Messages

1

General Comments / Re: A Pill for Men?

« on: March 10, 2023, 06:39:38 AM »

jc44 Believe it or not I'm not attempting to sneer at you - I _am_ poking at your argument, which seems to me to be, that there is a single eternal objective morality that defines some acts as evil irrespective of circumstance that can be discovered through reason.

Lol, what? I I have said circumstances are relevant in this thread about a dozen times:

Josh: God is not a simple deontological machine; He comprehends all of the circumstances of an action in his judgment.
Josh: In this circumstance, slavery to me seems like a mercy.
Josh: If I want to be as generous as possible to your original post, I will say that God understands the full circumstances of our sins, and judges us justly and with mercy.
Josh:  I'm not trying to tangent the thread again from this already long tangent on whether eating the flesh of the already deceased is forbidden in every imaginable circumstance. In the general case, it is certainly evil.
Josh: The object is to buy bread, the intention is to feed your family so they don't starve, and the circumstances (while unfortunate) do not change the act to an evil act; it's not generally reasonable to expect that by buying a loaf of bread you'll cause someone else to starve to death.
Josh: In order for an act to be moral, it must pass three tests: the object must not be evil, the intention must not be evil, and the circumstances must not be evil
Josh: The Church talks about all sorts of ways a person might not be fully guilty of their sins due to mitigating circumstances.
Josh: Intention is only one part of the three-pronged test for whether an act is evil. In addition to intention being good, the object and the circumstances must also be good
Josh: As I said: a person might have committed apparently evil acts but those acts did not constitute a moral evil because of some mitigating circumstances
Josh: When you say "But if you commit evil without intending evil" you seem to be thinking that as long as I don't intend evil, then the act is not evil. But that's not right. Both the object and the circumstances of the act must also be good for the act to be good.
Josh: he doctrinal support for this is in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1749-1761. It specifies that an act can only be moral if it has a good object, a good intention, and good circumstances. 

OK - fair enough. I guess it my fault for assuming that an objective morality must be tied to acts alone. It does make it a lot harder to get away from "evil is what I think is evil" as circumstances must be considered in each and every case.

jc44I used scripture as starting point because you quite often appear to use Roman Catholic Christianity as a touchstone for this eternal truth.

Yeah, Catholics do not have faith in scripture in that way. That viewpoint is typically embraced by fundamentalist Christians. There are plenty of things that are true that are not revealed in scripture.

...and that there are things in the bible that are not true? (honest question to understand where you are coming from).

P.S. A bit earlier you said that the protestants had removed a number of books from the bible - are those what I would know as the Apocrypha or are they some others? and so do Roman Catholics use a different bible to Protestants (and if not then why not)? I have a the King James and its descendants set as "standard".

2

General Comments / Re: A Pill for Men?

« on: March 09, 2023, 05:24:26 AM »

I brought up scripture in relation to slavery as slavery was certainly practiced at the time and if it was a clear Evil then then I would have expected at least a couple of words on the subject. If it is necessary to say "thou shalt not kill" (or I believe murder in more recent translations) and slavery is only one notch below that in Evil then you might have expected there to be a mention somewhere.

I really don't see the point in going into another tangent here. I brought up chattel slavery and cannibalism to contradict the idea that morality is defined by popular opinion, not to derail the thread further.

That being said,
1. I do not think slavery is intrinsically evil (see * below) which is why I specified chattel slavery in my post (which I tend to think is intrinsically evil),
2. I did not say that "slavery is only one notch below murder in evil". Slavery generally seems real bad to me. I don't know about all the rest of that stuff you made up and then attributed to me.

* Imagine it's 10,000 BC and you just got attacked by a strange tribe of one thousand men who were led by someone who hated you. He was a also a good provider, so plenty of people followed him. You defeat his army and there are one hundred of his men left alive. What do you do with them? If you let them go free, there's every chance they might sneak into your camp at night and kill you. There are no prisons. You don't have the technology to transport them magically away from you. You can kill them, but that kind of sucks. In this circumstance, slavery to me seems like a mercy. You enslave them, you get to know them, you integrate them into your society, you humanize them and show your humanity to them, and you hope to be able to integrate them at some point. This seems better than just executing them outright to me.

