Lostwingman

Milton Friedman argued, in the 1980s but as far as I can tell it's still true today, that a simplification of tax code would increase government revenue whilst also reducing taxpayer burden.  He also argued that it was impossible for such common sense reforms to ever be made for political reasons.
 
This wasn't a Laffer Curve argument either.  This was assuming no economic growth due to the changes he proposed.
 
Tax code is enormously complex, not because it's highly optimized for revenue maximization or for minimal disruption to the economy or even for wealth redistribution.  Tax code is optimized first and foremost as a delicate piece of political theater; a goal which is obviously orthogonal to any of those other goals, and that is why it sucks generally.
 
Current taxation consists of very high marginal tax rates for the highest brackets combined with a labyrinthine web of exceptions and exemptions so that almost nobody in those highest brackets actually pays those rates.  The high marginal tax rates are necessary to convince the voters that their politicians really are sticking it to the rich.  The web of exceptions is necessary to convince the rich donors who actually matter that they are being taken care of.  Obviously, politicians don't actually write this crap, pressure groups and lobbyist's assistants and civil servants do the heavy lifting, because the actual politicians are basically human ornaments who just sort of officiate over the process.
 
Enacting a streamlined, efficient tax code is impossible because both factions would be tempted to re-insert either the high marginal rates or the web of exceptions to make sure that their constituents didn't get screwed over.  The eat-the-rich crowd would be worried about losing face and having all the loopholes quietly reinstated, while the fuck-the-poor crowd would be worried about the marginal rates being jacked up and them having no loopholes to evade those rates with.  It's a classic defect-defect outcome of the prisoner's dilemma.
 
 

I keep a rabidly leftist girl as a friend on facebook just to get her opinion on issues, and it is grand. 
 
The first I heard of the repeal was from her own mouth. 
 
 
Pretty sure cancer was a preexisting condition, no matter what health care plan you have.
 
I wonder how she affords her monthly health care costs, when she spends so much in hair dye and old cameras... 

The best arguments on the "hoax/scam" side don't deny this. However, look at how much of global CO2 emissions are human generated. It's a tiny fraction of the overall total (most is emitted from the sea).
 
 
The reputable skeptics don't deny this. Moore doesn't.
 

And ice cream consumption matches up with shark attacks, as Moore argued.
 
 
Oh, really? Please, show me a compelling source that illustrates this! I mean, that. Because you know what, I'm not an expert, and so I've asked a bunch of climate change proponents for Lloyd's Lintel, and gotten exactly jack and squat, besides offers for me to go fuck myself.

The hostility that I get when I ask this question (which I historically have done very nicely, for what should be obvious reasons) is pretty suspicious to me, but that's really another subject.

I'm serious, if you've got real evidence for the lintel please send it my way. I've never seen any.
 
 
Um... You know that greenhouses are... Green, right? Like, even the most extreme climate change predictions say we're going to warm by a few degrees over the next hundred years, which sounds pretty green to me.
 
Very long term, maybe it's a problem, sure. But that's very long term. Contrast that with the "in the next ten years [fifteen years ago]" alarmism.
 
I DON'T know what's really happening. And you know what, I don't think anyone does. Why? Because whatever is really going on, whether it's a real problem in the near term or not, it appears for all the world as if this has become a scam. It smells like a scam, looks like a scam, acts like a scam, and upon close dissection appears to be a scam. I am sure real scientists and (occasionally) real science is involved. But overall, I can only consider it a scam.

Which doesn't even mean its doomsday predictions are necessarily wrong. What it means is that because there is a scam going on, which is promoted by powerful individuals and organizations, real science and therefore real prevention measures are impossible.

US Presidents shake hands with scumbags all the time.  It's part of the job description.
 
