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12:38 AM
tldr; Trivago is being fined for misleading customers where the top result was just the ad that paid the most pre click thile the "room comparison" was between a luxery suite and standard room
i always knew there was something shady about it because the ads claim they find the bookings for the same room and present the cheapest, but how would this be possible because the hotels wouldn't be having those rooms cheaper elsewhere and other sites i assume pay something extra to cover the difference
title says the gist of it, not sure how the RBA (Reserve Bank of Australia) buying coal mines and fossil fuel stations does anything unless they buy them to shut them down which wouldn't do much (sure it cuts their carbon emission if they are shut down but we need to transition from them, not cut them out)
 
 
13 hours later…
1:34 PM
Wow, that's a pretty big circle (they're presumably practicing for a GPS-denied combat situation)
 
@TimStone totally normal!!
 
@TimStone okay that sounds like it would look amazing
Though is it actually lazers and not just giant lights that are wel focused?
 
Not sure, the article uses the phrasing "six laser-beam 'strings' shoot light 20,000 feet into the sky"
> The development is the brainchild of Jim Allen…a gaming industry veteran and former vice-president of the Trump Organisation
It's like he has to taint everything
Perils of gambling aside, it is a pretty impressive building
 
2:57 PM
Muahahahaha
 
god, that means like, "point of order: shut the fuck up" is valid
 
@TimStone oh, jeez. For those that didn't follow the link:
> Hillary Clinton weighs in on Sanders: 'Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done'
Why would she do this???
even if she believed it, why would you say this right now??
 
3:13 PM
🤷‍♂️
 
hmmm. Looks like its not a new quote:
 
I guess he's polling too well and they've got to throw a bone to Joe or something who will take it too literally and start barking on stage, weirding everyone out
 
> In the fall of 2017, producer Howard T. Owens got a call from famed Washington power broker Robert Barnett. Barnett's longtime client, Hillary Clinton, was sitting on nearly 2,000 hours of campaign footage and planned to turn it into a documentary. Hulu was already on board to distribute it domestically, but would Owens consider producing and selling it abroad?
so the timing isn't Hillary's decision
but plenty of hay will certainly be made of it (is already being made of it)
 
Right, but the interview with her was published today and they ask her about the quote and she says she sticks by it
So she's effectively saying it again, which I would just avoid!
 
@BradC To be fair, that seems to be a qualification for the Presidency.
@TimStone I decided to melt the polar ice caps because the possible danger of flooding from rising water levels.
 
3:22 PM
hmm. reading the quotes in full, I don't disagree with her. So, while I am annoyed at the way this will likely be weaponized in an attempt to stoke division, I won't blame that on her
 
I think it would have been better for her to try and reframe it in the context of trying to differentiate herself from a primary candidate based on her understanding of her own relationships and just kind of shrug off what's applicable now
But yes today will just be an all around dumb day
 
you know everyone will be focused on this instead of the fact that the impeachment trial for the president of the united states is starting in the senate
 
Without media coverage, no less!
 
@TimStone i want to see trump tweeting a complaint about no media coverage for the impeachment trial because he hired lawyers based on how good they look on tv
 
I assume you mean that figuratively since Alan Dershowitz is involved
 
3:32 PM
> Constitutional lawyer and Trump impeachment legal team member Alan Dershowitz said Monday that he is "much more correct right now" in his current views on what qualifies a president for impeachment than his near-opposite views during the Clinton impeachment.
 
@TimStone As an aside to this since it was brought up on Twitter the fact that other legislators don't like Bernie is itself a plus to some voters, so 🤷‍♂️
 
@BradC how extraordinarily convenient that his improved understanding is also what helps him politically now! Such a nice coincidence, surely he's not just doing whatever seems expedient, not at all!
 
