Total posts: 8,696
The ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN
I've never seen an abominable snowman,
I'm hoping not to see one,
I'm also hoping, if I do,
That it will be a wee one.
-Ogden Nash
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@FLRW
are you saying all conspiracy theorists have a physically detectable impairment- that x-rays or CT scans can show who is being a conspiracy theorist and who is not?
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@Imabench
According to G. Elliot Morris, if we ran every election since 1980 using proportional electoral vote distribution, all the races would be perceived as much closer but the only outcome that would have flipped would be Trump/Clinton 2016
If you also assign proportional electoral votes to third party candidates, then only Reagan '84 and Obama '08 win 270 outright, meaning Congress would have likely flipped Carter '80, Dukakis '88, Dole '98, Kerry '04, Romney '12,
Not sure about Trump '20. Would proportional third party allocation prevent 270?
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@n8nrgmi
My research suggests that the original piece was submitted to a political blog called "Crooks and LIars" in July 2004 and was popularized by Thom Hartmann who read it a couple of times on his radio show and other broadcasts.
The original author seems to be John Gray ( [email protected]) who almost never gets credit for it. The original title was "A Day in the Life of Joe Middle Class Republican" and I think the original text is fairly preserved here: http://tvnewslies.org/tvnl/index.php/editorial/guest-commentary/21099-day-in-the-life-of-joe-middle-class-republican.html
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@Discipulus_Didicit
--> @oromagiWait, has this actually caused people to stop believing all the "Q level top super spy secret" nonsense? I would have expected them to just claim that Ron is lying as part of the coverup.
I've never met a true believer who really stopped believing anything and I'm sure there is some core membership that will mutate and persist if only for fellowship. The new Russian security/domainname ought to cut deep into the old Q's reputation but perhaps somebody can recreate a new version of 8kun with a new version of Q. Q's access becomes a lot harder to pretend in a Biden administration. So not the end of believing, no, not in the short term anyway but the steady increase in believers that has surged pre-election is a tide we might hope has turned.
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@Trent0405
@oromagi😱😱😱Woah, be careful Oro, Moloch isn't going to be very happy with you after this post...
Bring him on. Moloch's had his due this year and if he wants some more I'd be happy to incorporate him into a nice seasonal cranberry gelee for his troubles.
From Alan Ginsberg's "Howl" I once briefly shared a jail cell with Ginsberg, btw.
II
What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination?
Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks!
Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men!
Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments!
Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!
Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities!
Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind!
Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch!
Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky!
Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible madhouses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs!
They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us!
Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river!
Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!
Breakthroughs! over the river! flips and crucifixions! gone down the flood! Highs! Epiphanies! Despairs! Ten years’ animal screams and suicides! Minds! New loves! Mad generation! down on the rocks of Time!
Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!
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@MisterChris
@oromagi
The conspiracy theories adopted by the far-right are definitely concerning.
I'd be less concerned if it was just the far right. 12 2020 Congressional races featured some explicit QAnon advocacy and 2 QAnon candidates won their races including the ridiculous Lauren Boebert here in Colorado. The last Pew poll (early September) found that roughly four-in-ten Republicans who have heard of QAnon (41%) say it is a good thing for the country (32% somewhat good and 9% very good). Or put another way, 82% of Republicans who have heard of QAnon, don't have a problem with QAnon. That's mainstream. QAnon polls better with Republicans than supply side economics, the core Republican economic tenant. Republicans trusted Q only a little less than they trusted Fox News.
They need to be discredited, but they should not be deplatformed. Ironically, I think the issue is propagated further by such behavior (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter targeting Alex Jones and others for example). While I understand the intention is to take down harmful conspiracy theories before they become an issue, it ends up backfiring. When you have a group of very paranoid people convinced that there is some sort of elitist conspiracy, the worst way to take down that conspiracy is to try and silence/deplatform them. People see it is a confirmation of their worldview: that there is something the elites are hiding. "Why else would Alex Jones be kicked off platforms? Clearly the media is mad at him because he is telling the truth!"
I'd agree in theory except the practice seems to be proving the theory wrong. In 2012, The Alex Jones show pulled better ratings than Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck combined and Jones was claiming about $20 mil/yr, mostly in supplement sales. Since the big wave of social media bans in 2018, Jones' listenership is estimated to be down about 90% and Jones whole net worth is now under $5 mil. Even conspiracy theorists online seem to want to distinguish themselves as something more substantial than Jones these days. Likewise, our case in point- the collapse of QAnon came less than three weeks after YouTube bans and 3 months after Twitter bans. Perhaps some judicious gatekeeping can prove more effective than theory supposed.
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@Utanity
peoples who worship the true god they dont push homes off the roofs and make women walk behind.
No True Scotsman
The bible doesnt say death to all the infidels
This is false. The Bible calls for the death of infidels frequently.
