Posts by aelfheld 86 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Jul 2009
"It all started with Tesla – Nikola, not the car company – who got fixated on the idea at the start of the 20th century and built a giant tower to test it out. He spent all the money and never made it work, although his disciples still cling to the wreckage. Not that anyone has learned."
There were numerous eye-witness accounts of wireless power transmission in Tesla's New York City workshop. Wardenclyffe was an experiment that perished due to lack of funding.
"Pai will, of course, be most closely associated with the reversal of net neutrality rules. Not only did he undercut the FCC’s own rulings made just two years earlier but he pushed through a predetermined outcome, often with almost comic pretense to running a proper policy process."
McCarthy ignores a couple of things here (actually he ignores or distorts rather a lot but time is limited).
The FCC's ruling that Pai & the other FCC commissioners reversed was itself questionable. What is certain is investment in broadband in the U.S. collapsed with the implementation of 'net neutrality' recovering only after it was reversed.
Pai may not have been perfect, but McCarthy is indulging in partisan excoriation rather than providing an assessment.
"Those same companies that have spent a decade fighting any effort to limit their users' content [...]"
Only if you're counting that decade as being 2006 through 2016. Those 'same companies' started suppressing their users' content in 2016 & the recent actions are just an escalation of what they've been doing for years now.
Why in Heaven's name are we allowing people who are incapable (or lay claim to being) of bearing the slightest adversity - 'safe spaces', 'crying rooms', 'puppy therapy' are not the hallmark of a robust, sane individual - be allowed to distort the language? This is aggression masquerading as powerlessness.
Point the first:
"The emails are labeled "committee confidential" meaning that they should not be shared beyond the committee. But on Thursday they were leaked to the news media and some were then later publicly posted by Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), who argued they were of such significance that their release was warranted due to the broader public interest."
The e-mails were cleared for release on Wednesday per Booker's request & with his knowledge. His (Booker's) claims of putting the public ahead of partisan interest was itself a partisan sham (admittedly, not something alien to Booker).
Point the second:
That Kavanaugh was an associate in the White House during the Bush 43 administration is known, as is his work before & after. His role was to coordinate between various entities in the administration. That he handled documents regarding surveillance post-9/11 is utterly unsurprising & in no way demonstrates knowledge of the actual programs put in place, let alone contradicting his testimony.
Point the third:
Kavanaugh is arguably less a partisan choice than Elena Kagan (I'd be curious to see McCarthy's published objections to that nomination) as Kavanaugh has over a decade on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit whereas Kagan had no prior experience as a federal judge.
It's not difficult to conclude Kieren McCarthy is attempting to manufacture a controversy where none exists to further his own partisan & ideological views. It's not his views that are objectionable but the obfuscatory manner in which they're presented.
"The claim of a politically motivated investigation doesn't appear to gel with the facts: we now know that US intelligence agents were warned repeatedly about concerns over Donald Trump and his team's connections to Russia by other spy agencies across the globe: from Germany, Holland, and the UK.
The claim of a politically motivated investigation does gel with the facts. The wiretapping was, by all accounts, largely justified by the Steele/Fusion GPS dossier which has been shown to be a large steaming pile seasoned with a few sparse grains of truth.
There are certain standards that are supposed to be met to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on an American citizen. The evidence to date indicates the FBI didn't meet those standards.
"[...] less SHOUTINESS, an evolving sense of humour, more modern and global cultural touchstones, science coverage that gives proper prominence to peer-reviewed, evidence-based research and a recognition that attempted self-aware hopefully ironic sexism is almost always indistinguishable from actual sexism."
That appears to be, in effect, a complete surrender to the fundamentally irrational notion that subjects can be ruled unfit for discussion.
It's fascinating (in a cringe-worthy fashion) to listen to those who have manipulated and manufactured data, 'hid the decline', and rigged climatological 'models' accuse those on firmer scientific ground of being 'liars'.
Of course, coming from the (highly) paid liar Schmidt, the accusation takes on a certain aura of risibility.
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