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You ever been in an environment where you know violence could be imminent at any point and that said violence will 99% work out badly for you? Maybe walked into a Vagos bar wearing red? something along those lines? Cause, I would prefer that the women in my life, and really all women, don't have to feel that way. Many do, and these antics make it significantly worse.

Generally speaking knocking posters doesn’t add to the conversation. I’m not talking about your specific post. The ones I find most annoying is scrolling down half a page of ‘he’s on my kill list’, he’s blocked so I can’t see what he posts’ etc. Unfortunately for some time now most right wing leaning posters have been trolls out for a reaction. While I strongly disagree with the views of some of the recent posters, they have refreshingly not been trolling.

" When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people." Not that I am very sure facts really matter to you.....

Of course. And the Cutter incident killed a dozen kids and paralyzed hundreds - but no one says "therefore the polio vaccine is not a vaccine." Public vaccination programs (and simpler measures like social distancing/masing, and more draconian measures like quarantines) do not protect individuals - they protect populations. Almost no one got polio after the first wave of vaccinations were complete. And, as noted, there were deaths. But it was worth it to wipe out polio. That's not an individual good - that's a public good. Thus, they continued vaccination even after the disease was mostly gone, and the risk profile for EVERYONE was low. Today, polio has been completely eliminated from the US. Do you see that as a good thing?

I understand how barcodes work, it was a metaphor. You continue to miss the point. I've said it repeatedly: it's not the issues so much as it's that Trump is an odious scumbag willing to harm anyone for an iota of personal gain. I will make money from his policies but I was happy to leave it on the table in exchange for being represented by an adult not a name calling bully who is both stupid and wide open to manipulation. It is there that we are different.

This coming from the people who think vaccines don't work, that climate change is a Chinese hoax, that windmill cancer is a thing, that women can "shut down" a pregnancy if they are raped, and that Haitian immigrants are eating people's pets in Springfield. I prefer actual reality, even if alternative facts conform more closely to conservative agendas.

Hey everyone, I wanted to give you a heads-up that I'll be putting Dropzone.com on the market. It has been a great 27 years, but for the last few years this has simply not been my focus, and the site is showing that neglect. It's time for someone else to pick up the ball and run with it, or take the domain in whatever direction they decide. There are still costs associated every month with keeping Dropzone.com up, that has become hard to justify. If you have PMs that you'd like to keep, now would be a good time to copy those as there is no telling what the next owner might do to keeping it up or not. If you're interested in buying the site or domain (serious buyers only) feel to get in touch PMs.

Well that was my thought but I stand corrected. Furthermore he is viewed as a "Sexual matador" by the conservative right! "Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to Donald Trump during his presidency, has bizarrely offered some dating advice to young male conservatives looking for love, suggesting that wearing their proud support for Trump on their sleeves is the best way to “impress the ladies” this election season. Miller was a guest on Jesse Watters Primetime on Fox News on Tuesday when the host introduced him by declaring: “We just have to address the elephant in the room. We are getting a lot of texts from women about Miller and his appearances – and his appearance. “Our audience at Primetime believes you are some sort of sexual matador. What do you have to say for yourself?”

Why should I believe anything it says? It's just an amplified Reddit meme, isn't it?

No personal attacks. Wendy P.

Fully personal responsibility. Some of us have not and never will touch chemical drugs. Fucking idiocy to do that. Might as well stick a light up your ass or take horse dewormer.

So you would be in favour of releasing many black and Latino prisoners in southern states? Political leaning of a state or jurisdiction has never been an issue for Republicans before. Now it is a reason to change everything. Of course all while shouting that institutional bias or racism isn't a thing....

All of them.

No, we shouldn't. The ORIGINAL definition of vaccine was "cowpox." In fact, the viral strain variolae vaccinae (which is where the term "vaccine" came from) is cowpox. Which, if you took literally, would mean that no modern vaccines are vaccines. But that would be pretty silly, too.

I'll be repetitive for the point. My dad was a tail gunner in B-24's, shot down once and crashed on take-off twice. He saw a lot of the serious action, Ploesti, etc. He said the bravest pilots he saw in the war were the Redtails. They stayed with the bombers through the flack and usually used a few of themselves as decoys while the rest flew high cover. He said his group lost a lot of planes to flack but never one to fighters when the Redtails were escort.

