BSR

Just now, Coolwave35 said:

He did say AI wrote it because he was new to the site and didn’t know what to say. 

He lost me at "in the dance of life."

36 minutes ago, Luv2play said:

No he’s not. He asserting Israel’s desire to drive out the Palestinians, which is genocide by any other name. The court in The Hague will decide on that issue. 

Drive out Palestinians??  Just googled it, 1.6 million Palestinians are living in Israel as Israeli citizens.  Palestinians (10 currently) even hold seats in Knesset, Israel's parliament.  If Netanyahu is trying to drive Palestinians out of Israel, he's failing spectacularly.

32 minutes ago, Luv2play said:

Now Netanyahu is saying Israel from Jordon to the sea. Seems like he is rather enamoured of that Palestinian slogan so he adopted it himself.

The difference, of course, is that when Netanyahu says "from the river to the sea," he is affirming Israel's right to exist whereas when Palestinians say it, they are calling for the mass-murder of Jews.

41 minutes ago, Km411 said:

Wrong; it’s use requires context (further validating Gay’s response):

“The phrase was popularised in the 1960s as part of a wider call for Palestinian liberation creating a democratic state freeing Palestinians from living under Israel.[6] In the 1960s, the PLO used it to call for a democratic secular state encompassing the entirety of mandatory Palestine, which was initially stated to only include the Palestinians and the descendants of Jewswho had lived in Palestine before 1947, although this was later revised to only include descendants of Jewswho had lived in Palestine before the first Aliyah[7] The 1964 charter of the Palestine National Council (PNC) demanded "the recovery of the usurped homeland in its entirety".[8] Thus, by 1969, "Free Palestine from the river to the sea" came to mean[to whom?] one democratic secular state that would supersede the ethno-religious state of Israel".[9]

Palestinian progressives use the phrase to call for a united democracy over the whole territory[10] while others say "it's a call for peace and equality after ... decades-long, open-ended Israeli military rule over millions of Palestinians."[11]

Islamist militant faction Hamas used the phrase in its 2017 charter. Its use by such Palestinian militant groups has led critics to argue that it implicitly advocates for the dismantling of Israel, and a call for the removal or extermination of the Jewish population of the region.[9][11]”

—Wikipedia

Whatever the chant meant back in the 1960s is irrelevant.  All that matters is what it means today.  As you point out, the phrase was coined by Hamas, who very clearly states both in word and deed that it calls for the extermination of the Jews.  This chant, this call for genocide, is what Gay allowed to be openly and freely expressed at Harvard.

Harvard did the right thing when it forced/pressured Gay to resign, although it is a disgrace that it took so long.  It's also a disgrace that this nonscholar will be collecting $900,000 as a "professor," but that's another debate.

11 hours ago, Luv2play said:

Calling for the end of the Israeli state could be interpreted as calling for a single state solution rather than two state solution. The government of Israel has rejected both solutions as it would require them to give up settlements in the West Bank and grant statehood to Gaza and the West Bank in the latter case and face having Jews in Israel becoming the minority in the former case. 
 

Israel rejecting outright the two state solution is a new development and we’ll see how the US deals with it. 

70% of Palestinians in Gaza support Hamas, the terrorist group that wants to kill all Jews.  How selfish of Israeli Jews to shut out people who want to mass-murder them.  Any way you cut it, the "From the river to the sea (in other words, the elimination of Israel), Palestine will be free" chant is a call for genocide of Jews. 

2 hours ago, Km411 said:

Also, pro-Palestinian students did not call for the genocide of Jews, they called for an end to the Israeli state. There’s a difference. One could debate whether such statements are protected free speech, which underscores the need to consider the context in applying rules against bullying and harassment.

That is disgustingly disingenuous.  The "end of the Israeli state" is a thinly disguised way of calling for the genocide of the Jews because the only way to eliminate the state of Israel would be to kill all the Jews who live there.

8 hours ago, Luv2play said:

Government policy is to make fossil fuels more expensive so people will be encouraged to switch to climate friendlier sources of energy.

When you say energy rich, I assume you are talking about fossil fuels. And they are destroying the planet. So it’s an enlightened policy.

What’s outrageous is continuing to burn fossil fuels heedlessly without regard to the future. Your kids and grandkids will curse our generation if we leave them an uninhabitable planet. 

"destroying the planet" ... then why do hundreds of climate-change activists always travel to all these environmental conferences on their private jets?  Maybe because climate activists care only about control over the world's economies.  Climate? meh, not so much.

Some people have to choose between heating their homes and buying groceries.  The Very Important People who fly private have no idea how painful that is, and they certainly don't care.

