Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
I’ve opened a new “Sandbox” thread as a post as the new “ignore commenter” plug-in only works on threads started as posts.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/heads-win-tails-lose-americas-090010695.html
Sorry Americans, no one is there to save you. Make room for more homeless camps.
An Irish View
The Irish, and particularly Fintan O’Toole, have been a beacon of sanity over the last few years. Unfortunately it’s subscriber only. I have seen a text dump, but don’t wish to undermine copyright by posting it in full.
Allan Miller,
I think this is true. The republicans have always sold themselves as protectors of freedom and limited government, and individual rights. They can sell this baloney because their base is mostly clueless saps. They love government control, they are the architects of the surveillance state.
It is a lot easier to sell policies to people who are loathe to deep thought. They just like slogans.
phoodoo,
It raises interesting contradictions with the respective roles of religion and science in Republican thought, too, with some apparent cognitive dissonance on both sides. It’s not just a suspicion of the state that has been played on, but a suspicion of science. Populism gains authority by sowing suspicion of authority.
Quite astonishing to find that not all Christians are arch-Capitalists. Funny how most, if not all, evangelicals tout the US Constitution as if something God-given, and consider any sign of weakening the Second Amendment or the tax-exempt status of churches or the homeschooling as if from the Devil.
Why is Jesus’ and the apostles’ example completely forgotten when it comes to politics? Jesus said “Render unto Caesar” certainly implying that, even if God comes first, do not whine about whatever obstacles there are on the way of rendering unto God.
Not freedom and individual rights, as protectors of certain rights and certain freedoms. Conformism and unfettered capitalism. Everything else is a corruption of divinely sanctioned Manifest Destiny.
Certainly they are when it comes to their own best interests, they believe once the undeserving are eliminated ,manna will fall from the heavens, they just need to send any money they can spare and support to those who do the “Lord’s Work of Making America Great Again”.
If the the proper people are doing the surveillance, but surveillance is power and that transcends republicanism . We are willing to surrender privacy for convenience or safety. We are all clueless saps at times.
Even better is to convince people they are having deep thoughts ,have access to some secret knowledge.
A Louisiana pastor, who is under house arrest after allegedly threatening to run over a man protesting his ongoing church services, was back in the pulpit on Sunday, yet again defying his state’s stay-at-home order.
“There should be nobody scared right now but the devil,” he said to loud applause. “Don’t let a man run by himself. The chains that used to bind me, they’re not gonna bind me no more!”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/tony-spell-church-service-ankle-monitor_n_5ea5c9bcc5b6b0c47fc7e643
“ Louisiana pastor Tony Spell defied stay-at-home orders to hold in-person services. Now, he wants congregants to donate their stimulus checks to churches.“
https://www.insider.com/tony-spell-asks-congregants-donate-stimulus-checks-churches-2020-4
So far only $ 3,500 in his GoFundMe fundraiser,
I have seen the whole thing. Yes, it was good.
I guess somebody was willing to ignore copyright. But it is in a private forum, so I cannot give a link.
J-mac asked if viruses are dead or alive. The question of the hour however is:
Las Vegas Odds makers on Kim Jong Un Successor.
former Senate Majority leader Reid says Pentagon UFO report only scratches the surface:
https://www.newsmax.com/thewire/harry-reid-pentagon-ufos/2020/04/28/id/964999/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=mixi&utm_campaign=newsmax
If we assume constant speed of light (which I don’t assume, but for the sake of argument), aliens from another galaxy would be en-route for 2 billion years. Not likely. Worm Holes are a fictitious solution, my professor of General Relativity pointed out Worm Holes would imply negative mass (not likely)….
Soo, the UFOs are likely some other phenomenon that space aliens.
So, to be clear, you’ve come to the conclusion that UFO’s are not space aliens because something you don’t believe shows that they would be travelling for 2 billion years?
So, something you don’t believe shows that something else is actually false?
