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I talked with Malcolm Turnbull on the phone. With the Prime Minister, the disgusting Prime Minister, of Australia. Of all the phone calls I've been on, it was the worst call by far. Believe me, folks, it was a terrible phone call. That happened in March. He asked me to take in Australia's refugees. I said we'll do it, but we have to vet them. Refugees, for America, are a huge problem. They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists. Even with extreme vetting, they're making big problems for America. And Australia doesn't want them either. So they made a deal, Australia made a deal, with Obama. Who came to America as a refugee. And let me tell you, folks, the deal they made is terrible for America. Totally one-sided. But I said I'd stick to the deal. Because promises are important. Even when I didn't make them. Very reluctantly, I'm sticking to the deal. But now Malcolm is making fun of me and it's very hurtful. My wife, Melania, and my son, Barron, heard about the way Malcolm made fun of me, how he mocked me, and they are very hurt by it. He's hurting my family. He should be ashamed of himself. He has no shame, but he should be ashamed.

Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, anonymous comment posting has temporarily been disabled. You can still login to post. However, if bad posting continues from your IP or Subnet that privilege could be revoked as well. If it's you, consider this a chance to sit in the timeout corner or login and improve your posting. If it's someone else, this is a chance to hunt them down. If you think this is unfair, please email admin@soylentnews.org

Curious, email the very persons who have revoked the first right of free speech, the right of anonymous free speech. And of course, the real question is, who, or what, determines what is "bad posting"? Not much I can do, admins have let stick a foul Spam mod, and now I cannot post Cowardly, and next, oh, the Huge Manatee! Well, I guess my job as a philosopher is going well, attracting the attention of the powers that be enough to get them to try to silence me. But as it has been repeatedly stated on this site, disagreement is no basis for censorship. Unless, of course, it comes to something like the heliocentric theory of the cosmos, or that islamophobia is alt-right propaganda.

  But those are the breaks. It is just that Soylentils should know the breaks, and who is being broken. Remember, bad posts drive out good posts, and banning posts that call out bad posts will allow bad posts to drive out good posts. You should listen to Socrates:

And now, O men who have condemned me, I would fain prophesy to you; for I am about to die, and that is the hour in which men are gifted with prophetic power. And I prophesy to you who are my murderers, that immediately after my death punishment far heavier than you have inflicted on me will surely await you. Me you have killed because you wanted to escape the accuser, and not to give an account of your lives. But that will not be as you suppose: far otherwise. For I say that there will be more accusers of you than there are now; accusers whom hitherto I have restrained: and as they are younger they will be more severe with you, and you will be more offended at them. For if you think that by killing men you can avoid the accuser censuring your lives, you are mistaken; that is not a way of escape which is either possible or honorable; the easiest and noblest way is not to be crushing others, but to be improving yourselves. This is the prophecy which I utter before my departure, to the judges who have condemned me.

Of course, in the case of Soylent News, the result will be further insignificance. Soylent News is not growing to the extent it should be, it has a reputation as a right-wing den of iniquity and a part of the Dark Web, or the Dark Enlightenment. So it will fade away. I will not leave, however, because I am an advocate of free speech. So who among the admins is responsible for these actions? Do they not dare to even reveal their pseudonyms? Soylent News, hypocrisy is thy name.

This goes out to all my supporters in great, great, Great Britain, and I know there are a lot of you. All my great supporters in England, in Ireland, in Scotland, and in Wales. In part of Wales, I think. In the U.K. Don't forget, today, June 8th, is your election. Very important that you go to your polling centers and vote today. And you've got a lot of choices to choose from. You've got the Conservatives, great name, the Conservatives. But look at what they've done. It's a total disaster. And you've got the BNP, the British National Party. They have some great ideas, the BNP. But the party you need to vote for, to vote for today, is UKIP. Because you voted, last year you voted, to leave the EU. To leave the European Union. And UKIP is the party that will do it right, that will get you out cleanly and completely. Believe me, folks, I've been to Europe and it's not pretty. Been to Brussels. There's carnage going on there and they don't know how to fix it. Don't know how, or won't fix it. And when Europe sends its people, they're not sending their best. They're bringing crime. They're bringing drugs. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people. But you've got to pull out, all the way out. And UKIP will pull you right out. Plop! And you'll be out, cleanly. No mess. Nigel Farage is a great fellow, a great chap as you say over there. Like a brother to me. Like a twin brother, an identical twin brother. He's been a tremendous part of my campaign, he's a huge part of why I'm your President. Resigned from leading UKIP so he could join my campaign. And the guy he picked to take his place, Paul Nutall, is great too. Haven't met him, but I heard about him and what I heard is great. Paul understands that torture works. That's something I've always said and it's something that's very important to understand right now. Right now when London Bridge is being attacked, when Manchester is being attacked. And Paul understands it. And he's going to ban veils, ban veils that cover the face. Very important to taking your country back, to taking back your countries (England, Ireland, Scotland, and part of Wales). So you need to make Paul your Prime Minister. And to do that, I'm told, you need a lot of UKIP MPs, lots of UKIP Members of Parliament. So go, get out there and vote them in! Make Britain Great again. And when you're in Scotland, play a round at Turnberry. Beautiful, beautiful course. Great views. #BritainTogether #TrumpResorts

