Messages

1751

General Comments / Re: The Third Debate

« on: November 29, 2016, 11:01:06 AM »

It's already close to a vanishingly small occurrence, but concerns raised by Trump about the election being rigged (reinforced by him yesterday) and by the government about possible Russian interference justify a closer look and a review/recount where there are questions in close states.  I hope you agree.

Wait, so now you're implying that the Russians materially abetted in American voter fraud, as well as leaking information prior to the election? If you're not implying this, then why even mention that in a statement regarding why there should be a recount?

Read more closely.  I'm not alleging direct fraud by Russia, but Russian interference.  We don't know the extent of it yet.  I would assume that they did not hack into voting machines and didn't have Russian agents counting the votes in Wisconsin, but if people can be upset about a tiny amount of potential fraud (i.e., Republicans) that has never been proven, why can't others raise a concern about a possible manipulation of the vote, too?  Remember, the vote is rigged!  RIGGED!  MILLIONS OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS VOTED FOR HILLARY!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Let's have a recount in close states to see if that really happened, eh?

1752

General Comments / Re: The Third Debate

« on: November 29, 2016, 10:58:03 AM »

And before you cite to finding 5k votes disallowed, how about you do research it.

Here's a second place I've seen the report, not a copycat of the first.  Votes going up I can see when ballots that were somehow missed were added into the total, but how can a large block of votes from a small area disappear?

1753

General Comments / Re: Predictions for the Trump Administration as of October 2018

« on: November 29, 2016, 10:44:59 AM »

So you posit that the chef is willing to remove the mushrooms for straight customers, but not gay?  The law is clear on that being active discrimination and illegal. 

My point is that you have to show a conflict of rights, where is the chef's protected right that is in conflict?

Where is the baker's?  He and his many supporters argued that his rights were being denied because he wasn't allowed to deny service because he objects to homosexuality.  Give an example where it is justified for a service provider to deny that service based on their own religious (or moral) beliefs.

1754

General Comments / Re: The Third Debate

« on: November 29, 2016, 10:41:31 AM »

Honestly, Democrats can change their position on voter fraud.  Admit it exists and give us some practical solutions to prevent it from occurring in the future, start naming them now.  My guess, is you don't care about stopping voter fraud past your specific desire to switch the results of this election, prove me wrong.  How about an end to electronic voting?  How about tighter controls on mail in voting?  How about voter ids?  How about uniform early voting laws and better controls on locations (to ensure they can be adequately monitored by both sides)?  How about agreeing to search and purge voter roles for dead and ineligible voters?  What are you suggesting?

Don't you think questioning vote totals in a close ballot is a good enough reason to do a recount?  I have several times argued in favor of tighter controls on the voting process, so I'm your ally on this.  That would reduce the already low likelihood of fraudently cast votes even further.  It's already close to a vanishingly small occurrence, but concerns raised by Trump about the election being rigged (reinforced by him yesterday) and by the government about possible Russian interference justify a closer look and a review/recount where there are questions in close states.  I hope you agree.

1755

General Comments / Re: Predictions for the Trump Administration as of October 2018

« on: November 29, 2016, 10:32:35 AM »

To what end?  If they have a religious objection to an ingredient it won't be on the menu at all, regardless of your sexual orientation.  For your hypo to make sense, there has to be a discrimination between the two customers with respect to customizing a dish.

I give up.  You are obstinately stubborn on this and will fabricate an objection for any counter case.  If you go back to my original hypothesis, it was that a gay couple requested a change to the dish and the chef refused, not that the change itself was objectionable.  That is equivalent to the baker refusing to make a cake for a gay customer, not refusing to use an ingredient that he objected to.  Good grief! 

1756

General Comments / Re: The Third Debate

« on: November 29, 2016, 10:25:20 AM »

I think you missed my point.  Take a look back on the boards, or go back in the news.  The left has been beating the drum that voter/election fraud is a myth that doesn't and can't occur.  To back track and say, well maybe it did (because we lost) is hypocrisy.  The most charitable interpretation I can give it is that they've had a come to the light moment. 

