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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
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Don’t worry, I’m sure Epstein’s best friend will be all over shitting this down and punishing all those responsible.
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Michigan is shaping up to be a pretty interesting Senate race. A progressive Democrat vs a MAGA Republican in a battleground state.
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On August 06 2026 09:14 Acrofales wrote:
Michigan is shaping up to be a pretty interesting Senate race. A progressive Democrat vs a MAGA Republican in a battleground state.
The dynamics of the primary that got the progressive to the general election is worth understanding too.
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On August 06 2026 09:14 Acrofales wrote:
Michigan is shaping up to be a pretty interesting Senate race. A progressive Democrat vs a MAGA Republican in a battleground state.
If he wins, the “electability” question will disappear.
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On August 06 2026 00:36 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On August 05 2026 16:17 Geiko wrote:On August 05 2026 13:20 oBlade wrote:On August 05 2026 03:52 Geiko wrote:On August 05 2026 00:46 oBlade wrote:On August 05 2026 00:06 Geiko wrote:
I never said the no-bid contract was illegal I said it was just another example of normalized corruption in the USA.
No-bid federal contracts usually have 6-12% profit margin. This one had 20%. That's 3M in profits just for being Trump's friend.
Companies that have comparable experience in waterproofing large pools:
Water Works
Water Structures
KJC Waterproofing
Membrane Concepts Yeah going to be harder to keep $3 million when they're liable for redoing the thing, which has a high risk of something going wrong like 2012, under warranty, as they are doing now. On August 05 2026 00:06 Geiko wrote:
I didn't come up with the term "botched" so I don't feel the need to define it to you, seeing as I'm no expert. "Botched" is the term used by the DOJ to describe the job done by Trump's friend after investigation.
So we're using "exagerating" instead of "lying" now are we ? Ok maybe arresting a former olympic athlete on false charges was a bit of an exageration right ? Oops no biggie, just Trump being Trump.
You should know what "botched" means if you use it. You are not now quoting a Trump DOJ filing because you believe them or because you trust them, you are quoting them because they agree with what you already thought. So you should know what exactly was "botched." In detail. About the pool. From the horse's mouth, the ever-credible (for you) Trump DOJ (except weeks ago when they had this guy charged but you didn't believe it). You're missing the point. Whether or not they keep the 3M is irrelevant, what matters is that they got to have it in the first place when "normal" contractors would have gotten ~ 1,5M. You're stuck on level 1. The magic free money gods of government didn't just arbitrarily decide for them to get 8% extra. It is a CONTRACT. Contracts require TWO PARTIES TO AGREE. Nobody would have done it for 6% because look at the timeframe and requirements. You already admitted you think no-bid contracts are corruption, period, so what do you think you're going to convince me of by quibbling about the specific percent margins that you don't understand? It's not a cost-plus contract. It's a fixed price contract for a difficult and rush (at the time, slightly less so now) job. Something probably neither the contractor nor the government were sure was possible in the timeframe. That's why it's 20%. It's about risk. For reference Sika, the company that took two years to FUCK IT UP last time, the only one with experience, was approached. The government said we're trying to fix the Reflecting Pool in 2 weeks or whatever before Independence Day. The company said, no thanks, not interested, don't want to be liable for that, not with a ten foot pole. A cost-plus contract would be "Hey it didn't work, I need some more money to redo it like we agreed." Fixed cost is "It didn't work. Fix it now, or pay for someone else to, or else we will hold you liable for damages and your company will no longer exist." On August 05 2026 03:52 Geiko wrote:
I think you're also not thinking quite clearly. My stance is very obvious, I trust neither Trump nor his DOJ. By that I mean that I think they lie enough of the time that they are not reliable sources of information.
Why I'm quoting the DOJ is because in this instance, we have the head of the DOJ saying something (damage to the pool was not done by vandals) and Trump saying the exact opposite (damage done to the pool was done by vandals). It follows logically that one of them is saying a falsehood. (Regardless of whether I trust any of them).
My opinion is that Trump is the one lying because he has all the reasons to lie as you've said, it benefits him politically. On the other hand the head of the DOJ has no reason to lie, quite the contrary as it endangers her job.
Now we've established that one of them is telling falsehoods, who do you think it is and why ? Your issue is not realizing these things are interconnected. The fact that the damage is due to the repair job not going as planned doesn't mean Trump created this whole situation just as an excuse to give his "friend" (if you believe him) a 20% $3 million contract to break the pool. The damage is due to the repair job not going as planned because it is an old sinking pool, a unique job, a problem that neither the government nor contractors have shown mastery of, and has a high chance of not going according to plan no matter who did it. Which is why there's not an infinite supply of contractors willing to do it for 1% margin in 1 day and you shouldn't trust them if there were. On the subject of the lying: You still haven't answered my question. Who do you think is wrong Trump or the DOJ ? And why do you think they are wrong ? HEY *waves hands wildly* You literally just read, quoted, and responded to this: Show nested quote +. The fact that the damage is due to the repair job not going as planned doesn't mean Trump created this whole situation just as an excuse to give his "friend" (if you believe him) a 20% $3 million contract to break the pool. The damage is due to the repair job not going as planned What part of these sentences gives any ambiguity whatsoever about whether I think the damage was caused by vandals or not? Let's get some information to stick here. Show nested quote +On August 05 2026 16:17 Geiko wrote:
On the subject of corruption:
I don't think no-bid contracts are necessarily corruption. I think they are corruption when they are not justified. The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) require justifications in order to ensure an open-bidding process could not have been done.
In this case the government argued that the justification was "unusual and compelling urgency".
My questions to you:
Did the fact that the 250th anniversary happened on the 4th of July 2026 come as a surprise to the Trump administration?
Was the fact that the pool was leaking/broken hidden from them and they only discovered it recently ?
If the answer is "no" to the previous questions, what was unusual and urgently compelling about needing to fix the pool for the 4th of july ? Is it incompetence for not having foreseen something easily foreseeable? Or is it corruption for waiting until the last moment to "legally" hand out a 15M no-bid contract to a friend ?
So the standard of corruption is not whether it's legal, not whether it's no-bid, it basically boils down to just whether the person handles it different than you would. The 2012 open bid job took 22 months. This was told to you which again makes me suspect nothing is sticking. Ask the LLM teaching you law what date is 22 months after January 20th, 2025. Use another LLM or your own background knowledge to compare whether that date falls before or after July 4th, 2026. Yeah rushing is justified. Nor was Trump inaugurated on January 20th 2025 knowing "We are going to have a fair on the National Mall next year, and for this purpose we want the Reflecting Pool to be painted blue." That would have been absurd. That was decided in 2026. That's why rushing is legitimate. Even though you wouldn't personally do it that way, I got that, you would use hindsight and a time machine to start far earlier, the standard for corruption isn't just what you would do. It can't be. For example, you aren't president, don't live in DC, don't have to take care of DC, aren't holding a 250th anniversary celebration, probably have different views about the significance of the Reflecting Pool and aesthetic opinions of what color it should even be, etc. The government, and the administration, are not simply Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool optimizers. They have other jobs. For the pool there's many options. You can clean it. You can modify it. You can repair it. You can tear it down and rebuild it. You can choose to let it languish. But the fact that the pool is leaking is apparently not a guaranteed motivation to repair it per se. Or else everyone involved going back to 2013 is incompetent. Just sitting back and blaming people as soon as they do something, for not having done it earlier, inculcates a culture of nobody ever doing anything. Boring philosophy to nowhere. Pool renovation: Genius home-run miracle? No (not yet, off chance of yes after 2nd go). Apocalyptic corruptiongate? No. Reasonable effort by obvious patriots to make a national symbol look better and be stronger? Yes. Still ultimately just a pool I'm never, ever going to fall into heart attack psychosis about? Absolutely.
It's very hard talking to you, and if I'm being honest, you're being a little dense. I asked you three times why Trump would say vandals damaged the pool, and you still won't answer. The only thing I got was, "Trump likes to exaggerate things," which I don't understand, because there's nothing to exaggerate. It's not like there were people doing a little bit of vandalism and Trump claimed they did a lot of vandalism. The vandalism with box cutters is simply completely made up. The correct answer to the question is, "Trump is a pathological liar," which you won't bring yourself to say, despite agreeing yourself that he's saying things that are clearly completely made up. Just like you wouldn't bring yourself to say that "a 3000% decrease" doesn't make any sense, or that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. And it's hard to understand because you seem like a decently intelligent individual.
What's your objective here? Deny everything like the cool people you see on Fox News? Refuse to answer "Who won the 2020 election?" like the cool politicians you see in those Senate hearings? You're not a politician and you're not on national TV; you're on a StarCraft forum, and copying these people (who do what they do so as not to anger Trump) just makes you look like a tool.
