.e. the “deep state”). Note that progressive politicians who don’t accept corporate donations are still subject to establishment influence so long as they choose to operate within the Democratic Party. Their political career advancements depend on acquiescing to more powerful party members who DO take the corporate money.

 

I never viewed Trump as someone outside the establishment. He certainly used populist rhetoric to get elected. He certainly was a less reliable puppet for the establishment than anything Hillary Clinton would have been, and so that unique element of chaos in Trump’s personality explains why Hillary was preferred in 2016 and why Trump was Russiagated. Nevertheless, Donald Trump is an over-the-top narcissist and egomaniac. Someone like that was inevitably going to rule as an American supremacist and thus wield U.S. military hegemony without compunction.

 

On 8/10/2021 at 8:00 AM, SoCal Deek said:

Thanks Kay, and yes I skimmed your latest manifesto….but I stand by my original post and believe it’s YOU who took this in a different direction. The thread and the immediate responses were about ‘why’ and the ‘worth’ of going to Afghanistan…not, as you say, about why we stayed for so long. And, finally if this was about American imperialism as you say then why isn’t this the United Kingdom of America? We didn’t colonize any of the places we’ve attacked, fought, or defended (Germany, Japan, Iraq, Vietnam). That’s the unique nature of American policy. It’s what makes us so different from other historical ‘empires’. It’s also what makes our policy so darn difficult to pull off successfully. Heck it’d be a whole lot easier to move in and own the place, but we don’t. We try to give a better place to the people of each country while running out the regime responsible for their plight. Lastly, the comment about ‘brown’ people is off base, gratuitous, and offensive. Our military actions when looked at over the long arc of history have been color blind.

 

In Niagara Bill’s original post and in subsequent posts of his, he repeatedly refers to “20 years” and questions why the U.S. was there for such a lengthy amount of time. But whatever. No need for us to belabor this point!

 

So are you seriously trying to make the case that our country is not an imperialist one?? You are familiar with the concept of “soft power,” correct? I know you are aware that we still have military bases in Germany, Japan, and Iraq (and probably Vietnam too if we had won there). This sentence of yours deeply concerns me: “We try to give a better place to the people of each country while running out the regime responsible for their plight.” Any inclusive study of U.S. intervention cases in Latin America (especially since the beginning of the Cold War) and in the Middle East (particularly since the energy crisis of the 1970’s) will reveal to you everything that is so horribly incorrect with that statement. Sometimes we are the source of the problems. Often, we create new ones and then leave the places in worse shape. I suppose “try” was the operative word in your sentence.

 

No, I will not retract my “brown people” remark because I do not sugarcoat history or politics. And what a curious place to take a stand on politically correct language, Mr. Trump Voter! If you must, read “brown” people as “foreign” people in my previous post. I will only slightly concede that the United States has been a bit more color blind during its modern (i.e. post-WW2) foreign policy history. Were it not for Soviet nuclear deterrence, then yes, we likely would have treated white Eastern Europeans in the same patronizing and often dehumanizing manner that we treat everyone else.

 

 

On 8/12/2021 at 9:53 AM, Tenhigh said:

I agree with you on the original motives for entering the war.   Living in NYC at the time even my furthest left friends were in support of the effort. People were scared and angry, and rightly so. 

But I think the shortsighted plan in Iraq is a large part of what has led to our overstay in Afghanistan.   America desperately wants to look like the good guy/world police, and after the fiasco that became of Iraq, bailing out on Afghanistan wasn't a face that we wanted to show the world.  

 

Yes, agreed. Afghanistan is a classic lesson on the sunk cost fallacy. The entirety of the war on radical Islamic terrorism has been shortsighted. The first step in winning any war should be understanding the enemy. Americans have been repeatedly told that the enemy is driven entirely by religiosity and psychopathy. We are the clearly defined good guys, they are the clearly defined bad guys, and the real world is an arena where these polar opposites battle each other like in some sort of superhero movie.

 

I suppose that’s a perfectly good explanation of international relations for the type of adult children inclined to still sleep with fuzzy reassuring Disney stuffed animals in their beds (um…wait, not that there’s anything wrong with that!). It’s also a good enough explanation for people who don’t live in those affected foreign places, who don’t serve in any of the U.S. armed forces, or who have vested interests in the American military-industrial complex.

 

Mature and rational and empathic adults, meanwhile, who actually want to “defeat” terrorism (however that may be defined) are at the very least willing to go back and study Osama bin Laden’s messages so to learn more about their recruitment tactics. He was quite transparent in his long-term intent to bankrupt America by drawing her into unwinnable wars abroad, with Afghanistan a stated focal point in the same way that he viewed it to be for the Soviet Union during the 1980’s. On 9/11/01, bin Laden attacked American symbols for three of the four major components of imperialism: economic exploitation (World Trade Center), military aggression (Pentagon), and political leadership (Capitol Building, which was the target of Flight 93). The fourth component is cultural indoctrination, but any American symbol of it (Hollywood Hills sign?) was left unscathed on that day. Why? Just my speculation: to minimize the “war of cultures” aspect of the terrorism and instead highlight the American imperialism aspect of the war, thus helping to further isolate the U.S. from world allies already annoyed with our “world police” complex.

[Global warming err Climate change HOAX]

On 8/10/2021 at 7:44 AM, Buffalo Timmy said:

Well done of proving that the initial alarm was very likely poorly done research. Kay if you can't predict the future it is not good science. If I keep predicting collapse and it grows then I am missing something large. Also making huge predictions based on 30 years of data for a structure that is thousand of years old seems foolish.

 

Buffalo Timmy: “Well done proving that the initial alarm was very likely poorly done research.”

 

ComradeKayAdams: “I did no such thing. I distinguished the most useful metrics for determining coral reef biome health (any of the coral bleaching data) from the much less useful ones (coral growth rates and coral cover percentages). The article did not review any of the coral bleaching data collected from the Great Barrier Reef or from any other coral reefs on the planet. Any guesses as to why??”

 

Buffalo Timmy: “Kay, if you can’t predict the future it is not good science.”

 

ComradeKayAdams: “Agreed, but predictions have already been made. The data so far is approximately matching the median predictions for ocean temperatures, coral bleaching incidents, bleaching coverage, AND biome population reductions for the flora and fauna most sensitive to ocean temperature increases.”

 

Buffalo Timmy: “If I keep predicting collapse and it grows, then I am missing something large.”

 

ComradeKayAdams: “Well for one thing, predictions of coral reef biome collapse have been made predominantly for the second half of this century…which obviously hasn’t arrived yet. Also, there are a number of explanations for short-term reversals of long-term trends in coral health. Regional ocean temperatures can undergo large seasonal fluctuations (El Nino/La Nina), carbon dioxide absorption perturbations at sea level can lead to temporary changes in coral growth rates due to the changes in ocean acidification, and a small percentage of coral species can always become more or less adaptive to alterations in their ocean environment via the wonderful process of evolution!”

 

Buffalo Timmy: “Making huge predictions based on 30 years of data for a structure that is thousands of years old seems foolish.”

 

ComradeKayAdams: “No, it’s not foolish. We have a very detailed understanding of how all the various coral species react to water temperature and water acidity. Our understanding comes from both in-situ studies and laboratory research. The only major variables in play, really, besides disease are the trajectories of ocean temperatures and ocean acidity levels. Unfortunately, we know how those two are trending…well, that is the non-climate change deniers among us do.”

[Bernie Sanders]

10 hours ago, Irv said:

I don't like this guy and his politics.  He's pretty hypocrytical as a multi-millionaire.  But I do think the nut job actually believes in what he says and for that he should be respected.  What a mess.  

 

I adore you, Irv. You had me at your thread title. The heat from your ridiculous right-wing political takes is often exactly what I need to warm my hypothermic progressive soul. Plus, I respect your inimitable gift for summarizing content in just three unforgettably monosyllabic words.

 

I know that we are traditional political adversaries, Irv, but I need your help now more than ever! We both share a common enemy: the Democratic Party. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer are traitors to the American working class. And so far, Bernie Sanders and the Squad have played the “party sheepdog” role well by keeping far-left enthusiasm away from third-party development but also away from political disengagement altogether.

