Posts made by bi4smooth

@raphjd said in Jen Psaki, Biden Press Sec, homophobic tweet:

Remind me again which party was it that gave the US its 3 most homophobic laws ever?

Ever? Really? Back in the 1700's, homosexuality was a capital offense (that is: death penalty) in some US Territories...

You wanna walk that back a little?

You know how you people whine about not being able to get gay cakes and whatnot? Well, you clowns can thank Schumer who authored the bill, and Biden, one of the co-sponsors, as well as Slick WIllie who signed it into law.

The case wasn't about getting a "gay cake" - it was about whether the cake maker could be FORCED to make a gay cake.... and the RIGHT DECISION was made, IMHO - just go get another cake maker! Jeez! Not like they're rare!

Or, if you HAVE to have one of THEIR cakes, order it without the HE&HE topper, and buy one on the friggin' Internet!

Freedom has to work and apply to both sides - the freedom of the gay couple to get married, and the freedom of the cake maker to not put 2 men on a cake.

For 26 years, people have been screaming that the 1994 crime bill was racist, which is kinda true. You hate the guy that reversed most of it and elect the guy who created it because y'all dumb as a box of rocks.

Sorry, but Democrats do not have a monopoly on sounded good then legislation that was racist as fuck - even at the time it was passed!

Ever wonder why the drugs used by minorities were made illegal in the 1970's (in the original War on Drugs - thanks NIXON (a Republican)), but the ones used by Whites were generally left alone?

• Smoking pot is illegal! It's a mind-altering drug that is habit-forming and is a "gateway" drug to worse ones
• Smoking tobacco is fine though - never mind that nicotine is (in some studies) more than 5x more addictive than cocaine!

Later, in the 80's (thanks, Nancy Reagan), we realized that White folks were addicted to cocaine - same as black folks! But the blacks were using CRACK cocaine, while the whites were still sniffing it! So?

• Let's increase the penalty for CRACK cocaine and LOWER the penalty for "regular" cocaine possession!

Let's not forget the "Jim Crow" laws (passed mostly by Southern Democrats). No, I don't mean the drinking fountain or separate bathroom laws - I'm talking about the laws that make simple things felonies, and up to a Judge's (a white judge's) discretion.

Why? Because those same States have laws that say that FELONS CANNOT VOTE!
It wasn't at all uncommon for a black man to be found guilty of a minor crime - even a traffic accident - and have the white judge define it as a felony, and then set aside the sentence as "time served"! The whole point of the exercise wasn't so much law enforcement as it was voter suppression!

Homophobia and racist ideals run deep in America.

We homosectionals should remember that we have a lot in common with other, racial and otherwise, minorities! Our fights are their fights!

@raphjd

Well, when you lose the logical argument, it really does just come down to name calling.

@raphjd said in Medical Ethicist: Elderly Shouldn’t Get Vaccines First Because They’re Too White:

How many right-wing nutters get their policies enforced by social media, MSM, and governments?

If you want to change minds (instead of going out of yours on these rants), come up with rational arguments and stop overblowing every little thing! I swear, someone lights a match and you run down the halls screaming the house is on fire!

Woke'ism is the law of the land now.

See above.

The same ass clowns that said the quotes above are getting their way.
You can murder and riot, but you can't have a peaceful protest.

See above

You can storm the Senate building and try to storm the Supreme Court, but you can't storm the Capitol building.

Ummmm.... The Senate building and the Capitol building are one and the same.
The Senate is on one end (North) of the Capitol Building, and the House of Representatives is on the other (South) end of the same Capitol Building...

And there's a difference between standing outside (or even INSIDE, assuming you got there peacefully and legally) and shouting... and breaking through the windows and entering the building with guns, clubs, TORCHES, and other weapons... if you cannot see that difference... well, I certainly can tell the difference... as can my 14 y/o son!

You can try to murder several cops by cementing them in their police station and setting it on fire, but killing 1 cop is evil.
You can murder 5 cops, but killing 1 is evil.

See top...

