This connection problem absolutely must be fixed. I'm sure admins notice that the traffic on the forum has gone way down with the new system, both because of the connection issues and the clumsiness of the interface.

Once connection issues are resolved, I suggest two more fixes:

1. Restore the "mouse over" functionality that lets one read the initial post when mousing over a title.
2. Restore the "frozen pane" at the top of the forum screen so one can go immediately back to the torrent section/search features rather than clicking once to get to the torrents, and then again to select a search option.

Good luck as you work on these issues.

And guys think that they have to have perfect bodies, huge cocks, and cum liters to be "normal."

The worst take-away from porn as an educational tool is that the models never talk to each other--they're being told what to do by a director. In real life, communication is what makes sex even greater.

@homppeliboy Welcome to posting on the boards. Unfortunately, you've noticed the worst thing about them: There are a few trolls on here who, when they disagree with your viewpoint, will start insulting the poster, rather than making arguments. This is the classical fallacy of arguing ad hominem...which essentially means that when someone can't make a reasonable argument, they just start calling people names. At that point, the forum thread has lost any value and is best ignored.

I hope you post on other threads that don't get similarly corrupted.

@andergarcia said in What kept you from completing suicide?:

@bc22

Had never thought of completing suicide... If I ever thought of that, I would just need to think of all the great people I have around me (my boyfriend, my parents, my brother, my closest friends...).

I had a boyfriend some years back who committed suicide. The wreckage that leaves among family and friends is overwhelming. I've had some dark times now and then, but I could never have my legacy be that kind of destruction.

Suicide is not a grand Shakespearean "to be or not to be" existential decision. It's about ending one's pain. But it doesn't solve anything--it's surrendering to the pain and darkness because one cannot see any alternatives.

I am not passing negative judgment on those who attempt/complete suicide--I still love my lost boyfriend very much. It is, though, tragic that he, and many others, did not see an alternative to resolving their pain.

@raphjd Fact check: The US national debt is about $28 trillion. See https://www.usdebtclock.org/, or any other reliable source.

That's still a huge number. If only the Americans had elected Donald Trump as President in 2016: He promised to pay off the debt within eight years. (https://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/275003-trump-i-will-eliminate-us-debt-in-8-years )

Instead, the person who was in the White House from 2017 to 2021, with the consent of a Republican Senate, increased the national debt by 36%.

How do I get a taste test?

@beachbum99 said in Hey everyone! Bore da!:

Send some snow our way, Ill take some pictures in it haha

We can send snow, but maybe we can also send you some you some vowels. With place names like Cwmystwyth and Bwlchgwyn , it seems like you might have a shortage of them...

(Just kidding/teasing; my family is from the England and I remember nice visits to Wales when I was a wee lad.)

@bc22 Let me try this with an uploaded image:

which should show up above.

@freakmagnet said in Frequent "lost connection":

Anyhow, it hasnt posed any issues for me (it happened again twice in a comment -and my typing is not that slow!)

I notice this as well. Whenever I compose a post, I always copy it to my clipboard to that if the broken connection loses it, I can easily put it back.

@anythingold I agree with what you're saying. My posting was a bit tangled up because there are several issues going on here:

1. The OP said, "Despite what we've been told for the last 15 years, being obese is not healthy." I don't think that's been the message, but there has been a greater consciousness that overweight/obese people still deserve ordinary human respect, and media stereotypes that women should look anorexic are counter to that.
2. The article's purported link between being overweight and COVID death rates is not the result of a study--it's anecdotal at best, and skewed because of national policy phenomena.
3. The article is also sloppy in shifting terminology from the initial mention of "overweight" to "obese."

Bottom line: Yes, indeed it is complicated, but many people crave simple solutions to complicated problems. The best we can do is follow the current cutting-edge medical advice to protect our own health and the health of others. I've had my two Moderna jabs...and while I'd rather have other things stuck into my body, it's still a good feeling.

@flozen Thanks for providing that link. While it's difficult to summarise a denomination's teaching in few Twitter-esque boxes, that chart does a fairly good job. It's ironic that the items in the Missouri Synod column line up quite closely with those of the Roman Catholic Church--given that the origins of the Lutheran movement were a reformation/rebellion against Rome. The Church of England's teachings were originally virtually identical to those of Rome (except for the role of the Pope), and now the descendants of the C of E in North America are quite similar to the ELCA. (Henry VIII did not like that "L word.")

I agree that the term "evangelical" has a frightening dimension to it, because it's been co-opted by right-wing groups very intolerant of anyone outside their white middle/upper-middle class bubble. (I call their mega-churches "Jesus factories.") The "E" in ELCA is rooted in the word's original meaning (from the Greek euangelion or "good news," the origin of the English word "gospel."). It's good that they haven't abandoned the word just because it has been corrupted by others.

My pastor friend is quite straight (there really are such people), and happily married. I'm not sure I'd say he was "hot" from a homoerotic perspective, but he's a super nice guy, which is perhaps the ultimate in hotness.

You identified yourself as an atheist; I would call myself a non-theist, meaning that I don't address the question of the existence of a God because, in brief, the question isn't important to me. I see that as slightly different from being agnostic, but that's a dissertation for another time. My family has generations of anchoring in the Anglican tradition, and I'm comfortable with being part of a community of tradition, culture, inclusion, and social action. I remember hearing a priest in the (US) Episcopal church saying that his denomination was founded on the twin pillars of "the gospel and good taste." One out of two isn't bad. (That's probably less precise than another speaker who said that the church was based on scripture, tradition, and reason, forming a three-legged stool. She used the word "stool" over and over again, which became somewhat distracting.) But, as is often the case, I digress.

