I pick Lying. He can't be that dumb!
Mostly retired. Working to be a philosopher king.
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I pick Lying. He can't be that dumb!
Western Civilization has been declining since Napoleon toppled the Holy Roman Empire. A century ago Oswald Spengler predicted that humanity would concentrate in megacities amidst an overall depopulation. See: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... from 2004 discussing "Cosmopolis and Depopulation"
Trump's Big Beautiful Baloney increases premiums at the low end by many multiples as it yanks away the Obamacare premium subsidies for low-income folks. The lower your income, the more impossible it will be to afford healthcare. Trump just wants you to die!
Trump dreams of having the powers of Emperor Palpatine!
Goldwater should not be characterized as "right wing" in today's politics. He was pro-choice and pro-gay-rights, neither of which are acceptable to today's Republicans. He was clearly right of center, but was one of the Senators who told Nixon to resign, as he would tell Trump today.
I am a member of AAAS. While it is mostly an organization for working scientists and engineers, anyone who wants to support science can join. As a bonus, you get Science magazine (I recommend the digital version). Dues for Retired are very affordable (they don't check).
If Democrats want to win elections, they need a message that will engage these "news avoidance" folks. And it needs to be delivered door to door, as I once did. It should be an economic message, based on my experience with these people. Tell them votes for D's improve their finances!
This article caught my eye: www.theguardian.com/society/ng-i... "The authors observed that consistent news avoidance tends to be more common among young people, women, and lower socioeconomic classes." Before I became disabled, I did door to door canvassing for Democrats. Could not engage this demo.
Cruz doesn't care about hypocrisy. The photo is simply identified as "Spanish-Americans," not identifying their migrant status. The implication is that they are small farmers who can't earn money farming, so they are glad to work on the roads for the WPA. But yeah, Cruz is a jerk.
That guy from Nevis did pretty good for himself. He's still pretty popular today.
Trump really can't indict a ham sandwich!
It is only the wafer fabrication which uses export controlled machines. Wafers can be made in an acceptable nation and sent anywhere for packaging, and anywhere else for use.
In the 1970s, it was typical for chips to be made in US fabrication facilities and then sent to Asia for the labor intensive packaging process. The more expensive the chips, the more incentives there are to use multiple plants in multiple nations to produce the final product.
You are steeped in propaganda. Go back and watch the Ken Burns series on the Civil War. Or read Doris Kerns Goodwin's books. Real history is more nuanced than is your propaganda.
Hedge funds pay big money to put computers in the basement of each exchange. I used to service them. Being within feet of the exchange computers lets them buy and sell before any human can possibly react. They don't need a person with a button!
If Hamas is smart, it will replace its entire leadership team with specially trained agents of Chat GPT.
How long until Judge Sooknanan is charged with mortgage fraud or some other trumped-up allegation?
... said the convicted pedophile. Words like "inappropriate" are reflections of the values held by a person, and a person with no values would never see anything "inappropriate."
How long until the Trump administration announces an investigation of Judge Sooknanan on allegations of mortgage fraud or some other trumped-up charge?
Western Civilization has been in decline since Napoleon ordered the Holy Roman Empire to cease existing. It began with my 37th great grandfather, Charlemagne, being crowned Emperor of the Romans on December 25th, 800 CE by Pope Leo III.
Dear God, how many prayers do you need to make it sooner rather than later?
My daughter was born in Ottumwa! It didn't used to be known for anything else! What is going on in Ottumwa!
You don't know the meaning of that word. Look up former Florida Governor Lawton Chiles. Now, he was a real cracker. I can't claim to stand (or walk) in his rather famous shoes (which I watched being awarded to a leading FL Democrat back in 2004 or 6).
After the war, the North decided to mostly forgive southern fighters because of this question of who their loyalty was to. (Same for most German fighters after WW II.) Calling southern fighters "traitors" is an attempt to revoke that forgiveness and restart the war.
I did look up the numbers and the numbers say you're wrong. Also, traitor to who? The Confederate States decided to break away. In those days, loyalty was to States, not to the USA. They would have been traitors to refuse to fight against the North.
Also, something like 60% to 80% of the wealth in the South was the population of slaves. As today, the wealthy tell the government what to do. Poor dirt farmers had no say when the government ordered them to muster to fight. My people had no more choice than Trump's National Guard does.
No. Back in that time, every able bodied male, age 16-45, was a member of the county militia. They fought because their leaders told them to, backed by the threat of penalties for desertion. Pre Civil War, loyalty was to individual states. If the state said "fight" men fought.
