Most public transportation is paid for with a combination of tax revenue and fares. I have long supported investing more tax revenue in public transit, and less on things like $100 Million a piece fighter jets.
What I don't support is the continued criminalization of poverty, especially since the offenses that are no longer going to be prosecuted are for things that systemic poverty generally causes. Take your squatting trespassers. In nearly every case they are trespassing and squatting because they can't afford housing. continuing to criminalize their behavior doesn't alleviate that problem.
I hate it when a good troll thread with fantastic responses by me get appropriately moderated.
That said, a reminder on masks:
A conclusion can be reached based on the current studies: correctly wearing masks of all kinds, despite their different designs, functions and effectiveness, will to a large degree reduce the overall risks of COVID‐19 infection and enhance general protection from coronavirus.
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118
Community mask wearing substantially reduces transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in 2 ways. First, masks prevent infected persons from exposing others to SARS-CoV-2 by blocking exhalation of virus-containing droplets into the air (termed source control). Second, masks protect uninfected wearers. Masks form a barrier to large respiratory droplets that could land on exposed mucous membranes of the eye, nose, and mouth. Masks can also partially filter out small droplets and particles from inhaled air. Multiple layers of fabric and fabrics with higher thread counts improve filtration. However, the observed effectiveness of cloth masks to protect the wearer is lower than their effectiveness for source control,3 and the filtration capacity of cloth masks can be highly dependent on design, fit, and materials used. Standards for cloth masks are needed to help consumers select marketed products.
This systematic review and meta-analysis suggests that several personal protective and social measures, including handwashing, mask wearing, and physical distancing are associated with reductions in the incidence covid-19.
https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-068302
None of these suggest wearing masks by themselves, but if you live, as I do, in a place where vaccination rates remain low, case counts remain high (and increasing due to omicron), social distancing is non-existent, schools are fully open, and most businesses are as well, then mask wearing needs to be part of your ongoing personal defense against COVID.
That HEPA study is pre-print, meaning not yet peer reviewed. A number of such studies on a number of COVID related topics in the last two years have had to be retracted after peer review because they don't hold up. While HEPA filters (properly used) may indeed be part of the solution, this isn't saying that just yet, and it make no statements on effectiveness of masks as its not a study on masks.
Your mask study - while fully peer reviewed - is over a year old. There have been other more recent peer reviewed studies with different conclusions. And more importantly this study says the masks provide some protection.
Which means we shouldn't toss them, especially with so many individual states ignoring even modest social distancing guidelines, to say nothing of low vaccination rates in many areas and lack of air filtration upgrades. We need every tool in the tool box because a bunch of partially effective tools are still collectively better then no tools at all.
The decline of civil society approaches in developed countries is to be lamented generally. Had a massive set of multi city-counter protests broken out on 7 January 2021 and sustained for some weeks, I guarantee the Big Lie would have fallen. And yet . . . .
I don't read any of the federal proposals as doing that, especially since the vote by mail systems would seem to meet all the access requirements of the legislation. Plus you will note that only in Oregon have there been Republican calls for "audits of the process."
And now Manchin, who wants to remain The Man, is expressing support for many of the climate parts of BBB:
Manchin, who last month said he would vote against the Build Back Better Act in its current form, seemed relatively open to its climate components in the first workweek of the new year.
“The climate thing is one that we probably can come to an agreement much easier than anything else,” he told reporters.
Asked about the climate provisions, he said, “There’s a lot of good things in there.”
“We have a lot of money in there for innovation, technology, tax credits for basically clean technologies and a clean environment,” the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chairman said.
Facts speak for themselves, tears only speak about lies.
Indeed they do, and over and over the facts show that the 2020 presidential election was carried out openly, freely and fairly with results that are both legally determined and secure. What fraud there was did not alter the outcome.
