Messages

1

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: January 23, 2023, 04:43:56 AM »

As a matter of fact, Trump has stated that the Secret Service who guarded his home and stored unclassified documents have always kept strict visitors logs.

If that statement meant more than simply Trump has said something (a hardly unusual occurrence) then we probably wouldn't be having half the disagreements that we are.

Dan Bongino who was employed in that position for multiple presidents from 1999 to 2011 backed up that fact and also noted that the SS did the same with all of Biden's offices and homes.

Assuming that is true I'm hardly surprised - they would be extremely remiss in their duty if they didn't keep such records at least for a while (there might be mandatory destruction after some period). It does mean that Trump, or at least the Secret Service (SS seems defamatory) could release the Mar a Lago records though I'm guessing that there are strong precedents for the Secret part of Secret Service applying here. If you lose faith in your bodyguard because they tell on you then they can't do their job.

2

General Comments / Re: GOP nutbag of the week

« on: January 22, 2023, 05:52:11 AM »

Well it looks like NM GOP leaders knew about some of his issues and still supported him.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/despite-red-flags-gop-backed-151113023.html

I'm guessing that they just wanted a disposable candidate since they knew they were going to loose and didn't recon that there would be any particular press attention on a candidate that lost in a seat which was always going to be lost.  Its only 'cos he then went properly crazy that any of this has been found. I'll bet that both sides field questionable candidates in seats they have no chance in, though a little bit more due diligence in this would have been good.

3

General Comments / Re: Debt Limit Standoff

« on: January 19, 2023, 01:31:16 PM »

Sadly I don't think that "compromise" in politics means what we all thought it used to mean any more. These days it means "you give us something, we give you nothing"

4

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: January 13, 2023, 12:23:55 PM »

I haven't even raised any number of issues here, like for instance, that Trump didn't pack his own boxes and that members of the GAO would have been the ones that actually did much of the work.

I have to agree that it is exceptionally unlikely that Trump ever does any manual labour so he wouldn't have packed his boxes. The point to a large extent isn't that he had the files it is that after being asked to hand the files over he didn't get someone to do so (he wouldn't have packed those boxes either). If he'd done that there might have been a couple of days of press but it would have been all over ages ago.

If we are doing the conspiracy thing then maybe he made sure to keep some stuff back so it would cause a ruckus and he'd be back in the press again. Because we know that he withers away if he doesn't get enough attention.

As we know from his trip into the Whitehouse the GAO includes significant amounts of staff hostile to Trump.  It's not even an unreasonable idea even if it is still a conspiracy theory, to think how easy it would be for that staff to pack some files with secrecy labels and to convey that information to partisans at the National Archives.  Some of the relevant officials at the National Archives have hate-ons for Trump.

Did you ever think there might be a reason we so many people that interact with the man dislike him? (Its not jealously of his massive  intellect.)

5

General Comments / Re: McCarthy and the House Speakership

« on: January 05, 2023, 09:34:19 AM »

The BBC reported that Fred Upton, a former Republican congressman from Michigan had put himself forward as a candidate. Does anyone think that a _former_ republican congressperson might make a plausible candidate? The idea does seem to tick the boxes of (a) republican and (b) not beholden to Trump which might allow for cross party support. Or is this just pundits fantasising wildly?

6

General Comments / Re: The Jan 6 Commission

« on: January 03, 2023, 05:47:40 AM »

Assuming that there is any truth to the allegations that "Pelosi reduced security" I'm going to bet that they come down to:

[security] Our dept wants more money
[Pelosi] Why?
[security] (thinking quickly) Some idiots might want to stage an armed insurrection!
[Pelosi] Come off it. You got anything to back that up?
[security] ... The internet is full of nutters?
[Pelosi] Come on...
[security] But Trump??
[Pelosi] Even he's not that daft. Have you seen the budget? Denied.

In hindsight Pelosi was of course wrong.

7

General Comments / Re: GOP nutbag of the week

« on: December 12, 2022, 12:19:58 PM »

You mean this one, where she says if she and Bannon had been in charge of Jan 6 it would have succeeded?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/marjorie-taylor-greene-capitol-attack-144634447.html

The only reason the Jan 6 people did not win is that they were not armed? Really? Oathkeepers did not go through metal detectors due to the fact they had guns.

