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18th May 2018, 12:41 AM | #361 |
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[blockquote] Bill Gates, the billionaire entrepreneur and philanthropist, has claimed Donald Trump twice asked him the difference between HIV and HPV and knew a “scary” amount about Gates’s daughter’s looks. [/blockquote]
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...erence-hiv-hpv |
18th May 2018, 01:27 AM | #362 |
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For a moment I thought you had said "a scary amount about her books", to which you must be thinking about a different Donald J Trump. No, this makes actual sense.
Trump's questions about viruses just sounds like him trying to sound clever because he's talking to a clever guy. That never works. |
18th May 2018, 01:47 AM | #363 |
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Gates also mentioned that Trump seems to have been convinced by the Anti-Vaxer nutjobs ...
a known side effect of watching too much FoxNews. |
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18th May 2018, 04:12 AM | #364 |
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“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago |
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18th May 2018, 04:37 AM | #365 |
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Dehumanizing others has a pretty dark history.
Whether it’s our president or MS13, deal harshly with their misdeeds, and don’t hold back with your criticisms. Trump has said and done many, many things I find repugnant. But to launch into an obscene diatribe against him and his followers is to lower oneself to his/their level. It means they’ve won. As an aside, I felt exactly the same with similar vulgar attacks on Hillary. It’s not a matter of left vs. right; it’s a matter of right vs. wrong. |
18th May 2018, 05:18 AM | #366 |
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"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact." -- Sherlock Holmes. "It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled." -- Mark Twain, maybe. |
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18th May 2018, 05:19 AM | #367 |
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I was imagining santorum.
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OECD healthcare spending Public/Compulsory Expenditure on healthcare https://data.oecd.org/chart/60Tt Every year since 1990 the US Public healthcare spending has been greater than the UK as a proportion of GDP. More US Tax goes to healthcare than the UK |
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18th May 2018, 05:28 AM | #368 |
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18th May 2018, 05:47 AM | #369 |
Penultimate Amazing
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Also weirdly homophobic.
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I don't trust atoms. They make up everything. |
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18th May 2018, 06:23 AM | #370 |
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18th May 2018, 07:48 AM | #371 |
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Is one of the things this forum can agree on is that we shouldn't refer to humans with dehumanising and othering rhetoric? Any dissenters?
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18th May 2018, 09:08 AM | #372 |
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18th May 2018, 11:55 AM | #373 |
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Trump demands that the Post Office screw Amazon:
Quote:
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18th May 2018, 12:02 PM | #374 |
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This one, I don't get... doubling the rate would make USPS uncompetitive, and Amazon would choose another supplier. Since USPS has confirmed that Amazon is net profitable, the results would be greater net losses for the organization.
Is this just Trump clarifying to the public that this is not about USPS profitability, but rather, a personal dispute with Bezos? |
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18th May 2018, 12:03 PM | #375 |
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18th May 2018, 12:04 PM | #376 |
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Trump thinks he can win in a fight against Bezos with nothing but the power of the US government?
Good luck. |
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18th May 2018, 12:14 PM | #377 |
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Or Amazon.... no exaggeration, when the stock takes a hit like this, I buy. Trump has made me six figures net on Amazon stock so far this year. His portfolio is not sufficiently isolated, he can give his kids a headsup on these and get some nice day trade gains.
ETA: Down $9ish/share today, not a lot, but might be another buying opp. Maybe wait 'till Monday, see if the weekend brings this one to a boil. |
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"Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness." - Terry Pratchett |
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18th May 2018, 12:20 PM | #378 |
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Circled nothing is still nothing. "Nothing will stop the U.S. from being a world leader, not even a handful of adults who want their kids to take science lessons from a book that mentions unicorns six times." -UNLoVedRebel Mumpsimus: a stubborn person who insists on making an error in spite of being shown that it is wrong |
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18th May 2018, 01:43 PM | #379 |
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Not just Bezos,but every other manufacturer who ships vis USPS..including Amazon's competitors.