With that out of the way, a competitive open-bid process takes about six months for this type of work. I don't need an LLM to know that because it's literally my job. Instead of starting in March 2026, they would have had to start in October 2025. But who needs planning when you can just give away more money to friends and family right ?
The standard for corruption is not "whether the person handled it differently than I would have"; it's "did Trump and/or his friends enrich themselves at the expense of the American taxpayer?"
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On August 06 2026 07:58 LightSpectra wrote:Over the last nine months, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has run dozens of paid ads that include explicit AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and images of minors alongside sexually suggestive statements, according to details of the ads shared with WIRED: https://www.wired.com/story/meta-ran-ads-that-contained-ai-generated-child-sexual-abuse-imagery/"this isn’t content posted by third parties on Facebook or Instagram, these are ads that were reviewed, approved, and allowed to run by Meta, never encountering interference while the company collected the ad dollars"
You gotta understand, it's probably really hard to train your AI to filter/reject ads containing childporn and adjacent stuff when tons of the people actually using the very same AI are using it to create child/loli and so on porn...
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On August 06 2026 17:00 Velr wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2026 07:58 LightSpectra wrote:Over the last nine months, Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has run dozens of paid ads that include explicit AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and images of minors alongside sexually suggestive statements, according to details of the ads shared with WIRED: https://www.wired.com/story/meta-ran-ads-that-contained-ai-generated-child-sexual-abuse-imagery/"this isn’t content posted by third parties on Facebook or Instagram, these are ads that were reviewed, approved, and allowed to run by Meta, never encountering interference while the company collected the ad dollars" You gotta understand, it's probably really hard to train your AI to filter/reject ads containing childporn and adjacent stuff when tons of the people actually using the same AI to create child/loli and so on porn...
The most benevolent interpretation is that Meta et al. wanted money from pedophiles and thought they could get it without drawing attention to them doing so. The median interpretation is that they saw Musk get away with flooding twitter with LLM-generated CSAM and thought they could get away with it too. And the harshest interpretation, which unfortunately isn't outlandish at all, is that Zuckerberg actively wants to normalize it and is trying to do so by seeing how far he can go before serious pushback.
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Hanlon's razor, its just that no one is actually doing their job.
Marketing just generates shit with AI and doesn't adequately check it, Managers all rubber stamped it without looking.
Doesn't excuse that it happened and there should be serious consequences. Just providing an explanation that isn't 'secret pedophile cabal trying to normalize child sexual abuse.
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On August 06 2026 16:46 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2026 00:36 oBlade wrote:On August 05 2026 16:17 Geiko wrote:On August 05 2026 13:20 oBlade wrote:On August 05 2026 03:52 Geiko wrote:On August 05 2026 00:46 oBlade wrote:On August 05 2026 00:06 Geiko wrote:
I never said the no-bid contract was illegal I said it was just another example of normalized corruption in the USA.
No-bid federal contracts usually have 6-12% profit margin. This one had 20%. That's 3M in profits just for being Trump's friend.
Companies that have comparable experience in waterproofing large pools:
Water Works
Water Structures
KJC Waterproofing
Membrane Concepts Yeah going to be harder to keep $3 million when they're liable for redoing the thing, which has a high risk of something going wrong like 2012, under warranty, as they are doing now. On August 05 2026 00:06 Geiko wrote:
I didn't come up with the term "botched" so I don't feel the need to define it to you, seeing as I'm no expert. "Botched" is the term used by the DOJ to describe the job done by Trump's friend after investigation.
So we're using "exagerating" instead of "lying" now are we ? Ok maybe arresting a former olympic athlete on false charges was a bit of an exageration right ? Oops no biggie, just Trump being Trump.
You should know what "botched" means if you use it. You are not now quoting a Trump DOJ filing because you believe them or because you trust them, you are quoting them because they agree with what you already thought. So you should know what exactly was "botched." In detail. About the pool. From the horse's mouth, the ever-credible (for you) Trump DOJ (except weeks ago when they had this guy charged but you didn't believe it). You're missing the point. Whether or not they keep the 3M is irrelevant, what matters is that they got to have it in the first place when "normal" contractors would have gotten ~ 1,5M. You're stuck on level 1. The magic free money gods of government didn't just arbitrarily decide for them to get 8% extra. It is a CONTRACT. Contracts require TWO PARTIES TO AGREE. Nobody would have done it for 6% because look at the timeframe and requirements. You already admitted you think no-bid contracts are corruption, period, so what do you think you're going to convince me of by quibbling about the specific percent margins that you don't understand? It's not a cost-plus contract. It's a fixed price contract for a difficult and rush (at the time, slightly less so now) job. Something probably neither the contractor nor the government were sure was possible in the timeframe. That's why it's 20%. It's about risk. For reference Sika, the company that took two years to FUCK IT UP last time, the only one with experience, was approached. The government said we're trying to fix the Reflecting Pool in 2 weeks or whatever before Independence Day. The company said, no thanks, not interested, don't want to be liable for that, not with a ten foot pole. A cost-plus contract would be "Hey it didn't work, I need some more money to redo it like we agreed." Fixed cost is "It didn't work. Fix it now, or pay for someone else to, or else we will hold you liable for damages and your company will no longer exist." On August 05 2026 03:52 Geiko wrote:
I think you're also not thinking quite clearly. My stance is very obvious, I trust neither Trump nor his DOJ. By that I mean that I think they lie enough of the time that they are not reliable sources of information.
Why I'm quoting the DOJ is because in this instance, we have the head of the DOJ saying something (damage to the pool was not done by vandals) and Trump saying the exact opposite (damage done to the pool was done by vandals). It follows logically that one of them is saying a falsehood. (Regardless of whether I trust any of them).
My opinion is that Trump is the one lying because he has all the reasons to lie as you've said, it benefits him politically. On the other hand the head of the DOJ has no reason to lie, quite the contrary as it endangers her job.
Now we've established that one of them is telling falsehoods, who do you think it is and why ? Your issue is not realizing these things are interconnected. The fact that the damage is due to the repair job not going as planned doesn't mean Trump created this whole situation just as an excuse to give his "friend" (if you believe him) a 20% $3 million contract to break the pool. The damage is due to the repair job not going as planned because it is an old sinking pool, a unique job, a problem that neither the government nor contractors have shown mastery of, and has a high chance of not going according to plan no matter who did it. Which is why there's not an infinite supply of contractors willing to do it for 1% margin in 1 day and you shouldn't trust them if there were. On the subject of the lying: You still haven't answered my question. Who do you think is wrong Trump or the DOJ ? And why do you think they are wrong ? HEY *waves hands wildly* You literally just read, quoted, and responded to this: . The fact that the damage is due to the repair job not going as planned doesn't mean Trump created this whole situation just as an excuse to give his "friend" (if you believe him) a 20% $3 million contract to break the pool. The damage is due to the repair job not going as planned What part of these sentences gives any ambiguity whatsoever about whether I think the damage was caused by vandals or not? Let's get some information to stick here. On August 05 2026 16:17 Geiko wrote:
On the subject of corruption:
I don't think no-bid contracts are necessarily corruption. I think they are corruption when they are not justified. The Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and the Competition in Contracting Act (CICA) require justifications in order to ensure an open-bidding process could not have been done.
In this case the government argued that the justification was "unusual and compelling urgency".
My questions to you:
Did the fact that the 250th anniversary happened on the 4th of July 2026 come as a surprise to the Trump administration?
Was the fact that the pool was leaking/broken hidden from them and they only discovered it recently ?
If the answer is "no" to the previous questions, what was unusual and urgently compelling about needing to fix the pool for the 4th of july ? Is it incompetence for not having foreseen something easily foreseeable? Or is it corruption for waiting until the last moment to "legally" hand out a 15M no-bid contract to a friend ?
