I don't believe this was ever about taking Ukraine with the Russian military. I believe this is about destroying Ukraine and squeezing Europe's energy-dependent balls until the EU cracks under the economic pressure caused by the sanctions. This is already happening with Germany whimpering to Daddy Vladdy for all that precious, precious oil and gas. "Oh, we gave Zelensky a billion euros!"; yeah, and you gave Putin 25x that in oil/gas purchases.

The mealy-mouthing and dissembling has already begun, most shamefully from the New York Times, who is calling for Ukraine to make "hard choices". "This isn't capitulation" -- fuck you NYT, yes it is.

I had honest hopes that the western powers would show some spine and resolve, but as soon at their economies started to feel a little pain, the number of fucks given for Ukrainian lives went to zero. Russian is going to rape and murder its way from Odessa to the Belarus border until the western powers figure out some way to make it all Zelensky's fault or force him to cede massive amounts of Ukrainian territory before any real economic pain felt.

The worst part is that Finland and Sweden are going to be granted NATO membership, but Ukraine still is denied. Why are these two the hills NATO is willing to die on and Ukraine not? If NATO isn't willing to risk nuclear war over Ukraine, what happens when the tip of a single Russian boot touches Finnish soil? What happens when Finland then calls for Article 5 and the rest of NATO suddenly realizes shit just got real? What happens when it's time to shit or get off the pot; put up or shut up? Either NATO charges into the teeth of a potential nuclear war, or NATO is shown to be a paper tiger. If someone sees a middle ground, I'm interested in hearing it.

(Incidentally, NATO's Article 5 is pretty porous. A-5 doesn't say every NATO nation commits whatever forces are deemed necessary by the whole to defend against an aggressor. Instead, it says that in the event of A-5 coming into play, each member will take "such action as [the member state] deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area."

Notice the whole 'each member' and 'deems necessary'? Yeah, to quote a popular movie 'I don't think this mutual defense pact means what you think it does'.)

Teacher here. It's made-up-nonsense. I don't give a shit what gender or sexual orientation a kid is and im CERTAINLY not going to try to convince anyone to change anything about themselves.

That said, I'm going to acknowledge that gay/trans people exist in authorship and literature as it arises. You can't read someone like Whitman (Leaves of Grass, arguably America's greatest poet) and not come across references to sexuality either implicit or explicit. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45472/i-sing-the-body-electric

It becomes relevant in passages like this:

5
This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.

----------------------------------
Maybe a conversation like:

"'Love flesh swelling' like he's in love with some woman and they...he...?"

"Probably not, he didn't have any serious female relationships as far as I am aware."

"But the title is 'The female form'"

"Well, it's possible, but it's not likely the case that he was talking about himself being in love with a woman. This poem is in the text but he wrote many other pieces about he-himself falling into and out of love with various men and we have letters documenting those relationships with his male significant others. Although, I'm not sure what to call them because gay marriage would have been illegal at the time. He's likely writing the poem in a way where he appreciates the female form and sees men who are drawn to it like the way I appreciate watching bees act obsessively driven to the middle of flowers. I like watching Bees in action, but that doesn't mean I'm going all pollen crazy, still I appreciate it for what it is."
-------------------

This is an example of how discussion of sexuality would come up in my classroom as I imagine it. Note how I'm not trying to convince the kid I'm talking to to turn gay like it's a big game of rainbow-red-rover or something. Nevertheless, knowing the author's sexual preference in this instance informs our understanding of the piece.


My own personal theory?
The people railing against things like this are the same shitheads that can't be bothered to read ANYTHING and instead giggle and guffaw at "hurhurhurhur he hadd'a boner" where I get to live an early stage of Idocracy.

Also, I agree that the "funky stuff" shouldn't be just avoided altogether. For goodness sake, just let teachers have the difficult conversation that everyone is avoiding. Reminds me of when Peggy Hill was struggling to say "Penis" when she was assigned sex ed.

ONE gas station is over $6…in Beverly Grove, the shopping district of Beverly Hills. The real average is $4.77 statewide.
Another totally dishonest @bobknight33 post. I expect nothing less.

I’m in Humboldt county, the most expensive gas in California regularly by far (except for special hyper expensive stations like Big Sur, Icehouse gas on the Rubicon trail, and the Uber rich one in the post).
…we are barely over $5, just like we were in 2019.

Congratulations! Your video, Bec Hill mishears Christmas songs on Jonathan Ross, has reached the #1 spot in the current Top 15 New Videos listing. This is a very difficult thing to accomplish but you managed to pull it off. For your contribution you have been awarded 2 Power Points.

This achievement has earned you your "Golden One" Level 290 Badge!

Your video, Bec Hill mishears Christmas songs on Jonathan Ross, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

@noseeem

Yep I'm shitty with grammar and spelling But I can fix anything and hold my own in front any Dr. or C suite within my field of expertise.

Personal experience? BSEET Penn State.
33 years as a medical Field service Engineer.


28 years working for Global conglomerates and 5 years in house at UNC Chapel hill NC.
I’ve been with Siemens Medical and General Electric most of my career.
I’ve serviced/ install Cathlabs, Vascular labs, Rad/ RF rooms and Mammo rooms. Plus others.


Last 20 years installing / servicing Medical Ultrasound.
This includes Cardiac, Radiology ultrasound and Woman’s health, OBGYN
I’ve seen more ultrasounds hearts and heartbeats than you can imagine..
Being Hippa compliant, I look at images for quality and for servicing.

