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Javi

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berbatrick said:
The electricity used to mine bitcoin this year is bigger than the annual usage of 159 countries


http://www.businessinsider.com/bitcoin-mining-electricity-usage-2017-11
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This, combined with the rationalizing of mining operations to wherever electricity is the cheapest is currently leading the movement to abandon the proof-of-work system and use a so called proof-of-stake instead. Not sure how far Bitcoin is in that regard, but Ethereum is working on it's proof-of-stake system called Casper for a while now.
 

berbatrick

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I found the Nov 30 interview here fascinating. The guy being interviewed wrote this book, and the interview touches on the differences between Adam Smith and Burke, how Trump is part of and different from other conservatives, etc.
 

adexkola

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Has anyone on here read "A People's History of the United States"? Including resident historian @Carolina Red?

Made it through the first reading a minute ago. I'd consider myself a history buff, but I've never seen this side of American history, weighted towards the bottom instead of a top view through the lens of presidents and high profile individuals.
 

Carolina Red

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adexkola said:
Has anyone on here read "A People's History of the United States"? Including resident historian @Carolina Red?

Made it through the first reading a minute ago. I'd consider myself a history buff, but I've never seen this side of American history, weighted towards the bottom instead of a top view through the lens of presidents and high profile individuals.
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Yes. I had a professor who was Big on teaching history using “people’s history” type texts and that was one of them. That book actually played a sizable role in my shifting political opinions during college.

There is also a companion to it called Voices of a People’s History of the United States that is a collection of the primary sources used in the creation of the book.

Another book similar to that, but MUCH more narrow in scope, that we used in that class was The Worst Hard Time... it is a bottom up view of the history of the Dust Bowl and Depression in the Great Plains.
 

adexkola

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Carolina Red said:
Yes. I had a professor who was Big on teaching history using “people’s history” type texts and that was one of them. That book actually played a sizable role in my shifting political opinions during college.

There is also a companion to it called Voices of a People’s History of the United States that is a collection of the primary sources used in the creation of the book.

Another book similar to that, but MUCH more narrow in scope, that we used in that class was The Worst Hard Time... it is a bottom up view of the history of the Dust Bowl and Depression in the Great Plains.
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I finished the book feeling even more leftist :lol:

It is amazing how much stuff is glossed over in your standard U.S. history book. My knowledge of the 1820 - 1860 period was dominated by the expansion out West and growing tensions over slavery. I was entirely ignorant that there was a labor movement within and without cities in that period that rivaled the antislavery one.

I do intend to get the companion volume. After the holidays are over... This read was grim enough.
 

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adexkola said:
I finished the book feeling even more leftist :lol:

It is amazing how much stuff is glossed over in your standard U.S. history book. My knowledge of the 1820 - 1860 period was dominated by the expansion out West and growing tensions over slavery. I was entirely ignorant that there was a labor movement within and without cities in that period that rivaled the antislavery one.

I do intend to get the companion volume. After the holidays are over... This read was grim enough.
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Oh it definitely began my journey to the left.

And yeah, your average US History book/class really doesn’t touch on how popular labor movements got. Noam Chomsky touches on it occasionally, that in the US in the early to mid 1800s, the socialist “wage labor = wage slavery” mantra was commonly accepted, even before socialism itself was even a formulated system.

The history of America really can be told through the lens of “haves dominating have nots” and it becomes clear in books looking from the “average person” perspective. Just look at how those ideas were countered by the Gilded Age barons, which was countered by the Progressives, which was countered by the lassez-faire policies of the Roaring 20s, countered by etc. etc.
 

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adexkola said:
Has anyone on here read "A People's History of the United States"? Including resident historian @Carolina Red?

Made it through the first reading a minute ago. I'd consider myself a history buff, but I've never seen this side of American history, weighted towards the bottom instead of a top view through the lens of presidents and high profile individuals.
Click to expand...
Thanks for mentioning this book. I'm already well into it.
 

berbatrick

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11 Things Every Real Conservative Should Ask On A First Date
1. Do you believe that any group’s lives matter more than others?

The answer should be a resounding, “Yes!”

American lives matter more than the lives of foreigners, our allies matter more than our enemies, and some people – like jihadists, perverts, and people who refuse to acknowledge the manifest truth that Die Hard is a Christmas movie – matter not at all and should be hunted for sport.


2. How many genders are there?

The proper answer is, “Two.”



5. Do you support Israel in its fight against Seventh Century savagery?

The only acceptable response is, “Oh, hell yeah.”

