*** The Official MAGAposting thread ***

[wufwugy]

It was one of many points mentioned in the supreme court document.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinion...-1262_db8e.pdf
wait... Is that a different one? North Carolina, you son of a bitch.

This is the one I was looking for:
http://www.ca4.uscourts.gov/Opinions...d/161468.P.pdf

Huh. What was the court ruling on? Gerrymandering has approximately nothing to do with the idea that certain voting stations are being unreasonably shut down or hassled with beyond that with control groups

[wufwugy]

IDK if it's a measure of Starbucks policy, but the employee in question who called the police was fired, as noted in the article which was linked on FTR.

IDK if it informs ong's position, but as a person who worked in a few coffee shops, it is not "bad for business" to let people whom are not paying customers use your facilities, UNLESS they are occupying a seat in the dining room which could otherwise be used by a paying customer, whom has opted to not be a customer because there is not an open seat.


It's generally attractive to customers to see a business which has customers. An empty dining room could be indicative of sub-par or over-priced goods / services, whereas a populated dining room could be indicative of a "good" dining experience at a "good" price.

That's a good point. I wonder if he was fired simply because he may have gone against company policy of letting people use the restroom even if they aren't buying.

[BananaStand]

That's a good point. I wonder if he was fired simply because he may have gone against company policy of letting people use the restroom even if they aren't buying.

I've learned recently that Starbucks has no such corporate policy requiring restroom users to also be patrons. That is, there is no edict from the corporate overlords governing the behavior of individual stores. However, it is acceptable for individual stores to enact such a policy, and this particular store did have such a policy.

[oskar]

Huh. What was the court ruling on? Gerrymandering has approximately nothing to do with the idea that certain voting stations are being unreasonably shut down or hassled with beyond that with control groups

The legislators that drafted the voter ID law requested a voter breakdown by race. Based on that breakdown they sought to limit opportunity of access for black voters in at least 5 different ways. Gerrymandering limits the voting power. It does effectively the same thing as limiting opportunity of access. NC blacks are massively more likely to vote democrat. Given the number of proposed changes that overwhelmingly affect african americans, the supreme court agreed that it constituted racial discrimination. But I don't even want to go there. It could be that the intent was not racist, and just fraud. That doesn't change that the resulting changes in the proposed law were discriminatory.

The Gerrymandering thing might have been separate, but the court documents are both from 2016.

Here's a quote from the supreme court document I linked:

In response to claims that intentional racial
discrimination animated its action, the State offered only
meager justifications. Although the new provisions target
African Americans with almost surgical precision, they
constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying
them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist.
Thus the asserted justifications cannot and do not conceal the
State’s true motivation. “In essence,” as in League of United
Latin American Citizens v. Perry (LULAC), 548 U.S. 399, 440
(2006), “the State took away [minority voters’] opportunity
because [they] were about to exercise it.” As in LULAC, “[t]his
bears the mark of intentional discrimination.” I

[wufwugy]

The legislators that drafted the voter ID law requested a voter breakdown by race. Based on that breakdown they sought to limit opportunity of access for black voters in at least 5 different ways. Gerrymandering limits the voting power. It does effectively the same thing as limiting opportunity of access. NC blacks are massively more likely to vote democrat. Given the number of proposed changes that overwhelmingly affect african americans, the supreme court agreed that it constituted racial discrimination. But I don't even want to go there. It could be that the intent was not racist, and just fraud. That doesn't change that the resulting changes in the proposed law were discriminatory.

The Gerrymandering thing might have been separate, but the court documents are both from 2016.

Here's a quote from the supreme court document I linked:

And just think, without "suspect classification", we might be able to think clearly on this, that gerrymandering is wrong yet isn't about racism.

[oskar]

Along these lines, what causes speciation (or just variation within species)? Is it *something something how genes express something something*? Is it fair to say that a population could reproduce in such a way that genes that might have a specific effect lose their "prominence," resulting in that effect no longer remaining?

You clearly know more about this stuff than I do, so you probably have some good answers.

