2 is what I've been thinking also. The whole economy is perched on such a narrow ledge that a small number of rich assholes can crash things any time they feel nervous.
Everyone seems to be gaming this out, forcing it to happen if it doesn't naturally - viz. the debt ceiling deal that made the next expiration come in the first few months of a new presidential term.
A third thought: Would there be a way to write laws such that possession of a sufficient number of firearms is, per se, evidence of intent to distribute? And thus subject to the additional level of regulation that applies to gun merchants.
Or is this too clever by half?
There's also the rising odds of a really fucking stupid war getting started because it turns out that foreign policy by shouting threats, then backing down, then shouting more doesn't work.
It's kind of hard not to picture the rage that would be happening among Republicans if Iran were seizing ships when Obama was president.
4. In the UK at least, possession of more than a certain quantity of controlled substances can be brought up in court as evidence of dealing. I don't know the wording of the statute, but I don't see why a similar approach shouldn't be easy enough to implement.
The NRA would fight that harder than they fight the restriction on magazine capacity. They get paid by gun makers and gun makers get paid mostly by a small number of collectors who own guns like they were baseball cards.
I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just that I don't think it is necessarily an easier path.
I think it's just as likely the economy will crumble in the course of 2020, making it that much harder for Trump to win. News coming out of PRC is seriously and consistently bad, damage from the trade wars is mounting steadily.
OK, it's not really on point, but it only just occurred to me that the point of using the noun as an adjective isn't just to irritate Democrats, but also to make the speaker sound like a Southerner. Yes, same as flying the Confederate flag in Ohio or Iowa -- or in fucking Maine. I blame Lee Atwater and the Dukes of Hazzard.
No offense to the native Southerners reading this.
10 - So, are the going to capitulate to Trump?
I thought the trade news was worse for us.
11: Oh, because I said the "Democrat" nominee instead of "Democratic" nominee? I don't think of myself as southern or much of a troll, but maybe I'm growing. Would you like a mayonnaise and sugar sandwich?
Won't somebody think of my mother's soy beans?
Since we've already gone off-topic re: guns, I'm sort of flummoxed by the fact that the Dayton shooter had apparently long been in the habit of openly talking about "hit lists" of people at his school that he planned to kill and occasionally telling people to their faces that they were on the list.
It seems like some sort of intervention should have been possible before he reached the point of actually killing people. It's hard to tell from the news stories how direct/credible the threats were. I mean, "being creepy" isn't illegal, but isn't talking about killing specific named individuals getting pretty close?
12: I'm not following closely. They certainly won't capitulate on the substance, the US demands strike at too many of their core interests. They may at some point come up with some meaningless deal that Trump will claim as a victory over the heads of USTR, but they could have done that months ago. I don't know what Xi is thinking. A month or 6 weeks ago a pretty detailed agreement was sent from the talks up to his level and came back with massive redlining. If that's ploy or fuckup or both I've no idea. Between trade and HK and XUAR and the 70-year anniversary and domestic economic souring maybe Xi feels unable to yield even symbolic concessions.
13: For the purposes of your election, the worse it is for the US, the better it is for Democrats.
Further, PRC-US isn't the only trade war; Trump is intermittently starting shit with everyone, beginning talks with Japan I think last week; there's a rapidly spiraling JP-ROK war as well; and maybe an oil shock brewing in Hormuz.
The PRC slowdown is already bleeding back into all their partners; a PRC slowdown and bad debt crunch had started before the trade war anyway, for structural reasons; it isn't clear the PRC can actually stimulate their way out anyway, even if trade shit stopped tomorrow.
Why on earth would China capitulate to Trump before January 2021? The odds are slightly in favour of him being history by then, and any D. President, even a neoliberal, would want to prioritise normalising relations with China. China can sit out 18 months; that's what they do.
If you want to undermine U.S. influence in the world, nothing could be better than helping Trump to a second term.
Triggering the Yellowstone super volcano, obviously. But I bet they don't know how to do that.