Everything the left does is justified, but everything the right does is condemned.

See top...

The only one on these boards that seems to apply the all and every label to these things is you.

You should know: It is VERY EASY to successfully defeat an opponent (in debate) who uses these terms. If you haven't been able to tell, I took debate classes in both HS and college

@raphjd
No justification - just a Republican (not a Trump-Republican, though) who believes that "fair is fair"

We shouldn't have to stoop to "stop the count - because I'm ahead" kinds if LUNACY to win elections.

We can (and do) win elections because we have better IDEAS and better CANDIDATES.

Well, at least down-ballot we did... and we WON!

We won BROADLY!

We don't have to get picayune about it! This NY district will have been won by a RAZOR THIN margin either way it turns out! If the Dems manage to get it back this time (it's a Dem seat now), we'll get it NEXT time (same bat time, same bat channel)!

And if we prevail here (the likelihood, even with the recount), the Democratic majority in the House will still be tiny... so, this result won't change that in any case... so all the huffing and puffing is for naught...

Recount and let's be done with it!

I don't mind enjoying the irony - I'll admit to that... but let's not make a mountain out of a mole hill here.

@raphjd

I have said this before: I am not a Twitter subscriber (nor, do I have a Facebook page).

I am a computer consultant. I know the amount of personal information data mining these companies do!

I also don't search on Google without a VPN and "incognito" mode-browser.
YES! I get blocked on a LOT of sites because I won't give up access to my personal data... so be it!

But that's another target.

What makes me defend Twitter against your out-sized and overblown (truly hyperbolic) accusations is that I am a small business owner - and a computer professional - and I know first hand how damaging your rhetoric would to the stability and usefulness of the Internet as a whole were your ideas to be made into policy and applied in a wide-spread fashion.

@raphjd
And if you were in LIBERAL echo chambers, you'd hear example after example of Conservatives making dumb statements too...

Neither side has a monopoly on idiocy!

Are you kidding? Marjorie Taylor Greene literally claimed the mass shootings in schools was faked! "A Red Flag Event" in her OWN words!

There are wing-nuts in both camps, and a pox on both their houses LOL

@raphjd

BOY, you sure like to over-simplify things...

In the Presidential race, after votes were counted - and re-counted - and re-re-counted manually - and there was no change in the outcome, the news media (and social media outlets) said "enough already"...

As is so frequent with your rantings: Dis AIN'T dat!

In this NY case, they have hard data to show the mechanical count - in their partial test of the system - was off by more than it should have been.

It's still a long-shot, but IMHO recounts should be allowed. Sometimes RE-re-counts are even needed (but really, only when the original re-count shows a discrepancy!). But counting over and over because you don't like or believe the outcome is just plain ridiculous!

DAMN IT! I'm a Republican - I want the Republican to win! But I also want it to be a legitimate win! Recount! But recount just ONCE! If the recount says my gal Claudia still wins, then stop with the protesting!

GOOD GOD, MAN! I live (and lived) in FLORIDA during the 2000 election (hanging chads and all!). There comes a time when you have to take the results as they are, and move on to the NEXT election!

I will admit that there is some irony that the Democrats are asking for a re-count! But really, those poor bastards lost so much in 2020! They were supposed to "sweep" into power!
LIMP is more like it!
The Senate was supposed to become 52-48, or even as bad as 55-45 for Democrats!
NOPE: 50/50 and that was mostly because Trump interfered in the GA runoffs!
The Dems were supposed to make huge gains in the House...
NOPE: the Democratic majority in the House is as slim as it's been (for either party) in quite a while!

I fear for my Republican Party if the QAnon wingnuts continue to gain footholds... I'm actually in favor of removing Marjorie Taylor Greene... from office!
Let the (Republican) Governor of GA appoint a replacement!

@walker1234
Our country demonizes a lot of other countries - especially non "Western" ones.

I have visited "war-torn" Israel and Palestine. I have visited the "evil empire" of Iran. I have visited many parts of Europe and Central America. (I hope to visit South America 2-summers from now... Brazil, Argentina, & Chile are on the agenda so far.)