Deuteronomy 13:
If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth;
Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him:
But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.
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@Utanity
Yes but when you see mens throwing other mens off the roof and womens walking behind their mens then it is too late. Then you will starting to care.
There's nothing inherent to outbreeding Muslims that prevents religious extremism. Nor is it ever wise to counter one extremism with another. Women's suffrage improves both homophobia and female subjugation without any religious resort of any kind.
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On the day of election, the conspiracy manufacturing project known as QAnon seems to have come to sharp end with the firing/quitting of 8chan/8kun's lone admin and now self-confessed son of Q, Ron Watkins. Watkins outed his father Jim as Q finishing his sign-off tweet with "fuck you, dad." That is, the one person best able to confirm that the person most suspected of being Q was actually Q finally confirmed the suspicions of many investigators on Nov 3rd. Q has been silent since and 8kun abandoned.
So we can now say with fair confidence that Q was not a highly placed Trump official with Q clearance rating but was in fact an amalgam of people including Coleman Rogers before The El Paso Walmart shooting and probably mostly just Jim Watkins after Q returned on 8chan/8kun. Watkins was an US Army Helicopter mechanic who made millions in the 90's by circumventing Asian porn restrictions on American hosts. Watkins has retained ownership of a large number of pedophile sites linked domain names, some for 30 years though he denies charges of child pornography or any profit by those domain names. Also, Watkins seem have been hosting the main QAnon merch site in spite of claims of non-affiliation as well as the server running the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer in spite of claims of non-affiliation. Since early October, Russian cybersecurity has taken over security for these sites running on the old .su (Soviet Union) domain. Watkins in now in the US resisting Filipino extradition and speaking at Republican gatherings.
A month ago, 37% of Trump supporters found truth in QAnon's assertions that Trump was elected as a "savior figure" to root out a secret Satanic child-sex trafficking ring run by Democratic politicians and now the sole source for that claim turns out to be a rogue white supremacist pedopeddler who's theories have been self-servingly re-tweeted by the outbound President of the United States more than 250 times.
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@Utanity
The true christians must not let this happen so what can we do to stop this being happening more.
Here in America we prefer that people make no law respecting the establishment of religion. Officially, we just don't care much how many believe what in public policy terms.
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I haven't been around in a couple of weeks so I am mostly inferring the drama. Still I was hoping for a reply.
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@MisterChris
I just composed a long post addressed to him only to discover he's gone.
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naturally, he gets banned in the time it took to compose my post.
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@MgtowDemon
The school-taught U.S. slavery oppression narrative is riddled with flaws, and in this OP I will address some of them. Firstly, I'd like to say that I don't condone slavery and I actively will speak out against it. However, in regards to the slavery conditions of the United States, slaves were treated quite well, relative to the bogus official narrative peddled in U.S. schools.
Your thesis promises to contrast your research against the bogus official narrative peddled in US Schools but you never provide any examples of the narrative taught in US Schools. When I google about how slavery gets taught in US Schools, the consensus seems to be that slavery gets glossed over (I certainly feel that way looking back on my fairly good US public school education). So- I expect I'd probably argue the point if I knew what narrative you claim is wrong.
Certainly, we Americans all fundamentally agree that all people are born with the equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and that none of these are rights are properly respected by slavery. We should agree that all slaves had it at least as bad as the Northern merchants and Southern slavers who found their fortunes so unacceptable that they risked a war against the srongest nation in the world to secure better liberties for themselves, when we might argue by the same cliometric measurements used by Fogel and Engerman that the thirteen colonies were at the time about as prosperous and happy a colony as any in history. And yet we rebelled because we could not stand to live without more autonomy.
It seems to me that any American worthy of the name understands that no slave is treated well- the fact of slavery itself precludes any sense of well-being in the hearts of Americans. "Give me liberty or give me death" we Americans like to say or put another way- who cares whether any slave was less abused than we might suppose- we'd rather die than be a slave. That means you are imposing a fate worse than death by force upon my right to freedom. Any claim to good treatment of any kind is false- a tale spun to comfort the descendants of slavers with no meaning at all to the descendants of slaves.
I'm not surprised that slaves were healthier than their masters. They had access to the freshest food. Many were restricted to mostly vegetarian diets. They weren't addicted to smoke and drink the way their masters were. They weren't allowed to sleep around so a lot less venereal disease. They weren't allowed to leave the property so they weren't picking up the flu in town. And so forth. I suppose an enforced healthiness is a sort of benefit but what are the psychological costs of a life deprived of pleasure? and its not as if the motives of the slavemasters weren't entirely corrupt. A pimp might beneficially slap a Big Mac out his hookers hand but he doesn't get any points for it because he' thinking fiscally not benevolently.
