REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

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Thursday, October 25, 2018 8:57 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

The only part where Second gets it right here is . . .

I "love" your and Signym's "logic" and "knowledge".



I "love" how you're going to read a bullshit book by a hack fraud and apply it to every situation.

You have no idea what my childhood was like. I just told you. But some dipshit with a degree says my life didn't happen the way that it did.

According to your book, my brothers who had a stable childhood with two parents (who are married to this day) and a stay at home mother, had absolutely no leg up on my brothers who didn't.

So I guess we're not going to keep blaming the disproportionately high incarceration rate of black males to the fact that a large majority of them do not have a father figure in their life then?



I mean... I'm not going to do that, but you're free to believe whatever fantasy bullshit you want.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Thursday, October 25, 2018 9:37 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

The only part where Second gets it right here is . . .

I "love" your and Signym's "logic" and "knowledge".



I "love" how you're going to read a bullshit book by a hack fraud and apply it to every situation.

You have no idea what my childhood was like. I just told you. But some dipshit with a degree says my life didn't happen the way that it did.

According to your book, my brothers who had a stable childhood with two parents (who are married to this day) and a stay at home mother, had absolutely no leg up on my brothers who didn't.

So I guess we're not going to keep blaming the disproportionately high incarceration rate of black males to the fact that a large majority of them do not have a father figure in their life then?

I mean... I'm not going to do that, but you're free to believe whatever fantasy bullshit you want.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

So let me begin with a true story, told by my late colleague David Lykken, about a pair of reared-apart twins—one of the pairs studied at the University of Minnesota by the research team of which he was a member.

They are identical twins separated in infancy; they grew up in different adoptive homes. One became a concert pianist, talented enough to perform as a soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra. The other cannot play a note.

Since these women have the same genes, the disparity must be due to a difference in their environments. Sure enough, one of the adoptive mothers was a music teacher who gave piano lessons in her home. The parents who adopted the other twin were not musical at all.

Only it was the nonmusical parents who produced the concert pianist and the piano teacher whose daughter cannot play a note.

From Chap.14 What Parents Can Do, of Judith Rich Harris, The Nurture Assumption

You didn’t read the book, did you, 6ixStringJack. But you could not stop yourself from giving an opinion on it and then telling even more of your life story and then seeking pity: “You have no idea what my childhood was like.” Very Republican of you, to be wimpy, tearful, fearful, pitiful. Do your angry thing next, now that I have "insulted" your honor. That’s what thin-skinned Trump would do.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, October 25, 2018 11:44 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

You're free to believe whatever fantasy bullshit you want.

Trump gave a long interview Tuesday, exposing his fantasies, which he explained in great detail with absolutely no evidence for the truth of his fantasies.
www.wsj.com/articles/transcript-of-president-trumps-interview-with-the
-wall-street-journal-1540388205


Speaking of possibly imposing consequences on the Saudis for their crimes, Trump muses, “you have people that do not want to lose $450 billion worth of investment and you have others that think that we should. I disagree with them.”

Saudi Arabia’s investment in the US is a bit less than $13 billion, so the president was off.

Separately, Trump explained why he doesn’t want to reduce arms sales to Saudi Arabia: “They buy tremendous amounts of things from our country. It probably amounts to millions of jobs, you know, a million jobs. That’s a lot of jobs.”

There are only 355,000 workers in the entire American defense industry, most of which is not making things to sell to Saudi Arabia, so the president was off.

Here is the point Trump missed throughout the whole interview: The Saudi government gains a lot from the US-Saudi relationship. It’s a very good deal for them. They are the ones who need to share a neighborhood with Iran, but we are the ones who are the global military superpower. We have all the leverage, and are in a position to influence Saudi behavior.

But Trump simply can’t see that clearly, and instead he fantasizes that the situation is one in which he is dangerously dependent on Saudi Arabia for America’s economic stability.

www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/25/18019554/trump-wsj-intervie
w-transcript


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, October 25, 2018 12:17 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Okay. So civility was a ruse with you. I've warned you several times about this, yet you continue to be uncivil.

Gloves are back off then.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Friday, October 26, 2018 1:40 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Okay. So civility was a ruse with you. I've warned you several times about this, yet you continue to be uncivil.

Gloves are back off then.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

This next one will really piss you off: Democrats need to get serious on statehood for DC and Puerto Rico. Assuming you still want the US to be rid of Puerto Rico, as you were after Hurricane Maria. And DC was 90.86% for Hillary and you didn't vote for her.

In DC and Puerto Rico, roughly 4 million American citizens are denied representation in Congress. By any normal application of democratic principles, this is an outrage. But Democrats are complacent about it. They’re worried that might seem unfair. And that is why they are a minority party, they worry too much about being unfair to Republicans.

More about how silly the Democrats are at www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/26/18024542/dc-puerto-rico-sta
tehood-senate-democracy


The real point is not about two more states.

The point is America is in an unstable equilibrium. Its current political system is producing outcomes that feel illegitimate to the left. Any effort to reform that system would produce outcomes that feel illegitimate to the right. We cannot stay here, but we cannot move.

What’s needed is some principle beyond the short-term composition of Congress that can act as a guiding star, that can help Democrats both choose process reforms to prioritize and explain them to the public.

Democrats have one close at hand: democracy. The Democratic Party can be, and should be, the party of democracy. It should be the party that wants more people to participate in the political process and wants to make sure more people can participate in the political process.

Under that rubric, representation for DC and Puerto Rico are no-brainers; so too is a voting holiday, automatic voter registration, enough voting machinery that long voting lines are a thing of the past, and much more. (The Brennan Center has a number of good proposals along these lines.) If Republicans believe that more democracy is bad because it would disadvantage them at the polls, force them to argue that point explicitly.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Friday, October 26, 2018 8:23 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


You misread anything I said about Puerto Rico.

Read it again if you want to have a conversation about it.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Friday, October 26, 2018 8:23 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK



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Saturday, October 27, 2018 12:35 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Anyway jack ... I suppose disadvantage is relative. Imagine being in your situation ... except your family is really poor, you don't have enough to eat, and everyone you know is in a gang, selling drugs, doing drugs, or some combination, and your schools are crap.

I'm not going to recount my childhood, but I can point to critical places where my life would have been different if I was male. I'm not talking about the subtle discrimination of expectations or social roles. I WAS TOLD, EXPLICITLY, THAT I WOULDN'T BE CONSIDERED BECAUSE I WAS FEMALE. For example, when I applied for apprenticeships in the electrical and pipe-fitters unions. Or when I inquired about going to medical school.

On the other hand, I also know I had benefits. I went to safe, if backwards, schools. My home life was safe and physically sufficient. My parents were educated and pushed us all to college. And so on.

I might have gone further, or differently, without the blatant discrimination. But I wouldn't have gotten as far without the unearned advantages.

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Saturday, October 27, 2018 8:12 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
Anyway jack ... I suppose disadvantage is relative. Imagine being in your situation ... except your family is really poor, you don't have enough to eat, and everyone you know is in a gang, selling drugs, doing drugs, or some combination, and your schools are crap.

I'm not going to recount my childhood, but I can point to critical places where my life would have been different if I was male. I'm not talking about the subtle discrimination of expectations or social roles. I WAS TOLD, EXPLICITLY, THAT I WOULDN'T BE CONSIDERED BECAUSE I WAS FEMALE. For example, when I applied for apprenticeships in the electrical and pipe-fitters unions. Or when I inquired about going to medical school.

On the other hand, I also know I had benefits. I went to safe, if backwards, schools. My home life was safe and physically sufficient. My parents were educated and pushed us all to college. And so on.

I might have gone further, or differently, without the blatant discrimination. But I wouldn't have gotten as far without the unearned advantages.



Advantage and disadvantage is relative. Each and every person's situation is different.

