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Author Topic: AmeriPol thread  (Read 4503456 times)

Grim Portent

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #54210 on: December 12, 2024, 07:42:22 pm »

Generally the idea of making food a right, which it already is per the UN, is mostly to encourage, or force if necessary, measures to deal with food insecurity. In the case of the US, I would imagine it is mostly aimed at expanding the food stamp program to cover more families who fall between the gaps, and measures like free school lunches.
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Starver

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #54211 on: December 13, 2024, 01:27:37 am »

((@McT)) Your point started off with "farmers shouldn't grow what they know they can't sell", and I did say (though it got eaten, unlike the grapes) that, yes, it would be nice to do something useful to the supply. That led to the (shorter in the original) pondering about biofuels.

But, the thing is, at the level of the farmer it's often totally out of their hands what they can do about anything in periods shorter than a year (and, for orchard, vineyard, etc farmers, over multiple (even many) years). What do you think you could tell the ones who would have planted barley if they'd have known the wet/heat profile across the growing season was more appropriate for that than what they actually did plant..? If they get only half of what they expect, for their effort, their anticipated margins may turn negative. They may fill their hoppers with grain, but of inferior quality and make less return for it. Everything might go perfect, except that they've bet on the same answer as too many other farmers, and there's that glut that (again) makes any operating margin dissappear. And this is for those who can be flexible, one season to the next. Growing vines won't be a bed of roses. (And even growing beds of roses isn't!)


The rest of what you're going on about (the economic politics of political economies) isn't difficult to understand (as to how difficult it is to do!), but you don't help matters when you appear to blame those that are as much a victim of circumstance (and cannot directly, or even possibly indirectly, help the differently needy) when trying to make a larger scale point.


(Interestingly, I made sure the last message of mine was paste-buffered, in case it 504ed on posting. It did, I prepared to paste it all again and then saw that it had been received even though the post-post page had failed to generate. So I guess I hit it just right, timewise..?) ((Happened again. Pasting again after both me and the server have had a bit of sleep..))
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Duuvian

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #54212 on: December 13, 2024, 01:43:36 am »

I haven't looked at how subsidies work lately, but I've always been struck that one of their functions if I remember correctly is to pay farmers not to grow crops. This is to prevent a glut on supply causing prices to drop which puts the traditional farmer-banker relationship back into political instability territory as the farmers usually feel the pressure at those junctions and do such things as parking tractors somewhere inconvenient that isn't terrorism on a given day.

It does seem like a half-done solution that could be an avenue for people more familiar with subsidies than me, to make more flexible without igniting a farmer-banker struggle.

I worked at a produce shipping point that intakes interstate produce and then bags it up with machines to sell to the local grocery stores. They ran oranges and at the end of every day anything on the floor was thrown out. This made sense for leafy produce, but it it was also a hundred pounds or more of oranges every day. I wanted to take them to my dad's and throw them in his garden for compost, but that wasn't allowed. I wasn't allowed to take them to the food pantry either after I told the manager but I did a couple times before I thought I'd risk getting fired. EDIT: What's the deal with 504!? I was very mildly harsh with petty criticism of my ex-employer and the internet saw it for a whole... <can't see edit time yet> for too long

Now, things like that are easy. Those oranges are fine. I ate hundreds of them right off the floor I cleaned every day, so I would know, yes? They have a peel, you see!? I scooped them up by the twos and threes with a raggedy snow shovel, and whenever I pleased I ripped off their skin and ate the orange like a dog eating a kong ball. Right off the floor! From the shovel! My boss encouraged me! It was Covid times and he was Trumpy for Vitamin C! Ate the oranges and the Vitamin C Trumplements, maybe at same time!! Of course I took this opportunity.

I would somehow eat that orange as I scooped oranges into the dumpster, admiring their orangeness as they went off to the dump. I also didn't understand that. That costs money afaik. Making a hill of oranges and putting dirt on it is free and makes compost of some sort. Compost is a tool that is used by workers to make different money. This is one of a few things there which did not seem to add up, and I don't know if it was libertarianism gone vestigial from disapplication or if it was actually due to regulations making Orange Hill Compost brand compost mountain something that cannot be done or done profitably.

I checked to make sure I wasn't making more of a fool of myself than necessary about oranges and composting, and it appears the secret is to slice up the peels. Now I'm thinking about how much cooler it would be to have dumped those oranges into some kind of big slicer machine instead. If it had a fan it could blow the orange juice through a screen and directly onto the person loading the machine like some sort of mist generator but with citrus juice... this is a good thought...

https://farmingdale-observer.com/2024/10/18/is-it-really-a-bad-idea-to-compost-leftover-citrus-fruits-we-finally-answer-you/
« Last Edit: December 13, 2024, 02:30:10 am by Duuvian »
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McTraveller

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #54213 on: December 13, 2024, 09:12:41 am »

I definitely don't intend to come across as victim blaming. I try more to come across as, even if you are a victim (targeted or just due to emergent effects, doesn't matter), is there anything you can do to try and improve your situation, rather than just complain that someone else isn't doing something.  If that makes sense?

I think I've been pretty consistent on that stance. I just don't ascribe to the theory that people need a political savior to fix their woes: I truly believe that people are valuable and capable and despite voices to the contrary, people do have agency.

As for the farmer stuff - I don't have a problem with farmers or any other industry player lamenting they had a bad year or whatever, because many things are indeed out of any individual producer's control. What I have a problem with is them saying that someone else should do something about it. The only time I support putting the burden on someone else is if that "someone else" was directly responsible for a harm, and they should make restitution.

