@raphjd said in Summer time asphalt temps:

@flozen

It's a sign that was posted to the FB page for my hometown.

I would love to see more of these signs.

Wow! Another topic @raphjd and I agree upon! First circumcision, and now this!

It's criminal how careless some people can be about their pets!

They leave them in locked cars (where temps can soar to over 140 degrees Farenheit in less than 10 minutes here in Florida!).

They "walk" them on hot asphalt, clueless to the fact that your shoes insulate you - they have no shoes! (I love the sign above! - I snapped a copy! I'll get some made and posted around my parts!)

They put them outside on hot days with no fresh water or food...

The list of DUMB things people do to their pets is endless... and usually simply because the dumb pet owner just doesn't THINK! Most of these pet owners aren't evil, just stupid!

@anke said in Testing the New forums:

Testing to make my first post in the new forums

Welcome to the Forum - a generally friendly place, so long as you stay out of the politics section... but, don't confuse the forum with Grindr or anything... we're all geographically spread out, so there isn't much chance of ever physically meeting anyone on here...

While I'm certain there is an exception to that... there's ALWAYS an exception!

Again, welcome... jump in with both feet! Read and reply! Ask questions! Make requests for YOUR favorite kinds of porn!

OOPs, I forgot to cover the Voter-ID part of the topic...

My Libertarian stripes are going to show here:

Voters need to identify themselves.. sure, it's core to the running of a smooth and fair election.
However, there should be no requirement of a Gov Issued ID, or even a Picture ID! just to vote!

If you have the full name and address, virtually any form of ID (Credit card, school ID, work ID) that shows your name and address - AND you are a registered voter AND your signature is a match, you should at least be able to make a "provisional ballot"... that is, you can vote - but we're going to scrutinize your claim of identity more than usual - in particular, looking for duplication, death, or any other kind of fraud.

What's more, to vote this kind of a provisional ballot, we must be allowed to take your photo and fingerprints. I'm OK with that, so long as the photos and fingerprints are destroyed after use, and not entered into any Gov database without authorization and approval of the voter.

We have ABYSMAL voting rates in the US... the LAST thing we should be doing is making it HARDER to vote!

Ballot harvesting (where someone goes someplace like a nursing home and collects ballots to be returned) isn't a bad thing! But it DOES deserve more scrutiny: you should have to have permission (from the Supervisor of Elections) to do it, provide notice of where and when you're going to do it, and observers (from all parties) should be allowed to monitor it to ensure that no voter "coaching" or intimidation is present. (The solution to the potential for fraud is to make it planned and monitored, not to disenfranchise the people it's designed to help!)

Also, before you start putting into place OBSTACLES to voting - in the name of preventing fraud - you damned well outta be able to show fraud! ACTUAL fraud! that you'll be preventing!

... and before you go there, there was no significant fraud in 2020! Trump lost, fair and square! How is it you claim his loss was fraudulent, but all the other unexpected Republican wins were perfectly legit? I'll tell you why: your definition of fraud is "my candidate lost"... and that's just bull manure!

Was there a conspiracy against Trump in 2020? There surely was! 76 million people all came together to elect someone ELSE President - many voting, not FOR Joe Biden, but rather AGAINST Donald Trump!!
There was also a conspiracy afoot to re-elect Trump! 74 million people all came together to support him!

What you call a conspiracy, I call an election! And the fact that your candidate (or mine) lost isn't an indication of fraud, it's an indication of a lost election! For there to be fraud, you have to be able to show proof of that fraud!

Aside: How long will it take those "Florida Man" auditors in Arizona to find something to point to fraud? If it was there, don't you think they'd have found it by now?

@raphjd said in Liberals - vaccine passports vs voter ID:

@bi4smooth

Didn't you say you were a conservative-libertarian? You sound like you want us to live in 1930s Germany. Maybe you have been sniffing Pelosi's panties too much.

In the EU, and the UK since they didn't change the law after Brexit, it violates people's human rights to be forced to disclose their medical status. Not surprisingly, the UK police get extremely heavy-handed breaking this particular human right. Even the C-19 laws clearly state that you are not required to disclose your exemption for not wearing a mask and/or getting the shot, but the police don't give a fuck.

