The article that I was referring to was one pertaining to the Great Lakes and our American southwest region that is in the midst of a years long drought. You can probably see where I'm going with this. People there are proposing diverting water from the Great Lakes to the southwest to relieve their water issues. Of course, people in the Great Lakes region are saying a resounding "no", which would also be my view as well. Somehow I feel that man should not mess too much with what mother nature has created. There may be unintended consequences.
So if you are feeling in the mood for a trip back in time I have for you a video on the creation of the Great Lakes of North America. I found it rather fascinating and somehow timely.
171 comments:
Are we not worried that Petes will pronounce your post to be "dumbed down"?
But my question is who drove all 'em cars and planes to create the necessary Global Warming for ices to melt and for them lakes to form?
I mean, if human activity is the main driving force behing the climate changing this way or that, WTF were they really up to way back when? One wonders.
Did they burn so many mammuth skeletons the world warmed, or what? Or was there an earlier civilisation that drove SUV:s and heated the globe? One does indeed wonder.
Sorry to confirm the resident troll's anticipatory snark, but that was pretty dumbed down. Fifty minutes of video that could have been read in five. I shudder to think how long it was with American TV ads thrown in. And all those repetitious recaps and the mystery-murder sound track and talk of scientific puzzles ... even though the whole thing was pieced together decades ago!
My American geography is probably above average for a non-American but I'm no expert and certainly no geologist ... but there was hardly a single factoid in there I didn't know. In fact I wrote about the rift origin of Lake Superior on this very blog if I remember right. Going from memory, I believe it's the biggest continental rift ever to open up anywhere on earth and not lead to a seafloor forming and dividing the continent. And that's due to the antiquity of the American continent and its cratons, and the consequent huge crustal thickness.
One of the scary things in reading about the Wisconsinian glaciation in North America was its extent... all the way down to Manhattan at latitude 40. It seems the gulf stream was still operating the whole way through the last glacial maximum, as up in this neck of the woods the ice sheet ended just off the south coast of Ireland at Wexford, and never covered the south of England.
Indeed, my house in Wexford is built on a hundred foot depth of pure sand dredged up off the seafloor where the edge of the ice sheet stalled, and which it dumped on land in a so-called kame and kettle landscape. I believe you have corresponding examples south of the Great Lakes from Wisconsin to upstate New York.
Wexford's at latitude 51 -- about 700 miles north of Manhattan if you were to travel along a meridian. That's an awful lot of extra ice on your side of the pond when the Big Chill comes back. Minnesotans might even have problems finding anyone to eat ;-)
[Marcus]: "I mean, if human activity is the main driving force behing the climate changing this way or that, WTF were they really up to way back when?"
You ain't that dumb. Nobody ever claimed human activity is the main driving force behind climate change. The current Quaternary glaciation stretches back as far as our Australopithecine ancestors, and the broader current ice age goes back half way to the dinosaurs. Homo sapiens is only as old as the last interglacial. So no we haven't historically caused a whole lot of climate change.
That doesn't mean we're not causing it now, on top of the natural variation. There's no a priori reason to assume we're not. The earth is a big place but the bit of it we occupy inside the troposphere is proportionally half the thickness of an apple skin, relative to the size of the earth. We move more soil than all of Earth's erosive processes, we generate more incremental CO2 in five years than the entire seasonal variation caused by all the plants on earth. We are big hitters. It's not all a leftist wet dream about global domination.
"…who drove all 'em cars and planes to
create the necessary Global Warming…"?
Flintstones; meet the Flintstones
Are we not worried that Petes will pronounce your post to be "dumbed down"?
No. Yes, I figured he would, but I wasn't worried about it. :)
Sorry to confirm the resident troll's anticipatory snark, but that was pretty dumbed down.
No, you don't have to be sorry. You, Lee & Marcus I am sure are far more knowledgeable about some of the topics I choose to write about then these videos can inform. They are more to spark a conversation about the topic than anything else. I enjoy your input.
However, there are some things within some of these videos that I find new, such as the rebounding of the Earth's mantle due to lack of the weight of the ice shelf. I ran across that in your neck of the woods as well when I was trolling YouTube videos before. It is a factor in the lowering of the water levels in the lakes that I had not considered.
And all those repetitious recaps and the mystery-murder sound track and talk of scientific puzzles ... even though the whole thing was pieced together decades ago!
lol! I almost added an apology to the post for those. They are obviously where the commercials had been cut out. I also found the video a little fuzzy at times.
I also would have added the link to the Strib article, but they seem to have locked those up with some kind of subscription option.
There was a nice article in my paper as well about the Amazon fulfillment center in Minnesota. It was a nice tie in to the robotics discussion in the previous comments section. Apparently they are using quite a bit of robotics there in filling the orders. But, and this is a strong but, while this may have taken away some jobs for humans it has also created other new jobs. So the fear that robots will take away all jobs from humans is not entirely accurate. I will see if I can find a link that doesn't involve the Star Tribune.
Same goes for the article regarding the raising of the minimum wage in the Cities to $15 per hour and how it is affecting restaurants there.
*sigh*
"…it has also created other new jobs."
You lose ten jobs and create two new jobs and you're down eight jobs.
From the previous comments section:
[Marcus]: Frankly I'm worried about what kinda leader ya'll dumbasses might select in the future.
You and me both, Marcus. If we got Trump, who knows what we'll get in the future?
You lose ten jobs and create two new jobs and you're down eight jobs.
Hmmm...the article doesn't give a win/loss score. It just says:
While robotics plays a big role in Amazon's fulfillment center, at least four humans touch a package before it goes out the door, Russell said.
There is also the issue of the job itself. Personally they sound extremely boring to me. But if you have to pay the bills...
The article is:
"No HQ, but Amazon growing rapidly in MSP", by Kavita Kumar
The other article is:
"Wage hike puts restaurants at difficult tipping point", by Adam Belz.
I don't know if there's a way around that subscription thing or not. I didn't see a bypass option. Maybe they will become available after a few days. They may just lock them up while they are still current.
"While robotics plays a big role in Amazon’s
fulfillment center, at least four humans will still
touch a package before it goes out the door,
Russell said."
StarTribune
I didn't bother looking for the other one.
I decided to check for the other one anyway (Slow news morning.) This may be it.
The political analysts seem fairly constant across the political spectrum this morning. Team Trump has been dispatched in what amounts to a mad scramble to resurrect the summit meeting with North Korean Chairman Kim, hopefully in time to restore the original 12 June schedule.
A writer in Politico predicts a long hot summer and a full on firestorm in the fall.
"…we do know that the modern standard for
impeachment was set in 1998, when
independent counsel Kenneth Starr and a
Republican House concluded that one instance
of lying under oath about a sexual indiscretion
was enough. Starr even concluded that he had
the authority to indict President Clinton on
those grounds, though he did not do so. If that
is the standard, Mueller’s findings involving
President Trump will easily clear that very low
bar."
(emphasis in original)
[Lynnette]: "...such as the rebounding of the Earth's mantle due to lack of the weight of the ice shelf. I ran across that in your neck of the woods as well when I was trolling YouTube videos before. It is a factor in the lowering of the water levels in the lakes that I had not considered."
I had come across that before. Your video called it "crustal rebound" but that's a dumbing down too -- the only term I've ever come across is isostatic rebound (it doesn't only affect the crust). It's a fascinating concept that highlights the idea of the Earth being a squishy ball, or maybe like a water bed. You squish it down in one place it pops up in others, stop squishing and it rebounds. But it's gloopy too, so the processes take many thousands of years. (There you go -- a bit of dumbing down of my own ;-)
You're right, it's a feature in the British Isles too, just like the Great Lakes. Scotland is rebounding from the weight of the ice sheet which is making the whole island of Britain tip down toward the south, as if a heavy person had stepped off an ice floe. That increases chances of flooding in London which is sinking lower.
An interesting aspect of isostatic rebound is the effect on Earth's spin. The glaciers mashed the land masses down, slight shifting the planet's mass toward the equator. As they shift back they slightly decrease Earth's rotational inertia, which should cause it to spin a little faster. But it turns out the melting of the ice at the poles and the redistribution of water toward the equator has a much greater effect, so in fact the Earth's rotation is slowing down as a result of the end of the ice age... in addition to the slowing down caused by the normal Moon-induced tidal friction. Scientists are trying to use the precise profile of the changing spin to estimate the gloopiness of the Earth's mantle.
(Rocks are much heavier than ice but the water gets transported over much greater distances than the crustal movement, hence the positive contribution to rotational inertia).
"…that's a dumbing down too…"
Speaking of dumbing down, if your information level approached anything near you level of pomposity, you'd have known that the supposed 'separate rift valley' under Lake Ontario is not a separate rift valley at all, but is in fact a continuation of the one rift valley that runs in an arc from Nebraska to Tennessee (via Minnesota and the Great Lakes). But as usual, you are interested in mastering the available jargon (if any can be found applicable) more than mastery of the subject matter. (Also, they don't know why the rift quit growing. It wasn't because the crust was old and thick, ‛cause the forces that created it had already proven capable of splitting the crust there--old and thick notwithstanding. It just quit and they don't know why.)
And, to correct your explanation of the rotational slowing:
Piling up ice at the poles adds weight at the poles (near the center of the axis) and reduces it everywhere else. Spin increases. It's like a spinning ice skater pulling their arms and hands in towards their center mass; speed increases. The spread their arms out, speed of the spin decreases.
