Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Lord Liaden]

2 hours ago, tkdguy said:

 

Same here, considering I've had my hopes dashed at the last minute way too often.

 

In 2016, I went into such a rut after the election since I spent a lot of campaigning for Hillary Clinton. I started campaigning for Joe Biden relatively late for that reason. I got the same feeling I had four years ago on November 3, after Trump seemed to be leading in all the battleground states. Even after Biden pulled ahead, I wasn't able to relax until today. I was cautiously optimistic, but I didn't dare become hopeful. Now it feels like my work has paid off.

 

Not everything paid off, though. I worked mainly with the Texas Democrats, writing letters and sending texts. I personally sent over 3,000 text messages that last week. I knew that turning Texas blue was a long shot, but it's still disappointing to fall short.

 

You should consider the vote in Texas being as close as it was to be a significant accomplishment. Even here in Canada we know enough to have been shocked had Texas turned blue.

[Ternaugh]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

To top off a very nice day overall...

 

I'd ordered myself a new watch, just for grins, through a gray market dealer.  They'd said 3-5 weeks (gray market, that happens) but it'd shipped a few days ago.

It was scheduled to arrive Monday.

Just came in.

Happy, happy.  About to pour the wine......

 

What did you get?

[Thia Halmades]

I’m a horologist myself. My pride is my Seiko 5. Got it as a gift from my brother on the birth of his niece. 

[Old Man]

Nice! My good watch is a Seiko. 

[unclevlad]

12 minutes ago, Ternaugh said:

 

What did you get?

 

Oh, you wish to know?

Well of course you wish to know;  the proof of this is, you asked.

Very well, I shall tell you.

 

 

 

<OK, that's enough of my Paarfi style.>

 

Nothing fancy.  Hamilton Jazzmaster Thinline auto with what they call a burgundy dial.  Not sure I would, not seeing it live;  it's in that tricky middle ground between a purple-burgundy and a slightly purplish brown.  Nice color, tho.  Discontinued.  This is a pretty good private seller's (closed) listing;  the pics show how the dial color shifts.

 

https://watchcharts.com/listing/1114607/hamilton-jazzmaster-thinline-automatic-swiss-dress-watch-box-papers

 

Price was too good, given that it's got a 2892 in it, and the dial color is unusual and quite nice.  This'll tend to be a late fall watch....burgundy and colors along those lines are, for me, Thanksgiving and to a degree Christmas colors.  But anything in the red/burgundy range, for a man's watch, is QUITE rare.

 

This has been my watch for the last week, as it was my *big* 60th birthday gift to myself.  That's not red gold, it's ship's bronze.  It'll probably get put away;  I like to swap regularly.  Might well be the Hammy;  checking the mail this evening, I noted the tree in my front yard had turned a *very* nice red.  That's kinda rare down here, and won't last at all;  the weather just doesn't seem to support it.  Or maybe the dryness.  I saw several trees on the street that had nice color;  I think it was that surprising, serious cold snap a week and a half ago;  lows a couple nights were below freezing.  And for October, that's *unheard of*.  As in, not just set record lows but I think set them by WIDE margins.  So that might've started the color shift.  But for the last 2 or 3 days we've been right back to the highs being *just* under record highs for the day....

[unclevlad]

Hm.  Here's a particularly nice shot.  Sorry, you can't get any of these.

Left:  AnOrdain Model 1 in Hebridean Blue.  The watch is available, I think that color isn't.  

Center Bleau Modest Cream.  A Kickstarter project;  there were issues that slowed things down, and the guy hasn't offered anything since.  Too bad.

 

These two are both true, fired enamel dials.  Ceramic powder is placed on the dial, then melted.  It produces a dial like nothing else but it's a ROYAL PITA, but man do I love me my enamel dials.....

Right:  Vapaus Veli.  Another Kickstarter project.  The Veli is still made.  HOWEVER...the green was a stretch goal during the campaign, and Vapaus promised to never release it as a standard color.  So this can be legitimately called extremely rare;  there are 8 with this hands set (and 8 with their alternate).  

