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I think we could've just stopped at "Mugabe has flawed ideas" and been far more generous than he deserves.

On an alternate note, "McMaster" is either a very silly or very awesome name and I can't quite make up my mind.

tneva82 wrote:
Mugabe has flawed idea in assuming Trump wasn't given chance to prove himself. He had the chance. He blew it.

It's also a case of that defense coming from the worst possible source. Lots of people said Mugabe was a tyrant, and then when given a chance he more than proved it.

It's actually quite hard to talk about this and be fair to Trump, just putting him in the same sentence as Mugabe implies he is as much of a tyrant.

tneva82 wrote:
Mugabe has flawed idea in assuming Trump wasn't given chance to prove himself. He had the chance. He blew it.

He blew it? After just one month in office? Okay, if you say so. But what does that mean, "He blew it"? He's done, then? His Presidency is over? Is there do-over election this November that I'm unaware of? Has the USA suddenly become one of those parliaments that can simply vote "no confidence" and get a new chief executive? Other than running his mouth off and tossing around a bucket of butthurt all over social media, is there anything of actual substance that he's done this single first month? Other than pushing appointments through Congress, it's mostly been a whole lot of noise, melodrama, and SNL skits.

It's over? Pffft. For better or worse, the Trump Presidency hasn't even gotten started.

Here’s an interesting piece on the recovery of a small Mississippi town.
https://www.fastcoexist.com/3068170/how-a-rural-mississippi-town-created-a-new-local-economy-to-rebuild-its-main-street

What’s interesting is the new businesses that have replaced the old. A machine shop became a brewery, a drugstore became an art gallery, a service station became a restaurant. These are new businesses from the new economy, replacing businesses from the old economy.

Many of these businesses were viable because building space was so cheap, as little as $10 a square foot for stuff needing a lot of maintenance. This allowed businesses to come for very little up front cash, which meant they had more economic freedom, they weren’t being pushed to make that next mortgage payment. Its meant a business doesn’t have to do that great, and it can still survive and provide a reasonable standard of living for its owner. ‘You won't see a Main Street business owner with the latest iPhone, or a fancy car, and they don't go on expensive vacations. "But they're buying their kids clothes for school,"’

And all these small businesses have owners who’ve stayed in the town, spent their earnings in town. The article doesn’t say it, but one thing I’ve often thought about the fuss over international trade is how little rarely people take the arguments against trade and apply it more locally. If it is bad when a local company is owned by a Chinese company because all the profits go to Shanghai, is it any different when it is owned by a US company and all the profits go to New York?

Anyhow, the article offers a glimpse of what I think is a more practical means of economic recovery in a lot of these small towns. Trump offered some wild promises in the campaign, but it was thinking based around an economy that doesn’t exist anymore, and filtered through Trump’s very materialistic point of view. It produced a ridiculous set of promises that just aren’t going to bring back the economies those towns used to rely on.* But maybe this shows a different perspective, where businesses can be started very cheap, and where even if profits aren’t great the lifestyle more than makes up for it.


*I thought at the time Trump was lying, but given it turns out he was serious about the wall, and he’s genuinely pursuing some kind of new tax and tariff system, then he may actually be dumb enough to have been seriously promising the stuff about bringing back labour intensive manufacturing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Breotan wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Mugabe has flawed idea in assuming Trump wasn't given chance to prove himself. He had the chance. He blew it.

He blew it? After just one month in office? Okay, if you say so. But what does that mean, "He blew it"? He's done, then? His Presidency is over? Is there do-over election this November that I'm unaware of? Has the USA suddenly become one of those parliaments that can simply vote "no confidence" and get a new chief executive? Other than running his mouth off and tossing around a bucket of butthurt all over social media, is there anything of actual substance that he's done this single first month? Other than pushing appointments through Congress, it's mostly been a whole lot of noise, melodrama, and SNL skits.

It's over? Pffft. For better or worse, the Trump Presidency hasn't even gotten started.