You're saying that Democrats can't change their position for a given instance, even if presented with evidence of possible fraud?  According to one source, 5000 votes in the total for Trump in Wisconsin have been erased after an initial review showed that there were no actual votes behind them.  I can't say if that is accurate or not, but it's an indicator that a closer look is warranted.  But whatever you or I might think, bear in mind that Trump himself came out yesterday and claimed that millions of votes were illegally cast.  Don't you want to know if he's right?

1757

General Comments / Re: Zucker admits... Something?

« on: November 29, 2016, 09:28:29 AM »

I'll ask ye to be more clear and not so precise, if it please ye.

1758

General Comments / Re: The Third Debate

« on: November 28, 2016, 07:18:28 PM »

I commend you for finding a Democrat to criticize Hillary.  Nice job!

1759

General Comments / Re: Predictions for the Trump Administration as of October 2018

« on: November 28, 2016, 05:56:18 PM »

Thanks, I appreciate that (I think), but it is no matter, only talk.

1760

General Comments / Re: Zucker admits... Something?

« on: November 28, 2016, 05:55:20 PM »

One might well ask whether pi exists, and if it does, what flavor is it? You go down that round and you ultimately slide into Descartes who ultimately had to take all of reality on faith.

Cherry. Cogito, ergo rectum. 

1761

General Comments / Re: Zucker admits... Something?

« on: November 28, 2016, 04:25:11 PM »

2+2 can equal 4,

"can"?  I would argue that you don't do math with common language (and common sense, else you'd be counting fairies on toadstools and have no time for anything else). Human language can describe mathematical issues (connotative), but isn't the formal notation used to express it (denotative).  I've already said that 2+2=5, and I'm working on an explanation for why (-1)^.5 is imaginary.  Perhaps it's a fairy.  Prove me wrong.

1762

General Comments / Re: Predictions for the Trump Administration as of October 2018

« on: November 28, 2016, 04:18:46 PM »

I didn't think it was supposed to be a mystery, he announced the name change and referenced the old handle in the new account.

I find the whole thing mysterious.  Mod disabled my old account at my request.  As you can tell from Pete's responses, I am sounding much more mature and reasonable now, so it was a good move. Let all heed, or woe is I!

1763

General Comments / Re: Predictions for the Trump Administration as of October 2018

« on: November 28, 2016, 04:15:41 PM »

What a bizarre formulation.  Do they have a religious object to mixing mushrooms and risotto?

OK, pick some ingredients that would tweak a religious conservative (or wiccan or animist) to refuse on the relevant grounds.  Personally, I think mushrooms are wonderful in risotto.  Not sure about entrails, though.

1764

General Comments / Re: The Third Debate

« on: November 28, 2016, 04:11:52 PM »

Trump said so.  Millions of illegal immigrants voted for Hillary.  What more does anyone need to know?

1765

General Comments / Re: Zucker admits... Something?

« on: November 28, 2016, 12:42:48 PM »

Numbers can be communicates without language as a conveyor? That's news to me. What you should really ask is: what is the origin of predicate calculus?

Huh?  'splain me the answers.  2+2=5 is not language, it's notation.  In what language is that a true statement?  AFAIK, the origin of predicate calculus is the FSM or equivalent, else if there isn't one, it just is.

1766

General Comments / Re: Zucker admits... Something?

« on: November 28, 2016, 11:32:27 AM »

When I was a wee sprout full of pistil and stamen I learned that language is imprecise and often used to weave rather than explain.  Numbers lack the charm of words, but can be rounded or truncated by everyone the same way and still do not lie.  Science is reliable because it can prove things and yet still be challenged.  The crux of the problem in today's world where the distrust of numbers, facts and science is the new reality is that although we know that the moon is not flat, how do I know? 

