metalslug

Although, if you had actually watched the clip in the first link , you would know that person is speaking against what his child's school actually did, not what they said or 'scaremongered'.

As with many topics; it appears that there are several aspects to CRT: from potentially valid concerns such as redlining and zoning laws (which I don't know enough about to have an opinion) , and yet also some absurdities that damage CRT or it's intended purpose. Two samples here and here are people of colour speaking out against CRT, and it would be curious if members of this forum were to argue that the opinions of these two people are 'wrong'. Neither of these videos include redlining and zoning laws, but that may be because redlining and zoning laws are not at the forefront of the school policies and fallacies that the speakers in these videos are speaking out against.

The squeaky wheel gets the grease ? If the ethnicity aspect of crime statistics (Floyd's fate was a crime, I agree) should be used to determine a preferred remedial action then.... if law enforcement were to disproportionately stop, search, detain specific groups based on statistical data indicating a crime trend within such groups, or within an area having a demographic majority of such a group, then that's OK too ? ..or does it not cut both ways ?

I don't think that's an accurate metaphor. Consider perhaps if my friend was with 8 other people in a bus, which suffers an impact by some random event killing those 8. My friend survives the initial event, severely injured, but another driver subsequently crashes into the accident scene, killing him as his health is already compromised. I'd feel a bit sour about that for sure, because it's a subjective interest, but is my friend's life necessarily more valuable than the other 8 lives in the bus ? Objectively it's not.

There's an online link somewhere (I'll find it if needed) mentioning research by U.C. Berkeley and U Washinton that places the average temperature difference between the two hemispheres at around 3°F since climate change. If the Northern hemisphere is impacted 5 to 10 degrees (per billvon estimate?), and the difference between hemispheres is 3 degrees (placing the Southern hemisphere at 2 to 7 degrees increase if applying the Berkeley difference number), and the average of both together is 1-2 degrees higher, then I'm not seeing how that math works. It's not a trick question, I'm genuinely keen to know. There seems to be a fair bit of 'spitballing', even by experts, around climate estimates and this is very unfortunate considering the impacts of this topic and, in some cases, extraordinary grandstanding. billvon has stated that warm weather that kills people is a combination of heat wave, geographical features, and the climate change. So, when heat waves killed people several decades ago there was nothing to talk about, but when they kill people now then we have a soapbox to stand on. It's sounding as though we can now assign blame for every death and the entire event to a single cause. I would however like to thank (genuinely, not sarcastically) the replies to my questions. I have been swayed and enlightened on a few things, specifically a better understanding of relative economic cost, which were largely my original questions. I reserve some skepticism on other aspects of the topic which I don't think can be effectively debated here.

It's an extraordinary claim to assert that a full 115 degrees lies squarely at the feet of global warming. Hypothetically, if the world was net-zero tomorrow, and/or a full degree lower on average, would the 115 degrees reduce to a more survivable 95 degrees ? , with no chance of seeing even 114 degrees ? Forgive me, but I doubt that. The very gradual loss of Manhattan Island; would you regard that as "destroying people's lives" or "reducing the earnings on their 401ks" ? Sure, I don't have the personal budget to relocate it, or any other place, but neither do I have a budget for the wide river of lithium batteries as one of several things that would need be recycled or responsibly disposed. A poster replied that, yes, they can be recycled, but apparently not for much profit, some cursory reading suggests we're barely recycling 20% of them globally at the moment, so who will fund the incentive to recycle more ? If one properly relocates an island, that's once in several thousand years, and some of that would be construction 'attrition'. Thunberg-predictions aside; how much time does Manhattan currently have ? I seem to be reading an estimated 50% loss by 2060. Based on that; I have to also believe that property prices in Manhattan are currently in freefall, and that the attrition of that area as old buildings are demolished and new buildings are constructed, are not being constructed on Manhattan Island anymore ? ..as nobody would add new infrastructure to a doomed island ? Is that what is actually happening there now ? Again; hypothetically, if we were net-zero tomorrow, would that save Manhattan in time by instantly stopping ocean rise or, indeed, reversing it ? Is the effect that fast ? It might not be a stretch to say the island is doomed already, if assuming that it was ever at that level of danger. At what point does one cut and run ?

