Today’s Trumpist terrorism….

The FBI arrested Catherine Levy, a strong trump supporter, for allegedly calling in a bomb threat to Boston Children's Hospital following the right-wing conspiracy smear campaign against the hospital alleging it was providing gender-affirming permanent sex reassignment care to infants, children, and adolescents….and you MAGOTS are moronic enough to not just believe it based on absolutely nothing, but to make bomb threats against critically ill children over this nonsense.

Congrabulations

You gradubated from the Trump de-education center.

Oh, you have a good point, I mean let's look back at how low and devisively hyper liberal the last nomination was.....oh yeah, Merrick Garland, not a bit.
Sorry, you reflexively spouted more divisive partisan bullshit, again. Your team is the ridiculous adolescently vindictive team wholly uninterested in bipartisan governing.

It is very different and poppy compared to previous stuff for sure. I like it in the context of the song, even though overall I prefer Tool's prog/metal melding.

I'm not a Maynard whisperer / expert, but my guess is that there are 2 motivations for the sound of this song/album compared to other stuff.

1) Although Maynard is the vocalist for Tool, APC, and Puscifer (which I haven't listened to much), he kinda wants to keep all those projects distinct. Tool is more dark and heavy, APC is a bit more rock, and Puscifer trending towards some electronic stuff. But that kinda oversells this, because mostly he is putting vocals down onto musical tracks that the members of those bands have already recorded without much or any input from him...

2) From my interpretation of the song itself, he's being (mildly) critical about getting caught up in triviality of celebrity gossip and nightly news instead of paying attention to stuff closer to home. While simultaneously accepting that we all do that, and that sometimes it takes the death of a far-off idol from our adolescence that we'll never meet in person to get us to consider our own mortality.


So the poppy sound with that dark edge right around the corner really fits -- at least to me.

Forget income equality.

Where can I go watch that adolescent death race?!

After 2 years of a difficult application process completed in a refugee camp, we have a duty to those who successfully completed our process. The same goes for non refugees who completed the process. That was the deal we made with them, and they've completed their part. No, becoming hostile won't help public opinion, but why would they care? Public opinion of them is already terrible when they've done nothing wrong, and that same opinion mirrored in Trump has cost them dearly. Now, imagine you're a pissed off displaced teenager who's just escaped war and gone through the lengthy application process with their surviving family in terrible conditions the whole time, you are accepted, and then some guy just says "nope, you escaped the wrong war torn country, Fuck off"....would you be pissed at them? Maybe pissed enough to do something stupid? Now imagine there are numerous organizations looking for people just like you who convince you to act on your adolescent anger. Do you not see how blocking those people creates terrorists where acting honorably and keeping our promisses would create allies?

They ARE angry at them, irate, but they are war refugees, not mercenaries. Most able to fight them already did, and we're killed by them, Assad, or Russia.

When doing everything right by our standards at great expense gets you a nice "Fuck off and die" , why would a sane person continue?

I think they get the brunt because 1) they don't stop refugee migrations and terrorists just walk in with refugees, a problem we don't share, and 2) because of their foreign policies, an issue we do share. Their populations, and even governments are becoming more xenophobic.
Also, I haven't heard of any terrorist acts in Greece, a country that's arguably helped the refugees the most.

Donald Trump is whatever he needs to be to get your approval right now. He's not a man of conviction who can be relied upon to stand by his beliefs. He's an adolescent with a twitter account who needs more followers to prop up his ego. He's a thin skinned, vindictive narcissist who cares more about the appearance of popularity than committing to the hard work required to earn true respect. He's a child in the middle of the room who's suddenly realized everyone's paying attention to him, so he hams it up and makes silly faces to hold the attention. His relentless need for praise and zero integrity allowed him to shape-shift into anything that would get the highest ratings. He is whatever the desperate and disenfranchised wanted him to be, so they voted for him. But he still only cares about the cheering section, even if he has to bring his own with him. So he will never do what's hard to fulfill his promise. He'll put up the facade, sign the papers in front of the cameras, bask in the glory, move on and blame someone else when he fails to follow through. There are people who need what he promised and I feel sorry for them that the only one saying what they needed to hear was a sad little man who's universe does not extend beyond his own ego. He will self destruct, because he always does.

I hope you don't feel like that I'm pushing anything onto you. I'd like to just present the facts. I wasn't vegan until I turned 33, so I'm certainly not judging or trying to give out this information in order to put anyone down or elevate myself. I'm not trying to troll, I'm not trying to out-do you. I'm also typing this with limited time, so apologies if some of it sounds frank. (The videos below do a better job than me anyway).

1) A proper plant based diet makes it 8 times less likely for cancer cells to grow. There is a reason why 3rd world countries (that have largely plant based diets due to poverty) don't get cancers us westerners have. Also the #1 killer in the western world is cardiovascular disease, in the US alone one person dies every 8 seconds from it. Which is around 400, 000 people a year.

I know you're sceptical. I was too. So here's some actual science from actual doctors, who have come these conclusions on proper peer reviewed and non biased / industry funded research:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rNY7xKyGCQ2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZtPGyLaiHE1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYTf0z_zVs03
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XVf36nwraw4


2)Vegans aren't anti-choice, they are pro life, pro planet. The actions of people eating animal products goes way further than a person choosing to eat something(sure they are typically ignorant of the consequences, as most of pre-vegans were too). When a large portion of the planet chooses to eat animal products it effects everyone, because it's destroying the planet through global warming, deforestation, dumping of animal agriculture waste and so on. It kills more animals than just ones being brutalised in cages. It will eventually kill us too. To me it seems like a bad idea to destroy the only place in the universe that we can currently live.
So by eating animal products you're really making a choice for you, for me, for my hypothetical grandchildren, and of course for the animal that almost certainly wants to keep being alive. So as a vegan I'd like you refrain for making choices that impact my life, and I'm standing up for the voiceless animals who would certainly object to your choice too.

