"Where liberty dwells, there is my country." Benjamin Franklin
We are at the start of a new year again. For all out there who are struggling to find their way in an uncertain world, remember, never give up your dreams.
Oh, no, the 60 Minutes one doesn't work. They took that down. That actually appeared to be something that was cut from the show that finally aired on 60 Minutes. Perhaps they felt the last interview was too explicit about the feelings of civilians in Aleppo, suggesting that there will be problems in the future with revenge seeking against Assad or the Russians.
Most of the YouTube videos you run across regarding the White Helmets appear to be negative. Something put up by RT TV or others that toe the Russian or Syrian government party line.
I see; I hadn't bothered trying that one as I'd seen parts of the original 60 Minutes episode; saw the end half anyway. Didn't think of it when you said the link was dead.
So, is it just me or is Trump getting weirder and weirder? Now he claims to have inside information about the hacking that took place during the election and will reveal it either Tuesday or Wednesday.
Perhaps he's just doing a little early experimenting to discover just how gullible his Trumpkins really are. That could prove to be useful and valuable information when he finally does have the power to capitalize on his new position and authorities.
Maybe not as gullible as he, or others, believe. I listened to one woman who lives in an area that has been hurt deeply from the disappearance of coal mining jobs, and that has actually benefited from ObamaCare. If Trump doesn't deliver on the jobs he promised and his actions on the Affordable Care Act don't deliver something in its place, then she told the interviewer that he will be history come next election, if she has anything to say about it.
It seems that Daesh isn't going to go quietly into that good night. They are claiming responsibility for the night club shootings in Istanbul.
On an odd aside about the Middle East, the Kurds seem to be ardent supporters of Donald Trump. To the extent that they are naming babies and businesses after him. There is now a business "Trump Fish" out there. Hmmm....okay I'm not going to say it.
Yesterday I spent all day de-Christmasing the house. So today, which I, like so many others, have off, am going to hopefully get some reading time in. I started that Friedman book and another fiction book someone gave me for Christmas.
"On an odd aside about the Middle East, the Kurds seem to be ardent supporters of Donald Trump."
That would be the result of his repeated promises to wipe out Da‘esh by any means necessary excepting ones that'll require money or troops or real involvement (I don't think the rank and file Kurds were brought fully up to speed on the ‘excepting’ part). They shall be disabused of their ardor soon ‘nuff. Trump wants to make nice for Putin; Putin wants something to trade to Erdoğan; Erdoğan wants the Kurds crushed. The Kurds shall be disabused of their ardor for Trump soon ‘nuff.
Happy New Year y'all. (Hmmm... Lee oughta be happy -- it's a plural usage for once. Of course I'm not suggestin' Lee knows anything about the proper usage -- contrary to Marcus's odd assumption that ole' Lee is an Appalachian hillbilly, his whole state ain't got a hill as high as the pretend mountains I can see from my window, and most of it is pancake flat farmland).
[Lynnette]: "Yesterday I spent all day de-Christmasing the house."
I've found the best way to do that is by not en-Christmasing it in the first place. I know I should be trying to keep the Christ in Christmas now that Trump is trying to put the nuke back in Hannukah, but I feel strangely pagan at this time of year. I celebrate December 10th when the sunset stops getting earlier. Today I am celebrating Earth's closest approach to the Sun (which, in combination with Kepler's Laws, explains why the sunset has been getting later since well before the solstice). I reckon anyone living above the fiftieth parallel has it in their genes to keep an eye on the sky in winter, just to confirm that ole' Sol really is comin' back! ;-)
Catchups from the previous thread:
[Marcus]: "Leave it to a faggot Jew to tell the truth as it is... Milo has two shields, he's a jew and he's gay. Therefore he's given more leeway to talk at Universities."
Uh... Milo may be as gay as the 1890s but he certainly ain't Jewish. We get to claim him as one of our Catholic own, god help us. Beyond his American campus escapades you will find him defending the Catholic church as a bulwark of scientific rationalism, being anti-abortion from the moment of conception, and various other orthodoxies that perhaps are not so common in one so ... well, gay. I can't help liking the guy myself, in spite of him being a self-acknowledged self-promoting publicity whore. On the use of the 'F' word, I don't like it even when self-applied by Milo, any more than I like black people using the 'N' word. There are too many "oppressed" groups setting themselves up as language fascists these days. Anything that is derogatory for one is derogatory for all.
[Lee]: "@ Lynnette: PBS's Frontline tonight, two hours; title ‘Exodus’; description: New, 12/27/2016, Investigative, Documentary, Politics, Public Affairs, Social Topic; Refugees and migrants reveal their harrowing stories of escape and survival...Marcus would not be pleased."
He's probably pleased not to be dependent on PBS, that's for sure. I'd forgotten how you Yanks are living in a bargain basement third world of documentary TV. The PBS definition of "New" seems to be: "we waited until the program was on worldwide release for tuppence ha'penny and then we did a week of grovelling fund raiser TV until we could afford it". That Exodus program was shot in 2015 and aired on the BBC in early July last year.
[Lee]: "I do not understand Trump's pretense that the Russians weren't ‘on his side’, as it were, in the Presidential elections. All he has to do is say, ‘So what, I was winning anyway, it made no difference; I owe Putin nothing,’ and his supporters have a line they could defend with a straight face."
Ah yes, the ole' "when did you stop beating your wife" tactic. You want the Trumpkins to admit the election was subverted before they are allowed to claim they won it fair and square. Yeah, whatever. When you gonna realise that it didn't need the Russkis to reveal that Hillary had shot both her own legs off with a giant bazooka? Even if she'd gotten away with cheating Sanders out of the DNC nomination, there's all the other sleazeball stuff!
[Lee]: "On another topic: Petes used to want to give me shit for suggesting that Einstein had made an obvious error in his original paper on Special Relativity (obvious enough that even a tyro like me could spot it). He ranted on that way past the point anybody cared to hear it, came in next on his rant list to his consistently failed rants on the Maronites. Rather more learned people in the field spot more than just the one. This guy claims to know of four. Well, only two in the original paper; two more arising from just being stubborn about it. (Being stubborn about it reminds me of Petes, so he's not entirely alone there; Einstein could be considered decent company if ya gotta be wrong with somebody.)"
Aha. A ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. That's just too, too delighful. Much too delightful to tag onto the previous response even if Blogger warn't complainin' about its miscounting of the 4k limit. Nope, that one deserves a reponse all of its own. Clear the decks. Ole' Lee's sharpened his pencil and loaded his mathematical blunderbuss and is gittin' ready to blast some more magical Maronite mystery maths (or whatever it is he calls 2nd grade algebra these days).
So before we get to the meat of it, let's first dispense with some mistakes that ole' Lee made in his immediate comment...
[Lee]: "Petes used to want to give me shit for suggesting that Einstein had made an obvious error in his original paper on Special Relativity ... Rather more learned people in the field spot more than just the one. This guy claims to know of four. Well, only two in the original paper; two more arising from just being stubborn about it.
Let's ignore that Lee is quotin' from Forbe's Magazine, that well known stalwart of the physical sciences (LOL), and that the article itself contains lots of crap. Let's stick to the fact that only one of the four points has anything whatever to do with Special Relativity. And that one is about the mass-energy equivalence. That didn't appear in the "original paper on Special Relativity". That appeared in a separate paper that Einstein wrote three months later. I would have thought if Lee was so familiar with SR that its mistakes were "obvious enough that even a tyro like me could spot it", he would know what specific paper he was claimin' the mistakes are in. After all, the notation that Einstein used, which Lee claims to have found an error in, is non-standard by comparison with today's conventions. Lee would have to be citing primary sources, not relyin' on someone else's regurgitated summary. So it's kinda strange from the get go that Lee ain't familiar with the order of the SR papers, and is makin' claims about "the" original paper on Special Relativity which, even if we pretend it means the first paper doesn't even contain one disputed point let alone two.
" You want the Trumpkins to admit the election was subverted before they are allowed to claim they won it fair and square."
Not what I wrote, nor what I meant. But, that's an old thread anyway, so I'll let it pass.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ "Ole' Lee's sharpened his pencil and loaded his mathematical blunderbuss…
I have no idea what might have given you that idea. Perhaps you're just hoping too hard.
"…and is gittin' ready to blast some more magical Maronite mystery maths."
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I'm gonna havta take that attempt to co-opt my previous language as your best blundering attempt at high praise. But, I'm not gonna thank you for your blundering attempt. Too little, too late.
Now that one I will touch just because…(anybody wanted to actually parse the rest of your post would figure out quick enough you were bullshitting through that from start to finish, but this one they'd never get): I never actually said (/wrote) that Einstein had made an error. I said that he had switched between non-Euclidian and Euclidean mathemathics during the progress of his paper. YOU are the only one who said that had to be an error, or, at least, you seem to have assumed as much. However, I figured it'd make more sense to Marcus and Lynnette if I used your language because you were so insistent (incorrectly insistent, but insistent nonetheless) on your own interpretation. I figured that's what they'd remember after all this time.
(Granted, I do question the switch, but I'm not sure it actually generated an error in and of itself, and I never said/wrote that it necessary was an error. But, I did consider it to be a questionable practice--still do.)
"I never actually said (/wrote) that Einstein had made an error."
Well, not a math error anyway. His paper did present a tautology, turned out that was kinda the whole point, and it did posit a base frame of reference. (Much as Petes wanted things to be otherwise.)
Wow. I knew that yer delusions ran deep, but I didn't realise y'all were actually hallucinating! But yer ramblings admit of no other conclusion.
"I said that he (Einstein) had switched between non-Euclidian and Euclidean mathemathics during the progress of his paper. YOU are the only one who said that had to be an error, or, at least, you seem to have assumed as much. However, I figured it'd make more sense to Marcus and Lynnette if I used your language because you were so insistent ... on your own interpretation. I figured that's what they'd remember after all this time."