Yep. I've said for most of the year - as have you - that all the laws being passed to "secure" the election were solutions in search of a problem. They are at best propaganda, but more perniciously they are designed to dampen election participation by "others." Because the fraud that has occurred is consistent with prior trends. its not zero, but its so vanishingly small - and of particular forms not addressed by any of the law changes in the last year - as to be easily ignored.
No Saul - because consumers aren't supposed to have rights, much less to compensation in an oligarchy. The property of the investor class has to be protected at all costs.
NO, Chip is clearly telling you to join the push back. To call the anti-vaxxers out on their sh!t. To actually agitate - and vote - for people who make good public policy that's not based on woo.
He's also telling you - as am I - that you need to keep up your precautions no matter what the media and the woo mongers say, because we are not yet at endemic for this.
The CDC may well have finally jumped the shark. Politically anyway. Sure a LOT of their guidelines have been best described as being honored in the breech, but for COVID they really needed people to be heading them.
Of course, this bring sup the ugly side of unfettered (or in our case less fettered) capitalism, and its antipathy to labor (i.e. people) since it appears once again that maintaining a certain level of profit and economic production was put before people's lives.
Yes, really. Its illegal to drive with a cracked windshield, especially where the crack crosses the driver's line of sight. My wife has been driving a car just like that around town for nearly a year (because she doesn't want to spend the funds to get it fixed). Its statistically improbable she has never been seen in this state by a cop, and yet she has never been stopped or ticketed, much less warned.
If giving Manchin whatever he wants will aid millions of Americans, Democrats should do it. It may be the only alternative to defeat.
When BBB was first proposed, it was over 3 Trillion dollars for 10 years. The version passed by the House and now dead in the Senate was down to $1.7 Trillion for 10 years due precisely to negotiations with Senator Manchin. I'm not sure what else you expect the rest of the party to give here, but at some point the bait cutting has to stop and the fishing has to start. And the good senator is still trying to convince Democrats which pole to use.
Fun fact - if you open the Wikipedia entry for the "Waffle House Index, you see the remains of a Gulf coastal Waffle House after Katrina. What you don't see is the rest of the slap with several booths intact - where a number of us w3ho were on the federal disaster response used to meet to exchange paperwork during the day.
Its only a theme that doesn't play well when there's no viable economic alternatives. Make West Virginia the manufacturing hub of the wind industry in the US with concomitant good paying jobs and that tide will also turn.
At present, Republicans DON"T WNAT TO PASS BILLS. They WANT TO OBSTRUCT so as to regain power. And when the have power, they will )based on record to date) pass bills to slash taxes for the rich and corporations, pass bills to nullify the regulatory state to the benefit of the rich and corporations, and pass bills at he state level to destroy voting rights via denying access and to deny women body autonomy. And all of that in the face of majority support by ordinary Americans of all political persuasions against the Republican legislation I have mentioned.
White women earn 79 cents on the dollar to white men, so of course they pay off less student debt. Black women earn 62 cents to the dollar; black men earn 87 cents to the dollar. That has nothing to do with the worth of their degrees.
And honestly if you want a curriculum that excels at teaching critical thinking and dissecting the human condition, women's and gender studies are probably it. I can also tell you form inside science, many disciplines still have a the enormous problem un both undergraduate and graduate settings of actively discouraging women from high economic impact studies - the very real "mom tax."
Liberals can’t take the idea that “everyone is equal” is a massive oversimplification.
Liberals don't think this. Liberals DO think that everyone's opportunities should be equal, and liberals think society (and thus government) need to work to make sure barriers to success are removed and/or mitigated. Like the lack of admission of women to most colleges and universities and programs until AFTER RBG finished law school.
There's also no evidence that college has been watered down, especially in the area of critical thinking. Its a nice neo-conservative talking point but it lacks evidence.
Which is an aligned but separate issue. Far more industry segments now require some sort of credential to begin work in the field, and that credentialing has to be sustained. And that in turn means all sorts of tuition based training has to be accomplished to earn a living. Even the trades are beginning to require paper proving competency instead of apprenticeships.
