[Tanada]

Unless carbon death was going to be a real problem soon unless we came along? In 50 more years we will have released about 2/3 of all stored carbon. At which point we are redundant for a couple billion years, rinse, repeat. Carbon digger monkeys.

Sent from my HUAWEI Y520-U33 using Tapatalk

I have heard other express this viewpoint that the only natural purpose for humans is to restore the CO2 lost from the Atmosphere by the rise of the Himalayas. Not saying I buy into it but for most of the life on the planet that weighs in at 10 kg or less a very warm planet has more places to live. If you are more that 10 kg sorry about your luck, rejecting heat is a function of volume over surface area, the good old cubed squared law. The bigger you are the more heat your body accumulates in a warm climate. Good news in ice ages, not so good in hothouse Earth.

[SeaGypsy]

Yeah but nothing except us can get at deep oil, coal, gas. Looking at species objectively- what they 'mainly do'- humans, find, dig out, burn carbon stores like bees collect nectar & pollen. We make industrial civilization & trigger mass genetic destruction & upheaval. Bees make honey, wax, propolis & granular pollen, royal jelly, all while fertilizing the food plants which feed the entire land based life system. Bees are better than us. But they can't do what we can.

[ralfy]

I saw that article a while ago, and this is one of these guys that makes a living attacking the education system for conservative think tanks etc.

Wherever the GOP has taken over state governments they have slashed the university system, and $500,000,000 seems to be the quota each of them must meet, That money is then funneled to wealthy donors or in Wisconsin to build a new stadium.

Follow the money! Professional hucksters are used to justify slashing the universities and the money gets diverted to build luxury sky boxes.

It really is just that easy to swindle people. Tell them they are fighting a mythical powerful "Left" and they will happily cut their own throats. And it will work even better in the next generation, because people will be that much dumber without schools. I actually feel a bit better since concluding that there no hope for homo sapiens, we are an evolutionary failure, and it's not my problem.

Consider focusing on the content of the article and challenging it. Also, there's a second author, and the magazine is known as moderate.

[PrestonSturges]

I saw that article a while ago, and this is one of these guys that makes a living attacking the education system for conservative think tanks etc.

Wherever the GOP has taken over state governments they have slashed the university system, and $500,000,000 seems to be the quota each of them must meet, That money is then funneled to wealthy donors or in Wisconsin to build a new stadium.

Follow the money! Professional hucksters are used to justify slashing the universities and the money gets diverted to build luxury sky boxes.

It really is just that easy to swindle people. Tell them they are fighting a mythical powerful "Left" and they will happily cut their own throats. And it will work even better in the next generation, because people will be that much dumber without schools. I actually feel a bit better since concluding that there no hope for homo sapiens, we are an evolutionary failure, and it's not my problem.

Anecdotes to support conspiracy theories about them, and the only way of fighting them is building more sky boxes and getting rid of public schools so all the money can go to GOP donors.

Consider focusing on the content of the article and challenging it. Also, there's a second author, and the magazine is known as moderate.

Rebuttal? It's a bunch of anecdotes, the sort of thing that has had the conservative base chasing their own tails since Reagan. And there is literally an industry of people cranking this stuff out on nearly every topic, like how we need to stop millions of people from voting because some guy says "I saw the same guy vote six times! It's true, I seen it!!!!!"

because you know it's always about fighting them, and the best way to fight them is by building luxiry skyboxes and closing the public schools so we can funnel the money to republican donors. Holy shit, I heard an anecdote, we'd better dismantle civilization!

What do you call people that can't spot simple propaganda tactics? Sheeple? I think I heard that somewhere.

[evilgenius]

I'm not assuming it's bad. If anything, I think the real challenge with PC is the finding of balance. I only co-mingle it with conspiracy theory in order to show those right-wingers most apt to rail against it the import of it, by associating it with something they tend to really love.

