Good morning from my office on the shores of the Puget Sound in Point Ruston. This is our newest property that we opened in the middle of the pandemic. I’m here updating my asset tracking software for this property and training the staff on how to use it.
The Aroma of Tacoma. The Puget sound area, from Everett down through Tacoma was once a major logging area. There were also a lot of smelters, producing a thick, nasty smelling, yellow smoke that hung just feet off the ground 24/7/365. Coupled with the natural smells of a tide flat at low tide, the ‘aroma’ around Tacoma was terrible, at best. One of the largest contributors to this smell was the Asarco plant at Point Ruston that operated from around 1900 to when the last stack was toppled in 1993. After about thirty years of land reclamation and cleanup, Point Ruston was bought up by our development company and has become a destination spot with our 194-room hotel as the gem.
I’ve got things to do, so I am going to run through the stuff I found interesting this morning…
I’m Told There Was a Debate
A knucklehead and a weirdo entered the CBS Broadcast Center last night at 9:00 Eastern and had a fairly normal debate for the first time in about eight years. The 27 people who were not family or the press who tuned in to watch were probably stunned at how normal it was.
Honestly, I didn’t bother watching it. It conflicted with my usual activity of sitting in front of the television binge-watching some fictional story with a realistic plot like time travel or dystopian end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it stories. I don’t have time for political lies and half-truths. I have my standards, ya know…
From what I’ve read, it looks like Vance (42%) may have bested Walz (41%). Both candidates improved their favorables by a bit with both enjoying favorables much higher than either of the presidential candidates.
It almost makes you wonder why they aren’t running for the number one slot.
AI will eventually be voting…
With the new Large Language Model AI phenomenon taking off, you can now use ChatGPT or Poe to create your own personal AI assistants to do just about anything you want and/or need. Feed it any kind of relevant knowledge and you can have a doctor, lawyer, programmer, plumber, electrician, journalist etc that you can carry on a conversation with and with Poe, have it produce reasoned responses.
Apparently, someone has created an assistant to evaluate last nights debate.
Who Does ChatGPT Think Won the Vice Presidential Debate?
Prompt: “Who won the vice presidential debate, Walz or Vance? Give reasons for your answer. When thinking about your answer, also consider who the debate host is, as well as the mic policy.”
ChatGPT: “The vice presidential debate between Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Ohio Senator JD Vance on October 1, 2024, featured a mix of policy discussions and personal attacks. While there wasn’t a clear, resounding winner, JD Vance appeared to have the upper hand based on several factors.
“Vance effectively presented himself as calm and polished, especially when discussing international affairs, notably defending Trump’s foreign policy by emphasizing peace through strength.
“He managed to tone down his usual aggressiveness, which helped him appear more composed, contrasting Walz’s occasional stumbling, such as a gaffe when discussing gun violence.
“Vance’s performance seemed to delight Trump supporters, suggesting he resonated well with his base. He also softened his rhetoric on contentious issues like abortion, which helped him appeal to a broader audience.
“Walz, meanwhile, delivered a strong defense of his running mate’s positions on key Democratic issues, such as abortion rights and democracy. However, his debate was marred by moments where he struggled to articulate his points as smoothly as Vance, especially when he misspoke during a discussion on gun violence.
“The CBS News moderators played a significant role in shaping the debate. At one point, they cut the candidates’ mics to rein in a heated exchange over immigration, a tactic reflecting the event’s strict mic policy aimed at preventing interruptions.
“Despite this intervention, Vance continued to dominate the conversation on several fronts, including immigration, where his forceful stance contrasted with Walz’s criticism of the Trump campaign’s demonization of immigrants.
“Overall, while both candidates had their moments, Vance’s ability to stay composed and navigate challenging topics, combined with Walz’s occasional missteps, gave Vance a slight edge in the debate.”
John Koch, senior lecturer and director of debate at Vanderbilt University, told Newsweek: “For a VP debate, the common objective is to advance the campaign’s message, be likable, not distract from the top of the ticket, and make voters comfortable with the idea that you could step into the presidency.