My unborn kid would be in high school today if I were the woman and she were the man. But fuck that kid, and fuck me, I guess. My opinion clearly had no bearing on that situation. My son or daughter didn't have any say in the matter either.


I've earned everything I've ever had. And yes, that includes the teeth that are falling out of my face.


I'm not a victim. Maybe the world would be a better place if everybody stopped thinking of themselves as being one and just owned their situation. I know my life has gotten a lot better after I did that for myself.



Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Saturday, October 27, 2018 8:44 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


The Trump tax cuts were supposed to set off an investment boom. The cuts aren’t according to the latest GDP numbers, which show nonresidential fixed investment was only up 0.8 percent in the third quarter of this year, adding a measly 0.12 percentage points to the economy’s better-than-expected 3.5 percentage points of growth.

Looking at the last 4 quarters, the economy is growing around 3 percent per year right now because of all the short-term stimulus it’s getting, but will soon go back to the 2 to 2.5 percent it was before because that stimulus isn’t changing companies' long-term behavior like the Trump administration thought it would. They were convinced that cutting the corporate income tax would make investing here so attractive that money would come pouring in from overseas. That would then fund the investments we needed to increase growth today, and the fruits of it — higher productivity — would increase growth tomorrow as well.

Except, well, it’s not. The problem is that while the tax-cutting story the Trump administration was telling might be true for a small, open economy like, say, Bermuda’s, it was never going to be for a large and slightly closed one like our own. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that we’re seeing perhaps a modest increase in investment, but not the bonanza we were promised.

The big picture is how little Trump has done to change our long-term economic outlook. His tax cut certainly seems to have juiced growth this past year, but, since it wasn’t paid for, it’s also made the Federal Reserve raise rates enough more that its net effect should be pretty close to zero by the end of the next year or so. Unless, of course, companies do start investing far, far more than they are right now.

More at www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/27/trump-tax-cuts-were-suppose
d-set-off-an-investment-boom-they-arent-so-far/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.09c6c5cade23


Republicans are looking for proof their tax cuts will pay for themselves. They won’t find it. Republicans have a math problem.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/01/republicans-are-looking
-for-proof-their-tax-cuts-will-pay-for-themselves-they-wont-find-it/?utm_term=.2c3a584a3149


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, October 28, 2018 7:48 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Chinese officials do not seem to be in any rush to negotiate trade with Trump. As Larry Kudlow, director of the president's National Economic Council finally admitted the other day: "We gave them a detailed list of asks, regarding technology for example, (which) basically hasn't changed for five or six months. The problem with the story is that they don't respond. Nothing. Nada. It's really the President and the Chinese Communist party, they have to make a decision and so far they have not, or they have made a decision not to do anything, nothing. I've never seen anything like it."

Of course he hasn't. The hope, when Trump embarked on the tit-for-tat tariffs that have led the two nations to this impasse, was that China would quickly experience the kind of pain that would send them racing immediately to the negotiating table. It didn’t happen. The last quarterly report on the Chinese economy showed that the growth had barely slowed to 6.5% (down from 6.7% in the previous quarter).

China is one of the biggest buyers of American bonds. This gives China huge leverage that it hasn't really even begun to exploit. It could start paring down its purchases of new American bonds, forcing the Treasury to offer even higher interest rates to sell them. It could even sell the $1.2 trillion in US treasuries it already holds and crush the bond market, forcing American interest rates much higher. Trump needs to sell another trillion dollars of bonds in the next 14 months to somebody because he is running up the national debt. That makes his position weak and China’s position strong.

The big question is whether Trump ever explored the possibility of these deeply interrelated issues before he plunged into his trade war. It's possible that China is waiting until the trade war really bites America, or even holding out for the next American administration, hoping for a better deal all around.

More at www.cnn.com/2018/10/25/opinions/us-china-long-game-trade-war-opinion-a
ndelman/index.html


Trump thinks America has a bigger economy than China. He thinks America can stay ahead of China. He is wrong: China has already replaced America as the driver of global change.

There is an economic metric on which China ranks first. Measured at market exchange rates, China’s GDP is still 40% smaller than America’s. However, on a purchasing-power-parity (PPP) basis, which adjusts currencies so that a basket of goods and services is worth the same amount in different countries, the Chinese economy became the world’s largest in 2013. China’s GDP per person at PPP has risen tenfold since 1990. In general, poorer economies grow faster than rich ones, because it is easier to “catch up” when starting from a low base. Yet in other countries that were as poor as China was in 1990, purchasing power has merely doubled.
www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/10/27/the-chinese-century-is-wel
l-under-way


Maybe China won’t give in to Trump for the same reason that American banks won’t loan him money, because they are better off without his business.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, October 28, 2018 8:17 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
Anyway jack ... I suppose disadvantage is relative. Imagine being in your situation ... except your family is really poor, you don't have enough to eat, and everyone you know is in a gang, selling drugs, doing drugs, or some combination, and your schools are crap.

I'm not going to recount my childhood, but I can point to critical places where my life would have been different if I was male. I'm not talking about the subtle discrimination of expectations or social roles. I WAS TOLD, EXPLICITLY, THAT I WOULDN'T BE CONSIDERED BECAUSE I WAS FEMALE. For example, when I applied for apprenticeships in the electrical and pipe-fitters unions. Or when I inquired about going to medical school.

On the other hand, I also know I had benefits. I went to safe, if backwards, schools. My home life was safe and physically sufficient. My parents were educated and pushed us all to college. And so on.

I might have gone further, or differently, without the blatant discrimination. But I wouldn't have gotten as far without the unearned advantages.



Advantage and disadvantage is relative. Each and every person's situation is different.

My unborn kid would be in high school today if I were the woman and she were the man. But fuck that kid, and fuck me, I guess. My opinion clearly had no bearing on that situation. My son or daughter didn't have any say in the matter either.


I've earned everything I've ever had. And yes, that includes the teeth that are falling out of my face.


I'm not a victim. Maybe the world would be a better place if everybody stopped thinking of themselves as being one and just owned their situation. I know my life has gotten a lot better after I did that for myself.



Do Right, Be Right. :)



No replies to this?

Everybody had something to say about it before.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Sunday, October 28, 2018 8:27 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No replies to this?

Everybody had something to say about it before.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Well, the GOP has made it clear that abortion ought to be illegal. If the GOP had been in complete charge way back then, today you would be paying child support to your ex-girl friend. That's a perfectly good reason to vote for Republicans in 2018, in hopes that someday soon the party will be in complete control of all states and the national government.
Quote:

Support human life amendment; oppose abortion funding
Faithful to the "self-evident" truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life.

www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Republican_Party_Abortion.htm

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, October 28, 2018 8:38 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


"I've earned everything I've ever had. And yes, that includes the teeth that are falling out of my face."

Remember that song with the lines 'without love, where would you be now'? Without love ... you'd be aborted before you even drew breath. It's hard to figure how you earned your post-birth existence. Or you'd be abandoned to die of cold, thirst, and hunger. It's hard to figure how you earned your post-birth care. For example.

You seem to have a very 'me'-centric view of the universe; I happen to think the universe far larger than your extremely small existence, or mine, and that it imposes itself on you and me at every moment. That doesn't make you, or me, a victim ... or a victor. It just is. That also doesn't mean we don't have agency. We do, it's just not all-powerful.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

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Sunday, October 28, 2018 8:56 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

No replies to this?

Everybody had something to say about it before.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

Well, the GOP has made it clear that abortion ought to be illegal. If the GOP had been in complete charge way back then, today you would be paying child support to your ex-girl friend. That's a perfectly good reason to vote for Republicans in 2018, in hopes that someday soon the party will be in complete control of all states and the national government.
Quote:

Support human life amendment; oppose abortion funding
Faithful to the "self-evident" truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment's protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion or fund organizations which perform or advocate it and will not fund or subsidize health care which includes abortion coverage. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity of innocent human life.

www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Republican_Party_Abortion.htm

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly



I've said it before, but it should be said again. I'm pro choice.

