MsGuy

Oz preps butter for insertion in his mouth.

I think the one on the left is fairly cute, but then I'm not in the military, so I guess that's no problem. More seriously, I'm getting too old for all this shit. Even a couple of decades ago, who would have dreamed that a Chinese corporation would wind up owning the world's go-to gay hookup app? LOL, that there would even be such a thing as a gay hookup app? My brain just gets weirded out by this kind of stuff.

OK, so this article in WaPo implies that Trump was actually telling the truth for once when he said last week that he was restraining Bolton's war lust. I've long since gotten to the point that I just can't bring myself to pay a whole lot of attention to the Donald's antics, but, much as I want to ignore him, war with Iran is enough to catch my eye. WaPo's sources basically say that the European's don't see much evidence that Iran is moving toward attacking U.S. assets (a really high risk stratagy for them) and our own military, intelligence and diplomatic people are divided in how certain intelligence should be interpeted. Some Europeans hint they think Bolton and Pompeo are ginning up cover for a war of choice with Iran, not unlike Bolton did with Bagdad. So does anyone here follow this shit closely enough to give an informed opinion as to whether Bolton, Pompeo and company are actually crazed enough to want a "preventive war with Iran? Or is this just WaPo and some Europeans being paranoid?

O.K., I'll bite.... Who is John Smith?

I hate to be that guy but do you really think Ms. Warren is up to taking on The shit storm Trump will unlease on her ass? All the position papers in the world aint gonna save a candidate who can't even shake the label Pocahontas.

And of course it has yet to occur to anyone at the embassy to either reword the question for clarity or to give folks a heads up when they give out the forms.

Avalon, nursing homes are regulated by the state, mostly under Federal issued guidelines. There are mandatory rules howmany staff (and what kind) have to be on duty to how often they are supposeed to roll over bed ridden residents. I seriously doubt that there is no requirement that they have a diabetic friendly diet available. Not to saay that any given facility actually complies with the rules (except on paper). Try calling whichever state agency issues their "certificate of public need and convience" and complain virgorously.

Truly a regretable state of affairs but, perhaps, better than them directing government thugs to kick in your door and beat you to death in front of your loved ones for complaining too loudly.

AS, don't be an ASS. You know perfectly well RA1 means he perfers that judges stop acting like Hassidic Kabbalahists on hashish conjuring truly insane meanings from the text of the Constitution. Take abortion just for instance. I know you think it's in the Constitution somehow but put the 14th Amendment under an electron microscope and you will still spend the rest of your life looking. The path of absolutely essential precedents runs through protecting the privacy of rich folks from the then new technology of easy, portable camaras through keeping advertisers from using the likeness of Hollywood types w/o paying for it first. Honestly, Three Stooges movies have more sensible plot lines. RA1, oddly enough I have yet to discover a conservative originalist legal scholar who does not whole heartedly endorse the whacky judge made law the gives Corporations the near full fledged status and rights of a flesh and blood American citizen. That one tracks back to an erroneous note by a private commercial editor attached to a private edition of Supreme Court opinions. And yes LOL,, ir'that pesky 14th Amendment again. In the end neither the liberals nor the consevatives have demonstrated much integrity in this interpetation business. In the end it's all in whose ox is getting gored. --------- RA1, no I wasn't talking about how legal types go about interpeting the Constitution. I was talking about the expectations folks running the government have of each other when they go about the business of running the country. And the expectations of ordinary folks about what constitutes legitimate action by government types when dealing with them and their families, friends, neighbors. Again, just for instance, consider that currently an office holder losing an election can reasonably expect lucrative employment in the lobbying industry or, at the very worst, a return to whatever he was doing before he ran for office. Mow consider the results on changing those expectations to being stripped of all his wealth, prison and quite possibly death for himself and maybe his family members. Think Kazakhstan. Quite honestly, I'm a little worried that the Kazakhstan alternative may (quite reasonably) be in Trump's mind when it comes to the 2020 election. And Trump aint exactly the type to go quietly into that good night. ------- Oh, and no elections are not an "absolute restraint." They only work in conjusnction with all those other formal and informal restrainsts. Russia actually has a fairly reasonable constitution and runs elections regularly. It's just that shit tends to happen to folks who complain too loudly about the kleptocracy that runs the place.

I kinda agree, RA1. Short of multiple HD recordings of him butt fucking his daughter, I don't see how any Republican senator wishing to seay in office could afford to vote for impeachment. But please consider this: the written document is maybe 30/35% of what we think of as our constitution. The rest are the customs, habits, traditions and mutual expectations we have of each other. These are the real restraints on an overbearing POTUS. Trump is a malignant cancer on those restraints. I won't speculate on his mental state but it's clear that he simply can not abide any attempt by anyone to restrict his behavior and that he is unable to concieve of a reality wherein officers of our government should have loyalties beyond those to his person. With an executive as institutionally powerful as ours has become since the Civil War, the traditions and customs have even greater significance. Do you really want a POTUS of the type Trump is creating? A master unrestrained by rule of law? W/O congressional supervision? With the power to divert unlimited funds to any damn fool project he might dream up? Picture such a White House occupied by one of the whackier clowns currently competeing for the Democratic nomination. I promised I wouldn't comment on Trump's mental problems but, damn it... something just aint right about this guy PS. Think through Trump's latest defense a bit more. Basically he's saying what he did (is doing) is irrelevant to an impeachment because you can't get a conviction. Kinda like Al Capone pointing out that it was pointless to indict him because he had the power to intimidate any jury from convicting him.

