[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2020-May-25, 06:52, said:

Things are looking up when the GOP begins eating its own children:

Not for the first time I am reminded of a five year old I once knew who would respond to playground taunts with "What you say is what you are, except the goodest part". I suppose she included the last clause just in case there might be some way of interpreting part of the taunt as a compliment. A resourceful child.

I visualize Ann and Donnie on a playground throwing sand at each other. Birds of a feather.

I had forgotten Ann Coulter. I hope to return to that state of mind.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2020-May-25, 07:42, said:

Not for the first time I am reminded of a five year old I once knew who would respond to playground taunts with "What you say is what you are, except the goodest part". I suppose she included the last clause just in case there might be some way of interpreting part of the taunt as a compliment. A resourceful child.

I visualize Ann and Donnie on a playground throwing sand at each other. Birds of a feather.

I had forgotten Ann Coulter. I hope to return to that state of mind.

Something to consider - Trump appears to treat all perceived "enemies" the sane, and his enemy is anyone who criticizes or otherwise fails to be subservient to him, regardless of party.

How much abuse will those who are out-of-favor endure and still vote for him or rally others to vote for him?

[Winstonm]

Another conservative voice, S.E. Cupp, tells it like it is about Trump:

Quote

“I don’t think that the president’s behavior is that of a healthy, stable, balanced person. That he can’t focus all of his energy and efforts and attention on this global pandemic, on securing the physical and economic safety and health of this country, is very alarming. Instead, devolving down these rabbit holes of conspiracy theories, baseless conspiracy theories as you pointed out, attacking women for their looks and their weight, you know, threatening governors, one in Michigan for mail-in voting, another in North Carolina for not guaranteeing a full house at the RNC.”

“This is not how a healthy, controlled person would behave at all, let alone during a pandemic, and on a weekend meant to honor the memories of our fallen soldiers,” added Cupp. “I think it’s time for us to just call this what it is. The president is not well.”

[Winstonm]

[Chas_P]

Winstonm, on 2020-May-25, 15:36, said:

The president is not well.”

And Biden is?

[Trinidad]

Chas_P, on 2020-May-25, 19:00, said:

And Biden is?

Chas,

It is not just that Biden would have been a better president. Trump is managing this so badly... Even you would have been a better president.

Rik

[kenberg]

Chas_P, on 2020-May-25, 19:00, said:

And Biden is?

This link was very useful to me in understanding just what we are up against.
The link goes to a youtube video that is 7 seconds long. Then we get more. I first thought that it was all one youtube link with various things on it but now I realize I was wrong. I'll explain why it matters.
The you tube videos come up rapidly, one after the other. Perhaps a person, that's me, could be forgiven for thinking they are all one video. After the first 7 second video there was a lengthy video of where several people who described themselves as experts on body language, very capable of recognizing false responses, discussed what I think was purported to be an interview of Biden on MSNBC. It was obviously spliced. So we have experts at detecting lies applying their skills to a spliced recording to show the speaker was lying.

I decided to look for the interview. I found it at
https://www.nytimes....eade-msnbc.html

Not surprisingly, Biden comes off much better in the non-spliced version.

So I decided to go back to your link and compare the spliced version with the non-spliced version. Yes, I get the same 7 second quickie to start, but after that I get other stuff about how awful Joe Biden is.

Whatever you might think of the NYT, if you bring up the link I posted, and then you close it, and then you bring it up again, you will see the same thing the second time that you saw the first. This consistency can lead to rational discussion.

So: The site you post is a 7 second quickie followed by various stuff, now you see it now you don't, the first time being a spliced video analyzed by self-proclaimed experts. It was total crap. Demonstrably total crap. But the second time up I got something else, probably also demonstrably total crap but different total crap. Robo-calls with phony telephone numbers and phony messages are a bastion of truth compared to this crap.

This youtubing is election campaigning in 2020. The Biden campaign will have to deal with it effectively. A portion of the electorate puts more faith in recorded crap on youtube than they do in a complete transcript.
This is a serious problem. We all have to choose where we stand on this.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2020-May-26, 05:20, said:

This link was very useful to me in understanding just what we are up against.
The link goes to a youtube video that is 7 seconds long. Then we get more. I first thought that it was all one youtube link with various things on it but now I realize I was wrong. I'll explain why it matters.
The you tube videos come up rapidly, one after the other. Perhaps a person, that's me, could be forgiven for thinking they are all one video. After the first 7 second video there was a lengthy video of where several people who described themselves as experts on body language, very capable of recognizing false responses, discussed what I think was purported to be an interview of Biden on MSNBC. It was obviously spliced. So we have experts at detecting lies applying their skills to a spliced recording to show the speaker was lying.