Extra points if your date adds, “Every time the IDF launches an airstrike on Hamas an angel gets his wings. And all that land the Palestinian thugs are squatting on? That’s part of Israel too.”

6. What is your understanding of settler colonialism?

Your date must understand that it is awesome.

8. Do you believe in climate change?

The answer is, “Yes.” The climate changes all the time. What you really want to know is whether your date is a ******* affiliated with the liberals’ weird weather religion.

9. Do you support people from Islamic countries?

The right answer is, “Yes, which is why I support American warriors hunting down and killing jihadist scum in whatever stinking cesspool these cowardly semi humans are hiding in.”
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Conservative humour is great.
 

berbatrick

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[When I worked for the government] I was attempting to make things more reasonable, both on nuclear matters and on Vietnam. I was totally unsuccessful. Just as many cities would have been hit after my efforts as before, even though the plans I wrote called for withholding cities [from nuclear attacks]. They weren't going to do that. They changed the names of the targets from being cities to being military targets, so-called, within the cities—industries, transportation hubs, command-and-control centers, air defense. The cities would have burned. The same amount of smoke would have gone up. Working as an insider without Congress and the public ever knowing what we really planned to do, it had no effect.

[Former Secretary of State] Colin Powell, to move ahead here, knew that attacking Iraq was a very bad idea, but I'm sure he told his wife, "If I get out, I leave the president alone with hawks like Richard Perle and Dick Cheney, so I've gotta be in there." A voice of reason. Well, plausible enough. But to no good effect at all. He was against torture; he couldn't stop it.

Actually, it was others who did reveal it. Did the leaking eliminate it? No. But it greatly reduced the amount of torture we conducted. So whistleblowing has had some effect.
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http://reason.com/archives/2017/12/17/unplugging-the-doomsday-machin
 

SwansonsTache

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42502984

"
Organisers of Berlin's New Year's Eve celebrations are to set up a "safe zone" for women for the first time.

The new security measures planned for the Brandenburg Gate party come amid concerns about sexual assaults.

A large number of assaults and robberies targeting women at Cologne's New Year's Eve celebrations two years ago horrified Germany.

Hundreds of women reported being attacked by gangs of men with migrant backgrounds."

When you have to establish these zones for women to feel safe you just know your open border policy has been a resounding success.

Good job, Merkel.
 

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SwansonsTache said:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-42502984
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https://apnews.com/84215e6e5ceb49d7...n=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP

German police union chief slams NYE ‘safe zone’ for women

BERLIN (AP) — A German police union boss has criticized organizers of Berlin’s annual open-air New Year’s Eve party for designating a special “safety area” for women, saying it suggests they aren’t safe from assault elsewhere.

The comments by Rainer Wendt, who heads the right-leaning DpolG union, come amid an ongoing debate in Germany about how to tackle an increase in sexual assaults.

Wendt told the Neue Osnabruecker Zeitung daily in an interview published Saturday that establishing such a safe zone sends a “devastating message.”

“By doing so one is saying there are safe zones and unsafe zones” for women that could result in “the end of equality, freedom of movement and self-determination,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.

Wendt said the move appeared to ignore the “political dimension” in Germany, two years after hundreds of women reported being assaulted or robbed during New Year’s Eve celebrations in Cologne. The suspects in most of those assaults were migrants.

The number of rapes and sexual assaults recorded in Germany last year rose 12.8 percent compared to 2015, to 7,919 cases, an increase blamed on an influx of asylum-seekers, many young and male. Statistics for 2017 aren’t yet available.

Experts note that migrants in general aren’t more likely to commit crimes than German citizens, but the proportion of crimes they commit may increase as they start to make up a larger share of the population.

The Cologne incident prompted a bill that makes it easier to prosecute sexual assaults and can see foreigners deported more easily if they are convicted of such crimes.

In Berlin, organizers of the free event that draws hundreds of thousands of revelers to the iconic Brandenburg Gate each year said the “Women’s Safety Area” was requested by Berlin police.

But a spokeswoman for the force said it merely suggested the safe zone following positive experiences at the Munich Oktoberfest, which has long been plagued by drink-fueled assaults.

“This is a good opportunity to offer women a place to retreat to if they feel harassed,” Berlin police spokeswoman Valeska Jakubowski told The Associated Press. She stressed that the area won’t be fenced off, as some media reports claimed, and that those seeking help will be assisted by Red Cross staff who always work at the event.

If women want to report a crime, officers would be available to take their statements, Jakubowski said. Last year, Berlin police recorded 14 sexual assaults at the event including two involving rape or “serious duress.”