3) As you (hopefully) saw in at least one of the videos above, there is nothing in meat which cannot be obtained from a plant source (and without all of the bad stuff that comes with meat).



Your idea of a farm with humanely raised animals is a good start, but it's just not practical, the earth isn't big enough to meet demand. It's also still highly unethical as you still kill the animals at an early age in order to harvest their flesh.

You have a picture of two dogs in your avatar. I'm sure if someone decided to schedule their lives to end early for any reason, let alone to eat them, you'd find that pretty immoral right? You no doubt treat your dogs very well, but that doesn't make it OK to kill when they reach adolescence. If I said I wanted to eat your dogs (I don't of course) then any reason you came up with applies still to any farm animals that you currently feel fine with eating.

The animals also aren't stupid and they're aware of what's going on. My grandparents owned a massive farm with cows/pigs/rabbits/chickens and crops as well. They were living very comfortable lives as far as farm animals go, but they did not like it when you approached them, they knew what was waiting for them.
When you see typical farm animals that are truly free this is what they look like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIF3BYBXZWA
They behave like pets, even cows kick a ball around.

Also cows milk is only created for when the cow is pregnant. Even if the cow is living in cow utopia, if it is getting milked then that's milk that should have gone to a calf. It was most likely artificially impregnated, and also most likely bought from someone that breeds female cows, and kills the male cows (since you only need one bull to harvest the semen).
When you really think about it, even the best treated animals are being breed and used to make someone money as the primary goal. That is immoral.



So what it really comes down to is taste. The ethics, the environmentalism, the health don't play a role in the debate at all, and hopefully one of those things is important to you, perhaps all 3.

Being animal product free isn't as hard as you think, it's as simple as swapping out a few ingredients here and there. It's not all about eating broccoli and kale. You'll still be eating burritos, burgers, pizzas, pastas, curries etc. Just slightly different and before you know it, you'll barely know the difference, and eventually prefer them that way.

And this is probably the part I found the hardest to believe myself, but once I knew about it, veganism became the easiest thing in the world. Taste is completely influenced by the foods you eat, because of brain chemistry. I thought I could never stop eating two things: cheese and chocolate. After about a month of not eating them (and yes it takes a little bit of effort towards the 3 week mark) you will break the dopamine effect in your brain and you'll never want to eat them again. I can eat vegan cheese and dairy free chocolate, but it does absolutely nothing for me these days. This is coming from someone that wouldn't eat regular chocolate, I had to have the good stuff, everyday. The cravings get pretty intense at the 3 week mark, I won't lie, but then one day you realise you've not had the cravings for several days.
When it comes to meats, even if they are well done, all I can smell is oil and blood. Eggs all I smell is sulphur. I find all of that quite repugnant and I see them for what they really are, rather than what my dopamine recepters tell me.

Now of course you can be unhealthy vegan, and eat all of the oreos, chips, and dairy free chocolate you want. That's up to you, either way the planet and animals don't care which way you go about it

I'm with you on the inbred dogs and being hot, but why shouldn't people get money for surfing?

If they're good at what they do, and it encourages people to buy a companies product, why shouldn't that company sponsor them (or at least give them free gear)?

But really this is no surprise to me at all. The surf industry is pretty adolescent when it comes to these things.

Well, first off let me say my comment was not to antagonize you or dehumanize you, and it was not meant as insulting.

I also think what you're pointing out here is exactly the cultural problem that exist in the US - you think you're special, a unique snowflake, entirely different (and even better?) country than all the others and it's just not true. The US is an adolescent country that still has scars from its violent birth at the hands of a revolution. One of those scars is the 2nd amendment.

It doesn't piss me off particularly, I'm more saddened that people die over stupid things. What boggles my mind is why aren't more people in the US pissed off about this? You people are the ones dying, your children are shot in school shootings, there are gun related murders every day in the US - why in the hell aren't you pissed off?

I also disagree that it's an adolescent way of looking at things. In my opinion (of my opinion), it's a realist's way of looking at the way things are, rather than how they ought to be or how one might idealize them to be.

It's not just society's view of women and their sexuality, but the reality of the male sexuality and its aggressive, testosterone-driven desire/pursuit/predation to achieve sexual gratification.

Fair enough.

Of course you're entitled to your opinion, it's just a very adolescent way of looking at things for a grown man (with kids, IIRC).

And yeah, just because society has a fucked up view of women and their sexuality does not make this any less wrong than a girl and two male teachers.

What rights are you seeking exactly? You must understand your rights cannot supersede others' rights. Basically, you can't have sex with adolescents under the legal age of consent where you live for the following reasons (from the wiki on ephebophilia):

-- Some (I would say most) adolescents are unable to understand the physical, emotional, and social consequences of sexual activity
-- Adult sexual relations with adolescents can be an abuse of power, using psychological coercion.
-- Sexual relations with adolescent girls can lead to pregnancy and parenthood, for which adolescents may not be prepared emotionally and/or financially.

I don't think you should be demonized for your attraction but I think you should understand why society may put you in jail for acting on it.