Unfortunate page break...now we have to wonder if Easy was talking about Trump, Un or dun dun dun, God.

I tried to make use of capitalization to make it more direct, but I guess all of them consider themselves deities, so...

We haven't had a religious discussion in a while.

Serious question: do we believe that they could *hit* Guam with a missile at this point? Part of me thinks that if they were going after the mainland with a nuke right now, they'd aim for Kansas City and hope it hits something besides water/Canada/Mexico. *shurg*

A few days late but I think humans will find a way, like they always have. Every major technological innovation destroyed jobs but created many more. The industrial revolution killed jobs, and people had more time on their hands, which eventually spawned brand new industries based on entertainment and leisure. The car killed jobs but built the highways, motels, theme parks, the car industry itself, etc. I don't think the changes in our lifetime will be as drastic as some predict, and that it's more likely that new technologies will create an economic boom. And the role of government and the concept of jobs will evolve, just not overnight. I think we're being too short-sighted in stuck in the present when we fear advanced technology as being a bad thing for mankind.

I think it's interesting that in these discussions of future work, which I see going on in many places, that there is literally no mention of service jobs. If you're a kid of the '80s or before it's pretty easy to forget how much larger the service industry was in those days. Every restaurant had at least one host/hostess and twice as many waiters as current standards. I remember taking cross country flights alone as a 6 year old child, based entirely on the number and effectiveness of the air stewards. Calling any customer service line would result in talking to a person actually skilled at customer service. You could seemingly get a tax audit as a result of IRS dudes walking door to door.

I think that dynamic changed, not necessarily because of automation or cost reduction, but because in the 80s and 90s the population demographics of America were upside down thanks to the baby boom, and there were more old workers than young workers in the labor pool, and as a result service industry jobs shriveled in favor of the invention/uprising of middle management.

Now that the population has returned to a more 'normal' pyramid structure, and we have young workers complaining about the dearth of quality work out there for anyone below 50, it seems it would be a perfect time to return service work to a place of significance and prominence in America (and it probably wouldn't hurt AT ALL to reduce our middle management class either).

Unfortunately there are a lot of obvious issues standing in the way, the biggest of which might be that we culturally adapted to make service jobs a symbol of failure at life, and as such the jobs themselves became harder, less fulfilling, and more maligned with each generation. Reversing culture is hard. Perhaps just as much of a hindrance is Walll Street/public ownership, which will reject any idea that increases the bottom line, regardless of almost anything else.

There are certainly attempts to automate customer service, and service jobs in general, but I think that's one field where humans will always be the best option. I'm sure the figures would suggest that modern robo-service has some sterling efficiency numbers, but the experience for the customer is usually horrible and their efficiency figures are surely boosted by not accounting the immense numbers of customers who hang up in frustration in the middle of the process (hell, that's probably considered a positive feature of robo-service in today's bottom-line financial culture). Personally, I'd love to see a return of human service folk, who were compensated well, good at their jobs, and appreciated by American society, and it seems like there's millions and millions of jobs to be had in that sector, even in the future, but it's a cultural shift that we have to choose to make.

The cost of human customer service, especially in comparison to machine based phone answering service, is astronomical. I cannot imagine you will ever see that shift happen again.

We may be talking about the definition of what counts as a services industry job, but it has increased substantially since the 80s.

Growth Of US Services Economy - Business Insider

So Mueller's team persuaded a judge to allow a no-knock raid on Paul Manafort's home.

I hope they got some good loot.

Interesting. I don't think it's delusion to say that there used to be many more people employed to directly interact with other people, so I guess it's just a case of financial semantics. I think it could also be a case of their being many more service providers currently, while the number of customer facing service people per provider is at a lower ratio. For example there's now 5 times as many fast food providers in my area than there were pre-millenium, and maybe an even higher concentration of restaurants and bars, but they're all relatively under-serviced, one way or the other, even if on the whole there's way more of them.

Happened in late Jul. I'm surprised it didn't leak earlier and no leak of any findings.

I'm guessing slim. I still don't think the mainland is at any threat of an attack. I think the threat is that he just lobs a bunch of missiles into South Korea and Japan. This would destabilize the region and destroy the markets which could lead to a global depression. Japan and South Korea are incredibly important to the global economy. Not to mention China if they have to clean up the refugee crisis a war with North Korea would cause.

Trump's go-to outlets is already starting to trash him.