@Lynnette, re: the robots ... another NOVA program, "Can We Build a Brain?". (You can probably get better video on the PBS/NOVA site but that site won't play video for a foreigner like me while, weirdly, the Facebook one does).
This one plumbs infuriating new depths of dumbing down and you have to wade through the initial piece about the Chinese chatbot. But toward the end it surveys some opinions on whether the new technology will create or destroy jobs. I'd say on balance it agrees with you and me -- technology has always freed up human potential to work on bigger and better things, albeit with some dislocation that retraining can't always fix. An interesting quip is that 200 years ago 98% of us were employed in agriculture. You could hardly imagine a greater dislocation than the one we've been through, yet the world is almost incomparably better off.
P.S. the five minutes of the vid from around 13 minutes in is a reasonable explanation of "deep learning" a.k.a. artificial neural networks, which form the basis of much of what is being called A.I. It's quite a clever idea with a lot of potential, but it's just a clever algorithm and really nothing like intelligence the way you or I experience it.
Pompous techie people who want to make it sound tricky call it ‛deep learning’ these days to promote the idea there's some depth there. The original term was simply ‛machine learning’.
LOL. I see the troll is getting even more desperate than usual. The quote marks around 'separate rift valley' seem aimed at attributing that phrase -- which I never used -- to me. That said, I had no idea of the extent of the rift because, like I said, I'm not a geologist. But that admission apparently counts as pomposity in desperate troll land :) :) :)
Extra LOLZ for the correction to my "explanation of the rotational slowing". Now, if I wanted to dumb things down I would have mentioned the ice skater analogy. But I reckoned every woman and her dog has heard of that before. So I didn't condescend, and just stuck to the term rotational inertia which most people can get their brains around. But top marks to the troll for explaining it in terms of "centre [of] mass". If we wanna get picky, that's just hiding the explanation behind another technicality, as CoM itself cannot be understood without explanation in terms of the moment of a force. But I'd better stop before the troll hisself gets shown up for bein' a pompous troll.
;-)
"…aimed at attributing that phrase--which I never used--to me…"
Didn't intend to attribute it to you. Rather, I think it obvious that you'd not get twitchy over the failure to use technical jargon in a presentation intended to go to the non-technical, non-jargon community (where using technical jargon should properly be considered a mistake--as likely to decrease the comprehension of the audience rather than raise it), and yet you let pass an actual significant error in the presentation.
I figured that highlights your concentration on memorizing technical terms with which you can dazzle the uninformed over actual mastery of the subject matter itself.
I s‛pect our small audience gets that too.
"…as CoM itself cannot be understood without explanation
in terms of the moment of a force."
Apparently you've never shot a gun at a target.
Actually, ‛center of the mass’ is also the wrong term to use. (Which you missed.) Technically, it's the center of the spin that matters. The ice skater could increase spin speed by putting his hands together over his head--still way far out from the center of the mass, just as easy as pulling the arms in to his side.
But, I decided to let that go as not important to the explanation, even though true, and you missed it entirely. You'd not have let that pass if you'd caught it.
Must be clueless trolling day over there. There are multiple branches of machine learning that do not involve neural networks, let alone "deep" ones. The depth of a neural network is basically the number of layers of processing. These are representations of the problem space at different levels of abstraction. They may begin with convolutional layers to make sure that the output is affected by all of the input. Then there are so-called "fully connected" layers which are only computationally feasible once the input is represented at a higher abstraction level. Neural networks are basically constrained by the processing power available (although this sometimes only applies to the training phase, not in regular usage). The "depth" of the network is indeed a real constraint on efficacy, nothing to do with nerdy pomposity (although undoubtedly the computer world is full of that). Clock another one up to trolltastic whinin'.
As for the trollish offence-taking with technical jargon, I'm not seein' the problem as a bit of furious Googlin' clearly clued the troll in right quick. Troll must think he's the only person capable of usin' a search engine, but still bitches and whahns about bein' required to do so. LOL. :)
They don't process data in ‛layers’ they process it in batches. They simply renamed the batches as ‛layers’ to justify the claim of depth.
"…as a bit of furious Googlin'…"
And you're still fixated on your fantasy of ‛furious Googling’. Obviously that thought is very important to you. Perhaps this has something to do with your apparently connected fixation on finding jargon to use if possible.
You think it makes you appear smarter I'm guessing. You think you need to appear smarter than you are I'm also guessing. Bit of a personal insecurity there.
Jes' keeps gettin' funnier. Troll is now whinin' at me for him usin' the wrong terminology.
"Actually, ‛center of the mass’ is also the wrong term to use. (Which you missed.) Technically, it's the center of the spin that matters."
Actually it's neither of those things. It's rotational inertia that matters. Which jes' happens to be the term I actually used.
Regarding personal insecurity ... when I don't understand something, I ask. Y'all should try it sometime. Could be educational. Beats been ignorant due to y'all's own intransigence. LOL.
As for that layers versus batches thing, it's gettin' more hilarious by the minute. Firstly it ain't true. Batch mode training is one approach. But then, "layers" is a general term applied to abstraction in many contexts. The 7-layer OSI model dudn't imply that bits of a network are actually on top of each other. It's not a conspiracy of pompous nerds. I doubt any of this is gonna help plumb the "depths" of y'all's ignorance though.
"It's rotational inertia that matters."
Nope. (I actually did do a bit of modest googling for the following explanation, just to avoid you fussing over my non relevant non use of jargon.)
"Rotational inertia" is a "scalar value". A "scalar value" is a fixed number as opposed to a variable, a vector (directional), or a matrix (needs no explanation I don't think).
It's not changing the numbers in the equation one uses to calculate the spin speed that matters to the spin speed. Changing the number you use in your calculations doesn't change what happens in the real world.
It's moving the mass in towards the center of the spin (the axis) that matters; that's what changes the rate of spin. Measuring the change and assigning it a number doesn't create the change. (Although the advocates of quantum mechanics would beg do differ, quantum mechanics doesn't apply here.)
…to differ…
"Firstly it ain't true."
Well, actually it is true.
"…‛layers’ is a general term applied to abstraction in many contexts."
Or, they claim that they're ‛layers’ because they chose to call them that, even though they're actually not. I.e. they are what he chooses to name them even if that word is already used for something real. Well, that's just not true, no matter how much he wishes it were. The sun wasn't the center of the universe just 'cause the Catholic Church chose to make that the official story.
Kinda like pretending that coming up with a name for the number used to make the spin calculations is what actually makes the spin speed change. It just ain't so.
"I actually did do a bit of modest googling for the following explanation"
I bet you did. :) :) :)
But y'all still didn't understand what ya read.
The rotational inertia is the important quantity here because of its relation to the angular momentum. That is one of the universally conserved quantities, and therefore of fundamental physical importance. It is conserved in all (non-dissipative) systems, even ones that don't have simple, consistent or unique centres of rotation or mass. The real world isn't all uniform spheroids and ice skaters. The Earth has a bunch of different wobbles (nutations), it's got mantle plumes, mountains, irregular ocean bathymetry. The bodies in the solar system, galaxies, and globular clusters of stars aren't even rigidly connected. Gravitational encounters and orbital alignments move mass both outward in inward. The solar system's centre of mass is sometimes inside the Sun, sometimes outside it. An even more interesting example is the Earth-Moon tidal interaction. A similar one is sitting on a swivel chair holding a spinning bicycle wheel and trying to turn the wheel. Neither of those situations involve changes to mass distribution or "centre of spin", but they do involve changes in rate and can only be understood in terms of changes to rotational inertia (and conservation of angular momentum).
Yore welcome :)
"they claim that they're ‛layers’ because they chose to call them that, even though they're actually not"
Yep. It's called abstract thinking, something y'all seem to have failed to develop beyond kindergarten level. That particular abstraction is completely ubiquitous in the software world.
Yore welcome again. :)
"Catholic Church blah blah blah"
LOLZ.
"The rotational inertia is the important quantity…"
Rotational inertia is not a quantity. Rotational inertia is a value.
Like most theologists throughout history (and they call it theoretical physics for a reason), you get to believing your own spin.
Abstract thinking does not change physical realities. I know this to be true. I'm rather more firmly in touch with both the benefits and the limitations of abstract thinking than you are, because you do not seem to know that to be true.
And now the troll shall go back on ignore, lest this descend into one of those multi-thousand post threads that end with the troll claiming black is white. Quite fun though, I admit I was feeling mischievous ... I've diligently had the troll on ignore since November 5th last (yep, I have been keeping track). Ciao.
You want people to believe that you've talked yourself into a hole on purpose; I rather doubt that will work.
However, I am more than happy to see you give it up on that point. (I don't think they'll buy it, but it's probably all ya got, so…)
Yes, Lee, those are the two articles I mentioned. It must have been a timing thing then. I found the great siphoning one as well now. Maybe I'll just go up and slip it into the post too.
Can't resist one more though ...
"Rotational inertia is not a quantity. Rotational inertia is a value."
Yep, I figgered that furious Googlin' didn't help ya one bit. LOLZ. It is a quantity -- a scalar quantity. That's what the page told ya in black and white. Just like speed is a scalar (as distinct from velocity, a vector). Ain't no point in tryin' to explain the implications to ya though, as y'all have already decided it's a pompous catholic plot to ruffle yer intransigence. And now it's really ciao as we all know this could go on forever.
"It is a quantity."
Nope. It is a value. There is no quantity that can be identified as "rotational inertia". (We can, arguably, identify "5" as a quantity, just for one instance, but not "rotational inertia").
Tell us, how much is "rotational inertia"?