I skipped over this originally because you could just google it, but this is preferable to what we have going on right now. Speciation occurs when two groups can no longer produce fertile offspring. Horses and donkeys can produce offspring, but their offspring cannot reproduce. They are effectively speciated. Unlike horses and donkeys, northern and southern white rhinos look practically identical, but cannot interbreed. Their last common ancestor could go back as far as 1M years.

In the chapter I linked from The Ancestor's Tale, Dawkins uses the example of two common grasshopper species who are identical in appearance, but will not interbreed. They can however interbreed if you pair the female of one species with a particularly hot male of the other species. Literally. You have to heat the male up if you want the female to respond to his mating call. In laboratory conditions these grasshoppers can produce fertile offspring, but since it never happens in the wild, they are considered speciated and will continue to drift apart genetically until they will no longer be able to produce offspring. This is an interesting example because usually speciation requires geographical isolation.

Darwins finches are a great example why you don't need to worry about a brown mono race. There are 13 species of finches spread around various galapagos islands. Through environmental pressures they evolved so dramatically different that they were originally documented as entirely different species and were only later found to be subspecies of finches sharing a common ancestor only a couple million years ago. This common ancestor carried virtually all the genetic information necessary to produce 13 separate subspecies that behave and look dramatically different.

It is a common misconception that mutation is the primary driving force in evolution. Very gradual changes through environmental and sexual selection are much more prominent. Which is why in the mathematical models you quoted, both of those factors have to be eliminated to be able to make meaningful predictions. In the real world those factors will always remain the main driving force.

[oskar]

And just think, without "suspect classification", we might be able to think clearly on this, that gerrymandering is wrong yet isn't about racism.

Racism suggests intent. I prefer to call it discriminatory. Intent doesn't change the effect that it disadvantages black people, which it clearly does.

[wufwugy]

Racism suggests intent. I prefer to call it discriminatory. Intent doesn't change the effect that it disadvantages black people, which it clearly does.

Do you think it is a good idea to view policy through the lens of which groups get which advantages?

[BananaStand]

Do you think it is a good idea to view policy through the lens of which groups get which advantages?

I'm not sure if it actually became a policy or not, but Obama wanted to make it illegal for gov't contractors to do background checks on people being considered for employment.

The justification: There are many people who only committed minor crimes, at young ages, and present no more risk than a person with a clean criminal record. These many people are disproportionately black. Therefore checking people's backgrounds means that less black people get jobs.

Except in real life, what really happens is that hiring managers are forced to rely on group data in the absence of individual data. So you have two candidates for a job. One white, one black. Both equally qualified. But you don't want to hire a criminal, and you know the black guy is X% more likely to have a record than the white guy. In poker terms, it's most +EV to hire the white guy.

That's the fucked up irony of this 'victimized group' game. The solutions actually make the problem worse, or it creates new problems. Either for the same group, or another group. Then the game starts all over again. But this time with a few more supporters, a little more anger, a little less patience, and a little more urgency.

That's the real game...power. Literally no one with a shred of functional intelligence actually cares about achieving equality of outcome across all group identities. The people engaging in this game don't care about equity. They care about power.

[oskar]

Do you think it is a good idea to view policy through the lens of which groups get which advantages?

Yes. But that's a different topic. If if you switch races in the NC incident, you could have heard them screech white genocide from your window. It should have been overturned either way.

[BananaStand]

Why do you think that the NC legislators would want to suppress black votes?

[MadMojoMonkey]

As usual, the hype is not the reality.

Here's an article which tries to dispel some myths about what gerrymandering is and where it is, not to mention the inherent instability over time.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/st...acy-119581?o=0

[oskar]

I think the american voting system is maximally retarded and this wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't. But I didn't make a case against gerrymandering as a whole, in fact I would be content if I never had to use that awful word ever again. I specifically linked a case where the supreme court ruled the voting districts that meticulously outline black neighbourhoods to be unconstitutional.

[oskar]

Why do you think that the NC legislators would want to suppress black votes?

Republican legislators. Blacks vote 80% democrat in NC.
If you actually read the posts you're replying to, you would realized I already answered that multiple times.