I hope you find a resolution to all this that works for you, Avalon. Try to stay in touch if you can.

Actually, RA1, I agree that wealth would tend to reconcentrate but the process seems likely take a bit more than 5 years lol. And, for that life of me, I fail to see how beneficiaries of multi-generational trust funds (Fords, Duponts, Rockerfellas and the like) could recoup their losses given that they would lack the where-with-all to purchase politicians to bend events in their favor. IMHO congresscritters are a disloyal bunch once the checks stop coming.

Consider three things, Lucky. 1) Any substantial actions by Mueller since Barr's appointment required the AG's approval. 2) We don't really know exactly what Mueller actually put in his report (yet?). We only have Barr's version of Mueller's report And that good man has made it perfectly clear where his loyalties lie. 3) Mueller considered himself bound longstanding Justice Dept. policy against indicting a sitting president and by the limited portfolio of his initial appointment.

Horse fair article in ManHunt. Sounds interesting if you're interested in that sort of thing. Sort of private sex party except you're guaranteed to score if you're a top. Repeatedly, if you're up for it. Not really a furry style event but it does have a German S&M vibe, sans leather and whips.

That's very good advice from AdamSmith, Mili, but before you set things in motion, you might want to consider that the life-style to which you seek to be introduced may induce cash flow difficulties and 'income instabilities' beyond your current experience. A not inconsequential complication AS should have drawn to your attention, IMHO.

Thanks for plowing through the book for us, Lucky, and for the summary. That the RC clergy is disproportionately gay seems like common sense to me, especially in developed countries (little economic incentive to seek ordination) but 80% just doesn't seem credible to me.

Charles Barkley ( of all people!) said pretty much the same thing on Colbert's talk show a couple of days ago. He went on to say his gay friends have enough trouble with the police w/o a clown like this little shit poisoning the well. “I think that we all lose. I think my black friends, my gay black friends, I think they lose, because there’s all repercussions when you’re a minority. there’s always a double standard. You have to understand that and accept that. For every black, gay person out there, we lost. And it’s unfortunate. I don’t know that kid, I wish him nothing but the best.“But you have to understand, you have to always look at the big picture. Like, you know, there’s a lot of gay kids out there who are struggling. They’re getting beat up, they’re getting bullied, and things like that. And that’s not good. And then you see there’s this tenuous relationship between the black community and the cops, and we made the cops look really bad in this scenario. And there’s probably going to be some resentment. So the bottom line is everybody lost in this scenario. It’s not good.”

Well, i googled "one horse sized duck" just on the off chance you weren't abusing your pain meds and WTF! this is a real subject for discussion in the odder crevices of the Net. Who would have guessed? AdamSmith is probably better qualified to opine on this but I think that a horse sized duck runs into something I remember as "the cubed/square problem". As you scale up, the weight (volume/mass) of the duck goes up by a cubed factor while the strength of its bones only increases with the cross-section of the bones, i.e a squared factor.. Long story short, eventually the duck can't stand up w/o breaking its legs with its own weight.

Something ain't right with this guy's brain. Just saying...

Lucky, in my experience, politics doesn't work that way. Just a guess based on no evidence, but I would say that Beto has no particular commitment to Gay rights one way or the other. His party favors gays, so he favors gays. Yea us! To him, it's just another one of those things where you have to say the right things. On the other hand, I can't see him splitting his party and base just to toss a bone to some evangelicals whose leaders ain't buying his shit no matter what he does. As president he will nominate a candidate acceptable to his base on gay rights precisely because he doesn't much care and it's a cheap way to keep folks happy. YEA US! Remember the old time Temperance folks who vowed to support a drunk who voted 'right' over a teetotaler who was soft on prohibition? Politically speaking, they had a point.

I don't have the stats to prove it, but I would be willing to bet that a "quite fit" 80 year old middle class white male (even one with access to the most expensive medical services on offer) has a non-trivial probability of death or disability in the next 6 years. Again, no stats at hand, but my guess his odds would be around 50%, give or take, maybe worse. Besides, why should Justice Breyer have to die in the saddle so to speak. With Beto as president he could retire w/o fear of contributing to the destruction of the Republic and spend some quality time with his great-grand kids.

Maybe part of his appeal is that he can't be painted as a bull goose left loony like Ocasio-Cortez. Of couse, it didn't hurt that he ran his Texas campaign against a creepy whack job of a troll. Come to think of it, maybe that would be just the right model for a campaign against Trump. And it doesn't hurt that he's kinda cute.

I was about 15/16 when I ran across The Front Runner on one of those wire spinner display racks at a local store. Just thumbing through the paperbacks, probably looking to see what SF was on offer. When I realized what I was reading, it electrified me right down to my toes. I had no clue gay themed novels were even a thing, much less soft core porn (not that it was soft core to me! ). God bless whatever sorting clerk at the distributor who accidently stuck a gay novel into the assortment shipped to that store. It was one of those events that helped me understand that the wider world was not necessarily just my local Bible soaked reality writ large. Maybe not exactly like Oz moving to NYC, but still eye opening.

Yes, yes, AS, but then you are notorious for your esoteric tastes in kink.