@Lash,
Lash wrote:True. But, Google is just too powerful.
I like DuckDuckGo. For the few times that DuckDuckGo isn't quite enough, it is easy to switch to Google by simply adding
!g to a search string (or
!gi for Google Images, or
!n for Google News).
For that matter I can use Amazon.com's internal search engine from DuckDuckGo by adding
!a to the search. Or if I want to look something up in World of Warcraft, I can add
!wowpedia or
!wowhead to the search string. If I want to search for a CNET article,
!cnet will transfer my search to the CNET search engine.
DuckDuckGo searches can also jump over to Bing or Bing Images by adding
!b or
!bi to the search.
Quite often though DuckDuckGo is powerful enough that I don't have to jump over to other sources.
@Setanta,
Setanta wrote:
She once accused me of accusing her of being a Russian spy. Ha! the Russians aren't that stupid.
That's silly, this is what Russian spies look lie.
She's been accused of all sorts but never dick shrinkage.
Now I wish I knew some national security secrets so that she could seduce me and worm them out of me . . . over a very, very long month of cultivating my interest. (Of course, I'd have to work hard to hide my inerest at first.)
@oralloy,
Goddammit, I'm going to try it and promote it on social media if it's worth a ****.
At least it doesn't have that goddam Big Brother logarithm.
I thought this dystopian **** would happen after I died.
Thanks for an alternative.
A friend in Silicon Valley said I should get rid of Facebook messenger and only use Signal. Passing that along.
Look around.
A couple of paragraphs from this prescient warning by Chris Hedges in Truthdig.
The American empire is coming to an end. The U.S. economy is being drained by wars in the Middle East and vast military expansion around the globe. It is burdened by growing deficits, along with the devastating effects of deindustrialization and global trade agreements. Our democracy has been captured and destroyed by corporations that steadily demand more tax cuts, more deregulation and impunity from prosecution for massive acts of financial fraud, all the while looting trillions from the U.S. treasury in the form of bailouts. The nation has lost the power and respect needed to induce allies in Europe, Latin America, Asia and Africa to do its bidding. Add to this the mounting destruction caused by climate change and you have a recipe for an emerging dystopia. Overseeing this descent at the highest levels of the federal and state governments is a motley collection of imbeciles, con artists, thieves, opportunists and warmongering generals. And to be clear, I am speaking about Democrats, too.
The empire will limp along, steadily losing influence until the dollar is dropped as the world’s reserve currency, plunging the United States into a crippling depression and instantly forcing a massive contraction of its military machine.
Short of a sudden and widespread popular revolt, which does not seem likely, the death spiral appears unstoppable, meaning the United States as we know it will no longer exist within a decade or, at most, two. The global vacuum we leave behind will be filled by China, already establishing itself as an economic and military juggernaut, or perhaps there will be a multipolar world carved up among Russia, China, India, Brazil, Turkey, South Africa and a few other states. Or maybe the void will be filled, as the historian Alfred W. McCoy writes in his book “In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of US Global Power,” by “a coalition of transnational corporations, multilateral military forces like NATO, and an international financial leadership self-selected at Davos and Bilderberg” that will “forge a supranational nexus to supersede any nation or empire.”
So, now people are calling for the dissolution of the First Amendment on TV, deciding they will be the arbiters of what can and cannot be said, worn, or expressed.
Here we go.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/liberal-guests-to-bill-maher-assault-nazis-and-scrap-the-first-amendment/article/2636360
Excerpt:
American liberalism is increasingly comfortable with authoritarianism. That's my only conclusion from last Friday's free speech discussion on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher."
During that episode, one liberal panelist defended attacking non-violent Nazis, and the other liberal called for shredding the first amendment.
@Lash,
Did that air recently, or was back in 1532?
@Lash,
Lash wrote:A couple of paragraphs from this prescient warning by Chris Hedges in Truthdig.
The American empire is coming to an end.
America has never been an empire. What we are is the world's sole superpower.
Our status as the world's sole superpower is not coming to an end. Even when one day another country becomes a superpower, the US will still continue to be the other superpower.
It is common though for countries with power to have impotent people predict their downfall. For example, impotent nothings predicted Rome's downfall for some 750 years before the Empire finally collapsed.
Lash wrote:The empire will limp along, steadily losing influence until the dollar is dropped as the world’s reserve currency, plunging the United States into a crippling depression and instantly forcing a massive contraction of its military machine.
