Met Winter 2021 - 2022 Banter

[mreaves]

Baseball is popular in pockets around the country but it’s not a truly national game it seems. 

[weathafella]

So if any vodka actually is Russian, and obviously whatever profits have already been garnered by whoever in Russia, what is the point of pouring American $$ down the drain?

[PhineasC]

6 minutes ago, weathafella said:

So if any vodka actually is Russian, and obviously whatever profits have already been garnered by whoever in Russia, what is the point of pouring American $$ down the drain?

Makes no sense. It's not like Putin refunds the money if we dump the vodka.

Classic "cut off your nose to spite your face" move. Dumb.

[mreaves]

6 hours ago, weathafella said:

So if any vodka actually is Russian, and obviously whatever profits have already been garnered by whoever in Russia, what is the point of pouring American $$ down the drain?

Don’t you remember how impactful changing French fries to freedom fries was?

[weathafella]

7 hours ago, mreaves said:

Don’t you remember how impactful changing French fries to freedom fries was?

Sometimes we can be a land of idiocy....

[eyewall]

If it is clear up there you may see Aurora tonight once it gets dark. There is. g2 in progress with a very south Bz.

[HoarfrostHubb]

Brady is back with the Bucs

[NorEastermass128]

2 minutes ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

Brady is back with the Bucs

Crazy, though not unexpected. 

[HoarfrostHubb]

2 minutes ago, NorEastermass128 said:

Crazy, though not unexpected. 

I thought he would go elsewhere.  But not shocked. 

[CoastalWx]

10 minutes ago, HoarfrostHubb said:

I thought he would go elsewhere.  But not shocked. 

Same. 

[IowaStorm05]

It is not an accident that we keep seeing ruthless dictators popping up as heads of state in various nations throughout history. This behavior is in our genes, humans have a knack for putting aggressive and assertive men into positions of power, and once there, said men will sometimes evolve even further down the path of aggression while on the throne until they reach the point of committing massive atrocities against other humans.

I have previously discussed already how other Hominidae species behave with respects to this.

FORTUNATELY humans are not EXCLUSIVE in their tendency to facilitate aggressive dictatorships. I am convinced we actually have other formats of social leadership likewise embedded in our DNA. 
 

It is extremely important for humanity to intentionally exhibit democracy in government structure and it is very important to condemn the autocracy format of leadership for many obvious reasons.

Hominidae is an ever-evolving family of mammals. NOW we have the opportunity to work toward evolving as a species to favor a democratic structure format of governance to become the dominant format exhibited by humanity.

It has been proven that species can evolve to go one way or the other. How easy it is to do that is another question, but we see that Hominidae behavior can evolve one direction or another. Bonobos are physically very similar to chimpanzees but they behave in an entirely different fashion. Chimpanzees host ruthless dictatorships but Bonobos host horny and democratic matriarchies. Bonobos and Chimpanzees had a common ancestor several million years ago until the Congo river caused the population to become divided into two groups that evolved alongside eachother, each in a different direction.

It is evident that the abundance of resources is implicated in driving evolution in behavior of a species. Scarcity of resources in the land of chimpanzees is thought to have driven evolution into aggressive social structure, while the plentiful region Bonobos inhabit has made their lives a lot easier and they spend their time ****ing off. 
 

There is alternately the idea that Christ will return and override aggressive dominance hierarchies and instill ever-lasting empathetic and gentle leadership. But this is not entirely scientific as far as they know right now, so it’s best to not be complacent.

Do humans have the capacity to drive their own evolution away from dystopian social orders where people suffer tremendously? Frankly I am not so sure. But if I had a say in the matter, I would argue it is at least very important to put serious effort into favoring democracy.

I kind of like the way Lindsey Graham of SC is looking at the situation in Europe. He does not like the idea of direct conflict with Russia and honestly I doubt anybody does, but he said that Biden is not quite behaving optimally in response to Putin. Graham argues that if it turns out Putin is using chemical warfare, then this would warrant a No-Fly zone at once. 
 

I think we are overall in disdain for the behavior of Russia invading other nations of Europe in order to attempt to bring them under their rule. But the (reasonable) hatred of war as an evil state of affairs is what has prompted the response of not engaging a direct military conflict with Russia, because if they tried this with a NATO country all bets are off by necessity. The problem here is that I believe that the Russian format of government is not ideal for the well-being of humanity, and the big picture is that it is extremely important not to tolerate this type of government format to spread to other geographical areas, no offense to the Russian people personally. My statement is not a direct offense against Russia, but it would be a grave lie not to point out that an autocracy format of governance brings harm to humanity and needs to be revised.

I personally envision the positive potential of Russia restructuring its government into a democratic form of rule, WITHOUT harm or detrimental compromise coming to the people who rule Russia today, or it’s citizens. I might be insane but I simply see no reason why Russia and Ukraine can’t work themselves into a happy existence of prosperity and joy, and I insist that Russia engage this plan to joy at once. Russia is a great vast fertile land with endless opportunity for everyone who lives there to enrich themselves.

[dendrite]

1 hour ago, eyewall said:

If it is clear up there you may see Aurora tonight once it gets dark. There is. g2 in progress with a very south Bz.

Of course it flipped north before sunrise and will probably stay that way all night.

[DavisStraight]

33 minutes ago, CoastalWx said:

Same. 

He couldn't Tampa wasn't going to let that last year on his contract go.

