Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[AlabamAlum]

Trump would be ahead if the media weren't allowed to talk about him being a petty, ego-maniacal loon who is completely out of his depth for the office of POTUS.

[The Oracle]

Rudy was on the morning shows today stating flat out that massive voter fraud is going to take place in Philly and Chicago and you'd be a moron to believe otherwise.

He is legit crazy. Like, clinical. He's so fucking out there.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Missed posting this a week ago. Do you really know how your spouse is voting? Women were more accurate about knowing their spouse's voting intentions than men were. In fact, men tended to greatly overestimate the popularity of Donald Trump. 45% of women said they would vote Hillary while their husbands thought only 33% of them would.

[ame]https://twitter.com/williamjordann/status/785251665230307329[/ame]

[WM Wolverine]

These radio show hosts (Democrat & Republican) live in alternate realities and so do the people that listen to them.

[hack]

That claim just has to be deconstructed into the nuts and bolts of it. How are they doing it? Who? Hard numbers, if you're so sure of that.

And, go on the offensive. Time to talk about voter suppression. Get it all out there if that's the case. If we're gonna hit bottom let's do it already.

[Dr. Strangelove]

These radio show hosts (Democrat & Republican) live in alternate realities and so do the people that listen to them.

People who listen faithfully to radio hosts (and there's far more popular ones on the Right than the Left) forget over time that they are entertainers, first and foremost. They are not their 'friends", they are not 'regular joes", and they will happily sacrifice their supposed principles for ratings.

All you have to do is follow some of the things Rush has said and done this campaign to see that.

[Wild Hoss]

Trump would be ahead if the media weren't allowed to talk about him being a petty, ego-maniacal loon who is completely out of his depth for the office of POTUS.

Additionally, the idea that he's raging about unequal media coverage is dumbfounding. This is a man who's spent eight years carnival barking to attract attention to himself, and is basically running a campaign on Twitter and soundbites, and now complains that he gets too much media scrutiny.

[CGVT]

That claim just has to be deconstructed into the nuts and bolts of it. How are they doing it? Who? Hard numbers, if you're so sure of that.

And, go on the offensive. Time to talk about voter suppression. Get it all out there if that's the case. If we're gonna hit bottom let's do it already.

People who listen faithfully to radio hosts (and there's far more popular ones on the Right than the Left) forget over time that they are entertainers, first and foremost. They are not their 'friends", they are not 'regular joes", and they will happily sacrifice their supposed principles for ratings.

All you have to do is follow some of the things Rush has said and done this campaign to see that.

The problem is that there are many people that get all of their "news" from these jackholes and even in the face of hard evidence that their BS is wrong, they still believe it.

It's a lot like people that get their medical and dietary advice from Dr Oz. All you have to do is follow the money to see that he is a fraud, but...

[Jeff Buchanan]

......It's a lot like people that get their medical and dietary advice from Dr Oz. All you have to do is follow the money to see that he is a fraud, but...

Not to get too far afield but Oz is not a fraud. What his colleagues say about him is that he's not telling you everything you need to know about a particular medical subject to make informed decisions about it. It's dumbed down medicine for the mass TV audience. By-in-large a good deal of what he puts out there for that particular audience is decent. i.e., eat less sugar.

The practice of Western medicine is highly evidenced based, that evidence supposedly based on solid research. The problem is today, I'm not sure how trustworthy the research upon which the evidence is based actually is. Oz doesn't have time to bring this up and give it the light of day it needs.

A good example is that there is a ton of controversy about the value of measuring LDL (your bad cholesterol) and managing it by it's number in relationship to your age and other risk factors. Big Pharma has a vested interest in patients being told they need to take a statin (e.g., Lipitor/Atorvastatin); medical practices have a vested interest in getting you on one. Next, Big Pharma will tell us via TV that this new statin their launching lowers LDL cholesterol 33% better than their old one. What about outcomes? Is this new statin reducing morbidity and mortality? We don't know until we see legitimate retrospective studies. Nevertheless, pharmaceutical companies are touting their new product to patients on TV and MDs when the pretty girls come calling to tell you about it brining a nice lunch for you too.

It's a mess..... and don't even get me started on how the cost of a medication is determined.