In the 1870 census, African American slaves had a literacy rate of over 20%
There were no slaves in 1870 so this is false. In the latter days of slavery, when cheap newspapers became commonplace enough to foment rebellion, black literacy was illegal in half the South and no black could do any job that required reading or writing in most Southern States. By 1860, better than 10% of African-Americans were free and literacy was an essential skill for employment in the North. I'd estimate that slave literacy was no better than 10% at the end and most of that came from cities, not plantation slaves. Few if any outdoor slaves were likely ever literate.
The claim that Africans were "whipped" if they didn't learn English, flies in the face of logic: why would you buy a slave to abuse and whip him/her? Similar to how well we treat cows, despite owning them, whipping your cow/slave would cause injury and thus stymie his/her ability to produce milk/work for you. Also, data on the brutality of slave owners to slaves is very hard to find (perhaps because it doesn't exist).
That is, the data doesn't exist.....not that slave owner brutality didn't exist because it certainly did. Let's take George Washington, for example. By most historical accounts, Washington was a merciful master who treated his slaves much better than average. He wrote some on the subject in letters and accounts and criticized an overseer in his employ for beating a slave named Charlotte who was good enough to have not required a whipping in 14 years. So, 14 years was considered a very long time to go without whipping. We can then estimate that a female slave whipped three of four times in her life was a much better than average rate of incident. There are several reports in history of Washington losing his temper with a slave in public. If Washington was unsatisfied with the condition of his boots in the morning, he apparently made a point of slapping his valet with as little emotion as possible. If a good and generous master like Washington felt free to slap a slave for shoddy work, then I think we must generally assume that some physical and sexual abuse was part and parcel of the lives of most slaves.
it's true that slaves were expected to perform, but that doesn't mean they were whipped and worked hard. A study in 2015 by Trevor Logan found that his children were able to pick cotton at 95% the rate of the average, same-age slave *child* https://i.imgur.com/xnAtnnS.png . Add to this the fact that the average free farmer worked 3,130 hours a year, whilst the average black slave worked 2,798 (Fogel and Engerman, 1977). Thus, slaves worked fewer hours than White free farmers and weren't worked particularly hard.
Well Fogel and Engerman would be the first to point out that these efficiencies were forced by whip and chain. Yes, gangs of thirty men under an overseer can plant and sow and harvest with far more efficiency than a single Northern farmer, probably smoking and drinking as he works. Still, working 55 hours a week in a field in exchange for nothing and the promise of nothing for the whole of your life seem like pretty shit hard work to me.
Can you give a couple of examples where US Schools teach it wrong?
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@crossed
How can a unvvaccinated person give a vaccinated person a disease if they are immune?
I don't think the question follows my concern but yes, with any disease vaccinated people can be carriers. If 50% of Americans don't get a vaccine the main source of infection will be other vaccine deniers.
No vaccine is 100% effective. Pfizer is claiming their covid vaccine will be 90% effective, Moderna is claiming 94.5 effective.
A vaccine gives the immune system antibodies for the disease but some disease can last for a long time in and on the human body without infecting the host. Covid can last for many hours on human skin, saliva, etc.
We don't know how long immunity lasts but we have definitely documented cases of people getting infected again after 4 months. Even if the average immunity is a year we'll likely a lot of transmission at the margins if we haven't achieved herd immunity.
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@fauxlaw
This is the core subject of the excellent Hugo and Nebula winning Mars trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. The children of the first generation of Martian immigrants become increasingly hostile to further massive transforming and immigration which becomes increasingly necessary to humans fleeing an increasingly less inhabitable Earth. The war that breaks out to resolve the issue is so destructive that the question of preservation becomes moot.
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@Athias
I don't accept that well established sources of fake news must always be lent credence until disproved. To my mind, that's the guy who forgives his girlfriend multiple infidelities in the hopes she may one day fall in love or the wife who forgives her husband's abuse for the sake of the marriage. No. I
Such is the case with Dr Ayyadurai- he's just one of these guys that is constantly in the news for bullshit. Whether its
- Getting fired by MIT in 2000 for falsely claiming that he invented email at the age of 14 in 1978 (email was invented in 1971) or
- publishing false claims in 2009 that GMO soybeans cause cancer based on mathematical modeling or
- falsely claiming in 2020 that vitamin C cures COVID-19 and accusing Anthony Faucci of being a deep state operative
- (Ayyadurai campaigned heavily for an appointment to the coronavirus task force and was highly recommended to Trump by insiders)
Just the fact that he was fired by MIT many years ago and tricks people into publish his YouTube vids as "MIT analysis" should be enough to dismiss this guy. He's quite similar to Trump to the extent that he's always in the news for making outrageous claims or twice running for Senate in MA or celebrity marriages or filing million dollar libel suits against newspapers who disprove him. This is not a scientist, this is a reality show personality.