I mean I'll take it I guess
 
It's just funny that it's probably of more consequence than the NYT endorsement at the end of the day
Not sure what that says about everything but it sure says something
 
3:46 PM
lol
 
4:03 PM
> Leader McConnell’s plan for a dark of night impeachment trial confirms what the American people have seen since Day One: the Senate GOP Leader has chosen a cover-up for the President, rather than honor his oath to the Constitution. Shamefully, this sham proposal does not even allow for admitting the House record into evidence at the trial.
What exactly does that last part mean, is the Senate definitely not entering the House record into evidence? Or just the final report, but not the entire testimony? Or just the 7-page impeachment articles themselves?
 
They have to take a vote on whether to allow materials to be included or something
From what I gathered earlier
That's pretty messed up Bolsonaro, making me take Glenn Greenwald's side
 
4:23 PM
@TimStone The Brazilian Supreme court had already ordered Bolsonaro to drop the investigation months ago, so clearly they ignored taht
 
This is a headline that is both strictly accurate, but also still plays into the "this is just more partisan politics as usual" trope: Mitch McConnell issues proposed rules for impeachment trial as Dems cry foul
(live thread, so the headline may change)
Excellent thread on this point by Will Wilkinson:
> I am so exasperated by the media trying to play it cool, like this is just ordinary hardball partisan politics. It isn't. Trump was impeached for trying to steal the next election, and if he's acquitted, he'll know he can double down on election theft and no one will stop him.
> If you trash the constitutional order, trash democracy, you destroy the means to keep political authority from devolving into into factional power, and political conflict from spilling into the streets. But that's what McConnell is doing--on behalf of Trump's rank corruption.
> This isn't normal partisan politics. It's a five-alarm political crisis. Trump is dead set on stealing the election to stay out of jail and line his pockets with impunity. Senate Republicans are working furiously to ensure that he gets away with it. That's what this is.
> If you find yourself moved to declare that this is an hysterical or over-dramatic account of the situation, you're either not paying attention, or you're so corrupted by partisanship that you approve. Either way, you don't deserve to be taken seriously. Patriots will resist.
that's her site, there is also a Reuters article
> "save only those positions necessary to preserve continuity and protect national security during the transition period."
other good stuff in there, too.
> Swiftly Appoint New Personnel Who Will Undo the Trump Administration’s Disastrous Policies, Restore Integrity to Government, and Fight on Behalf of the American People
 
4:59 PM
Canadians criticize Trudeau after visit to Oh Doughnuts bakery in Winnipeg and
Canadians criticize Trudeau after visit to Oh Doughnuts bakery in Winnipeg Canadians criticize Trudeau after visit to Oh Doughnuts bakery in Winnipeg
I'm bad at this
> Canadians quickly attacked the Prime Minister for his decision to choose a pricier bakery, rather than a fast food joint, such as Tim Horton’s.
Yeah, I'd much rather the PM give a bunch of money to a company which isn't even owned by a Canadian company, and who locks out their workers over 10 cents
SUPPORT BIG BUINESS! SCREW LOCAL!
> Canadians quickly attacked the Prime Minister for his decision to choose a pricier bakery, rather than a fast food joint, such as Tim Horton’s.
Damn it I AM bad at this hahah
I can't believe the community trusted me with a diamond
 
Me neither!
 
> Oh Doughnuts promptly replied with a lengthy list of social media posts, explaining the importance of supporting local businesses.
 
You really are bad at chat
 
this is their twitter response: twitter.com/OhDoughnuts/status/…
> We are locally owned;employ 30+ staff who enjoy breaks and have the option of joining a benefit plan;we use local butter, eggs and flour;our doughnuts are made fresh daily;we do our best to pay a living wage & never pay minimum wage;
NAH BUT GO TO TIM HORTONS
 
Didn't Tim Horton's formerly use a Canadian company to source their coffee beans but then, after being acquired, swap to a cheaper low-quality source?
I remember reading something along those lines and McDonald's Canada took the opportunity to pick up the contract that Tim Horton's left.
So now if you want the pre-acquisition Tim Horton's quality coffee, you should go to McDonald's?
 