However, it shouldn't be a black and white thing. There are many shades of gray.

Not only didn't my opinion matter, but nobody even asked for it. It was done without anybody even pretending to care what my input was.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Sunday, October 28, 2018 9:34 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
"I've earned everything I've ever had. And yes, that includes the teeth that are falling out of my face."

Remember that song with the lines 'without love, where would you be now'? Without love ... you'd be aborted before you even drew breath. It's hard to figure how you earned your post-birth existence. Or you'd be abandoned to die of cold, thirst, and hunger. It's hard to figure how you earned your post-birth care. For example.

You seem to have a very 'me'-centric view of the universe, which I happen to think is far larger than your extremely small existence, or mine, and which imposes itself on you and me at every moment. That doesn't make you, or me, a victim ... or a victor. It just is. That also doesn't mean we don't have agency. We do, it's just not all-powerful.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."

Oh damn, you've gone all philosophical. Let me throw a bomb. I've never actually know any Republican to be destroyed by one of these bombs, mostly because it only explodes in their head after they understand the explanations that Steven Pinker gives on how the mind works. Most can't understand. Then they get angry.
Quote:

Killing a baby is an immoral act, and we often express our outrage at the immoral by calling it a sickness. But normal human motives are not always moral, and neonaticide does not have to be a product of malfunctioning neural circuitry or a dysfunctional upbringing. We can try to understand what would lead a mother to kill her newborn, (or seek an abortion) remembering that to understand is not necessarily to forgive. . . .

A new mother will first coolly assess the infant and her current situation and only in the next few days begin to see it as a unique and wonderful individual. Her love will gradually deepen in ensuing years, in a trajectory that tracks the increasing biological value of a child (the chance that it will live to produce grandchildren) as the child proceeds through the mine field of early development.

Even when a mother in a hunter-gatherer society hardens her heart to sacrifice a newborn, her heart has not turned to stone. Anthropologists who interview these women (or their relatives, since the event is often too painful for the woman to discuss) discover that the women see the death as an unavoidable tragedy, grieve at the time and remember the child with pain all their lives.

There is much more at www.rightgrrl.com/carolyn/pinker.html

Pinker's explanation enraged many people, but their rage doesn't mean they understand how the mind works. He described it as "immoral", but they overlooked that.


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Sunday, October 28, 2018 11:25 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


We think of ourselves as 'human' but we are, after all, animals. We have ancient drives and responses built in to us by evolution, that overall, ensure the continuation of the species. They're not logical, or moral, or even necessarily conscious.

The newborn that stares into its care-givers eyes hasn't decided that it's going to form a neuro-hormonal bond using eye contact. The person that passes by the homeless with distaste hasn't decided that they're going to maintain solidarity with their social group by rejecting the commonly rejected 'other'. The fact that birth rates go up when resources are uncertain doesn't mean people concluded, after much thought and discussion, that increasing numbers with dwindling resources might be a good survival strategy. These are evolution's selections because of helpless infants needing constant, hands-on care; and of our survival as groups in opposition to other groups.

More philosophy, this from the Tao: heaven and earth are not humane.

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Sunday, October 28, 2018 11:33 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Quote:

Not only didn't my opinion matter, but nobody even asked for it. It was done without anybody even pretending to care what my input was.
I can't imagine how painful/ frustrating that must have been.

But I'm really confused. Did you want to have your say thinking you could have swayed the final decision? Or did you feel that your ex was the ultimate decision maker, and you just wanted to be heard - to express your hopes and thoughts and feelings, no matter the outcome?

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Monday, October 29, 2018 6:26 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
We think of ourselves as 'human' but we are, after all, animals. We have ancient drives and responses built in to us by evolution, that overall, ensure the continuation of the species. They're not logical, or moral, or even necessarily conscious.

. . .

More philosophy, this from the Tao: heaven and earth are not humane.

An ancient and primitive part of the human brain took control of many voters immediately after Obama was elected. This is from www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/10/make-democrats-great-again-with
out-pandering-to-trumps-angry-base
/

The rate of gun sales rose rapidly after Obama was elected, nearly tripling by 2016. Confidence in the accuracy of vote counting dipped suddenly in 2008, and other polls show that trust in the honesty of elections dropped substantially during Obama’s presidency. And of course there was the sudden emergence of the Tea Party in early 2009, an outbreak of organized white resentment masquerading as a small-­government uprising that was unparalleled in both its intensity and the swiftness of its birth, an astonishingly short 30 days after Obama’s inauguration.

These things all point in the same direction: that the alienation of the white working class from the party associated with racial diversity was caused by the simple presence of a black man in the White House. In the same way that racial anxiety among many whites can be triggered by nothing more than a reminder that they’ll be a minority in the future, the constant presence of a black president on their TV probably does the same.

None of this means the Democrats’ only path to victory in 2018 and 2020 is to run candidates who are white men. For one thing, there was a lot more going on during the Obama era than just simple racial triggering. Among other factors, there was the financial crisis and the appallingly overt race-mongering of Fox News, Breitbart, and other right-wing media outlets—especially around events like the Ferguson killing and subsequent protests, which produced a huge deterioration in American views of race relations during Obama’s second term.

Still, racial triggering was the core problem. Whites became more sensitive to threats to their status, and at the same time racial anxiety became more predictive of voting Republican. It didn’t happen everywhere and it didn’t happen to everyone. But it happened enough to tip a close election to the guy who most belligerently stoked that racial anxiety.

For Democrats, this is actually good news. It turns out that fanning white fragility can only get you so far: The American National Election Studies program, which has evaluated American attitudes before and after every presidential election since the 1940s, reports that racial resentment among whites has been pretty stable for decades, which suggests the “Obama effect” is likely fairly shallow. Trump’s race-baiting rants may seem like they’re consuming every pixel on the planet, but they will likely become less effective in the future because the base level of racism he’s appealing to is subsiding. In fact, his overt bigotry is already starting to cost him more supporters than he gains from it.

More at www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/10/make-democrats-great-again-with
out-pandering-to-trumps-angry-base
/



The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, October 29, 2018 8:06 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:

Not only didn't my opinion matter, but nobody even asked for it. It was done without anybody even pretending to care what my input was.
I can't imagine how painful/ frustrating that must have been.

But I'm really confused. Did you want to have your say thinking you could have swayed the final decision? Or did you feel that your ex was the ultimate decision maker, and you just wanted to be heard - to express your hopes and thoughts and feelings, no matter the outcome?



It happened so quick, I don't even really know what to think about it all these years later, honestly.

I wasn't a "kid" at the time. I mean, my dad was older when I was born, but I was older than my mom was. But I was living in my grandma's basement barely making any money working odd jobs for cash (after I lost the best job of my life). I was in no position to be a good father at the time, and we certainly didn't plan it.

I don't know what she was looking for when she broke the news to me. To be honest, I probably didn't handle it very well and I didn't give her what she was looking for. I wasn't enthusiastic, but I didn't freak out or get angry or anything. I didn't say anything, really. If I had to liken my initial reaction to any other event in my life, it would be when I was told about my situation with my teeth. A sort of instantaneous detachment from the world and my own life. I'm sure you have certain "flash points" in your life that you look back on and regret how you handled something. This is one of them.

We didn't talk for almost a week. There wasn't text messaging like there is today, and I didn't even have a cell phone at the time. The next time we spoke she said "You know that thing we were talking about before? I took care of it."

My memory of the events after that are a bit foggy. Where I wasn't angry before, I was seeing red. Truth be told, I'm glad she broke the news to me over the phone. I don't know what would have happened face to face.

I never saw her or talked to her again after that phone call.



And the really sick thing is, I can't even say for sure that any of it was even real. All the internal shit I put myself through over the years by not sharing this happening with anyone until a few years back tore me up inside. She might have just been fucking lying about the whole thing.