If the rioters had used guns, it would have been a bloodbath, but then the election probably would not have been certified and Trump could have declared martial law. So a win for them, I guess?  If all it takes is dozens of dead protestors, cop and Congress people, that is a small price to pay to keep Trump in charge.

Whilst I really doubt that I agree with her on anything, in this case you are mischaracterising her remark. Taking the remark in a bit of context it is clear that she is poo-poohing the suggestion that she and Banon organised it - to rephrase "Of course we didn't do that - if we had it would have worked." That statement doesn't require her to support the actions of the mob to be true. (Though to be honest I really doubt the bit where her planning would make anything work better.)

8

General Comments / Re: coronavirus

« on: November 24, 2022, 02:41:59 PM »

Masks aren't crazy, they are variably helpful depending on type and other usage precautions but certainly if you choose to wear one then that should be respected.
There is no doubt however that Covid is endemic now. We aren't going to eradicate it; we can make what is now Flu+Covid season a bit better or a bit worse by behaviour but that is all. Even the Chinese still get sporadic outbreaks, and I don't think all of them can be blamed on the outside world.

9

General Comments / Re: coronavirus

« on: November 24, 2022, 04:55:21 AM »

Cherry - The linked article is short on numbers, but does eventually get round to pointing out that once you get enough people vaccinated (and their vaccinated stats are for everyone who has ever had a single shot) then this is going to happen for any vaccine that is short of 100% effectiveness (i.e. all of them). It does eventually get around to saying that, depending on age group, the unvaccinated die at between 5x and 12x the rate per capita of the vaccinated. So this is another of those articles where the implication of the headline is mostly contradicted by the substance of the article.

10

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: November 17, 2022, 10:13:50 AM »

I think the difference is that we expect Biden (and most other people) to tell the truth and so it is newsworthy when he fails. Nobody expects Trump to tell the literal truth ever so it can be excused as "it's just his way of speaking".

11

General Comments / Re: US Government Censorship program on social media being unearthed.

« on: November 07, 2022, 03:34:08 AM »

To be honest I don't see why the media have to take all the blame for the drinking/injecting bleach confusion. Trumps own supporters are plenty capable of that grade of confusion without any external help.  And it's a common pattern of his speech - he often uses phrases along the lines of "I've heard it said that I'm the smartest man on the plant" when he wants his supporters to believe that he is in fact the smartest man on the planet. If carefully analysed you would probably come to the conclusion that he said it to himself whilst looking in the mirror and it is strictly true but meaningless. But this is how he so often phrases things that his minions take it as a true statement / command / direction.

12

General Comments / Re: US Government Censorship program on social media being unearthed.

« on: November 03, 2022, 06:43:05 AM »

Quote from: Wayward Son on November 02, 2022, 05:10:31 PM
Quote from: Crunch on November 02, 2022, 03:27:18 PM

Cloth masks stop viruses?

Cloth masks helped slow the spread of viruses.  Ask the flu virus for the last couple of years.

Actually John Hopkins released research that said masks only concentrate the contaminates and increase the virulence.

I have seen you make this statement before.  I was surprised to see this and have tried researching it but have not found anything.  Can you please provide a link because I am only seeing masking support from John Hopkins.  The only thing close was a line that stated that masks are not effective unless worn correctly.

Here's one (after a good 10secs of searching) https://egc.yale.edu/largest-study-masks-and-covid-19-demonstrates-their-effectiveness-real-world

OK - they aren't great but they do do something.
By and large they are going to do next to nothing at stopping the wearer getting infected from pure airborne viruses, but they do help with stopping droplets escaping from an infected person. So the mask that that does you some good is the one the other person is wearing.