[Da Geezer]

Would someone please explain to me why Donald Trump is so preferable to the Russians? From the first leak, Hillary, and her campaign, have blamed the Russians.

Also, do you guys think that there is a "hidden" Trump vote? In anonymous polls (like Rasmussen, BTW) Trump does significantly better. I can see someone not wanting to be associated with Trump, but actually voting for him on election day. I can also see where a divergence from the polls could support a claim that the Russians manipulated the results.

If Trump wants to screw with the election, he should ask that his supporters say they are going to vote for Hillary when polled.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Decouple Trump and the Russians, Geeze.

It's simply happenstance and a good deal of political dirty tricks to couple them. Putin sees an opportunity for creating chaos in a nation that since the end of WWII has challenged Russian nationalism and the kinds of interests that nationalism spawns.

Will Putin play this dangerous game in the Cyber space? Did anything stop him from going into Ukrain/Crimea? Did he pay any kind of price for that important strategic move? Who's standing up to Russia's role in Syria? Did Russia (or China for that matter) have anything to do with the Cruise Missile attacks on the US Destroyer, Mason launched from Yemen soil? You can bet the Houti's don't have that kind of technology. (Thank you for Aegis - a well designed, on board, missile defense system that works)

Yes, Putin will play this game when it in his strategic interests to do it. That's my view...... and, Hack, I'm not sure if you are questioning the means for hacking election results or the idea of doing it. I've not read the guy's book I talked about and don't remember the details of his interview within which he explained very clearly the means.

I don't think there is any question that the employment of Cyber-Warfare is a player in the current race for importance and influence on the global stage of certain nation states. Russia is clearly a player on that field.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Putin is paying a slow but damaging price for Ukraine/Crimea. For all their bluster, the Russian economy has been significantly hurt since 2014, thanks to sanctions.

Candidate Trump seems far more open to lifting the sanctions and making Russia an 'ally' than Candidate Clinton. Though I think Putin's main interest is as Jeff said, to make Western/American elections appear to be as discreditable as Russian ones. I think he's less interested in winning over western allies as producing propaganda for domestic consumption. Any time there's riots in the streets of the US or controversey over election outcomes he can point and tell the Russian people: "See? What I've done isn't so bad. Russia is strong!"

[Dr. Strangelove]

[ame]https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/787701428773122048[/ame]

[Jeff Buchanan]

Putin is paying a slow but damaging price for Ukraine/Crimea. For all their bluster, the Russian economy has been significantly hurt since 2014, thanks to sanctions.

This is a good point although I'd say the Russian economy is in the tank because, well, the Russian economy.

I tend to fall on the side of the effectiveness of sanctions over the long haul to extract behavior from countries with national interests different than those of the West that are more acceptable to the West.

I can't remember where I saw this, maybe in the article on Turkey that Hack linked us to, but it was about a cargo plane enroute to Tehran that diverted into Turkey for mechanical reasons. The aircraft listed cargo as some innocuous thing but on inspection the cargo was 300 million worth of gold bullion. The gold was enroute to the Iranian Mullahs to help them sidestep the impact of sanctions.

There's many stories about how the Iranians got oil to the market place to sell it, a lot of that money going to surrogates who were acting on orders from Tehran to further Iranian regional interests in Syria and Iraq.

The world is a dangerous place and I'm not 100% convinced sanctions are as effective as they are made out to be. But I don't like the alternative as one false military move, one misstep, in the Middle East or in Eastern Europe could result in a nuclear exchange - most likely on a tactical level with the weapon being used to contaminate territory and prevent troop movement.

[Da Geezer]

Decouple Trump and the Russians, Geeze.....Will Putin play this dangerous game in the Cyber space? Did anything stop him from going into Ukrain/Crimea? Did he pay any kind of price for that important strategic move? Who's standing up to Russia's role in Syria? Did Russia (or China for that matter) have anything to do with the Cruise Missile attacks on the US Destroyer,...

I agree, Jeff. It is the Clinton campaign that couples the Russians and Trump, and no one in the media is questioning the proposition.

Why wouldn't Putin want another 4-8 years of the kind of foreign policy that gave him these victories? Trump, in particular, and Republicans in general, stand for spending more on the military. Trump criticizes the current top brass, and says he would replace them with less-political generals. I fail to see how this helps the Russians