I don't care what Dr Ayyadurai has to say on any subject, he has demonstrated that his motivations are corrupt and self-serving. If Dr. Ayyadurai is your only source of evidence, then I see little value in investigating further, as far as I'm concerned you have no evidence to back your claim.
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@Athias
Why? What does that have to do with your ad hominem?
Because then you would be guilty of attacking the source and not addressing the information
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@Athias
Well stated again. There's a lot of attacking the source, not the information. Discrediting the source does not discredit the information. There's also a bit of appeals to incredulity being imputed in these responses here, i.e. "Do we really think MIT is analyzing data that hasn't been published yet?" That which we "really think" is irrelevant. Dr. Shiva and a small team of election investigators conducted an an analysis of all voting data in the State's four largest counties. The information of this analysis is either verifiable or not. It is either correct or it is not. Mentions of "conspiracy theorists" and previous reports do nothing more than distract from the aforementioned.
So be sure to address post #10 and post #14 where Dusty & I explained why Dr Ayyadurai's claims were bullshit
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Congress isn't willing to cough up the money for a Moon shot, let alone a Mars shot.
The next US manned orbit around the Moon is Artemis II, scheduled for August 2023. The next manned lunar landing is Artemis III scheduled for Oct 2024. It is still quite possible these may still be delayed or cancelled but these have been a major NASA project underway since 2010 and its been a big international effort so cancelling would be a major diplomatic headache. NASA has 6 additional planned after 2024 but the schedule and funding for these is much much sketchier than Artemis III.
But I would say that at least one more moonshot in the near term is pretty likely with a fair amount of cash and effort already invested/
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@fauxlaw
We have already made multiple Mars expeditions so I assume you mean a manned, landing on Mars. The next cheapest/quickest window is 2036-37 which I think is possible but there are multiple tech obstacles to overcome first which means big spending now- not likely. China may be more likely to make a try than US.
If space tourism includes short trips in low Earth orbit than we already have that tech and a number of private interests of which SpaceX has demonstrated real capability.
So, yes. Almost certainly space tourism first.
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All this anti-science denialism really makes wonder and worry about the future of the US as a continuing enterprise.
Let's assume that present rates of lockdown, mask wearing, and infection rate continue-
- we'll probably peak at the end of February with 500-600,000 dead and perhaps 400-500,000 new daily infections
- By the end of June, when vaccines will probably become widely available, we might be looking at 700-800,000 dead with some 30 - 40 million Americans having been infected
- Let's further assume that present research bears out and it becomes widely accepted that the average covid infection knocks 10-13 off the average American's lifespan.
- Present polling suggests that only 51% of Americans consider themselves likely or very likely to get the vaccine and we will probably need a 95% vaccination rate to stop the disease's progress.
- What do we do? Most other nations have nothing like US vaccine denialism. Asian countries will likely implement mandatory vaccination and achieve herd immunity by the Fall of '21. Europe & the Americas will probably be slower but let's say they get immunity by the end of the year.
- How do we compete with immune nations? At the very least, US citizens won't be able to travel abroad and nobody will want to visit the US. How do we maintain productivity under continuing strings of lockdowns and closures and failures while the rest of world rebound?
- Do we force the anti-vaxxers to take their medicine? Do we just gently let the anti-vaxxers slip the US into a 3rd or fourth place economy with the dramatic declines in soft power that accompany such permissiveness? How do maintain competitiveness in the future as our life expectancy drops below Rwanda's or Pakistan's?
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@3RU7AL
All I know is that a horde of rabid Trumpists are out for blood and the American election system has no redundant integrity checks.
Well the Trumpists are out for blood but it is quite false that the American system has no redundant integrity checks. Let's note that it also Trumpists who were largely in charge of election security this time around. Trump's administration has already declared this election the most secure in US history, largely because there was so much concern about foreign interference, in spite of Trump's claim to the contrary. It's like a fire department quickly and safely extinguishing a house fire in spite of the Fire Marshall's constantly running 5 gallon cans of gasoline into the house while tweeting out that the rafters are aflame.
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@Danielle
I generally think the whole of economic thinking/modeling is fucked. Why would anybody value GDP increases if those increases aren't reflected in personal income gains? Why should any nation value economic expansion over long term sustainability? Why should the price of gold be more essential to human prosperity than the well-being and education of our children? Are we really here on this planet to hoard gold or are we here to improve the prospects of the species?
Did you follow Moody's election forecast?
+2.9% 2030 annual GDP if Dems swept vs.
+2.6% 2030 annual GDP if Reps kept power
+7.4 million jobs under BIden admin than Trump admin
I find it interesting that people who definitely voted for Trump for reasons of personal gain nevertheless anticipated real deficits for the nation as a whole if Trump won.
