Etiquette



DP Etiquette

First rule: Don't be a jackass. Most people are good.

Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.

Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Attn: Potential Kool-aid Drinkers

Link to short video here


Is this video a load of Trump’s special kind of "bullshit flavored" Kool-aid, or am I confused?

I know I’m dizzy and I haven’t even drunk any Kool-aid!

*          *          *

Trump: “I have it [a healthcare plan] already (or all ready??) and it’s a much better plan for you.”

Stephanopoulos: “It’s been 3 ½ years now.”  “You told me last June it would come in 2-wks.”  “You told Chris Wallace this summer, it would come in 3-wks.”

What’s wrong with this picture?


 

Tuesday, September 15, 2020

The President is Making His Run at Dictator for Life

Trump aide Michael Caputo on the coming civil war: 
If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, 
because it’s going to be hard to get


The president is ratcheting up the intensity of his divisive lies and irrational fear mongering on multiple fronts. The New York Times reports on crackpot conspiracies and continuing science denials from our lying president and his mendacious aides. One article focuses on crackpot COVID and armed insurrection conspiracies that are not supported by any evidence:
“The top communications official at the powerful cabinet department in charge of combating the coronavirus made outlandish and false accusations on Sunday that career government scientists were engaging in “sedition” in their handling of the pandemic and that left-wing hit squads were preparing for armed insurrection after the election.

Michael R. Caputo, the assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, accused the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of harboring a “resistance unit” determined to undermine President Trump, even if that opposition bolsters the Covid-19 death toll.

Mr. Caputo, who has faced intense criticism for leading efforts to warp C.D.C. weekly bulletins to fit Mr. Trump’s pandemic narrative, suggested that he personally could be in danger from opponents of the administration. ‘If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get,’ he urged his followers.

To a certain extent, Mr. Caputo’s comments in a video he hosted live on his personal Facebook page were simply an amplified version of remarks that the president himself has made. Both men have singled out government scientists and health officials as disloyal, suggested that the election will not be fairly decided, and insinuated that left-wing groups are secretly plotting to incite violence across the United States.”
So, when the president defends his lethal COVID-19 lies to the public in the name of not wanting to panic anyone, just consider how hard he tries to instill fear of a non-existent left wing insurrection. The pandemic is very real and deadly but we should not be worried about it, while we should be terrified on a completely fake left wing insurrection.

In another article on climate change, the NYT reports the president calling Biden a climate arsonist, whatever that is. This is more of the president’s mendacity in service to his run at dictator-for-life position. He wants to terrify people about environmental regulations that Biden advocates, while denying settled climate science showing there are things to actually worry about, e.g., massive wildfires.
“With wildfires raging across the West, climate change took center stage in the race for the White House on Monday as former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. called President Trump a “climate arsonist” while the president said that “I don’t think science knows” what is actually happening.

A day of dueling appearances laid out the stark differences between the two candidates, an incumbent president who has long scorned climate change as a hoax and rolled back environmental regulations and a challenger who has called for an aggressive campaign to curb the greenhouse gases blamed for increasingly extreme weather.

Mr. Trump flew to California after weeks of public silence about the flames that have forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, wiped out communities and forests, burned millions of acres, shrouded the region in smoke and left at least 27 people dead. But even when confronted by California’s governor and other state officials, the president insisted on attributing the crisis solely to poor forest management, not climate change.

As soon as the president disembarked from the plane at Sacramento McClellan Airport, where the stench of smoke filled the air, he did not wait for his scheduled briefing to tell reporters that the cause of the conflagration was poor forest management, not climate change.”
At this point, it is worth noting that in the years when the president has been in office, 2017, 2018 and 2019, most of the area burned in wildfires was on federal land, as shown below (source here). That makes the president the single most culpable person for the alleged failure to manage forests and the massive fires. States, local authorities and private owners are not responsible for managing wild lands the federal government controls.



Regarding the situation in California, another source comments: “But the Democratic governor also pointed out that 57% of California's 33 million acres of forest is owned by the federal government. About 40% is privately owned, and just 3% is owned by the state.”

In view of the facts, the president has clearly failed to properly manage the forest lands he is responsible for properly maintaining. He doesn’t even want to help California with fire fighting costs and manpower because he blames the state for the fires that are burning on lands entrusted to him.


