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White House plan to break up iconic U.S. climate lab moves forward

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Re: White House plan to break up iconic U.S. climate lab moves forward

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More power to voters; make their votes count. Encourage run-off voting, etc. We don’t need to turn the US into a parliamentary government. Those are different matters. Things like ranked-choice voting, proportional representation, multi-member districts, electoral college reforms. We don’t necessarily need a large number of parties… At this point, the political parties are incentivized to suppress votes and/or redist…

Canada doesn't have a two party system.

neither does the US, but effectively? it’s not as polarised as the US

Re: White House plan to break up iconic U.S. climate lab moves forward

#202
post #6

I grew up in Colorado, and a visit to NCAR was part of my elementary school education. I think it is so critically important to not only employ working scientists, but also share that science with the public. The republican machine vehemently disagrees, I guess. I deeply wish the democrats had run a better campaign in 2024.

"I deeply wish the democrats had run a better campaign in 2024." Ha ha, reminds me of Murcs Law [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murc%27s_law

Seriously. Racism, pedophilia, assassination, war -- I'd vote for a dead cat over this. Americans can't get that, they have a major problem.

Re: White House plan to break up iconic U.S. climate lab moves forward

#203
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And I mean Trump's physical and mental decline is far worse than Biden's ever was Incorrect. Trump 2024 was as looney as Trump 2016 and all the years in between, so that doesn't qualify as mental decline. He'd lost some spring in his step but overall was physically in much the same shape as 8 years prior. Meanwhile Biden went from active cyclist to a slow elderly gait. It was plain to see. > You don't hold a "prope…

Both Trump and Biden had their issues, but Trump has lost far more than "some spring in his step," the man is sundowning publicly, barely coherent, and it's obvious some serious medical condition is being covered up by his staff. Anyone seeing him can tell he's far worse off than Biden ever was. "Active cyclist to a slow elderly gait" versus "appeared to have a stroke on camera." Trump literally shat himself in publi…

You’re obviously right about SCOTUS. I guess there I was more thinking about the even-longer conservative lock-in with his next appointee.

But I really do disagree on the physical decline though. Put simply, the things people see are: weight, posture, quickness and stability of movement, strength of voice, hair, face (and a few others).

If you compare T16 vs T24, and B16 vs B24, the B delta is much bigger on any of those factors.

Everyone(ish) hits a cliff where they start quickly getting weaker, gaunt, frail, shorter, slower. Where you look at a picture from the year before and think “wow they looked young by comparison just a year ago.” Biden hit that cliff, Trump somehow hasn’t

Re: White House plan to break up iconic U.S. climate lab moves forward

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada doesn't have a two party system.

neither does the US, but effectively? it’s not as polarised as the US

It is not effectively a 2-party system at all. 6 of the last 8 federal elections have resulted in minority governments.

Re: White House plan to break up iconic U.S. climate lab moves forward

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Family is usually not the best place to explore the political landscape because: 1. your family is almost certainly layman 2. it’s intertwined with other interpersonal conflict. About your interaction. Just because someone mentions a thought does mean they are ready to take action to fix it. Their real concern may be “isn’t it disappointing that we live on a society where we can be tracked?” rather than “please give…

I don't buy your explanation. I said extended family, there isn't really interpersonal conflict. If anything a personal relationship should convey a bit of "this person works with technology and perhaps knows what they're talking about". I also didn't present it as "you should do this" or worse "it's your fault", as we often see in many ham-fisted HN comments. Rather it was more like hey it is actually possible to de…

> I don't buy your explanation.

It’s an example. I guess you are welcome to continue being confused.

Re: White House plan to break up iconic U.S. climate lab moves forward

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy your explanation. I said extended family, there isn't really interpersonal conflict. If anything a personal relationship should convey a bit of "this person works with technology and perhaps knows what they're talking about". I also didn't present it as "you should do this" or worse "it's your fault", as we often see in many ham-fisted HN comments. Rather it was more like hey it is actually possible to de…

> I don't buy your explanation. It’s an example. I guess you are welcome to continue being confused.

I'm obviously still trying to find alternative explanations to alleviate my "confusion". But just because you've thrown out one possible theory does not mean it is inherently correct, right?

