WheelsRCool

Okay, I figured out what happened I think--BUMN must've been manning the button: LINK

That probably applies to everywhere in the world right now

I love mushrooms.

Googling on it, they say someone hit a "wrong button." I don't know anything about how such systems should work, but just as a regular person, I'd think maybe it should involve more than just one button a person could accidentally press. A person on Twitter made the following point: "My phone and laptop ask me if I am sure before it lets me do something really irreversible. One would think a missile warning would have a similar level of cross-checking caution."

Where does the average person "shelter" themselves from an inbound ballistic missile? I doubt if I hid in the basement that it is going to do much good. For some interesting history: During the 1980s, the U.S. launched a rocket and accidentally forgot to inform the Soviets of what they were doing. So the Soviets immediately detected a sudden missile launch from the United States. The head guy in charge of whether to make the command that it was a real attack or just a fluke, made the decision that it was a fluke before knowing for sure that it actually was. He knew though that if he decided it was a real attack and alerted the higher authorities, then they would have to make a decision about whether to counter-strike, because the leadership in Moscow wouldn't have much time in the event of a real attack before possibly being killed. He decided though, based on what he knew of the United States and Reagan, that it was just too nuts for the U.S. to actually be attacking as it would mean certain doom for themselves too, so he got on the phone and told the higher-ups it was not real.

That is why the Democrats are so against a border wall and against stopping illegal immigration.

Donated, wishing the best.

Are those federal laws not enforced due to the Presidency explicitly deciding, "We will not enforce this..." though or rather just that there are so many laws on the books, that the various agencies charged with enforcing them just do not have the manpower to keep track of all the violators? Sort of like how they say that people violate obscure laws everyday without realizing it?

I am not quite sure what to think about this subject. On the one hand, I do think this should be more of a states rights issue. But on the other hand, I don't think the federal government can just turn a blind eye to the states ignoring federal law. The job of the Executive is to enforce the federal laws, and they can't just be arbitrarily selective. The only exception IMO would be if a particular federal law is extremely egregious and seen as blatantly un-Constitutional. But pot use is not necessary to sustenance or way of life. Otherwise, it opens up the door for a President to just selectively enforce those federal laws they want. For example, the Left would scream if President Trump announced that his administration was no longer going to enforce federal law regarding the federal ban on new automatic fire weapons. Or that his EPA was no longer going to enforce some type of environmental regulation on something it was mandated by federal law to do, that it would just be left up to the states.

Yes I tend to have verbal diarrhea, working on that.

IMO what he's stating is probably mostly true in a sense. Written in a childish-sounding manner as is typical of Trump (and out of order for some reason), but in terms of real-estate and overall business success, I doubt you become as successful as he has in that business, which from what I've read is very rough-and-tumble, without being smart, savvy, and level-headed. I agree wholeheartedly with Trump that the media has switched to knocking on his mental capacity because the Russian collusion thing isn't working out. Also I would say it is themselves that need to evaluate their mental fitness for their jobs. They were slobberers over the Obamas, while being childish nitpickers over Trump and Melania, then lose their minds it seems with Trump elected.

I don't think you get what I'm saying. It isn't tedious for the other person at all when you are having a civilized discussion about an issue or issues and can point out flaws in each other's arguments. Regarding learning on your own, well the only way to really learn about policy is to read or take classes. It isn't something you really can learn from life experience. And the only way you can really test the soundness of your political knowledge is to discuss/debate with other people on it. Otherwise you can easily walk around thinking you know more than you actually do.

I do agree he is very funny, but political jokes I am more critical of, simply by being a political person. That said, you are correct, I should lighten up more.

Has some funny spots, but IMO he, like too many comedians, makes a lot of ignorant statements that shows his own lack of knowledge about the issue (s). Also one could imagine the uproar if a white comedian was making jokes about the black people voting for Obama or Hillary and saying about how they felt sorry for them because they would say "stupid black people things."

So as a bit of a side question, you can actually tape cladding to buildings? Just sounds so ramshackle. And I don't mean that in any demeaning way, just I mean I had no idea that building construction could employ special tape like that. Learn something new everyday.

So is this someone's nightmare, like did some farmer just lose 40,000 lbs of avocados? Or would a shipment like this be a mixture of various farms?