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@3RU7AL
@CastinI don't think it's an ad hominem attack to ask "Is this a credible source of information?" That is a necessary question in the detection of misinformation and propaganda. Step one should be consider the source, step two should be consider the content.The idea of "consider the source" is 100% "to the person" and not "to the claim".This is the very definition of "ad hominem attack".Please present your personally preferred definition of "ad hominem attack".
Think of it this way-
the counterargument is not "3RU7AL is a liar and his argument therefore disproved"
the counterargument is "3RU7AL's claim lacks any credible evidence in support"
If you used The Onion as a source, would it be an ad-hom on The Onion to say that The Onion is a satirical periodical?
If you used a 4 year old as a source, would it be an ad-hom on the child to say that children are not credible?
We're not arguing with the Dr. Ayyadurai here, we are arguing against your use of such a notoriously bogus source.
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@3RU7AL
@oromagiAntrim County reports 19,836 active voters as of October 2020 - - [**]
Why go with active voter numbers before the election? The count is in
16,044 people voted in Antrim County on Nov 3
In 2016 in Antrim County, Trump got about 62% support, beating Democrat Hillary Clinton by about 4,000 votes. - - [**]
and in 2020 in Antrim County, Trump got about 61% support beating Biden by 3,788. Very,very similar to 2016.
Political observers had expressed shock early Wednesday when the county transferred numbers to the state showing Biden beating Trump by about 3,000 votes.
In your OP, you said the county reported 6000 Trump votes for Biden. Which is it?
So, it appears that the vote count in Antrim County did not go 100% for Trump.
Obviously not, in spite of your previous claim.
If Biden was ahead by 3,000 and 6,000 Biden votes were switched back to Trump, that leaves Trump with a lead of about 3,000.
So now you are admitting that the county corrected the reporting error. Of course, the county has retained all the signed paper ballots so there never was a time when Biden was actually ahead.
This gives Trump with a much narrower lead than the tally in 2016 when Trump reportedly won by 8,500 votes.
You just said above that Trump won by 4000 which was accurate
8,469 for Trump vs 4,448 for Clinton
- So, we've established that the vote in Antrim County looks almost exactly the same as 4 years
- You've admitted that the County quickly corrected a brief reporting error
- ALL the Republicans who run that county say the election was clean and they have the ballots to prove it.
- Where is the conspiracy? Where are these stolen votes that you are trying to claim?
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@3RU7AL
->@oromagiSo in the parable of the boy who cried wolf you would accuse the villagers of making ad hom attacks against the boy if they ignored his persistent cries of "wolf" even after the boy was regularly proved to be trolling.This is a perfect example.The entire point of that story is to highlight exactly why it's so important to evaluate EACH INDIVIDUAL CLAIM ON ITS OWN MERIT.If you remember the parable, the villagers were eaten by the wolf at the end because they ignored valid warnings.
False, the boy's sheep are eaten by the wolf not the villagers. Let's recall Aesop's moral
this shows how liars are rewarded: even if they tell the truth, no one believes them
Nobody has the time to check the many false claims of persistent liars. After many highly publicized claims are proved to be false, the claimant is necessarily dismissed as a source of accurate data. Even if that persistent liar is now telling the truth, some other source needs to forward the claim because this claimant is no longer credible, the fault for non-belief resting entirely on the persistent liar. That's not ad hom, that's just how trustworthiness works.
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@dustryder
Here's a good breakdown showing that the graph is designed to slope down at a 45 degree because the Y axis subtracts the X access from its total.
Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai & The Danger Of Data Charlatans
Election Fraud in Michigan? Nope: just how lines work
"The main thing to understand here is that you’d always expect the negatively sloping line that he describes as “suspicious”, by definition. Think about what he’s plotting. On the X-axis is the % of straight-ticket Republican voters. On the Y-axis is the % of split-ticket Trump voters MINUS the % of straight-ticket Republican voters.
If we were to draw the equation for that line, it’d be:
Y = -X + %split tickets that voted Trump
Where the X-axis is % straight-ticket Republican votes, and the % of split-ticket Trump votes is some random variable. I’m representing the quantity Ayyadurai plots in his video: (the % of split-ticket Trump voters MINUS the % of straight-ticket Republican voters)
If you remember your formulas for lines, you’ll know that this is by construction a negatively sloping line that will slope down 1:1, at 45-degrees. Regardless of the actual split-ticket vote data and how it’s distributed, the quantity Ayyadurai’s plotting is rigged to look like a negatively sloping line from the outset.
And if a dude is artificially constructing a negatively sloped line in front of your eyes and telling you that this “beautiful, too-perfect line!” is evidence of election fraud, you should run the other way. Because he’s trying to take advantage of your good intentions."