13

General Comments / Re: The Jan 6 Commission

« on: November 02, 2022, 10:14:58 AM »

We aren't here in the backwaters of the internet to sway broad swaths of public opinions, admitting disagreement with the party you vote for doesn't cost them elections based on the zero votes swayed on Ornery. Our statements aren't trending on Facebook/twitter/tik tok. We are only here to discuss politics and current events with other people. Its a great place for me to discuss with individuals with differing opinions. I have zero incentive to sit on here and lie about what I really know to score some political point that means as much as the points on 'Who's Line is it Anyway?'.

Are you sure that we even make it to "backwaters", maybe "soggy patch within sight of the backwaters"? :-)
But still, I like it here - maybe I'm weird.

14

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: October 12, 2022, 11:15:01 AM »

BTW, George W. Bush did not die in 2017 - that was his father.

True but it was George W. Bush's father George H.W. Bush that Trump was talking about and, as you say, he is the one that is dead.

15

General Comments / Re: So, how is Uncle Joe working for you?

« on: October 07, 2022, 06:19:10 AM »

It should be mentioned that Biden supported the law that he's now against. So he's admitting that he's been wrong for the last 28 years. I suppose though if his son isn't in prison for much worse, at least it makes sense that Biden would do this much for those guilty of much less.

I dunno - on the whole I don't recon 28 years between passing a law and then going "maybe that wasn't the best idea" is a screeching U-turn. Forcing a standard where any decision, once made, must be irrevocable no matter what happens in society/politics in the meanwhile doesn't seem sensible, and on the whole I would be very suspicious of any politician who never changed their mind about anything.

16

General Comments / Re: The Book Banning Begins

« on: October 04, 2022, 07:11:39 AM »

Kansas: The Handmaid's Tale, Watchmen, Slaughterhouse Five, etc.

You are never going to see me get worked up over the removal of comic books, aka graphic novels, particularly ones that show people having intercourse or being raped, from public schools. Graphic novel adaptations are worthy, I'm not denigrating the art form, but lets not confuse them with literature.

If you aren't denigrating the art form then you are at least damning with faint praise.
Do you believe that a story told in graphic novel form is inherently less worthy than a similar story in the form of a novel? I will certainly grant that for some stories graphic novels are a poor choice but for others (e.g. environmental description of the unfamiliar) graphic novels can achieve things that are very hard for a novel to pull off.

17

General Comments / Re: Who funds the candidates?

« on: September 30, 2022, 11:13:30 AM »

American campaign finance always seems really weird from the UK where party spending is limited by law to approx 3 orders of magnitude less than in the US - even allowing for some armwaving about what counts. And even that level of advertising is plenty annoying enough...

18

General Comments / Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?

« on: September 24, 2022, 11:06:28 AM »

Even if they were arguing that you and your family, specifically, should be slaves? Or murdered by the state? Or forced to give birth to the children of their rapist?

There may be value in attempting to understand why people have certain beliefs but that doesn't mean we shouldn't dismiss those beliefs out of hand.

It is possible to both believe that a given philosophy is correct and for you to be directly disadvantaged by it - indeed you can argue that it is only by taking negative consequences from a belief that you can show that you actually believe in it rather than it just being a convenient cover for self-enrichment.

19

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: September 22, 2022, 12:04:26 PM »

The results say they can be changed and the court says there is proof of that changing.

Could you point me at a document produced by a court that says that the machines changed results in an election please (not documents containing allegations presented to a court). So far I've missed that one and a simple web search produces buckets of allegations, but nothing actually produced by a court. Thanks.

20

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: September 22, 2022, 05:20:13 AM »

Wow! Having become confused as to which court cases were actually going on I went and searched for it.  This article gives the timeline & list of running related cases:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2022/09/19/after-court-lets-fox-news-challenge-move-forward-heres-where-dominion-and-smartmatic-defamation-suits-stand-now-and-who-could-be-next/

Gosh there are a lot of them! Without researching each one the central suit seems not to be that the machines are hackable, but that the various defendants asserted that they were hacked and used to change the result of the election - which I hope everyone can see are two different statements.

21

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: September 21, 2022, 10:43:20 AM »

I think it is fair to say that worries about insecure voting machines have been around forever.  They've been insecure in the last election, the election before that and the election before that, but to suggest that the results of those elections hung on which side had the better hackers seems implausible to me. I would have been utterly astonished if a security audit hadn't found any holes. But so far there is no proof that they have been hacked by Republicans or anyone else.

