Clinton's lead crept up to four points (49-45) in a head-to-head choice among likely voters, as well as an equal margin (44-40) when the minor candidates were added to the selection.
They felt that Clinton won the debate by an overwhelming 54-31 margin. Among people undecided about who to vote for, Hillary won by a 34-8 margin (with 58% not willing to say either won).
Only 67% of Trump supporters felt he won, as compared 95% of Hillary supporters who thought their candidate took the day.
Trump's tax returns are becoming a problem. Only 31% of voters feel that Trump pays his fair share of taxes. Even among white voters, only 36% say "fair share." 46% of voters believe they probably pay more taxes than Trump, which is amazing because the guy has a gazillion dollars.
On the silly side of the ledger, both Hillary and Trump supporters are most often rooting for the Cubs this year, while undecided voters prefer the Red Sox. No idea what that means.
On the sad side of the ledger, 59% of Trump supporters either think Obama was not born in the USA or are not sure. After all these years of life, it's finally beginning to dawn on me that there are a lot of very dumb and/or ignorant Americans out there.
There are two "th" sounds: the th in "the' and the th in "theater." They have always been two of the most difficult sounds for non-native speakers. My dad spoke with only a slight accent, but he replaced the former with "d" and the latter with "t", so he went to "da teater."
This article was written for speakers of British English, so it suggests that "mother" will migrate to "muvver" while "thick" will become "fick." That probably ain't what's goin' down in Murica, where those words commonly become "mudder" and "tick" respectively.
The article continues:
"Other changes likely to become widespread by 2066 include a habit known as 'yod dropping' in which the
'u' sound is replaced with an 'oo.' It means that 'duke' becomes 'dook,' (and) 'news' is pronounced 'nooze.'"
(This, of course, has already happened to the long "u" in America, where Tuesday starts with tooze, not tyooze. Interestingly, it is the British speakers that have already "dropped the yod" on the short "u." The word "figures" is one example. Brits frequent cite "the correct figgers" (or, I suppose, "figgas") while Americans still prefer "fig-yers."
"... a politician who rose to power through demagoguery, showmanship and nativist appeals to the masses."
"... undeniable talents and obviously deep-seated psychological complexes."
"an egomaniac who 'only loved himself' — a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and a 'characteristic fondness for superlatives.'"
" ... adapted the content of his speeches to suit the tastes of his lower-middle-class, nationalist-conservative, ethnic-chauvinist listeners. He peppered his speeches with coarse phrases and put-downs of hecklers. Even as he fomented chaos by playing to crowds’ fears and resentments, he offered himself as the visionary leader who could restore law and order."
“a mouthpiece of the cultural pessimism growing in right-wing circles"
he promised "a new era of national greatness"
"The confluence of circumstance, chance, a ruthless individual and the willful blindness of others can transform a country "
There is really nothing to be done about Pete's lifetime ban from baseball. He knew the rules on gambling; he knew the penalties; and he broke the rules anyway. Every commissioner to rule on this has done so correctly, because there are only two ways around the ban: either (1) the rule is a bad rule and should be changed; or (2) the rule should apply to everyone in the world except Pete Rose. Neither of those claims can be defended, so the ban must stand.
The Hall of Fame, however, is an independent organization with its own rules. The Hall's directors fairly recently (about 25 years ago) determined that a ban from baseball automatically results in a ban from the Hall. They made the rule AFTER Pete was banned by Giamatti, so it was basically created just for him, and they can just as easily unmake it.
All types of violent crime rose in 2015 over 2014.
In terms of the past twenty years, violent crimes have declined steadily and very significantly in the United States. It remains to be seen whether 2015 represents a reversal of the trend, or just a statistical outlier.
=============
Trump and Clinton bickered about whether murder was up or down in NYC. In evaluating the specific success or failure of stop-and-frisk in New York City, the picture is more complex because the correct analysis hinges on definitions.
The overall number of major crimes was slightly down in New York in 2015, for example, but:
1. New York's number of violent crimes (rape, murder, felony assault) was up in 2015. The absolute number of the increase, however, was ever so small - just 40 more such crimes on a base of about 22,000.
2. The most violent crimes did increase by substantial percentages: the number of homicides was up 5%, and rape was up 6%. It is important to note, however, that these numbers are based on small bases. There were 352 murders, for example, compared to 333 the previous year, so the overall increase is just 19 crimes in a city of more than eight million people. There was a time in the past when New York had more than 2,000 murders per year.
3. The most recent crime numbers for 2016 to date indicate that the NYC murder rate has again reversed. (The number of murders is down 4.3% versus the same period in 2015.) The 2016 decrease, however, has not been as large as the 2015 increase, so the two-year trend is still slightly upward. Again we should note that we are talking about very small numbers in absolute terms: up 19 in 2015, down 11 so far in 2016 through September 18th.
4. If you think of New York as "Manhattan," which many people do, the overall crime rate was up in 2015.
So it is possible to make a case in every direction, if one words the claim carefully enough. Donald Trump's claim that "murder is up" in NYC is defensible, if one is comparing 2015 to 2014, or 2016 to 2014. On the other hand, a claim that "murder is down" is also defensible in a different context, like comparing this year to last year, or evaluating long-term trends. An objective analysis requires more context than a simple broad assertion.
The descriptions sound horribly dirty, but the images provide the punchline. No matter what sexiness you think is on the other end of the link, it's just old women baking pies. Unfortunately safe for work."
Steph said...