I appreciate that, at a core, this is a mess of general vs specific situations; generalizations miss a lot, and trying to address every situation as if it were the same as any other specific situation over-fits the solution and often causes problems....

I like that we can talk about this stuff more or less openly and I do enjoy being challenged on my ideas and/or how well (or, as the case may be, poorly) they are presented...
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martinuzz

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #54214 on: December 13, 2024, 12:22:41 pm »

Stupid Russian agent Trump did the Putin talk, blaming Biden and the US for escalating the conflict in Ukraine by allowing long range weapons.
Putin already responded by saying he approves of Trump's words.

Arrest the traitor! Don't allow him to become president!
C'mon Biden, you can do it. You still have presidential immunity.
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McTraveller

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #54215 on: December 13, 2024, 01:17:10 pm »

Heh apparently RFK is suing the FDA to revoke approval for the polio vaccine.
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Starver

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #54216 on: December 13, 2024, 04:07:37 pm »

Stupid Russian agent Trump did the Putin talk, blaming Biden and the US for escalating the conflict in Ukraine by allowing long range weapons.
Putin already responded by saying he approves of Trump's words.

Arrest the traitor! Don't allow him to become president!
C'mon Biden, you can do it. You still have presidential immunity.
Heh apparently RFK is suing the FDA to revoke approval for the polio vaccine.
So, the US is destined to become either the Second World (in the true original sense) or the Third World (by the popularly equivalenced sense), depending upon which top figure gets their own way first...
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martinuzz

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #54217 on: December 13, 2024, 04:28:29 pm »

Well I guess in the end, a lot of children dying from polio is a good thing. Less people means less destruction of nature.
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Friendly and polite reminder for optimists: Hope is a finite resource

We can ­disagree and still love each other, ­unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist - James Baldwin

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=73719.msg1830479#msg1830479

anewaname

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #54218 on: December 13, 2024, 09:12:15 pm »

I can't help but to think the sightings of drones near New Jersey are part of a larger false flag operation designed to give trump a reason to declare martial law because "we are under attack". I still think trump needs that war to get many of the powers he and his minions desire.
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Folly

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #54219 on: December 13, 2024, 10:40:24 pm »

Heh apparently RFK is suing the FDA to revoke approval for the polio vaccine.

He could have just waited until he got approved, and then done whatever insane shit he wanted. I want to say he's one cocky asshole for stirring things up so early...but honestly, he's probably just too stupid to know better.
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Duuvian

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #54220 on: December 14, 2024, 04:47:58 am »

https://www.techdirt.com/2024/12/12/trump-fcc-commissioners-cable-lobby-use-lazy-soup-and-coffee-metaphors-to-defend-shitty-broadband-usage-caps/

Spoiler: Soupler: (click to show/hide)


« Last Edit: December 14, 2024, 04:51:54 am by Duuvian »
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Telgin

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #54221 on: December 14, 2024, 05:23:56 pm »

Heh apparently RFK is suing the FDA to revoke approval for the polio vaccine.

He could have just waited until he got approved, and then done whatever insane shit he wanted. I want to say he's one cocky asshole for stirring things up so early...but honestly, he's probably just too stupid to know better.

Supposedly he actually filed this like 2 years ago, but it's getting attention now for obvious reasons.  Hopefully it'll help sink his chances of getting the cabinet position, but not much actually matters anymore.
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Robot Parade Leader

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #54222 on: December 14, 2024, 10:46:39 pm »

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/biden-grants-clemency-to-indiana-nursing-home-ceo-who-led-19-million-fraud-scheme/ar-AA1vPw2F

Why?
I just don't get it. I don't get anything I guess. So I don't know but from what the article says, Biden "commuted the sentence of a former Indiana health care executive who led a $19.4 million fraud scheme involving nursing homes."

"The White House and the U.S. Department of Justice did not provide explanations for individual commutations. But those whose sentences Biden commuted on Thursday had been placed on home confinement during the COVID-19 pandemic and "have successfully reintegrated into their families and communities," according to a fact sheet from the White House."

Ok, I'm not brilliant but this guy defrauded or whatever, nursing homes or something to do with nursing homes out of like $19 million?

The article says this too.
"He earned a salary of more than $1 million a year, not including the money he skimmed from sham contracts, and was a significant campaign contributor to both Republicans and Democrats. An FBI informant who wore a wire caught Burkhart boasting about how he spent "a lot of money on politicians." "

I just it doesn't make.... I just don't get defrauding nursing homes and old people or whatever and then just this happens. I'm all for not overcrowding prisons especially during COVID so that stuff doesn't spread, so yeah if you have a non violent criminal don't cram them all in there so the COVID goes nuts during the pandemic. Even if that means this guy probably served home confinement in a really really nice house. But then just this happens after defrauding nursing homes and old people? I think that's what it says he did, but then what do I know. I'm just reading the article and what it says.

I want the world to make sense and it does not.
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ZBridges

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #54223 on: December 14, 2024, 11:11:52 pm »

This is the problem with making blanket pardons.
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Strongpoint

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Re: AmeriPol thread
« Reply #54224 on: December 14, 2024, 11:25:11 pm »

I can't help but to think the sightings of drones near New Jersey are part of a larger false flag operation designed to give trump a reason to declare martial law because "we are under attack". I still think trump needs that war to get many of the powers he and his minions desire.

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

This kind of crap is the direct effect of the "X is the new mainstream media now." propoganda campaign. You will see much more of that in... everything...  Idiotic rumors spread by morons (or bad actors) will be treated as facts. And it will get people killed. Like, I won't be surprised if someone will shoot down a Cesna or a paraglider
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