JCauto

Hard to speak whilst yawning. We owe you a response just as much as you owe all the previous responses one. Why not go back and show your brilliance in debate rather than rely on other people's videos? I don't care to watch your curated selection of whatever, I come here to discuss and debate the issues of the day. You're welcome to throw in your two cents. Let me ask, do you reckon we could stitch together a few videos of Donald talking gibberish? Of course we could. What would that prove that isn't already known? The Right are going to start joining Donald in his selection of undergarments given that the race is now going to be led by a Woman of colour. You going apoplectic is music to my ears. Let's have a side bet - I bet you DJT pulls out of all future debates. He knows he'd be carved up like a Christmas turkey by the former prosecutor. She knows his type!

Nonsense! If that were the case, you'd have been banned long ago. Prove it.

There's another school of thought that they have been preparing for it and sprung it at the most opportune time, after the Republican Convention and the assassination attempt. That would of course be a savvy political move, something one doesn't usually get from the Democrats, but if so it's brilliant and has thrown the Republicans into chaos. Harris seems to be easily the choice and they're lining up some really good VP candidates including an astronaut. Harris seems to appeal to the youth. I think this has totally changed the race and in a very good way from my point of view. After the debate, Biden was done.

QED is a commonly used phrase in English used generally for mathematical and scientific proofs. This can be seen as similar to the use of a word like "deja vu" or "bon voyage", which you can even pronounce like Bugs Bunny if you so prefer. This is the point at which you are bereft of argument and scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel.

Your comment was a direct response to mine and you quoted me in your response. This is fair game. And your "understanding" of the US Presidency is remarkably incorrect - the Supreme Court just ruled that the President has immunity for all official acts, giving him the power of a King. Fortunately for our friends on the Right, the current King is someone who doesn't hold the opinion that he should be a King and wield unlimited power to persecute his opponents, but instead is a staunch defender of the rule of law. Remember when Republicans used to be staunch defenders of rule of law? Seems like another lifetime ago. Yet you think that the most powerful man in the world can be "told" to "step down"? LOL. By someone who was in the room? C'mon, don't be coy! Who was it? Soros? Gates? Which Lefty Boogeyman would be the straw to clutch in this situation.

Schoolboy error. Never ask a question you don't know the answer to, it makes you look a fool once he provided you with the link (which of course he did!). You guys don't really pick up a lot from participating in these discussions, do you?

Quod erat demonstrandum!

My final lesson for today is - when you've been comprehensively beaten, it's considered gracious and classy to simply accept defeat and note that you were incorrect in your earlier posting. This provides credibility for future discussions and lets others see that you're not just bloviating and trying to stir up conflict but engaging in principled debate. Good luck in the future! I'm sure our paths will cross again.

I said "One of the clearest indicators of whether a person is a narcissist is whether they have empathy for others. Narcissists don't. Do you see Joe as someone devoid of empathy? He sure does fake it well in that case. How about DJT? Have you seen him empathize much with others? You will note he only does so when it is in service of attacking other people who supposedly harmed the person he is empathizing with, and in every single case it is for political purposes. IMO he was a faker. Obviously faked it well enough to fool a lot of people." You responded with (of course, since every accusation is a confession for you folks) a claim that I was "deflecting". So I asked you "Do you see Joe as someone devoid of empathy? He sure does fake it well in that case." Your response was that "I was responding to your claim that Biden has "empathy"". Very tiresome, you are trying to pretend that you haven't been discussing the issue of narcissism while directly responding to posts about narcissism. You fully understood that I was raising the issue of "empathy" since it is well understood that Narcissists lack empathy for others, and this is one of the defining characteristics. I raised it in that context and explained so. What's next? Going back to edit your posts? Or just more weak sauce about "deflecting". While deflecting.

Once again, allow me to explain. You raised the point that "IMO a general that takes sides in a political dispute is despicable for trying to use their position for politics. The military are supposed to stay out of politics." I am responding to that point. You did say that, didn't you? That's not a deflection, that's proper debate - I don't back away from your points, I address them directly. Now can you kindly do the same - what is it that has given you the impression that Joe Biden is a Narcissist? Can you point to any evidence? Have any disgruntled members of his administration or party said that? Have you seen any behaviour that is typical of Narcissists? I have answered all of your points, and would appreciate if you could address mine.