So the standard of corruption is not whether it's legal, not whether it's no-bid, it basically boils down to just whether the person handles it different than you would. The 2012 open bid job took 22 months. This was told to you which again makes me suspect nothing is sticking. Ask the LLM teaching you law what date is 22 months after January 20th, 2025. Use another LLM or your own background knowledge to compare whether that date falls before or after July 4th, 2026. Yeah rushing is justified. Nor was Trump inaugurated on January 20th 2025 knowing "We are going to have a fair on the National Mall next year, and for this purpose we want the Reflecting Pool to be painted blue." That would have been absurd. That was decided in 2026. That's why rushing is legitimate. Even though you wouldn't personally do it that way, I got that, you would use hindsight and a time machine to start far earlier, the standard for corruption isn't just what you would do. It can't be. For example, you aren't president, don't live in DC, don't have to take care of DC, aren't holding a 250th anniversary celebration, probably have different views about the significance of the Reflecting Pool and aesthetic opinions of what color it should even be, etc. The government, and the administration, are not simply Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool optimizers. They have other jobs. For the pool there's many options. You can clean it. You can modify it. You can repair it. You can tear it down and rebuild it. You can choose to let it languish. But the fact that the pool is leaking is apparently not a guaranteed motivation to repair it per se. Or else everyone involved going back to 2013 is incompetent. Just sitting back and blaming people as soon as they do something, for not having done it earlier, inculcates a culture of nobody ever doing anything. Boring philosophy to nowhere. Pool renovation: Genius home-run miracle? No (not yet, off chance of yes after 2nd go). Apocalyptic corruptiongate? No. Reasonable effort by obvious patriots to make a national symbol look better and be stronger? Yes. Still ultimately just a pool I'm never, ever going to fall into heart attack psychosis about? Absolutely. It's very hard talking to you, and if I'm being honest, you're being a little dense. I asked you three times why Trump would say vandals damaged the pool, and you still won't answer. The only thing I got was, "Trump likes to exaggerate things," which I don't understand, because there's nothing to exaggerate. It's not like there were people doing a little bit of vandalism and Trump claimed they did a lot of vandalism. The vandalism with box cutters is simply completely made up. The correct answer to the question is, "Trump is a pathological liar," which you won't bring yourself to say, despite agreeing yourself that he's saying things that are clearly completely made up.
Ah I said it wasn't vandals but I didn't use the exact random hidden password you invented so my answer doesn't count.
You know vandals vandalized the grass right next to the thing when they wrote 8647? You've probably forgotten that by now despite being told it also. That's the same category, vandalism. Them also breaking the pool is the exaggeration then. Like if someone shoots 2 goals and says they shot 4, you don't go oh shit that's not an exaggeration the second two goals are simply completely made up. It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie. It wasn't an elite 5D 8brain ploy to not say the word "lie." You're using semantics to miss basic communication.
On August 06 2026 16:46 Geiko wrote:
Just like you wouldn't bring yourself to say that "a 3000% decrease" doesn't make any sense, or that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. And it's hard to understand because you seem like a decently intelligent individual.
I've never said anything about the results of the 2020 election other than what anyone can find on Wikipedia or the first page of Google lol.
On August 06 2026 16:46 Geiko wrote:
What's your objective here? Deny everything like the cool people you see on Fox News? Refuse to answer "Who won the 2020 election?" like the cool politicians you see in those Senate hearings? You're not a politician and you're not on national TV; you're on a StarCraft forum, and copying these people (who do what they do so as not to anger Trump) just makes you look like a tool.
Oh you're so close. You're almost there. You should be able to taste it: Why would anyone bother entertaining a know-nothing question copy/pasted straight from tools someone saw in a hearing on TV. Duh.
On August 06 2026 16:46 Geiko wrote:
With that out of the way, a competitive open-bid process takes about six months for this type of work. I don't need an LLM to know that because it's literally my job. Instead of starting in March 2026, they would have had to start in October 2025. But who needs planning when you can just give away more money to friends and family right ?
Okay, and they hadn't chosen to remodel it by October 2025.
"Sir, people are complaining the Reflecting Pool is dirty and ugly."
"Drain it completely and close it for longer than necessary the other way."
Problem solved, thanks bureaucracy.
Are you saying this is a 6-month job instead of the 2012 job which was 22 months? This is actually useful information to me. What about the price then? How much is it fairly supposed to cost? Is it supposed to cost about $1 million in which case it's a 15x ripoff, or about $15 million in which case this is an enormous nothingburger.
On second thought, 6 months after October is only April. Are you instead saying you want 6 months of bidding for 3 more months of work that starts in April? Because the whole point of this contract was it's rush and higher risk. If you did a bid process you would expect THE JOB ITSELF to take longer.
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On August 06 2026 21:12 Gorsameth wrote:
Hanlon's razor, its just that no one is actually doing their job.
Marketing just generates shit with AI and doesn't adequately check it, Managers all rubber stamped it without looking.
Doesn't excuse that it happened and there should be serious consequences. Just providing an explanation that isn't 'secret pedophile cabal trying to normalize child sexual abuse.
Wired is emphatic that these ads were approved by humans, and it beggars belief that nobody at Meta was thinking about this exact issue when it's public knowledge some places were considering criminal investigations or charges against Twitter for allowing LLM-generated CSAM.
I don't know why it'd be so weird to think people like Zuckerberg, high on their own "Great Men" propaganda, might think it's a desirable to reshape society's morals around exploiting children. It wasn't long ago that it was discovered Meta was actively promoting their chatbots to seduce underage users.
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On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Ah I said it wasn't vandals but I didn't use the exact random hidden password you invented so my answer doesn't count.
You know vandals vandalized the grass right next to the thing when they wrote 8647? You've probably forgotten that by now despite being told it also. That's the same category, vandalism. Them also breaking the pool is the exaggeration then. Like if someone shoots 2 goals and says they shot 4, you don't go oh shit that's not an exaggeration the second two goals are simply completely made up. It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie. It wasn't an elite 5D 8brain ploy to not say the word "lie." You're using semantics to miss basic communication.
"This person stole a cookie, that's a crime, right? So me saying that he robbed a bank wasn't technically a lie, just an exaggeration." This is how stupid you sound to the rest of us here.
Allow me to help you understand the difference between "exaggeration" and "lie":
"The vandals wrote 8647 in 300-foot numbers on the grass!" EXAGGERATION
"In addition to the grass thing, the radical-left lunatic vandals cut 350 feet of the pool liner with box cutters. There's video evidence of it!" LIE
Do you get it?
On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
I've never said anything about the results of the 2020 election other than what anyone can find on Wikipedia or the first page of Google lol.
On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Why would anyone bother entertaining a know-nothing question copy/pasted straight from tools someone saw in a hearing on TV. Duh.
Joe Biden won the 2020 election. See how easy that was? It even says so on the Wikipedia page you're quoting. You write 1,000 words of pure nonsense every day on here, and you can't be bothered to write 6 words saying that you agree with it?
On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Okay, and they hadn't chosen to remodel it by October 2025.
"Sir, people are complaining the Reflecting Pool is dirty and ugly."
"Drain it completely and close it for longer than necessary the other way."
Problem solved, thanks bureaucracy.
Are you saying this is a 6-month job instead of the 2012 job which was 22 months? This is actually useful information to me. What about the price then? How much is it fairly supposed to cost? Is it supposed to cost about $1 million in which case it's a 15x ripoff, or about $15 million in which case this is an enormous nothingburger.
On second thought, 6 months after October is only April. Are you instead saying you want 6 months of bidding for 3 more months of work that starts in April? Because the whole point of this contract was it's rush and higher risk. If you did a bid process you would expect THE JOB ITSELF to take longer.
I'm saying you have reading issues. A job can take 2 months, 8 months, or 12 years depending on what you are asking. In this case, I simply stated that, for the same specifications, a tender process to have multiple contractors bid would have taken at most 6 months more. More realistically, 2–4 months, seeing as they had the authority to speed up authorizations. I'm not talking about the total time, including studies, work, etc., which you probably mean when you say 22 months. I'm talking about the same job, except with multiple offers from competent contractors.
The urgency to fix the pool 4month before the event is imo either a result of poor planning, or a deliberate scheme to by-pass the normal bidding process.
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On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2026 16:46 Geiko wrote:
Just like you wouldn't bring yourself to say that "a 3000% decrease" doesn't make any sense, or that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. And it's hard to understand because you seem like a decently intelligent individual. I've never said anything about the results of the 2020 election other than what anyone can find on Wikipedia or the first page of Google lol.
Come on cult member, you can do it, just say the words.
I also love that this is what you brain rotten MAGA cultists think passes for clever, "I don't have to say it but I can refer them to wiki and google, but on those there is also information about lies I internalized so it's ambiguous".
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On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Ah I said it wasn't vandals but I didn't use the exact random hidden password you invented so my answer doesn't count.
You know vandals vandalized the grass right next to the thing when they wrote 8647? You've probably forgotten that by now despite being told it also. That's the same category, vandalism. Them also breaking the pool is the exaggeration then. Like if someone shoots 2 goals and says they shot 4, you don't go oh shit that's not an exaggeration the second two goals are simply completely made up. It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie. It wasn't an elite 5D 8brain ploy to not say the word "lie." You're using semantics to miss basic communication.
"This person stole a cookie, that's a crime, right? So me saying that he robbed a bank wasn't technically a lie, just an exaggeration." This is how stupid you sound to the rest of us here.