So, if we assume the speed of light is not constant, as you believe and have stated many times (you even had a forum called Young Cosmos where you set out the ‘evidence’ for your case: https://web.archive.org/web/20090130100411/http://youngcosmos.com/ )
then it’s clear these are much more likely to be UFOs.
Nobody is interested in your opinions in what you don’t believe. Starting from the point of view that the cosmos is actually young, are these more or less likely to be actual UFO Aliens Sal?
It’s like even they know it’s nonsense at some level. If that point of view had value Sal’s default would not be the consensus view. Sal would be rubbing it in everybody’s face that this new fact X is better explained by the cosmos being young then old. And yet Sal’s go-to is to argue from a position he believes is false in order to come up with his desired conclusion.
Very, very confused thinking.
I’m not Catholic, but I like this performance by Ms. Helene Fischer:
https://youtu.be/4J1170l4sZE
Great news:
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/wealthiest-americans-raking-in-billions-from-coronavirus-pandemic-report-182111832.html
Glad someone is flourishing. Maybe they will give 2% to charity! I am sure their kids schools could use some help.
For petrushka:
In my county of about 500,000 people, there are now 53 death.
With a rule of thumb 1-2% fatality rate from all causes pre-Covid19, we would have had 5,000-10,000 die anyway in 2020. Though we mourn the loss of 53 souls, in the statistical sense, this is not armageddon by any stretch of the imagination. There are about 3,000 confirmed cases, so a confirmed infection proportion of about 0.6%. If we guestimate the real number of infections being 10 to 20 times the confirmed proportion, that equates to an infection proportion of 6-12%.
We’re still under lockdown, but it really doesn’t look like a lockdown in my town. Traffic is heavy, and Home Depot is packed every day!
Credible reports that Kim Jung Un is alive.
However, there has been a marked decrease in incidence of Elvis sightings.
stcordova,
Don’t forget the perils of exponentiation, and the fact that many more suffer than die. It’s not Armageddon, but nor is it a walk in the park.
stcordova,
Which country, Sal? Not the US, obviously, but doesn’t tally with the Philippines either.
Alan Fox,
He did say “county” rather than “country”. I assume it is somewhere in the USA.
Neil Rickert,
My mistake. Thanks Neil and sorry never mind to Sal.
I don’t believe this for a second. Its fake news.
He was just trying to feel Ivanka up.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-instilled-competitive-nature-kids-160853221.html
phoodoo,
😂
This is the county in question. The numbers have changed:
https://patch.com/virginia/manassas/prince-william-county-coronavirus-update-3-181-cases-65-deaths
The population is about half a million.
dazz,
Is that child real – or photoshopped? 😱
Alan Fox,
It’s a deepfake 😅
dazz,
Well, I can’t see the join! It is scarily funny, though.
Not that I’m deep into chess, but this was Bobby Fischer’s (at age 13) famous play where he deliberately sacrificed his queen (black) by moving his bishop (black) and eventually beat a grand master (white)!
The explanation is in this video:
Watch Corey Booker on Stephen Colbert, (President of his class at Stanford, Rhodes Scholar, lawyer, Senator…) and tell me how he is not the Democratic nominee for President.
One might say the same of Elizabeth Warren, or Kamala Harris. I did.
However, I reckon that the primary voters took the (overly narrow) view that they needed to pick the candidate who would do best at reclaiming the voters that they lost to Trump in 2016.
So brown skin or lack of a Y chromosome are disqualifying: they needed a nice, nonthreatening, centrist white male.
Too few people voted for him in the primaries.
Neil Rickert,
Well, regardless of the facetiousness of the reply, part of the problem is the nature of primaries. You have votes divided up between so many different candidates, that it is hard for the newcomers to grab a majority. So many of the voters who might have been spread out over Buttigieg, Warren, Harris, Yang, etc.. If it came down to just one choice would all be probably just as happy to have Booker.
Biden got his block, because like Jock said, a certain percent were just looking for the safe bet, so old, tried and tested seemed easiest. But again, virtually none of those voters would be unhappy having Booker. The process throws weight early to the guy with name recognition, but it doesn’t mean that is the most universally liked one. Its the same thing that happened with Hillary. She was also the most disliked.
