BSR

9 hours ago, seattlebottom said:

It's a travel warning not an evacuation order.  Reading comprehension is a thing 😉.

Any documentation that blacks & gays have stopped traveling to Florida?  The professional victims keep screeching, but blacks & gays keep visiting.  Funny how that works.

16 hours ago, Rudynate said:

The NAACP has issued a travel advisory for people of color and LGBTQ people.  If that didn't make you think about leaving Florida, I don't know what would. 

Ho hum, politics as usual.  No matter how loudly professional victims screech, the rest of the world just ignores them. 

Actions speak louder than words.  Any documentation of gays & blacks leaving Florida en masse?   No, of course not, because these warnings are all just empty rhetoric.

10 hours ago, Lookin said:

Still unclear on what exactly did the pediatric cardiologist do to earn disapproval and not be welcome?  What majority wanted him to 'Just go.'?

The pediatric cardiologist didn't do anything, but conversely it sounds like the state or community didn't do anything to him either.  He simply didn't like the politics.

When he became politically active, his high profile triggered "hate mail."  Mind you, every political activist is subjected to hate.  Every conservative I follow on social media gets death threats on a daily basis.  As for the messages he got pleading for him to find Jesus, pffft, I can't believe he let that get to him.  Just buy a shredder and giggle as you feed in one "fires of Hell" letter after the other.

You don't have to move to Chelsea or West Hollywood to find a gay-friendly spot.  I grew up in Kansas City, which trust me, was not the least bit gay-friendly in the 70s & 80s (very few places were).  But I've since met plenty of gays currently living in KC who just love it -- big gay community, such nice friendly people, both gay & straight -- with a cost of living that pretty much everyone can afford, even cheaper than Austin TX!

At 0:52 in this video, you can see Jenni Hermoso and her teammates shrieking with laughter later in the locker room over the kiss.  Do you see any discomfort on Hermoso's face?  Not even a speck.

Then the Spanish women's soccer team partied like maniacs in Ibiza for 3 days.  Any reports from teammates that Jenni looked upset, sad, confused, or disturbed ... the signs of someone who has suffered what she later realized was a low-level sexual assault?  Nope, not a single one.

Only after Irene Montero, Spain's Minister of Equality, contacted Hermoso did Hermoso start changing her story.  Irene Montero had been under fire for pushing through the new "Sólo sí es sí" law, which was supposed to protect victims of sexual violence but as an unintended consequence freed 103 convicts and reduced the sentences of 978 others due to a loophole.  Spaniards were outraged over the law, and many called on Montero to resign.  But the outrage over the freed rapists has disappeared from the headlines because all everyone is talking about is the Rubiales-Hermoso "scandal."  How beautifully convenient for Montero.

10 hours ago, augustus said:

She realized she was supposed to be offended once someone told her. 

Jenni Hermoso changed her story twice.  From the first version I posted earlier to the final "I am a viiiiiiictiiiiiiiim!" version.  Don't know what the intermediate version was.

2 hours ago, augustus said:

Anyone who objectively watches the video The Kiss will see that it was given in a moment of complete euphoria, in full public view, lasted one second and nothing else happened.  What is wrong with people?  

Women, don't complain when men are no longer spontaneous and appear afraid of you.  Your sisters are to blame.  And when you become miserable Old Maids, well ha ha ha.

The feminists in Spain are foaming at the mouth over Rubiales' alleged "sexual violence" yet have chosen to remain conspicuously silent about ...

• All cases in which illegal immigrants rape, torture, and/or kill women and underage girls
• Monica Oltra, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Equality, who allegedly covered up her ex-husband's sexual abuse of an underage girl
• A group of underage girls in government foster care who were exploited as prostitutes

How heartwarming that Spanish feminists have their priorities in order.

If you have no evidence or arguments, good thing you can always fall back on the eyeroll emoji.

While the castrating harridans try to whip this up into a case of monstrous sexual violation, Jenni Hermoso (the woman kissed) in her declaration to the governing bodies describes the act as:

... “gesto natural de cariño y agradecimiento”. ”Ha sido un gesto mutuo totalmente espontáneo por la alegría inmensa que da ganar un Mundial. El presi y yo tenemos una gran relación, su comportamiento con todas nosotras ha sido de diez y fue un gesto natural de cariño y agradecimiento. No se puede dar más vueltas a un gesto de amistad y gratitud, hemos ganado un Mundial y no vamos a desviarnos de lo importante."

Irene Montero, the Minister of Equality (yes, such a position exists in Spain), is under fire for making a federal case out of the Rubiales kiss because she has remained conspicuously silent about recent rape cases in which the perpetrators were illegal immigrants.  Her outrage is bafflingly selective.

Free speech means not only freedom to say what you believe but also freedom from being coerced to say something you disagree with.  If the 3 players were simply sat out for a game, no penalty or loss of salary, then I'm OK with it.  But if the 3 players were hurt in any way for voicing their disagreement, that is a horrible wrong.

The victimhood industry in Spain is exploding with outrage over the kiss even though the alleged "victim" doesn't appear even slightly bothered by the kiss (open the tweet in X & click translate at the bottom to read in English).