PC is not law, so why do so many rail against it as if it were? It's only argument. What causes a person to become so upset by it? Aside from overthrowing a nostalgic impulse to see the world a certain way, if may be that it gets at people because it assaults their world view. Not everybody can take that kind of assault, but if your world view is actually well thought out, and you constantly re-examine it to make certain it's valid, you should be able to. George Carlin was like that (that whole personhole cover schtick), and he essentially sought balance. Otherwise people need to rethink their selves and wonder why it is that they aren't in control of everything.

If only that were true, unfortunately we have everything from 'hate crime' legislation to workplace human resources rules that turn poor taste into a firing offense.

Hate crime has to be one of the dumbest ideas ever invented, if someone murders me it does not matter if they did it because of my gender, ethnicity or religious beliefs. Murder in the first degree in our current culture often gets an 11 year sentence commuted to 7 with time off for good behavior. If you convict the perpetrator of a 'hate crime' they will get double that, but if both people are the same ethnicity/gender/religious conviction then that does not come into play. How does that promote a just society? If you kill your own its OK, just don't cross that 'hate' line or we will really get you?

I don't know about whether hate crime legislation is as bad as you insinuate. In many cases it has been the only legal tool that prosecutors have been able to use in order to go after locally corrupt government, or quasi-governmental bodies. Consider events like the Rodney King beating, which could only be legally addressed via hate crime legislation.

The trouble with it, in my opinion, is not that it can be used this way, but whether or not it constitutes double jeopardy to do so. Is it a mistake, in other words, to implement something that essentially normally compounds the severity of punishment in such a way that it can stand on its own as a tool?

The intention to stand up for civil rights might be better handled by civil rights legislation that stands for a whole disenfranchised group rather than creating a means to chip away at that intention by winning piecemeal cases. The piecemeal route is too vague for me, and leaves too much room for a wide variety of interpretation. It doesn't set a consistent taboo line for potential perpetrators to be wary of, not stopping future violations. And its inconsistent availability of application toward the intent for which it was formed leaves it open to criticism that debilitates that intent.

The real trouble, maybe, is in wanting revenge over change when seeking justice. Hate crime legislation is slanted toward revenge, whereas civil rights legislation is designed from the get go to bring about change. It's one thing to charge an individual officer with a hate crime when they cross a line, usually this must be proven on video, and quite another to bypass the said officer entirely and instead concentrate upon how the police force as a whole has treated a community, something for which an individual incident can spark an inquiry and no video is necessary. It's simply more honest to approach something like racial or sexual prejudice this way, on balance, rather than to attempt to take an individual example and try to extrapolate that across an entire entity's behavior pattern. Plus, this is the arena where a particular community's falling down, such as when they are responsible for the destruction of their own institutions, like when they fail and have to farm out their local government or the people simply don't vote, can come into the discussion on a formal basis. In this way a challenge to improve, as in areas of responsibility, can be communicated to an obvious situation as well as violations of a community's rights receive redress.

[PrestonSturges]

If you want hate crime statistics, there were about 800 hate crime prosecution in California in 2013 mostly for simple assault, intimidation, and vandalism in other words the sort of things that might happen to someone being harassed but not get the police's attention. Keep in mind that in many cases like that the cops are involved or the perp is a cousin or something and so untouchable if they don't kill anyone.

https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agwe ... face13.pdf

And on the other hand are the millions of Google hits for people claiming that Christianity is being outlawed in the US, which sounds like total idiocy, but there is also this:

[evilgenius]

Imagine a commission that is formed when the civil rights legislation is triggered. Now, imagine that commission empowered not only to make suggestions, but to introduce legislation wherever it is pertinent to do so. Their mandate would cover anything that led up to the civil rights violation. In this way a situation like Freddie Gray's death might well get a bill introduced to make settlements, like his lead paint exposure settlement, non-transferable. Or, as in the case of the LA riots, make a change to the zoning so that fewer liquor stores are allowed per square mile. I say introduce, not create legislation. The appropriate agencies and bodies would still have to act, but they could be held publicly accountable for things like using procedural tricks not to vote on the bill.