Monday, September 14, 2020

A Liar for Trump is Put in Charge of Denying Climate Change



Over the weekend, our climate science denier president quietly installed a climate science denier in a senior position (deputy assistant secretary of Commerce for environmental observation and prediction) at NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration). We can expect that environmental observations and predictions will probably be much rosier than now. The Washington Post writes:
"The Trump administration has tapped David Legates, an academic who has long questioned the scientific consensus that human activity is causing global warming, to help run the agency that produces much of the climate research funded by the U.S. government.

Legates, a University of Delaware professor who was forced out of his role as that state’s climatologist because of his controversial views, has taken a senior leadership role at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
The agency, which oversees weather forecasting, climate research and fisheries, has until now continued its climate research and communications activities unfettered by political influence. For that, NOAA stands in stark contrast to the Environmental Protection Agency and science agencies at the Interior Department, where the Trump administration has dismissed and sidelined climate scientists or altered their work before publication.
Legates was formerly Delaware’s state climatologist, a position from which he he stepped down in 2011. He had come under pressure from then-Gov. Ruth Ann Minner (D), because of his fossil fuel industry-funded research casting doubt on the science showing that burning coal, oil and other fossil fuels is the main factor behind heating the planet and would lead to dangerous effects such as sea level rise and extreme weather events. 
Legates is affiliated with the Heartland Institute, a free-market think tank funded in part by the fossil fuel industry that supports research arguing that human-caused climate change is not a serious threat. 
“And we have the climate data. We’ve got years of data,” they wrote. “The data show the models don’t match reality,” they wrote, despite numerous peer-reviewed studies showing otherwise."

So once again, our corrupt, incompetent president has installed another crackpot liar in a senior position in government. His mission is to serve the president, not the people or the constitution. To do that he will deny science and lie, lie, lie.



A German university is awarding $1,900 scholarships for 'doing nothing,' and all applicants have to do is answer what they won't do and why


  • HFBK University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, Germany, is offering three people a $1,900 scholarship if they can come up with a good reason to do nothing.
  • The university's "Scholarships for Doing Nothing" program was announced on August 25, and submissions are open until September 15.
  • Applicants must answer four questions about how their plan to not take action could be beneficial.
  • The scholarship was created by a professor in hopes of encouraging students to strive for "a lack of consequences" rather than success.
  • One university is offering students from around the world the opportunity to win a $1,900 scholarship for doing nothing at all.

    The unique scholarship program — called "Scholarships for Doing Nothing" — is offered by the HFBK University of Fine Arts in Hamburg, Germany.

    The application opened on August 25, and submissions are accepted between now and September 15. Applicants are required to create a proposal based on this central question: "What action might I refrain from performing in order to prevent my life from having negative consequences for others?"

    Friedrich von Borries, a design professor at HFBK, created the scholarship to challenge social perceptions of achievement and success.

  • "The world we are living in is driven by the belief in success, in growth, in money. This thinking was leading us into the ecological crisis — and social injustice — we are living in," Borries told CNN.

    "We wanted to turn that upside down — giving a grant not for the 'best' and for 'doing a project,' but for doing nothing," he added.

  • Scholarship winners will have their ideas showcased at Hamburg's Museum of Art and Design. 
  • To apply, students must submit answers to four questions: "What do you want not to do? How long do you want not to do it for? Why is it important not to do this particular thing? Why are you the right person not to do it?"

    Borries said that his idea was partly inspired by the lack of activity during COVID-19 lockdowns.


  • "During COVID, we stopped being busy not only to protect ourselves but to protect others. That is something I find very important and I hope we will be able to transfer this attitude into the post-COVID times," he told CNN.

    Applicants from around the world, not just students of the Hamburg-based university, are encouraged to apply for the scholarship.

    The three winners of the scholarship will have their ideas featured in an exhibition at Hamburg's Museum of Art and Design called "The School of Inconsequentiality: Exercises for a Different Life" from November 5 until May 9, 2021.

    Friedrich von Borries and representatives for HFBK University of Fine Arts in Hamburg did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

  • https://www.insider.com/win-scholarship-doing-nothing-university-germany-hamburg-2020-8