The Race For 2024

[Elixir]

Coincidentally, it mirrors the price of DJT money-laundering stock 100%.

NOT a coincidence. The price of DJT stock right now is a prediction of whether DJT will win the election. (If he does, the company is likely to prosper.) DJT stock is rising for the same reason the odds at Polymarket are rising -- people think Trump's chances are better than they thought a few weeks ago.

Why do you think DJT is driven by normal market forces??

Those are not normal market forces, except in the sense that the prospect of an ROI drives change in the stock price.
No ROI is anticipated by DJT ever producing or selling anything that would create a monetary profit for DJT.
The anticipated ROI is the ability to manipulate the favors of the President of the United States.

 

[ZiprHead]

Cackling Kamala, incapable of answering a question;



Nora: You have not been clear on what restrictions you would support re abortion.
Cackling Kamala: blather about Roe v Wade
Nora: So you do support restrictions after viability?
Cackling Kamala: Roe v Wade
Nora: (ffs will you answer the question dammit!) Yes but Roe v Wade had restrictions
Cackling Kamal; TRUMP!! TRUMP!! TRUMP!!

Harris is clueless, she offers nothing.

"Roe v Wade" is a perfectly good answer.

I think for most candidates, that answer would be sufficient. But Kamala has a history of avoiding answers directly and being detailed. Her bread & butter on this campaign has been abortion rights, so presumably, she is educated and knowledgable in this subject matter. It was a golden opportunity for her to be succinct, clear and show her chops. And yet she gave a bland, generic answer that you could expect any clueless politician to fall back on. And she doubled down on it. It does make you wonder if she really knows what's in Roe v. Wade. Even Nora O'Donnell was getting frustrated with her evasiveness and she is on Kamala's side!

Nailing things down during a political campaign can be a dangerous tactic that can be used against you.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I consider myself well left of center, but I've lost trust in the media for different reasons, primarily due to their spineless coverage of the GOP. They have treated Trump and the rest of his political supporters as normal and viable. Rather than shouting from the rooftops that our democracy is in serious danger, they've fiddled under their bullshit version of journalistic professionalism. Ethics and integrity are a necessary part of professionalism, not a convenience to be exchanged for Trump-fueled ratings and website clicks.

To me there are three factors.

Do I trust them to report facts?

Do I trust them not to cherry pick what facts they report?

Do I trust them not to bow to pressure to report falsehoods in order to be given the access to report?

The mainstream news is pretty good on the first part. They have been pretty bad on the second part of a long time. And in modern times they have an abysmal record on the third part.

I figure the news will always be slanted in the direction of creating controversy--the last thing a reporter wants to say is that it's a nothingburger. I figure that when the facts aren't completely certain the news will be biased towards whatever side constitutes more eyeballs. And I figure that if they need to go along to get access (Trump campaign, Gaza) that it's going to be fiction.

Thus nobody is trustworthy. But if you take a decent source on both sides and compare what they are saying you can usually discern much of the truth.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

A question about the process after the election.
Why is there such a long time between the election and the coronation (early Nov - late Jan)?
In Aust. the new government is sworn in a couple of days after the election count is completed. Usually we have a new government in less than a week.
It that an historical reason?

How do you propose that a 1776 government be selected and placed in a week? They probably didn't even know the results in Washington by then.

I was referring to now rather than the 18th C. In the 18th C. that is fine but the 21st C.?

The system remains mostly as it originally was.

And I don't think transition in a week is a good thing--the new guys need some time to come up to speed on what's going on.

 

[TV and credit cards]

a monolingual Chinese speaker will probably not be able to say my name

Is it the L or the R or something else? (I know Japanese and Thais have trouble with L; I thought Chinese didn't...)

"I'll get converted into lolen over there." - Ah, the R....

Upper-class Bangkokians have no trouble with L and R, even rolling their Rs. In rural central Thailand L and R both sound like L, to the point where they often don't know whether a name is written with L or R. To show off for a Farang some produce a rolled-R sound ... but when the word has an L.

In the rural dialect, L and R are often silent when part of a consonant blend, so that /pla/ ('fish') is pronounced /pa/. My wife's aunt was actually nicknamed /pa/ but people made puns on her name as though it were /pla/.

I'm reminded of a girl in Pataya asking me for a "picture". That was rough. It took a few tries "pik-tah" and her pointing at my face for me to finally get there.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

a monolingual Chinese speaker will probably not be able to say my name

Is it the L or the R or something else? (I know Japanese and Thais have trouble with L; I thought Chinese didn't...)

"I'll get converted into lolen over there." - Ah, the R....

Everything gets shoehorned into their standard set of syllables. I figure it's about 50:50 whether she will understand a name (because she learned it differently) and I tend to fare even worse going in the other direction (my standard example is the famous British detective "Formos"). And she can handle an "r", she can handle an "l", but when they get close she has trouble. We used to live off "Rural" road--nobody could understand her saying it. And, yes, it took her a long, long time to get my name right.

