Gromnir

your example were clear even if you did not mention gender bias. so again, you were bothered enough by the particular exchange to use it as the foundation for your criticism o' cnn. when we mention how it were unreasonable to not ask bernie 'bout the gender issue you switch to a more general criticism o' bias. rather than successful call out bias, you effective display bias. we don't like cnn coverage o' the debates, but you latch on to perhaps the singular most obvious question exchange which were a forgone conclusion before debate even started. cnn coulda' flubbed, but there were no bias and no loaded question. no equivocation. straightforward questions directed at both candidates involved, and then moved on to next questions. cnn had to ask the questions whether you liked 'em or not. cnn did those two questions question professional even if they handled dozens o' other issues wrong. nevertheless, is the one issue which you included in your cnn criticism post. bias indeed. HA! Good Fun!

you mighta' had a stronger point if you hadn't made the gender question the inspiration for your example o' cnn malfeasance. HA! Good Fun!

like it or not, can you imagine the ridicule cnn woulda' suffered if nobody asked bernie 'bout the gender issue? ignore the elephant in the room? "you would have asked the question if it was donald on stage and not bernie." etc. after bernie claims elizabeth were wrong 'bout her recollection, cnn shoulda' ignored obvious follow-up question? in this single case, cnn were damned no matter what they chose to do, but am thinking they had to ask the question. HA! Good Fun!

y' mean other than fox execs giving debate questions to preferred candidates before the event? am also thinking the last decent debate mod still at fox would be chris wallace. could you imagine a debate, any debate, moderated by hannity, carlson and ingraham? might as well have wallace, joe buck and troy aikman do the next fox debate... which could actual be entertaining. HA! Good Fun!

you have inspired us to watch blade:trinity this eve. well, that were enuff. however, seeing the trailer for morbius, other than wondering if we can get a j. jonah jameson quip 'bout the morbius name, can't help but make us wonder if ethics is an optional elective at the various Universities of Super Science in comic book worlds. HA! Good Fun!

President nominee runs on a platform o' Congress should work? pretty much everything Presidents promise is stuff Congress is s'posed to do... or state and local governments. have a President try and sell notion the public should be looking for a chief executive to do little more than manage bureaucracy, deal with actual emergencies and negotiate with foreign powers is so 18th century. part o' the problem is a century long trend o' Congress increasing doing as little as possible. President and the Courts has needed step in to fill the void and Congress has been far too willing to do the three wise monkey routine as the chief executive has been the obvious power to keep government running while legislators instead focus on getting reelected. am not seeing a way back to previous norms w/o cataclysm. HA! Good Fun!

learn to make sauerkraut. get the probiotics w/o the dairy and is perfect time o' year in northern california to fill up a big pickle barrel o' the stuff in the garage. be warned: cooler temps means it may take a day or two longer to proper ferment than described in the linked recipe. HA! Good Fun!

context is important. warren has issued a statement in which she says, speaking o' a conversation with bernie, "I thought a woman could win; he disagreed." 'course, ask Gromnir if he thinks a woman could win in 2020 and we would agree with bernie, but not 'cause o' gender. the actual female candidates and their policy positions look wrong to us, but likely for different reasons than bernie would articulate. early we thought kamala harris looked like a moderate alternative to biden, but her tough-on-crime history which made her more palatable to independents and even republicans were increasing used to undermine her support from democrats. her second amendment position lost gd's vote and more than a few independents who might have otherwise considered voting for harris. also, we thought harris' campaign were too trump-like and caustic to succeed with those folks tired o' trump. no real signature program or slogan worthy position neither. tulsi gabbard has a slogan worthy signature policy position which resonates. stop endless wars. is everything else 'bout her which is terribad. klobuchar is capable and experienced senator whom most americans know little but she don't appear to bring anything unique to the 2020 campaign. no slogan worthy signature policy or program. don't get us started on marianne williamson. etc. warren is too liberal for independents to embrace. am thinking she is smart and has well articulated policy positions, but her slogan worthy program is gonna be something along the lines o' tax the rich. tax the _______ is gonna discourage moderates and even a few liberals. tax is not a good start. 'course is doubtful bernie saw warren as too liberal. if at the start o' the 2020 Presidential campaign we were asked if a woman could win, we likely woulda' said harris were a possibility, but such hope died fast and ugly. context is important. the thing is, regardless o' context, gender would not have been a major concern. twenty years ago if you asked us which would Americans be more likely to vote for President, a white woman or a minority man, we woulda' tabbed the fairer sex w/o any hesitation. full disclosure: little over a year has past since we were, for the first time, accused of mansplaining. had a case involving a catholic school and a 1st amendment issue. methodist parents were angry 'cause o' curriculum and treatment o' their daughter. were not our first rodeo, so at very start o' our work we provided the parents with a written list o' simple dos and don'ts. we went over the list with parents and we made sure they understood. we then we had parents sign so they understood importance o' the list. two months later we had to have a discussion with same folks and explain that their behavior had serious jeopardized the case... they had multiple times engaged in highlighted "dont's" actions. again, not our first rodeo, so we had a prepared speech we gave to folks sitting 'cross the desk from us when we explained, as polite as Gromnir possible, how they were sabotaging a case in exact ways we had recent warned 'em. took us near twenty years o' refinement to get our speech to level o' perfection we were satisfied. thankful we didn't need use the speech too often, but were often enough such that we developed the bit o' rote and we had used it to correct the behaviour o' men and women and even a transgender client. so imagine our surprise when mrs. _________ accused us o' mansplaining. have no idea what went down 'tween bernie and warren, but our personal mansplaining incident bothered us more than we woulda' guessed it should. maybe bernie is a closeted misogynist and has been hiding such for decades, but am also recognizing how innocent observations can be taken outta context particular where gender and race is at issue. HA! Good Fun!