I can't tell you what I really wanted out of the situation. Second brings up a good point that I could very well have been paying child support for one third of my life at this point had she not done what she did. Don't think I haven't felt a lot of guilt about being somewhat thankful for that over the years too, being the cheapass that I am. This certainly would have completely changed my life. Maybe I would have gotten my shit together and we'd still be married to this day and I'd be going to the kids sporting events or watching them in plays? Who knows what could have been.


I was just a non-entity. Because I have a penis, my opinion wasn't even asked.

All I could do all of these years is dwell on it and feel guilt about it.


Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, October 29, 2018 8:16 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
"I've earned everything I've ever had. And yes, that includes the teeth that are falling out of my face."

Remember that song with the lines 'without love, where would you be now'? Without love ... you'd be aborted before you even drew breath. It's hard to figure how you earned your post-birth existence. Or you'd be abandoned to die of cold, thirst, and hunger. It's hard to figure how you earned your post-birth care. For example.

You seem to have a very 'me'-centric view of the universe; I happen to think the universe far larger than your extremely small existence, or mine, and that it imposes itself on you and me at every moment. That doesn't make you, or me, a victim ... or a victor. It just is. That also doesn't mean we don't have agency. We do, it's just not all-powerful.

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference."



I've said before that I was extremely lucky with the stock market and some forces that were completely out of control saved my ass at the right time.

But other than that, I do take full credit for everything. I've had a few great jobs and a few years on the books where I pulled in over $50k per year, but I've also had 5 years on my SS statement that shows Zero income, and a majority of the years I've worked I've made $15k or less.

Without pulling up my SS statement, I'd be willing to wager that since I was 16 years old, my yearly average income was $12k per year. If you don't include my unemployment income after my 2009 layoff, I only this year finally made what I used to make in a single year. That's 9 years working crappy jobs or not working at all where I've been able to keep afloat on what I used to make in a single year.

And yet I own this house, free and clear. Nobody gave that to me. It certainly wasn't because I'm white or because I'm male.

I fanatically saved every single penny that I could when I made money that second time around after losing my first great job with nothing to show for it.

Forgive me, but I'm not going to let anybody tell me that I'm where I'm at today because I'm white or I'm male. I've gone without cable TV for over 12 years. I haven't had a cell phone for 5 years. I only recently got my first flat screen TV (40") used from somebody at work for $80 because he got a new 70" TV. I live through winter with my thermostat at 58 to 60 degrees. I drive around the same shitbox car that was a shitbox car when I bought it with cash 10 years ago. It's extremely rare that I buy anything for myself that isn't an absolute necessity.

I don't imagine that anybody in their right mind would live with this mouth issue and not immediately get it taken care of even if it meant taking a lean out on the house to resolve it either.

I probably am a bit "me centric". Goes with the Lone Wolf lifestyle I've grown accustomed to. There's pluses and minuses to it, like anything else.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Monday, October 29, 2018 9:30 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

We didn't talk for almost a week. The next time we spoke she said "You know that thing we were talking about before? I took care of it."

My memory of the events after that are a bit foggy. Where I wasn't angry before, I was seeing red. Truth be told, I'm glad she broke the news to me over the phone. I don't know what would have happened face to face.

I never saw her or talked to her again after that phone call.

And the really sick thing is, I can't even say for sure that any of it was even real. All the internal shit I put myself through over the years by not sharing this happening with anyone until a few years back tore me up inside. She might have just been fucking lying about the whole thing.

This certainly would have completely changed my life. Maybe I would have gotten my shit together and we'd still be married to this day and I'd be going to the kids sporting events or watching them in plays? Who knows what could have been.


I was just a non-entity. Because I have a penis, my opinion wasn't even asked.

All I could do all of these years is dwell on it and feel guilt about it.


Do Right, Be Right. :)

She lied to you as a test of your love. When you tested negative for love, she didn’t tell you this is only a test. She let you continue to think the pregnancy was real because she wanted to hurt you for not loving her. That’s why she never talked to you again. Your best move is to reaffirm to yourself everyday until you believe the following is The Absolute Truth:

1) She had been planning to breakup with you.

2) There never was a child, there was only a test-fire and your gun was shooting blanks.

3) She was vindictive when you failed her artificial test of your love for her. She was already on the way out the door (see #1) but she wanted her leaving to break your heart. Since it would not, because you did not love, she found a different way to destroy you, by faking an abortion she never had. A better, kinder woman would have said that a second pregnancy test (also faked) did not confirm the first. That would have eased your painful breakup. But pain was the whole point at the end of your relationship.

4) She is probably too smart to ever admit that was what she did to you. She was certainly smart enough to do it over the phone.

5) If you had married her, your life would be hellish.

I have seen such marriages. Be thankful you avoided your 21st Century remake of the movie Divorce American Style. There would not be a laugh track on yours.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_American_Style

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, October 30, 2018 7:54 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

We didn't talk for almost a week. The next time we spoke she said "You know that thing we were talking about before? I took care of it."

My memory of the events after that are a bit foggy. Where I wasn't angry before, I was seeing red. Truth be told, I'm glad she broke the news to me over the phone. I don't know what would have happened face to face.

I never saw her or talked to her again after that phone call.

And the really sick thing is, I can't even say for sure that any of it was even real. All the internal shit I put myself through over the years by not sharing this happening with anyone until a few years back tore me up inside. She might have just been fucking lying about the whole thing.

This certainly would have completely changed my life. Maybe I would have gotten my shit together and we'd still be married to this day and I'd be going to the kids sporting events or watching them in plays? Who knows what could have been.


I was just a non-entity. Because I have a penis, my opinion wasn't even asked.

All I could do all of these years is dwell on it and feel guilt about it.


Do Right, Be Right. :)

She lied to you as a test of your love. When you tested negative for love, she didn’t tell you this is only a test. She let you continue to think the pregnancy was real because she wanted to hurt you for not loving her. That’s why she never talked to you again. Your best move is to reaffirm to yourself everyday until you believe the following is The Absolute Truth:

1) She had been planning to breakup with you.

2) There never was a child, there was only a test-fire and your gun was shooting blanks.

3) She was vindictive when you failed her artificial test of your love for her. She was already on the way out the door (see #1) but she wanted her leaving to break your heart. Since it would not, because you did not love, she found a different way to destroy you, by faking an abortion she never had. A better, kinder woman would have said that a second pregnancy test (also faked) did not confirm the first. That would have eased your painful breakup. But pain was the whole point at the end of your relationship.

4) She is probably too smart to ever admit that was what she did to you. She was certainly smart enough to do it over the phone.

5) If you had married her, your life would be hellish.

I have seen such marriages. Be thankful you avoided your 21st Century remake of the movie Divorce American Style. There would not be a laugh track on yours.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce_American_Style

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly



You might be right about the overall story, although not specific details. She did try contacting me quite a bit after that discussion, but I never answered. She wasn't in my "clique" at that time, so it was easy to avoid her without having to stop hanging out with my friends and partying. That's also why it was so easy to keep this to myself for so many years.

If this was all a lie, it shows another flaw in the system as it's currently designed. This means that she knew full well that she had 100% control of the situation whether she was actually pregnant or not, so she had absolutely nothing to lose while giving me the mindfuck of a lifetime.




You're definitely right about the marriage thing. If she was lying, and faked a miscarriage instead of pretending to have an abortion, that's the woman I could have ended up marrying one day. If she was telling the truth, she murdered our baby. She was a garbage human being either way.

You may not view abortion in that light, and that's your right, but I do. I'm still pro choice though because I don't feel that I have a right to decide everything for everyone. I'm sure there is a lot of "parents" out there that would be so shitty at it that the kids are better off never being born.

Doesn't mean that I don't think anybody who has an abortion is a piece of shit though.




Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, October 30, 2018 8:51 AM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


I wanted to say thank you for posting your story, before too much time went by.