It's a fascinating concept that highlights the idea of the Earth being a squishy ball, or maybe like a water bed. You squish it down in one place it pops up in others, stop squishing and it rebounds.
Yes, that's right!
So now we come back to that rift. We here in Minnesota don't think of ourselves as living in an area subject to lava flows. Not like Hawaii. The nearest danger always seemed to be Yellowstone. But what if that rift reopens? Is it possible the rebound effect could have bearing on whether or not the rift remains sealed?
What kind of effect would siphoning billions of gallons of water have on the rebounding?
This also means we can't really say that lake levels are lower totally because of lack of rain fall. So, while I still believe climate change is real, there are other factors at work.
"…since November 5th last (yep, I have been keeping track)."
Not very well you haven't
"Freddie Starr said...
"LOL. "♩♩♪♫♬ I was trolling on the moon one day, in the merry merry
month of May... ♬♫♪♩♩""
Petes @ Wed May 09, 08:40:00 pm
Bugger admits to trolling me and simultaneously calls me a troll.
He's been learning from Trump.
Unless the lake bottoms "rebound" faster than the surrounding watershed (unlikely) the rebound shouldn't have any significant effect on the current lake levels. It's the approach of the falls to Lake Erie that's gonna make the difference, and that's not gonna happen for thousands of years.
On the culture wars…
Roseanne Barr has managed to get her new ABC show canceled with a little tweeted racism. MSN.COM
Presumably it'll get picked up by Fox.
Is the other shoe going to drop?
Well, apparently the tariffs are back on again. The DOW was not pleased, dropping 400 points.
Presumably it'll get picked up by Fox.
Probably. Although they may not have all of the original people who worked on the show. Someone had resigned before it was cancelled.
Some of the behind-the-scenes folks had resigned. I think none of the on-camera people had made the jump yet.
[Lynnette]: "But what if that rift reopens? Is it possible the rebound effect could have bearing on whether or not the rift remains sealed?"
In short, no. The rift is more that a billion years old. The continents were in completely different places and configurations then, subject to different stresses and sitting atop different hotspots in the Earth's mantle. If the rifting was still continuing you'd probably have active volcanoes in the vicinity.
"What kind of effect would siphoning billions of gallons of water have on the rebounding?"
It would accelerate it. That's what's happening with the tilting of the Great Lakes toward the south. Moving all that water accelerates the rebound to the north. Amazingly the uplift to the north has been on the order of a centimetre and a half per year since the end of the ice age. It's slower now than it was but still enough that people can see the effects over the course of a lifetime. Piers and docks at the northern edge are getting stranded while to the south they get flooded. And that's just the modern lake boundaries. To the north of Lake Ontario in Ottawa there are old beaches 175 metres higher than the southern end of the lake. That's nearly 600 ft!!! The water loading effect accounts for about 15 metres of that.
"Well, apparently the tariffs are back on again. The DOW was not pleased, dropping 400 points."
Once again it's not all about Trump. The populists in Italy are a much bigger story, with a question mark over the possibility of leaving the eurozone and defaulting on its debt of 130% of GDP. Slim possibility maybe, but enough to scare the crap out of financial markets, especially bank stocks including US ones, which is what led the DOW lower. Once in a while it's the US that catches a cold when Europe sneezes.
If you remember, the election in Italy was flagged on here late last year as one of a number of unsettling things on the upcoming European calendar. For now, the president of Italy has refused to endorse the new government and its controversial finance minister, and has imposed a technocrat instead. But that can't last long (nothing ever does in Italy even without a perceived subversion of democracy).
Some audio on the Italy crisis from thestreet.com. Gives a good insight about the $3tn Italian debt, which is 60% held by foreign banks.
I noticed that the actor who played "D.J." on Roseanne has distanced himself from Ms. Barr. This in addition to the actress who played "Darlene" making distance. If the current actors won't work with Ms. Barr, then the chances that Fox will pick up the show drops dramatically.
[Petes]: In short, no.
That's a relief. Yellowstone is bad enough.
[Petes]: It would accelerate it.
That's what I thought, given the weight of water.
[Petes]: . It's slower now than it was but still enough that people can see the effects over the course of a lifetime.
That is the concern. It's easy to say that this won't happen for a long time, but in reality it already is. Granted, it isn't life threatening, but I don't think messing with what is happening, even on a relatively small scale, is wise. I have little confidence that the people who want to siphon water know what they are doing.
[Petes]: The populists in Italy are a much bigger story, with a question mark over the possibility of leaving the eurozone and defaulting on its debt of 130% of GDP.
I saw that! I know that we had talked a little about Italy back when Greece was having their problems, but with the distraction of Trump I tended to forget.
And now with Trump and his allies weakening some of the regulations(Dodd/Frank) put in place after the last financial crisis, Italy a question mark, and the ongoing Brexit debacle there is a good possibility that we will be in financial hot water all over again. (That reminds me, I have to get back down and read the rest of your article on Brexit.)
[Lee]: If the current actors won't work with Ms. Barr, then the chances that Fox will pick up the show drops dramatically.
She is blaming being on Ambien at the time. The makers of the drug have said being racist is not a side effect of the drug.
"This also means we can't really say that lake levels are lower
totally because of lack of rain fall."
We can say that, as the land has rebounded, that the lakes have become larger.
The rift runs through Lake Superior, then north (under the dolomite cap) and emerges on the east in the bottom of Lake Ontario. This produces a ‛hinge’ effect with north side bouncing up faster than the south side. The Great Lakes drain to the north (both Lake Erie and Lake Ontario empty to the north). So, the drainage point is rising with respect to the lakes themselves; the result is that the lakes are larger now than they've ever been, at least since the ice dam broke draining the pre-historical ice blocked lake known as Lake Alquinon.
Recent losses are related to drier weather and human water consumption, not rebounding.
"…then north (under the dolomite cap)…"
North of the lower lakes I meant to say, north of Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie.
[Lynnette]: "The makers of the drug have said being racist is not a side effect of the drug."
LOL. That made me laugh. I saw her interviewed a couple of months ago, can't remember where. Probably some conservative internet channel. She was foul mouthed and sounded either drunk or deranged. The racist Tweet doesn't surprise me too much. I'd say it's a side effect of being an a$$hole. (I did like her show 20+ years ago though).
"Well, apparently the tariffs are back on again."
In an apparent effort to double down on dumbassery, Team Trump is eager to add tariffs against Canada, Mexico, and the European Union in on top of those tariffs against China. Politico
Pete: "The current Quaternary glaciation stretches back as far as our Australopithecine ancestors, and the broader current ice age goes back half way to the dinosaurs. Homo sapiens is only as old as the last interglacial. So no we haven't historically caused a whole lot of climate change.
That doesn't mean we're not causing it now, on top of the natural variation. There's no a priori reason to assume we're not. The earth is a big place but the bit of it we occupy inside the troposphere is proportionally half the thickness of an apple skin, relative to the size of the earth. We move more soil than all of Earth's erosive processes, we generate more incremental CO2 in five years than the entire seasonal variation caused by all the plants on earth. We are big hitters."
Yeah we are!
OK, I'm with you there. And my post was tounge in cheek (as you prolly - maybe - figured out). But a serious questions:
Where did the debate of "over-population" go? That debate I seem to remember. It used to be a big issue. We're many and getting ever more numerous and that puts a strain on our habitate - it was said. When I was growing up that was a big deal.
That argument is basically outlawed today. Can't really talk 'bout it or you're a Nazi of some sort. Every "humanitarian" effort today is, while not directly intended to, still aimed at ever and faster increasion of the world human populace.
From a Catholic, or otherwise religious, standpoint I get that. Humans shall inherit the earth and so on. Blah, blah, then Jesus comes again and saves us.
But from a scientific standpoint - the global populace increases exponentionally and we make our damndest efforts to "bring people out of poverty", which always means each individual carries a greater ecological footprint. And yet one of our main worries is over consumption? How do you square them ideas?
Just follow the graphs Pete. You know math, you can read a graph. 12 Billion in our (mine at least, not sure how old you are) people on Earth and an aim that EVERYONE should get to live a 1'st world lifestyle, or move into a 1'st world lifestyle place, and at the same time we're gonna reduce energy spent and raw materials used?
Explain to me how you foresee that happening. I'm really curious.
In an apparent effort to double down on dumbassery, Team Trump is eager to add tariffs against Canada, Mexico, and the European Union in on top of those tariffs against China. Politico
YES! Of all the stupid, assbackwards MORONS! They have me screaming in my own comments section. What? Are they trying to totally screw up the world economy?
Now both Mexico and the EU are saying they will retaliate. Frankly, I don't blame them.
She was foul mouthed and sounded either drunk or deranged. The racist Tweet doesn't surprise me too much. I'd say it's a side effect of being an a$$hole. (I did like her show 20+ years ago though).
I agree with all of that, including the part about liking her show before. This isn't about being politically correct, it's about simply acting like a decent human being. But with the president we have now all of the creeps are creeping out of the woodwork. They apparently think that kind of behavior is okay.
"They apparently think that kind of behavior is okay."
That's a large part of why they went with Trump; they think his election gives them license to indulge in giving voice to those ideas and attitudes that were getting them frowned at by by their neighbors and their grandkids.
That's why they silo up on Twitter and Facebook and only watch FoxNews, so they can assure themselves that they'll get mainly positive feedback on ideas and attitudes and language that's considered socially unacceptable in public.
"Are they trying to totally screw up the world economy?"