You're right that Trump's presidency is far from over. But claiming nothing of substance has happened so far is kind of missing the point. Many of us were saying what we would get from a Trump presidency is a confused shitshow of nonsense, plus some tax cuts for the rich. Now that we've had a confused shitshow of nonsense for a month, its pretty weak to say nothing of substance has happened yet. The lack of substance is the meaning, Trump's focus on insubstantial bs was the problem that sensible people saw coming, and there's absolutely nothing to indicate that is going to change.

Looks like we *are* going to have the "Immigrants are raping everyone in Sweden!" "debate" again after all. Fething Fox News is attacking Sweden by pretending that correlation implies causation. Why is there such a fascination with Sweden? On the one hand we're a socialist hellhole, on the other hand we're a utopia being destroyed by Muslim immigrants. Which is it going to be?

Trump has been President for a month, and I'm still alive, and not fighting a gang of mutants for the world's last tin opener.

Perhaps we were being overly pessimistic?

3 years, 11 months to go. One day at a time.

Don't fall for it America, clearly a trap !

 sebster wrote:
Is there a term in science for running an experiment, getting the wrong results and then pretending you never ran an experiment and carrying on regardless? That's not a rhetorical question, is there such a term?

Not that I am aware of, most bunk scientific hypotheses which are found to be unsupported by experiment will typically be changed into some new form which now predicts that specific thing but not something else which will be measured and they change again, and so on.

So they evolve over time, changing to appear like they satisfy experimental conditions but only as tacked on bits afterwards rather than as a direct consequence of the science behind the initial model, rather than just flat out ignoring them.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 sebster wrote:
Is there a term in science for running an experiment, getting the wrong results and then pretending you never ran an experiment and carrying on regardless? That's not a rhetorical question, is there such a term?

Not that I am aware of, most bunk scientific hypotheses which are found to be unsupported by experiment will typically be changed into some new form which now predicts that specific thing but not something else which will be measured and they change again, and so on.

So they evolve over time, changing to appear like they satisfy experimental conditions but only as tacked on bits afterwards rather than as a direct consequence of the science behind the initial model, rather than just flat out ignoring them.

Where I work, the term for something similar is "dry labbing", which means you just make up the results without actually doing the lab tests.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

Where I work, the term for something similar is "dry labbing", which means you just make up the results without actually doing the lab tests.

Ah, the Undergraduate Last Minute Report Writing method.

It reminds me of the old adage of "An absence of evidence of not evidence of absence".
It bloody well is if several serious attempts by different people over a long period of time have failed to produce said evidence.

Steelmage99 wrote:
It reminds me of the old adage of "An absence of evidence of not evidence of absence".
It bloody well is if several serious attempts by different people over a long period of time have failed to produce said evidence.

I'd argue that it isn't evidence of absence, it's just evidence that you're not going to find whatever you're looking for using that particular method. For example, IIRC one of the saner arguments against heliocentrism was that there should've been a parallax shift observable in the stars if the heliocentric model was correct. Turns out that such shifts DO exist, it's just that the instruments and scientific understanding of the time weren't sophisticated enough to detect them.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
It reminds me of the old adage of "An absence of evidence of not evidence of absence".
It bloody well is if several serious attempts by different people over a long period of time have failed to produce said evidence.

I'd argue that it isn't evidence of absence, it's just evidence that you're not going to find whatever you're looking for using that particular method. For example, IIRC one of the saner arguments against heliocentrism was that there should've been a parallax shift observable in the stars if the heliocentric model was correct. Turns out that such shifts DO exist, it's just that the instruments and scientific understanding of the time weren't sophisticated enough to detect them.

Oh, I agree with you that it isn't proof of absence, but it certainly is evidence (assuming serious attempts have been made, of course).

And as everything else in science it is subject to revision in light of new data.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Steelmage99 wrote:
It reminds me of the old adage of "An absence of evidence of not evidence of absence".
It bloody well is if several serious attempts by different people over a long period of time have failed to produce said evidence.