@flozen My roommate while an undergraduate came from a long line of Lutheran pastors (and he's one now), and I kept track of the ELCA/MS re-arrangement sometime back. It's not unlike more conservative Anglican groups splitting off from their national church, but claiming to be still Anglicans because they've put themselves under the jurisdiction of a homophobic bishop in Nigeria or some such place.

I think the ELCA and the Episcopal Church in the US have a "full intercommunion" agreement, or some such thing. I remember visiting an Episcopal parish in Connecticut several years ago whose (interim) rector/pastor was an ordained Lutheran. I've heard Episcopal writers speak of their church "pitching a big tent" (giggle, giggle) where a diversity of viewpoints is accepted. There are those who insist, though, that (a) they are right, and (b) everyone else needs to agree with them or they're wrong. (This attitude is not confined to religion.) If I were a bible-thumper, I would mention Mark 9:38, but I'm not, so I won't.

@flozen Interesting news; I had missed that. (I'm Anglican Church of Canada/Episcopal Church, depending on which country I'm in.) The Episcopal Church is very inclusive of LGBT people, whether as members or in leadership. ACC has been on a slower timetable, but is still ahead of many other national bodies within the Anglican Communion.

And yes, the forums are a dreadful slog right now...I'm sure the "posts per day" metrics have fallen off drastically. I hope these are birth pangs and not a "new normal." I'm not sure why there was a change; things seemed fine before. But I digress.

@bi4smooth said in Do you pee in the shower at your own home?:

1. Urine is not sterile (that's a common fallacy)

One could even argue that urine is fertile : It has a lot of nitrogen and phosporus, and can be a good garden fertiliser if diluted with water at a 15:1 ratio. Depending on one's diet, urine can also have a good deal of salt, so don't make it the only source of water for the garden.

@chanelkokoro I appreciate your careful response to my post. I think we probably agree on a lot more things than we disagree on, but it's the differences that make for good discussion. It's nice to have that discussion by addressing issues rather than by calling names. There are people on here who need to learn that.

And you're right, I don't live in the US (although I'm there right now). I do spend a lot of time there (here) and thus try to be informed on US issues, but I'd probably dig into them more deeply if I were a full-time resident.

@chanelkokoro said in Party of family values part 1 :

We have to define where life begins. Science has defined it as viability. Because if you define life at the potentiality for life such as at conception that rabbit hole never ends. That means by the time you get that dick up there is a 3rd person in that room. have you ever condemned yourself for all the lives you've killed cumming in your toilet?

but then, why do conservatives claim to be pro life, but anti birth control and anti sex education that would lead to less abortions? how do y'all claim to be pro life and then try to gut and defund the programs that would help sustain that life? make it make sense.

"Viability" is a tricky concept: As medical science improves, smaller and smaller fetuses could be considered viable. But there could also be an argument (which I don't think anybody has made) that a child isn't "viable" until age 8 or 10, given that for some period of many years, s/he is dependent on other humans to provide food, shelter, etc. The young of other species (I'm thinking of turtles and fish, and likely others) are abandoned when hatched, so they are by definition viable at birth. I don't know the way out of this mess.

As for birth control and sex education, the conservatives' view on that baffles me. If conservatives don't want women to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, why don't they seek to prevent those unwanted pregnancies from occurring in the first place? Quite illogical on their part.

@chanelkokoro I will continue to be optimistic that things will get better for Americans in the coming years. I can understand the expediency of dropping the minimum wage from the COVID relief package, in order to get the needs passed. It remains to be seen whether the $15 plan will resurface. I do think it's a bit odd to have minimum wage on a national level, as there's considerable difference in the cost of living in different parts of the US. There's even a large difference in cost of living within individual states. I don't know what the right solution is here.

Healthcare policy seems to be a mess in the US. I think many people want universal health care, but there are different ways of going about it. Mr Sanders was strong on advocating this, but rather on short on details, which left him open to criticism. Ms Warren had a more detailed plan, but I don't think many read it. People want simple solutions to complex problems--which would be nice--but it rarely works that way.

I will remain optimistic. There are 330 million people who deserve better than what they're getting.

@jsl76 said in Freeleech is not freeleech.:

FWIW, I never bother with freeleech because 100 percent of the time, my traffic/ratio acts as if the torrent weren't freeleech.

I haven't tracked this as closely as you have, perhaps because with my new internet provider my ratio is now comfortable. But if what you say is indeed true (and I have no reason to doubt you), it would be a disappointment to many members.

@chanelkokoro As for the jury not being out, I suppose that depends on which crimes we're looking at. It can take a while for campaign promises to be fulfilled, although as you say he could have legalised cannabis on day one. (It's legal in my country, and also in California, where I visit often.)

The best thing going for Mr Biden is that he's not as horrible as Trump, which is of course a low standard. I do hope things improve for the US in the years to come...the country that did moon landings, the Internet, and the Pontiac Aztek (j/k) deserves better.

@chanelkokoro said in Party of family values part 1 :

@eobox91103 omg That's such a great point. I'm a nurse, I'm positive they wipe down the injection site first.

The only problem is that we keep killing innocent people on death row. And I'd rather get rid of the death penalty entirely than risk even 1 innocent person dying because of it.

Yes, that's the problem. Whether needle or noose, there's no "undo" button after the fact.