So, yeah, in precincts where more than 20% of Republicans voted straight ticket, fewer Republicans who split their ticket favored Trump than Biden. That's not a perfect algorithm demonstrating fraud, its just showing that the main reason that Republicans split their tickets was to vote against Trump- hardly surprising.
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@3RU7AL
Any data presented with the aim to discredit the PERSON (while ignoring the substance of their specific CLAIM) is, quite technically, the very definition of an AD HOMINEM ATTACK.
So in the parable of the boy who cried wolf you would accuse the villagers of making ad hom attacks against the boy if they ignored his persistent cries of "wolf" even after the boy was regularly proved to be trolling.
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@3RU7AL
When the Antrim County Elections Commissioner in Michigan announced that a "tabulating software glitch" had counted 6,000 Trump votes for Biden amidst a flurry of other statistical anomalies in Michigan and other swing states, observers began to speculate that that the "glitch" was actually a feature of this Dominion Voting Systems software being used in 47 additional Michigan counties.
- Let's note that Antrim County is deeply Republican. All of the elected officials being accused of fraud here are Republicans.
- Here is Antrim's published vote count. Note that the county reports that 5,960 people voted for Biden.
- If 6000 votes had actually switched from Trump to Biden, then the claim is that 100% of all the residents of that county voted for Trump. I've only done a little research but if any American county has ever delivered 100% for one party I can't find it, the margin of victory Republicans are claiming here is an unprecedented event in US history.
Did a software glitch cause thousands of Republican votes to be marked for Democrats in Michigan? A human error resulted in a temporary miscalculation in Antrim County, Michigan, but this issue was quickly remedied.
One of the most prevalent voter fraud claims to emerge in the days following the election was the accusation that a computer glitch in a software program from Dominion Voting Systems had mistakenly counted thousands of votes for President Trump as votes for President Biden. This claim was based on a half-truth: a tabulation error did occur in Antrim County, but the problem was a result of a human error, and the mistake was quickly caught and corrected.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson disputed claims of deliberate election fraud in a statement:
In response to the false claims made by Republican National Committee chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, the Michigan Department of State issues the following statements of fact:
- Michigan’s elections were conducted fairly, effectively and transparently and are an accurate reflection of the will of Michigan voters.
- Like many counties in Michigan, Antrim County uses the Dominion Voting Systems election management system and voting machines (ballot tabulators.) The county receives programming support from Election Source. Tabulators are programmed to scan hand marked, paper ballots. When machines are finished scanning the ballots, the paper ballots are retained and a totals tape showing the number of votes for each candidate in each race is printed from the machine.
- In order to report unofficial results, county clerks use election management system software to combine the electronic totals from tabulators and submit a report of unofficial results. Because the clerk did not update software, even though the tabulators counted all the ballots correctly, those accurate results were not combined properly when the clerk reported unofficial results.
- The correct results always were and continue to be reflected on the tabulator totals tape and on the ballots themselves. Even if the error in the reported unofficial results had not been quickly noticed, it would have been identified during the county canvass. Boards of County Canvassers, which are composed of 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans, review the printed totals tape from each tabulator during the canvass to verify the reported vote totals are correct.
- The software did not cause a misallocation of votes; it was a result of user human error. Even when human error occurs, it is caught during county canvasses.
- It is also completely false that the county had to or will have to hand count all their ballots. The ballots were properly counted by the tabulators. The county had to review the printed tabulator results from each precinct, not each individual ballot.
- As with other unofficial results reporting errors, this was an honest mistake and did not affect any actual vote totals. Election clerks work extremely hard and do their work with integrity. They are human beings, and sometimes make mistakes. However, there are many checks and balances that ensure mistakes can be caught and corrected.
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@3RU7AL
However, simply ad hominem attacking Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai does nothing to address the actual CLAIM.
- I don't think its an ad hom to point out that Dr Ayyadurai is a famous conspiracy theorists whose false reports have previously led to major retractions of claims from the Washington Post and the Smithsonian Institute (Ayyadurai absurdly claims to have invented email while attending high school in 1979, 8 years after the first documented emails were transmitted)
- Ayyaduria went to MIT but that doesn't make his analysis an "MIT analysis"
- MIT does publish a well respected voter analysis 6-8 months after the vote. Hell, Michigan won't even publish an official vote count until Nov 23rd. Do we really think MIT is analyzing data that hasn't been published yet?
- You say you don't see any links to Alex Jones but I see no reason to give this crank's tweets any greater authority than Jones'
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@seldiora
--> @oromagiooo i I like that idea
If we did something like that we'd probably need select voters so that we didn't have contributors voting.
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I don't think anybody has thought through how a group debate really works.
I'd like to see a debate that has one editor on either side and a two week time for arguments. Then each editor starts a separate topic in the forums that invites anybody to contribute. The editor is ultimately responsible for the final argument but is welcome to use everybody's contributions to assemble the best argument possible. Every couple of days, the editor keeps posting new revisions based on forum contributions until everybody likes the argument.
