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29 minutes ago, redjambo said:

 

In their scale of things, it is. ;)

 

A different continent, but I once met a friend in the Australian outback for a meal. He worked on an Aboriginal settlement and had to drive 4 hours to get to where I was staying, have the meal, and then drive 4 hours home. Made me appreciate the different approaches they have to distance and time out there.

 

One of the things that first somewhat confused me when I came here. In Britain if we talk about going somewhere and someone says how far is that we reply in miles.

Here if you ask someone the same question the reply is always time not mileage.. If I ask them for a mileage they generally don't know.

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38 minutes ago, DaveyT said:

I was in a pub in New York and a woman asked me where I was from. I said Scotland. She said: Is that near London ?

 

I was visiting family in Detroit, which is right on the border about 250 miles from Toronto.  Their next door neighbour asked me where in Canada I was from, and I said "Toronto".

 

She replied, "Is Toronto a state or a town?"

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3 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

 

One of the things that first somewhat confused me when I came here. In Britain if we talk about going somewhere and someone says how far is that we reply in miles.

Here if you ask someone the same question the reply is always time not mileage.. If I ask them for a mileage they generally don't know.

 

Same in Canada.  When I think about it, the time it takes to get somewhere is more relevant than the distance.

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1 hour ago, JFK-1 said:

 

One of the things that first somewhat confused me when I came here. In Britain if we talk about going somewhere and someone says how far is that we reply in miles.

Here if you ask someone the same question the reply is always time not mileage.. If I ask them for a mileage they generally don't know.

I'll be honest, I always measure distance in time. 

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20 minutes ago, Normthebarman said:

I'll be honest, I always measure distance in time. 

 

There are some things you just never get used to. Despite being raised on metric measurements from around the age of 10 or so when they replaced our primary school rulers with ones 30 cm long rather than 12 inches, I still don't know my height in metres and would always refer to it in feet and inches.

I never speak of my weight in kilograms, I never say or think in kilometres rather than miles. I never got used to the outside temperature being in centigrade rather than fahrenheit.

When making small measurements on the other hand I will typically turn to millimetres rather than inches.

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22 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

 

On my part it's not so much sarcasm as total exasperation. They have politicians who may actually even include Biden who may indeed give them say British style 'socialism' if he could. But the way I see it he can't. He couldn't even say the word without being attacked and perhaps throwing the election.

 

You know as well as I do the reaction if the word is even mentioned. Hell Trump is using that very word, socialism, as a threat to the population of what will happen to them if they elect Biden.

You must know better than I do what's wrong with these people. I don't understand it. Trump is threatening them with scare stories of guaranteed health care? And even more horrors, you might be forced to take weeks of paid holiday per year? And they don't want that?

I don't get it. 

 

I've been thinking about this post a lot, even used it in a comment thread with the selfsame people you refer to.

 

Ultimately it boils down to this meme, which describes the result of our general national susceptibility to propaganda.

 

Image

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52 minutes ago, Justin Z said:

 

I've been thinking about this post a lot, even used it in a comment thread with the selfsame people you refer to.

 

Ultimately it boils down to this meme, which describes the result of our general national susceptibility to propaganda.

 

Image

 

The American political plane in that condition will crash. Is crashing.

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Watching Trump live which I rarely do. Think I checked in this time just to see if might collapse gasping for breath. That hasn't happened so far but what is happening is he's struggling to maintain a thread while going all out on blatant outright lies.

And appears to be talking unusually quickly. Speculation that he's hyped up on drugs or trying to rush it because he feels like shit.

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I'm now convinced he's high as a kite. Talking about being immune to covid, claims they have a cure, says he will get into the crowd and kiss everybody. Women and men. Appears to be speeding up even more.

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So the Donald was planning to pretend he was ill and then instead of taking off his mask on the balcony, was going to rip open his shirt to reveal a Superman shirt. He's off his ***g head!!

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4 minutes ago, JFK-1 said:

He said that in a few months the wall be finished and Mexico will pay for it. 🤣

 

:lol:

 

Appeals court blocks further construction on Trump border wall

October 10, 2020

 

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ruled that President Trump’s use of emergency powers to allocate millions of dollars in funding for the construction of a southern border wall was illegal, the latest blow to the Trump administration’s effort to limit immigration.

