[News] Post a Political News Story

Ongoing discussion of the political news of the day. This thread is for 'smaller' stories that don't call for their own thread. If a story blows up, please start a new thread for it.

If only Grumpycat were still with us. I bet she would have something to say.

WTF is a cultural philanthropist?
You are either a philanthropist or you are not... (and him and his brother are definitely not)

fangblackbone wrote:

WTF is a cultural philanthropist?

A fancy way of saying "rich asshole."

I have to say I doubt any black person would ever be described that way.

farley3k wrote:

I have to say I doubt any black person would ever be described that way.

Oprah has been called that a lot, but I think she's the exception to the rich white person rule.

ruhk wrote:

David Koch is dead.

IMAGE(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-JLwKzxczG2I/VqPRKY437tI/AAAAAAAAOW8/I4tUhOy1PLc/s1600/Ewok%2BGiggin.gif)

Political because of the beef lobby.

The Amazon is burning because the world eats so much meat

While the wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest may constitute an "international crisis," they are hardly an accident.

The vast majority of the fires have been set by loggers and ranchers to clear land for cattle. The practice is on the rise, encouraged by Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's populist pro-business president, who is backed by the country's so-called "beef caucus."
While this may be business as usual for Brazil's beef farmers, the rest of the world is looking on in horror.
So, for those wondering how they could help save the rainforest, known as "the planet's lungs" for producing about 20% of the world's oxygen, the answer may be simple. Eat less meat.
It's an idea that Finland has already floated. On Friday, the Nordic country's finance minister called for the European Union to "urgently review the possibility of banning Brazilian beef imports" over the Amazon fires.
Brazil is the world's largest exporter of beef, providing close to 20% of the total global exports, according the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) -- a figure that could rise in the coming years.
Last year the country shipped 1.64 million tonnes of beef -- the highest volume in history -- generating $6.57 billion in revenue, according to the Brazilian Beef Exporters Association (Abiec), an association of more than 30 Brazilian meat-packing companies.

farley3k wrote:

Political because of the beef lobby.

The Amazon is burning because the world eats so much meat

While the wildfires raging in the Amazon rainforest may constitute an "international crisis," they are hardly an accident.

The vast majority of the fires have been set by loggers and ranchers to clear land for cattle. The practice is on the rise, encouraged by Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's populist pro-business president, who is backed by the country's so-called "beef caucus."
While this may be business as usual for Brazil's beef farmers, the rest of the world is looking on in horror.
So, for those wondering how they could help save the rainforest, known as "the planet's lungs" for producing about 20% of the world's oxygen, the answer may be simple. Eat less meat.
It's an idea that Finland has already floated. On Friday, the Nordic country's finance minister called for the European Union to "urgently review the possibility of banning Brazilian beef imports" over the Amazon fires.
Brazil is the world's largest exporter of beef, providing close to 20% of the total global exports, according the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) -- a figure that could rise in the coming years.
Last year the country shipped 1.64 million tonnes of beef -- the highest volume in history -- generating $6.57 billion in revenue, according to the Brazilian Beef Exporters Association (Abiec), an association of more than 30 Brazilian meat-packing companies.

Don't forget that when Trump kicked off his little trade war with China that China stopped buying US soybeans and dramatically upped the amount they bought from Brazil. Brazil responded by increasing the acreage dedicated to growing soybeans by about 3,400 square miles (more than three times the size of Rhode Island) and that new farmland largely came from burning/chopping down the rainforest.

Hey! Remember this?

More specifically, this -

In a panel on immigration, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax claimed that immigrants are too loud and responsible for an increase in “litter.” She explicitly advocated an immigration policy that would favor immigrants from Western countries over non-Western ones; “the position,” as she put it, “that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites.” (She claims this is not racist because her problem with nonwhite immigrants is cultural rather than biological.)

Well she did an interview with the New Yorker and hooooooooooooooboy.

We could.

So, women, on average, are more agreeable than men. Women, on average, are less knowledgeable than men. They’re less intellectual than men. Now, I can actually back up all those statements with social-science research.

You can send me links for women are “less intellectual than men.” I’m happy to include that in the piece if you have a good link for that.

O.K., well, there’s a literature in Britain, a series of papers that were done, and I need to look them up, that show that women are less knowledgeable than men. They know less about every single subject, except fashion. There is a literature out of Vanderbilt University that looks at women of very high ability—so, controlling for ability—and, starting in adolescence, women are less interested in the single-minded pursuit of abstract intellectual goals than men. They want more balance in their life. They want more time with family, friends, and people. They’re less interested in working hard on abstract ideas. You can put together a database that shows that. The person who has the literature is a man named David Lubinski, and he shows that intelligence isn’t what’s driving it. It is interest, orientation, what people want to spend their time doing.