If the world switched away from the US dollar as their reserve currency, that would not harm the US economy in any way.
Lash wrote:Short of a sudden and widespread popular revolt, which does not seem likely, the death spiral appears unstoppable, meaning the United States as we know it will no longer exist within a decade or, at most, two.
In two decades the US will still be the world's sole superpower.
@reasoning logic,
I think this flaw in the contract worker mentality is something that the powers that be know about and that is why they are investing so much in artificial intelligence. I notice that you have an article as well about that. Good.
*And it is pretty obvious that carnation milk is not a substitute for milk and whipped cream. Surprised that the guy doesn’t say, Oh you have a flat tire on the highway, don’t worry about it. Getting a new tire or fixing the flat. Just use carnation milk and it actually repairs the tire.
@Lash,
Quote Lash's article:
Quote:The empire will limp along, steadily losing influence until the dollar is dropped as the world’s reserve currency, plunging the United States into a crippling depression and instantly forcing a massive contraction of its military machine.
The world never adopted the dollar as the single reserve currency in the first place. Other reserve currencies endorsed by the IMF for payment purposes are the euro, the pound, the yen and now the Chinese yuan.
Anytime you see anyone, especially on the internet, who says something that implies that the dollar is the only allowable reserve currency is simply repeating Russian propaganda they saw on the internet. Or are Russian trolls feeding the internet Russian propaganda themselves.
@Blickers,
It's not just Russians. It started some 20 years ago with the extreme right in the US. By extreme right, I mean the people who insist that income tax is illegal. But it didn't get much traction there. Then the extreme left got ahold of it. By extreme left I mean the ones who think Obama should be tried for war crimes for what they allege are acts of aggression. They took it and ran with it, and have been talking about it ever since.
By the way, am I the only one on a2k who has seen 2018 prices for Obamacare so far? Sorry for changing the subject, but that's what's overwhelmingly on my mind at the moment. If these prices hold I won't be able to afford a gold plan this year. Not at $950 a month.
I hope Congress gets together with some sort of bipartisan fix before I have to lock in a plan. I hope people when they see these 2018 prices decide to let Congress hear about it.
I suppose I'd better go write my congresspeople myself.
$950 a month for a gold plan plus dental and vision?
Plus on top of that the multi-state plans have all been abolished.
@oralloy,
That's what you get for supporting a bunch of assholes. The 'bipartisan fix' you talk about has been pursued by Dems for YEARS. It's your party who refuses to do anything about the problem, and intentionally has taken actions to make things worse for people just like you.
Cycloptichorn
@oralloy,
Quote:By the way, am I the only one on a2k who has seen 2018 prices for Obamacare so far? Sorry for changing the subject, but that's what's overwhelmingly on my mind at the moment. If these prices hold I won't be able to afford a gold plan this year. Not at $950 a month.
I hope Congress gets together with some sort of bipartisan fix before I have to lock in a plan. I hope people when they see these 2018 prices decide to let Congress hear about it.
I suppose I'd better go write my congresspeople myself.
$950 a month for a gold plan plus dental and vision?
Plus on top of that the multi-state plans have all been abolished.
My company just had enrollment for the year and new insurance started on Oct 1st. My plan per pay-period went up $30 but a vast majority of of the plan stayed the same, which is a really good plan and cheaper Rx for my wife who has mild epilepsy. Rx plans vs her old Blue Cross/Blue Shield are much cheaper especially when done by the 90 day Rx. I digress, I'm not paying much less than you are for myself and family, about $860 a month. Btw, prior to the ACA, I was paying half this much for very similar plans from the same insurance company, UHC, but had much better "free" offerings that my family and I found useful.
@Cycloptichorn,
Cycloptichorn wrote:That's what you get for supporting a bunch of assholes.
So I should be punished with poor health care because I won't allow my constitutional rights to be violated?
I should be able to vote for a party who looks out for my economic interests AND doesn't try to violate my rights. Shame on the Democrats for not being that party.
Cycloptichorn wrote:The 'bipartisan fix' you talk about has been pursued by Dems for YEARS. It's your party who refuses to do anything about the problem, and intentionally has taken actions to make things worse for people just like you.
There are Democrats out there who don't want to fix health care during a Trump presidency because of their spite for Trump.
Let's have the moderates from both parties get together and defeat the extremists from both parties.
(And I'm still a registered Democrat despite my continued opposition to their many abuses and atrocities.)