 

But while many Bernie Bros since Super Tuesday of last March have chosen to wither, know that this Bernie Ho refuses to dither! Won’t you join me, Irv, and help bring down the Democratic Party during the 2022 midterms and further again in 2024?? I will do my best to lead the roughly 40% of the party’s base who self-identify as “progressive” over to third parties (Green, People’s, DSA). I’ll need you, meanwhile, to call out their so-called “moderate” base from the right in the specific ways that I describe. Simple example: start referring to them as “warmongering Russiagating McCarthyites,” “corporate sociopathic oligarch lovers,” and (perhaps my favorite succinct epithet) “sh!itlibs” (a delightful portmanteau of “sh!theads” and “neoliberals”).

 

In due time (how about 2028?), I will get you to see the viability and righteousness of a Green New Deal. But until then, be aware that such unlikely temporary alliances as ours are not at all unprecedented! I’m sure Sun Tzu said something profound about it. Didn’t Batman team up with Catwoman on occasion? The Bat and the Cat? How about…Reactionary Irv and the Far-Left Verve? The Hater of Disarray and Comradely Comrade Kay? I know of a Nanushka black faux leather dress that I think I can modify into a costume and wear at canvassing activities! Oooh, my love of politics is returning. Best thread ever! Thanks, Irv!

[Global warming err Climate change HOAX]

On 7/23/2021 at 5:23 PM, B-Man said:

ANOTHER CLIMATE ALARM LOSES ITS MOJO

 

We all know the Great Barrier Reef is in danger of disappearing because of c—— c—–. The climatistas tell us so, at every opportunity:

 

 

Well guess what Mom? Check in with The Australian (behind a paywall so here is the relevant text—made available by the indispensable Global Warming Policy Foundation):

 

The annual data on coral cover for the Great Barrier Reef, produced by the Australian Institute of Marine Science, was released on Monday showing the amount of coral on the reef is at record high levels. Record high, despite all the doom stories by our reef science and management institutions.

Like all other data on the reef, this shows it is in robust health. For example, coral growth rates have, if anything, increased over the past 100 years and measurements of farm pesticides reaching the reef show levels so low that they cannot be detected with the most ultra-sensitive equipment.

 

 

Even The Guardian gets it (sort of):

 

 

The 21-country World Heritage Committee on Friday ignored a scientific assessment from the UN’s science and culture organisation, Unesco, that the reef was clearly in danger from climate change and so should be placed on the list.

 

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/07/another-climate-alarm-loses-its-mojo.php

 

Pretty sure I’d ignore a “scientific assessment” from the totally politicized and non-scientific UNESCO too.

 

Oh no…this editorialized sentence from the article is a BLATANT lie: “Like all other data on the reef, this shows it is in robust health.”

 

For starters, coral growth rates and coral cover percentages don’t tell us anything about the species composition of the newly formed coral. As an extreme example, imagine that every other coral species but one could be dying off, but that one randomly well-adapted species could be spreading like wildfire. This would definitely not indicate that the overall reef biome is in good health, bearing in mind the complex interdependencies of all the highly diverse members typically occupying coral reef ecosystems.

 

Coral bleaching data is BY FAR the most important indicator of coral reef health, but discussion of it in the article excerpt is conspicuously absent.

 

While localized ocean current temperatures around the Great Barrier Reef may vary in any given season like weather does above any region of land, we know for sure that global mean ocean temperatures are continuously rising. We also know for sure that rising ocean temperatures threaten coral life in coral reefs everywhere. This is a basic principle of coral fauna. The coral of the Great Barrier Reef are no exception.

 

Basically, not a single credible oceanographer or marine biologist on this planet would disagree with the information I provided above. Anyone telling people not to worry about the vitality of coral reefs this century has been propagandized by the fossil fuel industry. It is unfortunate that other countries like Australia are also victims of this propaganda.

 

[Afghanistan]

On 8/8/2021 at 8:10 AM, SoCal Deek said:

Kay

As you know, we don’t always agree, but having been outright attacked on American soil in horrific fashion on 9/11 it’s hard to believe this board’s even having this discussion. (Of course it was started by a Canadian) What did people expect the US government was going to do after such an attack? Say “oh well” or “darn it”. The true debate is over how we managed things once there. Unless you’re going to colonize the place it’s somewhat of a lose:lose but you still have to put the hammer down.

 

Right, but none of us are challenging the original stated reason for entering the Afghanistan conflict! Adopting a policy of non-interventionism doesn’t mean you don’t fight back in self-defense. The relevant topic here is an examination of why this war has persisted for TWO FULL DECADES. And to me, at least, the answer is obvious: American imperialism.

 

You seem a bit hostile toward political retrospection, SoCal Deek! A quick look into the Afghanistan region’s long history beforehand would have informed us that forcing democracy and our own specific values onto such a balkanized society (that is living within such a difficult-to-traverse mountainous topography, no less) was doomed to fail. Our country’s record of success with boots-on-ground regime changes, organized coups, and hard sanctions since World War 2 is beyond dismal. And studies of empire collapses throughout human history suggest that overextending one’s own military at the expense of domestic investments is a very bad idea. But I’m sure the sociopathic oligarchic powers in control of our country already knew all of this, and that’s kind of the point. They knew and didn’t care.

 

Canadian or not, Niagara Bill’s thread is actually one of the most interesting and important ones I see on this forum’s first page. My PPP raison d’etre is to get people thinking beyond the “left versus right” American political paradigm that has defined the twentieth century and more toward a twenty-first century “populist versus establishment” framework. Some of you seem to already be there, though way too many of you seem to not understand that imperialism is the foreign policy arm of the establishment. Afghanistan is just the low-hanging fruit, so to speak, of this political awareness. Neoliberal Dems defended Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, but then they looked the other way on disastrous situations like Libya and Syria. Trumpers praised their charlatan’s scathing criticisms of Hillary’s record as Secretary of State, but then had no problem with his renewal of the ineffective six decades-long Cuban embargo or his reckless reversal of the JCPOA (which has now, in turn, hindered Biden’s options with Iran). Neither political side appears to have a problem with coups/sanctions against Venezuela and its people, not to mention the human rights violations against Palestinians in the name of Empress America’s militarily strategic Middle East satellite state. Both sides, of course, excused their guy’s failure to withdraw troops from the Afghanistan conflict.

 

All underlying motives of the U.S. government are clearly economic in nature, not moral (I’m referring specifically to the corporate oligarchs in charge and not the overall voting citizenry who technically put them in charge). Democratically elected socialists in, say, South America are constantly challenged, while gross human rights violators in, say, Africa are routinely overlooked. Empress America especially hates anything associated with “socialism” or “communism,” but not because of the lowered standards of living these systems tend to generate for their citizens. Rather, the reason is because they tend to be much less likely to allow foreign capitalistic powers to come in and exploit their natural resources and labor pools.

 

Economic factors and military efficacies aside, let’s think a bit more about the moral quandaries that the establishment’s foreign policy creates. A large majority of this forum’s participants are strict constructionism types and Judeo-Christian philosophy proponents to varying degrees. But where in the Constitution does it say that our country has the right or the imperative to tell other sovereign nations how to organize their own governments or their own labor pools? And would Jesus be okay with indiscriminately bombing brown people, depriving said brown people of basic economic goods and services needed for survival, or carrying out military drone programs where ~90% of kills are not even the intended target? I guess I should stop typing now because hardly anyone reads what I write anyway (though a few of the BillsFans.com boys still do! Thanks, guys!). I wish people would take a minute every now and then to really think about U.S. foreign policy in various scenarios. Apply the Golden Rule and reverse the roles of the U.S. and the other country/countries in question. See if your opinions change.

[It's Time to Mandate Vaccines]

On 8/4/2021 at 7:24 AM, ALF said:

US comes in last in health care rankings of high-income countries

 

The US once again ranked last in access to health care, equity and outcomes among high-income countries, despite spending a far greater share of its economy on health care, a new report released Wednesday has found.