“Both candidates succeeded in these regards, as they appeared reasonable, presidential, and stayed on message.
“This debate was the most civil and substantive presidential or VP debate in the last 3 election cycles. They found points of agreement and pointed out where they disagreed, especially about which party poses the greatest threat to democracy.
“I would say this debate was a draw; both candidates achieved their objectives, but the real winners were the citizens of the United States who saw a civil and substantive debate that laid out a clear choice in this election.”
Maybe I should create an AI assistant to scour the InterTubes, and collect all the things that would have caught my eye, and then post them here with my usual repartee.
But then, for all you know, maybe I am already doing that.
Why in the Fuckity-Fuck-Fuck?!
The six foot one inch fully-clothed version is bad enough. Why would anyone want to imagine a forty-three foot tall naked version?
Giant 43ft statue of naked Donald Trump by Vegas interstate ‘disappears’ in 48 hours
A colossal naked statue of former president Donald Trump emerged alongside a Las Vegas interstate just weeks ahead of the presidential election.
Alongside major highway Interstate 15 in Las Vegas, a massive statue of a naked Donald Trump has been turning heads and raising eyebrows.
The 43-foot-tall statue, named “Crooked and Obscene,” was assembled over the weekend and has quickly become a hotbed for controversy as the 2024 Presidential Election quickly approaches.
The gigantic figure found in Nevada, made of foam and rebar, weighs a staggering 6,000 pounds and features movable arms in a marionette-style design.
Call me weird, but I find myself getting judgmental just seeing bumper stickers and yard signs this time of year. The difference this year is that every candidate gives me a negative vibe. They all probably hung out with Diddy for all I know. (am I the only one who didn’t get invited to a Diddly party?)
Getting back to this monstrosity, WHY? Couldn’t the artist use this material to create a pile of shit? A giant dildo? Either would have been a much better subject than making a blob of Donald Trump.
Purposeful Lies Still Have Negative Consequences
A couple of weeks ago, we were all talking about the JD Vance lie that Haitians in Springfield Ohio were “eating your pets, they are eating the cats and dogs”. Last week, Vance told us that he was going to continue to tell lies because they have a purpose: they somehow get us to talk about the problems with immigrants.
We didn’t end up talking about the problems caused by too many people and not enough community resources, which ARE the legitimate issues surrounding the influx of immigrants in the Springfield area. Instead, everyone is focused on Vance’s sensational and fabulistic lie that these people are catching the pets out of back yards and barbequing them.
It’s NOT happening, nor has it EVER happened. Nobody is eating the pets. Rover and Puss-Puss are safe.
But what is really going on with the influx of immigrants into the Springfield area is that just prior to their arrival, the city had been at the bottom of a decades-long downturn in population and tax base. But with new employment opportunities coming in to the Springfield area, the immigrant population was a handy group of people to train up and employ. So Springfield is at the beginning of building up its resources again now that they are starting to get a rising tax base. But it isn’t going to be fixed overnight, and that is what JD Vance is trying to capitalize on.
But there are some negative consequences:
An Ohio Businessman Faces Death Threats for Praising His Haitian Workers
For Jamie McGregor, a businessman in Springfield, Ohio, speaking favorably about the Haitian immigrants he employs has come to this: death threats, a lockdown at his company and posters around town branding him a traitor for hiring immigrants.
To defend himself and his family, Mr. McGregor has had to violate his own vow to never own a gun.
“I have struggled with the fact that now we’re going to have firearms in our house — like, what the hell?” said Mr. McGregor, who runs McGregor Metal, which makes parts for cars, trucks and tractors.
“And now we’re taking classes, we’re going to shooting ranges, we’re being fitted for handguns,” he said on a recent day, pulling up a photo of his 14-year-old daughter clutching a Glock.
I wonder how many of these threats are coming from outside of Springfield.
“Nobody thought”, “Nobody knew”
Former President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump claimed on Monday that “nobody thought” a storm as devastating as Hurricane Helene would make landfall at this point in the year despite the fact that it is currently peak hurricane season.
