BootmanLA
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That would be fine, for you. The vast majority of the rest of us do not want to have to verify our ID to visit websites, especially as that verification site is likely going to track where you go and what you do. In the US, at least, we have a constitutional right to access information online anonymously (for now). Whether that will be upheld next time it comes up, in the case of one of these state laws demanding we identify ourselves to access "adult" content, is an open question. I'd like to think it would be, but these days one just cannot be sure.
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It bears repeating that there are free VPN services out there that will get you online here just fine. It's not a question of affording; someone else may be arriving here in a 2025 S-Class while others get here in a 1993 Camry, but once here we're all equal.
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Which can be complete bullshit. I could list myself as living in London if I wanted instead of the actual place in the US where I live.
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America was at it's "trumpiest" 100 years ago
BootmanLA replied to PozBearWI's topic in LGBT Politics
I always find it amazing (well, not really) that reich-wingers are constantly denouncing mainstream news as "untrustworthy" when they're theoretically perfectly capable of researching the facts themselves, from the original sources of the day, and figuring out what happened. Oh, that's right, none of them paid attention one fucking minute in history classes, because it was BO-RING, and so they never learned HOW to go back to original sources. It's why the South managed to convince white people for a century or more that the Civil War was fought over state's rights and tariffs, not the institution of slavery, despite slavery being prominently mentioned as the issue in every surviving act of secession. Likewise the idea that the Union started the war, even though the record is clear that it started when the confederate armed forces attacked a federal military installation at Fort Sumter. And the record is clear how many of the early battles (which is to say, almost all of them) were fought on Union territory that the confederates invaded. If someone has concerns that a news story by a Washington Post (or New York Times, or CNN, or whomever) reporter is faulty, then go find the facts. Don't make an ass of yourself screaming "fake news" when you can't actually demonstrate any factual error in the story. -
I use them in a few different scenarios. I use them when someone is spouting dangerous misinformation, especially when they're clearly doing it deliberately for attention. I use them to express disapproval of what someone posted. I subscribe to the old saying "It doesn't take all kinds; there just ARE all kinds." Everyone is free to believe as he wishes, and to post his opinions thereon, but that doesn't mean everyone else has to accept that viewpoint or let it go unchallenged. And sometimes the person has just repeatedly posted the same bullshit to troll the rest of us, and I'm not always going to engage. But I'm going to express my opinion that it's still bullshit.
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Piss play complications like balanitis
BootmanLA replied to Raunchyfag's topic in HIV/AIDS & Sexual Health Issues
You can't have non-stop exposure to an irritant like urine-soaked clothes and not have physical consequences. The human body simply wasn't designed for that. Although infant skin is (typically) softer, this is the same issue that causes diaper rash for them. -
Dunning-Kruger anyone?
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Especially malign foreign actors. Trump didn't give a fuck if the money was looted from Russian and other former Soviet industries seized by the government and bestowed on Putin's kleptocratic partners; that money was a lifeline in his never-ending cash-draining "business" [sic] dealings. He laundered money by the tens of millions for the Russian version of the mob, and you can be assured they kept very good records of it.
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Who else is doing Blackout Friday to protest trillionaires?