To me the paper trail largely settles the issue. That was a glaring hole not only for malfeasance, but just plain software errors. It is possible that a hacked machine could flip the votes on both the screen and the paper, but the machines I've used print the paper, which I hand carry over to be recorded. If the recording machine got hacked, then you'd still have the paper for a hand recount or audit. And no amount of hacking can make the recording machine alter the paper. I've seen other systems where the paper trail is just visible to the voter, and some of the voters could overlook a discrepancy, but not all of them. It would be exposed, it seems.

I'm relying on second-hand reporting, our (UK) voting is MUCH simpler (typically one cross made with a pencil on a piece of paper), and I got the impression that some m/cs produced paper trails and some didn't. I'd definitely be in favour of the sort that did.

22

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: September 21, 2022, 06:15:00 AM »

Judge Wright also found sufficient evidence that Lindell knew or should have known his statements were false and acted with “actual malice” in promoting them, a key legal threshold in defamation cases.

That doesn't sound much like "the facts Mike had and presented as proved and accurate". It kind of sounds like the opposite.

If you rephrase it as "the [allegations] that Mike had [which he] presented as proved and accurate" then it does fit. And, allowing for some Trumpian value of the word "fact", the former can be parsed as the latter and the judge's suggestion is that the presentation as "proved and accurate" was malicious.

23

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: September 21, 2022, 05:28:45 AM »

I think it is fair to say that worries about insecure voting machines have been around forever.  They've been insecure in the last election, the election before that and the election before that, but to suggest that the results of those elections hung on which side had the better hackers seems implausible to me. I would have been utterly astonished if a security audit hadn't found any holes. But so far there is no proof that they have been hacked by Republicans or anyone else.

24

General Comments / Re: London Bridge is Falling?

« on: September 20, 2022, 04:32:05 AM »

I do have opinions on gin, but seeing as they are mostly small UK distillery opinions they won't translate well to your side of the pond. My greatest disappointment gin-wise was finding out that Bombay Saphire wasn't actually blue - it was just the bottle (otherwise its quite a nice gin).

Are you anti-Beefeater?

No I'm not - to be honest I've never tasted it - I've tasted and liked (in the established brands) Tanquary, Bombay Saphire, Hendricks.  Gordons is what I grew up on & is bland but usable as a mixer.

We have some good gins over here. The difference between good gin and bad gin is quite startling.

Just to be clear I wasn't suggesting that the States/Canada don't have worthwhile gins - the practice of dumping herbs into pure alcohol is pretty much universal and some of the results are really nice, others are interesting but odd, others will just get you drunk and aren't so bad after the 4th glass. My statement was meant to say that telling you about the locally infused gin I picked up in a small shop near Hadrians Wall that was very strong in elderflower would be fairly pointless as you couldn't get it.  The current fashion for gin means that every hamlet now has its own local selection.

25

General Comments / Re: London Bridge is Falling?

« on: September 19, 2022, 10:46:01 AM »

I do have opinions on gin, but seeing as they are mostly small UK distillery opinions they won't translate well to your side of the pond. My greatest disappointment gin-wise was finding out that Bombay Saphire wasn't actually blue - it was just the bottle (otherwise its quite a nice gin).

26

General Comments / Re: London Bridge is Falling?

« on: September 19, 2022, 10:34:26 AM »

I've never forgiven the US Budweiser Corp for forcing the (original) Budweiser from České Budějovice to rename their beer.

27

General Comments / Re: coronavirus

« on: September 19, 2022, 10:26:57 AM »

Here in the UK, with decent vaccination rates we're in the "it's endemic now - just live (and die) with it" stage, much like flu. I've had my reminder to get my (free) flu & covid jab for free as I'm over 50. Otherwise, precautions are pretty much back to pre-pandemic non-existence. I think when someone says "it's over" these days they mean it has been accepted like car crash or flu deaths. We aren't going to get rid of covid in the foreseeable future, treatment & vaccinations have brought the death toll right down so I guess that pretty much everyone's risk/reward has ended up on the side of "f*ck it".