as somebody who turned 50 this year... HA! Good Fun!

unfortunately, the gadsden flag and its sentiment has already been co opted. HA! Good Fun!

"build the wall" is a three-word slogan which is easy to remember and resonates with folks. gd needs a three-word slogan which resonates if he has any chance o' success. make america great? taken. one thousand dollars? just as dumb as the above, but also taken. HA! Good Fun!

determining what is in your best interest is a problem. am baffled by american farmers who continue to vote trump in spite o' how they has suffered, but many o' them believe trump will make things better for 'em in spite o' all expert evidence and three years personal experience to the contrary. these folks helped vote obama into office, so is not just a party-line kinda thing. more complicated is the rich folks who vote trump. last year, with extreme conservative investing now that we is on a fixed income, we saw ~14% roi from non real estate, and our real estate equity growth were better than we coulda hoped. from march to november, our ira alone brought in just under 300k. the thing is, am recognizing income disparity and national (and personal) debt is out of control. current we got worst of both worlds with insane washington spending, which has been demonized by conservatives for more than a generation, and the middle class is not growing at all while ranks o' the poor is swelling and incomes relative to inflation has been stagnant for a long time. look at personal bottom line, the most obvious indicator o' our own interest, is myopic. look at the folks on this board who moan and groan 'bout immigration and support the idiotic wall trump is spending billions o' US dollars to finally start building. new rule were passed which allows cities and counties to reject acceptance o' immigrants, sorta a response to sanctuary city stuff. no takers... anywhere. in spite o' all the stoopid rallies, local governments recognize what a boon is immigrants for the economy. nevertheless, immigration has been staked out like the goat in jurassic park. is an easy target to blame the woes o' the middle class (particular in the manufacturing sector) on illegal border crossers... although folks who overstay their legal visas is actual the largest % o' illegal immigrant population and would be complete unaffected by a wall or any other border measures. regardless, can show how immigrants is not responsible for taking American jobs and that immigrants commit less crime, but none o' that matters 'cause 30% o' Americans, including d-bags like stephen miller, thinks calvin coolidge were the bestest President evar and they are trying to bring back the glory days o' the 1920s. self interest? first step needs be education. always. HA! Good Fun!