Now, is that sexist? We can argue all day about whether it is sexist. We can argue from morning till night. And it is sterile. It is pointless. Let’s talk about the actual findings and what implications they have for policy, for expectations.

[Wax sent links to two studies whose lead author is Richard Lynn, a British psychologist who is known for believing in racial differences in intelligence, supporting eugenics, and associating with white supremacists. (She also shared the Wikipedia page for “general knowledge,” which cites several of Lynn’s studies.) David Lubinski, a professor of psychology at Vanderbilt, clarified that his research was about the life choices of men and women and did not address claims such as women being less intellectual than men.]

And many more gems!

In other news...

The alt-right manifesto that has Trumpworld talking

The most important political book of the past year just might be a grammatically challenged manifesto in favor of nude sunbathing written under the pen name Bronze Age Pervert.

Where Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” inspired generations of libertarians to enter politics, and Aaron Sorkin’s “The West Wing” did the same for idealistic liberals, a cohort of young, right-wing men are today gravitating toward “Bronze Age Mindset.” The self-published book urges them to join the armed forces in preparation for the onset of military rule.

Since its publication in June 2018, the book has gained a following online, and its author, known to his fans as BAP for short, has come to the attention of notable figures on the Trumpist right. Earlier this month, the book was the subject of a 5,000-word review by Michael Anton, a conservative intellectual who served as a spokesman for Donald Trump’s National Security Council. Anton concludes by warning, “In the spiritual war for the hearts and minds of the disaffected youth on the right, conservatism is losing. BAP-ism is winning.”

Anton is just one of the Trump world figures who has taken notice. "It’s still a cult book,” said another former Trump White House official. “If you’re a young person, intelligent, adjacent in some way to the right, it’s very likely you would have heard of it.”

Right-wing agitator Mike Cernovich said he knows of young staffers in the White House who are fans of Bronze Age Pervert’s Twitter account — where the author posts photos of buff, shirtless men and promotes far-right positions on the culture war — though he does not know if they have read the book.

The 200-page book mixes Nietzschean philosophy with critiques of contemporary Western society, denigrating homosexuality, Judiasm, Islam, feminism and much else along the way. “Inside every noble Greek was an unquenchable lust for power,” is one fairly typical statement. “Modern world not bad just because modern,” is another, displaying the author’s habit of lapsing into broken English by dropping articles. The book claims that the leaders of the European Union have “tiny moleman eyes.” Many of its passages are profane and unprintable.

The book’s ascendance in online, far-right circles is indicative of the latest phase of the culture war that has fueled Trump’s presidency.

Most of the well-known figures associated with the alt-right or “alt-lite” — Milo Yiannopoulos, Gavin McInnes, Richard Spencer — have been successfully demoralized, deplatformed or otherwise banished from the public square. But this has not eliminated the underlying source of their relevance: disaffected young men, mostly white, with internet access.

In large part, what’s left in the online spaces they inhabit are pseudonymous figures like Bronze Age Pervert, whose output tends to be more intellectualized, even esoteric.

While the loose alt-right network that became infamous in 2016 was filled with attention-seeking provocateurs who cheered on Trump’s rise, the new voices in this space are alienated and ambivalent about Trump. And far from being inspired by his signature call to “Make America Great Again,” their view of contemporary American society is decidedly dystopian.

Bronze Age Pervert is active on Twitter in a network of similar, pseudonymous accounts with names like Just Loki and 17thCenturyShytePost that revel in mythic, aristocratic pasts while trafficking in racism and anti-Semitism.

The memes — catchy ideas and images that are widely shared online — produced in such far-right internet circles, such as Pepe the Frog, regularly intrude on mainstream political discourse, sometimes even getting adopted by Trump himself. And the current fixations of these figures offer a glimpse of the concepts gaining traction there.

Figures in this space frequently refer to their belief that elite media is preparing Americans for a future in which their quality of life is greatly diminished and they are reduced to eating insects for protein.

I'm happy to see the intellectual death of Reagan-era conservatism. But then I read something like this and think.

IMAGE(https://media3.giphy.com/media/dCdGHgF7yFHFK/source.gif)

Prederick wrote:

Hey! Remember this?

