[blackshoe]

nige1, on 2017-March-21, 06:18, said:

A typical example. The government persuaded us that nuclear power was cheap and safe. "Coal-miners suffer worse exposure to radiation than nuclear-power station staff". We weren't told about nuclear melt-downs (e.g. Windscale). Or that the main purpose was to breed Plutonium from Uranium, for bombs. (Hence the potential of Thorium as a nuclear fuel was ignored). Nuclear-power still deserves serious consideration but it's better to base opinion on fact.

If I remember correctly, almost all of the Plutonium produced in commercial nuclear power plants is consumed as fuel. Interest in the nuclear industry (and political support for it) in thorium based power plants has increased over the last decade or so.

[blackshoe]

kenberg, on 2017-March-22, 09:03, said:

Some people who can trace their ancestry to the Mayflower are real jerks.

From what I've read, some of the people who were on the Mayflower were real jerks. The whole "my ancestors came over on the Mayflower" thing just made it worse. Some people just have to look for ways to show they're somehow "better" than everybody else. Got news for those people: they ain't.

[alok c]

Zelandakh, on 2017-March-23, 17:35, said:

Sounds easy, right? The problem is that the Earth's surface is subject to various atmospheric effects that can easily pollute the results. The classic is the famous Bedford Level experiment. Sadly, your method might just as easily "prove" the Earth to be flat rather than spherical. You can do better than this though. Direct sea level observations are generally problematic, so think about how else you might produce a result that is incompatible with a flat Earth.

Measure the distance between two fixed posts sufficiently apart thru air (theodolite,laser) & along ground (chainage) & see the difference.

[Trinidad]

jogs, on 2017-March-23, 10:55, said:

Healthcare is not a right. If it were, citizens would be demanding bells and whistles we can't afford. It is in the government's best interest to provide some minimal healthcare for its citizens.
Maybe it is time for free physicals and free flu shots.

Ah! The "you give them one finger, they take your whole hand"-argument.

[Sarcasm on]
Of course, these Scandinavian girls are so good looking because of their unlimited access to free cosmetic surgery.
{Sarcasm off]

Rik

[Zelandakh]

mike777, on 2017-March-23, 17:38, said:

hang a plum line?

What are you observing for with the plumb line? There is a technique in this area but I do not think you have it just yet.

[Zelandakh]

alok c, on 2017-March-24, 01:32, said:

Measure the distance between two fixed posts sufficiently apart thru air (theodolite,laser) & along ground (chainage) & see the difference.

This is also very close to one of the techniques that works for posts that are large enough (eg long bridges) providing you cal also demonstrate that the "posts" are absolutely vertical in relation to the ground. In fact long suspension bridges need to take account of the difference in lengths between the top and bottoms of their supporting towers to function correctly. But I personally do not have equipment sensitive enough so this is another technique, like satellites, that relies on taking someone else's word for it.

Some other possible proofs include shooting weapons over long distances West and East and observing the difference, or, simple if impractical, visiting the South Pole. But the simplest method is probably the Foucault_pendulum (my reference in the previous post on plumb lines). So yes, there is enough proof out there but it is still imho more difficult than disproving a typical alternative fact, which are usually obviously false from the briefest of investigations.

[kenberg]

I once pose the following question to a freshman math class: When we throw a ball, we assume a parabolic path. When we track a satellite in orbit, we assume an elliptical path. Suppose Baltimore launched a missile to strike on San Francisco. Should we assume a parabolic path or an elliptical path? It led to an interesting discussion, including some thoughts about the fact the Earth is rotating on its axis.

Here is something that I presume is actually done, or at least was done in less advanced technological times. Suppose you have two listening stations A and B placed, say, 500 miles apart. They pick up radio signals from a source C and we wish to know exactly where this source is. You have measured the distance along the ground from A to B, you can measure the angles CAB and CBA, If you want to know the distances along the ground from A to C and from B to C you can use the Sine Law. But if the Earth is flat you had better use the planar Sine Law and if the Earth is a sphere you hand better use the Spherical Sine Law. Of course if the Earth is an oblate spheroid with an uneven surface there could be further complications!

How we know what we know has always struck me as both interesting and practical. I know something about how the ACA works, and I know some people who have been caught up in some of its complications. But I am hardly prepared to give an hour talk on its strengths and weaknesses. Nor on the strengths and weaknesses of its proposed replacement. A good deal of what we "know" amounts to accepting something from a person, an agency or a process we trust. I have never read the proof by Andrew Wiles of Fermat's Last Theorem. I believe it to be correct. Part of what makes that choice easy is that their are no great financial interests lobbying for it to be true or false.

[y66]

From What Do We Mean by ‘Populism,’ Anyway? by Max Fisher and Amanda Taub:

Quote

After Wednesday’s newsletter, our inboxes were flooded with questions about populism. Reader Felipe B., for instance, asked whether it was reasonable to put the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte, France’s Marine Le Pen and America’s President Trump into the same “populist” basket.