[BananaStand]

Republican legislators. Blacks vote 80% democrat in NC.
If you actually read the posts you're replying to, you would realized I already answered that multiple times.

No, you haven't answered the "WHY"

You're saying here that the Republican legislators intentions were to suppress democrat votes. You haven't explained why they would specifically target black democrat votes.

Why not all democrat votes? Or why not all black votes?

[wufwugy]

That's the fucked up irony of this 'victimized group' game. The solutions actually make the problem worse, or it creates new problems. Either for the same group, or another group. Then the game starts all over again. But this time with a few more supporters, a little more anger, a little less patience, and a little more urgency.

The "solutions" make things worse because they're not solutions. The real solutions are taught by economics.

Anti-discrimination policy makes discrimination worse. Free markets dispel discrimination. It's always a joy when somebody is open to hearing why that is.

[wufwugy]

Yes

How come?

[wufwugy]

I think the american voting system is maximally retarded and this wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't. But I didn't make a case against gerrymandering as a whole, in fact I would be content if I never had to use that awful word ever again. .

It really is a dumb word.

Not as awful as portmanteau though. Fuck that word, right in its manteau

[wufwugy]

Kim Jong-un announced no more ballistic missile or nuclear tests starting today.

Did somebody predict that?

[Poopadoop]

Kim Jong-un announced no more ballistic missile or nuclear tests starting today.

Did somebody predict that?

Anyone could have predicted that based on Kim's past behaviour of promising the exact same thing several times in years past.

Words are not deeds.

[BananaStand]

Anyone could have predicted that based on Kim's past behaviour of promising the exact same thing several times in years past.

Words are not deeds.

North Korea has lifted their demand that the US withdraw it's 25,000 troops from South Korea as a precondition to denuclearization talks.

Fuckin deeds

[wufwugy]

Anyone could have predicted that based on Kim's past behaviour of promising the exact same thing several times in years past.

When in the past has NK announced a full stop of nuclear and missile tests?

[Poopadoop]

When in the past has NK announced a full stop of nuclear and missile tests?

Pretty sure they've promised it multiple times, including with Obama.

[oskar]

Kim Jong-un announced no more ballistic missile or nuclear tests starting today.

Did somebody predict that?

Wanna make bets on next year?
The day NK denuclearizes is the day before the last day of the dprk.
Here are my predictions: some american prisoners get released and a handful of families re-united in exchange for relaxation of trade bans and humanitarian aid. Cue new nuclear tests and WW3 rethoric early 2019.

[BananaStand]

Wanna make bets on next year?
The day NK denuclearizes is the day before the last day of the dprk.
Here are my predictions: some american prisoners get released and a handful of families re-united in exchange for relaxation of trade bans and humanitarian aid. Cue new nuclear tests and WW3 rethoric early 2019.

It's definitely gonna be different this time. NK isn't quite "there" yet on being a nuclear threat...but they're closer than ever. Once we cross that line, it's pretty much over. The can has been kicked too many times, and now we're too close to the line for us to accept compromises and platitudes.

Trump is either gonna get this done, or we are going to war with NK now. I honestly see it being 50/50.

[wufwugy]

Wanna make bets on next year?
The day NK denuclearizes is the day before the last day of the dprk.
Here are my predictions: some american prisoners get released and a handful of families re-united in exchange for relaxation of trade bans and humanitarian aid. Cue new nuclear tests and WW3 rethoric early 2019.

I'd rather be on record than to bet: I predict NK denuclearization happening while Trump is president

[wufwugy]

Pretty sure they've promised it multiple times, including with Obama.

I looked it up, and it happened in 2012. Obama and the UN gave NK a bunch of stuff in return for no tests. No wonder that didn't work.

Trump isn't giving NK shit except for a beyond fucked economy and missile hacks (possibly rods from god). That Kim is making unilateral concessions is a good sign.

