BBO Discussion Forums: Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped? - BBO Discussion Forums

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.

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

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.

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.

hang a plum line?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!!!

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

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!!!

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