[Winstonm]

Bad news for tin foil makers stock:

Quote

Conspiracy theories claiming COVID-19 was engineered in a lab as part of a biological attack on the United States have been gaining traction online in recent weeks, but a new study on the origins of the virus has concluded that the pandemic-causing strain developed naturally.

An analysis of the evidence, according to the findings first published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine, shows that the novel coronavirus "is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus," with the researchers concluding "we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible."

[Winstonm]

The right has won in Hungary:

Quote

Balazs Csekö
@balazscseko
·
1h
Hungarian Parliament passes bill that gives PM Orbán unlimited power & proclaims:

- State of emergency w/o time limit
- Rule by decree
- Parliament suspended
- No elections
- Spreading fake news + rumors: up to 5 yrs in prison
- Leaving quarantine: up to 8 yrs in prison

[Cyberyeti]

Winstonm, on 2020-March-30, 08:42, said:

The right has won in Hungary:

I feel Orban is portrayed by lefties as much further right than he actually is. That party does exist in Hungary, it's called Jobbik and they're a nasty piece of work, I don't feel Orban is as far right as plenty of republicans. People cite his disagreement with Hungary's Jewish community, but that was over a pretty narrow point (a monument which absolved the wartime collaborationist regime on the basis that they could not have stood up to the Nazis where the Jewish people felt they could have done more), not for the reasons suggested in some articles.

[Winstonm]

Cyberyeti, on 2020-March-30, 11:02, said:

I feel Orban is portrayed by lefties as much further right than he actually is. That party does exist in Hungary, it's called Jobbik and they're a nasty piece of work, I don't feel Orban is as far right as plenty of republicans. People cite his disagreement with Hungary's Jewish community, but that was over a pretty narrow point (a monument which absolved the wartime collaborationist regime on the basis that they could not have stood up to the Nazis where the Jewish people felt they could have done more), not for the reasons suggested in some articles.

Anyone who is willing to accept those kinds of powers is very far right. (See George Washington history for reference)

PS: When I use "the right" politically, I mean those that skew toward authoritarianism and away from democracy.

[Cyberyeti]

Winstonm, on 2020-March-30, 11:09, said:

Anyone who is willing to accept those kinds of powers is very far right. (See George Washington history for reference)

PS: When I use "the right" politically, I mean those that skew toward authoritarianism and away from democracy.

Most of them are actually far left

[Winstonm]

Cyberyeti, on 2020-March-30, 14:16, said:

Most of them are actually far left

Authoritarianism is far right, and authoritarians are good at using whatever means at their disposal to further their aims, including socialistic or communistic government structure that hides the fact that the power within the government is neither socialistic nor communist but totalitarian.

[Cyberyeti]

Winstonm, on 2020-March-30, 16:11, said:

Authoritarianism is far right, and authoritarians are good at using whatever means at their disposal to further their aims, including socialistic or communistic government structure that hides the fact that the power within the government is neither socialistic nor communist but totalitarian.

That's a very unusual take, most people accept the authoritarian left as a concept (as the libertarian right can be), they're pretty much independent.

[Winstonm]

Cyberyeti, on 2020-March-31, 07:26, said:

That's a very unusual take, most people accept the authoritarian left as a concept (as the libertarian right can be), they're pretty much independent.

Language is tricky and understandings even more so.

[Winstonm]

Wow. I am flabbergasted that Pat Robertson on The 700 Club hasn't declared this God's punishment for Brexit.

[Cyberyeti]

Winstonm, on 2020-April-06, 15:08, said:

Wow. I am flabbergasted that Pat Robertson on The 700 Club hasn't declared this God's punishment for Brexit.

I'd have thought there are a lot of things he could have declared it as god's punishment for before he got to Brexit

[Cyberyeti]

Winstonm, on 2020-March-31, 07:37, said:

Language is tricky and understandings even more so.

Yes, particularly when you use a definition that 99.9% of Brits would say you're utterly mad, and I suspect most Americans. Try telling a libertarian Republican they're far left and try not to get shot.

Boris is by inclination very much a libertarian and would see himself as a person of the right.

I suppose it's just possible it's simply used completely differently across the atlantic, but I don't think so in this case (I've just discovered that what you call an elk is a completely different animal (wapiti) to what we call an elk, which is your moose)

[Winstonm]

Cyberyeti, on 2020-April-06, 15:33, said:

Yes, particularly when you use a definition that 99.9% of Brits would say you're utterly mad, and I suspect most Americans. Try telling a libertarian Republican they're far left and try not to get shot.

Boris is by inclination very much a libertarian and would see himself as a person of the right.