 

The nation has landed in the basement in all seven studies the Commonwealth Fund has conducted since 2004. The US is the only one of the 11 countries surveyed not to have universal health insurance coverage.

 

While the latest data does not reflect the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, it lays out the strengths and weaknesses of each country's health care system when Covid-19 hit the world in early 2020.

 

"In no other country does income inequality so profoundly limit access to care as it does here," Blumenthal said. "Far too many people cannot afford the care they need and far too many are uninsured, especially compared to other wealthy nations."

 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/04/health/us-health-care-rankings/index.html

 

Good post, ALF! I wish our country was talking about universal health care during a pandemic more so than indulging in vaccination debates. From that list of 10 countries in that study, I don’t believe even one of them has a minor political party advocating for the privatization of health care, let alone a major party. Doing so would be considered political suicide in these countries. The United States, meanwhile, has TWO major parties doing it…which is twice as upsetting to me as being the only modern industrialized country in the world with a major political party effectively denying anthropogenic climate change…but I digress…

 

The point is that all 10 of those countries have largely (or practically entirely, in the case of some like the U.K.) socialized their health care industries during the twentieth century, and none of them have any regrets in doing so. They simply look at socialized medicine like we look at socialized national defense, socialized law and order, socialized fire departments, socialized postal service, etc… And not coincidentally, all 10 of those countries (U.K., France, Germany, Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) routinely score higher than the U.S. in all sorts of upward socioeconomic mobility rankings. Hmmm.

 

I still believe M4A in the United States is inevitable just like I believe social democracy here is inevitable. But if we couldn’t even get a national discussion on it during a once-in-a-century pandemic, we are almost definitely a full generation away from implementing it. If roughly half the country currently perceives any form of a vaccination mandate to be a slippery slope to gulags, can you imagine the McCarthyite fearmongering that would have ensued if our corporate media acknowledged the basic interconnectedness of each individual’s health, from a financial well-being standpoint? Since our country’s inception, the concept of a social contract has always been under attack here more than in any other country in the world. And to some extent, this is a very healthy thing and a great source of our country’s strength. But in many specific modern scenarios such as pandemic management, I argue that it is downright pathological.

[Afghanistan]

17 hours ago, Niagara Bill said:

Yes Korea was at least a partial success, negotiating with the very people we hated to divide the spoils. Not a true win, Kim is the result of that split decision. 

I question why Russia fought for this piece of dirt (Afghanistan) for 20 years, then the west did, both lost and nothing changed. I say it was nothing but spending military budget. The American people didn't want this. This was not revenge for 9 11. Trading the World Center bombing for bombing a cave of dirt and rock for 20 years, not equal.

 

Afghanistan is much more than a “piece of dirt!” It contains an enormous amount of untapped mineral resources that can be used for the electronics industry and for other various high-tech emerging industries. Historically, the land has also held an important trade position connecting the Chinese empire with the Persian empire. Nowadays, the United States can look at the country as a favorable geostrategic position from which to watch over her biggest adversaries: China, especially Iran, and Russia too. If you look at a complete map of U.S. military bases around the world, you will see something very interesting: we’re REALLY obsessed with surrounding Iran on all sides! I believe these are the most important reasons for our extended military occupation there.

 

Spreading democracy, upholding international human rights, controlling the opium market, diverting oil pipelines, maintaining a high budget for the military industrial complex…all good answers, but I think they are secondary motivations. Seeking revenge for 9/11, dismantling the Taliban, and stopping Islamic terrorism were the main reasons for entering the war and certainly the main reasons why any American citizens continued supporting the war in its early stages. But now?

 

At this point, it is indeed all about American imperialism. Afghanistan is only one of the more obvious examples of this deeply immoral and pervasive foreign policy, with Iraq being the most obvious one (Libya, Syria, and Saudi Arabia/Yemen are conspicuous as well. Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Israel/Palestine, and countries involving military drones are perhaps a bit more subtle). As someone who is a strident non-interventionist, I am actually MORE concerned that we are (allegedly…) withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan. Why are we (allegedly…) abandoning this strategic military outpost?? My cynical suspicion is that we may soon see false flags somewhere in the Middle East (Syria?) that will get us into some form of a protracted war with Iran. And if I was a resource-rich South American country with a left-leaning government, I would be sleeping with one wary eye open northward.

[Critical Race Theory]

On 7/23/2021 at 1:56 PM, All_Pro_Bills said:

So I'm watching a short segment on Carlson with professed liberal comedian Jimmy Dore.  Found his perspective interesting.  His somewhat outside-the-box assessment might be worth a look regardless of your perspectives here. 

 

His basic premise is the left used to focus on discussions concerning economic disparities and issues.  But now all discussions are centered around identify politics.  And the reason for that is the establishment has found a way to co-op the progressive movement including capturing the discussions on identity and race issues, and  as a result it has avoiding discussions on economics and left them free to loot and pillage society without any focus on those activities.  All these discussions on things like CRT are just smoke and mirror diversions.    

 

"You want to help black people then give them free college, a living wage, medicare for all.  What did Biden do?  Made Juneteenth a holiday and gave government workers another day off".

 

So is this the game here?  Simple misdirection?  You've got elite billionaires, cultural & social elites, intellectual elites, elite corporate CEO's & BOD's, elite politicians, and I should add the military industrial complex.  All beating the drum of racism.  All getting rich while the rest of us, black, white, brown, run faster and faster while falling behind.  While they redirect the focus away from themselves and on to the average guy in the street.  Its not their fault their collective elite class is so well off and everyone else is not.  its the fault of all those damn white supremacists, all white people, except them of course while paying off the attack dogs on the left to steer clear of them and find other targets.  Pitting the citizens against one another, the identified oppressor and the oppressed fighting against each other over table scraps while leaving them free to do pretty much what they want.  Unnoticed and getting away with it.  Robbing us all blind while our backs are turned faced off against one another.

 

I think this guy is on to some good insights.  I bookmarked his site.

 

This is a fairly mainstream message among left-wing populists. I mention it briefly in this thread (see: bottom of page 20, my post, last paragraph). Thomas Frank gives the most articulate and thorough description of the message in books like “What’s the Matter with Kansas” or “Listen, Liberal.” For those who really want to understand modern American progressivism, I would also recommend checking out these three books if you haven’t already: “Manufacturing Consent” by Noam Chomsky, “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Klein, and “Griftopia” by Matt Taibbi.

 

I’m familiar with Jimmy Dore because he was Tulsi Gabbard’s most prominent advocate during her 2020 presidential campaign. I’ll attempt to summarize his political philosophy in an easy-to-read list form:

 

1. Reaganomics has failed the working class.

2. America is an imperialist nation.

3. Republicans and Democrats are a one-party corporate oligarchy run by sociopaths.

4. With the help of corporate media, both parties use culture war issues like CRT to divide and politically weaken the working class.

5. The Democratic Party is far more dangerous to the progressive movement because one of its main intents is to co-opt and then defuse progressive political energy.

6. The 96 Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) members (including Bernie and The Squad) serve the same role on the left as Donald Trump does on the right: corral enough gullible voters into the two-party political duopoly and get them to think they are actually fighting the “establishment.”

7. Because the Democratic Party is inherently corrupt and unreformable, it must be pushed left and eventually destroyed from outside pressure (third parties, mass protests, and worker strikes).

8. Left-wing populists and right-wing populists must somehow unite if they want to stand any chance at defeating the plutocracy.

 

While most progressives believe #1 and #2 to be true, there is considerable debate within the movement regarding #3-8.

 

I have slowly come to agree with all 8 points. For me, the very last straw was the deafening silence from the CPC in support of last Saturday’s nation-wide “March for Medicare For All.” I attended the one at Washington Square Park in downtown Manhattan. The crowd wasn’t nearly as big as I had hoped. If national progressive Democrats actually cared about what they profess to believe, they would be doing everything they can to constantly push Biden and neoliberal Dems left on major issues like health care. But I strongly suspect they don’t. Their individual political careers and the wealth that come with it apparently matter more to them than fighting for the concerns of ordinary Americans.