[ralfy]

I saw that article a while ago, and this is one of these guys that makes a living attacking the education system for conservative think tanks etc.

Wherever the GOP has taken over state governments they have slashed the university system, and $500,000,000 seems to be the quota each of them must meet, That money is then funneled to wealthy donors or in Wisconsin to build a new stadium.

Follow the money! Professional hucksters are used to justify slashing the universities and the money gets diverted to build luxury sky boxes.

It really is just that easy to swindle people. Tell them they are fighting a mythical powerful "Left" and they will happily cut their own throats. And it will work even better in the next generation, because people will be that much dumber without schools. I actually feel a bit better since concluding that there no hope for homo sapiens, we are an evolutionary failure, and it's not my problem.

Anecdotes to support conspiracy theories about them, and the only way of fighting them is building more sky boxes and getting rid of public schools so all the money can go to GOP donors.

Consider focusing on the content of the article and challenging it. Also, there's a second author, and the magazine is known as moderate.

Rebuttal? It's a bunch of anecdotes, the sort of thing that has had the conservative base chasing their own tails since Reagan. And there is literally an industry of people cranking this stuff out on nearly every topic, like how we need to stop millions of people from voting because some guy says "I saw the same guy vote six times! It's true, I seen it!!!!!"

because you know it's always about fighting them, and the best way to fight them is by building luxiry skyboxes and closing the public schools so we can funnel the money to republican donors. Holy shit, I heard an anecdote, we'd better dismantle civilization!

What do you call people that can't spot simple propaganda tactics? Sheeple? I think I heard that somewhere.

I can't find the post that refers to anecdotes.

[Tanada]

Our So-Called 'Tolerant' Society Is Actually Very Dogmatic

The Book of Daniel tells us that the three Jewish youths in Babylon were cast into a “white-hot furnace” for not falling down and worshipping the king’s golden statue.

Thousands of early Christians were reportedly martyred for refusing to deny Christ and affirm the divinity of the Roman emperor.

Of course, this kind of thing couldn’t happen today. Of course, our society is much too enlightened and tolerant.

Or is it?

Today, those who most frequently invoke the virtue of “tolerance” would have you believe that it is actually Christianity that requires slavish obedience to dogmatic formulas.

However, as professor Anthony Esolen argues in his popular, recently-published book—Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture—the “tolerant society” is much more dogmatic. The citizen of the modern West is forced to pay homage to a growing list of dogmas that far outnumber those of most religions:


“I am a Roman Catholic. The essence of what I am to believe is contained in the Nicene Creed, which I can recite at a reflective pace in one minute. Our world today is far more demanding than the bishops at Nicaea were. I am to believe a vast array of outlandish lies, and woe unto me if I do not bend the knee and kiss the liar’s sandal! ‘Family structure doesn’t matter.’ ‘Sex is biological, but gender is social.’ ‘The feminist movement is about equal opportunities for women.’ ‘The Indians were peace-loving people, close to nature, and benevolent to everyone.’ ‘The world is now warmer than it has ever been, and we are all going to fry like eggs on a skillet unless we cede control over all actions that use up energy’—which is to say, all human actions whatsoever—‘to a centralized world bureaucracy.’ ‘Religion is the cause of almost all wars.’ ‘A million people were burnt at the stake in the Middle Ages.’”

Not all of you will agree with the particular positions that Esolen opposes, or sympathize with his religious viewpoint.

But it seems like most of us can agree that our society requires us to believe in quite a lot of things. And there are penalties, some severe, if you happen to deviate from the current orthodoxy. After all, the “tolerant” society has more enforcement tools at its disposal today than religion. If you fail to toe the perceived party line on issues of sexuality, race, gender, the environment, history, welfare, immigration, and public education, you could be shamed, ostracized, lose access to opportunities, be charged with hate speech, or be fined.