My great grandfather fought for Florida. So did 2 of his brothers. The family didn't own any slaves. That's a simple fact. It has nothing to do with "Lost Cause math" because the whole "Lost Cause" myth was invented decades after the war.
I lived in Kansas for about a decade. There is a big mural of abolitionist John Brown in the state capital. He was executed after the raid on Harper's Ferry.
Everyone comes from families that owned slaves if you go far enough back in time. My great grandfather fought for Florida in the Civil War. No slaves in his family. His dad died after founding a Baptist church with 3 whites and 10 blacks. The blacks were probably owned by the whites.
I looked at the summary numbers at the bottom of the census pages. 144 homes with 760 whites. 62 slave owners in the 144 homes. About 43% of homes had a slave owner so roughly 327 of 760 whites lived in a home with slaves. Just based on math ratio. It's hard to count an exact number.
That isn't literally true. Think all of West Virginia, for instance. Lincoln was careful to only emancipate enemy slaves. Not friendlies.
That was 1860. In earlier decades, slave ownership wasn't as common, based on census records I've seen. One ancestor saved for a decade to buy one slave per preserved letters.
Honestly, I didn't think you were close, but I will give you that you are closer than I thought. I measured one township where my ancestors lived. 144 homes. 62 slave owners. 509 slaves. About 760 whites. My ancestors didn't own slaves. But 3 sons fought. One died.
I don't know as much about the North as I do the South. In the South, the militia was a permanent entity. Many times, the men in a militia district would vote for their officers. It's true that you had to be a land owner. But you didn't need to be a slave owner. Less than a quarter owned even 1.
Someone in Georgia is doing what Mamdani promised to do for New York City. I hope it works, and leads the way for NYC.
That is close to the truth. If you had the money to field enough men, you could get yourself made a general. True for both North and South in that era. The US didn't keep a standing army before the Civil War.
That is a substantial misrepresentation of reality. Lincoln went through roughly a dozen "bad" generals, most of whom lost to Lee's army, before landing on the drunk, Ulysses Grant, who was brilliant enough (when sober) to finally beat Lee.
And we will teach empathy to his kids. I started as a Goldwater conservative in 1964. By 2004, I was anti-war and working on the Howard Dean campaign. In 2016 I worked for Elizabeth Warren. My values in old age remain left of center because the center moved right. Goldwater was pro-choice & gay rts.
Like all very expensive new technologies, AI was forced out into the market long before it's ready. There are good reports from England about AI medical diagnosis. But they used a highly constrained AI that was carefully trained and monitored. As always, YMMV. Wait a few years B4 using.
A crook whose son was also a crook. Good riddance.
Yes. Absolutely. But that's no reason for Trump to change the Department of Justice into the Department of Trump's Retribution.
While you are technically correct, that she is responsible for what happens, you would not believe the number of people involved and the numerous opportunities that exist for things to change for no reason at all. Mortgage banking is incredibly complex. It isn't like the borrower knows the people.
My previous Georgia mortgage was delivered by a young attorney who arrived with a briefcase full of paper. It was similar to the Docusign process. Hand me a paper to initial or sign. No time to read ANYTHING.
I don't know what process was used for her Georgia mortgage. My latest Georgia mortgage (December, 2023) was delivered to me on a Docusign portal where the website rapidly scrolled from spot to spot, asking for initials or signatures. At the end of that process, I was allowed to download a copy.
This is why it is EXTREMELY RARE for a case like this to have any consequences whatsoever. It normally only comes up when a mortgage goes into default (didn't happen with her). And then, the issue of intent is central to any consequences.
It would certainly be a false statement. HOWEVER, she might legitimately claim that she didn't check that box herself. Some clerk checked it for her. To be fraud, it must be intentional. When faced with about 500 pages (more or less) of mortgage papers, it is easy for stuff like this to happen.
I think we can guess that Judge Cobb will cite the recent Supreme Court case which opined (in dicta) that the Fed was a different beast, and rule that Trump can't fire her on such flimsy grounds.
When I moved from one state to another, I had to file complicated state income tax forms which apportion income according to the state within which it was earned. If Atlanta was actually a vacation home, she likely had no Georgia income to report.
Can we say SS? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzs...
As I wore my AAAS T-Shirt today, I couldn't have dreamed that a pro-science T-shirt would be an anti-Trump political msg. But Trump's war on science makes it that way. I get a different shirt every year I renew. You can & should join! www.aaas.org/membership You also get & support Science magazine.
As a veteran, I can easily say "this is NOT what volunteers sign up to do." They will follow orders, of course. But they may think twice about re-enlistment.
Jury nullification isn't just for the right. Leftists can do it also. And, obviously, grand juries as well as trial (petit) juries.