 

Interesting post, All_Pro_Bills! I’m shocked at your open-mindedness. It’s not common in this childish hellhole of a subforum.

[New Bills writer at the Buffalo News: Katherine Fitzgerald]

1 hour ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

This could just be me

 

When someone leads off with the term “floozy” for a degreed professional woman with years of experience in the job position she’s hired for, I wonder if they have much brain to wash.

 

Again, could just be me 🤷‍♂️

 

 

His entire line of attack against Ms. Fitzgerald was a misfire because she was likely hired for her sports journalism skills, not for having an encyclopedic knowledge of the Bills. Like any true professional, I’m sure she will do her homework and quickly become very knowledgeable of our team.

 

Also, the definition of a “floozy” is a promiscuous young woman who uses sex to manipulate men. That is a pretty disgusting label to flippantly toss at any female, especially one reporting on male athletes.

[Joe: “I keep forgetting I’m president” 🤷‍♂️]

1 hour ago, Irv said:

 

Biden's brain is operating at approximately 34% of that of a fully functional adult.  In my professional opinion, a mix of dementia, alzheimers, a calcium deposit on the medula oblongata, and terrible case of hemmorrhoids (I minored in Proctology) are the culprit.  Twenty-fifth likely to be invoked.  My prognosis is that will occur within 6-10 months.  The probability is 95%  +/- 3%  To summarize - what a medical mess. 

 

I am addicted to you.

[Eagles fan murders Giants fan]

Would it be wrong to make an Ertz joke here?

[Cuba]

9 hours ago, Irv said:

So, where are all the zipperheads who think the Biden/AOC/Sanders/Squad socialism will work?   What a mess.  How could these idiots be elected?  Must like the Venezuelan diet.  Following Castro playbook to the letter.  Mess.  

 

I swear, Irv…your political takes are sooo hot that I find myself having to turn up the AC in my apartment as soon as I log in to PPP. Where do I even begin with you???

 

1. The term “zipperhead” is a highly offensive slur against Asians.

2. BullBuchanan is the only true socialist here at PPP, but be thankful that I’m not summoning him right now…

3. Joe Biden is in no way a socialist.

4. You don’t appear to understand the internal power dynamics between the two main factions of the Democratic Party.

5. You don’t appear to understand the difference between socialism and social democracy.

6. You routinely conflate authoritarian socialism with democratic socialism, command economies with market socialism, libertarian socialism with statist socialism, socialism with communism, etc…

7. You show no real awareness of the multitude of successful capitalist countries with significant socialist elements like universal health care.

8. You show no real awareness of the immense role that US sanctions, blockades, and CIA-backed coups have played in the destabilization of far-left countries such as Cuba and Venezuela.

9. The real Irv Weinstein died on December 26, 2017, so you must be an imposter.

10. WHAT. A. MESS.

[Climate Change]

On 6/29/2021 at 11:32 AM, Jauronimo said:

There is a group who continue to prosper greatly from the status quo who have a vested interest in writing off climate change as a hoax and emissions controls, renewables, conservation as pinko commie, unamerican propaganda.  

 

EXACTLY. The fossil fuel industry would rather have the next generation of American taxpayers get stuck with the bill for the sum environmental damage. And while the political right in this country fetishizes the free market, they willfully ignore all of the federal subsidies oil and gas are given.

 

The “pinko commie” far-left form the subset of American politics that take climate change and environmentalism most seriously, and that’s obviously no coincidence. It takes a Marxist to really critique capitalism (as it pertains to land property rights, public goods, negative environmental externalities, unsustainable growth, etc.) without the rose-colored glasses. Only a laissez-faire extremist thinks the free market will reach optimal environmental solutions in minimal time without government regulations and assistance from federally funded scientific research.

 

On 6/29/2021 at 12:24 PM, Bidens_basement said:

Well, it hasn’t worked yet. We greatly reduced our emissions, but china has doubled there emissions. They are building new coal plants every two weeks. 

That’s your solution?

 

Your U.S. emissions reduction statement is highly misleading. That refers strictly to carbon dioxide emissions but doesn’t account for all greenhouse gas emissions, namely methane from fracking.

 

The solution to the China dilemma is to engage in carefully crafted multilateral trade agreements with them that incentivize their cooperation under the Paris Climate Agreement. China can make a lot of money by ditching coal, taking advantage of their rare earth metal resources, and fully participating in the emerging international renewable energy market.

[India Walton]

On 6/28/2021 at 12:49 AM, Doc Brown said:

Brown already distancing himself from Paladino and Walton blasts him for taking two days to disavow him.  Odds are Brown's doing a write in campaign or he wouldn't have distanced himself imo.

 

https://www.wgrz.com/article/news/politics/buffalo-mayor-byron-brown-says-he-will-not-accept-support-from-carl-paladino/71-9e3e9f50-2ea0-4fe7-8eb0-9e53319988fe

 

Probably, but the Brown write-in campaign idea is getting a lot of pushback from local and state leaders within the Democratic Party. Keep in mind the negative national media attention the situation will draw. Along with the optics of Brown not accepting the consequences for running a terrible mayoral primary campaign, this will only enflame the ongoing civil war between the party’s centrist and progressive wings. Democratic strategists across the country do not want the drama carrying into the midterm primaries. Furthermore, write-in campaigns rarely succeed.

 

On 6/29/2021 at 2:40 PM, 716er said:

if you truly are curious on her stances check out her website 

 

Yes, wouldn’t it be nice if our country could discuss issues like adults, instead of going off on drunken Chris Matthews-esque diatribes straight out of the Cold War era??

 

The claim against India Walton is that she is a dangerous wealth-destroying socialist. Looking at her website: I don’t even see her specifically calling for the raising of taxes on businesses, sales, property, or general wealth. Her campaign seems to emphasize the reallocation of current tax resources away from certain sectors like the police department and toward various infrastructure projects that more directly affect lower income communities. Her plans to address housing, education, and the environment are fairly mainstream liberal ideas now and not exactly without American municipal precedent. The stuff on pandemic recovery, food access, and the arts is all very anodyne. I guess one could call her ideas on immigration extreme, however. The apparent overarching theme in her campaign platform is that of looking out for minorities.

 

As for India’s socialist bona fides, we have little to go on because she has no public office track record. The DSA endorses her, but their vetting process is not exactly known for its rigor. They will endorse practically any political candidate who is willing to publicly self-identify as a socialist. So truthfully, we have no idea if Walton’s long-term intentions are to rage against the feudalistic capitalism machine and lead a grassroots-based revolution whereby workers everywhere eventually come to own the means of production… At worst (read: most left-wing), she may only advocate for a stronger social safety net and a more progressive tax code like any run-of-the-mill social democrat.

 

What we can safely assume is that India Walton will have a giant national media bullseye on her. Every single unfilled road pothole will be used against her very character and against far-left politics in general. Even among some on the far-left, the slightest of political compromises and moves toward centrism from her will likely attract accusations of selling out and of corruption (probably even from me at some later point lol…). Few people have the personality traits to thrive under such scrutiny. Fortunately, India’s inspirational biography suggests that she may be one of the few who can. Regardless of her political orientation, I wish her the best because I love the city of Buffalo and want to see it succeed above all else.

 

Oh…final thoughts on the national media: I always enjoy their narratives. They entertain me. They delight me. One of them here is that so-called socialists like India Walton are the reason for cities like Buffalo having become failures. For one thing, there hasn’t been a socialist mayor in a major US city since 1960. For another, higher taxes that disincentivize business growth are not a distinctly socialist feature. But my main point of contention lies with the selective omission of perhaps the biggest explanation for Rust Belt decay: four decades of a failed Reaganomics ideology for the working class and for Millenials/Gen Z’ers. If people want to discuss what is perceived to be a rising popularity in socialism in this country (see: latest Axios+Momentive poll from June 11-15), how about a little bit of neoliberal culpability?? Let’s also include the impact of international free trade agreements on the deindustrialization of places like the Midwest. Let’s discuss how the collapse of unions has coincided with the obvious reversal in upward American socioeconomic mobility. Or how money that could have gone toward regenerative civil infrastructure projects has been diverted to the military-industrial complex and to American imperialism. Stuff like that.