You read this:
It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie.
and concluded my point was an exaggeration isn't technically a lie, and not that exaggerations are lies, which was my actual point? That's just special.
On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
I've never said anything about the results of the 2020 election other than what anyone can find on Wikipedia or the first page of Google lol.
Show nested quote +On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Why would anyone bother entertaining a know-nothing question copy/pasted straight from tools someone saw in a hearing on TV. Duh.
Joe Biden won the 2020 election. See how easy that was? It even says so on the Wikipedia page you're quoting. You write 1,000 words of pure nonsense every day on here, and you can't be bothered to write 6 words saying that you agree with it?
I'm glad you could finally only six years later figure out and admit to us all who won the 2020 election. Kind of embarrassing but better late than never. New test just dropped though: If you don't say fish live in the sea in the next post, you're Hitler. In fact I've never once seen you say those 5 words "fish live in the sea." Where do you think fish live? You're not one of those sky-fishites are you?
On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Okay, and they hadn't chosen to remodel it by October 2025.
"Sir, people are complaining the Reflecting Pool is dirty and ugly."
"Drain it completely and close it for longer than necessary the other way."
Problem solved, thanks bureaucracy.
Are you saying this is a 6-month job instead of the 2012 job which was 22 months? This is actually useful information to me. What about the price then? How much is it fairly supposed to cost? Is it supposed to cost about $1 million in which case it's a 15x ripoff, or about $15 million in which case this is an enormous nothingburger.
On second thought, 6 months after October is only April. Are you instead saying you want 6 months of bidding for 3 more months of work that starts in April? Because the whole point of this contract was it's rush and higher risk. If you did a bid process you would expect THE JOB ITSELF to take longer. I'm saying you have reading issues. A job can take 2 months, 8 months, or 12 years depending on what you are asking. In this case, I simply stated that, for the same specifications, a tender process to have multiple contractors bid would have taken at most 6 months more. More realistically, 2–4 months, seeing as they had the authority to speed up authorizations. I'm not talking about the total time, including studies, work, etc., which you probably mean when you say 22 months.
You're correct a job can take 12 years.
In 2015 people were not thinking about the 250th. They could have started a job that would finish in 2027, then realize in 2025 that they wanted to have a fair on the National Mall and have the Pool open for that, and then done new contracts to finish faster for more money. That would not be a planning failure. Because they would be able to make it happen.
You know Sika yet? Have you just been thinking I'm somehow typoing the name of the mosquito-borne disease? The company that did the 2010 job. The repair by Sika from close to open was 22 months. The job. Not the procurement. Not the bidding. Just the job. I've mentioned this multiple times but it hasn't absorbed I see.
On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:
I'm talking about the same job, except with multiple offers from competent contractors.
The urgency to fix the pool 4month before the event is imo either a result of poor planning, or a deliberate scheme to by-pass the normal bidding process.
Excellent.
Let's assume it's simply the result of poor planning. Then:
How much should the repair cost and how long should it take? Objectively. I actually asked you how much the fair cost is and you still won't answer.
We know the rush time was 3 months. But not everyone could do that. Sika was approached first and rejected because they couldn't do 3 months. It stands to reason had the job been done for 8% people would have bid much longer job durations. Making it the "same job" in terms of result but not in terms of cost and timescale.
(CNN) — Several months before blue strips started floating to the surface of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a company involved in its last renovation more than 15 years ago was approached with an opportunity to do this remodel as well. But the company said no.
Specifically, it balked at two requirements – the Trump administration wanted it done by July 4, and the pool bottom had to be blue, according to two employees with the New Jersey-based Sika Corporation, which provided the concrete construction and sealing products for a 2010 renovation project to the Reflecting Pool.
According to the two employees, who spoke to CNN on the condition they not be identified, both demands made the job “unfeasible.”
So suddenly we're moving up to like 6 months of work plus 6 months of procurement which you are now trying to reduce back to 2-4 months, and we end up needing to start like May/June 2025 to have a buffer which is even before the 249th anniversary, let alone the 250th. And why would anyone at that time be looking closely at the Reflecting Pool of all things for the 250th anniversary when they have yet to decide what they are even going to do and where.
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On August 06 2026 23:46 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Ah I said it wasn't vandals but I didn't use the exact random hidden password you invented so my answer doesn't count.
You know vandals vandalized the grass right next to the thing when they wrote 8647? You've probably forgotten that by now despite being told it also. That's the same category, vandalism. Them also breaking the pool is the exaggeration then. Like if someone shoots 2 goals and says they shot 4, you don't go oh shit that's not an exaggeration the second two goals are simply completely made up. It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie. It wasn't an elite 5D 8brain ploy to not say the word "lie." You're using semantics to miss basic communication.
"This person stole a cookie, that's a crime, right? So me saying that he robbed a bank wasn't technically a lie, just an exaggeration." This is how stupid you sound to the rest of us here. You read this: Show nested quote +It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie. and concluded my point was an exaggeration isn't technically a lie, and not that exaggerations are lies, which was my actual point? That's just special. Show nested quote +On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
I've never said anything about the results of the 2020 election other than what anyone can find on Wikipedia or the first page of Google lol.
On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Why would anyone bother entertaining a know-nothing question copy/pasted straight from tools someone saw in a hearing on TV. Duh.
Joe Biden won the 2020 election. See how easy that was? It even says so on the Wikipedia page you're quoting. You write 1,000 words of pure nonsense every day on here, and you can't be bothered to write 6 words saying that you agree with it? I'm glad you could finally only six years later figure out and admit to us all who won the 2020 election. Kind of embarrassing but better late than never. New test just dropped though: If you don't say fish live in the sea in the next post, you're Hitler. In fact I've never once seen you say those 5 words "fish live in the sea." Where do you think fish live? You're not one of those sky-fishites are you? Show nested quote +On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Okay, and they hadn't chosen to remodel it by October 2025.
"Sir, people are complaining the Reflecting Pool is dirty and ugly."
"Drain it completely and close it for longer than necessary the other way."
Problem solved, thanks bureaucracy.
Are you saying this is a 6-month job instead of the 2012 job which was 22 months? This is actually useful information to me. What about the price then? How much is it fairly supposed to cost? Is it supposed to cost about $1 million in which case it's a 15x ripoff, or about $15 million in which case this is an enormous nothingburger.
On second thought, 6 months after October is only April. Are you instead saying you want 6 months of bidding for 3 more months of work that starts in April? Because the whole point of this contract was it's rush and higher risk. If you did a bid process you would expect THE JOB ITSELF to take longer. I'm saying you have reading issues. A job can take 2 months, 8 months, or 12 years depending on what you are asking. In this case, I simply stated that, for the same specifications, a tender process to have multiple contractors bid would have taken at most 6 months more. More realistically, 2–4 months, seeing as they had the authority to speed up authorizations. I'm not talking about the total time, including studies, work, etc., which you probably mean when you say 22 months. You're correct a job can take 12 years. In 2015 people were not thinking about the 250th. They could have started a job that would finish in 2027, then realize in 2025 that they wanted to have a fair on the National Mall and have the Pool open for that, and then done new contracts to finish faster for more money. That would not be a planning failure. Because they would be able to make it happen. You know Sika yet? Have you just been thinking I'm somehow typoing the name of the mosquito-borne disease? The company that did the 2010 job. The repair by Sika from close to open was 22 months. The job. Not the procurement. Not the bidding. Just the job. I've mentioned this multiple times but it hasn't absorbed I see. Show nested quote +On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:
I'm talking about the same job, except with multiple offers from competent contractors.
The urgency to fix the pool 4month before the event is imo either a result of poor planning, or a deliberate scheme to by-pass the normal bidding process. Excellent. Let's assume it's simply the result of poor planning. Then: How much should the repair cost and how long should it take? Objectively. I actually asked you how much the fair cost is and you still won't answer. We know the rush time was 3 months. But not everyone could do that. Sika was approached first and rejected because they couldn't do 3 months. It stands to reason had the job been done for 8% people would have bid much longer job durations. Making it the "same job" in terms of result but not in terms of cost and timescale. Show nested quote +(CNN) — Several months before blue strips started floating to the surface of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a company involved in its last renovation more than 15 years ago was approached with an opportunity to do this remodel as well. But the company said no.
Specifically, it balked at two requirements – the Trump administration wanted it done by July 4, and the pool bottom had to be blue, according to two employees with the New Jersey-based Sika Corporation, which provided the concrete construction and sealing products for a 2010 renovation project to the Reflecting Pool.
