spidermike007

Well white rice is kind of like a blank canvas, and it absorbs the flavors of everything around it so certainly you can make an argument that you can make white rice taste great with anything from soy sauce to butter to spices, curries and whatnot. But I find that brown rice just has this wonderful rich flavor all on its own, which to me makes it pair with things even better with some foods. Grilled rotisserie chicken and brown rice, with some Sriracha sauce for instance, is amazing.

While I wholeheartedly agree with you in regard to your statements pertaining to immigration, I completely disagree with you in regard to Senator Padilla. He is a true gentleman, and he was escorted into the room by an FBI agent and a National Guard, so they knew exactly who he was and they just simply didn't like him speaking out and being critical. It's that simple, every single member of Trump's cabinet is completely intolerant of criticism, just like the huge Goon himself.

From my point of view there's no such thing as a tasty white rice, sure the Japanese are able to make it with more interesting texture, suitable for sushi and better than normal white rice, but if you want to talk about tasty rice you just have to start getting into the whole grain stuff. The whole grain jasmine's, the red rices, and the black rices, now those are tasty. Thailand creates some absolutely beautiful versions of organic whole grain rice.

It would appear that the worst the offense, and the more morally reprehensible the individual, the more likely they are to get a pardon from the Goon himself.

The most corrupt president in the history of America has likely earned that in one week, many sources are stating how he has earned billions since the beginning of his administration, a lot of it's being funneled through his sons, and the entire crime family continues to benefit. People accused Biden of being corrupt, but this guy makes Biden look like a saint.

Fascinating how I'm not hearing anybody speak about it nor am I hearing about anybody catching it. Other than in the news. I won't be wearing a mask anytime soon and I will not be getting any more covid vaccines. Something like the Bubonic plague would have to come along for me to get another vaccine, and the only reason I got the first two was so that I was able to travel. I depend upon my immune system which remains quite strong due to plenty of exercise a good diet some very beneficial herbal supplements and my daily sense of fulfillment. The variants will likely continue and by all accounts it appears to me to be getting weaker and weaker, and more and more feeble. Only those at very high risk seem to be harmed by it, so from my point of view it's a big nothing burger.

I think it's a great concept when it applies to repeat offenders, and it could be seen as a deterrent, the likes of which are which are sorely lacking here, but I doubt that it will ever be implemented. Law enforcement here is so weak, the police are so feeble, and if this law is implemented I fear will be highly selective and the worst type of people will get away with it, and the people that are the least deserving of the punishment will be harassed.

Now that is a very ugly incident, it just goes to show you when the Grim Reaper comes calling there is nothing you can do to avoid the inevitable. Yikes.

Again you're speaking without knowing the facts, he had been contacting her office consistently for 3 months requesting an interview, and they would not even give him the courtesy of a reply. He was with a national guardsman and an FBI agent being escorted to a meeting when he was told that Noem was speaking in the room and asked if he would like to ask her a question. Everyone knew who he was. Sometimes reality can be quite a different thing from total BS White House spin.

You're obviously speaking without knowing the facts, he was escorted into the room by an FBI agent and a National Guard after being told that Noem was speaking in there, so everybody knew who he was, the rest is as he said total BS and total nonsense, and nothing but a cover-up.

Thank you. Again, you have proven my thesis. As gentlemen we can have political discussions and though I think it is fine to criticize and insult the politicians it crosses the line when we start berating each other. I do have some friends that will come right out and say the man is a butthead, he's an idiot, and he's an absolute clown, but I like his policies. Or this policy is good, but that policy is really bad. Those are the Republicans I admire. With many people, once they got attached to a theory, it was hard to get them detached. They’d screen out unhelpful facts, invent favorable ones, and ignore contradictions in their own claims. Look at those Sandy Hook, multiple fraud convictions, and Jan. 6th truthers, babbling about false flags and crisis actors and all the rest. When people were motivated enough to believe something, they were going to believe it no matter what. There was no such thing as a bridge too far.