Trump Advisor Sex Scandal — Paul Manafort's Sick Affair

Remember they trashed Flynn right before his issues leaked. Makes you wonder if Manafort has flipped. The guy seems like a mercenary anyway who is out for his own interest. Flynn at least seems loyal for some odd reason.

I doubt they could hit Guam.

I do worry about something like the NW Territory of Canada getting hit.

I saw the autonomous truck first in Logan and the article reminded me of it. I think long haul truck drivers will be in jeopardy although I can see them driving within the city for the final leg.

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/09/tesl...-platoons.html

And fast food restaurants are going to automation.

50 years from now, what will people do for work?

Because my Facebook feed makes me curious:

The average Republican supporter in this country does realize that the election is over and most libs have moved on from Hillary Clinton as a failed candidate, right?

(Not even in the sense of getting Justice to follow up on Benghazi or emails or anything, but in the "Hillary and her agenda are evil and dangerous and must be stopped!" It's like they're still game-planning for how to stop the 1976 Pittsburgh Steelers.)

As of this moment, they are on double secret probation!

Don't make me get your mother!
{10 minutes later}
Alright, just let the boy do what he wants. He'll learn his lesson the hard way.

It's like we're seeing Trump's parenting skills on display and it all makes sense.

Maybe this is the time for his advisors to slip hi lots of positive reviews about how tough he looks, so he doesn't realize how weak he actually looks and fire off a bomb to make his hands look bigger.

WTF?

Q: Thoughts on Putin expelling US diplomats?

Trump: "I greatly appreciate the fact that they’ve been able to cut our payroll." (via ABC) pic.twitter.com/iR5JbHLHZj

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) August 10, 2017

He can trash anyone, including his own party and staff, just not Putin. It's remarkable.

Who wouldn't want to work for this awesome company called USA, with such a great man at the helm ? I wish my boss would be so awesome.

Trump is playing chicken with the crazy kid.

Some news are saying that removing US citizens/dependents will be an indicator but I'm not so sure with Trump who criticized Obama for telegraphing moves. A retired general was saying generals have a duty to not do anything stupid, my read was refusing stupid orders from Trump but I'm not so sure of that either.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/10/politi...rea/index.html

Let's be glad that the "board of directors" can push him out every 4 years.

TBH, I don't think that is a sure thing. We are in a strange political period right now.

Two things North Korea actually is quite good at developing missiles albeit mostly short and medium distances ones. They can easily build dozens if not many more ICBMs the constraint will be do they have enough fissile material and able to get it onto a missile that is where they have been focusing on for a while. THAAD is nit going to help with ICBMs or any thing that is longer distances.

Luckily, only half the Republican base favor postponing or suspending elections. You know, just if Trump wants it. No biggie.

That just shows the unpopularity of Trump that only half of Republicans would support him in postponing the election.

67% of Dems were in favor of cancelling the 2016 election altogether.

Two-Thirds of Democrats Prefer Keeping Obama Over Clinton Presidency |

The link title is a little editorialized and from a time when a Clinton presidency was apparently the scariest realistic possibility to many Democrats, but the question asked was:

"If you could grant Obama four more years and cancel this election altogether, would you?"

The difference, of course, being that one is wishcasting and the other is suggests response to a non-normative position. In other words, the danger is that Trump might actually suggest we don't vote him out.

One bit of good news today: Jeffrey Lord got fired by CNN:

CNN fires Jeffrey Lord after Nazi salute tweet

I think both polls were going for a certain response, and used irrational fears to get there. The Republican poll was really about voter fraud, and the Dem poll was really about Clinton.

Edit: Though the Dem poll is almost as scary because the question didn't even mention Clinton. There's a reason the Republican poll included the stuff about voter fraud and didn't just frame the question like Dem poll with something like, "If you could grant Trump a second term and cancel the 2020 election altogether, would you?"

Personally I found his tweet funny.

We're all going to die because 46% of America picked the dumbest possible people to lead the country.

Here’s the Memo That Blew Up the NSC* | Foreign Policy

Military solutions are now fully in place,locked and loaded,should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 11, 2017

At least moving in the right direction trying to reign in NK by China.

China warns North Korea: You’re on your own if you go after the United States - The Washington Post

There's no logical reason for China to get involved at all. What reason do they have to help us, NK isn't going to attack them. Helping us or not, Trump will continue to blame China for 33% of the problems with the economy.

If something bad happens, the fear is there will be a bunch of NK flowing across the Chinese border in addition to global economic & market instability

We've all made "Darwin Award" jokes about dumbasses who tried to strap rockets to their backs, etc, right?

Perhaps the same principle applies here, on a national level. Ugh.