According to the two employees, who spoke to CNN on the condition they not be identified, both demands made the job “unfeasible.” So suddenly we're moving up to like 6 months of work plus 6 months of procurement which you are now trying to reduce back to 2-4 months, and we end up needing to start like May/June 2025 to have a buffer which is even before the 249th anniversary, let alone the 250th. And why would anyone at that time be looking closely at the Reflecting Pool of all things for the 250th anniversary when they have yet to decide what they are even going to do and where.
You seem to have trouble saying sentences that are true. You seemingly won't say "Joe Biden won the 2020 election" even though you are OK heavily implying that is true, you just can't bring yourself to type the words. The same goes with saying that Trump is a liar. You seem to agree that Donald Trump tells "exagerations", that "exagerations" are lies, but you won't say "Donald Trump tells lies". What is wrong with you ? I'll happily say that fish live in the sea because they do. you won't see me say "Well I'll refer you to wikipedia to find out where fish live". Again, what is wrong with you ?
You ask me how much the repair should have cost... You're so close to getting it right. What possible way is there of knowing what the fair market price for something should be ? If only we could have, say for example, asked 5-6 contractors how much money it would cost to put a blue liner on the pool and do the job in 2 months. How great that would have been, that way the american taxpayer wouldn't have had the feeling of being ripped off. But sadly it's just not possible. That would have taken a couple months of forward planning and we didn't have that time  Who could have guessed we would be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the USA. No one, one would need a time machine to have figured that out.
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On August 06 2026 21:12 Gorsameth wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Hanlon's razor, its just that no one is actually doing their job.
Marketing just generates shit with AI and doesn't adequately check it, Managers all rubber stamped it without looking.
Doesn't excuse that it happened and there should be serious consequences. Just providing an explanation that isn't 'secret pedophile cabal trying to normalize child sexual abuse.
That's one of the things about capitalism (and "the banality of evil"). You don't need people to be part of a "secret cabal" for their interests to align around heinous things they have the resources to do and avoid meaningful consequences.
You don't need a secret cabal to suppress worker wages (though we've had those), you just need the incentives to align.
The incentives for Meta to normalize child sexual abuse are pretty obvious and overwhelming to their profit model.
In other words, they are doing their jobs. Their jobs are part of the problem.
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On August 06 2026 23:59 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2026 23:46 oBlade wrote:On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Ah I said it wasn't vandals but I didn't use the exact random hidden password you invented so my answer doesn't count.
You know vandals vandalized the grass right next to the thing when they wrote 8647? You've probably forgotten that by now despite being told it also. That's the same category, vandalism. Them also breaking the pool is the exaggeration then. Like if someone shoots 2 goals and says they shot 4, you don't go oh shit that's not an exaggeration the second two goals are simply completely made up. It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie. It wasn't an elite 5D 8brain ploy to not say the word "lie." You're using semantics to miss basic communication.
"This person stole a cookie, that's a crime, right? So me saying that he robbed a bank wasn't technically a lie, just an exaggeration." This is how stupid you sound to the rest of us here. You read this: It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie. and concluded my point was an exaggeration isn't technically a lie, and not that exaggerations are lies, which was my actual point? That's just special. On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
I've never said anything about the results of the 2020 election other than what anyone can find on Wikipedia or the first page of Google lol.
On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Why would anyone bother entertaining a know-nothing question copy/pasted straight from tools someone saw in a hearing on TV. Duh.
Joe Biden won the 2020 election. See how easy that was? It even says so on the Wikipedia page you're quoting. You write 1,000 words of pure nonsense every day on here, and you can't be bothered to write 6 words saying that you agree with it? I'm glad you could finally only six years later figure out and admit to us all who won the 2020 election. Kind of embarrassing but better late than never. New test just dropped though: If you don't say fish live in the sea in the next post, you're Hitler. In fact I've never once seen you say those 5 words "fish live in the sea." Where do you think fish live? You're not one of those sky-fishites are you? On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Okay, and they hadn't chosen to remodel it by October 2025.
"Sir, people are complaining the Reflecting Pool is dirty and ugly."
"Drain it completely and close it for longer than necessary the other way."
Problem solved, thanks bureaucracy.
Are you saying this is a 6-month job instead of the 2012 job which was 22 months? This is actually useful information to me. What about the price then? How much is it fairly supposed to cost? Is it supposed to cost about $1 million in which case it's a 15x ripoff, or about $15 million in which case this is an enormous nothingburger.
On second thought, 6 months after October is only April. Are you instead saying you want 6 months of bidding for 3 more months of work that starts in April? Because the whole point of this contract was it's rush and higher risk. If you did a bid process you would expect THE JOB ITSELF to take longer. I'm saying you have reading issues. A job can take 2 months, 8 months, or 12 years depending on what you are asking. In this case, I simply stated that, for the same specifications, a tender process to have multiple contractors bid would have taken at most 6 months more. More realistically, 2–4 months, seeing as they had the authority to speed up authorizations. I'm not talking about the total time, including studies, work, etc., which you probably mean when you say 22 months. You're correct a job can take 12 years. In 2015 people were not thinking about the 250th. They could have started a job that would finish in 2027, then realize in 2025 that they wanted to have a fair on the National Mall and have the Pool open for that, and then done new contracts to finish faster for more money. That would not be a planning failure. Because they would be able to make it happen. You know Sika yet? Have you just been thinking I'm somehow typoing the name of the mosquito-borne disease? The company that did the 2010 job. The repair by Sika from close to open was 22 months. The job. Not the procurement. Not the bidding. Just the job. I've mentioned this multiple times but it hasn't absorbed I see. On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:
I'm talking about the same job, except with multiple offers from competent contractors.
The urgency to fix the pool 4month before the event is imo either a result of poor planning, or a deliberate scheme to by-pass the normal bidding process. Excellent. Let's assume it's simply the result of poor planning. Then: How much should the repair cost and how long should it take? Objectively. I actually asked you how much the fair cost is and you still won't answer. We know the rush time was 3 months. But not everyone could do that. Sika was approached first and rejected because they couldn't do 3 months. It stands to reason had the job been done for 8% people would have bid much longer job durations. Making it the "same job" in terms of result but not in terms of cost and timescale. (CNN) — Several months before blue strips started floating to the surface of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a company involved in its last renovation more than 15 years ago was approached with an opportunity to do this remodel as well. But the company said no.
Specifically, it balked at two requirements – the Trump administration wanted it done by July 4, and the pool bottom had to be blue, according to two employees with the New Jersey-based Sika Corporation, which provided the concrete construction and sealing products for a 2010 renovation project to the Reflecting Pool.
According to the two employees, who spoke to CNN on the condition they not be identified, both demands made the job “unfeasible.” So suddenly we're moving up to like 6 months of work plus 6 months of procurement which you are now trying to reduce back to 2-4 months, and we end up needing to start like May/June 2025 to have a buffer which is even before the 249th anniversary, let alone the 250th. And why would anyone at that time be looking closely at the Reflecting Pool of all things for the 250th anniversary when they have yet to decide what they are even going to do and where. You seem to have trouble saying sentences that are true. You seemingly won't say "Joe Biden won the 2020 election" even though you are OK heavily implying that is true, you just can't bring yourself to type the words. The same goes with saying that Trump is a liar. You seem to agree that Donald Trump tells "exagerations", that "exagerations" are lies, but you won't say "Donald Trump tells lies". What is wrong with you ? I'll happily say that fish live in the sea because they do. you won't see me say "Well I'll refer you to wikipedia to find out where fish live". Again, what is wrong with you ?
Good now say fish live in the Pacific Ocean, and in the Atlantic Ocean, and do penance for ignoring freshwater fish everywhere. The implication is NOT you're an irrational person who doesn't know fish live in the Pacific Ocean. I'm not saying there's a single piece of evidence you ever said fish don't live in the Pacific Ocean. It's just a good faith test to clear your name, I'm your friend. Let me know when you're tired of saying true sentences. (If you miss any of these, Jankisa is ready to toxically spam that you are a far right racist fascist bootlicking Stormfront Nazi cult member with blood on your hands anyway. Maybe you prefer he just get stuck on the asinine fish question and crash out there. Understand?)
On August 06 2026 23:59 Geiko wrote:You ask me how much the repair should have cost... You're so close to getting it right. What possible way is there of knowing what the fair market price for something should be ? If only we could have, say for example, asked 5-6 contractors how much money it would cost to put a blue liner on the pool and do the job in 2 months. How great that would have been, that way the american taxpayer wouldn't have had the feeling of being ripped off. But sadly it's just not possible. That would have taken a couple months of forward planning and we didn't have that time Who could have guessed we would be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the USA. No one, one would need a time machine to have figured that out.