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Man I wish I could vote for this guy. There's going to be a cure for covid, great healthcare and great jobs for everybody. And the greatest schools ever. It's going to be a shrangrila.

I'm joining the seals. "4 more years" 

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Okay I got over my moment of madness. He said he has made America proud again. I know that's not true and I remembered he's a pathological liar. Oh well. Back to reality.

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A Boy Named Crow
1 hour ago, JFK-1 said:

 

There are some things you just never get used to. Despite being raised on metric measurements from around the age of 10 or so when they replaced our primary school rulers with ones 30 cm long rather than 12 inches, I still don't know my height in metres and would always refer to it in feet and inches.

I never speak of my weight in kilograms, I never say or think in kilometres rather than miles. I never got used to the outside temperature being in centigrade rather than fahrenheit.

When making small measurements on the other hand I will typically turn to millimetres rather than inches.

Ooft, sair yin!

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23 minutes ago, A Boy Named Crow said:

Ooft, sair yin!

 

The metric system is definitely far superior when it comes to fine measurements in say engineering or even carpentry.  But I will stick with my feet and inches for my height.

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A Boy Named Crow
1 minute ago, JFK-1 said:

 

The metric system is definitely far superior when it comes to fine measurements in say engineering or even carpentry.  But I will stick with my feet and inches for my height.

Ha, I couldn't track down the Kenneth Williams face, all good!

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Must be like throwing a sausage up a close. My condolences. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:troll:

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A Boy Named Crow
40 minutes ago, ri Alban said:

Must be like throwing a sausage up a close. My condolences. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:troll:

Och it wasn't trolling...

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12 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

 

There are some things you just never get used to. Despite being raised on metric measurements from around the age of 10 or so when they replaced our primary school rulers with ones 30 cm long rather than 12 inches, I still don't know my height in metres and would always refer to it in feet and inches.

I never speak of my weight in kilograms, I never say or think in kilometres rather than miles. I never got used to the outside temperature being in centigrade rather than fahrenheit.

When making small measurements on the other hand I will typically turn to millimetres rather than inches.

Long distances I'll go with miles (unless someone is travelling there, then I use time) . Height of people in foot and inches. Weight of people in stones. 

 

However, I have always and will continue to use centigrade for temperature (not modern enough to go with the name celsius yet), centimetres for small measuring, grammes for weighing other stuff. 

 

 

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11 hours ago, Justin Z said:

 

I've been thinking about this post a lot, even used it in a comment thread with the selfsame people you refer to.

 

Ultimately it boils down to this meme, which describes the result of our general national susceptibility to propaganda.

 

Image

Anywhere else in the world would look at that plane and think "That's clearly going to crash and burn". 

 

In the colonies? They act like that's the best plane in the world and all other planes wish they were as good as their one. 

 

How the **** can a country so large have so many people unable to see what a good plane should look like? 

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4 hours ago, Normthebarman said:

Anywhere else in the world would look at that plane and think "That's clearly going to crash and burn". 

 

In the colonies? They act like that's the best plane in the world and all other planes wish they were as good as their one. 

 

How the **** can a country so large have so many people unable to see what a good plane should look like? 

 In life so often we see what we want to see, with Trump in my view a lot of his "followers" see in him an opportunity to realise their dream of a totally racist society, a totally controlled public, and a rule that has removed all the rights freedoms and policies that we have come to appreciate and enjoy. The funny thing is that if they ever get their way, the first people that will be removed are the very same Donald Trump and his political allowers. 

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1 minute ago, Sharpie said:

 In life so often we see what we want to see, with Trump in my view a lot of his "followers" see in him an opportunity to realise their dream of a totally racist society, a totally controlled public, and a rule that has removed all the rights freedoms and policies that we have come to appreciate and enjoy. The funny thing is that if they ever get their way, the first people that will be removed are the very same Donald Trump and his political allowers. 

But even the majority of Democrats look at that picture and think "Yup, that's a damn fine plane." 

 

It's mental. 

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5 hours ago, Normthebarman said:

Long distances I'll go with miles (unless someone is travelling there, then I use time) . Height of people in foot and inches. Weight of people in stones

 

However, I have always and will continue to use centigrade for temperature (not modern enough to go with the name celsius yet), centimetres for small measuring, grammes for weighing other stuff. 

 

 

I was very surprised that here in Cayman, they don't actually know what stones are. They only ever use pounds. Even my American neighbour didn't know there are 14 pounds to the stone!