Do you have any good alternatives.
At one time, the process was more tightly controlled by the party. We have the current system because of pressure to open it up. And we still see people complaining that it is too tightly controlled by the party.
Neil Rickert,
I think the intention of the primary should be to find the most universally liked candidate across a broad spectrum, not the one most liked, because the most liked can also be the most hated. So even though it might be a little more difficult, I would like to see a ranking system. Voters could vote not only on their first choice, but also could select candidates that would accept and candidates that they would oppose. In that way, the person who appeals to the broadest range of voters would win, not the most polarizing candidate. If for example Biden got the most selected voters but also got the most opposed votes then he would have to concede to the guy who rolls higher from both ends of the electorate. If nobody said they disliked a Booker, even if he wasn’t their number one choice, he would get a higher accumulative rating. Because after all that is who you want running in the general election.
I would also like a ranking system. Biden would probably do well with such a system.
What I see as the bigger problem, is that our elections are long and drawn out. They are too expensive (because they are long and drawn out). And, partly because of this, they are too much affected by TV advertising.
Neil Rickert,
I am not so sure how well Biden would have faired in a ranking system compared to some of the younger candidates. I am sure Hillary would not have done well in such a system. She was the most disliked amongst those who didn’t vote for her in the primary.
I can imagine the type of democrats who might not like Sanders or even Warren very much (and Biden) . I have a hard time thinking of many voters who would say they dislike Booker. I doubt there are even many republicans who would say they hate him.
phoodoo,
In a ranked system, Biden would be the second choice of most people. Joe is very much liked, but not the top preference of many.
It’s hard to say with Hillary. She was not much liked. But there were only poor choices in 2016. Perhaps a ranked voting system would have resulted in better choices.
Neil Rickert,
I somewhat disagree. I think your Hillary comments hurt your case. She was far and away the most hated candidate of the democrats who didn’t vote for her. I don’t think there has been any democratic nominee more disliked than her in recent history. Even to this day, she is extensively derided by many liberals.
As far as Biden, I think if you take all of the supporters of people like Harris, Buttigieg, Warren, Yang, Castro, Williamson, O’Rourke, Booker, Gillibrand, DeBlasio…I think their next choices would be someone else in that contingent. I don’t think their next choice would be to jump to Biden. People who voted for them are looking for something new. And the Sanders people, there is no way their next choice is Biden. That’s a lot of people.
Neil Rickert,
In fact, I think if you look at it realistically, Biden got the votes as the “safe” candidate. But that pretty much means everyone who didn’t vote for him didn’t want the “safe” candidate. Because he was the obvious one for those who were looking for that. If you voted for pretty much ANY one else, you were not looking for the safe candidate, you were looking for someone new. So why would the ones who didn’t vote for the safe guy, next choose the safe guy? I think that doesn’t really make sense.
phoodoo,
Personal experience.
I was in a university mathematics department. They decided to switch to a ranked voting system for the department advisory committee. It was roughly based on the Australian electoral system.
At the next election — I think it was for 5 members — three of the five elected were the “safe choices”. The other two were department stars.
The department switched back to the old voting system after this, because they did not like the result.
Neil Rickert,
Yea, but the thing is, the purpose of the primary (at least in this era) is to find the person who will win your ticket against the republican, or other party. By having the most “universal” candidate, your increase your chances of winning a lot. Hillary was not universal at all, and that is how she lost. Her unfavorablility rating was probably just as high or higher than her favorability rating.
I know a mathematician who is an expert on ranked voting systems. He told me this story: once the faculty members in his department was voting on the members of an important committee. They didn’t like the slate they picked, so someone suggested they do the vote again using a ranked voting system. My friend FRM suggested one. They voted again and got a completely different slate. Someone suggested that this was not the only possible ranked system, so FRM suggested a different ranked voting system, they voted again, and got a result completely different outcome. After another attempt or two, they simply stopped listening to FRM. Moral: there is no such thing as “the” ranked voting system.