Even one virgin is not only over rated, but a real pain in the butt. One can only imagine 72 of them. No thanks. A total fantasy based on nothing but fake purity, medieval ridiculousness, and complete and total ignorance. Down with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He is a power hungry, serial killing freak, who claims to be a man of God. What a buffoon.

There we go with the juvenile name calling again, just like your political master you need to engage in abusive nonsense, rather than offering a rational policy argument.

I agree. But distraction and deflection is really all a lot of Republican voters have at this point, you can't defend the indefensible.

It's an interesting point that you bring up, and one that a lot of Republicans just don't understand these days. During the 20 years that Clinton, Obama and Biden were in office I was continually critical of their policies. Just look back at some of my posts when Obama and Biden were in power. I was not a big fan of Obama for many of the years that he was president and my posts reflect that. As a centrist democrat I criticized a lot of his policies. I see so little of that coming from Republicans these days, to point where their absolute fealty is actually quite frightening. Most just can't handle critique of Trump, they immediately clam up, get defensive and start making it personal. Instead of behaving like rational intellectuals and debating policy they just start throwing out nonsense, accusations that I've never criticized my own party, or that I get paid to be critical of Trump. That is not only ridiculous, it is inane. I wish somebody would offer to pay me to criticize Trump. I would spend my whole day doing it. Criticism and open mindedness is what independent thinkers engage in, and it sets them apart from dogmatic subjects of a wannabe king. I invite you to reflect on that for just a moment.

I'm certainly not taking anything away from American armed forces, whom I think are simply doing their jobs and most of whom are good family men and women with good values, but Trump has to be absolutely delusional to utter a statement like the following one at his military parade. “Time and again, America’s enemies have learned that if you threaten the American people our soldiers are coming for you. Your defeat will be certain, your demise will be final, and your downfall will be total and complete,” the president said in brief remarks that capped the event. “Because our soldiers never give up, never surrender and never, ever quit. They fight, fight, fight, and they win, win, win.” Maybe he's just not aware of history since I know he doesn't read, but America has not won a war since WWII, unless you count Panama or Grenada, and most people would argue that those wars really didn't count because they didn't amount to much. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. All either defeats, or status quo at best. I think sometimes it's increasingly more obvious that this man lives in some sort of delusional fantasy world, and that's kind of a scary thought considering the position that he holds.

I'm certainly not taking anything away from American armed forces, whom I think are simply doing their jobs and most of whom are good family men and women with good values, but Trump has to be absolutely delusional to utter a statement like the following one at his military parade. “Time and again, America’s enemies have learned that if you threaten the American people our soldiers are coming for you. Your defeat will be certain, your demise will be final, and your downfall will be total and complete,” the president said in brief remarks that capped the event. “Because our soldiers never give up, never surrender and never, ever quit. They fight, fight, fight, and they win, win, win.” Maybe he's just not aware of history since I know he doesn't read, but America has not won a war since WWII, unless you count Panama or Grenada, and most people would argue that those wars really didn't count because they didn't amount to much. Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq. All either defeats, or status quo at best. I think sometimes it's increasingly more obvious that this man lives in some sort of delusional fantasy world, and that's kind of a scary thought considering the position that he holds.

Boeing's are very safe Jets and I never feel the slightest bit uneasy flying on them, a lot of Boeing incidents have been on their 737s. Of course we have no answers yet for the recent crash in India, but it was the first incident with the 787. With nearly 100,000 commercial flights a day worldwide, one has to expect a few incidents here and there. Airline travel is still ridiculously safe. You certainly have the right to avoid Boeing, I'm sure it won't affect them much one way or the other. In 2023, Boeing planes were involved in more U.S. safety incidents than Airbus, but it’s worth noting that they also have a larger fleet. In 2021, Airbus had a higher number of reported incidents. https://www.stratosjets.com/blog/airbus-vs-boeing-safety/ Boeing aircraft have a lower frequency of crashes per million flights compared to Airbus, with Boeing having a rate of one crash per 184 million flights and Airbus having a rate of one crash per 081 million flights. According to the data, the number of flights has been increasing, but the number of accidents has been decreasing each decade.The latest generation of aircraft, which includes models from both Airbus and Boeing, have the lowest accident rates. https://www.mightytravels.com/2024/04/comparing-airline-incident-rates-a-factual-analysis-of-boeing-vs-airbus-safety-records/