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Preston Jambo
17 hours ago, Justin Z said:

 

I've been thinking about this post a lot, even used it in a comment thread with the selfsame people you refer to.

 

Ultimately it boils down to this meme, which describes the result of our general national susceptibility to propaganda.

 

Image

Gore Vidal summed it up quite well a few years back (pre Trump):

 

“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat. Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties.”
 Gore Vidal

 

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Eldar Hadzimehmedovic
20 hours ago, DaveyT said:

I was in a pub in New York and a woman asked me where I was from. I said Scotland. She said: Is that near London ?

 

Tbf, I wonder how many Scots could verbally locate, say, Wisconsin to within the distance between Scotland and London. 

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56 minutes ago, Eldar Hadzimehmedovic said:

Tbf, I wonder how many Scots could verbally locate, say, Wisconsin to within the distance between Scotland and London. 

 

Along these lines, I often find that telling folk Arizona is right next to California is instantly helpful.

 

Edited by Justin Z
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Biden landslide creeps into view

A landslide victory for Joe Biden is now a realistic possibility.

 

The Democratic presidential nominee has a lead of around 10 percentage points over President Trump in national polling averages, and he is up across almost all the battleground states.

 

Trump faces low job approval ratings, bad marks for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and an ever-decreasing number of opportunities to change the direction of the race.

 

The first debate has come and gone, and the second scheduled clash has been canceled. Only one more debate, set for Oct. 22, remains.

 

No challenger to an incumbent president since Bill Clinton almost 30 years ago has been in such a strong position as Biden with such a short period of time until Election Day.

 

Still, even Democrats are reluctant to talk out loud about a Biden landslide for fear of jinxing a monumental election or encouraging complacency. Many pundits are also hedging their bets, mindful of the 2016 experience.

 

The national polls four years ago were — contrary to public perception — not far off the eventual result. But state-level polls, especially in the Rust Belt and the Midwest, went seriously awry.

 

Democrat Hillary Clinton went into Election Day ahead in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin by 3.4 points, 1.9 points and 6.5 points respectively in the RealClearPolitics (RCP) polling averages. Trump carried all three states.

 

Trump aide Corey Lewandowski — the president’s first campaign manager in the 2016 cycle, now back on board for the 2020 effort — contended that the polls that year and the media’s coverage of them had amounted to “enormous misinformation.”

 

In a conference call with reporters Monday morning, Lewandowski said, “Our internal numbers — and we are very confident of where our numbers are — continue to show a very different story” from the public polls.

 

Still, Biden’s lead in some key battlegrounds is greater than Clinton’s was four years ago. He is about 7 points ahead in the RCP averages in both Michigan and Pennsylvania. He is almost 4 points up in Florida. New polls on Monday from the New York Times-Siena College put Biden ahead by 10 points in Wisconsin and 8 points in Michigan. 

 

Caution is still the watchword for many experts who acknowledge that the president cannot be counted out. But the flip side — a Biden victory by a thumping margin — is also well within the realms of possibility.

 

“Neither of the outcomes that looks a bit of a reach right now is out of the question,” said Steve Kornacki, national political correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. “We are always fighting the last war where everybody remembers the surprise of 2016.

But if you apply that and think — as I think we should — that Trump could win this thing, you have to entertain the other possibility: that Joe Biden could win an emphatic victory.”

Among Democrats, there is acute fear that Trump could pull a surprise for any number of reasons, ranging from voter suppression or intimidation to less mendacious explanations like an unexpectedly high turnout from his supporters.

 

Biden “is in a very strong position, there is no question about that,” said Mark Mellman, a Democratic pollster who is also a columnist for The Hill. But Mellman added, referring to Trump’s perceived chances of victory, “I have spent most of the last four years trying to remind people that 25 percent events really happen once every four times, and 15 percent chances really do happen about 15 percent of the time.”

 

Data site FiveThirtyEight gave Trump just a 13 percent chance of prevailing in November as of Monday evening. By contrast, it assessed the chances of Biden winning an Electoral College margin of more than 100 electoral votes at greater than 60 percent.

 

The Trump campaign highlights a number of factors as to why assessments like that are wrong. They express general skepticism of the polls, especially surveys that do not provide the party identification of respondents or crosstabs with specific demographic information.