And it’s not too far of a stretch to imagine even more severe penalties on the horizon. Many have encountered those whom, in the not-too-distant future, they could imagine lighting the fires beneath their feet.

It’s commonly assumed that modern society is morally superior to the ancient societies of the past. But on the whole, I don’t know if we’re that much better. The objects the powers-that-be require us to obediently worship may have changed, but not their demand to worship.

http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/blog ... y-dogmatic

[ROCKMAN]

T - This eludes to recent thoughts of mine. First, IMHO, the term fascist is way over used today. We have good models to go by: Hitler and Mussolini:

"Mussolini's Voluntary Militia for National Security, commonly called the Blackshirts was an all-volunteer militia. Its members were distinguished by their loyalty to Benito Mussolini, the Duce of Fascism, to whom they swore an oath. Their methods became harsher and they used violence and intimidation against opponents."

The general attitudes of both the left and right don't come close to those benchmarks...yet. But the left seems to be striving for a level beyond even the worst of the Tea Partiers. Just this morning saw the story about an ad recruiting folks to train on how to disrupt townhall R events. As we all agree protesting is a great American right. But not to the point of drowning out opinions that differ. I consider such actions anti-free speech bordering on fascist light...less filling, more irritating. LOL.

My Yankee liberal wife says now and not done when Presidernt Obama began his first term because the right wasdn't as upsite with that election result as the left is with President Trump's win. Of course I had to explain that she didn't know what the f*ck she was talking about. But phrased differently. LOL. My wife has virtually no contact with any folks on conservatives (except the Rockman) let alone the far right. I had trouble convincing her that President Obama was just as despised by folks in my circle as President Trump is today. I suspect some our left leaning cohorts here find that difficult to accept.

My wife said that didn't make sense since she didn't recall similar events 8 years ago. A simple explanation she immediately didn't like: despite being EXTREMELY disappointed the conservatives accepted the results of the democratic process. She responded that the left shouldn't be expected to accept results felt were very wrong. So I offered the obvious response: since the right was as upset with President Obama's win they would have been justified treating him as President Trump is being treated today?

And that pretty much ended the conversation. LOL. I often confuse her. And knowing my history she still can't fully grasp why I feel a deep sense of pride when I see a protester burning the American flag. I wouldn't say a lot of the left evolved into Blackshirts. But some who I've heard specifically profess justification for physical violence against those with "unaccerptable opinions" are trying to recruit their own "Voluntary Militia for National Security".

[dissident]

The US left is a fraud. It is obsessed with PC to the point of feminists praising Sharia, but has basically totally forgotten what the left was about: workers' rights. Trump won by appealing to the blue collar "class". Killary was too busy pushing a neo-con agenda. The US left seems to be composed of yuppie wannabe millennials who hate workers and anyone who is not a PC believer. This is some sort of freak show and has the hallmarks of a cult. Americans should be very worried about any "leftist" coup since death camps would not be far behind.

[Tanada]

Posts using quotes falsely attributed to myself instead of to the author of the news article I linked too have been removed along with the racial and sexist epithets in the response to that mis-attributed quote and the replies that gleefully quoted those epithets.

You folks all need to pay attention when you quote something so as to not blame the messenger for whatever message you do not personally like. In addition while we do our best to practice free speech around these forums the flagrant use of racial, gender or religious epithets has never been considered acceptable. Picture rolling your desk chair up to another person in a bar or restaurant and saying those words to their face. If that would start a fight then those words have no place in a public forum like peak oil dot com and you should all be adult enough to know that.

[careinke]

Posts using quotes falsely attributed to myself instead of to the author of the news article I linked too have been removed along with the racial and sexist epithets in the response to that mis-attributed quote and the replies that gleefully quoted those epithets.

You folks all need to pay attention when you quote something so as to not blame the messenger for whatever message you do not personally like. In addition while we do our best to practice free speech around these forums the flagrant use of racial, gender or religious epithets has never been considered acceptable. Picture rolling your desk chair up to another person in a bar or restaurant and saying those words to their face. If that would start a fight then those words have no place in a public forum like peak oil dot com and you should all be adult enough to know that.

