He played the media. He got them to show the faults of mail in voting.

Also he did not say vote twice. He said to mail in you vote. Then on election day see if you could vote at the polls, implying that if you vote was pre counted you would be on the rolls.

Media clearly pointed that out hence showed at least 1 flaw which could lead to cheating.

Passes out. Chokes on own vomit, never to be heard from again. ROCK 'N ROLL!!!!! Say hi to John Bonham for me.

He probably owns a rolling coal pickup.

I dont subscribe to weird oriental religions which presume being born is a lottery that possibly includes trees and butterflies.

Every person is born to a set of parents into a particular time and place and socio-economic position. That is what defines who you are. You cant say "if I was born black" because that would not be you.

That is not luck, that is your starting line. You race from there, that is where YOU start rolling the dice and having good or bad luck.

You may consider yourself lucky to be who you are and where you are, indeed you may feel some first world shame for being so fortunate, but that is surely superfluous, if you have too much you can offer to help other people.

Humans (unlike newts) need preparation, after you are born you need to practice for many years before you can be let out into the wilderness of modern civilization with any hope of surviving, let alone passing tests.

You remind me of my son, he spent his childhood reading encyclopedias and now he is surprised that he knows everything and other people dont. It came easy to him.

I did not have to work hard most of the time, am doing fine, got most of what I have because I was lucky, but I sure had a lot of opportunities run away from me because I wasnt prepared for them. Also got burned by a lot of things I should have been prepared for.

Waiting for luck is good only if you run out of options to do something.

That's what flying out of John Wayne in Orange County feels like. The last time I flew out of there, the pilot didn't do a standard roll. He pushed the throttles to max while holding the brakes, then popped the brakes and off we went. There's a noise-abatement zone just beyond the airport, so the pilots go up like rocket, then cut the throttles back and it feels like the plane is dropping out of the sky.

The Clydesdales should be rolling in soon.

Fascinating stuff. I like the kids rolling that huge wooden looking wheel thing at about 40 seconds in.

I wonder what happened to this thing. Did it get destroyed in the war(s) and just not get rebuilt or something?

🤔

The surfaces--and the bathrooms in particular---totally true. The air? Can be an issue (there are studies)--but the filtration systems themselves are excellent. HEPA 99.7%. There are seating tricks; sit either first row economy ("Economy Plus") or last row of first class. Select the window seat and try to put your companion next to you or---fly an airline with empty seat policies (e.g. JetBlue). Don't rush to get on (although they are mostly now loading back to front anyway)--get on as reasonable late as you can--that way, all those people aren't walking by you exhaling on you.

The reason for the first row economy or last row first is: you don't want people walking by you all flight on the way to the bathrooms; you want to be the person walking by THEM (selfish but...); and the same with the window seating and the last-reasonable minute boarding.

Also, I carry a two zip locks on at the top of my carry on bag; one has three disposable gloves, Clorox or equivalent wipes, and Purell or equiv. etc. Move into seat out of aisle, then with gloves on, wipe down the latch to the overhead (you're going to touch it twice) and then every surface from the aisle to window that you touch---armrests, seat back display, seat back display surface, bulkhead, window shade, tray table locks, tray table both surfaces and edges, buckle, tang, seat controls, audio controls---no point to seat fabric--then roll the glove inside out with the wipes inside and put into the empty ZIploc as a trash bag. Usually two wipes does the job. Purell hands and settle in.

Been doing this since before the pandemic because I totally agree with you.

Airplane bathrooms are all about not touching surfaces with clean hands after you've cleaned them...they are staggeringly filthy. Infectious disease experts have been known to gag in horror at what gets swabbed from the sink handles, toilet flush, and door lock/handle lol. Paper towel is your friend--as our your forearms and elbows.

Run The Jewels - JU$T

Mastered economics 'cause you took yourself from squalor (Slave)
Mastered academics 'cause your grades say you a scholar (Slave)
Mastered Instagram 'cause you can instigate a follow (Shit)
Look at all these slave masters posin' on yo' dollar (Get it? Yeah)

Look at all these slave masters (Ayy) posin' on yo' dollar (Get it? Yeah)
Look at all these slave masters (Ayy) posin' on yo' dollar (Get it?)
Look at all these slave masters (Ayy) posin' on yo' dollar (Get it? Yeah)
Look at all these slave masters

Ayy
Business time, I'm on mine, I be mindin' mine (Make money)
Every time on my grind, I'm just tryna shine (Stay sunny)
Make a dollar, government, they want a dozen dimes (No cap)
The petty kind, might kill ya 'cause they see you shine (Stay strapped)
I done had to have a talk with myself plenty times (For real)
Am I a hypocrite 'cause I know I did plenty crimes? (Yes, I'm is)
I get broke too many times, I might slang some dimes (Back to trappin')
You believe corporations runnin' marijuana? Ooh (How that happen?)
And your country gettin' ran by a casino owner (Ooh)
Pedophiles sponsor all these fuckin' racist bastards (They do)
And I told you once befo' that you should kill your master (It's true)
Now that's the line that's probably gon' get my ass a-assassinated (Yeah-yeah, yeah)

Master of these politics, you swear that you got options (Slave, yeah)
Master of opinion 'cause you vote with the white collar (Slave)
The Thirteenth Amendment says that slavery's abolished (Shit)
Look at all these slave masters posin' on yo' dollar (Get it?)

