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Dog who is allergic to meetings. [MEDIA=twitter]1102744993511497728[/MEDIA]

In addition to encouraging tax evasion, where do you get the idea that the interest on a personal loan is deductible anymore? Moreover loans between friends and family members are great opportunities for misunderstandings and hard feelings, especially if they're undocumented.

I found something about the Pride Parade @Gar1eth mentioned in a thread about the upcoming 20th Seoul Pride Parade (part of the Seoul Queer Culture Festival). The parade that was blocked took place in Incheon, which is in greater Seoul. (Incheon is where the airport serving Seoul is located.) This is the police clearing the area by pushing back on the protesters: [MEDIA=twitter]1038344675847954432[/MEDIA] This is what is perceived as violent opposition to the parade, which looks to me like a protester resisting being moved: [MEDIA=twitter]1038346598957309952[/MEDIA] Given that the Seoul Queer Culture Festival, which I believe is the oldest, is in its 20th year and keeps growing, that Incheon and Busan, South Korea's 2nd largest city, which is hours away from Seoul on the southeast coast, both have their own festivals, which haven't stopped despite protests and that the police actually and actively defend the right of those attending the festivals to be within the permitted areas even though liberal President Moon Jae-in is against recognizing same-sex marriage and considers homosexuality bad for society, I'm not particularly worried about South Korea's Pride Parades. Intransigence isn't likely to win the religious groups sympathy. Order is as valued as traditional families, and if a group has a valid permit, blocking them isn't likely to gain sympathy from the general public, who are more likely to think "Don't like it, don't look and don't give the groups you oppose more publicity."

I applaud @Gar1eth for doing something difficult for him.

But that is more of an exception than the rule. Common wisdom is that it's better for longevity of a relationship to have known each other longer than that. Whether that's borne out in actuality, I'm not sure.

We could have another discussion whether it makes sense to assume poor service from someone who has sex with women, but it's not necessary. @BaronArtz's exact words were "I know it shouldn't turn me off, but it DOES," meaning he finds partners who have sex with women a turnoff. That's completely his prerogative, but that's not a service concern.

"Red flag" usually means an indication of danger or a threat to personal security or privacy, not displeasure or dislike.

More on Lyft and Uber underpricing with actual numbers. [MEDIA=twitter]1101887861064908800[/MEDIA] I wouldn't be surprised if they later ask for subsidies or hike prices once they've driven their competition out of business and dismantled customer protections. They're in a better position to use a monopoly/oligopoly (which is what they're working toward) to drive prices higher than Amazon is, although it could backfire. Or they could compromise, but that isn't the way of American business. In Seoul, South Korea, Kakao Talk's ridesharing app is going into use after being met with massive traffic-halting protests by taxi drivers. Kakao Talk has agreed to limit the useability of the app to designated peak traffic hours, to which the taxi drivers have also agreed on the basis that it is better for society as a whole even if it hurts their business a little. https://mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1QO157?__twitter_impression=true This is what a community-oriented, as opposed to an individualist, adversarial society is like. It's also how true personal responsibility, as opposed to guilt-tripping others, occurs. (Disclaimer: Korean society, North or South, is no paradise. But in this respect it is lightyears ahead.)

I believe this is also true of Winterfire, which is an annual kink/alt-sex conference held on Presidents Day weekend at the same Hyatt in DC as hosts MAL. There are seminars during the day, playtime at night. As I understand it, it was originally het or predominantly so, but has since branched out. I suspect, however, that there's more public female/female contact than male/male.

To me, PNP in a profile indicates an escort who is OK with providing intimate services to people they haven't met before while under the influence of what can be powerful, mind-altering and medically dangerous drugs and clients who are OK with receiving them, with provision of the drugs possibly being part of the transaction. That's a lot of potentially misplaced trust and a lot that could potentially go wrong. Irrespective of the little frictions of personality around here, I don't understand how this can plausibly be framed as helping someone, unless one's definition of "helping someone" is like that of the politically-connected guy in West Hollywood in whose home the police keep finding much younger men dead from overdoses of drugs he reportedly injected them with.