I'm hoping China is satisfied with the damage Trump has already done. Hell, maybe 2020 will be decided by a hacking contest between Russia and China.
19. I'm not sure if this is an accurate assessment, but one possibility is dollar denominated external debt held both by the state and by Chinese companies. Devaluation hurts those who owe dollars. Also, Russian central bank has largest Yuan reserves outside PRC. Don't know what fraction of Russian assets that is, also don't know how important a predictable flow of Russian weapons is for China.
regarding guns, Newtown was a massacre of schoolchildren and Las Vegas was a military arsenal in the hands of an unbalanced gambler who just carried it into a tall building, used them against middle class white people. Neither of those made a difference. I sure hope this week's events do, but McConnell will defer action, headlines will be about something else next week, and "those politicians in Washington" will still be something people say.
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HI great circles mapped in the other thread, for those interested. supposedly anyone can edit, so you should be able to see the line lengths.
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We're also now at a point where a Democratic trifecta could pass every one of the "common-sense provisions" they keep talking about at debates, and they would only put a small dent in shootings and deaths, because what we really need is to reduce guns, not just manage them.
regarding guns, Newtown was a massacre of schoolchildren and Las Vegas was a military arsenal in the hands of an unbalanced gambler who just carried it into a tall building, used them against middle class white people. Neither of those made a difference.
Let's not forget the mass shooting of actual Republican congressmen, although none of them died (Steve Scalise came close).
OP 1 is something that has long appealed to me as well.
That's why when people say they want a sensitive doctor, they should add that they want a specific doctor too.
any D. President, even a neoliberal, would want to prioritise normalising relations with ChinaI doubt is true anymore. Procedurally normalized, sure, but I think the relationship has moved permanently to open hostility. It isn't just Trump thrashing, there's wide bipartisan backing in Congress for a lot of his actions, and in many US allies as well. China is all bogeys to all men: racist, anti-racist, free trader, protectionist, religious, liberal, big business, working class, whatever. Something to hate for everyone, and more by the day.
I expect the recession much sooner than December 2020. Fun facts: it's been over ten years since the last one, which is a record. Also, a recession began during the first term of EVERY Republican President except Lincoln.*And that's not even getting the many Trump specific factors like pointless tariff wars and general incompetence.
Politically, coming into office during a recession is probably optimal. It makes government spending programs seem more reasonable. Also it means lots of people will be better off by 2024.
*By contrast, no recessions began during eight years of Obama, eight years of Clinton, or eight years of Kennedy/Johnson. 9 of the 10 most recent recessions started under Republicans.
33.2: It makes sense that the improving economy would work to the new president's benefit, but I don't know about the recession making government spending seem more reasonable---a recession seems more likely to make people scared and loss-averse.
33: Old fashioned Kenynesain theory (not fully accepted by republicans, which may expalin who 9 of the past 10 recessions started in Republican years): recessions casue suboptimal investment, and layoffs, in the private sector, to the gvoernment shoudl start spending money on wages and reief programs..
And now we get the prospect of a war between India and Pakistan added to the mix. These are pretty depressing times we live in.
On the plus side, if you enjoy religious fundamentalist assertiveness, it's really booming.
I'm planning to become a Unitarian fundamentalist when I get around to it. May be a while.
You joke, but the UU church has been getting a lot more conservative lately and I don't care for it.
Honestly, the name "Unitarian Universalist" doesn't sound like somebody who will fuck around when it comes to seeking world control.
39: it has? the one here is full of people driving to detention camps every weekend and trying to deliver blankets and pies.
Well, can you imagine feeling that kind of cognitive dissonance in 100°+ heat? Very uncomfortable.
Trump's Willing Bakers, coming soon to a bookstore near you.
feeling that kind of cognitive dissonance in 100°+ heat
The next interaction effect to fail to be replicated.
the one here is full of people driving to detention camps every weekend and trying to deliver blankets and pies.
