I believe a very important/influential person had a “talk” with John Roberts that made him reverse course on the Obamacare ruling.
Both sides’ experts are being paid for their opinion. Jurors I’ve spoken to after trials don’t seem to be concerned about the “hired gun” aspect, or even if an expert habitually testifies for only one side. I think they embrace the testimony of an expert who tells them what they want to hear, and use that testimony to support the way they’re leaning.
I believe in Zero.
You can’t see it, touch it, smell it, or experience it in any way.
Any evidence you have regarding it is, by definition, “zero evidence”
But I believe in it firmly.
It’s like that Tao thing about the cup being useful because of its empty center.
I’m familiar with Coyote only thru Navajo mythology, and he’s pretty much a bad guy there. He hypnotizes another god to fall in love with him and then gets her to murder all her brothers.
Who do you think it was? I’m no supreme court expert, but it seems like Roberts is particularly concerned with how his voting looks in hindsight, rather than just pushing a straight out right wing ideology. Not a leftist by any means but not the far right as some expected him to be.
I defer to your expertise in the matter. I think I would have to mentally remind myself not to think of him as a hired gun.
I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised by this, but I am.
I have a slight twist on it, in that I believe they had a wish list of things like “Invade Iraq,” and “everything that eventually ended up in the PATRIOT ACT,” and they were just waiting for some excuse to do them. 9/11 became that excuse, as it gave the administration a free pass to do anything military and authoritarian they wanted.
Related to that, I also believe that the “doing something” and following patriotic fervor won Bush a second term. If it had been an essentially boring first term, with no major terrorist attack on US soil, or following wars of vengeance, he’d have been out after four.
Yeah, I’ve known people who’ve met him, and said he was a lot shorter than he claimed.
I’m something of a Gnostic in that my hypothesis is that the world is in a divine hostage situation, with God doing what he can to rescue us without triggering the end of the universe.
I’m enjoying this thread immensely (can’t you tell?)
Another thing I believe, without evidence, is that humans have vastly misinterpreted the bones of dinosaurs. We’ve come to recognize that they were early birds, and have some inkling of feathers, but we’re still trying to reconcile that with the initial belief that these were lizards. They aren’t. And we now know that the chicken is the most close modern relative to the T-Rex.
But people don’t make that final leap.
Whereas I believe that a human who went back in time would just laugh out loud when they realize that the T-Rex actually looked like a rooster - just a giant one.
https://earthbuddies.net/are-chickens-really-the-closest-descendants-of-t-rex/amp/
[brief hijack]
I had a rooster who believed he was a T-Rex. I definitely noticed the resemblance.
It did not end well for him.
[/end brief hijack]
I think it comes down to credibility. Some experts are really good at educating the jury on an important issue, and they are appreciated as a useful witness. And if they are really proficient in their field of expertise, they can solidify one side’s claim, especially if they effectively refute the opposing side on cross examination (e.g. “But isn’t it true that it could have happened this way, which is different than your conclusion?” “No, that would have been impossible, because X,Y, and Z.” Jurors: “oooh!”)
Sometimes, though, you have competing expert witnesses who just seem to cancel each other out, since they come to completely opposite conclusions, reinforcing the hired gun stereotype you’ve referenced.
Kinda reminds me of how many think Pearl Harbor attack was known about in advance. I don’t think so. Sure, that an attack might happen. Some even predicted how (talking about PH). But amidst all the good intelligence, there was also lots of incorrect intelligence. And, in the case of PH (and 9/11, really), if they knew all the specifics, they could have looked last fast, accurate, effective commanders by only losing one target and still had a casus belli.
The Toothbrush industry invented the whole “Brush your teeth 3 times a day/after every meal” in order to sell more tooth brushes and tooth paste. I noticed in the past decade they’ve slowly moved it down to “Twice a day/in morning and at night”, I won’t be surprised if they changed it again to just once a day.
I know, this is fun stuff.
Ever since I learned about the dino/bird stuff, I think back on all those old movies I watched when I was a kid with people and dinosaurs and all I can see is giant chickens. Makes it a totally different movie to see people running from a chicken.
I always wondered about this when I was a kid. When exactly was the middle brushing supposed to come in? It’s not like everyone in school lined up after lunch and brushed their teeth.
For another zero evidence thing, I think there are people that genuinely have bad luck. They buy a highly rated car, but it’s always in the shop with problems. They relocate for a dream job and the company folds a month later. They go to one hockey game in their whole life and they are the one that gets a puck to the forehead. They’re the guy that falls out of the boat when fishing. The only one that falls over the edge when the deck railing gives way. The one that trips and falls on one step and breaks his arm and chips his front teeth at the same time. All this from one person I know.
Trump hired Guiliani and Sidney Powell.
I do not believe, with or without evidence, that there is a hospital anywhere in the U.S. that isn’t currently expanding or has short-term plans to expand.
73 hospital closures since 2011.
State-by-state breakdown of 73 hospital closures
^I sent my daughter (a nurse) the link re: hospital closures. She mentioned that a couple of hospitals on the list were closed because they ran out of space for growth. Sure, they closed, but another hospital was built to replace it.
If the chicken’s bigger than I am?
Hell yes I’d be running from that chicken.
While some people do make friends with them, chickens aren’t fuzzy little vegetarian pacifists. (Not to throw shade on vegetarian pacifists, some of whom are tough as nails.)
I’m a believer in the dinosaur bird thesis…with bloody fingers to verify it, but no “real” evidence!!
I’ve also recorded a few of these slow mo sound videos in my aviaries…Some of the sounds are really alarming when played really loud!
Great sounds to scare the kids on Halloween…
