What do you think about with current News and Opinions?

[guest1163268]

Something to understand what nurses think about re the Current News and their opinions!

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

4 hours ago, Beerman said:

In the end, it mattered to no one what he said.  It just gave his haters something to whine about.

It's certainly his right to take a simple request and spin it.  But no it doesn't matter much as there are more pressing issues.

But other than just give his haters something to whine about, I think it says a lot about him and how he wants to campaign and stir division.  This could have been a very good opportunity to show unity on one issue that is universally true for both sides, but he blew it.  

 I won't blow it up as some big issue either.  It's not.  Just interesting.  Just another reason for me to definitely not vote for him in the upcoming election. And I don't dislike him and everything he does.  He just gave a huge boost to technical school education that I'm happy to hear about.  

1 hour ago, Beerman said:

Just questioning what is unknown.  You first threw out that DeSantis might be involved.  How would he or the Republicans benefit? 

My theory actually makes more sense.

Well, shortly after the scheme was executed DeSantis boasted about the number of registered republicans in the state. I wondered out loud if the governor of Florida might have had knowledge of the tactics employed by the state's republican party to increase the number of registered republicans in the state. 

Your theory is contradictory to the known facts. 

[Beerman, BSN]

4 hours ago, toomuchbaloney said:

Well, shortly after the scheme was executed DeSantis boasted about the number of registered republicans in the state. I wondered out loud if the governor of Florida might have had knowledge of the tactics employed by the state's republican party to increase the number of registered republicans in the state. 

Your theory is contradictory to the known facts. 

Yes, must be it.  Dems outnumbered Republicans by 600,000 just 10 years ago.  DeSantis became part of this scheme to get the last few thousand just so he could boast.  Makes sense.

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

 DeSantis had bragging rights that for the first time since the civil war apparently registered Republicans are out numbering registered Democrats.  

However, Florida became a Republican state a while ago.  We haven't had a Republican governor for decades, and they've had both the state house and the state senate for a while.  This past election they also had both senators in Washington Republicans.  Sometimes by the slimmest of margins Republicans have taken over state.

Quote

Regardless, the numbers marked the first time Republicans ever have outnumbered Democrats in Florida at year’s end, at least since post-Civil War Reconstruction when Democrats took over the state.

The achievement is leading Republicans to celebrate, and to taunt Democrats.

I think it has to do with Trump's popularity still, DeSantis being well liked for his "freedom" in not keeping us locked down but for a couple of months and his fight against mask mandates and vaccine mandates, the large amount of legal immigrants (especially south Florida Cuban-Americans) registering as republican, as well as the unpopularity of Biden.

Quote

“The Florida GOP is doing better than ever and that is reflected in our fundraising efforts as well as our historic increase in active voter registrations

https://floridapolitics.com/archives/486696-republicans-end-2021-with-43k-voter-registration-advantage-over-democrats/

Does this have much to do with them changing someone's party affiliation as TMB has stated?  Perhaps, but doubtful, unless it's uncovered it was done on a very large scale.  

I also think that the Democrats in Florida are a joke.  They can't get their act together and the candidates they chose are losers.  

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/02/971343870/the-florida-democratic-party-has-a-problem-its-broke-and-disorganized

 

5 hours ago, Beerman said:

Yes, must be it.  Dems outnumbered Republicans by 600,000 just 10 years ago.  DeSantis became part of this scheme to get the last few thousand just so he could boast.  Makes sense.

Who knows what dishonest republicans politicuans are thinking in the era of Trump...it certainly appears that they are thinking primarily about their power and position. What we know is that republicans executed a scheme to trick people into changing their party affiliation and DeSantis was publicly pleased with the result. 

It is interesting that your first reaction was to blame liberals for republican actions and attitudes just like republicans blamed them for January 6. That's an interesting coincidence that's probably not really a coincidence.

The Gospel of Donald Trump Jr.

Quote

Throughout his speech, Don Jr. painted a scenario in which Trump supporters—Americans living in red America—are under relentless attack from a wicked and brutal enemy. He portrayed it as an existential battle between good and evil. One side must prevail; the other must be crushed. This in turn justifies any necessary means to win. And the former president’s son has a message for the tens of millions of evangelicals who form the energized base of the GOP: the scriptures are essentially a manual for suckers. The teachings of Jesus have “gotten us nothing.” It’s worse than that, really; the ethic of Jesus has gotten in the way of successfully prosecuting the culture wars against the left. If the ethic of Jesus encourages sensibilities that might cause people in politics to act a little less brutally, a bit more civilly, with a touch more grace? Then it needs to go.

Here is a link to the C-SPAN video and transcript. I wonder how much Charlie Kirk and DJTJ decided that "speech" was worth... $50k or $100k. What is going on in conservative politics today?