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Tuesday, October 30, 2018 11:03 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Trump is upset that the media linked him to the pipe bomb mailer but didn’t link Obama to the Charleston church shooting. Wonder why? Trump's mouth is why.

President Donald Trump’s latest evidence that the media is treating him unfairly: Headlines didn’t blame President Barack Obama for the Charleston church shooting, as he’s been blamed for the pipe bomb mailer.

“I was in the headline of the Washington Post — my name associated with this crazy bomber, ‘Trump bomber’ or something,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News aired on Monday. He elaborated, “They didn’t do that with President Obama with the church — the horrible situation with the church.”

Where does one even begin with this?

The pipe bomb mailer, as best as we can tell, really was motivated by his political support for Trump; that’s why he mailed pipe bombs to prominent Democrats and Trump critics across the country. The suspect’s social media posts were very supportive of Trump and downright threatening and vitriolic of Democrats as well as Republicans who were critical of Trump.

It would be one thing if that were the whole story. Political movements, even benign ones, can attract all sorts of extremists. Can the movements really be blamed for that?

In this case, though, Trump has actively encouraged political violence.

One of many examples: When protesters were showing up at Trump’s campaign rallies, he said in February 2016, “If you see somebody getting ready to throw a tomato, knock the crap out of them, would you? Seriously. Okay? Just knock the hell. I promise you I will pay for the legal fees. I promise.” Trump not only promoted violence; he said he would pay for the legal fees involved.

More examples of Trump running his mouth about wishing his fans would kill his enemies at www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/30/18041282/trump-obama-pipe-b
omb-charleston-church-shooting


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, October 30, 2018 4:47 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


By an amazing coincidence, Trump has suddenly decided — seven days before an election — that he can repeal the 14th Amendment with an executive order.
www.newsweek.com/trump-says-he-plans-sign-executive-order-terminate-bi
rthright-citizenship-1192823


The 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship. That is, if you’re born on American soil, then you’re an American citizen, full stop. This applies to everyone born here — even if their parents are in the country illegally — including people of Hispanic descent like Mexicans and Hondurans.

Trump's birthright citizenship vaporware is intended to prod cable TV into discussing something exciting to him, not boring stuff like pre-existing conditions and why would-be murderers are allowed to amass arsenals that could equip the police department of a small town.

A week before the election we have Trump’s so-called “invasion” of brown people from the south. We have Trump’s declarations that these brown people are diseased. We have 5,000 troops Trump ordered to the border. We have Trump’s dark intimations of “closing off” the border completely. And now we have Trump’s end of birthright citizenship. Is it a coincidence?

Or could all of this be designed to bring hate and fear to a fever pitch just before Election Day?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, October 30, 2018 8:15 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
I wanted to say thank you for posting your story, before too much time went by.



Thanks for listening too. It's rather therapeutic. I've definitely gone further into detail about it here than with anybody in real life. I didn't do myself any good by keeping it to myself all of those years.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, October 31, 2018 8:46 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Journalists have become more savvy in how they deal with lower-level trolls. They figured out how to not engage with them on Twitter. But no one has quite figured out what to do when the president is engaging in similar behaviors. You can’t just ignore him, can you? That’s a genuine question. Can journalists ignore trolling comments the president of the United States says and not even report those?

Trump has always treated his presidency as a reality show, and every good reality show needs a villain. Trump wanted his villain to be the media. With Democrats basically powerless, the media was the only force powerful enough to make continuing sense of Trump’s aggrieved, oppositional political style.

The problem was the media didn’t want to be Trump’s opposition party. The media wanted to cover his presidency. Early on, the media wanted more than anything else to normalize his presidency, and their coverage of it; there was a constant hunt for the moments when Trump appeared presidential or seemed to be changing his behavior to better match the burdens of his office.

Trump’s solution to that problem has been to provoke the media into looking like his opposition by directly attacking them in more outrageous ways at more and more outrageous times. Remember, for instance, “The FAKE NEWS awards,” which Trump hyped on Twitter for weeks?

Constantly covering Trump’s endless attacks on the press will crowd out coverage of arguably more consequential questions, like his baldfaced lying about the GOP’s health care plan.

The media used to have a stick here: negative coverage. Sure, you could get them to cover you by being outrageous or offensive, but you wouldn’t want that kind of coverage. That kind of coverage could destroy your career.

But Trump does want that kind of coverage. That kind of coverage is how he built his political career. That kind of coverage is how he shows that he’s an underdog at war with the Washington “deep state.” Even better, that kind of coverage lets him crowd out the kind of coverage he really doesn’t want — coverage of his actual agenda, which trends toward plutocracy rather than populism; of other politicians, who have ideas and messages that could threaten Trump’s presidency if only they could get heard.

Trump has shown you can build a whole presidency around provocation. He has shown that you can always manipulate the media into looking like your enemy, and then you can run against the media at the same time you’re discrediting it to your followers. He has shown that you can shut down your competitors, challengers, and opponents by being so outrageous that you simply deny them the oxygen of media coverage.

More at www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/30/18039990/trump-media-sander
s-press-fake-news-enemy-people-bombing


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, October 31, 2018 8:56 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


lol. That's funny.

The media has attacked Trump every single day since November 9th, 2016.

Just because somebody writes an article stating otherwise doesn't make it so.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, October 31, 2018 9:30 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
lol. That's funny.

The media has attacked Trump every single day since November 9th, 2016.

Just because somebody writes an article stating otherwise doesn't make it so.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

On Trump's first day, he sent fake photos to the media of the crowd at his inauguration. Then he accused the media of not reporting the truth. Then the media could not understand why Trump was accusing them of lying when he knew how small his crowd really was because he had been there. Then Trump pretended to be mad about that. It required two years for a British newspaper, and the Freedom of Information Act, to figure out what Trump was doing on his first day. He was picking a fight with the media for no other reason than he needed to start a fight.

More at www.theguardian.com/world/2018/sep/06/donald-trump-inauguration-crowd-
size-photos-edited


Trump has shown you can build a whole presidency around provocation. He has shown that you can always manipulate the media into looking like your enemy, and then you can run against the media at the same time you’re discrediting it to your followers. He has shown that you can shut down your competitors, challengers, and opponents by being so outrageous that you simply deny them the oxygen of media coverage.


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, October 31, 2018 10:50 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


U.S. borrowing on pace to top $1.3 trillion this year, the highest since 2010
www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/30/us-borrowing-pace-top-trill
ion-this-year-highest-since/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.763a00d4571b



The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, November 1, 2018 8:08 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


A range of studies from political scientists, economists, and pollsters have found that it was racial resentment and cultural anxiety — not economic anxiety — on the part of white voters that got Donald Trump into the Oval Office. In his new book, “Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and The Battle for the Meaning of America,” John Sides marshals extensive evidence to show that it was white identity, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim sentiment that best predicted support for Donald Trump, while economic anxiety played a much smaller role.

https://theintercept.com/2018/11/01/the-midterms-are-days-away-what-wi
ll-drive-trump-voters-race-or-class
/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, November 1, 2018 12:02 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
A range of studies from political scientists, economists, and pollsters have found that it was racial resentment and cultural anxiety — not economic anxiety — on the part of white voters that got Donald Trump into the Oval Office. In his new book, “Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and The Battle for the Meaning of America,” John Sides marshals extensive evidence to show that it was white identity, anti-immigrant, and anti-Muslim sentiment that best predicted support for Donald Trump, while economic anxiety played a much smaller role.

https://theintercept.com/2018/11/01/the-midterms-are-days-away-what-wi
ll-drive-trump-voters-race-or-class
/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly



All Democrats run on today is race and sex. Of course they're losing white voters when they tell everybody else that #WhiteManBad

This guy's got the nerve to write a book about something everybody already knows?

