Kamala Harris dominated the debate despite the fact that she was given about 5 minutes less time to speak!

It's disappointing to see how the media invariably accommodates Trump. Contrary to the rules of the debate, when Trump continued talking after his time was up or demanded to respond to a point Harris made, they often let him by not muting his microphone. This added up to right around 5 minutes of extra speaking time on prime time television for him to spew his lies. The one time Harris tried the same thing she was shut down by the moderators. If there is any silver lining here it's that Trump probably made his debate performance worse by talking more!

I was glad to see some push back and fact checking by the moderators in regards to Trump's most egregious lies. Today MAGA is complaining that the debate was rigged and the moderators were against Trump due to the fact checks while they should be thanking ABC for the special treatment that allowed Trump extra air time.

Go Harris/Walz!

In 1992 my girlfriend and I took trains from Barcelona to Beijing. We went from Barcelona to Paris - Paris to Budapest - Budapest to Chop, Ukraine (railway gauge-break) - Chop to Moscow, Moscow to Zabaikalsk, Russia (railway gauge-break) - Zabaikalsk to Beijing, China. We did not fly, we did not take any buses, the trip was all on trains. It was a challenging time to take this trip because the USSR had collapsed in late 1991.

I believe the total distance of this route is around 7500 miles (12070 km). Once in China we travelled from Beijing to Lanzhou on trains which adds another 1000 miles to the trip. On most of the leg from Beijing to Lanzhou our train was pulled by a coal fired steam engine. From Lanzhou we headed south and had to rely on buses as there were no trains serving the areas we were interested in seeing.

Compared to trains in 1992, long haul buses in western China / eastern Tibet / Southwest China were a very difficult way to travel.

Unlike the the other poster who did a similar trip with his wife, we ended up getting married a few years later and remain together.

Me with ice cream at a stop somewhere in Siberia. (Notice CCCP emblem on front of train)

Street scene in Zabaikalsk while waiting for the bogeys on the train to be changed. (railway gauge-break)

Steam engine from Beijing to Lanzhou.

We continued travelling in southeast Asia for another 6 months and tried to take trains whenever possible.

I love trains.

Give them a break. They thought it was an acorn.

He made tampons available in all bathrooms (boy's and girl's) to accommodate trans kids. You are right, these people are deranged - and weird as hell.

Forkskin

Another DUI hire....

Trump called on the DOJ to investigate others in the Epstein files four days ago. Bondi now only has to say that the files are being used in an open investigation and can't be released at this time. This is the usual protocol for active investigations. Trump will then say that his hands are tied - he wants to release the files but the DOJ won't let him.

This is similar to what he did with his personal tax information before and during his first term. He said, I'm being audited by the IRS, and they won't allow me to release my taxes until the audit is complete. This allowed him to say, 'I want to show you my taxes but the IRS won't let me.'

He wants you to know that he is transparent and honest and trying to do the right thing but there are powerful forces working against him. Poor Donald.

Maybe he was born with it. Maybe it's Maybeline.

That took balls

One of the problems with this is that the debate rules are not enforced. If you go back and watch Trump in previous debates he continually ignores the time limits and talks over the moderator when told his time is up. Microphones for both participants should automatically shut off when the speaker's time is up.

Also, obvious, outright lies should earn a microphone cutoff although this would be dependent on a moderator that would be acceptable to both debaters. I can't see Trump ever agreeing to live fact checking during a debate.

Additionally, Trump appears to be even less mentally capable than he was in the previous debates - I do not believe it would end well for him.

Fuck yeah

Mr Hankey?

I wouldn't be surprised if the Saudis pay his bills. Especially if they think that by helping out he might be able to win the election. In fact, owning the president of the US for only 500m USD seems like it could be worth it to many nefarious characters. The Saudis didn't seem to have a problem doing a billion dollar deal with his son in law.

Cool. But can it resurface if it's never been heard before?

Literal shitpost

"Good thinking"

Yes, it was an awesome trip. In fact, we were adamant about travelling overland and tried to avoid airplanes if possible.

From Lanzhou to Chengdu with various side trips we were on buses for a bit over 600 miles, Chengdu to Dali was another 600 miles. Both of these legs were done on buses and were some of the most physically demanding and dangerous road trips I have ever taken. On the Tibetan plateau most roads were gravel. We were on buses with some windows that were broken in the open position (in December - the temperature inside the bus was often well below freezing), high elevation mountain passes that were snow covered, bus drivers that always turned the engine off on descents to save fuel, no toilets on any long haul bus ever. Sometimes we would be on a bus for 16 hours with just one stop in below freezing temperatures.

