Less than a week from the deal going down, polls are showing an insanely close race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, both nationally and in the seven battleground states. Lately, it has been hard to find polls showing much of anything else. And that has led to suspicions, as often happens in the homestretch, that pollsters are “herding,” i.e., aligning their numbers as close as possible to those of other pollsters, as Nate Silver put it: https://nymag.com/
Avoiding substantive messaging on key issues. While “vibes and joy” aren’t particularly persuasive, for voters not living and breathing politics, her campaign is successfully positioning her as a newcomer with ideas and promises, without actually articulating what those are. She’s mainly running on “I’m not Trump,” which is persuasive to the center-right who have Trump fatigue.
In two weeks, Americans will decide whether the United States shall continue as a representative democracy and the shining beacon on the hill of freedom and liberty, or will devolve into a corrupt autocratic state where political enemies are jailed or killed and the world’s greatest military will be deployed within our own borders to racially cleanse our nation of immigrants, both legal and otherwise. Those are stark choices.
Our media systems, both corporate and independent (including this one), are committed to selling us this false equivalence between the two sides, framing the election as a close race, when in fact the chasm between the two visions for America could not be wider. The media thrives on the drama of competition, the narrative of a horse race, because it keeps readers and viewers engaged. It drives traffic, boosts advertising revenue, and sustains the endless cycle of speculation and commentary. But in doing so, they have abdicated their responsibility to the truth, and the public has been left confused and divided.
On Saturday, September 7, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump predicted that his plan to deport 15 to 20 million people currently living in the United States would be “bloody.” He also promised to prosecute his political opponents, including, he wrote, lawyers, political operatives, donors, illegal voters, and election officials. Retired chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told journalist Bob Woodward that Trump is “a fascist to the core…the most dangerous person to this country.”
As the dominant voice in American journalism, the Times could have fundamentally changed the way Trump has been covered not just by its own journalists but by the political media as a whole. It could have stopped using soft, empty language and false equivalence, and made it crystal clear to the public that if elected Trump would turn America into a racist, authoritarian regime where facts don’t matter.
America’s morbidly rich billionaires are at it again, this time screwing the average family’s ability to have decent, affordable housing in their never-ending quest for more, more, more. Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, and Denmark have had enough and done something about it: we should, too.
There are a few things that are essential to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” that should never be purely left to the marketplace; these are the most important sectors where government intervention, regulation, and even subsidy are not just appropriate but essential. Housing is at the top of that list.
By March, Dachau concentration camp was opened with its inaugural prisoners: members of the Communist and Social Democrat parties and other prominent Hitler critics. including some members of the Reichstag which Hitler’s allies would join with the National Socialists to voluntarily dissolve to give Hitler near total power.
From the Holocaust Encyclopedia:
America’s two-party system is broken. Democrats and Republicans are locked in an increasingly destructive partisan struggle that has produced gridlock and stagnation on too many critical issues — most urgently, the pandemic and climate change.
There is no reasonable or timely way to fix this broken system. But there is an alternative: more parties.
It is not so hard to imagine a six-party system — and it would not even require a constitutional amendment.
This is a stupendous book.
We’re watching this Apple TV series “Women in Blue,” not that anybody’s e-mailed me about it, not that there’s a buzz, but it has great RottenTomatoes ratings, 100/86. It’s a Mexican series inspired by real events about a killer and the government’s decision to hire women on the police force to improve the administration’s image. And in one scene, one candidate, one cadet, accuses another, her sister, of always coloring inside the lines, always doing what she’s told to do. Would you?
That’s the essence of education. Regimentation. By following the rules you get to ascend to the top of the ladder, get into a good college and then a good graduate school, even though those who change the world oftentimes drop out.
https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/
Ten Best Caddy ResponsesNumber :10Golfer: "I think I'm going to drown myself in the lake."Caddy: "Think you can keep your head down that long?"Number : 9Golfer: "I'd move heaven and earth to break 100 on this course."Caddy: "Try heaven, you've already moved most of the earth."Number : 8Golfer: "Do you think my game is improving?"Caddy: "Yes . . . . You miss the ball much closer now."Number : 7Golfer: "Do you think I can get there with a 5 iron?"Caddy: "Eventually."Number : 6Golfer: "You've got to be the worst caddy in the world."Caddy: "I don't think so . . . .That would be too much of a coincidence."Number : 5Golfer: "Please stop checking your watch all the time. It's too much of a distraction."Caddy: "It's not a watch - it's a compass."Number : 4Golfer: "How do you like my game?"Caddy: "It's very good - but personally, I prefer golf."Number : 3Golfer: "Do you think it's a sin to play on Sunday?Caddy: "The way you play, it's a sin on any day."Number : 2Golfer: "This is the worst course I've ever played on."Caddy: "This isn't the golf course . . . . We left that an hour ago."And the Number : 1 . . . . Best Caddy Comment:Golfer: "That can't be my ball, it's too old."Caddy: "It's been a long time since we teed off, sir."