Probably not; probably convinced themselves that the impact would be negligible (and, it appear that the stock markets did wait until the afternoon to begin to crater, so maybe they had an inside look at that; but, it also looks like the cratering has begun).
Maybe we'll get lucky.
Maybe we'll get lucky.
I no sooner take notice of the stock markets cratering than they turn back up.
[Lynnette]: "But with the president we have now all of the creeps are creeping out of the woodwork. They apparently think that kind of behavior is okay."
Ah, you see this is where we part company ;-)
Nobody thinks the behaviour is ok. She got fired within 4 hours of the tweet for god's sake! Where are all the right wingers coming out to support her? Where are Trump's tweets in support of her? What you do have is the professional race baiters like Al Sharpton still getting rolled out to condemn American racism. Uh, hullo ... she's a single crazy woman who has suffered total and instant career-ending ignominy. They ain't coming out of the woodwork :) :) :)
"Where are all the right wingers coming out to
support her?"
Twitter, Facebook, a few on FoxNews.
[Marcus]: "Where did the debate of "over-population" go? That debate I seem to remember. It used to be a big issue. We're many and getting ever more numerous and that puts a strain on our habitate - it was said. When I was growing up that was a big deal."
That debate went away because it was stupid. Although every stupid idea periodically comes around again for another day in the sun. The iteration that you and I probably remember is the one started by Paul Ehrlich in the 60s, although obviously it's at least as old as Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population in 1798. The ironic thing about both Malthus and Ehrlich is that they were both writing at the end of agricultural revolutions which dramatically increased world carrying capacity (1, 2). Rapid rises in population were an effect of this, not a cause of unsustainability.
Ok, you could argue that we have to run out of road sometime. Technological progress can only take us so far, and just leads to more consumption as the carrying capacity increases. This is essentially Jevons Paradox. The only problem is it's never been right yet. We didn't die when we killed all the megafauna, we just switched to farming. We didn't die when the land became unproductive, we invented crop rotation and eventually artificial fertiliser. We now fix more nitrogen in the soil than all the nitrogen fixing bacteria, the main source of organic nitrogen for hundreds of millions of years of plant evolution. We didn't die when we ran out of wood to burn, we switched to coal, then oil and gas.
We are in the process of another great switchover. We don't yet know where it will lead us. But that's always been the way. As Niels Bohr said: "prediction is difficult, especially about the future". Our tendency to extrapolate from where we are now almost always turns out to be comically wrong. Remember the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894? Within less than twenty years it was consigned to the compost bin of history in a way that nobody could have envisaged. I think you're old enough to remember all of the rise of the mobile phone. I remember watching this programme in 1979 and being intrigued by the packet-switching concept but even the programme itself admitted that radio spectrum for personal phones would never be made available. Even ten years later when another program in the same series (BBC Tomorrow's World) announced that there were three million mobile phones world wide, I didn't believe that the average man in the street would ever have one.
With all this improvement you wonder why we're so pessimistic. Paul Ehrlich took doomster porn to a new low. Read some of his crazy predictions. India was going to implode under the weight of two hundred million new people by 1980. Today India has almost eight hundred million people more than when the prediction was made in 1968. In the same period the proportion of people living below the poverty line has more than halved. The number of wealthy and middle class Indians today is comparable to the entire Indian population in 1968 and economic growth continues unabated. Oh yeah, and somewhere between a half and two thirds of all Indians have mobile phones.
(cont'd...)
(...cont'd)
[Marcus]: "That argument is basically outlawed today. Can't really talk 'bout it or you're a Nazi of some sort. Every "humanitarian" effort today is, while not directly intended to, still aimed at ever and faster increasion of the world human populace."
Quite the opposite, I'd have said. I always hear people droning on about overpopulation. Ironically it almost always comes from pampered people in first world countries undergoing demographic implosions. It's as if they use up all that extra time freed up by not making babies to carp on on about too many babies being made.
[Marcus]: "From a Catholic, or otherwise religious, standpoint I get that. Humans shall inherit the earth and so on. Blah, blah, then Jesus comes again and saves us."
Well, one line I've heard is: "Pray as if everything depends on God. Act as if everything depends on you" ;-)
[Marcus]: "But from a scientific standpoint - the global populace increases exponentionally and we make our damndest efforts to "bring people out of poverty", which always means each individual carries a greater ecological footprint. And yet one of our main worries is over consumption? How do you square them ideas?"
That Malthusian exponential growth thing is a mathematical viewpoint, not a scientific one. There are plenty of practical reasons why it hasn't caused problems in the past, even when it was expected to. Maybe it'll apply in the future, maybe it won't. Our job is to figure out how to stave off disaster, as we have done so far since forever. If you disagree, consider this: who gets to decide which part of the population is surplus to requirements?
[Marcus]: "Just follow the graphs Pete. You know math, you can read a graph. 12 Billion in our (mine at least, not sure how old you are) people on Earth and an aim that EVERYONE should get to live a 1'st world lifestyle, or move into a 1'st world lifestyle place, and at the same time we're gonna reduce energy spent and raw materials used? Explain to me how you foresee that happening. I'm really curious."
Anything that can't happen, won't happen. So that problem will sort itself out. But I'm optimistic. I tend to think the planet can support a population of hundreds of billions. But with growth rates leveling off it probably won't come to that. We're gonna need some new energy sources, for sure. High grade energy is the stuff of life. You "rationalists" like to point out that the universe is cold, dark , empty and uncaring. That's perfect!!! We can export our entropy to it in practically limitless amounts! ;-)
Republicans in Congress not pleased with Turmp's trade war
Republicans on Capitol Hill were fuming after the White House abruptly announced it would begin imposing steel and aluminum tariffs Friday on US allies Canada, Mexico and the European Union.
The move Thursday came after Republicans tried to convince the administration for months to target China with tariffs rather than US trading partners, and it could trigger Republicans on Capitol Hill to consider taking action against their own President on trade.
One Republican senator, who asked not to be identified, complained Thursday about President Donald Trump's decision to impose the tariffs, 25% on steel imports and 10% on aluminum imports.
"I don't like trade wars. There are no winners in trade wars. And this scares me," the senator said.
Nobody thinks the behaviour is ok.
Roseanne did. So do all of those people who indulge in bigoted behavior, in effect doing the same thing. Yes, she got fired. It's about time someone stood up to that nonsense.
One can only hope that Congress will some day find the backbone to do the same thing to Trump's stupidity.
"Roseanne did"
Ok. Now we're down to one person. One single crazy lady. Not the end of the world ;-)
"So do all of those people who indulge in bigoted behavior..."
Yep, you'll always have bigots. Only thing I disagree on is that Trump invented them.
Rumor going around that trade talks with China, scheduled to begin on Friday, ain't gonna begin on Friday.
I seem to have miscounted my days. This is the 1st. Trade talks with China are scheduled to start the 2nd (another day yet). In any case, Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, is still in Paris so far as I can tell. Means either that, Ross isn't going to head the trade talks and nobody bothered to tell the press, or the trade talks aren't going to start as planned, and nobody bothered to tell the press, or Ross is winging it out of Paris at the last minute and nobody bothered to tell the press.
I'm putting my money on they canceled the trade talks with China and nobody bothered to tell the press, and they didn't even notice, what with the dust up over the new tariffs. Guess we'll know for certain by tomorrow.
Ah. Good to see normal service has been resumed on this side of the Atlantic. Trump's trade war is barely making the news, as:
- Greece is looking for a debt deal
- Spain's PM has been ousted (to loud cheers from Catalonia)
- Italy almost has a populist government teeming with Euro-skeptics who want a parallel currency
- Brexit is an omnishambles
- OECD warning of another Irish property bubble as economy overheats
Crisis? What crisis ... ;-)
Holy FUCK!!111 the ONE person outta two I thought could be reasoned with, PeteS, cannot be reasoned with. He's really a religious nutjob after all his pretences at "science". Him does think Jayzuz's gonna save us all in the end. Blinders down.
I am left with Lee C to try to talk to up in dis muthafuggah. And talkin' to Lee is NOT easy. That implies goin' down rabbit hole after rabbit hole to argue the meaning of of.
Pete is apparently a religios kook, Lynnette is to dumb and Lee will argue against anything, even stuff he actually agrees with becauze for him it's some sort of twisted sport. All the rest have left, and probably wisely so.
This is bad bad bad.
Hundreds of billions of people on earth. smdh.
Dude's a lunatic, a well versed one admittedly. A dangerous person whose thoughts we should pray and hope not get to get mainstream.
[Marcus]: "Holy FUCK!!111"
Checks time of post. Yep, Friday 8pm CEST ;-)
[Marcus]: "the ONE person outta two I thought could be reasoned with, PeteS, cannot be reasoned with. He's really a religious nutjob..."
Never claimed otherwise.
[Marcus]: "after all his pretences at "science"
I've never seen any conflict between religious nuttery and science. At least, not since I stopped bein' an atheist.
[Marcus]: "Him does think Jayzuz's gonna save us all in the end. Blinders down."
Well no, I don't think he's gonna save ALL of us. And not necessarily this side of the grave neither, so I'm very much in favour of usin' science to save our own asses where applicable.
[Marcus]: "Hundreds of billions of people on earth."
There's a caveat. I don't think we can get there without some novel energy sources. I think they're on the horizon though.
[Marcus]: "Dude's a lunatic, a well versed one admittedly. A dangerous person whose thoughts we should pray and hope not get to get mainstream."