The only place we have ever discussed anything of the sort is in some parallel universe of yer own invention. Personally, it's hard to imagine a universe in which y'all can even spell "non-Euclidian" (sic), let alone mount an argument about geometry (which I am just hazarding a guess is what y'all mean by "Euclidean mathemathics", though who knows).
"Granted, I do question the switch, but I'm not sure it actually generated an error in and of itself, and I never said/wrote that it necessary was an error. But, I did consider it to be a questionable practice--still do."
Oh good. So you are talking about a specific step in a specific paper. Then let's ignore that you are hallucinating about an argument that never took place, and cut to where you refresh my memory about which paper y'all are referring to, and the step of the argument in which you allege Einstein makes this amazing switch. A simple link and paragraph reference will suffice.
"His paper did present a tautology, turned out that was kinda the whole point, and it did posit a base frame of reference. (Much as Petes wanted things to be otherwise.)"
Are you really truly seriously suggestin' that you and I had an argument over frames of reference in a paper on Special Relativity? LOL. The last argument we had centred on yer inability to perform the simplest of multiplications, and that one went on for several years during the course of which y'all hallucinated that everyone on the interwebs was wrong so you could be right. Y'all never progressed past second grade algebra, let alone a discussion of non-Euclidean geometry! The only place you ever discussed such "magical mystery maths" was with the voices in yer head.
Nevertheless, y'all can easily prove me wrong by providin' that reference where ya allege Einstein made this amazing switch. And now, to save everyone the tedium of another standard Lee C months-long diversion, I'll tell ya in advance how this one is gonna progress. (Plus I'm too busy to get into yet another extended discussion with y'all). Y'all will now get pissy about how it ain't yore job to provide me with no damn links, plus miscellaneous other obfuscatory tactics to divert from the fact that y'all have hallucinated this entire supposed argument into existence. Oh, and let me guess, y'all won the argument so there's no need to rehearse it again except to remind "your audience" about the fact of yore winnin' it. LOL. That's the nice thing about dreams. They never have to intersect with reality.
I wasn't sleeping well, so I got to listening to the red-eye version of Radio-Right-Wing, and I was mildly surprised to find them tracking along with the developing thread on daytime Radio-Right-Wing. (I wasn't expecting them to be able to coordinate a theme until the first stringers got back from their Christmas/New Year's breaks, and that don't start ‘til tomorrow; but, it seems the defense is already gelling.)
The developing story/defense is that the Russians merely told the truth about Hillary, the Russians made sure it got out in public for the public to see, nothing more than that. The truth is the truth, whether or not the Russians were behind it. (They're characteristically more than a little vague about what this ‘truth’ is supposed to be; their ‘truth’ is characteristically free of any inconvenient association with real facts, which are often irreconcilable with their revealed truths, but, I digress….) Basically the defense of Trump is shaping up as, ‘No harm; no foul’. You'll wanna make note of this Petes and update your political views accordingly--don't wanna get yourself out of step with your authoritarian power center there.
Lee: "It's kinda like this Marcus: The only rebuttal required for a claim, allegation or conclusion that's published on Breitbart is the notation that it's comin’ from Breitbart. ‘Nuff said."
That's what I would have expected from your Commie mindset Lee. "It not from Pravda so it big Lie. Send to Gulag!"
Pete: "Uh... Milo may be as gay as the 1890s but he certainly ain't Jewish."
A quick Google seems to suggest his maternal grandmother was Jewish, which would have made his mother Jewish and thus him Jewish. There also seems to be a heavy opinion saying that he only uses this when he wants to defend against any you're-nazi-attacks on him (i.e that "shield" I was talking about) something I have no reason to doubt. I guess it depends on whether you consider being Jewish a tribal belonging or a religious one. In the former case the maternal heritage would give him the claim to be Jewish, in the latter it does seem he's Catholic Christian.
House Republicans have decided to gut the Ethics Office, stripping away the reforms adopted after the Jack Abramoff scandal of a decade ago. (Politico.com) The Donald already explained that he was exempt from most ethics and conflict-of-interest laws. Now it appears that the House Republicans want some of the gravy for themselves, and obviously they can't count on Trump to share, so….
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ "It not from Pravda so it big Lie."
You seem to have missed the point. The problem with material from Brietbart isn't where it's not from. The problem is where it is from. The problem is too much Brietbart, not too little Pravda.
[Lee]: "The truth is the truth, whether or not the Russians were behind it... You'll wanna make note of this Petes and update your political views accordingly--don't wanna get yourself out of step with your authoritarian power center there."
Y'all may wanna note that that's exactly in line with what I wrote both yesterday and last couple of months (or whenever I last graced y'all with my opinion on the subject). It's not a question of bein' in step with someone else ... it's a matter of comprehendin' plain common sense. I'd qualify it by sayin' that in the post-truth world, it dudn't really matter who's posting the news. Hillary's problem is she couldn't even mount a successful claim it wasn't the truth.
"Y'all may wanna note that that's exactly in line with what I wrote both yesterday and last couple of months…"
Your reading of your own writings is uncommonly…uh…we'll call it ‘flexible’ for want of a better word to describe you comin’ up with a whole new line for today and claiming it was yesterday's line. You been learnin’ from Trump; I can tell.
Trump has already tweeted out his displeasure with the House of Representatives loosening its conflict of interest liability. When I said Trump didn't want to share…well…ya'll get the idea.
[Lee, Thu Dec 29, 07:22:00 pm]: "I do not understand Trump's pretense that the Russians weren't ‘on his side’, as it were, in the Presidential elections..."
[Me, Mon Jan 02, 09:19:00 pm]: "When you gonna realise that it didn't need the Russkis to reveal that Hillary had shot both her own legs off with a giant bazooka?"
[Lee, Tue Jan 03, 02:00:00 am]: "The developing story/defense is that the Russians merely told the truth about Hillary, the Russians made sure it got out in public for the public to see, nothing more than that. The truth is the truth, whether or not the Russians were behind it... You'll wanna make note of this Petes"
[Me, Tue Jan 03, 10:08:00 am]: "Y'all may wanna note that that's exactly in line with what I wrote..."
[Lee, Tue Jan 03, 10:44:00 am]: "Your reading of your own writings is uncommonly... ‘flexible’"
I'm happy to leave it to "your audience" to decide if my readin' of my own writings is exactly 100% accurate. They may also wonder if yore pretensions to handlin' "non-Euclidian mathematics" has scuppered yer basic readin' comprehension. (Which reminds me: no chapter and verse reference to SR from you, also precisely as predicted. Y'all (wisely) dropped that one like a hot potato).
As an island offshore another island, air transport links are pretty important to us here. Fortunately one of our success stories is the creation of Europe's second biggest airline, and the Dublin-London route is one of Europe's busiest. Still, we can always do with more, especially direct transatlantic connections, and one of the interesting stories of last year was a proposal to start several new routes from Ireland to the US east coast to supplement ones we already have to major cities there.
There were several curious twists: the company involved is a Norwegian budget airline; they are proposing to fly from a regional airport in our second city to regional airports in New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut; they are planning to fly the new 737-MAX single aisle narrow body jet, which I think is a first for transatlantic; one way prices from the US could be as little as $69.
What's not to like? It would mean many thousands of new jobs in the US. There would be new 737-MAX sales from Boeing to a company already using 787 Dreamliners, which is very good news in Boeing's competition with the Airbus A320. On the other side of the pond it will attract American tourists spending their currently strong dollars. And it will open up regional spots which have been the backbone of passenger growth in European short and medium haul, and extend the same model to transatlantic travel. (Personally, the proposed new hub in Portsmouth NH would be a perfect jumping off point for one of my favourite holiday spots).
So here's the strange thing. Norwegian got fairly quick approval from transport authorities at both ends of the new routes, but legislators are asking Trump to revoke the US DOT authorisation. They seem to be worried that Norwegian will undercut US operators using cheap Asian labour in its air crews, even though the airline has said it won't. Even stranger, there are Dems and Republicans involved, and though they might hope for a better hearing from a protectionist Trump, it seems Hillary lobbied Obama for the same revocation earlier in the year. What have they got against my Appalachian holidays? ;-)
Ah… I get it now. You can't tell the apples from the oranges. I wasn't expecting you to be quite that dense. But, I can see why you thought you'd addressed my point--you can't even see the point, so you don't know that you shot at something else entirely.
The issue I raised was whether or not the Russians attempted to intervene on Trump's behalf. Mostly that'd be considered an offense, even an act of aggression. Telling us that it's okay this time because it's Hillary they were doing the damage to, and that she deserved it, doesn't change the fact that the Russians intervened on Trump's behalf. That should still be considered an offense, even if it was Hillary this time. But, you apparently can't see that question because you're too busy answering the other question. Up to now Trump's been saying it didn't happen--the new line shaping up is that it's okay ‛cause it was the truth as they see it--meaning those Americans are now approving of the Russians meddling in our elections based on whether or not they approve of what the Russians have to say about the contestants.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ "…no chapter and verse reference to SR from you, also precisely as predicted."
Actually, you predicted that I'd get all bent and come back all set to go all ‘sharp pencil’ on ya and make detailed reference to Einstein's papers. Kinda the opposite of your current claim of your prediction. You learn well from Trump; I will give ya that.
Or, to phrase it more accurately (which I probably need to do considering we have a contentious, nit-picky sumbitch like Petes hangin’ ‛round)
"The issue I raised was whether or not the Russians attempted to intervene on Trump's behalf."
And mostly why Trump found it necessary to deny that they so intervened. (The question of whether they did intervene is inherent when raising the question of why would Trump deny that part.)
"When you gonna realise that it didn't need the Russkis to reveal that Hillary had shot both her own legs off with a giant bazooka?" Petes @ Mon Jan 02, 09:19:00 pm ↑↑
This was an argument that the Russian revelations didn't matter, didn't have an effect on the outcome. The currently shaping up defense on Radio-Right-Wing is that whatever evil the Russians had to say about Hillary, it was all true anyway, so it's okay if they had an effect on the outcome, perhaps it was even desirable. These are not the same defenses. (Even Marcus will be able to see that, but you're too wrapped up in you own point of view to even notice that there are other points of view.)
