Sunday, July 11

How you KNOW it's not about the issues

I'm very horny from having been punished yesterday,  and David is watching the soccer match that he somehow thinks is more important that seeing to the needs of his wife, so I will sublimate my horniness into a political post, because I so crave the inevitable resulting abuse I get in the comments.

So many of the issues that divide us have obvious solutions that neither political party jumps on, so that they can keep an issue alive that energizes their base and the resulting fundraising and outrage-fueled voting. I'll give you a few examples.

Global Warming and Energy Security

Whether you think man-made global warming due to fossil fuel use is a thing or not (I for one, don't, as I wrote about in There is no "Climate Catastrophe"), a solution that would be good for all is crystal clear: invest in Gen4 Nuclear.

Unsafe nuclear fission reactors, or ones that generate toxic radioactive waste, is a thing of the past. We are now approaching commercial viability of Gen4 technology.

Essentially unlimited power capacity, completely safe against meltdown and nuclear waste (and in fact can even consume existing nuclear waste), and do not produce bomb-making stuff. They also emit no carbon dioxide at all if that is important to you, or pollution of any kind.

Why are we not shouting this from the rooftops to solve all the real and perceived problems with fossil fuels and energy insecurity (e.g. California unable to provide enough power to keep their homes cool in a heat wave)? Ask your politicians.

Problem, fucking, solved.

Systemic Racism

There are people who believe our countries are systemically racist, meaning that even though all the laws are level, there is some inherent memory built into the system that keeps descendants of former slaves down.

The answer seems blindingly obvious. Break the cycle by improving education for all children. We can argue about the means: school choice, more dollars, better centralized planning, breaking the teacher's unions, and so on. But it's telling that there is not even a legitimate debate on the issue. Where is BLM on this? Are they screaming for better education for black children? I have not heard it, just a lot of loud rioting and rhetoric with no practical suggestions.

Improving education for children need not be discriminatory at all. Lifting up all children, regardless of race or anything else, will disproportionately assist the underprivileged, which will even more disproportionately effect children of colour. This should be the number one issue in the developed world.

Problem, fucking, solved.

Immigration

You want to fix immigration? Just do it. Start by shutting down illegal immigration. Who wants immigration that violates the laws? Then pass laws, arrived at by a process of compromise, for the types and amount of immigration that you can all agree on.

Problem, fucking, solved.

Fentanyl Overdose

This is a huge problem.

Fentanyl overdoses are going through the roof. Almost all the fentanyl originates from China from known entities, then flows into Mexico in Cartel-controlled territory near the US border, and then through the porous US-Mexico border into the US and thence distributed throughout the US and into Canada.

Pressure China. Pressure and assist Mexico in taking down the cartels, tighten up border security (see above). Make it a major national priority.

Problem, fucking, solved.

Forest Fires

Whether you think a recent uptick in forest fires is due to global warming or not, it is universally agreed that a major contributing factor is lack of forest management: allowing undergrowth to accumulate, not doing controlled burns, and so on.

What dropped it in the 1950's was good forest management. What has contributed to recent increases is poor forest management (whatever other causes may be present).

Will ringing your hands over global warming solve this problem? No! Good forest management will solve this problem, regardless of your position on global warming. Just do it.

Problem, fucking, solved.


Why are these problems not being solved? It's our dysfunctional political system driven by media-clicks and outrage theater. We can do better, and we should insist our politicians do better and replace them otherwise. Vote for policies, not personalities. Use your common sense.

62 comments:

  1. Ha! Getting teased like you deserve, naughty girl. Hopefully David's big cock is heading for your naughty asshole after the match.

    But how will the gravy train in Washington/Ottawa/London/Berlin keep running if we actually solve these problems, Julie?! Think of the livelihoods of these poor grifters!

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    1. My head is now clear! Yay... 🤤

      Exactly, who's going to stop the gravy train.

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  2. Fuck politics.

    Did you watch the poirier vs mcgregor fight yesterday? I seriously think mecgregor needs an attitude adjustment. Maybe a raw spanking and corner time, followed by a public twitter apology?