From Dali we took a bus another 200 or so miles to Kunming and then got back on a train to Guangdong for another 850 miles. This actually pushes the overland travel distance of this portion of our trip to over 10,000 miles. (Barcelona - Paris - Budapest - Moscow - Beijing - Lanzhou - Xiahe - Linxia - Chengdu - Dali - Lijiang - Kunming - Guangdong - Hong Kong).

Technically some parts of our trip were not 'possible' and therefore logistically impossible to plan. In these cases we just bought a ticket and hoped for the best - it pretty much always worked out. For example, heading into Ukraine without a visa was not 'possible' but it was also not possible to get a visa to enter the country. We bought a train ticket from Budapest to Moscow and went for it. We arrived around midnight at the border into Ukraine (Chop). My girlfriend was forced to stay on the train and I was taken off the train by armed border guards with both of our passports. I was held with a few other westerners in a secure room for about 5 hours with no explanation. At around 5 in the morning we were marched through the streets of Chop to a bank where we paid in hard currency (USD or German DMs) and were issued emergency visas. We were marched back to the train and continued on to Moscow. When I got back on the train my girlfriend told me she had spent a stressful night because the train left the station shortly after I was taken off. It travelled around 5 or 6 miles to a maintenance terminal where the bogeys were all changed (rail gauge-break). There was no explanation and initially she was justifiably freaked out and wasn't sure how we we would ever meet up again.

Emergency Ukraine visa. Visa to enter China on opposing page issued 8 days later.

In China, on some of the long haul bus trips we would stop to stay the night in towns that were not 'approved' for foreigners. Somehow they would find some place for us to stay. It was generally not where the local Chinese on the bus would stay. I imagine these were some undocumented locations which always seemed to be a significant walk from the bus station. It was always stressful because we had to walk back to the bus station in the morning (often at 5 or so AM) and there was always a concern we would miss the bus. In remote parts of China that were mostly inhabited by ethnic-minority groups locals had to place rocks across the road to get the buses to stop for them because the Han mentality seemed to be 'fuck the minorities'.

Local rabbit/small game hunter boarding bus after blocking the road with rocks. Somewhere south of Linxia in the Tibetan Autonomous Region.

Street scene from bus window somewhere south of Lanzhou.

Simply buying tickets in China for buses and trains was also difficult - especially in smaller towns. It took patience and resolve. There were times when we would go to the station and try to buy a ticket for the next day and were told that we couldn't buy tickets. We would just show up again the next day and try to buy the tickets again. I think the longest it took us to get tickets for a train was 3 or 4 days - we just kept trying and eventually it would work. Due to this, there was no way to keep any sort of a schedule so logistically it was pretty complicated. Hotels were also problematic because many were not approved for 'tourists' so we often had to wander around looking. In some cases we would just sit in the hotel lobby after being denied accommodation until they got tired of looking at us and they would somehow find us a room.

Banana for scale

After decades of nearly exclusive use of a bong and very occasional disappointing experimentation with various vaporizers, I never really found a vape device that could replace a bong for me.

That changed about a year ago. I bought a Tiny Might 2 and don't use anything else now.

The device is expensive but is a great piece of hardware that works very well. Most importantly it can deliver massive hits. With a good cooling stem you can use it anywhere and it will allow you to do a hit that will rival a good bong hit and it tastes so much better.

But the best is that it comes with a glass water pipe attachment (WPA) that allows you to use it with a bong or water pipe. When I'm at home I use it exclusively with a bong. It uses less herb than combustion for the same or better effect with dramatically better flavor. It will produce very thick vapor and will give you a very satisfying bong hit - at higher temperatures it will produce very thick clouds. In fact you can turn the temperature up enough to combust whatever is in the chamber if you are so inclined. Another benefit is that your bong stays cleaner too.

I use the dosing capsules which keeps the device clean and helps a bit with efficiency. Specifically I use .10 grams in a dosing capsule and am often unable to finish in one hit. (I am a runner and can do huge hits) On the same bong with the same herb I would use a little bit more - maybe .13 grams if I were combusting it.

For me it is pretty close to the ideal device. It absolutely improved every aspect of my herbal experience. Of course YMMV but I'm a convert.

Boop