The few times I have flown on ANA, I must say I really enjoyed the lounges in Japan, and it's an excellent airline. I usually fly EVA, so I transit through Taipei and admittedly the lounge in Taipei is not very exciting (unless you fly business class or have diamond status) but it's relatively direct, though a very long flight from LA to Taipei. I do agree Taipei is not an exciting airport, though it's likely better than it was the last time you were there, and it is fairly easy to pass a couple of hours there,

Well he made a lot of promises during his campaign and so far he has not fulfilled very many of them, other than immigration and tariffs. So why would he keep his promise on wars? His polling numbers are very low for his immigration policies as they've been quite extreme in nature, and his polling numbers are dismal for tariffs as he has been the TACO and he has been a bull in a China closet, and as usual he's shown himself to be a very poor negotiator, and a very old man stuck in the past, and a goon without a realistic vision. Other than that he's destroying American tourism, he's ruining confidence in the dollar, he's destroying the alliances that we've built up over 80 years, he is greatly diminishing American influence and prestige, and he's just a general embarrassment to the nation.

The most convenient connections are through Taipei, Seoul, Osaka and Tokyo. Some also transit through Hong Kong.

Trump is a man with such thin skin, and he has such a snowflake mentality (the willingness to constantly portray himself as a victim). I wonder how he sees this event, without the mobs showing up as anticipated. Woe is the goon. Perhaps his popularity is starting to wane, some of the recent polls would certainly suggest that. One bad calculation after another.

Just keep in mind 95% of the time it's either a front end deal or a back end deal, so either she's hoping for compensation up front, or she's hoping for something long-term with financial security down the road. It is likely the latter, but you could just play and see what happens.

That is a really weak comparison. I'm sure with all the intellectual power that you have you can muster up something better than that. Come on, consider it a challenge. I think we can admit that all presidents lie and all administrations are corrupt, that's not really what we're talking about here, authoritarianism goes way beyond corruption. It's a completely different thing. A president attempting to censor facts about himself, and his poor health, is a very different thing than administration members attempting to distort actual things that have happened, and the facts behind the events. Are you willing to at least admit that? One of the problems here is that Noem picked on the wrong guy. This guy is not your average working class Latino. Padilla is an MIT graduate in mechanical engineering, the youngest LA city council president in its history, a former California state senator who passed over 70 bills, a former California secretary of state, who was re-elected receiving the most votes of any Latino elected official in the US. This is a man who has accomplished a tremendous amount during his career. He is the leading lawmaker from California and he's a very distinguished, very smart, and very articulate gentleman.

I agree and I believe that many Americans agree with what you're saying, what makes the situation infinitely more complicated and far more nuanced is the fact that the immigration system is broken. My cousin is an immigration attorney in Miami and he and I have spoken about this. On repeated occasions he has told me that the quota system has not been updated for 70 years, and that it's ridiculously difficult for highly qualified people, much less low level immigrants to get legal status in the US to work. So if someone who graduates at the top of his class at MIT cannot get a visa to work in the US, how is somebody with no skills supposed to get a visa? What you're saying is reasonable, but it's not taking into account the current immigration system which is in drastic need of reform and which the vast majority of conservatives completely gloss over. It even goes beyond that, the vast majority of Republicans, Trump and his people are completely unwilling to even discuss the issue of much needed immigration reform. Remember how Trump blocked that major immigration bill at the end of his last administration because he didn't want Biden to take credit for it?