[NYC Mayoral Race]

Updates, summaries, and hot takes:

 

1. With all in-person Election Day votes counted, Eric Adams has a slim 14.75k vote lead over Garcia. Wiley is in third place and is very close behind Garcia by ~350 votes.

2. Those infamous 135k test ballots were successfully removed from the most recent numbers release. I see no reason to believe the (bipartisan) Board of Elections was up to anything nefarious. It was a simple (albeit embarrassing) human reporting error that is now resolved.

3. The ~125k uncounted absentee ballots (and some provisional ballots) are all that remain (note: I forgot to include this factor in my back-of-envelope calculations last week…oops!). Looking at the preliminary data from each district and using historical precedent, one might expect Wiley and Garcia to benefit the most from the absentee ballots even though a plurality of them come from districts that Adams won.

4. As it turns out, Garcia received a significant vote boost from Yang’s people, proving the value of that late-campaign political alliance she made with him.

5. So the two remaining factors in this extremely close three-person race are the absentee ballots and the relative positions of the top two candidates among the third-place finisher’s votes. Wiley’s best chance of winning comes with Garcia finishing third. Adams, however, is probably thinking his best chance of winning also comes with Garcia finishing third. Garcia, meanwhile, likely doesn’t have a strong preference either way.

6. I’m beginning to think Garcia will pull off the small upset! She was definitely the least polarizing candidate among the top three, which could give her the ranked-choice numbers advantage for the final two rounds of voting. This is how I’m feeling right now: Garcia with a 40% chance of winning, Adams at 35%, Wiley at 25%.

7. Ranked-choice voting is FANTASTIC. It is rank (pun intended!) propaganda from the two-party duopoly to hate on it. Who cares if we have to wait a few additional weeks to get the results?! What’s the value in catering to a society of instant gratification and short attention spans, anyway?

 

On 6/23/2021 at 8:28 AM, Over 29 years of fanhood said:

i was recently reading about this Wiley one you like so much coincidentally. I love how the progressive socialists / communists keep falling for these ‘progressive’ millionaires who live in multimillion dollar mansions, send their kids to private school and grow up as wealthy elites (although she did lose her father in a tragic yacht incident) and of course have a history in  political corruption wile serving as de blasio lead council, for example.
 

She sounds like she’ll be a Washington political elite in no time. 
 

You should look up Putin’s palace. Another man of the people he is. These people all know what’s best for you. 

 

A progressive leader’s socioeconomic background ultimately doesn’t matter as long as the candidate can deliver results, avoid corruption, and forego authoritative/non-democratically elected means to their ends. Even the most serious socialist revolutionary believes that a person becoming rich through capitalism can lead a socialist movement. Often times, the only way to achieve meaningful power under a capitalist system is to amass financial wealth. So at the very least, there’s no apparent hypocrisy during the pre-socialism transition stages.

 

On a personal level, the wealth hypocrisy angle doesn’t work on me since I’m a pro-capitalism social democrat who has no problem with the existence of filthy rich people. I only caucus with the true socialists and the communists because American politics is so absurdly right-wing (from the perspective of the rest of the industrialized West) that we all must scrunch together on the left end of the political spectrum if we hope to achieve anything. These points of commonality include universal health care, free college/trade school/preschool, affordable housing, living wages, unions, environmentalism, non-interventionism, and just generally not ascribing moral value based on supply-demand curves. I do have a very slight preference for working-class political leaders, though, because they’re the ones who feel and understand the effects of neoliberalism most personally and deeply.

 

You raise an interesting point I want to quickly address: why do America’s progressive leaders continue letting the movement down? The answer is threefold, in my opinion:

 

1. We prioritize issue-by-issue litmus tests and don’t vet our candidates primarily by leadership traits (namely, a backbone to go along with integrity).

2. We are habitually demure and obsequious toward power. I attribute this one to our Stockholm syndrome with the oligarchy, dating back to the McCarthyism era at the beginning of the Cold War. There’s also this perception that the movement is still way too small (it’s not, if you follow polls by economic issues), and so we have nothing to gain except humiliation by rocking the political boat. It’s a sentiment that stems from the 1972 McGovern defeat.

3. Neoliberals have perfected the art of co-option among media and political organizations. This is by far the biggest reason. Money and career advancement are their tools of influence.

 

P.S.: I’ve actually been pretty indifferent to Maya Wiley as a candidate and to the NYC mayoral race in general. I only voted for her partly as a favor to left-wing friends of mine and partly for its potential in galvanizing a nationwide progressive movement. Crime took center stage in this election at the expense of so many other equally important issues. And I don’t particularly care for the anti-police rhetoric coming out of the progressive wing these days, nor do I think we’re addressing crime at its fundamental levels if we’re not stridently approaching the problem from a socioeconomic, educational, or family unit perspective.

 

On 6/23/2021 at 11:56 AM, leh-nerd skin-erd said:

Thank you for the thoughts on my pending visit.  My only real concern is the old Bruxy Springs will start yammering on about politics.  I was a concert-going fan back in the day, and have no issues with his politics (though I think he's a hypocrite +/- alot), but I just want to go and enjoy the story with my son.  We'll see.  

 

NYC is a cool place, I'm sure, I'm just more comfortable in other places.  My wife (from White Plains and later, Yorktown) told me after we had been married a few years that she would have loved to live in NYC for a while.  Given a city choice, at that point I would have chosen Boston.  

 

I'm hurt that you think I had to search for intel about the NAE heels.  You think 60 year old conservative men don't know about haute couture and vegan skorts?  You think we can't appreciate the intersection of environmentalism, fun, sass and fashionable footwear?  

In this case you were correct, but I'm hurt nonetheless.  I duck duck'd it--and I applaud your recognition of the marketing ploy.  There's lots of money in saving the planet. 

 

Now, about the party.  I wasn't suggesting you wouldn't be delightful, I was talking about the vegan heels.  It's a metaphor.  Snoozefest. Boring.  Blah blah blah.  Quite the contrary--assuming you are who you represent yourself to be online (my general disclaimer for folks on the line), I'd think you're intelligent, friendly, bold and a person of substance.  I respect that, (I married a woman like that) though i might disagree with your take on things.  To be candid, I don't know if half the information you post is true or not, I'm a pretty simple guy.  I watch behavior and modeling more than anything else. It's why when a poli talks about saving the planet and pollutes the snot out of it, or devises complicated tax schemes that seem a fair bit more redistribution than earth-saving, I tend to tune them out.  I'm all for a smarter, safer, cleaner planet, but personally believe this movement follows the modeling of traditional religion moreso than it does anything else.  

 

My fave party story. I'll ask you to trust me here--one of my skillsets is getting along with folks and finding common ground.  I, like you, might be considered delightful at parties. A number of years ago I was at a friend's house and the vast majority of folks were strangers to me.  We got to talking about N'Orleans, Mayor Nagin Katrina response and folks left in the city.  A lady there was quite vocal about the federal response, how black people were left to die and how it was all W Bush's fault.  I engaged in conversation on that issue--state v federal response and who can do what to whom, and after a few minutes, she lost it.  Total emotional mess.  As she attempted to browbeat me, I responded calmly, and some other folks gathered.  Turns out sweet old Leh-nerd was in a liberal enclave!  I was engaged in multiple conversations, agreeing with some folks, disagreeing with others, and a few became animated, then it became personal with some pointed attacks at me.  Turns put growing up in a house with multiple brothers, with friends who liked to bust chops, and having an affinity for that as well, it didn't bother me.  

 

It all sort of ended when the first lady, in frustration, turned to her husband and pleaded "Why don't you say something to him!".  His response was awesome..."Because he's right.".  

 

I've not been invited back, but that's ok too.   

