Religion, politics, sex .. and other taboo subjects

I haven't seen a video store in forever.

I've always had vinyl though. I just packed up around 20 boxes of records to get them out if the way while I renovate.
 
My record collection is in the form of CDs. I wish they were all on vinyl. I like vinyl records for many of the same reasons I like actual books (paper, binding...) instead of electronic ones. They are tactile objects, actual things. CDs are not quite that, but almost. Well, they're 3D and all. But it's just not the same. The only good thing about CDs here is that if you have hundreds or more of them they don't take up so much space as vinyl does.

Do you still buy vinyl records? Or are they all from the long ago?
 
Trump.

What a marooon.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/07/politics/donald-trump-wildfires-california-climate-change/index.html



“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.”

― Joseph Goebbels


Every Single Time he opens his mouth (Tweet) a stream of sewer filth -- lies, foolishness, ignorance -- comes streaming out. It should all go through Fox "News" so we can ignore every word of it. Twit twitter twat.

http://www.sandiegouniontribune.com...ire-water-jerry-brown-20180806-htmlstory.html
 
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My record collection is in the form of CDs. I wish they were all on vinyl. I like vinyl records for many of the same reasons I like actual books (paper, binding...) instead of electronic ones. They are tactile objects, actual things. CDs are not quite that, but almost. Well, they're 3D and all. But it's just not the same. The only good thing about CDs here is that if you have hundreds or more of them they don't take up so much space as vinyl does.

Do you still buy vinyl records? Or are they all from the long ago?

I still buy vinyl if it's a collectible. I have a ton of CDs as well. Plus a lot of digital downloads. I just really like music
 
I still buy vinyl if it's a collectible. I have a ton of CDs as well. Plus a lot of digital downloads. I just really like music

Same here - I have several hundred vinyl albums, a few hundred cd's, many megs of downloads, and even a couple of hundred cassettes (although very rarely played anymore) - with a working turntable in a decent audio system. I spin some vinyl at least a couple of times a week.
 
"Nabhan is one of a number of scientists who recounted finding themselves face to face with an armed border guard while working in the field. He described one time he was “put under gunshot by American border patrol who literally didn’t know that they were patrolling a national park where birdwatchers and researchers were out at dawn. They thought anyone out at dawn in the desert wilderness must be a drug runner.”
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Another time, he said, “I was under the scope and gunpoint of a rookie border patrol for over an hour, who said, if you move, I’m just going to shoot.”

“I wasn’t subject to racial profiling,” said Nabhan, who is a first-generation Lebanese American, “but I still had my life put at risk doing sanctioned research that the U.S. government and the United Nations was paying for.”

from - https://thinkprogress.org/u-s-mexic...science-making-research-riskier-93df622aece5/

This is in a section of the border which already has extensive border walls and fences. It strikes me as very weird, and crazy, that US scientists are being treated this way by the US government!

I'm not a little, but a LOT concerned about how such walls and fences affect widlife.

To be built at all, such walls require ...

"the United States Department of Homeland Security issued a notice Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Elaine Duke would be waiving "certain laws, regulations and other legal requirements" to begin construction of the new wall near Calexico, California.[49] The waiver allows the Department of Homeland Security to bypass the National Environmental Policy Act, the Endangered Species Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the Migratory Bird Conservation Act, the Archaeological Resources Protection Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Noise Control Act, the Solid Waste Disposal Act, the Antiquities Act, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, the Administrative Procedure Act, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act.[50]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico–United_States_barrier

Obviously, all of these laws were meant to protect wildlife, water, historic sites and such -- or all of the things we value apart from keeping Mexicans in Mexico.

And let me ask you... Are we (Americans) at war with Mexico? It sure as hell looks like it to me. Why are we at war with Mexico and Mexicans? And why are we at war with wildlife?
 
I bring up my concern about a wall's effect on wildlife all the time. People look at me like I have two heads. Aside from the obvious, that a wall isn't going to stop anyone from coming here, that was my first concern.
 