And if anything's harder to find than a good red dial, it might have been a good green dial.  More recently, I know of a few...but after white/silver, black, and blue, and maybe the dark gray-brown you see in galvanized dials, numbers drop off SHARPLY.  You see bright colors like yellow and orange in dive watches, but I'm not a dive watch guy.  I like Big Dials with skinny bezels, as you can see.

[Ternaugh]

5 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

Oh, you wish to know?

Well of course you wish to know;  the proof of this is, you asked.

Very well, I shall tell you.

 

 

 

<OK, that's enough of my Paarfi style.>

 

Nothing fancy.  Hamilton Jazzmaster Thinline auto with what they call a burgundy dial.  Not sure I would, not seeing it live;  it's in that tricky middle ground between a purple-burgundy and a slightly purplish brown.  Nice color, tho.  Discontinued.  This is a pretty good private seller's (closed) listing;  the pics show how the dial color shifts.

 

https://watchcharts.com/listing/1114607/hamilton-jazzmaster-thinline-automatic-swiss-dress-watch-box-papers

 

Price was too good, given that it's got a 2892 in it, and the dial color is unusual and quite nice.  This'll tend to be a late fall watch....burgundy and colors along those lines are, for me, Thanksgiving and to a degree Christmas colors.  But anything in the red/burgundy range, for a man's watch, is QUITE rare.

 

This has been my watch for the last week, as it was my *big* 60th birthday gift to myself.  That's not red gold, it's ship's bronze.  It'll probably get put away;  I like to swap regularly.  Might well be the Hammy;  checking the mail this evening, I noted the tree in my front yard had turned a *very* nice red.  That's kinda rare down here, and won't last at all;  the weather just doesn't seem to support it.  Or maybe the dryness.  I saw several trees on the street that had nice color;  I think it was that surprising, serious cold snap a week and a half ago;  lows a couple nights were below freezing.  And for October, that's *unheard of*.  As in, not just set record lows but I think set them by WIDE margins.  So that might've started the color shift.  But for the last 2 or 3 days we've been right back to the highs being *just* under record highs for the day....

 

Very nice. My last watch purchase was a Seiko 5 automatic https://www.seikowatches.com/us-en/products/5sports/srpd51, which joins an old Bulova automatic dress watch that I've had for almost 10 years. Most of my other watches are Citizen Eco-Drives, including a titanium watch that I've had for over 20 years.

[Lord Liaden]

"I have the best wrist watches, the greatest watches in history, perfect watches. I am so great at telling time, nobody knows what time it is as well as me. Everybody says so, you hear it all the time."

 

Just to steer in the general direction of the topic.

[TrickstaPriest]

5 hours ago, Greywind said:

https://nypost.com/2020/11/06/aoc-facing-heat-for-wanting-to-archive-posts-by-trump-sycophants/

 

https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2020/10/donald-trump-jr-says-dads-next-move-is-to-break-up-fbi-he-has-to-get-rid-of-these-things/

 

I'd feel more merciful if Trump wasn't "beheading" and tearing apart every institution in the government that gets in his way.  Like a literal, real, actual dictator.  See EPA, FDA, CDC, the Justice Department, Agriculture, Treasury I think...

 

(edit)

 

Can't forget Mad Dog, so Defense...

[Cancer]

Here in my neighborhood this evening a few folks were firing off fireworks, though that stopped when a fire truck came answering some kind of non-fire (or minor fire) call at a house a block south of us.  It was chilly, but the stars were out at the time.

[unclevlad]

I do like Eco Drives;  I have several.  If you want a beater, you cannot beat a BM-8180...and I generally don't like day-date, which this has.  My 8180 might be...15 years old now?  Gosh, I really don't know.  Plus an older Stiletto ultra-thin.  Then some upscale...Eco Drive One, Chronomaster.  Seiko's solar quartz work well too;  my one RF watch is a Seiko.  Mixed bag there;  the time zone doesn't register, so I have to manually set DST.  That shouldn't be the case, it should happen implicitly.  The indicator is built into the time coding.  

 

At this point, I simply won't buy a non-solar quartz.