1767

General Comments / Re: Predictions for the Trump Administration as of October 2018

« on: November 28, 2016, 11:18:43 AM »

Election implies representation, and unless you are from Kentucky, you have no stake nor say in whether her actions represented the feelings of constituents.

Not sure how her feelings or those of her constituents factor into her fulfilling her role to carry out and enforce the laws under which her office is chartered.

1768

General Comments / Re: Zucker admits... Something?

« on: November 28, 2016, 09:26:24 AM »

"I predict things will get worse before they get better."

I predict that the planet will continue to rotate, causing the appearance of sunrise and sunset.

It's good that you qualified that statement, since it's the earth's rotation that makes it seem so.  I've wondered why we don't assume the moon is flat, since it always appears to show the same side.  I would have to believe in science to doubt my hypothesis, which I no longer have to do in this post-truth age.  Betsy DeVos will make sure more of our children follow that instinct.  In fact, I've seen pictures of the moon hanging on walls that look the same as the object that is nailed to the sky.

1769

General Comments / Re: Zucker admits... Something?

« on: November 28, 2016, 08:43:44 AM »

"g5", another almost forgotten handle.  At one time I wondered if Cherry and G might be the same person, but that was more because distant objects are hard to discern rather than because they sounded the same.  There's no need to guess who I might have been once upon a time.  I am who I am, Kasandra, and I predict things will get worse before they get better.

"Katie Johnson" turns out to be a nom de lex, so I was mistaken to claim it was her real identity.  There are other reasons to doubt her story, which has changed over time, but to dismiss it outright seems a little too facile.

1770

General Comments / Re: Zucker admits... Something?

« on: November 28, 2016, 08:32:35 AM »

My first thought would be that it came from Cherry, and I wouldn't worry about it too much after that.  He has shown a remarkable appetite for believing anything and everything that falls in line with his views.  Being critical is not the same as being a critical thinker.

1771

General Comments / Re: Zucker admits... Something?

« on: November 28, 2016, 08:18:24 AM »

Funean?  The name conjures memories, but I haven't seen posts under that name in a very long time.

I agree that it's a thin claim, but lacking hard(er) evidence doesn't make it less credible, only less verifiable.  I don't know if it's true or not, but the way the story sputtered out didn't enhance the likelihood that it was true.  However, this story had more coverage in the past, and we know the name of the victim, Katie Johnson.  Trump's vehement denials don't count for anything, given his history of lying about provable facts and threatening his accusers of reprisals.

1772

General Comments / Re: Predictions for the Trump Administration as of October 2018

« on: November 28, 2016, 07:50:00 AM »

Bureaucrats can be elected to fill a slot in a government organization. She is a functionary, and not even a very glorified one.

1773

General Comments / Re: Zucker admits... Something?

« on: November 28, 2016, 06:46:30 AM »

Nobody knows (publicly,  anyway).  Does that mean it's not true?  We live in interesting times when we're told all sorts of intimate things about people. We often don't really care, but we want to see the details anyway. Maybe we'd be more willing to believe her if she posted a naked selfie.

1774

General Comments / Re: Zucker admits... Something?

« on: November 28, 2016, 06:29:09 AM »

My understanding was that the Russian influence was less due to lies and more to do with posting actual truthful information that was obtained illegally through hacking, and that's even worse in many ways because sometimes in cases like this nothing hurts worse than the truth.

What about the stories about her failing health? Not to mention the emails that were edited and snipped out of context.

If you want to talk about lies that were pushed to influence an election that's got to be one of the biggest.

How do you know? She cancelled her press conference because she said she received death threats.

1775

General Comments / Re: The Third Debate

« on: November 27, 2016, 08:28:00 PM »

The problem is she and those in the media said before the election that what she is doing now would be something to really freak out about.

No she didn't.  She was talking about Trump's wild accusations that the vote was rigged against him.  Keep your facts straight if you can.

1776

General Comments / Re: Predictions for the Trump Administration as of October 2018

« on: November 27, 2016, 10:54:28 AM »

I think it's a little bit of everything honestly.

