Break Glass - 2020 USA Elections

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Comments

  • Crœsos wrote: »

    *I'm assuming an infinite drink that will remain at 20°C no matter how long the cooling cube is submerged in it. Obviously this defeats the purpose of the cooling cube, but it's a good back-of-the-envelope measure of ideal cooling capacity.

    Hey, I came for the differential equations! :smiley:

    Liquid ammonia has a high heat of vaporisation, but I guess it would mess up the flavourful volatiles somewhat.

    I seem to recall liquid nitrogen being used in trendy drinks... and burning a hole through the odd stomach when handled improperly.
  • When I was a child (decades ago) my Mum got some small plastic pink elephants with water sealed inside and could be frozen. When placed in a drink they provided cooling from the ice, without dilution.

    What was this thread about again?
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited September 2020

    What was this thread about again?

    Something about an election somewhere. Apparently, one of the guys running had been anonymously accused of dissing the nation's war dead, and there was considerable hoopla about this. But from I've seen, the scandal seems to be winding itself down, just like almost every other allegedly game-changing horror associated with this particular gentleman.

    I saw where some dude with a cheezy moustache, who used to work for the offending candidate, says that the alleged sacrilege against the dead soldiers didn't take place.

  • PowderkegPowderkeg Shipmate Posts: 46
    It actually ties nicely together, don't you see? The ice cubes are a metaphor for Joe Biden -- slowly disintegrating while everybody watches, wondering how much longer he'll last.

    (Not making fun of the guy -- I actually find it so sad that his family and the DNC are allowing him to stay in the race at this point.)
  • I want my beverage to stay cold as long as possible, even if it gets diluted in the process. I'll even toss in more ice if necessary. It's also a way to slow down alcohol consumption.
  • I want my beverage to stay cold as long as possible, even if it gets diluted in the process. I'll even toss in more ice if necessary. It's also a way to slow down alcohol consumption.

    Absolutely!
    :smile:


  • Crœsos wrote: »
    *I'm assuming an infinite drink.

    That's something I think quite a few people could get behind, especially if the election goes badly.

  • stetson wrote: »

    What was this thread about again?

    Something about an election somewhere. Apparently, one of the guys running had been anonymously accused of dissing the nation's war dead, and there was considerable hoopla about this. But from I've seen, the scandal seems to be winding itself down, just like almost every other allegedly game-changing horror associated with this particular gentleman.

    Gentleman?
  • Powderkeg wrote: »
    It actually ties nicely together, don't you see? The ice cubes are a metaphor for Joe Biden -- slowly disintegrating while everybody watches, wondering how much longer he'll last.

    (Not making fun of the guy -- I actually find it so sad that his family and the DNC are allowing him to stay in the race at this point.)

    I see Trump's supporters are recycling his greatest hits from 2016. Remember when Hillary Clinton was supposedly at death's door and wouldn't live out her term if elected? I recall a particular shipmate continuing to make this assertion about Clinton's health as late as 2018. My guess is that when Hillary Clinton finally dies in 2038 (or whenever) a certain segment of Trump supporters will say "See, told ya so!"
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    In hot weather I like the rosé slushies that have become popular.
    stetson wrote: »
    Apparently, one of the guys running had been anonymously accused of dissing the nation's war dead, and there was considerable hoopla about this. But from I've seen, the scandal seems to be winding itself down, just like almost every other allegedly game-changing horror associated with this particular gentleman.

    Yes, but the Trump campaign just wasted five days defending what he said instead of defining Joe Biden for low-information voters who are only now starting to pay attention to the election.
  • Ruth wrote: »
    Yes, but the Trump campaign just wasted five days defending what he said instead of defining Joe Biden for low-information voters who are only now starting to pay attention to the election.

    "[D]efining Joe Biden for low-information voters" seems like a low return on investment electoral effort. It's a strategy that can work if your opponent is a relative unknown outside their home state (e.g. Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton), but I'm not sure how low information a voter has to be to not have some idea already about who Joe Biden is.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    For certain values of ‘some idea’
    The idea that most voters actually have any idea is pretty much disproved in any election cycle, but most especially by 2016
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    My only comment re the drinks tangent is that if Trump is re-elected a lot of us will need several stiff drinks.
  • stetson wrote: »

    What was this thread about again?