28

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: September 19, 2022, 10:17:40 AM »

The rest have been bought off by The Soros/Gates cartel. It is just proof of how deep the swamp is. All the more reason for Trump to get reelected so he can clean the swamp up even more.

There is actually a fair bit or reporting via alternative channels indicating that the lack of lawyers has to do with major and minor law firms putting down a firm "You shall not" policy in place in regard to Trump. So while the individual lawyer might be inclined to do so, the law firms they're part of are not, out of concern that other paying customers they represent will seek out representation elsewhere.

So while they might be chomping at the bit to represent Trump if they could, even if it'd be pro-bono, they're not willing to lose the paychecks they're getting from their current jobs to do so.

To be fair this sounds fairly plausible - the law firms themselves might also like getting paid which is maybe why they choose not to work for Trump. But on the other hand if a lawyer really wants to work pro-bone for the good of Trump then they could just do so - getting paid is nice but the joy of being on the side of Truth would be its own reward :-)

29

General Comments / Re: GOP nutbag of the week

« on: September 15, 2022, 05:32:59 AM »

What's really at issue is the average person (and Congressperson) isn't going to be up on the tech scene enough to be able to judge whether 'that time' has finally come where getting bio-tracking will be a legitimate concern. To them it's already that time. That may not be accurate, but the concern should probably be addressed in advance (it won't be).

RFID has been with us for a couple decades now. Amazon even setup a demonstration store using RFID to allow a customer to walk in(identified by RFID--presumably a phone or other more "passive" item responding to the active ping at the doorway. Then you go through the store, pickup what you want, and leave. It'll bill you for what you exit with automatically as each item was RFID tagged and scanned as you walked out the door.

I think this https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/we-test-the-worlds-first-amazon-go-watch-you-shop-grocery-store/ is what you are referring to and that isn't RFID it's a "conventional" login + a lot of cameras.

30

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: September 02, 2022, 04:53:59 AM »

However, as an aside, I find the idea of prosecuting a former president for violating an executive order, during their term of office no less, seems to be a bit... Awkward politically speaking.

Definitely awkward but Potus can't be above the law. Still I would drop all investigations if Trump agreed to quietly go away.

What are the chances of Trump doing anything quietly?

31

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: September 01, 2022, 10:48:37 AM »

Currently their is an Executive Order for classification and declassification, it could be overridden by a subsequent President, but until done so the EO is in effect.

Do you have a pointer to the text of that EO? It would add some actual facts to the current discussion about who can do what and when.

32

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: September 01, 2022, 08:05:24 AM »

A slight wrinkle on the classified paper argument is that I've just heard an (ex?) FBI agent on the BBCs Americast podcast (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0cxm9wx) assert that the classification status of documents is whatever the _current_ president says it is - so it doesn't matter what Trump may or may not have done, its whatever Biden says it is and if he chooses to say it is whatever is written on the front of the document then that is what it is.

33

General Comments / Re: The Trump Papers

« on: August 28, 2022, 09:36:20 AM »

Again, where does Trump get the power to declassify the documents? You say he has ultimate power to declassify. Where does it say that in the Constitution?

Nothing I've seen so far has suggested that Trump, whilst president, didn't have the power to declassify documents. I think we have to give him that. Whether or not that power came with requirements that he follow procedure to do so is a lot more murky. I've certainly seen no evidence that he told anyone that had had declassified any of the documents in question. He equally certainly can't do so retrospectively.
If they are now, in fact, declassified then all of them should immediately be published in full to show everyone just how innocuous they are.

34

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: August 23, 2022, 07:12:32 AM »

I guess if you are a Democrat apologist that it is easier to denigrate truth-tellers than it is to reconsider your incorrect dogma.

s/Democrat/party or belief of your choice/ and that is a universal truth.

35

General Comments / Re: Trump looses again

« on: August 21, 2022, 06:35:56 AM »

Trump seems really upset that he is backing Dr Oz in PA.  Mitch is correct that when the Reps take a beating in the Senate this fall it will be due to a lack of good candidates running.