The House Republicans have decided to not tread on Trump's terrain. They've reversed their earlier decision to loosen up their ethics requirements; leave that terrain to Trump. I think they're more afraid of him than the Democrats are. I suppose they have reason to be more afraid. Trump soundly trounced all their champions. But, he lost to Hillary by by almost three million votes. That could explain the Republicans fearing him more than the Democrats fear him.
And, speaking of not treading on Trump's terrain… Senate Republican efforts to investigate the Russian intervention in the Presidential election are going down the tube--not enough Senate Republicans willing to buck Trump on this either, so the issue will largely go unexplored, at least, for now. Trump will have effectively squelched any government investigations as soon as he gets his men installed at the FBI and CIA, a move that's almost certainly in the works already.
Paul Krugman is being a fairly gloomy fella today. I've said before, and I'll say it again, Krugman is good to listen to on matters of economics. He's less credible with me when, as here, he goes in for being a liberal political pundit. So, I'm not vouching for this, but I think it's succinct enough to post as an example of what Trump's up against in the liberal media, which fairly clearly includes Krugman when he's taken off his economists hat.
Ya know, I missed this the other night when I's just waking up from a restless sleep.
"Are you really truly seriously suggestin' that you and I had an argument over frames of reference in a paper on Special Relativity?"
As a matter of fact you did argue about that for awhile before you decided to imagine up the claim that I'd supposedly discovered a math error in the Special Relativity paper. Having an imaginary fight to fight, preferable from your point of view to the loser you'd originally taken on, you took off on that imaginary tangent and you never came back to reality, ever.
[Lee]: "The issue I raised was whether or not the Russians attempted to intervene on Trump's behalf."
Nope. That's not the issue you raised. You may like to pretend that's what ya did, on account of ya then get to be all pissy about me supposedly addressing a different question. There ain't no post by you on this thread or the last one about the Russians independent of "radio right wing" or Trump's reaction to it.
[Lee]: "And mostly why Trump found it necessary to deny that they so intervened."
Ah. A bit of uncharacteristic honesty on yore part. That is indeed the issue you raised. Should be pretty obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. Trump and his supporters are trying to deflect anything that would call the legitimacy of his election into question. Just like Obama had to deflect questions about his place of birth etc. Tip for y'all: blamin' me for the crazies on either extreme of your political landscape ain't gonna achieve anything.
The other implication of yore question is why the Trumpkins don't seem to be worried about possible interference by the Russkis in y'all's electoral system. That, of course, is the fantasy part that y'all made up for yoreself. You are not alone though. This very moment I'm watching a BBC news program on which the anchor implies the same thing -- that Trump might have relished a Russian intervention -- to a representative of "Republicans abroad", with a knowing laugh that is shared by other left wing panelists on the program. Now, if history was different, and Hillary had won, and someone insinuated on a foreign news program that she colluded with the Russians to pervert American democracy, it would probably cause a diplomatic incident.
But such wild allegations are made (or at least insinuated) by American "progressives" (as well leftie foreigners) with a completely straight face. They genuinely think that being a "progressive" renders them immune from the sort of batshit craziness that they attribute to "Trumpkins". Yore one of those. I wouldn't call you a Commie like Marcus does, but you are completely blinded by ideology.
[Lee]: "Yes, well, it's fairly common for ‛leftie dopes’ to be described shorthand as ‛liberal’. I'm surprised you don't know that."
Of course I know that. It is also common for them to get away with that lazy conflation of "left" and "liberal", which is why it's common for non-lefties like me to draw attention to it. I'm surprised you don't that. (Nah. Of course you know it. Yore just bein' pissy again).
[Lee]: "Actually, you predicted that I'd get all bent and come back all set to go all ‘sharp pencil’ on ya and make detailed reference to Einstein's papers. Kinda the opposite of your current claim of your prediction."
What a truly weird black-is-white world y'all inhabit. Just to set the record straight, I predicted you would not come back with any reference and ya haven't. Nor will you.
[Lee]: "As a matter of fact you did argue about (frame of reference in SR) for awhile before you decided to imagine up the claim that I'd supposedly discovered a math error in the Special Relativity paper."
LOL. It gets increasingly bizarre. You're right on one thing -- we did briefly cover about two mathematical statements in a paper on SR before it became clear y'all couldn't follow basic mathematical logic. That's when we reverted to a simpler mathematical demonstration which y'all also failed miserably on.
The original argument hinged on whether a changed or variable speed of light would affect relativity in a significant way. (You alleged it wouldn't, I took the opposite view). Had you been able to follow the maths, we would have seen that it affected the conservation of energy within a single reference frame, something that most scientists accept. (That was the logic that y'all ever after referred to as the "magical mystery maths"). As to you ever saying anything about reference frames or switching to non-Euclidean geometry ... don't make me hurt myself laughin' -- y'all couldn't handle y = x + 1 let alone the relatively simple algebra in the Einstein paper.
Yup, it was about whether c not being the upper speed limit, as suggested briefly by the supposed FTL neutrinos at Gran Sasso in Italy, would break the known laws of physics. I'm not surprised you don't remember. You got so many mathematical ass whuppin's since that you've resorted to livin' in a permanent hallucinatory state. One in which yer "audience" imagines y'all progressed past 2nd grade algebra.
Yeah, well, discussing whether or not neutrinos could really exceed the speed of light is a long way, long way from a discussion over whether the speed of light is variable. (I have read some speculations recently on the question of whether the speed of light might happen to be variable, but that subject never came up during our discussions. You seem to have read recent speculations on the subject as well, and have managed to mash it all together in your mind--I'd guess that to be coping mechanism, but that's just a guess. I can only speculate on what's really behind your version of crazy-ass fanstasy.)
And, just to explain how this works to Marcus and Lynnette, in language they can fairly easily work out… You tried to start an argument earlier by pretending to not understand what I'd written. (Petes @ Tue Jan 03, 06:36:00 pm ↑↑) Of course, you understood me perfectly well:
"Of course I know that." Petes @ Tue Jan 03, 07:26:00 pm
You then accused me of ‛being pissy’ by not immediately admitting that I knew you were already, in your words, ‛being pissy’. (Of course, you only assume that I'd already come to that conclusion, there's no reason for you to conclude that except to offload your sins on someone else.) You accused me of committing your sins. (That's a Catholic thing, ain't it?)
Got done with my chores and have a little time to deal with that closing shot from Petes.
1) Petes plays dumb, pretends to not understand, hoping to start an argument. He calls it ‘being pissy’. When it doesn't work out for him as well as he'd hoped, he accuses me of being the who's ‘being pissy’.
2) Last time the subject of his math rants came up he denied having promised to provide the math he always either promising to provide or claiming he's already provided (he just picked one of those to use as the spirit moved him it seems). I reminded him of the subject and how we'd come to call his playing coy the ‘magical mystery maths’. Everybody remembered that terminology, Petes knew that had to be true; didn't like it, but he knew it. So now he's trying to co-opt the term to his own use--to make it seem like he was the guy who was being strung along by promises of magical math proofs that never materialized. Yeah, right.
3). Last time we got seriously crossed up I told him straight up that I was beginning to question his sanity--no shit, for real; I've come to question the firmness of his grip on reality. So…
This time he comes out of the gate accusing me of being crazy.
Gotta ask… What's with ya there, Petes? Do you really think nobody notices these things? You really think we've not seen the pattern appear? Are you really that nuts?
"FLAT ROCK, Mich./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co said Tuesday it will cancel a planned $1.6 billion factory in Mexico and invest $700 million at a Michigan factory, after President-elect Donald Trump had harshly criticized the Mexico investment plan."
[Lee]: "Got done with my chores and have a little time to deal with that closing shot from Petes... blah blah blah"
What a chump. You think yore audience don't notice that you churn out page after page of stuff about stuff, but never any actual maths, never any actual physics, never any actual argument about anything 'cept arguin'? On the rare occasion that you even allude to that stuff, you inevitable stick yer foot in yer mouth.
This time round we have something about Einstein's "original paper on Special Relativity" (you, Fri Dec 30, 03:00:00 pm) ... except that's not even where the mass-energy equivalence stuff appears. We have you claimin' that Einstein "switched between non-Euclidian and Euclidean mathemathics" (sic) but you won't say where, or even what you mean by that (Mon Jan 02, 10:13:00 pm).
Ya think nobody notices yer evasions? Ya don't wonder why I can so confidently predict that ya won't come back, ever, with links or explanations on any of yer batty claims? Ya don't think I could show you step by step, in an actual paper that Einstein actually wrote, how energy conservation would be violated were c not the limit?
Except, of course, I would be stymied by yer pissy refusal to comprehend or accept basic algebra, which is how y'all have strung this out for years on end. Even a dunderhead can larn, but I'm afraid there's nothin' I can do for a dunderhead who insists on remainin' a dunderhead. Don't worry, I'll keep an eye out in case y'all ever show any inclination to be educated on the topic, but in the mean time I think this latest round is over as you clearly got nothin' but the usual obfuscations.
Well, I'll be damned. I guess the crazy-ass bastard actually did think nobody had noticed.
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"Ford officials said that the revised plans were tied to market conditions that have depressed small-car sales, and that they did not consult with the incoming Trump administration before making the decision." New York Times
Reckon this "Trump effect" of yours is what's been holdin’ down oil prices these past several years?
700 jobs in that Ford plant Marcus. Again, not even a good morning's work compared to the 180,000+ jobs per month generated on average under the outgoing administration. I think the grand total in the month since since Trump's been looking for anecdotals to claim as his very own success amount to a claim of about two full days worth of needed jobs (at the Obama rate) across the space of something over three weeks. At this rate the ‛Trump Effect’ will generate a full-on recession, if not a depression, probably within nine months to a year. Mind you the economy's on the rise now, been on a steady rise for many, many months. I expect Trump's little victory claims will have that reversed within nine months, maybe as long as year. The ‛Trump Effect’… Remember, ya heard it here first.
