President Elect Trump watch

Today's Daily Mash:
Conspiracy theorists finally convinced no secret society could possibly be running this mess

CONSPIRACY theorists have finally been convinced there is no secret society running everything because no-one could possibly believe any of this was orchestrated.

Since the dawn of the internet, bedroom-based conspiracy theorists have thought society was controlled by a shadowy ‘Illuminati’ who somehow have the manpower to run everything.

Tom Logan, from Stevenage, said: “If they are running it then someone needs to be sacked.

“Or sacrificed, if that’s what they do.”

Racist, Norman Steele, added, “I used to think the Jews were running everything. But they seem pretty organised, so I can’t imagine they’d be behind this mess.”

Professor Henry Brubaker, from the Institute for Studies, added: “When you look at the current state of affairs, it’s pretty clear who is running it.

“Over-privileged, incompetent white motherfuckers.”
 
Robert said:
Trump's cartoon comedy approach to running a country: 'One in, two out' rule for regulations
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It's a principal that I advocate in complicated mature software (and the law is a lot like really bad spaghetti code). Start removing stuff until the bugs go away. Some systems have grown to be very byzantine and highly dependent on the proper interaction and behaviour of all their bugs - and perhaps bug fixing is dangerous in critical systems that are not supposed to interact with anything else, but for any system that others are supposed to interact with, reducing the complexity helps those that would like to engage with it do so.
Laws that are too complex and convoluted discourage or block new entrants into the system and favour the establishment.
In practice, the new rules will also benefit the establishment because they are the ones who get to chose the rules, but the reduction in number of rules still makes the system more tractable and understandable - which is still a worthy goal.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
Laws that are too complex and convoluted discourage or block new entrants into the system and favour the establishment.
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Number of regulations != complexity of regulations

You can easily replace "two regulations" with "one regulation" and end up with something that is vastly more complex both in terms of wording (understandability) and legal implications / effects. I am genuinely disappointed that you agree with simplistic bullshit like this.
 
JoBBo said:
Number of regulations != complexity of regulations

You can easily replace "two regulations" with "one regulation" and end up with something that is vastly more complex both in terms of wording (understandability) and legal implications / effects.
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You can also easily create a new regulation without repealing any and get the same thing.

"You can easily create bad regulations" is not a sufficient counter argument for me.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
"You can easily create bad regulations" is not a sufficient counter argument for me.
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The (in my opinion optimistic) possibility of getting rid of two bad old ones for every new one isn't a particularly good argument in favour, either.
As it stands it appears to be little more than a dogmatic and simplistic hammer to crack a nut.
Ironically, it could *possibly* be a sensible approach if it was properly regulated.
 
Robert said:
The (in my opinion optimistic) possibility of getting rid of two bad old ones for every new one isn't a particularly good argument in favour, either.
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Yes. Not a sufficient argument for. However, simply adding regulations leads inexorably to increasing complexity and cost and worse, selective enforcement. That is certainly a problem in law and law enforcement - in that there are so many laws on the books that everyone probably breaks five laws before breakfast but it isn't a problem until someone decides they don't like you and dig up a law to enforce against you.
Too many regulations without enforcement is the same as having no regulations, and having too many regulations with only enough resources for partial enforcement is a cudgel to selectively beat those who choose not to "play along".

The exercise of streamlining is still worth doing as it will slow down regulation expansion and cause regulators to think a bit more about what they are proposing.
 
Robert said:
I remain to be convinced of that.
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Well, the exercise of streamlining regulations, and replacing a convoluted mess with something more broad and concise is a very worthwhile goal.

The problem is that one in, two out doesn't address quality of current framework, let alone what is added or removed.

As Fluffy hopes, maybe it is just a catchphrase for improving and condensing. Or, as you dread, it could be a very easy way to absolutely gut necessary protections.

It just depends if you trust Trump has our best interests in mind. Like you, I'm still skeptical of that. So far, results are mixed.
 
Questions mount over botched Yemen raid approved by Trump
After initially denying there had been any civilian casualties in Sunday’s raid, US Central Command (Centcom), which is responsible for military operations in the Middle East and central Asia, acknowledged some of the dead may have included women and children, though claimed some of the women were armed.

A statement said its assessment “seeks to determine if there were any still-undetected civilian casualties in the ferocious firefight.”

The Pentagon has said a US Navy Seal, chief petty officer William Owens, and 14 militants were killed in the raid in al Bayda province. Medics at the scene said about 30 people, including 10 women and children, were killed. Three US special forces were wounded.

The mission was approved over dinner five days after the presidential inauguration by Trump and his closest advisers, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his special adviser and former Breitbart executive Stephen Bannon, as well as defence secretary General Jim Mattis.

Both the New York Times and Reuters carried quotes from unnamed military officials that seemed to shift blame for the mission to Trump and his inner team. It would be an extraordinary development for a president, who is commander-in-chief, to be briefed against in such detail.
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Robert said:
Questions mount over botched Yemen raid approved by Trump
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Missed this bit:
The civilian dead included an eight-year-old girl, Nawar al-Awlaki, according to her family, who may have been an US citizen. Her father was al-Qaida propagandist and US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, who was killed in a September 2011 US drone strike in Yemen.
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Trump did say "You have to take out their families".
Nice to see him putting his promise of collective punishment into practice by murdering an 8 year old girl.

You guys must be so proud (or turned on, if that's your thang).
 
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