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    1. We did. We thought Connor was doing well on the feet, especially his kicking game, but he was outclassed on the ground, as usual. But a nasty break at the end of the fight OMG! He was just pissed off how it ended. Competitive guy. But not ok to threaten his opponents with death and stretchers and such. Karma bit him hard in the ankle. Punishment enough. Dustin is hot, btw!

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    2. Mcgregor hasnt been the same since Khabib (the GOAT) put that beating on him 3 years ago.

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    3. I like Khabib, but his game seems pretty one dimensional. He just didn't stick around long enough, or fight often enough, for his opponents to get his number like what happens with everybody else (like Conner).

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    4. Khabib's striking is actually underrated imo. He has like 8 KOs in his career. Which is pretty solid. Also Khabib has like 13 fights in the UFC. Connor has 14 till now. So I think they are about equal there. But yeah all said, he should have stuck around a bit longer. But its smart that he left at 29-0.

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    5. Everybody in the UFC has "pretty solid' striking. But watching Khabib wade into a barrage of punches to get to the other guys' legs was pretty bad!

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    6. Not everyone has solid striking. BTW when did Khabib wade into a barrage of punches? The Conor fight? Conor was the one that got rocked in round 2. Also, he has never been cut. So strikers just fail against him.

      BTW the issue with Conor is his mindset. I think his time is up.

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  3. All solid, practical changes that should be implemented, except I think you're simplifying the immigration issue. Yes, definitely crack down on illegal immigration (but maybe make it easier to travel between countries so good people don't need to resort to dealing with coyotes?), but I think it's cheating to essentially say change the system until you get the types and amount of immigration that you can all agree on... Haven't we all been doing that since the invention of border control?

    Hope you're getting a good, hard fucking now the match is over!

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    1. Well, at least that's one result he was hoping for!

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  4. He’s watching soccer!? I was disappointed the habs lost too, but watching soccer is not the answer. The oilers got swept 😪

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  5. “David is watching the soccer match that he somehow thinks is more important that seeing to the needs of his wife…”

    Looks like someone is asking for more punishment!

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  6. WE love you, Julie

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  7. Your idea of contextualizing your political post (itchy buns, more to come) is brilliant.
    If journalists published their articles with an introductory paragraph reminiscent of the context of writing:
    written,
    "waiting for a whipping from mistress Violet"
    "while my dog is licking my pussy"
    "in a diaper full of my hot piss"
    could be attractive :)

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  8. They’re friggen long too! Imagine having to spend the length of the game in the corner Jules? Red bottom bare, as penance and a compliment to your public apology?

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    1. It would be worse to have to watch it. Yawn! Like watching paint dry.

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  9. I have a lot of experience in the school choice field and it is not a solution to system bias in society. I generally support choice programs but their benefits are wildly exaggerated by their proponents. First, the benefits are generally mixed but even accepting the studies showing positive benefits at face value, the magnitude is typically small. Second, choice schools have highly variable quality. Some are really good, like KIPP schools. But others are really poor. Moreover, different forms of choice vary in quality. Charters are often better than vouchers, for example. Expanding choice programs is no guarantee of benefits.

    Yet, even if they worked as claimed, that does little to address systemic bias in society. Choice might a solution to improving education which is good in and of itself, but it is at best a tiny part of any solution set for systemic bias which involves a wide range of social institutions including finance, banking, governments, infrastructure, as well as education.

    Relatedly, Scott, and your, focus on teachers unions may be understandable as a political stance but greatly overstates their power. Unions have very limited impact on classroom instruction. Unions also have much less power in some states than others. In the south and west they are quite limited. Like all unions they do good and bad things but they are hardly a major source of systemic bias. That's just hyperbole to justify political opposition to them.

    I work in policy (mostly education) and pretty much every policy is far more complex than people realize. I agree the US government is largely disfunctional now given partisan hatreds. But policy is complex because the world is complex and simple solutions are either not simple or not a solution. I encourage anyone who thinks "all they need to do is" to consider that perhaps there is more to it than they are aware.

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    1. Improving education is barely even an issue was my main point.
      Teachers unions keep bad teachers employed, moving from school to school, and pooling in the schools in underprivileged neighborhoods.
      Choice at least let's the good ideas flourish.