 

They also suggest that some of the voters who will back the president are not being picked up properly by pollsters, perhaps because they are newly registered or are less inclined to declare their support.

 

Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, has noted how heavily the president’s 2016 victory rested on rolling up huge margins in the least populous counties of key swing states.

 

GOP pollster David Winston said that, even with Election Day so close at hand, it is important to be circumspect given the overall political landscape.

 

“In terms of COVID, the economy with things shut down, and the social unrest, there is a very volatile environment,” Winston noted.

 

Winston also took issue with the description of Biden as the “favorite” to win the election, noting that polls are snapshots of one moment of time, not a predictor of what could happen three weeks later.

 

“Biden at this point has the clear advantage, but that is different from the ‘favorite.’ You have one more debate. There are other things that can occur,” he said.

 

But with just three weeks to go, time is running out for Trump. The president’s main hope, for now, is that the polls are wrong.

 

If, instead, they are accurate — or even underestimating Democratic support, as was the case in 2012 — Trump is on course for a crushing defeat.

 

https://thehill.com/homenews/the-memo/520692-the-memo-biden-landslide-creeps-into-view
 

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3 hours ago, Justin Z said:

 

Along these lines, I often find that telling folk Arizona is right next to California is instantly helpful.

 

 

Just had a look at a map - love maps, btw.

 

Is there anything particularly interesting about Winslow, Arizona that would have the Eagles standing on a corner?

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1 minute ago, Boof said:

 

Just had a look at a map - love maps, btw.

 

Is there anything particularly interesting about Winslow, Arizona that would have the Eagles standing on a corner?

 

:lol: The fact that the town of Winslow now has "the girl in the flatbed Ford" as a tourist attraction should tell you everything you need to know!

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2 minutes ago, Boof said:

 

Just had a look at a map - love maps, btw.

 

Is there anything particularly interesting about Winslow, Arizona that would have the Eagles standing on a corner?

 

Now near Winslow? Meteor Crater is ****ing amazing:

 

636404742115100135-meteor-crater-aerial.

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2 minutes ago, Justin Z said:

 

Now near Winslow? Meteor Crater is ****ing amazing:

 

636404742115100135-meteor-crater-aerial.

 

Now, that IS cool. Presume that's tourist-related stuff beside the rim?

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2 minutes ago, Justin Z said:

 

Now near Winslow? Meteor Crater is ****ing amazing:

 

636404742115100135-meteor-crater-aerial.

 

A feature I have always wanted to go see. Took them a long time to figure out exactly how this had happened. The initial conclusion was volcanic activity.

It wasn't until the early 20th century that an impact was suggested by  Daniel M. Barringer and even then it took until the 1950's before it was finally accepted to be an impact crater.

I think there was a reluctance to accept that such things still happened in relatively recent times. All doubt that it still happens was completely removed when we witnessed Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 strike Jupiter in July 1994. A sobering realisation that our time will come too.

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12 minutes ago, Boof said:

 

Now, that IS cool. Presume that's tourist-related stuff beside the rim?

 

That's right. @JFK-1 just shared some excellent info that you can learn more about there.

 

Another fun fact: NASA trained Apollo astronauts here as the terrain down there was the closest convenient analogue to the moon that they had. There are telescopes at various points around the rim of it and if you look through them you can see a little cardboard cutout astronaut down in the centre.

 

Oh, and there's always that other big hole in the ground, about another two hours north:

 

grand canyon sunset.

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https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/president

 

Based on The Economist website above, I'm sure that Biden is heading for a comfortable win in the election.  But there are two intangibles that stop me from putting the champagne on ice just yet.

 

One, using a tactic that worked for Trump in 2016, it would not surprise me if Bill Barr announced that the Attorney General of the USA was launching an investigation into criminal activity by Joe Biden and his son.  That would be a shameful ruse, but the Republicans have no shame so it could still happen.  Besides, Barr himself is coming under scrutiny and possibly facing impeachment, so it's in his interest to keep Trump in the White House for as long as possible.

 

Two, regardless of the election results, Trump ain't leaving. A Biden win will just be the signal for a temper tantrum by Trump and his cultists, which will see Trump launching a flurry of lawsuits, to be heard by Trump-friendly courts, that could stall any change in administrations. Similar action could be taken by individual Republican senators who lose their seat, resulting in a switch of power in the Senate to the Democrats.