BTW, if your fellow liberals don't trust the CDC when it suits them, then why should I? They've been quite political over C-19 and they also have extreme TDS, for an org that isn't supposed to be political.

You poor thing... you can't recognize sarcasm worth a damn, can you!

I'm in favor of vaccination, but not forced vaccination.

I'm in favor of businesses being allowed to favor (or even deny service) to vaccinated/unvaccinated people as they see fit, but not the Government doing that...

I'm in favor of a National ID card, but not a mandatory one

I'm NOT in favor of requiring everyone (esp latin-looking people) to carry identification proving citizenship.
I'm am in favor of businesses being allowed to ask you for identification for any purpose they might want to... for example: asking young-looking people to show ID to purchase alcohol.
I'm NOT in favor of police (or any other Government agency) forcing you to identify yourself against your will.

• If you've broken the law, they should arrest you. If not, then any other interaction with law enforcement is voluntary and optional. This goes for Vaccination ID, as well as any other form of ID.

For what it's worth, I was (and remain) in favor of businesses enforcing mask-mandates on their employees and customers... if your grocery requires a mask and you object, go to another grocery! If there isn't a grocery that will serve you without a mask, you still have 2 options:

• Open a grocery store and don't require people to wear masks - there's a niche market there!
• Wear the fuckin' mask! It's MORE uncomfortable to wear underwear than it is a mask!

But (you might notice a pattern here), I'm NOT in favor of the Government mandating masks in places they have no business exerting their will. Places like court houses, police and fire stations, public libraries, etc. should be allowed to require masks - so long as they make accommodation to provide SOME level of service to people who object. (e.g. you cannot tour the fire house without a mask, but you can watch a video of a fire house tour instead! Or, you cannot come into the Library without a mask, but you can request a book and we'll bring it to the door, or mail it to you!)
IMPORTANT: Government should have to make accommodation... not so businesses! If they want to just say no to clients who refuse to wear masks, they should have that option! It's their business!

And PLEASE! Lets not equate "wearing a mask" with being gay, black, asian, or some other minority! You can "cure" the mask issue in 10 seconds, you cannot "cure" those other faults (if you want to call them that)...

@chanelkokoro said in Party of family values part 1 :

So if circumcision is such a great and wonderful thing, perhaps you can explain why it is mostly prevalent in Northern Africa and the Middle East - 2 areas of the world most highly regarded as leaders in human disease prevention, hygiene, and general excellence in all things intellectual and science-based! (Proof: look at all the lunar and martian landings these countries account for! Not to mention the UNCOUNTABLE numbers of Nobel and other prizes for science and medicine they have achieved!) (end sarcasm)...

Indeed, it's such a great and wonderful thing, the prevalence of it in America (US) has dropped from about 80% in the 1950s to roughly 50/50 in the 2000's... those dumb American parents!

Honestly, and I know I'm repeating myself here, if there was any REAL evidence of any SIGNIFICANT benefit to circumcising male children (or female - gotta include @raphjd here), don't you think there would be world-wide campaigns to get it done?

The FACTS are that STD rates, urethra infections, and rates of most other genital-based diseases and problems in the US/Canada, Australia, Japan, S. Korea, Russia (as much as is reported), and Europe are statistically so even - despite the WIDELY disparate rates of circumcision (e.g.: virtually never done in Asian countries!) - that the BEST you can say is that while circumcision does not appear to help, it also appears to do no harm either!

Indeed, the fact that it cannot really be shown to be either helpful or harmful is precisely why it remains "optional" around the world.

Personally, I would infer from the rate data that mass-circumcision is indeed cultural (based on religious and ancient misconceptions)... being that N Africa and the Middle East are far more religiously-oriented and controlled than the rest of the world.

That said, I'll admit that I have only observation to backup that assertion...

Check out the circumcision rates around the world here. (While I don't often cite Wikipedia as a "trusted source", this article has more than 60 references to backup its data).

Boom chaka lacka! Welcome to you both!

Download some free stuff, then start looking for ways to contribute!

• upload new content (remember to SEARCH first - it has to be new!
• seed what you take

@raphjd said in Liberals - vaccine passports vs voter ID:

Why is it that liberals are against voter ID but they fully support vaccine passports?!