8 hours ago, Km411 said:

She lost her post the moment she was asked to testify; it was a shameful set-up and few if any could have navigated the bad faith successfully

Because there is so much to unpack with your post, I'll take on just one point for now.  As much as I'd like to respond to all of them, I doubt I'll have the energy or motivation. 

Elise Stefanik did have a tough question waiting for Gay, but Gay's response to the easy question ("Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules on bullying and harassment?”) left Stefanik so flabbergasted that she never got to ask the "set-up" question:  "What are you going to do about it?"  That was the question Stefanik expected Gay to fumble because the first question is a no-brainer, as evidenced by Gay's retraction days later.

Forget the hearing, Gay's fate was sealed when for much too long she allowed calls for genocide of Jews to be expressed openly and freely at Harvard.  The hearing was simply the forum that made very public Gay's failure.  Pray tell, in what possible context (it all depends on the context, according to Gay) is the call for mass-murdering all gays/blacks/Muslims/or even redheads protected by free speech?  Any university president that allowed such calls for genocide of those other groups would be fired instantly, yet it took a House hearing to hold Gay accountable.  

I binged Berlín last week -- loved it!  Berlín was my (everyone's?) favorite character from Money Heist, so much so that they gave him his own series.  Who knew that a sadistic psychopath could be so lovable??

Berlín is quite different in tone from Money Heist, much more tongue-in-cheek humor, plenty of laugh-out-loud moments before & even during the edge-of-your-seat suspense.  Also, the prequel takes place before the protagonist is ¡spoiler alert! diagnosed with his terminal illness and shows a far more human and humane protagonist.

The supporting cast is fantastic.  Berlín assembles a motley crew to pull off a magnificent jewel heist, €44 million of jewelry from an auction house, and the chemistry of the ensemble cast is simply perfect.  A very pleasant surprise was newbie Joel Sanchez, a model turned actor.  When I heard this was his first acting gig, I thought, "uh oh, pretty but wooden," but he was terrific, totally held his own against decades-in-the-biz veterans Pedro Alonso, Tristan Ulloa, and Michelle Jenner.

Alicia and Raquel are the only other two characters brought in from the Money Heist cast.  Because Berlín was made years after MH yet supposedly takes place years before, you have to forgive the cognitive dissonance of the actors looking years older despite playing characters years younger.  The ending leaves the door wide open for many more seasons of Berlín.  I'm crossing my fingers hard for a Season 2.  Maybe they can negotiate a group rate from a good surgeon, LOL

"An ongoing arrangement is ideal, too."

Maybe he's quoting a high rate -- $600 sounds high, even for a big market like LA -- more to find a sugardaddy.

I love winter because I get to sleep in the cold, ~50°, huddled under the thickest down comforter I could find on the Internet.  I love breathing in the cold air while I'm toasty warm under the covers.  While awake, I set the thermostat at 55° and wear a long-sleeve T + sweatshirt.

Because winters are relatively mild in Las Vegas, I can get almost all my heat from my downstairs neighbor (I wonder what his heating bill is).  The big exception is when I take a shower.  I turn on a space heater to make the bathroom nice & toasty so that I don't turn into an icicle upon exiting the shower.

On 1/6/2024 at 10:45 AM, samhexum said:

This was long enough ago that they actually let me in with it, & off I went...

I still can't believe they let you into Yankee Stadium with a full pan of baked ziti.  Just how long ago was this?  Were the Dodgers still in Brooklyn??

Gotta click on the link because X doesn’t let this tweet be embedded.  Trust me, it's worth the bother ...

https://twitter.com/AtPhotness/status/1745162666673402220?t=YurGaahslVApvQuMBhovcA&s=19

10 hours ago, pubic_assistance said:

Today, many Universities teach WHAT to think, not HOW to think.

Unfortunately, this disgrace plagues every level of education, from preschool to university.  Narcissists who don't give a sh*t about their students because they care only about themselves ram narratives down kids' throats, and the difference between an A+ & a D- is simply how well the student parrots back what the so-called teacher wants to hear.  Sadder still is that society applauds these grotesquely selfish narcissists simply because they are called teachers.

We all know people who work in a field totally different from their college major.  I know an art history major who works as a transportation consultant, a PhD in anthropology who became a McKinsey partner, a Wharton finance major who ended up as a fine art buying agent, etc.  These people succeeded in fields very different from their major because they learned HOW to think.

Contrast that with the poor bastard who only learns WHAT to think.  Put them in an unfamiliar situation, and they're completely lost because they never learned critical thought.  The narratives & ideologies they learned in college might make them feel good (there is no chic like victim chic), but I wouldn't hire them to sharpen pencils.

5 hours ago, augustus said:

This analysis is shocking and speaks volumes about what really is happening.  Things are not well!

Not really an analysis, more just telling the whole story.  I started noticing that month after month the government would publish a stellar jobs report with great fanfare, only to very quietly revise it downward a week later.