I suppose it's just possible it's simply used completely differently across the atlantic, but I don't think so in this case (I've just discovered that what you call an elk is a completely different animal (wapiti) to what we call an elk, which is your moose)

How did you manufacture the assumption that I would classify libertarians as "left"? Just because authoritarians are far right and can use socialistic governments to hide their totalitarianism has nothing to do with the small-government mindset of libertarians. On the political scale, small-government thinking tend right - that has nothing to do with those who are authoritarian within a Communist country - who are right because they are totalitarian, regardless of the system of government they use to hold onto power.

You may want to think that the world has seen left wing communist authoritarianism; but left wingers are pro-democracy. There is no way that the authoritarians who have ruled most communist countries can be classified as pro-democracy. Hence, they cannot be called left or left-leaning. If anything, they are right leaning.

[Winstonm]

Cyberyeti, on 2020-April-06, 15:28, said:

I'd have thought there are a lot of things he could have declared it as god's punishment for before he got to Brexit

He has. There is a litany of his assertions of natural acts he attributed to the un-righteous.

[Winstonm]

I am posting this here as not to detract from Ken's post which follows:

Quote

Quote

Posted Today, 09:45

View Post
johnu, on 2020-April-15, 02:42, said:

I'll admit that I have rightfully complained about the incompetent, delayed. slow, and muddled response to the COVID-19 crisis by the Manchurian President. I am happy to report that the Grifter in Chief has finally done something decisive and game changing.

Trump's Name Will Appear On Stimulus Checks


I'm sure our fellow citizens who have lost their jobs, emptied out their bank accounts without a paycheck coming in, and desperate for money to pay for food and other necessities will rejoice at having to wait several more days before they get their relief checks. I certainly hope that those who receive their checks will treat the Grifter in Chief well for his generosity in personally paying them from his personal checking account.

I thought nothing Trump did would still stun me, but I was wrong.

I was 12 when I saw Quo Vadis in 1951 and I was overwhelmed by Peter Ustinov's portrayal of Nero. Ok, the film was not exactly what you would call historically accurate, but I was 12.

Now we have Donald J Trump. No one has to make anything up to portray Donald J Trump.

I think civilization will survive the virus. Whether this country will survive Trump is less clear to me. Never mind whether this imprinting will or will not slow down the issuing of checks, although it is hard to see how it wouldn't. I just can't imagine any other president, or any other would be president, or anyone at all, doing such a thing at such a time. He might as well have the check say "I, Donald J Trump, wish to make it completely clear that I am totally nuts". Egocentric doesn't cover it. Narcissist doesn't cover it. Just plain nuts comes closer. A person does not need a Ph. D. in psychology to recognize a nut.

Yes, the stopping of financial support of WHO is, at Bill Gates says, just as dangerous as it sounds. It's irresponsible,it's stupid. etc. Yes,of course/ But I see this putting of his name on the checks as a moment of clarity for anyone still fining reasons to support Trump. It's the act of a nut.
Ken
2

Just a little further comment on this issue. Nuts only scratches the surface of how mentally ill this man is and how dangerous he is due to that illness. It is hard for any of us to understand this kind of personality as they comprise only about 1% of the population so we don't run into them often. But the only way to truly understand is that the need for affirmation is so all-encompssing that nothing else matters to him - nothing. That is the reason he lives within his own reality that changes minute-by-minute according to the needs of his ego. That he insists on having his name on the stimulus checks shows his thinking - that because he won the presidency the government is his and he wants everyone to thank him personally for his benevolence. The danger comes when this reality barrier crashes and he is faced with genuine criticism or worse, failure. We have seen it recently in his daily propaganda shows about the virus, how immensely defensive and angry he gets when a question challenges the reality he is trying to sell.

The real difficulty lies with the issue that his base of support comes from a group of people whose worldview contains a promise that the right kind of magic - their kind of magic - is real. That belief in magic and magical solutions makes whatever action Trump takes a protected act - it can't be wrong. With this kind of magic, there are only 3 possible outcomes: 1) it will happen now 2) it will happen in the future 3) it will never happen. Of course, those are the only 3 possible outcomes. So, when all of those possibilities are then considered to be an act of that magic, it obviates any possible method to refute by reason the basic claim that the claimed magic is real.

See, that's the problem. To this group, it doesn't matter if Trump is nuts - because he was chosen by the "magic" to be the leader, and there is no way that the magic can fail, therefore, whatsoever Trump says or does must be part of the great magic plan and thus "perfect".

I'm not sure if we're at the Nero moment - I'm thinking Caligula - or maybe Alice in Wonderland.

[Zelandakh]

Most researchers in the political sphere use a 2-dimensional graph for tracking political beliefs, though some use more. The most popular graph tracks conservative vs liberal independently from tough-tender. What is found is that political parties tend to spread out as a circle within the graph, with socialist parties on the left, liberal and social-democrats at the bottom, conservatives to the right and communists/fascists at the top. America is a special case in that it traditionally has 2 right-leaning parties and therefore specialists in American politics sometimes use a different set of tracking graphs. In recent times the Democratic party has moved somewhat further to the left in standard terms though.