It's beginning to look like the Republicans' ‘repeal and replace’ policy for ObamaCare will come down to ‘repeal and…well, whatever’. They've agreed on the repeal part, can't agree on the replacement part, so they're just gonna do the part they've agreed on.
The developing story/defense is that the Russians merely told the truth about Hillary, the Russians made sure it got out in public for the public to see, nothing more than that.
Now I look at the headlines and see that apparently Trump is cozying up to Assange, despite his disparaging remarks regarding Wikileaks back in 2010. I get the feeling that for Trump this Presidency thing is just another gig in his entertainment career.
I did watch that Frontline special on Trump last night. There wasn't really much new there. Nor did it make me like him any better. He seems pretty thin skinned and appears to hold grudges.
The House Republicans have decided to not tread on Trump's terrain. They've reversed their earlier decision to loosen up their ethics requirements; leave that terrain to Trump. I think they're more afraid of him than the Democrats are.
Or the American voter. Word going round is that there was a huge backlash on social media and phones were ringing off the hook from angry voters. I am hoping this is the real cause. Because for a democracy to work it is necessary for involvement of the people. And, if Trump screws up badly enough, there is the real chance he will be a one term president.
"Word going round is that there was a huge backlash on social media and phones were ringing off the hook from angry voters."
I'm afraid those were the Trumpkins, who'da let it slide had Trump not objected to the House members cutting themselves in on his terrain. I'm afraid it was his tweet that set them off. There is a history of his Trumpkins reacting in the real world to his suggestions from cyberspace.
It's beginning to look like the Republicans' ‘repeal and replace’ policy for ObamaCare will come down to ‘repeal and…well, whatever’.
Obama is telling Democratic party members to basically replicate the Tea Party and not throw any floundering Republicans a life line. Kind of a different tack from what he said originally during this transition period. That thing about helping the incoming president succeed because that would be in America's interest seems to have fallen by the wayside. I'd love to find out what incited the change.
Helping the incoming President is rather different than helping the Republican Congress. You will recall that Trump campaigned on the idea of ‛repeal and replace’ ObamaCare, i.e. there would be no lapses in coverage for the poor. The Congressional Republican plan is to do otherwise, and it looks like Trump is now going to go along with the fiction that they'll repeal it now, and figure out how to replace it later. (He's already working on figuring out how to blame that on the Democrats--best plan is to just say it's the Democrat's fault--his Trumpkins are fast proving up that they'll swallow any damn thing.) That was the idea behind the Sequester after all, there was the claim that they'd figure out the alternative later ‛cause it was just too awful to contemplate that the Sequester would actually be implemented. Now it turns out that the Sequester is now touted by the Republicans as their greatest fiscal policy success of the Obama era, only thing they have to figure out now is how to exempt military spending from the caps while they keep the caps on domestic spending, but, it's now considered a glorious success--the ultimate public-policy hustle pulled off right out in public. The ‛repeal and whatever…’ will work out exactly the same--repeal now, no whatever, ever.
Marcus has been regaling us, on behalf of his hero Put… Trump, I mean Trump, with tales of the jobs Trump has saved from export to Mexico. I recall that the average under Obama was somewhat in excess of 180,000 jobs per month, or better than 6,000 per day on an average month. Yesterday Trump claimed credit for 700 jobs early in the day, nothin’ since. He's 5,300 jobs short by this mornin’, minimum, and losin’ ground fast as the day wears on.
Marcus, ya need to get yer boy on the stick there; he's falling behind. And falling behind rapidly.
By the way, wasn't Trump supposed to reveal some secret information on the Russian election tampering matter either Tuesday or Wednesday, probably something that was gonna absolve Putin and the Russians? I believe he did say that. This Thursday. He's running behind on more than just his jobs announcements.
Hannity's on the air having a real rant about the Senate holding hearings on the Russian connection to the Wikileaks' election leakages. The Trump campaign (assuming Hannity knows where to hit on their behalf) appears to be quite upset about the prospect of any investigations probing any further into the Russian connections. This isn't proof of anything; I recognize that; but, it does increase my level of suspicion.
It appears The Donald is doing some early morning tweeting again. Something about the media being dishonest on account of they're not running with The Donald line about how Mexico is going to pay us back later after The Donald gets us to pay for The Wall up front. (Yeah, right, like that's gonna happen.) First thing I notice though is that The Donald has apparently given up on getting Mexico to pay for The Wall (at least for now). Thing is, the Congressional Republicans are unlikely to pay for it either, at least not so long as ladders are cheaper than walls, and that's gonna be true forever.
The Donald's recent tweets include a demand that ‘"It is time for Republicans and Democrats to get together and come up with a health care plan that really works…’. (Link)
Translation: The Donald has no plan and no real prospect of coming up with a viable plan, and so now he needs the Congress to bail his ass out on this one. That's not gonna happen. The Congressional Republicans can't bail him out on this one, even if they wanted to; they got no plan either. The tweets will, therefore, keep on comin’, and will soon take on an increasingly hostile tone. The only thing I can see happening is they repeal ObamaCare and put nothing in its place or they don't repeal ObamaCare. I'd bet on the first one if I had to bet, but I wouldn't be givin’ any odds on that one (and I don't have to bet).
After due investigation I can report that all the evidence in support of The Donald's conclusion that the Russians did not intervene in the Presidential election on his behalf does not exist.
Reviewing the morning news…. I do believe that the rise of Trump will likely improve Obama's reputation with the historians in the future, if only because of the stark contrasts that the proximity emphasizes. If Obama is stood up next to ShortHands the Dancing Bear how can he not look good by comparison?
Just a small aside, since we were speaking of the Obama administration in historical terms. They have put in place sanctions against Russia for the meddling in our election. If I were them I would go ahead with whatever covert actions they have planned. Personally I would go directly after the person responsible.
They'll have to consider the possibility that whatever covert action they take will be publicized by the incoming Trump administration. Trump's clearly trying to curry favor with Putin for some reason. David Ignatius questions why he would do that. Fareed Zacharia observes that, whatever the real reason, it's fairly clearly not because Putin wants to ‛make America great again’. Even Trump oughta understand that part.
Conservative author and television personality Monica Crowley, whom Donald Trump has tapped for a top national security communications role, plagiarized large sections of her 2012 book, a CNN KFile review has found. The review of Crowley’s June 2012 book, "What The (Bleep) Just Happened," found upwards of 50 examples of plagiarism from numerous sources, including the copying with minor changes of news articles, other columnists, think tanks, and Wikipedia. The New York Times bestseller, published by the HarperCollins imprint Broadside Books, contains no notes or bibliography.
Now I can understand using the same word or similar words that others have used in writing, but grabbing whole sections from multiple sources is a little over the top. Another stellar pick of our Donald.
"Providing aid and comfort to the enemy? Hmmm...."
‘Fraid you're gettin’ out over your skies a little bit there. Trump's wide authority in the area of foreign relations and as CinC means it's nigh on to impossible to designate the Russians as ‘the enemy’ so long as Trump's insistent on groveling for Putin's favor.
" Monica Crowley, whom Donald Trump has tapped for a top national security communications role, plagiarized large sections of her 2012 book…"
Trump says that's okay on account of the book was a commercial success (link), selling widely among the right-winger book audience (which is a special sub-set of book buyers concentrating on fairly short, and seriously angry pamphlet-like publications).
Team Trump has finally wised up and quite denying that the Russians were trying to swing the election to Trump. (Trump himself still refuses to go there.) They're going now with the notion that it didn't swing the election, had no effect there. They're going with the ‘so what?’ defense I suggested in the last thread would be their best move. (@ Thu Dec 29, 07:22:00 pm) The changeover is obvious from the Trump spokesmen's comments on today's morning, talking-heads programs. Petes' continued resistance notwithstanding, even Team Trump, if not Trump himself, at least not Trump himself so far, Team Trump has finally come ‘round to that one.
Team Trump is in a great rush to get votes on his Cabinet nominees (in most cases before their conflict-of-interest questionnaires can be examined, in some cases before those questionnaires are even submitted to the appropriate Senate Committees). Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader is going along with Team Trump on this one, trying to get the nominees rushed through all at once and all immediately, before resistance to any can materialize or coalesce. This may work for now, and it may come back to haunt them later.
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Your CBS video on the White Helmets of Aleppo seems to have gone back live.
Oh? Not the original link I used, that still doesn't work. I'll check for another.
Oh, no, the 60 Minutes one doesn't work. They took that down. That actually appeared to be something that was cut from the show that finally aired on 60 Minutes. Perhaps they felt the last interview was too explicit about the feelings of civilians in Aleppo, suggesting that there will be problems in the future with revenge seeking against Assad or the Russians.
Most of the YouTube videos you run across regarding the White Helmets appear to be negative. Something put up by RT TV or others that toe the Russian or Syrian government party line.
Since this is a New Year's post, and we are looking to the future, I think I will leave a link to an article that Lee sent me.
Evolution of humanity?
While it might seem out there, it is an interesting speculation.
"Oh, no, the 60 Minutes one doesn't work."
I see; I hadn't bothered trying that one as I'd seen parts of the original 60 Minutes episode; saw the end half anyway. Didn't think of it when you said the link was dead.
So, is it just me or is Trump getting weirder and weirder? Now he claims to have inside information about the hacking that took place during the election and will reveal it either Tuesday or Wednesday.
Trump says he has inside information on Russian hacking
Perhaps he's just doing a little early experimenting to discover just how gullible his Trumpkins really are. That could prove to be useful and valuable information when he finally does have the power to capitalize on his new position and authorities.
Maybe not as gullible as he, or others, believe. I listened to one woman who lives in an area that has been hurt deeply from the disappearance of coal mining jobs, and that has actually benefited from ObamaCare. If Trump doesn't deliver on the jobs he promised and his actions on the Affordable Care Act don't deliver something in its place, then she told the interviewer that he will be history come next election, if she has anything to say about it.
It seems that Daesh isn't going to go quietly into that good night. They are claiming responsibility for the night club shootings in Istanbul.
