Off-Topic / Music Thread [267]

Understood and point taken.

I thought you were intimating he was a known musician.

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 8 [1555]


Those sanctions don't seem to be having much of an impact. The Russian economy is predicted to grow by over 2.5%.

Seems like the Russians are doing halfway decent job at adapting. Things might change in the future, but it's not a given those changes will be deleterious to Russia.

Off-Topic / Music Thread [267]


What's his name?

News / Poland`s aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 10 [2374]

OK, I understand now. It's not important in terms of the war in Ukraine. It is still a strategic naval port, though, yes?

News / Poland`s aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 10 [2374]


What do you mean by it being a liability? Is the Crimea no longer a strategic naval post? Has Russia started retrofitting other Black Sea ports to assume naval needs?


That's the biggie...manpower. I cannot figure out a way to be optimistic about Ukrainian victory when the average age of Ukrainian soldier is early-40's and reports of draft dodging. Doesn't matter how many advanced weapon systems and lethal munitions you have, you need manpower to take back territory...territory that's fortified.

Off-Topic / Random Chat Thread [439]

Cause for canonization opened for young Polish lay missionary killed in Bolivia

catholicnewsagency.com/news/257431/cause-for-canonization-opened-for-young-polish-lay-missionary-killed-in-bolivia

Before being sent on one of these missions, Kmiec wrote: "I received the grace of God, ... the gift freely given to give to others, and I have to share this gift! All the skills I have, the abilities I acquire, the talents I develop, are not meant to serve me, but so that I can use them to help others."

"The greatest gift is that I know God and I can't keep it to myself, I have to spread it! If I can help someone, make them smile, make them happier, teach them something, then I want to do it," she added.

Such beauty and a witness to charity (love) shows that hope remains in our confused world.

Off-Topic / What's your hobby? [164]


Me too!

One of my favorite things is to get lost while driving along country roads. You see some interesting stuff you'd never come across if you weren't lost.

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 8 [1555]

@Novichok

I knew it.


There is! Guaranteed.

Off-Topic / Music Thread [267]

Cool. I've tried to give Indian music a fair shake, but I just can't get into it. I may not have heard the right stuff.

Here's some guys I used to bang around with. They were one of the first from my group of peers to get signed to a label. I think they are still around:

Off-Topic / Music Thread [267]

Is the proggie rock/metal stuff your preference, Milo?

Off-Topic / Music Thread [267]


😄. Yeah, Marillion: the poor man's Genesis. I never saw them as being that similar, but everyone else around me did.

Best live band I ever saw. It was in a club with about 2000-2500 capacity. No opener, they played well over 3 hours. Fish drank tea because he had a cold, but he sounded spot on.

Off-Topic / Music Thread [267]


Tate was one of my vocal heroes. His voice from 80''s until 92/94 was dynamic.



Were/Are you a fan of Marillion, Milo? Marillion taught me that you can enjoy drinking beer alone as long as you have a good set of headphones and these two albums:

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 8 [1555]

@Novichok

:D. Away from PF, I bet you're soft and fuzzy. A man who buys more Girl Scout cookies than you could ever eat, feeds stray kittens, and delivers Meals-on-Wheels to local shut-ins.

News / Poland`s aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 10 [2374]


Absolutely! Those bikers would have joined in kicking that dudes a$$.

News / Poland`s aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 10 [2374]


Here's a different perspective:

In the neighborhood I grew up, there were a couple Hell's Angels biker guys. Every now and again their biker gang buddies would come roaring through on their very cool and menacing Harleys. Me and my friends would be both fiercely intrigued and pants-wetting scared.

One or two of them would be wearing German military helmets-I distinctly remember one having a SS insignia. WWII was still flowing through the American garment in the 70's, so I was shocked and perplexed.

Come to find out, American biker gangs were founded and populated by WWII vets and some the bikers roaming the streets of my youth were WWII vets. Those helmets were most probably souvenirs from the war (a trophy from a kill).

Doubt the guy you saw get his ass re-arranged came from the same cloth.

Later on in the 80's I rarely if ever saw an SS helmet, instead it was the WWI spiked stahlhelm. Maybe even biker gangs succumb to political correctness.

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 8 [1555]

@Novichok

Of course, with your rhetorical proposal, prices would rise accordingly and we're back to poverty, crime, and what-not; only now we'd have to carry around dollars with cumbersome denominations that have a bunch of zeros-$10,000, 25,0000 bills-we'd be like Italy back in the days of the lira.

