IheartIheartTesla

Well then, there is really no reason to hate Las Vegas more so than any other moderate sized city. Lets all transfer our hatred to Paradise, "a more wretched hive of scum and villiany you will not find in the Universe"

Might as well say "I dont like the Strip". Even native Las Vegas folks would tell you the city is more than just that small piece (albeit one that provides a lot of revenue). Then again, the airport had slot machines in it, so I guess you cant escape from the casino aspects there. Then again (again?), it sounds to me like a libertarian paradise where all vices are loosely regulated, and the casinos even have their private security maintaining organizations so maybe (yet again) libertarian theory sounds better than actual libertarian practice.

I wouldn't be surprised if universities themselves are bribing US News and World Reports and similar orgs to boost their 'rankings' (a loose collection of garbage metrics if ever I saw one). I've said this before in other places, but the entire edifice of meritocracy that is supposed to define the US has eroded past recognition. Libertarian goobers fail to realize that money can buy a whole lot of 'merit', so their free market/objectivism/Ayn-Rand cultism is basically a flaming pile of poo.

Projections 25 years into the future (taken as gospel by conservatives as well): -Social Security will be bacnrupt -The US will be a majority minority nation -Europe will become 'Eurabia' These are projections based on assumptions of current demographic trends, growth and birth rates etc. They also have important consequences for how policy is made (well, just the first one maybe) For climate change, the models are not terribly different in concept, most of them try to figure out if the increased water vapor in the air will lead to high lying or low lying clouds, with the higher amounts of vapor being caused by increased CO2. Of course as a scientist I am skeptical of the models being entirely accurate, but 'sh*ts going down' is a pretty robust conclusion at this point.

The US is the big personal car market of course, and it makes sense for Tesla to break here. However, China has been making big strides in EV buses for instance (again, probably has more impact in China since they travel by bus more I imagine). So yes, there is stuff happening around the world. You know, half of my job is in the general area of carbon mitigation, but I've never really given any thought to planning. I tend to think of it as something my 3 kids will have to navigate more. So I would rather help them plan for the future rather than do much planning for myself. I'd encourage them to settle in some place that will be buffered from climate change, at least for the interim. And I'd make sure they have better skills than I do at handling extreme conditions.

Should I be offended I have not got any e-mails from Harris? I thought the point of all those ActBlue donations was so I would be in some database somewhere. I seem to recall from 2016 that all candidates have access to a donor list, no? At any rate, at this point I just want Biden to opt out so the polls can start becoming more robust. It's a bit annoying having to read the tea leaves where the top candidate isnt even an official candidate.

Yeah, she can be Schrodinger's Boss, both terrible and a not-beneficiary of sexism at the same time. Also true: you can be a terrible boss and treat your subordinates like crap, and do great things for humanity at the same time. People used to tout Bill Gates as an example of this. Most people tend to empathize with the one, and treat the many with disinterest or abstraction. Some of the thinking behind the aid/charity ads on TV focus on the plight of a single individual for this. And then you have the minority of people who are able to empathize with the many and not really care about the one. Maybe Klobuchar falls in the latter (like Gates), I don't know. She is too centrist for me, and for that reason I am out. Treating her aides like crap means I probably would never befriend her, if I were ever to travel in her rarefied circles.

While this is 'Man' playing God and killing off mosquitoes, note that humans have also caused the proliferation of mosquitoes through climate change. Not specifically in Africa, mind, but in regions much further north such as Alaska. In fact, in the coming years they may pose big problems to caribou, reindeer etc. I dont know the answer to the latter problem, but it may be through the former. The history of humanity is full of examples of us causing (and temporarily) also solving the same problems.

Your's is more recent, the one I was quoting was from mid-December of last year: https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/15/politics/cnn-poll-iowa-2020-caucus/index.html. Looking through I few more polls (including one from Feb 7 out of Iowa by Firehouse Strategies that has Harris in 2nd as well), it does look as if she may have made significant inroads in that state.

In the Iowa poll I saw, Biden was the 1st and 2nd choice for a near majority of voters (32+18), but the 2nd choice 2nd choice(s) were split rather evenly between Sanders, Warren and Beto, followed by Booker and Harris. It would be nice to redo these polls when we have an official list of candidates (and throughout the country) rather than a wish list.

He has a dedicated (near fanatic in some cases) group of followers, and benefits from fragmentation. In my opinion he will do very well in Iowa, but we'll have to wait and see. As for proximity, 538 seemed to think that for NH in specific candidates from neighboring states did well - Tsongas, Kerry, Sanders and Romney were the examples they gave, But if you throw in Warren into the mix, that does complicate the narrative.

Yes...all those tiny states run together for me (and I lived next door to NH for 3 years). I understand the usefulness of retail politics, developing grassroots and testing some ideas regarding your policies in these little states. On the flip side, sometimes narratives get baked in pretty soon that can be hard to overcome. For instance, while NH may not have much to offer Sanders in terms of lessons, I know he will do well there just by its proximity to Vermont. Iowa being a caucus state also guarantees him a strong showing. While I supported him in 2016, not entirely sure how fair it is to the other candidates to be handicapped this early in the race (Clinton was enough of a juggernaut that the early states didn't matter as much)

I hate the staggered nature of the primaries. It is the worst way of winnowing out the field, except for all the others (like democracy itself). The candidates will be spending an oversized amount of time getting Democrats to know them in Iowa (a state almost lost to them), and maybe New Hampshire (a state with fewer electoral college votes that probably doesn't matter that much in the grand scheme of things. No offense. And they do that weird split anyway). This is a structural disadvantage the ultimate winner also faces, having spent all that money and time in these low-yield states when the groundwork for the general could be laid down much earlier across the midwest and parts of the south. I'd rather there be 3-4 super Tuesdays and be done with the primaries.

5 billion is such a cheap price to ensure that future Democratic Presidents can ram through Green Deals, Medicare-for-all and gun control. I almost hope the courts let him have his emergency. By the way, everyone should have their talking points ready for the inevitable right wing pushback of Obama declaring 13 national emergencies. You know they are laying the ground for that argument to be rolled out.

So Howard Schulz thinks he should be taxed more (but he doesnt know how much). At the same time, he thinks a 70% marginal rate is punitive. I think the consensus among most of us is that 70% was sort of an opening bid for negotiation, not something set in stone. The overwhelming feeling among Americans is that millionaires and billionaires pay too little in taxes, even if we end up at 50% it would be a good start. On the flip side, Bezos only had a yearly salary of 80k so maybe a wealth tax is the way to go.... Anyway, while those points can be debated, I want to know why Schulz can go on all these tours without figuring out same basic tenets of his economic platform/philosophy. I mean, that is such a Trumpian thing to do.