Would there be any realistic way to approximate the relative cost of all these proposals vs gains, in economic terms ? I don't consider myself a denier; I accept the NASA stats of rising average global surface temperatures and sea levels over many years, but we're talking about very small amounts here, and are more-than-matched by technologically advancing and very resourceful humans and, indeed, nature itself which is very resilient. A lot of 'green energy' solutions require manufactured components that leave their own pollutants, waste and energy costs in their wake; batteries, solar panels, wind blades, etc. If the intention is to replace all our petroleum vehicles with electrics by year xxxx, that's a lot of batteries with few recyclable parts consuming a lot of electrical energy that will have to come from somewhere. In some countries that will still be their coal power stations, and a lot of energy gets lost in those transfers from source to end-user. Is it ultimately still efficient ? ...efficient enough to fully balance or gain with the development, manufacture, maintenance and waste disposal costs vs our current fuel-powered machines ? When it gets stated that global warming threatens 'the world', is it not more accurate to say that it threatens specific countries and/or cities while actually benefitting other areas ? Many members here may be aware of higher than usual crop yields in many parts of the world, directly attributed to higher rainfall, perhaps even higher CO2, and indeed the coolest summers in 15+ years (this year's grape and grain crops in Australia for example). Much gets said about island nations shrinking in size although other islands are indeed growing in size, neither of which is necessarily related to sea level, as islands can be affected by coastal erosion and coral reef sediment respectively, as can mainlands. Parts of the world have seen devastating bush fires in recent years. I mention this not because I think they are related to global warming but rather as a reference to the remarkable recovery of those areas within a few years or less, or the near total recovery of Australia's Great Barrier Reef barely 5 years after a brief warmer current bleached parts of it and had climate change activists screaming "Armageddon !". It's a testament to the resiliency of nature to recover from extreme events, and yet climate change activists are encouraging a literal 'break a sweat and scream' panic over a few degrees within a century, with some gullible followers wondering if the very air around them would be too hot to breathe within their lifetime. It's dangerous fear-mongering, as damaging to society (or worse) as the deniers. I believe there is a rational middle ground where one can accept the facts of warming without spreading an absurd panic on impressionable people, especially in view of many climate predictions that have proven false since they were made ("there will be no snow at location xxx by year 2020....."). Again I state that I do not deny the very small global average rise, but wild predictions and doom prophets do a great disservice to that side of the debate. True; several large coastal cities are threatened by even a small rise in ocean levels, but this won't happen overnight, surely there would be time and resources to relocate such structures and areas with ample time ? Society has a remarkable ability to rebuild and recover. It would certainly be lousy, as an economic loss, for the people who own or reside in those threatened areas, but if we think that converting the whole world to net-zero emissions energy is not going to be an economic loss for billions of other people, in other business, in other areas, then we're kidding ourselves. Either way here, we'll have a lot of losers. Can we be sure where the most economically fair global average gains will be made, vs the losses ?

Not sure if anything similar was posted elsewhere, but this one is popular outside of the US;

If more people knew the 'g' part of that acronym then they probably wouldn't be doing it quite so much...

(Re-posted here from S&F to this preferred forum category.) Does this happen because the new & improved site is so wildly popular now ? Occurred approx 4pm (GMT+11) on 31/10/2019 lasting at least 10 minutes.

Moved to Error & Bug Reports

Agreed on both. I believe this can cause more harm than good. A generation from now someone will be trotting this out as the new reason for the difference in success rates; "We were taught differently !" and thereby discriminated/disadvantaged or may certainly claim to be. Lest we forget how IQ testing methods and outcome studies have been accused of racism. The article mentions that English scores were likewise also notably different and alluded to additional subjects as sub-par. To me this is more suggestive of the quality of general education and/or the diligence of the student, possibly affected by socio-economic factors and certainly not exclusively a mathematics education problem. Even if we assume a worst-case causality that a genetic component exists I don't believe it should carry quite such a strong stigma. The traits discussed are not the full measure of a person's worth or ability to succeed in society. My math will never be as good as some academics on this forum and I'm fine with that. Having limited natural ability in the subjects that we typically measure can still get you appointed (or elected) to hold office in many countries.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/us/trump-transcript-isis-al-baghdadi.html Must be the same guy who worded the letter to Erdogan; Puerile locker room bravado...