So your response to direct quotations proving your point wrong is to (of course) disparage the witnesses (despite them having all been appointed to their very senior positions by DJT). Direct quotations by people of high standing who happened to be present at the time is pretty much what defines the word "evidence". I understand that this has been a highly emotional and traumatic time for you. It was all there, in your grasp, four more years of the division and hatred after that appalling debate performance. And now it's gone, tens of millions of dollars wasted on attacking Joe and Hunter, an entire campaign built on being too old and incompetent and now he's the old and incompetent one! He's going to get his butt handed to him by a far younger, far smarter and far more dynamic woman (the irony!) and you're going to have to sit through another eight years of watching Project 2025 and the decades of meddling with the Supreme Court go crashing down into the dustbin of history like the fascism from which it sprang. I'm going to be here for all of it, reminding you every step along the way! Get your popcorn!

Allow me to explain then - one way to provide enlightenment in debate is to contrast and compare similar situations so that the person who has made a claim can observe that the claim has limited or no merit. There are two people I compare in my post, and both of them have been President for almost 4 years, so there are similar track records, experience and other data to consider. It's a rare experience too, so there are limited other examples one might point to that would be relevant. You claimed to believe that Biden was a Narcissist - I found it hard to believe because when one is a Narcissist, it dominates all other facets of your personality and emerges clearly when one is among an accomplished peer group. You can see this when you examine DJT and the many people who worked very closely with him as President who have observed this and even felt so strongly about it that they had to say it publicly even though they are committed lifelong Republicans. So why hasn't the same thing happened with Biden? Where are the ex-staffers noting his lack of empathy, his obsession with his image, his continuous disparaging of others to make himself look good? Where is your evidence? I gave you pretty strong evidence that those who ARE narcissist can't hide it from those around them. How has Biden managed that? Your claim he showed he could by hiding his age falls flat rather quickly when the literal reason he dropped out of the race is that HE COULDN'T HIDE HIS AGE! Lastly, and most importantly, a Narcissist would NEVER BACK OUT OF THE RACE! He would believe he and only he was the one who could save the country. His act of stepping down was the act of someone who is not a Narcissist.

Sigh, really? Guess what, General Kelly was retired from the military at that point. That's how he became Chief of Staff. Guess what is one of the more political positions in the world? White House Chief of Staff. He was CHOSEN by DJT and APPOINTED by DJT to be his MAIN STAFF PERSON in his administration. Do you think perhaps that this was a bit political? Can you point to your outrage in any previous posts about the highly political antics of General Flynn or others? Didn't think so. Selective outrage that is misinformed is hardly a platform for political debate.

So your rebuttal includes as its lede something spoken by Donald Trump? That he says 25 witnesses disputed this? Ignoring that DJT is one of the more notorious recorded and proven liars in history and taking his statements at face value, let's examine the evidence, shall we? How can we do it to the satisfaction of someone who is so desperately convinced...I know! Allow me to provide quotations from the article you posted in support of your absurd defense. "The White House has collected the names of 25 people who claim to refute Goldberg’s reporting on the cemetery decision. Trump called them “witnesses,” but that’s wrong. Eleven people on the list were not with Trump. They are mostly current administration officials serving at the pleasure of the president or communications aides, and so can offer only bromides. Strikingly, two people who figure prominently in the article — then-White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr. — have not commented." Right, so 11 of the 25 were not witnesses since they were not there. That is a lie. An easily proven lie. Just one of thousands. Then-WH Chief of Staff John Kelly is the one who confirmed it. As the article you so helpfully posted noted "Their silence on this explosive story certainly is important in evaluating its accuracy. Both men would have the credibility to refute the reporting, so readers could consider their refusal to comment as some sort of confirmation." Well, not only was their silence confirmation, Kelly explicitly confirmed it as per my previous post. Any comment? The rest of the article demonstrates how the 14 remaining "witnesses" were either carefully parsing their statements or otherwise qualifying them. It's about as weak a defense as can possibly be made. Y'all are really bad at the debating game. You shouldn't provide references that prove your antagonists' point and undermine your own.