I'd argue that it isn't evidence of absence, it's just evidence that you're not going to find whatever you're looking for using that particular method. For example, IIRC one of the saner arguments against heliocentrism was that there should've been a parallax shift observable in the stars if the heliocentric model was correct. Turns out that such shifts DO exist, it's just that the instruments and scientific understanding of the time weren't sophisticated enough to detect them.

But then again, it could be demonstrated from the maths than the equipment was incapable of the precision required to detect the parallax as the predicted parallax was too small for the technology of the time (and really, hiding behind something which is currently beyond technology as evidence that a theory is wrong when that theory near enough perfectly predicts and models everything you can observe is not very good science). Like Gravitational Waves taking a century to be detected. Nobody was arguing that Einstein was wrong because we hadn't found any whilst it was demonstrable that we just didn't have the precision required to confirm or deny their existence, especially when all of the other predictions had been observed.

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Trump has been President for a month, and I'm still alive, and not fighting a gang of mutants for the world's last tin opener.

Perhaps we were being overly pessimistic?

3 years, 11 months to go. One day at a time.

He hasn't even turned the female population into nothing but baby makers, hasn't sent all the homosexuals to re-education camps, set the military on illegal immigrants, waterboarded all the Muslims, or assassinated political dissidents.

Trump is literally the worst Hitler

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
Trump has been President for a month, and I'm still alive, and not fighting a gang of mutants for the world's last tin opener.

Perhaps we were being overly pessimistic?

3 years, 11 months to go. One day at a time.

He hasn't even turned the female population into nothing but baby makers, hasn't sent all the homosexuals to re-education camps, set the military on illegal immigrants, waterboarded all the Muslims, or assassinated political dissidents.

Trump is literally the worst Hitler

Yeah all he has done is say the media is the enemy of America, call into question of the point of a judiciary, have his surrogates say to America not to question his authority and many other things.

Totally fine and nothing to worry about

 Ustrello wrote:
Yeah all he has done is say the media is the enemy of America, call into question of the point of a judiciary, have his surrogates say to America not to question his authority and many other things.

Totally fine and nothing to worry about

He said that fake news media was the enemy of the people. Interesting that you would choose to conflate the two as though media and fake news media are indistinguishable from one another. I do recall remarks about a "so-called judge" but nothing about the entire judiciary so I'd be interested in seeing those comments if I missed them. In the event that your comment is accurate he would not be the first President to have had conflict with the judiciary;
- Lincoln spoke on the Supreme Court adjudicating on cases that would affect policy
- FDR and his address to the American people that "[t]he court has been acting not as a judicial body, but as a policymaking body. . .When the Congress has sought ... to serve our clearly national needs, the majority of the court has been assuming the power to pass on the wisdom of these acts of the Congress — and to approve or disapprove the public policy written into these laws."
- Obama called out the Supreme Court during his State of the Union address in


But you're right, Trump is truly history's greatest monster

The issue is that in Trumps world, fake news is anything he doesn't like.

 sebster wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
In actual politics, there's still the H.R. McMaster nomination.

Appointment. He'll be joining the executive office of the president, which does need senate confirmation.

Indeed... I used the wrong term there...

But again, I served under him, and can confirm some of the stuff the NYT article I posted is very accurate. The dude is smart as hell, and is unafraid of speaking his mind. I have the feeling that, if he's confirmed, that will run afoul of Donnie's narcissism at some point. And at that point, I hope that congress does the right thing, and doesn't allow McMaster to get "fired"

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The issue is that in Trumps world, fake news is anything he doesn't like.

I'm not keeping close track, but it seems his ire is specifically focused on CNN, which to be fair is a big flaming pile of garbage, and has been since well before Trumps candidacy.

 jasper76 wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The issue is that in Trumps world, fake news is anything he doesn't like.

I'm not keeping close track, but it seems his ire is specifically focused on CNN, which to be fair is a big flaming pile of garbage, and has been since well before Trumps candidacy.

...while basing foreign policy on Fox News.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The issue is that in Trumps world, fake news is anything he doesn't like.

I'm not keeping close track, but it seems his ire is specifically focused on CNN, which to be fair is a big flaming pile of garbage, and has been since well before Trumps candidacy.