 

I have no recollection of a 12/3 interaction.  I'll have to double-check that, but let's not forget, we need to tax the rich.  😇

 

Thank you for the response, Leh-nerd. Few mortals can handle my word counts or my Slavic sass. You are among the very few who can. A couple critical points I feel compelled to make:

 

1. I would hope that you don’t (initially) trust ANYTHING I post here! Skepticism is good. I merely offer different perspectives on topics that perhaps you don’t normally consider or experience in your offline life. What you choose to do with my information thereafter is entirely your prerogative. Ideally, I piqued enough curiosity in you that you will actively seek to learn more about whatever subject we were discussing with a more open mind.

2. I don’t particularly care for skorts. I just don’t. Shorts and pants/leggings are to be reserved for athletic activities like jogging, yoga, or the occasional hiking excursion. Skirts and dresses (paired with pantyhose during the non-summer months) are suitable for just about everything else.

[NYC Mayoral Race]

Morning Manhattanite Musings from Comradely Comrade Kay:

 

While others are busy preparing Yang’s eulogy, let’s analyze together the remaining viable three: Kathryn Garcia, Eric Adams, and Maya Wiley.

 

We’ll begin with the most probable ranking for each candidate’s top supporters:

 

Wiley: 1. Wiley, 2. Garcia, 3. Adams

Adams: 1. Adams, 2. Garcia, 3. Wiley

Garcia: 1. Garcia, 2. Wiley, 3. Adams

 

You’ll have a hard time arguing against my first ranking. None of Wiley’s supporters whom I know even had Adams in their official top-5 vote, while many of my female lefty friends did manage to include Garcia in theirs. Some even had her ranked as high as #2! I sometimes forget about the endorsement magic that the NY Times (sadly) still possesses. Plus, Garcia’s environmental/green energy plans for the city are admittedly substantive. Oh yeah, and don’t forget the GRRRL POWER effect!

 

My second ranking may also be tough to argue against because Garcia is politically much closer to Adams than Wiley is to him. However, there could be an important African American solidarity effect in play, fueled by any racially charged fallout from the Adams vs. Garcia+Yang feud. I can’t speculate any further because unfortunately I don’t directly know enough Adams supporters, nor am I particularly dialed in to the political sentiments of NYC’s African American communities.

 

My third ranking gets interesting. I’m making the case for placing Wiley ahead of Adams on the GRRRL POWER effect, though you can make a very valid case for flipping the two names because of the similar political philosophy effect. Keep in mind that there are many more women than men in NYC. Also, keep in mind that Maya “Wily” Wiley has successfully kept a low profile throughout the mayoral race, while Eric “Authoritarian” Adams has been hurling and deflecting one bomb after another since overtaking Yang in the polls. Much of Garcia’s appeal is that she comes across as an innocuous public servant who may be boring on the campaign trail but will be extremely competent on the job. Maya’s (superficially) similar personality profile could be enough to mitigate her far-left associations with AOC (through endorsement) or with de Blasio (through her work experience).

 

QUICK BACK-OF-ENVELOPE ANALYSIS: I’m crunching numbers this morning based on 84% of the top-choice votes having been counted. Adams has about a 97.5k vote lead over Garcia, while Wiley has about a 22k lead over her. For simplicity, let’s give all 62.5k votes from Stringer and Morales to Wiley because they are all progressives. Next, let’s completely ignore Yang’s 93.5k votes for the reason I explained in my previous post. That leaves 56k votes among the remaining 7 candidates which I will all give to the centrist frontrunner, Adams, since it’s looking like the other centrist, Garcia, is going to get eliminated in the penultimate round anyway. So that leaves Adams with a 69k lead over Wiley before Garcia’s 156k vote dispersion. 798.5k votes have been counted out of an estimated total of 950.5k, so that also leaves 152k votes left to count.

 

With an assumption of a 50-50 Garcia vote split to Adams and Wiley, those 152k currently uncounted votes would need to be dispersed in the final round so that Wiley gets a minimum of 110.5k, i.e. ~72.7%. With an assumption of a 50-50 vote split of those 152k uncounted votes, Garcia’s 156k votes would need to be dispersed in the final round so that Wiley gets a minimum of 112.5k, i.e. ~72.1%. Combining the two factors (uncounted votes and Garcia’s votes), Wiley needs at least 188.5k votes or ~61.2%. Can she do it?! Sure, I suppose, but a lot depends on what parts of the city that 16% remaining vote is coming from…as well as having a better understanding of how Garcia voters actually feel about Wiley compared to Adams. Maya will need both of these factors to break her way to a moderate (i.e. ~60%) extent, and I think the chances of that happening are more unlikely than they are likely.

 

CONCLUSION: After the ranked-choice voting tabulation process is completed, I predict that Eric Adams will be the winner. Poop.

 

OBVIOUS ANALYSIS FLAWS: I assumed equal Yang Gang vote dispersion to Wiley and Adams, I assumed that the bottom 9 candidates voted monolithically based on progressive or centrist identification, and I assumed that everyone had at least one of Wiley or Adams in their top-5.

 

On 6/21/2021 at 8:02 AM, leh-nerd skin-erd said:

I don’t know if NYC is falling apart and I certainly wouldn’t blame you if it was.  It’s a rainbow world.   I’ve never been a big fan of NYC, though I’m going to see Springsteen on Broadway next month with my son.  I will say this—any heel that finds itself yapping on about being vegan while polluting Mother Earth on its trip in a cardboard box via container ship from Portugal is no friend of mine, and likely insufferable at a 4th of July party. 
 

Q6: With respect, why did you think #5 was a Q? 

 

Question #5 was typed with tongue firmly in cheek. Sometimes I parody PPP for my own amusement.

 

NYC is amazing and I hope you have a great time with your son! It is its own universe with a seemingly infinite number of unique places to visit and unique people to meet. For this reason, living here can feel overwhelming at times. I can’t even imagine being in charge of running it all, so I wish our new mayor the very best.

 

My NAE heels were purchased at a specialty store whose marketing ploy is that a portion of their proceeds go to reforestation efforts. Same idea behind the Ecosia search engine that I hope you used when looking up the name of my heels and learning they were Portuguese imports…because there is no way you knew that fact beforehand lol… Furthermore, their packaging is entirely recyclable and compostable. My net carbon footprint wears a size 0, Leh-nerd. You can’t spell COmradEkayadams without ECO.

 

By the way, Leh-nerd, I happen to be a lot of fun at July 4 parties. People offline find me delightful. And at least I manage to show up to the parties, unlike others who stay home and get too drunk because they are unwilling to put on a simple sports jacket appropriate for the occasion. I am referring, of course, to the “If Trump loses and refuses to leave” thread on page 7 of this forum and your specific comment near the top of page 127 that you made on 12/3/20. ComradeKayAdams never forgets and rarely forgives.

[Global warming err Climate change HOAX]

On 6/19/2021 at 9:29 AM, Buffalo Timmy said:

Weather eventually equals climate. But I assume you mean crap science that is being quoted below where they argue the water has raised 9 inches, if it had raised 9 inches in 150 years the Florida Keys would look much different, as well as many other areas. If you believe stupid crap like this I can't help you.https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/12/us/hurricanes-climate-change/

 

As for gore and snow here is entire comment:

"And now we’re beginning to see the impact in the real world. This is Mount Kilimanjaro more than 30 years ago, and more recently. And a friend of mine just came back from Kilimanjaro with a picture he took a couple of months ago. Another friend of mine Lonnie Thompson studies glaciers. Here’s Lonnie with a sliver of a once mighty glacier. Within the decade there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro.”  -Algore, “An Inconvenient Truth” (2006)

 

Of course 2018 had more snow on Kilimanjaro than in recorded history. We also would be in the hockey stick part of the graph if he was right based on the amount of pollution from China and India if he was correct. 