Sorry I missed it.

[C8]

The strongest desire to suppress free debate comes from those who have the weakest argument. PC is equivalent to overturning a chess board when you see you are losing.

The left is increasingly finding evidence disagrees with their "accepted truth" and seek to end discussion by trickery or force. Liberal PC impulses are the same as during the Puritan times- an attempt to stall the collapse of their movement. It is no surprise that this rise in PC coincides with the increase of Muslim power within the Democratic Party- Sharia is the ultimate in PC.

[Cog]

Antifa=Anti First Amendment

[Plantagenet]

Antifa=Anti First Amendment

Leftists are authoritarians at heart.

In the US liberals and Ds have long opposed the second amendment. Now those on the left are coming out against the first and seventh amendments as well.

[evilgenius]

The strongest desire to suppress free debate comes from those who have the weakest argument. PC is equivalent to overturning a chess board when you see you are losing.

The left is increasingly finding evidence disagrees with their "accepted truth" and seek to end discussion by trickery or force. Liberal PC impulses are the same as during the Puritan times- an attempt to stall the collapse of their movement. It is no surprise that this rise in PC coincides with the increase of Muslim power within the Democratic Party- Sharia is the ultimate in PC.

Do you listen to yourself? Rise of power by the Muslims within the Democratic Party? Where have you been getting your news? And what is a liberal PC impulse?

This is a discussion about right-of-way. Conservatism is a basic attribute of humanity. It just is. Political Correctness, largely, is about people who don't have standing under the established order asserting that they ought to have standing because they have rights. You know what, rights don't give a person the right-of-way. Being weak doesn't give a person the right-of-way. Neither does being strong. You can take the way, but that doesn't mean the right-of-way was yours.

When there was a king who ruled everyone it was pretty easy to determine who had the right-of-way. Now that we are all pretty much theoretically equal, things like basic belief structures, how we understand ourselves and each other, play into it, like basic conservatism. In many cases right-of-way is temporal, it's just your turn. In other cases, like when a thing won't happen without everybody joining, you can gain the right-of-way by being recalcitrant or wobbling. You lot are wobbling. You've got your checkered hat on and you are doing five under in the left hand lane.

[Tanada]

Teachers: The New Nazi Regime
A few things you might not know about me: First, I’ve worked in and around my local school district for nearly twenty years. Also, I just completed my degree in special education. And last, I’m the mother of three white and four mixed (black and white) children. Thus, the latest leftist lunacy attracted my attention.

Apparently, teachers are now automatically racist if they’re white. As such, all San Diego teachers are now forced to participate in “white privilege” training. The training requires these educators to both admit to being racists while committing to reforming themselves with anti-racist training.

And it gets even more bizarre.

According to the New York Post:

The San Diego Unified School District begins the sessions with instructors telling the faculty members that they will experience “guilt, anger, apathy [and] closed-mindedness” because of their “white fragility,” according to leaked documents obtained by journalist Christopher F. Rufo.

During the training, the teachers are taught about “land acknowledgment” and asked to accept that the US was established on stolen Native American land, the report said.

They also learn about the teachings of “White Fragility” author Robin DiAngelo and “Be Antiracist: A Journal for Awareness, Reflection and Action” author Ibram X. Kend.

After watching clips of the two authors, the trainers tell the group that “you are racist” and “upholding racist ideas, structures, and policies.”

The group is challenged to become “anti-racist” in the classroom as well as “confront and examine [their] white privilege” and “teach others to see their privilege,” according to the report.

The school district didn’t immediately respond to request for comment.

The training sessions come after the district vowed to become “anti-racist” amid nationwide protests against racial injustice, which began in the wake of the cop-involved killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor.
Making the Grade

And get this, apparently grades are a huge aspect of the racism teachers exude.