[Cancer]

7 hours ago, Pariah said:

So far I haven't had to unfriend/unfollow anyone on social media for spouting conspiracy theorist "Biden stole the election!" bovine scatological material. I am pleasantly surprised that this is the case, but I don't expect it to last.

 

I avoid this sort of issue by not participating in social media (unless this forum counts as social media, but that's the only one I show up in).

[Lord Liaden]

5 hours ago, Greywind said:

https://nypost.com/2020/11/06/aoc-facing-heat-for-wanting-to-archive-posts-by-trump-sycophants/

 

I have sympathy for the stated goal of having something to hold to account those who publicly misrepresented or lied, those who called for law-breaking or outright violence, those who knew of illegal or arguably immoral acts and were in some way complicit. There's going to be a great push by many in America -- not just the guilty parties -- to try to deny all that occurred, to sweep it under the rug and forget it.

 

But the critics of the move are right, this is where "enemies lists" are spawned. The type of information to be archived, who would have access to it, and how it would be allowed to be used, would first need to be defined, after due deliberation and consultation.

[TrickstaPriest]

4 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

But the critics of the move are right, this is where "enemies lists" are spawned. The type of information to be archived, who would have access to it, and how it would be allowed to be used, would first need to be defined, after due deliberation and consultation.

 

You are a better person than I.  But I think a 'top five-or-six worst candidates' is a compromise.  I've heard so much stuff in the last four years that should have gotten people arrested that I actually have literally forgotten who said what.  It's become such a shocking blur of it.

[unclevlad]

BTW:  someone was asking about the overall popular vote.  

 

NY Times shows it.  It's on their electoral college display;  under each candidate.  In VERY small font.

As of end of Saturday the 7th, it was about 74.6M for Biden, 70.4M for Trump.  I don't think there are enough outstanding ballots to change that significantly.

If y'alll will excuse me, the wine is saying 'hello'.  Enjoy the eye candy from earlier.  (But all of em look WAY better in person.)

[tkdguy]

2 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

 

You should consider the vote in Texas being as close as it was to be a significant accomplishment. Even here in Canada we know enough to have been shocked had Texas turned blue.

 

During our training session the trainer said that Texas isn't a red state; it's a voter suppression state. That hardened my resolve a bit. The text channels had a few responses with such claims, so we sent those folks numbers they could call. Other responses were quite humorous, although I didn't get any of those. I only read them when someone shared the post.

 

Thanks for the kind words. I tend to look only at the end goal and forget about what smaller gains have been made.

[Old Man]

2 minutes ago, tkdguy said:

 

During our training session the trainer said that Texas isn't a red state; it's a voter suppression state. That hardened my resolve a bit. The text channels had a few responses with such claims, so we sent those folks numbers they could call. Other responses were quite humorous, although I didn't get any of those. I only read them when someone shared the post.

 

One of my takeaways from this election is that Republican voter suppression [i]works.[/i]  Based on the polling just prior to Election Day, it's worth around 3%.  States that showed about a 3% lead for Biden--Michigan, Arizona, Georgia--became tossups.  States that were polling as tossups--Texas, Florida, Ohio--went convincingly for Trump.  Polls showed a 5-6% lead for Biden in North Carolina on the day the cops literally tear gassed a crowd of voters marching to vote early.

 

 

2 minutes ago, tkdguy said:

 

Thanks for the kind words. I tend to look only at the end goal and forget about what smaller gains have been made.

 

My thanks as well. 

[wcw43921]

1 hour ago, unclevlad said:

BTW:  someone was asking about the overall popular vote.  

 

NY Times shows it.  It's on their electoral college display;  under each candidate.  In VERY small font.

As of end of Saturday the 7th, it was about 74.6M for Biden, 70.4M for Trump.  I don't think there are enough outstanding ballots to change that significantly.

If y'alll will excuse me, the wine is saying 'hello'.  Enjoy the eye candy from earlier.  (But all of em look WAY better in person.)

 

I believe that was me.  The point I was trying to make was that if all that mattered were the popular vote, this election would have been decided days ago.