 

Lastly there are no peer reviewed articles because the data is controlled, we know all the data prior to 2005ish was questionable and the raw data is gone. If you only question the data that disagrees with you then you are not a scientist, and most of these guys are trying to prove their point 

 

I’m not familiar with Florida Keys topography, but I absolutely do believe in the accuracy of global sea level data from the past 150 years. We have multiple ways of verification, including landmass deformations and tide gauges and, most recently, satellites. The different methods applied at different locations all point to the same conclusion with relatively minor numerical deviation. You at least appear to be more confident in the data since about 2005, all of which indicate global sea levels having risen between 50-65 millimeters (1.9-2.6 inches) over the past 15 or so years. Oceanographers, civil engineers, the U.S. Navy, and people who live and work along coasts don’t disagree with those numbers. Many lives and careers depend on such data being accurate and uncorrupted.

 

Your second-to-last sentence is very telling and is unfortunately where I sensed this discussion was headed. Healthy climate change skepticism in this country has devolved into a logically unfalsifiable conspiracy theory. Instead of constantly demeaning climatologists from afar, please try conversing with some so that you may have your scientific concerns properly addressed.

[NYC Mayoral Race]

Kay’s little birds* were fluttering in the five boroughs over the weekend! They’re all telling me the same thing: the progressive consolidation around Maya Wiley is happening at light speed…conventional social democrats (think: AOC supporters), DSA-style socialist types (think: Julia Salazar’s crew), progressive-light Democrats (think: Cynthia Nixon types), Democratic Party-distrusting social democrat purists (think: someone like a Zephyr Teachout or a ComradeKayAdams), and even some confused neoliberals (think: Kirsten Gillibrand fans).

 

Remember that tomorrow is the first time NYC is using ranked-choice voting! We get to choose our top 5 from the 13 possible candidates. No one can win with a plurality. At each round of elimination, the top votes for the least popular candidate disperse to their next-highest choices as that least popular candidate’s name is removed. This process continues until one of the candidates achieves an absolute majority. It’s entirely possible that someone’s vote won’t count in subsequent rounds if all five of their choices get eliminated, so there is a bit of strategy involved with ranked-choice voting! For example, if you REALLY despise anyone who uses the surname of Adams (how could you?!?!), then you might want to reserve your 4th and/or 5th ranked choices for someone you think will be much more likely to last until the end, such as a Garcia or a Yang.

 

Ranked-choice voting probably ends up hurting Wiley’s chances because now a centrist vote won’t dissipate among Adams, Yang, and Garcia. A lot depends on where Wiley may be positioned in the top-5 rankings of Yang Gang bangers and Garcia fans. I don’t know much about Garcia’s #1 supporters, but some of them may have Wiley ranked higher than Yang or Adams because of the opportunity to elect the first female NYC mayor. I have a few Yang Gang birdies* whose insights seem to suggest that the 2nd-5th ranked votes of Yang’s supporters will be all over the place and, therefore, likely won’t play a deciding role in any final round(s). The extremely crucial Latino vote is up in the air, too, but my little birdies* in Brooklyn seem confident that they will follow AOC and Julia Salazar toward Maya Wiley. I am much less confident in their confidence, but we shall see…

 

Q & A with Comrade Kay:

 

1-Q. PPP Community: “Hi, Kay. So who do you think will win tomorrow?”

1-A. Me: “I’ll answer that in probabilities: 55% chance for Eric Adams, 25% chance for Maya Wiley, 10% for Kathryn Garcia, 9% for Andrew Yang, and 1% for any of the others.”

 

2-Q. PPP Community: “Who are your personal top 5 for tomorrow, Kay?”

2-A. Me: “I’m going with what I think should be a fairly standard left-wing solidarity approach: Wiley, Stringer, Morales, Yang, and Garcia in that order.”

 

3-Q. PPP Community: “Didn’t you renounce the Democratic Party last March, Kay?! What are you doing participating in this primary?”

3-A. Me: “I’m technically still registered as a Democrat and will continue participating in Democratic Party activities if I feel it could help advance the overall progressive movement in some way. However, I harbor no delusions that elected Democrats will uphold loyalties to policy promises over party. Also, this policy loyalty issue does tend to be less of a problem at the local level compared to the national one. I normally vote for Green Party candidates whenever possible and am transitioning to Nick Brana’s People’s Party.”

 

4-Q. PPP Community: “What might Mademoiselle Adamski be wearing tomorrow to commemorate her first ever participation in a ranked-choice U.S. election??”

4-A. Me: “Excellent question! A green blazer dress, NAE Bella d’Orsay heels, and of course my Buffalo Sabres hat. The green symbolizes my political eco-consciousness, the heels my vegan activism, and the hat my pride for my Upstate NY homeland.”

 

5-Q. PPP Community: “Smug far-left idiots like you are why NYC is falling apart.”

5-A. Me: “That was a declarative statement, not a question. And go ^&^% yourself, you stupid #@^&%ing #$(!~&^hole. Suck my #%&#& you #$^%face right-wing poop%#(@~.”

 

* - a lovely Game of Thrones reference!

[Global warming err Climate change HOAX]

58 minutes ago, Buffalo Timmy said:

So he was totally and  completely wrong on the two things I remembered. Your argument is that I am right but some caveat that is trying to save face. He predicted much less snow, which has not happened and he predicted more hurricanes right before the longest period of no hurricanes in US history, almost as dumb as giving a speech on global warming in NYC on the coldest day in the city history, which he also did. 

 

WTF?!?!

 

1. Hurricanes overall HAVE become more numerous and stronger since 2006, according to NOAA, The Earth Institute at Columbia, NASA, and pretty much every credible climate scientist on this planet. I never argued otherwise. You cherry-picked your data and I explicitly told you how you did so to reach an incorrect logical conclusion.

 

2. Al Gore did NOT predict “much less snow” for the planet, if that is your intimation. He made a single sloppy literary reference for a single mountain peak. You fixate on this one technicality that he got wrong, but then you fail to address the broader intended point of shrinking alpine glaciers around the world. Why is that?? Hmmm…

 

You also very conveniently choose to not address EVERYTHING ELSE that Al Gore covered in his documentary. Why is that?? You claimed that he basically got everything wrong, but then you don’t back that assertion up with ANY data references. BACK UP YOUR CLAIMS WITH PEER-REVIEWED RESEARCH PAPERS.

 

Oh, and then you concluded your post with a classic “weather = climate” fallacy. Impressive.

[Critical Race Theory]

8 hours ago, Capco said:

So we shouldn't be teaching evolution and general relativity because they are theories?  

 

Hi, Capco! Good to see you here again!

 

Small clarification: critical race theory shouldn’t be lumped in with theories like evolution and general relativity. The latter are essentially natural science “facts” that always pass tests of scientific inquiry within very broad domains. CRT is more of a narration that doesn’t go through the same rigorous analyses as do other ideas from the social sciences.

 

Personally, I’m not a fan of formally teaching CRT for the reason above and also because it ends up being way too divisive, and thus counterproductive, in practice. It should be enough to simply remind children in civics class that the American law and order system is often not applied equally among different races (especially regarding the drug war!), and that we should all aspire to make it so when we become adults…beginning with NOT electing a guy who helped write the 1994 Crime Law…

 

From a political strategy point of view, topics like CRT distract us from the necessary war we need to wage against neoliberalism and American imperialism. The corporate oligarchic establishment loves culture war issues like these because they help prevent the working class on both political sides (whites on the right, minorities on the left) from unifying. A politically united working class, after all, threatens their power structures. Jeff Bezos loves seeing my fellow comrades argue over our proper use of gender pronouns as he continues evading tax payments, purchasing the Fourth Estate, and forcing his Amazon warehouse peons to subsist on food stamps.

[Global warming err Climate change HOAX]

On 6/17/2021 at 8:04 AM, Buffalo Timmy said:

Kay remember when he said no more snow? Or that hurricanes were part of global warming and then we had a record long time without hurricanes in the USA? He got one small part "right" assuming the data is not manipulated again. I will believe it is correct when the data is opened up to those whose openly disagree.

 

Ok, I haven’t seen the documentary since middle school and I don’t feel like watching it again lol... So instead, I ran a word search of “snow” and “hurricane” on a full PDF transcript of “An Inconvenient Truth.”