The Post continues:

Earlier this year, the district underwent a major overhaul to its grading system as a part of a larger effort to combat racial discrimination, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

Data had revealed that there were significant disparities between the percentage of white and minority students who received D or F grades in the first semester of the last school year.

While white students made up 7 percent of all D or F grades, black students accounted for about 20 percent and Hispanic students received about 23 percent of them, the paper reported.

In an effort to prevent discrimination, the school board voted to eliminate non-academic factors like late work and classroom behavior in a student’s grade.

“This is part of our honest reckoning as a school district,” said Richard Barrera, who is the district’s vice president, NBC San Diego reported.

“If we’re actually going to be an anti-racist school district, we have to confront practices like this that have gone on for years and years.”

The school board also vowed to increase diversity among faculty, require school police to undergo de-escalation training and require training to eliminate bias in the hiring process, the Union-Tribune reported.

Of course, as Kevin Jackson learned, math is a racist entity all it’s own. And learning the Pythagorean Theorem is typically reserved for white people only. Of course, when leftists start teaching oppression in STEM classes, you know they’ve lost it.

But I still have one question.
Where is the privilege handed out?

This leaves me quite confused. First of all, I’m white. And I’d like to know where my privilege is? Is this something that was passed out in heaven? Was it a line I was supposed to wait in? Green eyes, check. Brownish hair, check. Not very tall, check. White privilege, oops, we’re all out of privilege today.

Or, maybe I was supposed to pass go, then collect my privilege? I’m still not sure about all that, but wherever it was, I promise I didn’t get my share. And if I’m not white enough, I assure you my husband is. He’s so white, he’s not allowed to wear shorts on the beach. And he didn’t come with a heaping dose of privilege either.

Let’s be real. Poverty is a far greater divider than color will ever be. And that, I learned firsthand. When a man is too poor to pay his parking ticket, poverty quickly creates a criminal. Imagine being confronted with two choices. Feed your children or give a court a money order for $75. The answer is easy. Feed the kids, and try to lay low when driving through town. In a matter of weeks, the unpaid fine becomes a warrant for your arrest. Then to get out of the warrant, you need even more money. When will democrats stop focusing on color and start addressing the real problems taxing our communities?
Classism is three times the divider that racism ever tried to be.

But leftists fail to solve that conundrum, as their only idea is to throw money at the problem. However, free money is never free. And giving freely never raises the bar. Instead, it weakens the base. But those are rants for another day. Because right now, we have a bigger problem in front of us.

Democrats believe they understand the social issues plaguing our nation. For arguments sake, let’s pretend being a white teacher does make you a racist. If it’s so engrained, how does a class “teach it out of you?”

Instead, I have a different theory. I say leftism is the root of every evil attacking us. And until we eradicate the liberal ideology from the fabric of our being, we’ll continue to be stuck.

And by stuck, I mean sitting in a room full of dimwits explaining what makes us all a bunch of unknowing Nazis, until we all step to the podium and say “hi, my name is Conformist, and I’m a racist, just like all of you.”

TEACHERS

[dohboi]

This recent quote by Pops over on the covid thread is actually the most relevant and cogent comment on the whole """PC""" kerfufle:

They are so incensed at the draining of the secretarial pool, of being lectured to not use the N word, not pour their used motor oil down the storm drain, not putting out their cigarette in their leftover eggs at the lunch counter, not using "locker-room" talk ... that they really, really, would rather die than mask.

[Pops]

When was it ever acceptable to casually offend?

Hard to square this thread on the evils of PC culture with this notification:

However, accusations against fellow board members is off the table. If you think Joe6P is a raving racist jackass you are entitled to your opinion. HOWEVER, when you cross the line to publicly accusing Joe6P of being a raving racist jackass in a public thread that is a step too far.

The right to offend women and minorities is a matter of free speech on this site! A right worthy of deep thought and research around the evils of PC. Offend whomever strikes your fancy, it's your right—just not old white guys because that's a threat to the very survival of this board

LOLOLOL

ironic how tender the sensibilities of old white guys

.