Etalommi posted:

So Scott Horton seems a little more palatable than most at first glance, with his consistently anti-war, anti-drone, and anti-cop-overreach stance. Let's take a bit of a deeper look at his twitter.

Oh, look. He constantly hates on Sanders, Hillary, and (Rand) Paul, for their "hawkish" foreign policy, but not Trump, Cruz, or Rubio. And supports a Bloomberg run. Shocker, I know. He also cheerleads Trump insulting people, argues with people insulting Trump, and hates Megyn Kelly. He is campaigning for Ron Paul 2016. He calls the government the enemy and calls for it's end without anything I can find (I'm not going to go through all his tweets) about what things look like without it.
.
.
.
Yeaaaaaaah, I can see why he's Jrod's favorite.

fishmech posted:

Are you parodying your own obtuseness? The price of gas fluctuates much less widely than the price of oil does, and the price of gas often barely responds to major shifts in the oil price. There are a whole bunch of factors behind this.

quote:

Over the course of that graph, oil's highest peak was at 5.2x its lowest point, while gas's highest peak is at 2.53x its lowest point.

Obdicut posted:

Haha yeah but they fluctuate in concert with each other, as is easily visible, therefore they're connected. When two things vary in the same direction at the same time, they are connected. This is totally obvious and common sense, but I bet you're going to strip your fingers to the bone arguing about it.


The peaks and the troughs tend to coincide very strongly, sometimes time lagged but the correlations is very, very strong. What you are trying to express is that the price of gas is related to the price of oil but that those effects are blunted by those whole bunch of other factors.

fishmech posted:

They often fluctuate significantly out of step with each other, especially when you go to a closer resolution than the weekly data used for the chart. They often vary in precisely the opposite direction at the same time too (see, again, late 2015's results, with a mild oil rally at the same time gas continues a steady decrease).

You're really not paying close enough attention to anything. They sometimes coincide very well, they sometimes coincide kinda ok if you adjust for time, and other times they directly contradict.

fishmech posted:

They often fluctuate significantly out of step with each other, especially when you go to a closer resolution than the weekly data used for the chart. They often vary in precisely the opposite direction at the same time too (see, again, late 2015's results, with a mild oil rally at the same time gas continues a steady decrease).

quote:

You're really not paying close enough attention to anything. They sometimes coincide very well, they sometimes coincide kinda ok if you adjust for time, and other times they directly contradict.

Nolanar posted:

Do you have source data anywhere? I looked at the cited site on the graph, but I couldn't find direct numbers.

Obdicut posted:

Run the calculations to prove this, then. You can't, because they do tend to move together. Things varying more at closer resolution is what you would expect even from things that are closely correlated. The scale very obviously, to the glance, shows them generally varying in the same direction at the same time.


Prove it. We have actual methods to do this with, statistically. Just do a simple correlation coefficient.

fishmech posted:

You do it, I'm not your slave.

fishmech posted:

You do it, I'm not your slave. It's already blatantly obvious they move out of step quite often.

Obdicut posted:

Nah, it's really obvious that the lines go up and down at roughly the same time.

fishmech posted:

Outside of all the times where it doesn't. Get a grip.

Obdicut posted:

How about you read the paper I linked about the relationship between oil prices and gasoline prices (here's a preview: They are totally highly related)?

Obdicut posted:

Drowning deaths and ice cream sales are related because an exterior variable--the weather--affects both--which, happily, means that they are also correlated with each other and connected to each other. Also, making this argument admits that gas and oil prices are correlated, so congrats on stepping on your own dick.

Who What Now posted:

This derail is outrageously boring and unproductive.

jrodefeld posted:

Who What Now posted:

This derail is outrageously boring and unproductive.

GunnerJ posted:

Sometimes you fish the mech, and sometimes... well, sometimes the mech fishes you.

fishmech posted:

Similarly, a myriad of exterior factors are much more related to the price you pay at the pump than the cost of crude oil.

fishmech posted:

How about I don't read your silly little paper, because it's already evident

Who What Now posted:

This derail is outrageously boring and unproductive.

kelvron posted:

For everyone else playing at home, the DOE actually tracks a lot about oil and gas costs.

https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/data.cfm#summary

A lovely excel regression put the R^2 of the cost to produce a gallon of oil in the US vs the cost to buy a gallon of gas in the US from 2012-2015 at .95

I'm sure a goon with better statistical chops could find an exact fishmech-worthy comparison.

kelvron posted:

For everyone else playing at home, the DOE actually tracks a lot about oil and gas costs.

https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/data.cfm#summary

A lovely excel regression put the R^2 of the cost to produce a gallon of oil in the US vs the cost to buy a gallon of gas in the US from 2012-2015 at .95

I'm sure a goon with better statistical chops could find an exact fishmech-worthy comparison.

quote:

Four days after Iranian students seized the US Embassy and took 50 American hostages, Rep. Ron Paul exploited the white-hot anti-Iranian anger by introducing a piece of legislation called “The Iranian Student Expulsion Act”. Dr. Paul’s proposed law would cut off all federal funding to any American higher education institution that allowed Iranian students to enroll.