Hey, don't confuse me with the American millennialist loonies who are hopin' for the rapture to arrive Sunday week, and would like to hasten it any way they can. I really am all for the scientific approach ;-)
On the other hand, don't gimme any rationalist nonsense. Bunch of amoral dopes who rant about overpopulation while they studiously fail to reproduce! Don't forget the tautological aspect of evolution -- only the fittest survive to reproduce ... so if you ain't reproducin' you ain't the fittest :)
Tautologies are easy, and yet he managed to screw that one up.
It's quite a pity that flywheels don't quite fit the bill as a novel energy source. Trolls would have to start believin' in first class miracles, since in Troll Land "rotational inertia is not a quantity" :) :) :)
That wasn't a working tautology either.
Well, thank God that projects done! Now it's just a question of putting the house back together again, which I can take a little time doing as it's mostly my bedroom that's the issue. I'm starting to think the minimalist way of decorating is best. At leas when you want to replace carpet. ;)
Yep, you'll always have bigots. Only thing I disagree on is that Trump invented them.
Oh no, I don't think he invented them. They've been around for thousands of years, unlike Trump. Although I will say it seems like he has been around that long.
No, I think some of his words and actions encourage them. And when you are supposedly the leader ( I know that's a laugh) of the free world, it just isn't a good look.
I seem to have miscounted my days.
No worries, I have been known to do that.
I'm not holding my breath that we will accomplish anything with talks with China. I have zero confidence in Trump to get anything done that will help this country.
I do see that he is trying to work a deal for a summit with Putin. Oh joy. One wonders what he will give a way with that deal.
- Greece is looking for a debt deal
I thought I had read somewhere that things were actually looking up for them? This isn't so then? They are still stuck where they were before?
- Italy almost has a populist government teeming with Euro-skeptics who want a parallel currency
I saw that things were going down that road. That doesn't seem to bode well for EU unity.
Btw, Melania Trump seems to have disappeared. Or at least hasn't been seen in public for a while now. Much speculation in the press...
Gotta run. Have to get a few things done before I take a break and see a movie...
Well, Ross did make it to China; last minute flight straight from Paris. Such circumstances suggest he's not expecting much to come of the meeting, went there more or less unprepared for serious talks.
Pete: "Hey, don't confuse me with the American millennialist loonies who are hopin' for the rapture to arrive Sunday week, and would like to hasten it any way they can. I really am all for the scientific approach ;-)"
No you're WORSE. Them idiots we can prolly sway just by placing some somali "refugees" in their backyard and once they get the taste of the "multiculty" fairytale they've been spewing they do a 180 and come over to our side.
Pete: "On the other hand, don't gimme any rationalist nonsense. Bunch of amoral dopes who rant about overpopulation while they studiously fail to reproduce!"
That's a dishonest argument. If we in the "white world" do not reproduce enough then that's an issue in and of its own. There could be easy fixes to this. Increase maternity leave, subsidise children born, etc. IF we actually want to get ever more numerous, which I say is not a clear aim and one certainly not fitting well with enviromentalism.
Inviting infinity browns is not a logical solution to whites having to few children.
Pete: "Don't forget the tautological aspect of evolution -- only the fittest survive to reproduce ... so if you ain't reproducin' you ain't the fittest :)"
That's part of my argument. Today we have inversed that law laid down by mother nature into basically "survival of the unfittest" instead.
Who has more children? The ones who can actually raise and take care of them or the ones who depend on subsidies from others to feed their spawn?
We, today, fuck with mother nature. And she'll respond.
In another move that's escaped the headlines, Trump has issued executive orders which will save older coal-fired power plants which had been scheduled for closing. The orders mandate that public utilities purchase sufficient amounts of electricity from these out-of-date power plants so's to keep them operating and online. (Also applies to older nuclear power plants.) NBCNews ABCNews
The List: A Week-by-Week Reckoning of Trump’s First Year Hardcover –
March 27, 2018
by Amy Siskind (Author)
4.9 out of 5 stars 181 customer reviews
"The shocking first-draft history of the Trump regime, and its clear
authoritarian impulses, based on the viral Internet phenom “The Weekly
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"In the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump's election as president,
Amy Siskind, a former Wall Street executive and the founder of The New
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“Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly
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communities, of women, of us all, via Twitter storms, unchecked
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not only the scandals that made headlines but just as important, the
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[Petes]: "Bunch of amoral dopes who rant about overpopulation while they studiously fail to reproduce!"
[Marcus]: "Inviting infinity browns is not a logical solution to whites having to few children."
You asked (and I answered) about overpopulation, not immigration. That's something you'll have to have out with your Swedish compatriots as it's a domestic political issue. You probably stand a better chance of converting them to your point of view if you avoid the overtly racist slurs, otherwise they'll write you off as a right-wing nut.
The right-wingers seem to be developing what I'll call ‛new anticipatory defenses’ for Team Trump. Something along the lines of a claim that the Obama administration had opened a secret and illegal investigation of Team Trump via MI6 and Australian ASIS (Australian Secret Intelligence Services). The claims of the few right-winger articles I've been reading on the subject are sorta hard to follow, but it seems to boil down to the notion that MI6 and the ASIS were both investigating Team Trump earlier than the FBI was, and that somehow this makes the subsequent FBI investigation illegal and improper. I suppose the idea must rest on the yet to be developed claim that the Evil Obama was behind MI6 and ASIS investigating Trump. It's pretty much a BS argument I think.
But, it seems to suggest that the White House has gotten wind somehow of another investigation into Trump's connections to Russia, one that Trump cannot order be shutdown, one being conducted by people he cannot fire. The clear threat is that Mueller has their findings.
Commerce Secretary Ross is scheduled to leave China today with only one major accomplishment, that being an announcement by China that all trade deals are off in the case that the United States goes ahead with the planned tariffs against China.
[Lynnette]: "I thought I had read somewhere that things were actually looking up for them? This isn't so then? They are still stuck where they were before?"
The Greeks have a debt pile that will take generations to pay off. For the last ten years they've had to phone Brussels to okay the electricity bill if they want to turn on the spotlights on the Parthenon (... alright, slight exaggeration there). They are in a bailout deal where the EU funds their day-to-day cost of running the country but has complete oversight of their spending. This is their third time in this position, as every time they exit a bailout they screw up again. The IMF was involved in the first two bailouts but refused to take part in the third because it said Greece's debt was unsustainable and only "restructuring" (a euphemism for a write-off) could drag it out of the mire.
This didn't go down well with the French and German banks who are owed a quarter of a trillion euro, about 75% of Greece's debt. Now the Greeks are due to exit bailout number three in August. To have any chance of accessing bond market financing Greece needs to demonstrate debt sustainability. Or rather, the EU has to demonstrate it as they are holding the purse strings. They also have to convince the IMF, as its imprimatur will be required to mollify the bond markets. So those French and German banks are trying to do a deal with Greece whereby their money doesn't get written off, but the debt repayment terms are extended out by years or even decades.
Ireland was in a similar situation at the end of 2013 as it exited its bailout. Fortunately Ireland was the poster boy for European austerity measures, played ball with its creditors, and fell from fourth most indebted EU country after Greece, Italy and Portugal to fifteenth today, just ahead of Germany. We are considered an amazing success story.
... except it's a crock o' shit. In spite of a soaring economy we still haven't run a single budget surplus since the GFC. We are still borrowing to balance our budget. Our debt to GDP ratio fell from 125% to 73% not by paying off a single penny, but through creative accounting. It's true we've had by far the best growth rates in the EU for some years, but GDP is also flattered by those big tech and pharma companies who funnel their incomes through Ireland for tax reasons. We're also the number one global destination for the high value aircraft leasing business. Those are all big employers but not by comparison to their GDP contribution. Per capita, our debt is still worse than Greece which has twice our population. It's the worst in the EU and second only to Japan in the world. And unlike Japan whose debt is mostly domestic, we are totally exposed to international debt markets.
If borrowing rates went up we would sink without trace. Fortunately the European Central Bank is able to backstop tiddler economies like Ireland and Greece with its bond buying programme. We, like Germany, are currently able to borrow at negative interest rates, which is more a sign of how crocked the rest of the world is than how healthy we are. But if Italy blows up it will strain the capacity of the EU to backstop it even if it agreed to in the event of a populist government taking the reins.
[Lynnette, re: Trump and the bigots]: "No, I think some of his words and actions encourage them."
And I think that's a leftie fantasy. Let's get specific: in what way did Trump encourage Roseanne's loonie rant?
Trump does seem to be continuing Obama's penchant for photo-op celebrity meet-ups. Trump and Kim Kardashian discussing prison reform makes you wonder if there's any role left in the Trump admin for actual policy experts.
"Let's get specific:"
Why? Other than that she was obviously speaking in general terms and you don't want to deal with that, but instead want to apply her general statement to the specific situation and in a specific manner of your own choosing?
(That's an informal fallacy sometimes known as the ‛fallacy of division’--just in case Lynnette wants to know.)
By the way, apparently one of the important points to be considered prior to any Trump/Kim summit is the question of who is going to pay North Korea's hotel bill (apparently Chairman Kim is not used to paying bills (something he and Trump may have in common) and Kim is not inclined to pay in the case of capitalist hoteliers.)
generalization
dʒɛn(ə)rəlʌɪˈzeɪʃ(ə)n/
a general statement or concept obtained by inference from specific cases.
One for the troll: a generalisation that is not obtained by inference from specific cases is a lie.
You're obviously botching that ‛ignore’ resolution of yours. (Petes @ Tue May 29, 01:52:00 pm ↑↑.)