On an odd aside about the Middle East, the Kurds seem to be ardent supporters of Donald Trump. To the extent that they are naming babies and businesses after him. There is now a business "Trump Fish" out there. Hmmm....okay I'm not going to say it.
Yesterday I spent all day de-Christmasing the house. So today, which I, like so many others, have off, am going to hopefully get some reading time in. I started that Friedman book and another fiction book someone gave me for Christmas.
One more thing, the fight for Mosul is hitting some snags.
Baghdad bombing cuts road to Mosul
"On an odd aside about the Middle East, the Kurds seem to be
ardent supporters of Donald Trump."
That would be the result of his repeated promises to wipe out Da‘esh by any means necessary excepting ones that'll require money or troops or real involvement (I don't think the rank and file Kurds were brought fully up to speed on the ‘excepting’ part). They shall be disabused of their ardor soon ‘nuff. Trump wants to make nice for Putin; Putin wants something to trade to Erdoğan; Erdoğan wants the Kurds crushed. The Kurds shall be disabused of their ardor for Trump soon ‘nuff.
Happy New Year y'all. (Hmmm... Lee oughta be happy -- it's a plural usage for once. Of course I'm not suggestin' Lee knows anything about the proper usage -- contrary to Marcus's odd assumption that ole' Lee is an Appalachian hillbilly, his whole state ain't got a hill as high as the pretend mountains I can see from my window, and most of it is pancake flat farmland).
[Lynnette]: "Yesterday I spent all day de-Christmasing the house."
I've found the best way to do that is by not en-Christmasing it in the first place. I know I should be trying to keep the Christ in Christmas now that Trump is trying to put the nuke back in Hannukah, but I feel strangely pagan at this time of year. I celebrate December 10th when the sunset stops getting earlier. Today I am celebrating Earth's closest approach to the Sun (which, in combination with Kepler's Laws, explains why the sunset has been getting later since well before the solstice). I reckon anyone living above the fiftieth parallel has it in their genes to keep an eye on the sky in winter, just to confirm that ole' Sol really is comin' back! ;-)
Catchups from the previous thread:
[Marcus]: "Leave it to a faggot Jew to tell the truth as it is... Milo has two shields, he's a jew and he's gay. Therefore he's given more leeway to talk at Universities."
Uh... Milo may be as gay as the 1890s but he certainly ain't Jewish. We get to claim him as one of our Catholic own, god help us. Beyond his American campus escapades you will find him defending the Catholic church as a bulwark of scientific rationalism, being anti-abortion from the moment of conception, and various other orthodoxies that perhaps are not so common in one so ... well, gay. I can't help liking the guy myself, in spite of him being a self-acknowledged self-promoting publicity whore. On the use of the 'F' word, I don't like it even when self-applied by Milo, any more than I like black people using the 'N' word. There are too many "oppressed" groups setting themselves up as language fascists these days. Anything that is derogatory for one is derogatory for all.
[Lee]: "@ Lynnette: PBS's Frontline tonight, two hours; title ‘Exodus’; description: New, 12/27/2016, Investigative, Documentary, Politics, Public Affairs, Social Topic; Refugees and migrants reveal their harrowing stories of escape and survival...Marcus would not be pleased."
He's probably pleased not to be dependent on PBS, that's for sure. I'd forgotten how you Yanks are living in a bargain basement third world of documentary TV. The PBS definition of "New" seems to be: "we waited until the program was on worldwide release for tuppence ha'penny and then we did a week of grovelling fund raiser TV until we could afford it". That Exodus program was shot in 2015 and aired on the BBC in early July last year.
[Lee]: "I do not understand Trump's pretense that the Russians weren't ‘on his side’, as it were, in the Presidential elections. All he has to do is say, ‘So what, I was winning anyway, it made no difference; I owe Putin nothing,’ and his supporters have a line they could defend with a straight face."
Ah yes, the ole' "when did you stop beating your wife" tactic. You want the Trumpkins to admit the election was subverted before they are allowed to claim they won it fair and square. Yeah, whatever. When you gonna realise that it didn't need the Russkis to reveal that Hillary had shot both her own legs off with a giant bazooka? Even if she'd gotten away with cheating Sanders out of the DNC nomination, there's all the other sleazeball stuff!
Oh, and not forgetting this:
[Lee]: "On another topic: Petes used to want to give me shit for suggesting that Einstein had made an obvious error in his original paper on Special Relativity (obvious enough that even a tyro like me could spot it). He ranted on that way past the point anybody cared to hear it, came in next on his rant list to his consistently failed rants on the Maronites. Rather more learned people in the field spot more than just the one. This guy claims to know of four. Well, only two in the original paper; two more arising from just being stubborn about it. (Being stubborn about it reminds me of Petes, so he's not entirely alone there; Einstein could be considered decent company if ya gotta be wrong with somebody.)"
Aha. A ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. That's just too, too delighful. Much too delightful to tag onto the previous response even if Blogger warn't complainin' about its miscounting of the 4k limit. Nope, that one deserves a reponse all of its own. Clear the decks. Ole' Lee's sharpened his pencil and loaded his mathematical blunderbuss and is gittin' ready to blast some more magical Maronite mystery maths (or whatever it is he calls 2nd grade algebra these days).
So before we get to the meat of it, let's first dispense with some mistakes that ole' Lee made in his immediate comment...
[Lee]: "Petes used to want to give me shit for suggesting that Einstein had made an obvious error in his original paper on Special Relativity ... Rather more learned people in the field spot more than just the one. This guy claims to know of four. Well, only two in the original paper; two more arising from just being stubborn about it.
Let's ignore that Lee is quotin' from Forbe's Magazine, that well known stalwart of the physical sciences (LOL), and that the article itself contains lots of crap. Let's stick to the fact that only one of the four points has anything whatever to do with Special Relativity. And that one is about the mass-energy equivalence. That didn't appear in the "original paper on Special Relativity". That appeared in a separate paper that Einstein wrote three months later. I would have thought if Lee was so familiar with SR that its mistakes were "obvious enough that even a tyro like me could spot it", he would know what specific paper he was claimin' the mistakes are in. After all, the notation that Einstein used, which Lee claims to have found an error in, is non-standard by comparison with today's conventions. Lee would have to be citing primary sources, not relyin' on someone else's regurgitated summary. So it's kinda strange from the get go that Lee ain't familiar with the order of the SR papers, and is makin' claims about "the" original paper on Special Relativity which, even if we pretend it means the first paper doesn't even contain one disputed point let alone two.
" You want the Trumpkins to admit the election was subverted
before they are allowed to claim they won it fair and square."
Not what I wrote, nor what I meant. But, that's an old thread anyway, so I'll let it pass.
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"Ole' Lee's sharpened his pencil and loaded his mathematical
blunderbuss…
I have no idea what might have given you that idea. Perhaps you're just hoping too hard.
"…and is gittin' ready to blast some more magical Maronite mystery
maths."
They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so I'm gonna havta take that attempt to co-opt my previous language as your best blundering attempt at high praise. But, I'm not gonna thank you for your blundering attempt. Too little, too late.
"…which Lee claims to have found an error in…"
Now that one I will touch just because…(anybody wanted to actually parse the rest of your post would figure out quick enough you were bullshitting through that from start to finish, but this one they'd never get): I never actually said (/wrote) that Einstein had made an error. I said that he had switched between non-Euclidian and Euclidean mathemathics during the progress of his paper. YOU are the only one who said that had to be an error, or, at least, you seem to have assumed as much. However, I figured it'd make more sense to Marcus and Lynnette if I used your language because you were so insistent (incorrectly insistent, but insistent nonetheless) on your own interpretation. I figured that's what they'd remember after all this time.
(Granted, I do question the switch, but I'm not sure it actually generated an error in and of itself, and I never said/wrote that it necessary was an error. But, I did consider it to be a questionable practice--still do.)
"I never actually said (/wrote) that Einstein had made an error."
Well, not a math error anyway. His paper did present a tautology, turned out that was kinda the whole point, and it did posit a base frame of reference. (Much as Petes wanted things to be otherwise.)
Wow. I knew that yer delusions ran deep, but I didn't realise y'all were actually hallucinating! But yer ramblings admit of no other conclusion.
"I said that he (Einstein) had switched between non-Euclidian and Euclidean mathemathics during the progress of his paper. YOU are the only one who said that had to be an error, or, at least, you seem to have assumed as much. However, I figured it'd make more sense to Marcus and Lynnette if I used your language because you were so insistent ... on your own interpretation. I figured that's what they'd remember after all this time."
The only place we have ever discussed anything of the sort is in some parallel universe of yer own invention. Personally, it's hard to imagine a universe in which y'all can even spell "non-Euclidian" (sic), let alone mount an argument about geometry (which I am just hazarding a guess is what y'all mean by "Euclidean mathemathics", though who knows).
"Granted, I do question the switch, but I'm not sure it actually generated an error in and of itself, and I never said/wrote that it necessary was an error. But, I did consider it to be a questionable practice--still do."
Oh good. So you are talking about a specific step in a specific paper. Then let's ignore that you are hallucinating about an argument that never took place, and cut to where you refresh my memory about which paper y'all are referring to, and the step of the argument in which you allege Einstein makes this amazing switch. A simple link and paragraph reference will suffice.
"His paper did present a tautology, turned out that was kinda the whole point, and it did posit a base frame of reference. (Much as Petes wanted things to be otherwise.)"
Are you really truly seriously suggestin' that you and I had an argument over frames of reference in a paper on Special Relativity? LOL. The last argument we had centred on yer inability to perform the simplest of multiplications, and that one went on for several years during the course of which y'all hallucinated that everyone on the interwebs was wrong so you could be right. Y'all never progressed past second grade algebra, let alone a discussion of non-Euclidean geometry! The only place you ever discussed such "magical mystery maths" was with the voices in yer head.