I know both parties are well past the point of caring about war powers, but there's no way the founders intended for the President to be able to strike a foreign state preemptively without Congressional approval.

Dan Carlin did a hardcore history episode a few months back called Destroyer of Worlds about the development of nuclear weapons. It is worth listening to now.

The idea of one guy having the unchecked power to launch them seems insane. But if you look at how these weapons developed and apply game theory to the situation, you can see how we ended up here.

The check on the system isn't to put layers between the president and the nukes. It is to not have elected a nuclear-bomb-obsessed insecure narcissist with the IQ of a salt shaker to be the president.

Hey. Go easy on salt shakers!

War is bad for China but so is peace and prosperity for North Korea. Making sure North Korea keeps up what they're doing without destabilizing the region is what's best for China.

Let's see if this is in the correct format

SWIM might be, in theory, in favor of a military coup at this point. SWIM really thinks that unless adults step in, that The manbaby is going to get a ton of people killed. SWIM thinks that our nation is probably underestimating NK.

Not sure what to think, this seemed to have come out of nowhere. Obviously less dangerous than NK and most of them might actually welcome us.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/08/11/politi...rea/index.html

I guess Venezuela is on the table too.

Trump threatens Venezuela with 'military option' | Reuters

Remember when Hillary was going to get us into some wars and that's why we should vote for the isolationist Trump?

There does come a point where the cost in both staging intervention and aftercare for the veterans of these conflicts becomes unsustainable. And this is both in dollars and the health/resiliency of our armed forces. Our military kind of needs a break.

Hell sex feels good, but after 10 straight years of it, you start to chafe a bit ;)

Temporary heel spurs only knows options that make people talk about how awesome his power is which makes his dick hard. The military advisors will never talk about it or bring it up because it's job security and budget security.

We need as many invasion options as possible for when the heat gets turned up on the russia investigation again.

as long as we get a video game classic a la contra out of it, i'll allow it.

Sasse on Trump/Venezuela:

I think that's just Trump being Trump. In another interview he also refused to take 'dropping the bomb in Europe' off the table too. He just hates eliminating his own options without getting something in return.

No rational thinker removes any option. Certainly not publicly.

We have a plan on file somewhere for virtually every imaginable scenario, you truly never know what you might need.

I can't wait for the scenario where launching great white sharks with catapults is a thing.

You laugh about the planning scenarios but take this extreme example. Its obvious that the government is concerned about a zombie outbreak without wanting to seem to be too concerned about a zombie outbreak so they put it out there as a supposedly spoof :).

If zombies, why not sharknado equivalent?

Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse | | Blogs | CDC

https://qz.com/950488/nasty-brutish-...ill-look-like/

Great analysis.

Polls are starting to look really bad for Obama. Looks like he'll have to start a war or major conflict to win. Don't put it past him!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 17, 2012

I used to think that we had our s*** together and all the smart people that the government it hired wrote all these books and manuals and memos on what we should do in certain situations. And then 9/11 happened and we literally had no f****** clue what to do.

Excusing Trump as 'him being him' is stupid - I don't hear anyone saying the same about the North Korean leader ... why because populist aggression is potentially dangerous and destructive ... all it takes is two such leaders to get into a pissing match until they escalate to the point where one of them feels he can't back down ...

(yes I'm somewhat concerned at present)

I personally believe that we are not going to be invading Venezuela anytime soon. After all what could we do to them that they aren't doing to themselves already? Trump just has a knee jerk reaction when it comes to taking things of the table.

Most people also realize that North Korea issues empty threats against the US constantly. Then someone gives Kim Jong-Un a cheeseblock and he takes a nap for awhile.

I'm sure Trump is simply locked out of his Twitter account and is awaiting a password reset. That surely is the only rationale explanation as to why he hasn't raged tweeted against the neo-nazis causing civil unrest in Charlottesville.

He's still trying to find the words for the mosque bombing in Minnesota.

Donald J. Trump on Twitter: "We ALL must be united & condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Lets come together as one!"

Pretty sure ramming a car into pedestrians is what Terrorists do (see: Europe), but hey these individuals aren't Muslim so...

I'm still trying to figure out what the hell he's exactly talking about. That might be the most non-specific statement he's posted. I could read it as supporting both sides, that the other side is the one causing the problems and they could read into that he was supporting them.

It's not accidental.

He just made a statement about it as well and he made sure to say that the hate and violence "on both sides" must stop.

He will not categorically condemn alt-righters giving the Nazi salute.