In the vast majority of cases, the people themselves were, warm, kind, generous (sometimes to a fault), and giving.

Honestly, while we may have our freedoms (which is a Governmental thing, not a Societal one), I personally think Americans in public are some of the coldest, most cruel and uncaring, most judgemental, and self-centered of societies I have encountered in my travels. Get them in private and many are very different (kind, giving, generous, open, etc) - but that's where the societies seem to differ...

• When I got lost in Paris once, I was actually approached by someone offering to help me find my way...
• When I got lost in Iran, a taxi driver took me back to my hotel - free of charge!
• When I got lost in Los Angeles, I had to go to 3 different convenience stores to find someone who would even tell me what part of LA I was in!

(I know - it seems I got lost a lot - but a lot of my traveling predates smartphones and apps to make sure you are NOT lost - EVER!)

@raphjd said in Twitter refused to remove child porn because it didn’t ‘violate policies’: lawsuit:

Did Twitter say to this family that kiddie porn does not violate their TOS?
If you say NO, you are a liar.

Sorry, but no

1. each individual Twitter employee does not speak for Twitter. The company admits their employee was in error. The company has never said or claimed, in a blanket way, that kiddie porn is acceptable on their platform.
2. The twitter employee never said that "kiddie porn was OK," either. The employee DID say that particular post was not a violation of the ToS. (An example of ONE does not prove the general case!) [NOTE: I honestly don't know if this posting was close to "borderline" or not - there certainly are 15 y/o kids who look 25 - just as there are 25 y/o adults who look 15 Austin Young, for example... but I don't buy that as an excuse - the "petitioner" provided proof of under-age status... so, maybe it was "soft-core"? - again, I don't know. What I do know is that Twitter acknowledged their error.]
3. For your assertion that Twitter doesn't think kiddie porn is a violation of its ToS, you'd have to have MANY MORE examples - or have a statement from the company (not just an employee - although a whistle-blower who claimed it was a secret company policy would suffice, I would think.

I don't know about you, but it looks like I said NO and didn't lie... oops!

Twitter even fought the kid and his parents over removing the kiddie porn.
Twitter only did the morally (and legally) right thing because the mom got Homeland Security involved.

Look, I'm the father to NINE children, and am a former foster parent (yes, that's how I wound up with NINE!) -- If I had a NICKEL for every company or government agency that had employees that didn't follow the well published rules properly, I'd already be retired! Hell, my younger kids got a disciplinary free ride through Middle School because much of the faculty was afraid of me (I documented and then reported on an Assistant Principal's violations of School Board Policy towards a special needs child of mine - and she was invited to retire -- or be fired. My younger ones reported that teachers would warn each other: "leave that one alone - her dad's a nightmare!")

The point is: employees do DUMB THINGS all the time. Corporations (and Governments) are constantly having to correct mistakes like this. That doesn't mean its excusable, but it also doesn't mean the entire organization can be demonized over every little incident.

If the mom didn't have a contact who knew someone in HS, then Twitter would still be refusing to remove the kiddie porn.
Hell, kiddie porn isn't even legal, EVER, but Twitter didn't care at least in this case.

Again, you're jumping to conclusions here. A picture of a topless 14 y/o girl may or may-not be kiddie-porn, depending on the context. (One of a 14 y/o inserting something into their genitalia is less of a grey area!)... the point is, we don't know how "black and white" the determination of this being "kiddie porn" was... and without knowing that (from someone knowledgeable), I'm not ready to shut down Twitter over it!

I have to wonder how many other cases there are that we haven't heard of.

Now THAT is a legitimate question - and if more people come forward and it creates a pattern, I'll be happy to join your anti-Twitter campaign.

For now, we wait and see...

I think its worthwhile to point out where the protections of Section 230 are, and how they break down:

The problem (in my view) is not that sites are well covered by protections of Section 230, it is that many of these same sites allow users to create accounts (sometimes multiple accounts) that are essentially anonymous.