Next, Rep. Paul co-sponsored a bill expropriating Iranian assets and handing the money to the families of the US hostages.

Shortly after proposing the mass expulsion of all Iranian students from America, Rep. Paul published an editorial attacking Jimmy Carter as a weakling who was selling out the US Empire, once again whining about his pet piece of imperial booty, the Panama Canal:

“Why do we succumb to the threats of a Torrijos, give away our canal, and then pay the Panamanians to take it?

“Why do we engage in wars like Korea and Vietnam on the other side of the world, and allow Communist conquest 90 miles from our shores?

“Why do we put up with the Iranian takeover of our Embassy while continuing to subsidize Iranian students here, train Iranian pilots, allow Iranians to receive welfare and then watch as our guests condemn America in daily demonstrations?”

Sephyr posted:

So Jrod, as a medical student (one that the market failed to service and who had to move to another country to benefir from top-notch schooling that he is happy to pay back through taxes), I have actually looked into a few of your claims.

1-) Lucky coincidence for you, the Dentristry College of BA is right next to the Medical School, so I have tons of friends who attend, and talk to their teachers. Their reactions to your mercury saga raged from literal going-pale disbelief to snorting laughter.

To a person, they disagreed with the whole premise of mercury from fillings being an issue. Other materials are used nowadays, but for different reasons: they break more cleanly when it happens, blend better with tooth enamel for a better cosmetic effect, etc.

But even granting that, which no one did?

See, the analogy they used of your little procedure was like popping a zit. Now, you leave your zit alone, and even if it's filled with nasty stuff, it's contained there and will soon scab over and go away.

Now, you pop it, and that poo poo is spewing out, feeding bacteria, clogging your pores, damaging blood vessels and getting stuff in them that doesn't belong. You sprayed your gums and tongue with aerosolized mercury. All the 'procedures' that minimize exposure don't really work all that well, make the procedure more difficulty, or actually increase your exposure.

For instance, one of the 'safety' measures is to cool the area with a water jet so you don't create as many mercury fumes. But that means you'll be getting water laced with mercury down your esophagus and trachea, toward tissues athat are -really- good at absorbing stuff. Yes, even with Mr. Thirsty hanging from your mouth and sucking at full blast, like your mindset!

I bet your Lyme disease loved that. Oh wait, it doesn't matter because it's bunk.

Or the practice of 'chipping' and removing the filling by chunks. Now, do you know why fine salt dissolves better in water than chunky salt in big pieces? Exposure area. The more you divide a big object, the more contact area you are creating. I know basic physics can elude a proud praxeologist, but bear with me. Your dentist tugging your filling out chunk by chunk was also sensing smaller chunk under your tongue, over your gums, to share their mineral bounty with your lusty epitheliums.

So I hope you didn't pay extra for the 'safe' removal process, my friend. That would add tragicomedy to idiocy.

And that you did it as a treatment for LYME DISEASE? Holy poo poo. See, as a proud humanist, I am torn here. I firmly believe in the intrinsyc value and dignity of sapient life and in devoting a share of my resources, both voluntarily and through the shared organizations of the state, to improving its condition. I don't want you to be abused, misled, or exploited.

But on the other hand, you being taken for your last worthless-fiat buck by quacks that likely laughed about it afterwards might be the best punishment for your vile word-burps that don't qualify as an ideology.

---

As for part two of my post here, regarding your diatribe on miracle cancer drugs and medical treatment-access in general. Last november, I took a break from frying my head over finals to tag along with a class that was starting their climical care service. It doesn't start for me for another year, but a cool teacher knew I was interested and let me tag along.

The hospital it was held at (a big public one) receives patients from all over the country. Now, it's a big country with a big countryside, and tons of small towns that have very precarious health clinics, or none at all. We are talking about people who need to make trips that take days to get any care beyond auscultation and maybe a splint/bandage.

Most of these people are rural workers joyfully free from worker's rights and unions, so going to the doctor means taking days off work, losing pay, maybe getting fired. As a result, they wait until the low season when they don't need to harvest or work as much. So yeah, that means many conditions that started out mild had months to worsen by the time they can do something about it.

It's a medium in which your brand of free-market innovation -thrives-. Tons of wise old men with 'natural' cures, failed or fake doctors just passing by who can treat you better than those 'big-city quacks who just want your money and won't cure you to profit from your illness'. This is not philosophical wankery. It's not a hypothetical. It happens. Happens an awful lot.

And I saw it. People with flus evolved into pneumonias because they couldn't take time off work. One old lady's leg was swollen with pus and caked blood to a ludicrous degree because it took a deep gash from a piece of farm equipment, but was treated only with a poultice from a 'roaming doctor' and then left untended for five weeks. She ended up losing it below the knee, a friend told me later.

