Credit Where Credit is Due: a shout out thread for Things Trump Did Right

[Shadowy Man]

We're not getting out of the war, just surrendering a country to the enemy.

Surrender is one way out of war.

 

[Politesse]

We're not getting out of the war, just surrendering a country to the enemy.

Surrender is one way out of war.

Surrendering Vietnam did not end the Cold War.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

His base hated everything about that except how it shut up certain critics.

Not to introduce negativity into this thread, but I kind of view this as a "bright side"...Trump's Retribution tour 2025 has pulled us out of the WHO...cancelld then NIH, and gutted the CDC. In 2020 he blamed China and those organization as well as Dr Fauci for all the ills brought on by covid. Here we are with bird flu. All our resources for bird flu are gone. He is slashing research money for cancer, stroke, communicable disease and.....immunizations. Should bird flu spread to humans and becomd a killer disease, Trump will have nobody to blame but himself. There won't be a CDC to recommend masks. There won't be a WHO recommending steps to protect ourselves. There won't be Dr Fauci to blame for the direction of everything. That will all be on Trump. It would be fun to watch.

You might like living in interesting times. I do not. And I do not like that he picked someone for his cabinet that would like to send me to Auschwitz.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

An intelligent person would just do nothing and kick the can down the road further. That's what even the slowest minded person would figure out. There would be no blow back for Trump as an individual if he did nothing at all. But he wants what is best for the country even if many think that is misguided. For better or worse many believe the can has been kicked as far as it can go and that budget reform can not just be left "for the next guy". We have slowly and surely become a mob ruled democracy where everyone (both sides) has voted themselves an extravagant government that can not be supported with current tax revenue.

When Musk first took over Twitter many said that he ruined that company when he demolished the kitchen and the garage. But look at X now. Look at Tesla and SpaceX. Tesla is doing what GM said couldn't be done and SpaceX is doing what normal people thought couldn't be done. Musk has unusual skills at succeeding where normal people routinely fail.

Even if you were right you're wrong--because his budget "reform" is running up the deficit to fund tax cuts for the rich.

A lot of people have been comparing him to Hitler, but to me he looks as much like Mao as Hitler. My wife lived through the cultural revolution--and I know enough of what happened that I seek to avoid stirring up her memories of that time. She survived, 10% of the population did not. And note that while Mao did kill quite a few people most of those deaths were blundering at the helm rather than intentional. Stuff like the recent water release in California.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Because Trump could and he did. And the courts did what they thought was appropriate as well. So we will soon find out where this leads to.

Do I want a dictator...no. But look at what is getting done compared to the uniparty president we usually have warming the chair in the oval office.

We've already seen where it leads.

Look at $Trump. Classic pump and dump. He just axed the agency that would say something about it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

When Musk first took over Twitter many said that he ruined that company when he demolished the kitchen and the garage. But look at X now. Look at Tesla and SpaceX. Tesla is doing what GM said couldn't be done and SpaceX is doing what normal people thought couldn't be done. Musk has unusual skills at succeeding where normal people routinely fail.

Tesla Has the Highest Fatal Accident Rate of All Auto Brands, Study Finds: Tesla vehicles suffer fatal accidents at a rate that's twice the industry average

​

That’s pretty impressive looking but … “deaths per million vehicle years”?
WTF is that X axis label? Why is it a better measure than “deaths per million passenger miles”?
For that reason I reject it as garbage unless someone here can set me straight.

Nothing wrong with the X label, it just appears to be reasonable comparison cars (although I can't address it's completeness.) I do agree the Y is suspicious but I suspect it's that there is far better data on vehicle-years that miles. Where would the mileage of an electric even get reported?? (Many of us in areas with emissions testing indirectly report our mileage as it goes on the form.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It would REALLY be funny if it wasn’t the same thing he’s going to the USA. But yes,
LOOK AT X NOW!!!

Takes it's value from about $19 billion to under $1 billion.

Think of the tax write-off!!

He did.