Look at all these slave masters (Ayy) posin' on yo' dollar (Get it? Yeah)
Look at all these slave masters (Ayy) posin' on yo' dollar (Get it?)
Look at all these slave masters (Ayy) posin' on yo' dollar (Get it? Yeah)
Look at all these slave masters

(Confucius say)
Man, you better duck out, get the bag and then bug out (Uh)
Try to run home, you might run your luck out
'Cause just when your bases loaded
They'll roll a grenade in the dugout (You're out)
Earth folk, not a mellow bunch
We got our thumbs in the air like Hell or bust (Uh)
Look at who we done blessed with our trust
I don't think we'll be left with too much
Hand on my heart and my mind on my drugs
Got a Vonnegut punch for your Atlas shrug
They love to not love, it's just that dumb
Lord, sweet Buddha, please make me numb
Brain bounce off walls like a sentient Roomba
Just found out his creator's stupid
Lit by the supermoon, I'm too lucid
Plus got shrooms in the blood, I'm zoomin'
Beep beep, Richie, this is New York City
The X on the map where the pain keep hitting
Just us ducks here sitting
Where murderous chokehold cops still earnin' a livin'
Funny how some say money don't matter
That's rich now, isn't it? Get it? Comedy
Try to sell a pack of smokes to get food
Get killed and it's not an anomaly
But hey, it's just money

Mastered economics 'cause you took yourself from squalor (Slave, yeah)
Mastered academics 'cause your grades say you a scholar (Slave)
Mastered Instagram 'cause you can instigate a follow (Shit, yeah)
Look at all these slave masters (Yeah-yeah)
Let it sink in (Yeah)

20/20, run the map
Raw, I'm uncut in my hourglass
Don't watch it spill to the bottom half
You see the piece, now run it fast
On the tarmac in a Starter jack
C4 when I run it back
Like a track star run a record lap?
Nah, like when his needle catch (Yeah)
Clean look, poet pugilist
A shooter's view, a Zapruder flick (Yeah)
Too rude for ya rudiments
Who convinced you you could move against the crew in this?
Comin' up through the fence
Offshore outta Port-au-Prince (Yeah)
Louverture left his fingerprints
On our hearts at the gate and the world our residence
How can we be the peace
When the beast gonna reach for the worst? (Yeah)
Tear all the flesh off the Earth
Stage set for a deafening reckoning
Quick like the pace of a verse
So I'm questioning this quest for things
As a recipe for early death threatening (Yeah)
But the breath in me is weaponry
For you, it's just money

I remember when Honore rolled into New Orleans. "Weapons Down! Weapons Down!"

Obviously we lose sight of the car, but I think the driver probably came out totally unscathed if they were belted in. It didn't really seem to roll as such, more of a pirouette on it's grill before landing on the tires again.

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Newt,

This is in response to your comment on my statement about Biden needing to lose in '20.

I recently wrote this as a reply to one of my readers (I write under a number of different names in other places).:

Dear <name>,

>I took some time to absorb what you wrote. It's a lot to juggle. The Atlantic has an article in the July-August issue on the worst and best case scenario in CLO defaults. I'll read more.

I read the article you mentioned, and while it's certainly good, it also misses a very important point that explains the mess we're in: the collapse of Lehman and Bear-Stearns, while catastrophic in their own ways, were not the nightmare that caused the Fed to freak out in 2008 -- AIG was. Had AIG gone under and the counterparty default contracts triggered, we'd be on the barter system right now. We came within hours of not having an economy in the western world. The $700b ($.7t) the Fed coughed up to stop this from happening calmed the panic, but did nothing to resolve the underlying issues. These issues continued to compound during the 2011-2020 stock run-up and now we're at the point where the Fed is throwing trillions of dollars at every piece of bad debt they can find just to keep the whole thing from imploding into an economic black hole. It is important to note that in September '19, the credit markets started freezing because of the debt that was already on the books then, -before- CV-19 started rolling, and it took $3t just to get them unlocked again. Absolutely nothing has gotten better since then, and I would argue things have gotten dangerously worse.

In an odd coincidence, the NYT ran an article today about the looming bankruptcy crisis. They're calling for 30-60 days before things start imploding, but I'll stick to my estimate of ~90 days. There's some talk about extending the $600 benefits (we'll see) and chatter about another stimulus check, but that's kicking the can as well as telegraphing how bad things really are. When the Republicans are getting behind free money, you know we're in some uncharted territory. For all intents and purposes, Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) -- the reason the Fed is backstopping debt and printing money like crazy -- is the hill the US economy will live or die on. Should the US dollar come unpegged as the world's de facto currency or should inflation begin (and there's already worrying signs this is happening), that's game over.