...while basing foreign policy on Fox News.

Yeah, I'm not saying Fox News or MSNBC are any better.

The thing is, he's now also going after Swedish and British media after people pointed out that nothing out of the ordinary happened on Friday, unlike what Trump claimed. He got embarrased and responded by going after "Fake News". He's not just going after CNN.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
The thing is, he's now also going after Swedish and British media after people pointed out that nothing out of the ordinary happened on Friday, unlike what Trump claimed. He got embarrased and responded by going after "Fake News". He's not just going after CNN.

Fair enough. To be honest, the Sweden thing isn't really on my radar...don't know what's going on besides I heard he said there were terror attacks in Sweden when there weren't, or something like that.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 sebster wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
In actual politics, there's still the H.R. McMaster nomination.

Appointment. He'll be joining the executive office of the president, which does need senate confirmation.

Indeed... I used the wrong term there...

But again, I served under him, and can confirm some of the stuff the NYT article I posted is very accurate. The dude is smart as hell, and is unafraid of speaking his mind. I have the feeling that, if he's confirmed, that will run afoul of Donnie's narcissism at some point. And at that point, I hope that congress does the right thing, and doesn't allow McMaster to get "fired"

Interesting choice that Trumpo is definitely NOT picking a 'yes' man here...

I've been reading up on McMaster, and he seems to be a grandslam choice, like Mattis.

 Dreadclaw69 wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:
Yeah all he has done is say the media is the enemy of America, call into question of the point of a judiciary, have his surrogates say to America not to question his authority and many other things.

Totally fine and nothing to worry about

He said that fake news media was the enemy of the people. Interesting that you would choose to conflate the two as though media and fake news media are indistinguishable from one another. I do recall remarks about a "so-called judge" but nothing about the entire judiciary so I'd be interested in seeing those comments if I missed them. In the event that your comment is accurate he would not be the first President to have had conflict with the judiciary;
- Lincoln spoke on the Supreme Court adjudicating on cases that would affect policy
- FDR and his address to the American people that "[t]he court has been acting not as a judicial body, but as a policymaking body. . .When the Congress has sought ... to serve our clearly national needs, the majority of the court has been assuming the power to pass on the wisdom of these acts of the Congress — and to approve or disapprove the public policy written into these laws."
- Obama called out the Supreme Court during his State of the Union address in


But you're right, Trump is truly history's greatest monster

Nah you don't get to hand wave this away, he has called any opposition media fake news that is the beginning of something bad. But it's alright with you I assume since it's team red in power. As for the judge thing you are conveniently forgetting that he said any terrorist attacks on the US will be the fault of the judiciary. Kind of a far cry from what you posted above

Guys, guys. Trump can't be Hitler. Hitler never wanted to feth his own daughter.

 jasper76 wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
The thing is, he's now also going after Swedish and British media after people pointed out that nothing out of the ordinary happened on Friday, unlike what Trump claimed. He got embarrased and responded by going after "Fake News". He's not just going after CNN.

Fair enough. To be honest, the Sweden thing isn't really on my radar...don't know what's going on besides I heard he said there were terror attacks in Sweden when there weren't, or something like that.

To summarize: he watched a crappy documentary the night before his rally that brought up the Swedish rape statistics, which, of course, went down the 'refugees are raping everyone' route. During the rally, he talked about 'the thing that happened in Sweden last night' without specifying anything in particular, except blaming this nebulous event on immigrants and refugees. After he clarified his statements/was called on his inaccuracies, he doubled down on 'immigration is turning Sweden into a hellscape'.

Because of course he did.

 feeder wrote:
Guys, guys. Trump can't be Hitler. Hitler never wanted to feth his own daughter.

His niece, on the other hand...

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The issue is that in Trumps world, fake news is anything he doesn't like.

Na not at all really. The real issue is that the President of the US has too much power over the country and one of the parties. Trump is nearly harmless until but he shows that the system is in need for some serious reforms. Just imagine the next guy being an actual competent dangerous guy.

Why aren't both parties agreeing that there has to change something fast?