[News] Post a D&D Picture

Previous incarnations of Cleveland/P&C/D&D have had an image thread, to handle political cartoons and other image-based stuff that doesn't belong in the general post-a-picture threads.

If any of them spawn an extended discussion, please spawn it off into its own thread. Replies to non-picture replies should take the form of a link pointing to a post on a different discussion thread.

And I shouldn't have to say it, but the images still need to abide by the rules.

The US is a food exporter. We grow more food than we eat. With the tariffs many countries are no longer planning on importing food from the US, and we have not found replacement markets for the same scale. With lower prospects of being able to sell corn, and with lower prospects to sell meat, the US is planting less corn both for human and animal consumption.

Yonder wrote:

The US is a food exporter. We grow more food than we eat. With the tariffs many countries are no longer planning on importing food from the US, and we have not found replacement markets for the same scale. With lower prospects of being able to sell corn, and with lower prospects to sell meat, the US is planting less corn both for human and animal consumption.

But we're making up for the money we're losing by... paying farmers not to work.

It's a perfect system that is completely sustainable while we win trade wars that we manufactured.

The drop in the chart is primarily from the weather, not tariffs. Note that it is percentage planted, not absolute volume: reduction from tariffs would affect the amount to plant, but wouldn't lower the planting speed. (Would increase it, proportionally.)

Successful Farmer: ILLINOIS CORN PLANTING IS NOT EVEN HALFWAY FINISHED, USDA SAYS: U.S. PLANTINGS ARE ON A SLOW BOAT TO CHINA

Washington Post: After a biblical spring, this is the week that could break the Corn Belt

National Geographic: Midwest flooding is drowning corn and soy crops. Is climate change to blame?
This year's constant deluge of rain has led some to wonder if farmers are finally feeling the predicted impacts of a warming world.

That the loads of precipitation that hit the midwest in April and May have seriously slowed the planting of corn crops.

That's a bit of a problem because corn takes about 120 days to grow and the longer after early May you plant, the lower your overall crop yield is going to be.

The very late planting also means farmers are hitting up against deadlines that have massive financial impacts for them. Last week was deadline for farmers to get a full payout on their crop insurance. Tomorrow is the deadline for farmers to either push on with corn or take a prevented planting payout, which pays them some money against the crops they were supposed to plant, but requires them to plant a non-saleable ground cover.

Or the farmers could switch to a faster growing crop. Normally that would be soybeans, but thanks to a bumper crop last year and Trump's trade war with China there's literally small mountains of unsold soybeans being stored.

So there's a lot you can learn from the chart. That climate change is a Female Doggo that will absolutely f*ck up our ability to grow the handful of crops we've come to depend upon. That farmers (and rural Red states) are going to be an even louder and crankier group for the 2020 election. That you can expect any food that relies on corn to get a little more expensive.

Gremlin wrote:

The drop in the chart is primarily from the weather, not tariffs. Note that it is percentage planted, not absolute volume: reduction from tariffs would affect the amount to plant, but wouldn't lower the planting speed. (Would increase it, proportionally.)

Thanks for clarifying. I thought I'd heard that right. It's scary stuff to imagine the food supply being impacted so heavily. As cynical as I am around mankind most days, I think we might start adjusting to Climate Change rapidly if it starts affecting the US directly.

Nvm

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Yeah, but how many of those people are objecting to the New York Times as "made up news"....

Looking at I wondered a bit how many liberals are concerned that Fox makes up news too and that contributed to the over numbers as well.

And it will certainly include Russian propaganda on facebook and twitter.

Jonman wrote:

Yeah, but how many of those people are objecting to the New York Times as "made up news"....

IMAGE(https://www.journalism.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2019/06/PJ_2019.06.05_misinformation_0-02.png?resize=675,405)

And, predictably, Republicans have a massively negative view of journalists because they've swallowed the "liberal MSM" lie hook, line, and sinker.

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Jonman wrote:

Yeah, but how many of those people are objecting to the New York Times as "made up news"....

I'm really, really tired of opinion polls that ask things like "is there a crisis at the border"--hell yes there's a crisis, but it's one that we invented and can un-invent if we really wanted to. But that's not the interpretation that they're thinking about.

Asking ambiguous questions gets useless answers and more yelling by people interpreting it through their personal crystal ball.

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Hans Rosling died!?! Ah, man. His Ted Talks were absolutely amazing and were some of the best uses of statistics I've ever seen.

Oh stfu Bill. Stop feeding us your rose tinted view of the world. The reality is the world is getting worse, and I am embarrassed that I believed your lies for so long.

Oh I dunno, I'd say that graph is a great argument for why Medicare for All really matters far, far more than the bullsh*t anti-terrorist measures, terrible carceral state, and our Forever War, and how the corporate media warp people with fear of the Other rather than attempting to help society.

Edit: Though I do agree that Bill Gates should shut the f*ck up.

Seth wrote:

Oh stfu Bill. Stop feeding us your rose tinted view of the world. The reality is the world is getting worse, and I am embarrassed that I believed your lies for so long.

Could you point to sources? Because his facts seem quite compelling.

Assuming Seth was serious, I think it is just focus on different things. Bill is very focused on things like health, child mortality, poverty. Seth is probably thinking things are 'worse' in relation to like the rise of fascism, extremism, and dictatorships. Some things can be getting better while others are getting worse.

Seth wrote:

Oh stfu Bill. Stop feeding us your rose tinted view of the world. The reality is the world is getting worse, and I am embarrassed that I believed your lies for so long.