The film sounds great, but intense.  I plan on watching at some point, but it might take me a while to ready myself first.

12 hours ago, EZEtoGRU said:

Let's get back to facts and the real world.  The December jobs report came in today and blew past expectations indicating that the US economy remains strong and resilient. there is no recession in sight.   Facts actually do matter.

Some facts about that rosey jobs report ...

1 hour ago, caramelsub said:

A couple of people here mentioned Joan Rivers wasn’t as mean as Kathy Griffin. But Joan Rivers made some nasty jokes as well. Mainly fat jokes towards women celebrities, such as Oprah and Adele. I don’t ever remember Kathy calling a woman fat. Probably because she stated she has overcome an eating disorder before. She even defended Britney in her 2007 vma performance when people were calling her fat. I love Joan’s humor as well, but she was no angel either.

Kathy Griffin ridiculed Bristol Palin for being fat.

1 hour ago, samhexum said:

 

 

Now Fresno is losing its TGIFridays.  What are local gourmets to do?

If the Fresno Olive Garden closes, put me on suicide watch.

18 minutes ago, Coolwave35 said:

Why can’t they both be groundbreaking, pioneering, true friends and advocates? 

Yeah, of course they can both be.  I just think that Joan Rivers deserves an extra shiny gold star for being a friend to the gays way back in the Sixties (note that Griffin was born in 1960), before Stonewall when doing so was much riskier.

I'm not trying to make things a contest.  Just pointing out that the world was far more gay-hostile in the 1960s than in the 1990s, when Griffin began her career.

The 2008 recession was caused by a crisis of subprime lending.  Banks lent $billions to unqualified buyers who (surprise!) couldn't make good on the loans.  This time, I think the recession will be sparked by a crisis in commercial lending. 

Left, right & center, real estate companies are giving up on commercial properties, leaving banks with $millions unpaid and commercial properties worth a fraction of their initial selling or development price (sound familiar?).  Unlike the 30-year fixed mortgage on the residential side, commercial real estate loans have variable interest.  The increases in the prime lending rate have resulted in many foreclosures.  The high vacancy rate (work from home, pandemic aftermath) means even more foreclosures.

As much as you hear about a "soft landing," I have grave doubts.  If the powers-that-be do pull off a soft landing, it'll be a miracle.  So here's to praying for a miracle.

Craving another guilty pleasure, I started watching High Heat, a Mexican telenovela about a team of firefighters.  Unfortunately, it failed to match the trashy heights (depths?) of Fake Profile, my fave guilty pleasure to date on Netflix.

Sure, the firefighters are handsome & sexy, but the series came off like it was written & directed by high school students.  The gay storyline in particular annoyed me because it was as predictable as a New Year's Eve countdown.  Even worse, the gay couple was limited to a few kisses, no full-on gay sex scenes (plenty of straight sex scenes, mind you) like you see in quality trash (yes, there is such a thing) like Élite seasons 1-5.  Maybe the writers knew that a Mexican audience would be OK with a gay couple, but not gay sex.

Venezuelan model-turned-actor Antonio Sotillo was my favorite fireman.  This guy needs to do a lot more nude scenes in the future.  But pretty as he is, even he can't make High Heat worth watching.  Well, he does show off his spectacular ass a couple of times, so ...

3 hours ago, Coolwave35 said:

I think she’s a comedic genius, laugh out loud hilarious Guinness world record holding comedian and a true friend and advocate for the gay community. She was on our side from the beginning. I’ve met her a few times and she was always warm and welcoming. I’m a fan and appreciate what she did for gay visibility when there were few allies to look to when I was in my teens.  

For me, the pioneer "true friend & advocate" is Joan Rivers, who was a friend of the gays decades before it was fashionable.  Not to diminish what Kathy Griffin has done, but I don't think of her as groundbreaking in the same way Joan was.

Average credit card debt hit a 10-year high of $6,088 per consumer as of Nov 10 this year.  I'm sure that figure has gone up since because of holiday shopping.

4 hours ago, BOZO T CLOWN said:

"We all know..."? 

What Bozo knows, like most rational people, is that I want the BEST QUALIFIED person running my city. I don't care if they have a vagina or a penis. 
There is nothing great about electing someone simply by virtue of some predetermined physical characteristic that has nothing to do with his/her ability to govern.

BTC

The diversity worshippers got all vehrklempt when Lori Lightfoot was the first black & openly gay woman to become mayor of a major US city.  Four years and innumerable failures later when she placed a miserable 3rd & lost reelection, nobody gave a sh*t that she was a black lesbian.  All they cared was that she sucked.

Cherelle Parker should come out as left-handed and convert to Islam to make all the DEIers cum without touching themselves.