If you throw someone out of a pub in Ireland and they come right back in ... then it's probably just Rick O'Shea

Hi Bill, Me thinks you ask too much. Jerry Baumchen

"The ZOE COVID study reported waning of effectiveness of mRNA (Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 and Moderna mRNA 1273) and vector-based (Oxford-AstraZaneca COVID-19) vaccines at around 5 months after administration of two primary doses in community settings7. The protection provided by Pfizer vaccine was 91.6% after one month, decreasing to 82% after 5 months; effectiveness of Moderna reduced from 94% to 84% and that of AstraZeneca vaccine declined from 83% to 75.7% at 5 months. " \https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-61922-6 Again, use that education you have and stop getting all your information from right wing agenda-driven podcasters.

This is rapidly shaping up to be what people predicted. That Trump and Co learned from their mistakes the first time. I think any hope that he will just play golf and stumble around ineffectively are rapidly disappearing. We’ve seen 3rd world countries implode rapidly, and possibly the Uk post Brexit. This seems to be America’s hold my beer moment.

You can take that up with GWB's administration. It's what they believed. And that idea that if you Big Lie enough it becomes real has permeated the far right ever since. You claim that liberals are divorced from reality and then you say things like that? You're proving my point here. Vaccines are "fake" infections that present pathogen antigens to your immune system. The immune system then responds to the antigens, thus "training" your immune system to react quickly to pathogens in the future. There are several classes of vaccines: - Live similar pathogens. The first smallpox vaccine was actually a cowpox infection, but it was close enough to generate an immune response that covered smallpox. These aren't used any more, but may be returning in the form of recombinant vector vaccines - engineered viruses that have exactly the antigens you need. - Weakened pathogens. These are the actual bacteria/viruses but damaged so they cannot make you very sick. Polio was an example here; they have since switched to an antigen-only type. - Antigen-only vaccines. These are just the antigens themselves. One way to get them is to denature a virus/bacteria (i.e. kill it) and inject the "debris." The debris will contain the antigens. Another way to get them is to filter out everything but the antigens and then inject them. A third way is an mRNA vaccine that stimulates your own body to produce the antigens. This is the opposite of a treatment or a therapeutic. A treatment is like an antiviral - you take it AFTER you get sick and it interferes with viral reproduction. Vaccines have to be taken BEFORE you get sick, because they do nothing to treat your disease. They only train your immune system. I would STRONGLY recommend you learn your medical science from a reputable source rather than a red-pill podcaster.

I'm not sure why you think an mRNA vaccine is not a vaccine but there is a lot of evidence that it functions as one. I know you will carry your personal anger and resentment over the extreme pressure put on you and others to make the sacrifice of taking it for the common good despite your beliefs to the grave with you. I'm not even going to try to have that argument again. But the fact is that it is an effective measure that attenuated the epidemic and allowed society to get close to normalcy far faster and with far less death than otherwise. Without it we would be in a far worse place right now.

Have you seen what is happening with the rates of measles in children of the anti-vaxx community since 2020?

In 1939 it was illegal for black men to serve as pilots in the US military. Due to a DEI offensive from the NAACP, labor union leader A. Philip Randolph and Judge William H. Hastie, a war appropriations bill was passed containing funding to train black pilots. This effectively legitimized the use of black pilots by the US military. It was not without friction; a great many opposed it. Major General Frank O'Driscoll Hunter, for example, insisted that "racial friction will occur if colored and white pilots are trained together." But they persevered, and by the end of the war, this DEI squadron (also known as the Tuskeegee Airmen) flew almost 200 bomber protection missions, with a record of protecting bombers almost twice as well as the all-white squadrons flying at that time. Overall the squadron received one silver star, 96 Distinguished Flying Crosses,14 Bronze Stars, 744 Air Medals and at least 60 Purple Hearts. Proof of their unity, excellence and honor by any measure. Martha McSally was one of the first women to fly for the USAF in combat. She was able to do that as the result of a DEI effort to lift the prohibition against women in combat in 1991. She ended up as a decorated squadron leader before retiring and becoming a US representative, where she served for two years in Congress. She was part of several DEI lawsuits, including one against the DoD to end the requirement that women in the US military wear burqas when in public in Arab countries. She was also raped by a superior officer, but managed to overcome that and still become squadron leader during her time in the service. Leigh Ann Hester was a seargeant in the 617th Military Police Company. In 2005 the supply convoy she was guarding came under attack by at least 50 insurgents. She led her team to flank the attackers, and used grenades to end the threat. At the end, there were 27 dead and 6 insurgents, with no losses of the US supply team. She ended up with the Distinguished Service Cross. Again an indication of unity, excellence and honor. So I'd say that DEI has in fact done a lot for combat. It is why black people and women can now serve in the military. It has taken hard work, and overcoming the objections of people like General Hunter above, but we are all better off because of it.