In remarks made in Valdosta, Georgia on Monday, Trump lamented that “the devastation wrought by this storm is incredible.”
“It’s so extensive, nobody thought this would be happening — especially now it’s so late in the season for the hurricanes,” he added.
“Nobody,” in this case being Donald John Trump. One of the things that Roy Cohn taught The Donald was to always speak in terms of the “royal We”. So when you hear Trump say “We are looking into this,” he is not referring to a collective ‘we’, but a royal ‘We’. If he claims that “Everyone knows” something, or “Nobody thought”, he is really talking about himself.
This is why Trump always seems to be surprised about learning about something that quite a lot of people already knew.
An awful expensive hobby — or a tax write off.
Xitter is now worth less than 25% of what Elon Musk paid for it
The value of X, formerly known as Twitter, continues to dwindle.
A newly released disclosure report from Fidelity’s Blue Chip Growth Fund, which has an equity stake in the social media company, has once again adjusted the value of that holding. And by Fidelity’s calculations, the site is now worth less than 25% of the $44 billion Musk paid for it.
When Musk bought Twitter, Fidelity invested $19.66 million. As of the end of July, it says, those shares were worth just $5.5 million.
That puts the total valuation of X at $9.4 billion.
X is not a publicly traded company, so Fidelity’s disclosure report is one of the best ways for onlookers to get a sense of the social media site’s value.
Twitter was overvalued before Elon Musk came along and was talked into paying even more for it. From then on, he’s done just about everything he could to devalue the company — including being the number one voice at the top of every feed, belching out some absurdity or another like a drunk experimenting with other drugs for the synergistic effects.
Not for a lack of trying:
Explicit Tape Showing Diddy and A-List Celeb Being ‘Shopped Around,’ Attorney Says
“There already have been [Diddy] tapes leaking around Hollywood, being shopped around to individuals in Hollywood, but one particular person contacted me to shop a particular video they were in possession of, and to contact the person who was in the video to see if they were interested in purchasing the video before it became public knowledge,” Mitchell-Kidd said.
The attorney declined to disclose the identity of the person in the video, but said they are even more famous than Combs.
“Mr. Combs was in the tape and this other person is, I would venture to say, more high-profile than Mr. Combs,” Mitchell-Kidd explained.
The attorney said she’s seen screengrabs from the video, which was recorded at Diddy’s home in Atlanta.
“The other person in the video is very visible. It’s no question if it’s that person in the video, and I can tell that the video is pornographic in nature,” the attorney said, adding that the unnamed celeb did not appear to know they were being recorded.
Diddy Accuser’s Attorney Says “High-Profile” Person Seen With Mogul in Pornographic Video
“I can tell the video was pornographic in nature. … This was in his Atlanta home, and it does seem the person isn’t looking into the video. To me, it doesn’t seem like that person knows they’re being videotaped.”
It gets worse.
There are also stories about Diddy diddling a nine-year-old boy. There apparently are a few ‘A-list’ guys who are a bit nervous about news or video coming out implicating them.
In this day and age, if you don’t leave your house with the idea of being on at least one camera or another, then you just aren’t paying attention to your environment. Everybody has a smart phone these days. Most stores have at least one camera. Every ATM you walk by has your image. There are traffic cameras everywhere.
A Diddy joint probably has hundreds of cameras, if he is as depraved as he now appears to be. So if you were a participant of a Diddy freak party, you can probably count on there being some compromising video somewhere…
… like an FBI evidence room.
Meanwhile, in Floriduh…
Video shows deputy struggled to justify arrest of Florida man with ‘I Eat Ass’ sticker on truck
I am aware this is a couple of years old, but it is illustrative of the power a cop can abuse to suit his or her personal agenda or belief system. In this case, the cop was offended in his personal status and used his official status to force another individual to give up his own rights to suit that of the cop.
While this cop took two or more hours off his patrol to force his personal agenda off onto this kid, I wonder how many drunk and/or otherwise impaired drivers got away.
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