[wufwugy]

[wufwugy]

Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd is my new favorite Forever Name

[BananaStand]

Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd is my new favorite Forever Name

no way. "Pocahontas" is the GOAT

[wufwugy]

[wufwugy]

[oskar]

I'd rather be on record than to bet: I predict NK denuclearization happening while Trump is president

That's too bad because I'd book that 4 rollz. I have Trump finishing his term at about 50/50 and NK denuclearizing in the next 3 years at about 100:1.

[Poopadoop]

I looked it up, and it happened in 2012. Obama and the UN gave NK a bunch of stuff in return for no tests. No wonder that didn't work.

Trump isn't giving NK shit except for a beyond fucked economy and missile hacks (possibly rods from god). That Kim is making unilateral concessions is a good sign.

Pretty sure their economy was fukced before Trump came along. It's just his luck it's reached a critical mass now. But hey, go ahead and give Trump all the credit if you want. He needs something on his presidential resume besides angry old man tweets and porn star payoffs.

And Kim is making the same promise as before, but this time he means it I guess.

[wufwugy]

Pretty sure their economy was fukced before Trump came along. It's just his luck it's reached a critical mass now. But hey, go ahead and give Trump all the credit if you want. He needs something on his presidential resume besides angry old man tweets and porn star payoffs.

And Kim is making the same promise as before, but this time he means it I guess.

The NK economy has gotten significantly worse because of moves made by Trump. I wouldn't even be talking about NK if Trump was not making those moves.

[oskar]

Dude, their army was eating grass. If anyone did something it was china. There is a fine line between having respect for the man and choking yourself on his balls.

[wufwugy]

Dude, their army was eating grass. If anyone did something it was china. There is a fine line between having respect for the man and choking yourself on his balls.

It's just about paying attention to events.

[oskar]

It's just about paying attention to Trumps tweets.

ftfy

[wufwugy]

ftfy

A few months ago, Poopadoop asked me in good faith what I think the biggest pros of the Trump administration are. My response had a list of 5, with #1 as how he is handling NK. I then detailed the basics of the process from start to finish.

If I am characterized as formulating my views based on some love for Trump, the person characterizing me as such is missing the forest for the trees.

[Poopadoop]

Did Trump cause the drought in NK that forced their army to eat grass, and brought Kim to the negotiating table? Cause if he did that is some serious 3D chess-playing there.

[BananaStand]

Did Trump cause the drought in NK that forced their army to eat grass, and brought Kim to the negotiating table? Cause if he did that is some serious 3D chess-playing there.

Is it just a fantastically miraculously lucky coincidence that this "drought" only occurred within the finite borders of a nuclear armed hostile military power?

Is the South Korean army eating grass?

[OngBonga]

Haven't the Norks been eating grass for decades? Haven't they evolved four stomachs yet?

[MadMojoMonkey]

NK's secret program to breed super-humans unraveled by ong.

GG, NK.

[OngBonga]

I remember thinking as a kid that if I try to fly every day by flapping my arms, I will never succeed, but if I had a kid and told him or her to do the same, and they did, and then they teach their kids to do the same... eventually one of my descendants would evolve to the point of success.

It could happen, I reckon. It'd take thousands of years, perhaps millions. And when it happens, my great great great great (repeat a thousand more times) grandson will soar to the sky like a bird, before falling to his death and in the process rendering the flying human extinct an hour after it emerged as a unique species.

Yes I'm smoking.

[oskar]

From time to time rumors pop up that lamarckian evolution still holds some water, but afaik they've all been debunked. Flapping wouldn't do anything, but selective breeding could get the job done. My favorite Kurt Vonnegut novel toys with a similar idea.
It is about a small group of people who after surviving a mass extinction event evolve to go back into the ocean over a billion years.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Had to be Galapogos.

Isn't that the one where there are only like 2 or 3 of each, men and women, left alive, and all the women despise the only male of reproductive capacity?
So one of the women has to sleep with him, and then artificially inseminate the others with her finger?
(The wiki page conveniently leaves this part out, and I read the book as a teenager, so maybe I made that up.)