The one who looks like he's trying not to cry at the terrible visage of John Kerry is Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, to give his full, made-up Africanized name:
 

 
Teodoro Nguema is not a nice man.  The only good thing anyone can say about him is that he's a much nicer person than his uncle, whom he killed to take power in Equatorial Guinea.  While Francisco Nguema was a flamboyant supervillain who ordered men dressed as Santa Claus to machine-gun his opponents in a sports stadium while Mary Hopkin's Those Were The Days played on loudspeakers, his nephew, after he pulled a Hamlet, proved to be a boring, run-of-the-mill corrupt autocrat.
 
Teodoro Nguema personally steals the majority of his nation's GDP.  The people of his country suffer from diseases that are trivially preventable like polio.  The country isn't poor; it has a miniscule population and produces almost as much oil as Libya.  The government is just laughably corrupt and awful.  In a right and just world, Equatorial Guinea would be invaded by a stronger, somewhat less corrupt neighbor and have its entire government fed to sharks feet-first on live TV.  But if you do that sort of thing there would be gigantic hue and cry in the UN defending the rights of Equatorial Guineans to be arbitrarily jailed and tortured by a man who steals all their mineral wealth.
 
Here is Teodoro Nguema looking upset to be shorter than Michelle Obama, who could probably kick his ass:


 
And here he is again with Secretary of State Rice:


 
Here is President Obama with Gurbanguly Mälikgulyýewiç Berdimuhamedow:


 
Berdimuhamedow is a megalamaniac, but he's got goddamn nothing on the previous president of Turkmenistan.  Saparmurat Niyazov, who ruled until 2006, named the month of January after himself, and had a golden statue of himself that rotates to face the sun built, was definitely setting the standard for eccentric despots.  Again, his successor is just sort of run of the mill oppressive and corrupt, but the US plays nice with him because it needs bases in Turkmenistan to support operations in Afghanistan.
 
Here's Nixon meeting with Mobutu:


 
Most won't remember, but Mobutu was a darling of the Western press early in his reign.  Presumably this is because journalists were just as fucking stupid back then as they are now, although their writing was considerably more polished at that time.
 

 
The man on the left is Robert Mugabe, who was when this picture was taken already notorious for using child soldiers.  The man on the right who looks like he wants to get on his knees and gag himself unconscious is of course, the Peanut Farmer.  Three years after this picture was taken Mugabe was ordering mass rapes and ethnic cleansing.
 
Here's the shrub with Islam Karimov:


 
Karimov is notable, among other things, for having people executed by boiling them to death.
 
 
 
 
I could go on.  My point is, Ruhollah Khomeini called the USA the Great Satan, and the USSR the Lesser Satan.  And we fucking earn it.  So suck it Russia!  We're the biggest Satan in the world!

We're playing the Will-The-President-Sit-Across-The-Table-With-An-Evil-Dictator game again?
Cool.
Because I can remember in 2008 when candidate Obama said he'd sit at the same table with the leader(s) of Iran and Republicans lost their shit and Democrats said it made Obama an honest broker and a diplomat. Sen. McCain wasted part of two Presidential debates on the subject.
 
It's like the media recycles the same tired narratives.

No absolutely not. More people need to realize this.

Are we still ragging on BSM?
 

Spicy

Girls gone Halal.

Girls gone Halal.

Girls gone Halal.

The issue is "sort-of-settled". There are a lot of things that are real facts, and a lot of things that are speculation, and a lot of things that are obvious bullshit. That's pretty much "science as usual", though. The problem has come because of the politicization of the issue and the way they've tried to sell the public on it. I mean, sure, there's some culpability to assign to the climate skeptics' equivalents of anti-vaccers (not all climate skeptics qualify as this, though), but a lot of this skepticism was a self-inflicted wound.

I mean, for one thing, the climate change folks' narrative has dramatically changed multiple times within a lot of people's lifetimes. It was an impending ice age, then global warming, then "climate change" (a noncommittal euphemism that sure is perhaps more technically accurate but still sounds like a weaselly copout to literally everyone). Throw in the fact that you can't even ask questions about it anymore* without people jumping down your throat and calling you anti-science, and yeah.
 
