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Then by your definition it is impossible to have secret locations. Because if we do not know about them, they do not exist. But if we do know about them, they are not secret. The implication obviously is that because they have kept facilities secret that have been ultimately discovered, there is a likelihood of yet undiscovered ones. Thus one cannot claim with certainty (as you did) that we know of all of them.

You are creating a hypothetical here, but rather obviously there is a long list of actions taken by the administration that allow us to contextualize their action. This does include hiring folks such as Bannon and Miller who have crafted policies exploiting and enhancing racial division, cozy up to white supremacists. And no, I do not accept the interpretation that it is all to reduce illegal immigration. The administration has enacted numerous policy changes to curb immigration and have tried to target some areas (you known how Trump called them, do you?). Highly qualified H1B holder are increasingly denied green cards and the list goes on. Add that to his overall rhetoric, the only question that could be asked is not whether the policies are based on nativist/ white nationalists ideals. No, the only aspect one could question is whether Trump actually believes them or whether they are merely strategic. However, given his personal history as well as his reflexive defense of white murderers (both sides, anyone?) the weight of evidence clearly tilts to one side. If it walks like a duck talks like a duck and has trouble condemning White supremacists or neo-nazis, you may have racist duck. If, on the other hand, you insist on ignoring all the rhetoric, personal history, targets of his policies, the useless cruelty involved, use of nativist language, the target demographics and their attitudes, the and thereby virtually everything that creates context and counter it with a theoretical, then I am afraid I have to believe that you are not arguing in good faith.

This is one of several studies on the subject. Playing up xenophobia has brought Trump the votes for the presidency. He is merely applying the same techniques to the midterms. I already mentioned the issue with illegal immigration, but to make it perfectly clear, it is not the worry that folks may come over without following rules. It is the fear of cultural displacement by others. I.e. xenophobia in its purest form. From another report (Schafner et al., 2018, PSQ 133:1 p.9-34): Do yo see the gain in racism now? He has ideologically aligned himself with White Nationalists, and it has brought him a clear advantages. It is not the worry about following rules, it is not about immigration. It is about immigration of folks that look differently. It is the fear of changing demographics.

Lamarckian was never a fully fledged theory. It was one of the hypotheses that tried to explain how inheritance might work. Once germlines were discovered it was not a workable hypothesis anymore. There is no mechanical distinction between those two. It is just the degree of divergence. The foundation is still genetic in nature.

If you have to go back to the beginning of the 20th century to cite someone clinging to a disproven hypothesis to invalidate a routine methodology used by thousands of researcher, you are doing something wrong (and the something wrong is simply being uninformed on the subject matter).

I would wait for the finalization of the inspections before assuming anything. NK has agreed to inspections and stopping their program since the 90s. Neither is it the first time of them actually letting investigators in (and then kicking them out if they are getting too close). The most positive aspect is the seemingly improved relationship to SK, but a mere agreement to inspections does not seem that much different to past negotiations.

A few points: - plants help with air quality only in certain aspects. specifically: plants help with degradation of certain VOCs, for example, but musty smells are indicative of mold, which cannot be "purified" with plants. - VOC degradation is not done by leaf plants, rather they are degraded by bacteria living at the root of plants. Due to slow circulation, and the fact that VOC have to get to those bacteria, the degradation rate is fairly low if you just put a pot somewhere. -oxygen production is dependent on leaf and light availability. Note that in the dark plants do not produce oxygen but become a net consumer (due to respiration)

Can you point me to a population of any organism without mutations? How would such a population look like? Quick tip: it is alright not to understand biological (or other concepts). But trying to make things up to compensate rarely works.

DNA is DNA. I can reconstruct phylogeny regardless whether something was bred by humans or not. You are trying to redefine pretty basic biology. I am sorry that you do not like it, but science has a way of not caring about personal opinions.

I just gave four reasons. But iNow gave a short summary...

I think you missed the whole point if you think that the criminal just happened to be Hispanic. That was the whole point of the ad. Didn't you see the second half? The way you word it seems to imply that somehow it was incidental. And again, there is no possible interpretation that that was the case. I really fail to see how you can argue differently if you watch the ad. It would be like reading an Agatha Christie novel and ignoring the murder element in it. It would not be a different view point. It would be outright dismissal of the singular point. It is not a story where there happens to be a murder and a detective. They are the whole point. One important bit, the migrants, who are not even there yet, are not illegal. They want to claim asylum which is a legal process. There is also the big issue of the term "illegal" in that context, as many folks don't understand the precise connotations (in short: unauthorized entry is a misdemeanor, however about half of all immigrants without status entered legally but overstayed. The latter is a civil violation and as such neither a felony nor a misdemeanor, using the term "illegal" in that context throws all together and sometimes implies higher malignancy). For the second part, there are probably four reasons. First is part of his own nativist convictions. America First in his mind seems to be white America first. While initially I was ready (and perhaps stupidly) give him the benefit of doubt, his overall policies clearly show racial bias that appear more than just appeasement to the fringes. Nonetheless the second reason is likely to rally his base, after all, playing the race part seems to work (and studies have shown that racial bias seems to be a driver for Trump support). Third is that by now Trump has accumulated a significant dislike in the Hispanic community, especially those with an immigrant background. On the other hand, those that would vote Trump or GOP regardless, are likely not going to be swayed by the ad. Fourth, getting a high voter turnout for himself is probably more effective than trying to convince those that would vote for him anyway. The assumption (which Bannon also championed) is by striking an emotional cord mobilization is far more effective. Thus as on a net basis the loss of few uncertain Hispanic votes is likely to be drowned out by the mobilization of folks fearing the "brown invaders". And I should add that GOP lawmakers have also started to condemn the ad.