GOV. BROWN BLOCKS OREGON FROM CDC DEMASK RULE reads one headline. In typical liberal fashion, she said that she would follow what the CDC says, but as soon as the CDC says we can unmask, she doesn't care what the CDC says.

She also won't allow people to unmask, per CDC ruling, until she has in place a legally mandated vaccine passport system.

Not surprisingly, she is against voter ID laws.

I suggest you combine the two: you must show proof of ID AND proof of COVID-19 Vaccine...

both

In order to vote in 2022!

@vmalar said in Seychelles - most vaccinated coutry - highest rate of C-19 positives:

@raphjd Isn't a vaccine a small dose of the virus so your immune system can defeat it easily? I'm not a doctor or anything but I'm wondering if the test uses the same technology that vaccines use (detection is part of vaccine right?) and it makes no sense to freak out about it.

Firstly

NONE of the Covid vaccines used around the world today use actual (usually termed "dead") virus...

• The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines use a NEW technology using Modified RNA to "spur" the immune system to build an antibody response to a protein specific to COVID-19. The technology is the result of YEARS of study by Moderna - for whom, this is actually the first commercial vaccine they have ever made!
• The J&J and AZ vaccines are created by inserting DNA from the COVID-19 virus into "dead" cold virus cells (the common cold is ALSO a coronavirus!)

Protection rates of the "traditional" vaccines vary, but none come even close to the 95%+ protection rates of the Pfizer and Moderna treatments. Some (e.g. the Russian Sputnik) have protection rates at or below 50%.

The issue for many (esp. the J&J being used in the US) is that, while they don't have such a great record for preventing infection at all - they have a great record for preventing hospitalizations. (In more direct terms, you may catch COVID-19 after being vaccinated with some of these inoculations, but you won't be hospitalized (or die) from it!

Secondly

It matters (very much) which vaccine you get as to how much protection you get. The statistic that matters in Seychelles isn't positive results, it's hospitalizations and deaths.

@justanedflan said in Hello y'all:

Hello!
I'm new to Private Trackers but there seems to be a really good community here and a lot of content so just figured i'd say hi!

Welcome to our Tracker - loads of good loads in here!

If you're a collector, hopefully you'll post some content that's not already here. If not, hopefully you'll share your downloaded content and "play fair"

@raphjd said in Party of family values part 1 :

HPV hides in the genital folds, regardless of sex. That is a medical basis.

Silly boy - HPV is a virus, not a bacteria... thus, it hides INSIDE your body, not outside. If you had some of the HPV virus trapped in the folds of the skin of your penis, it would quickly die.

• You cannot catch HPV by blowing an infected male - unless he cums (or pre-cums a significant amount)
• You cannot catch HPV from a toilet seat, or a pair of underwear, previously used by an infected person

Rather than go on, let me just say that HPV is similar to HIV in that they are both sexually-transmitted diseases... but the similarity pretty much ends there.

Most importantly, your body can defeat and remove HPV from your system

For more information, turn to a trusted source (apparently, for anything but COVID-19): The CDC

@chanelkokoro said in Party of family values part 1 :

@bi4smooth

So I'm Nigerian American and my family has a roman catholic background. Every male in my family has been circumcised. The reasoning behind it has nothing to do with religion but rather it's a matter of course. It's purely for hygienic reasons.

So, I would say that your claim that circumcision has health benefits is PROVEN false solely by the statistical analysis of populations of circumcised males vs populations of uncircumcised ones... which, in communities of like economic status, are virtually identical.

You might want to read this: article about the fallacy of male circumcision in American Culture written in the 1980s

Other than for religious or cultural "looks" reasons, there is no need or benefit to the practice - though it does surgically remove a LOT of nerve endings!)

@raphjd said in Party of family values part 1 :

@chanelkokoro

Just because you suck them, doesn't mean you actually know anything about them.

Have you read the Denmark study on penis health? The study was about 10 years ago when they had the least amount of mutilated men and had the world's highest rate of penis health.

As a nurse, you are severely behind in your medical literature. As far back as 2009 (probably even earlier) the National Institute of Health recommending male genital mutilation for HIV, HPV and Herpes. Many of these articles even said it should be mandatory to protect women's health.

Of course, no medical journal would ever recommend female circumcision as that would be suicide with all the vaginalists and liberals. However, if you read the literature, you will find that HPV hides in the folds of the genitals of both sexes.