Re: White House plan to break up iconic U.S. climate lab moves forward

#207
post #183

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> the smart choice was to nominate Elizabeth Warren, who is a fantastic campaigner. But Harris was the choice to appease the identity activists. That's the reverse: Warren wasn't nominated because she's progressive and beloved by people who care most about diversity. The centrist Dems supported Harris - Biden's VP - and hate progressives more than they hate Republicans (they do everything to show how they work with R…

> Warren wasn't nominated because she's progressive and beloved by people who care most about diversity. No, look at Warren’s performance on Super Tuesday, which includes many of the states with the largest minority populations. 79% of Warren voters were white, in an electorate (Democrats in places like Texas and South Carolina) that’s majority non-white: https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/c_fill,g_aut..…

You're right about her support, but white progressives are generally the biggest advocates of Diversity. IME minority groups are generally more conservative than progressives are (though of course we're talking about tens of millions of people each with their own opinions) and care about how they are treated but less about Diversity as a solution, but of course most won't consider Republicans for obvious reasons.

Re: White House plan to break up iconic U.S. climate lab moves forward

#208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple: Biden should have never run for re-election. I loved the guy but his physical decline couldn’t be denied. A proper primary would have most likely resulted in a dem president (and most probably Newsom).

The Democrats didn't have a primary, so I'm going to vote for the criminal/fabulist/sex pest who is also obviously declining. I find it difficult to buy that logic. The inescapable conclusion is that a large number of Americans are ignorant, gullible, and cruel.

Trump doesn't pretend to be whatever he is. That is literally what sets him apart. The Democrats accuse the opponents of being undemocratic while they themself don't have primary and have a candidate selected by their elite. There are plenty of "criminal/fabulist/sex" pests on the other side too.

Re: White House plan to break up iconic U.S. climate lab moves forward

#209
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think a primary would have led to worse results for the Dems: candidates snipping at each on the eve of an elections is a gift to the opposing candidate Ironically, that is an anti-democracy talking point. Primaries and the included competition weed out candidates who can't handle attacks. Democracy works far better than governments that aren't chosen openly by their people. It's an extraordinary strength, not a…

> Ironically, that is an anti-democracy talking point. There's always a cost/friction between internal democratic competition and external adversarial competition. This is why the US didn't (and doesn't) have direct voting on war declaration - hell, a handful of recent presidents decided that even Congress is too slow for them. You could argue that the lack of a referendum before declaring war is an "anti-democracy t…

> This is why the US didn't (and doesn't) have direct voting on war declaration

No, it's because the US doesn't have direct voting on any national issue; there is no legal provision for it afaik. US citizens only elect representatives, and they make the decisions.

> a handful of recent presidents decided that even Congress is too slow for them

What are you referring to?

No President before Trump II has entered a war without consulting Congress (and the people) and obtaining their support. After Japan bombed Pearl Harbor - when the US was most in direct peril in the last two centuries - Roosevelt spoke to Congress and the American people, and Congress declared war.

Most wars, however, don't have a formal declaration of war by Congress.

Re: White House plan to break up iconic U.S. climate lab moves forward

#210
post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ironically, that is an anti-democracy talking point. There's always a cost/friction between internal democratic competition and external adversarial competition. This is why the US didn't (and doesn't) have direct voting on war declaration - hell, a handful of recent presidents decided that even Congress is too slow for them. You could argue that the lack of a referendum before declaring war is an "anti-democracy t…

This is a loaded explanation. Yes, war does require quick response, which is hard to achieve in a decentralized state. The small nuance is that war or similar events are comprising a tiny fraction of what a government does (not by impact, but by total amount of things to do). And guess what, direct voting is just fine and fast enough for such thinks as any and all taxes, industry wide restrictions or permissions, eco…

> And guess what, direct voting is just fine and fast enough for such thinks as ... economic focus, foreign policy, immigration, ...

How would 2 countries wirh direct voting negotiate a trade treaty that requires give and take? Have a referendum on each proposed clause modification? How long would that take? Even though you dislike it, representative democracy is a necessary optimization, which is why every surviving polity uses it to a degree. Even coops like Mondragon appoints officers for say to say operations.

Can you name a single entity with more than 500 members, and operates daily that uses direct voting?

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