Having wandered through your references it is clear that Native Americans were seen as not-slaves from quite early by the Catholic church (15xx) but it takes until your last reference in 1888 for black Africans to be not-slaves. So again for something where natural reason "clearly" says this is evil it took a while for it to be actually said. As an aside I have to say that Urban VIII was an interesting character - wars, overspending and banning tobacco in holy places - in the last at least he was clearly ahead of his time!

If you'd like to talk about this topic, we can. If you're going to sneer at me, I am not going to spend time carefully thinking through your question, gather useful sources for you to look at, and then writing up a careful response. If you want to talk sincerely, great. I'm in. If you want to sneer, you can go look in a mirror or find some midwit on reddit to exchange words with.

Believe it or not I'm not attempting to sneer at you - I _am_ poking at your argument, which seems to me to be, that there is a single eternal objective morality that defines some acts as evil irrespective of circumstance that can be discovered through reason. You brought up slavery & cannibalism as obvious evils so I assumed that they fell into that category. You then provided me with references which I assumed were meant to back up your argument so I read them - I found them less convincing than I think you do and I pointed out why - if slavery is simply bad and has always been bad (which it would have to be if we are dealing with an objective morality?) then why didn't the first bull simply say that enslaving anyone is wrong rather than picking a particular set of people for which it was wrong.

I used scripture as starting point because you quite often appear to use Roman Catholic Christianity as a touchstone for this eternal truth.

I doubt we are going to agree but I respect that you believe what you are saying here.

FWIW I do agree with your 10,000BC example above.

3

General Comments / Re: A Pill for Men?

« on: March 08, 2023, 06:57:09 AM »

Just for my personal satisfaction, given that you cited slavery & cannibalism as obvious Evils could you give me chapter & verse refences in the Bible for where they are prohibited - Old Testament preferred as if they are clear Evils they shouldn't need Jesus to refine the laws to include them. I'm being literal with cannibalism here - I'm talking about eating the flesh of humans not killing people for food so it isn't covered by "though shalt not kill" - people who fell off a cliff and died would be fair game.

Where in the bible does it tell me that e = mc^2?  God gave us revelation in scripture and he also gave us our natural reason. It is through natural reason that I can see that chattel slavery is immoral. This view has been affirmed by the Chruch numerous time: Sublimis Deus, Bulla Cum Sicuti, Commissum Nobis, Immensa Pastorum Principis, In Plurimis and so on.

The framework in which you challenged me to respond -- citing the bible exclusively to justify any belief -- is called Sola Scriptura (scripture alone) and it is both modern and erroneous. This is a protestant view and it is rejected as heresy by Catholics. It's worth noting that the man who popularized this idea (Martin Luther) removed seven books from the bible to support his other theological beliefs. God gave us revelation through scripture and he gave us our natural reason.  Faith and reason are harmonious and mutually supportive.

I brought up scripture in relation to slavery as slavery was certainly practiced at the time and if it was a clear Evil then then I would have expected at least a couple of words on the subject. If it is necessary to say "thou shalt not kill" (or I believe murder in more recent translations) and slavery is only one notch below that in Evil then you might have expected there to be a mention somewhere.
Having wandered through your references it is clear that Native Americans were seen as not-slaves from quite early by the Catholic church (15xx) but it takes until your last reference in 1888 for black Africans to be not-slaves. So again for something where natural reason "clearly" says this is evil it took a while for it to be actually said. As an aside I have to say that Urban VIII was an interesting character - wars, overspending and banning tobacco in holy places - in the last at least he was clearly ahead of his time!

4

General Comments / Re: A Pill for Men?

« on: March 08, 2023, 06:27:52 AM »

It is through natural reason that I can see that chattel slavery is immoral.

So how does that differ from "Evil is what I think is evil"? Or are you suggesting that your natural reason is unarguable and infallible?

5

General Comments / Re: A Pill for Men?

« on: March 07, 2023, 04:55:29 AM »

I don't see how it is possible to define Evil as something other than "what most people agree is evil" if you want a constant definition - the only other definitions are "what I think is Evil" and its close cousin "what I've been told is Evil". I'd be fascinated by an objective definition of Evil. (To be fair that may have turned up in the "Existence of God" thread and I missed it - if so sorry.)