That's not a red flag. That's a preference.

It's not especially harmful, but the man has a point. You and your live-in are either seeking validation or making sure it's easy to start looking again on SA should things fall apart between the two of you. Not everyone - not even among gay men - bases who they have relationships with solely on looks. There always will be a divide there and looking down on people who operate differently from you is not called for, irrespective of whether it is unkind.

Honest question: If there were sufficient separation of the various interest groups and a live and let live ethos all around, how would you feel about a place where people (not just men) met to pair off (or more) in various configurations? Or even when there is no judgment or interference, being in an all-male environment is important? Do you see that continuing to be true as homophobia recedes?

Religious groups have come out en masse, or threatened to, in order to block the parade as something that is unseemly for the public, particularly children. The worst that might happen is pushing and shoving and shouting slogans (not name calling). Using violence would cause the protesters to lose all credibility. South Koreans are experienced protesters, but they also believe in orderly, non-violent protest, to the point where removable decals were used at the massive protests against the corruption of the Park Gyeun-hye administration to make cleanup easier.

And they're substantially similar to the testimony of the boys who sued civilly and Jackson settled with and the one whose accusations ended in an acquittal. Jackson admitted sleeping with children. Apparently no one disputes that he gave one interviewee (I forget which one) an expensive ring, which the recipient has said Jackson characterized as a symbol of their relationship. It's undisputed that as his "friends" aged he dropped them for younger boys. Occam's razor says the simplest, most obvious and most likely hypothesis should be the first one considered. If it looks like child molestation, walks like it and talks like it, why accept innocent explanations? There is absolutely no good reason other than abuse for a grown man to have sleepovers with underage boys who aren't his relatives. For more, see https://www.vulture.com/amp/2019/03/michael-jackson-music-leaving-neverland-legacy.html?__twitter_impression=true. Also I was wrong; behind the scenes Jackson was every bit as manipulative as Weinstein, et al. Also when will there be a reckoning for Bryan Singer, who was powerful enough to get Esquire not to run the piece that The Atlantic then agreed to run? https://www.cjr.org/the_feature/esquire-bryan-singer-the-atlantic.php

It's particularly surprising because even though South Korean attitudes toward homosexuality have undergone change, it's still generally more homophobic than the US, in part because of the importance of family and family lines. Four out of five presidential candidates opposed same sex marriage and the normalization of homosexuality, including the otherwise liberal eventual victor Moon Jae In. Approximately a third of South Koreans are Christians, who tend to be conservative on this issue. Furthermore, although homosexual acts aren't and haven't been illegal, they are if you are in the military, which is mandatory for all able-bodied men.

The problem with Lyft and Uber: Venture capital has enabled them to be dominant without making economic sense (i.e., without covering costs). https://qz.com/1540608/the-problem-with-silicon-valleys-obsession-with-blitzscaling-growth/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Because I've seen and posted the analysis that shows it's artificially low (i.e., doesn't cover costs) and because any entity operating as if its employees are independent contractors is a fortiori underpricing.

A South Korean psychologist has been expelled from a professional organization for using conversion therapy and treating homosexuality as a mental illness. [MEDIA=twitter]1093769395447320576[/MEDIA]

A cat walks into a bar... [MEDIA=twitter]1094229686853529600[/MEDIA]

Moves Like Jagger - Maroon 5 Moves Like Jagger - Ryeowook of Super Junior

I know I function as the cryptocurrency naysayer here, but still: https://gizmodo.com/crypto-exchange-says-it-cant-repay-190-million-to-clie-1832309454/amp?__twitter_impression=true Cryptocurrency exchange can't honor customers' claims because its founder, who just died, was the only person who knew the password. Seems to me like a straight up case of theft now.

Eric Hassan.

Talk about the uncanny valley.