Nevertheless, y'all can easily prove me wrong by providin' that reference where ya allege Einstein made this amazing switch. And now, to save everyone the tedium of another standard Lee C months-long diversion, I'll tell ya in advance how this one is gonna progress. (Plus I'm too busy to get into yet another extended discussion with y'all). Y'all will now get pissy about how it ain't yore job to provide me with no damn links, plus miscellaneous other obfuscatory tactics to divert from the fact that y'all have hallucinated this entire supposed argument into existence. Oh, and let me guess, y'all won the argument so there's no need to rehearse it again except to remind "your audience" about the fact of yore winnin' it. LOL. That's the nice thing about dreams. They never have to intersect with reality.
I wasn't sleeping well, so I got to listening to the red-eye version of Radio-Right-Wing, and I was mildly surprised to find them tracking along with the developing thread on daytime Radio-Right-Wing. (I wasn't expecting them to be able to coordinate a theme until the first stringers got back from their Christmas/New Year's breaks, and that don't start ‘til tomorrow; but, it seems the defense is already gelling.)
The developing story/defense is that the Russians merely told the truth about Hillary, the Russians made sure it got out in public for the public to see, nothing more than that. The truth is the truth, whether or not the Russians were behind it. (They're characteristically more than a little vague about what this ‘truth’ is supposed to be; their ‘truth’ is characteristically free of any inconvenient association with real facts, which are often irreconcilable with their revealed truths, but, I digress….) Basically the defense of Trump is shaping up as, ‘No harm; no foul’.
You'll wanna make note of this Petes and update your political views accordingly--don't wanna get yourself out of step with your authoritarian power center there.
Lee: "It's kinda like this Marcus: The only rebuttal required for a claim, allegation or conclusion that's published on Breitbart is the notation that it's comin’ from Breitbart. ‘Nuff said."
That's what I would have expected from your Commie mindset Lee. "It not from Pravda so it big Lie. Send to Gulag!"
Pete: "Uh... Milo may be as gay as the 1890s but he certainly ain't Jewish."
A quick Google seems to suggest his maternal grandmother was Jewish, which would have made his mother Jewish and thus him Jewish. There also seems to be a heavy opinion saying that he only uses this when he wants to defend against any you're-nazi-attacks on him (i.e that "shield" I was talking about) something I have no reason to doubt. I guess it depends on whether you consider being Jewish a tribal belonging or a religious one. In the former case the maternal heritage would give him the claim to be Jewish, in the latter it does seem he's Catholic Christian.
And as the Blogpost is about the New Year I thought we could have a look at how our beloved new Arabian Swedes in Malmö celebrated:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xvWVHF68qA
The only thing missing is Kalashnikovs to shoot into the air with complete disregard (or simply not knowing) that what goes up will come down.
House Republicans have decided to gut the Ethics Office, stripping away the reforms adopted after the Jack Abramoff scandal of a decade ago. (Politico.com) The Donald already explained that he was exempt from most ethics and conflict-of-interest laws. Now it appears that the House Republicans want some of the gravy for themselves, and obviously they can't count on Trump to share, so….
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"It not from Pravda so it big Lie."
You seem to have missed the point. The problem with material from Brietbart isn't where it's not from. The problem is where it is from. The problem is too much Brietbart, not too little Pravda.
[Lee]: "The truth is the truth, whether or not the Russians were behind it... You'll wanna make note of this Petes and update your political views accordingly--don't wanna get yourself out of step with your authoritarian power center there."
Y'all may wanna note that that's exactly in line with what I wrote both yesterday and last couple of months (or whenever I last graced y'all with my opinion on the subject). It's not a question of bein' in step with someone else ... it's a matter of comprehendin' plain common sense. I'd qualify it by sayin' that in the post-truth world, it dudn't really matter who's posting the news. Hillary's problem is she couldn't even mount a successful claim it wasn't the truth.
"Y'all may wanna note that that's exactly in line with what I wrote
both yesterday and last couple of months…"
Your reading of your own writings is uncommonly…uh…we'll call it ‘flexible’ for want of a better word to describe you comin’ up with a whole new line for today and claiming it was yesterday's line.
You been learnin’ from Trump; I can tell.
Trump has already tweeted out his displeasure with the House of Representatives loosening its conflict of interest liability. When I said Trump didn't want to share…well…ya'll get the idea.
[Lee, Thu Dec 29, 07:22:00 pm]: "I do not understand Trump's pretense that the Russians weren't ‘on his side’, as it were, in the Presidential elections..."
[Me, Mon Jan 02, 09:19:00 pm]: "When you gonna realise that it didn't need the Russkis to reveal that Hillary had shot both her own legs off with a giant bazooka?"
[Lee, Tue Jan 03, 02:00:00 am]: "The developing story/defense is that the Russians merely told the truth about Hillary, the Russians made sure it got out in public for the public to see, nothing more than that. The truth is the truth, whether or not the Russians were behind it... You'll wanna make note of this Petes"
[Me, Tue Jan 03, 10:08:00 am]: "Y'all may wanna note that that's exactly in line with what I wrote..."
[Lee, Tue Jan 03, 10:44:00 am]: "Your reading of your own writings is uncommonly... ‘flexible’"
I'm happy to leave it to "your audience" to decide if my readin' of my own writings is exactly 100% accurate. They may also wonder if yore pretensions to handlin' "non-Euclidian mathematics" has scuppered yer basic readin' comprehension. (Which reminds me: no chapter and verse reference to SR from you, also precisely as predicted. Y'all (wisely) dropped that one like a hot potato).
As an island offshore another island, air transport links are pretty important to us here. Fortunately one of our success stories is the creation of Europe's second biggest airline, and the Dublin-London route is one of Europe's busiest. Still, we can always do with more, especially direct transatlantic connections, and one of the interesting stories of last year was a proposal to start several new routes from Ireland to the US east coast to supplement ones we already have to major cities there.
There were several curious twists: the company involved is a Norwegian budget airline; they are proposing to fly from a regional airport in our second city to regional airports in New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut; they are planning to fly the new 737-MAX single aisle narrow body jet, which I think is a first for transatlantic; one way prices from the US could be as little as $69.
What's not to like? It would mean many thousands of new jobs in the US. There would be new 737-MAX sales from Boeing to a company already using 787 Dreamliners, which is very good news in Boeing's competition with the Airbus A320. On the other side of the pond it will attract American tourists spending their currently strong dollars. And it will open up regional spots which have been the backbone of passenger growth in European short and medium haul, and extend the same model to transatlantic travel. (Personally, the proposed new hub in Portsmouth NH would be a perfect jumping off point for one of my favourite holiday spots).
So here's the strange thing. Norwegian got fairly quick approval from transport authorities at both ends of the new routes, but legislators are asking Trump to revoke the US DOT authorisation. They seem to be worried that Norwegian will undercut US operators using cheap Asian labour in its air crews, even though the airline has said it won't. Even stranger, there are Dems and Republicans involved, and though they might hope for a better hearing from a protectionist Trump, it seems Hillary lobbied Obama for the same revocation earlier in the year. What have they got against my Appalachian holidays? ;-)
Ah… I get it now. You can't tell the apples from the oranges. I wasn't expecting you to be quite that dense. But, I can see why you thought you'd addressed my point--you can't even see the point, so you don't know that you shot at something else entirely.
The issue I raised was whether or not the Russians attempted to intervene on Trump's behalf. Mostly that'd be considered an offense, even an act of aggression. Telling us that it's okay this time because it's Hillary they were doing the damage to, and that she deserved it, doesn't change the fact that the Russians intervened on Trump's behalf. That should still be considered an offense, even if it was Hillary this time. But, you apparently can't see that question because you're too busy answering the other question.
Up to now Trump's been saying it didn't happen--the new line shaping up is that it's okay ‛cause it was the truth as they see it--meaning those Americans are now approving of the Russians meddling in our elections based on whether or not they approve of what the Russians have to say about the contestants.
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"…no chapter and verse reference to SR from you, also precisely as
predicted."
Actually, you predicted that I'd get all bent and come back all set to go all ‘sharp pencil’ on ya and make detailed reference to Einstein's papers. Kinda the opposite of your current claim of your prediction. You learn well from Trump; I will give ya that.
Or, to phrase it more accurately (which I probably need to do considering we have a contentious, nit-picky sumbitch like Petes hangin’ ‛round)
"The issue I raised was whether or not the Russians attempted to intervene
on Trump's behalf."
And mostly why Trump found it necessary to deny that they so intervened. (The question of whether they did intervene is inherent when raising the question of why would Trump deny that part.)
And, just to make things perfectly clear…
"When you gonna realise that it didn't need the Russkis to reveal
that Hillary had shot both her own legs off with a giant bazooka?"
Petes @ Mon Jan 02, 09:19:00 pm ↑↑
This was an argument that the Russian revelations didn't matter, didn't have an effect on the outcome.
The currently shaping up defense on Radio-Right-Wing is that whatever evil the Russians had to say about Hillary, it was all true anyway, so it's okay if they had an effect on the outcome, perhaps it was even desirable.
These are not the same defenses. (Even Marcus will be able to see that, but you're too wrapped up in you own point of view to even notice that there are other points of view.)
The House Republicans have decided to not tread on Trump's terrain. They've reversed their earlier decision to loosen up their ethics requirements; leave that terrain to Trump. I think they're more afraid of him than the Democrats are. I suppose they have reason to be more afraid. Trump soundly trounced all their champions. But, he lost to Hillary by by almost three million votes. That could explain the Republicans fearing him more than the Democrats fear him.
And, speaking of not treading on Trump's terrain… Senate Republican efforts to investigate the Russian intervention in the Presidential election are going down the tube--not enough Senate Republicans willing to buck Trump on this either, so the issue will largely go unexplored, at least, for now. Trump will have effectively squelched any government investigations as soon as he gets his men installed at the FBI and CIA, a move that's almost certainly in the works already.
Paul Krugman is being a fairly gloomy fella today. I've said before, and I'll say it again, Krugman is good to listen to on matters of economics. He's less credible with me when, as here, he goes in for being a liberal political pundit. So, I'm not vouching for this, but I think it's succinct enough to post as an example of what Trump's up against in the liberal media, which fairly clearly includes Krugman when he's taken off his economists hat.