In my experience, even medical journals from around the world are inconsistent as-to whether circumcision causes any harm, or has any inherent benefit. Most of those that DO come down on one side or another are denounced by others (other medical scientists) as being biased.

IMHO circumcision is a primarily a religious and/or cosmetic decision that is relatively harmless. (NOTE: There are rare instances where circumcision is medically necessary).

That said, tattooing a swastika on your children's foreheads is also medically "relatively harmless" - but I wouldn't recommend it!

For the record: I was circumcised as an infant.
For the record: I have 4 sons (and 5 daughters)... and NONE of them were circumcised!
Why? Because "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!" -- there is nothing wrong with the way millions of years of evolution (or, if you must, "God") has designed and built the male human penis.

• Removing most of the foreskin does not demonstrably improve on the design, so just leave it alone!
• NOT removing most of the foreskin also does not demonstrably improve on the design or function either, so if people choose to do it, so be it! The US, at least, is a free country (at least in this area!)

@raphjd said in The Truth About Bill Gates:

@calatar

I have already proven that Wikipedia isn't a trusted source. You can find the thread here if you look.

Wikipedia isn't intended to be a "news source" - and the only bias is the bias of the 10's of thousands of contributors there!

You know, Fox News is a terrible kid's show! My 2 y/o granddaughter just won't sit through it, so I had to go back to Daniel Tiger & Teletubbies!

My hammer did a terrible job of putting in those screws... they fell out a few days later!

Right tool, right place!

A few comments:

1. Urine is not sterile (that's a common fallacy)
   https://www.healthline.com/health/is-urine-sterile
2. Urine does not cure Athlete's Foot, nor any other fungal, bacterial, or viral infections
3. Drinking urine will not cure hair loss, cancer, infertility, or halitosis
4. Urine is composed of water, electrolytes, and nitrogen compounds, such as urea.
   https://hscnews.usc.edu/urologist-answers-nine-questions-about-urine
5. Urine is your body's way of "rinsing out" your kidneys... so what's in there is waste (mostly, cellular waste) that your kidneys have filtered out of your bloodstream).

There is nothing wrong, IMHU, with peeing in the shower... so long as you are sure to rinse all of it down the drain... maybe less OK if your shower is in a bathtub and it doesn't drain as fast as the shower water flows. Most urine (especially the 1st pee of the day) will have a significant odor... that said, a REALLY strong odor is often indicative of an infection!

Finally, if you're in the shower WITH SOMEONE and want to pee ON THEM, I strongly urge you to ask them about it first! I, for one, would NOT appreciate being peed on in the shower... indeed, if done without asking it would very likely be the LAST time you were EVER in the shower WITH ME (and if it was my shower, likely the last time you would ever use that shower - or any other shower - in my home!)

@raphjd said in Teenage knife fights are no big deal, say liberals:

Anyone who hasn't seen the video from the police cams and neighbor's CCTV really has no business telling us what's what.

Only a liar or an idiot would say that this conversation would be the same if it was a black cop who shot a knife-wielding white girl. Hell, this wouldn't even make the news.

I do love how little value liberals put on the girl in the pink's life.

Hell, no one is complaining about the guy doing a football kick to the girl on the ground's head.

Unlike you nasty liberals, I'm glad the cop saved the girl in the pink.

OMG - what a LIST OF false and misleading assertions here!

It's not an either-or equation!

• Why couldn't the cop have saved them both?
• Was a fatality a necessary component of this call?

It's not like the cop arrived and had a split-second decision to make: which one do I kill?

The question (the right question) is whether police misuse of deadly force (some force, and some lethal force, is necessary in policing - no doubt!) is out-of-control in the US today.

The liberal media are just the messengers here... are they biased? Maybe! But that doesn't mean the facts that they're reporting are false!

When the lunatic runs through the theater shouting FIRE, it's not a crime if there really IS a fire! (Neither does the fact that there really is a fire detract that he's a lunatic - the fact is, he's just a messenger!)

@raphjd said in Teenage knife fights are no big deal, say liberals:

No matter what the cop did in this situation, liberals would have demonized him.

It's the way of the modern world.