Trump supporters can maybe win the primary but they will lose in the general. Or at least in most states.

I really, truly, hope you are correct. I just have this horrible feeling that come results day most of us here are going to be standing back going "how did that happen?" (and no, I don't believe it will have been successfully rigged by the GOP though they will of course try).

36

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: August 19, 2022, 05:59:09 AM »

Just for the record I really appreciate William posting here - without him I would be unable to believe that the reported positions of Trump supporters were real.  I don't go near that section of the media, but he brings home just how unshakeable some of that faith is.

37

General Comments / Re: Trump looses again

« on: August 14, 2022, 02:56:27 PM »

apparently Trump had a standing order that any files removed from the Oval Office and taken there were to be deemed declassified

If that's true, that's appallingly unprofessional. Which means it's probably true.

If you read the linked BBC post you'll find that it was in a statement from Trumps office though that doesn't make it true I guess...

38

General Comments / Re: Trump looses again

« on: August 14, 2022, 10:05:53 AM »

I know this will not convince Wm since he is already sure that there were no classified documents at MAL.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trumps-lawyer-signed-statement-months-002954844.html

Well according to the BBC reporting on the raid https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-62527628 they found files marked top-secret, but apparently Trump had a standing order that any files removed from the Oval Office and taken there were to be deemed declassified, so by definition any files found must be declassified (no matter how marked). I wonder if someone in the US can submit an FOI request for their contents - after all if they are declassified that should just work - right?

39

General Comments / Re: What are some things that Biden gets right?

« on: August 05, 2022, 04:27:47 AM »

The law of God, as seen in the Bible, is clear about what is moral and immoral. And since even people who have never encountered the law know generally what is moral and immoral

So you are happy with the entirety of Leviticus as a description of good & bad?

Its a position certainly.

40

General Comments / Re: Whose cell/womb is it anyways?

« on: August 03, 2022, 02:06:31 PM »

Having read the ballot question I'd certainly believe that it was designed to confuse and, to me at least, appears to be in favour of "yes". There are far too many words there. It could, and should, and been cut down to "Repeal the Kanas Constitutional amendment that protects abortion? yes/no".

On the other hand it seem unlikely anyone was actually confused due to the publicity surrounding the vote.

41

General Comments / Re: Climate alarmists are wrong.

« on: August 02, 2022, 01:11:45 PM »

I saw William's description of the Arthur B. Robinson Center -- which isn't too far from my in-laws' place -- and choked. Please Google Arthur Robinson before continuing.

If you Google "Arthur Robinson" you get a well respected cartographer who has an eponymous map projection. "Arthur B. Robinson" gets you a climate change denier.

42

General Comments / Re: Trump looses again

« on: July 26, 2022, 06:40:28 AM »

Actually you confuse me, too. Heliocentrism is usually compared against geocentrism - not a flat earth. All in all, it was the Church that sought out the science. It was the church that decreed the earth revolves around the sun, not placing the Earth at the center.

Could you give me sources and dates on that?

Wikipedias article on Copernicus states:

In March 1616, in connection with the Galileo affair, the Roman Catholic Church's Congregation of the Index issued a decree suspending De revolutionibus until it could be "corrected," on the grounds of ensuring that Copernicanism, which it described as a "false Pythagorean doctrine, altogether contrary to the Holy Scripture," would not "creep any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth."

with a note that this prohibition was finally removed in 1835.

43

General Comments / Re: Addiction rehab

« on: July 24, 2022, 06:01:09 AM »

I'm pretty sure the only way you can do that is by redefining the terms such that it cannot exist.

Otherwise humans crave pleasure, or at least a reprieve from misery and that sensation is addictive.

44

General Comments / Re: Election Results

« on: July 22, 2022, 06:44:19 AM »

Answer us, who has that kind of money to spread around, and who has the facility to print up hundreds of thousands of bogus ballots, get then to all the drop off points, and fill them out in the few hours after the numbers needed was ascertained?

Donald Trump?

45

General Comments / Re: Musk and Twitter

« on: July 19, 2022, 11:26:59 AM »

Right, except that it wasn't exactly a strict business investment, more like a moral investment.