As you know, my daughter, Ivanka, makes shoes in China. I mean, Huajian Group makes them. Beautiful shoes, elegant. They'll make you look like a million bucks. But China is trying to make Ivanka look bad. China Labor Watch, great people, came to check on Huajian Group, keep them honest. Which is what Ivanka wants. What she wants, and what I want. I am the most honest person that you've ever seen in your life, and that's how I've raised my children. Raised them to be honest. But China arrested them, arrested the people from China Labor Watch. Hua Haifeng, Li Zhao and Su Heng. Said they were "taping." "Taping" isn't great, isn't always great. I think every mike should have a light, should have a flashing light, a red light to let me know when it's on. But the "taping" was part of the investigation. And China arrested them, arrested the guys, the great guys, from China Labor Watch. Which makes Ivanka look bad. Makes me look bad. Folks, I would never interfere with an investigation. Nor would Ivanka. I raised her right and neither of us have anything to hide. We would never obstruct an investigation. Believe me. I instructed the State Department, my great, great State Department, instructed them to ask China to release those investigators. But China didn't. So now I'm calling on China myself, as the President of the United States of America: release Hua Haifeng, Li Zhao and Su Heng. Release them all and release them now. #Heroes

Folks, we all know that Islam is the biggest, biggest danger in the world today. We've seen attacks in Manchester, in Kabul (150+ killed!), in London where they have that awful mayor and on Monday in Orlando. Terrible, terrible attacks. Very sad. Sick. Katie McHugh is a brave lady. She dared to speak the truth about Islam, said what we all know is the truth. "There would be no deadly terror attacks in the U.K. if Muslims didn’t live there." That's what she tweeted. That's exactly what she tweeted. Now she's fired! The very politically correct Breitbart News, where Katie was an editor, fired her for telling the truth. This is how the FAKE MSM treat their own. This is why the MSM is nothing but lies. When journalists dare to tell the truth, they're fired! Katie needs your help. Needs your money. As you know, I've promised to repeal Obamacare. Repeal it and replace it with something much better. Repeal and replace. Have you heard that expression before? I came up with it myself. You're going to love what the American Health Care Act does to the taxes, especially the tax on your investments. Believe me, you'll love it. Totally getting rid of that unfair tax. Waiting on the Senate to pass that. But in the meantime, Katie very unfairly lost her job and she'll be losing her insurance. If she hasn't already lost her medical insurance. Because her insurance was through her job. And they fired her. That means she needs to pay her medical bills and she's asking for donations. Believe me, ladies can "rack up" huge medical bills. Rack up, get it? Because boob jobs cost a lot. When they're done right, they cost a lot. But they're totally worth it. Follow @k_mcq and donate through the link. https://t.co/IRAUOj6pIL

Every Sunday I do my ironing. I have to wear reasonably "smart" clothes to work four days a week and on Friday we're allowed to dress down. Every Sunday night, depending on how tired I am, I try to iron four shirts and a pair of trousers.

It has always occurred to me that ironing clothes is a waste of time and energy. It serves no purpose other than to adhere to a social convention. If I were putting Lean Six Sigma onto my life, I think it would probably come under the category of "necessary waste" since it is there to comply with the law (an unwritten social law enforced by the Central Scrutinizer) which adds no value to the value stream.

I just found a calculation I did about three years ago to work out the impact to atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions that ironing clothes causes.

I used official UK government statistics on the proportion of electricity generated by fossil fuels and the carbon dioxide gas produced.

I have no idea if these links are still valid.

Carbon Dioxide (Equivalent) Emissions from Electricity Generation (2013)

Historical elctricity data: 1920 to 2013

For my calculations. my electrical iron is rated at 2kW and I estimated the heater to be operational 50% of the time. It takes me about 5 minutes to iron a single item, and I do 5 at a time.

To cut a long story short, I calculated that in the UK, given 2013 electricity generation data, 1 million of me doing my ironing would produce about 244.5 Te of carbon dioxide gas.