After reading what I can in a couple hours about "the new right" I will say that the only thing new about it is that it has no real cohesive goals or ideas. It is an alliance of social conservatives, many driven be religious beliefs and libertarians especially the "don't tread on me types" as well as those who feel they have been left behind by the new information/service economy. These groups are actually potential enemies of each other but are united in the belief that social progress is bad and the good old days can be brought back. There is as you probably know, nothing really new about any of it other than the unlikeliness of the coalition it brings together. Strange bedfellows indeed. Almost all of the aims of this movement to stifle and reverse the progress of man are things that I and probably about half of the world disagree with. The individual struggles will carry on with unpredictable results. But I can say this, western liberalism has brought to the people living in it the best lives and the most incredible achievements that the human species has ever seen. The things that you and your family love so much are the products of liberalism and enlightenment. Be careful what you wish for.

I personally know half a dozen women who waited over a decade to come out about their sexual assaults. And most of them heard the same thing when they did - "if it happened she would have gone to the police." "He's a great guy, he would never do that." "She just want to smear him." "She is just trying to get something." "She'd remember a lot more than THAT if she had been raped!" "Look at her, no one would rape HER." In 2005, the New York legislature was considering a law that would allow child rape survivors to file civil suits against their rapists. This was important because so many children had been sexually abused by the Catholic Church in New York diocese. The Church was against it (to put it mildly) and so it was not until 2019 that the Child Victims Act was finally signed into law. After it was signed into law, a New York legislator was approached by several women who had been raped in New York prisons decades ago, asking if the CVA could be used to go after the guards that raped them. The answer was no; it only applied to children. There is no statute of limitations on first degree rape in New York, but there had been such a concerted effort to eliminate any physical evidence by prison guards that there was effectively no way to meet the high standards required for criminal prosecution. That request resulted in the Adult Survivors Act, a law that allowed women raped decades ago to file suits against their rapists. Over 3000 women, mostly former prisoners in NY prisons, filed suits. Over 700 of those were successful, indicating that 700 women were in fact raped 20 years or more ago, and had enough evidence to prove it happened for the purposes of a civil trial. Over 1000 of those are still going forward. Three other people who were prosecuted under this act were Trump, Bill Cosby and Diddy Combs. Someone who you have perhaps heard of is Mariska Hargitay of Law and Order SVU. She was raped 25 years ago and didn't tell anyone about it until about a year back. She wrote an essay about the experience, in which she said something very relevant - "Sexual violence persists not because of something unchangeable in our human condition, it exists because power structures are in place that allow it to happen." Such as the power wielded by celebrities, producers and presidents. https://people.com/mariska-hargitay-experience-rape-renewal-reckoning-8424247 Harvey Weinstein sexually assaulted a dozen actresses and raped three of them, most of them over 20 years ago. Most of these women did not come forward until 2017, when the New York Times published an article describing some of them. Weinstein had so much power over their careers that they dared not come forward, for fear that they would be blacklisted. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-41580010 So no, it's not sus. It's not even that unusual.

So why are you accusing anyone of awful reading comprehension for taking that at face value? You said you don’t care, he shared his opinion of you not caring, you attacked him for falsely claiming you don’t care, and now have explicitly reiterated that you do in fact.., not care. So what’s your damn problem?

Two juries believed them, and it wasn’t because the media told them to. Outside of that, a huge number of people believe them, and a lot of them voted for him anyway. They’re extremely believable, mostly because Trumps own description of what he does to women exactly matches what he did to her. Again, you’re having to resort to the pretence that Carroll and her own story in her own words doesn’t exist. Just like you were lying when you said the prosecutors invented the charges, you’re lying when you say the media invented the story. It’s a good indication that you know you’re in a very uncomfortable position defending him on this.

I've been troubled with this reply and trying to sort out what to say. The idea that 10-11 million people might be wrenched from their lives, undocumented or not, and the invariable large number of innocents who will be swept up as well doesn't bother you just doesn't sit with me. These people are your fellow human beings and having fellow human beings is what makes any sort of society possible. Fortunately your callous disregard for your fellow humans being deported has little chance of happening. I guess that is what makes me weak: I could never vote for anyone who held such a view no matter the advantage I might gain.

Huh....as far as sport skydiving goes Canada is far more free from government interference in gear regulation. Basically except for demo jumps there are no gear laws here. None. Just CSPA rules that are not really enforceable. Stick that in your freedom pipe and smoke it.