They might be competitiors, but they will unite on opposing Trump's idea, which will go nowhere..particular when the big shippers get ahold of their Congressmen...GOP in many places. |
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Pacifism is a shifty doctrine under which a man accepts the benefits of the social group without being willing to pay - and claims a halo for his dishonesty. Robert Heinlein. |
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18th May 2018, 01:49 PM | #380 |
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Sorry to hear that. Fingers crossed you find something soon.
And for me, I'm not usually this flush, but what happened is that the tax laws vis a vis professional corporations in Canada changed, and we had to move a nestegg out of my wife's business and into our personal accounts, there was no choice but to liquidate. The timing was good, and that's mostly luck, but I did deliberately stock pick Amazon when it was down on April 2nd at about $1380/share, and that part was intentional. So, today at $1581/share, I've made $200/share, which is not bad. Annualized dollar averaged ROI is 170% (and dropping as time moves on) |
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"Sometimes it's better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness." - Terry Pratchett |
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18th May 2018, 02:03 PM | #381 |
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Location: Canada, eh?
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Its hard to know what's worse:
- The post office makes money delivering for Amazon, and as another poster suggested, doubling postal fees would mean Amazon would just use other distributors. So Trump is planning to harm a long-standing government service for petty reasons. - That he is either ignorant, or willing to lie about certain "alternative facts" (Like claiming the Amazon deal causes the post office to lose money... hint: it doesn't.) - For a guy who is supposedly very smart with business, he doesn't seem to understand the idea of a long-term contract, and even if Trump wanted to increase fees it wouldn't take effect probably for years. |
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Trust me, I know what I'm doing. - Sledgehammer I'm Mary Poppins Y'all! - Yondu We are Groot - Groot |
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18th May 2018, 02:33 PM | #382 |
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Bill Gates talks about President Trump
This is classic. Bill doesn't exactly trash Trump, but the stories don't show Trump in a good light. But it is hilarious. Especially the bit about the helicopter.
Check it out. |
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Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get to me. . |
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18th May 2018, 02:41 PM | #383 |
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Ignoring the specifics about this particular case for a moment, the fact that it's okay for Trump (or any other President for that matter) to tell the head of a federal agency what to do in specific cases like this, is one of the reasons why i dislike the American presidential system.
In Sweden the Prime Minister, or more specifically "The Government" (that is the cabinet, which the Prime Minister controls), is not supposed to order or pressure an agency in how to act in any specific case. Where the law allows it, the government is allowed to enact regulations that specify how said agency is supposed to act, or it can ask parliament to enact legislation to that regard, but the agencies themselves are supposed to be autonomous in how they actually execute their legal obligations. There are also other ways, like budget ear-marks and so forth, where the government is able to affect the agencies work. Basically, instead of directly controlling agencies that operate on a national level, like the Police or Military, the governments job is to supervise them and only in exceptional cases intervene where the law explicitly gives The Government the ability to make decisions. |
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We would be a lot safer if the Government would take its money out of science and put it into astrology and the reading of palms. Only in superstition is there hope. - Kurt Vonnegut Jr And no, Cuba is not a brutal and corrupt dictatorship, and it's definitely less so than Sweden. - dann |
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18th May 2018, 02:49 PM | #384 |
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Location: Canada, eh?