5:11 PM
@Yuuki That's the rumour, yeah.
Also, tim hortons baked goods are complete trash. They're all "baked" elsewhere, then frozen and shipped out to stores.
There's on Tim in CApe Breton that still has it's own bakery, but that's it.
Seriously, Tim's is such a trash company, and seeing folks stick up for it and say "Go to Tims instead of this local business!" is just gross.
 
> Indeed, according to our ad trackers at Advertising Analytics, there are 11 impeachment-themed TV ads airing across the country right now, and all 11 are by Republicans and GOP groups. Not a single one is by Democrats putting pressure on Republicans.
 
@BradC because democrats have this unfortunate tendency to laser-focus on the presidency and think that getting a democrat into the executive office solves all the problems
see the drop in voters from 2008 to 2012
 
@Yuuki I can never tell if they're just not shrewd enough, or what. Missing obvious opportunities
 
"oh we got obama elected, we don't to do anything else like get a congress that'll cooperate"
 
@Yuuki I mean, I'll frown but give them a pass on what they did 12 years ago. But this is now - have they learned nothing?
 
5:20 PM
My extremely cynical assumption is that it's because they still view this as a game and a game is no fun if there's no one to play against
Which is super gross!
 
@BradC Let me turn that around for you in a cynical manner. But this is the Democratic Party - have you learned nothing?
 
@Yuuki I'm fresh enough into the party that I still have some waning optimism and hope. (I changed parties ~10 year ago?)
Think I've mentioned it here before, but I am gutted by the depiction of the "good place committee" on the NBC sitcom "The Good Place". Totally, completely ineffective and useless, even though they're supposedly the "good guys"
 
How far are you into it?
 
Oh, I'm up to date.
 
Well, there's a reason why the Good Place guys are pretty ineffective.
Given that the system is pretty out-of-date for a humanity in a global society.
 
6:13 PM
The Good Place people are ineffective cause they can't say no, nothing to do with the system :p
 
6:45 PM
lol wtaf?
Not sure if that was intentional or they accidentally linked an ad copy early?
But Mr. Peanut falls to his death and explodes
The way its marked suggests it's their Super Bowl ad but the way Brands work these days who knows 🙄
Looks like McConnell got some pushback, but mostly just enough to make things relatively in line with Clinton's trial so they can go home and pretend it was on the up and up
Curious whether that was the plan all along and the more aggressive posture is just to please Trump
 
7:09 PM
@TimStone At least they're not forcing Roberts to do 18 hour days anymore
 
actually the senate has a different set of rules than Roberts
it's similar but different
 
> It just occurred to me that so many Senate Republicans live in a Fox News bubble that it's quite possible they've never heard the full evidence of Trump's misconduct.
maybe? not that it will matter
 
cbc.ca/news/health/death-toll-coronavirus-china-wuhan-1.5434256 A traveller from China has been diagnosed in Seattle with the new coronavirus, a spokesperson from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Tuesday.
Zeus damn it
Can we just, like, quarantine China until we find a cure?
 
user15026
@BradC "The premise of course, is a lie" oh gosh yes yes it is
 
user15026
There are a lot of signs, there always are, it just varies on who can ignore them.
 
@Ash exactly
> One of the most common refrains when a democracy collapses into an autocracy is that no one could have seen it coming.
> The motivation behind this myth is the absolution of the powerful. After all, what cannot be predicted cannot be prevented, and therefore the failure of officials to safeguard our freedoms should be forgiven. This is the story we hear as Donald Trump approaches a possible second term and the U.S. plunges into unprecedented turmoil.
> The premise, of course, is a lie.
 
@BradC Maybe because autocracies tend to silence the people who talk about it coming.
And so when historians go back to interview people about "did you know this was going to happen", everyone who would've said yes is dead.
 
user15026
Pretty much
 
7:33 PM
@Yuuki The premise of this article is that you don't have to silence them if ignoring them is sufficient.
 
user15026
The people who saw it coming are the marginalized, so everyone who's "everyone" gets used to ignoring them
 
user15026
"What does it mean to have freedom of speech when your words are data-mined and shot back at you as targeted propaganda? What is freedom of assembly when your every movement is recorded and reproduced online, when human lives are reduced to hashtags?