tax corporations higher is probable not ideal. pass on the tax hit to consumers is the obvious response. the thing is, in the US, the money ends up in the hands o' individuals, so tax persons is gonna get to the root issue. if corporate entities and large partnerships makes billions o' dollars in profits 'cause of tax breaks, such money doesn't just stay in the business. eventual the money makes its way to the wealthy owners and investors. tax people gets to the heart o' the issue w/o punishing consumers. the thing is, current, capital gains, where rich people make most o' their money, is taxed at 20%, and there is functional ways to reduce such even further. even all those corporate profits tn sees is making their way to individuals via disbursements and investments which is gonna be taxed as capital gains, 'cause smarty executives know how to keep their income lowish. the system is rigged in favor o' the wealthy. a single filer, making +$40k per year is being taxed at 22%, but the wealthy is functional having the majority o' their wealth being taxed somewhere south o' 20%. the inheritance taxes feels like a double-hit. your money gets taxed during life and then just 'cause you die it gets taxed again. is the reason why it has been easier to get public support for lowering estate taxes. however, the ability to create generational wealth is not helping the US. is so many ways the system is rigged in favor o' living wealthy people, we not need give their kids special advantages. yeah, pass on the family home and/or farm needs be considered. as we mentioned earlier, the small family farm is actual typical representing a large lump sum o' money. assume tn owns even a smallish avocado farm or ranch in a place such as california, a place which has been in the family for generations. at death you wanna pass to kids, but any kinda inheritance tax crude targeting +$X million is gonna disproportionate affect family ranchers and farmers. whenever we try and do simple tax, it doesn't work so well 'cause it disproportionate hurts somebody we do not wish it to, like dairy farmers and ranchers. flat taxes on income, btw, is missing the core problems bill gates identified in the earlier hurlshot post. need get at the hedge fund exceptions, inheritance and most significant, capital gains. make flat tax o' 15% on capital gains will make situation worse and not better. 15% is also a significant increase on taxes o' those current living in poverty, which is unlikely what gd or anybody else advocating a flat tax wishes. HA! Good Fun!

the thing is, check what bernie and elizabeth warren is saying 'bout taxing the rich, then compare to your bill gates post from recent. democrats is selling a tax scheme which resonates with voters: tax the wealthy. hurl isn't worried, but is a stoopid scheme. bill gates knows it is stoopid. is why bill gates, for example, focuses on stuff such as capital gains loopholes. a 45% tax on estates valued between $3 million and $10 million is not a hard sell 'cause how many folks has $3 million? tax the other guy is always ok. happens with poor as well as rich. recall when oregon state senators failed to show for votes? were 'cause city folks in oregon were creating an environmental tax which would disproportionate affect the rural populace. tax other people is ez. the thing is, tax wealth is stoopid. for instance, how do you value an estate? who values? you gonna pay irs to appraise value o' estates nationwide? and what happens when government appraised property sells for considerable less than it were appraised? gonna refund the tax? to have estates appraised yearly is a serious hurdle, and will create a whole new catalog o' loopholes as estates is broken into smaller portions 'mongst families and trusts and foundations. and many o' those struggling farmers who is being crushed by trump's trade war and is dependant on subsidies may fall in the $3 million range, depending on when the estate is valued. gambling is outlawed in most states, but modern family farming is a kind o' legalized gambling and is ubiquitous. every year farmers go deep in debt and pray for weather to be good and unrest in central america to subside and trade war with china to end. if all goes well, a farmer may make a whole bunch o' money, which they need then reinvest just to stay viable and must needs take out more loans regardless to start cycle for next year... god willing. value estates is one problem... just one. bill gates wants to fix inheritance (that is what he is talking 'bout when he references the "estate tax"... which is different than bernie and warren taxing estates yearly) and capital gains, while eliminating a serious loophole for hedge fund millionaires/billionaires. such is not what bernie and elizabeth is talking 'bout. sadly, have bill gates explain is less appealing to voters than, "tax the rich." am knowing bill is a smart guy, but is not bill being smarter than bernie and elizabeth. bill is not running for office, so he may offer options which do not have voter appeal. hurl shouldn't worry 'bout the wealthy, but he should be concerned if a proposed tax on the wealthy will be ineffective and (ironic) costly. am in favor o' taxing the wealthy more than they is being taxed today. a considerable increase is in order. unfortunate, we want the taxing to be done smart and not stoopid. stuff such as a 45% tax on estates totaling more than $3 million is ez math but complete and total busted. as such, we recommend vote bill gates for USA CFO 2020. is the position we suspect trump thought he were running for during the previous cycle, in spite o' being woefully unqualified. HA! Good Fun!