BootmanLA replied to nanana's topic in LGBT Politics
As others far more articulate than me have stated, a one-day boycott doesn't affect the bottom lines of big companies like Amazon or Walmart or whomever. Particularly since many of those people will go buy on Saturday the things they didn't buy on Friday, from the same place they were boycotting on Friday. Where the one-day boycotts ARE effective, however, is as a warning shot. Let's say Walmart's sales, on a boycott Friday, drop by $300 million. On any given day their sales are somewhere north of $1.5 billion, so that loss isn't disastrous, especially if Saturday and Sunday are larger as people "catch up". But it lets Walmart know how much it could expect to lose from a sustained boycott, if one were to actually come about. Compare with Target, where consumers are doing an extended boycott over its cancelation of its DEI policies (and, to a lesser extent, over its getting rid of LGBT themed merchandise during Pride last year). The ongoing boycott there *IS* hurting Target - sales are down across the board significantly. It's arguable, of course, that Walmart and Amazon, as giants and being aimed at a lower-price demographic than Target, are better insulated from the effects: everyday shoppers won't be able to afford to boycott them the way a typical Target shopper can shift to, say, Trader Joes or Whole Foods. But there's no guarantees. -
Washington gave that advice at a time when the Atlantic Ocean isolated the United States from all of Europe, when an invading army would require weeks in ships to get to us (although Britain did come through Canada once). With the advent of ships powered other than by wind or oars, with the invention of airplanes and aircraft carriers and missiles and the like, we are no longer physically isolated from adversaries, We operated for almost a century and a half on the premise that we didn't really need "alliances" because we had only two borders to defend and we were far stronger, economically and militarily, than either. We still got dragged into WWI because one side in that war insisted on attacking our non-military shipping. Then we found out, in 1941, that our vaunted physical isolation didn't really protect us nearly as much as we thought given the destruction wrought at Pearl Harbor. And even once we established military supremacy over pretty much every other fighting force on earth, 9/11 showed us that it was still possible for enemies to inflict massive damage on us. This isn't to say a lot of our "adventuring" wasn't a big factor in these things happening. We made a lot of enemies throwing our weight around. But the answer isn't "retreat from all alliances" but "stop trying to meddle so much in other countries' basic affairs".
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The first part of that is incorrect. The 2% of GDP is not for "member contributions". It's what each member of NATO is asked (with no enforcement mechanism) to spend on defense. That means if a country has a GDP of 100 billion, it's expected to spend 2 billion of that on "defense" - which includes all of its military spending. It's not a contribution made to some account at NATO. The US looks "good" under this standard only because we spend such a large portion of our GDP on our military, most of which goes to military contractors supplying weapons and material, a substantial portion of which we can't seem to even track. "Member contributions" are a separate assessment actually DOES pay into an account at NATO, because something has to pay for its overhead. But that is nowhere near 2% of any nation's GDP.
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With respect, what happened at Tavistock in the UK has zero bearing on whether those surgeries are occurring in the United States, which (given that this topic is about Trump and health care) is the parameter at hand. Just because, say, certain African countries permit female genital mutilation doesn't mean that FGM is even occurring in the US, much less on a widespread basis. (I'm well aware it may be happening under the radar in some immigrant communities, but that's a far cry from the outrage over "they're letting this thing happen all over!" that we're seeing about trans surgery for minors. I'll also note that even if I agreed with your categorical statement about "no irreversible change", puberty blockers - which accounts for about 99% of the pre-age-of-majority "intervention" in this country - is not in fact "irreversible". Simply stopping taking them allows puberty to progress.
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Because there is a significant chunk of the population who is perfectly willing to suffer as long as they think other, less-deserving people are going to suffer more.
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But there's an enormous gap between "this school lets students use their preferred pronouns without notifying the parents" and "10-12 year olds getting bottom surgery" (or whatever). And no one I know - not the most liberal of liberals, and I know some pretty far left people - are in favor of gender-confirming surgery on anyone who isn't - at a minimum - close to the age of majority; and none of them support such surgeries without parental consent. Honestly, no one with any sense gives a fuck whether "Taylor" wants to be referred to as "he" or "she" in school. Pronouns are a sideshow - and dishonest people want to use the use of "pronoun identification" (My pronouns are he/him) as evidence that there's a huge movement read to cut little boys' dicks and balls off to turn them into girls, or to do breast removal on girls.
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Rashes are not a tell-tale sign of infection (of HIV, at least; you could have been infected with any number of other things, either STI's or just plain old things like measles. Or you could just have a skin reaction to something. If you're so concerned about whether you're infected, log off, go get tested, and if you get a negative test, go back for another in 2 weeks. This forum is not going to be able to diagnose you.