Just for my personal satisfaction, given that you cited slavery & cannibalism as obvious Evils could you give me chapter & verse refences in the Bible for where they are prohibited - Old Testament preferred as if they are clear Evils they shouldn't need Jesus to refine the laws to include them. I'm being literal with cannibalism here - I'm talking about eating the flesh of humans not killing people for food so it isn't covered by "though shalt not kill" - people who fell off a cliff and died would be fair game.

6

General Comments / Re: coronavirus

« on: March 06, 2023, 04:17:29 AM »

No, I think I'm going to stand up for Cherry here. Cherry has been absolutely 100% behind masks from the word go - I honestly believe that he would has been quite vociferous in his condemnation of unmasking even if directly dictated by Trump (and there is no doubt in my mind that Trump would have ordered the same but sooner). The language might have been a bit softer or using words like "wrongly advised" but he'd have been against it.

7

General Comments / Re: coronavirus

« on: March 02, 2023, 07:52:06 AM »

I think I'm just going to have to go with respecting your views but thinking you are wrong here. FWIW having done a little stats trawling the UK (where I am) has similar death rates (per unit of population) to the US though more variable, but if I pick the Netherlands (who were very relaxed about the whole thing) then they've low single digit deaths/day for the last few months, tending towards almost zero now. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/netherlands/ and even allowing for the fact they only have a population of 17ish million that is way down on the UK or the US. Of course they (and Japan) may have different standards for what constitutes a "covid death" to the UK / US - that standard is know to vary quite widely between countries.

8

General Comments / Re: coronavirus

« on: March 01, 2023, 01:28:58 PM »

I really don't think that you can compare Japan's and the US's covid stats and say "the only thing that made this difference was masks". The cultural differences add up to more than that.

9

General Comments / Re: coronavirus

« on: March 01, 2023, 12:20:16 PM »

I think you overestimate the degree of backlash. A non-trivial section of the Republican party thought masks were silly to begin with and I've yet to be convinced that Trump ever cared in the slightest about mollifying any Democrats (calling them names doesn't count).

10

General Comments / Re: coronavirus

« on: March 01, 2023, 06:17:47 AM »

Cherry - do you believe that Trump would have kept mask mandates in place for longer than Biden? He certainly didn't appear to have any fondness for wearing them...

11

General Comments / Re: A Pill for Men?

« on: February 17, 2023, 05:48:38 AM »

Bad for men. Bad for women. Bad for society. No thank you.

Why? It may be obvious to you - it isn't to me.

12

General Comments / Re: McCarthy and the House Speakership

« on: February 09, 2023, 05:05:46 AM »

I can't believe that I'm standing up for Seriati but actually I can trivially believe that many people who have to fill in US tax returns have foreign bank accounts. Simply having an American passport is enough to require that (as I understand it) so many people who live and work abroad (from the US) and may have done so their whole life have to do so - even just to say "I owe nothing". They will inevitably have "foreign" bank accounts.

13

General Comments / Re: McCarthy and the House Speakership

« on: February 09, 2023, 04:59:55 AM »

And whilst I don't have a citation for this I believe that the accepted figures in the UK are that the government gets back approx £6 for every extra £1 spent on HMRC (UK IRS). So from a sound financial basis you should spend more on enforcement. It is mostly politics that stops it.

14

General Comments / Re: Balloons and Intelligence Assessments

« on: February 07, 2023, 11:18:43 AM »

To be honest this feels like a storm in a teacup. It seems wildly implausible to me that US could fail to spot these things & track them and then if they started going anywhere that the US didn't like (the Chinese may have some control over the direction the balloon travels but its not great and they aren't fast) then I do not doubt the US has the ability to bring them down. So having said that it seems a little implausible that this is, in fact, any sort of national security issue.

15

General Comments / Re: Debt Limit Standoff

« on: February 03, 2023, 05:21:00 AM »

Funny, scary was how approached from the right or left Libertarianism seems to lead to the end of democracy.

But surely that is pretty much the point? If "do what you will within the letter of the contract" is the whole of the law then what requirement is there for government, let alone a democracy to support it?

