viking8x6

12 hours ago, ktopper said:

It all began with a topic I started as a troll of some posters who believed (or at least pretended they believed) that the election of Pres. Trump would lead to much evil. Most here saw what I was doing and some saw the humor in it. 

But I cannot and will not tolerate lies designed to drive wedges between segments of our society without speaking out. Identity politics at its worst.

I was one of the ones who saw what you were doing and found humor in it. And no, you didn't piss off the moderation staff "big time". Things in this topic just got out of hand with petty insults. Several minor infractions were handed out and the thread was locked temporarily. We do have to read this stuff, y'know. But thanks for reminding me I intended to unlock it. Carry on, MacDuff!

And I thoroughly agree with you about "lies designed to drive wedges between segments of our society." Please *do* speak out about those on BZ, and if you think they are seriously harmful, report the posts.

2 hours ago, BritishCumdump said:

The thing here is I've literally got a gangbang cumdump session organised for the weekend and I don't want to be without my PrEP for this so I'm wondering (1) whether the stuff I've been given for PEP will protect me from HIV.

(2) Also, if I did get unlucky and infected on Sunday, would I be infectious to others this early on (within a week). 

The pills I've been given for PEP are 600mg Raltegravir and 200/245mg Emtricitabin / Tenofovirdisoproxil

(1) Yes. 200/245mg emtricitabine/tenofovir disoproxil is the same as Truvada (though a slightly different dose than standard PrEP), and the raltegravir will only help.

(2) Extremely unlikely, especially after you've started the PEP (which will stop the infection from progressing, and therefore the viral load from increasing).

6 hours ago, ktopper said:

Quote

It already is under control...

Barely! While not at Zimbabwean levels it was still painful for working class Americans.

Please note that the verb tenses here don't match!

Yes, it was painful. And it still is painful, because prices are still that much higher than they were pre-pandemic.

But it is under control; the rate of inflation of the US CPI over the last year was well under 3 percent.

The good news is that wage growth is now substantially higher than that 3 percent, so if that can be maintained (and there is no reason to think it can't) people in the working class will be able to afford things again in a year or three. Whether or not they'll perceive their situation as acceptable after that is another question.

8 hours ago, nanana said:

1) collectively blaming groups of people for cultural or other phenomena that preceded their lifespans, e.g., something that happened more than 100 years ago; 2) failing to see the consequences to other people’s lives of immediately stopping something perceived as a social ill, e.g., driving a gas’s-powered car; 3) shifting burdens to the public coffer; 4) misattributing an action to bigotry, hatred, or some other self-absorbed interpretation rather than to natural differences among individuals; 5) collective punishment; 6) race-based assumptions about how various groups SHOULD think

 Thanks for this, @nanana. It's the best explanation I've heard yet of how something that one group of people sees as "common decency and respect" comes out as something radically negative when viewed by another group. 👏

22 minutes ago, Erik62 said:

to the absurd levels of left wing WOKEISM that has been garnered over the last 20yrs or so. The Wests political & civil authorities appear to have lost all degree of common sense, logic & the realities that most people live with & wish for their families & communities. It is time we brought some stability of traditional values & EQUALITY FOR ALL (not just specific groups) back into our lives before we are lost to the dangerous rhetoric of the far right leaders. It appears that the Australian Federal & State governments are on the same path with the increasing levels of Wokeism & illegal immigration which is encouraging the rise of right wing sentiment & associated violence.

It appears that you enjoy a substantial understanding of this "wokeism" to which you refer.

I, for one, would really appreciate an explanation. If you'd be so kind as to explain what you mean by it - NOT HERE - but in the thread I posted many months ago asking that exact question, I would be grateful.

1 hour ago, PozBearWI said:

We, those of us living in the US, have work ahead of us to climb out of the hole we just dug.  So we have a choice fellows...  We can give up and do like the orange clown and whine.  Or we can get to work.  Who do you wanna be?