All the Techs I talk to say the same . Heartbeat starts about the 6 to 10 week of pregnancy
And yes there are images that capture this along with all the other images and measurements. Doppler is used for this.

Per quick Google search
When does the heartbeat show on ultrasound?
A fetal heartbeat may first be detected by a vaginal ultrasound as early as 5 1/2 to 6 weeks after gestation. That's when a fetal pole, the first visible sign of a developing embryo, can sometimes be seen. But between 6 1/2 to 7 weeks after gestation, a heartbeat can be better assessed.

Your fucking up the wrong tree today. Go back to being the big guy at you high school.

You can even do this at home

That's just fantasy. Name ONE TV cop shows that's not PR for the Blues? At best, I hope this clip serves as an instructional video for the IRL cops. At worst, it's pure whitewash.

I pretty much watch any type of TV BUT cops shows except the British ones and the mystery whodunit mini-series like the recent Mare of Easttown.

I'm extremely glad that I live in Canada, and I live in a Toronto suburb, I don't need to fear police officers because I don't see them walking beats on main streets, they're just usually in their cruisers and/or hiding around dark/down-hill intersections to catch speeding cars. But Toronto downtown is another story I think, I see the occational news reports of police harrassment of PoC just like those in the US. But far, far less fatal.

R.I.P.
Dusty Hill, bass, died two days ago at 72 years old, just 12 days after this performance.

Such bullshit *lies @bobknight33. Nice try trying to hurt BLMs ability to generate donations with these unfounded accusations, but it's pure bullshit as usual from you and your ilk. Liars.

There's absolutely zero evidence a single dime of BLM money was used, nor is there evidence these homes were actually owned by her or her family, or even evidence they were owned at the same time. The houses described in the articles were two were small homes in South Central and Inglewood, severely depressed areas you would call ghettos, the modest family home in Topanga, not near Beverly Hills as claimed, has three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a tiny guest "house" (shed) and sits on just over a quarter of an acre-sized lot, so not a mansion but a small family home, the fourth reported purchase was a home in rural Georgia, so not worth much.

There's actually no evidence she bought anything. Dirt’s article, which is the source that all of the stories and posts about the Topanga home purchase are based on, didn’t report that Cullors purchased the home with BLM donations. It said the home was sold “to a corporate entity that public records show is controlled” by Cullors, but didn’t name the corporation.

Besides being a public figure who is paid to speak at events, Cullors is a best selling author who last year signed a lucrative contract with Warner Brothers, so she has her own money, and filings show she was paid a total of $20000 a year by BLM until 2019 when she stopped taking a dime. There's zero evidence BLM had a thing to do with these purchases, no timeline of when they were purchased or sold, no mention of who lived there....There's nothing but supposition by dishonest people like yourself who have no problem making up hurtful lies about their enemies like 4 year old snot nosed spoiled little girls trying to make themselves feel better....you lying little crybaby snowflake.

We don’t have enough information from the Dirt or Post story to answer questions like: Were these homes consecutively purchased, lived in and sold? Were other parties involved in the reported purchases? Were they lived in by family members? Did any of the addresses crop up due to errors in public records databases?

Such utter bullshit and *lies Bob. Another factless racist and just stupid attack against non whites who you think couldn't possibly buy a house without stealing the money for it.

Gonna leave this here, but I know Bob isn't interested in finding out how his game of radical right wing telephone started so he won't read it.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/patrisse-cullors-topanga-house/

Btw, this isn't fear, isn't philosophy, is only Wtf because Wtf are you thinking posting these baseless accusations, and only fail because you once again failed to be honest. It's pure political lies by the party of lies that repeatedly make the argument that they aren't required to tell the truth about anything. Facts have a liberal bias, and truth and honesty are for liberals and have no place in your party. You're such a dishonest tool.

Edit: with Trump dividing the country and starting a failed coup with his election fraud fraud he used to bring in hundreds of millions in donations to fight against, a fight he never fought and instead put those hundreds of millions he duped you and your ilk out of into his own pockets to pay off his massive debts, including not just his failed campaign debts (that he still didn't pay for the most part) and his own private debts, it's just hilarious you would try this lie, knowing full well Trump did what you accuse Cullors of a hundred times over AFTER the election with proof he took the money, but not one scintilla against Cullors. 🤦‍♂️

Upvote for the pickup truck!

Back country skiing in Colorado when I was growing up, down the hill, through the woods to a road, hitchhike back near the top, hike the last couple hundred meters, rinse, repeat.
Nine times out of 10 it was a pickup truck with snow in the back that was picking you up.

This was right before snowboarding was really a thing.

Dreaming my son.

what about this..
Senate Majority Leader, Mike Shirkey caught on camera telling the truth about Jan 6th.

It was ALL staged, Mitch McConnell wanted it to be “a mess” so he could secure a Trump impeachment conviction for Pelosi and Schumer.

https://creativedestructionmedia.com/news/politics/2021/02/13/breaking-michigan-senate-majority-caught-on-secret-recording-saying-capitol-hill-riot-wa
s-a-hoax-pre-planned-and-mcconnell-involved/

I kinda expected the guy who kicked in the door to Benny-Hill the guy with the hammer.

Good thing the driver kept the brake on or it would have rolled back down the hill.

You've apparently never driven in my neighborhood. There's a 6-way stop that leads into my section of Seattle and NO ONE knows how to work it. The people who actually live here do ok, but Uber/Lyft drivers encounter this traffic monstrosity with a mix of dread and WTF-ery.

See also: driving up and down 1-lane streets on the hills.