Most likely (and your comments are good), but this discussion is about needing to go elsewhere because service was refused.

1777

General Comments / Re: Zucker admits... Something?

« on: November 27, 2016, 09:07:17 AM »

Do you think there is no difference in degree of "interference" or influence this time?

1778

General Comments / Re: Predictions for the Trump Administration as of October 2018

« on: November 27, 2016, 09:06:30 AM »

What about the cases where the plaintiffs genuinely did want the service?  If gay people should look for gay-friendly photographers, should black people look for black-friendly restaurants?

You mean they don't already tend towards doing this? Granted, it's something of a learned trait, but it certainly is a thing that is out there. Or else I'm just imagining that there has been an openly "Gay Bar" operating in my overwhelmingly Mormon hometown since the late 1990's.

Do they do that because they won't be served at other bars, or is it because that's where their friends tend to hang out?  I have a favorite bar that I didn't pick because I wasn't welcome elsewhere.

1779

General Comments / Re: Predictions for the Trump Administration as of October 2018

« on: November 27, 2016, 08:39:38 AM »

If what they call marriage is sacred, then assenting to another definition of marriage may blaspheme their religion.  Consider the bureaucrat who refused to personally sign a same sex marriage certificate, but approved a subordinate to validate it. What's the problem here?  There's no fundamental right to force people to force a Jewish food critic to approve a bacon cheeseburger.  These lawsuits are vindictive maliciousand opportunistic. In most cases the plaintiffs never genuinely wanted the service from that individual.  Please. You really think there were no gay friendly photographers in town?

There is much to disagree with in every sentence.

Thus (the bolded part), any service can be denied to anyone for any reason, because somewhere somebody will be offended or their religion blasphemed by almost anything you can think of. 

The bureaucrat in Kentucky refused to let anyone in her office sign the marriage license, even though she was a public servant.  By that token the police don't have to help stop a Muslim from being mugged.

The food critic isn't hired by the restaurant, but chooses where to eat.  If s/he works for a newspaper it's between them to decide what the critic's territory includes.

What about the cases where the plaintiffs genuinely did want the service?  If gay people should look for gay-friendly photographers, should black people look for black-friendly restaurants?

1780

General Comments / Re: Zucker admits... Something?

« on: November 27, 2016, 08:28:45 AM »

In other words, you think the alleged Russian intrusion into the election process had no effect?

Ha. Next you'lol be telling us that Bernie Sanders was a Turban agent.

Not even sure what this is supposed to mean or why you think an insult is deserved.

1781

General Comments / Re: Holy......

« on: November 27, 2016, 08:26:18 AM »

Yes, because your failure to take in that distinction is at the heart of your foolish argument that the constitution is out of date.  You don't recognise that 14a totally changed the meaning and function of the 1789 constitution.

Honestly, I can't discuss this with you after you agree with what I said and then "facepalmed" the same comment and now make an argument that is opaque to me.  Welcome back, Pete.

1782

General Comments / Re: Holy......

« on: November 27, 2016, 07:15:37 AM »

Facepalm.

No.  That was established by the 14th and 15th Amendments, not by the freaking Civil war.  Yes, they are related, but get the causation right.

Holy Pedantix, Batman!  That deserved a facepalm?

The Reconstruction Amendments are the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments to the United States Constitution, adopted between 1865 and 1870, the five years immediately following the Civil War. The amendments were important in implementing the Reconstruction of the American South after the war.

1783

General Comments / Re: The Third Debate

« on: November 27, 2016, 07:08:52 AM »

I knew you would jump in on this .  Wasn't it Trump's team that said that he didn't really mean that the vote was rigged (though he said it repeatedly), but that he legally had the right to challenge results if he thought there might be some question as to the accuracy of the count?  Did you forget that?  As I recall, you thought that made a lot of sense back then.  Just sayin'

1784

General Comments / Re: Holy......

« on: November 26, 2016, 10:20:43 PM »

Which was my initial point.  We are more than two centuries beyond what the Founders knew and well beyond what they were capable of imagining, however brilliant we like to imagine them to have been.