Trump's tweet sure pissed off David Duke

Trump can't even say the words, "white supremacy terrorism."

He was specifically asked a moment ago by a reporter if he supports white supremacy.

He did not answer.

This is the normal state of affairs - mainly because the rest of the world steps back, acts like adults and ignores him ... which Trump unfortunately is unable to do ...

Didn't we already fight a war over this that included most of the planet? Thought we could all agree the guys who stormed the beaches in Normandy were the good guys.

His ear piece probably wasn't working again

So far 4Chan/T_D identified the wrong person as the driver of the vehicle and made up a story to go with it that he was there to counter protest and the counter protesters turned on him because he was white. They claim the white supremacists were there for a peaceful protest and the counter protesters are to blame for this. They also claim the neo-nazi's there are Bernie supporters because nazi's are socialists.

This is the same group the Trump Administration planted the Seth Rich story for.

We are in a state of affairs where the President of the United States in 2017 won't condemn white nationalists. Since when have we become ok with neo-Nazis and the Klan again?

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

But North Korea might attack Guam, why are you all getting distracted from the biggest threat facing the US right now?!?

That's not a big deal. It's going to be a huge boost to Guam's tourism.

About the time a "Kenyan" became President.

Since they're a long way from the worst the country has to offer. Doesn't make 'em nice, good, or lovable ... but they ain't BLM either or some sort of pro-amnesty groups or something.

When you've seen so many groups that are more offensive, more indefensible, more abhorrent it's not tough to suddenly look "okay".

For the record.

Pro Amnesty Groups (going to include any person ever who suggested that ANY path to citizenship in here) >>> dangerous to real Americans than American Neo Nazis.

Of course you're defending white supremacists. Just like Jesus did.

Fuck off, Nazi sympathizer.

Ive seen no groups that are more abhorrent than hating someone simply because they look different than you. You obviously have a right to your opinion and you haven't broken any forum rules in posting it, but in my view it's disgusting and as a mod I'd be remiss if I didn't tell you that.

x1000.

I mean, not in the least bit surprised Jon would feel that way, but disgusting all the same. Not 'nice, good, or lovable'? Really? Would 'bad' be taking it a step too far? Not sure how much less defensible it gets than walking around with swastikas and giving the Nazi salute, tbh, let alone crashing cars into other protesters.

Makes sense. I know you are speaking for yourself. Certainly not me or all Americans or humans. So yes, to you I imagine the kkk is not too bad. To you, undocumented people and BLM does pose more of an physical and emotional threat.

However, given that, it just doesn't make your comment very interesting.

The question was asked, I'm ... pleased (?) to not be punished for answering it.

There's plenty of nuance to the answer I offered, reasons that one group looks less offensive to many by comparison to another. I obviously chose vanilla words such as "nice", "good" and "lovable" intentionally, I was seeking the mildest versions of positives I could think of at the time. The subtle point intended to be that you don't have to be anything good to simply be better than the worst.

The BLM crowd, socialists, various & sundry other elements of the lunatic brigade ... they make the Klan*, much less groups that border on parody of themselves like Stormfront, and so forth look like the fucking Boy Scouts comparatively to a very large number of people. Virtually no one I see pretends those groups are exactly normal, nor takes them particularly seriously, and most importantly isn't subjected to a media barrage trying to pretend they're anything except wrong more often than right. You'd likely see less leeway given to them if the same could be said about the dregs of humanity on the other side. At some point, the enemy of my enemy can become useful, even if you're not exactly "friends".

Anybody that seriously questions why there isn't more angst over those groups popping their heads out of their holes today has grossly underestimated just how fed up a significant & growing part of the population is with groups we hold in far lower regard. So underestimated in fact that they're possibly completely disconnected with reality.

*which is actually an entire discussion on its own, considering the different experiences many people who grew up with them in their area actually saw/had. The current variants, honestly, I haven't seen them except on TV in a couple decades. The Klan I saw growing up though -- a shadowy organization that probably popped its head up in public once or twice a year -- there was virtually no racial aspect to their activities. There were, what, maybe 50 non-whites in my entire county in those days. There wasn't anybody to be racial against, that was the practical reality. The Klan in those areas & those times wasn't feared by anyone nearly so much as by "white trash", specifically those who spent their family food money on booze & drugs. I saw, I believe, one cross burning (randomly driving past on a country road after a family road trip) and the aftermath of 2-3 others. Every yard involved belonged to a white person. You can pretty easily find a lot of people of/past a certain who have those same recollections, whether they're bold enough to admit to them is a whole other question. Same would be true of admitting that the feelings toward those groups wasn't particularly negative then, so it isn't a stretch that it wouldn't be now either.

