@sonhouse said
@sh76
All well and good but FMF did me dirty VERY dirty. I was in a conversation with an Aussie ham, amateur radio dude if you don't know what being a ham is, I mentioned my ham call sign in a conversation I thought I was having with that lady down under.
Well the great FMF took my call sign, looked it up, not a huge problem to do, then posted my real name, my real address ...[text shortened]... though for me nothing outside of RHP hapened.
So I don't miss that assswipe FMF in the slightest.

Nobody should dox people in this forum. That was the wrong thing to do.

He was still good for this forum, though.

@kmax87 said
I think people were definitely more self aware and would acknowledge that there were other points of view that were also valid. So it happened occasionally but it happened.

Even you used to be much more deliberately and humorously mischievous (and mysterious, at times).

I hope you don't mind my saying so, but your RHP persona was neutered, either by age or by the D64 era, or both.

Back in 2010/2011, although there was plenty of nonsense and mudslinging as well, people were interested in real conversations.

Now it's mostly "you're a freak" this and "your orange God" that. There are still some good conversations, but they're buried in garbage.

Today, I think people actually sound dumber on this forum than they are in real life. Averagejoe is probably a smart guy in real life, but he gets to sound like a broken record here. Sonhouse is probably a very smart guy in real life, but he just sounds apoplectic much of the time here.

The loss of FMF on this board (he still is on other boards on this site, but won't come here for some reason) was enormous. Love him or hate him (and there was more of the latter), his savage one-liners and wry wit lent an air of frenemy banter.

Then the D64 era (which lasted a long time) just sucked all the life out of the board. Suddenly, instead of a bunch of reasonably bright people slinging yo mama jokes while occasionally arguing seriously, the forum was one big exercise in fighting with AngryGPT.

The forum can recover, but we need more threads like this where people talk on a personal level, not just "fu k Reagonomics" or "libs r turds"

Getting back people like FMF and Melanerpes and Teinosuke would also help, if possible.

@spruce112358 said
@sh76, I was intrigued to find this post in Thread 134753 in your profile:

RHP Supreme Court
11 Oct '10 21:15

In all honesty, Mel would probably be a better fit than I due to his lack of partisanship; but of course, that very factor means he'd never win the primary! 😉 

My tripartisan Court, putting aside myself for the moment: 

Lean right: 

Spruce112358  ...[text shortened]... hatever happened to whodey? He would be happy as a pig in ... this incarnation of the Debates Forum.

I miss the days of threads like this:

https://www.redhotpawn.com/forum/debates/challenge-to-telerion-palynka-kazetnagora-sh76.120399

Thread 120399

@mott-the-hoople said
"Yesterday, the Biden administration continued their attacks on the private sector option for seniors on Medicare, Medicare Advantage. This is the second cut in two years. This latest round of cuts will cost seniors an extra $33 per month. That’s a $396 per year rate increase for a cohort largely on fixed incomes and still reeling from terrible inflation. Medicare Adv ...[text shortened]... . [/b]

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/04/03/joe-biden-moves-to-slash-medicare-advantage/

Finally, some responsible fiscal policy.

@sleepyguy said
As an adjunct of ABC News...

https://abcnews.go.com/538

Reminds me of when they bring in replacement players when a players' union strikes.

Same name but not the same game.

@spruce112358 said
"The poll aggregation and evaluation site 538, part of ABC News, dropped the right-wing polling firm Rasmussen Reports from inclusion in its polling averages and forecasts."

"The decision comes after months of consideration that broke into public view in June. At that point, G. Elliott Morris, ABC News’s editorial director of data analytics and 538 lead, presented Ras ...[text shortened]... the change this week."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/03/08/rasmussen-538-polling/

538 still exists?

@spruce112358 said
I'm not trying to be flippant. I'm just saying the missing data is intractable - even for the best statisticians.

You have to get an estimate of how the people who you FIRST chose randomly to call but refused to answer would have responded. There are ways, but they are complicated and expensive and most pollsters don't bother - they just call someone else.

News ser ...[text shortened]... w poll, regardless of the quality, so there is nothing in it for pollsters to make it more accurate.

And you think that polling agencies such as Sienna, the WSJ and CBS don't know these things? You think they don't care about accuracy? They just want to sell their polls?

@spruce112358 said
Well - here's the problem. Surveys are only of willing respondents.

I'm voting for Biden. And I'm not willing to answer those surveys! I've ignored 4 or 5 so far. I'm not interested - maybe I'm never going to be interested. Apparently Trump voters are more interested - fine.