*chuckle* our assets, almost entire, is going to st jude children's research hospital and the american cancer society. whatever adverse environmental impact those dollars have, am willing put our contribution in the balance w/o any kinda guilt. HA! Good Fun!

owners want it. owners have figure out how by mid-season, fans forget how bad were the quality o' the first 3-4 games. we cannot see such as anything other than a bad idea, but the players is gonna be asking for many changes and as such the owners is gonna have the opportunity to send santa their wish list too. HA! Good Fun!

is a relevant health care issue. the results o' testing would necessarily be confidential, but understand % of players using marijuana could provide beneficial data. like it or not, marijuana has effects 'pon developing brains, and brain development may occur well into mid-20s. young players, the age group ironic most likely to use marijuana, is the only nfl players who face any real danger from marijuana use. HA! Good Fun!

four (five) issues we seen getting mention for 2021 collective bargain: 18 game season *insert eyeroll here* revenue sharing post career player health care franchise tag and rookie contract duration there doesn't appear to be much resistance to the idea of increasing player health care benefits after they end their careers, so that is good news, but league responsibility and payments regarding cte related stuff may require negotiation. however, should be ez to work at least basic increased standardized health benefits into the cba. a fifth issue, which is also sorta a non-issue but even more so is marijuana testing. am suspecting the league either drops penalization o' mj use but keeps testing, or drops testing and punishment altogether. again, doesn't appear to be any real resistance from players or owners. HA! Good Fun!

biggest factor is guaranteed contracts hasn't been a big enough priority for players. players have an opportunity to change the dynamic each time collective bargaining agreement is renegotiated, and the players, as a whole, have not made it a priority. last cycle were when everybody thought there would be additional guarantees for players, but instead the long-term vets managed to make sure priorities were for long-term vets, and the young players got screwed. oh, and no players wanted olympic drug testing and as soon as the owners put such testing on the table, the players caved like a matchstick house in a tornado. owners were actual offering guarantees, but they also insisted on olympic testing. is the nflpa who killed guarantees just so long as owners would abandon their insistence on olympic testing. size o' roster is likely the second biggest factor. after all, the average player is only in the league for 3.5 years anyway, and is less 'bout injuries as is simple 'bout keeping players only as long as necessary. nfl has, by far, the biggest rosters o' any professional sport. players become injured in sports, but bad luck o' a large number o' career ending injuries can cripple a team for a long time, which would be bad for the product. 'course is arguable 'cause o' particular small size, guarantees is even more debilitating to an nba team with injuries. difference is proportion o' superstars and relative leverage. to sell seats and merchandise, an nfl team needs one or two star players on a roster o' 53. nba needs same number o' superstars but has a roster o' 15. is so much easier for nfl to negotiate with the nflpa 'cause so few players is superstars. size of roster dilutes the power o' superstars. is particular problematic 'cause the average nfl player is young and... unwise? last collective bargaining cycle, few players saved money in anticipation of being w/o game checks. huh? the rookies who knew collective bargaining were coming instead o' creating a war chest went out and bought cars, and houses for mom, and bling. both vet players and the nfl could squeeze the younger players 'cause young and unwise were desperate to get back on the field, whereas the 10 year vets could afford to wait. vet players screwed younger players during the last collective bargaining agreement... and then the owners screwed vet players by shifting more towards keeping their rosters youth heavy. no surprise. is predictable the owners will look out for themselves, but last collective bargaining had vets not looking out for young players, which should be kinda the point o' collective bargaining. vets were more concerned with getting bigger contracts and avoiding olympic drug testing than they were with guarantees. will see what happens this time, but league is even younger today with players more vulnerable to missed game checks. who here thinks 2020 players will be smart and build war chest in anticipation o' collective bargaining? is gonna once again be on nfl superstars to demand guarantees and to help younger players survive lean time? if so, what do you believe will happen? HA! Good Fun!

if you are $1 in the black, total, you own more than the economic bottom 50% o' the US population combined. half the adult US population is carrying more debt than assets. some o' this is understandable as home ownership, while decreasing, is still the most common way folks build capital. take out a mortgage on a house you and your wife cannot really afford, and then work for decades, likely buying increasing value homes as you age, in hopes that you will eventually be able to sell your finally unencumbered biggest asset after having reaped benefits o' all that accumulated equity. cross-fingers there ain't another 2008ish housing bubble burst at wrong time in your life. *shakes head sadly* regardless, the income disparity problem and debt issues is not sustainable. the ending is already known. how many future 60 year old americans is gonna have a "what have i done moment?" is a matter o' when, and not if. oh, and to make matters worse, being a simple "millionaire" ain't gonna be anywhere near enough by the time most o' the millenials retire. shooting for a goal far too low in spite o' fact it seems out of reach. madness indeed. HA! Good Fun!

