I'm a child of the 80's, so Russia is always the bad guy to me. I don’t care what my chosen side of the isle thinks of them, I'm always suspicious of them. They killed Apollo Creed.
Israel may or may not be bad, but the Gazan government is evil. They are a literal terrorist organization.
Side note: I'd take Hamas' numbers of Palestinians killed by Israel about as seriously as a report on African-American crime written by the Ku Klux Klan.
I'll be the first to tell you that I have little to no idea how our economy works, but it seems like "experts" suddenly appear from the woodwork on both sides every time Trump does something. I suspect they all know about as much as I do.
I'd like a moratorium on the words 'fascist', 'dictator', 'nazi', and 'treason' please.
I lived in NYC for six years. Lots of bad Subway situations during that time but the one that takes the cake was one Valentines Day getting stuck between stations on a crowded D Train hot car for about 30 minutes with one couple who were screaming at each other the entire time while a guy was playing a saxophone poorly. This culminated with the couple repeatedly screaming "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" at one another while other passengers started screaming "BOTH OF YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!" all while the saxophone guy was playing the love theme from The Godfather.
RE Israel/Gaza, almost no one points out the actual moral asymmetry. As Moynihan notes, it's notable that both images of Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David and claimed images of starving children are coming from Hamas.
Just imagine the apoplectic rage that would result if the official IDF X account started tweeting images of Gazans in Israeli jails looking emaciated. Forget about international condemnation, it would lead to violence in the streets in Israel. And here we have the government of Gaza releasing these images only a week after the UK says they'll recognize a Palestinian state and the UK not only doesn't respond but then condemns Israel's vote to expand its military operation a week later. It is completely surreal.
I would like to see newspaper retractions and corrections to be given the same amount of visibility as the misleading or incorrect information was. If a paper has to make a correction or retraction for something published on the front page, include the retraction on the next day’s front page. People are lazy and don’t often seek out updated versions of articles they’ve already read.
I wholeheartedly agree. A free press is one of the cornerstones of our society, and I am loathe to have state-run media. However, there needs to be some kind of accountability because nonsense like this erodes the already low public trust in the press. If there were some kind of consequence for this, maybe they'd do a better job making sure their story was right. I just don't know who would administer the consequence, because it can't be the government.
I agree that government regulation is not the answer. I think that newspaper leadership has to have the balls and integrity to promote accountability. The recourse needs to be proportionate to the error.
Totally recommend Listening to the last 2 episodes of Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast with Bill Beach, former Trump appointee to the head the BLS. First episode about 6 weeks ago got into the weeds on how the BLS works. Episode yesterday was his reaction to the latest news.
That’s a fucking great podcast, though there’s usually about 10-20% of any given episode (depending on the topic) that I don’t really follow when the talk gets technical. That doesn’t really lessen my enjoyment of the show though; I expect to get lost when finance people talk amongst themselves.
Do people really think JD Vance is bothered at all by South Park? Moynihan made it sound like Vance was pretending to like it and blow it off. Vance was 13 years old when South Park debuted. Thirteen. He’s lived his entire life since adolescence with it as part of the culture. I’m sure he’s watched a 100 episodes. I’m sure he gets it. He knows those creators Parker and Stone mock everything. Who gives a shit? I can’t stand how politically brained people think they’re in this never ending game of Battleship where they even think an episode of a nearly 30 year old cartoon is “scoring a point.” (Not saying this is Moynihan, btw, but rather libs/Dems online.)
And Moynihan seemed almost mad that Vance wasn't reacting poorly. Maybe it did hurt Vance's feelings but he is trying to save face..... GOOD. That would be good. That would be the best way to handle this situation and not let it become more culture war fodder. We should be happy Vance and Kirk (neither of whom I like) are taking this well regardless of their actual feelings.
To be fair, it's hard to know what genuinely bothers Vance because, like far too many politicians in both parties, he's a deeply and explicitly disingenuous person.
There were a bunch of assholes who came out against Israel literally on October 7, and you should hate those people. But most of the turn in opinion against Israel has happened gradually over the course of the war, because Israel has killed many many many more people than Hamas did. Hamas puts innocents in the way, but Israel pulls the trigger. And the fact that Israel is losing support is making the assholes in Hamas happy, but that's not a reason to support Israel no matter what they do, it's a reason for Israel not to kill so many innocent people every day for two years running. Israel is surrounded by vicious people who hold human life cheap, and they have responded by becoming vicious people who hold human life cheap.
