Posts made by bi4smooth

@raphjd

Sigh... more vitriol and hyperbole... you just don't know any other way, do you?

I haven't just read 1984, I've taught classes on it!

No one is asking for increased censorship (which is the pre-emptive banning of material from being published). (We already do censor some things - like child pornography - which you are already aware of, and clear support in another thread).

But when someone posts provably false information in an attempt to incite others to violence, and then that post is removed, that's not censorship.

And, when someone is warned repeatedly that their actions are in violation of the terms of service, and is then banned by that service for not taking heed, that also is not censorship.

Your use of the term "Reality Czars" is the first I've heard of - it must be something inside your echo chamber, because out here (in the real world) it's not being used by anyone else.

And finally, no one is asking that Marjorie Taylor Greene be "banned from society, thrown in prison, and all manner of vile crap" - no, she's just being thrown off her committee assignments for making threats of violence against members of Government. (Technically, that's a hair's breath away from treason!)

People can still get in the faces of politicians - however, they cannot do so with a weapon in their hand.

Honestly: that's just common sense!

@raphjd

Once again you take a single instance and blow it up into a generalization! Can you even post without hyperbole?

• An ant was a stow-away on the Apollo 12 mission to the moon - and now, according to your logic, all the ants are evacuating to the moon!
• Oh, it's not that! It's that NASA is planning to start polluting the Moon with transplant ants! That's the ticket! Yeah!

The Democrats didn't tell us who could serve on what committees. The said she cannot serve on any committee!

That you cannot see the difference is telling...

@flozen said in Sex-Ed for 18-24 Group:

@bi4smooth A very impressive dissection of roles and responsibilities!

I would be fine if the meatier (sorry, not sorry) topics such as reproductive physiology, masturbation, consent, harassment, contraception, STDs, rape and incest were perceived as first-line parental jobs.

They should be, but many of us (parental types) didn't get the talk from our parents, and so don't know how to go about doing it! (For the record, my parents gave me a 4-volume book set on human reproduction!)

But knowing how many parents fail, I feel these topics should also be reinforced by the middle-school system through early high school -- especially for students transferring to upper classes from deficient middle school programs.

I agree completely. Human reproduction - including topics like STDs - should be taught in schools! But not the morality part of the equation. Topics like masturbation, abortion, birth control, homosexuality, etc. should be shown as "part of the Human experience" without the GOOD vs BAD part. (e.g.: People masturbate. If you want to know about your religion's feelings and teachings about it, ask your parents. I would say or ask your religious leaders, but too many of them are pedophiles, so better to stick with your parents.)

And with my secular (non)beliefs, I would rather keep God in the parental explanation of why we're incented to pursue sex as a feel-good biological imperative, and let the schools offer the alternative of a purely evolutionary approach.

As noted above: morals do not need to be taught in school. That is an area of instruction that should be left to parents (and, ahem, religious leaders)...

If you're a vibrant lover of life, sex education and exploration should have no expiration date, so bi4smooth, please provide links to your 1980s porn appearances, so that we may grow in knowledge, length and girth.

I wish I could. My ex-wife destroyed my VHS porn collection, and that included my only copies of the 2 movies I did (1 gay, 1 bi)...
I've looked for them online, but have never found either... there was a magazine shoot too, but alas, that also appears to have been left in the pre-Internet dustbin of history.

@raphjd

You have such long term memory loss! You should see a doctor about that!

The "us vs them" and "win everything, or it's not a win at all" ideas started in the 1990s - with Republicans!

By your thoughts (by what I've read here, which I hope is not the totality of your thoughts): when we (Republicans) are in control, we have the power and should rule defiantly and harshly!

But when the inevitable changes in majority happen, and the Democrats are in control, they should defer to our feelings and judgements

Whatever drugs you're smoking, you should share!

And I have little doubt the RNC will work hard to thwart literally every breath Joe Biden takes while in office! It's the way of the 21st Century (and that's a shame - it will IMHO lead to our eventual destruction as a nation. Yes, we will destroy ourselves!! No other nation could do it!)

@raphjd
Yup - only QAnon belibers should rule!
Everyone should have the same beliefs and opinions
THAT'S DEMOCRACY!

Have you ever read 1984???