:):)

Fortis, if you go back and read my first post, you will see that I wasn't countering anybody's points, I was just stating my own opinions and that was that. Other people started countering my own hypotheses, and thus I debated back. And on the aliens being like Nazis/Russians, you are oversimplifying what I said. I was agreeing in response to ameer who said that he wouldn't want aliens to make contact because he believes they'd most likely be violent, because he said any intelligent species is usually predatorial and the aliens would thus probably be like we humans in that sense. I was making the point that aliens could be just like humans with different cultures and civilizations, and we wouldn't want to run into the Nazi or Soviet Russia version of aliens but if there was a version of the aliens like the modern United States or United Kingdom, that could be fine. Don't see what is so crazy about that. It is just general discussion. I never said anything about, "What if they are Nazis dude?" or "nasty Russians."

They also might not want to give us any technology given how warlike we are. Even our liberal democracies could collapse at some point and dictatorship take over.

We have animal rights activists, so maybe the aliens would have human rights-activists

Relax, just discussing the issue same as everyone else. And I emphasized that such things are just my opinion. That is part of the fun, people throw out ideas and discuss the validity of them. In the end as you said, we all have no real basis, but such discussion makes you think.

On the radiation thriving, I suppose it is possible, just would need to be a totally different type of life form. As for the reference I made to countries, yes I mean the United States and United Kingdom of today. I wouldn't mind running into the alien versions of Germany today either, but wouldn't want to run into the alien version of Germans from eighty years-ago!

Just a personal belief, but I think the belief in intelligent life forms that are "beyond" things like capitalism is a fantasy. For one, that is making the IMO huge assumption that something like capitalism is an aspect of "lower" beings, that a higher being wouldn't be concerned with something so "frivolous." The reality though is capitalism/trade, and warfare, have been the prime drivers of scientific and technological development in human history, and violence, both through hunting and/or warfare, has been a prime driver of intelligence in beings that have it. I just find it utopian thinking that aliens intelligent enough to create civilization and figure out interstellar travel would be "beyond" such things as politics, power, religion, warfare, capitalism, etc...I DO believe that they could be at a higher level brain-power-wise, able to understand physics in ways we can't comprehend with our more limited brain power, but that doesn't mean that if such aliens exist, that they are more "high-minded" otherwise. No different than how a thug in the ghetto can be capable of learning nuclear physics if he applied himself---he has the more powerful brain than the chimpanzee, but can be just as primitive acting. Another thing is that once an intelligent life becomes intelligent enough to create civilization, I think it can actually "reverse" the evolution somewhat, for example, humans evolved from being of the intelligence of a chimpanzee to a human through the smarter people constantly being the ones to best find food and reproduce. The stupid ones failed at this, so the human brain really grew in power. But now with modern civilization, we have the constant reproduction of massive numbers of stupid people that otherwise never would have made it in the hunter-gatherer days.

Resources probably wouldn't be a problem for aliens capable of interstellar travel, however the violence issue could very much be. The thing is that the aliens might well have a variety of different cultures, religions, civilizations, etc...of their own just as we do, and if we come into contact with the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany version of aliens as opposed to the United States or United Kingdom version of aliens, there could be some major problems. Regarding life, the thing with the Earth is that it is an incredibly unique planet that became very suitable for the supporting of life due to its history. It orbits the proper type of star, in the proper location in the galaxy, at the proper distance. At some point in its past, a Mars-sized planetoid smashed into the early Earth and knocked off the material that likely coalesced into the Moon, while the planet itself was absorbed. As a result, the Earth has an unusually large core for a planet its size, and a HUGE moon, almost to the point of really be a double-planet system. The Moon's effects have played a huge role in the way the Earth is. The Earth also has a magnetic field due to the molten rock inside, which helps to repel radiation from the Sun. Regarding planetary travel, I do think it is important that we learn to colonize Mars. From there, we could colonize other areas of the Solar System, but such ability will ensure humanity's survival in the event that anything really bad ever happens to Earth (say major asteroid impact). It also will ensure we know how to continue surviving on Earth as well (if we can live on Mars, we could live on Earth). The lower gravity on Mars would be a problem in terms of the issue of muscle and bone deterioration though.