More specifically, this -

In a panel on immigration, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax claimed that immigrants are too loud and responsible for an increase in “litter.” She explicitly advocated an immigration policy that would favor immigrants from Western countries over non-Western ones; “the position,” as she put it, “that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites.” (She claims this is not racist because her problem with nonwhite immigrants is cultural rather than biological.)

Well she did an interview with the New Yorker and hooooooooooooooboy.

We could.

So, women, on average, are more agreeable than men. Women, on average, are less knowledgeable than men. They’re less intellectual than men. Now, I can actually back up all those statements with social-science research.

You can send me links for women are “less intellectual than men.” I’m happy to include that in the piece if you have a good link for that.

O.K., well, there’s a literature in Britain, a series of papers that were done, and I need to look them up, that show that women are less knowledgeable than men. They know less about every single subject, except fashion. There is a literature out of Vanderbilt University that looks at women of very high ability—so, controlling for ability—and, starting in adolescence, women are less interested in the single-minded pursuit of abstract intellectual goals than men. They want more balance in their life. They want more time with family, friends, and people. They’re less interested in working hard on abstract ideas. You can put together a database that shows that. The person who has the literature is a man named David Lubinski, and he shows that intelligence isn’t what’s driving it. It is interest, orientation, what people want to spend their time doing.

Now, is that sexist? We can argue all day about whether it is sexist. We can argue from morning till night. And it is sterile. It is pointless. Let’s talk about the actual findings and what implications they have for policy, for expectations.

[Wax sent links to two studies whose lead author is Richard Lynn, a British psychologist who is known for believing in racial differences in intelligence, supporting eugenics, and associating with white supremacists. (She also shared the Wikipedia page for “general knowledge,” which cites several of Lynn’s studies.) David Lubinski, a professor of psychology at Vanderbilt, clarified that his research was about the life choices of men and women and did not address claims such as women being less intellectual than men.]

And many more gems!

This "person" is a tenured professor at an Ivy League school.. complete embarrassment that she continues to teach there.

Agreed

Oh, also, apparently the White House wanted A$AP Rocky to publicly thank Trump for his "help" upon his release from jail in Sweden, to help score points with African-Americans.

A$AP ghosted them.

Hahaha good for him!

Prederick wrote:

In other news...

The alt-right manifesto that has Trumpworld talking

The self-published book urges them to join the armed forces in preparation for the onset of military rule.

That's a really roundabout way of saying "Race War."

TheGameguru wrote:
Prederick wrote:

Hey! Remember this?

More specifically, this -

We could.

So, women, on average, are more agreeable than men. Women, on average, are less knowledgeable than men. They’re less intellectual than men. Now, I can actually back up all those statements with social-science research.

You can send me links for women are “less intellectual than men.” I’m happy to include that in the piece if you have a good link for that.

O.K., well, there’s a literature in Britain, a series of papers that were done, and I need to look them up, that show that women are less knowledgeable than men. They know less about every single subject, except fashion. There is a literature out of Vanderbilt University

This "person" is a tenured professor at an Ivy League school.. complete embarrassment that she continues to teach there.

Be it resolved that "there is a literature" is the new "it is known."

Guys, do not try the Fukushima crabs. They're rushin em to the market despite numerous claims that they are ready or active.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

Guys, do not try the Fukushima crabs. They're rushin em to the market despite numerous claims that they are ready or active.

Fukushima crabs. I've seen them reviewed online: 3.6 stars. Not great, not terrible.

(This is what Mao's referencing, FYI.)

Prederick wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

Guys, do not try the Fukushima crabs. They're rushin em to the market despite numerous claims that they are ready or active.

Fukushima crabs. I've seen them reviewed online: 3.6 stars. Not great, not terrible.

(This is what Mao's referencing, FYI.)

Really? I’ve only seen glowing reviews.

ruhk wrote:

I don’t think the issue is that the Left isn’t trying to reach out to men- there are plenty of people and groups specifically doing that, it’s basically one of the primary motivations behind Breadtube and the Dirtbag Left movement.
The problem is that leftists aren’t as organized or as well-funded and so far haven’t been able to compete on the same level. Take a look at Charlie Kirk or Steven Crowder, for instance. Both are absolutely, vapidly talentless hacks, but both are also popular and have massive followings simply because they both have backers with bottomless pockets that allow them to operate on a scale that even the most popular leftist media like Contrapoints or Chapo Trap House can’t match.
It would go a long way if we had our own Koch Bros equivalent to pump money into Leftist media, but since most of us are varying degrees of anticapitalist that’s probably not going to happen. I can’t imagine there are many billionaires willing to fund movements that are actively working against them.