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    2. Educational reform is notoriously difficult to implement. Most parents agree the current system sucks, but nobody wants to gamble their kid's futures on an experimental new system that could turn out to be worse. Then factor in the pain in the ass it would be to re-train and re-structure. Implementing real change would be career suicide, unfortunately.

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    3. It's funny that you wonder why BLM and other black organizations are not more supportive of choice. Yet as your comment shows, choice is linked to attacking the real target- teachers unions. While many like choice programs there is also support for their local schools and for unions. In many areas the local school district is one of the best sources of well-paying jobs and benefits. I can say from personal experience that seeing choice programs used to undermine unions and local schools just makes many in the black community feel like pawns.

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    4. No, I wonder why they are not more supportive of improving basic education for all as a means to an end.

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    5. Tanky, school choice is a very reasonable alternative that has proven to work in some situations. Current centralized approach is not getting the job done, let's try a more free market (but well regulated) alternative.

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    6. I guess it's my bias going through the UK private school system (private meaning government-run, i.e. Free for everyone, it's confusing!) but I'm always going to have a problem with public schools. Class is a much bigger deal than race over here, and assumptions are made about people that went to public schools (That they're posh and rich, basically!).

      My comment was pointing out the inherent problem that everyone wants the best for their little Timmy and Sally, but they're not going to risk Timmy and Sally's futures by having them be the guinea pigs for a new, better system.

      Education is one thing I really hoped the pandemic would shake up - let's create a better system for these kids to come back to, given that their education has been interfered with already.

      Like you say, improve basic education for all. Though I'm sure BLM are in favour of it, but their main goal is stopping police brutality, right? It's a bit like criticising a charity that fights cancer for not tackling the homeless problem.

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    7. They are not specifically for stopping police brutality, they are for stopping it against blacks. A major contributor to disproportionate instances against blacks is disproportionate police contacts related to disproportionate violent crimes. Better education and more opportunity for blacks via better education will assist the situation. Can you think of anything else that will replace that?

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    8. Acfually, I did have a plan saved on my laptop for reforming education, defunding the police and ending all prejudice, but I deleted it to make room for an episode of Bar Rescue.

      Your argument almost seems to be that if black people were better educated then the police wouldn't kill them so often? Maybe the cops need better training and education, or just less guns?

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    9. If a small group commits a disproportionately high amount of the violent crime, do you think that group would have more per-capita contact with police or less?

      For a group having more per-capita contact with police, would you expect more per-capita incidents of police brutality or less?

      Lowering the rate of per-capita violent crime by better childhood education would help those stats, no?

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    10. I am 100% in favour of better education for all, it would be lunacy not to be. I understand why that would reduce police brutality towards black people, and indeed all people, over time. I'm just saying I get why it's not on the BLM agenda; they have other concerns.

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    11. I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree about this... I think the onus is already on the average black person to learn how to act in the way that is least likely to get them harmed by the police. It's the police I would re-educate, if not radically reform. I don't really get why you're bringing race into education, but I think that's my UK bias; as we've discussed before I see discrimination more in terms of money and class, the haves versus the have nots. It's unfortunate that in the U.S. the poor and the black are too often the same. Am I worried that Blue Ivy or Jayden Smith got a bad education? No. I don't believe that in the case of education the system discriminates by melatonin levels, it distinguishes between dollars and cents.

      The only point I was trying to make is shaking up the education system is a tough sell to Joe Q. Public, because even though he probably thinks the system could be better, he's unwilling to gamble his kid's future on a new system that could be a total flop.

      To me it's almost like BitCoin. I'm sure there are some people who home-schooled their kids or sent them to special schools that benefited hugely, the same way a very small number of people did incredibly well investing lots of money in BitCoin at the right time. But are you going to convince every single person to switch to a new currency they don't understand? I don't think you are! Most people aren't going to invest all their money or their children's futures in an unproven system, because it's just too valuable to risk.

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    12. I am specifically NOT bringing race into education. Improve the school system generally. I agree that under the current system, it is the least well off that are suffering the most. Improving it generally will disproportionately improve the lot of the underprivileged and ought to lower the crime rate amongst the underprivileged.