There are few worse feelings than being watched but never seen."
 
user15026
Yeeeeah.
 
@Yuuki I appreciate just how deep of a cut your 'thing' joke was xD Nicely done.
 
A lifetime of random-trawling on Wikipedia has prepared me for this auspicious position.
 
user15026
7:38 PM
It mostly made me feel kinda embarassedly stupid, but maybe that's my problem.
 
user15026
(The shift from "asking a question that sounded like it wanted an answer" to "immediate joke follow up" bothered me mostly because I thought, erroneously, that my explanation was bad somehow.)
 
I'm sorry if it made you feel that way, I can definitely see there was a problem with the abrupt change. Your explanation was helpful though, I was considering religious affliation from the perspective of "would this have any undue influence on your legislative abilities" rather than "are you part of a religious group".
Or rather I'm sorry that my words caused you to feel that way.
or...
Ugh, trying to figure out words that don't come across as "i'm sorry you're offended".
 
7:54 PM
> It’s going to be wild this time, next year, when Sekulow and Cipollone will be making similar arguments claiming the Founders wanted the president to refuse to relinquish power despite losing an election.
 
@Yuuki "I'm sorry I said something that offended you"?
or is that also not really what you're trying to say
 
I was wondering if you can access realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/… normally?
I have been getting the following error for two weeks
403 ERROR
The request could not be satisfied.
Request blocked. We can't connect to the server for this app or website at this time. There might be too much traffic or a configuration error. Try again later, or contact the app or website owner.
If you provide content to customers through CloudFront, you can find steps to troubleshoot and help prevent this error by reviewing the CloudFront documentation.

Generated by cloudfront (CloudFront)
Request ID: bWQGktfvumTfmWqufMNJwuxMeFk8tdZ4UYEGkFuLeFO7fTgaGbAj9w==
As far as I find, "The 403 Forbidden error is an HTTP status code which means that accessing the page or resource you were trying to reach is absolutely forbidden for some reason."
 
@StackExchangeforAll The page comes up fine for me
If it helps, I'm in the US, using Chrome as my browser
 
I accessed the URL in web browser regularly and normally. Is my IP banned?
 
@StackExchangeforAll Why are you asking here? Stack Exchange doesn't run the RealClearPolitics page
 
8:02 PM
Because I guess there might be people here who are both interested in techology and politics
 
user15026
Its unlikely we can really help
 
Even if it did, this is a politics chat room for users, not for admins
 
definitely just you, idk
 
The uRL doesn't require log in. I used to access it twice a day
 
8:04 PM
yes
 
@Yuuki Thanks for re-doing the first line, much better without the ifs. I also work hard to cross out any ifs in my apologies.
 
I can't access the polling URL from two computers on the same IP, using either firefox or chrome or whatever browser
 
@Ash Sorry, I apologize for bringing that back up, I didn't realize it made you uncomfortable.
 
Is it because onece or twice daily visit to the URL is too much?
 
unlikely, I don't know why you're getting a 403 here
 
user15026
8:06 PM
@puzzlepiece87 All good! :)
 
@StackExchangeforAll you might be behind an ISP NAT or something that has been IP-banned by that site
Or just in an IP block that has been IP-banned
 
How unluck
y
BUt it curbs my enthusiasm in the polling results
I can spend my time to learn something more
like docker and flask
 
@StackExchangeforAll Try 538 instead, RCP doesn't weight or grade their polls as far as I've heard.
 
what is 538?
 
> The levels of radium in Louisiana oil pipes had registered as much as 20,000 times the limits set by the EPA for topsoil at uranium-mill waste sites. Templet found that workers who were cleaning oil-field piping were being coated in radioactive dust and breathing it in. One man they tested had radioactivity all over his clothes, his car, his front steps, and even on his newborn baby.