We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live in a big brick house but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Batemans Bay where everyone lives in nice little houses, and so they don't have to mow the grass anymore!
They ride around on their bicycles and scooters and wear name tags because they don't know who they are anymore.
They go to a building called a wreck center, but they must have got it fixed because it is all okay now. They do exercises there, but they don't do them very well.
There is a swimming pool too, but they all jump up and down in it with hats on.
At their gate, there is a doll house with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out, and go cruising in their golf carts!
Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And, they eat the same thing every night - early birds.
Some of the people can't get out past the man in the doll house. The ones who do get out, bring food back to the wrecked center for pot luck.
My Grandma says that Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and says I should work hard so I can be retarded someday too.
When I earn my retardment, I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will let people out, so they can visit their grandchildren.
The electrical engineer says, “Let me make sure the battery is connected.”
The software engineer says, “Before we do anything else, let’s all just get out of the car and then get back in.”
Two engineering students were walking across campus when one said, “Where did you get such a great bike?”
The second engineer replied, “Well, I was walking along yesterday minding my own business when a beautiful woman rode up on this bike. She threw the bike to the ground, took off all of her clothes and said, “Take what you want.”
The first engineer nodded approvingly, “Good choice, the clothes probably wouldn’t have fit.”
A priest, a doctor, and an engineer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. The engineer fumed, “What’s with those guys? We must have been waiting for fifteen minutes!” The doctor chimed in, “I don’t know, but I’ve never seen such inept golf!”
The priest said, “Here comes the green keeper. Let’s have a word with him.” He said, “Hello George, what’s wrong with that group ahead of us? They’re rather slow, aren’t they?”
The green keeper replied, “Oh, yes. That’s a group of blind firemen. They lost their sight, saving our clubhouse from a fire last year, so we always let them play for free anytime.”
The group fell silent for a moment. The priest said, “That’s so sad. I think I will say a special prayer for them tonight.” The doctor said, “Good idea. I’m going to contact my ophthalmologist colleague and see if there’s anything he can do for them.” The engineer said, “Why can’t they play at night?”
An engineer, a statistician, and a physicist are out hunting. They spot a buck, and each takes turns trying to bag it. The physicist goes first. He pulls out his lab book and quickly calculates the bullet’s trajectory, assuming it is a perfect sphere in a vacuum.
The bullet falls 20m short of the deer.
The engineer goes second. He pulls out his engineer’s pad and book of projectile assumptions. After a few minutes, he’s ready, aims, and fires. The bullet lands 20m passed the deer.
The statistician leaps in the air, shouting, “We got it!”
Three engineering students were gathered together, discussing the possible designers of the human body.
One said, “It was a mechanical engineer. Just look at all the joints!”
Another said, “No, it was an electrical engineer. The nervous system has many thousands of electrical connections.”
The last one said, “No, actually it had to have been a civil engineer. Who else would run a toxic waste pipeline through the recreational area?”
The oldest computer can be traced back to Adam and Eve.
Surprise!
It was an Apple.
But with extremely limited memory…
Just 1 byte.
Then everything crashed.
Two antennas got married — the wedding was lousy, but the reception was outstanding.
What’s the difference between an introverted and an extroverted engineer?
An introverted engineer looks at his shoes when talking to you, and an extroverted engineer looks at your shoes when talking to you.
How many nuclear engineers does it take to change a lightbulb?
Seven. One to install the new bulb and six to figure out what to do with the old one for the next 10,000 years.
How do you know that an engineer is having a mid-life crisis?
He swaps his pocket protector for a smartphone holster.
How do engineers change a broken light bulb?
They don’t change broken light bulbs at all. That is a hardware issue.
An engineer that works on robots every day is never lonely. Why?
Because they are constantly making new friends.