16

General Comments / Re: McCarthy and the House Speakership

« on: February 03, 2023, 05:16:31 AM »

I'm going to attempt to defend what I also see as a completely egregious fine - if tax had been payable on the sum then sure it might have been reasonable but, for once, I have to agree with you that this is unfair. For what it is worth I'm perfectly prepared to believe that the SC at al. are completely correct in the law (law not having any requirement to be 'fair'). I can also see that the IRS, having found themselves in a court case, determined that they needed to win it in order to prevent future, less clearly stupid, cases costing them (and the taxpayer) time and money. So its a pig, in a "fair" world the IRS would have won the case and then let her off anyway - sadly tax services aren't like that.

However - 1 crap example does not tell the whole story. She was undoubtedly an easy target, but if you want to try to tax the very rich you need more resources, they already have armies of lawyers and accountants obfuscating things in maybe legal ways and it takes time & effort to break them and they do have to simply process everyone elses returns, which I imagine takes the bulk of their resources as a fixed cost. So you might hope that if you add funding it would in the main go towards getting at the harder targets.

17

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: January 23, 2023, 04:43:56 AM »

As a matter of fact, Trump has stated that the Secret Service who guarded his home and stored unclassified documents have always kept strict visitors logs.

If that statement meant more than simply Trump has said something (a hardly unusual occurrence) then we probably wouldn't be having half the disagreements that we are.

Dan Bongino who was employed in that position for multiple presidents from 1999 to 2011 backed up that fact and also noted that the SS did the same with all of Biden's offices and homes.

Assuming that is true I'm hardly surprised - they would be extremely remiss in their duty if they didn't keep such records at least for a while (there might be mandatory destruction after some period). It does mean that Trump, or at least the Secret Service (SS seems defamatory) could release the Mar a Lago records though I'm guessing that there are strong precedents for the Secret part of Secret Service applying here. If you lose faith in your bodyguard because they tell on you then they can't do their job.

18

General Comments / Re: GOP nutbag of the week

« on: January 22, 2023, 05:52:11 AM »

Well it looks like NM GOP leaders knew about some of his issues and still supported him.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/despite-red-flags-gop-backed-151113023.html

I'm guessing that they just wanted a disposable candidate since they knew they were going to loose and didn't recon that there would be any particular press attention on a candidate that lost in a seat which was always going to be lost.  Its only 'cos he then went properly crazy that any of this has been found. I'll bet that both sides field questionable candidates in seats they have no chance in, though a little bit more due diligence in this would have been good.

19

General Comments / Re: Debt Limit Standoff

« on: January 19, 2023, 01:31:16 PM »

Sadly I don't think that "compromise" in politics means what we all thought it used to mean any more. These days it means "you give us something, we give you nothing"

20

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: January 13, 2023, 12:23:55 PM »

I haven't even raised any number of issues here, like for instance, that Trump didn't pack his own boxes and that members of the GAO would have been the ones that actually did much of the work.

I have to agree that it is exceptionally unlikely that Trump ever does any manual labour so he wouldn't have packed his boxes. The point to a large extent isn't that he had the files it is that after being asked to hand the files over he didn't get someone to do so (he wouldn't have packed those boxes either). If he'd done that there might have been a couple of days of press but it would have been all over ages ago.

If we are doing the conspiracy thing then maybe he made sure to keep some stuff back so it would cause a ruckus and he'd be back in the press again. Because we know that he withers away if he doesn't get enough attention.

As we know from his trip into the Whitehouse the GAO includes significant amounts of staff hostile to Trump.  It's not even an unreasonable idea even if it is still a conspiracy theory, to think how easy it would be for that staff to pack some files with secrecy labels and to convey that information to partisans at the National Archives.  Some of the relevant officials at the National Archives have hate-ons for Trump.

Did you ever think there might be a reason we so many people that interact with the man dislike him? (Its not jealously of his massive  intellect.)

21

General Comments / Re: McCarthy and the House Speakership

« on: January 05, 2023, 09:34:19 AM »

The BBC reported that Fred Upton, a former Republican congressman from Michigan had put himself forward as a candidate. Does anyone think that a _former_ republican congressperson might make a plausible candidate? The idea does seem to tick the boxes of (a) republican and (b) not beholden to Trump which might allow for cross party support. Or is this just pundits fantasising wildly?