@raphjd

There you go on about "its not fair" again!

FIRST (and let's get this part over with fast):

• Ilhan Omar never, ever threatened to assassinate the Speaker of the House.
• Ilhan Omar never, ever tried to bring a loaded, concealed weapon onto the House Floor!
• Ilhan Omar never, ever suggested other members of the House should be "hunted down and killed as traitors" (an actual quote from Taylor-Greene's pre-campaign Twitter account.)

This wasn't done for traditional politics - this wasn't about her anti-abortion position, or her 2nd Amendment position, or her [insert political belief here] position - this was done because she went way over the line by threatening violence against her political opponents. That is why 11 Republicans voted in favor of the resolution to remove her from all committee assignenments!

Her absurd proclamations that school shootings weren't real - were staged for anti-gun activists or that 9/11 was faked ... were harmful to this nation!

• For the record, I was in Crystal City, VA on 9/11/2001 - teaching a class on Unix to adult students in a hotel just blocks from the Pentagon itself - many of those students had children in the Pentagon Day Care. It was a Tuesday - the first day of a 4-day class.
• I saw - with my own eyes - the destruction of the Pentagon (and, yes, the airplane that hit it).
• I don't remember hearing the explosions, but some of my students and others from the hotel the class was being presented in say they did. To be honest, there are elements of that day I just don't remember - call it trauma, I don't know... but i do know those parents were terrified

BUT LET'S GO BEYOND THAT - What if it was pure politics?

We (Republicans) have opened the floodgates of using hardball politics to get our way... and, as predicted, when the gavel was passed, and the opposition "took power", we are now going to have to live with the precedents we've set - and live through new ones as the Democrats play hard ball politics right back at us.

We (Republicans) are the ones who began the process of limiting (aka minimizing) the role and power of the filibuster in the ! Now we want to cry when Democrats use that same tactic against us?

Look, I may be a Conservative and a registered Republican - but facts are facts: we dug our own grave here!

IMHO: The Senate's filibuster rules should be rolled back to the y2k (2000) version! Or, the 1980's version (they're the same)! Or, the 1920's version (they're the same)!

HISTORY: The first real change to the filibuster came about 100 years ago, in 1917 - when they introduced Cloture - the ability to end debate with a 2/3 majority vote. The destruction of the filibuster started in 2005 (under Republicans)... the Democrats fired back in 2013 (eliminating the filibuster for Presidential Appointments, other than the Supreme Court). Rather than put things back, in 2017 the Republicans removed the exception for Supreme Court - disallowing a filibuster for any Presidential nomination.

Now the Democrats are in control again... will they restore the filibuster? Of course not! They have to get back at the Republicans!

IMHO: the desecration of the filibuster is destroying the Senate - making it more like the "raucous" House, and less like the "world's greatest deliberative body" it was designed to be.

But we (Republicans) can't go crying foul now, just because the shoe's on the other foot!

IMHO: We (Republicans) need to re-take the Senate (by winning elections, not by force!) - and do the right thing: use our majority power to re-establish the filibuster and give up some of that power - back to the minority party - and restore the Senate to the kind of deliberative, slow-moving, compromising legislative body it once was.

@gerggently
OK, lets talk about the talk vs. the kind of sex education we're talking about here... which are (to me, at least, TOTALLY DIFFERENT!)

As a dad IRL, I've had the talk with my children, and here are the salient points

• sex is natural - even masturbation
  There are 2 kinds of people in this world: those who masturbate and admit it, and those who masturbate and lie!
• sex must always be consensual. No actually means: "no, and stop asking"
• sex is best when you are using it to express your affection for another. "Purly physical sex" is fun - God made sex fun because He wanted for there to be lots of people; but "Romantic sex" is way, way better. You get to decide - it's your body, and your life, but as your dad, I'm gonna tell you: it's better when you love them!
• Lets talk about STD's - sex involves touching other people with your mouth, and/or your private areas - both of which are playgrounds for bacteria already. There are several different kinds of STDs, but they are diseases, not curses or punishments.
• Porn is not real - The guy who plays Superman cannot fly in real life, and real cops don't solve cases in 45-minutes! Like almost everything you see on TV, it is entertainment, and that is all!