It's no Blueberad, IMO. I have a soft spot in my heart for a character who struggles to appreciate that his mind is trapped in a body. It still makes me smile to recall the final sentence of the book was that character uttering, "Thank you, meat." as an expression of self-appreciation.
I think it was Bluebeard which has a character whom is an artist, but whom finds no real meaning in non-random paint applied to canvas and struggles to find actual, deep meaning in random paint splotches. I thought it was cool to deconstruct the painting as process and not result and that the mundane process of recreating something that already exists is boring and bears no depth. Whereas to truly create something new is in the act of creation, and the artist must liberate from known structures in order to approach anything of deep meaning.

Maybe I'm inventing half of that. I read the book ~30 years ago. My memory on this kind of thing is well-known to be pretty shoddy.

EDIT: reminds me of Jasper Johns
Keepin' it MAGA.

[oskar]

I don't think they despise him. He's just old and it's awkward. Been a while since I read it tho.

[wufwugy]

Did Trump cause the drought in NK that forced their army to eat grass, and brought Kim to the negotiating table? Cause if he did that is some serious 3D chess-playing there.

I was watching it very closely. I was preparing to write a paper on it for my game theory class. I remember thinking that if Trump's strategy regarding Kim and Xi worked, it would be really hard for people to not acknowledge it. But then I was like nah haters always find a way.

[oskar]

[wufwugy]

i lold

[OngBonga]

From time to time rumors pop up that lamarckian evolution still holds some water, but afaik they've all been debunked. Flapping wouldn't do anything, but selective breeding could get the job done. My favorite Kurt Vonnegut novel toys with a similar idea.
It is about a small group of people who after surviving a mass extinction event evolve to go back into the ocean over a billion years.

There's those people off the coast of Borneo who live on the sea, they have adapted to their environment very nicely. The one famous dude dives and hunts on the sea floor like it's land, holding his breath for four minutes plus and diving at a depth where the pressure reduces the volume of the air in his lungs to a third. Their eyes have adapted too, they can see better underwater. Are these the kind of adaptations any of us could make given time? Perhaps, I have no idea tbh.

[MadMojoMonkey]

It only takes a few generations to induce noticeable change, if the pressure to adapt is strong enough.

Grow something in a garden. Arbitrarily choose some trait which varies across your first crop and selectively breed for that trait. The first generation will be statistically affected, but perhaps not obvious to you if the trait you've chosen is a recessive one. Even with recessive genes, after 3 generations of this kind of aggressive selection process, the plants will have obviously changed in favor of your selection. It may be a subtle change, but it will be widespread, and statistically obvious.

The problem with the situation you describe is that no aggressive selection process is in place. It'd only work if that tiny number of guys who can hold their breath for a long time were the only guys allowed to breed in that society, and only with the women who could hold their breath the longest. This would have to go on for a few generations, so something like 50 - 100 years.

The problem is that humans are mostly offended by this kind of eugenics being imposed on them by other humans. Also, humans are generally willing to alter the environment rather than not breed. So the guy who invents SCUBA gear may not be able to hold his breath for very long, but can effectively work as though he could for even longer than Mr. Blueface.

[oskar]

Another famous example would be the japanese ama divers. Humans are surprisingly good underwater. 4 min. should be attainable for most people - just staying underwater, not exerting yourself ldo. There are reports about apnoe divers "slowing down their heartbeat" and they make it sound like a superhuman power. Everyone's heartbeat slows down once you go underwater for more than a couple of seconds. I'm sure you can train to stay more relaxed, but it's nothing magical.

[OngBonga]

It'd only work if that tiny number of guys who can hold their breath for a long time were the only guys allowed to breed in that society, and only with the women who could hold their breath the longest. This would have to go on for a few generations, so something like 50 - 100 years.

I don't think this is far from the truth. They literally live on the sea, and have done for many generations, so they are all very much at home in the water. The children have little to do other than play in the water so they are expert swimmers by the time they are adults, by which time they need to be hunting and fishing because they need food and diesel to maintain their survival.

[OngBonga]

Another famous example would be the japanese ama divers. Humans are surprisingly good underwater. 4 min. should be attainable for most people - just staying underwater, not exerting yourself ldo. There are reports about apnoe divers "slowing down their heartbeat" and they make it sound like a superhuman power. Everyone's heartbeat slows down once you go underwater for more than a couple of seconds. I'm sure you can train to stay more relaxed, but it's nothing magical.

