catturd1

Did I earn a double take?

The biggest scandal of the Obama administration was the IRS giving extra scrutiny to Tea Party groups, saying they might be political. Under Trump, staffers freely admitted they canceled every grant going to a blue state to punish blue states. Not even a front page story.

It’s hard to describe just how far out in front of us is China 2026. Luckily record numbers are checking out for themselves. Increasingly visa-free travel makes it easier than it’s ever been. I’ve just been on a “High-speed train” which description fails to do justice. It travels like the wind. If you closed your eyes you wouldn’t know you were moving. China has 50,000 miles of it. It links cities so far better than ours it brings me to tears. Clean. Crime free. The cops don’t carry guns and their cars don’t have sirens, only flashing lights. Prices are so cheap I’m scared to tell you. A slap up lunch £2.50. Shirts £12. Deluxe taxis (BMW electric) £4. And this in a Tier 1 City (Beijing Shanghai Guangzhou Shenzen). It’s cheaper elsewhere! The shops are tumbling with goods from the west (at Chinese prices - western goods are of course mainly made in China) from the east often Russia and from a home manufacturing base easily the biggest in the whole world. Nobody litters or jaywalks, nobody lays in shop doorways, nobody begs. Vertiginous towers of bewildering variety arise everywhere. At night these cities don’t even look real. I have a young wife. When she was born Shenzen was a one-horse town nobody outside had ever heard of. Today it is a Wonder of the World. One of dozens. If you deny it, you’re a fool. George Galloway

Carry trades are having their strongest year in decades: An emerging-market carry strategy, borrowing in euros to invest in higher-yielding currencies such as the Brazilian real, Colombian peso, and Turkish lira, is up +18% year-to-date, its strongest start to a year since 2005. A carry trade is a strategy where traders borrow in a low-yielding currency and invest in currencies with higher interest rates, earning the difference as long as the exchange rate does not move against them. By comparison, a G10 carry strategy, which borrows in currencies such as the euro, Danish krone, and Swiss franc to invest in higher-yielding currencies, including the New Zealand dollar, Norwegian krone, and Canadian dollar, has returned +8%. This comes as unusually low currency volatility, combined with a resilient global economy despite the Iran-driven oil shock, has encouraged investors to continue adding exposure to carry trades. Risk appetite in the FX market is surging.

@bookdepth The Process was about tanking for draft position, so nah

Philosophically, is LeBron joining Philly a culmination of the Process?

There's a lot of reasons to think the 2027 Sixers with LeBron could be most inefficient stacking of offensive talent in NBA history. It's not just that the usage of the Rittenhouse 5 adds up to 140%. This alone is devastating. You are likely to get an offensive result that is worse than the sum of the parts. If you look at the worst performing offensive lineups relative to their talent over the last 5 years, the top of the list is littered with such constructions. Several ishbiations of the Durant Suns teams. Luka/Reaves/Bron lineups. With Ayton. This isn't 2K. You can't just stack high usage players and think you aren't eating diminishing returns. Most players need the ball and shots to exert impact. It's also combining three heavy transition players and several questionable offball shooters together. Embiid alone is tough to fit another star around. So is Jaylen. Maxey generates a lot of value from reducing team turnovers, which he'll have less opportunity to provide with the ball less. Maxey has some history of scaling down pretty efficiently with his shooting, which is nice. If you asked me, where is Jaylen Brown most likely to be less impactful than his salary? It's exactly on this kind of roster. Last year, the Celtics roster was a great situation for him as he was surrounded by low-mid usage excellent role players. A substantial part of his value is in soaking up usage, which is what this team doesn't really need. Jaylen Brown has zero 60% TS seasons in his career. We need to see it this year. The successful version of this year is one where JB cares more about defense than scoring 25 a game. He needs to exert his energy in other phases of the game. Specifically, we need to see improvements in defensive playmaking. A 1.5% steal rate, and nearly zero charges is not going to get it done, and this team could benefit tremendously on offense off those steals with transition talent. This Sixers defense with a 6'6 240 super-athlete playing aggressively and forcing turnovers feels much different than just a guy who can guard his man 1 on 1. I expect the Sixers best lineups will include Dean Wade. An unheralded 9% usage, rapm maxxing defensive forward is exactly the type of piece that can be completely additive to an overloaded '04 Olympics lineup construction. And then we get to LeBron.. can he be the brain of this team and get the most out of this group offensively? How cooked is he defensively at this age? Can he turn it on in the playoffs like he did last year? It's gonna be absolute cinema.

@shvllwebvgvn @PJ11819211 Economy isnt really struggling though

@PJ11819211 I mean, Trump still doing relatively well despite everything is enough to convince me that this is fundamentally a center-right country. Normally, with the economy struggling and another war you'd expect the opposition to be winning in a landslide but I doubt that's gonna happen

I miss when everyone sort of agreed swing voters were chudded out of their minds, rather than the state of affairs now where many of those same people are now lying about exactly what those voters wanted.

@PollTracker2024 master and apprentice

President Trump will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday in Washington DC

@KobeissiLetter Did he get them to pinky promise?

BREAKING: President Trump says China's President Xi and Russia's President Putin told him that they would not sell weapons to Iran.

@PollTracker2024 Please someone give me another job!!!!

Graham Platner’s former adviser Morris Katz tells the NY Times he was wrong about Platner in new interview “In hindsight, knowing what we know now, the Reddit posts should have been enough. The tattoo should have been enough.” “The initial New York Times story on troubling behavior should have been enough.” “I was wrong.” nytimes.com/2026/07/24/opi…

This film was a colossal hit in the USSR, but it attracted some controversy -- one critic called it "marijuana for children" From: The Bremen Town Musicians (1969), dir. Inessa Kovalevskaya, Soyuzmultfilm

the gremlin is here hehe ✧ playing Palworld w/ friends all night looong ✧ twitch.tv/KaileyMae

24 today 🎉🎂🥰 SHORT BIRTHDAY STREAM LIVE NOW ON TWITCH :)

That kid Messi breastfed move like a damn gazelle!!!!!

@LzSeishi @MostlyMonkey @TheDuckySocks The money is going to the leechers in Red, out of the charity of Blue’s hearts. time to turn off the taps!

@liquidpref @MostlyMonkey @TheDuckySocks No, it’s blue imposing high fed taxes on itself while calling red antisocial

Blue has shitty beaches and high taxes, red has better food, the entire Caribbean. This is not hard.

@MostlyMonkey @TheDuckySocks Almost like Red is imposing high taxes on Blue to even things out. Really makes you think!

@TheDuckySocks Reluctantly, for the pay.

@ImNotOwned Should have practiced more

I am being dead serious when I say the NBAPA should step in and get these ex-players to shut the fuck up

@PollTracker2024 I think he’s gonna tell us the straight facts and not spin anything to his political advantage!!

CBS News: Trump to allege Chinese meddling in U.S. elections in primetime speech, sources say Part of President Trump's speech Thursday night is expected to touch on previously unreported alleged Chinese meddling in U.S. elections, according to sources familiar with the matter. cbsnews.com/news/trump-to-…

Coinciding with America’s first suicide boat attack, the Pentagon has released America’s first nasheed. x.com/NotWoofers/sta…

@Jaack 2014?

I don’t think in my lifetime there has been a World Cup with SUCH a clear favourite, who’s ended up shitting the bed as much as France have in this.