I found a hidden gem on Netflix, The Crimes That Bind, a movie about a well-to-do woman whose live-in housekeeper commits a heinous crime.  Of course, things are not as they appear.  Terrific actors and a strong script, I really enjoyed it.

2 hours ago, Lucky said:

I lost the main tree in the front yard. Cost of removal?

$900!!!!!

Is it a black walnut tree?  If so, furniture makers will actually pay you big bucks to take the tree away.  But if it's a boring dime-a-dozen oak, you're sh*t outta luck.

Hurricane Hillary was a total bust in Las Vegas, phew!  The heavy rains all passed to the west of us.  At 11pm Sunday, when the rain was supposed to be heaviest, it wasn't raining at all.  The pleasant consequence of Hillary is that it brought beautiful cool weather for a few days, 70s & 80s, when the normal highs are 108-110°.

5 hours ago, Just966 said:

Canada has great seasons. Summer although short is beautiful and something to look forward to. Fall and spring are nice changes of season with decent weather and gorgeous colors in the fall and new life springing forth in spring. Winter is absolutely beautiful with crisp clean air, landscapes covered in fluffy snow and the chance to x-country ski in that crisp cold air even when -30 c. Below that we just tend to hunker down and enjoy indoor activities for a few days in front of a nice fire in the fireplace. Would hate to live somewhere without four very distinct seasons.  And this is at the edge of the boreal forest and the plains in the middle of Canada. Can't be beat!

If you don't plan to or can't move, then you have to tell yourself that the weather is great, even if it isn't.  

In Boston, tons of people wear shorts whenever the temperature reaches 50°.  Mind you, wearing shorts isn't really comfortable at 50°, but it's a coping mechanism, "hey, the weather's not that bad - you can wear shorts 6 months of the year!"

If Canadian winters are so wonderful, why do zillions of Canadian snowbirds flock to warm climates in the winter?

5 minutes ago, Marc in Calif said:

The plural of anecdote is not evidence. 🙄

Apparently you can't be bothered with context.  I was responding to @KeepItReal's claim that San Francisco was just fine and that he knew that because he had visited a few times.  I even concede later in my post that this was just one woman's experience. 

Funny how you had no problem with his anecdote.

PS:  have you gone on the Doom Loop Walking Tour yet?  It sounds like hella fun!

How can a city with a $14.6 billion annual budget be a model of urban decay? How can it spend $776.8 million per year on police and have no rule of law to show for it? How can it spend $690 million on homeless services and receive an official United Nations condemnation for its treatment of the homeless ("cruel and inhuman"; "violation of multiple human rights")?

The first time I felt old was at 34yo.  The supermarket had a big sign posted that for alcohol purchases all shoppers who appear under 40 must show photo ID - no exceptions.  I was getting my driver's license ready when the cashier (who looked like a teenager) just told me the total, without asking for ID.  I was going to complain to the manager, but this was a couple of decades before the Karen phenomenon.

Gotta love the entrepreneurial spirit!  From the NY Post:  ""A local guide now offers a “Downtown Doom Loop Walking Tour,” to “start at City Hall, and continue through Mid-Market, the Tenderloin, and Union Square. We will view the open-air drug markets, the abandoned tech offices, the outposts of the nonprofit industrial complex, and the deserted department stores."

I haven't visited San Francisco since 2010, but this really makes me want to go back!

9 hours ago, ThroatCummer said:

I had originally created the @Statham anonymous account to unlink the topic here from my posting history. But seeing as I fucked that up accessing Companyofmen from my phone that had a stored login for this account, that went tits up. So here we are. 

We have a date in 2024. He just took me home to Cartagena, Colombia to meet his family two weeks ago, which was a lot with my new conversational only Spanish. I'll be fluent in a few months, no sweat. You can read "Our Story" here along with "Moments" for a ton of pictures here:

www.vivirenelmomento.com  (Live In The Moment)

As part of the "Our Story" we mentioned meeting through a common friend on Instagram. That is only half the story, we aren't ready to share the entire thing just yet. Truth is the 'common friend' was an escort here in Boston that I met with a bunch of times who is his ex-boyfriend of four years. They were broken up but I did follow him on Instagram and I did see a picture of him at dinner here in Boston, and I did text the escort friend who posted it and asked who he was. Jose (my other half) came over that night and never left. lol. 

I'm also not worried about giving that site out here and disclosing the location/date. Given what I do in the real world for work, I have security on lock for the events of that day. Nobody is getting near the wedding. 😎

He still does escorting on the side. It's amazing extra money and he also has a full time job.  He uses it mostly to send money back to his family in Cartagena for random things like a new refrigerator which they recently needed.  I don't mind it, in fact he's really good. Also many clients hire for non-sexual reasons like companionship, dinner, movies, talk, whatever. Not having to do it full time because he has other work, he can afford to be selective with the clients and "jobs" he takes -- e.g., not doing anything he truly doesn't want or isn't of interest.  That will probably change when we have kids in a year or two but it works for now. 

