Off Topic Thread 3.0

Sanders voters promising to vote Trump are irreconcilably soft-headed. I don't think there'll be much reasoning with them although good luck to whoever wants to try.

I wouldn't vote for Hilary, I think that family have an extremely questionable background and shouldn't be anywhere near executive power, but for someone who agrees with Sanders' platform to even consider voting for Trump is so bizarre. If you want to make a protest vote then go for Jill Stein (or Gary Johnson at a stretch)

What does strike me as odd is that Trump's support is largely based on the blue collar, conservative, working class elements who feel they can't identify with the establishment who don't understand them.

Trump is the absolute epitome of who/what has let them down and left them behind yet they're rallying behind him. Rich guy, born into millions, has outsourced works to foreign countries and married multiple times.

Buer wrote: »

What does strike me as odd is that Trump's support is largely based on the blue collar, conservative, working class elements who feel they can't identify with the establishment who don't understand them.

Trump is the absolute epitome of who/what has let them down and left them behind yet they're rallying behind him. Rich guy, born into millions, has outsourced works to foreign countries and married multiple times.

The blue collar worked don't feel like the establishment don't understand them, a lot of them feel like the establishment shouldn't exist at all. Their idea is that the government should be there to support the military and stay out of their lives everywhere else. So I can understand why Trump, as someone from completely outside the world of politics, appeals to them. Unfortunately for them the office of the president isn't capable of achieving that even if the president was politically capable.

irishbucsfan wrote: »

The blue collar worked don't feel like the establishment don't understand them, a lot of them feel like the establishment shouldn't exist at all. Their idea is that the government should be there to support the military and stay out of their lives everywhere else.

I'm not so sure that's the case given Trump is heavily basing his campaign on immigration, trade and tax but, if it is, then it's the most moronic mentality around.

I would be in the minority here it seems in having admiration for Clinton. For 25 years republicans have been taking shots and in truth have come up with very little.

Can see Trump getting crushed in the debates and that effectively ending the race.

ClanofLams wrote: »

I would be in the minority here it seems in having admiration for Clinton. For 25 years republicans have been taking shots and in truth have come up with very little.

Can see Trump getting crushed in the debates and that effectively ending the race.

That assumes the debates will be measured, reported on and viewed in sane and logical ways. The way the circus has gone over there that's wishful thinking sadly. In a set-up where Trump was lauded for comparing penis size in a debate I think we should all lower our expectations there....

ClanofLams wrote: »

You might be right but that was a republican primary, crowded field for most of the debates. From reading and listening to those who know Trump well (eg. his ghostwriter on the art of the deal) it seems he can't focus for any concentrated time period.

3 x 90 min debates one on one v Clinton, who has a ton of experience in such settings v Obama and Sanders. Can see him making major blunders that will turn off the centre in a big way.

Well if he hasn't turned off the centre at this stage then the US is in really big trouble. His supporters will blindly follow him regardless. Any moderate Republican will struggle to get behind him though unless he changes his tone for the actual Presidential campaign. Anyone not already a hard line Republican and not an idiot protest voter has no reason to vote for the guy. Which is why I believe he won't get elected. Now if he completely changes his approach for the campaign itself then I might have to revise that...

molloyjh wrote: »

Well if he hasn't turned off the centre at this stage then the US is in really big trouble. His supporters will blindly follow him regardless. Any moderate Republican will struggle to get behind him though unless he changes his tone for the actual Presidential campaign. Anyone not already a hard line Republican and not an idiot protest voter has no reason to vote for the guy. Which is why I believe he won't get elected. Now if he completely changes his approach for the campaign itself then I might have to revise that...

I pretty much agree with you. There's 10-20% of the electorate that is undecided though, whether they are third party voters or currently swing voters.

Trump so far has gotten away with very little sticking to him, the controversy changes each day from racism to taxes to comments etc. Clinton camp will pick two or three I think, probably taxes and his past treatment of employees/small business owners and hammer him relentlessly on them, forcing the media to cover them too. Copying Obamas playbook on Romney in 2012.

Between that and then the debates where I would expect Clinton to wipe the floor with him, the vast majority of currently third party/swing voters will break to Clinton. November landslide, electoral college wise in any case, would be my bet.