Well, that hasn't changed, but at a ministerial level they've started talking about Jesus and the Bible a whole lot more than they used to.
I feel like its really screwing up the brand. If that's your bag, maybe go join the UCC or something?
Apparently, we have to kill every feral hog in Arkansas before we ban assault weapons or we hate children.
Which, I'm fine with as long as that's all.
46: I don't actually attend, so it's possible this one is jesussing up, too.
Yeah, I myself haven't attended in years. But if the church I don't go to is going to get all theist on me, I might have to find another church to not go to.
No one worships there anymore, it's too religious.
51: It started out pretty theist - just anti-Trinitarian.
It used to be just a garden-variety snake cult.
53: Unitarians did. I thought Universalists were always more loosey-goosey, and then they merged.
Snakes do tend to eat poultry.
55 makes it sound like a romantic comedy.
It started out pretty theist - just anti-Trinitarian.
It started out in Transylvania with vampires and shit. Yet another dimension by which things have gone down hill.
My entire Sunday school education, and there were NO VAMPIRES except that one time.
It used to be considered very bad for the dollar if the president appeared to be trying to order the Federal Reserve around, right?
58: Transylvania was actually surprisingly pluralistic and tolerant regarding religion during a period when the religious wars were at there nastiest elsewhere.
Then the vampires came along and ruined everything.
That's why it's "Pennsylvania" instead of Pennland or something.
64: William Penn was a vampire?
Transylvania was actually surprisingly pluralistic and tolerant regarding religion during a period when the religious wars were at there nastiest elsewhere.
That's because they had found the one true faith. Also, maybe geography?
46 et al.: My experience with UU parishes is they vary a lot in how much Christianity and Judaism is mixed in and emphasized or de-emphasized. The UU parish I rarely go to was very un-theological under the minister who was active when I joined it. Now there's a new minister, and her priorities are different. Slightly more JC and slightly less "other religions" (such as Buddhism). An example is that there are more standard Christian hymns, which used to be common only for the Christmas Eve services. However, the major tenet of UU-ism is maintained: vigilant adherence to whatever the more progressive parts of the Democratic Party are into these days.
Also, maybe they watched the wars of religion and said fuck that.
On the subject of Unitarians in Transylvania, one problem they have is that Transylvanians are often ethnically Hungarian, as are most of the Unitarians there. (Transylvania was part of Hungary until the end of WW1.) It's now part of Romania, of course, and the Romanians like to pretend Hungarians and the Hungarian language don't exist. Most of the cities and towns have a Romanian name and a Hungarian name, but Romanian officials won't use the Hungarian name.
70: To be fair to the Romanians, the Hungarians (or more precisely the Magyars) were ultra-chauvinistic during the waning decades of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and openly adopted a policy of forced assimilation toward everyone within their borders (which included a bunch of ethnic Romanians). I guess bad memories still linger.
71. No argument there. It's a fact of life in central and eastern Europe that every ethnic and religious group has time-worn grievances against every other ethnic and religious group in the vicinity, all fully justified by maps and documents proving their cases.
I haven't got much experience with the UUs, but I like them a lot. My sister and her family are serious UUs.
I occasionally attended the more conservative UU church in my area -- there wasn't much Wicca or whatever -- but their Jesus was a nice, smart, admirable guy, not the "Lake of Fire" guy. I found discussions of his life and work to be edifying.
At one of their fund-raisers, they sold off a sermon -- the buyer got to stand up in church and talk. He was great. He referenced a previous talk that he had given titled "A Critique of Jesus" (which I didn't see), and proceeded to offer the counterpoint: "A Defense of Jesus." I wish I remembered it better, but I do remember thinking it was brilliant. It drew a lot on the apochrypha and made me like JC better than I had in years.
Last night I had an extended, vivid dream about the aftermath of Dems failing to retake the White House. It was mostly a version of what I felt/experienced in 11/04, but there was like literal wailing in the streets. Awful.