Don't see anything "liberal" about that screed. Krugman's always been a leftie dope, still is.
Yes, well, it's fairly common for ‛leftie dopes’ to be described shorthand as ‛liberal’. I'm surprised you don't know that.
Ya know, I missed this the other night when I's just waking up from a restless sleep.
"Are you really truly seriously suggestin' that you and I had an
argument over frames of reference in a paper on Special Relativity?"
As a matter of fact you did argue about that for awhile before you decided to imagine up the claim that I'd supposedly discovered a math error in the Special Relativity paper. Having an imaginary fight to fight, preferable from your point of view to the loser you'd originally taken on, you took off on that imaginary tangent and you never came back to reality, ever.
[Lee]: "The issue I raised was whether or not the Russians attempted to intervene on Trump's behalf."
Nope. That's not the issue you raised. You may like to pretend that's what ya did, on account of ya then get to be all pissy about me supposedly addressing a different question. There ain't no post by you on this thread or the last one about the Russians independent of "radio right wing" or Trump's reaction to it.
[Lee]: "And mostly why Trump found it necessary to deny that they so intervened."
Ah. A bit of uncharacteristic honesty on yore part. That is indeed the issue you raised. Should be pretty obvious to anyone with two brain cells to rub together. Trump and his supporters are trying to deflect anything that would call the legitimacy of his election into question. Just like Obama had to deflect questions about his place of birth etc. Tip for y'all: blamin' me for the crazies on either extreme of your political landscape ain't gonna achieve anything.
The other implication of yore question is why the Trumpkins don't seem to be worried about possible interference by the Russkis in y'all's electoral system. That, of course, is the fantasy part that y'all made up for yoreself. You are not alone though. This very moment I'm watching a BBC news program on which the anchor implies the same thing -- that Trump might have relished a Russian intervention -- to a representative of "Republicans abroad", with a knowing laugh that is shared by other left wing panelists on the program. Now, if history was different, and Hillary had won, and someone insinuated on a foreign news program that she colluded with the Russians to pervert American democracy, it would probably cause a diplomatic incident.
But such wild allegations are made (or at least insinuated) by American "progressives" (as well leftie foreigners) with a completely straight face. They genuinely think that being a "progressive" renders them immune from the sort of batshit craziness that they attribute to "Trumpkins". Yore one of those. I wouldn't call you a Commie like Marcus does, but you are completely blinded by ideology.
[Lee]: "Yes, well, it's fairly common for ‛leftie dopes’ to be described shorthand as ‛liberal’. I'm surprised you don't know that."
Of course I know that. It is also common for them to get away with that lazy conflation of "left" and "liberal", which is why it's common for non-lefties like me to draw attention to it. I'm surprised you don't that. (Nah. Of course you know it. Yore just bein' pissy again).
[Lee]: "Actually, you predicted that I'd get all bent and come back all set to go all ‘sharp pencil’ on ya and make detailed reference to Einstein's papers. Kinda the opposite of your current claim of your prediction."
What a truly weird black-is-white world y'all inhabit. Just to set the record straight, I predicted you would not come back with any reference and ya haven't. Nor will you.
[Lee]: "As a matter of fact you did argue about (frame of reference in SR) for awhile before you decided to imagine up the claim that I'd supposedly discovered a math error in the Special Relativity paper."
LOL. It gets increasingly bizarre. You're right on one thing -- we did briefly cover about two mathematical statements in a paper on SR before it became clear y'all couldn't follow basic mathematical logic. That's when we reverted to a simpler mathematical demonstration which y'all also failed miserably on.
The original argument hinged on whether a changed or variable speed of light would affect relativity in a significant way. (You alleged it wouldn't, I took the opposite view). Had you been able to follow the maths, we would have seen that it affected the conservation of energy within a single reference frame, something that most scientists accept. (That was the logic that y'all ever after referred to as the "magical mystery maths"). As to you ever saying anything about reference frames or switching to non-Euclidean geometry ... don't make me hurt myself laughin' -- y'all couldn't handle y = x + 1 let alone the relatively simple algebra in the Einstein paper.
Before I catch up on comments I just wanted to let anyone interested know that Frontline has a special on President Trump on PBS tonight at 9:00.
I might tune in. I know, I know, kind of like a gawker driving by a traffic accident. Perhaps I am a glutton for punishment.
"The original argument hinged on whether a changed or variable speed of light
would affect relativity in a significant way."
Oh my gawd… You've gone clear over the edge haven't you? I'm almost tempted to ask if you're slender in that imaginary world.
Yup, it was about whether c not being the upper speed limit, as suggested briefly by the supposed FTL neutrinos at Gran Sasso in Italy, would break the known laws of physics. I'm not surprised you don't remember. You got so many mathematical ass whuppin's since that you've resorted to livin' in a permanent hallucinatory state. One in which yer "audience" imagines y'all progressed past 2nd grade algebra.
Yeah, well, discussing whether or not neutrinos could really exceed the speed of light is a long way, long way from a discussion over whether the speed of light is variable. (I have read some speculations recently on the question of whether the speed of light might happen to be variable, but that subject never came up during our discussions. You seem to have read recent speculations on the subject as well, and have managed to mash it all together in your mind--I'd guess that to be coping mechanism, but that's just a guess. I can only speculate on what's really behind your version of crazy-ass fanstasy.)
And, just to explain how this works to Marcus and Lynnette, in language they can fairly easily work out…
You tried to start an argument earlier by pretending to not understand what I'd written. (Petes @ Tue Jan 03, 06:36:00 pm ↑↑) Of course, you understood me perfectly well:
"Of course I know that."
Petes @ Tue Jan 03, 07:26:00 pm
You then accused me of ‛being pissy’ by not immediately admitting that I knew you were already, in your words, ‛being pissy’. (Of course, you only assume that I'd already come to that conclusion, there's no reason for you to conclude that except to offload your sins on someone else.) You accused me of committing your sins. (That's a Catholic thing, ain't it?)
Got done with my chores and have a little time to deal with that closing shot from Petes.
1) Petes plays dumb, pretends to not understand, hoping to start an argument. He calls it ‘being pissy’. When it doesn't work out for him as well as he'd hoped, he accuses me of being the who's ‘being pissy’.
2) Last time the subject of his math rants came up he denied having promised to provide the math he always either promising to provide or claiming he's already provided (he just picked one of those to use as the spirit moved him it seems). I reminded him of the subject and how we'd come to call his playing coy the ‘magical mystery maths’. Everybody remembered that terminology, Petes knew that had to be true; didn't like it, but he knew it. So now he's trying to co-opt the term to his own use--to make it seem like he was the guy who was being strung along by promises of magical math proofs that never materialized. Yeah, right.
3). Last time we got seriously crossed up I told him straight up that I was beginning to question his sanity--no shit, for real; I've come to question the firmness of his grip on reality. So…
This time he comes out of the gate accusing me of being crazy.
Gotta ask…
What's with ya there, Petes? Do you really think nobody notices these things? You really think we've not seen the pattern appear? Are you really that nuts?
#TrumpEffect
"FLAT ROCK, Mich./WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ford Motor Co said Tuesday it will cancel a planned $1.6 billion factory in Mexico and invest $700 million at a Michigan factory, after President-elect Donald Trump had harshly criticized the Mexico investment plan."
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-cancels-1-6-billion-mexican-plant-160903896--finance.html
[Lee]: "Got done with my chores and have a little time to deal with that closing shot from Petes... blah blah blah"
What a chump. You think yore audience don't notice that you churn out page after page of stuff about stuff, but never any actual maths, never any actual physics, never any actual argument about anything 'cept arguin'? On the rare occasion that you even allude to that stuff, you inevitable stick yer foot in yer mouth.
This time round we have something about Einstein's "original paper on Special Relativity" (you, Fri Dec 30, 03:00:00 pm) ... except that's not even where the mass-energy equivalence stuff appears. We have you claimin' that Einstein "switched between non-Euclidian and Euclidean mathemathics" (sic) but you won't say where, or even what you mean by that (Mon Jan 02, 10:13:00 pm).
Ya think nobody notices yer evasions? Ya don't wonder why I can so confidently predict that ya won't come back, ever, with links or explanations on any of yer batty claims? Ya don't think I could show you step by step, in an actual paper that Einstein actually wrote, how energy conservation would be violated were c not the limit?
Except, of course, I would be stymied by yer pissy refusal to comprehend or accept basic algebra, which is how y'all have strung this out for years on end. Even a dunderhead can larn, but I'm afraid there's nothin' I can do for a dunderhead who insists on remainin' a dunderhead. Don't worry, I'll keep an eye out in case y'all ever show any inclination to be educated on the topic, but in the mean time I think this latest round is over as you clearly got nothin' but the usual obfuscations.
Ciao for now.
Well, I'll be damned. I guess the crazy-ass bastard actually did think nobody had noticed.
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"Ford officials said that the revised plans were tied to market conditions
that have depressed small-car sales, and that they did not consult with the
incoming Trump administration before making the decision."
New York Times
Reckon this "Trump effect" of yours is what's been holdin’ down oil prices these past several years?
And now, while the coffee's perkin’ up…
700 jobs in that Ford plant Marcus. Again, not even a good morning's work compared to the 180,000+ jobs per month generated on average under the outgoing administration. I think the grand total in the month since since Trump's been looking for anecdotals to claim as his very own success amount to a claim of about two full days worth of needed jobs (at the Obama rate) across the space of something over three weeks.
At this rate the ‛Trump Effect’ will generate a full-on recession, if not a depression, probably within nine months to a year. Mind you the economy's on the rise now, been on a steady rise for many, many months. I expect Trump's little victory claims will have that reversed within nine months, maybe as long as year. The ‛Trump Effect’… Remember, ya heard it here first.
It's beginning to look like the Republicans' ‘repeal and replace’ policy for ObamaCare will come down to ‘repeal and…well, whatever’. They've agreed on the repeal part, can't agree on the replacement part, so they're just gonna do the part they've agreed on.