So we have a deadlock where we can't know what the fair price is because it wasn't bid, but we can't know if bidding was skipped on purpose to achieve unfair enrichment without knowing whether the price is unfair. This is obnoxious because in previous waffling you said no-bid contracts aren't necessarily corrupt. Yet it's inherent to all no-bid contracts that you didn't arrive at the price the way you are now sarcastically saying is necessary. Whether something's corrupt can't depend on "the feeling."
The price is anyway not completely uninformed, there is external info. For example, your LLMyou mentioned 4 contractors that the government could have used, before. How much do they charge for similar jobs, and can you scale it to the Reflecting Pool? There have been articles and articles of people making the same complaints you are now. There's no numbers to go with this? You haven't even theorycrafted something. Government cost overrun averages, say, ~20% so if you have some actual way to show it should have cost less than $12.5 million to start in April and finish before July I'm happy to admit the government was slightly ripped off. Wouldn't you like that? Me saying one of your rhetorical passwords? But as scant as all your evidence is, what's more likely to make me think we were ripped off is if the redo repair under warranty finishing in a few days is also defective in some way. Or if the company goes bankrupt while repeatedly trying to fix the blue lining, like if the pool's condition makes it structurally futile to even try.
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On August 06 2026 23:59 Geiko wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2026 23:46 oBlade wrote:On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Ah I said it wasn't vandals but I didn't use the exact random hidden password you invented so my answer doesn't count.
You know vandals vandalized the grass right next to the thing when they wrote 8647? You've probably forgotten that by now despite being told it also. That's the same category, vandalism. Them also breaking the pool is the exaggeration then. Like if someone shoots 2 goals and says they shot 4, you don't go oh shit that's not an exaggeration the second two goals are simply completely made up. It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie. It wasn't an elite 5D 8brain ploy to not say the word "lie." You're using semantics to miss basic communication.
"This person stole a cookie, that's a crime, right? So me saying that he robbed a bank wasn't technically a lie, just an exaggeration." This is how stupid you sound to the rest of us here. You read this: It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie. and concluded my point was an exaggeration isn't technically a lie, and not that exaggerations are lies, which was my actual point? That's just special. On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
I've never said anything about the results of the 2020 election other than what anyone can find on Wikipedia or the first page of Google lol.
On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Why would anyone bother entertaining a know-nothing question copy/pasted straight from tools someone saw in a hearing on TV. Duh.
Joe Biden won the 2020 election. See how easy that was? It even says so on the Wikipedia page you're quoting. You write 1,000 words of pure nonsense every day on here, and you can't be bothered to write 6 words saying that you agree with it? I'm glad you could finally only six years later figure out and admit to us all who won the 2020 election. Kind of embarrassing but better late than never. New test just dropped though: If you don't say fish live in the sea in the next post, you're Hitler. In fact I've never once seen you say those 5 words "fish live in the sea." Where do you think fish live? You're not one of those sky-fishites are you? On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Okay, and they hadn't chosen to remodel it by October 2025.
"Sir, people are complaining the Reflecting Pool is dirty and ugly."
"Drain it completely and close it for longer than necessary the other way."
Problem solved, thanks bureaucracy.
Are you saying this is a 6-month job instead of the 2012 job which was 22 months? This is actually useful information to me. What about the price then? How much is it fairly supposed to cost? Is it supposed to cost about $1 million in which case it's a 15x ripoff, or about $15 million in which case this is an enormous nothingburger.
On second thought, 6 months after October is only April. Are you instead saying you want 6 months of bidding for 3 more months of work that starts in April? Because the whole point of this contract was it's rush and higher risk. If you did a bid process you would expect THE JOB ITSELF to take longer. I'm saying you have reading issues. A job can take 2 months, 8 months, or 12 years depending on what you are asking. In this case, I simply stated that, for the same specifications, a tender process to have multiple contractors bid would have taken at most 6 months more. More realistically, 2–4 months, seeing as they had the authority to speed up authorizations. I'm not talking about the total time, including studies, work, etc., which you probably mean when you say 22 months. You're correct a job can take 12 years. In 2015 people were not thinking about the 250th. They could have started a job that would finish in 2027, then realize in 2025 that they wanted to have a fair on the National Mall and have the Pool open for that, and then done new contracts to finish faster for more money. That would not be a planning failure. Because they would be able to make it happen. You know Sika yet? Have you just been thinking I'm somehow typoing the name of the mosquito-borne disease? The company that did the 2010 job. The repair by Sika from close to open was 22 months. The job. Not the procurement. Not the bidding. Just the job. I've mentioned this multiple times but it hasn't absorbed I see. On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:
I'm talking about the same job, except with multiple offers from competent contractors.
The urgency to fix the pool 4month before the event is imo either a result of poor planning, or a deliberate scheme to by-pass the normal bidding process. Excellent. Let's assume it's simply the result of poor planning. Then: How much should the repair cost and how long should it take? Objectively. I actually asked you how much the fair cost is and you still won't answer. We know the rush time was 3 months. But not everyone could do that. Sika was approached first and rejected because they couldn't do 3 months. It stands to reason had the job been done for 8% people would have bid much longer job durations. Making it the "same job" in terms of result but not in terms of cost and timescale. (CNN) — Several months before blue strips started floating to the surface of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a company involved in its last renovation more than 15 years ago was approached with an opportunity to do this remodel as well. But the company said no.
Specifically, it balked at two requirements – the Trump administration wanted it done by July 4, and the pool bottom had to be blue, according to two employees with the New Jersey-based Sika Corporation, which provided the concrete construction and sealing products for a 2010 renovation project to the Reflecting Pool.
According to the two employees, who spoke to CNN on the condition they not be identified, both demands made the job “unfeasible.” So suddenly we're moving up to like 6 months of work plus 6 months of procurement which you are now trying to reduce back to 2-4 months, and we end up needing to start like May/June 2025 to have a buffer which is even before the 249th anniversary, let alone the 250th. And why would anyone at that time be looking closely at the Reflecting Pool of all things for the 250th anniversary when they have yet to decide what they are even going to do and where. You seem to have trouble saying sentences that are true. You seemingly won't say "Joe Biden won the 2020 election" even though you are OK heavily implying that is true, you just can't bring yourself to type the words. The same goes with saying that Trump is a liar. You seem to agree that Donald Trump tells "exagerations", that "exagerations" are lies, but you won't say "Donald Trump tells lies". What is wrong with you ? I'll happily say that fish live in the sea because they do. you won't see me say "Well I'll refer you to wikipedia to find out where fish live". Again, what is wrong with you ? You ask me how much the repair should have cost... You're so close to getting it right. What possible way is there of knowing what the fair market price for something should be ? If only we could have, say for example, asked 5-6 contractors how much money it would cost to put a blue liner on the pool and do the job in 2 months. How great that would have been, that way the american taxpayer wouldn't have had the feeling of being ripped off. But sadly it's just not possible. That would have taken a couple months of forward planning and we didn't have that time Who could have guessed we would be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the USA. No one, one would need a time machine to have figured that out. Is the point that Wikipedia and Google are ambiguous on the result, so you really need those exact words? I’m starting to not understand the gotcha.
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On August 07 2026 01:13 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2026 23:59 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 23:46 oBlade wrote:On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Ah I said it wasn't vandals but I didn't use the exact random hidden password you invented so my answer doesn't count.
You know vandals vandalized the grass right next to the thing when they wrote 8647? You've probably forgotten that by now despite being told it also. That's the same category, vandalism. Them also breaking the pool is the exaggeration then. Like if someone shoots 2 goals and says they shot 4, you don't go oh shit that's not an exaggeration the second two goals are simply completely made up. It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie. It wasn't an elite 5D 8brain ploy to not say the word "lie." You're using semantics to miss basic communication.
"This person stole a cookie, that's a crime, right? So me saying that he robbed a bank wasn't technically a lie, just an exaggeration." This is how stupid you sound to the rest of us here. You read this: It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie. and concluded my point was an exaggeration isn't technically a lie, and not that exaggerations are lies, which was my actual point? That's just special. On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
I've never said anything about the results of the 2020 election other than what anyone can find on Wikipedia or the first page of Google lol.
On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Why would anyone bother entertaining a know-nothing question copy/pasted straight from tools someone saw in a hearing on TV. Duh.
Joe Biden won the 2020 election. See how easy that was? It even says so on the Wikipedia page you're quoting. You write 1,000 words of pure nonsense every day on here, and you can't be bothered to write 6 words saying that you agree with it? I'm glad you could finally only six years later figure out and admit to us all who won the 2020 election. Kind of embarrassing but better late than never. New test just dropped though: If you don't say fish live in the sea in the next post, you're Hitler. In fact I've never once seen you say those 5 words "fish live in the sea." Where do you think fish live? You're not one of those sky-fishites are you? On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Okay, and they hadn't chosen to remodel it by October 2025.