Appreciate your comment but you are very very wrong about Israelis becoming vicious people who hold human life cheap. Couldn't be further from the truth but you have formed your opinion and any facts to the contrary wouldn't sway you because you're pulled by emotional manipulation. Any war is terrible - that doesn't make Israel what you describe. You think that Israel just goes on to kill civilians for the heck of it while sacrificing its soldiers for the fun of it. That's absolutely not true but I'm not here to convince you otherwise.
I think it's a bit premature to say that facts won't sway me; I note that you haven't tried to offer any. I haven't been swayed by emotional manipulation, I've been swayed by thousands of news stories detailing war crimes by the IDF and lawless terrorism by West Bank settlers. You can say that's all Hamas propaganda, and ok, there's not a lot of independent journalism coming out of Gaza. But that's because Israel isn't allowing independent journalists into Gaza, and I'm not sure what the innocent explanation for that is. Moynihan spent a lot of time complaining about one misleading photo. Fair enough, misleading photos are bad. What about the dozens of other stories of malnutrition, of civilians getting gunned down when trying to get food from aid caravans, etc? And this is just in the last week.
This is precisely why it's not worth bothering with someone like you who doesn't even under that the media is stacked against Israel. If you can't see that, you're already lost. You're already swayed without even realizing it. Your whole framing of gunning down civilians while the poor souls try to get food is simply that: stories. Have there been issued? Yes. Have you tried to deliver aid in a war zone while the enemy is actively trying to get their own civilians killed? I didn't think so. You should perhaps follow GHF and see for yourself what's really happening. You can ctiticize Israel all you want but it doesn't make Israelis vicious people who hold human life cheap. Even framing it this way is abhorrent.
And one last point, no journalists are allowed is because a. They will be used yet again as hostages or b. Killed and blamed by Israel. It's pretty simple if you don't understand what's happening in Gaza and its realities. For some reason, the reality of Hamas is waived off by pretty much everyone: yeah yeah terrorist group blah blah blah - as if they have no agency in what's happening to them or their civilians.
And Moynihan didn't complain enough about a staged photo. He actually excused it without even knowing the full story, which you don't either.
Good luck. I won't be responding because like I said your mind is set as evidenced by your buying what the media is selling you hook line and sinker.
Good to have you back! We missed you. Isn't it frustrating that this gentleman seems well meaning and fair-minded, but has been served up a diet of lies, half-truths, and omissions?
The soviet innovation of “firehose of falsehood,” is very potent indeed.
Thank you! I try not to comment on the Israel stuff anymore but like you said he seemed well-meaning so I thought maybe at least alert him to the media extreme bias but maybe that's a worthless pursuit as well.
I'm wondering if you would ever consider inviting Shadi Hamid as a guest to talk about the situation in Gaza. His views are pretty much the opposite of your views on Israel's role, but it might make for a good discussion.
I don’t understand why people don’t protest Egypt, which apparently has a border more secure than Israel to keep the Gazans out and prevents them from leaving as refugees which is what usually happens in a war zone.
On the subject of BLS, agree that it was stupid of Trump to fire the director for numbers he didn’t like, but the real question is why does the government have to do these statistics at all? Besides the census there is no constitutional requirement for the government to count anything. The private sector could do this data collection and reporting much better.
Sorry for getting mad in the chat, but that was such a stupid point by Moynihan at the end.
Maybe Gazans aren’t protesting as much as Israelis because their homes are in rubble? Perhaps it is the bombs and artillery shells Israel has been dropping on them for the past two years? Or maybe it’s because they’re worried about being kidnapped and tortured by Hamas? I guess we can’t really know why because Israel has closed off Gaza to journalists.
I switched to a Framework 13 when I rage-quit Apple laptops after my MacBook Pro had two consecutive battery failures.
Mine was under warranty both times, but such a pain to send it off to Apple and be without my main computer for a week. If my Framework's battery dies I can order a replacement for $50 and replace it myself in two minutes instead of dealing with glued-in crap.
(My Framework's display backlight did start to go after a little over three years. That replacement part was $160 and it also took minutes to install.)
I'm a child of the 80's, so Russia is always the bad guy to me. I don’t care what my chosen side of the isle thinks of them, I'm always suspicious of them. They killed Apollo Creed.
Israel may or may not be bad, but the Gazan government is evil. They are a literal terrorist organization.
Side note: I'd take Hamas' numbers of Palestinians killed by Israel about as seriously as a report on African-American crime written by the Ku Klux Klan.
I'll be the first to tell you that I have little to no idea how our economy works, but it seems like "experts" suddenly appear from the woodwork on both sides every time Trump does something. I suspect they all know about as much as I do.