There is no big government crushing these people. What few services they get come from the state, and no private party cares about them. There is not even anyone punishing the quacks that ail them with bogus medicine. And keep in mind, many of those quacks are well-intentioned. But they can be as deadly as scammers. That is why general, nation-wide or even world-wide standards and agencies matter.

Your plan is basically that being the basic level of medical standards, and then adding the whole internet of superstition, scams, quackery and so on. Radium water as the cure for...um...what disease is in the news? The Zika virus! Wash it down, we're pretty sure it's a killer! And in case it isn't, well, we -hoped- it would help, you can't prove we didn't! Not to mention Dr. Oz's Surefire Polio-Killing Supplement, better than any nasty, mercury-ridden vaccine! If you are lucky, it might even contain some of the ingredient we say it does!

And no, private 'watchdog' agencies wouldn't work. Your agency says my anti-cancer supplement is powdered wheat chaff. Mine says it is the purest medicine Mother Nature put on this green Earth. The whistleblowing agency loses customers, because no business wants a narc harshing their profits. Unless those agencies funded by my health DRO specifically to attack harmful, innefective products like vaccines, aspirin and AZT, of course!

In conclusion, and I've likely said this before, you and your ilk are the bolsheviks of this century; the harm you do has been limited only by your lack of power (because the capitalist bigshots who actually run things would rather bribe oligarch enablers like your precious Rand Paul that will let them have their cake and eat it too than risk your loony radicalism). Would you ever hold the reins of -anything-, the body count would make Belgian Congo look like a birthday at Chuck E. Cheese. And at least the bolshies were motivated originally by some actual issues. You guys would do it out of spite and fake-Aspergers.

As a parting gift, suck on Pando's latest, unavoidable corn-filled dump all over the record of your Saint Rands, pere et fil.

https://pando.com/2015/10/14/rise-and-fall-silicon-valleys-republican-dream-candidate/


Miiiiighty fine of Paul to assault the private property of people who came to America to study, and maybe even flee their nasty home regime, all over the actions of a third party. Now that's aggression!

But at least he didn't tax them or vaccinate them.

Who What Now posted:

Jrod: "Libertarians aren't racist. Now let me tell you about how 13 year old black kids need to work at McDonalds so they stay out of gangs but only get paid $0.15/hr so they can't afford to make purple drank"

jrodefeld posted:

From what I can gather, Zimmerman was clearly wrong to think of himself as some sort of vigilante watchmen for his neighborhood. If he saw something that was suspicious, he should have alerted the police and stayed away from any potential confrontation. But much of his actions that lead to following Martin are highly subjective and we cannot know for certain what our own judgment would be in that moment. It has been reported that there were multiple robberies in the neighborhood in the last year, and that prompted Zimmerman to become a watchman. He might have reasonably judged Martin to be an imminent threat based on recent experience with robberies in his neighborhood. In that sense he did profile him. Was ANY of it motivated by race? Is Zimmerman a bigot? No one can say for sure, other than there has been zero evidence presented that Zimmerman is a racist.

It might well be that Zimmerman DID profile Martin for being black but only because the last dozen or so recent robberies that were committed in that neighborhood were done by young black men who looked much like Martin. I think that is a distinction between him singling out a black man because he is a bigot.

If I was walking down the streets of Compton in Los Angeles and I see a young black man who fits a certain description or is acting in a suspect way, I might legitimately concluded that he is probably a gang member, only because a majority of Crips and Bloods members happen to be black. I'm not going to make the same assumption about a middle aged white guy because there aren't any middle age white guys in the Crips and Bloods gangs.

VitalSigns posted:

He come on, no true Libertarian would assume someone is in a gang just because he's black, that's collectivist thinking and Libertarianism is an individualist ideology that rejects all group structures such as races or classes, there are only individuals.


But let's be real here every black kid I meet is probably a Crip.

ToxicSlurpee posted:

What do you mean that non-white kids in certain neighborhoods and situations end up needing to join gangs to keep themselves safe? What do you mean that some people in poverty take to smuggling drugs because nobody else will give them a source of income?

That's just personal failure on their fault and not at all influenced by dismal educational opportunities, racists refusing to hire non-white people without arm twisting by the government, or a lack of any resources that would get them out of their situations. Just ignore poverty cycles where people turn to crime to survive, get arrested, and then have no choice but to go back to breaking laws.

Personal failures. Nothing systemic at all. Nope. Nothing.

spoon0042 posted:

Gangs are just seizing the monopoly on force from the government, you'd think he'd be all over that.

Disinterested posted:

I didn't mean to post that here but since we're in segregationalist land I guess it's relevant.

Grand Theft Autobot posted:

Hahaha this is great. My fiancée is very hot, I am worried she will draw too much attention from swarthy rape-loving immigrants.