So much this ^^^

Though I have a quibble: "have work ahead of us to climb out of the hole   we    our fellow Americans just dug"

Very well done!

On 11/3/2024 at 11:16 PM, topblkmale said:

 

312

226

Electoral college and popular vote win.

 

Are we starting a pool here?

If not, could you please clarify what this post means or refers to?

Thanks

It doesn't pay too well to overthink this thread, seeing as it started out as an anti-Islam troll post.

The latest... just in case anyone had any doubts about Trump's positions, his attitude toward various groups of Americans, or his intentions:

https://apnews.com/article/trump-madison-square-garden-new-york-election-fcfe75be7f8281fde7bffa3adb3bba5d?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

OK, sounds from what I hear like it is, plain and simple, faulty implementation. And likely intentionally faulty, due to probable skullduggery on the part of the parties.

A FUNCTIONAL implementation would work something like what @BootmanLA suggests. Compare that with:

17 hours ago, TaKinGDeePanal said:

You have to rank EVERYONE (apart from your last choice) on a House of Representatives Ballot in Australia.

..the Parties have decided IN SECRET where votes are directed if you don't rank everyone. For example, one Senator (Malcolm Roberts) won a seat with only 77 Primary Votes - however, due to aforesaid backroom Party deals, he won enough Ranked Choice votes to take office (and yes, he's pretty much the closest thing we have to a fascist in the Senate...

#1 requires you to vote for candidates you don't want.

#2 causes you (if voting a straight party line) to vote for candidates you may not want, nor even know anything about.

Yeah, that's solid CRAP. But it's not because it's RCV, it's because the devil is in the details (in this case, literally).

😪

15 hours ago, Erik62 said:

Federal elections require us to place upto 24+ selections in the order we want them. I barely know OR trust my first choice, let alone 23 other NOBODIES. The result being that majority governments are occurring less frequently & NOTHING gets done because all these SHITTY independent politicians are only there for self interest...

Sounds more like an implementation problem than a conceptual one. If you're getting 24 people on the ballot, it maybe should be harder to get on it (though that obviously has other pitfalls), but certainly if one doesn't wish to vote for a candidate, one shouldn't be obliged to. However, all this is conjecture coming from someone who's been stuck in the USA for the last many decades, and not seen another system in operation.

I'm a big proponent of ranked choice voting. It empowers people with fringe leanings to vote for their preferred choice, without losing their chance to effectively vote against the turd du jour.

Furthermore, it could discourage the dominant parties from fielding candidates that pander to the wing nuts therein, which gives the latter disproportionate power to demand the implementation of generally unpopular policies (as we have lately seen with both major parties).

13 hours ago, RawBottom76 said:

Well Kamala did claim for several years that she was part American Indian. Plenty of video clips of her saying so. So is she black, American Indian, or mixed race. I don't think she even knows.

This is false.

Kamala Harris is mixed race. Her father is Jamaican. Her mother is [[NOT Native American]] Indian. Yes, there are plenty of video clips of her saying this. Perhaps that's not surprising, given the amount of misinformation and confusion out there that she has to correct.

2 hours ago, nanana said:

 I read an interesting analysis that suggests that the real divide in this country is between the "virtuals" (ie, people who could do their job on a laptop from anywhere, who have thus severed any loyalty they have to terroir, tend to be disconnected from a visceral sense of what it takes to build wealth and security), versus the "physicals" (ie., people whose jobs are inherently tied to a location, e.g., farm, construction, the factories that used to be in America but are now overseas, who can see the physical results of their efforts etc.).

I would be very interested to read this, if you can provide a link. I'm not sure I agree (based on that one-sentence summary), but I am firmly of the opinion that the difference between the physical and the virtual is of great importance to the future of this country and of the world, and that in a sense far greater than mere finance.

Editing or deleting a post yourself is only possible for a short time after you make it. After that a moderator has to do it. See above in this topic for details.

Yes. Utah posts go in the general Southwest regional forum. Thanks for asking.

He requested that his profile be deleted.