    Something about an election somewhere. Apparently, one of the guys running had been anonymously accused of dissing the nation's war dead, and there was considerable hoopla about this. But from I've seen, the scandal seems to be winding itself down, just like almost every other allegedly game-changing horror associated with this particular gentleman.

    Gentleman?

    The soup in their bowls is not deep and it is already cold. (Polish proverb*)



    (Okay it isn't, but for some reason this made me think of Banacek.
  • Barnabas62 wrote: »
    My only comment re the drinks tangent is that if Trump is re-elected a lot of us will need several stiff drinks.
    "Several" is quite the understatement.

  • @Lamb Chopped
    Gentleman?

    Punch-line explained...
    I was adopting the persona of someone only vaguely familar with the election, who was hence speaking of it in generic, neutral terms.

  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    My only comment re the drinks tangent is that if Trump is re-elected a lot of us will need several stiff drinks.
    "Several" is quite the understatement.
    Drinks is an understatement. Heroin, meth,...

  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    My only comment re the drinks tangent is that if Trump is re-elected a lot of us will need several stiff drinks.
    "Several" is quite the understatement.
    <snip> meth,...
    I assume you mean this and not this
  • Do we have a rival for Gramps' understatement of the year?
  • BroJames wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    My only comment re the drinks tangent is that if Trump is re-elected a lot of us will need several stiff drinks.
    "Several" is quite the understatement.
    <snip> meth,...
    I assume you mean this and not this

    The latter would be meths, rather than meth, I think.
  • Hmmm...I think it would be intravenous, very dark chocolate for me. And a stack of funny, absorbing novels.

    But I'd rather that T lose. Then I can rejoice, and retire to to the above because I want to, not because I have to.
    ;)
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    Ruth wrote: »
    In hot weather I like the rosé slushies that have become popular.
    stetson wrote: »
    Apparently, one of the guys running had been anonymously accused of dissing the nation's war dead, and there was considerable hoopla about this. But from I've seen, the scandal seems to be winding itself down, just like almost every other allegedly game-changing horror associated with this particular gentleman.

    Yes, but the Trump campaign just wasted five days defending what he said instead of defining Joe Biden for low-information voters who are only now starting to pay attention to the election.

    Spending all that time explaining "Grab 'em by the *****" didn't hurt him much in 2016. At least not fatally.

    Also, I wonder if the whole concept of "If you're explaining, you're losing" has the same applicability in the internet and social-media era as it did forty years ago.

    In 1980, if a politician had to explain why he said some a-holish thing, that explanation would probably have dominated his coverage on the TV networks and the daily papers, which pretty much had a monopoly on political reporting. And most people were watching only one newscast and reading one paper on a daily basis. If that.

    Suffice to say that's not the world we live in now. Even if the nightly news and the newspapers give extensive coverage to your damage-control, there's a zillion other information-sources that aren't gonna care about that, or portray it as all just a big nothingburger.

    (Granted, this theory is probably more applicable in cases like this one about Trump's soldier-bashing, where no hard proof exists that the comments were ever made, thus making it easier to ignore or dismiss the story.)

    TL/DR: The idea that a candidate loses valuable time by having to defend himself might not be that applicable in the internet age.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    Anyway, in a startling repeat of Watergate, it looks as though Trump bugged himself. This time, Bob Woodward has him on tape. Bob Woodward!

    Trump really is crazy. Such is the size of his ego, he seemed to believe that he could play Woodward. And some of his statements are devastatingly self-destructive.

    I hesitate to use the smoking gun phrase. But if these recorded comments don't amount to that I don't know what will be.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    Anyway, in a startling repeat of Watergate, it looks as though Trump bugged himself. This time, Bob Woodward has him on tape. Bob Woodward!

    Trump really is crazy. Such is the size of his ego, he seemed to believe that he could play Woodward. And some of his statements are devastatingly self-destructive.

    I hesitate to use the smoking gun phrase. But if these recorded comments don't amount to that I don't know what will be.