Then I awoke and remembered that, no matter what, the Dem Convention wouldn't result in a Romney/Dexter* ticket, and I settled down.
*the TV show
72: My sister told the story of being at a party at my dad's house in the mid-'90s. A guest--someone from his bowling team, IIRC--was descended from Serbs, and he told her, vividly, the story of some Serb who had an audience before the Ottoman Emperor* and pulled out a knife and gutted him, and in his telling it was like his own dad's war story.
600 years is a long time to hold a grudge.
*or whatever the specifics were
I really wish there were some kind of mechanism for OP 1. My primary care physician didn't do much more than blink when I told her the menstrual changes she'd told me a year earlier were a normal part of aging turned out to be uterine cancer (don't worry, I'm ok!), but I can hope she never says that bs to anyone else ever again without at least running a few tests.
I'm pretty sure the quack who told my dad that mole was nothing was the same one who ended up referring him to the oncologist (whoopsy, too late), but I don't know if he was ever informed of his death. Maybe he noticed the cancer patient never came back for his annual physical?
In both cases though, we happened to still have the same pcps when the cancer diagnoses were made by better doctors. The pcps never would have known a thing otherwise.
Yeah I would like there to be some way to let my old psychiatrist know that trying something besides a 6th ssri/3rd antipsychotic actually worked a lot better.
I really don't care if a physician is pleasant or kind but I try to ask what they think about a recent big paper published in their field.
However, the major tenet of UU-ism is maintained:
Being closed for the summer.
China's household debt has grown so much that trade war stimulus is largely ineffective, study shows
I'm pretty sure the quack who told my dad that mole was nothing was the same one who ended up referring him to the oncologist (whoopsy, too late), but I don't know if he was ever informed of his death. Maybe he noticed the cancer patient never came back for his annual physical?
We had the opposite case - the quack told him there was nothing wrong, he got worse, quack said to call an ambulance, he was diagnosed in A&E, successfully operated on, came back to quack for routine appointment. Hi! I'm not dead!
80. How can you have a service when everyone is in Chatham?
I never thought it would happen
With me and the congregation in Chatham
Hi! I'm not dead!
Nurse, my dagger.
NMM to Pacific Standard (and sorry about whatever firewall made that M situation arise in the first place). What a waste.
I regret missing the entire "economy will go down in flames" thread, my favoritest topic, but I also worry about this ("It's increasingly hard to stave off the feeling that the next recession will mean the end for most of America's remaining journalistic institutions"). The crash will be fucking dire and no one will know the extent of the damage, that is my fear.
Re: misdiagnosis while not specific to patients communicating to their physician, there are certainly efforts towards detecting misdiagnosis and quantifying how often it occurs. For diseases without a gold standard clinical test, misdiagnosis is not insignificant.
https://jnnp.bmj.com/content/55/3/181.short
Physicians sometimes struggle with the question of whether or not or how to address misdiagnosis from previous clinicians.
Why don't they just take pleasure in pwning each other?
Being closed for the summer.
Wait, is that just a UU thing? Do other churches not take the summer off?
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Okay, who wants to get a call from the Three-Headed Dog Rescue of Northern California to answer questions about my ability to care for a three-headed dog? I gave the whole spiel about how purely sop-based behavior modification is outmoded and playing the lyre really is better to crate train them, and that I realize that "you may not be dealing with three dogs, but you're not exactly dealing with just one dog either," but I don't think I know anyone who could talk for more than two minutes about my pet skills. This is going to be ridiculous. ("Lurid? Lurid wants to adopt a dog? Um... she can read, so if there are books on the subject she can read them... um... her kid doesn't bite... she's ambulatory...")
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So that's why the fires were so bad?
My goddamn feet are asymmetric. Blisters utterly lopsided. Not even a little bit, like order of magnitude difference.
>>Being closed for the summer.
Wait, is that just a UU thing? Do other churches not take the summer off?
I can't tell who's joking. Obviously, summer is when adults force children to attend Vacation Bible School, which takes place in the church basement.