My younger brother became an architect because he wanted to use his art gift in a practical way. It's been very aesthetically and financially rewarding.
On “Manhattan DA Joins The Progressive Side of Law Enforcement Reform”
Most public transportation is paid for with a combination of tax revenue and fares. I have long supported investing more tax revenue in public transit, and less on things like $100 Million a piece fighter jets.
What I don't support is the continued criminalization of poverty, especially since the offenses that are no longer going to be prosecuted are for things that systemic poverty generally causes. Take your squatting trespassers. In nearly every case they are trespassing and squatting because they can't afford housing. continuing to criminalize their behavior doesn't alleviate that problem.
On “Thursday Throughput: Fetal Gene Edition”
I hate it when a good troll thread with fantastic responses by me get appropriately moderated.
That said, a reminder on masks:
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2776536
https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj-2021-068302
None of these suggest wearing masks by themselves, but if you live, as I do, in a place where vaccination rates remain low, case counts remain high (and increasing due to omicron), social distancing is non-existent, schools are fully open, and most businesses are as well, then mask wearing needs to be part of your ongoing personal defense against COVID.
"
That HEPA study is pre-print, meaning not yet peer reviewed. A number of such studies on a number of COVID related topics in the last two years have had to be retracted after peer review because they don't hold up. While HEPA filters (properly used) may indeed be part of the solution, this isn't saying that just yet, and it make no statements on effectiveness of masks as its not a study on masks.
Your mask study - while fully peer reviewed - is over a year old. There have been other more recent peer reviewed studies with different conclusions. And more importantly this study says the masks provide some protection.
Which means we shouldn't toss them, especially with so many individual states ignoring even modest social distancing guidelines, to say nothing of low vaccination rates in many areas and lack of air filtration upgrades. We need every tool in the tool box because a bunch of partially effective tools are still collectively better then no tools at all.
"
Care to share the citations you work from?
On “Why Is China Hosting the Winter Olympics?”
The decline of civil society approaches in developed countries is to be lamented generally. Had a massive set of multi city-counter protests broken out on 7 January 2021 and sustained for some weeks, I guarantee the Big Lie would have fallen. And yet . . . .
"
See Saul's comment below for one answer to your question.
On “Voter Fraud: I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means”
Yep that's where a big problem looms, and the federal legislation doesn't address it directly unless I've missed something.
"
I don't read any of the federal proposals as doing that, especially since the vote by mail systems would seem to meet all the access requirements of the legislation. Plus you will note that only in Oregon have there been Republican calls for "audits of the process."
On “Senator Joe Manchin on Build Back Better: “This Is A No””
And now Manchin, who wants to remain The Man, is expressing support for many of the climate parts of BBB:
He really wants to be a king maker doesn't he?
https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/overnights/588278-energy-environment
On “Voter Fraud: I Do Not Think That Word Means What You Think It Means”
Indeed they do, and over and over the facts show that the 2020 presidential election was carried out openly, freely and fairly with results that are both legally determined and secure. What fraud there was did not alter the outcome.
"
Yep. I've said for most of the year - as have you - that all the laws being passed to "secure" the election were solutions in search of a problem. They are at best propaganda, but more perniciously they are designed to dampen election participation by "others." Because the fraud that has occurred is consistent with prior trends. its not zero, but its so vanishingly small - and of particular forms not addressed by any of the law changes in the last year - as to be easily ignored.
On “Elizabeth Holmes Found Guilty On Four Charges”
America, where my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
"
No Saul - because consumers aren't supposed to have rights, much less to compensation in an oligarchy. The property of the investor class has to be protected at all costs.
On “From NPR: CDC cuts the recommended isolation and quarantine periods for coronavirus infections”
NO, Chip is clearly telling you to join the push back. To call the anti-vaxxers out on their sh!t. To actually agitate - and vote - for people who make good public policy that's not based on woo.
