Open mike 12/07/2024

Written By: - Date published: 6:00 am, July 12th, 2024 - 45 comments
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Open mike is your post.

For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.

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45 comments on “Open mike 12/07/2024 ”

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  1. Dennis Frank 1
    12 July 2024 at 7:44 am

    From Wikipedia:

    A gerontocracy is a form of rule in which an entity is ruled by leaders who are significantly older than most of the adult population.

    In many political structures, power within the ruling class accumulates with age, making the oldest individuals the holders of the most power.

    Relevance:

    More than half of Democrats say President Joe Biden should end his reelection campaign because of his catastrophic debate performance, though he remains neck-and-neck with former President Donald Trump, according to a new poll released Thursday.

    56% of Democrats and 67% of all Americans believe Biden should withdraw “given his performance in the debate,” the Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll found, while new highs of 85% of Americans say Biden is too old for a second term and 60% say the same of Trump. Both men receive 46% support among all registered voters, nearly unchanged from the last edition of the poll in April.

    Boomerism hasn't faded yet. So what if Biden forgets what he was talking about and falls over at random moments – you can always restart him. Democrats are almost pathological in their fear of a black woman running against Trump, so they cling on to their boomer patriarch. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/11/biden-polls-washington-post-abc-00167571

    • PsyclingLeft.Always 1.1
      12 July 2024 at 8:46 am

      Democrats are almost pathological in their fear of a black woman running against Trump,

      Where that ? A reckon ?

    • Vivie 1.2
      12 July 2024 at 2:05 pm

      Dennis Frank: Joe Biden is not a baby boomer. In most countries, including the United States, the baby boomer cohort covers people born from 1946 to the mid 1960s. https://www.britannica.com/topic/baby-boomers Joe Biden was born on 20.11.42.

      In New Zealand the term baby boomer is often used as an insult and a form of othering. To clarify for those who persist with the notion that baby boomers are all the elderly, or who seem to believe the term applies to people when they become eligible for National Superannuation: the NZ baby boom cohort covers people born following the end of World War Two – from 1946 through to the early 1970s – i.e. people aged from about 52 through to age 78/79. Some people who insult baby boomers are probably included in the cohort, and don't understand its historical significance or know the time-frame.

      The NZ phenomenon is explained in the following links:

      https://teara.govt.nz/en/families-a-history/page-5

      "Page 5. Baby boom begins: 1945–1959

      As soldiers returned at the end of the Second World War, New Zealand experienced the first stage of the baby boom – high rates of early marriage and increasing family size. The fertility rate for Pākehā women rose and this continued until the early 1970s. Women generally married young and became mothers soon after marriage. In the mid-1950s, Pākehā women had on average 3.8 live births while Māori women experienced on average almost seven….

      https://teara.govt.nz/en/families-a-history/page-6

      Page 6. Baby boom continues: 1960s – early 1970s

      During the 1960s and early 1970s most women were still marrying early and focusing on parenting, but the ex-nuptial birth rate rose, divorces increased and married women were more likely to be in the paid workforce. Conventional family arrangements were challenged as feminism began to have an impact. Changes in women’s lives and aspirations had implications for men as lovers, husbands and fathers…..".

      • Dennis Frank 1.2.1
        12 July 2024 at 3:15 pm

        Yes, you're quite right. I was born in '49 and knew he was years older than me. I did gloss over the technical point because he seems to be exemplifying the collective boomer stance: party hard because the neolib world is meant to provide partying.

        Collective denial of the neolib threat to human survival is deeply embedded. It's why the Green alternative to the political union of left and right has developed so slowly since the 1970s – despite the inexorable rise of realisation.

        There's a paradox within the nexus of democracy: market forces, directed by neolib ethos, are lifting the standard of living globally whilst they subside it in western countries. That effect has been evident for at least 20 years, which is why socialist ends being delivered by capitalist methods has become widely seen as a hybrid effect, and it has been driven by the boomer demographic weight of numbers.

        Which is why his rationale at the press conference earlier today was tacit `more of the same'. The underlying consensus he represents remains vast.

  2. Jenny 2
    12 July 2024 at 9:16 am

    US Presidential race

    Vicious pit bull vs. Arthritic Labrador. Place your bets.

  3. Jenny 3
    12 July 2024 at 10:04 am

    Biden to give live press conference in 20 minutes

  4. Jenny 4
    12 July 2024 at 10:28 am

    One minute

  5. Jenny 5
    12 July 2024 at 10:40 am

    Leading up to his live press conference, in a sign that he won't be announcing that he is stepping down, Joe Biden tells Americans they will be able to judge his sharpness.

    They can already judge his tardiness.

  6. ianmac 6
    12 July 2024 at 11:09 am

    All the White House Press staff now in place. Imminent event?

    • Jenny 6.1
      12 July 2024 at 12:50 pm

      My immediate takeaway.
      The minor gaff was forgivable It's what we have come to expect. I give it no consequence, Predictably the Trump team have jumped on it. It is the substance that counts.

      Biden referenced President Johnson twice. Johnson was responsible for overseeing disastrous foreign policy over the war in Vietnam. Which ultimately cost him the election, losing to Nixon. (Nixon campaigned on ending the war in Vietnam, but did the opposite in office)

      The other thing Biden has in common with Johnson is progressive legislation on the home front. Biden referenced gun control issues, (though didn't make any promises on it)

      Johnson's Great Society program ran onto the rocks over Vietnam and was never completed.