Nope, that's just a personal discipline to maintain order on the blog. But pointin' our yer iggerance at strategic intervals I consider a service to humanity. Yore welcome.
"Yore welcome."
You consider that you being stupid is a favor to me? (If there's any truth to that you surely didn't intend it.)
In this particular case…
"…a generalisation that is not obtained by inference from
specific cases is…"
It's a non sequitor is what it is. It does not follow that the generalization had to have any relationship to the specific case you selected. That does not follow.
(Hell, even Marcus can figure it out from there. So, I s'pect we're done here.)
Pete: "You probably stand a better chance of converting them to your point of view if you avoid the overtly racist slurs, otherwise they'll write you off as a right-wing nut."
Racist, schmasist. IDGAF.
I disagree to your pretext. The actual truth is more likely to be ones best weapon in an information war in the end. And we have that. And this is an information war. We must continue to shift the Overton window relentlessly. We have, after all, had a great degree of sucess in a very sort period of time using this very approach, so why stop it?
I rather think it's soon about time to ramp it up instead. Crush the libs once and for all and put freeloaders and criminals on boats back to where they belong, or at least where they came from.
Some people say "it cant be done", and my answer is of course it could be done. It's just a matter of political will and that derives from public support, and in turn that means no fucking cucking on matters of extreme importance but instead keeping the preassure on.
The day when a highshool girl is shamed in her school for being pro-multiculturalism is the day we've won. (contrast to how youngsters up until very recently, and in some locations yet are, shamed for being pro nationalism). We need to win that war, and we need to doo it fast. Cucking is not the way to do that.
Just like the -68 generation rebelled against "authority" and got the young vote because they were "cool", we need to be "cooler" than the current corrupt regimes. And I see signs of that happening every day.
Trump has issued executive orders which will save older coal-fired power plants which had been scheduled for closing. The orders mandate that public utilities purchase sufficient amounts of electricity from these out-of-date power plants so's to keep them operating and online.
Yes, under the excuse of national security, I believe. Something to do with having reliable energy sources on site. Not the move of a true capitalist, who lets the market set demand. He is operating more on the lines of a top down command structure, like China. China of the ghost cities.
I totally agree with this comment from one of the reviewers of "The List":
Just started but I loved this quote: Re “Alternative Facts” suggested by Kellyanne Conway: "What many Americans missed is that the audacity of the lie was the point. Lies are not merely false statements but signals of power. Conway’s goal was not to convince Americans of an alternative narrative but to tell them: “We know that you know that we’re lying and we don’t care, because there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it”
IF there is a Trump Doctrine, it is written in Alternative Facts. Throughout 2017, the Trump administration unleashed a firehose of falsehoods designed to prompt Americans to frantically search for the truth, in the hope they would ultimately stop valuing it. The difficulty in merely gathering accurate information under these conditions—much less organizing a response to it—was intended to exhaust both the critical thinking and political drive of the administration’s opponents. What is the point of speaking truth to power, citizens would ultimately wonder, if power is the only truth?"
There is a risk that we will all become deadened to Trump and his cronies continual lying and look at it as normal. Of course, there is also the risk for Trump that we will discount anything he or his followers say, as well.
But in any case our only recourse is to vote them out of power. Hopefully there will be enough Americans who see them for what they are and do so.
But, it seems to suggest that the White House has gotten wind somehow of another investigation into Trump's connections to Russia, one that Trump cannot order be shutdown, one being conducted by people he cannot fire.
A smart move on other people's part.
...an announcement by China that all trade deals are off in the case that the United States goes ahead with the planned tariffs against China.
If Trump wants to play hardball, so can China. So in this game of chicken we will see who blinks first. Meanwhile ordinary Americans will bear the brunt of Trump's poor policies.
If borrowing rates went up we would sink without trace. Fortunately the European Central Bank is able to backstop tiddler economies like Ireland and Greece with its bond buying programme. We, like Germany, are currently able to borrow at negative interest rates, which is more a sign of how crocked the rest of the world is than how healthy we are. But if Italy blows up it will strain the capacity of the EU to backstop it even if it agreed to in the event of a populist government taking the reins.
And on top of all of that one of Europe's closest allies is initiating a trade war. Is it any wonder that I question who commands Donald Trump's real loyalty? Of course, I may be totally off base, and he's just stupid.
And I think that's a leftie fantasy. Let's get specific: in what way did Trump encourage Roseanne's loonie rant?
I will have to disagree with this being a fantasy, leftie or otherwise. By characterizing Mexicans as murderers and rapists, initiating a ban specifically on majority Muslim population countries, fostering fear of others through twitter rants, and saying there are "good people" on both sides of a white supremacist march gives anyone with a bigoted mindset a green light to verbalize or act out on their own racism. Roseanne included.
Personally I doubt that Trump is a racist, but I can't disagree his language is lamentably sloppy.
Nice to see law enforcement officials leading the way on responsible gun ownership :-/
It's not sloppy; it's intentional.
There's the leftie fantasy.
[Marcus]: "Crush the libs once and for all..."
[Marcus]: "It's just a matter of political will and that derives from public support..."
So which is it? Crush or persuade?
At least his American supporters aren't trying to sell the notion that he's too stupid to say what he means. (If that were true that would be frightening as well.)
Here's the bottom line…
Trump learned his political positions by listening to thousands of hours of FoxNews and Radio-Right-Wing. That's why they love him; he's their very own creation. He listened; he learned; he played it back to them. That worked.
Noticed that Trump has this morning announced his absolute right to pardon himself. TrumpTweets
Noticed that Trump has this morning announced his absolute right to pardon himself.
After he said that there was no reason to pardon himself because he has done nothing wrong. And after his lawyers drafted a memo saying that he couldn't be indicted as he is the head of the justice system. Didn't Nixon float that idea as well?
I see they have resurrected Melania.
[Petes] Personally I doubt that Trump is a racist, but I can't disagree his language is lamentably sloppy.
[Lee C] It's not sloppy; it's intentional.
[Petes] There's the leftie fantasy.
It's an interesting debate, this. Is he a racist? Is that why the sleight of hand encouragement? Or isn't he a racist? In that case, then why the verbal baiting? To foster division within the US itself and/or her allies? If that is the case, then why? To garner sole power for himself or for something else? Or, is he just that clueless? Only time will tell.
I'd say Trump enjoys antagonising the leftwing media. He's not particularly clever and has no diplomatic credentials. My guess is his negotiating style in business was pretty bombastic. Oh yeah, and he's got no taste either, judging by a couple of his interiors that I've seen. But he's struck a chord with people who have been ill-served by the last several decades of US economic liberalism. It's really that simple. As long as the other party keep on focusing on his alleged alt-rightness if not outright fascism, he is probably guaranteed a second term. As long as people keep on with the identity politics and keep treating half their compatriots as aliens from Planet Stupid, divisions will worsen.
"…with people who have been ill-served by the last
several decades of US economic liberalism."
Neither globalization nor mechanization (loosely, robotics) are the result of ‛economic liberalism’.
But he's struck a chord with people who have been ill-served by the last several decades of US economic liberalism.
Personally I think he's struck a chord with those who feel they have been ill-served by social liberalism, such as those opposed to gay marriage. They will probably always support him. But for those who genuinely felt that he could help them economically there is the chance they will come to realize he has sold them a bill of goods. If they are directly impacted by his policies and make the correlation. That is, they come to realize that Trump is a liar. There is no shame in being taken in by a flim flam man. Look at all of those who were fooled by Bernie Madoff.
"If…they come to realize that Trump is a liar."
They already know he's a liar; by and large they don't care.
[Lynnette]: "Personally I think he's struck a chord with those who feel they have been ill-served by social liberalism, such as those opposed to gay marriage."
Oh definitely that too. Those people have been sold an even bigger bill of goods, as Trump is not a social conservative. But then when did politicians ever have to share the values of the people whose vote they courted? Look at the Clintons for god sake. The president is only the front man for the true ideologues and/or sleazy money grubbers. How could it be otherwise with the way your elections and campaign finances work?
All that said, I don't think the voting public are as naive as you think. Social conservatives held their nose to vote for Trump. The economically oppressed may not have held out much hope for him either but they knew they didn't want eight years more of the same from Hillary, after Obama failed to deliver "change you can believe in". That's the reality. Lefties who rail against the awfulness of Trump the man are missing the point. It's not about the individual. That why I suggested a few months back that "the idea of Trump" was an inevitability, even if not personified by him in particular. Trump won because he was not Hillary.
Trump didn't beat Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or fifteen other Republicans because he wasn't Hillary.
"To be clear, much of what Trump has surfaced among
Republicans has always been there — sexism, racism,
xenophobia, anti-immigrant hysteria — but Trump has
elevated it, venerated it, and branded it. This is the
Trumpublican Party, a party reborn in Trump’s own
image…"
Charles Blow writing in the New York Times
Leftie fantasy. Merely increases Trump's chance of reelection.
‛Liberal economics’ and ‛leftie fantasies’… Petes is more dedicated than ever to fighting his traditional enemies. Problem is, his side already lost the American culture wars. (I had hoped that the recent repeal of Ireland's 8th Amendment would bring him home on the culture wars, but ‛nope’; he's still dedicated to fighting our culture wars instead.)
. It's not about the individual.
If he pisses off enough people it will be. And I'm not just talking about those of the left wing persuasion.
The economically oppressed may not have held out much hope for him either but they knew they didn't want eight years more of the same from Hillary, after Obama failed to deliver "change you can believe in".