1785

General Comments / Re: Holy......

« on: November 26, 2016, 07:57:44 PM »

So yes, I do think many of the founders would have supported States being in possession of Nuclear Weapons if the Federal Government has them. It's the part that the militia movements get backwards. You don't go off on your own as Joe Citizen. You instead operate under the authority of your state government in the face of Federal tyranny.

I think that's silly. The Civil War established that the federal union was greater than the individual states.  To imagine that the feds would develop nuclear weapons in the 20th C. and then passively let the states develop or acquire them as a check against the federal union is a dark and bizarre fantasy.

1786

General Comments / Re: Holy......

« on: November 26, 2016, 04:43:25 PM »

Our puny individual rights and powers are laughably weak compared to those of corporations.

Funny you should say that, since both parties (including yours) seem hellbent on rolling back those freedoms slowly over time, for the benefit of the few. I don't think this is happening for the reasons a few of you are stating - namely, that the world has changed and the constitution is obsolete. On the contrary, nothing that's happening now on a socio-political level wasn't foreseen to almost eerie detail by Jefferson. Sure, maybe the Founders didn't foresee gay marriage and other social changes like that, but such renovations to the social contract are not of primary importance in why individual rights have become 'laughably weak.' They are laughably weak because it is inevitable that in a sufficiently capitalist setting corporations will overpower individuals, and unless strict controls are in place, will overpower the boundaries between public and private as well.

What I highlighted was exactly my point.  The "strict controls" (whatever they might be) are being systematically eviscerated by the so-called Conservative Supreme Court.  Odd that those who present and parade themselves as originalists have ushered in the greatest series of changes that have dramatically changed the Constitution as it was originally written.  And yes, both Parties are complicit in different ways as they see that it serves their short-term advantage.

1787

General Comments / Re: Holy......

« on: November 26, 2016, 04:30:17 AM »

The changes from the times of the Founders is far more pervasive than just a set of namable things like nuclear weapons or cybernetic implants.  They founded an agrarian "framework" organized and controlled by landowners befitting their contemporaneous world.  That world no longer exists.  Today we live in a technology based world organized and controlled by corporate owners that is far more complex and vastly bigger than theirs.  The Constitution that fit the Founder's world covers little today.  As a guide to behavior in our time it's an anachronism almost as obsolete as the bible.  Our puny individual rights and powers are laughably weak compared to those of corporations.  Trump's election is the natural realization of the state of affairs; he is far more powerful than the massive horde of peons that put him in power.  The Constitution written in 1789 can't contain him.  If we rewrote it today citizens would have all the rights of members in an organization owned and managed by a plutocratic oligarchy.

1788

General Comments / Re: Zucker admits... Something?

« on: November 25, 2016, 12:29:13 PM »

This is worth quoting at some length, bearing in mind that Trump and his supporters were the ones crying foul about vote rigging and tampering even before the election was held.  As Cherry might now say, if it happened it's ok because it helped elect his candidate:

The flood of “fake news” this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation.

Russia’s increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery — including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human “trolls,” and networks of websites and social-media accounts — echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia.

Two teams of independent researchers found that the Russians exploited American-made technology platforms to attack U.S. democracy at a particularly vulnerable moment, as an insurgent candidate harnessed a wide range of grievances to claim the White House. The sophistication of the Russian tactics may complicate efforts by Facebook and Google to crack down on “fake news,” as they have vowed to do after widespread complaints about the problem.

There is no way to know whether the Russian campaign proved decisive in electing Trump, but researchers portray it as part of a broadly effective strategy of sowing distrust in U.S. democracy and its leaders. The tactics included penetrating the computers of election officials in several states and releasing troves of hacked emails that embarrassed Clinton in the final months of her campaign.

“They want to essentially erode faith in the U.S. government or U.S. government interests,” said Clint Watts, a fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who along with two other researchers has tracked Russian propaganda since 2014. “This was their standard mode during the Cold War. The problem is that this was hard to do before social media.”