Well then, let's explore your opinion and see whether it is supported by reality? it will be easily seen whether he was faking it, similar to DJT. After all, there are always lots of disenchanted staffers from various administrations who leave and spill the dirt on their former employers. I mean the cavalcade of ex-Trump administration people denouncing the Donald as a narcissist would stretch around a NYC block. So on the Trump side, a quick search of "ex trump admin say narcissist" reveals that Ty Cobb (former White House lawyer) called DJT "a deeply wounded narcissist". Former Attorney-General Bill Barr calls Trump "a Consummate Narcissist". Former Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland said Trump was "he ex-president’s “inability to clearly explain things” is a result of his being a narcissist", and the former Director of the CIA John Brennan noted that he has "qualities usually found in narcissistic, vengeful autocrats". These aren't minor administration paeons, these are people at the highest level with their hands on the levers of power. The same search but with "ex biden admin say narcissist" provides exactly zero results that include quotations or statements or book excerpts or even purported second-hand hearsay that a single person involved in the Biden administration who left has that to say about Biden. So if you can remain on topic for one more post, could you kindly provide any evidence for your belief/opinion that Biden is such a good actor that he has managed to hide that he's a Narcissist from everyone around him unlike DJT? I know you won't because there are no facts to support your opinion.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/john-kelly-confirms-trump-privately-disparaged-us-service-members-vete-rcna118543 You mean noted Lefty General John Kelly, DJT's former Chief of Staff? That Commie? "A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them,'" Kelly said of Trump. "A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family — for all Gold Star families — on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.”

Are you competing for the "every accusation is a confession" championship or something? One of the clearest indicators of whether a person is a narcissist is whether they have empathy for others. Narcissists don't. Do you see Joe as someone devoid of empathy? He sure does fake it well in that case. How about DJT? Have you seen him empathize much with others? You will note he only does so when it is in service of attacking other people who supposedly harmed the person he is empathizing with, and in every single case it is for political purposes.

So we can say that you are very strongly against those who speak untruths? And yet you claim to be a supporter of DJT? Do you think DJT lies also? Who do you think lies more often?

This will never happen.<removed> wouldn't dare face a strong woman of colour who was a former prosecutor on live TV; he'd soil himself repeatedly - some visibly, some not.

Unbelievable? There were something like almost 200 cops outside of the Uvalde primary school who sat around waiting while the kid with a gun massacred children. Police in the USA have managed to achieve "qualified immunity" and the right to protect themselves first and foremost to the extent where the courts have basically stated that citizens have no right to expect any protection from the police at any point in time. They're more akin to the "Bulls" who were used by the wealthy to go after the working class in the earlier parts of the 20th Century than any of the familiar propaganda portrayals of "Cop Buddy" movies. ACAB.

The article is incorrect. The person who donated to the "pro-Democratic group" is a different guy with the same name who's almost 70 years old. The only thing we seem to know about this guy is that he was a registered Republican who seems remarkably un-forthcoming about his views and plans compared to most who do something like this. Don't think his personal views are that important, more that any kind of nut in the USA can easily get hold of a weapon and start killing people.

Too easy, the jokes write themselves.

Always happy to engage in honest discussion. It would have had both positive and negative impacts, depending on the way in which it was done. We've also had a lot of rubber plantation expansion in Laos where I work, and it was one of the main drivers of deforestation for example between 2005 and 2013. Positive impacts: 1. The rubber plantations usually are done with care to maximize yields and ease of collection and maintenance so they will often reduce soil erosion compared to previous land uses, particularly if they were using the land for swidden ("slash and burn") agriculture. 2. Rubber plantations keep the local area significantly cooler by providing dense canopy to absorb sunlight and heat compared to regular fallow. 3. Rubber plantations sequester carbon in their tree trunks and in the rubber sap, both of which are processed and used afterwards - this is good, but the ultimate cost is determined by how the product is used and disposed of. Rubber plantations are usually cut down after 25 years or so and replanted in order to improve efficiency. By its nature it will sequester carbon for a significant time because rubber wood is valuable so the old plantation is not simply burned down. 4. Well managed rubber plantations, especially those wishing to be compliant with the new EU Deforestation Regulations, will not be built on land that was previously forest, so contribute to carbon storage. 5. Rubber plantations can provide long-term income for smallholder farmers and laborers that is relatively low maintenance. 6. Rubber prices have been very good recently so farmers and plantation companies are making good money. Negative impacts: 1. Rubber plantations act like forest in that they stabilize the ground and sequester carbon, reduce temperatures in the local areas etc. but they're NOT forest and don't have the diverse local flora and fauna that forest does. It further reduces habitat for wild creatures and plants. 2. Poorly managed rubber plantations often convert forest resulting in net negative carbon sequestered and biodiversity loss and dispossess villagers of their subsistence agricultural land and future land for their children which is often not secure. 3. Smallholders take big risks to plant rubber since it takes several years before producing yields and global price drops or local corruption skewing the market can result in economic losses to poor farmers. 4. Poorly managed rubber can result in increases in mosquitos and mosquito-borne diseases because the shells used to collect the sap store casual water that mozzies breed in. So overall I would say it is a fairly neutral plantation crop compared to others such as cassava, corn, pasture, sugar, watermelon and other major cash plantation crops because it is more permanent, long-term and it does provide good cover so reduces soil erosion and heat absorption. Locally it would be better in those respects than land simply left for fallow to be reused at a later date as part of a rotational upland agriculture system. However it doesn't provide long-term permanent land cover and forest since it will eventually be cut down and replanted and causes local biodiversity loss compared to the existing swidden systems or leaving the land to regenerate natural forest cover. It is poor land use practice if the plantations replaced natural forest and the new EU regulation will penalize those operators as a result by restricting their market.