I'm sure those brainwashed college kids and guilty white rich people will make it a bestseller too.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Friday, November 2, 2018 5:59 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

All Democrats run on today is race and sex. Of course they're losing white voters when they tell everybody else that #WhiteManBad

This guy's got the nerve to write a book about something everybody already knows?

I'm sure those brainwashed college kids and guilty white rich people will make it a bestseller too.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

6ix, I am concerned that you are living in a different universe than I am. How can that be? I have traveled everywhere, from Vietnam to Europe to South American, everywhere but Antarctica. And you have traveled to some of the states next to Indiana. How could we not be living in the same Universe with the same facts everywhere? I'm sure I am not brainwashed; I have seen the world and it sure as hell wasn't as a rich tourist. Rush Limbaugh explained it all. Rush said it best way back in 2010:

“We live in two universes. One universe is an entire lie. Everything run, dominated, and controlled by the Left here and around the world is a lie. The other universe is where we are, and that’s where reality reigns supreme and we deal with it. And seldom do these two universes ever overlap.”

The two sides share almost no factual premises, so they are no longer able to coherently argue with each other. The US conservative movement has almost entirely divorced itself from mainstream institutions, norms, and standards, developing its own media, think tanks, legal scholars, and historians — a hermetically sealed ecosystem of knowledge, news, and information in which nonsense and conspiracy theories flourish.

Conservatives have descended almost entirely into “tribal epistemology,” wherein the distinction between what is good for the tribe and what is true collapses entirely — in which “true” simply comes to mean “our narrative.” They do not defer to any trans-partisan standards of evidence or reasoning; they do not believe any such standards exist. Attempts to invoke such standards are, in their view, just one side’s way of trying to outmaneuver the other. So they use the language of trans-partisan standards as a weapon, but the standards themselves are not a restraint.

The result is that, as a nation, we no longer share the same facts, the same understanding of events. We no longer live in the same world. The enmity is total, and the country is becoming ungovernable. Politics is becoming a pure contest of wills, of power.

More at www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/1/18041710/migrant-caravan-ame
rica-trump-epistemic-crisis-democracy

The caravan “invasion” and America’s epistemic crisis
The far right’s xenophobic fantasies now involve the actual US military.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Saturday, November 3, 2018 6:40 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Trump’s Drug Plan Is Already Dead

Do you remember that Trump plan from a week ago about making pharmaceutical companies cut the price of some of their most expensive drugs to match prices in Europe? It was last week. An eternity in Trump time, I know.

Anyway, the fatal flaw in the plan is that it’s all about how much Medicare pays for drugs, but Medicare has no leverage. It is required by law to pay whatever the manufacturer says. It’s not allowed to drop coverage of a drug because it’s too expensive.

In fairness to Trump, there’s little he can do on his own. Only Congress can change the law that requires Medicare to cover everything, and Trump has never demonstrated either the desire or the ability to sway Congress. Not that it would probably matter: congressional Republicans just won’t do it, no matter how much their constituents might like the idea.

For all his talk of drug companies “getting away with murder,” Trump has been all bark and no bite when it comes to sky-high drug prices. And the industry knows that Trump is powerless to change their prices or stop buying.
www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/11/after-only-a-few-days-trumps-dr
ug-plan-is-already-dead
/


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, November 5, 2018 2:45 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


It is hard to think of a precedent for a president who endorses violence against political foes, sees the Justice Department as his own personal prosecutor, calls the press “the enemy of the people,” tears children from parents, brags of multiple sexual assaults, threatens to lock up his opponents, enthuses about war crimes, “falls in love” with the foulest dictator on the planet, refuses to divest of personal holdings in office, lambastes allies, treats the Treasury as a casino, actively endorses the poisoning of the environment, destabilizes NATO, baits minorities, lies incessantly, and oversees a resurgence of the white nationalist right. Any single gesture in any one of these areas would have been political death for most previous presidents. But we live in a time when we have come to expect that all this can now empower and even reward an American politician, rather than ruin him.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/andrew-sullivan-can-the-republi
c-strike-back.html


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Monday, November 5, 2018 6:59 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

All Democrats run on today is race and sex. Of course they're losing white voters when they tell everybody else that #WhiteManBad

This guy's got the nerve to write a book about something everybody already knows?

I'm sure those brainwashed college kids and guilty white rich people will make it a bestseller too.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

6ix, I am concerned that you are living in a different universe than I am. How can that be? I have traveled everywhere, from Vietnam to Europe to South American, everywhere but Antarctica. And you have traveled to some of the states next to Indiana. How could we not be living in the same Universe with the same facts everywhere? I'm sure I am not brainwashed; I have seen the world and it sure as hell wasn't as a rich tourist. Rush Limbaugh explained it all. Rush said it best way back in 2010:

“We live in two universes. One universe is an entire lie. Everything run, dominated, and controlled by the Left here and around the world is a lie. The other universe is where we are, and that’s where reality reigns supreme and we deal with it. And seldom do these two universes ever overlap.”

The two sides share almost no factual premises, so they are no longer able to coherently argue with each other. The US conservative movement has almost entirely divorced itself from mainstream institutions, norms, and standards, developing its own media, think tanks, legal scholars, and historians — a hermetically sealed ecosystem of knowledge, news, and information in which nonsense and conspiracy theories flourish.

Conservatives have descended almost entirely into “tribal epistemology,” wherein the distinction between what is good for the tribe and what is true collapses entirely — in which “true” simply comes to mean “our narrative.” They do not defer to any trans-partisan standards of evidence or reasoning; they do not believe any such standards exist. Attempts to invoke such standards are, in their view, just one side’s way of trying to outmaneuver the other. So they use the language of trans-partisan standards as a weapon, but the standards themselves are not a restraint.

The result is that, as a nation, we no longer share the same facts, the same understanding of events. We no longer live in the same world. The enmity is total, and the country is becoming ungovernable. Politics is becoming a pure contest of wills, of power.

More at www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/1/18041710/migrant-caravan-ame
rica-trump-epistemic-crisis-democracy

The caravan “invasion” and America’s epistemic crisis
The far right’s xenophobic fantasies now involve the actual US military.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly





Everything your source says here is equally true of Democrats.

The difference between you and I is that I realize that this is happening on both sides while your brainwashing doesn't allow you to see it with your own side.

Well... and that's another difference. You have a side.

I'm just camping out with the goons on the Right for the time being because the goons on the Left flew over the coo coo's nest.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, November 6, 2018 8:11 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

Everything your source says here is equally true of Democrats.

The difference between you and I is that I realize that this is happening on both sides while your brainwashing doesn't allow you to see it with your own side.

Well... and that's another difference. You have a side.

I'm just camping out with the goons on the Right for the time being because the goons on the Left flew over the coo coo's nest.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

I definitely took a side because I know who Trump voters are. My history with Trump voters goes all the way back to high school and Vietnam. I knew them then and now. I have a really long and detailed memory of what people did in the past and who they say they voted for in 2016. My decision to vote for Democrats was only partially about the integrity of GOP candidates and the GOP platform over the years. It was also partially about who Trump voters really are. And long after the next several elections, those Trump voters will still be around and still be deluding themselves, but not me, about their moral & mental superiority compared to the average Democrat.

During Barack Obama’s presidency, polling showed Republicans making more than $100,000 a year were more dissatisfied with the state of the economy than Democrats making less than $20,000 a year. Economic anxiety was “in large part a partisan phenomenon.”

• It was also a racial phenomenon. Prior to Obama, measures of racial resentment didn’t predict views on the economy. After Obama, they did. It’s worth stating that clearly: The more racially resentful you were, the worse you thought the economy was doing, even controlling for your party, circumstance, and so on. This flipped as soon as Donald Trump was elected: The more racial resentful you were, the more economically optimistic you became.

• Among Republican primary voters, Trump did not do better with Republicans who worried that “people like me don’t have any say about what the government does” or that the system “unfairly favors powerful interests.” Nor did he routinely lead the field among Republicans who felt betrayed by their party. There’s little evidence, in other words, that Trump voters were registering outrage with the political system as a whole.