22

General Comments / Re: The Jan 6 Commission

« on: January 03, 2023, 05:47:40 AM »

Assuming that there is any truth to the allegations that "Pelosi reduced security" I'm going to bet that they come down to:

[security] Our dept wants more money
[Pelosi] Why?
[security] (thinking quickly) Some idiots might want to stage an armed insurrection!
[Pelosi] Come off it. You got anything to back that up?
[security] ... The internet is full of nutters?
[Pelosi] Come on...
[security] But Trump??
[Pelosi] Even he's not that daft. Have you seen the budget? Denied.

In hindsight Pelosi was of course wrong.

23

General Comments / Re: GOP nutbag of the week

« on: December 12, 2022, 12:19:58 PM »

You mean this one, where she says if she and Bannon had been in charge of Jan 6 it would have succeeded?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/marjorie-taylor-greene-capitol-attack-144634447.html

The only reason the Jan 6 people did not win is that they were not armed? Really? Oathkeepers did not go through metal detectors due to the fact they had guns.

If the rioters had used guns, it would have been a bloodbath, but then the election probably would not have been certified and Trump could have declared martial law. So a win for them, I guess?  If all it takes is dozens of dead protestors, cop and Congress people, that is a small price to pay to keep Trump in charge.

Whilst I really doubt that I agree with her on anything, in this case you are mischaracterising her remark. Taking the remark in a bit of context it is clear that she is poo-poohing the suggestion that she and Banon organised it - to rephrase "Of course we didn't do that - if we had it would have worked." That statement doesn't require her to support the actions of the mob to be true. (Though to be honest I really doubt the bit where her planning would make anything work better.)

24

General Comments / Re: coronavirus

« on: November 24, 2022, 02:41:59 PM »

Masks aren't crazy, they are variably helpful depending on type and other usage precautions but certainly if you choose to wear one then that should be respected.
There is no doubt however that Covid is endemic now. We aren't going to eradicate it; we can make what is now Flu+Covid season a bit better or a bit worse by behaviour but that is all. Even the Chinese still get sporadic outbreaks, and I don't think all of them can be blamed on the outside world.

25

General Comments / Re: coronavirus

« on: November 24, 2022, 04:55:21 AM »

Cherry - The linked article is short on numbers, but does eventually get round to pointing out that once you get enough people vaccinated (and their vaccinated stats are for everyone who has ever had a single shot) then this is going to happen for any vaccine that is short of 100% effectiveness (i.e. all of them). It does eventually get around to saying that, depending on age group, the unvaccinated die at between 5x and 12x the rate per capita of the vaccinated. So this is another of those articles where the implication of the headline is mostly contradicted by the substance of the article.

26

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: November 17, 2022, 10:13:50 AM »

I think the difference is that we expect Biden (and most other people) to tell the truth and so it is newsworthy when he fails. Nobody expects Trump to tell the literal truth ever so it can be excused as "it's just his way of speaking".

27

General Comments / Re: US Government Censorship program on social media being unearthed.

« on: November 07, 2022, 03:34:08 AM »

To be honest I don't see why the media have to take all the blame for the drinking/injecting bleach confusion. Trumps own supporters are plenty capable of that grade of confusion without any external help.  And it's a common pattern of his speech - he often uses phrases along the lines of "I've heard it said that I'm the smartest man on the plant" when he wants his supporters to believe that he is in fact the smartest man on the planet. If carefully analysed you would probably come to the conclusion that he said it to himself whilst looking in the mirror and it is strictly true but meaningless. But this is how he so often phrases things that his minions take it as a true statement / command / direction.

28

General Comments / Re: US Government Censorship program on social media being unearthed.

« on: November 03, 2022, 06:43:05 AM »

Quote from: Wayward Son on November 02, 2022, 05:10:31 PM
Quote from: Crunch on November 02, 2022, 03:27:18 PM

Cloth masks stop viruses?

Cloth masks helped slow the spread of viruses.  Ask the flu virus for the last couple of years.

Actually John Hopkins released research that said masks only concentrate the contaminates and increase the virulence.

I have seen you make this statement before.  I was surprised to see this and have tried researching it but have not found anything.  Can you please provide a link because I am only seeing masking support from John Hopkins.  The only thing close was a line that stated that masks are not effective unless worn correctly.