Do you suppose your eyes would become adapted like theirs if you were adopted by these people at birth?

[oskar]

I don't doubt that there's some adaption happening. Freediving has a significant mortality rate that would play into this, but it's also worth mentioning that the world record holders come from all over the world and the numbers are way beyond what anyone would guess if they never heard of it: 13+ min underwater, 24 min with pure oxygen, beyond 200m depth, 300m distance. For an animal that is so clearly adapted for long distance running we are surprisingly good underwater and it might explain why so many people work towards becoming such efficient floating devices during their lifetime. (this is a fat joke)

[MadMojoMonkey]

I don't think this is far from the truth. They literally live on the sea, and have done for many generations, so they are all very much at home in the water. The children have little to do other than play in the water so they are expert swimmers by the time they are adults, by which time they need to be hunting and fishing because they need food and diesel to maintain their survival.

There has to be an external pressure which affects reproductive fitness for it to matter.
Genetic drift doesn't happen in an organism's lifetime, it happens during insemination of an ova. Mostly due to the meiosis of parent cells halving the amount of genetic information coming from each parent in a somewhat randomized way.

There's also genetic mutation, but this plays almost no role in evolution, at least not on time scales of a few generations. Asexual reproducers are not likely to be much different from their ancestors on time scales of hundreds of thousands of years. Even for sexual reproducers, the variation from generation to generation and between children of the same parents has very little to do with genetic mutations.

I.e. unless children whom are poor swimmers die before reproducing, this has no bearing. Living in water doesn't make you get better at holding your breath over time, but holding your breath every day for extended periods of time could result in physical conditioning (which would not be passed on to offspring) which makes you better at holding your breath for longer.

You can't ensure you will have kids with big muscles because you work out a lot. However, if your body is excellent at giving you chemical rewards for working your muscles, then that's maybe something genetic that will be passed on to your kids... whether or not you work out yourself or have a ripped 6-pack.

[wufwugy]

Excellent breakdown of the big news of the week. Kanye related

[oskar]

what the fuck is going on in the background
yard sale explosion?

[OngBonga]

Friday 13th July, Trump is coming to the UK. Twitter is already in meltdown with morons saying "not welcome in my country", like they are some fucking authority on who is and isn't welcome. It's my country too, and I say he's welcome. Check fucking mate, dickheads.

Noone gave a flying fuck when Mohammed bin Salman was here recently. Absolute fucking morons.

[OngBonga]

I'm gonna get a MAGA hat for protest day.

[wufwugy]

Friday 13th July, Trump is coming to the UK. Twitter is already in meltdown with morons saying "not welcome in my country", like they are some fucking authority on who is and isn't welcome. It's my country too, and I say he's welcome. Check fucking mate, dickheads.

Noone gave a flying fuck when Mohammed bin Salman was here recently. Absolute fucking morons.

It's all virtue signalling. Weak people think they look strong when they hate the popular thing to hate.

[OngBonga]

Shame these virtue signallers are guided by popularity, rather than morality. If all these morons who turn out to protest Trump instead protested identity politics, then perhaps it would send a message to those in power that they are losing.

However, this just empowers them further.

[oskar]

12 dimensional chess or old man yelling at clouds? Impossible to tell.

“Well, if I can. The problem is that it’s such a—if you take a look, they’re so conflicted, the people that are doing the investigation. You have 13 people that are Democrats, you have Hillary Clinton people, you have people that worked on Hillary Clinton’s foundation. They’re all—I don’t mean Democrats. I mean, like, the real deal. And then you look at the phony Lisa Page and [Peter] Strzok and the memos back and forth and the F.B.I.—and by the way, you take a poll at the F.B.I. I love the F.B.I.; the F.B.I. loves me. But the top people at the F.B.I., headed by Comey, were crooked.”

[oskar]

And obviously I'm not siding with anyone who wants to block Trump from entering the UK. That's retarded. If the circus comes to down, you don't block the gates.