"Sir, people are complaining the Reflecting Pool is dirty and ugly."
"Drain it completely and close it for longer than necessary the other way."
Problem solved, thanks bureaucracy.
Are you saying this is a 6-month job instead of the 2012 job which was 22 months? This is actually useful information to me. What about the price then? How much is it fairly supposed to cost? Is it supposed to cost about $1 million in which case it's a 15x ripoff, or about $15 million in which case this is an enormous nothingburger.
On second thought, 6 months after October is only April. Are you instead saying you want 6 months of bidding for 3 more months of work that starts in April? Because the whole point of this contract was it's rush and higher risk. If you did a bid process you would expect THE JOB ITSELF to take longer. I'm saying you have reading issues. A job can take 2 months, 8 months, or 12 years depending on what you are asking. In this case, I simply stated that, for the same specifications, a tender process to have multiple contractors bid would have taken at most 6 months more. More realistically, 2–4 months, seeing as they had the authority to speed up authorizations. I'm not talking about the total time, including studies, work, etc., which you probably mean when you say 22 months. You're correct a job can take 12 years. In 2015 people were not thinking about the 250th. They could have started a job that would finish in 2027, then realize in 2025 that they wanted to have a fair on the National Mall and have the Pool open for that, and then done new contracts to finish faster for more money. That would not be a planning failure. Because they would be able to make it happen. You know Sika yet? Have you just been thinking I'm somehow typoing the name of the mosquito-borne disease? The company that did the 2010 job. The repair by Sika from close to open was 22 months. The job. Not the procurement. Not the bidding. Just the job. I've mentioned this multiple times but it hasn't absorbed I see. On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:
I'm talking about the same job, except with multiple offers from competent contractors.
The urgency to fix the pool 4month before the event is imo either a result of poor planning, or a deliberate scheme to by-pass the normal bidding process. Excellent. Let's assume it's simply the result of poor planning. Then: How much should the repair cost and how long should it take? Objectively. I actually asked you how much the fair cost is and you still won't answer. We know the rush time was 3 months. But not everyone could do that. Sika was approached first and rejected because they couldn't do 3 months. It stands to reason had the job been done for 8% people would have bid much longer job durations. Making it the "same job" in terms of result but not in terms of cost and timescale. (CNN) — Several months before blue strips started floating to the surface of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a company involved in its last renovation more than 15 years ago was approached with an opportunity to do this remodel as well. But the company said no.
Specifically, it balked at two requirements – the Trump administration wanted it done by July 4, and the pool bottom had to be blue, according to two employees with the New Jersey-based Sika Corporation, which provided the concrete construction and sealing products for a 2010 renovation project to the Reflecting Pool.
According to the two employees, who spoke to CNN on the condition they not be identified, both demands made the job “unfeasible.” So suddenly we're moving up to like 6 months of work plus 6 months of procurement which you are now trying to reduce back to 2-4 months, and we end up needing to start like May/June 2025 to have a buffer which is even before the 249th anniversary, let alone the 250th. And why would anyone at that time be looking closely at the Reflecting Pool of all things for the 250th anniversary when they have yet to decide what they are even going to do and where. You seem to have trouble saying sentences that are true. You seemingly won't say "Joe Biden won the 2020 election" even though you are OK heavily implying that is true, you just can't bring yourself to type the words. The same goes with saying that Trump is a liar. You seem to agree that Donald Trump tells "exagerations", that "exagerations" are lies, but you won't say "Donald Trump tells lies". What is wrong with you ? I'll happily say that fish live in the sea because they do. you won't see me say "Well I'll refer you to wikipedia to find out where fish live". Again, what is wrong with you ? You ask me how much the repair should have cost... You're so close to getting it right. What possible way is there of knowing what the fair market price for something should be ? If only we could have, say for example, asked 5-6 contractors how much money it would cost to put a blue liner on the pool and do the job in 2 months. How great that would have been, that way the american taxpayer wouldn't have had the feeling of being ripped off. But sadly it's just not possible. That would have taken a couple months of forward planning and we didn't have that time Who could have guessed we would be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the USA. No one, one would need a time machine to have figured that out. Is the point that Wikipedia and Google are ambiguous on the result, so you really need those exact words? I’m starting to not understand the gotcha.
The point is that oBlade is so deep in the cult that he, either due to deeply ingrained brainwashing or because he is, deep down, aware that "first they came for" part of fascism could affect him in the long term refuses to clearly state a fact.
The latter is the same reason why all the judges and cabinet nominees refuse to answer this question, they are afraid of retribution, this is why I think it's very important, when engaging with people about reality to inquire if they acknowledge it.
If they aren't even able to do that, they are not worth engaging in any way.
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On August 07 2026 01:13 dyhb wrote:Show nested quote +On August 06 2026 23:59 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 23:46 oBlade wrote:On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Ah I said it wasn't vandals but I didn't use the exact random hidden password you invented so my answer doesn't count.
You know vandals vandalized the grass right next to the thing when they wrote 8647? You've probably forgotten that by now despite being told it also. That's the same category, vandalism. Them also breaking the pool is the exaggeration then. Like if someone shoots 2 goals and says they shot 4, you don't go oh shit that's not an exaggeration the second two goals are simply completely made up. It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie. It wasn't an elite 5D 8brain ploy to not say the word "lie." You're using semantics to miss basic communication.
"This person stole a cookie, that's a crime, right? So me saying that he robbed a bank wasn't technically a lie, just an exaggeration." This is how stupid you sound to the rest of us here. You read this: It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie. and concluded my point was an exaggeration isn't technically a lie, and not that exaggerations are lies, which was my actual point? That's just special. On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
I've never said anything about the results of the 2020 election other than what anyone can find on Wikipedia or the first page of Google lol.
On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Why would anyone bother entertaining a know-nothing question copy/pasted straight from tools someone saw in a hearing on TV. Duh.
Joe Biden won the 2020 election. See how easy that was? It even says so on the Wikipedia page you're quoting. You write 1,000 words of pure nonsense every day on here, and you can't be bothered to write 6 words saying that you agree with it? I'm glad you could finally only six years later figure out and admit to us all who won the 2020 election. Kind of embarrassing but better late than never. New test just dropped though: If you don't say fish live in the sea in the next post, you're Hitler. In fact I've never once seen you say those 5 words "fish live in the sea." Where do you think fish live? You're not one of those sky-fishites are you? On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Okay, and they hadn't chosen to remodel it by October 2025.
"Sir, people are complaining the Reflecting Pool is dirty and ugly."
"Drain it completely and close it for longer than necessary the other way."
Problem solved, thanks bureaucracy.
Are you saying this is a 6-month job instead of the 2012 job which was 22 months? This is actually useful information to me. What about the price then? How much is it fairly supposed to cost? Is it supposed to cost about $1 million in which case it's a 15x ripoff, or about $15 million in which case this is an enormous nothingburger.
On second thought, 6 months after October is only April. Are you instead saying you want 6 months of bidding for 3 more months of work that starts in April? Because the whole point of this contract was it's rush and higher risk. If you did a bid process you would expect THE JOB ITSELF to take longer. I'm saying you have reading issues. A job can take 2 months, 8 months, or 12 years depending on what you are asking. In this case, I simply stated that, for the same specifications, a tender process to have multiple contractors bid would have taken at most 6 months more. More realistically, 2–4 months, seeing as they had the authority to speed up authorizations. I'm not talking about the total time, including studies, work, etc., which you probably mean when you say 22 months. You're correct a job can take 12 years. In 2015 people were not thinking about the 250th. They could have started a job that would finish in 2027, then realize in 2025 that they wanted to have a fair on the National Mall and have the Pool open for that, and then done new contracts to finish faster for more money. That would not be a planning failure. Because they would be able to make it happen. You know Sika yet? Have you just been thinking I'm somehow typoing the name of the mosquito-borne disease? The company that did the 2010 job. The repair by Sika from close to open was 22 months. The job. Not the procurement. Not the bidding. Just the job. I've mentioned this multiple times but it hasn't absorbed I see. On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:
I'm talking about the same job, except with multiple offers from competent contractors.
The urgency to fix the pool 4month before the event is imo either a result of poor planning, or a deliberate scheme to by-pass the normal bidding process. Excellent. Let's assume it's simply the result of poor planning. Then: How much should the repair cost and how long should it take? Objectively. I actually asked you how much the fair cost is and you still won't answer. We know the rush time was 3 months. But not everyone could do that. Sika was approached first and rejected because they couldn't do 3 months. It stands to reason had the job been done for 8% people would have bid much longer job durations. Making it the "same job" in terms of result but not in terms of cost and timescale. (CNN) — Several months before blue strips started floating to the surface of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a company involved in its last renovation more than 15 years ago was approached with an opportunity to do this remodel as well. But the company said no.