Joe Felsenstein,
You don’t start with the formula, you start with the objective; To find the most universal, least disliked candidate. You then model the system around that objective, not the other way around.
Wishful thinking.
If there are, say, 200 million voters then you start with 200 million different objectives. There is no such thing as “the objective.”
That’s nonsensical. We already know the objective of Presidential primaries. Its the method of achieving that under discussion.
Do we now? I suppose if you had to list your objectives in terms of importance, you’d put electability at the top, because if that candidate is not elected, no other qualities matter. But what makes a candidate more electable? Is it experience in government (and it so, should it be legislative or executive experience)? Should it be demonstrated ability to form and keep a qualified and effective team? Should it be a widely-approved platform of policies and proposals?
In practice, it’s the ability to win primaries. And what does this require? Probably the most important factor is money, followed by name recognition. We see people emerging from the initial pack of candidates because they’ve been known quantities for years (Biden, Sanders), or because they’ve become famous through other media (Reagan was an actor, Trump a reality TV personality). Conversely, highly competent wonks like Hillary or Warren come across as shrill and brittle. Likability is worth more than gold.
It’s been noted often enough that the ability to win elections is unrelated to the ability to govern – these are distinctly different abilities rarely both found in the same person. I doubt most of those who worship Trump would go anywhere near him if they were presented with his record and policies but didn’t know whose those were. Polls back in 2016 showed that Hillary’s platform, considered in a vacuum, was overwhelmingly approved by the voting public of both parties. Attach that platform to an actual person, and you get something very different. Why was Hillary hated by so many, who really knew nothing of her record or platform and didn’t care? Why is Trump worshiped by so many equally ignorant? These intangibles are what wins and loses elections.
I’m sure Booker is a good choice, I’d have no problem supporting him, but this election is not FOR any candidate, this election is a referendum on Trump. That’s generally true when incumbent Presidents are running for a second term. So people aren’t looking to experiment with an unknown (Hickenlooper? Bennet? Booker? Gillibrand? To quote Butch Cassidy, who ARE these guys?) Most voters not under Trump’s spell of lies and false narratives understand the nation would be better off electing their neighbor’s dog.
In another four years, some of that pack of hopefuls will be remembered. Yang, Buttigieg, Klobuchar, Harris made good showings, and that will give them a leg up in name recognition and donor appeal.
Wonderful wishing thinking, phoodoo.
You assert that the objective in the primaries is “To find the most universal, least disliked candidate.”, because ” By having the most “universal” candidate, your increase your chances of winning a lot.”.
I too wish that that were true. But it isn’t.
Presidential electoral calculus is more complicated than that. The vast majority of voters do not matter, so “universal” appeal is not germane.
You also seem to think that any alternative voting scheme would have assured Corey Booker’s nomination.
Two problems with that assertion: 1. as others have pointed out, there are a variety of voting systems, each with their own problems. They are likely to produce different results.
2. “One might say the same of Elizabeth Warren, or Kamala Harris.”
Everybody likes to think that their preferred candidate would have secured the nomination, if not for [insert nefarious skull-duggery here]. Bernie supporters had a point, four years ago.
That’s phoodoo’s objective. It isn’t “the objective”.
Maybe phoodoo is finding it hard to be objective about objectives.
DNA_Jock,
Oh Bullshit. It has nothing to do with “my” candidate. You had maybe 12-15 candidates who held similar appeal to many voters. You then had one candidate who had appeal to one segment of the voters-so he got all of that segment, while the other 15 split votes amongst a larger pool of voters. So you end up with a candidate that is popular (even that is doubtful-its more like tolerable) among maybe only 20-30% of the democratic party. That is not a good system.
If you asked how many voters “love” Biden you might get zero yeses. I would love to see a poll which asked, who would you rather have as President, Biden or Harris? Or who would you rather have as President, Biden or Booker? Or who would you rather have as President Biden or Yang? I bet you Biden loses in any of those one-to-one comparisons.