He is 9 months older than me. He's 46 and I am 45, although it doesn't look that way. We fight over who's the actual daddy in the relationship. He thinks he is because he's older. I know I am able because of the gray hair. 

I've also worked through all the questions on the site. Many parts of the story can be read on the wedding site above. I've figured out the answers to all my questions with his help. It works. 

¡Enhorabuena!  Your wedding website is lovely.  Never thought I'd want to crash a total stranger's wedding, LOL.  From "érase una vez" -> a Rentmen twist -> "fueron felices y comieron perdices," your story is a 21st century gay fairytale.

16 hours ago, KeepItReal said:

I call bullshit.  I have been to San Francisco multiple times the past year. Staying in hotels in various areas around downtown...Chinatown, Union Square, Mission District. Went outside and walked to restaurants after dark, used the subway system, jogged outside. Never ONCE did I feel unsafe. 

A bigger concern was those damn steep hills. Walking from the financial district, up hill, to the InterContinental Mark Hopkins after work is quite the workout.  Especially if you have to do it again later, after a multi course work dinner and a few bottles of wine. 

Don't believe everything you read. Go see for yourself.

You say San Francisco is perfectly safe (or as safe as any big city can be) because you've been there a few times recently whereas what I read & see on the Internet is wrong because I haven't been visited (well, not since 2010).  Sure you wanna go with that?

That was your experience.  Hey, good for you.  I lived in NYC from 1984-87 and routinely walked home or took the subway at 4-5am (because I was too poor to afford cabfare, LOL).  I never came close to getting mugged or assaulted.  I can't say I felt perfectly safe on the subway during those hours, but I never felt threatened either.  Does that mean NYC back then was a safe city? Oh, heck no!  The crime statistics prove that NYC was a rather unsafe city in the mid-80s.  I was just lucky.

I recently saw an interview with a 20-year SF resident who moved for a number reasons, crime being a big one.  Even though she lived in a good neighborhood (she was a top exec at a Fortune 100 company), her car was broken into 5 times in 5 months.  She saw open drug use and needles in the streets.  Is she right because she lived there whereas you're wrong because you just visited?  Not necessarily because again it's just 1 person's experience.

Just as @jessmapex argues that conservative media likes to paint a dark picture of San Francisco to demonize the city's politics, I have to think the opposite is true with some forum members, that they are minimizing the city's very serious problems, again, because of politics.

10 hours ago, jessmapex said:

The homeless drug users and the mentally ill in the city is a very small and insignificant part of the equation that has been exaggerated by the conservative media to portray progressive policies as the devil. 

I didn't realize that the San Francisco Chronicle was conservative media.  Thanks for the heads up.

15 hours ago, KeepItReal said:

Consider: she is a crime reporter.  As the expression goes: to a person with a hammer ever problem looks like a nail.

"Megan Cassidy is a crime reporter with The Chronicle, also covering cops, criminal justice issues and mayhem. Previously, Cassidy worked for the Arizona Republic covering Phoenix police, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and desert-area crime and mayhem."

 

Fair enough, but is anything she reported in the above article untrue?  The San Francisco mayor, district attorney, and many members of this forum bend over backward to sing the city's praises and minimize the crime, homelessness, and drug use.  At least we have someone reporting the less-than-rosey happenings so that we get the whole truth.  A partial truth is still a lie.

On 6/21/2023 at 5:47 PM, nate_sf said:

We locals are bewildered by all this negative national coverage. Yes there are problems but the media is going out of its way to paint a dire picture, and it just ain’t so. It is not dangerous here, and the vast majority of the city looks great.

Maybe not where you live and hang out, but elsewhere ...

"Workers at San Francisco's Federal Building located on 7th and Mission streets are reportedly being advised to work from home due to safety concerns over crime."

(I couldn't link the original SF Chronicle article because it's paywalled.)

Uh, you must be new to the carpool ...

4 hours ago, Unicorn said:

No, but that doesn't mean anyone can pitch a tent anywhere he pleases, nor shoot up in the streets, start fires due to unsafe living situations, ignore basic sanitation, etc.

Actually, a homeless person in San Francisco can shoot up and ignore basic sanitation (i.e., poop on the sidewalk).  It might not be exactly legal, but they certainly won't get arrested or fined for doing so.

44 minutes ago, marylander1940 said:

Nearby states lure homeless with food to move to California, homeless should be locked up and treated.

Shipping the homeless away is a trick done all over.  NYC did it in 2009 and on a much larger scale in 2019.  Part of the rationale was to send them to places with a lower cost of living, yet the city sent some homeless to Hawaii where the rents are insane.

Also, homelessness isn't a crime.  You can't lock people up for being homeless, even if it's "for their own good."

I recently saw an interesting interview with a homeless advocate.  He works in LA, not SF, but I'm it's true everywhere.  He said that many assume that the homeless lost their housing because they have a drug problem, but he said many women become addicts after becoming homeless. 

Virtually 100% of homeless women get raped.  Many turn to drugs to numb the trauma of rape, and many get addicted to meth to help them stay awake and walking around all night, when the risk of getting raped is higher.  He didn't have numbers or studies to back this up, just his personal experience, but I can see how it happens.