@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.

@shallow-blue said
Oh, they do. And the European equivalents of the Republicans are not happy about it, either. Hence Brexit. Which, by the way, did nothing to stop illegal immigration from Africa to the UK, but did cause a lot of legal Polish workers to come back to Europe.

Yeah, but they don't advertise it like we do.

I've never seen a video ad that begs people to pine for a country like this one:

YouTube

See also:

YouTube&t=19s

@spruce112358 said
Lol. I have not changed... or have I? The world has certainly changed around me.

I've been an Eisenhower Republican for most of my life. I was *very* involved in the Libertarian Party for awhile, but they fractured and then half of us left while the other half went full alt-right/burn it down.

I believe that government exists to protect all our rights equally. I do ...[text shortened]... who joins with Democrats on most things. Think Angus King. I don't have a political home at present.

I used to be kind of like that. I've become more conservative since covid and the George Floyd riots when I saw plainly that government is incapable of nuance or principled decision-making and so needs to be confined to the things you mentioned (and maybe a few others).

I'm kind of where the Republican party would be without Trump. Think John McCain.

I don't consider Trump a Republican. But he's wrested control of the Republican party machinery. Therefore, likewise, I have no political home.


Edit: I'll add the government should also be involved in monetary policy, but should adhere to balanced budgets except in times of emergency.

@mchill said
How dare this President protect American citizens from corporate price gouging! 😠

Corporate price gouging? This has nothing to do with price gouging. It's about getting a higher class of service than you pay for due to government fiat.

Somebody has to pay if someone gets a service they didn't pay for. The only question is whether that somebody is the person who consumed the service or the other customers.

@phranny said
Republican president Ronald Reagan said: “We lead the world because, unique among nations, we draw our people—our strength—from every country and every corner of the world. And by doing so we continuously renew and enrich our nation…. Thanks to each wave of new arrivals to this land of opportunity, we're a nation forever young, forever bursting with energy and new ideas, and ...[text shortened]... ation. If we ever closed the door to new Americans, our leadership in the world would soon be lost.”

I concur...

when they come here legally.

@averagejoe1 said
They can get rich here. Nov 5 will, however, be the most impt election in history, given who this country is. Being unrecognizable if Biden wins, opportunities to grow will peter away. We must all be the same at the end of the day.
SH, tell your buddy Spruce that, while he was away, that no faerie lib on this site has ever commented on the many posts where I highlight ...[text shortened]... ce going to be shoulder to shoulder with? Maybe Shav would be a good fit. Don’t like workin’ much.

As I recall, Spruce is basically conservative in his political and economic philosophy, though could be mis-remembering or things could have changed.

@spruce112358 said
Hi @sh76. How have you been? I see a few old stalwarts still here...

The answer of course is: people come to the US for statistics.

My dad (South African) did his BS at the U. of Pietermaritzburg. Afterwards, he asked one of his professors where he could go to study agricultural statistics (biometry) and he said there were only two places, both in the US: NC State ...[text shortened]... dad certainly came to the US with a couple suitcases and a dream. He never regretted that decision.

Hey, Spruce. Nice to hear from you. Welcome back!

Thanks for the great story.

Of course, I understand why people from downtrodden countries dream of coming to the USA. I'm just wondering why they don't equally or alternatively dream of going to Europe or Canada.

@wildgrass said
Youd have a point if the "data" were normalized to per capita usage.

But it's not.

If the usage is by people who are not part of the target countries (which it generally is), normalizing to per capita is a meaningless concept. If the question is where Pakistanis say they want to go, how many people there are in the US, China, Canada and Europe is irrelevant.

@moonbus said
A TX court has upheld a school’s regulation of boys’ hair, to wit:

<<“boy’s hair will not extend below the eyebrows, below the ear lobes, or below the top of a t-shirt collar.”>>

<<In January, Poole [school district superintendent] placed a full page ad in the Houston Chronicle, arguing that “being an American requires conformity with the positive benefit of unity.”>> ...[text shortened]... for China.


https://us.cnn.com/2024/02/22/us/darryl-george-crown-act-trial-texas-reaj/index.html

You mean like a school dress code?

<gasp>

Oh, the Humanity!