MsGuy

A guy I know bought a ticket in Chicago, stuck it in the pocket of his heavy winter coat and didn't think about it again until he happened to pull the slip out the following year. He was at a convenience store at the time and, just for the hell of it, asked the clerk to run the ticket through his machine. Turns out he had won an $80,000 secondary prize but it was about a month too late to redeem the ticket. The moral of this is, of course, to always check first to see if your old tickets have expired before you look to see if you won. I just wouldn't want to know. I mean I really, really wouldn't want to know. True story, by the way.

Personally, I just can't see Trump as Hitler. For me he has always seemed much more like Mussolini. All the narcissism but with a clownish self-presentation.

500 tickets!? That's like a $1000, BBB. Sorry but I'll have to ask you to front the cash for a buy that large. You can trust me (see my AS and Lookin references) but I wouldn't have a clue how to find you (you do have this habit of dropping out of sight from time to time). Heck, I don't even speak French. Sure, with 500 chances you're almost a lock to win but still....

Consider it done! 100 tickets...one of us is bound to win!

I see where Powerball's payout is up to $750 million so I'm switching my 50 ticket investment to not buying Powerballs. Do you want me to not pick up some for you too, BBB? Same terms as before. ps Let me know if you have any particular numbers you want on your tickets.

Jesus Frog, guys, talk about living in a fantasy---the damn drawing was  on Tuesday  and some  wormy redneck from S. Carolina won it all. Every fucking dime of it. Probably donate a big chunk of it to "Make America Great Again". The prize is back at $40 million which aint shit once you cash out and pay the fucking taxes. Hell I could hardly afford a state representative and a couple of mayors with that. I'm gonna keep my money in my pocket and wait for the payout to get back up to a least $500 million. ______ LOL, the truly crazy shit is that I actually feel genuinely disappointed that we didn't get a chance to not buy our tickets. Is that nuts or what?

BigK, that's not being entirely fair to the professionalism of our pols. Sure, if it's a technical amendment to some obscure sub-section of the tax code that no one w/o a degree in tax accounting could possibly understand in the first place, just drop a few thou by his office and make sure his legislative aides know when he needs to show up & which way he needs to vote. But if it's something the rubes back home are likely to a) understand what he did and b) get all riled up about, then the price can get quite high. Even in one of those one party districts, if it's something that's likely to get him "primaried" then you gotta be prepared to stump up some real cash. What if it's something he's long since sold his ass-hole on? To long term allies? Well, money does indeed talk but you're going to have to shout real loud to get his attention. And changing which party has the majority in the US Senate? Well, again please note that in the Florida senate race the candidates have already spent north of $150 million on this election. That's just the expenditures they admit to on paper (and doesn't include 'independent' super-PACs or the various party organizations). I'm not saying BBB can't buy himself a senator or two, just that it might cost him a healthy chunk of his winnings.

Bucky, sweetheart, even Pepe thinks you should slow down on the trolling.

BBB, you're a genius! And like most truly inspired ideas it's simple, straight forward, right on point. And to just show you how much I admire you, I'm not buying 50 extra chances for you for Friday's drawing. No Charge! No need to wire me $100, this one's on me. To be sure, it's not entirely original: But that it's well within American political tradition only makes it better.

BBB, since buying your ticket for you would involve holding it for you until the drawing, I'm not surprised you're having a problem finding someone you can trust. I have the same problem since my state doesn't allow lottery sales. Maybe you could try my method. Seeing that my chances of winning do not appear noticeably different whether I buy a ticket or not, I do not buy a bunch of tickets (I figure the more I don't buy, the better my chances). A hundred bucks worth seems about the optimum number to not buy. All the fantasy fun with no fuss or bother! If this idea is attractive for you, just wire me US$100 and I will not buy an extra 50 chances for you. You can ask Lookin and AdamSmith, I am absolutely reliable on this. Trust me! ps. Pay no attention to any scurrilous comments by Lucky &/or RA1. They have been trolling me for years.

Boys stand, girls sit. Jeez Louise, guys, grow a pair! ps I pee in the kitchen sink too, when it's more convenient. I'm a manly man! pps At least as far as public rest rooms go, the women's bathrooms are almost invariably nastier than the men's. Trust me on this one.

My point? Substitute 'Americans' for 'human beings' in the Kerellian quote and you will immediately see both ACC's audience and the mindset he catered to. Young White male Americans (the folks buying & reading SF in the 50's and 60's) were pretty much convinced that they could take on whatever might come their way and emerge victorious. USA! USA! USA! As to ACC, my remarks were merely intended to clue in those not in the know that one of the Big Three writers of SF's golden age was queer as he could possibly be.