Isn't the statute of limitations the usual 5 years for a federal crime? Of course it is. And it is more than 5 years from when Christies aides were convicted (and subsequently overturned on appeal). Trump is just throwing out malicious words. As usual. And Christie knows all of this...
Pritzker should send his own National Guard troops to "get in the way of" any troops sent by Trump. And sue Trump as often as possible. If Trump nationalizes the entire Illinois National Guard, Pritzker can use Illinois police as an opposing force. Somebody needs to stand up against fascism.
If you are anti-Trump, and you should be, you need to hope that voters will vote for Democrats. But Democrats are losing "market share" big time. Gift article from the New York Times: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/u...
Trump doesn't understand that TV networks are "content" and that isn't licensed (First Amendment). What is licensed is Spectrum, which is owned by individual TV stations, most of which are not owned by networks. And spectrum isn't as valuable as it was since most people stream today.
The reference to "Pro-Satan" merch is likely referring to the Pride merch that Target sold in the past. Cutting out that merch likely contributed to falling total sales.
"According to Dead Sea Scrolls archaeologist Yigael Yadin, Aramaic was the language of Hebrews until Simon Bar Kokhba's revolt (132 AD to 135 AD)." During the revolt, an order was given to communicate in Hebrew. Ashkenazi Jews used Yiddish. Sephardic Jews used a variety of languages.
Except that it wasn't, except for the Torah itself. Hebrew was "church language" for use in the Temple. Everyday life was not to be profaned by using Hebrew. Jesus spoke Aramaic in everyday life. The New Testament was written in a variety of languages depending upon audience. Mostly Greek.
I helped Al Gore invent the Internet. It was invented to allow the government to communicate during a nuclear war. It was never intended to be anything it is now. But no, the Internet wouldn't need to be banned. Only censored. Like China. The dark web exists because crime is tolerated.
Badly translated multiple times. From Hebrew and Aramaic to Greek and Latin, to the horrible King James translation into English. How can anyone believe that God spoke English centuries before that language was invented?
Western Civilization is Christian solely because my 39th great grandfather, Charles Martel, won the Battle of Tours on October 10, 732. If he had lost to the invading Muslim army, it would have proceeded to sack Paris, and Christianity would have died in the West.
True fact. My dad didn't notice his cancer until it was way too late. I was very proactive and got a stent in my heart BEFORE a heart attack could send me to my fate. My dad died a decade or two before he should have. He was a professional bike racer in the 1930s and rode hard his whole life.
China didn't really try if it failed. Its deep surveillance of the Internet could instantly stop it. And the real key is eliminating every possible way of making electronic swaps for fiat currency. Just like credit cards block purchases of illegal stuff.
Who knew that "Make America Great Again" really stood for "Make America White Again"?
To deal with Khamenei the West must understand that his is philosophically grounded in an Arab-type mentality which the West defeated during World War I. Oswald Spengler pointed out after that war that the West simply could never comprehend that other civilization, and vice-versa. It's hard.
How to get back at Trump: MAKE BITCOIN ILLEGAL!!! Bitcoin has no legitimate use. It is only used to enable crime (ransomware, Internet con games, paying for child porn, moving drug money, etc. etc.). It's no wonder that Trump the crime lord loves Bitcoin!
Somehow Democrats never took to heart Lakoff's book Don't Think of an Elephant. Dems always lose the framing debate. www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...
BTW, For What It's Worth ought to be the retro theme song of today. First verse: There's something happening here But what it is ain't exactly clear There's a man with a gun over there Telling me I got to beware
We've been here before. In For What It's Worth the legendary Stephen Stills wrote "There's battle lines being drawn. Nobody's right if everybody's wrong." The DNC desperately needs to figure out why voters hate them or else Trump will become dictator for life.
That beast would fit well in Dragon Mania Legends.
I would be happy if #AI could give us an intelligent auto-attendant for customer care. Let me tell it my real issue rather than giving me a list of inapplicable options.
As a boomer, I have been around this loop a few times. 1) new technology is announced (computers, voice recognition, Internet, cell phones, etc.). 2) predictions of doom for jobs. 3) reality is never more than a small bit of the bad predictions. That's my #AI prediction.
Some states, including Florida, allow literally anyone to pay a small fee and receive the current voter database including which election each voter cast a ballot. I did this myself when I was running a campaign for FL 6 in 2006.
With this help, Trump and Vance won't dare gang up on Zelelsky again. Good!
I am good. In January I started my own book publishing company and I started attending author workshops. A lady I met that way runs workshops for mystery writers. She set herself up with Ray Brehm. I can tell you more if you are interested. FYI, I also bought Ray's offer.