Anyone who doesn't sexually identify as a scientist sees a huge steaming load, here. That doesn't mean that climate change is actually a huge steaming load (though there are still some pretty compelling reasons - like climate models - to think maybe it is at least a little bit), but it does mean it's being sold the same way a steaming load is sold.
 
*I don't mean "ask questions" as in "ask smarmy retarded questions" I mean literally "where's the restroom" type stuff, nor by "people" do I mean "random idiots". I once recall watching a video from Veritasium, and commenting something like "I am not a climate expert; could you point me to resources that show the link between human activity and warming patterns?" and him chewing me out as a retard for asking.

When you get a welcome like that, well, it's not too far a jump to think maybe they have something to hide.

Maybe if the Left in our country hadn't spent the last 5 decades protesting nuclear power, western medicine, vaccines, GMOs and most of the technological progress of the 20th Century, then maybe we wouldn't have an atmosphere where everyone feels the right to question "scientists".
 
That's not to say that Republicans and their foot soldiers in the Religious Right haven't contributed their fair share. But the last I checked, Republicans generally aren't the sort to wrap themselves in the flag of SCIENCE! in order to use it as a rhetorical argument while posting OBNOXIOUS Neil deGrasse Tyson, Stephen Hawking or Bill Nye quotes on social media.
 
Here's another photo.
 

 
Yeah. How DARE a politician run on a platform of bringing back American prosperity like the sort which we experienced in the 1950s when the median household only needed one bread winner and a high school graduate could afford to buy a house AND a new car based on the earnings from that single union job.
 
The 1950s btw when Americans unquestioningly had confidence in "scientists" and pop culture was filled with images like this.
 

 
It's like these people WANT to lose elections.

I don't understand how "I only have sex with people I'm attracted to" became an identity.

lol.  Still need to watch the whole thing, but I find it rather amusing that CNN and Sad Border Jumper are trying to play a DUI off as something as trivial as a parking ticket.  Sad!

Speaking of violent protestors, weaponized autism did it again and the cunt who was whacking people with a bike lock has most likely been ID'ed.  
 
The guy had his face covered while whacking people, but he made the mistake of not having it covered the entire day, despite everyone everywhere recording everything.  He helped teach philosophy at SFSU and generally had a lot of himself online to doublecheck stuff with.  A lot of the things he wore there are also things he often has on him for normal stuff.  Same facial features, pen, eye color, clothes, boots, backpack, glasses, bike lock, was at the rally, and nuked his online presence once he was found.  Isn't 100% proof, but it's rather convincing.
 
This is apparently from his okcupid or something.  Elsewhere on the page says he's interested in "helping to precipate the end of civil society" and spends a lot of time thinking about revolution.  Sapiosexual is a new one for me (google tells me it's sexual attraction to intelligence, so in other terms he's fedorasexual).

This is pretty magical:

The US State Department and other US government organs believed their own propaganda.  Remember this?



The US government is filled with aging Baby Boomers who feel considerable nostalgia about the social uprisings that defined their generation.  They also feel guilt about not having participated in them more vigorously, and wish to vicariously participate in such uprisings elsewhere.  They became convinced that the entire Arab world was filled with hip, Western-educated young people who aspired to live in shiny, Western-style democracies instead of shabby, corrupt dictatorships.  With a little help from their friends in Washington DC, they could make their dreams a reality!  Yes we can!
 
Also, once the revolution was complete there were going to be some shady oil deals and whatnot to sweeten the deal for some of the people involved.  The first batch of diplomatic cable leaks have alluded to some of these.  But this isn't to say that the US government started all this chaos to get their hands on oil.  They're simply not that rational.  The horrifying thing about US foreign policy is that the US is so overwhelmingly powerful, and so completely insulated from the consequences of its actions, that the primary goal of US foreign policy is to posture and to gain advantage in US domestic politics.  If you live outside the US, you are just a puppet on a string, dancing to a solipsistic and insane tune played by the blind idiot god of America.  Unless you live in Russia or China and to a lesser extent India.  They have nukes and they're not afraid to tell the US government to shove it.  Everywhere else?