      I don't think well-regulated private schools (as we call them here) are a big gamble and a radical departure. Let parents direct education funding to the school of their choice. Give innovators in education a chance and let the population vote with their redirected funding dollars.

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    13. Well then you're bringing education into race... You argue for educational reform under the heading "Systemic Racism" and suggest BLM should be campaigning for it.

      I agree that better education for everyone would be a good thing, especially for the underprivileged. Same page club, 100%! But I was taught in my Philosophy of Politics class that most parents are reluctant to let their kids be the pioneers of a new system. That makes sense to me. It explains why, when you strip away all the advancements in technology, school today is basically the same as it was at the beginning of the 20th century: an adult lecturing about a given topic, a group of children taking notes, and then those children being tested to see if they've retained that knowledge and if they can implement it correctly. In my limited experience, and again things may be different here in Blighty, public schoo!s, i.e. Ones funded by individuals rather than the government, which you have to pay for your darling progeny to attend, are the ones that hold on to traditional values and are most resistant to change.

      I think that although it's illogical, real parents with skin in the game would consider well-regulated private schools to be a big gamble and a radical departure if they offered a different approach to teaching than parents are used to. Over here public schools basically teach in the exact same as as government-funded private schools that are free for everyone. The difference is they have smaller classes, better teachers and resources, and have the option of being stricter with who they teach and who they expel. A kid in one of my classes would often run out of the classroom and climb up a tree. The teacher would follow him out and try to send him to in-school suspension. He was the son of a farmer and knew he'd take on the family farm when he graduated. I doubt that happens much in schools where kid's parents are spending £17,000 a year for them to be there.

      From what I've seem of Degrassi your Canadian kids are doing all right - maybe they're a little melodramatic, but good kids on the whole!

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    14. There's no particular reason to expect BLM to advocate for education reform. After all, their mission is police reform. It's a bit of a stretch to argue that K12 policy is a means to police reform. But I don't expect Americans for Tax Reform or the NRA to advocate for education reform either. School choice is just not a direct part of their missions.

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    15. Do they really "advocate for police reform", or do they just shout and riot? They certainly collected a lot of money, most of which was funnelled to Democrats. It's an outrage-fueled fundraising scam, with the founder doing very well for herself in the process.

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    16. My comment is not dependent on whether you agree with their missions or methods or whether their methods are even effective. Education is not their mission so it's not 'telling' BLM that is not advocating on choice or any set of K12 reforms. What's more telling is that you singled out that organization, among the thousands in the nation, to criticize for not advocating on a policy unrelated to their mission. You prove the title of your post correct though perhaps not as you planned.

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    17. Their goal is to stop blacks from being disproportionately impacted by police brutality. Education is the key to that. Simple math.

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    18. That's quite a stretch. At the best you might argue incorporating how to appropriately interact with police into the curriculum *might* help, but only to a certain extent, depending on the balance of blame between police and the victim. But that's a curriculum issue and not a reform and has literally nothing to do with school choice. It has nothing to do with improving reading and math scores or graduation rates or enrollment in postsecondary schools, all typically measures of K12 performance. If that's simple math, it's not any type I learned in grad school.

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    19. Julie, my entire career is focused on improving education in large part because I recognize it can be a force for positive social change. That comment is inappropriate and counterproductive.

      Bringing in the cycle of poverty, aside from changing your goal/outcome, it implies police brutality is caused by poverty and that if there were no poverty police brutality and systemic racism would disappear. I think millions of middle and upper class blacks would disagree. You might recall a memorable example of Oprah and a security guard but if not, as you might be too young for it, google it.

      It's pretty clear that, at best, this is a very indirect relationship. Something like:

      School Choice = Improved K12 outcomes
      Improved K12 outcomes = Reduced Poverty
      Reduced Poverty = Reduced System Racism
      Reduced Systemic Racism = Reduced police brutality.