Here's one (after a good 10secs of searching) https://egc.yale.edu/largest-study-masks-and-covid-19-demonstrates-their-effectiveness-real-world

OK - they aren't great but they do do something.
By and large they are going to do next to nothing at stopping the wearer getting infected from pure airborne viruses, but they do help with stopping droplets escaping from an infected person. So the mask that that does you some good is the one the other person is wearing.

29

General Comments / Re: The Jan 6 Commission

« on: November 02, 2022, 10:14:58 AM »

We aren't here in the backwaters of the internet to sway broad swaths of public opinions, admitting disagreement with the party you vote for doesn't cost them elections based on the zero votes swayed on Ornery. Our statements aren't trending on Facebook/twitter/tik tok. We are only here to discuss politics and current events with other people. Its a great place for me to discuss with individuals with differing opinions. I have zero incentive to sit on here and lie about what I really know to score some political point that means as much as the points on 'Who's Line is it Anyway?'.

Are you sure that we even make it to "backwaters", maybe "soggy patch within sight of the backwaters"? :-)
But still, I like it here - maybe I'm weird.

30

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: October 12, 2022, 11:15:01 AM »

BTW, George W. Bush did not die in 2017 - that was his father.

True but it was George W. Bush's father George H.W. Bush that Trump was talking about and, as you say, he is the one that is dead.

31

General Comments / Re: So, how is Uncle Joe working for you?

« on: October 07, 2022, 06:19:10 AM »

It should be mentioned that Biden supported the law that he's now against. So he's admitting that he's been wrong for the last 28 years. I suppose though if his son isn't in prison for much worse, at least it makes sense that Biden would do this much for those guilty of much less.

I dunno - on the whole I don't recon 28 years between passing a law and then going "maybe that wasn't the best idea" is a screeching U-turn. Forcing a standard where any decision, once made, must be irrevocable no matter what happens in society/politics in the meanwhile doesn't seem sensible, and on the whole I would be very suspicious of any politician who never changed their mind about anything.

32

General Comments / Re: The Book Banning Begins

« on: October 04, 2022, 07:11:39 AM »

Kansas: The Handmaid's Tale, Watchmen, Slaughterhouse Five, etc.

You are never going to see me get worked up over the removal of comic books, aka graphic novels, particularly ones that show people having intercourse or being raped, from public schools. Graphic novel adaptations are worthy, I'm not denigrating the art form, but lets not confuse them with literature.

If you aren't denigrating the art form then you are at least damning with faint praise.
Do you believe that a story told in graphic novel form is inherently less worthy than a similar story in the form of a novel? I will certainly grant that for some stories graphic novels are a poor choice but for others (e.g. environmental description of the unfamiliar) graphic novels can achieve things that are very hard for a novel to pull off.

33

General Comments / Re: Who funds the candidates?

« on: September 30, 2022, 11:13:30 AM »

American campaign finance always seems really weird from the UK where party spending is limited by law to approx 3 orders of magnitude less than in the US - even allowing for some armwaving about what counts. And even that level of advertising is plenty annoying enough...

34

General Comments / Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?

« on: September 24, 2022, 11:06:28 AM »

Even if they were arguing that you and your family, specifically, should be slaves? Or murdered by the state? Or forced to give birth to the children of their rapist?

There may be value in attempting to understand why people have certain beliefs but that doesn't mean we shouldn't dismiss those beliefs out of hand.

It is possible to both believe that a given philosophy is correct and for you to be directly disadvantaged by it - indeed you can argue that it is only by taking negative consequences from a belief that you can show that you actually believe in it rather than it just being a convenient cover for self-enrichment.

35

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: September 22, 2022, 12:04:26 PM »

The results say they can be changed and the court says there is proof of that changing.

Could you point me at a document produced by a court that says that the machines changed results in an election please (not documents containing allegations presented to a court). So far I've missed that one and a simple web search produces buckets of allegations, but nothing actually produced by a court. Thanks.