THIS TOPIC WILL BE TEMPORARILY LOCKED TO ALLOW PEOPLE TO COOL OFF A BIT HERE.

I'm not handing out infractions, although there are a sizable number of people who merit them. Please remember:

Abuse of other members is NOT ALLOWED.

Posting of false statements and conspiracy theories is NOT ALLOWED. This is one reason it's good to back up your assertions with some kind of sources and/or references.

Posting twaddle of the "candidate X is stupid" genre does not constructively contribute to the discussion. Please refrain. Things get contentious enough in this subforum without members displaying their own idiocy.

I have fucked virgins. It can be a good time.

Only problem is when they fall for you... Which usually, in my experience, ends badly. That may be less true now than it was a few decades ago, depending on your societal context. I think a lot of the "ends badly" parts had to do with guys who were not yet OK with being gay, working through their internalized homophobia. I hold out hope that there's less of that going around these days, though I'm sure it is far from gone.

Since this seems to be a perennial source of distress, I will explain again for those who are new (or hard of hearing):

Yes, there are rules on BZ. You can find them here https://breeding.zone/topic/12285-read-this-before-you-post/ and in other more specific topics linked from that one.

The Moderators do not make the rules. All we do is apply them, as even-handedly as possible (but hey, we are human). @rawTOP, the site owner, makes the rules, and spends considerable effort to make them carefully and for good reasons, which he also makes an effort to explain.

Very few of the rules have substantial penalties attached. Usually, you will get a warning and a few points (which expire over time), and maybe a suspension of posting privileges for a few days. It's not a big deal.

For those few cases that are a big deal, you could get dozens of points or have your login privileges suspended for weeks or months. Repeated offenses push up the penalties. The offenses in this category are things like bullying other members, suggesting harm to real people, posting child porn, and spamming the site.

Complaining about a penalty is actually an infraction of its own (because the moderators are volunteers). However, if you truly don't understand - after reading the rules - why your post was an infraction, it is OK to contact the moderator and ask. We didn't give it to you because we hate you, we gave it to you because it's our job to enforce the rules. It is quite possible that we made a mistake, in which case we'll try to do our part and apologize nicely.

If you realize - after posting something - that you made a mistake and it's an infraction (perhaps because you posted it in the wrong place, which is the easiest infraction to make without noticing), report your own post (use the "Report" option in the "..." menu at the upper right corner of the post) and let a moderator know that you goofed and what you'd like done to fix it (if it's not obvious). The penalties for self-reported posts are generally waived.

27 minutes ago, topblkmale said:

The answer to your 'they' question is NO.

Perhaps you'd do 'them' the courtesy of allowing 'them' to demonstrate their willingness to listen and to support this exploration, rather than prejudicially answering the question before 'they' have any chance to do so. @nanana asked very nicely. Give 'them' a chance.

Moderator's Note:

Thanks to all of those who have made thoughtful contributions to this very lively topic.  I'm extremely happy that despite some contention and rowdiness, things have stayed relatively civil and there haven't been heaps of infractions! Let's keep it that way:

Please remember that ad hominem attacks are off-limits.

Please also remember that posting false statements and conspiracy theories is not allowed. If you feel the need to defend your statement with a comment about its veracity, please put a link in to that fact-check and save your readers (and the moderators) the effort of doing the search. At its best, a topic like this is a chance for us to understand a bit more of how people in very different "echo chambers" see the world, and mutual understanding is something we need a LOT MORE OF just about now. Let's give it the best possible chance here.

Again, thanks to everyone who is making the extra effort here.

13 hours ago, TomOnHisKnees said:

Is writing about my wife role playing as an escort allowed?

Yes. Fictional references to escorting are now allowed.

Those of you joining (or re-joining) the mosh pit with the dead horse, please scroll back...

On 8/1/2024 at 12:47 PM, topblkmale said:

 

Thank you @Poz50something for the picture of her father and the Wikipedia page.

 

I stand corrected. Kamala Harris and her father are in fact black.