[Petes] I've found the best way to do that is by not en-Christmasing it in the first place.
I know, but for some reason I can't help myself. I do try for the minimal look though. ;)
That Exodus program was shot in 2015 and aired on the BBC in early July last year.
*sigh* The only BBC I have is something on cable called BBC America and every time I look to see what's on it's something like CSI Miami re-runs.
The developing story/defense is that the Russians merely told the truth about Hillary, the Russians made sure it got out in public for the public to see, nothing more than that.
Now I look at the headlines and see that apparently Trump is cozying up to Assange, despite his disparaging remarks regarding Wikileaks back in 2010. I get the feeling that for Trump this Presidency thing is just another gig in his entertainment career.
I did watch that Frontline special on Trump last night. There wasn't really much new there. Nor did it make me like him any better. He seems pretty thin skinned and appears to hold grudges.
The House Republicans have decided to not tread on Trump's terrain. They've reversed their earlier decision to loosen up their ethics requirements; leave that terrain to Trump. I think they're more afraid of him than the Democrats are.
Or the American voter. Word going round is that there was a huge backlash on social media and phones were ringing off the hook from angry voters. I am hoping this is the real cause. Because for a democracy to work it is necessary for involvement of the people. And, if Trump screws up badly enough, there is the real chance he will be a one term president.
"Word going round is that there was a huge backlash on social media and
phones were ringing off the hook from angry voters."
I'm afraid those were the Trumpkins, who'da let it slide had Trump not objected to the House members cutting themselves in on his terrain. I'm afraid it was his tweet that set them off. There is a history of his Trumpkins reacting in the real world to his suggestions from cyberspace.
I haven't had a chance to watch the Frontline piece yet, but I should have it on the recorder. Set it to snag it last night.
It's beginning to look like the Republicans' ‘repeal and replace’ policy for ObamaCare will come down to ‘repeal and…well, whatever’.
Obama is telling Democratic party members to basically replicate the Tea Party and not throw any floundering Republicans a life line. Kind of a different tack from what he said originally during this transition period. That thing about helping the incoming president succeed because that would be in America's interest seems to have fallen by the wayside. I'd love to find out what incited the change.
Helping the incoming President is rather different than helping the Republican Congress. You will recall that Trump campaigned on the idea of ‛repeal and replace’ ObamaCare, i.e. there would be no lapses in coverage for the poor. The Congressional Republican plan is to do otherwise, and it looks like Trump is now going to go along with the fiction that they'll repeal it now, and figure out how to replace it later. (He's already working on figuring out how to blame that on the Democrats--best plan is to just say it's the Democrat's fault--his Trumpkins are fast proving up that they'll swallow any damn thing.)
That was the idea behind the Sequester after all, there was the claim that they'd figure out the alternative later ‛cause it was just too awful to contemplate that the Sequester would actually be implemented. Now it turns out that the Sequester is now touted by the Republicans as their greatest fiscal policy success of the Obama era, only thing they have to figure out now is how to exempt military spending from the caps while they keep the caps on domestic spending, but, it's now considered a glorious success--the ultimate public-policy hustle pulled off right out in public. The ‛repeal and whatever…’ will work out exactly the same--repeal now, no whatever, ever.
Sarah Palin has officially, publicly and in writing, apologized to Julian Assange for all those vile things she once said about him.
Marcus has been regaling us, on behalf of his hero Put… Trump, I mean Trump, with tales of the jobs Trump has saved from export to Mexico. I recall that the average under Obama was somewhat in excess of 180,000 jobs per month, or better than 6,000 per day on an average month. Yesterday Trump claimed credit for 700 jobs early in the day, nothin’ since. He's 5,300 jobs short by this mornin’, minimum, and losin’ ground fast as the day wears on.
Marcus, ya need to get yer boy on the stick there; he's falling behind. And falling behind rapidly.
By the way, wasn't Trump supposed to reveal some secret information on the Russian election tampering matter either Tuesday or Wednesday, probably something that was gonna absolve Putin and the Russians? I believe he did say that. This Thursday. He's running behind on more than just his jobs announcements.
Hannity's on the air having a real rant about the Senate holding hearings on the Russian connection to the Wikileaks' election leakages. The Trump campaign (assuming Hannity knows where to hit on their behalf) appears to be quite upset about the prospect of any investigations probing any further into the Russian connections. This isn't proof of anything; I recognize that; but, it does increase my level of suspicion.
It appears The Donald is doing some early morning tweeting again. Something about the media being dishonest on account of they're not running with The Donald line about how Mexico is going to pay us back later after The Donald gets us to pay for The Wall up front. (Yeah, right, like that's gonna happen.)
First thing I notice though is that The Donald has apparently given up on getting Mexico to pay for The Wall (at least for now). Thing is, the Congressional Republicans are unlikely to pay for it either, at least not so long as ladders are cheaper than walls, and that's gonna be true forever.
The Donald's recent tweets include a demand that ‘"It is time for Republicans and Democrats to get together and come up with a health care plan that really works…’. (Link)
Translation: The Donald has no plan and no real prospect of coming up with a viable plan, and so now he needs the Congress to bail his ass out on this one.
That's not gonna happen. The Congressional Republicans can't bail him out on this one, even if they wanted to; they got no plan either. The tweets will, therefore, keep on comin’, and will soon take on an increasingly hostile tone.
The only thing I can see happening is they repeal ObamaCare and put nothing in its place or they don't repeal ObamaCare. I'd bet on the first one if I had to bet, but I wouldn't be givin’ any odds on that one (and I don't have to bet).
It looks like the Trump transition team has already pissed off Mattis by not consulting him for a position at Defense.
Mattis/Trump clash over pick.
It also looks like Trump is digging that Russia hole deeper, insisting on defending the Russians.
Makes me want to impeach the guy before he's even sworn in!
"It looks like the Trump transition team has already pissed off Mattis…"
And it's only just beginning. The Donald does not work and play well with others.
You need to practice your ‘kick back and enjoy the show’ moves; ‘cause it's fer shur gonna be show.
After due investigation I can report that all the evidence in support of The Donald's conclusion that the Russians did not intervene in the Presidential election on his behalf does not exist.
lol!
Just like that inside information that Mr. Trump claimed to have which he did not in fact reveal on Tuesday or Wednesday.
The Donald does not work and play well with others.
Nope, not at all. We are seeing that in his recent bullying of various companies. Trade war here we come.
You need to practice your ‘kick back and enjoy the show’ moves; ‘cause it's fer shur gonna be show.
There will be enough material in the next four years for me to sink my claws into, that's for sure.
By the way, just for Marcus…
The Donald is running about 12,000 jobs behind the Obama pace, just since Wednesday. Things ain't lookin’ good fer The Donald on the jobs front.
@ Lynnette,
Reviewing the morning news…. I do believe that the rise of Trump will likely improve Obama's reputation with the historians in the future, if only because of the stark contrasts that the proximity emphasizes. If Obama is stood up next to ShortHands the Dancing Bear how can he not look good by comparison?
Yes, well, I am already missing Obama's thoughtful, intelligent discourse.
Just a small aside, since we were speaking of the Obama administration in historical terms. They have put in place sanctions against Russia for the meddling in our election. If I were them I would go ahead with whatever covert actions they have planned. Personally I would go directly after the person responsible.
They'll have to consider the possibility that whatever covert action they take will be publicized by the incoming Trump administration. Trump's clearly trying to curry favor with Putin for some reason. David Ignatius questions why he would do that. Fareed Zacharia observes that, whatever the real reason, it's fairly clearly not because Putin wants to ‛make America great again’. Even Trump oughta understand that part.
Trump's Swamp
Conservative author and television personality Monica Crowley, whom Donald Trump has tapped for a top national security communications role, plagiarized large sections of her 2012 book, a CNN KFile review has found.
The review of Crowley’s June 2012 book, "What The (Bleep) Just Happened," found upwards of 50 examples of plagiarism from numerous sources, including the copying with minor changes of news articles, other columnists, think tanks, and Wikipedia. The New York Times bestseller, published by the HarperCollins imprint Broadside Books, contains no notes or bibliography.
Now I can understand using the same word or similar words that others have used in writing, but grabbing whole sections from multiple sources is a little over the top. Another stellar pick of our Donald.
Trump's clearly trying to curry favor with Putin for some reason.
It would seem so. Makes me a little queasy.
They'll have to consider the possibility that whatever covert action they take will be publicized by the incoming Trump administration.
Providing aid and comfort to the enemy? Hmmm....
"Providing aid and comfort to the enemy? Hmmm...."
‘Fraid you're gettin’ out over your skies a little bit there. Trump's wide authority in the area of foreign relations and as CinC means it's nigh on to impossible to designate the Russians as ‘the enemy’ so long as Trump's insistent on groveling for Putin's favor.
" Monica Crowley, whom Donald Trump has tapped for a top
national security communications role, plagiarized large sections of
her 2012 book…"
Trump says that's okay on account of the book was a commercial success (link), selling widely among the right-winger book audience (which is a special sub-set of book buyers concentrating on fairly short, and seriously angry pamphlet-like publications).
Team Trump has finally wised up and quite denying that the Russians were trying to swing the election to Trump. (Trump himself still refuses to go there.) They're going now with the notion that it didn't swing the election, had no effect there. They're going with the ‘so what?’ defense I suggested in the last thread would be their best move. (@ Thu Dec 29, 07:22:00 pm) The changeover is obvious from the Trump spokesmen's comments on today's morning, talking-heads programs. Petes' continued resistance notwithstanding, even Team Trump, if not Trump himself, at least not Trump himself so far, Team Trump has finally come ‘round to that one.
Team Trump is in a great rush to get votes on his Cabinet nominees (in most cases before their conflict-of-interest questionnaires can be examined, in some cases before those questionnaires are even submitted to the appropriate Senate Committees). Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader is going along with Team Trump on this one, trying to get the nominees rushed through all at once and all immediately, before resistance to any can materialize or coalesce. This may work for now, and it may come back to haunt them later.
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