• Trump destroyed the rest of the Republican field among primary voters who were angry about immigration. He did 40 points better among Republican voters with the most negative views of immigration than among those with the most positive views. Trump’s success, in other words, was that he ran an issue-based candidacy on an issue where he was closer to the Republican base than the other candidates were.

• The same was true with attitudes toward Muslims: “Trump performed significantly better with Republican voters who rated Muslims relatively unfavorably in 2011 than he did with Republican voters who rated Muslims relatively favorably.” By contrast, views of Muslims did not affect support for Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio.

• And so it went for race too. Republican voters who attributed racial inequality to a lack of effort among African Americans rather than past and present discrimination were 50 points likelier to support Trump. Similarly, Republicans who told pollsters they felt coldly toward African Americans in 2011 were 20 points likelier to support Trump than Republicans who said they felt warmly toward African Americans.

www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/5/18052390/trump-2018-2016-ide
ntity-politics-democrats-immigration-race


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, November 6, 2018 8:21 AM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Seriously, Second...

I know you're capable of having an original thought. I haven't seen it yet, but there must be something in there that Vox or MotherJones didn't put in there.

I believe in you, man.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Tuesday, November 6, 2018 8:30 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Seriously, Second...

I know you're capable of having an original thought. I haven't seen it yet, but there must be something in there that Vox or MotherJones didn't put in there.

I believe in you, man.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

6ix, I am not going to tell you the whole story of the next door family, all who voted for Trump and all of them still admiring him until they died because it is a story about murder and being sent to a mental hospital. Now the house next door is empty because everybody is either dead, in jail, or disinherited. True stories like that, stripped of all the identifying details, are why I depended on Vox to give you a picture of who Trump voters really are.

Need I say that I will forgive Trump voters for how they voted, but I don't forgive them for how they really act, not just who they pretend to be, in the non-political realm?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, November 6, 2018 9:42 AM

CAPTAINCRUNCH

... stay crunchy...


Quote:

Originally posted by second:6ix, I am not going to tell you the whole story of the next door family, all who voted for Trump and all of them still admiring him until they died because it is a story about murder and being sent to a mental hospital. Now the house next door is empty because everybody is either dead, in jail, or disinherited. True stories like that, stripped of all the identifying details, are why I depended on Vox to give you a picture of who Trump voters really are.


I sure'd like to hear that story.

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Tuesday, November 6, 2018 11:05 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by captaincrunch:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:6ix, I am not going to tell you the whole story of the next door family, all who voted for Trump and all of them still admiring him until they died because it is a story about murder and being sent to a mental hospital. Now the house next door is empty because everybody is either dead, in jail, or disinherited. True stories like that, stripped of all the identifying details, are why I depended on Vox to give you a picture of who Trump voters really are.


I sure'd like to hear that story.

I gave that now tragically, yet predictably, dead next door neighbor, the Republican, DVDs of Firefly and Serenity. He gave me the key to his house and called me the best neighbor he ever had. I kept hearing that from him and his other neighbors repeating what he had said. It was embarrassing, but as a Democrat in a Republican neighborhood, I really was the best neighbor among a pack of stingy, mean racists. It is kind of weird that Larry had 33 guns in the house. I have 3. "Do you have enough now, Larry?" I asked him when he bought more. "I need the protection," he said. Okay, Larry, but it didn't work out the way he expected. Instead, it worked out the way I expected.

On the flip side, I didn't give him the key to my house because people who voted for Trump and continue to praise him are untrustworthy in my opinion. I will help them, I will work with them, but when they go crazy eventually I won't die with them. They may appear to be nice, they may be conscientious employees of mine, but you've got to watch them carefully because of how their minds bend. The more they make excuses for Trump, the bigger the mess they make when they finally lose their itty-bitty minds.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, November 6, 2018 11:53 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Within nine weeks of the Paris climate conference, Donald Trump had won his first primary. Since then the US, the largest carbon emitter since the start of the Industrial Revolution, has withdrawn from the Paris agreement, and the president’s cabinet members are busy trying to revive the coal industry and eliminate effective oversight and regulation of the oil and gas business. The planet’s carbon emissions, which had seemed to plateau in mid-decade, are again on the rise: preliminary figures indicate that a new record will be set in 2018.

This is the backdrop against which the IPCC report arrives, written by ninety-one scientists from forty countries. It is a long and technical document—five hundred pages, drawing on six thousand studies. For most readers, the thirty-page “Summary for Policymakers” will be sufficiently dense and informative.

The takeaway messages are simple enough: to keep warming under 1.5 degrees, global carbon dioxide emissions will have to fall by 45 percent by 2030, and reach net zero by 2050. We should do our best to meet this challenge, the report warns, because allowing the temperature to rise two degrees (much less than the 3.5 we’re currently on pace for) would cause far more damage than 1.5.

The burden of climate change falls first and heaviest on the poorest nations, who of course have done the least to cause the crisis. At two degrees, the report contends, there will be a “disproportionately rapid evacuation” of people from the tropics. As one of its authors told The New York Times, “in some parts of the world, national borders will become irrelevant. You can set up a wall to try to contain 10,000 and 20,000 and one million people, but not 10 million.”

The problem is that action on climate change never follows: the scientists do their job, but even the politicians not controlled by the fossil fuel industry tend to punt or to propose small-bore changes too slow and cautious to make much difference. By far the most important change between this and the last big IPCC report, in 2014, is simply that four years have passed, meaning that the curve we’d need to follow to cut our emissions sufficiently has grown considerably steeper. Instead of the relatively gentle trajectory that would have been required if we had paid attention in 1995, the first time the IPCC warned us that global warming was real and dangerous, we’re at the point where even an all-out effort would probably be too slow. But industry still concentrates on trying to slow the inevitable move to renewable energy and preserve its current business model as long as possible.

After the release of the IPCC report, for instance, Exxon pledged $1 million to work toward a carbon tax. That’s risible—Exxon made $280 billion in the last decade, and it has donated huge sums to elect a Congress that won’t pass a carbon tax anytime soon; oil companies are spending many millions of dollars to defeat a carbon tax on the ballot in Washington State and to beat back bans on fracking in Colorado. Even if a carbon tax somehow made it past the GOP, the amount Exxon says it wants—$40 a ton—is tiny compared to what the IPCC’s analysts say would be required to make a real dent in the problem. And in return the proposed legislation would relieve the oil companies of all liability for the havoc they’ve caused. A bargain that might have made sense a generation ago no longer counts for much.

It’s natural following devastating scientific reports like this one to turn to our political leaders for a response. But in an era when politics seems at least temporarily broken, and with a crisis that has a time limit, civil society may need to pressure the business community.

More at www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/11/22/global-warming-very-grim-forecast/

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Tuesday, November 6, 2018 3:29 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Noam Chomsky Calls Trump and Republican Allies "Criminally Insane"
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/noam-chomsky-calls-tr
ump-and-republican-allies-criminally-insane
/

Question for Chomsky: Why did you recently call the Republican Party “the most dangerous organization in world history”?

Answer: Take its leader, who recently applied to the government of Ireland for a permit to build a huge wall to protect his golf course, appealing to the threat of global warming, while at the same time he withdrew from international efforts to address the grim threat and is using every means at his disposal to accelerate it. Or take his colleagues, the participants in the 2016 Republican primaries. Without exception, they either denied that what is happening is happening – though any ignorance is self-induced – or said maybe it is but we shouldn’t do anything about it. The moral depths were reached by the respected “adult in the room,” Ohio governor John Kasich, who agreed that it is happening but added that “we are going to burn [coal] in Ohio and we are not going to apologize for it.” Or take a recent publication of Trump’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a detailed study recommending an end to regulations on emissions. It presented a rational argument: extrapolating current trends, by the end of the century we’ll be over the cliff and automotive emissions don’t contribute very much to the catastrophe – the assumption being that everyone is as criminally insane as we are and won’t try to avoid the crisis. In brief, let’s rob while the planet burns, putting poor Nero in the shadows.