What is absolutely incorrect to say is that Authoritarianism is only a thing of the right. It is a part of extremism. If your politics only contains a right wing then of course the extreme will be to the right but in global terms there are many countries for which the extremes are on the left and authoritarian regimes can easily be implemented from either side.

[y66]

mycroft Nov 2008 said:

I have a feeling that politics self-selects for authoritarians...it certainly self-selects for those who want power, and without subjects, power doesn't mean much.

https://www.bridgeba...post__p__321688

[y66]

via David Leonard at NYT: https://messaging-cu...896ed87b2d9c72a

Cade Massey @bcmassey said:

Even the smartest guys in the world, the guys who spend hours with game film, can’t predict this with much success. There’s no crime in that. The crime is thinking you can predict it.

[Winstonm]

Zelandakh, on 2020-April-22, 03:49, said:

Most researchers in the political sphere use a 2-dimensional graph for tracking political beliefs, though some use more. The most popular graph tracks conservative vs liberal independently from tough-tender. What is found is that political parties tend to spread out as a circle within the graph, with socialist parties on the left, liberal and social-democrats at the bottom, conservatives to the right and communists/fascists at the top. America is a special case in that it traditionally has 2 right-leaning parties and therefore specialists in American politics sometimes use a different set of tracking graphs. In recent times the Democratic party has moved somewhat further to the left in standard terms though.

What is absolutely incorrect to say is that Authoritarianism is only a thing of the right. It is a part of extremism. If your politics only contains a right wing then of course the extreme will be to the right but in global terms there are many countries for which the extremes are on the left and authoritarian regimes can easily be implemented from either side.

I note your charts do not include "support democracy" "do not support democracy". Here in the U.S., it would be difficult to determine those categories as there are millions who think - because they live in a republic - that they support democracy when their views are closer to support of a form of soft authoritarianism.

[Winstonm]

Let no one say they were not warned:

Quote

The yield on two-year U.S. Treasury notes was higher than the yield on the 10-year for a while Wednesday, marking the first time since June 2007 this curve has inverted. Many market participants see this as a sign of a coming recession in the next year or two.

Aug 14, 2019

my emphasis

But this was probably a better warning sign:

Quote

Larry Kudlow says December jobs report shows ‘there’s no recession in sight’
FRI, JAN 4 2019

[y66]

From Satya Nadella's conversation with the NYT:

Quote

Unlike almost every other company, Microsoft has felt a “minimal net impact” from coronavirus, according its latest financial report. The tech giant’s stock price is up 14 percent this year; it is sitting on nearly $140 billion in cash; and it looks likely to emerge from the pandemic stronger than ever. The company’s C.E.O., Satya Nadella, spoke with editors and reporters from The Times yesterday about managing through the pandemic.

Respond, recover, reimagine.

Mr. Nadella sees the world going through three phases during the pandemic. The first is simply responding to the immediate impact through office closures, cost cuts and the like. Then comes recovery, which is already underway in many places, and will be more like a “dial” than a “switch.” He said, “There will be lots of movement of the dial, back and forth.”

In the “reimagining” phase, innovations born of necessity during the previous two phases will emerge, like remote control of manufacturing processes, A.I. bots helping diagnose patients and more effective distance-learning technologies.

“Be on the lookout for what is lost.”

Mr. Nadella said that raw productivity stats for many of Microsoft’s workers have gone up, but that isn’t something to “overcelebrate.” More meetings start and end on time, but “what I miss is when you walk into a physical meeting, you are talking to the person that is next to you, you’re able to connect with them for the two minutes before and after.” That’s tough to replicate virtually, as are other soft skills crucial to managing and mentoring.

Switching from offices before the pandemic to an all-remote setup would be “replacing one dogma with another dogma,” he said. “What does burnout look like? What does mental health look like? What does that connectivity and the community building look like? One of the things I feel is, hey, maybe we are burning some of the social capital we built up in this phase where we are all working remote. What’s the measure for that?”

About all that cash ...

Microsoft spent $10 billion in its most recent quarter on share buybacks and dividends, up more than 30 percent from the year before. Is Mr. Nadella changing his thinking on how to spend it, through either returning it to shareholders, building up a safety buffer or spending it on acquisitions?

He answered that Microsoft will use “all of our levers” to grow. “We’re going to boldly allocate and acquire, build, innovate, partner, whatever,” he said. “And then, we are also going to make sure that we have the ability to do credit for small businesses and other organizations that need that help,” he added, saying that he has talked to several airline C.E.O.s about their troubles.

What is the metric for burning social capital? Networking effectiveness, i.e. productivity + turnover?