A black cop repeatedly tazes a handcuffed black homeowner and liberals ignore it because they can't racialize it.

A black cop guns down an unarmed white teen who was no threat and liberals don't care because only black lives matter that can be racialized.

73yo white woman with dementia is brutalized by police, getting her arm broken and shoulder dislocated, liberals don't care about that either because she has the wrong skin color.

More than twice as many (both armed and unarmed) whites, than blacks, were killed by cops last year, by the narrative is that blacks are being hunted down.

I do wish you'd just stop the fantasy and start each sentence with "What about"....

We (@js76) and I weren't talking about race-based policing, we were talking about militarized policing!

What about inflation? Are we going to have to start paying higher taxes to pay for the new police anti-terrorist weapons? Won't that cost jobs? What about college education? Won't the higher taxes make that more expensive, too? What about all the kids being taken into foster care? Shouldn't their parent's have to pay?

@raphjd said in Party of family values part 1 :

We already had the Male Genital Mutilation discussion and its sexist attitudes in the US. You can find the thread here somewhere. 84% of MGM is ordered by the mother. The same women that would never, ever have their daughters circumcised.

Damn, dude! They've been snipping at the ends of boy's penises for over 3,000 years... (not hyperbole - three millenia!) and it's all been a feminist plot? Has even the past 100 years been a feminist plot?

I'm no fan of circumcision (and I do not object to the term male-genital-mutilation, as that's truly what it is)... but an ancient, barbaric, religious practice is not exactly a "tool of the feminists"!

Planned Parenthood is severely funded by the government. The claim is that they don't use any of that money for abortions, which is extremely dishonest. If they stopped getting taxpayer money, where would they get the money to fund their buildings, staff, etc, etc, etc?!

I am curious how the word "severely" can apply to government funding... but word choice aside, Planned Parenthood has had its government funding cutoff before, and the organization didn't wither up and die. Indeed, they offer many different kinds of programs: non-medical, as well as medical - including abortion services - that are often paid for by their clients' health insurers.

It's always easy to vilify an organization that does something you fundamentally disagree with (in this case, that would be abortion), but the real world seldom can be so easily categorized into good vs. bad.

The HPV vaccine was only given to females in the west for over a decade, despite males getting far more often than females. From memory, males got it 5 times more than females.

The identification of HPV as being a cause of cervical cancer was quite the shocker to the medical community. The HPV vaccine was, for most of its early years, seen strictly as a preventative for cervical cancer.... and any man who had a cervix was strongly suggested to take the vaccine.

It wasn't until later that they also traced other cancers - and genital warts (eww... can we change the subject... quickly!) that they started recommending it for boys as well as girls.

As the father of 9 (current ages from the 30s to mid-teens), I am pleased to report that all of my children: with and without a cervix, have been vaccinated against HPV.

Females still get Affirmative Action, despite overtaking males in every aspect of education.

I'll have to alert every Engineering school in America... their counts are wrong!
FACT: STEM enrollments are still predominantly male, with some exceptions - like medicine. But even then, you're looking at enrollments strictly in European and North American colleges... include the REST of the world (with far more population, mind you) and the numbers vary widely... Indeed, with the US pullout from Afghanistan, female education is destined to once again become outlawed there. Sharia Law, don't ya know!

In many countries, women can not commit sex crimes, domestic violence, and other things.

It is true: in Saudi Arabia, by way of example, a woman cannot be accused of raping a man. No such crime exists on the books. On the other hand, she can be killed by her husband's (or brother's or father's) hand on a whim - with no consequences to him (so long as he claims it was to protect his honor) - so, what's the point in charging her with rape? Just kill her! Silly westerner with such outlandish ideas! Why would you waste time and money on a woman! If she doesn't please you, just kill her and find another!

There is a laundry list of things where there is rampant sexism against men.

This is an area you and I fundamentally disagree on routinely: I don't mind competing on an even playing field - even if that field is slightly in favor of others. White men have been the privileged class for so long, and I am keenly aware of many areas of my life where I received (and, to be fair & truthful, I continue to receive) advantages.

To me it's just "evening up the competition".... to you, it's an affront to all that is masculine and a challenge to the "rightness" of the way things used to be - the way that favored you.

Whereas I welcome the competition - even if the playing field is not perfectly fair (as-if it ever was) - you appear to want to be victimized by it...