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I am not sure the president actually has the power to dictate rates charged by the post office. Instead, there is a postal regulatory agency (containing members from both parties, with members that pre-date Trump's tenure) that supposedly sets rates.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal...ory_Commission |
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Trust me, I know what I'm doing. - Sledgehammer I'm Mary Poppins Y'all! - Yondu We are Groot - Groot |
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18th May 2018, 03:26 PM | #385 |
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OECD healthcare spending Public/Compulsory Expenditure on healthcare https://data.oecd.org/chart/60Tt Every year since 1990 the US Public healthcare spending has been greater than the UK as a proportion of GDP. More US Tax goes to healthcare than the UK |
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18th May 2018, 04:13 PM | #386 |
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Trump Tweets
"California finally deserves a great Governor, one who understands borders, crime and lowering taxes. John Cox is the man - he’ll be the best Governor you’ve ever had. I fully endorse John Cox for Governor and look forward to working with him to Make California Great Again!" Poor John, that's him scuppered. |
18th May 2018, 04:28 PM | #387 |
Penultimate Amazing
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And he's off again
"America is blessed with extraordinary energy abundance, including more than 250 years worth of beautiful clean coal. We have ended the war on coal, and will continue to work to promote American energy dominance!" |
18th May 2018, 04:49 PM | #388 |
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18th May 2018, 05:22 PM | #389 |
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18th May 2018, 05:36 PM | #390 |
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But I think the problem is that most people can't effectively go lower than Trump. You tried, but IMO it didn't really work. It was a reach. Trump doesn't reach, he just opens his mouth and vomits it out.
Liberals don't hold rallies where crowds chant "lock him up" and brag about how bigoted and warlike they are. I think that's a good thing. |
18th May 2018, 05:43 PM | #391 |
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Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get to me. . |
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18th May 2018, 05:52 PM | #392 |
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The President (and I use the term loosely) has stated that he wants the US Post Office to default on their commercial contracts? Does anyone think for a second that if one of those customers whose contracts he wants to void was The Ivanka Slave Labor Spring Collection, he wouldn't be telling her "Sue 'em! Sue 'em!"?
As others have noted, Real Estate Development is not a business in a normal sense. He has no idea how actual business works, probably has no idea that there's a very specific contract involved and that the penalties to the USPS could put them in permanent receivership. He thinks Miss Margaret down at the Post Office at Fifth and Elm can just raise the prices when that nice kid from Amazon comes in with his parcel. Did he do the P.O. tweet after the Gates' comments trended? He may have been just lashing out because an actual billionaire just pantsed him in public, and there's no way that he's taking on Gates - he's too scared of real money. |
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Ha! Foolmewunz has just been added to the list of people who aren't complete idiots. Hokulele It's not that liberals have become less tolerant. It's that conservatives have become more intolerable. |
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18th May 2018, 05:55 PM | #393 |
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He never had a chance anyways, but ya I wonder if he cleared it with John first "My name is John Cox and I absolutely do not approve of this ad"
It's too bad though we need something different here in Cali. I'm not familiar with John Cox, he will lose anyways so why bother. Cali doesn't "deserve" a great governor though. I hate that word. We do vote so we deserve whatever we get. |
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Why bother? |
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18th May 2018, 06:18 PM | #394 |
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If Trump was clarifying to the public, it wouldn't have been an attempted 'secret' meeting. The only thing this is about is Trump's personal vendetta.
Maddow is reviewing right now the Nixon tapes where he tried (or did?) use the public agencies to punish people on his enemies list. IRS audits, immigration harassment of "wetbacks" (Nixon's words) that worked for people and more. A particular target was the LA Times. It's the less remembered half of the Nixon crimes for which he was going to be impeached. Trump trying to use the post office to get even with his personal enemies is an impeachable offense. It was one of Nixon's high crimes. Watergate info document: Article 2 |
18th May 2018, 07:46 PM | #395 |
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Cain: Don't be a homo. Diablo: What's that supposed to mean? Cain: It's a heteronormative remark meant to be taken at face-value. |
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18th May 2018, 08:04 PM | #396 |
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The thing is that it's not okay. The Postal Service is an independent, self-supporting entity that has contracts with its shippers. It rates are approved by Congress. It is managed by a Board of Governors who appoint the Postmaster General. Trump can't order the head to do anything. But he thinks he can.
https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/le...about-usps.htm |
18th May 2018, 08:06 PM | #397 |
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18th May 2018, 08:09 PM | #398 |
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18th May 2018, 08:24 PM | #399 |
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Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get to me. . |
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18th May 2018, 08:41 PM | #400 |
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