So, if you are scanning and see someone offering up a 12-year-old up for sex:

• the site where the posting is made cannot itself be held liable - they are protected under Section 230 (mind you: they do have to remove it as soon as they are made aware!)
• sites like Facebook, Twitter, and even eBay, Craigslist, and even THIS FORUM! can get hundreds, sometimes thousands (or even millions!) of posts every hour. They cannot police that much data!
• under the original intent of the statute, the original poster would be solely responsible for the content that they posted.
• But, in too many cases - with true anonymity - there is no way to track that person down! MOST sites do not request, much less require, any proof of identity!

So again, they passed an amendment to Section 230 that required the site to pull that particular kind of material down (child-porn, sex trafficking, and some other special categories)... and that's not a bad thing.

But that loophole kept popping up: you have to go after the originator of the content, not the platform on which they posted it... and some of this shit was truly awful shit! People wanted/needed to find a way to hold someone accountable! And, quite literally, there was no one else to look to!

So they passed another amendment that held the site accountable for such a posting to begin with... and that's somewhat problematic (and, in large part, what led to the death of the Craigslist Personals, as well as any other "Personals" that don't have some way of identifying and tracing actual user information - real, valid, information - like from a credit card!)

But that is just one of many problems that TRUE anonymity creates on the Internet!

@raphjd

Once again, you're looking at two chocolate cakes in the bakery and assuming they're the same - when one has chocolate cake inside, and the other has that disgusting yellow cake inside!

There is a difference here.

In Georgia, where the voting machines were supposed to be suspect, they did a "partial manual audit" and found no difference

Still, they, at the Republican's request, did a STATEWIDE manual audit, and saw the same thing: no difference!!

In the NY case, they did a partial manual audit... and... OMG! There WAS a difference! A "statistically significant one"!

So, now - with HARD DATA, not just accusations - They're asking for a district-wide hand re-count.

Fortunately, there are paper records, so this shouldn't be a big issue. Re-count and see who won!

It looks like the Republican won, but I'm OK (as a registered Republican) with checking to make sure. (Hell, we won almost everywhere else there was a competitive race - except for where the Orange Don-nut interfered). I'm confident we'll win on a recount!

@raphjd

Honestly, dude... there are dumb people on all areas of the Political Spectrum...

Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Period. Enough said.

The idiots shouldn't define the party (or the Politics) [(Are you reading this, Kevin McCarthy? Reference all the Senate Republicans denouncing this moronic woman's rantings...)]

@raphjd said in Cornell vaccine mandate only applies to white students:

https://www.thecollegefix.com/cornell-vaccine-mandate-only-applies-to-white-students/

Typical liberals.

I agree, but not for the same reasons as you have (or, to be fair, that I think you have)....

This is another case of "Political Correctness" gone amok.

Their logic goes like this:

• We want everyone to get the vaccine
• We want to MANDATE IT, even!
• But wait, some black people object because of the Tuskeegee incident (Reference material here)
• We can't be racially insensitive - EVEN IN A FUCKING PANDEMIC - so we'll exclude blacks from the MANDATE

The problem there, is that they STOPPED THINKING THERE!
The NEXT STEP IN THE PROCESS is to realize that THIS IS NO DIFFERENT than the Trumpites who want to refuse to wear masks!

NEWS FLASH This is a PANDEMIC!

Students can, and should be required to get the COVID-19 vaccine. And students who want an exception should have to appear before a board and make their case. In person and provide valid rationalization for their request.

Alternatively, they should drop the mandate, as it is "racially insensitive" (DOH!)

But they can't have it both ways!

@gerggently

Of COURSE not - it's about "Rage against the machine"!!

On a serious note, we held the Trump Administration to a high standard, and the Biden Administration shouldn't be given a pass either. I have no desire for there to be a double standard

That said, calling Sen Graham "Lady G" is actually common in LGBTQ circles in DC. If anyone deserves an apology, it's Sen Graham (not the LGBTQ community - who openly embrace this usage!). True, it is intended to be derogatory, but not to LGBTQ people, it's a "dis" to Sen Graham.