[IowaStorm05]

5 hours ago, weathafella said:

Sometimes we can be a land of idiocy....

Well there is that. But there is also the information that I have that Americans en masse had access to material wealth in the form of real estate and land that was a few magnitudes more ideal than we have today. 
 

You could take a simple job right out of high school and afford a nice apartment or small house, and a car, and have plenty of cash to spare.

Land of Idiocy is one thing but it’s also a land of other things in addition to that and I think that access to luxurious cars and technological advances is a lousy replacement for space and comfortable lairs. 
 

The pace of lifestyle and prosperity deterioration has been too slow to really piss anybody off. If the decay between 1970 and 2020 took place over a span of, say, 10 years, I think a lot of people would be mad.

Is it paranoid to think there is a concerted effort out there by some entity human or otherwise that is working to bleed people of their needs in exchange for technology advances? That the pace of the project is just slow enough not to cause a disturbance like the frog in the pot of warming water?

IDK but that guy that called Coast to Coast radio and said he worked at Area 51 and that there was some sort of plan from non-human aliens really stuck with me.

I realize that the economic advantage Americans had in the 1950s was greater than necessary and that it probably came at the expense of other nations even, but I would think that humans could at least pull off governance that guaranteed basic shelter to anybody who needs it. We can’t even do that anymore, and decent shelter is becoming increasingly difficult to afford.

I think also that we multiplied way too much as a species and the extent we have clamored for resources might have something to do with all this, but what politician is gonna have access to a GOOD plan to deal with that? Seems impossible.

[MJO812]

Expensive trade for the Yankees 

[NorEastermass128]

I wonder if we can get oil back down below $100/barrel this week?  

[Cold Miser]

12 hours ago, DavisStraight said:

He couldn't Tampa wasn't going to let that last year on his contract go.

But...He "retired".  Doesn't retirement nullify the contract?  Players have done that before.

[NorEastermass128]

Ukraine aside, the situation in China does not look great. Major cities and provinces going back into lockdown. BA2 likely doing its dirty work. Supply chains will continue to be hit hard, driving up inflation even more. 

[weatherwiz]

Will there ever be a day or time when computer models initialize much more quickly? I would think it would be possible, just a matter of computing power? I love the time change back to DT but it sucks the models initialize later. 

[tamarack]

1 hour ago, Cold Miser said:

But...He "retired".  Doesn't retirement nullify the contract?  Players have done that before.

Same situation as Gronk's retirement after SB53 - when Brady headed to TB and Gronk wanted to join him, Pats still owned his contract and got a 4th for him from the Bucs.

[dendrite]

At least we got Hoyer back!

[DavisStraight]

2 hours ago, Cold Miser said:

But...He "retired".  Doesn't retirement nullify the contract?  Players have done that before.

No, he thought TB would let him out of his last year if he retired and I think he wanted to go to another team. TB was stubborn and wouldn't let him out so he played his hand, it didn't work and he's back. In fact that last year of his contract is owned by TB in perpetuity if he ever wants to come back.

[MJO812]

Fernando tatis fractured his wrist and will need surgery 

Pete Alonso was in a serious car accident. Car flipped over. He is alright.

[TauntonBlizzard2013]

So I remember posting about my wife’s unemployment issue here a few times where the state suddenly was requesting 16k back in unemployment she received in 2020.

After fighting tooth and nail for over a year now she finally got a letter from them admitting they made a mistake and they are not going to be collecting that money.

Absolutely ridiculous, but glad it got sorted out in the end 

[HoarfrostHubb]

Oil and gasoline trading lower

[SlantStick]

under $100 a barrel now

 

[PhineasC]

45 minutes ago, TauntonBlizzard2013 said:

So I remember posting about my wife’s unemployment issue here a few times where the state suddenly was requesting 16k back in unemployment she received in 2020.

After fighting tooth and nail for over a year now she finally got a letter from them admitting they made a mistake and they are not going to be collecting that money.

Absolutely ridiculous, but glad it got sorted out in the end 

Do you ever get the feeling everything involving the government is now a battle and their default position is to destroy you and you need to fight to survive? Because it often feels that way to me. Something has changed. The bureaucratic silliness was always there but now there is something malicious and uncaring about it.

edit: this is not meant to be a political post. I am not insinuating this is a recent issue related to any election. It just seems to be a reflection of our increasingly more anti-social and repressive/regressive/closed society. 

[NorEastermass128]

21 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Do you ever get the feeling everything involving the government is now a battle and their default position is to destroy you and you need to fight to survive? Because it often feels that way to me. Something has changed. The bureaucratic silliness was always there but now there is something malicious and uncaring about it.

edit: this is not meant to be a political post. I am not insinuating this is a recent issue related to any election. It just seems to be a reflection of our increasingly more anti-social and repressive/regressive/closed society. 

I don’t think there’s any malice. I think it’s just incompetence. Honestly, I don’t know which one is worse. 

[Hoosier]

Covid numbers are going back up in parts of Europe.  Germany in particular has high numbers.  Europe has been the canary in the coal mine for the US but hopefully we can hold off a rise in the US until at least summer.  Society at large could use some normalcy.

[PhineasC]

27 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Covid numbers are going back up in parts of Europe.  Germany in particular has high numbers.  Europe has been the canary in the coal mine for the US but hopefully we can hold off a rise in the US until at least summer.  Society at large could use some normalcy.

Post this shit in OT dude.