Although, it'd be fun when you tell your grandkids that you remember when a $27,000.00 candy bar cost 20 cents.

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 8 [1555]

@Alien

So, what the market accepts-not what is mandated by government.

What's happening in America is the minimum wage is not in concert with certain sectors of the market. The government is mandating a minimum wage that is not sustainable for some businesses-businesses that hire non-skilled labor. A labor force most vulnerable to becoming unemployed or replaced.

What happens if your company is forced to double or triple the wages of those cleaners?

Minimum wage laws, at least here in America (but probably everywhere), remind me of the adage "the road to hell is paved with good intentions. "


I think it is more good than bad. They are investing in America as opposed to elsewhere. Creates jobs and residual business growth, tax revenues, and usually get some infrastructure upgrade with it.

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 8 [1555]

@Alien

What has your company done to hire Czech or non-Czech cleaners?

Off-Topic / Solar Eclipse April 8th 2024 [28]

@Joker

Where are you driving to see it?

News / Poland`s aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 10 [2374]

@jon357

Certainly there's difference, but this idea that men in general are brutish deadbeats with a slaveholder mentality that view women as chattel is baloney. As is destructive radical feminism that pit men and women against each other-they use the baloney of the brutish man as reason for their ideology.

News / Poland`s aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 10 [2374]

@jon357

I am under the assumption we are speaking about the developed western world.

News / Poland`s aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 10 [2374]

@Lenka

Yes, and it's this neoliberal/relativistic point-of-view that Maf has expounded on. It's the consequences of this point of view that we as a society will be dealing with-low birth rates being one of those consequences. Your pension will feel the effects of that consequence.

News / Poland`s aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 10 [2374]

@Lenka

My point is that this belief that women all across the West are burdened by motherhood and exploited by men is not true.

As far as dead weight, my point there is that men aren't the only dead weight in some relationships. Women too can be dead weight in a relationship.

My overarching theme in this is that the cry of feminism is built on a factual lie (that women are exploited by men whole cloth) and that it perpetuates discord and division in that it pits men and women in a competition AGAINST one another, instead of fostering healthy relationships.

Like BB said some things are simply unequal by nature, so to look at the woman-man relationship as something akin to an equal contract is simply unnatural. It's about complementarity-and in such there is no room for exploitation.

Saying men don't change diapers, clean, etc. is a caricature. Men do such things.

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 8 [1555]

Trump's case hasn't been decided-and I doubt a conviction would stand on appeal.

Besides, it's not all lost in this country. Bleak, yes; hopeless, no. Cynicism dims the radiant light of hope. That's why in times like these we can do without it. Turn the cynicism into fighting energy, Novi. We could use you for positive change, you cantankerous bastard (I mean that as term of endearment).

News / Poland`s aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 10 [2374]

@Novichok

You wear cynicism like a tailor-made suit. 😄

Off-Topic / USA News and Poland - part 8 [1555]

@Novichok

First Amendment still matters to some. An Oregon Church thought it mattered and the Court agreed.

apnews.com/article/oregon-church-homeless-meal-service-lawsuit-e506fcc50213a007989238c58ae9973d

Off-Topic / 75 Years of Israel and the War - part 2 [450]


I would never have thought.


They do a very good job in the opulence area. Beautiful.

News / Poland`s aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 10 [2374]


I disagree. A partnership means a coming together.

Your single mother sample can be countered with single mothers whose lives aren't easier. I'd surmise that your sample probably hurried into their relationship and found out too late that the dude was dead weight. And, you know, it works the other way round too. Plenty of women who are dead weight.

News / Poland`s aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 10 [2374]


There was an article early this year that dealt with the crisis of depression and suicide among young people (I think they defined young as 40 and younger). The main culprit is loneliness. For whatever reasons, younger people are losing the skills of how to develop relationships.

Part of it, as you point out, is it is much easier nowadays to withdrawal into artificial things like gaming, p0rn, social media, etc.

But, those are just means to withdrawal. We are going to need to address the reasons why they want to withdrawal in the first place on a social level if we want our societies to flourish. It seems we don't really want to do that with any seriousness on a macro-level; which probably has something to do with the tyranny of neoliberalism/relativism.

News / Poland`s aid to Ukraine if Russia invades - part 10 [2374]


I do the things I'm good at and she does what she's good at. We work together toward the shared goal of having a operating and happy household. It's a loving partnership-not a competition between opposite sexes.