[subee, MSN, CRNA]

18 hours ago, Tweety said:

Most definitely Biden is less fossil fuel industry friendly than Trump was.  Biden is following, or at least giving lip service to the alternative fuel industry.  It's the backbone of progressive and Democrat policy.

 On the right when he makes a move towards alternative energy it's criticized.  See prior link of 25 reasons.....

On the other left side when he make a move pro-fossil fuel it's criticized.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/climate/biden-fossil-fules-climate-Willow.html

 

Another incidence of "fake news MSM" reporting on a story unflattering to the president.  Do we see this kind of non-biased viewpoints being published as a matter of fact in right wing media?  Ben Shapiro, on the other hand, grudgingly acknowledges climate change but labels the solutions other countries have put in place as "crazy" on Twitter effectively ending the conversation of what to do about it.  Complain, complain and complain some more without offering any solutions.

 

It is incredible how much “wrong” Shapiro is able to pack into one tweet. Usually, I’m uninterested in fact-checking every bit of nonsense that comes from right-wing personalities, but it is useful to analyze this tweet to understand traps you might encounter in the climate discourse.

Climate Change’s Real Question

Ben is actually right about one thing: the question isn’t whether climate change is happening. The real question is how screwed we are given the trajectory of global warming. At present, the world is about 1.1°C warmer than pre-industrial levels. We are on track to hit about 1.5°C by 2030, and 3°C by 2100. That is really fast. Given the best available research, it is anticipated that 3°C will totally reshape the world’s environment, leading to a radical shift in the lifestyle of billions of people.

While there is some disagreement between scientists on the details, the vast majority of climate experts believe this picture is essentially accurate. Scientists also agree that greenhouse gas emissions need to be radically reduced over a short time-span to avoid widespread misery and destruction of the natural world. When Ben says that the “question isn’t whether climate change is happening” he’d better by talking about this scenario. This is what “climate change is happening” actually means.

If you take these things as a given, you should be freaking out. If you were in a car rocketing towards a wall you would be yelling to slam on the brakes. Given the cause-and-effect of the situation, you would be making some noise! If Ben really does believe that climate change is happening, he should understand why activists are “screaming” about it.

Solutions That Aren’t Crazy

Shapiro says that we should focus on solutions that aren’t crazy — good news! There are a lot of options! Here are a few:

Solar panels

Windmills

Public transit investment

Improved efficiency standards

Electrical vehicles

Bio-fuels

Reducing animal agriculture

Carbon tax

Cap and trade

Carbon capture

Reforestation

What a selection! Whether you prefer policy interventions like public transit investment, high-tech options like carbon capture, or low-tech efforts like planting trees, there are plenty of choices!

Are these “crazy”? Many of these solutions are already in place! Countries like Singapore, Sweden, and New Zealand all have per capita carbon footprints that are between one-half and one-third that of America. These aren’t some harebrained schemes cooked up by hippie mad-scientists; we have the literal blueprints on how to implement these technologies.

If Ben Shapiro is remotely serious about climate change, and is really the genius he presents himself as, he should know all about this. Scientists, activists, and policy experts have spent countless hours researching and writing about these subjects. It is flat-out insulting that Shapiro pretends all this work doesn’t exist.

Bad Faith and Tone Policing

What is particularly tiring about Ben’s tweet is the way he absolves himself of taking climate change seriously. Since environmentalists are (allegedly) “screaming” all the time, Shapiro uses this as an excuse to just walk away. This approach to an existentially important problem is intellectually dishonest and lazy.

Climate activists didn’t start by “screaming” all the time. Scientists and activists in the 1980’s and 1990’s worked to explain the science of global warming to the public. The 2000’s were spent patiently debunking the galaxy of misinformation put out by big oil. Those first generations of climatologists were a reasonable and mild-mannered bunch. After 30 years of continued apathy from politicians and rising carbon emissions, some activists have become more confrontational. There was a time to build a civil slow-moving dialogue about climate solutions, but that time has passed.

Shapiro uses a straw man argument to invalidate the climate movement. He lumps every climate activist together as a homogeneous group that spends all its time “screaming… over and over”. There are plenty of environmentalists and scientists who are focused on solutions. Take the podcast How to Save a Planet for example; it is entirely about the solutions to climate change. Solution-focused groups are not hard to find. Are there some environmentalists that can come off as whiny or abrasive? Yes, but the vast majority of leading climate activists are willing to engage with the topic in a rational manner.

Shapiro also mixes in an ad hominem attack into his statement. He suggests that because climate activists are spending all their time screaming, he doesn’t need to engage with them. Just because you find climate activists annoying doesn’t make them wrong. To quote Shapiro, “Facts don’t care about your feelings,” so if the scientific facts say we need to reduce our carbon emissions, Ben needs to put aside his feelings about climate activists.