for a goodly number o' years we indulged in commercial and residential real estate ventures. there were a common hurdle we faced with sellers, a singularly common hurdle. price at which a person would wish to sell property were as much a matter o' what the seller needed as it were dependent on what the property were worth. property is worth $5 million, but seller needs $5.5 million. solution? well, obviously the seller should invest a couple hundred thousand in improvements and advertising and then wait for the right seller in order to get price needed, yes? after making additional investments o' time and money, the seller would become even more wedded to needed sell price. such thinking is obvious idiotic, yes? *shrug* perhaps feargus needed deadfire to make X dollars? easiest way to cut costs o' pretty much any business is to fire folks. especial when the people working for you is well known and/or friends, cost cutting will be a painful endeavour and non-heartless bosses will go to extreme and sometimes stoopid lengths to avoid the obvious firings. "if deadfire makes X dollars, then i don't need to fire bob and jane and steve and..." am not making excuses for feargus. lord knows we wouldn't make excuses for feargus. am also having no idea what were feargus' actual thinkings regarding seeming curious development choices for deadfire. nevertheless, we has been in the situation where we needed X dollars to keep from firing bob and jane and steve. it is not an enviable position and am gonna admit we have gambled stoopid in the hope success would mean we wouldn't need make obvious needed labor cuts. turnover at even successful indie game developers is notorious common. being the boss at an indie game developer who genuine tries to keep good people employed for longer than the duration o' a single game development must needs be challenging. am not saying feargus pushed for vo, and ship-to-ship combat, and whatever other bad moves you wanna catalog 'cause he needed deadfire to be successful. we don't know. is an example o' a mere possibility. nevertheless, when otherwise intelligent people make obvious blunders, there is often a reason for such mistakes. perhaps the reasoning were foolish, but rare is obvious blunders as simple as they first appear. HA! Good Fun!

given expectations, deadfire sold poorly. expectations were all wrong. the fig campaign were successful; brought in loads o' money. while the pledges were considerably fewer in number, dollar total were higher for deadfire than poe. whatever sales expectations obsidian had for deadfire, the fig campaign shoulda' clarified the situation. poe disappointed many purchasers. no surprise. particular given the manner in which obsidian were advertising poe, many purchasers wanted poe to be bg3 ultra, combining all the stuff people liked bestest from the ie games. try and pinpoint what were the essential aspects o' bg2 and ie game success were elusive. nostalgia is emotional far more than rational, so trying to identify and balance essential features for everybody were a doomed proposition from the start. followers o' feedback for poe development no doubt observed how frequent the case people were not 'membering the ie games reality, but their recollections were illuminated and altered by the warm and highly personal nostalgia glow. even so, am suspecting obsidian did a pretty good job o' satisfying numerous poe purchasers. again, the robust fig pledges for deadfire revealed an enthusiastic core following, yes? obsidian failed to realize what they had and as such their expectations for deadfire sales were all wrong. invest more money to make deadfire were misguided. obsidian had built up considerable brand loyalty with a single game, but while fans o' poe were arguably more enthusiastic for deadfire than they were for poe, there were clear signs there would be fewer such fans. in spite o' such signs, obsidian indulged in extravagances such as full vo? ... given the fanbase created by poe, am suspecting (am no expert) obsidian coulda' made financial successful poe games in perpetuity just so long expectations and development costs were reasonable. in fact, am suspecting deadfire "failure" did not hurt poe brand loyalty. no doubt obsidian could still make successful poe games in the future 'cause the people who liked poe by and large liked deadfire and would probable buy a poe3. however, expectations need be reasonable. try and sell microsoft on the idea o' poe3 challenging bg3 sales would be fanciful. HA! Good Fun!

so we aren't talking something which would be .5 miles or more away from gd's home like the big turbines. would need be much closer? fumes. property value loss. cancer. east coast states have much different riparian rights laws than does the much drier west, so am honest uncertain what is gd's rights, but general rule is if you live on land with creek, river, stream, etc., you cannot reduce or disrupt downstream flow. therefore, any sorta dam needed to make a waterwheel or turbine functional is gonna be presumptive verboten. is why gd once mentioned a water turbine as his post apocalypse solution to energy independence. HA! Good Fun!

arguable biggest concern is the 75% property value drop which follow gd erecting a wind turbine on (or near) his homestead. HA! Good Fun!

and they only last ten years and then you need buy a new one from germany or china. don't forget about the "fumes." HA! Good Fun!