 

The election will be just the start of a tumultuous time in American politics.  Who knows how it will end ... with the death of American democracy, perhaps?

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2 hours ago, Boof said:

 

Just had a look at a map - love maps, btw.

 

Is there anything particularly interesting about Winslow, Arizona that would have the Eagles standing on a corner?

There’s a bronze statue of a guy standing on the corner now. 
Edit. It’s actually a statue of Glenn Frey who wrote it. 
 

 

Edited by Tazio
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2 hours ago, Justin Z said:

 

Now near Winslow? Meteor Crater is ****ing amazing:

 

636404742115100135-meteor-crater-aerial.


You know that's fake right?
It's actually on the moon and they sent astronauts there to film it and just pretend ti's in USA 😂

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4 minutes ago, Tazio said:

There’s a bronze statue of a guy standing on the corner now. 

 

Never realised it was part of old highway 66.

 

Sorry Mods - probably should get back to Trump now.

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2 hours ago, Boof said:

 

Just had a look at a map - love maps, btw.

 

Is there anything particularly interesting about Winslow, Arizona that would have the Eagles standing on a corner?

 

My first exposure to Arizona: :D

 

 

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2 hours ago, Justin Z said:

 

Now near Winslow? Meteor Crater is ****ing amazing:

 

636404742115100135-meteor-crater-aerial.

 

Those buildings near the crater were bloody lucky. That thing just missed them!

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10 minutes ago, RobboM said:


You know that's fake right?
It's actually on the moon and they sent astronauts there to film it and just pretend ti's in USA 😂

 

Google 'car' (actually must be a hand-held thing) goes right to the bottom of the crater in Street view :lol: 

Edited by Boof
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11 minutes ago, RobboM said:

You know that's fake right?
It's actually on the moon and they sent astronauts there to film it and just pretend ti's in USA 😂

 

:lol:

 

7 minutes ago, redjambo said:

Those buildings near the crater were bloody lucky. That thing just missed them!

 

Hah imagine the bloody unlucky Saguaro cactus and coyotes that were there, poor buggers.

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13 minutes ago, Justin Z said:

Hah imagine the bloody unlucky Saguaro cactus and coyotes that were there, poor buggers.

 

 Impact energy has been estimated at about 10 megatons

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1 hour ago, redjambo said:

 

Those buildings near the crater were bloody lucky. That thing just missed them!

:arf:

 

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Been a quiet day on the Trump front. Hope he hasn't taken a turn for the worse. I heard there are bookies taking bets that he will go full blown wacko by appearing live on twitter during a total meltdown after losing the election.

That's what it's come to. Betting on his state of derangement.

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Trump needs to suppress enough votes and get his spivs on the Scotus to rule in his favour when he refuses to concede. I think there will be massive riots beyond any blm protest if this plays out

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I P Knightley

 

10 hours ago, Tazio said:

There’s a bronze statue of a guy standing on the corner now. 
Edit. It’s actually a statue of Glenn Frey who wrote it. 
 

 

:biglaugh: That's the answer I was going to give (tongue in cheek, of course!)

 

(And the one about the meteorite just missing the tourist centre)

 

8 hours ago, JFK-1 said:

Been a quiet day on the Trump front. Hope he hasn't taken a turn for the worse. I heard there are bookies taking bets that he will go full blown wacko by appearing live on twitter during a total meltdown after losing the election.

That's what it's come to. Betting on his state of derangement.

Can you define "full blown wacko"? I keep on thinking that Trump's gone full blown wacko but then he comes back with something else. Yesterday telling his rally that he felt 'like Superman' (helping confirm the talk that he wanted to have a superman t-shirt under his shirt when leaving hospital). 

 

It's like watching Sergei Bubka in the late '80s and early '90s, nudging up the record one centimetre at a time when all the time you knew he could just smash it by about 15cm. 

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I P Knightley
10 hours ago, Maple Leaf said:

https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/president

 

Based on The Economist website above, I'm sure that Biden is heading for a comfortable win in the election.  But there are two intangibles that stop me from putting the champagne on ice just yet.

 

 

I don't like the downward trend over the last 5-6 days. Squeaky bum time?

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  • Kalamazoo Jambo changed the title to U.S. Politics megathread (title updated)
  • Maple Leaf changed the title to U.S. Politics megathread (merged)

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