Contra touches on this point about the left's or even wider society failure to provide an alternative.

Personally, and I've said this before, I'd start with romantic comedies.

ruhk wrote:
Prederick wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

Guys, do not try the Fukushima crabs. They're rushin em to the market despite numerous claims that they are ready or active.

Fukushima crabs. I've seen them reviewed online: 3.6 stars. Not great, not terrible.

(This is what Mao's referencing, FYI.)

Really? I’ve only seen glowing reviews.

That IS glowing. 3.6 is as high as that rating gadget goes.

LEAD isn’t cheap — it costs about $350 per month per participant to provide case managers.

We're currently paying upwards of $750 *a day* to lock up migrant children. Sounds like we need one hell of a conversation about national priorities.

The title is pretty terrible, but that's to be expected. It's really a profile of a few people who have been helped by a program. Its great they've been helped, but the title promises that the city has no more problems with drugs, or its on a path to make that the case.

This is objectively untrue.

The LEAD program seems to help people who want help. That leaves a lot of people who don't and it has no solution for those people. Those who are drug addicted, homeless, and don't want help are simply left alone, which leaves them in direct contact/conflict with the public. I'm sure each neighborhood has its own 'characters'. Mine has ones like 'the president' who screams at the top of his lungs "I OWN THIS WHOLE f*ckING COUNTRY" as he wanders down an otherwise nice residential street, or the 'dead Hispanic' who is pretty much just completely drugged out of his mind out of all times, at least he's sedate, I guess. There are dozens just in my neighborhood who need mental help they'll never get.

They've taken over the local 'park' (It's a half-block of green, no real trees or anything), the police clear them out every few months but they quickly return. Members of this community of people addicted to drugs and refusing aid get ignored and some real problems other than the eye-sore or the feeling of unease do occur, such as this sexual assault, this pitchfork attack (seriously), or this daylight fight in front of a 7-11 on a busy street

It's far from just my neck of the woods. In a major downtown artery which serves as the bus corridor for dozens of bus lines, tens of thousands of people a day, whole blocks have been written off by the city from the Mc Donalds (dubbed McStabby's) on 3rd to Denny St is a string of people sleeping on the streets, drug sales, casual harassment, and periodic shootings.

Obviously other cities have it much worse with things like gangs affecting whole communities. My point is that the article is garbage. Every city has some success stories with programs but Seattle has FAR from 'figured out how to end the war on drugs', unless they mean Seattle has surrendered.

Not a story but a web site

Reasons to be Cheerful

It often seems as if the world is going straight to Hell. I wake up in the morning, I look at the paper, and I say to myself, "Oh no!" Often I’m depressed for half the day. I imagine some of you feel the same.
Recently, I realized this isn’t helping. Nothing changes when you’re numb. So, as a kind of remedy, and possibly as a kind of therapy, I started collecting good news. Not schmaltzy, feel-good news, but stuff that reminded me, Hey, there's positive stuff going on! People are solving problems and it’s making a difference!

I began telling others about what I’d found. Their responses were encouraging, so I created a website called Reasons to be Cheerful and started writing. Later on, I realized I wanted to make the endeavor a bit more formal. So we got a team together and began commissioning stories from other writers and redesigned the website. Today, we’re relaunching Reasons to be Cheerful as an ongoing editorial project.

We’re telling stories that reveal that there are, in fact, a surprising number of reasons to feel cheerful -- that provide a more optimistic and, we believe, more accurate depiction of the world. We hope to balance out some of the amplified negativity and show that things might not be as bad as we think. Stop by whenever you need a reminder.

David Byrne

Most wrote:
ruhk wrote:
Prederick wrote:
Chairman_Mao wrote:

Guys, do not try the Fukushima crabs. They're rushin em to the market despite numerous claims that they are ready or active.

Fukushima crabs. I've seen them reviewed online: 3.6 stars. Not great, not terrible.

(This is what Mao's referencing, FYI.)

Really? I’ve only seen glowing reviews.

That IS glowing. 3.6 is as high as that rating gadget goes.

I don;t understand, i thought rating scales started at 7 and went to 10.

I think it's nice that rukh and thrawn are both here in this thread.

Psst, watch your back.

farley3k wrote:

Not a story but a web site

Reasons to be Cheerful

farley3k, that's awesome, thanks! Though would you edit the URL to remove the Facebook tracking ID? I think we would all be a bit more cheerful with less of that. =)