That's the missing data problem they have.

And no, Biden doesn't have to cheat. He's alr ...[text shortened]... know Roger Stone is FEVERISH with plans of how to cheat, though. Let's see what he comes up with...

Dismissing all polling data with one flippant wave based on your own theory is borderline childish. The people that run these polls have access to the same guesses about human nature you have and they do everything that they can to correct for them. Granted, some pollsters are biased and others are incompetent. But on the whole, polls tend to be pretty good predictors.

A LOT can change between now and November, of course. But dismissing polls that show Trump with a (modest) advantage because you came up with a one sentence argument that polling in general is a useless pursuit is akin to putting your head in the sand.

@sonhouse said
@the-grifter
Hey, when my rating gets to 3000 will you play me?🙂
I don't think putting them on a ship to Iran would work, I think execution would be more like it. Killing hundreds of kids at a music fest is unconscionable but what do I know. I am a musician and played folk festivals all over Israel and our friends were almost all fellow musicians, so that attack hit us al ...[text shortened]... t crack in our family, finally finding nothing, had to let us go and we damn near missed our flight.

Sorry you almost missed your flight, but when you've been victimized by literally thousands of terrorist attacks, you tend to be a bit more careful. We created the TSA after one terrorist attack and we still make people take off their shows because of one more such incident.

I was travelling with my mother in law and a bunch of the kids and my mother in law packed a bag full of candy. The TSA stopped us and practically sniffed evey damn lollipop. That's the way it goes sometimes.

Next time maybe get to the airport 3 hours early like they tell you to.

@spruce112358 said
I have this discussion with my brother-in-law often - he agrees with you, Trump isn't good enough to pull it off, and so he doesn't take any threat seriously. But is that true of everyone who supports him?

Someone mentioned Trump is only the herald. What happens when a much younger, healthier 'Trump' with an even more refined message and a tighter organization appears?

Do you worry then?

But then he wouldn't be Trump. He'd be some other demagogue.

I'll judge this other guy on his own merits (or lack thereof).

@divegeester said
I don’t have children, chose not to, can’t stand them tbh. I might have felt differently about my own, but looking at other people’s I am just relieved to not have them.

I look around at my wider family and everyone with kids is stressed out of their box, frantic with worry and financially strapped. Even in their thirties with their own kids they are still leaching of ...[text shortened]... s.

I’ve heard it said more than once “if I had my time over I wouldn’t have kids”.

Thoughts?

It's hard to really have a basis for comparison of course, but I can't even fathom the hole in my life without my children, especially my oldest daughter and oldest son. I would be a completely different human being with different outlooks and different experiences and different dreams, aspirations and feelings.

There very well might be an sh76 alive and doing well if I had no children, but it wouldn't be me.

@spruce112358 said
All right, let's get REALLY UPSET ABOUT THIS!!!

https://npr.org/2024/04/01/1241984004/ties-necktie-biden-obama-clinton-presidents-fashion

Of course, y'all are too young to remember 'Hatless Jack' Kennedy and how he changed the style of the nation by refusing to wear a hat. His reason: he thought hats made his ears stick out. But for years hatters chased the Preside ...[text shortened]... his head.

Kennedy killed hats! Bummer!

https://www.primermagazine.com/2021/learn/jfk-mens-hat

The casual dress at the office movement seems to have gained some momentum in the late 90's. Law firms and investment banks were chasing talent so hard that they needed to offer something without increasing the already skyrocketing salaries in a super-hot market. So, they let people dress down a little, and then a lot.

Covid, however, probably killed formal dress for good as a mandatory aspect of business. Suddenly, you worked from your living room for a year and it didn't matter what you wore.

Personally, except when vacationing or working out, I think the President of the United States should dress formally, but I'm not going to spend any energy worrying about it.

@spruce112358 said
I think a big reason Trump's dictatorship-pantomime-charade attempt will fail is his age. Hitler was 43 when he came to power. Trump was 71, now 77. This baloney has to end soon.

The other big reason is that America isn't in the economic crisis Germany was in in 1933 - no comparison. True, rural America is stuck in a pretty miserable place. But it is only Biden who wi ...[text shortened]... stay "broken." Otherwise, he is doomed.

The third reason is, American Liberals also have guns. 🙂

Trump's age, health and lack of organizational skills also prevent me from taking this too seriously.

But more so, I don't think Trump truly wants to do anything more than massage his enormous ego.

@suzianne said
But the LOVE of money is the root of all evil.

Money is just a proxy for creature comforts. The real root of all evil is the elevation of creature comforts over true meaning.