I decided to look for the interview. I found it at
https://www.nytimes....eade-msnbc.html

Not surprisingly, Biden comes off much better in the non-spliced version.

So I decided to go back to your link and compare the spliced version with the non-spliced version. Yes, I get the same 7 second quickie to start, but after that I get other stuff about how awful Joe Biden is.

Whatever you might think of the NYT, if you bring up the link I posted, and then you close it, and then you bring it up again, you will see the same thing the second time that you saw the first. This consistency can lead to rational discussion.

So: The site you post is a 7 second quickie followed by various stuff, now you see it now you don't, the first time being a spliced video analyzed by self-proclaimed experts. It was total crap. Demonstrably total crap. But the second time up I got something else, probably also demonstrably total crap but different total crap. Robo-calls with phony telephone numbers and phony messages are a bastion of truth compared to this crap.

This youtubing is election campaigning in 2020. The Biden campaign will have to deal with it effectively. A portion of the electorate puts more faith in recorded crap on youtube than they do in a complete transcript.
This is a serious problem. We all have to choose where we stand on this.

I really appreciate you going to the trouble to fact check all this, not because I am Democrat but for my edification.

It is curious that someone(s) trying to undercut Biden's campaign is using the disinformation techniques of the Russia GRU to do so.

Notice, too, that with Trump there is no need for propaganda clips - he blows himself up everyday on Twitter and in his live comments.

[barmar]

kenberg, on 2020-May-26, 05:20, said:

This link was very useful to me in understanding just what we are up against.
The link goes to a youtube video that is 7 seconds long. Then we get more. I first thought that it was all one youtube link with various things on it but now I realize I was wrong.

Only if you have auto-play enabled.

For me, when the first clip ends, the video player is replaced with a mosaic of 9 stills from other videos in my queue.

[PassedOut]

Chas_P, on 2020-May-25, 19:00, said:

And Biden is?

Biden did have to work hard to overcome his childhood stuttering, and sometimes remnants of that problem show up, especially under stress. But Biden does not claim to know everything and listens to people who know more about a subject than he does. Biden works with people who disagree with him politically to accomplish things that both sides can live with. He's a genuinely friendly guy -- even a bit too friendly sometimes.

Trump does not listen to people who know more than he does about a subject, even those who wish him to succeed. Trump blows up at anyone who contradicts what he says, no matter how off the mark he might be. That's a big reason so many competent people who originally decided to work with him for the sake of the country have moved on. Trump is a seething ball of misdirected rage.

[kenberg]

barmar, on 2020-May-26, 08:28, said:

Only if you have auto-play enabled.

For me, when the first clip ends, the video player is replaced with a mosaic of 9 stills from other videos in my queue.

Thanks, I'll adjust. It has not previously been an issue. mostly I use youtube for maybe hearing Artie Shaw play Begin the Beguine or maybe Audrey Hepburn singing Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany's. Maybe I look at options for what to play next, or maybe I turn it off and get back to bridge. this 7 second video was shorter than the typical ad, and then I was watching some scummy spliced together video.

I don't know what can be done. In the mid 1950s we had the John Birch Society but nobody I knew took them seriously at all, and my neighborhood was made up not only of non-college educated but, my parents for example, non-high school educated. Lacking diplomas, they still recognized crap when they heard it. Now we have the sort of stuff the Chas link took me to. People listen to this. They take it seriously. Good grief.

This has to be coped with. Turning off auto-play would have saved me from seeing it but that's not enough.

I really don't know the answer but I hope that there is one. People listen to Trump and they cannot tell immediately what he is. I don't get it.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2020-May-26, 10:22, said:

Thanks, I'll adjust. It has not previously been an issue. mostly I use youtube for maybe hearing Artie Shaw play Begin the Beguine or maybe Audrey Hepburn singing Moon River from Breakfast at Tiffany's. Maybe I look at options for what to play next, or maybe I turn it off and get back to bridge. this 7 second video was shorter than the typical ad, and then I was watching some scummy spliced together video.

I don't know what can be done. In the mid 1950s we had the John Birch Society but nobody I knew took them seriously at all, and my neighborhood was made up not only of non-college educated but, my parents for example, non-high school educated. Lacking diplomas, they still recognized crap when they heard it. Now we have the sort of stuff the Chas link took me to. People listen to this. They take it seriously. Good grief.

