jerryskids

Lost in all this is the fact that Whoopi needs to pick up her own birthday cake, because she has no friends or family. Who picks up their own birthday cake?

We used to think that presidents should work with both sides of the aisle. But then Obama informed us that "elections have consequences" and, given the opportunity, politicians should just ram through every partisan thing they can. God bless St. Barack the Great Uniter!

I don't prefer fatties. I prefer woman-shaped women. Studies have shown that the ideal waist to hip ratio (WHR) is 0.7. Meaning, the waist should be 30% smaller than the hips. This makes sense, as such a look is a proxy for health (slim waste) and ability to bear children (large enough hips), both of which evolutionarily, men would want in a mate. That's cool though, you like boy-girls, you do you.

Ah, someone who knows about smoots! The Harvard Bridge was out route to Boston from Cambridge; I walked it hundreds of times. Knowing that it measured 364.4 smoots (and one ear) helped to keep track of how much longer you had to go, during a Boston winter wind storm. Whatever fraternity he was in repaints them every year. I just looked him up -- it's hilarious that 40 years after that stunt, he became the president of ANSI and then ISO. I've gotta think his name and history had something to do with that.

Just looked "her" up. She has no b00bs or hips, and looks a bit like a man. I don't want to see what's under that bikini bottom. Pass.

Doesn't strike me as an alias. When somebody new comes along, I think (1) is somebody missing (e.g., banned/suspended) and (2) does this posting style remind me of anyone? Posters like Boyo and Seafoam usually try to start being less... themselves, but eventually the style shows through. Rusty and Gutter seem more comfortable being themselves, although Rusty might hold of on "clownzo" or other dehumanizing descriptions of Trump for a while. Purdygood's style is most similar to BeenHereBefore IMO, although different politics. Plus BHB isn't the type of poster who gets suspended, and he still posts occasionally. Also Purdygood had a good (and slightly self-deprecating) career story of basically being an IT pet for some finance bros who appreciated the work he did to set up their systems. I suspect he is some poor soul who came in here looking for scintillating conversation, and instead found us. Back in the old days, people would often create aliases just for fun. Gutter had some good ones like Mrs. Voltaire, which was the persona of a sassy, controlling Chinese wife. Nowadays, it's mostly just for people who are suspended, except for the occasional @t.j. booker sighting. Now get off my lawn.

Da fuq?! Also I have no assets in this game tonight. Which is probably why my teams all suck.

Eh, maybe. I feel lucky that by and large we've had good senators here in AZ. For the longest time it was McCain and John Kyl, two fantastic ones. Kyrsten Sinema, while nominally a democrat, basically committed political suicide by being true to her values and what she thought best for the great state of AZ. She has my deep respect. Mark Kelly, a little too liberal for my taste, but also seems like a generally upstanding person. I don't feel like my Senate representation has historically voted just to maintain their deep statedness. The only bad one was Jeff Flake. He can chug a gallon of razor blades for all I care.

Well... IMO they weren't in power, so I'm not sure what people would have missed "seeing".

Thiel talks about Vance, meeting him and being impressed. He also makes a general comment about liking people that can get through Leftist echo chambers like Yale and still maintain conservative values. As for the mentoring, I think that was more leading up to Vance's Senate race in 2022. He specifically said he wasn't directly involved in the Trump campaign this year.

I often pimp The Free Press here, and I will again: Bari Weiss has a fascinating interview with Peter Thiel (conservative gay silicon valley bazillionaire, pushed Trump through in 2016, largely stayed out of it this year). https://www.thefp.com/p/peter-thiel-honestly-trump-jd-vance It's almost 2 hours long and worth the time, but I want to highlight the discussion of tariffs for @The Real timschochet and others, which starts around the 55 minute mark. He makes a few interesting points: - The theory of free trade popularized centuries ago presumed that the big-picture cost of manufacturing (including say, labor) was equal between the parties, and that the parties would reach a trade equilibrium. The fact that we have such a trade deficit with China shows that this theory is not working in this relationship. - There is a mistaken belief that trade between us and China is a two-way, net zero sum game. That is, if we raise the price of an iPhone made in China, that price gets passed directly to American consumers. But that's not how a global economy works in the long term. Instead, Apple moves its manufacturing to, say, Vietnam (his example). Yes, Vietnam is a POS country, but they pose no thread to us, whereas China has plans of global dominance and provides something of an existential threat. So, in this model, if the tariffs are imposed, China suffers greatly, Vietnam (and others) benefit greatly, and the US maybe sees a marginal negative, certainly in the short term. - Although Thiel didn't use this word, he talked about how it might be brinkmanship. Given the above, there is incentive for China to come to the table and meet somewhere in the middle.

Reading that thread, I'm getting an uneasy feeling that there are folks on the far right who are beginning to behave like the wokies on the far left, trying to strongarm minority opinions through. I would hope that the (secret) voting to elect Thune to Senate Majority Leader would send a message to these folks that the majority of people don't want to go scorched earth here. I guess we'll see.

That would be awesome!

Will she revert to being ultra progressive, or stick with her latest incarnation of faux moderation?

I didn't see 20M mentioned in that article. 2M (well, 1.9M)

So... you think it's OK to profile all Trump voters as dangerous? Wut? MDC, despite our political differences, I generally like you. I hope you know this and feel the same. Regardless, this is an immensely... unsmart post. I'm confident that you know why.

"non binary identified being"?

Who did you give Ken8080 to?! I've always wondered who that was, dang he was annoying! Death is Rusty, TrailGuy is/was Boyo. Last I knew, Gutterboy was posting as The Psychic Observer. I may have missed an incarnation tho. No he isn't.

I just sat through a webinar from the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) on the state of the art development in this area. They still have a long way to go, but some breakthroughs in magnetic technologies in the past few years have led to enough potential viability to create 40 startups and $8B in private investment. That said, I believe that this technology warrants government investment. It is very difficult to do pure research in the commercial sector, since investors want returns next quarter. I hope we do it. Perhaps we could get Elon interested in it? It could be Trump's equivalent of JFK's space race. They mentioned a quote from the poet Edward Young in the webinar, which is inscribed in the Jefferson building of the Library of Congress: "Too low they build, who build beneath the stars."

Why would Trump object to Ukraine joining NATO? I actually think that would be a great concession from Russia.

I like Shapiro, and would look at him in 2028. Newsome strikes me as the monorail salesguy from the Simpsons.

To me, the obvious end to the Ukraine situation is basically as you state: Russia keeps some/most amount of the territory they've taken, most of which is largely ethnic Russian folks. Add onto that commitments from Russia that they are done invading, Ukraine and elsewhere, and if they don't, they won't like the results. Include funding from Russia for Ukrainians to relocate into Ukraine, and to help rebuild the infrastructure they've destroyed in Kiev and elsewhere. I mean, Russia has nukes and haven't used them, so they've shown some restraint. It's not realistic to expect Putin to just leave with nothing.

I'm not a Gaetz fan. I disagree with your concerns with Gabbard, however.

No Emma Stone? You are dead to me.

Is "MAGAloid" part of you having serious discussions, Rustor? My daughter has Type 1 diabetes; she can't join the military because she needs daily medication (insulin) to survive. I've often used her as an example, when people argue that men should compete in women's sports, that "the pursuit of happiness" does not mean you get to pursue every possible avenue of happiness.