Given that his reasons for pulling out are pure business ones it doesn't seem like his morals had a lot of fibre. You can't reasonably argue that he didn't know that Twitter had bots, he's complained about it often enough.

46

General Comments / Re: Musk and Twitter

« on: July 19, 2022, 05:53:36 AM »

This is why rational investors perform due diligence. By waiving it, Musk was basically saying "I trust the numbers you've given me."

Now he's trying to run an audit to prove it was a stolen acquisition. But he has no proof that the bot count isn't exactly what they said it was.

I'm not really sure where I stand on this, if anywhere (I don't care as much as it may seem). But just to follow your reasoning, let's say Musk had in fact tried to do this due diligence before making a hard offer - how do you think that plays out? My thinking is Twitter gives Musk the same data it was giving everyone, and if he asks for more info or direct personal access to investigate the accounts himself, they refuse just as they would to anyone else. How else would he gain insider access to see for himself unless he had already put his foot in the door as a buyer? To be fair they did offer him a board seat first, so potentially he could have accepted it, and from within the board tried to get the board to agree to produce better data. But that process would likely be long, and even then he could potentially be overruled.

My laymans (and possibly flawed) understanding is that normally you write an offer letter that goes something along the line of "we offer X billion $ for the company subject to due diligence not showing anything unexpected", Musk wrote one that went "I offer Y billion $ for the company and I want it so much/quickly that I'll skip due diligence". The due diligence process does entitle you to poke through the books at a deeper level that the public normally gets to see and would have got him to the current point where he could pull out without having made any unfortunate commitments.

47

General Comments / Re: GOP nutbag of the week

« on: June 23, 2022, 05:38:02 AM »

There are only two things to think about, here. One, is Trump's true popularity amongst voters, and the swelling Black and Latino improvement.

I'm going with the vote, as recorded, being his true popularity - so a bit less than half the population of the US liked him then.

The second is that Biden's vote came from hatred of Trump.

That is a point that I think I have to give you

Hatred which was based on Democrat lies.

That one not so much. I'm pretty sure it was based on his behaviour and his words, almost none of which appear to have been designed to create harmony across the population.

He's said, "Russia, Russia, Russia," for six years now, and you know he was right. Again.

Most of what I heard re. Russia was (paraphrasing in case it isn't obvious) "Putin - he's this smart guy I like him a lot and get on well with him"

In terms of "the enemy" what I heard was "China, China, China" and, if I'm being fair, whilst I'm dubious about his methods I'm not sure he was wrong about the target.

48

General Comments / Re: Thoughts and Prayers - Again...

« on: June 10, 2022, 05:10:34 AM »

“I did, I spoke to the leader of the Taliban today, we had a good conversation,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House, adding that he and Taliban leaders “agreed there is no violence, we don’t want violence.”

If only Mike Pence had refused to certify the electoral count, we'd have perfect relations with a free Afghanistan. Trump surely would have guaranteed us victory, just like I wrote about in my MAGA fan fiction!

To be fair to Trump there was surprisingly little violence - the Taliban just took over.  Maybe that was the deal?

49

General Comments / Re: God Exists

« on: June 09, 2022, 11:41:40 AM »

Singular
There are two branes, the vibration between each of which sustains the existence of our universe. Fourteenth-dimensional observers call one of them "Ultra-A", and the other one "Ultra-B". They don't know which is which, not least because there definitionally can be no distinguishing features or positioning or anything that would let someone reliably make a distinction, but they sometimes like to write stories in which the two branes are in love but cannot be together because they don't want to accidentally destroy the universe they didn't really intend to make in the first place. In these stories, the authors impute to "Ultra-A" a slightly supercilious British accent, but of course that's fictional.

Thank you - that bit made my day

50

General Comments / Re: SOP

« on: June 09, 2022, 06:17:50 AM »

As I understand it - he did turn up with all those things (but if you believe in everyone's right to remain heavily armed at all times then what is the problem) - then he turned himself in before doing anything more than turning up near the house. I am all for people who are about to commit a crime tuning themselves in before doing so.  If that is the mark of the Left then hurrah for the Left!