[Poopadoop]

12 dimensional chess or old man yelling at clouds? Impossible to tell.

The best part was the look on the faces of the hosts. They went from 'yay it's the president!' to 'omfg this is embarrassing' in about 30 seconds, then stayed that way for the next 30 mins.

Second best part was when they kicked him off. 'oh well, you must be very busy sir.' him: 'no it's ok i'll keep talking.' them: 'goodbye mr. president.'

[oskar]

I haven't watched the whole thing yet. I probably should.

Wuf. I know you're going to watch it. Just as a goof: Could you timestamp me a bit where you thought the president sounded coherent.

[wufwugy]

I haven't watched the whole thing yet. I probably should.

Wuf. I know you're going to watch it. Just as a goof: Could you timestamp me a bit where you thought the president sounded coherent.

That would be tough for me to do since I don't like listening to his conversational style and because he always jumps from pseudo-non-sequitur to pseudo-non-sequitur.

If the claim "he's incoherent" derives from the observation "he clucks like a hen" then it's a good observation. If the same claim derives from the statement "I can't understand him," I'd say the claim is user error.

[wufwugy]

[Poopadoop]

If the claim "he's incoherent" derives from the observation "he clucks like a hen" then it's a good observation.

No-one says that afaik.

If the same claim derives from the statement "I can't understand him,"

It's not that he slurs his words. You can understand individual words and phrases. It's that there's no clear train of thought behind his words and phrases, and that much of it is apropos of nothing. E.g., he spoke (again) about the electoral college and how he wasn't supposed to win the election. First, no-one asked him about that. Second, the election was 18 months ago ffs, there's more important things going on today.

he always jumps from pseudo-non-sequitur to pseudo-non-sequitur.

Pretty much nails it.

[BananaStand]

It's not that he slurs his words. You can understand individual words and phrases. It's that there's no clear train of thought behind his words and phrases, and that much of it is apropos of nothing. E.g., he spoke (again) about the electoral college and how he wasn't supposed to win the election. First, no-one asked him about that. Second, the election was 18 months ago ffs, there's more important things going on today.

Why does this bother you so much?

[OngBonga]

there's more important things going on today.

Yeah, I noticed. Did you see the news about Korea?

[Poopadoop]

Yeah, I noticed. Did you see the news about Korea?

The news that they're going to talk? I guess that counts as progress of sorts.

Actions speak louder than words though. They've talked before.

[Poopadoop]

Really though I don't think NK and SK meeting is all that big a deal, even if it leads to NK coming back into the fold. First, NK was never a serious threat to anyone except its own citizens. And ya ya, I know, they could have had nukes, but so what? Unless they're bent on self-destruction they're not going to use them. The whole MAD principle still applies: if you use nukes you have to destroy every possible nuke site anyone else could use on you or you will just get yourself nuked just as bad. How do you win that kind of war? Maybe someone thinks that's a trade worth having, but no-one's tried it yet.

Second, while I'm happy if NK and SK stop arguing I don't think it is a monumental world event. Get India and Pakistan (who both have nukes, but which doesn't seem to bother the US) to stop arguing or Israel (with nukes) and 10 of its closest neighbors to stop arguing and you've really accomplished something. That the media plays up NK/SK as an important place in terms of world peace just shows how little is going on in the other danger zones.

Third, even if this goes through to a happy ending, there's no reason to think the US had a lot to do with it. China is by far NK's biggest trading partner, and if anyone put the screws on Kim it was them. Frankly I wouldn't be impressed by any president who happened to be in power when NK came back into the fold (if that's what they're really doing, again, hasn't happened yet), despite that Americans seem to think the US runs the world and everything that happens is down to the US and its president. If it were Obama or Hillary in power when detente were reached (if and when it is) between NK and SK I'd still not give them the credit, or really give a shit at all, apart from being happy for Koreans I guess.

[wufwugy]

Trump put the screws on China. That's why China has changed course. On this forum, I predicted this in clear terms before it happened, detailed it while it was happening, and encapsulated it after it entered a more full effect.