I'd like a moratorium on the words 'fascist', 'dictator', 'nazi', and 'treason' please.
I want to like every paragraph separately.
I lived in NYC for six years. Lots of bad Subway situations during that time but the one that takes the cake was one Valentines Day getting stuck between stations on a crowded D Train hot car for about 30 minutes with one couple who were screaming at each other the entire time while a guy was playing a saxophone poorly. This culminated with the couple repeatedly screaming "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" at one another while other passengers started screaming "BOTH OF YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!" all while the saxophone guy was playing the love theme from The Godfather.
Greatest city in the world!
I’ve been the commute from one of the outer boroughs to the city & back for 30 years. Every day just blends into one.
If this episode doesn’t include Moynihan’s Indian accent, I demand a refund.
Moynihan really only has two accents: southern black guy, and everyone else.
Which one is Melania?
That's the one he always does that's not the black guy. Lol
Maybe moynihan’s laptop would last longer if he wasn’t spending so much time downloading Italian weather girls
RE Israel/Gaza, almost no one points out the actual moral asymmetry. As Moynihan notes, it's notable that both images of Rom Braslavski and Evyatar David and claimed images of starving children are coming from Hamas.
Just imagine the apoplectic rage that would result if the official IDF X account started tweeting images of Gazans in Israeli jails looking emaciated. Forget about international condemnation, it would lead to violence in the streets in Israel. And here we have the government of Gaza releasing these images only a week after the UK says they'll recognize a Palestinian state and the UK not only doesn't respond but then condemns Israel's vote to expand its military operation a week later. It is completely surreal.
I would like to see newspaper retractions and corrections to be given the same amount of visibility as the misleading or incorrect information was. If a paper has to make a correction or retraction for something published on the front page, include the retraction on the next day’s front page. People are lazy and don’t often seek out updated versions of articles they’ve already read.
I wholeheartedly agree. A free press is one of the cornerstones of our society, and I am loathe to have state-run media. However, there needs to be some kind of accountability because nonsense like this erodes the already low public trust in the press. If there were some kind of consequence for this, maybe they'd do a better job making sure their story was right. I just don't know who would administer the consequence, because it can't be the government.
I agree that government regulation is not the answer. I think that newspaper leadership has to have the balls and integrity to promote accountability. The recourse needs to be proportionate to the error.
Totally recommend Listening to the last 2 episodes of Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast with Bill Beach, former Trump appointee to the head the BLS. First episode about 6 weeks ago got into the weeds on how the BLS works. Episode yesterday was his reaction to the latest news.
I don’t listen to that podcast often enough, but I’ve always enjoyed it when I do. I’ll check out the episode, thanks for calling it out.
That’s a fucking great podcast, though there’s usually about 10-20% of any given episode (depending on the topic) that I don’t really follow when the talk gets technical. That doesn’t really lessen my enjoyment of the show though; I expect to get lost when finance people talk amongst themselves.
a 5 star conversation amongst 3 smart men.
Do people really think JD Vance is bothered at all by South Park? Moynihan made it sound like Vance was pretending to like it and blow it off. Vance was 13 years old when South Park debuted. Thirteen. He’s lived his entire life since adolescence with it as part of the culture. I’m sure he’s watched a 100 episodes. I’m sure he gets it. He knows those creators Parker and Stone mock everything. Who gives a shit? I can’t stand how politically brained people think they’re in this never ending game of Battleship where they even think an episode of a nearly 30 year old cartoon is “scoring a point.” (Not saying this is Moynihan, btw, but rather libs/Dems online.)
And Moynihan seemed almost mad that Vance wasn't reacting poorly. Maybe it did hurt Vance's feelings but he is trying to save face..... GOOD. That would be good. That would be the best way to handle this situation and not let it become more culture war fodder. We should be happy Vance and Kirk (neither of whom I like) are taking this well regardless of their actual feelings.
To be fair, it's hard to know what genuinely bothers Vance because, like far too many politicians in both parties, he's a deeply and explicitly disingenuous person.
There were a bunch of assholes who came out against Israel literally on October 7, and you should hate those people. But most of the turn in opinion against Israel has happened gradually over the course of the war, because Israel has killed many many many more people than Hamas did. Hamas puts innocents in the way, but Israel pulls the trigger. And the fact that Israel is losing support is making the assholes in Hamas happy, but that's not a reason to support Israel no matter what they do, it's a reason for Israel not to kill so many innocent people every day for two years running. Israel is surrounded by vicious people who hold human life cheap, and they have responded by becoming vicious people who hold human life cheap.
