Landlord

5 hours ago, ZRod said:

Despite the doom and gloom. The US is doing OK managing the pandemic from what I can see. Just using John Hopkin's website and Google here's what deaths per  one hundred thousand looks like by my count.

 

Japan - about 0.30

South Korea - about 0.45

Canada - about 7

Germany - about 7

US - about 17

UK - about 31

France - about 34

Italy - about 45

 

*Russia - about 0.55

*China - about 0.33

 

 

I would like to see this data weighted for population density. I'm not sure how that would work exactly, but a big element in this has to be how huge the US is compared to many of these countries and how many places have very few people. 

5 hours ago, knapplc said:

and I don't think Biden survives another four years anyway.

what you actually think he's going to die?

On 4/23/2020 at 10:04 AM, Hilltop said:

Because the New York Times says it's false?  Come on man...  It has been widely reported by multiple outlets that there is at least some inflation of the death totals as any death where someone had the virus is counted as a Covid-19 death.  I'm not down playing the seriousness of the virus but when stage 4 cancer victims are counted as a coronavirus death, it's a little skewed.  It's a bad sickness that I witnessed first hand in a close friend.  There were a couple days where he was really concerned.  In the end, he pulled out of it just fine just like 99+% of healthy people will.  

The thing is, this isn't unique to COVID, this is how cause of death certificates always work.

If a person has colon cancer or Alzheimer's and then becomes positive for COVID-19 and dies, they have 100% died of Sepsis due to COVID-19. They had other co-morbidities, but the actual cause of death is still sepsis due to COVID-19. Their lives were shortened and ended due to this disease. This is how "cause of death" is determined by physicians who complete a death certificate.

This would only be a point if they didn't always do it like this.

It's not difficult to legislate; it's impossible to legislate. Hunter Biden's name and father are part of him and his sell/draw as an individual, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that (laws only work towards inherent properties; laws do not work in the realm of subjectivity/context/motivation), nor is there a practical way to forbid it that isn't completely unconstitutional.

2 hours ago, RedDenver said:

You can have corruption and bribery laws like we have now that forbid giving of gifts to public officials. I'm not sure exactly how we'd word a law that applies to friends and families, but Hunter Biden wasn't at all qualified for the position he got.

People in free countries are allowed to benefit and even profit off of their name and their association, and companies are allowed to view a powerful name/reputation as a bonus in hiring someone.

First of all, any law that would prevent an unprovable assertion of excess benefit because of your notoriety, and not because of any wrongdoing on any person's part, would frankly be a terrible law and very infringing on freedom. There's no clear way to draw a distinction between "bad" behavior and harmless behavior; I got an internship at my mom's work in college. Was I entirely and the most qualified? idk probably not. Did my mom lobby on my behalf? No. Did her being a long time employee at the company factor into the hiring decision and choosing me? Yeah, of course it did.

Second of all, in regards to, "...Hunter Biden wasn't at all qualified for the position he got.," .....are you sure? Have you ever actually looked that up?

- He graduated law school, took a position at MBNA after school and rose to executive vice president in two years.

- He worked in the USDOC for three years. 

- He was appointed by Bush to a spot on the board of directors for Amtrak, and was the board's vice chairman. Gave up the position when Biden was VP.

- Founded an investment firm in 2009 with partners.

- Applied to the Navy Reserves at 43.

- Founded another business investing Chinese capital out of the country, and in response to a ton of false Trump allegations way before Burisma, he stepped down from the board of directors of his own company.

- Was working as an attorney for a very high-profile law firm in NYC, and THEN joined the board of Burisma holdiings. 

So someone with experience as a lawyer, with being an executive and a board member of companies, with starting business, and with capital investment, wasn't AT ALL qualified for a board position at a big company? 

4 hours ago, RedDenver said:

None that I know of, but I think it's unethical and should be regulated or not allowed. 

This is such a bad take. Especially since you said, "he doesn't get that job if his dad isn't Joe Biden", and you specifically didn't say, "Joe Biden got his son that job." There's a huge distinction between the two.

You can't regulate someone not being allowed to succeed because they have a successful parent. What???

7 minutes ago, B.B. Hemingway said:

Technically. It seems obvious that he felt like he had to apologise.

Yep, and that's as stupid of him as it is stupid of the people who criticized him for not knowing about something nobody cares about.

1 hour ago, B.B. Hemingway said:

 

The fact that Adam had to apologise for that tweet is peak, woke left.

He didn't have to. You never have to apologize, that's weak behavior.

3 hours ago, Red Five said:

Actual facts show deaths are probably being undercounted.  In the time period of March 11 through April 18, NYC had 17k deaths above what the average should have been for that time period.  Only 13k were attributed to COVID.  So taking out the COVID deaths, there still are 4k more deaths than normal.  So it what are the cause of those deaths?

A not insignifcant amount of those would be due to stress, depression, and sedentary due to shelter in place orders/loss of work. 

1 hour ago, Guy Chamberlin said:

On the other hand......consider the landscape ten years ago, when the Tea Party was considered a rouge operation at the extreme end of the Republican Party. They challenged their own incumbents, ignored the Party's protocols, knocked establishment Republicans out of leadership positions, took over the party and pushed a far right agenda that now stands as the Republican baseline, with a President and Congress going along for the ride. They were so successful that we don't even use the words Tea Party anymore. It's just the Republican Party.