This has to be coped with. Turning off auto-play would have saved me from seeing it but that's not enough.

I really don't know the answer but I hope that there is one. People listen to Trump and they cannot tell immediately what he is. I don't get it.

Extending on your comment, Ken. My wife's sister called yesterday and somewhere along the way went on a rambling tirade about a "show" they'd seen on television the night before that explained all the ins and outs of the "soft coup" conspiracy of the deep state to overthrow Donald Trump, and how the Michael Flynn prosecution was part of that and what the code word "pizza" meant (pedophelia) and on and on.

Now, before we can blow off the crazoid sister-in-law it is important to know that feeding into her rant was her daughter, that her two sons also feed the rant, all the people she normally socializes with believe the rant, and her husband is a prominent psychiatrist who earns more than the rest of us combined.

I would guess this all came from a Fox News network broadcast, although OAN is possible. In their household, FOX is on pretty much 24/7.

The reason, I believe, that we cannot make headway in turning these - what used to be called marginal people but are now mainstream - folks is that we are not trained in deprogramming and cannot capture the cultist for long enough times to make headway, even if we were.

That, to me, is both the glory and the horror of the GOP - they were able to bring in multiple fringe cultists under a single umbrella by trading all morality for the accumulation of power. That is why, at Trump's rallies, you will find white supremacists next non-racist anti-abortionists next to militia members next to evangelicals next to hard core libertarian types and on an on.

Each one of these fringe groups only cares about their own core issue, and the GOP has added a plank or at least a nod to each position. And then they have painted everyone else as outsiders who are trying to take away our _______ (fill in the blank).

How do you fight madness? How do you fight a cult?

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2020-May-26, 12:33, said:

Extending on your comment, Ken. My wife's sister called yesterday and somewhere along the way went on a rambling tirade about a "show" they'd seen on television the night before that explained all the ins and outs of the "soft coup" conspiracy of the deep state to overthrow Donald Trump, and how the Michael Flynn prosecution was part of that and what the code word "pizza" meant (pedophelia) and on and on.

Now, before we can blow off the crazoid sister-in-law it is important to know that feeding into her rant was her daughter, that her two sons also feed the rant, all the people she normally socializes with believe the rant, and her husband is a prominent psychiatrist who earns more than the rest of us combined.

I would guess this all came from a Fox News network broadcast, although OAN is possible. In their household, FOX is on pretty much 24/7.

The reason, I believe, that we cannot make headway in turning these - what used to be called marginal people but are now mainstream - folks is that we are not trained in deprogramming and cannot capture the cultist for long enough times to make headway, even if we were.

That, to me, is both the glory and the horror of the GOP - they were able to bring in multiple fringe cultists under a single umbrella by trading all morality for the accumulation of power. That is why, at Trump's rallies, you will find white supremacists next non-racist anti-abortionists next to militia members next to evangelicals next to hard core libertarian types and on an on.

Each one of these fringe groups only cares about their own core issue, and the GOP has added a plank or at least a nod to each position. And then they have painted everyone else as outsiders who are trying to take away our _______ (fill in the blank).

How do you fight madness? How do you fight a cult?

My guess is that you will not all be coming to agreement any time soon!

About families. I''m an only brat so my experience is limited. But some thoughts:

When Becky and I got married, my two kids were grown, Becky's youngest, of 3, was just finishing high school. Becky and I agreed that neither of us had to get along with the other's kids. The result was that in four out of the five cases, we all get along quite well. Becky's oldest is the exception but in that case it is mother-daughter not getting along all that well, I am a bystander. My older daughter's only demand of me was that anyone I marry could not be younger than she was. Becky qualifies. Becky's sister lives in Taos, that's about 7000 feet and as I have aged I have trouble with altitude, Other than that we are fine. Which is not at al to say that we agree. But we like each other.

So:

A. They will not be agreeing with you, that's a fact.

B. You all will just have to decide where that leads you.

As to my own cousins and so on, I am completely out of touch. Too bad, or I guess too bad, but we never much saw each other as I was growing up so there is not a great deal to build on. We got together once, it was seriously non-inspiring.


I wish you luck.

As to how this all happened, I really don't know. When I was 16 I and some other guys formed The Philosophy Club. We would meet on Fridays, discuss life, religion, politics, economics, what have you, then we would go out for pizza and, at this one place that would serve us, a beer. It was part of life, but a small part. Now people seem to be at each other's throats.

Best wishes to you and your family, and best wishes to all of us for working through this.