Seriously, do you really think that the ad does not try to draw a direct line between Hispanics and crime? It does not merely "mention" a criminal, it clearly implies that the folks in the caravan are killers (and invaders). And yes if Obama had aired the same ad folks would be correct in calling the ad racist. Is the title sensationalist? Sure. Is it accurate? Well, for the most part (and it draws important parallels to the Willie Horton ad). But this is an entirely different issue. The goal of the ad is to specifically invoke fear in the viewers. Not of criminals. But of Hispanics. It is to explicitly increase racial tensions. If Obama had posted that video, one could wonder about the why, as it would be a massive departure from his usual rhetoric. It would not change the substance of the ad, though. In Trump's case I doubt that you are not aware of what is meant and what the purpose is. If you try to cling to a neutral ground here, you will need to dismiss literally all context built over the last years (and still not explain the cut to the caravan). And frankly, that would be just silly.

I just treat them as genetic tools with no agency. That will show them their place, right? Also, I campaign against unannounced HGT.

Well, taken together it is very, very hard not to see racist undertones. Of course one could argue that the racist elements of his business practices and his current policies are not truly his convictions. But if one add things that he did without any obvious benefits (as e.g. calling for the death of ultimately innocent minority juveniles, and doubling down after proven innocent, claiming to have information on Obama's birth certificate etc.) one has to have a very narrow vision not to see the whole picture. Otoh Trump at least seems to be consistent in this area.

Well, the only consistent stance he has taken that I could see, is a nationalist/nativist one. In other areas he seems just to make positions up as he goes along.

On which topic? I mean. are you able to describe a coherent position on an issue? The big issue I have is that there is mostly only falsehoods and rhetoric. Trump is pathologically uninformed and I found it virtually impossible to figure out what he means or wants. Sure, you could say that trade deficits can be an issue, for example, but the way he describes it and the fact that he started trade war does not seem to be related to the substance of the issue at all. For other topics, it is even worse.

What do you mean? If I understand Ten oz correctly GOP folks are trying to eat the cake and have it, too. Trump vitalizes the far right, white nationalist loonies with his outrageous tweets, failure to condemn white terrorists and creating the boogeyman virile and dangerous (as well as lazy and disease-ridden) foreigners (of the wrong skin colour). Depending on their voter base some politicians wholeheartedly embrace it openly (say, King), others try to appear to be more moderate and sometimes even mildly disapproving, up until when they need to cast their votes. I.e. these seemingly moderates make it possible for reasonable conservatives to vote for the GOP, even whilst despising everything about Trump [insert long list of a variety of issues here]. That is true. First thing is to get folks to vote. Most folks do not vote and it is not due to suppression A 55% turnout is barely a democratic mandate.

Sure, there are many lawsuits going on right now. In Ohio a Federal judge just or ordered purged voters to be allowed in. The big issue is that ruling parties often have the ability to create rules against (or promoting) certain demographics to increase their vote count. This not a Trump or even only an US issue. However, within the US it is mostly a GOP issue (aside from strange primaries rules).

Vote?

I think you may misunderstand how the research is conducted and what the concept of subspecies are. The latter is the formation of somewhat distinct groups, typically caused by geographic isolation that are traceable if you use the correct markers. They are still part of the same species. Calling them mutants is a bit useless, as all members of a species or population are basically mutants (as there is no reference or unmutated populations to compare to). Essentially if you build a phylogentic tree based on the genetic information, and dogs are derived from extant grey wolves, you would expect all dogs to branch off with the grey wolves in a single lineage. Based on the report referenced in Strange's link the split between certain dogs and grey wolves may have happened further back in the tree. I.e. the genetic markers they looked at did not support the close relationship with extant grey wolves lineages (i.e. subspecies). Thus the ancestral group, which would be closest to the split between all extant grey wolves and dogs is likely non-existent anymore. The findings are complicated due to admixture between various dog and wolf admixtures. Note that we are talking about below species level splits, which are difficult to resolve and more sequencing data could illuminate the details more. Bottom line of the report (which you should really read as it does clear up some misconceptions you may have) is that their (Freedman et al.) data suggest that most likely there was an ancestral population of wolves that split with dogs before the rise of the current lineages (or subspecies) of grey wolves (e.g. Croatian wolf, Chinese wolf etc.). Or to put it differently the report strongly suggest that the subspecies comprising all dogs as a monphyletic group predates the formation of the various Canis lupus subspecies (Israeli Wolf. Croation Wolf, Arabian Wolf, etc.).

Yes, but that is fairly typical for intracellular parasites.

That was assumed sometime around the 2000s. However with more genome sequences out there this has become disputed. It is still likely found among the alphaproteobacteria but it is far from clear whether it is actually Rickettsia. There is some evidence that mitochondria arose after the split of Rickketsiales from other alphaproteobacteria.

It was never in question that they belong to the same species. Nope, it is based on genome analyses that fail (for the most part) to indicate that extant dogs are derived from extant grey wolves. I.e. the ancestral lineage seemed to have vanished.

Hmm I am a bit fuzzy on the subject, but I think you are correct that there has been several points of admixture in their history, so I have to limit my statement about that. As such it is possible that there are distinct dog lineages derived from various points. It should be noted that unless I am mistaken the evidence is also consistent with an ancestry with extinct subpopulation of gray wolves.