Mrs Whiggins

I went to her Stand For America website and under the policy heading it's a bunch of videos with a three sentence vanilla filler description underneath. Fuck that Nikki. Believe it or not, many voting Americans can read. Put actual policy in text on your website, Nikki. Oh? That isn't possible because all you have are little soundbites about woke unions and "Obamacare" and on and on? Ugh. I would absolutely cast a vote for a female President but not Nikki Haley.

Roses are red, Violets are blue. When Ted's on parade, Throw a beer can...or two.

There was an article I believe in the LA Times but it may have been one of the other large news sources about the pharmacies in northern Mexico that cater to the tourist medical trade. They tested a bunch of pills that people routinely cross the border to buy and a lot of them contained fentanyl while some of the Adderall pills were comprised of meth IIRC. Looked for it, it was the Times. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-02-02/mexico-pharmacy-fentanyl-laced-pills-meth

Weinerdogshitzel.

Ritchie has one coming out this year: Operation Fortune: Ruse de guerre with Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza, Cary Elwes, Hugh Grant, and Josh Hartnett. Here is a trailer: Upcoming is the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare which is still in production. It also casts Cary Elwes, along with Henry Cavill, Henry Golding, among others. The cast of The Gentlemen was pretty good, we'll see if these next two pieces that have some of the same cast members can hang with it.

The Right Wing, despite some of the recent in-house squabbles, has to be credited for their ability to align their interests toward a common goal. It's always been about money and power, and their latest strategy, a multi- pronged approach, is winning. To wit: K-12 education is a venture capitalist's gold mine and as this article I've linked points out, "one of the last honeypots for Wall Street." I first read this article (link below) back when I served on a bond committee for our local ISD (that Dripping Springs article gave me some PTSD I tell you) and the article is even more relevant today. https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/venture-capitalists-are-poised-disrupt-everything-about-education-market/ We're talking big big money, and the various entities that rely on that money. The publishers of textbooks, software, testing services, and on and on. Billions. Billions of state and federal tax dollars just waiting to be scooped up at will. Tied into the comments about charter schools and private schools being able to influence who attends and what they study are those curriculum decisions on the aforementioned publications. What is emphasized or omitted in the textbooks, the libraries, the classrooms. As one of the largest states, Texas is a curriculum influencer. and that has a domino effect throughout education. The power of who attends which school and what the students study falls into the hands of the state, the local powers that be (school boards), and the billionaires who funded it all. For the top tier class, having a large mass of uneducated citizenry is to their benefit. The greater the income inequality, the less mobility to change classes, to change jobs, to change lives. For others in power, it is having a overarching theocratic form of education that indoctrinates the citizenry to serve whom they say to serve and to deem worthy whom they say is worthy. Studying America's past and the history of slavery isn't just about racism. Students who learn about slavery also learn about labor and freedom, about politics and power, about what things have changed over time and what haven't. The coalitions within the GOP have aligned with these goals in mind and regardless of who is the upfront on the news 'leader,' the money and power behind the scenes has not ever stopped doing what they do best.

Heh heh. Decided to drop this as here in case anyone hasn't seen it.

Bat Shit Crazy

Like Brisket commented, the article states: So what happens if they decide not to approve? I mean while it is easy enough to dole out money they didn't put in, there are quite a few BSC legislators in Texas whose logic I cannot fathom.

It's why I support research funding that is not wholly private but also not politicized (yeah, a pipe dream). So much we are learning. If you read about 'junk' DNA, the views/information about that has changed over time and they are making new discoveries and it's fascinating what else we can learn. We take for granted so much but the workhorse askers of questions who then get in the lab and try and find answers build upon each other. Have you ever thought about how anti-depressant medications have been developed and changed over time? And yet, there is still so much we don't know about how various biochemical functions interact. Dumbing down the populace does not provide for an optimistic future.

I haven't been following this closely other than reading it went to committee last week, but seems like a not great idea w/respect to child labor safety. Iowa House & Senate both have GOP majorities.

It is the Ents. Because the Entwives went missing.

You have children. That is never boring. Even during those late night diaper changes, one can ponder how such a smiling cooing twelve pound bundle of human is able to generate so much mess in so little time. I do not believe anyone on here is making the tabula rosa argument with respect to children. Nature and nurture combine to make us so very special. However, there does seem to be one specific person in this thread who appears much more supportive towards the biology is destiny idea, whereas your comment regarding spectrums of behaviors, influences upon environments, frequencies of occurence, etc is much more prevalent and based in nature itself. Within each species there is and are varieties and homogeneity and exclusivity has its downside within populations. I am not a population geneticist so I'll excuse myself from that discussion, but those scientists will readily admit there is a lot they do not know. That is not to say that generalities or commonalities regarding sex/gender, etc do not exist, but that in the desire to sift and winnow people into neat and tidy categories in order to malign or abuse those that don't 'meet the standard' set by those 'standard setters' a lot of harm can and has been done.