Remember. You will not convert them. They will not convert you. Heathens and saints, side by side? Perhaps. You have to put aside the question of who is the heathen, who the saint.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2020-May-26, 13:32, said:

My guess is that you will not all be coming to agreement any time soon!

About families. I''m an only brat so my experience is limited. But some thoughts:

When Becky and I got married, my two kids were grown, Becky's youngest, of 3, was just finishing high school. Becky and I agreed that neither of us had to get along with the other's kids. The result was that in four out of the five cases, we all get along quite well. Becky's oldest is the exception but in that case it is mother-daughter not getting along all that well, I am a bystander. My older daughter's only demand of me was that anyone I marry could not be younger than she was. Becky qualifies. Becky's sister lives in Taos, that's about 7000 feet and as I have aged I have trouble with altitude, Other than that we are fine. Which is not at al to say that we agree. But we like each other.

So:

A. They will not be agreeing with you, that's a fact.

B. You all will just have to decide where that leads you.

As to my own cousins and so on, I am completely out of touch. Too bad, or I guess too bad, but we never much saw each other as I was growing up so there is not a great deal to build on. We got together once, it was seriously non-inspiring.


I wish you luck.

As to how this all happened, I really don't know. When I was 16 I and some other guys formed The Philosophy Club. We would meet on Fridays, discuss life, religion, politics, economics, what have you, then we would go out for pizza and, at this one place that would serve us, a beer. It was part of life, but a small part. Now people seem to be at each other's throats.

Best wishes to you and your family, and best wishes to all of us for working through this.

Remember. You will not convert them. They will not convert you. Heathens and saints, side by side? Perhaps. You have to put aside the question of who is the heathen, who the saint.

It would have been a pleasure to have taken courses under you, Dr. Berg, but as I was and still am horrible at mathematics it is probably for the best the way things went.

[hrothgar]

Chas_P, on 2020-May-25, 19:00, said:

And Biden is?

And the pattern persists

Once a week, Chas wanders in from the wilderness
Takes a ***** in the middle of the room
Pretends that this makes him important
Then wanders off again...

[y66]

Winstonm, on 2020-May-26, 13:52, said:

It would have been a pleasure to have taken courses under you, Dr. Berg, but as I was and still am horrible at mathematics it is probably for the best the way things went.

I suspect you're not as horrible at math as you seem to think and that if you had taken a class from kenberg you would probably have a new appreciation for the subject as with other stuff he writes about in the WC.

[kenberg]

I wasn't going to pursue this about math, being the DT thread, but maybe I'll say a word. When I was in elementary school I could not draw a decent tree to save my life. I was convinced I would flunk 8th grad because of my lousy tree drawing. It is far to easy to beat ourselves up. Yes, I am better at mathematics than at art class. But we all need to go a little easy on ourselves.

As to my teaching, there are some who liked it. Note the word "some". And I enjoyed doing it.

Anyway, now back to Trump. Do we have to? I suppose so.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2020-May-26, 16:20, said:

I wasn't going to pursue this about math, being the DT thread, but maybe I'll say a word. When I was in elementary school I could not draw a decent tree to save my life. I was convinced I would flunk 8th grad because of my lousy tree drawing. It is far to easy to beat ourselves up. Yes, I am better at mathematics than at art class. But we all need to go a little easy on ourselves.

As to my teaching, there are some who liked it. Note the word "some". And I enjoyed doing it.

Anyway, now back to Trump. Do we have to? I suppose so.

Ann Coulter once again:

Quote

“At 4:30 in the morning Saturday night — well, technically, Sunday morning — I went on Twitter for the first time in a while and I saw this jackass tweet by our jackass president being a big baby blaming Jeff Sessions for the Russia investigation once again, something that was entirely, 100% his fault,” she explained to host....

I'm beginning to think some of these conservative hosts are starting to smell blood in the water about the election and are trying to position themselves to be able to say, see, what did I tell you.

[Chas_P]

PassedOut, on 2020-May-26, 09:49, said:

Biden did have to work hard to overcome his childhood stuttering, and sometimes remnants of that problem show up, especially under stress.

And I'm not unsympathetic. I'm 82 years old and not nearly as peppy as I used to be either. But I do have a problem convincing myself to vote for a guy whose antenna doesn't seem to be picking up all the channels.

[y66]

Winstonm, on 2020-May-26, 17:01, said:

I'm beginning to think some of these conservative hosts are starting to smell blood in the water about the election and are trying to position themselves to be able to say, see, what did I tell you.

Sounds right. This is what passes for integrity in Coulter's world where integrity is relative.