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REPORT: ARMED QANON SUPPORTER DROVE to PHILADELPHIA to DELIVER 'TRUCK FULL of FAKE VOTES'
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/11/07/report-armed-qanon-supporter-drove-to-philadelphia-to-deliver-truck-full-of-fake-votes/?sh=4d86d1ab38fc
TOPLINE
At an arraignment Friday night, prosecutors said that text messages reveal two Virginia men, who were arrested Thursday, drove to Philadelphia to "deliver a truck full” of fake ballots because they were concerned about ballot-counting taking place at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, according to a local CBS affiliate.
KEY FACTS
Philadelphia District Attorney's Office charged Joshua Macias (42) and Antonio Lamotta (61), both of Chesapeake, Virginia, with several weapons charges on Friday.
The men were arrested near the convention center Thursday night after the FBI in Norfolk, Virginia, received a tip that armed individuals were en route from Virginia Beach to Philadelphia.
At the time of their arrest, both men were carrying loaded handguns.
Police also found an AR-style rifle and 160 rounds of ammunition inside the suspect's truck, a silver Hummer adorned with at least two QAnon emblems (including a large "Q" and "#WWG1WGA," which stands for "where we go one we go all.")
Additional evidence from the vehicle, including a hat with a QAnon conspiracy movement logo, is being investigated.
KEY BACKGROUND:
According to a Daily Beast report, social media posts on Facebook and Twitter reveal Lamotta to be a "dedicated QAnon promoter." QAnon members believe that a cult of pedophiles comprised of Democratic politicians and Hollywood actors runs a child sex-trafficking ring, which President Donald Trump has been secretly fighting to save the world—claims that Trump has refused to denounce. The FBI has characterized QAnon as a growing domestic terror threat. "QAnon is a positive military operation that is working to take down the deep state," Lamotta reportedly wrote on Facebook. In a blog post made in August, Lamotta claimed that Covid-19 is "an entirely man-made fake 'natural pandemic' psyop crisis with a patented, laboratory 'gain of function' bioweapon as its disease." According to CNN, LaMotta told his work supervisor a few days ago that he needed leave for an "assignment" in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Friday that Macias, a Gulf War veteran, is the co-founder of "Vets for Trump." Macias was a featured speaker at a Trump rally in Manassas, Virginia, in 2015. On his LinkedIn page, Macias writes: "We are the backbone of the #MAGA Movement." Vladimir Lemets, the executive director of Vets for Trump, confirmed to the Inquirer that Macias went to Philadelphia to monitor ballot counting. "They just went up there to see if they could be of any assistance and scope out what's happening," Lemets said.
CRUCIAL QUOTE:
"This alarming incident is still very much under investigation regarding additional charges," said Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner. "At this time, we do not have indications that the story is bigger than these two individuals."
BIG NUMBER:
50%. Half of President Trump's supporters say they believe top Democrats are involved in elite child sex-trafficking rings, and an even higher percentage of Trump supporters believe the president is diligently working to dismantle these rings, according to a national survey released last month.
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@Athias
Nope- the thumb and index finger don't come together. Look like you're going have to make that image even blurrier before FOX will run it as news. Or maybe get the guys who doctored up the photo the last time Republicans tried this one.
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@fauxlaw
So the most progressive state in the Union rejects affirmative action in a landslide and your read is that progressive are upset by the loss? Who are these magical progressives so unrepresented by the hard evidence of California's vote? Is it so impossible to believe that the left is so much better than the right at rejecting its lunatic fringe?
Let's note that the Sander's Institute website went defunct before Prop 16 was on the ballot. I don't understand how West's sermon relates to affirmative action since he doesn't seem to touch on that topic. I understand he uses a lot of scary words like Marxist but once you get past the labels he's not saying much beyond racism=bad.
Therefore concrete antiracist struggle is both an ethical imperative and political necessity for democrats[s]..... It is even more urgent as once again racist policies and Third World intervention become more acceptable to many Americans. A more effective democratic...... movement engaged in antiracist and anti-imperialist struggle can help turn the tide. It depends on how well we understand the past and present, how courageously we act, and how true we remain to our democratic..... ideals of freedom, equality, and democracy.
I'm fine with this. I think democracies ought be against racism and empires. I don't even think such a claim should be all that controversial.
I'll leave the tax remark as non-sequitur re: affirmative action
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@fauxlaw
Hidin' Biden said he wanted to speak to the nation tonight. Didn't happen.
Biden did give a speech during primetime tonight.... did you miss it?