1789

General Comments / Re: Predictions for the Trump Administration as of October 2018

« on: November 24, 2016, 03:15:10 PM »

I think what Al...sorry, Kasandra (with one S) is getting at is "where is the line" dividing services offered from goods sold. Of course, I'm sure this line of reasoning is meant to demonstrate that since the line may be undefined at present that therefore there should be no line and therefore no religious grounds to decline to offer services.

That misses the point: If there is a line, show it.  If there's no line, don't arbitrarily draw one separating things based on a personal preference.

The different case could be where a person goes into a restaurant and tries to order something not on the menu, knowing it's within the technical capability of the chef. In such a case the request can be honored or rejected, and this type of situation I'd say may be more similar to a baker being asked to bake a custom cake. It's imperfect, since the restaurant isn't in the business of offering dishes made up by the customers, but still it's the one situation in a restaurant where I could see it being a special service.

Again, that misses the point: Does the bakery sell a cake with writing on it that says "Congratulations, Tom and Harry!"?  Does the baker buy the cake and keep in the storeroom until someone comes along to order it?  I can analogize every step in the cake baking process with a chef cooking a meal to order. They both start with a recipe and ingredients and the person who orders asks for personalized or special touches.  If a baker can discriminate because of sexual orientation, so can a chef.  OTOH, someone providing a service would correspond more to the waiter or order taker at the bakery. You shouldn't expect them to impose their own religious or moral view on both the company/store they work for and the customer.  The same goes for a pharmacist or a county clerk in Kentucky or elsewhere.

1790

General Comments / Re: Predictions for the Trump Administration as of October 2018

« on: November 24, 2016, 02:38:24 PM »

While cooking may be an "art" cooking a previously set menu is not "art" or at least, it isn't "original art." Even if the recipe in question was their own creation. While the Chef may have a Freedom of Association/Religion claim they could assert, as far as their service is concerned, it revolves around their ability to perform a specified task in accordance with specified instructions.

I can't see how "cooking" is different from baking.  Both use recipes and add individual touches.  I've been to cake shops and been shown a gallery of cake sizes and shapes, as well as to restaurants and had the waiter describe the specials of the day.  Either both are art or neither is.  Hold the mushrooms and the jimmies, please.

1791

General Comments / Re: Welcome to the New Ornery American Forums!

« on: November 24, 2016, 02:34:32 PM »

Ω, όλα είναι αλίμονο! Οι τοίχοι θα πέσουν και οι στρατοί θα κάνει πόλεμο. Θάνατος! Μιζέρια!

1792

General Comments / Re: Predictions for the Trump Administration as of October 2018

« on: November 24, 2016, 11:45:50 AM »

Same question as my noble predecessor AI Wessex asked, chefs are artists of a different sort, but not much different from a pastry/cake chef.  Can they refuse to serve a gay customer if s/he requests to leave the mushrooms out of the risotto?  Note this is different from a pharmacist refusing to sell a commodity to a customer, which should never be allowed to happen.  Odd that recent court tests rule in favor of the pharmacist and against the pastry chef.

1793

General Comments / Re: Obamacare Predictions for May 2015

« on: November 24, 2016, 11:42:29 AM »

Note that there are two criteria in the survey, availability and affordability.  In both Canada and UK, medical care isn't completely free or always available, either. 

1794

General Comments / Re: Obamacare Predictions for May 2015

« on: November 24, 2016, 08:32:56 AM »

Hello, dear ones.  Trump supports Paul Ryan's plans to kill Obamacare, which means that health care costs and access to treatment will return to what they once were and resume their natural growth.  Worry no more.

1795

General Comments / Re: Welcome to the New Ornery American Forums!

« on: November 24, 2016, 08:27:57 AM »

Alas, I've received word that AI Wessex was crushed by the recent election.  It's a sign of the coming times that I have appeared to take the place of that noble soul.  I predict things won't go well.