This surely qualifies as a contender for the most evil document in history.

There have been many monsters in the past, but it would be hard to find one who was dedicated to undermining the prospects for organized human society, not in the distant future -- in order to put a few more dollars in overstuffed pockets.

And it doesn’t end there. The same can be said about the major banks that are increasing investments in fossil fuels, knowing very well what they are doing. Or, for that matter, the regular articles in the major media and business press reporting US success in rapidly increasing oil and gas production, with commentary on energy independence, sometimes local environmental effects, but regularly without a phrase on the impact on global warming – a truly existential threat. Same in the election campaign. Not a word about the issue that is merely the most crucial one in human history.

Hardly a day passes without new information about the severity of the threat. As I’m writing, a new study appeared in Nature showing that retention of heat in the oceans has been greatly underestimated, meaning that the total carbon budget is much less than had been assumed in the recent, and sufficiently ominous, IPCC report. The study calculates that maximum emissions would have to be reduced by 25% to avoid warming of 2 degrees (C), well above the danger point. At the same time polls show that -- doubtless influenced by their leaders who they trust more than the evil media -- half of Republicans deny that global warming is even taking place, and of the rest, almost half reject any human responsibility. Words fail.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, November 7, 2018 5:02 PM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Trump proposed retaliation against Congressional oversight

A Democratic House means an end to the impunity Trump has enjoyed on Capitol Hill. Administration scandals and Trump’s conduct are finally going to be subject to investigation, a prospect that Trump greeted with wildly inappropriate threats.

No president enjoys congressional oversight, but rather than do something normal like issue a routine statement about how he’ll comply with legitimate requests, Trump lashed out with a wild scheme to try to intimidate Democrats out of investigating him:

"I keep hearing about investigations. Fatigue, like from the time, almost from the time that I announced I was going to run, they have been giving us this investigation fatigue. It has been a long time. They have nothing. Zero. You know why? Because there is nothing. But they can play that game, but we can play it better. Because we have a thing called the United States Senate. And a lot of very questionable things were done between leaks of classified information and many other elements that should not have taken place. And all you are going to do is end up in back-and-forth and back-and-forth."

What's more, in response to a later question, Trump clarified that his hope for a bipartisan infrastructure deal was contingent on Democrats agreeing not to do investigations.

“If they do that,” Trump said, “then all it is is a warlike posture.”

Trump defies the basic logic of the separation of powers. It’s not unusual for divided government to produce compromise legislation, but Trump's idea that Democrats should unilaterally abdicate their constitutional obligations in pursuit of some kind of totally unspecified legislation deal with him is totally ridiculous.

www.vox.com/2018/11/7/18072284/donald-trump-midterm-press-conference-m
edia-abortion


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Wednesday, November 7, 2018 5:30 PM

6IXSTRINGJACK


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Seriously, Second...

I know you're capable of having an original thought. I haven't seen it yet, but there must be something in there that Vox or MotherJones didn't put in there.

I believe in you, man.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

6ix, I am not going to tell you the whole story of the next door family, all who voted for Trump and all of them still admiring him until they died because it is a story about murder and being sent to a mental hospital. Now the house next door is empty because everybody is either dead, in jail, or disinherited. True stories like that, stripped of all the identifying details, are why I depended on Vox to give you a picture of who Trump voters really are.

Need I say that I will forgive Trump voters for how they voted, but I don't forgive them for how they really act, not just who they pretend to be, in the non-political realm?

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly




lol. CaptinCrunch is going to believe every word of it is true, but he doesn't believe in my figures on health insurance premium increases since the ACA was enacted when all he has to do is look at how much he paid in 2008 compared to now.

These are the type of people we're dealing with here.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

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Wednesday, November 7, 2018 11:59 PM

1KIKI

Goodbye, kind world (George Monbiot) - In common with all those generations which have contemplated catastrophe, we appear to be incapable of understanding what confronts us.


Quote:

Originally posted by second:
half of Republicans deny that global warming is even taking place, and of the rest, almost half reject any human responsibility. Words fail.

And if democrats don't do anything different, how are they any better?




tic tac

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Thursday, November 8, 2018 6:11 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 1kiki:
Quote:

Originally posted by second:
half of Republicans deny that global warming is even taking place, and of the rest, almost half reject any human responsibility. Words fail.

And if democrats don't do anything different, how are they any better?

Don't ever comment again, 1kiki, if you cannot remember Obama and his EPA setting rules on CO2. Don't comment again, 1kiki, if you cannot remember what the GOP did next or you cannot remember Trump pulling the USA out of all agreements to reduce CO2.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, November 8, 2018 6:37 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


Quote:

Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:

lol. CaptinCrunch is going to believe every word of it is true, but he doesn't believe in my figures on health insurance premium increases since the ACA was enacted when all he has to do is look at how much he paid in 2008 compared to now.

These are the type of people we're dealing with here.

Do Right, Be Right. :)

"lol" back at you, 6ixStringJack. You are a type I deal with all the time. They think they understand, but anybody knowledgeable would recognize you don't know shit from Shinola.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/know_shit_from_Shinola

I wonder if 6ix can understand this? Probably not, but there is really no way for me to test his understanding, other than if he did, he would know he elected a crook and would declare that himself:

Yesterday, Trump said he can’t share any of his tax returns because he is being audited. Trump had 10 tax returns in the last 10 years. And 20 returns in 20 years. Did the IRS finish an audit on any of those returns? Trump says no, but I say yes, there are Trump tax returns that aren’t being audited. Trump gives a dumb explanation in "The 10 Most Dumbfounding Moments From Trump's Post-Election Press Conference", item #10, Trump says he won’t release his tax returns—for now. Trump’s answer is pure dementia.
www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/11/most-notable-moments-trum
ps-press-conference/575188
/

The complexity of Trump’s tax returns only underscores why the public should have a chance to see them. In October, the New York Times published a blockbuster report that revealed how Trump had used sketchy schemes to avoid paying taxes on his income and the wealth he inherited from his father — nearly $413 million in today’s dollars. The reporters’ analysis and tax experts suggested that the antics the Trump family used could possibly be criminal, though the statute of limitations would have long since passed.
www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-wealth-fred-trump.
html


The fact that the president appears to have been involved in serious financial crimes in the past finally puts a very heavy finger on the most likely reason for his unprecedented lack of transparency — he didn’t magically stop committing crimes in the mid-1990s, he’s just been getting away with it in an era of reduced enforcement and he fears his documents wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny.

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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Thursday, November 8, 2018 7:28 AM

SECOND

The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly


After losing to a Democrat, Harris County Juvenile Court Judge Glenn Devlin released nearly all of the youthful defendants that appeared in front him on Wednesday morning, simply asking the kids whether they planned to kill anyone before letting them go.

"He was releasing everybody," said public defender Steven Halpert, who watched the string of surprising releases. "Apparently he was saying that's what the voters wanted."

The longtime Republican jurist — whose seat was among 59 swept by Democrats in Tuesday's election — is one of two juvenile court judges in Harris County whose track records favoring incarceration contributed heavily to doubling the number of kids Harris County sent to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department in recent years, even as those figures fell in the rest of the state.

A Houston Chronicle investigation last month found that Devlin and Judge John Phillips accounted for more than one-fifth of all children sent to the state's juvenile prisons last year. The two jurists not only sent more teens to juvenile prison, but they also sent them younger and for less-serious offenses than the county's third juvenile court, where Judge Mike Schneider presides.

More at www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/article/Promise-not-to-kil
l-anyone-After-losing-election-13371485.php


The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at www.mediafire.com/folder/1uwh75oa407q8/Firefly

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