@oralloy,
Quote:So I should be punished with poor health care because I won't allow my constitutional rights to be violated?
Yup. You made your choices, now live with them. You knew that the GOP had no plan for doing anything about healthcare and went with them anyway, because you didn't think healthcare was important when compared to other things.
Still feel that way? To be clear, you DO deserve this and it IS your fault. Hope you enjoy the upcoming year of premiums!
Quote:I should be able to vote for a party who looks out for my economic interests AND doesn't try to violate my rights.
Haha, the GOP doesn't give
two shits about your 'economic interests.'
Quote:Let's have the moderates from both parties get together and defeat the extremists from both parties.
That's literally what was happening in the Senate, before the GOP leadership ended the negotiations.
https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/bipartisan-health-care-talks-shut-down-amid-rush-to-repeal
Quote:(And I'm still a registered Democrat despite my continued opposition to their many abuses and atrocities.)
Only so you can **** with our primaries. Literally no other reason.
Cycloptichorn
@Cycloptichorn,
Quote:That's what you get for supporting a bunch of assholes. The 'bipartisan fix' you talk about has been pursued by Dems for YEARS. It's your party who refuses to do anything about the problem, and intentionally has taken actions to make things worse for people just like you.
Pushing for Single Payer or similar coverage isn't really "fixing" the issue when the majority of the problems with the ACA are self made with the law itself. The only thing it did as promised was get more people insurance but it really hasn't created the cost savings to the average insurance customer. Sure some of the people got some good plans but the majority of people who have company insurance plans haven't seen those same cost savings.
Sure, you will blame the company I work for because that is convenient but ignore the millions of other Americans who just like me haven't seen anything improve with insurance cost since the ACA kicked in. The only reason I have a good plan at a decent cost for the market is because of the line of work I'm in and what the type of companies I tend to work for do to pull in the best employees possible. When we were bought by a Texas based company offering only Blue Cross/Blue Shield and what it was going to cost us, we had a # of high level and valuable employees quit over that year, just because of the insurance "benefits" they offered. Every single meeting we had with upper level management, the engineers would bring it up and they forced the company to go with what we had before and people stopped leaving and a few even came back. In the Tech world, the benefits are what draw the candidates and keep us with the company.
@Baldimo,
Yaknow, Medicare and Social Security weren't perfect or even very good when they were first signed into law. Both had major problems. Large legislative bills like these quite often have unanticipated effects that lead to headaches once they are put into action. It usually takes several revisions for something stable to be achieved.
This was all known about the ACA as well as early as 2010. There were a whole LIST of things that could have been done to improve it under Obama, let alone now. But the Dems were never able to do so, because the GOP chose a strategy of blocking ALL revisions and improvements to the ACA as they hoped to run on a platform of killing it and then do so when they got into office. Well, that ******* failed because they were lying all along about having a plan, and because elements of the ACA are pretty damn popular.
This was all far, far before anyone was pushing for single-payer. To act like the reason the ACA hasn't been reformed and fixed is due to something the Dems did is absolutely insane. You know better than to even write such a thing. The truth of the matter is that if the GOP was interested in doing some horse-trading and shoring up the ACA in exchange for some of their legislative priorities, they could have had that years ago. But they refused to even entertain the idea, surely you understand that?
Cycloptichorn
@Cycloptichorn,
Cycloptichorn wrote:Yup. You made your choices, now live with them. You knew that the GOP had no plan for doing anything about healthcare and went with them anyway, because you didn't think healthcare was important when compared to other things.
Still feel that way?
I still feel that my freedom and civil rights are vital, yes.
Cycloptichorn wrote:To be clear, you DO deserve this and it IS your fault. Hope you enjoy the upcoming year of premiums!
So the position of the Democrats is that I should have poor health care. I'll have to remember that come election day.
Cycloptichorn wrote:Haha, the GOP doesn't give two shits about your 'economic interests.'
I never said they did.
Cycloptichorn wrote:That's literally what was happening in the Senate, before the GOP leadership ended the negotiations.
The Republican bill has long since failed. There is no reason why the moderates can't resume negotiations.
Cycloptichorn wrote:Only so you can **** with our primaries. Literally no other reason.
No. It's because I like the idea of a strong social safety net.
I voted for Kasich in the Republican primary in 2016. Not because I was trying to screw with anyone, but because I felt he was the best possible candidate.
Michigan almost always allows people to vote in any primary they wish despite party affiliation.
