201–210 of 483 posts
This reminds me of George Wallace’s famous realization that his long term institutionalization of racism in Alabama was wrong when he was getting close to death’s door. It was kind of nice to hear, but lots of damage was done.
Also the Emmet Till accuser admitting she lied, once she was on her death bed.
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First Amendment protects you from government. Catholics are not the government. That’s why Catholic discussion of Jewish marriages is not a First Amendment issue, while Supreme Court Justice Alito advocating against gay marriage is.
> First Amendment protects you from government. Catholics are not the government. Right. That's my point; there's no need to reconcile the First Amendment with permitting gay marriage. There's nothing to reconcile. The common "allowing gay marriage is an infringement of religious freedom" argument is bunk for that reason.
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Genuinely curious - are you seriously a fan of the Kochs? What do you find admirable about them?
I have no opinion on the Kochs, I have too little information, and since I don't have any influence, I couldn't care less. I do care about civil discourse though.
The article would have been improved by giving some insight into what changed his mind. You don't just go from what he and his brother have done to the US to: > Boy, did we screw up! Without an inkling as to how or why they screwed up, there's no way to gauge what, if any, change to expect.
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It highlights the very important point that activist groups will quite often ignore viable solutions. This is usually because they wish to keep on being activists and keep on continuing the fight. Thus it brings into question anything they claim and all claims should be treated with skepticism.
Have you seen how big the Chernobyl exclusion zone is? are to move your family there? Have you paid any attention to the after effects at Fukushima? Do you care to realize that we are pushing radiation with unknown effects into the largest body of water (and one of the greatest repositories of life) on Earth? That the effects will likely reverberate for a 1000 years or more? What is your solution to the problem of ac…
Well, no. We aren't in some mystical radiation balance with nature.
Heritable point mutations are primarily driven by DNA polymerase errors and repair failures, not by radiation damage. Ultraviolet light is good at causing thymidine cross-linking, which can give rise to cancers, but this is irrelevant to heritable change. Likewise, higher energy particles can cut DNA, but compared to crossing over events during chromosomal assortment this has approximately no bearing on heritable change.
The US seems to be in the middle of another realignment, like in the 60s. The Democratic party is consolidating its support from the big corporations, while the Republican party is making inroads with the working class.
Trump is a billionaire and a defender of the corporate class. His entire administration consists of ex-corporate wall-street types folks and/or zealot yes-men. You may be right that the "inroads with the working class" are being made, but only in the form of the working class being convinced that their interests are the same as the corporate classes interests... though even that analysis may be wrong considering that Biden won by convincing voters in the rust and sun belt to vote for him.
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Nuclear energy is still dangerous. For example, it is still not safe against possible natural disasters (Fukushima), as well as from possible terrorist attacks. Imagine a 9/11 type of accident with a nuclear plant as its target. Potential danger is still extremely high, even if the chances of it are very small. We still cannot correctly estimate the risks of nuclear energy, after all these years.
> Nuclear energy is still dangerous. For example, it is still not safe against possible natural disasters (Fukushima), I mean, if we are going to be bringing up a single datapoint then allow me to raise a counterpoint. Nuclear energy is still safe. For example, it is still safe against possible natural disasters (Onagawa) [1] [1] https://thebulletin.org/2014/03/onagawa-the-japanese-nuclear...
I really wonder why people are so keen on it. It made sense to build them 40 years ago to deal with global warming. Today it's only financially viable if it's massively subsidized compared to wind/solar.
What is it that makes that extra cost so worthwhile?
The article would have been improved by giving some insight into what changed his mind. You don't just go from what he and his brother have done to the US to: > Boy, did we screw up! Without an inkling as to how or why they screwed up, there's no way to gauge what, if any, change to expect.
The article would have been improved by at least proving he has changed his mind. Charles Koch is 85. There is a decent chance he is not going to live long enough to see another Republican administration. It would be in the best interest of maintaining some political influence and making some more change for him to change his public position like this. If he were 60, I would have expected him to wait 4–8 years for the next Republican administration instead.