36

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: September 22, 2022, 05:20:13 AM »

Wow! Having become confused as to which court cases were actually going on I went and searched for it.  This article gives the timeline & list of running related cases:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/09/19/after-court-lets-fox-news-challenge-move-forward-heres-where-dominion-and-smartmatic-defamation-suits-stand-now-and-who-could-be-next/

Gosh there are a lot of them! Without researching each one the central suit seems not to be that the machines are hackable, but that the various defendants asserted that they were hacked and used to change the result of the election - which I hope everyone can see are two different statements.

37

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: September 21, 2022, 10:43:20 AM »

I think it is fair to say that worries about insecure voting machines have been around forever.  They've been insecure in the last election, the election before that and the election before that, but to suggest that the results of those elections hung on which side had the better hackers seems implausible to me. I would have been utterly astonished if a security audit hadn't found any holes. But so far there is no proof that they have been hacked by Republicans or anyone else.

To me the paper trail largely settles the issue. That was a glaring hole not only for malfeasance, but just plain software errors. It is possible that a hacked machine could flip the votes on both the screen and the paper, but the machines I've used print the paper, which I hand carry over to be recorded. If the recording machine got hacked, then you'd still have the paper for a hand recount or audit. And no amount of hacking can make the recording machine alter the paper. I've seen other systems where the paper trail is just visible to the voter, and some of the voters could overlook a discrepancy, but not all of them. It would be exposed, it seems.

I'm relying on second-hand reporting, our (UK) voting is MUCH simpler (typically one cross made with a pencil on a piece of paper), and I got the impression that some m/cs produced paper trails and some didn't. I'd definitely be in favour of the sort that did.

38

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: September 21, 2022, 06:15:00 AM »

Judge Wright also found sufficient evidence that Lindell knew or should have known his statements were false and acted with “actual malice” in promoting them, a key legal threshold in defamation cases.

That doesn't sound much like "the facts Mike had and presented as proved and accurate". It kind of sounds like the opposite.

If you rephrase it as "the [allegations] that Mike had [which he] presented as proved and accurate" then it does fit. And, allowing for some Trumpian value of the word "fact", the former can be parsed as the latter and the judge's suggestion is that the presentation as "proved and accurate" was malicious.

39

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: September 21, 2022, 05:28:45 AM »

I think it is fair to say that worries about insecure voting machines have been around forever.  They've been insecure in the last election, the election before that and the election before that, but to suggest that the results of those elections hung on which side had the better hackers seems implausible to me. I would have been utterly astonished if a security audit hadn't found any holes. But so far there is no proof that they have been hacked by Republicans or anyone else.

40

General Comments / Re: London Bridge is Falling?

« on: September 20, 2022, 04:32:05 AM »

I do have opinions on gin, but seeing as they are mostly small UK distillery opinions they won't translate well to your side of the pond. My greatest disappointment gin-wise was finding out that Bombay Saphire wasn't actually blue - it was just the bottle (otherwise its quite a nice gin).

Are you anti-Beefeater?

No I'm not - to be honest I've never tasted it - I've tasted and liked (in the established brands) Tanquary, Bombay Saphire, Hendricks.  Gordons is what I grew up on & is bland but usable as a mixer.

We have some good gins over here. The difference between good gin and bad gin is quite startling.

Just to be clear I wasn't suggesting that the States/Canada don't have worthwhile gins - the practice of dumping herbs into pure alcohol is pretty much universal and some of the results are really nice, others are interesting but odd, others will just get you drunk and aren't so bad after the 4th glass. My statement was meant to say that telling you about the locally infused gin I picked up in a small shop near Hadrians Wall that was very strong in elderflower would be fairly pointless as you couldn't get it.  The current fashion for gin means that every hamlet now has its own local selection.

41

General Comments / Re: London Bridge is Falling?

« on: September 19, 2022, 10:46:01 AM »

I do have opinions on gin, but seeing as they are mostly small UK distillery opinions they won't translate well to your side of the pond. My greatest disappointment gin-wise was finding out that Bombay Saphire wasn't actually blue - it was just the bottle (otherwise its quite a nice gin).

42

General Comments / Re: London Bridge is Falling?

« on: September 19, 2022, 10:34:26 AM »

I've never forgiven the US Budweiser Corp for forcing the (original) Budweiser from České Budějovice to rename their beer.

