BillyVance

Yeah, the mods didn't like it too much when I announced a blackberry BBM group over a decade ago. It has become a groupme group to accommodate different phones. The number of people in it has remained pretty much constant, 8-9 members, zero filters. We're all old friends shooting the shit on there. Bonfire used to be hopping a decade or so ago. Literally at least a hundred posts a day from a bunch of people. Now? Less than 5-10 posts, if that. I don't know what happened. Even then, I don't think the mods mind that much. Whatever. (shrugs)

Apparently, Quinnipiac University polling has found that only 26% of Hispanics approve of Biden's job performance, compared to 55% a year ago. Just saying...

Love him or hate him, he has gotten pretty adept at trolling the left, hasn't he? Pretty interesting to see a guy who grew up a progressive, with his father being an anti-apartheid politician in South Africa, and has voted mostly democrat. Problem is, the democrats have gone too far left. Waaaaay left. This is not even the same democrat party that it was 25 years ago. People are getting tired of them overusing the race card when they don't get what they want. The Republicans aren't infallible either but they have had to pull to the right to counter the left. I miss the days when both sides actually worked together to put out good bills. Lately, it's "fuck you" "no, FUCK you!" "Racist!" etc. As far as the 2022 midterms are concerned, the prospects of a Democrat party bloodbath (figuratively) are likely to happen. You're not going to convince a hard core Democrat to believe anything other than their party line, same with a hard core Republican. Rather, you're going to have to convince the independent voters, who make up a sizable chunk of the population. The way things are going, it's not looking good for the democrats. The average loss of House seats historically for a president's party in the midterms is about 25 seats.

Every school my girls have attended have required proof of vaccinations.

The dude also had a mental illness dating back to the previous year. Police was involved because he made threats. Either they didn't take it seriously enough or he fell through the cracks. Like the Parkland school shooter. The warning signs were there.

Closest one to me is Browns Ferry Nuclear power plant in Decatur, a 2 hour drive away. There is another one, unfinished for decades, near Scottsboro. They are extremely expensive to build for sure. But maintained and operated properly, it's a great source of clean energy. Even then, Browns Ferry dodged a potential catastrophe on April 27, 2011 when an EF5 tornado passed by within a mile of the plant. It did cut through the major power pylons that deliver power to Huntsville, so the entire city was in the dark for a week.

All they really have are nukes, which they would be stupid to use. Nobody wins a global nuclear war. The Russian military has been corrupted by greed, leading to shoddy equipment, poorly trained conscripts, inept leadership (how many generals have been killed so far?), etc. I guess the only question is how far is Putin willing to go, as far as military losses go, to get his objectives.

It certainly looks like the BLM group was maybe founded with good intentions (maybe I'll be proven wrong), but Patrisse Cullors is a self-admitted communist who has enriched herself and family members/baby daddies with BLM's money. If she didn't think she did anything wrong, she wouldn't have resigned and then blasted critics. Black lives should matter as much as any other race, but BLM barely does anything for black communities. The greatest threat to black lives comes from within, literally.

If you ever find yourself in western North Carolina, you might want to visit Asheville, which is not only home to the Vanderbilt family's Biltmore Estate, but there is also a hidden gem in downtown Asheville... A pinball/video game arcade museum! They do have a bar with beer. Took my family a couple of months ago. Had a few hours of fun playing 80s era games. They do have an occupancy limit so you might have an hour or more wait time to get in. And yes, we also did the Biltmore Estate.

I like using Duckduckgo. They don't track your internet history with algorithms.

Yeah, a result of the Cold War is what I'm thinking.

I didn't have any guns until my girls became teenagers, and we talked about it with them. They're fine with having the guns in the house. They don't have any interest in them now but understand what they're for. And there are plenty of examples of homeowners legally shooting burglars and home invasion suspects.

Until the US figures out how to keep guns out of bad people's hands, I'll keep my guns for self protection, thank you very much.

HI BV, from another BV. You doing good?

You bunch of slackers. Walt Appel said it was Funks.

Indeed, dropzone.com hasn't seen but a sliver of the traffic it used to, for various reasons. Facebook and other widely used social media platforms are where the action has moved to.

I can't see Russia, well under Putin anyway, selling any of their property to China or anybody else. China's military is still worlds behind the US in technology but they are starting to catch up. If China wanted to take Siberia, they might as well take Mongolia first.

Google is biased too. Try again.

Chicago has their safe neighborhoods. There are just other areas where crime is way off the charts especially with black on black gang violence, but you'll never hear a peep out of BLM on those. The city's biggest problem is the mayor and the Cook County DA. They are absolute morons.

I agree with that. Turkey is also preventing Russia from sending warships through the bosphorus strait to aid the war effort in Ukraine, so there's that.

Yeah they have increasingly become more of a hard line government, not unlike many of the middle east countries. Refresh my memory on why NATO brought them in, anybody? Was it so we could set up nuke launch bases there?

Curious to understand why?

I'd be interested to know what it takes to kick Turkey out. It's a Muslim majority nation whose values rarely align with the rest of NATO, no?

I'll believe it when I see it with this whole buying Twitter thing. Could Musk find better use for his billions? I'm sure of it. But I have definitely seen a left wing bias against conservative views on that platform. Musk just wants Twitter to be unbiased, especially when it comes to the news being reported. At least Netflix has told its woke employees if they don't like the content Netflix has put on their platform, they can quit and work elsewhere. I applaud that.

Dude definitely looks like a white supremacist, a misguided 18 year old who's no better than Dylann Roof, and should never see the light of day in prison. But from what I've read, there was a retired cop who fired at the kid but he had a bullet proof vest on. The retired cop was killed, unfortunately. New York has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country, no? It's so restrictive that many law abiding people find it too much of a hassle to jump through all the legal hoops to get a gun legally, yet the laws don't stop bad people from getting one. Same with Chicago. Gun laws just make people easier targets. IMO. FWIW, I had my house broken into three times during the first 15 years living in my house. I've installed a security alarm and armed myself with an AR15 and a S&W M&P. I'm retired so I spend a lot of time tooling around the house. I take my wife and guns to the shooting range every now and then. We enjoy it. I hope to never have to use them in defense, but they're there when seconds matter and the police are a few minutes away. No issues the last 7 years. Hope it stays that way. It's better to have one and not need it, than to need one and not have it. Just be responsible owners if you're going to get one.