The industry was also spewing waste into coastal waterways, and radioactivity was shown to accumulate in oysters. Pipes still laden with radioactivity were donated by the industry and reused to build communi
 
8:14 PM
i see
thanks
 
8:25 PM
> In Pennsylvania, regulators revealed in 2012 that for at least six years one hauling company had been dumping brine into abandoned mine shafts. In 2014, Benedict Lupo, owner of a Youngstown, Ohio, company that hauled fracking waste, was sentenced to 28 months in prison for directing his employees to dump tens of thousands of gallons of brine into a storm drain that emptied into a creek that feeds into the Mahoning River. While large bodies of water like lakes and rivers can dilute radium, Penn State researchers have shown that in streams and creeks, radium can build up in sediment to leve
Gosh, this article is horrifying.
 
and yet the epa's regulatory overreach stifles the growth of industry
 
(also IWW Freelance Journalists Union has a sick twitter banner)
 
8:53 PM
@Unionhawk lol
 
@puzzlepiece87 Radioactive?
 
@Unionhawk oh god it's the same room
 
9:10 PM
From the Full Hillary Interview, a counterpoint to the other portions being quoted about Bernie:
> I'll do anything I can to defeat the current incumbent, and to reverse a lot of his damaging policies.
 
> Hydraulic fracturing can dislodge naturally occurring heavy metals and radioactive materials from shale deposits, and these substances return to the surface with flowback
 
9:28 PM
@PrivatePansy Exactly what @Yuuki said. Concentrate the waste before dumping wherever you can find a legal loophole to do so. Add heavy metals and other contaminants to suit your taste.
 
IIRC, Radiohead has been phenomenal about distributing their content at cost.
 
yeah they've done lots of pay what you want in the past
 
hmm, that's interesting, what's Lee-Jackson day?
> Celebrated on the Friday before Martin Luther King Jr. Day each January, Lee-Jackson Day honors Confederate Generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
o.O
 
9:40 PM
racism day
 
> In 1983, the holiday was merged with the new Federal holiday, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, as Lee–Jackson–King Day in Virginia. This merger was reversed in 2000.
:|
 
too bad john mccain isn't here to see the virginia senate do this
(he voted against mlk day being a thing)
 
The only reason MLK day is on a variable date (third Monday of January) is because Congress fixed certain holidays to be on Mondays to grant federal employees more three-day weekends.
So the fact that Lee-Jackson day takes place on the Friday before (as opposed to Lee's or Jackson's birthdays) is just extra racism cherries on the racism sundae.
Incidentally, Presidents' Day is actually just Washington's Birthday but this holiday was shifted off Washington's birthday due to this same act of Congress to the week of January 15-21.
 
9:58 PM
... And it's a Kangooroo court. Republicans put party before country yet again
 
First time I've seen a kangaroo court forgo due process in favor of the defendant though.
 
10:15 PM
@TimStone hey, can't have the president miss out on the play-by-play of his crimes, dictated by Hannity or Carlson
 
@BradC 2020: William Barr now says that since he is more experienced, abuse of power is not an impeachable offensive
because everyone Trump hires comes from a circus and can do backflips
 
How I'm feeling right now (more Onion):
> “Unlike some of my liberal colleagues, I understand my solemn role in this trial is to examine all the information at hand before passing judgment. Then, and only then, can we know whether it’s a reasonable course of action to deploy some form of red-white-and-blue confetti while repeatedly tossing President Trump into the air.
> Until then, it would simply be irresponsible to comment on whether or not we will incorporate party horns, noisemakers, or a big cake covered with lit sparklers into the proceedings.”
 
@BradC well they did fuck up with how they worded things
 
Love that character. (Bill Hader playing Keith Morrison on SNL). The funniest part is that my wife and I saw the SNL skit before we actually saw any of the original show; it was funny but weird; it wasn't until later that we saw clips from the original show, and all of a sudden the SNL skit went from amusing to hilarious
 
11:05 PM
> In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move. - Douglas Adams
 

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