Honestly, I don't think it's a good strategy, but I think the right is better at playing the left's game than the left is. The Tea Party was successful because A) they adopted identity politics in response to the leftist adoptation of identity politics, and B) they are the cultural underdog, or so they seem, so they're more willing to compromise to keep their ranks strong.

Whereas the left can't stop eating itself, the right will welcome the utilitarian help of people far outside their actual ideological purity if those people can help them.

38 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

 

The country and the GOP itself are worse off because the uncompromising idealogues on the far-right started an uprising that culminated in Donald Trump seizing power and utter, unfailing fealty to their god-king being the one requisite to remain in the party.

On the contrary re: the bold, the far-right ideologues are very, very willing to compromise and they do it often. That's why they're powerful right now. 

34 minutes ago, Danny Bateman said:

What scared some of the rest of us was seeing some of these same traits in certain factions of the Sanders camps - uncompromising,  angry at the perception they're being ripped off, hostile and quick to attack those who question them, berate those with different views  as impure or corrupt, resistant to facts or evidence that fly in the face of their beliefs - and the hope that the Democratic Party did not undergo a similar transition.

This still scares me a great deal. Leftist post-modern ideology has already won the culture war, and I'm not too convinced to a good end. I've trusted Bernie to be a good stewart and our checks and balances to be a good arbiter of slow and measured change, but sometime down the line I'd be very nervous of that version of America.

It's an ugly self-defeating reality of identity politics that eventually, if you play the game long enough, everyone ends up in the gulag.

That's why progressives don't win much.

decide which one to sleep with duh

7 minutes ago, BigRedBuster said:

I don't think you spend a month in post season.  You have your play off and maybe a few other games.  No where close to the 372 bowl games with packed stadiums and everyone glued to the TV for in a normal season.

 

I think this is doable.  College baseball and track isn't going to like it but...so what.  This is helping pay for their sports.

Even if you only had conference championships and the playoff, that'd still need to be a month imo

25 minutes ago, BlitzFirst said:

He's shown no lean.

25 minutes ago, BlitzFirst said:

He's not even leaning as far as Hillary was for Medicare age. 

25 minutes ago, BlitzFirst said:

His student loan thing isn't a great lean either.

Both of those things are "lean", though.

How is everyone feeling about the timing of some states ending their shelter in place orders or slowly starting to open up some businesses at the end of this week or the month?

5 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

So those are the only two things Biden needs to adopt, and all the Bernie supporters are good?

I'm not sure and I'm not trying to make a point of what he should do, but those and climate change are the three biggest policy anchors of Bernie's campaign, I think. 

If Biden adopted two of them that are proven to be popular with Americans, and also talked an aggressive game when it came to a concerted effort of reforming campaign finance laws (lol yea right) i don't see how that would hurt him.

6 minutes ago, knapplc said:

 

Do you? Because you're not going to do this by pushing leftist policies onto Biden's centrist platform. For every progressive you add by making Biden more Bernie-like, you're losing some centrists and some Trump-fatigued Republicans. How many of those people in the middle do you push away from Biden before it's too late?

 

Over 60% of America supports medicare for all and right around 60% (72% of democrats) support making public higher education free and eliminating student loan debt. 

A shortened season of 9-10 games would take the regular season probably until around May. Then you'd have a month of postseason, and either a summer practice window or extend fall camp longer for the next season and then hopefully back to normal or another shortened season in the fall to protect the players from the grind of two football seasons in one year. 

It'd be a logistical mess but is definitely doable.

Doing what you need to do in order to get the most money you possibly can as a professional athlete is selfish. And it's fine. Everyone puts their own interests above the success of the team.

"I'm a professional athlete trying to get as much for myself as I possibly can and I take issue with this other professional athlete tryiiing to get as much for himself as he possibly can" is just a silly argument. It's nothing egregious or serious it just made me chuckle.

27 minutes ago, ColoradoHusk said:

Pippen made a bad decision to go with a 7-year deal.  Pippen wanted the long-term financial stability, rather than the ability make more during the mid-to-late 90s.  Jordan was playing on 1-year deals in his last few years with the Bulls.  Honestly, when he was making $30 million, he was underpaid for the value he brought to the team and NBA.

 

I think the future episodes will show how Jordan was so focused on winning, even if it meant alienating his teammates, or being viewed as a bad guy.

Pippen certainly had responsibility for his own deal. And he was being selfish. As someone should be in that scenario. It's humorous to see someone criticize someone else for being selfish while being/doing the same. 

Is talking about specific parts of a piece of entertainment cherrypicking? 

very entertaining so far, and pretty interesting that they've chosen to go with a wholesome MJ narrative

"I thought Scottie was being selfish" was the most entertaining part

ellen is awful

don't feed the troll

1 hour ago, Gorillahawk said:

I joined last night, and was unable to figure out what the majority of people wanted to do so I just chose to attack Wisconsin. Any idea how to better find what the strategy people want so I'm not going rogue all the time?

Gotta join the discord and you'll get daily orders.

I thought the discovery of gravity waves a few years back was the final major prediction of Einstein's relativity and nail in the coffin for Newton.