IheartIheartTesla

Don't want to go down the rabbit hole of psychoanalyzing Biden's gaffes for evidence of racism or what have you. However, I do want to note that he is an old-school Democrat who is probably insufficiently 'woke' for this modern world. There is no way he will be a leader in ...well, nearly anything, but the best we can hope for is that he comes along for the ride and mostly hews to liberal philosophies. After the dissipation of the debate bumps, he still looks to be holding on to first place. Warren/Sanders/Harris follow, but the latter appears to have plateaued a bit. She needs to find a way to get more of Biden supporters in her column, I dont think she'll get too much from the more progressive wing of the party.

I didn't watch the debates, but I did read some hot takes. Looks like I didnt miss much, and its good that this debate will have minimal effect on almost anything. In my opinion the economy will become noticeably softer in 2020, but not enough to undergo a full blown recession (at least I hope so), which may peel just enough voters away from Trump for the Democrats to eke out a victory. If Biden is the eventual nominee we better hope that is the case - there is a reason his past attempts to get the Presidency failed, which the GoP will fully take advantage of.

The reason I brought it up is this rather recent paper: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/365/6448/76.full?ijkey=OxoPlV/Tcl1Ao&keytype=ref&siteid=sci So a lot of the potential is there in protected regions that are somewhat shielded from human activity and therefore also fire. At any rate, the Crowther lab does a fair bit of work in regards to this, and thats probably the place to go to learn more about wher the 'tree potential' is maximum.

Plant trees; lots of them (about a trillion to be precise). There was a recent study that showed where the peak efficacy of tree planting would be. Note that this will take some time, and the end-of-life of trees has to be maintained in a way that it is sequestered into ground rather than released/ Electrify everything, and then make the grid/electricity carbon neutral. Do a better job managing trade-offs (for instance, better plastic packaging to prevent food waste and therefore methane production, but also do something about the plastic itself).

On the other hand, I've always felt that "if capitalism, then imperialism" is almost a given regarding much of the 18th, 19th and 20th century (maybe even earlier). And the death toll from that is easily comparable if not greater than the authoritarian regimes of the 20th century. Of course, the counterargument is that there are enough safeguards and international restrictions to prevent that from happening as rampantly as in the past, but you could make that argument about almost any system of governance. Now, I do believe competition is a great engine for innovation; so I am not down on capitalism. But my perfect system would be a two-tier one with a deep safety net for the vast majority of the population as one tier and a second tier where the elites can duke it out.

It does begin to answer the question of who Biden is losing supporters to - mostly Harris, but also many of the other candidates (including Sanders)

On the other hand, Morning Consult/538 found polling the same people before and after the debates that while Biden lost and Harris gained, everyone else remained pretty static. My take is that the top tier remains Biden/Sanders/Warren with Harris now joining this tier more strongly. Also, the ABC/WaPo polls show Sanders in a pretty clear 2nd place (as does Ipsos, but not as much), so I don't actually see why this narrative of is taking hold. Maybe we should wait till more than just the YouGov poll showing him slipping past 2nd place.

Those primary voters in Michigan who 'switched' to Trump in the general may not have voted for Clinton anyways. There is literally no way to tell since there is no party affiliation here. At any rate, 10-30k votes is so small there are numerous tiny effects that could have caused such a difference (for instance, statements about deplorables or putting coal miners out of business without alternate plans for the workers). I did vote for Sanders in the 16 primary, but now I think I'll wait to see the situation. Would be easy if it ends up being Biden v 'other, or Biden v 2 'others'.

Interestingly enough, I was recommended a book a month ago 1968: The year that rocked the world So, thats 1 year off, but it was the post about riots that got me thinking about it: at the DNC, the Paris riots and the Prague spring. Then again, a year is just an arbitrary signpost in time, and some of the events in '68 and '69 probably bleed together

Ever leave your headlights on by mistake? Someone once drove my car and changed the settings from auto to 'regular' I guess, and the lights were running (even when I was at work, so I had to get a jump). Headlights for 8 hours can drain the battery completely, so thats the kind of power/energy draw we are talking about. A plug-in doesnt seem to be in the same order of magnitude.

I've heard theories that Biden's remarks may be a strategy where he signals to moderate whites he is no flaming progressive and really quite moderate, and that the black caucus would support him because electability, firewalling his support among African Americans. Why the black caucus would support him is beyond me though. Maybe they really are worried about electability and already have made their call about who they think the best candidate is.

I'm not one who subscribes to the electability argument; I'd rather we have the best candidate (most decidedly not Biden). Warren is definitely up there among the best of the lot so far. Also, the caveats about early polling are noted. However, if Warren were to become the nominee we should recognize she has some serious hurdles to overcome similar to Hillary. The sooner those are addressed rather than brushed aside the better. The ones that can be addressed of course - the charge of her being a corporate statist for instance can be addressed by a speech at an opportune time (IIRC she already gave one, but another one makes sense closer to 2020)

Could just be Trump is annoyed at Bolton (I've heard rumors about this), and Pompeo was waffling.

Its almost too much to bear. Even Kennedy's brinkmanship during the missile crisis had some logic to it, I imagine. This is just random pushing of buttons because (according to some reports) Hannity made some comments, and then subsequently I don't even know the reason the strikes were called off. We've been incredibly lucky these past 2 years the world hasn't blown up.

20 of them have met the criteria for the debates (also coincidentally the max number the Dems will allow for those). Bullock/Gravel/Moulton did not make the cut, although Bullock is close. They've met the DNC's threshold for legitimacy, in other words.