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Do you approve or disapprove of the U.S. attacks on Iran on Saturday?   Something funny happened on the way to the 2024 election. It was broadly assumed that young voters would put the final nail in Trump's coffin, and lift up Democrats.  Just like they had in 2020 and 2022. If Democrat David Shor's polling is right, Trump for sure won 18 year old White men and women in 2024.  And he may have barely won 18 year old non-White men as well.  The only group of 18 year olds Harris won were women of color, if Shor is right. This is of course horror to Democrats like Shor and me.  And an existential threat to The Emerging Democratic Majority. Shor has a pretty KISS explanation for what went wrong.  Inflation.  High rent and mortgage rates.  Gas prices.  Food prices.  Excessive lockdowns.    It's not exactly a fact.  But we know most incumbent parties across the globe that presided over COVID + inflation got their asses kicked.  To me the telling exception was Mexico, where AMLO waged a war FOR the working class during COVID.  And his successor, a Jewish woman in a supposedly macho Catholic culture, won in a landslide.  She is still wildly popular today.  And Mexicans disapprove of Trump more than any other nation in the world. So the verdict is out.  But I think Trump is fucking his party over big time with young men.  They wanted lower rent, affordable homes, and the ability to buy a big ass truck.  They got war instead. That poll was taken just as the war started.  But I think there is value in knowing what people's first gut reaction was.  It does not surprise me that the younger the voter, the less likely they were to express support for starting a war of choice. The interesting question now is, what would turn this around and make young men support Trump or Vance more? Higher gas prices? A big stock market correction, so the one way they can increase their net worth suffers? A war-driven recession that, along with AI, will make finding a good paying job even harder? Boots on the ground? Maybe young men just want a war to go fight and die in.  Or not. Everything Trump touches dies.  Including his shot at a Republican majority he has never once won.  In election after election young men are now turning strongly against him.    

I seem to rememebr it being about 220 - 250 on the Friday and the Saturday evenings, but cheaper on the Sunday (maybe 130).  I can't be sure about these numbers though. Location wise, it's correct on google maps, so just over a km south of the Lee Garden's area.  Very walkable.

The stupid yapping dog gets excited by war and blood.  I think @Barknaway gets excited because he smells blood and the chance to rip someone's throat open.  He's a dog.  Just stupid. Bill Maher is not a dog.  And he is not stupid.  But he is apparently unaware, or unconcerned, about what most Americans think. 20 years on, most Americans say Iraq invasion was the wrong decision 61 %, Bill.   Do you not understand math?  Dogs can't do math.  But I thought blowhards could do math. Meanwhile, even more Americans oppose what the military is doing in Iran, at least according to some polls.  If you simply ask Americans whether they support what our military is doing in Iran, about 55 to 60  % say no, according to a bunch of polls.  A few right wing pollsters like Trafalgar torture the question by making the question about whether we want Iran to have nukes. What that tells me is that Trump can't win an honest debate.  The debate will be about whether we needed to start a war with Iran.  Most Americans simply don't believe we needed to.  This is why Trumo keeps lying and saying we did not kill Iranian school girls, and we just had to re-obliterate the nukes we already obliterated. At least Maher is not a stupid bloodthirsty dog.  He can make rational arguments.  So in that sense Maher is doing some good.  We for sure need a debate right now. What's also sad about this moment is that this is as good as it gets,.  This is America's "Mission Accomplished" moment.  Khamenei is dead.  Just like when Saddam Hussein was killed.  There is no reason to think it somehow gets better from here.  Or that the majority of Americans who think this was the wrong decision will change their minds.   I think those polls tell us everything we need to know. Unless you are a stupid dog. Thank God America is still a democracy, at least.  If we were Iran and dissent could simply be silenced or slaughtered, this war could go on for years. I'm guessing both Trump and the Iranian regime that will now try very hard to assassinate Trump, perhaps successfully, know how this works.  I hope they leave Melania and Trump's kids alone.  I'd bet money the plans to kill Trump, and perhaps innocent Americans, after the bombs stop dropping are already being made. About half of Americans in that poll think this war will last months or years.  The longer it goes on, the higher gas prices and inflation will get, and the less popular Trump's War of The Week will be.  I am hoping Trump is at least smart enough to have that figured out.

Phayathai BTS station, use exit 2 at its southeast corner. Walk down to pavement and continue walking south for about 100 metres.  Look out for Pathumwan Resort, walk into its private driveway and follow the row of shops/cafes on the driveway's north side. Some distance in, the door to Ganymede's stairs should be on your left. I don't think the sentry box is ever manned. Even if it is, the guard won't bother with pedestrians.

It's way too early to tell.  But there is a good chance Putin is sticking with the winners:  the Iranians. Maybe Trump felt he couldn't define the goal as obliterating Iran's nukes, since he supposedly already obliterated them months ago.  Do we have to re-obliterate them twice a year?  Or only every five years? So, for whatever reason, President "No Forever Wars" defined the goal as regime change.  Repeatedly.  Even though his own staff doesn't seem to be clear on that. As of now, the President of Iran is publicly telling Trump to go get fucked.  And that Trump can take his regime change wish "to your grave".  Verbatim.  Trump's reaction strongly suggests this was not his plan.  And that he has no plan. It's hard to argue Iran is winning.  But it will win, in a way, as long as it survives.  Nothing suggests Iran will collapse.  Or that you can win a war with air power.  And that's the good news.  The bad news is this maybe opens a bloodbath civil war and/or regional war or insurgency.  Oil prices stay high for months or years.  Economies sink into recession.  All thanks to the United States of America.  Land of liberty. So I'd argue Putin is the winner, for sure. 1.  Oil prices soar.  His war economy just got a massive infusion. 2.  We just established that international law is a joke.  And you can invade any country you want.  As long as you have the will and the weapons to do it.  Putin has both. 3.  You can kill any leader you want.  Putin should love that.  He looks restrained compared to what we just did.  As many Ukrainian kids as he has killed, did he manage to take out over 100 children with one bombing?  I don't think so. I think it's almost a fact that in our lifetimes, the lesson of war is that he who overreaches loses.  The Soviet Union overreached in Afghanistan and crumbled.  The US has Viet Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya - to only name the big ones.  None of those wars made America stronger. I think Russia was losing in Ukraine.  It was sucking Russia of life and money and turning their economy into a human meat grinder.  All by Putin's choice.  Trump managed to steal defeat from the jaws of victory.  I think that will be the verdict by election day. Gulf War I was a victory, precisely because the Powell Doctrine stressed restraint.  We came, we won, we left.  As of today, Trump actually came close to that in Venezuela.  He could have called it a win and focused on high prices.  But no.  That's so not the arrogant moron Trump is.