 

And as I said then--perhaps now we can agree that in an age where the speed of communication is no longer limited to the speed of transit, that the Electoral College has outlived its usefulness, and we should find a way to transition to a system where the President is elected by direct popular vote, either by Constitutional amendment or the Popular Vote Compact?

[Old Man]

22 minutes ago, wcw43921 said:

 

And as I said then--perhaps now we can agree that in an age where the speed of communication is no longer limited to the speed of transit, that the Electoral College has outlived its usefulness, and we should find a way to transition to a system where the President is elected by direct popular vote, either by Constitutional amendment or the Popular Vote Compact?

 

We certainly can.  My other takeaway from this election is that the EC is not only obsolete, it actively cripples the nation.  All it does is enable minority rule during a pandemic--directly contributing to the death and financial ruin of that minority.

 

The National Popular Vote compact is not an option, though, since the Democrats just lost control of like six state legislatures.

[archer]

 

Some political humor, sorry it isn't more bi-partisan but those are the breaks:

 

Congratulations to Donald J. Trump for winning

the silver medal in the 2020 U.S. Presidential race!

 

Hopefully, Biden will never be the leader of my country

Because if he is, something‘s gone wrong with the Canadian legal system.

 

I think there should be a vote recount.

It’ll be awesome to see Trump lose twice.

 

Joe Biden is not my president!!

At least not till January, which won’t come soon enough.

 

Donald Trump has now had the true 2020 experience...

He got Covid-19, lost his job, and he's being evicted.

 

Why is Donald Trump actually angry about the election outcome?

It's a loss he can't write off on his tax returns.

 

It's Trump's own fault that he lost...

He spent 4 years saying, "Make America Great Again", so this week 74 million people finally did.

[archer]

It's 2021, and President Joe Biden is told he needs to assemble a cabinet

Coming back from IKEA, he realizes he's greatly misunderstood the task.

 

As a gamer I find it strange that Biden was declared the winner...

Trump had way more kills.

 

Why did Trump visit Sesame Street?

He wanted to stop The Count.

 

This 2020 Presidential election reminds me of the 2000 election....

But a lot less Gore-y.

[archer]

Trump may end up being only a one term president.

But it sure seemed like eight years.

 

Congratulations to a man who just secured a job for the next 4 years!

Jim Carrey really is an American treasure and I'm happy that he'll be gracing our TVs for many Saturdays to come.

 

Trump 2020

Who knew it was an expiration date?

 

EVICTED FAMILY NEEDS HELP MOVING! MUST BE OUT BY JANUARY 20th!

Please send any unneeded moving supplies to:

1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW

Washington, DC 20500

 

As a Nevadan, I'm tired of people insinuating that we can't count. We are a great state filled with intelligent people. In fact, I can list off 20 ways we are better than our neighboring states.

Just let me take my shoes and socks off first.

 

[archer]

How should the American taxpayer recoup Trump's expensive presidency?

Make his eviction pay-per-view.

 

At one of his rallies Trump had the crowd chanting 12 more years!

Personally I'm hoping for 12 to 20 with time off for good behavior.

 

Why is Donald Trump moving to Egypt?

To live in a state of de Nile.

 

Biden: Mr. President, do you know what the irony was about this election?

Trump: I don't know Joe. What was the irony about this election?

Biden: I beat you in my sleep.

 

It's no surprise Nevada is taking so long to count their ballots.

Anyone smart enough to count in Vegas gets kicked out and banned for life.

[archer]

So it turns out Trump can no longer screw the USA over.

As it turns out, he seems to have an electoral dysfunction.

 

Trump had a bad morning of golf today.

Everything was pulling to the Left.

 

Did you hear about the election?

Trump had unpresidented voter turnout.

 

Just think...

We will soon have the first Presidential Library with only one wall.

 

Trump didn't do too well with Trump University....

And he's not looking good at Electoral College either.

 

Donald Trump is such a powerful man, he can have anything he wants

Except a second term.

[archer]

What's the difference between 100,000 political jokes and a kid falling off a bike?

 

I still laugh every time I see a kid fall off a bike....