He's also telling you - as am I - that you need to keep up your precautions no matter what the media and the woo mongers say, because we are not yet at endemic for this.
"
The CDC may well have finally jumped the shark. Politically anyway. Sure a LOT of their guidelines have been best described as being honored in the breech, but for COVID they really needed people to be heading them.
Of course, this bring sup the ugly side of unfettered (or in our case less fettered) capitalism, and its antipathy to labor (i.e. people) since it appears once again that maintaining a certain level of profit and economic production was put before people's lives.
But I digress ...
"
Agreed. Cr@ppy economic policy, but still a policy/political decision.
On “Kim Potter Found Guilty in Killing of Daunte Wright”
Yes, really. Its illegal to drive with a cracked windshield, especially where the crack crosses the driver's line of sight. My wife has been driving a car just like that around town for nearly a year (because she doesn't want to spend the funds to get it fixed). Its statistically improbable she has never been seen in this state by a cop, and yet she has never been stopped or ticketed, much less warned.
On “The One Way Democrats Can Revive Their Agenda”
When BBB was first proposed, it was over 3 Trillion dollars for 10 years. The version passed by the House and now dead in the Senate was down to $1.7 Trillion for 10 years due precisely to negotiations with Senator Manchin. I'm not sure what else you expect the rest of the party to give here, but at some point the bait cutting has to stop and the fishing has to start. And the good senator is still trying to convince Democrats which pole to use.
On “Time and Tide and Hashbrowns: A Waffle House Christmas”
Fun fact - if you open the Wikipedia entry for the "Waffle House Index, you see the remains of a Gulf coastal Waffle House after Katrina. What you don't see is the rest of the slap with several booths intact - where a number of us w3ho were on the federal disaster response used to meet to exchange paperwork during the day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffle_House_Index
On “Senator Joe Manchin on Build Back Better: “This Is A No””
Its only a theme that doesn't play well when there's no viable economic alternatives. Make West Virginia the manufacturing hub of the wind industry in the US with concomitant good paying jobs and that tide will also turn.
"
At present, Republicans DON"T WNAT TO PASS BILLS. They WANT TO OBSTRUCT so as to regain power. And when the have power, they will )based on record to date) pass bills to slash taxes for the rich and corporations, pass bills to nullify the regulatory state to the benefit of the rich and corporations, and pass bills at he state level to destroy voting rights via denying access and to deny women body autonomy. And all of that in the face of majority support by ordinary Americans of all political persuasions against the Republican legislation I have mentioned.
Your call on how authoritarian that might be.
On “How Should Democrats Handle Student Loan Payments”
White women earn 79 cents on the dollar to white men, so of course they pay off less student debt. Black women earn 62 cents to the dollar; black men earn 87 cents to the dollar. That has nothing to do with the worth of their degrees.
And honestly if you want a curriculum that excels at teaching critical thinking and dissecting the human condition, women's and gender studies are probably it. I can also tell you form inside science, many disciplines still have a the enormous problem un both undergraduate and graduate settings of actively discouraging women from high economic impact studies - the very real "mom tax."
"
Liberals don't think this. Liberals DO think that everyone's opportunities should be equal, and liberals think society (and thus government) need to work to make sure barriers to success are removed and/or mitigated. Like the lack of admission of women to most colleges and universities and programs until AFTER RBG finished law school.
There's also no evidence that college has been watered down, especially in the area of critical thinking. Its a nice neo-conservative talking point but it lacks evidence.
"
Which is an aligned but separate issue. Far more industry segments now require some sort of credential to begin work in the field, and that credentialing has to be sustained. And that in turn means all sorts of tuition based training has to be accomplished to earn a living. Even the trades are beginning to require paper proving competency instead of apprenticeships.
"
My younger brother became an architect because he wanted to use his art gift in a practical way. It's been very aesthetically and financially rewarding.