Or, you know, go ahead and embrace your fear instinct.

You could notice that the key takeaways are things Deplorables embrace. We assume terrorism and murder has a much larger impact on our lives, and it drives them to support the f*cking wall and arming every white dude in the country. That, if we turned away from our fear instinct, we could move our time and energy towards other problems, was his actual point.

But, yeah, it's probably most productive to lash out a billionaire that is spending most of his fortune to help children around the world suffering from poverty and a lack of healthcare, as well as trying to get education and information technology to children in the US that don't live in the right zip code. Damn him for reminding us to keep our eye on the f*cking ball.

I didn't think Seth was kidding. But to be convinced that "the reality is the world is getting worse" I need to know how and why.

I am not even really sure that worldwide there is less fascism, extremism, or dicatorship...ism... Last time I saw any information about it I think that far, far more people world wide are able to have some say in their governance.

Last time I saw any information about it I think that far, far more people world wide are able to have some say in their governance.

I agree, I was just commenting that that is not the media narrative. I think if you look at now vs 50 years ago there is a lot less fascism and dictatorship worldwide. More oligarchy though!

Jayhawker wrote:
Seth wrote:

Oh stfu Bill. Stop feeding us your rose tinted view of the world. The reality is the world is getting worse, and I am embarrassed that I believed your lies for so long.

Or, you know, go ahead an embrace your fear instinct.

You could notice that the key takeaways are things Deplorables embrace. We assume terrorism and murder has a much larger impact on our lives, and it drives them to support the f*cking wall and arming every white dude in the country. That, if we turned away from our fear instinct, we could move our time and energy towards other problems, was his actual point.

But, yeah, it's probably most productive to lash out a billionaire that is spending most of his fortune to help children around the world suffering from poverty and a lack of healthcare, as well as trying to get education and information technology to children in the US that don't live in the right zip code. Damn him for reminding us to keep out eye on the f*cking ball.

My only regret is that I have but 1 like to give.

To play Seth's Advocate for a moment, I think he's got a problem with rich and powerful people choosing causes that everyone can get behind and that don't ask us to question the system itself. That don't force us to answer the hard questions about what it would take to *really* make the world a better place. That don't have any villains, and certainly not villains in Parliament or Congress or C-Suites. The causes that treat the problems of the world as just "mistakes were made" and not the consequence of political decisions.

If the Bill Gates' of the world want to show some courage, forget the easy victims. Choose the hard ones, the controversial ones. Donate your fortune to Planned Parenthood.

edit: skimmed over LeapingGnome's post here, but I'll leave this one up as I think it adds to what I'm guessing Seth had an issue with.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

If the Bill Gates' of the world want to show some courage, forget the easy victims. Choose the hard ones, the controversial ones. Donate your fortune to Planned Parenthood.

Bill and Melinda Gates have openly stated, numerous times, about wanting to actually making a difference. That they want their firehose of money to do concrete good in the world, instead of being frittered away on, say, political campaigns that have a roughly 50/50 chance of achieving precisely f*ck all. Malaria was specifically something they chose to address because there were feasible avenues to leverage their money mountain into tangible progress.

What you call "easy victims" are hundreds of thousands of people who die annually from malaria (never mind the other 211 million or so non-fatal cases). What you call "not showing courage" has helped lead to a 29% decrease in malaria cases since 2010. Do the f*cking math. It is vast what they've achieved, and throwing a hissy fit because it's not your pet cause that they're supporting is mean-spirited, and short-sighted.

Get mad at Bezos for not doing the same kind of thing, instead.

Jonman wrote:

Bill and Melinda Gates have openly stated, numerous times, about wanting to actually making a difference. That they want their firehose of money to do concrete good in the world, instead of being frittered away on, say, political campaigns that have a roughly 50/50 chance of achieving precisely f*ck all.

Well, the Law of Fortunes of Large Numbers suggests they could do plenty of good then!

Do the f*cking math.

I just did!

Or hey, choose both!

If you've got that kind of fortune, you probably can.

It is vast what they've achieved, and throwing a hissy fit because it's not your pet cause that they're supporting is mean-spirited, and short-sighted.

Well, that's where you misunderstand what I'm talking about. Sorry if I was confusing by saying easy/hard, but like I also said, choose *controversial* victims. I'm not talking about my pet causes or your pet causes or Bill's pet causes. Go right ahead and choose a pet cause.

Thing is, if you don't have a pet cause that's 'political', you're doing something wrong.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

Thing is, if you don't have a pet cause that's 'political', you're doing something wrong.

If "saving millions of children's lives" is wrong, I don't want to be right. Moreover, if "saving millions of children's lives" isn't political for you, then your politics is horrendous.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

Or hey, choose both!

If you've got that kind of fortune, you probably can.

WOMP WOMP.

1) Gates Foundation has a $50 billion endowment. While that seems like a lot of money to you and me, it's a drop in the bucket when it comes to the kind of global-scale problems that we're talking about.

2) They already do. Here is a subset of the "choose both" areas that the Gates Foundation spends it's money on.

Infectious disease control
Malaria control
STD control including HIV/AIDS
Tuberculosis control
Reproductive health care
Agricultural research
Family planning
Health policy and administrative management
Agricultural development
Agricultural policy and administrative management
Promotion of development awareness
Basic health care
Basic nutrition
Basic sanitation
Financial policy and administrative management

I'm not throwing a racism card here, but it doesn't escape me that a lot of their focus is on the developing world, and thus, easy to ignore from our ivory towers over here.