OK - OK Enough about what I tell my kids in the talk - Here are some things I DO NOT talk about with my kids... PERIOD!

• Here's how you suck a cock the right way
• Here's the best way to rim (or eat out a girl)
• This is the best position to cum in
• TRY THIS or anything even remotely close to that!

So, my point is: there's a difference between what parents (and schools) should be teaching kids, and what they need to learn from their peers!

• physics of making babies - PARENTS
• morals of sex (e.g.: masturbation, love, rape, incest, etc.) - PARENTS
• HOW-TO's (what's hot, what's not, etc) - NOT PARENTS

@walker1234
You'll get no argument from me that our country was ugly in the Donald Trump years...

I'm not going to be too too happy with the Federal Government for the next 4-years, though: I don't agree with many of the things Biden and the Democrats want to do...

But I do think he'll bring back honor, dignity, and stability to the Presidency. I also think he'll at-least start to repair the international relationships Trump all-but threw away!

In short, I'm not a big fan, but I also do not think Joe Biden will make me embarrassed for my country!

@flozen
I have lamented this for years now...

Younger guys who think they need to pull out when they orgasm

• in porn, its for the "money shot"
• in real life, it just makes a bigger mess
• in real life, you're missing out! You're biologically programmed to want to ram your penis deep into something (presumably, someone) when you orgasm - the effect being to get the semen that much closer to the egg(s) and that much more likely to procreate!

Younger guys who think that, once you orgasm, you jump right up and run off to get cleaned up

• in porn, it's because the scene's over, and you probably weren't all that into the other guy anyway
• in real life, you're missing the opportunity for real intimacy
• in real life, your partner may be multi-orgasmic, so you might not be done yet!

And those are just 2 ways their sex-lives are affected... never mind the idea that they can somehow follow a porn-like script to meet and hook-up with a stranger....

NOTE: I did porn in the mid-1980s - so I'm not speaking from some ivory tower

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-removes-rep-marjorie-taylor-greene-from-committees-in-unprecedented-vote

GA Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene was forcably removed from all US House Committees today, as a rebuke of her QAnon statements and actions prior to her beginning her service in the House.

While her earlier comments - including threats to current-serving politicians - were abhorrent! She was eventually undone by her retisense to back down some of her "wacky" conspiracy theories. She, sadly, depended upon her Party Leadership to protect her - even when she openly repeated - just a day earlier - that she "had nothing to apologize for"... not even the threat to "assassinate Nancy Pelosi"!

Had she shown virtually any contrition, she likely would have survived this vote... but as it is, she is now easily the least effective legislator in the 435-member body, and will almost certainly face a primary challenger in 20-months or so when the 2022 election cycle ramps up...

It sets a bad precedent - the majority party interfering in committee assignments - but the Democrats have a point when they argue that no other serving member of the House has EVER made threats against other members -- and not been expelled for doing so!

As a Republican, I am saddened - yet again - at our Leadership's failure to reign-in these QAnon abominations.

Had I been asked to vote on this issue - as a Republican MoC - I would truly have been torn between my loyalty to my Party, and my loyalty to the institution of the House of Representatives. I believe more than 11 Republicans would have voted to rebuke her this way, but chickened out once it became clear she would be removed, and their votes wouldn't really matter.

Regardless of whether you are a Republican or Democrat, a liberal or conservative, a QAnon nutjob or an Antifa nutjob - it's a sad day in American History today....

So Fla Republican Matt Gaetz, in his zeal to support the Orange Don-nald, mounted this huge campaign to unseat MY Rep Liz Cheney (daughter of former VP Dick Cheney) as the Conference Chair - making her the 3rd ranking Republican in the US House...

Made all kinds of wild claims about how unpopular she was, and how she betrayed the Republican Party by voting last month to impeach The Don...

Let's just say he overplayed his hand like 4-year old holding 2-pair in a poker hand with 3 different wild-cards!

The vote in the Republican Conference was

• Liz Cheney 145
• Matt Gaetz 61

So you know, Gaetz is another QAnon supporter (like white-hot Marjorie Taylor Greene) who actually believes the crap soming out of his echo-chamber of supporters....

Sadly, reality is about to bounce the checks of both Rep Gaetz and Rep Greene!