Sta Puft Ron seems appropriate too:

Thank you for the clarification. Medicine and medical care seems like a field where Abbott or any governor ought to heed the admonition to stay in his/her lane.

Offsides?

Depends. Are you going to hug the tree or cut your initials in it prior to the climb?

Isn't this an amazing self own for Elon? The so-called smartest guy in the room that has become deeply attached to a propaganda machine of *right-wing bloviation that proclaims to be philanthropic while gutting human rights accounts and restoring hate accounts to his platform in 'virtuous' defense of 'free speech?'

Finally watched The Gentlemen, the Guy Ritchie movie with Matthew McConaughey as the lead. Didn't know much about it but it was alright and Colin Farrell was pretty funny. Don't want to spoil it, but he had a scene with Charlie Hunnam that was memorable.

The sommelier was a side hoot too. We've watched the movie more than once now and it keeps on giving things we didn't pick up the first go around.

I believe the Director is a female? All of the board members are appointed so @tx 3 putt is correct. It's the Texas way.

Dolls. Your sons play with dolls. NTTAWWT. When Hasbro debuted GI Joe their marketing team coined the term "action figure' because they figured boys (read: Men) would not purchase dolls. This is a doll. Note the use of the word 'action' for each figure: Here is a Barbie collection from the same era: Ken is a lover not a fighter. Love is an action, too and I would argue more important than fighting. Seriously and before someone brings out all the current doll options available, once the 'action figures' became popular, males and especially the males who collected these dolls came up with all sorts of definitions and requirements to distinguish their 'action figures' from 'dolls,' because the male ego is rather fragile apparently. In one of the stranger cases that seems to augment the extra prices that females pay for existing, there was a case as recently as 2003 where a toy company argued that its 'action figures' were nonhuman and therefore toys and not dolls. Dolls, you see, have double the tariff rate. @mchookem's gif was appropriate. I played with Barbie's, G.I. Joes, a baby with a high chair my dad made, Hot Wheels (massive fan of those--the single tracks laid side by side so you could race models ), Tonka trucks, and even had a very old, somewhat fragile DX (maybe it was Texaco?) gas station model that my dad had found that was so cool (working garage doors and little bitty pumps so you could drive your car, gas it up and work on it!) but sadly it went missing at some point (likely a garage sale). In other words as has been pointed out ad infinitum, your worldview could use a little more empathy. I don't care if your children play with dolls, footballs, or an Easy Bake oven and no matter the gender as long as they are happy and loved for who they are. Once more, we could have a completely off topic discussion on how societies influence these types of things from birth onwards, but I will stop here as it isn't appropriate for the thread. I'm on an off topic roll this weekend it seems.

I agree (re: PR speak). Although, if I can catch a promo appearance then I can usually ditch all the others because they do repeat themselves due to their handlers or whatever that job title is. Ryan Reynolds often goes off script but most of them stick to the material they've been given. I'll have to look for the Cavett show because those in depth discussions can be great. There are one or two outlets, Variety may be one or Hollywood Reporter, Vanity Fair, GQ, etc that do roundtable discussions on YouTube that I've seen and enjoyed. Michael Keaten was in one (I cannot recall the moderator's name but he was a bit of an ass sometimes) along with Channing Tatum, and maybe Ethan Hawke, and a couple of other actors and that was interesting. I'd like to see that with people other than actors/actresses i.e. the nonHollywood crowd but it doesn't seem to be a thing so much anymore? I watch those I mentioned when I'm waiting somewhere with my earbuds available and don't feel like reading. With respect to the crime shows asked about earlier, there is a trilogy out of Britain called Red Riding that came out about a decade or so ago. It has Sean Bean (sp?) and I like watching him inhabit a character. The setting is I think in the seventies/eighties and I think it also had Paddy Considine (of House of the Dragon) and Andrew Garfield and Rebecca Hall.

We don't watch much either but when we do (talk shows), it's usually Graham Norton (once a week during the season) or Jimmy Fallon/James Corden. The latter two vary on content quality, but they usually get their guests to relax and talk a bit more off the cuff (which is what we enjoy about Norton's show, which in his case the liquor available to guests is likely an assist.) Once Corden was a guest on Graham Norton's show, and Jessica Biel was there for a movie promotion (Total Recall maybe?). They start talking about Mickey Rourke being drunk and hitting on Biel the last time she had appeared on Norton's show. It led to a pretty funny exchange between Biel and Corden and the comic who was also present on the red couch. I'll see if I can find the clip or a part of it....ok, found one with part of the episode--the full show that night was pretty good and we still laugh about it.