While Shapiro claims to believe climate change is real, he is putting such strict constraints on the discourse that it is impossible to meet his specifications. Instead of engaging in meaningful discussion, he demands that the entire environmental movement frames things just so. Discussing climate change within the climate movement is already difficult. Accommodating Ben’s bad faith tone policing will make it completely impossible.

Shapiro’s pseudo-intellectualism is exhausting. Activists need to be loud enough so we can hear them, but not so loud they are annoying. Climate solutions have to be scientifically proven, non-disruptive, cheap, and politically viable. False-pragmatism is no different than full-on climate change denialism.

If Ben believes that climate change is real, but is unhappy with the current climate discourse, he should suggest a solution! Pick any strategy that will lower CO2 levels at an appropriate scale! As a influential conservative political commentator, Ben Shapiro’s stance on global warming could change the opinions of many Americans. After all, the United States has one of the lowest levels of belief in climate change of the industrialized world. Ben has the power to make a real difference, if he actually cared.

On the other hand, if Shapiro isn’t serious about climate change, then he should stop pretending he knows what he’s talking about.

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[subee, MSN, CRNA]

3 hours ago, toomuchbaloney said:

The Gospel of Donald Trump Jr.

Here is a link to the C-SPAN video and transcript. I wonder how much Charlie Kirk and DJTJ decided that "speech" was worth... $50k or $100k. What is going on in conservative politics today?

Like that was really literate:(  The biggest cultural phenomenon in 50 years is "Go Brandon"?  Like that is crazy.  Like that was really painful to watch.

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

12 minutes ago, subee said:

Like that was really literate:(  The biggest cultural phenomenon in 50 years is "Go Brandon"?  Like that is crazy.  Like that was really painful to watch.

Good for you for watching.  I skipped through it and he was taking about Joe Biden Biden already destroyed America.  Liberals leaders canonizing and making heroes of pedophiles.  He's the definition of "fear based rhetoric".  

He's a good speaker, he uses his hands properly, he doesn't ramble, he's well prepared, he takes appropriate pauses, doesn't read notes much, and he knows his audience. 

 

37 minutes ago, subee said:

Like that was really literate:(  The biggest cultural phenomenon in 50 years is "Go Brandon"?  Like that is crazy.  Like that was really painful to watch.

I didn't watch the "speech", I read the transcript. 

26 minutes ago, Tweety said:

Good for you for watching.  I skipped through it and he was taking about Joe Biden Biden already destroyed America.  Liberals leaders canonizing and making heroes of pedophiles.  He's the definition of "fear based rhetoric".  

He's a good speaker, he uses his hands properly, he doesn't ramble, he's well prepared, he takes appropriate pauses, doesn't read notes much, and he knows his audience. 

 

He's a hit and miss speaker.  His rhetoric is sometimes not well received by his audience.  

[Beerman, BSN]

1 hour ago, subee said:

says that we should focus on solutions that aren’t crazy — good news! There are a lot of options! Here are a few:

Solar panels

Windmills

Public transit investment

Improved efficiency standards

Electrical vehicles

Bio-fuels

Reducing animal agriculture

Carbon tax

Cap and trade

Carbon capture

Reforestation

What a selection! Whether you prefer policy interventions like public transit investment, high-tech options like carbon capture, or low-tech efforts like planting trees, there are plenty of choices!

Are these “crazy”? Many of these solutions are already in place! Countries like Singapore, Sweden, and New Zealand all have per capita carbon footprints that are between one-half and one-third that of America. These aren’t some harebrained schemes cooked up by hippie mad-scientists; we have the literal blueprints on how to implement these technologies.

We've been investing in the first three for over a hundred years,  and they have proven to inefficient and ineffective as large scale energy sources or fossil fuel replacements.

Many of the other ideas, indeed are "crazy".

Where is nuclear power on your list?

 

13 minutes ago, Beerman said:

We've been investing in the first three for over a hundred years,  and they have proven to inefficient and ineffective as large scale energy sources or fossil fuel replacements.

Many of the other ideas, indeed are "crazy".

Where is nuclear power on your list?

 

 

I wonder if you have a citation that shows us where the first American investment in solar energy was made in the 1920s. I was trying to read up on those early federal investments. 

Which ideas do you find "crazy", you forgot to specify.  

It was a error to exclude investment in nuclear energy advancements.  If we can harvest uranium from seawater it becomes renewable.  

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/07/01/uranium-seawater-extraction-makes-nuclear-power-completely-renewable/

Isn't safe storage of the spent fuel still a concern?