And if the economically oppressed find that Trump really is going to mess detrimentally with their lives? Will they totally give up on voting and try something else? Will we have Baltimore revisited?
We are seeing some concern in our soy bean industry about the proposed tariffs Trump has started, initiating a possible trade war. We are also seeing some here saying, basically, if you voted for Trump that's what you voted for. So, why are you worried now?
All that said, I don't think the voting public are as naive as you think.
You don't know some of the people I know.
"We are seeing some concern in our soy bean industry…"
Therein lies his vulnerability. The dedicated Trumpkins will overlook him not delivering on his promises so long as he's offending the people they're mad at. However, actual hits on their own economy that they can identify as caused by Trump will be a step too far for some of them.
This is the
Trumpublican Party, a party reborn in Trump’s own
image…"
I suspect that there will be those who splinter off and go Independent. There was already a piece in my paper by one such person.
Therein lies his vulnerability.
I also suspect that he is overlooking the new voters who are so concerned with the gun control issue. Young people can be very passionate when riled.
Mueller has spoken, accusing Manafort of witness tampering.
The Special Counsel's Office has accused former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort of attempting to get witnesses to lie for him in court, and they've asked the judge to send him to jail as he awaits his trial, according to a filing in DC District Court Monday night.
One of the witnesses told investigators recently that Manafort wanted them to commit perjury about a lobbying effort they worked on for him in the US, the filing said.
[Lynnette]: "You don't know some of the people I know."
:) :) :)
[Marcus]: "Crush the libs once and for all..."
[Marcus]: "It's just a matter of political will and that derives from public support..."
Pete: "So which is it? Crush or persuade?"
Crush the establishment libs by persuading their demographic support to dwindle. Of course. Was that not obvious?
I am so tired to the bone about these "refugee children" mostly from Afganistan or afghanis living in Iran who come as anchor babies, even though most are 20+ YO, to Sweden. And not only do they have a family back home they aim to bring in once they get recidency, not only are they not the children they portray themselves as, they've gotta to on rape rampages even before their cases are settled. Fucking animals.
What about them Afghani "children" our PM met up with? They looked about as old as he does. You can picture Google "Löfven + ensamkommande" which translates to our PM:s name and alone-coming. Are them children? NO THEY ARE NOT! They are invaders! They are an enemy force invading our lands.
Then again, it's way worse in your part of town.
There on Cuck Island ya'll might wanna revisit how, in the name of PC, yall's authorities have seen fit to ignore Paki moslem rape gangs who have made sex-slaves, tortured for sport and even killed young white girls inside the UK and your authorities do NOTHING about it, but when some concerned white citizen starts to protest the full might of the "Government" comes down hard on their heads.
Also why are milktoast Nationalists like Lauren Southern banned from even entering the UK? That shit wouldn't have happened even in Sweden.
Can you think of a reason Lauren is to dangerous for people to hear her speak, in Cuck Island?
I gotta give it to the Merkins, the First Amendment is really something to behold. If I wanna say I don't wanna live amongst fucking somali savages, I have a right to say that - there. Not so sure in sweden, it might be prosecutable here - prolly get fined, but in the UK (Cuck Island) I'd prolly die in jail for thought-crime for voicing that.
But we're gonna help ya'll Pete. We're gonna break yall's Orvellian chains. (Or not, maybe we just ship our multiculty waste over to cuck island, as they seem to relish in it and we want rid of it)
We have the Sweden Democrats that are our "Far Right Party" over here. We have a 4% limit for getting seats in Parliament. Many polls had then justbelow that and claied they wouldn't reach Parliament. Well SD unexpectedly (to pollers - not to me) got 5.8% in 2010.
Next election they polled at around 8.1% and then got 12.9% of the actual vote.
Today they poll at 18,5%.
Given the previous miscalculations that'd mean they might reach 29.4% or thereabouts come September, when we do our voting.
My best guess is that 29.4 is a bit too WHOW! but that around 26% is feasible, and tha'd make them the BIGGEST party in Parliament.
Now, the other parties might form dirty alliances this way of that but the trend is clear -
multiculti will die, sooner or later.
I gotta give it to the Merkins, the First Amendment is really something to behold. If I wanna say I don't wanna live amongst fucking somali savages, I have a right to say that - there.
But if you want to protest treatment by your own governmental agencies you have to be careful you don't kneel in the wrong place.
One for the audience as a warning against trolls:
[Petes]: "The depth of a neural network is basically the number of layers of processing. These are representations of the problem space at different levels of abstraction."
[Troll]: "They don't process data in ‛layers’ they process it in batches. They simply renamed the batches as ‛layers’ to justify the claim of depth."
[Zocca et al., Python Deep Learning (2017), Ch. 3]:
In this chapter, we will introduce deep learning and deep neural networks, that is, neural networks with at least two or more hidden layers. The reader may wonder what is the point of using more than one hidden layer, given the Universal Approximation Theorem, and this is in no way a naïve question, since for a long period the neural networks used were very shallow, with just one hidden layer. The answer is that it is true that 2-layer neural networks can approximate any continuous function to any degree, however, it is also true that adding layers adds levels of complexity that may be much harder and may require many more neurons to simulate with shallow networks. There is also another, more important, reason behind the term deep of deep learning that refers not just to the depth of the network, or how many layers the neural net has, but to the level of "learning". In deep learning, the network does not simply learn to predict an output Y given an input X, but it also understands basic features of the input. In deep learning, the neural network is able to make abstractions of the features that comprise the input examples, to understand the basic characteristics of the examples, and to make predictions based on those characteristics. In deep learning, there is a level of abstraction that is missing in other basic machine learning algorithms or in shallow neural networks.
Poor fella merely repeats himself, repeats his point, as if the repetition will make it more so than before.
"What I tell you three times is true."
Lewis Carroll, ‛The Hunting of the Snark’
I didn't realize it until today, but Trump has been planing on only a one-day meeting with Kim Jong-un. That's just about enough time for the pictures of Kim with Trump that Kim has been wanting, pictures implying an equality with the President of the United States, the kind of pictoral affirmation that the clan Kim has been wanting for three generations now.
Now they're planing on maybe a second day (just in case Trump wants to give away more freebies to Kim I suppose).
Last year's Stockholm lorry attacker has been jailed for life. He's an Uzbek who developed a love for ISIS only after his Swedish asylum application was rejected. While I don't have any sympathy for Marcus's blatant racism, I do have a lot of sympathy for Swedish society and the asylum situation. Asylum seekers (who are mostly actually economic migrants) by and large travel overland to reach Sweden, which means they generally cross multiple EU borders to get to where they expect an easier hearing. Under EU rules they have to apply in the first country of entry, so Sweden could dismiss almost all applications out of hand. The fact that they don't is, as Marcus says, because of an overwhelming liberal consensus in government.
lol!
Okay, so I got back to the Brexit speech by Sir Ivan Rogers. I am now at the part where he says:
But outside agriculture, it is simply not credible to suggest that the UK can vary its tariffs on industrial goods so far below already very low EU levies as to create great leverage to open up other countries' markets in services, procurement and so on.
Who knows what the future will bring? No doubt he wrote that before Trump's initiation of a trade war.
But, seriously, this decision by the people of the UK is massively shortsighted. Sorry, Petes, but they remind me of our Trumpkins. The UK will still have to adhere to EU regulations and guidelines if it wants to trade with the remaining member states. It will also, apparently, have to develop its own infrastructure for oversight of these regulations as that is now in the hands of the EU. By leaving the UK has left itself with no say in any of this. As far as the UK is concerned the EU is just another foreign country with which it has to comply with its internal regulations or not do business there. They have cut themselves out of being a hub for car manufacturing, as many component parts are made in other EU states, or as a center for financial dealings with the EU member states.
What will the UK have gained from this?
Now they're planing on maybe a second day (just in case Trump wants to give away more freebies to Kim I suppose).
I see that Trump has cut a deal with ZTE.
Chinese smartphone maker ZTE will pay a fine of $1 billion and bring an American monitoring team on board to resolve a high-profile dispute with the United States.
The deal, announced by US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, will mean the end of a ban on ZTE buying American parts, provided the state-controlled company sticks to the terms.
Ross said the deal was struck at around 6 a.m. ET on Thursday, and it will impose "the most strict compliance that we've ever had on any company, American or foreign." ZTE will also put $400 million in an escrow account.
Is it a good deal or are we just letting the fox in the hen house again?
Kaepernick's lawyers likely to subpoena Trump
Per Robinson, Kaepernick's team has learned that some NFL owners had direct conversations with Trump regarding player protests during the anthem. The purpose of subpoenaing Trump and Pence is to find if the Trump administration applied any pressure to NFL teams to avoid Kaepernick.
Nope, this isn't going away...
re: ZTE
They've reduced the fine from $1.19 billion (the original fine) to $1 billion even, and are touting that as the greater penalty. I'm guessing Trump personally gets something out of the deal.
[Lynnette]: "But, seriously, this decision by the people of the UK is massively shortsighted. Sorry, Petes, but they remind me of our Trumpkins... What will the UK have gained from this?"
Your comparison to the Trumpkins may be apt. I don't think you can ask about the outcome for the whole UK as they are divided down the middle in their perception of the EU. Many people, especially in England, feel their own circumstances have been disimproving. England was already divided between the richer south and poorer post-industrial north (the equivalent of your rust belt).
The UK has been through years of economic austerity with low unemployment but stagnating incomes. There are people who feel the EU has only brought them mass immigration and competition for wages and services on an already crowded island.
