fusion58

Yes, because tRump was already giving his handler in the Kremlin everything Vlad wanted. No need to go to war when you have an American president who is doing your bidding in your pocket.

Yep. Trump's fan bois are simply miffed because tRump is being taken to task for his contemptible, inappropriate and disrespectful Memorial Day "message." Their "how dare you engage in partisan mud slinging on Memorial Day?" pearl clutching is just a smoke screen. Transparent indeed.

In normal times, I would agree. However, these are far from normal times inasmuch as a former president who led a multi-pronged effort to overthrow a lawful democratic election and who, failing said effort, incited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in a last ditch effort to prevent his successor from taking office is trying to return to power now as we speak. As an American and a veteran, I would submit that the best way to observe the Memorial Day holiday would be to remember the oath I swore to defend the Constitution of the United States and to remember those who laid down their lives in doing the same, viz., those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defense of the democratic ideals which tRump and his supporters so clearly disdain.

No, considering tRump wants to be reelected as POTUS and is currently his party's front runner for 2024, I don't believe we should ignore anything he has to say - particularly anything that provides insight into his views on Americans who serve in the armed forces.

Maybe we should take our cues from the 2024 GOP front runner for POTUS? No one has shown more respect for military men and women than he.

For some of us, it's a question of who's better for the country.

Whereas his opponent refers to them as "losers and suckers" (to cite just one of many examples.) How any American can make excuses for this POS is beyond me.

All true, except for the "under his breath" part. Benedict Donald has demonstrated time and time again that he has no scruples about saying that part out loud.

It would be more accurate to say IQ45 was capable of stringing a few poorly-constructed and frequently gaffe-ridden sentences together without having the slightest clue what he was talking about. In any case, this constant mischaracterization of the observable effects of Biden's struggles with a life-long speech impediment as "dementia" by right-wing propagandists is really getting tiresome. Of course, when an opposition party has no platform and its policies are so widely unpopular, what else is there to run on?

Yep. Even stranger when you consider said presidential predecessor's lengthy record of demeaning and disparaging military men and women.

Beat me to it! "A few million USD" =/= "money is not an issue." Anyway, to answer the question, I'd probably retire somewhere on the French Riviera.

Don't drop the soap!

Maybe there is a God after all!

Exactly. Add to that list "self-centered people who don't belong to high risk groups and who therefore don't give a tinker's <deleted> about those who do."

You went full tin foil. Never go full tin foil.

Yep. Conservatives have just one gear: reverse.

Those are the sort of critical distinctions IQ45’s fan bois are happy to ignore. What happens if tRump does go to prison? Does he summon the confederate army again for another riot?

Capitalism only succeeds where there’s a level playing field which allows for open/free competition. These oligarchs and plutocrats benefit from a system of laissez-faire capitalism and cronyism which is analogous to a football game with no rules and no refs. That’s how you get 2008. Those who fail to learn from history…

Yes, it was. Instead of arguing the merits of his statement, several forum members simply attacked his character.

And bringing it up in response to Chuwit’s statements is ad hominem.

Yep. Gotta love the “I don’t belong to a high risk group, so I don’t give a <deleted>” attitudes.

Where do you get "90%?" And can you really argue with a straight face that acceptance of a scientific theory is indicative of "blindness" when that theory is supported by evidence? When a scientific theory is supported by enough experimental and/or observational evidence, then "it's like that" statements are warranted. For example, physicists can claim to know what they know about things like elementary particles, the four forces, etc., with an extremely high level of certainty. More often than not, those who actually make an effort to learn about and understand science "lash out" when they become exasperated or lose patience with people who peddle pseudo-scientific nonsense, baseless conspiracy theories, etc. It's usually the latter group - not the former - who make rational discussion impossible. This is a false comparison which obscures the fact that there are, in fact, varying degrees of certainty where scientific theories are concerned, i.e., there are some things we know re: how the world works with a high degree of certainly, and others to a lesser extent. The most striking difference between scientists and religionists, as noted in my previous post, is that you'll never hear a theist admit to ANY uncertainty where religious claims are concerned - despite the fact that the vast majority of those claims are based solely on armchair a priori philosophical or metaphysical "proofs" and the occasional contingent empirical claim when those "proofs" fail. These are not "just" theories. They're theories supported by varying amounts of experimental and observational evidence. The same can hardly be said re: religious theories which posit the existence of incorporeal "souls," supernatural agencies, etc. Furthermore, the claim that most people "treat them (theories in neuroscience or cosmological theories) as facts" is groundless. On the contrary, scientists are usually very careful to acknowledge when a theory is a "work in progress" or when it has some problems. For example, even the most ardent proponents of the Big Bang theory will admit that, despite the many predictions of the theory which are supported by observational evidence, the theory still has some problems. The implication that there's some sort of parity with respect to objectivity (or adherence to "dogma") on "both sides" is really laughable, as I hope my post has demonstrated here.

Religion and science present (usually) competing or incompatible theories re: how the world works, the nature of reality, the origins of the cosmos, complex life on Earth, etc. The one difference between the two camps that always strikes me is how you will often hear leading scientists, e.g., physicists, cosmologists, et al, say "we don't know for sure," or "we could be wrong" in reference to this theory or that. However, you will almost never hear a theist utter the phrase "I could be wrong" - despite the fact that their theories or arguments are supported primarily by a priori philosophical or metaphysical claims with the occasional contingent (and dubious) empirical claim.

Well, don't leave us hanging here. Was the jing jok prophecy true or not?

Well, I'm an old fossil who came of age in the USA during the heyday of the sexual revolution/women's lib movement/pre-AIDS era, so I can certainly recall a time when the ONS was commonplace. When I was in my twenties, sport <deleted> was a socially accepted way of life and practiced with equal abandon by both the men and the women in my social circle. Times have obviously changed since then. Thailand is an interesting cultural study insofar as mainstream society has never really undergone a comparable sexual revolution or women's movement; however the absence of Western "Christian guilt" around sexuality in general adds an interesting dynamic.