Authorities have stepped up public security measures across Germany for New Year’s Eve, with Berlin alone putting an additional 1,600 officers on the streets. Celebrations are traditionally rowdy, with unsafe handling of fireworks causing the majority of incidents.

Other security measures in Berlin include concrete blocks to prevent vehicle attacks and bag searches at entrances to the party area.
 

fishfingers15

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berbatrick

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This is a picture from Mumbai. McD in India pays Rs 7k/month according to Glassdoor, which means $1200/yr.
Which is why IMO, regardless of the minimum wage in the US, *many* jobs are at stake.
 

berbatrick

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fishfingers15 said:
Seems patches are available but the trade-off will be in speed. What are you implying with that second link of yours? Selling ESPP stocks to spread your portfolio is hardly newsworthy. Seems like a shit effort at second guessing.
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The 2nd article was written much before the 1st (before outsiders knew about the bug), and suggested something might be off...Of course we can't know for sure, whether he routinely sells stock or not will be a guide about whether he was profiting while he could.
 

fishfingers15

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berbatrick said:
The 2nd article was written much before the 1st (before outsiders knew about the bug), and suggested something might be off...Of course we can't know for sure, whether he routinely sells stock or not will be a guide about whether he was profiting while he could.
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These bugs were apparently reported by Google to all parties concerned back in June. Intel's stock price went up 14 dollars from June till December. It hardly looks like a dumping of stock, as he sat on it for 6 months and sold it near a 15 year high for the company.

The guy may have wanted to diversify his portfolio, or may have found other investment options that could yield better returns than the author's prediction of returns or the guy may have just wanted the money. The guy who wrote the article had no insight into any of this, just write something and hope it sticks.
 

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berbatrick

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https://theintercept.com/2018/01/03...-reporter-in-the-shadow-of-the-war-on-terror/

Very long, it will probably take days to finish. It is an account by a CIA/security correspondent of the NYT (from the late 90s till a few months ago) of intelligence leaking, wholesale narrating of the stories they wanted, the complicity of the NYT leadership re Iraq, the illegal NSA surveillance* and Bush's re-election, and the insanity of the Obama admin's prosecution of journalists.
For me, it is a thriller in article format. Amazing stuff.

*cameo by James Comey


Edit: it also highlights the guts of Snowden (above all) but also Greenwald and Rusbridger, when they finally published the full NSA stories.

Edit 2:
Holy shit
In another recent incident that gave me chilling insight into the power of government surveillance, I met with a sensitive and well-placed source through an intermediary. After the meeting, which occurred a few years ago in Europe, I began to do research on the source. About an hour later, I got a call from the intermediary, who said, “Stop Googling his name.”
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Raoul

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Kaos said:
And yet almost every single congressman/woman happily accepts glorified bribes and all expenses paid trips to Israel in order to fire up pro-Israeli sentiment. Yet we paint that as some sort of diplomatic consensus.

It doesn't hurt to have a balanced perspective sometimes, even if it means talking to those who harbour adversarial sentiments. That's pretty much the essence of diplomacy.
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#Whataboutism
 

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Kaos said:
Please elaborate, in what conceivable way would she be a nod to the Trump crowd?
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I just posted one on the last page about her insistence on using "Radical Islamic Terrorism" - a Republican mantra that was in direct contravention to Obama Administration policy to attempt to ratchet down the rhetoric.
 

berbatrick

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Raoul said:
Personally these attacks on Hillary smack of sexism. You don't hear similar arguments made for Bush 41 or Bill Clinton, both who were just as forward leaning in their foreign policies. It also happens to be long standing US policy so its rather questionable that she should be singled out.
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These are facts not attacks. Her record is hawkish.


And as you may have guessed, many leftists don't like long-standing US policy and think it is hawkish, and the men and women who follow it, including her, aren't to be trusted.

Also
Raoul said:
#Whataboutism
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Kaos

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Raoul said:
#Whataboutism
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Nope, its called perspective. You can't single out a congresswoman for communicating with a faction in the Middle East, adversarial or otherwise considering pretty much all her colleagues are doing the exact thing on a more candid scale.
 

Kaos

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MTF said:
You're bringing up examples of politicians that we don't consider ethical to defend Gabbard?

When you're a Congressman, however junior or senior, minority or majority, you don't get to make your own foreign policy. Its the same reason why all the Republicans that sent that letter to Iran in a show attempt to undermine Obama are also clowns.
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I dunno, I'd say quite a few of Gubbard's fiercest critics here seem to harbour a very high opinion of HRC.
 
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