It is quite clear we will not agree here - for a very fundamental reason.

from my viewpoint:

Policing today is broken - the modern police have become militarized and overly aggressive towards the population. Further, they focus more on "enforcement" and less on "protect and serve".

from your viewpoint:

There is nothing wrong with the status quo - in fact, the police should "step it up a notch" because crime is "so bad"

Thus, I'm posing possible solutions to a problem you do not believe exists... and that is "a bridge too far"... to go on would be pointless.

Might i suggest you buy a bullet-proof vest... LOL

Unfortunately, you've found a torrent that has no seeders.

Look near the bottom of the torrent's page and you'll see that there are currently 0 seeders, and 1 leechers (that's you!).

At this point, your best bet is to click on the "Request Reseed" button just below the information above... With any luck, someone who has downloaded that content will still have it (and it'll still be organized the same way) so that they can help you get your own copy!

Good luck! I hope you get your re-seed!

@jsl76 said in Teenage knife fights are no big deal, say liberals:

@bi4smooth said in Teenage knife fights are no big deal, say liberals:

Honestly, in today's policing, the answers here are a) and a)... and that is frightening!

I think that's a bit too blithe, though. You're acting as if a high-level principle is all we need. That's a dangerously naïve view. For example, if a cop encounters an enraged woman flashing a knife, what matters is the context of the individual situation. If the woman is standing alone in a parking lot and a half-dozen officers have encircled her and keep 10 paces of distance, there's zero need for lethal force. If a woman is five feet from another woman she's actively attacking -- as with the Bryant case -- and there's one officer approaching from a distance, that's a completely different calculation.

It's intellectually dishonest to suggest that a context-free one-sentence scenario requires a specific one-sentence outcome when you haven't made any accommodation whatsoever for the tactical situation.

And it's not as if the police have sole accountability here. In that litany of "say their name" people, most of them were lawfully detained for some reason, and the situation got out of hand when they resisted arrest. That's not to suggest that resisting arrest ought to be addressed by lethal force, but it is to acknowledge that police go into a job with a reason to want to protect themselves. In 2018, law enforcement as a profession had a annual fatality rate of 13.7 per 100,000 workers -- the 16th most dangerous profession in the United States (see: https://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/money/2020/01/24/25-most-dangerous-jobs-in-america/41041127/). And that's with all the SWAT teams, body armor, and overwhelming responses. What do you think is the most likely outcome if U.S. cops act like British constables? Like it or not, the evidence is strongly suggestive that low socioeconomic status correlates strongly with criminal behavior and with resistance to apprehension. You can't just focus on the "supply" side of the argument (police violence) without accounting for the "demand" side (criminality with specific U.S. characteristics that don't easily map to other advanced countries).

So... let me get this right... it's OK in your world to shoot first and ask questions later if the person under suspicion is poor?

Look, I get it - I have a nephew in law enforcement. Believe it or not, there are plenty of officers who agree that they are under-trained, and often trained in the wrong ways.

And I'm not some "defund the police" guy... Contrary to your opinion otherwise, what's needed in America today is EXACTLY a change in the high level principles that apply to our police! And they need MORE funding, not less... but more funding for training... training in policing that focuses on DE-escalation, not escalate-and-take-control!

Many police jurisdictions have a motto akin to "To Protect and To Serve" imprinted on the sides of their vehicles... these mottos are not new - they date from the 1940s and 1950s.... when the image of a policeman was not so easily confused with that of a warrior.

Policing is a dangerous job... but sometimes (and more and more often recently), the danger (and the escalation of a bad situation) comes as much from the police as from the perpetrators. That doesn't mean there aren't violent offenders out there that need a strong response! The issue isn't all-of-one and none-of-the-other...

The system as-is is BROKEN ... not just for the communities tired of living in fear of the police (or tired of using tax dollars to pay-off multi-million-dollar judgements against local police)... it also isn't working for the men and women in uniform!

But, little tweaks aren't going to solve the problem either! We need a fundamental change in the approach to policing... it's taken decades to evolve to the policing we have today, and I doubt the public will have the patience to wait so long for it to "swing back"...

Regardless of the pace of change, we need find a way to return to police as protectors and walk back from police as enforcers.