The complexity of the EU relationship outlined in the paper you just read would be difficult to get across to a lot of people. It was also completely ignored during the EU referendum in favour of divisive political drum-beating.
I'm guessing Trump personally gets something out of the deal.
Trump is now pushing the idea of letting Russia back into the G7, well it would be G8 then. I wonder what that is getting him?
The complexity of the EU relationship outlined in the paper you just read would be difficult to get across to a lot of people. It was also completely ignored during the EU referendum in favour of divisive political drum-beating.
Yes! What I am reading is a picture of an interwoven relationship that will take years to unravel at a huge cost to the people in the UK, and quite possibly those left as member states of the EU. Because while there are duties that have been handled by the EU ( the regulatory agencies) there are those that, perhaps, were handled in London that will be missed ( the financial expertise) by the member states of the EU.
The UK has been through years of economic austerity with low unemployment but stagnating incomes. There are people who feel the EU has only brought them mass immigration and competition for wages and services on an already crowded island.
Sounds familiar, in a sense. I suspect that Trump is not really only an American phenomenon.
Lynnette: "But if you want to protest treatment by your own governmental agencies you have to be careful you don't kneel in the wrong place."
It's not really that we ever knelt in any certain situaltion. We never really had the chance at a clear slate.
You did, when the USA was formed and a constitution was written. It was a clean slate and you're lucky the right men were there to lay down the law for a free people.
We in Sweden have freedom of speech but with one caveat: so called hate speech. Hate speech is basically designed that one group of people can't say anything against a group of people with more "vicim points".
Lowest on the rung and and the ones anyone can say anything against is, as you would guess, a white, heterosexual, middle aged male.
Highest is obviously always a Jew (because holocaust) but that's very rarely a case in point - it's mainly used by non-jews as a scare crow; so then you have moslems, feminists, females, brown people, black people, trannies, etc.: and the victim points sometimes get blurred.
I mean, if you have a black M2F trannie arguing against an actual moslem female; who is correct? (Since correctness doesn't depend on their actual arguents anymore, but on who has the larger victim points)?
What about a feminist against a gay male? I think it's been decided that that one goes to the feminist. But what if the gay male identifies as a Panda???? Then who's in the right?
Pete: " While I don't have any sympathy for Marcus's blatant racism, I do have a lot of sympathy for Swedish society and the asylum situation. Asylum seekers (who are mostly actually economic migrants) by and large travel overland to reach Sweden, which means they generally cross multiple EU borders to get to where they expect an easier hearing. Under EU rules they have to apply in the first country of entry, so Sweden could dismiss almost all applications out of hand. The fact that they don't is, as Marcus says, because of an overwhelming liberal consensus in government."
But, Pete. My racism is a result of such stuff. Not that we have truck attacks often but robberies, rapes, throwing stones at ambulances, ganerally behaving like rabid fucking monkies.
It's not that I woke up one day and thought: brown is a dreadful colour, I'm gonna hate every person who'se brown!
I was robbed myself once, and them fuckers were gypsies. My friends have been robbed or beaten by arabs. My brother had his motorcycle taken from him by immigrants. Then add all them rapes, often gang rapes, in out city that I KNOW are not Sven or Anders fault.
I am ready for drastic measures right about now. I'm a German in 1932. I am really, really amped to get some of them "it's ipossible to change" changes actually made.
Fun fact: Im on the winning side so I actually don't feel like my wishes are far from gettin' realised any more.
"I'm a German in 1932."
They lost.
Hey Pete, do you think it's OK to incarcerate Tommy Roninson for just standing outside a courthouse where 11 moslems were on trial for torturing, raping and selling off little voulnerable British white girls, and protesting agains the actual culprits?
What CRIME is Tommy commiting here, as you see it?
I for one would hail hin as a hero since he puts the spotlight on how your sick and corrupt govermnent has decided to black out SO MANY similar cases of white child sex slavery in he recen past, because TOLERANCE. (I am not really religious but I do hope they burn in hell)
Pete: are you OK with moslem rape gangs targetting voulnerable white girls and torture them for fun and fuck them for leisure and pimp them out for cash? You cuck? Or are you gonna DO something?
Lee:
"I'm a German in 1932."
They lost."
That time around, yeah. Still they had the coolest uniforms. I'm going to a wedding just tomorrow draped from top to bottom, even shoes, in Hugo Boss. And Hugo did them Nazi uniforms way back when. I guess it it was good enough for Himmler it's good enough for me.
[Marcus]: "But, Pete. My racism is a result of such stuff. Not that we have truck attacks often but robberies, rapes, throwing stones at ambulances, ganerally behaving like rabid fucking monkies. It's not that I woke up one day and thought: brown is a dreadful colour, I'm gonna hate every person who'se brown! ... Then add all them rapes, often gang rapes, in out city that I KNOW are not Sven or Anders fault."
So there's never been a crime in Sweden carried out by Sven or Anders? Maybe you should thank the immigrants that they've miraculously turned the natives into perfect saints. Do you cut any slack for the ones that are peacable and hardworking and trying to get on with their lives? There's a few Micks and Paddies over here -- the ones we refer to as "skangers" -- that I'd gladly swap for them.
I've no problem being against immigration, against ghettoisation, against crime. But being against people because of their skin makes you a lowdown racist pig.
"Hey Pete, do you think it's OK to incarcerate Tommy Roninson for just standing outside a courthouse where 11 moslems were on trial for torturing, raping and selling off little voulnerable British white girls, and protesting agains the actual culprits?"
I'm not certain of the facts of the case, I've only heard Tommy's side. But it sounded pretty draconian to lock him up.
"What CRIME is Tommy commiting here, as you see it?"
Well I can tell you what crime he's accused of. That is reporting on a case in which reporting was banned, in violation of a previous order not to do so. Therefore he is in contempt of court. However, 1) it is an unduly harsh sentence even if he did it, 2) he claims he reported no more than was already on public record in the local newspaper.
"I for one would hail hin as a hero since he puts the spotlight on how your sick and corrupt govermnent has decided to black out SO MANY similar cases of white child sex slavery in he recen past, because TOLERANCE."
Holy mudderagod!!! I can cut the Yanks some slack for getting this wrong as their geography of their own country is generally worse than mine, so I don't have great expectations of their knowledge of Yoorup. You, on the other hand, are a citizen of the EU.
Tommy Robinson is ENGLISH. That means he's a citizen of the UK, the UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND. It consists of the countries of England, Scotland and Wales (on the island of Great Britain), the province of Northern Ireland, and various off-shore islands, dominions and protectorates.
The government of the UK is not my government. I am IRISH. I live on the island of Ireland in the country called THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND, also called ÉIRE or ÉIREANN in the Irish language. My government is the GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND, also called RIALTAS na hÉIREANN in Irish. Apart from a brief unfortunate flirtation with the Brits we've been here minding our own business for 9,000 years. Yore welcome.
(P.S. I do realise it's beer o'clock on a Friday ;-)
Trump already decided to leave the G-7 meeting early, and now has decided to make up for that by also arriving late. Time
"A team of scientists from Harvard University and the company Carbon
Engineering announced on Thursday that they have found a method to
cheaply and directly pull carbon-dioxide pollution out of the atmosphere.
***
"*** It suggests that people will soon be able to produce gasoline and
jet fuel from little more than limestone, hydrogen, and air. It hints at the
eventual construction of a vast, industrial-scale network of carbon
scrubbers, capable of removing greenhouse gases directly from the
atmosphere.
"Above all, the new technique is noteworthy because it promises to
remove carbon dioxide cheaply. As recently as 2011, a panel of experts
estimated that it would cost at least $600 to remove a metric ton of
carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
"The new paper says it can remove the same ton for as little as $94, and
for no more than $232. At those rates, it would cost between $1 and
$2.50 to remove the carbon dioxide released by burning a gallon of
gasoline in a modern car."
TheAtlantic
↑↑ Sounds like hype. Why are they announcing it last Thursday when their prototype has been running for at least seven years. (Video from 6.5 years ago). The fact that they still don't know their costs to within a factor of almost three suggests they are not close to commercialisation. It's not impossible, but the huge majority of energy projects founder when trying to scale up. Chances are this will be another one. Would be great if it isn't.
"Why are they announcing it last Thursday…"
Looking for investors for the attempt to scale up is my guess.
"The free ride is over," League leader Matteo Salvini, Italy's new interior minister, warned migrants at a rally in northern Italy. "It's time to pack your bags." The pledge of mass deportations to come was a reminder that Italy has a staunchly anti-immigrant, right-wing party in its governing coalition — and that the European Union will face a whole new partner governing its fourth-largest economy.
(TRT World)
VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria’s right-wing government plans to shut seven mosques and could expel dozens of imams in what it said was “just the beginning” of a push against radical Islam and foreign funding of religious groups that Turkey condemned as racist. The coalition government, an alliance of conservatives and the far right, came to power soon after Europe’s migration crisis on promises to prevent another influx and restrict benefits for new immigrants and refugees.
Elon Musk eat your heart out. New electric scooter from a Dutch company claims up to 400km range with modular battery pack. Acceleration up to 45 km/h in 3.3 seconds. Plus a host of novel features, all for about the same price as a petrol scooter (for lower end configurations). Scooters are very popular in European cities, so this one could be a winner. Solves the recharging problem for apartment dwellers -- the battery comes right out and plugs into a normal wall socket.
Now how soon do you suppose before that scooter is made in China?
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