What the heck does that first sentence mean? Sounds like a DJT Rally speech it's so incoherent. What would you do if you're on an electric boat, and it's sinking, and there's a shark 10 yards away...? "If you know so much, why are you unable to put up any solutions ?" Do you recall this post? I made it about 6 posts of yours ago. "Did you observe point 7, about what I do professionally? This is an example of "what to do about it". You try to sequester carbon in the forest tree stems and protect habitat for biodiversity (since catastrophic climate change is a precursor to another existential danger, that being Biodiversity Collapse). There are many other things people are doing about it - you may have observed that there has been a massive shift to renewable energy from carbon-based fuel. We may well be able to get to a point of zero-emission energy within a reasonable timeframe. People are researching new ways to remove or sequester carbon and other pollutants such as algae farming and low emission agriculture. If we look at the example of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that were destroying the ozone layer not so long ago, they are no longer a problem because we recognized the damage they were causing, then banded together as humans to ban the CFCs and put in alternatives that don't damage the ozone. It worked. So it's like most things, if one observes a problem and is able to quantify it and identify mitigation measures, one can then mobilize governments and ordinary folks to do something about it and create a movement towards less damaging ways of living. That is happening, although sadly it has happened too late (due to the staunch resistance of those profiting from dirty tech) and there remain many unenlightened people who see this as a threat so try to do the opposite." You even responded to it, saying "Thank you for that reply. However, there is one insoluble problem that will negate all those attempts to mitigate the problem- overpopulation. Millions of people in poor countries want to live like westerners and that is a lifestyle that is destroying the planet's ability to support humanity. They all want to live in cities, fly on exotic holidays and drive cars etc. If governments were serious about solutions they wouldn't be trying to get us to breed more, as they are doing. Is it the biggest irony of all that western people that have the lifestyle want to revert to a simpler way of life, while the people that have the simpler way of life want to be like us, and consume like there is no tomorrow? Consumption is going to kill us all, in my opinion." Yet, not even 4 posts later, you write in direct response to me again "If you know so much, why are you unable to put up any solutions ? You can run around saying the sky is falling as much as you like, but don't expect to be taken seriously, unless you have a solution or two. So far all I see from your side is fearmongering, but that only works on the easily impressed." You've also been clear that you're not so much longer for this world due to your age, hence I will stop after this post because it is clear that you are suffering from cognitive issues and it's not nice to be mean to the elderly.

1. It's ironic to accuse people of making stuff up then not being able to produce the evidence you said you knew was full of lies. My point was that it's absurd to attach a precise number to the percentage of scientists and engineers who understand that climate change is real due to any study's limitations given how many there are, but that it is highly likely to be a large percentage of them. 2. There's lots more out there, not hard to find if you care to look. 3. Of course one should read studies. My point was that I work in the field, so I necessarily have to read a lot of studies, observe a lot of statistics, create analyses and write reports that are fully sourced with proper citations. I don't need to read every report and it would be impossible to do so, that was my point. You either have read enough to have come to a well-founded conclusion about climate change or you haven't. 4. Which field? Mine was Civil and I worked in water resources and environmental assessment mostly.