1. In 2024, Musk likely paid little to no federal income tax, as Tesla, his company, reported zero federal income tax on $2.3 billion of U.S. income.
2. For the 2021 tax year, Musk paid approximately $11 billion in federal taxes, which he claimed was the largest individual tax payment in U.S. history.
3. In 2018, Musk paid zero federal income tax, despite his wealth increasing by billions.
4. Between 2014 and 2018, Musk paid $455 million in federal income taxes on a wealth increase of $13.9 billion, equating to a tax rate of 3.27%.
5. In 2015 and 2017, Musk paid $68,000 and $65,000 in federal income tax, respectively.
These figures demonstrate significant fluctuations in Musk’s tax payments, with years of little to no tax interspersed with a notably large payment in 2021.

Actually, to be expected for someone like him. The value of his shares went way up, but you don't pay tax on the value of your shares going up. That would be a major nightmare to value and a big killer of startups (potential value but not cash on hand) so it's not done. Thus he's going to pay tax when he moves money around, but otherwise pay little tax. While I have a lot of problems with him I'm not bothered by the tax situation because it's one of these situations where there's simply no approach that doesn't have problematic edge cases.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

No wonder this place is becoming a shithole.

Ya think? Just becoming a shithole? Where have you been living not to notice your shitty living wages way before the arrival of Trump over the last 20 years? You must be living in some protected coveted ivory cove on one of the elite coasts.

I guess you haven't visited Detroit or any of the other shitholes in the midwest since 2008. I guess you haven't wondered why everyone excepting tech billionaires or people already owning assets are doing worse and worse each and every year. I guess you haven't wondered why there is no auto industry or heavy manufacturing to speak of anymore. I guess you haven't wondered why our own government cares more about moving manufacturing to China than the US. I guess you haven't wondered why China's approach seems to be working and the US doesn't. I guess you haven't wondered about the fake and fabricated system the government keeps in concert with the fed.

I guess you're paying attention to sound bites rather than ground truth.

Detroit/auto industry. I'm combining them because they're the same issue. US unions demanded too much and US cars could no longer compete with imports even from places with high labor costs but where the unions weren't so obstructionist. And Detroit got caught in the crossfire. Any time a place suffers heavy emigration what's left behind is a shithole. And note how much less of our life is based on heavy industry anymore.

Our government doesn't seek to move manufacturing to China. China seeks to move manufacturing to China. And their approach is most definitely not working, China has royally fucked itself by trying to maintain an impossible growth rate. And there's a cultural obsession with real estate as a safe investment--the result is in places property prices are in the vicinity of 1000 months of rent. A proper market this ratio is about 100.

Why do you think the MAGA movement started in the first place? Just for a social activity and a good time?

It's a major disinformation campaign.

It is more than obvious many people were and are supporting a major change and even willing to pay some short term dues to get there. Business as usual hasn't been getting us there. MAGA was and is ready for adults to take charge and fix problems.

It's more than obvious that a lot of people were sold a bill of goods. They're not going to fix anything, they're just going to loot.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I give Trump credit for challenging Google.

Just now I entered "Gulf of America" into the Google Maps search window. The response was

Google Maps can't find Gulf of America
Make sure your search is spelled correctly. Try adding a city, state, or zip code.

So I tried "Gulf of Mexico." The page silently replaced "Mexico" with "America" and showed me a map, with the Gulf labeled "Gulf of America." Sounds like the left engine doesn't know what the right engine is doing. "Posting is currently turned off" at that Google Maps location.
"Trump Sucks" finds "Donald Trump Sucks Ass" in Calgary.

I access 'Net from Thailand. How does Google label the Gulf in other countries?

Google Maps Admits Deleting Critical Gulf Of America Reviews

Google has tacitly admitted to removing negative reviews objecting to renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America on Google Maps.

www.forbes.com

Actually, Google is right in deleting the reviews. They're protest reviews about the name, not real reviews.

As for how it's addressed--VPN open, I find the primary name appears to be Gulf of Mexico, but then (Gulf of America) also. I'm not 100% sure, though, because it's not in English.

 

[Shadowy Man]

If he followed proper procedure in Renaming th Gulf (and I am not asserting that he did) then to complain about this is a waste of energy compared to everything else he is doing. He wants us distracted on useless stuff.

 

[Swammerdami]

Getting back to the OP again. Looks like Trump is well on his way getting us out of war (another of his campaign promises):

Like Neville Chamberlain.
Peace in for our time. [FIFY]

How nice.
Tom

Finally!! I thought all of you had forgotten about my puzzles.