Adam, you do understand that Karellen was Arthur C. Clarke's sock-puppet, yes? And that the old dear did not accumulate the cash for that Sri Lanka estate (very adequately staffed with native houseboys) by misjudging his audience's expectations. "Bwana, is it playtime yet?"

Clearly you've hit on the one crucial factor I was totally overlooking, AS. Pixie dust just doesn't work unless we all think happy thoughts.

Serendipity lives, AS. I just ran across this bunch of scientists advocating for a 'flexitarian' diet. All you got to do is switch to a veggies (one hamburger patty or one pork chop/week is allowed) and all will be well. Assuming, of course, that all modern ag practices are turn inside out and all the myriad other solutions in all other sectors of the economy are flawlessly implemented worldwide, we will be just fine. Hmm... Me, I'm going to continue to chow down on steak every chance I get just as God intended. Fusion power, that's the trick!

global-scale geoengineering aka pixie dust P.S. AS, I thought you had come to a firm decision to live for several hundred years, minimum. Is your personal food chain sturdy enough to endure the coming shake up?

Headlines like this one touting a deadline are misleading. What matters is the total cumulative amount of CO2 dumped into the system. And it is already too late to make that 1.5 degree threshold. Modern civilization runs on fossil carbon fuels. Switching off that to something (anything) else would be enormously expensive and painful. And that pain would be felt in every nook and cranny of our world and it would be felt now, not decades from now. Our species just is not equipped to make collective decisions that hurt like hell in the present for the sake of some distant nebulous future benefit. ------- In a more practical vein, the only political vehicle for any such effort appears to be the environmental movement which is joined at the waist with the anti-nuclear movement, not unlike Republicans with anti-abortionists and Democrats with anti-gun folks. There being no serious solution to the CO2 problem that does not have nuclear power as a central component, the climate change folks are trapped into silly, inadequate proposals that are easily attacked by folks intent on preventing their own particular ox from getting gored.

One thing no one has mentioned: Many of the guys will not respond &/or ban you if you approach him in open chat (where other guests can read your posts). For obvious reasons Chaterbate (and all the other like sites I know of) ban direct contact with their guys. They can get fined or kicked off the site. The best way is to go into a private session and ask for a phone or text addy. He will understand what you are up to. If he ignores that or refuses, give it up, he ain't interested. Some will give you the info in an altered format to evade monitoring software deployed by the site. Ask a computer literate friend to properly format the info for you.

Thanks for teaching me something new today, RA1. Details like this are fascinating, especially when received from someone in whom you can have a high level of confidence.

Dearest Hillary seeks to lead us to redemption but is curiously blind to the root cause of her loss to Trump: the utter corruption of our political classes. The Clinton's by their own disclosure statements are sitting on well north of one hundred million dollars. You don't get that kind of wealth writing a couple of books. That she no doubt is far too clever to have come by her riches by anything other than entirely legal means only proves the extent to which our government is riddled with perfectly legal avenues for our pols to sell their office to those who have need of their services.

Aviation enthusiasts admiring the amazing technical specifications of the B-29. Japanese guests were afforded an unparaelled view from a special viewing stand (center distance).

When Japanese nationalists deny the existence of 'comfort women' camps or, if somehow a few existed, they we staffed with volunteers or, what the hell, the bitches were only Koreans, man, who gives a shit, well then I kinda react pretty much the same as you just did, RA1. Same for when they defend the vicious way the Imperial Army conducted the war in China. Same when they try to tell me the Officers in charge of the Bataan death march ( and all the other atrocities against Allied prisoners of war) were honorable men doing a difficult job. But when folks up at Oshkosh decided to celebrate the incineration of several hundred thousand Japanese civilians with a Disney style entertainment spectacular, I can see where even the best intentioned Japanese might get a little bent out of shape. "Complete with mini-mushroom cloud" ! Really, you don't see that?

Originally posted on the other site but too true not to re-post.

Honestly, AS, until I read your posts I had not realized you might go AWOL for a while. For what it's worth, my local power associations are gearing up to rush equipment and line men to NC as soon as road conditions permit. So whenever your grid goes back up, maybe a brief thank you post here for those Mississippi boys might be in order.

As opposed to those wise and noble folks who in 1865 and 1855 immediately passed the Black Codes prohibiting freed slaves from owning land, sharply restricting their freedom to leave the "employ" of their former masters, and denying them basic political rights like the ballot and the right to serve on juries and the power to testify in court cases, even cases to which they were a party? Lawsy mercy, Mr. RA1, if only those ignorant, meddlesome abolitionist ass-hats had only left well enough alone, we could all happily have been reconciled and probably still be enjoying the benefits of a large (and, dare we conjecture, restive?) caste of illiterate serfs. Seriously, RA1, if the White governing class had been even the tiniest bit wiser, more capable or more prudent than the men who controlled the occupation governments, there would not have been a Civil War in the first place.