    Eh, I think they'll be able to spin this. Unless Trump later said something that was a word-for-word contradiction of what he said to Woodward(eg. he literally said "This is NOT deadly stuff"), they'll say that he was just emphasizing two different aspects of the same thing etc.

    Plus, the whole "Didn't want to create a panic" thing has a built-in ambience of nobility.

    (And that's assuming that anyone delusional enough to still be mulling over a Trump vote cares about whether or not he contradicts himself on matters of life and death.)


  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    We'll see. He knowingly delayed the introduction of mitigation and that cost thousands of lives. Prevention of panic does not require consistently downplaying the truth and exaggerating preparedness. A game he is still playing.

    He knew. And he lied about what he knew. And thousands died.
  • lilbuddhalilbuddha Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    BroJames wrote: »
    lilbuddha wrote: »
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    My only comment re the drinks tangent is that if Trump is re-elected a lot of us will need several stiff drinks.
    "Several" is quite the understatement.
    <snip> meth,...
    I assume you mean this and not this

    The latter would be meths, rather than meth, I think.
    American problem,* American drugs. Methamphetamine is a drug of desperation in the US. Heroin more so than many other drugs.

    Well, one originating in the US. It is a problem for the world, really.
  • Barnabas62 wrote: »
    We'll see. He knowingly delayed the introduction of mitigation and that cost thousands of lives. Prevention of panic does not require consistently downplaying the truth and exaggerating preparedness. A game he is still playing.

    He knew. And he lied about what he knew. And thousands died.

    Yes, but is your average MAGA person or Still Willing In 2020 To Give Trump Every Possible Benefit Of The Doubt person going to see that he was admitting to downplaying the truth and exaggerating preparedness, based on what Woodward presents?

    I honestly think you'd need an intersection of depravity and verifiability like this to get some of these people off the team...

    A video(not just audio) emerges of Trump saying something like "I don't care if I misled Americans and a bunch of them got sick and died. My re-election is more important than whether or not a bunch of losers kick the bucket."

    And even them, some of his fans would probably say it was all just the political equivalent of locker-room talk.



  • And just to be clear...

    When I predict that Trump will not be damaged by any of this, I mean not damaged enough to erase the advantage given to him by the electoral college. He'll almost certainly still lose the popular vote, possibly with even worse numbers than 2016.
  • stetson wrote: »
    And just to be clear...

    When I predict that Trump will not be damaged by any of this, I mean not damaged enough to erase the advantage given to him by the electoral college. He'll almost certainly still lose the popular vote, possibly with even worse numbers than 2016.
    The way to get him to lose the electoral vote is not to change the minds of the people who voted fror him last time, but to get the people who didn't vote then to vote now.
  • Ask them "If Hillary had won, would you let *her* get away with doing this?"
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    Ask them "If Hillary had won, would you let *her* get away with doing this?"
    Won't make a difference.
  • Possibly not, but it might get some of them going "hmmmm".
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    The only time they go "hmmmm" is when they're humming along to "God Bless the USA."
  • lilbuddha wrote: »
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Ask them "If Hillary had won, would you let *her* get away with doing this?"
    Won't make a difference.

    Oh, I don't know. Can we really say these people are totally devoid of logic and reason?
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    edited September 2020
    The reason, if that is the right word, that they support Trump, even though he is Trump, is that he insults people and establishments they hate. They no longer trust free media and constitutional government to listen to them.

    He captured a significant slice of the disaffected. The only question is how many will now become disaffected with him. I don’t think that total will be zero. One in twenty will do nicely.
  • Much as I dislike the guy as president, stuff like this has me continuing to wish that Trump had started a career as a perennial third-party candidate, maybe centred around a reality show, with no danger of actually getting elected, and unbeholden to the domestic agenda of the Republican party.

    I mean, you have to go back to Eisenhower to find a president willing to speak this frankly about the military, and even he waited until he knew he was leaving office for good, and never framed his suspicions in terms of personal animosity with the brass. As I think someone else was remarking around here a few days ago, there really is something refreshing about the way Trump speaks sometimes.

