I used to be disgusted, and now I try to be amused.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by ferrets_bueller

I'm no more thin skinned than most people here,

Wrong! Sebastian is way less thin-skinned. That guy gives zero fucks. Just ask him.

It is a fabrication that is is completely and demonstrably wrong.

Conway begs to differ. Nothing is demonstrably wrong any more. In fact, trying to demonstrate that something is wrong is backwards and foolish. These days, you make pronouncements of wrongness, loudly. See above.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

British friend made these observations after attending an energy conference in Abu Dhabi:

Russian connection....1) Trump owes Blackstone/ Bayrock group $560 million dollars (one of his largest debtors and the primary reason he won't reveal his tax returns)
2) Blackstone is owned wholly by Russian billionaires, who owe their position to Putin and have made billions from their work with the Russian government.
3) Other companies that have borrowed from Blackstone have claimed that owing money to them is like owing to the Russian mob and while you owe them, they own you for many favors.
4) The Russian economy is badly faltering under the weight of its over-dependence on raw materials which as you know have plummeted in the last 2 years leaving the Russian economy scrambling to pay its debts.
5) Russia has an impetus to influence our election to ensure the per barrel oil prices are above $65 ( they are currently hovering around $50)
6) Russia can't affordably get at 80% of its oil reserves and reduce its per barrel cost to compete with America at $45 or Saudi Arabia at $39. With Iranian sanctions being lifted Russia will find another inexpensive competitor increasing production and pushing Russia further down the list of suppliers.
As for Iranian sanctions, the 6 countries lifting them allowing Iran to collect on the billions it is owed for pumping oil but not being paid for it. These billions Iran can only get if the Iranian nuclear deal is signed. Trump spoke of ending the deals which would cause oil sales sanctions to be reimposed, which would make Russian oil more competitive.
7) Rex Tillerson (Trump's pick for Secretary of State) is the head of ExxonMobil, which is in possession of patented technology that could help Putin extract 45% more oil at a significant cost savings to Russia, helping Putin put money in the Russian coffers to help reconstitute its military and finally afford to mass produce the new and improved systems that it had invented before the Russian economy had slowed so much.
8) Putin cannot get access to these new cost saving technologies OR outside oil field development money, due to US sanctions on Russia, because of its involvement in Ukrainian civil war.
9) Look for Trump to end sanctions on Russia and to back out of the Iranian nuclear deal, to help Russia rebuild its economy, strengthen Putin and make Tillerson and Trump even richer, thus allowing Trump to satisfy his creditors at Blackstone.
10) With Trump's fabricated hatred of NATO and the U.N., the Russian military reconstituted, the threat to the Baltic states is real. Russia retaking their access to the Baltic Sea from Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and threatening the shipping of millions of cubic feet of natural gas to lower Europe from Scandinavia, allowing Russia to make a good case for its oil and gas being piped into eastern Europe.

This is fucking terrifying.

TM

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Wait, I thought we had an election to sort this out?

[Image of huge, margin-destroying quotation]

Can we fix this?

TM

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Can we fix this?

TM

I'm not sure how to resize it, but the additional posts gave us a new page. Which is to say, the remedy to speech you don't like is more speech.

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

Can we fix this?

TM

Done.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I'm not sure how to resize it, but the additional posts gave us a new page. Which is to say, the remedy to speech you don't like is more speech.

Whoa. I've heard about this concept but have never seen it work in practice.

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I'm not sure how to resize it, but the additional posts gave us a new page. Which is to say, the remedy to speech you don't like is more speech.

Trying to think of a funny way to say that I already edited it to a link because fucked up margins are Not Good, even on the Not Current page. I mean, think of poor Wonk coming across that ugly page a few days from now, for Christ's sake.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

Trying to think of a funny way to say that I already edited it to a link because fucked up margins are Not Good, even on the Not Current page. I mean, think of poor Wonk coming across that ugly page a few days from now, for Christ's sake.

Keep working at it.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

Keep working at it.

Please tone down the contempt, derision and condescension embedded in this response. Not Bob is sensitive to these types of sentiments.

Meanwhile, here are Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings performing "One More Dollar" for a radio show for us effete, cosmopolitan non-Trump voters.

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

Keep working at it.

Enh. We all know* that my humor schtick here is more in sharing wry, semi-avancular anecdotes than it is in uttering amusing quips. But I appreciate the constructive advice.

*I started to type "everyone will mostly agree that I am mainly correct," but I figured that I overuse that trope. And that it only amuses me - not that that is a major defect, but I guess I'm feeling a little low in Trumplandia today.

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Please tone down the contempt, derision and condescension embedded in this response. Not Bob is sensitive to these types of sentiments.

Meanwhile, here are Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings performing "One More Dollar" for a radio show for us effete, cosmopolitan non-Trump voters.

I miss Snidely Condescending. But Gillian Welch is nice, too. Thanks.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally Posted by Pretty Little Flower

Wrong! Sebastian is way less thin-skinned. That guy gives zero fucks. Just ask him.

Oh, you shouldn't do that
Now don't you know you'll ruin the Republic
You'll go and ruin the Republic
And by the way, have you got a dollar?
Oh, no, man, all I've got is Bitcoin...

It needs work, but it could be made into a new national anthem. It'd fit.

[Hank Chinaski]

Much like President Obama harnessed the fact of social media connectivity to turn campaigning on its head, is Team-Trump the first to learn we can no longer verify much?

Months ago, when DJt first started getting intel briefing I made the point, with his loose cannon self, it can't be long before he blows cover on something. T made the thoughtful counterpoint, that since he will likely not listen, he can't learn stuff to divulge.

But within a week, a Facebook (flower and NB, get your asses there) blow up. Trump had said the Saudis will be required to payoff our bases there. And poster (some other forum's Ty?) said that we officially have no bases there so dJt must have just outed some intel. But I read the comments which included people who sounded smart (some other forum's anti GGG?) saying we certainly do publicly run bases there.

So i thought: I'm smart, I can handle things, not dumb like they say, smart.And i went to google to get the truth. Except an hour later I had no idea what the truth was. Some sites said King something or other AF base is Us and others said it was Saudi. One site listed several US bases, but maybe it was old.Truth is hard.

If only Case citations would move to wiki level, this job would be easier?

[sebastian_dangerfield]

There's a famous tech chatboard discussing the exact same story a few weeks back. Can provide link if requested.

ETA: Upon additional research, most likely fake news.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Matt Levine (whose daily email is excellent):

A theory of regulation.

I am working on a tentative theory of regulation. It goes like this:

1. There are two kinds of regulations: custom regulations and bulk regulations.
2. A custom regulation is designed to accomplish a particular goal. You want people to do something, so you write a rule mandating that they do it and punishing them if they don't. For instance, if you want U.S. companies to keep jobs in the U.S., you might write a rule to mandate that, and to "impose a 'very major' border tax on companies that move jobs outside the U.S." That is an example of a custom regulation, and it is good because it keeps jobs in the U.S.
3. Bulk regulations are the kind that you buy by the yard, ones that you measure by quantity rather than purpose. They don't have a purpose, really; they are just generic "red tape." These are the regulations that presidents frequently announce they will cut in half, or freeze with an executive order. They're the regulations that come not from a reasoned desire to achieve a particular goal, but from a pure impulse to regulate. Bulk regulations are bad because they prevent businesses from doing business-y things without accomplishing anything good.
4. All regulations are custom regulations.
5. All discussion of "regulation" is about bulk regulations, which do not exist.