It’s a good question. The way the term is thrown around can make it seem like a euphemism for xenophobic politics or even white supremacy. But populism is a specific phenomenon that follows a pretty predictable pattern. Learning to recognize it will give you a new understanding of politics around the world — and of some of the risks that keep us up at night.

At its most basic level, populism is a type of politics that promises to protect and empower “the people” against the “corrupt elites” who oppress them, writes Cas Mudde, a political scientist at the University of Georgia, in this helpful 2004 paper.

That is pretty broad, which helps explain why populist politics can come in many different forms. Populism isn’t so much a fully formed political philosophy as it is a base on top of which politicians can layer their specific agendas, like frosting on a cake. It provides the “people versus elites” framework, but that ideological “frosting” is what defines who “the people” are and how the elites have supposedly oppressed or abandoned them.

Right-wing populists often define “the people” in racial or nativist terms, specifically distinguishing them from foreigners and other out-groups who don’t share the correct “national character” — which, in Western countries, is often coded as white and Christian. And they claim that elites have sacrificed the people to open borders and globalism, often through institutions like the European Union.

Hungary’s populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban, for instance, has said Europe must close its borders to protect its “Christian character” against Muslim immigrants, and argued in an op-ed several weeks ago that the greatest threat to Europe was the “unelected elites” in Brussels who were trying to transform Europe “against the will of the people.”

In France, the anti-immigration, anti-Islam National Front demands “France for the French.” In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders rails against Muslims’ supposed threat to the Dutch people. In Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany party claims that immigrants are diluting the “European character” of the German people. You get the idea.

Left-wing populists, by contrast, tend to define “the people” in class terms and to rail against wealthy capitalist elites. Hugo Chávez, for instance, claimed that Venezuela’s poor and middle classes were being oppressed by the country’s wealthy elite and by international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

But social scientists have found that populists, regardless of ideology, tend to do the same things once in power: undermine liberal-democratic institutions and centralize power in their own hands — often by claiming that checks on their power would prevent them from fully carrying out the will of the people.

Mr. Chavez, for instance, changed Venezuela’s constitution to give himself more power; his ideological protégé, Rafael Correa, did the same in Ecuador. And in Poland, the populist Law and Justice party has introduced new laws since taking power that would reduce checks and balances and undermine the power of the country’s constitutional court.

It’s a worrying pattern — and we think it means populist politicians are worth watching closely.

Populism isn’t so much a fully formed political philosophy as it is a base on top of which politicians can layer their specific agendas, like frosting on a cake? This sounds way better than eat more fruits and vegetables.

[mike777]

Zelandakh, on 2017-March-24, 05:38, said:

What are you observing for with the plumb line? There is a technique in this area but I do not think you have it just yet.

think of a plum line such as a pendulum and a circle of small posts tht it knocks down during the day as it swings.

you observe how the plum line moves in a circle you observe how the earth is a circle...not flat

[mike777]

y66, on 2017-March-24, 07:22, said:

From What Do We Mean by ‘Populism,’ Anyway? by Max Fisher and Amanda Taub:


Populism isn’t so much a fully formed political philosophy as it is a base on top of which politicians can layer their specific agendas, like frosting on a cake? This sounds way better than eat more fruits and vegetables.

Your article just shows how little the author understands the Philippines and its culture.

Just one more example of authors not knowing crap what they write about just another article full of bias crap.

[PassedOut]

mike777, on 2017-March-24, 07:27, said:

Your article just shows how little the author understands the Philippines and its culture.

Just one more example of authors not knowing crap what they write about just another article full of bias crap.

It would be more helpful if you'd give a couple of specifics about where the author is wrong, rather than a purely emotional reaction.

[jogs]

mike777, on 2017-March-23, 17:20, said:

that seems fair and just ...if you want to live in an expensive area you should get more, much more more from the government than those who live in cheap areas. For example I noted my brother in law flew across country to the Cleveland Clinic which is more expensive than where he lives....it seems fair the govt pay more, much more.

Both your doctor should get more and you should pay more in premiums and co-pays.

[Zelandakh]

mike777, on 2017-March-24, 07:22, said:

think of a plum line such as a pendulum and a circle of small posts tht it knocks down during the day as it swings.

you observe how the plum line moves in a circle you observe how the earth is a circle...not flat

OK, a pendulum is different from a plumb line. You have come up with the Foucault pendulum, which is indeed one of the simplest and best known ways of showing the Earth's rotation. There is a little more to it than that in that a flat Earth could also be rotating but it becomes impossible to reconcile the rest of the observed universe with this motion, so this does indeed work as a proof.