Please don't take anything I say as the Word of God; please do your own research and come to your own conclusions. Everything I've said is an opinion based on my education, experience and way of thinking. Your mileage may vary.

Here is the article I mentioned: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/business/corporate-bankruptcy-coronavirus.html -- might be paywalled, but clear your cookies for the NYT and you should be able to read it.


>Frankly, it's the physical danger in my area of the States that concerns me. There are the guns and bullying. During some BLM demonstrations in the Midwest, locals were standing around with semi-automatics. I drive a Prius for the fuel efficiency. Pick up trucks enjoy tailgating, trying to intimidate me. This behavior isn't going to change with a change of President but will get worse is we don't change. This ideological push to takeover the country instead of ruling by compromise started around the same time we came to the US in 1981, Reagan's first year. I was so shocked when I heard talk radio for the first time; this wasn't the country I had left in the 1970s.


And now we come to the giant pile of sweaty dynamite that's just waiting for the right shock to set it off. I could give you a prolonged lecture about how this all started in 1978 with California's Proposition 13, or how David Stockman's tragically prescient warnings were blatantly ignored, but Haynes Johnson does a far better job at this than I ever could in his 1991 book "Sleepwalking Through History", as does Kevin Phillips in 2006's "American Theocracy". Honestly, at this point, the prelude is academic. The reality of the situation is that a large swath of adult Americans are appalling ill-educated, innumerate and devoid of even the most basic critical-thinking skills. These people are now locked out of the Information Economy. They lack the most basic skills required to compete in the 21st century job market and thus will watch their standard of living sink into the abyss. These people are not blind to this fact because they're living with the reality of their situation every single day. They're totally without hope, cut off from all avenues of control over their own lives and they feel utterly abandoned by the very people who're supposed to be helping them. The reason you're seeing bullying and behavior like that is because these same people are totally removed from any avenues of recourse and the only people they can take their anger out on are people like you and me. Their anger is being stoked on a daily basis. FOX News and the GOP are experts at this and have a host of boogeymen to keep the anger from being pointed their way: ANTIFA, BLM (black Americans have always made a perfect target), "coastal elites" and, of course, Liberals.

Trump's election was a warning, not an outlier. Trump was the primal scream of these people and Liberals and the Democrats as a whole chose not to listen because they found the sound so abhorrent. The rage will only get worse and the number of people enveloped by this rage will only grow as economic conditions worsen. At this point, it no longer matters who wins in '20. Winning the election will be like winning the deed to the World Trade Center one second after the first jet hit. The damage has already been done and no steps are being taken to repair it; if anything, people are actively making it worse either through ideological blindness, deliberate malfeasance or outright stupidity. It took almost 50 years to get to this point and the endemic issues will not be undone in a single generation, much less a single election. Until the people who voted for Trump feel a sense of real hope, a sense of control over their lives and a genuine expectation of recourse for their grievances, they will keep right on voting for Trump, or people like him.

My unfortunate suspicion is that this country will rip itself to shreds long before those reforms are enacted.

Side note: the fundamental difference between the United States and Europe is that European history has forced the nations of Europe to live with the consequences of their actions. Not so the United States. Europe has suffered for her sins. Not so the United States. The two bloodiest wars in human history were fought on European soil. Not so the United States. The United States has never faced true suffering, nor has it ever had to live with the ramifications of its own actions. Both these facts are about to change and a nation whose character is built on a mythology of individual action and violence is going to have to face reality. The people of this nation are not prepared for this and they will not like it.

Second side note: many people are erroneously comparing the current situation to the Wiemar Republic. This is a lack of historical understanding. A more apt comparison would be to Spain in late 1935.


>As for re-opening, we could have gotten some control if the "leader" had simply donned a mask and used realistic thinking. People could go back to work more safely, wash hands, stay a certain distance. But his hubris led the way, so now we'll have a roller coaster for months and years that will affect the economy even more. France is a good comparison because they were unprepared also, having slashed the public healthcare budget for the last twenty years. But when they laid down the rules, troops patrolled the streets to be sure they were followed. So far, they've flattened the curve (for now), and used different economic incentives, such as paying part of employees' salaries to keep them employed.

At this point, the pace of re-opening is a difference between very bad and much worse. Had $3t been used to pay the yearly salary of every American, we could have saved lives and the economy, but we didn't. The history of 2020 will be littered with "what-ifs". However, the first thing you learn when studying history is that what-ifs are useless because things are what they are and you can't change that. It's already obvious we're going into a second wave. If previous pandemics are any indication of what's to come, this second wave will be many times worse than the first. The wait for a vaccine is indeterminate, but if we're going for herd immunity, ~70% of Americans will need to catch the virus. To date, ~1.5% have. If the US population is ~330 million, ~230 million will need to catch the virus. Call the mortality rate 2%, that means ~4.6 million Americans will die. That's a lot of dead Americans and grieving families.

Take care,

(my actual name)