If you are serious, hunt down Ray Brehm who can give you the tools to make a successful author consultancy.
Filed over 500 miles away in Red Bluff? No Democrat from Texas would be anywhere near there. I think it's extreme forum shopping and I bet they looked for a county with extreme MAGA judges. I hope even MAGA judges would care enough about the state bar to throw it out on venue concerns.
It was a "work at home" scam. It required me to deposit my own money, in bitcoin, to earn money essentially buying and selling back things on an e-commerce platform so I could post reviews. But things would happen and it would want bigger deposits to get my money back. Eventually I lost it all.
Jesus never died because He never lived. Christianity is primarily a dream St. Paul had on the road to Damascus. Anything before then was just a sect of Judaism. Read James the Brother of Jesus by Robert Eisenman.
Wrong, Wrong, wrong! I don't know where you get your propaganda, but most bitcoin crime isn't reported. I lost $3000 last year and nobody would take a crime report. And there are bitcoin centers that transfer untraceable amounts. North Korea is a big fan of bitcoin. I will presume you're with them.
Unfortunately, it pushes perverts to use crypto to pay for illicit content. Crypto should be banned. It has no legitimate use. It only allows people to sidestep controls on legal payment pathways. Think: no Bitcoin? No ransom ware. Drugs. Guns. Etc.
I don't understand what is different from past decades of computer trading which occasionally crashes some market. Maybe AI allows the computer to make better and more complex decisions. But it's still a computer making trades in a market.
This is the really great lady, and actual PhD scientist, who I helped get elected in 2018. Since then, she has been a great advocate for science in the GA legislature. Now, she is running for Congress. We need people like her! If you can throw a few bucks her way, please do!
That says nothing restricting the President from preparing a report. It's only a legal issue if he attempts to reallocate seats in Congress. And please don't be rude just because we have different opinions.
Unfortunately, a lawless President, supported by a law-ignoring Supreme Court, can do anything. The rubber meets the road only when a reallocation of seats in Congress is published. Before that point, no law prevents the President from preparing such a report. If you know one, please cite it.
What Trump can do is to order the Census Bureau to revisit the estimated numbers of uncounted people from the 2020 census, set to zero any estimate which might include undocumented people, then publish a revised allocation of seats in Congress. And then get sued. What will the Supreme Court do?
1 and 2 are false, at least with the current Supreme Court. 3 is true, and what Trump can do at almost no cost is to replace the estimates of uncounted undocumented people with a value of zero. He could then publish a reallocation of seats. And immediately get sued.
But will he be allowed into the US?
True. But nobody chooses complete and total surrender if there is a rational alternative. And when religious fervor is mixed in, rational goes out the window. Unfortunately, both sides in Gaza are motivated by religious fervor. But Israel had the strength to end this mess long ago and chose not to.
Don't forget: Gislaine's father, Robert Maxwell, introduced her to Trump, and more likely than not, she introduced Trump to Epstein. Clearly, Trump knew Gislaine before he knew Epstein.
The "old rule" could at least be attributed to its author: Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
And Israel responds by starving thousands of kids? Netanyahu is also a psychopath. As is Trump. Gaza is doomed because nobody will stand up to the psychopaths. Israel could have solved the Gaza problem within 90 days after October 7 if they had arrested everyone in Gaza and sorted it out later.
The West is too far gone to save. But we do not need to suffer through the ongoing decline and fall of the West. We can choose a different direction. And this is the subject of my forthcoming book Surviving Oppression.
Laura Loomer is correct. She is quoted in the NYT: “I feel like Western civilization is in a death spiral.” And it is. But her idol, Trump, is pushing the West more rapidly towards "an Imperium of gradually increasing crudity and despotism" as predicted by Oswald Spengler more than a century ago.
For what? Trump and his religious allies hate facts. They want to preach their own preferred "truth" for political gain. Actual truth stands in the way. Remember "alternative facts" from Trump I? Science calls out such lies, so science must be destroyed.
That projection of 3 quarter point reductions this year ignores the effects of Trump's tariff policies. Maybe you get one cut at this meeting, but exploding inflation will be much more obvious by the next meeting, and obvious stagflation will freeze the Fed into inaction.
Way back in February (see below) I said that the 10th Amendment should protect the state and local actors from the claim of the Trump administration. Today the federal judge in this case dismissed Trump's claims. www.yahoo.com/news/article...
Yes (it is debatable) and no (no 11th circuit ruling I'm aware of; per Google's AI). Because it is a "remedy" I believe it is applicable and not just procedural. But people who have invoked it and lost on the grounds it was mere procedure which can't override federal rules. But WSJ can appeal.