BSR

Do you know where a mass shooting has never happened? In schools that allow their teachers to conceal carry. 272 TX school districts have adopted concealed programs, and 28 states have adopted the program to varying degrees. Not a single mass shooting (or even an individual shooting) during school hours. Sorry, again, just responding to your post. Please return to the subject of crime and tourist safety in Brazil.

I will never understand why the so-called "experts" lump together gun murders with gun suicides. Murder is a crime problem whereas suicide is a mental health problem. Eliminating guns will not stop people from committing suicide. Most will find another means. The few who don't will fall into an abyss: drugs, alcohol, depression, all of the above. Japan, where individual gun ownership is extremely rare, has a higher suicide rate than the US. The US does not have gun violence problem. We have a drug warfare problem and a gun suicide problem. If you factor out those 2 causes of gun death, the US has a gun murder rate comparable to Belgium. I provided all the links & stats in another (now deleted) thread, but nobody bothered to read them. Hopefully you'll understand why I lack motivation to do it all over again. To solve the drug warfare problem, the US could do what Bukele did in El Salvador: build a massive prison and lock all the narcos up. Whaddya know, the murder rate plummeted from a shocking 103 per 100,000 in 2015 to just 7.8 per 100K in 2022. For 2023 year to date ( 1/1-9/3), the murder rate dropped to an eye-poppingly low 2.3 per 100K.

If you make a claim like that, back it up with some evidence. Otherwise, it's just your personal opinion.

Honestly, my brain short-circuits a bit when I hear Ben Shelton referred to as black because his black father (mom's white) is the spitting image of one of my uncles, who is Filipino with a bit of Chinese blood. I have to think his dad Bryan is at least part Asian. Anyway, I suspect that Bryan & Lisa Shelton are some of the nicest people in tennis, or anywhere for that matter. They grew close and fell in love, sadly, when Bryan's best friend/Lisa's brother Todd was dying of brain cancer. Todd Witsken is famous for upsetting Jimmy Connors in the 3rd round of the 1986 US Open, the first time since 1973 that Connors failed to reach the semifinals. Todd was also legendary for being one of the all-time nicest human beings ever to grace the sport. I'm guessing his sister and best friend are very much like him. Dad Bryan also played pro, reaching a career-high ranking of #55 and winning 2 ATP titles, but his greatest accomplishments are arguably as a coach. He led both a women's and a men's team to Division 1 national championships, the only college tennis coach ever to do so. He quit his job at UFlorida to coach his son, and Ben's improvement since Dad joined the team in June has been impressive. I'm not always a fan of having a parent as coach (cases in point: Coco Gauff & Stefanos Tsitsipas), but Ben is in very good hands. Who's gonna win their semifinal? Ben hits with monster power, like 149 mph serves (a "big" serve is anything 124+ mph) and 107 mph forehands (90+ mph is considered a "big" forehand), but I gotta go with Novak. The man's won 23 Grand Slams (the men's record) for a damn good reason: he chews up Big Bang players like Ben for breakfast. But applying Joaquín Andújar's baseball wisdom to tennis ... you can sum up tennis in one word: you never know.

I googled intentional homicide rates in the US and Brazil, because your claim about the safety of big cities in the 2 countries just didn't sound right. In 2020 the murder rate in Brazil was 22.38 per 100,000; in 2022 it was 23.3 per 100K. In the US in 2020 & 2021 the murder rate was 6.42 & 6.81 respectively per 100K (couldn't find 2022 data). As for mass shootings, it's a bit tricky because the definition of "mass shooting" varies. As for your feeling of being unsafe at an LGBT event, your personal anecdote is not evidence, as @Marc in Calif will politely explain.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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°.

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?

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!

¡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.

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.

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

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.