BTW: The first image is of Rep Gaetz
The second is the cartoonish "ghoul" from a childrens TV show...
Odd resemblence, no?

@raphjd

The tax money they get is in the form of research grants and student loans.

They are a privately-held university. They do not receive government (that would be State money, and they are in CT) funding for operations, buildings, or anything else.

As opposed to somewhere like the Georgia Institute of Technology.

• Also a leader in government grants and research
• but, unlike Yale, Ga Tech is a Public University - a part of the University System of GA.
• Taxpayers of GA pay large amounts of the money spent at Ga Tech for buildings, upkeep, professors salaries, and the like. In exchange, students from the State of GA pay lower tuition than those from other locations. (Forgetting scholarships).

@raphjd

Forgetting other things, is it the right of Yale to want a racially diverse student body?

Remember: Yale is a private institution...
They have rights that are not superceded by students' rights!

Again: the real story is much deeper and more complex than you appear to consider...

@raphjd

And the McFish?
And the fish-for-breakfast?
And the "I want to talk to a manager"?

Oh, that's right - he's a QAnon'er - give him a break!

@raphjd

I didn't say whether I supported race-based admissions or not...

I provided back-story to an argument you made as-if it was a clear-cut, obvious case (they seldom are)...

@raphjd

Read the tweets - he spelled McDonalds wrongly multiple times

This is a companion suit to the ones Dominion Voting Machines has filed.

If the evidence is similar, these folks are in a world of hurt because they were always careful to make their accusations in places where there was no rule about being truthful - not in court, not in legal briefs, and certainly not while sworn in someplace like in front of Congress!

The problem there is that this BACKS UP the claims that they knew the statements were false, which bolsters the civil claim!

"Oh what a tangled web we weave / When first we practice to deceive"
" - Sir Walter Scott, ca. 1810"

@raphjd

You really don't care about back-stories, do you?

This lawsuit was a back-door attack on all race-related admissions - especially targeting affirmative action policies.

Yale was giving credit to low-income, urban high school graduates that gave them "seats" in the admissions class that "rich white" students thought should be rightfully theirs...

But that wouldn't look good - bad optics there, fighting for rich white kids (and let's face, it: we're talking the rich white kids who were "on the cusp" - not the ones who truly got there on the merit of their achievements!).... so, what's a rich, white daddy to do?

Here's a thought - pit one minority against another so we can get ALL the economic (which is, face it, really race) based admissions criteria! That way, little Johnny - who's been in elite, private schools with tutors and coaches to help his every kernel of knowledge - has the advantage over those poor black kids that I paid so dearly for all of this lazy kid's damned life!

Hmmm... can't pick Latins - they're mostly in the same poor neighborhoods as the blacks... I know, we'll use ASIANS! They're still a minority, right? And most of them are in the good neighborhoods too! So these kids are being discriminated against too!

Anyway, the schools WANT to have integrated, diverse classes of students... so there are set-asides to ensure that people from disadvantaged homes (and countries of origin) have a few spots...

It's not like they're turning Yale into an HBCU here!

In a perfect world, rich kids wouldn't have educational advantages over poor ones.
In a perfect world...

Aw, fuck that - this isn't a perfect world! FAR FROM IT!

Newsmax host Greg Kelly sure thinks highly of himself! (Well, I mean - he is on Newsmax - so he is definitely a celebrity!)

So this douche-bag goes to a McDonalds.. at breakfast... orders a "McFish" (sic)... gets his panties in a twist when told he cannot have one... and insists on speaking to a manager!

What could make matters worse?

Tweeting about it, and in doing so:

• Spelling the name McDonalds wrong (hint: it's not MacDonalds!)
• using a random Google Image of a McDonalds in his post
• being oblivious to the fact that the sandwich is called Filet-o-Fish (and has been for nearly 60 years!)
• being oblivious to the limited menu available at a McDonalds (sic) at 8 AM on a weekday!
• whining about being called a "male Karen"

Read more here

There is GOOD NEWS for this truly, literally, numb-skull:
He IS famous... now! -- Because NOW the Internet now knows the answer to that nagging question: what do you call a male Karen?

• It's GREG... from now on!

@raphjd
Honestly, if you were any more rabid, there'd be actual foam in your mouth!