Here's my data:

Constants
Seconds per Minute    60
kcal/joule 0.000239005736
1 billion 1000000000
Seconds per Hour 3600
1 million 1000000

Iron Power (W)    2000
Time to Iron (mins)    5
Time Heating (%) 50
Energy per Item (J) 300000
Energy per Item (kcal) 71.7017208

MtCO2e 178.5
Energy Supplied (Gwh) 304155

CO2(kg) 178500000000
Energy Supplied (J) 1.094958E+018
Mass of CO2/unit energy (kg/J)    1.63019951450193E-07

CO2e(kg) per item ironed     0.048905985435058

CO2e(kg) per million items ironed 48905.9854350578
CO2(Te) per million items ironed 48.9059854350578

Items/person/week 5
1 Million People (Te)    244.529927175289

Too much going on in the world. Can't get anything done.

I'm not doing this up as a proper story right at the moment because I'm not feeling especially professional and I prefer to be when talking about site business as a staff member. That said, this needs some attention.

A combination of personal issues and burnout have caused staffing on the site to drop annoyingly low. Here's the current shortfalls in staffing:

• Half a dozen or so Editors. We could use ten. Preferably folks not on a GMT or east coast time daylight hours schedule.
• Two perl coders. NCommander is still around doing systems and infrastructure but it's just me and paulej72 writing perl for the site currently. We realistically need four to six.
• Two board members. We need a bare minimum of three to prevent tie votes.
• Zero treasurers. The two board members have been covering this but we need someone who's good with finances and can keep track of everything officially.
• Zero artsy types. All UI design choices and graphics are currently done by us code monkeys, this is far from ideal.
• Zero wiki admins. We usually have to figure out who even has emergency backup access to it when something needs administratively done.

Again, this is not an official call to arms. This is me being annoyed at the state of things and venting. Board and treasurer decisions will be made by the board and it's not even my place to ask for recruits, so I'm not. That said, if you want to volunteer for any staff position, we're always open.

Best way to get in touch is to contact us on IRC (look over to the left) but don't expect an immediate response because we're often busy doing Life Stuff. Email works as well. themightybuzzard@soylentnews.org or any other staff member will get you forwarded to someone happy to help you on your way to exploitation.

I was reading this article and thought it might be a good submission as a follow up to the post about Comey's firing.

I held back, as I thought it might already be referenced in the comments. As such, I went back and, as I was reading through the comments, came across this gem from VLM:

Could someone explain the Russia conspiracy theory?

It seems to be anointed queen in waiting lost because she sucked and the electorate hates her although the elites love her, therefore someone is to blame, and it can't be her and it can't be the D party leadership, so obviously it was gremlins or space aliens or ... I know, Russians!

Is there anything to it beyond "argh matey here be tinfoil internet pirate hats"

This got me thinking about the various ways in which we (Americans) have allowed ourselves to be divided, and discussion has devolved into demonization and wacky conspiracy theories.

I posted the following as a response (with minor changes) to VLM:

Regardless of whether the outcome would have been the same, the Russians continue to use active measures (as they have for decades) to influence public opinion in countries of interest for them. This includes the US, UK, France, much of the former Soviet bloc and FSM (okay, FSB) knows where else.

The rise of social media and the ridiculous conspiracy theories^* of the right in the US have primed the public to accept fake news (that is, lies intended to pollute public discourse) as long as it comports with their existing biases. That, and demonizing political opponents has weakened our political system and allowed folks like the Russians to muddy the waters and make it more difficult for us to work together to address the issues we all face.

It's appropriate that we all stand together to identify and understand how our public discourse and political system are being affected by those who wish to weaken, destabilize and/or harm the US.

^*Partial list of right-wing conspiracy theories. Feel free to add any left-wing ones you think appropriate.
Pizzagate
Birtherism
Jade Helm
Common Core will turn your kids gay
Agenda 21
Sharia Law coming to your town
Plans for firearms confiscation
FEMA Concentration Camps
Clinton death squads

I posit that by promoting bald-faced lies as truth and attempting to discredit those with whom we disagree, we open ourselves up to just the sort of stuff that Russia has been trying (and with the expansion of news bubbles, aided by social media, being more successful) to do for decades.

I chose not to submit the Reuters article, as it seemed to be more of a piece with the Comey firing article. What's more, even though many sources were cited, the core source(s) were anonymous. I'm sure that if there's truth to the allegations, we'll hear more about it soon.

All the same, it seems appropriate for the US to examine the role of external actors on its political and information ecosystems.

Just because the folks attempting to sway public opinion with lies are doing so at the expense of your political enemies, they are not your friends, and should not be defended or given a pass on their interference in our system.

Such actors are a threat to our national interests and should be treated as such by all of us.

I guess the question becomes, are you an American first, or a [Republican|Democrat|Libertarian|Alt-Right|Communist|Socialist|Whatever] first?

I'm an American. And my fellow Americans (regardless of political stripe) are valued members of my society. Let's work together to make our country successful for all of us. Doing so will benefit society as a whole, socially, economically and politically.