To whom are you referring to when you say "we"?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it really does seem like you are taking personal experiences and making nationally generalized conclusions.

Again, that seems fine, it just seems illogical that you seem to violently(?) dismiss a conclusion to the contrary that based on your same process.

I am guessing those 50 non-whites probably have an incredibly different take on that period in their history. 50 people is more than enough to serve as the basis for racial hate in a small town, so that all sounds particularly ridiculous to me. I grew up in '80s-'90s Portland, which is & was the whitest large city in the country, and it was packed with racist Skinheads who were more than happy to visit most of their violence and chaos against other white folks, simply because there wasn't much else available, but they were certainly able to make time for any and all non-whites they ran into along the way.

You mean the same black residents who met a contingent of NAACP folks at the county line & told them to turn around and go back to Atlanta because they were neither needed nor wanted there? Among those was the leadership of the local NAACP chapter.

A conversation that took place at the same time a {cough} committee of white folks blocked the road at the other end of the county & delivered the same message to a contingent of North Carolina based Klansmen who were hoping to do some recruiting during the NAACP visit?

Were there some incidents involving race in that corner of the world you might think I'm painting as some sort of Mayberry? Sure there were. Difference in those times & now is that most everybody applied some common sense to figuring out who was at fault and didn't run around trying to defend the indefensible. Probably a lot easier to do since common sense appears to have been a lot more common back then.

You would certainly know that particular community infinitely better than I do, but I don't particularly see any kind of crucial connection between rejecting national NAACP and necessarily accepting the local Klan as mostly harmless and/or community enforcement. Regardless, the crux of your Klan defense seems to be that they've been around forever, and didn't do that much bad in your local community, which isn't particularly convincing.

Let's hope nothing comes of this

Powerful Venezuelan lawmaker may have issued death order against Rubio, US memo says

If Venezuela does manage to kill a US Senator, how would Trump respond?

ETA: This could also help explain why Trump made the military option comment on Venezuala

A couple of older things I meant to reply to:


We're in 100% agreement here. Frankly it's the kind of thing that needs a Constitutional Amendment of some sort, since it's not exactly the same kind of situation in terms of timeframe that you had when waging 18th century conflict. But yeah we've been ridiculous on this for generations as a nation.


You were very much correct here. I was trying to quickly summarize and what I wrote definitely conflated points of view that shouldn't be. I stand corrected.


This is important, and a modern misunderstanding of what "conservativism"(it wouldn't have been called that at the time) historically tried to do. They were very much in conflict with Social Darwinists and didn't see eye-to-eye with them at all. Darwinists held that the poor deserved to be poor basically, and that is was wasteful to try to help them. The view I'm describing, as I mentioned, was that the poor could be improved or damaged; they could move up to prosperity, or down to pauperism(a permanent state of no longer trying to improve one's lot, earn their own way, etc.). Poverty was not considered the bottom rung and it was not viewed as a waste of time or inherently bad to help the impoverished. Broad-based governmental programs were viewed as harmful though, with a focus more on personal solutions(family, friends, correcting behavioral issues such as rampant alcoholism which were the primary cause of poverty at the time, etc.). Workhouses were as common as bars in that day, and it wasn't because nobody cared what happened to the underclass.

As mentioned I don't favor that approach, but it doesn't deserve being described as Social Darwinism. There was a lot more compassion and thought behind it than that.

Yo panerd, your boys are on some good stuff.

Trump knows who his enemies are. He tweets about them all the time and how dangerous they are. He does not tweet about how dangerous Neo-Nazi sympathizers are, or that they are enemies (to him or otherwise, the US as President) at all.

This is one of my main takeaways. So much of things with him is looking at what he does and doesn't do. Like JPhillips said above, he ad libs when he really feels what he believes and his standards are so low that he will actually say whatever he might need to say to achieve an end, whether or not he believes it. So pinning him down on stuff like this shows his truer nature.

"In times such as these, America has always shown its true character -- ... division with unity,..." Trump said.

Releases this ad on the same day


:rolleyes::rolleyes:

We Fight for the Users - DreamHost.blog

Interesting use of the DOJ.

Two days to call out white supremacists.

50 minutes to call out someone who resigned from the President's Council

Yeah, it's easy to see where his priorities are

He isn't going to go after his base.

Whew ...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/north-k...eat-1502751054

Waiting on him trashing Under Armor.