 
So, the Democratic Party and their extended network of allies in the State Department and elsewhere decided to prove their purity and support for Democracy by assisting in the overthrow of secular dictatorships throughout the Middle East.  This was, in retrospect, and also a the time, obviously a bad idea.  While these countries did have large numbers of hip, westernized youth who were tired of the corruption and economic stagnation of their homelands, these countries had even larger numbers of Islamists who were older, better-funded, better-organized, and far better at playing the game.  The results were entirely predictable; the young, cool, hip protesters who basically wanted to turn the entire southern coast of the Mediterranean into LA were quickly displaced and cowed into silence by barbarians who want to dynamite the pyramids and conquer all of their neighbors so they can have them as rape-slaves.  Also, I want to point out that that last sentence sounds like a breezy, poetic exaggeration but it's actually literally true.
 
This happened pretty quickly; it was obvious that Islamist elements were wearing the pants only a few months into the Arab Spring movement.  But the US government does not let mere facts stop it.  Instead of quickly pulling support and walking away while pretending nothing happened at all, the US government decided that if Islamists had taken over pro-Democracy protests, Islamists must be the true face of Democracy in the Middle East.  Seriously; that's how come you get retarded buzzfeed articles like this one lamenting the suppression of the Muslim Brotherhood.
 
Very quickly, a number of governments that managed not to implode decided that if Uncle Sam was going to act all retarded and shit, they might as well do their best to make sure that it was directed at their enemies.  These countries, chiefly Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Turkey and Israel, formed a surprisingly effective alliance of strange bedfellows that aimed at exporting their domestic political problems and at sticking it to the Persians.  Saudi Arabia has a long history of religious radicalism, and an almost equally long history of exporting those radicals so they can get killed by airstrikes from civilized countries.  Qatar is a Salafist country that is looking very nervously at their own 20% Shia minority and what's going on in Yemen and Iraq.  Turkey is run by a knuckle-dragger who stays on top because his opponents are completely retarded, and who needs displays of foreign military might to keep his base satisfied with his lack of internal success.  Israel's Likud government has a precarious hold on power and opposes an Iranian ally and long-standing rival.
 
So, by making sure that a bit of money got into the right pockets, this coalition has kept the mostly Islamist opposition in Syria fed and armed.  Propaganda in the US, funded by the Saudis and powered by boomer egos, has mainly kept the public from realizing that this is exactly the sort of anthill that the US does not need to stick its dick into, although they have remained opposed to large-scale deployment of ground forces.
 
The biggest losers are, of course, the mainly secular, hip, westernized youth for whose benefit this idiotic operation was started.  And yes, I'm sure they would grit their teeth and side with Assad if any of them haven't been killed.

Oh boy it's that implaccable gud boi of high moral standing, John McCain. Him and his wilting southern belle counterpart need to just retire already.

Look, I'm a patriotic American, and this sort of video makes me happy.  You see, as a patriotic American, I have long believed that my country makes the best propaganda.  Tremendous.  Huge.  The best, believe me.  Bigly.

This video is an excellent example of how to do propaganda.  Good propaganda consists mostly of statements that are true.  You don't make up your own facts, you make up your own interpretations of those facts.
 
So, while most of what Klein says is basically true (and the things that he says that are wrong might be honest mistakes; in 2015 less of the truth had leaked out), the overall story is slanted.  And not even obviously slanted; a lot of his big-picture stuff is also essentially correct.  His breakdown of the factions and their foreign backers is pretty accurate, for instance.

For instance, he describes US aid to the rebels as starting in 2013.  While it is true that the US was not providing the rebels weapons prior to this date (at least not in large amounts), they were providing food and medical supplies since 2011.  So it isn't like the Obama Administration was responding to outrages by the Assad regime; they had been materially supporting the rebellion almost since the start.  Maybe from the very start, if you believe that the CIA was involved with the earliest stages of the revolt back when it was still part of the greater Arab Spring movement (I think that this is a reasonable, but unproven guess).
 