 

The only snow-related prediction Al Gore made was that “within the decade there will be no more snows of Kilimanjaro.” I assume this was intended to be a cutesy reference to the Ernest Hemingway story? It’s actually the glaciers we care most about, and they are most definitely shrinking near Kilimanjaro’s summit. How much these specific changes are connected to global warming is very debatable, but the general shrinking of glaciers around the world is indisputable and fully in accordance with global warming predictions.

 

Al Gore never made any official predictions of hurricanes in his documentary, aside from general allusions to them getting stronger and more frequent over time. But this is also indisputable, according to the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). You referenced the specific drought of no Category 3+ hurricanes striking the U.S. between 2005 (Wilma) and 2017 (Harvey), but that is a bit misleading because it ignores data like major hurricanes that struck other locations during that time, the severity of hurricane seasons since Harvey, and total number of hurricanes…not to mention financial damage and death tolls. This is somewhat analogous to the “weather versus climate” debate when it comes to data selectivity. But in all honesty, hurricane monitoring is a much less certain metric for global warming compared to the other ones, due to the nature of ocean currents.

 

I have no idea where you’re going with the data fabrication accusations. If this is a reference to the November 2009 Climategate controversy, it was debunked years ago. Climate science is no different with their data transparency than any of the other natural science subfields. It is practically impossible for science to maintain a grand operation of willful systemic data fabrication. The profession has way too many built-in mechanisms of checks and balances, especially on the international arena.

On 6/17/2021 at 8:11 AM, All_Pro_Bills said:

Well there are really two separate issues going on.  The first is the "need" to lower greenhouse gas emissions to manage global temperature changes.  The second is the "need" to replace hydrocarbon based energy sources when the cheap and easy to find oil supply starts to run out.   The solution to replace oil and gas with electricity is a convenient and handy answer to both questions. 

But that leads to another issue which is the objective of electrifying all applications of hydrocarbon produced energy in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining the currently living arrangements, growth trajectories, and continuous increases in energy consumption required to support that growth (not even to mention advances in developing nations) is a pipe dream and a dead end.  There is no way this is going to happen through the deployment of solar panels and wind turbines.  The resources necessary don't exist on the planet or reside in countries or regions where there is resistance to developing them.  The capital expenditures will exceed current estimates by many multiples.  And our society and population are not at all equipped or ready to handle the radical changes to lifestyles and living conditions that will result.  And counting on some yet to be developed technological breakthrough in energy production isn't much of a strategy either.  The oil age provided a one-time bump in growth through a very efficient and cost effective means of producing large amounts energy and driving growth and progress but  once its gone the human race will revert to trend unless something is found that produces more energy more efficiently and at less cost.  Wind and solar and other renewables at current efficiencies at current cost just won't cut it.  We need to stop fooling ourselves and work to find an effective long term solution.

 

I still believe the U.S. can do its part in meeting the 2050 Paris Agreement goals without adversely affecting our economy. Doing so, however, will require more vigorous investments in nuclear energy and reforestation than we’re currently seeing from Biden. Advancements with carbon capture technology are simply moving way too slowly, as are positive changes within major greenhouse gas-polluting industries like agriculture and aviation.

 

In my opinion, our ideal composite energy solution should be centered around nuclear and solar, as well as electric vehicles. Bear in mind that I did not whimsically reach this conclusion! All energy resources have benefits and drawbacks, of course, but prioritizing these three would be the most optimal from the perspective of energy production versus risks of environmental degradation.

 

A note on electric vehicles: lithium-ion batteries are already more “green” than conventional fossil fuels, in overall terms of usage plus resource extraction. We can render them more friendly to the environment by working with several South American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile) and making sure suitable government regulations are imposed on brine deposit mining. I also like the progress that scientists and engineers are making on viable battery material alternatives to lithium, which is why I’m so sanguine about electrical cars.

[Global warming err Climate change HOAX]

On 6/15/2021 at 11:52 AM, Buffalo Timmy said:

If we have already tipped then what is point of trying to stop it? We can't do anything so just enjoy time here. Unless of course this is a lie to scare people.

 

There are multiple irreversible tipping points in the evolution of global warming. The article is highlighting one of the earliest that could be expected to go. Passing through one tipping point does not mean we shouldn’t try to avoid the others. As damaging as the loss of summer Arctic ice coverage would be, something like permafrost thawing in the Northern Hemisphere would be much more devastating to future generations. Because we’re dealing with feedback control systems that proceed nonlinearly and that could trigger cascading positive feedback loops, I don’t have a problem with the alarmist tones in the article.

 

On 6/15/2021 at 9:06 PM, Buffalo Timmy said:

I asked this in the Biden as green president thread- what from "A inconvenient Truth" that was predicted has happened? At worst you can say it is 5% of what was predicted

 

What specific climate change metrics (surface temps, ice sheet sizes, glacier sizes, snow cover, sea level rise, ocean temps, ocean acidification levels, various extreme weather events, etc.) did Al Gore get wrong? Can you state his erroneous claims verbatim from the documentary and then provide the numbers from peer-reviewed research papers that contradict his claims? I’ll spot you the Mount Kilimanjaro glacier example, though Gore could have used plenty of other glaciers to make his point.

 

It has honestly been a very long time since I saw the film, so I should probably watch it again over July 4 weekend to judge how well it has aged. But when critiquing the documentary’s veracity, we need to be mindful of distinctions between worst-case scenarios and expected ones. We also need to be cognizant of the fact that only 15 years have passed. Hey, at least Al Gore covered the thermohaline circulation science better than “The Day After Tomorrow” lol…

 

23 hours ago, Buffalo Timmy said:

I have watched it and Fahrenheit 911 to try and understand what the viewpoint was based on. F911 was garbage propaganda, it would wrap sleazy innuendo with slightly related facts and then draw a conclusion that always made Bush look the worse possible.

An Inconvenient Truth was not as bad as propaganda to me because I think most of the scientists believe it but they are simply not great at their jobs. They drew conclusions based on incomplete data sets but thought they were complete.

 

Which data sets are you determining to be incomplete? How are they incomplete? What should climate scientists do to assemble more complete data?

 

22 hours ago, All_Pro_Bills said:

Is what's happening climate change or climate cycles?  After all the Earth was a lot warmer and lot colder at various times in many cycles for billions of years.  Without any humans around.  715 million years ago the entire Earth was covered by ice.  About 100 million years ago the Mid-West US was an inland sea.  Then cooler, then warmer, then cooler.  The last ice age ended about 12,500 years ago.  CO2 concentration is now a bit over .04% of the atmosphere.  What about the other 99.96%?  Does that have any impact?  Seems not as CO2 is all that matters.  

 

And what about water and air pollution?  Misuse and mismanagement of land?  Respect for the habitat of other species?  The alarming extinction rate of animals on the planet?  Destruction of coral reefs and the pollution of the oceans?  Over-fishing of the oceans?  All kinds of stuff that "environmentalists" appear to have forgotten about while chasing big grants and paychecks for "green" energy.  But that's what happens when political ideologists take over the cause.  

 

A few quick responses:

 

1. All known major non-anthropogenic climate change factors have been isolated and ruled out with rigorous data processing techniques. Atmospheric carbon rose ~31ppm from 1988 (the year of James Hansen’s Senate testimony) to 2006 (the release of Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”) and then an additional ~37ppm up to now. Simultaneously, mean Earth surface temperature rose ~0.33 degrees Celsius from 1988 to 2006 and then an additional ~0.39 degrees Celsius up to now. If anyone has a better explanation for this correlation, please cite the research paper you are referencing or tell us your novel hypothesis!

2. Water, methane, ozone, sulfur dioxide, and nitrous oxide are the other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere besides carbon dioxide. The methane also oxidizes into carbon dioxide over time, a lesser-known scientific fact that proponents of the fracking industry like to omit! The other ~99% of stuff in the atmosphere (mostly nitrogen and oxygen) does not contribute at all to global warming.

3. Most climate scientists and many green energy engineers are active members of and financial contributors to all sorts of environmental conservation organizations.