We learn sounds more broadly than they do so the instances of hitting something hard are much lower but the certainly do exist. I don't even try to say my last name correctly--that's a German "ch" sound, English doesn't have it. I know how to say it correctly but that causes too much trouble, I normally go through life as if the h were silent. At least most people have no problem with "it's one of these things that if you didn't learn it as a kid you probably aren't going to. Treat the h as silent."

 

[ZiprHead]

With days to go to the election and after weeks of near anonymity, Brandon comes out to to help Kamala's campaign;

Joe Biden had largely been an afterthought one week before the election in which he’d once hoped to win a second term.

Not anymore.

The president inadvertently injected himself into the homestretch of the campaign and may have handed a big assist to his erstwhile rival, ex-President Donald Trump, who is struggling to quell a furor over his bigotry-filled rally at Madison Square Garden earlier this week. Biden mentioned Puerto Rico, slandered as a “floating island of garbage” by a comedian at Trump’s event on Sunday night. But his clumsy defense of the self-governing American territory — and the vital swing voters in its diaspora on the US mainland — sparked a new political firestorm and distracted from Vice Kamala President Harris’ big closing argument speech against a White House backdrop on Tuesday night. “And just the other day, a speaker at his rally called Puerto Rico ‘a floating island of garbage.’ Well, let me tell you something … I don’t know the Puerto Rican that I know… or Puerto Rico where I’m – in my home state of Delaware – they’re good, decent, honorable people,” Biden said during virtual remarks in a Voto Latino get-out-the-vote call meant to help Harris. “The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,”

CNN

Oh Brandon, you did it again.

And isn't Brandon half Porto Rican or was raised by Porto Ricans or something? Who's side is Brandon on?

Oh, the righties are so upset.

FUCK YOUR FEELINGS!

Or so I've heard.

 

[Swammerdami]

Coincidentally, it mirrors the price of DJT money-laundering stock 100%.

NOT a coincidence. The price of DJT stock right now is a prediction of whether DJT will win the election. (If he does, the company is likely to prosper.) DJT stock is rising for the same reason the odds at Polymarket are rising -- people think Trump's chances are better than they thought a few weeks ago.

Why do you think DJT is driven by normal market forces??

The price is controlled by buyers and sellers. If there's an offer for $25, I'm not sure exchange rules permit you to pay $30.

 

[Elixir]

Coincidentally, it mirrors the price of DJT money-laundering stock 100%.

NOT a coincidence. The price of DJT stock right now is a prediction of whether DJT will win the election. (If he does, the company is likely to prosper.) DJT stock is rising for the same reason the odds at Polymarket are rising -- people think Trump's chances are better than they thought a few weeks ago.

Why do you think DJT is driven by normal market forces??

The price is controlled by buyers and sellers. If there's an offer for $25, I'm not sure exchange rules permit you to pay $30.

Depends on the sell offers. If you make a sell offer you have to accept when some takes you up on it.

 

[TSwizzle]

I was constantly told that this election was going to be the most important election in the history of this great nation, that democracy is on the line, we must save democracy!!!!11!!!11!!!!

And then someone told a silly joke about Puerto Rico four days ago and now we must focus on bad comedians.

Because cackling Kamal is clueless and offers nothing!!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The ability of the brain to distinguish phonemes congeals very early. My Thai is fairly fluent but I still have trouble recognizing tones, or the unvoiced unaspirated consonants /t/ and /p/.

Yeah, I gave up on trying to learn Chinese because of the tones. Again and again she would tell me I was saying something wrong and to my ear the wrong and the correct were either identical or close enough to it that I couldn't separate them.

But it's more than just phonemes, it's basically everything where we have a range of things we classify a certain way. She can have a hard time distinguishing poorly written letters (she didn't grow up with letters) but I can't remotely reliably compare two samples of her writing a Chinese character. There is a lot of emphasis on stroke order and how it's written but it's apparently pretty slack about exactly what the stroke looks like--she knows what the essential elements are, I'm basically comparing bitmaps. And Japan has problems with blue vs green because they have a different cutoff for what frequency constitutes "blue".

 

[Elixir]

And then someone told a silly joke about Puerto Rico four days ago and now we must focus on bad comedians.

Must focus? Poor baby, it must be terrible when they force you to focus on that instead of being free to focus on new ways to force the word “Brandon” into bait posts.
Just a living Hell in Santa Monica, I’m sure.

 

[TomC]

I was constantly told that this election was going to be the most important election in the history of this great nation, that democracy is on the line, we must save democracy!!!!11!!!11!!!!

And then someone told a silly joke about Puerto Rico four days ago and now we must focus on bad comedians.

Because cackling Kamal is clueless and offers nothing!!

I'm not focusing on the comedian.
I'm focusing on the politicians who thought his jokes would appeal to his supporters. Also the supporters themselves.