What this tweet tells me is that Jen Psaki has LGBTQ community ties

That said, since the Trump Administration virtually never apologized for his slights to other officials - slights that were grossly more offensive than this one - then I don't think we should expect an apology from the Biden Administration. Equal is equal.

Should she be called out for it? sure
Should we expect an apology? Girl? No!

@raphjd said in Liberals are too dumb to see the irony in this.:

They are saying that all acronyms are racist, so they just changed the acronym.

Absurd. And a true example of "Political Correctness run amok!

Have you seen the absurd level of backlash against Morgan Wallen?
ICYMI: Morgan Wallen is a rising star (like #1 album rising star) in US Country music. A video surfaced recently where he's a little too casual, and makes a comment that includes the work "ni**er".

He responded - publicly - that he was sorry and embarrassed by his own behavior (let's face it, he's embarrassed he got caught)...

The backlash though has been OVER THE TOP! LA Times story here

• songs pulled from radio & streaming
• eligibility for CMA (Country Music Awards) revoked
• contract with his "label" put on hold: indefintely

What do they want from this guy? His dick in a meat grinder?
Would even that be enough for them?

I get it - he should be punished and the use of the term should not be taken lightly. But this shit gone crazy! Pull his songs for a few days, maybe fine him... but all this? Can you say: "OVERBOARD!"

SIDE NOTE: I am not a US Country Music fan - until I saw this story, I had no idea who this bloke was!

@raphjd

NO ONE...

NOT EVEN TWITTER!

Thinks this was OK, or that they "Got it right". Their employee was WRONG.

AGAIN: EVEN TWITTER ADMITS THEY WERE INITIALLY WRONG.!

But mistakes are NOT changes in policy!

The only wrong thing here is your hyperbole!

Have you ever peed and, at least for a fraction of a second, missed the bowl? (You know you have! That's why there are urine droplets around the bowl!)....

THAT DOES NOT MEAN that you don't believe in urinating into the toilet! It just means you made a mistake.

Now look at a public toilet... more people, more mistakes!

Let's move on...

@andergarcia
Yuck! Meat!

Both in food groups and sexual references!!

Cut or uncut?

Other than a few, particularly puritan jurisdictions, it's been my experience in the US that the anti-prostitution laws are almost exclusively aimed at "street hookers" - e.g. those most in need of help, not harassment! (To be clear: I mean in enforcement, not in the laws themselves.)

I'm all for legalizing and "licensing" prostitution. But key is keeping the "rough trade" out of it... if someone's doing it because they want to... fine. If they're being forced or coerced, that's another matter.

@walker1234
I certainly grant you that China has dealt with COVID-19 more efficiently than most of the rest of the world. Authoritarian regimes can do that. Given.

I also agree that the US response to COVID-19 would be laughable if it weren't for the awful, human tragedy - and you are equally right that our former President, Donald Trump, is a leading cause for the absurdly awful position we find ourselves in today.

But I still maintain that having our freedoms are generally worth the cost. It's been a particularly high cost with the anti-maskers, and the anti-vaxers, but all good things have a cost.

You can believe that China's system is superior. That is your right. I neither claim, nor require others agree with me. We don't learn by being the same, we learn by being DIFFERENT and through the free exchange of ideas and experiences.

More than anything else, even at 57 years of age, I am a student - still hungry for new knowledge and new experiences.

Sad to say, though I've traveled a lot of this crazy world, the closest I've come to China is Hong Kong (before 1999, when it was still a UK territory). I am hoping to travel more when I retire - and China (what many call "mainland China") is on my "bucket list" From all I've read and seen, it is an amazingly beautiful country.

I'm a switch hitter! Jerking off with the "non-primary" hand (in my case, as a right-handed person, that would mean my left is non-primary) almost feels like someone else is doing it - which is preferable!

I like to switch tho... jerk right for a bit, then switch...

HOWEVER, I almost always CUM holding it in my RIGHT hand!