      That's quite a long logic path with many other intervening and contributing factors but even if one accepts all of the implied premises and causal linkages that'll take decades to play out. I think it'd make a bit more sense for any organization focused on reducing police brutality to put their effort on more proximal causes and solutions such as police training and police reform instead K12 reform.

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    20. I admit to be being confused as to your argument but that's not cognitive dissonance.

      Thanks for laying it out. Assuming everything you posit here would work as you suggest and your assumptions are all correct, I guess we can revise your original claim to something more like

      Problem, fucking, solved (in a generation or so).

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    21. Well, I suppose I should be happy that my boss and funding organizations don't realize my job, my career, heck, even my entire field, aren't doing anything or making progress because BLM isn't interested in education reform.

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    22. I would think that you should be resentful that rather than helping to focus energy, political will, and money to people like you have a chance of making a difference, where did it go instead? Where did the $90M they collected in 2020 alone go? Why was the energy not directed to better schooling for underprivileged in order to break the cycle? Utterly squandered opportunity. Worse than squandered, actively destructive.

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    23. If I took that attitude, what would be the criteria for who to be mad at and who to give a pass? There are literally tens of thousands of non-profits, interest groups, and such. Should I be resentful of all organizations that are not focused on my topic if I can create a theoretical linkage betwen them and education? Should I be mad at group advocating for health care reform (we know better educated people generally have better health outcomes)? Enrivonmental changes (higher education is correlated with greater environmental support)? Prison and sentencing reform? Taxes? Gun Control? Supporting political candidates? Animal rights? The list is endless.

      No, I am not resentful of BLM anymore than I am resentful of the thousands of other groups who advocate for what they feel are important issues. I might disagree with their position or feel their issue is less critical than mine or not like how they function but that is their right.

      It is clear you have a hard-on (wet spot?) for BLM above most, if not all, others. Don't let that feeling mislead you. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize BLM without blaming them for not advocating for what is at best a tangentially related policy.

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    24. I have a "hard on" for an organization whose protests resulted in 9 months of violence, death, and destruction, with nary a word from the leaders of that movement.

      I have a "hard on" for an organization that took $90M dollars from well-meaning people and fed it to political candidates who don't give a shit about black people's problems. This was race grifting for political donations at its worst.

      Ad yeah, the "tell" for this is no advocacy for anything that would actually improve the situation, such as better education for underprivileged children.

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    25. I am sorry if my phrasing came across as flippant or otherwise upsetting. I figured that figure of speech was kinda thematic but if not, sorry for that.

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    26. No offense taken, MOE. As you can see, I enjoy a good discussion and don't get offended. I appreciate you playing with me.

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  10. The title should be global warming from David's hand spanking, also forest fires from David's wooden hair brush.

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  11. Do you really get off being yelled at? Who knew?

    I don't disagree with your suggestions. Of course, like most MAGA rhetoric, it fails to delve deep enough to rise to the level of even a basic suggestion.

    For example,

    Gen 4 reactors are not yet practical. They hold significant promise of helping to solve our energy crisis. I hope that we can get to the practical, implementation phase soon. Sadly, when we do, it will be decades before we can build enough to make a dent in electrical demand. But, I agree, there is potential for a partial solution.

    I will skip the obvious trump bullshit about climate change. Whether you think it is automobiles or cow farts, CO2 levels are going up and the Earth is getting warmer.

    You make one stupendous error: forest management. In the first half of the twentieth century, the idea was to put out fires as soon as they started. Lucky weather patterns and good forest fire fighting spared many millions of acres.

    In succeeding decades we learned that forests are supposed to burn. It turns out that nature clears out underbrush and other highly flammable debris that way. Our "management" of the fifties and sixties allowed enormous amounts of dry, dead matter to accumulate on the forest floor.

    In the 1970's the US Forest Service saw this error and decided not to control burns that didn't threaten human habitation. The huge Yellowstone fires of the early 80's was one of the first tests of this policy. I hated that they let the forest right up to Grand Prismatic Spring burn.

    The global warming you deny has made our atmosphere more active. The results of this are more storms and much more violent ones. Also, droughts have gotten worse in the West. More lightning plus less rain, equals more wildfires.