[y66]

From The Trump Elite. Like the Old Elite, but Worse! by old elite conservative columnist David Brooks writing about the House Republican health care bill:

Quote

It’s no wonder that according to the latest Quinnipiac poll this bill has just a 17 percent approval rating. It’s no wonder that this bill is already massively more unpopular than Hillarycare and Obamacare, two bills that ended up gutting congressional majorities.

If we’re going to have the rough edges of a populist revolt, you’d think that at least somebody would be interested in listening to the people. But with this bill the Republican leadership sets an all-time new land speed record for forgetting where you came from.

The core Republican problem is this: The Republicans can’t run policy-making from the White House because they have a marketing guy in charge of the factory. But they can’t run policy from Capitol Hill because it’s visionless and internally divided. So the Republicans have the politics driving the substance, not the other way around. The new elite is worse than the old elite — and certainly more vapid.

[alok c]

Zelandakh, on 2017-March-24, 05:52, said:

This is also very close to one of the techniques that works for posts that are large enough (eg long bridges) providing you cal also demonstrate that the "posts" are absolutely vertical in relation to the ground. In fact long suspension bridges need to take account of the difference in lengths between the top and bottoms of their supporting towers to function correctly. But I personally do not have equipment sensitive enough so this is another technique, like satellites, that relies on taking someone else's word for it.

Some other possible proofs include shooting weapons over long distances West and East and observing the difference, or, simple if impractical, visiting the South Pole. But the simplest method is probably the Foucault_pendulum (my reference in the previous post on plumb lines). So yes, there is enough proof out there but it is still imho more difficult than disproving a typical alternative fact, which are usually obviously false from the briefest of investigations.

Apology for highjacking the thread.Ancients at least in India & Greece before Christ measured circumference of Earth to a reasonable accuracy.Still earlier people knew Earth's roundness by observing position of the Sun at Solastices.Here, i am losing a little faith in Darwin.How come people in 21st century,though you may call them fringe but they are measurable part of population (judging by youtube volume) can be such stupids(ignorance is different from stupidity)? Surely collective knowledge is in retrograde at least to some part of main stream(not isolated) population contrary to Darwin's theory!!!

[helene_t]

alok c, on 2017-March-24, 08:54, said:

Apology for highjacking the thread.Ancients at least in India & Greece before Christ measured circumference of Earth to a reasonable accuracy.Still earlier people knew Earth's roundness by observing position of the Sun at Solastices.Here, i am losing a little faith in Darwin.How come people in 21st century,though you may call them fringe but they are measurable part of population (judging by youtube volume) can be such stupids(ignorance is different from stupidity)? Surely collective knowledge is in retrograde at least to some part of main stream(not isolated) population contrary to Darwin's theory!!!

Maybe the environment doesn't favour high intelligence anymore? Survival of the fittest means survival of the dumbest: https://www.youtube....h?v=icmRCixQrx8

[barmar]

mike777, on 2017-March-23, 17:04, said:

Of course if health care is a right, something we all are entitled to no matter what, citizens will of course demand bells and whistles at the very least.

Citizens will of course demand something more, much more than the lowest standard of care

Voting is a right, but that doesn't mean the government will send someone to drive you to the poll.

[barmar]

alok c, on 2017-March-24, 08:54, said:

Apology for highjacking the thread.Ancients at least in India & Greece before Christ measured circumference of Earth to a reasonable accuracy.Still earlier people knew Earth's roundness by observing position of the Sun at Solastices.Here, i am losing a little faith in Darwin.How come people in 21st century,though you may call them fringe but they are measurable part of population (judging by youtube volume) can be such stupids(ignorance is different from stupidity)? Surely collective knowledge is in retrograde at least to some part of main stream(not isolated) population contrary to Darwin's theory!!!

I think there are a few causes of this.

First, there have always been kooks who came up with "alternative facts". The difference now is that the Internet makes it easy for them to spread their ideas far and wide, and gullible people eat it up.

Second, in recent decades much of the population has become distrustful of the establishment. Watergate and a number of political scandals since then have made us distrustful of government. And lay people tend to think that scientists are elitists, and trying to pull conspiracies. It doesn't help that technology has put many of them out of work and created weapons of mass distruction that scare them.

This has resulted in an anti-science backlash.

[PassedOut]

Looks like the republicans found it impossible to come up with anything better than the ACA, so threw in the towel. Seems like I was hoping in vain for Trump to reveal his wonderful, best-in-the-world health care plan for us. Oh well. Now he can focus on explaining to the generals how to eradicate ISIS once and for all.

[mike777]

jogs, on 2017-March-24, 07:47, said:

Both your doctor should get more and you should pay more in premiums and co-pays.

no no no you misunderstand. We are talking about free health care I am not paying anything. At this point we just debate whether I get to fly free coach or free first class.....stuff such as that.