scoobdog

Happy Birthday!

Is it because he showed less interest?

I don't usually bother with you because you're disingenuous as all get out, but... It's objective fact that attacking soft, non military targets is not fighting for liberation. Even if you're stupid enough to believe that Hamas fighters didn't engage in rape or torture in at least the same degree as the IDF is now being investigated for, you can't ignore the fact that terroristic operations are incompatible with freedom fighting operations for multitude of reasons, including: An operation that results in civilian casualties can only result in retaliation and/or increased governmental control. You don't stop bleeding by letting your heart pump the wound dry, you stop it by compression. Terrorism has never, historically, resulted in compliance. To the contrary, it tends to radicalize establishment participants in a way that increases divisions and results in a greater burden for the separatist faction. (If you want an example, look no further than the nearly century long struggle of the Irish Republican Army and the impediments it created for Ireland.) When retaliation inevitably does happen, the consequential collateral damage will almost certainly disproportionately affect the disenfranchised side. The October 7th massacre wasn't just a tragedy for the innocent Israeli civilians, it was a tragedy for the Palestinians who took the brunt of the retaliation even before the IDF entered into ghastly war of attrition. The independence movement doesn't have the infrastructure of the establishment so they will, naturally, suffer higher casualty rates should the establishment respond in kind to an attack. in short, an "army of the palestinian people" doesn't sabotage their own people for no appreciable gain. Let's call the Oct 7 attackers what they are - anarchists who are putting their own (if justified) anger above the cause they're fighting for.

I wonder where Mark Kelly came in on this, not that Tim Walz isn't the best possible choice..

Painful poops are no joke, bro.

It's Distortedreasoning. Basically, he's from the Demoncrat school of thought where Biden and Democrats are just as evil as Trump and his hard right racist fanboys.

This speaks to my comments about the arbitrary nature of athletics. Theoretically, any human being should be able to compete against anyone in his or her species because sport doesn't just measure training, it also measures inherent gifts.

Finally! I have internet. This is kind of a stupid take. Setting aside the fact that the biological process creates non standard iterations, you have no real reason to designate the gender of someone else. You don't treat a woman differently than a man because she's a woman, you address issues specific to her and use gender as way to guide a response. It's for that reason the medical community does, in fact, acknowledge that biological males and females are not singular genders. The problem is that gender isn't a "scientific" designation, it's a wholly social one. It's a way to classify human beings with those who share similar attributes so they can function as a social unit. A gay man doesn't need to be only amongst other gay men, but announcing himself as such allows him the opportunity to work with other gay men to solve functional issues. At the same time, he doesn't have the right to determine who is gay and who isn't; he only needs to know who is gay as a pretext to interact with them. This is all to say that a biological male can be a woman because the social concept of gender identifies that possibility. I'm not saying a bogus test by discredited and derelict boxing federation should be given any credence, just that it's irrelevant what a persons biological makeup is when determining who is or is not a woman.

There are no degrees in civilian massacres. Clear enough?

You had me until the whole “EU could pitch in to help” thing. As to the OP, this ties into the Caster Semenya controversy that never quite went away. The IBA is a disgraced organization so it’s “failed gender test” rubric can easily be dismissed as corrupt, but the issue of arbitrarily (since there is no scientific study to back it) deciding what a woman should look like, what her genetic code is, or what her body should produce is as intransigent as it is insidious. The problem isn’t so much with the Olympics or even people: the concept of sport is itself fundamentally flawed. It tries to create a level playing field in a space occupied by people who have genetic advantages.

@Blackrose321 The same happens to me, but I don’t have to contend with the isolation you were dealing with so it’s not nearly as bad. Very few people will ever listen the whole way through, even when you’re making genial conversation. It’s not always self centered, though it usually boils down to that, and that makes it really hard when you’re trying to express yourself. People just seem to have a hard time processing other people’s emoting because they don’t have the ability to identify with anyone other than themselves. I’m sorry you have to deal with it.

Happy Birthday, dude.

The fact you tried to apply logic to something completely made up makes it all the more absurd.

Who else?

MG got Shadow a new cat friend, I believe.

Isn't it funny that the family of hostage victims in attendance aren't as bullish on Netanyahu as you are? Well, no it isn't.

Happy Birthday, Dude.

I don't know how you do it.

Now I get why you’re so fervent. If I lived in Georgia, I think I would lose my mind too.

At least you're eligible for unemployment... I think. But. now that means you have to get on COBRA. That sucks man.

So, while watching Akane Recaps on YouTube (because Scoob likes to cheer with the rest of Alabama) I got bombarded with Kamala Harris ads. She's going hard for the weebs right out of the gate, and I like it.

Brings me to my unpopular opinion.... I wouldn't even suggest that this was a ploy from the beginning because of how a lot of things out of his control had to line up perfectly, but at least part of Biden's political calculations was that he had until the convention to go as far as he could go before really knowing whether or not he was going to win. He could push himself as a candidate for a year and a half, drawing the lunacy of Donald Trump for that entire time, even participate in a presidential debate; by the time the convention rolled around, he would know if he had a chance. There's a lot of risk in this strategy and it all centers on Trump being the inept and stupid pants shitter he is. Realistically, I think Biden was really really lucky. Ultimately, the risky and ill advised gamble payed off handsomely. Trump even weathered a pathetic assassination attempt before Biden had the opportunity to step aside for Harris, and it all payed off in spades. The Dems not only sucked the air out of Trump's assassination, they put a wet blanket on his "convention bump" and completely soured his poor choice of a running mate. Harris has improbably built up momentum before she even sets foot on the convention floor, and somehow reinvigorated a moribund campaign by simply being a vibrant and articulate alternative to Joe Biden. This isn't saying much, of course. This is only the start of the campaign and Harris has to really hit the gas before the convention even though she's locked up the delegates she needs. Which means, to answer your question, we had enough time to do all of this and still come out with momentum and consequently the election cycle has been far too long. In the amount of time leading up to the Republican convention, Trump has pretty much completely gone through is playbook before knowing who he would actually face. Having to campaign of that long set him up for this kind of switch, just as it gave time for the Democrats to boost Harris from behind the scenes without anyone else really catching wind of it.

It most certainly is, especially since the generation boundaries become more arbitrary the further we get from WWII.

Ghosty, that’s not normal for anywhere including Houston. It’s a result of the nearly month long power outage in South Texas that has resulted in exposure deaths.

Interestingly, both of those are waning autocrats. Xi, of course, is still the most potent world leader, but his grasp of a personal cult is slipping. He doesn’t have the same leeway to act unilaterally as Putin has, which means he could benefit from a favorable reset in a relationship with the US. Putin has nowhere to go; he can only hold out as long as possible.