Felix Jones is God wrote: »

I'm not saying it isn't done in football, but it would be almost impossible to hide it due to the huge numbers of people at any 1 club... athletes work 1 on 1 or in small groups, cyclists have close knit teams....football clubs have squads of 40 players. Players come and go over the season and during the season....the chance of there being any systematic doping are virtually nil.
That's not to say players aren't....but they would be doing it on their own imo.
Rugby, I don't know, I've yet to see any figures to show that there is an issue, the fact that muscle mass is more important than in footie would mean it's more likely to be abused...but haven't seen anything as of yet.
I still think the 3 sports i mentioned would probably be the leaders still

As IBF has already said not only can it be done systematically in football, it has been done systematically in football.

There's a huge issue with doping in rugby in the UK particularly at amateur level. If you go on the UKAD website where they list people currently serving bans there are 60 names. 38 of those participated in either rugby union or rugby league, 38!, out of 60! That's 63% of all positive tests. Now I do think that it reflects a societal issue as much as a sporting performance one but that much doping within the game is indicative of a serious problem.

My favourite doping story was where the Russian authorities told someone (WADA?IOC?) that the computers with all their test data had been leased from a company and had been returned. This company, which had no employees, had then decided to destroy these computers after they were returned and there was no possibility of recovering any data.

Don't watch the Olympics guys

Zzippy wrote: »

Elite sport is all about marginal gains, in every sport. Usain Bolt is making marginal changes to his training in order to gain thousandths of a second. Rugby teams are doing small things all the time to get marginally better. Sky quoting a marginal gains philosophy is a bit BS alright, because they have completely changed the approach - signing the strongest domestiques, most of whom could lead their own team, the space age buses and own mattresses, sports scientists.
Average speed is a BS metric IMO, cycling has become less exciting now as average speeds have gone up, as a higher average speed means riders are on the limit the whole time and can't attack successfully. The sky train driving relentlessly at a high average speed is a successful tactic. I'd look more at power/weight or watts/kg, especially on the climbs, and AFAIK those figures have come down a bit since the EPO era.
Yep there are suspicious performances, e.g. Horner in the Vuelta 2013, but I think overall it's far cleaner than it was before. If we saw the same level of testing in other sports I don't think cycling would prove the dirtiest, by a fair distance.

Average speed in a single year is totally a BS metric, taken over a number of years though I think that you can hesitantly infer some things from it while always being aware that it's just potentially giving you an indication of what questions to ask.

The other thing to note is that the magnitude of performance enhancement provided to cyclists by epo and related drugs is staggering. Before the advent of epo testing and in particular biological passports it just wasn't possible for someone to be competitive without being on epo. It possibly wasn't that far off being impossible to finish the tour without taking epo at one stage. As an aside I think that cycling are missing a trick by not doing retroactive testing - that's all about not wanting to tarnish cycling.

Epo started appearing in the peleton in the late 80's and if look at the average speed you can see that there's a sustained uptick in the average unlike say the one-off uptick in 1982 which is clearly anomalous, if you go back further you can see another one in 1971 both of which probably reflected particular conditions that year.

We know that epo usage was widespread throughout the 90's and the 00's within the peleton. We know that epo provides a huge performance boost. The last few years of the tour have averaged speeds in excess of 10 of those 20 years. Most of those years were in the 90's when the use of epo was widespread but not systematic in the way that Armstrong made it (that was his 'genius').

Doping methods in cycling have changed, micro-dosing apparently is very common. There is talk of other drugs (perhaps not detectable) being used but I can't look at those numbers and conclude anything other than doping continues to be very prevalant within professional cycling.

stephen_n wrote: »

I'm not sure Clinton would be a better option than Trump. That's a very sad state of affairs. I think in a global sense Clinton could be far more dangerous. Though it's very hard to tell what Trump will do in terms of foreign policy. Behind his rhetoric, there doesn't seem to be much consistency in what his policies may look like. Clinton's track record is very clear and scarey.

I'd rather know what I'm getting from one dodgy fecker than not have a clue from another. Especially when that other dodgy fecker has no experience and speaks in bat s**t crazy all the time. They are bad options all right, but one would appear quite categorically worse than the other at this stage.

The positive to take from it all is the level of support Sanders got. The huge numbers of the electorate that wanted him as the next President means they're not all completely nuts.