Specifically, it balked at two requirements – the Trump administration wanted it done by July 4, and the pool bottom had to be blue, according to two employees with the New Jersey-based Sika Corporation, which provided the concrete construction and sealing products for a 2010 renovation project to the Reflecting Pool.
According to the two employees, who spoke to CNN on the condition they not be identified, both demands made the job “unfeasible.” So suddenly we're moving up to like 6 months of work plus 6 months of procurement which you are now trying to reduce back to 2-4 months, and we end up needing to start like May/June 2025 to have a buffer which is even before the 249th anniversary, let alone the 250th. And why would anyone at that time be looking closely at the Reflecting Pool of all things for the 250th anniversary when they have yet to decide what they are even going to do and where. You seem to have trouble saying sentences that are true. You seemingly won't say "Joe Biden won the 2020 election" even though you are OK heavily implying that is true, you just can't bring yourself to type the words. The same goes with saying that Trump is a liar. You seem to agree that Donald Trump tells "exagerations", that "exagerations" are lies, but you won't say "Donald Trump tells lies". What is wrong with you ? I'll happily say that fish live in the sea because they do. you won't see me say "Well I'll refer you to wikipedia to find out where fish live". Again, what is wrong with you ? You ask me how much the repair should have cost... You're so close to getting it right. What possible way is there of knowing what the fair market price for something should be ? If only we could have, say for example, asked 5-6 contractors how much money it would cost to put a blue liner on the pool and do the job in 2 months. How great that would have been, that way the american taxpayer wouldn't have had the feeling of being ripped off. But sadly it's just not possible. That would have taken a couple months of forward planning and we didn't have that time Who could have guessed we would be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the USA. No one, one would need a time machine to have figured that out. Is the point that Wikipedia and Google are ambiguous on the result, so you really need those exact words? I’m starting to not understand the gotcha.
They're shuddering at the thought of a 4th Trump term in 2028 apparently.
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On August 07 2026 01:25 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On August 07 2026 01:13 dyhb wrote:On August 06 2026 23:59 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 23:46 oBlade wrote:On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Ah I said it wasn't vandals but I didn't use the exact random hidden password you invented so my answer doesn't count.
You know vandals vandalized the grass right next to the thing when they wrote 8647? You've probably forgotten that by now despite being told it also. That's the same category, vandalism. Them also breaking the pool is the exaggeration then. Like if someone shoots 2 goals and says they shot 4, you don't go oh shit that's not an exaggeration the second two goals are simply completely made up. It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie. It wasn't an elite 5D 8brain ploy to not say the word "lie." You're using semantics to miss basic communication.
"This person stole a cookie, that's a crime, right? So me saying that he robbed a bank wasn't technically a lie, just an exaggeration." This is how stupid you sound to the rest of us here. You read this: It's an exaggeration, and the second two goals don't exist whatsoever, and they are a lie. and concluded my point was an exaggeration isn't technically a lie, and not that exaggerations are lies, which was my actual point? That's just special. On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
I've never said anything about the results of the 2020 election other than what anyone can find on Wikipedia or the first page of Google lol.
On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Why would anyone bother entertaining a know-nothing question copy/pasted straight from tools someone saw in a hearing on TV. Duh.
Joe Biden won the 2020 election. See how easy that was? It even says so on the Wikipedia page you're quoting. You write 1,000 words of pure nonsense every day on here, and you can't be bothered to write 6 words saying that you agree with it? I'm glad you could finally only six years later figure out and admit to us all who won the 2020 election. Kind of embarrassing but better late than never. New test just dropped though: If you don't say fish live in the sea in the next post, you're Hitler. In fact I've never once seen you say those 5 words "fish live in the sea." Where do you think fish live? You're not one of those sky-fishites are you? On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:On August 06 2026 21:17 oBlade wrote:
Okay, and they hadn't chosen to remodel it by October 2025.
"Sir, people are complaining the Reflecting Pool is dirty and ugly."
"Drain it completely and close it for longer than necessary the other way."
Problem solved, thanks bureaucracy.
Are you saying this is a 6-month job instead of the 2012 job which was 22 months? This is actually useful information to me. What about the price then? How much is it fairly supposed to cost? Is it supposed to cost about $1 million in which case it's a 15x ripoff, or about $15 million in which case this is an enormous nothingburger.
On second thought, 6 months after October is only April. Are you instead saying you want 6 months of bidding for 3 more months of work that starts in April? Because the whole point of this contract was it's rush and higher risk. If you did a bid process you would expect THE JOB ITSELF to take longer. I'm saying you have reading issues. A job can take 2 months, 8 months, or 12 years depending on what you are asking. In this case, I simply stated that, for the same specifications, a tender process to have multiple contractors bid would have taken at most 6 months more. More realistically, 2–4 months, seeing as they had the authority to speed up authorizations. I'm not talking about the total time, including studies, work, etc., which you probably mean when you say 22 months. You're correct a job can take 12 years. In 2015 people were not thinking about the 250th. They could have started a job that would finish in 2027, then realize in 2025 that they wanted to have a fair on the National Mall and have the Pool open for that, and then done new contracts to finish faster for more money. That would not be a planning failure. Because they would be able to make it happen. You know Sika yet? Have you just been thinking I'm somehow typoing the name of the mosquito-borne disease? The company that did the 2010 job. The repair by Sika from close to open was 22 months. The job. Not the procurement. Not the bidding. Just the job. I've mentioned this multiple times but it hasn't absorbed I see. On August 06 2026 22:21 Geiko wrote:
I'm talking about the same job, except with multiple offers from competent contractors.
The urgency to fix the pool 4month before the event is imo either a result of poor planning, or a deliberate scheme to by-pass the normal bidding process. Excellent. Let's assume it's simply the result of poor planning. Then: How much should the repair cost and how long should it take? Objectively. I actually asked you how much the fair cost is and you still won't answer. We know the rush time was 3 months. But not everyone could do that. Sika was approached first and rejected because they couldn't do 3 months. It stands to reason had the job been done for 8% people would have bid much longer job durations. Making it the "same job" in terms of result but not in terms of cost and timescale. (CNN) — Several months before blue strips started floating to the surface of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a company involved in its last renovation more than 15 years ago was approached with an opportunity to do this remodel as well. But the company said no.
Specifically, it balked at two requirements – the Trump administration wanted it done by July 4, and the pool bottom had to be blue, according to two employees with the New Jersey-based Sika Corporation, which provided the concrete construction and sealing products for a 2010 renovation project to the Reflecting Pool.
According to the two employees, who spoke to CNN on the condition they not be identified, both demands made the job “unfeasible.” So suddenly we're moving up to like 6 months of work plus 6 months of procurement which you are now trying to reduce back to 2-4 months, and we end up needing to start like May/June 2025 to have a buffer which is even before the 249th anniversary, let alone the 250th. And why would anyone at that time be looking closely at the Reflecting Pool of all things for the 250th anniversary when they have yet to decide what they are even going to do and where. You seem to have trouble saying sentences that are true. You seemingly won't say "Joe Biden won the 2020 election" even though you are OK heavily implying that is true, you just can't bring yourself to type the words. The same goes with saying that Trump is a liar. You seem to agree that Donald Trump tells "exagerations", that "exagerations" are lies, but you won't say "Donald Trump tells lies". What is wrong with you ? I'll happily say that fish live in the sea because they do. you won't see me say "Well I'll refer you to wikipedia to find out where fish live". Again, what is wrong with you ? You ask me how much the repair should have cost... You're so close to getting it right. What possible way is there of knowing what the fair market price for something should be ? If only we could have, say for example, asked 5-6 contractors how much money it would cost to put a blue liner on the pool and do the job in 2 months. How great that would have been, that way the american taxpayer wouldn't have had the feeling of being ripped off. But sadly it's just not possible. That would have taken a couple months of forward planning and we didn't have that time Who could have guessed we would be celebrating the 250th anniversary of the USA. No one, one would need a time machine to have figured that out. Is the point that Wikipedia and Google are ambiguous on the result, so you really need those exact words? I’m starting to not understand the gotcha. They're shuddering at the thought of a 4th Trump term in 2028 apparently.
Aww buddy, are you trying to make jokes? Do you think that what you do constitutes trolling? Because it's really not, just a sad man who lost the touch with reality, nothing funny about that.
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EPT