Pretending that their choice of opening act doesn't mean that they are the party of anti-American values and bigotry is ridiculous. That's the issue. Trump and the Teaparty are anti-American and bigots.
Tom

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Coincidentally, it mirrors the price of DJT money-laundering stock 100%.

NOT a coincidence. The price of DJT stock right now is a prediction of whether DJT will win the election. (If he does, the company is likely to prosper.) DJT stock is rising for the same reason the odds at Polymarket are rising -- people think Trump's chances are better than they thought a few weeks ago.

Why do you think DJT is driven by normal market forces??

The price is controlled by buyers and sellers. If there's an offer for $25, I'm not sure exchange rules permit you to pay $30.

You offer to buy at $30, someone else offers to sell at $25, somebody (likely a brokerage) will step in and collect the $5 difference.

But that's not what I meant. Stock normally is based on the expected current value of total future earnings. But I think DJT is being manipulated by forces that aren't looking at the expected future value.

 

[TomC]

But I think DJT is being manipulated by forces that aren't looking at the expected future value.

Not necessarily the market value of the stock. But buying ridiculously overpriced stock from the biggest grifter in the USA looks mostly like bribery to me.
Tom

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I was constantly told that this election was going to be the most important election in the history of this great nation, that democracy is on the line, we must save democracy!!!!11!!!11!!!!

People need to let it sink in that the only election that ever matters is the current one.

And then someone told a silly joke about Puerto Rico four days ago and now we must focus on bad comedians.

He ain't got nothing on the guy that did a stand up routine when I was in college. A pin could have dropped and it'd been louder than the reaction. But he just wasn't a good comedian. It wasn't remotely offensive. It was just boring as heck.

Because cackling Kamal is clueless and offers nothing!!

Yes... you've finally figured it out. She "offers nothing"... other than being an adult... and not a sociopathic narcissist... didn't try to overthrow a democratic election via an angry mob.

 

[Swammerdami]

And Japan has problems with blue vs green because they have a different cutoff for what frequency constitutes "blue".

Rural Thai is worse! In many contexts they make do with just four color words: Black, White, Red, Green.

Skin is either white or black (or sometimes red or even green!). But hair is 'black' only when it is jet-black. My father-in-law called every other hair color, including very dark brown, 'red.'

'Green' is routinely used for colors that are obviously blue.

It's not that they lack other color words. In fact 'color of cigarette smoke', 'color of pig's blood', 'color of mangosteen rind', and 'color of sugar' were all in common use in our village to describe shades of brown. (As shown here, the exact same word is used for 'palm juice', 'sugar' and 'brown.')

The first time my wife sent me out to buy brown sugar I asked for 'sugar color sugar.' This mystified the grocer; the correct term is 'sugar (color) red.'

 

[TSwizzle]

I was constantly told that this election was going to be the most important election in the history of this great nation, that democracy is on the line, we must save democracy!!!!11!!!11!!!!

People need to let it sink in that the only election that ever matters is the current one.

That's not what the democrat campaign has been about. Which I of course ignore so I am good.

Yes... you've finally figured it out. She "offers nothing"... other than being an adult... and not a sociopathic narcissist... didn't try to overthrow a democratic election via an angry mob.

"finally figured it out"? Erm no, she offered nothing when she campaigned for the ticket in 2019 and doesn't offer anything now, other than not being Trump I suppose but that's not going to get my vote. She can't even get her position on abortion straight and she is incapable of answering a basic question.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I was constantly told that this election was going to be the most important election in the history of this great nation, that democracy is on the line, we must save democracy!!!!11!!!11!!!!

People need to let it sink in that the only election that ever matters is the current one.

That's not what the democrat campaign has been about. Which I of course ignore so I am good.

Yes... you've finally figured it out. She "offers nothing"... other than being an adult... and not a sociopathic narcissist... didn't try to overthrow a democratic election via an angry mob.

"finally figured it out"? Erm no, she offered nothing when she campaigned for the ticket in 2019 and doesn't offer anything now, other than not being Trump I suppose but that's not going to get my vote. She can't even get her position on abortion straight and she is incapable of answering a basic question.

I get it, you want to vote for a guy that claims voter fraud cost him the 2020 election but forgot to actually contest the election. I can see how you can relate to such logic.

 

[Elixir]

I think DJT is being manipulated by forces that aren't looking at the expected future value.

Oh I think it’s probably valued somewhat correctly. If you’re in the buyers’ markets for influence over a US President, you don’t usually make a full price offer when there’s a chance you could lose it all. OTOH, what other option is open? The purchase price of the other candidate runs really high, at least when it comes to top tier important stuff. Outright ownership is prohibitive. So even a 45-55% chance at a big piece of the jackpot, has to be of value right now.

The DJT price, for a megacasino-type offer, also has to consider HOW this stock has been “rock solid stable” (in trumpspeak), reliably wavering between eight and fifty-five dollars.
I think it’s a pretty great deal if you can afford a few million shares. If he wins it’s like you just purchased a Country!
Well, almost.