Appreciate cure; buffoonery conquer; rhetoric amuses.​

Appreciate cure; buffoonery conquer; rhetoric amuses.​

-- A. Neville Chamberlain, 1938​

Neville had a half-brother, Sir J. Austen Chamberlain who won the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize (shared with Charles G. Dawes).​

 

[bilby]

Says someone who blindly trusts the OED!

There's no 'blindly' involved; I am aware of the effort to which that organisation goes to ensure that they are correct, and of the expertise of their staff. And I am aware of other, independent, experts with whom the OED are in consensus.

Contrary to the modern rumour, there exist experts who know more than everyone else about a given subject, and smart people know how to identify those experts. Really smart people, having done so, give far higher weight to the opinions of experts than to those of random citizens. Particularly where a consensus exists amongst those experts.

Trusting the OED to get etymologies right is qualitatively different from trusing OAN to report the news in an unbiased way, even if the two forms of trust appear equally "blind" to the modern simpletons.

 

[TomC]

There's no 'blindly' involved; I am aware of the effort to which that organisation goes to ensure that they are correct, and of the expertise of their staff. And I am aware of other, independent, experts with whom the OED are in consensus.

Nevertheless, the OED has absolutely no authority to tell us what a word means.

They can tell us what it used to mean. Or give the top several answers to what they mean when they use the word.
By "they" I mean a committee of British elitists who believe that they are relevant to the modern world. They are not. The best that they can do is try to stay up with modern words usage and explain it. But in the Internet world they are becoming increasingly irrelevant.
Tom

 

[bilby]

If he followed proper procedure in Renaming th Gulf (and I am not asserting that he did) then to complain about this is a waste of energy compared to everything else he is doing. He wants us distracted on useless stuff.

It's worse than that - he also generated a highly polarising loyalty test.

 

[bilby]

Nevertheless, the OED has absolutely no authority to tell us what a word means.

We are not discussing meaning, we are discussing etymology. It's not a question of authority, it's a question of historical factuality.

 

[bilby]

I note that Google Maps on my phone here in Australia no longer labels the body of water enclosed by Cuba, Mexico and the USA, at any level of zoom.

I can get it to label the Tasman Sea, or the North Sea, or the Sea of Japan, but not that particular gulf.

 

[TomC]

Nevertheless, the OED has absolutely no authority to tell us what a word means.

We are not discussing meaning, we are discussing etymology. It's not a question of authority, it's a question of historical factuality.

Then why does anyone bother referring to a language history book?
How about we try to understand what people mean, in the here and now?
Tom

 

[robnisch]

Nevertheless, the OED has absolutely no authority to tell us what a word means.

We are not discussing meaning, we are discussing etymology. It's not a question of authority, it's a question of historical factuality.

Then why does anyone bother referring to a language history book?
How about we try to understand what people mean, in the here and now?
Tom

Then why study history at all?

 

[TomC]

Nevertheless, the OED has absolutely no authority to tell us what a word means.

We are not discussing meaning, we are discussing etymology. It's not a question of authority, it's a question of historical factuality.

Then why does anyone bother referring to a language history book?
How about we try to understand what people mean, in the here and now?
Tom

Then why study history at all?

One reason is to avoid repeating it.

But pretending that the history of a word is more important than the modern usage is less than useless. It's a way to pretend that the modern world and vernacular language don't matter.

The common feature of Internet discussion, argumentum ad dictionarium, gets really old. I don't care about what some tea drinking Roman in 875ad meant by something that sounded like the word being used right now. And don't tell me you're right because the OED committee don't use the word I am using the same way.

Tom

 

[robnisch]

Nevertheless, the OED has absolutely no authority to tell us what a word means.

We are not discussing meaning, we are discussing etymology. It's not a question of authority, it's a question of historical factuality.

Then why does anyone bother referring to a language history book?
How about we try to understand what people mean, in the here and now?
Tom

Then why study history at all?

One reason is to avoid repeating it.

But pretending that the history of a word is more important than the modern usage is less than useless. It's a way to pretend that the modern world and vernacular language don't matter.

The common feature of Internet discussion, argumentum ad dictionarium, gets really old. I don't care about what some tea drinking Roman in 875ad meant by something that sounded like the word being used right now. And don't tell me you're right because the OED committee don't use the word I am using the same way.

Tom

Umm, feel better now?
I for one find etymology interesting, even "fun".
each to his own.