Alrighty then; perhaps for anyone who may care to know: (1) I had not intended to quote richravizza, I accept that those words were 'El Paso' content. (2) The image depicts a fictional comic & movie villain infamously known by some for wiping out half of all universal life with a snap of his fingers in a magical gauntlet. (3) This villain is merely a parody on the 'El Paso' manifesto and should not detract from the subject thread. This is Greta's moment in the limelight.

No, no, you cannot counter a gun problem with more guns, you're missing John's message. Better to bludgeon the armed assailant with a bulb of garlic, until it's banned. I greatly enjoyed firearms for recreational target shooting and I probably still would if I had the opportunity. In South Africa I had a concealed carry pistol for 15 years. I empathize with the gun community and I get where their interests lie. With that being said... In 15 years I never had occasion to draw my pistol in response to a threat and I have since emigrated to Australia. FYI on Australia's NFA; one such study here , a pertinent summary note includes; Their research also showed that while there had been 13 mass shootings (using the definition of five or more people killed) in the 18 years before the law changes, there had been only one (Margaret River in May 2018) in the 22 years following. Modelling suggested that if shootings had continued at a similar rate as that prior to the NFA, then approximately 16 incidents would have been expected by February 2018.

I'm wondering if these comments were intended as jocular. Realistically of course, we're unlikely to see either of these things. It's an age-old argument and a degree of naivety in ignoring physical gender differences and there should be no stigma to that. Would anyone really find it entertaining to see a female quarterback sacked by a 250 pound male linebacker or be on the receiving end of any substantial sport contact ? In an era of progressive politics, safe spaces and the 'me too' movement; even the social interactions of genderless team contact sports would be potentially absurd before they even take the field. However, I do find it curious that chess competitions have gender categories. I was hopeful that this could be an area of equality but no such luck; There are no 'men-only' tournaments but there are 'women-only' tournaments. Not to hijack the thread too much, this topic is discussed here and, yes, high ranking female players are duly noted there. Referring back to the OP; I watch sports to admire the best skills and to be entertained by spectacular moves, I don't go to 'see my team win'. Winning is just the gravy. I generally expect most sports enthusiasts feel this way and hence this drives the 'economy' of sports. It's fantastic if the women's team genuinely, objectively play better but it's less remarkable if winning their gender category is the only criteria for 'better'.

As a tiny sampling (maybe I'll just get one): I'd be keen know if any posters on this forum would state here that their vote for Trump was influenced by (what we now know to be) Russian misinformation or meddling. As a 'just sayin', I do not regard the leaking of Hillary's emails (assuming they are authentic) as misinformation, it's on par with parading Trump's dirty laundry. I believe the Russian's have received way too much credit here and I am keen to be enlightened by some solid causality that counters my belief.

Fair point. Although, you can't have it both ways I guess; Either democracy died many years ago ever since the electoral college had that role, or it's an integral part of a living democracy.

I don't like Trump much myself, but unless I've missed evidence somewhere that the actual vote count was tampered with, he's the guy that voting Americans wanted. Sure, it's a sad a reflection of a 'government of the people', but it's about as democratic as it gets.

Err.. no it doesn't. He asserted they should get paid more <than the men> because they are better <than the men> . That's how I read it, more is not equal.

I'm fairly sure that "Captain, my captain" is not a cricket reference, more likely a reference to Walt Whitman's poem which was popularised as a phrase since Dead Poets Society. This livery was only applied to one 737-86N around year 2010, it has likely been repainted or discontinued since then. Good for a laugh, though!

Deleted

I'm going to need help on this one. How does the article or incident correlate to Trump ? (I have never watched 'Empire').

So; the Flores Consent Decree from 1997 (during Clinton's term) and related applicable immigration law passed by US Congress during whichever years, are regarded by you as equivalent to the executive orders of a Nazi dictator during the 1940's ? ...and consequently implying that government officials have the option to thumb their nose at such laws in much the same way as German officers should have ? Seriously ?