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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
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What Septimus said above, what Canada
(and surely others) are actively doing to attract scholars suddenly feeling no longer at home in the USA, and studies on the environments that attract such people. Florida's (a name not the state) The Creative Class is one. And history shows that repression and insularity are each anathema to scientific/technical/artistic expression.
edited 8th Feb '17 4:19:12 AM by CenturyEye
Look with century eyes... With our backs to the arch And the wreck of our kind We will stare straight ahead For the rest of our livesBecause I like to occasionally share local stuff:
Idaho Gov. Otter defends ‘preference’ for Christian refugees over others
http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article131213034.html
“I’m OK with religious preference,” Otter said.
Pressed on whether other non-Christian refugees who faced religious persecution at home should be included among those exempted from the ban, the governor demurred.
“That’s not going to be up to me, and I’m sure they’re not going to ask me,” he said. “All I can do is analyze what the Trump administration is going to do and how I think that would affect us here in Idaho, or how it shouldn’t adversely affect us here."
For what it's worth, there are actually some good comments mixed in with "what part of the Constitution do you think applies to foreigners?"
edited 8th Feb '17 6:59:45 AM by sgamer82
"Report: Trump regretting Spicer as communication director and is looking for someone to replace him."
Good. He's been a disaster. Though part of that is because he's been like a Trump clone. Get somebody in there that's at least respectful to the press (and doesn't just parrot lies) and maybe we'll get somewhere.
A press secretary that stands up to Trump will be gone like that, and a totally spineless one will look like a complete moron.
Keep in mind, part of the issue with Spicer is that he's being given mind-bogglingly bad instructions, and his (apparently natural) confrontational style makes the mistakes and lies really obvious.
I know some people think Spicer was the pick to draw attention away from what the Trump government is doing, but Spicer sucks so much at it that he actually draws attention to the things they're trying to hide.
Keep in mind, Spicer is the guy who has a running feud with Dippin' Dots and eats a ton of gum every day. He already had a bunch of alienating, abnormal behaviours, and he isn't subtle about them.
edited 8th Feb '17 7:13:31 AM by Zendervai
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fyi, If the number of posts at the bottom of the screen is divisible by 25 when you hit add a post, expect a page topper. There's only 25 posts per page. Sorry, it just kind of bugs me when people are like "whoa, pagetopper!" when it's been a little while since anybody else has posted and it's clear the next one's going to start a page.
edited 8th Feb '17 8:02:34 AM by Journeyman
Just remember to never forget the power of a large coterie of authoritarians of dubious competence - it's a great way to let things get real bad for an entire continent real fast.
I wish. Conservatives around the world always seem to fall in line, whilst liberals around the world run on We ARE Struggling Together.
edited 8th Feb '17 8:53:39 AM by Balmung
Conservatives fell in line in the US last November, despite many saying that up to a third of them would never for Trump.
Conservatives have largely fell in line with Trump since the start of his tenure, despite many of them saying that they'd never support his more radical policy initiatives.
Conservatives are lying through their teeth.
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.We're united in our opposition to Trump, but being against anything is easy. When we start the long, torturous discussion on what the Democrats stand for, you'll see the cracks emerge, there will be a schism, and we'll be undone.
"For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."They're not really united. There are still lots of annoying echoes of the Hillary/ Bernie fight hanging around, for one thing. Another thing is people going 'primary every Democrat who goes along with anything the GOP is trying for, no matter how reasonable it is!' And there's the 'let's tolerant the nazis!' faction, which is contrasted by the 'let's infiltrate peaceful protests and turn them into riots!' faction.
edited 8th Feb '17 9:14:50 AM by Gilphon
Well, conservatives (in the US sense) need only appeal to inertia, confirmation bias, anxiety, and natural resistance to change.
Liberals have to take the extra step and transform fact and theory and projections (all of which can be disagreed on) into feel-good arguments that will win voters.
Conservatives fall in line because, despite all their blather about liberty, they are authoritarians, and authoritarian personalities desperately want to be told what to do.
RE: "Sanders would have won"
We really still re-fighting the primary? If he couldn't win with the party there is little to no reason to think he could have won with the nation. Particularly since all those polls that purported to show how well he'd do were done in the face of him not having come under major scrutiny by the press.
It took me about ten seconds to find the story of the nuclear waste or that creepy essay he wrote. Now, I know what his supporters will say. They'll say none of that matters. They'll say that it's been blown out of proportion. To which I will say "yeah, absolutely—but remember the emails? Remember Benghazi?" Trump would have turned Sanders' nuclear vote into evidence he wanted to irradiate Hispanics. He'd have used that essay to deflect attention away from his own transgressions and portray Sanders as a rapist or rape apologist. And it wouldn't have mattered whether any of his claims bore any resemblance to reality as we know it, because it certainly didn't matter whether his claims about Clinton did.
Republicans lie. It's what they do. At this point assuming that any candidate can be inoculated against it is dangerously naive.
I think stubbornness is a problem. I did read a while ago that Obama's approval ratings tended to always fluctuate between narrow margins, as if there was a very large proportion of people who have an opinion on him, and no amount of wrangling will change it. Likewise, Trump has a low approval rate ceiling and a high approval rate floor.
In addition, I think that a lot of conservatives view Trump as an useful tool to get their ideas implemented. See racial profiling, supreme court appointments and so on.
A bit more local news-y: California's Electricity Overload
. Apparently the Golden State has developed electricity production capacity way over actual consumption and is now facing a power glut. Overcompensating for electricity crises back in the early 2000s seems like.

I see...but could the US be attractive once more one day?
The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.