      Biden says the peace plan he has on the table for Gaza has a good chance of success,

      If Biden's peace plan works out it may become the deciding issue that tips the balance toward Biden.

      The issue of war in Ukraine I see as not having much bearing.

      The cost of living crisis. Biden talked numbers, but do the American people feel it?

  7. joe90 7
    12 July 2024 at 11:27 am

    Very good.

    @GeoffreyKeey

    No one told me King Canute has been reincarnated as a Northland dairy farmer

    https://x.com/GeoffreyKeey/status/1811287126388174947

  8. James Simpson 8
    12 July 2024 at 11:40 am

    WTF New Zealand

    Bad Poll

    • Dennis Frank 8.1
      12 July 2024 at 11:55 am

      No big deal – he calls it a surge but only Lux's 10-point rise merits that. My take is the govt has kicked off the training wheels and seems in control, and folks like that aura of competence no matter how insubstantial.

      • Chris 8.1.1
        12 July 2024 at 2:01 pm

        It's no surprise really. Was naive from the beginning to think his accommodation blunder was going to be fatal like many seemed to believe. Goes to show you can never undersestimate the indifference of the general populace.

    • Mike the Lefty 8.2
      12 July 2024 at 4:46 pm

      No great surprise really.

      The illusion of people getting what they want can be as good as the real thing if it is marketed properly.

      And you have to give the CoC its due, its marketing machine is very good. Of course when you hire the best right-wing spin doctors around (Atlas) you should expect no less.

      When the double digit rates rises all around the country start biting, road tolls bills start coming in and the tax cuts vanish into obscurity people might start seeing reality instead of pipe dreams.

    • Bearded Git 8.3
      12 July 2024 at 6:11 pm

      Nothing seems to hurt the Greens….must be almost time to move on from Hipkins?

      It is a Taxpayer Curia poll which tends to favour the Right ..I meanNZF at 7.3…who believes that?

    • Ad 8.4
      12 July 2024 at 6:41 pm

      Lordy it's a long and generous honeymoon.

      Worse for Labour than 2012..

      Onyerbike Hipkins.

    • bwaghorn 8.5
      12 July 2024 at 9:19 pm

      Unemployment raising ,economy crashing, it's only a matter of time

      • James Simpson 8.5.1
        15 July 2024 at 1:50 pm

        What's only a matter of time?

        Interest rates will start dropping before Christmas, which will trigger a recovery.

        Are you hoping for things to get worse than they are now?

    • Belladonna 8.6
      13 July 2024 at 7:51 pm

      TBH – I'm not seein anything of significance in the poll trends – overall.
      There was a slight dip for the right and rise for the left in April/May – this just looks like a correction back to the steady state.

      The fact that there has been no change of any significant in the minor parties, ACT and the Greens tends to support this.

      It's all just polling noise, within the margin of error.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_New_Zealand_general_election

  9. gsays 9
    12 July 2024 at 11:45 am

    Forgive the cynicism but there is more hot air, hype and hoop-la in the US presidential event than the Aussies manage with State of Origin.

    At least in the latter, it's a competition, the former is close to lay down misére.

  10. weka 10
    12 July 2024 at 12:54 pm

    what would happen if Biden stepped down as candidate?

  11. Mike the Lefty 11
    12 July 2024 at 4:56 pm

    Like Biden I forget things too, I get names mixed up and my merds wuddled.

    Except that I am a nobody whilst Biden is the president of one of the world's superpowers and he is asking American voters to keep him there.

    It is very worrying that a nutjob like Trump might get a second go at the presidency because Biden can't remember people's names.

    If Trump wins, you can guarantee there will be a purge carried out on anyone who abandoned him last election, and a whole lot of Trump loyalists who couldn't count to ten if Trump didn't help them will be running the government.

    Not a pleasant prospect for the safety of the world.

    • joe90 11.1
      12 July 2024 at 5:18 pm

      Like Biden I forget things too, I get names mixed up and my merds wuddled.

      But do you tell shark stories?

      kaivanshroff

      6h

      6 hours ago

      3 minutes straight of Donald Trump confusing and forgetting people's names, the names of cities he is in and more via

      @MeidasTouch

      .https://www.threads.net/@kaivanshroff/post/C9TKrkJyZT5

      So I said, “Let me ask you a question.”

      And he said, “Nobody ever asked this question, and it must be because of MIT, my relationship to MIT,” very smart.

      I say, “What would happen if the boat sank from its weight and you’re in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery’s underwater, and there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 yards over there?”

      By the way, a lot of shark attacks lately. Do you notice that? A lot of shark… I watched some guys justifying it today. “Well, they weren’t really that angry. They bit off the young lady’s leg because of the fact that they were not hungry, but they misunderstood who she was.” These people are crazy.

      He said, “There’s no problem with sharks. They just didn’t really understand a young woman swimming now who really got decimated and other people too,” a lot of shark attacks.

      So I said, “So there’s a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards or here. Do I get electrocuted if the boat is sinking, and water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking. Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted?” Because I will tell you he didn’t know the answer.

      https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-rally-in-nevada

      • PsyclingLeft.Always 11.1.1
        12 July 2024 at 8:17 pm

        I think the (MIT?) Don is smrt. As In Homer smrt.

        And did he…. jump the shark?

        All the bagging of Biden…Trump is literally a numbnut and a criminal to boot !