43

General Comments / Re: coronavirus

« on: September 19, 2022, 10:26:57 AM »

Here in the UK, with decent vaccination rates we're in the "it's endemic now - just live (and die) with it" stage, much like flu. I've had my reminder to get my (free) flu & covid jab for free as I'm over 50. Otherwise, precautions are pretty much back to pre-pandemic non-existence. I think when someone says "it's over" these days they mean it has been accepted like car crash or flu deaths. We aren't going to get rid of covid in the foreseeable future, treatment & vaccinations have brought the death toll right down so I guess that pretty much everyone's risk/reward has ended up on the side of "f*ck it".

44

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: September 19, 2022, 10:17:40 AM »

The rest have been bought off by The Soros/Gates cartel. It is just proof of how deep the swamp is. All the more reason for Trump to get reelected so he can clean the swamp up even more.

There is actually a fair bit or reporting via alternative channels indicating that the lack of lawyers has to do with major and minor law firms putting down a firm "You shall not" policy in place in regard to Trump. So while the individual lawyer might be inclined to do so, the law firms they're part of are not, out of concern that other paying customers they represent will seek out representation elsewhere.

So while they might be chomping at the bit to represent Trump if they could, even if it'd be pro-bono, they're not willing to lose the paychecks they're getting from their current jobs to do so.

To be fair this sounds fairly plausible - the law firms themselves might also like getting paid which is maybe why they choose not to work for Trump. But on the other hand if a lawyer really wants to work pro-bone for the good of Trump then they could just do so - getting paid is nice but the joy of being on the side of Truth would be its own reward :-)

45

General Comments / Re: GOP nutbag of the week

« on: September 15, 2022, 05:32:59 AM »

What's really at issue is the average person (and Congressperson) isn't going to be up on the tech scene enough to be able to judge whether 'that time' has finally come where getting bio-tracking will be a legitimate concern. To them it's already that time. That may not be accurate, but the concern should probably be addressed in advance (it won't be).

RFID has been with us for a couple decades now. Amazon even setup a demonstration store using RFID to allow a customer to walk in(identified by RFID--presumably a phone or other more "passive" item responding to the active ping at the doorway. Then you go through the store, pickup what you want, and leave. It'll bill you for what you exit with automatically as each item was RFID tagged and scanned as you walked out the door.

I think this https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/we-test-the-worlds-first-amazon-go-watch-you-shop-grocery-store/ is what you are referring to and that isn't RFID it's a "conventional" login + a lot of cameras.

46

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: September 02, 2022, 04:53:59 AM »

However, as an aside, I find the idea of prosecuting a former president for violating an executive order, during their term of office no less, seems to be a bit... Awkward politically speaking.

Definitely awkward but Potus can't be above the law. Still I would drop all investigations if Trump agreed to quietly go away.

What are the chances of Trump doing anything quietly?

47

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: September 01, 2022, 10:48:37 AM »

Currently their is an Executive Order for classification and declassification, it could be overridden by a subsequent President, but until done so the EO is in effect.

Do you have a pointer to the text of that EO? It would add some actual facts to the current discussion about who can do what and when.

48

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: September 01, 2022, 08:05:24 AM »

A slight wrinkle on the classified paper argument is that I've just heard an (ex?) FBI agent on the BBCs Americast podcast (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0cxm9wx) assert that the classification status of documents is whatever the _current_ president says it is - so it doesn't matter what Trump may or may not have done, its whatever Biden says it is and if he chooses to say it is whatever is written on the front of the document then that is what it is.

49

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: August 28, 2022, 09:36:20 AM »

Again, where does Trump get the power to declassify the documents? You say he has ultimate power to declassify. Where does it say that in the Constitution?

Nothing I've seen so far has suggested that Trump, whilst president, didn't have the power to declassify documents. I think we have to give him that. Whether or not that power came with requirements that he follow procedure to do so is a lot more murky. I've certainly seen no evidence that he told anyone that had had declassified any of the documents in question. He equally certainly can't do so retrospectively.
If they are now, in fact, declassified then all of them should immediately be published in full to show everyone just how innocuous they are.

50

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: August 23, 2022, 07:12:32 AM »

I guess if you are a Democrat apologist that it is easier to denigrate truth-tellers than it is to reconsider your incorrect dogma.

s/Democrat/party or belief of your choice/ and that is a universal truth.