BillyVance

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Posts posted by BillyVance

  1. On 5/18/2022 at 3:19 AM, piisfish said:

    You’re free to go. I believe that inciting people to leave is bad form. 

    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) 

  3. 16 hours ago, brenthutch said:

    https://finance.yahoo.com/news/teslas-musk-says-no-longer-200335296.html
     

    Given the current Twitter war with Biden, Bezos might be next.

    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. 

  5. On 5/16/2022 at 10:13 AM, gowlerk said:

    I’m not sure why we’re focussing on the Buffalo shooting as a gun issue. It’s actually a racism issue

    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. 

  6. On 5/18/2022 at 8:33 AM, wmw999 said:

    Thanks. There used to be two in my general area, but they've been decommissioned, I think for age. But we have a a lot of anti-nuclear-anything around here. 

    Wendy P. 

    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. 

    • Like 1

  7. On 5/16/2022 at 11:58 AM, JerryBaumchen said:

    Hi Joe,

    I never get all a giggle and agog when it comes to war.

    What I do find ironic is how poor of a military the Russians have.

    Looks me that the all-powerful Russian bear has few teeth.

    And, everyone was so afraid of starting WW III.

    Jerry Baumchen

    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.

  8. On 5/18/2022 at 12:41 PM, brenthutch said:

    Not old news

    https://nypost.com/2022/05/17/blm-paid-co-founders-baby-daddy-far-more-than-trayvon-martin-group/

    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. 

  9. 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. 

  10. 4 hours ago, jakee said:

    So tell us a search engine that isn’t and we’ll find the same result using that one.

    If it turns out they’re all biased well damn, what a great way you’ve found to be immune to opposing information.

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

  12. 2 hours ago, kallend said:

    Unfortunately satisfying your last sentence seems to be impossible for many people - such as those whose infants find the gun and shoot someone, or those who shoot a family member by mistake, or those whose guns are stolen (by criminals, of course, FBI estimates criminals obtain some 300,000 guns every year by theft from "law abiding citizens").

    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. 

  16. On 4/21/2022 at 2:33 PM, wmw999 said:

    This isn’t the place to find lots of skydivers any more; I wouldn’t use it as a measure. Really.

    Wendy P. 

    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. 

    • Like 1

  17. 4 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

    Russia loves leaders with short term ideals. Stalin wanted all of the troublesome republics. It looked good for a greater Soviet empire. Russia itself subsidized all of its satellite states, subsidized Cuba, etc. Just as it subsidizes Belarus today. Basically Russia only has friends that it buys with energy subsidies.

    More likely Putin will sell Siberia to China just as Tsar Alexander II did with Alaska. It will need money for its ageing population. To pay for its wars, reparations and endless subsidies of its "ally states".

    Russia the best collection of vassal states that roubles can buy.

    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. 

  19. 46 minutes ago, kallend said:

    Move somewhere safe, like Chicago.  In 45 years here I've had no breakins, never been robbed, never assaulted, never threatened, in fact never the victim of any crime at all.  I did know a guy who said he knew someone who claimed he was robbed (that was 30 years ago).

    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. 

  20. 3 minutes ago, JoeWeber said:

    Geopolitics can be confusing. Grab a map. The Bosphorus connects the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles connects the Sea of Marmara to the Aegean Sea. Both run through Turkey. That, and to put it mildly, most NATO countries have divergent interests at some level. It is simply a marriage of convenience not a religious litmus test.

    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. 

  23. 26 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

    IMO Finland and Sweden should be voted in and Turkey voted out. Sweden and Finland have given sanctuary to some Islamic members and groups that Turkey has issues with. Associated with the coup and the PKK. So Turkey is likely going to want accommodation for that.

    U.S. sanctions Turkey over purchase of Russian S-400 missile system

     

    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?

  24. 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. 

  25. 2 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

    Exactly John. Why were the victims not able to protect each other? What is America coming to? People need to step up and arm themselves now. Especially in predominantly black neighbourhoods. 

    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.