CBS: JOE BIDEN URGES UNITY as his LEAD GROWS in PRESIDENTIAL RACE
Joe Biden urged unity in a brief address Friday evening in Delaware, calling for an end to the "partisan warfare" that has characterized American politics in recent years. Before he spoke, the Democratic nominee had pulled ahead of President Trump in the critical battleground states of Georgia and Pennsylvania, and he still maintained a lead in Arizona and Nevada.
"The purpose of our politics isn't to wage total and unrelenting war. It's to solve problems," Biden said. "We may be opponents, but we're not enemies. We're Americans."
Although news outlets have not yet called the race for Biden, he expressed confidence that he would ultimately be victorious.
"The numbers tell us a clear and convincing story: We're going to win this race," Biden said, noting that his vote share in Georgia and Pennsylvania had expanded significantly over the past 24 hours. He also touted the fact that he has won over 74 million votes so far, more than any presidential candidate in history.
"One of the things I'm especially proud of is how well we've done across America," Biden said, boasting his leads in Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, which each voted for Mr. Trump in 2016. "We've rebuilt the 'blue wall' in the middle of the country that crumbled just four years ago."
Biden also urged patience as the vote count proceeds slowly in several states. He implicitly pushed back against the president, who has criticized the legal vote-counting process. Mr. Trump's campaign has also launched several so far unsuccessful lawsuits in states where they say votes are disputed.
"Democracy works. Your vote will be counted. I don't care how hard people try and stop it. I will not let it happen," Biden said.
Biden also talked about his priorities if elected, saying the American voters have "given us a mandate for action on COVID, the economy, climate change, systemic racism."
"I want people to know that we're not waiting to get the work done," he said, saying that he and vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris held meetings with public health and economic experts yesterday. Biden also emphasized that he would continue to work to address the coronavirus pandemic if elected president.
"We want everyone to know on day one we are going to put our plan to control this virus into action. We can't save any of the lives that have been lost, but we can save a lot of lives in the months ahead," Biden said. He has previously called for a national testing regimen and a nationwide mandate requiring facial coverings in public.
Biden's speech came after aides spent Friday making preliminary plans for him to speak on the presumption that he would be projected to have won over 270 electoral votes, the number needed to clinch the presidency. CBS News projects Biden currently has 253 electoral votes. If Biden wins Pennsylvania, which has 20 electoral votes, that would bring him to 273. Georgia, which has 16 electoral votes, would bring his total to 269. Biden is also likely to win Arizona and Nevada, CBS News reports.
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It feels like a lot of new guys with a lot of skills are showing up this fall.
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@Theweakeredge
@Juice
@JuiceI meant more like the topics you choose, Transgender and Systemic Racism so far, I might've seen Orogmagi except one debate on the latter, but their usual debates aren't about stuff like that.
I don't know what you mean but I am curious. I mean I might be interested in some trans and racism topics. I generally like to take a liberal position.
It looks like you guys are developing a long high quality debate on trans stuff right now. I see one systemic racism debate but Juice is not on it.
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@Speedrace
The fact that Danielle specifically said she wouldn't say if roles were randomized proves GP is telling the truth honestly
explicate
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@Speedrace
Does your role reflect Dani's perception of you? Do you feel like your role has been assigned?
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@SirAnonymous
Also, does town have any good roles?* A deathproof that most people don't trust? A super saint who kills anyone who hammers him? A compulsive vig who's forced to shoot when there's no lynch? What could possibly go wrong with that?
lol. a person who can't know his own role. And another claim of having power after death.....it is funny.
What's next? Your ROLE is 1XRUNAWAY TRUCKER, once per game you may choose to kill yourself or every VANILLA in the game.
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@SirAnonymous
It isn't that I'm opposed to data. I'm just opposed to scum having said data.
It's always a balance, right?
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@Lunatic
Also Danielles clue literally says Luna is town. If that isn't enough for you nothing will be. Regardless your read on me means nothing if your aren't pushing my lynch. The argument for lynching pie still stands though and your lack of continued response to it demonstrates you don't have any more arguments against it.
Dani said:
Some hints will be more obvious or helpful than others.
Which warns us that hints are not necessarily helps and then she give us something this obvious and calls it a riddle. Seems way to obvious to also be helpful.
Let's see what three of Dani's clues looks like and then maybe we can evaluate how exculpatory this clue is.
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@SirAnonymous
Do we really need more info about people's roles? I don't see how that helps town more than it helps scum.
You have already decided to risk Pie's gambit. I am opposed & have no good alternate lynches so I'm looking for more data. You have already made up you're mind and so you are opposed to more data.
Mostly it depends on the role. I don't think it hurts to ask because the people who do out a role too early probably should be consulting with town anyway and sometimes scum gets revealed by responses to question.
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@Intelligence_06
Do you feel like Dani matched your ROLE to your personality?
Does your role have anything to do with lynching?
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Somebody ask GP how he reads Pie's claim. If they're not on the same side, GP reads Pie well.
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