    I live in an area near where some of these fires burn. Last summer it was hard to breathe. The year before that we were camping in north eastern Washington near some fires. We saw one burning near a village we were visiting. We saw a green, pine tree explode into flame from bottom to top. It was a sobering sight.

    I'm not disputing your "solutions." I don't think people ignore them. They are clearly good ideas. Each and every one is nearly impossible to implement. How do we force China to stop exporting Fentynl? How do you effectively seal a 2,000 mile border? trump couldn't. A wall doesn't work. How do you develop overnight, the capability to construct thousands of nuclear plants with unproven technology? Where do the millions of teachers needed to equalize education come from? How do you feed the hungry, poor kids you want to educate?

    How do we even get started when trump's party refuses to support the massive spending needed to just get started?

    I wish it were just politics. It would be easy to blame Republicans (or Democrats) for the lack of progress. Julie, it just isn't that simple. I wish with all my heart it was.

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    1. You bring Democrat/Republican politics into it. Why?

      "Deny" is language that is beneath you. It's designed to evoke images of Holocaust denial. 'Deny" is not a science term, it is a political one.

      Yes fires are getting worse. It's commonly understood that better Forrest management would make things better. A rise in global average temp over the past 40 years of about 1F is not the cause.

      You seem to give up on solutions with promising directions without offering more promising alternatives. Identify what the problem is, then solve the problem.

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  12. Follow the CCP blood money. The odds are very high that any of these problems could be solved if we actually looked at them honestly. Americans are very innovative at solving a problem if artificial roadblocks aren't thrown up. But the problem is that so many people in power have been bought for a pittance by the CCP. And as such, the public is fed false dichotomies by their flunkies in Washington and in the press that continue to drive wedges among the people. They've bought our politicians, our journalists, our universities, our unions, and our companies, across all domestic political alignments. The sooner the CCP dies like the tyrannical vermin they are, the sooner a new era of peace, prosperity and harmony begins worldwide.

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    1. I agree that the Chinese Communist Party is a malignant force in the world. It is clear that they are behind a lot of the division in the US, in order to weaken their only meaningful competitor. And these politicians, reporters, lefty teachers, and corporate flunkies are their useful idiots.

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  13. Bottom Line, no pun, my wife read this, later in the day the solution is simple. Males and Money fuel this, what this needs is a Woman's approach, this would begin solving the problems. Woman manage the household, so managing the world is managing a household, only bigger. What the males knows is what the female taught and what they have forgotten or don't want to do. She then said with a smile your my small world problem looking at me and how do I handle the problem, I said a spanking. Very good, maybe and she said not going to happen but a long discussion in the bedroom would get their attention. Jack

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    1. I disagree. Women tend to be over-emotional and care about individual people too much. Politics is about making some tough calls where there will be winners and losers. A good example is the border situation. Sure, let ALL the economic refugees in, and sure, give them ALL the social services for free. Feels good and right in the moment. Then watch the country go off the rails and completely collapse so that in the end you bring much more damage than good in the end. But at every moment you did the "right thing".

      Forget men and women. Lets talk about good policy and bad policy.

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  14. Thanks for watching the game David ( I was watching it too by the way) , I really don't understand why your well read , informed and intelligent wife was not aware of the Euro final in London between England and Italy.
    Otherwise we would not have been treated to this wonderful article
    she wrote Which I loved reading and thoroughly agree with.
    Now toss her over you shoulder , carry her upstairs and give her what she deserves.....and give her a few from me.

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    1. When I've been made to watch soccer (or baseball for that matter) my eyes go droopy in about 8 seconds. "YAYYYY! he kicked a ball! Oh, back to walking..."

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    2. You need yo have David take you to a live game in Spain or Italyb, or even better , Brazil where the atmosphere is electric.
      Then you'll be hooked.

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    3. I'll keep an open mind!

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  15. I completely agree with your take and solutions to every issue. Nuclear is safe and reliable.

    Exorcise strict border controls.

    Forest management needs to include far more timber harvesting, both of our countries should have far more independent sawmills operating. Instead of us watching a precious and renewable resource go up in smoke, while we pay exorbitant prices for lumber, let's log and clean up the summer air.

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