The bit about how Assad released prisoners to "tinge the opposition with extremism" is a clever bit of spin.  I paused when I heard that, because it sounds like retarded comic book villain logic.  "Hahahahahaha," said Assad, "I will increase the rebels manpower by releasing extremist prisoners even though I am near Qatar and Saudi Arabia, two countries well-known for supporting extremists!  The prisoners I release will definitely not call their jihadi friends from those two countries!  I am so smart!  Mwuhahahaha!"
 
...Yeah, I couldn't see that happening either.  Here's my take on what was actually going on:

Prior to 2011 Syria was actually helping the USA in the Global War on Terror.  Mostly, Syria was used as a CIA black site where people that the US intelligence apparatus scooped up disappeared into.  So Assad generally releasing prisoners in 2011 sounds to me like Assad realizing that the honeymoon was over, and shutting down the CIA's black site because he didn't need that in his country anymore.  Also, I strongly suspect that a lot of the stories about torture and extrajudicial executions happening in Syrian prisons prior to the revolution were aided and abetted by the CIA.
 
So now Assad is getting criticism from the US government for torturing and killing people, which he was doing because the US government asked him to.  Lovely.  If you want to get ahead in international politics, I have three words for you.  Don't.  Trust.  Jonathan.
 
Anyway, in 2013 there was a sarin gas attack that was allegedly by the Syrian government.  I say "allegedly" because aside from the perpetrators of the attack, nobody is still quite sure who did it.  Either this attack was the result of ongoing incompetence by Assad's military (who, let's face it, are generally incompetent with the exception of individual formations) because there were all sorts of things that needed gassing way more than civilians, or a false-flag intended to build support in the USA for the war (Seymour Hersh alleges that this is the case), or even a simple mistake (it's possible that pesticide storage got hit, and some pesticides are chemically very similar to sarin and in large amounts produce almost identical poisoning).

Anyway, the usual story that gets spun is that Obama backed down from a US military intervention in Syria because the US public was tired of war and because Obama is a pussy.  This is partially true, mostly the part about him being a pussy.  Truth is though, the US has been engaged in a massive air campaign over Syria since 2014.  They just haven't been hitting the Syrian government.  On top of that, since at least 2013 the US has been supplying Syrian rebels with weapons, so the usual media line that gets peddled in the West that the US is aloof or relatively uninvolved in the conflict is bullshit.
 
Klein's video's account of the origins of DAESH aka ISIL aka ISIS aka Jama'at al-Tawhid wal-Jihad is really the low point of the video.  He's way, way, obviously factually off.
 
ISIS didn't form in 2014 in Syria.  It formed in 1999 in Iraq, although it didn't come to the attention of US intelligence until the mid 2000s, and was only able to make a serious nuisance of itself by about 2012.  The idea that ISIS didn't engage the Syrian government is also laughably wrong; look at the siege of Deir ez Zor, but that was something that was commonly repeated in Western media as late as 2015.
 
He also repeats the claim that Russia didn't bomb ISIS in 2015.  This isn't really true; about 10% of the initial Russian air campaign was directed at ISIS, memorably some of the early kaliber cruise missile strikes.  Again, this was a narrative that the media has quietly withdrawn, since Russian air support was instrumental in defeating ISIS in Palmyra and holding the line in Deir ez Zor.
 
His main thesis, that the war is a mess with no obvious end in sight, was a reasonable one in late 2015.  His characterization of the players is pretty skewed, however.

As of now, the Assad government is slowly but definitively winning.  Russian air support, re-training and re-equipment of large portions of the SAA, and several key victories (notably Aleppo) have given them the initiative.

Accurate
 

If there turns out to be anything to this, I can foresee the headlines now:
 
 
"Tump wiretap allegations false; it was a combination of wireless, laser microphone and digital metadata techniques used to monitor his communications."

I swear, if Trump walked on water it would be reported as "Trump afraid of water and cannot swim!"

It's making it quite difficult to assess his presidency.