    (And yes, I know "endless wars" is an isolationist/libertarian buzzword, I'm not saying Trump is Dorothy Day.)
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    Just another diversionary tactic, stetson. Anything to take eyes off his February coronavirus revelations. Trump plays the news cycle game every day.
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    Barnabas62 wrote: »
    Just another diversionary tactic, stetson. Anything to take eyes off his February coronavirus revelations. Trump plays the news cycle game every day.

    Sure, but it's still a pretty unprecedented form of distraction. You don't normally see presidents(especially not Republicans) diverting attention by attacking the military for allegedly starting wars to please business. Usually, it's the opposite, they try to portray themselves as in lockstep with military values.

    (As a more typical example, when Nixon wanted to make himself look like the friend of the unfairly maligned Vietnam vets, he didn't attack the Pentagon for mishandling the war: he attacked the left-wing antiwar people who were supposedly spitting on the soldiers as they came home in wheelchairs.)

    I think Trump's aversion to certain manifestations of militarism are sincere(such comments on his part predate his election), but he is in the untenable position of simultaneously wanting America to be viewed as the continuing Number One Great Power, not realizing that projection of armed force is one of the major reasons the US got to that position in the first place.
  • Real Clear Politics shows that Biden is ahead by more than 4 points in every swing state. In other words, Trump is losing every swing state.
  • Amanda B ReckondwythAmanda B Reckondwyth Mystery Worship Editor
    As I've said before, to paraphrase Mark Twain: There are lies, damn lies, and polls. Nothing means anything until the day after Election Day.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Real Clear Politics shows that Biden is ahead by more than 4 points in every swing state. In other words, Trump is losing every swing state.

    At this point in 2016, Hillary was winning ...
  • And Hillary has already publicly counseled Biden to *not* concede.

    If only *she* hadn't conceded--at least, so quickly. Made me furious. And she's probably furious with herself.
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    And Hillary has already publicly counseled Biden to *not* concede.

    If only *she* hadn't conceded--at least, so quickly. Made me furious. And she's probably furious with herself.

    The results of the 2016 election were fairly conclusive, I would say. What do you think would have been accomplished by Hillary either witholding or delaying her concession?
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    I think the point is that there is strong evidence already of outside manipulation and there may also be attempts to corrupt the counting process in the swing States. So it is probably best to await detailed information about any dodgy goings on.

    Nobody wants to see the result subject to legal challenges. But legal challenges may be a necessary last resort. The Trump strategy looks like “win by any means regardless of constitutional or legal constraints”. His basic lack of scruples needs to be taken into account.
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    And Hillary has already publicly counseled Biden to *not* concede.

    If only *she* hadn't conceded--at least, so quickly. Made me furious. And she's probably furious with herself.

    Please - why does any concession matter? It's the final result that counts and a concession wouldn't override a result which moved their way.

    If one candidate mistakenly conceded before the picture was complete, when all the votes were counted they would be declared the winner and the mistaken concession would count for nothing.
  • It would rather put him on the back foot though in terms of arguing for legal review. It would also give his opponents a stick to beat him with.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host, Epiphanies Host
    edited September 2020
    GK I think there is a difference between a premature concession before all votes are counted and an expression of concern about the validity of the counting process.

    It’s been quite normal for candidates to concede before all votes have been counted on the basis that the remaining uncounted votes will not affect the final outcome. There can be an element of statistical probability in such concessions e.g ‘if 95% of the uncounted votes came my way I could still win but that’s never going to happen’. But that assumes the count so far has been proper. In the brave new world of 2020 that may be a naive assumption
  • Furtive GanderFurtive Gander Shipmate
    edited September 2020
    Yes their opponents and political enemies would always have a video clip of them admitting having lost which is cause for minor embarrassment but they would have WON and everyone would know it - forever.
  • I don’t seriously think Biden will concede. That, as pointed out means trusting Trump to act in a proper fashion. That cannot be the case.
  • Just saw where Trump played Fortunate Son as his entrance music at a campaign rally in Michigan yesterday.

    Obviously, he's being mocked in saavy liberal circles, though I suspect the punch-line will be lost on the kind of person who would attend such an event.
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