Appreciate your comment but you are very very wrong about Israelis becoming vicious people who hold human life cheap. Couldn't be further from the truth but you have formed your opinion and any facts to the contrary wouldn't sway you because you're pulled by emotional manipulation. Any war is terrible - that doesn't make Israel what you describe. You think that Israel just goes on to kill civilians for the heck of it while sacrificing its soldiers for the fun of it. That's absolutely not true but I'm not here to convince you otherwise.
I think it's a bit premature to say that facts won't sway me; I note that you haven't tried to offer any. I haven't been swayed by emotional manipulation, I've been swayed by thousands of news stories detailing war crimes by the IDF and lawless terrorism by West Bank settlers. You can say that's all Hamas propaganda, and ok, there's not a lot of independent journalism coming out of Gaza. But that's because Israel isn't allowing independent journalists into Gaza, and I'm not sure what the innocent explanation for that is. Moynihan spent a lot of time complaining about one misleading photo. Fair enough, misleading photos are bad. What about the dozens of other stories of malnutrition, of civilians getting gunned down when trying to get food from aid caravans, etc? And this is just in the last week.
This is precisely why it's not worth bothering with someone like you who doesn't even under that the media is stacked against Israel. If you can't see that, you're already lost. You're already swayed without even realizing it. Your whole framing of gunning down civilians while the poor souls try to get food is simply that: stories. Have there been issued? Yes. Have you tried to deliver aid in a war zone while the enemy is actively trying to get their own civilians killed? I didn't think so. You should perhaps follow GHF and see for yourself what's really happening. You can ctiticize Israel all you want but it doesn't make Israelis vicious people who hold human life cheap. Even framing it this way is abhorrent.
And one last point, no journalists are allowed is because a. They will be used yet again as hostages or b. Killed and blamed by Israel. It's pretty simple if you don't understand what's happening in Gaza and its realities. For some reason, the reality of Hamas is waived off by pretty much everyone: yeah yeah terrorist group blah blah blah - as if they have no agency in what's happening to them or their civilians.
And Moynihan didn't complain enough about a staged photo. He actually excused it without even knowing the full story, which you don't either.
Good luck. I won't be responding because like I said your mind is set as evidenced by your buying what the media is selling you hook line and sinker.
Good to have you back! We missed you. Isn't it frustrating that this gentleman seems well meaning and fair-minded, but has been served up a diet of lies, half-truths, and omissions?
The soviet innovation of “firehose of falsehood,” is very potent indeed.
Stay strong (achi? achoti?)
Thank you! I try not to comment on the Israel stuff anymore but like you said he seemed well-meaning so I thought maybe at least alert him to the media extreme bias but maybe that's a worthless pursuit as well.
Glad to have you here as well achi!
The point isn’t to convince your debate opponent, it’s to plant seeds and lay out your case for the many more curious onlookers watching.
I'm wondering if you would ever consider inviting Shadi Hamid as a guest to talk about the situation in Gaza. His views are pretty much the opposite of your views on Israel's role, but it might make for a good discussion.
I don’t understand why people don’t protest Egypt, which apparently has a border more secure than Israel to keep the Gazans out and prevents them from leaving as refugees which is what usually happens in a war zone.
On the subject of BLS, agree that it was stupid of Trump to fire the director for numbers he didn’t like, but the real question is why does the government have to do these statistics at all? Besides the census there is no constitutional requirement for the government to count anything. The private sector could do this data collection and reporting much better.
Anyway great episode as usual!
Sorry for getting mad in the chat, but that was such a stupid point by Moynihan at the end.
Maybe Gazans aren’t protesting as much as Israelis because their homes are in rubble? Perhaps it is the bombs and artillery shells Israel has been dropping on them for the past two years? Or maybe it’s because they’re worried about being kidnapped and tortured by Hamas? I guess we can’t really know why because Israel has closed off Gaza to journalists.
Yo, M. If you purchased that laptop with a CC they will often extend the manufacturer's warranty. Check out the card benefits page.
Moynihans new found diy skills could totally handle a framework laptop. Everything is replace/repairable.
I switched to a Framework 13 when I rage-quit Apple laptops after my MacBook Pro had two consecutive battery failures.
Mine was under warranty both times, but such a pain to send it off to Apple and be without my main computer for a week. If my Framework's battery dies I can order a replacement for $50 and replace it myself in two minutes instead of dealing with glued-in crap.
(My Framework's display backlight did start to go after a little over three years. That replacement part was $160 and it also took minutes to install.)
My love for Theodore Roosevelt is purely platonic, but I do appreciate the implication that I am rather well-endowed.