I bring up my concern about a wall's effect on wildlife all the time. People look at me like I have two heads. Aside from the obvious, that a wall isn't going to stop anyone from coming here, that was my first concern.

Before Trump became president of the U.S., I thought his proposed wall was laughable, silly beyond need for discussion or resistance.

Then he got elected president. A thing which all reasonable people knew was impossible. Or so I thought.

Now Trump is signalling that he's going to get his damned wall built, dammit -- or else! So I'm genuinely worried. It's such a bad idea for so very many reasons, including the reason that it will never prevent the determined from crossing the border. They will fine ingenuous ways to climb over, tunnel under... or cross on roads without being seen.

Now what we REALLY need, now is a wall between the US and Canada! Why is no one proposing THAT!
 
My proposal to build a wall between the US and Canada, at the border, was, of course, a joke.

But it is a telling joke, really. Think clearly for a few moments about what, precisely, has the president wanting to build a wall at the Mexican border ... without even mentioning the outrageous porosity of the Northern border! Gawd knows what those Canadians are smuggling in or out!


Guarding the border here is tricky because Derby Line and the neighbouring Quebec town of Stanstead comprise one community where homes and buildings happen to be bisected by an international border.

The community library was purposely built straddling the border to serve people in both communities. Quebecers simply cross an international boundary marked outside the library by pots of petunias. Occasionally, illegal border crossers will walk, or even drive, across near the library. https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/human-smuggling-getting-sophisticated-on-northern-border

Lol, if you walk in the front door of the library and walk out the back, you've just illegally crossed the border!

But more seriously, let us say the two governments get serious about this illegal border crossing. Would they build a wall between the two countries? Of course not! Why? Because that would be absurd.

But isn't a wall between the US and Mexico equally absurd? Answer: Not if you're Donald Trump. (Nothing is absurd to Donald Trump.)

Besides, most of the US / Canada border must certainly be basically wilderness -- or at least wide open, undeveloped forest areas in the mountains and such. There are not even roads in much of it. Border patrol here would be done with backpackers against backpackers. Before a wall could be built in these places there would have to be, at minimum, a road.
 
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Scientists say Trump's border wall would devastate wildlife habitat
https://www.texastribune.org/2017/03/03/environmental-impacts-border-wall/

U.S./Mexico Border Wall Puts Animals In Danger Of Extinction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6xTxh96Jbc


Other species lives matter.


At the end of this video, an interviewee explains that the wall (or fence) is "just a symbol". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nr6wiT3ElVo

A low estimate cost, in dollars -- not wildlife lives or ecosystems -- is twenty five billion dollars. That's a pretty costly "symbol".
 
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Functionally speaking, a border wall attempts to do two things. One is to stem migration—people coming into this country for greater opportunity. But only when we stop hiring will they stop coming.

The other is to keep out drugs—but Americans are the ones creating the demand. Until we address the problem successfully on our end, the cartels will find ways to get through. A wall doesn’t stop the reasons that this is happening.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2017/09/proof-border-wall-united-states-mexico/

If the real objective is to prevent Mexicans and folks South from coming to the USA and "taking American jobs" then all that would be necessary to solve that problem (if, indeed it is a problem) is to enforce existing US employment and labor laws (or, perhaps, improve them). That should have more success than this wall idea ever could.

That leaves the drug smuggling problem. But if we take an honest look at that, we'll realize that (a) no wall could keep the drugs from coming in, (b) a large chunk of the drugs actually originate within US borders, (c) Why not then build a wall at the Canada / US border? (Surely some enterprising Canadians will take over if the Mexican route is closed off..., and so on. Also, it is becoming increasingly clear, worldwide, that the Drug War cannot be won, and that other approaches to legitimate drug problems are needed. The drug war is widely regarded as either lost or unwinable. Time for some other approach.

A call for border walls should be regarded as a symptom of a greater problem than the supposed cause for the "need" of a wall. The direction of solution for that problem must simply be making friends with the nations (and people) on the other side of the wall. If America doesn't want to be flooded with refugees from elsewhere, let it begin by ending its policies which can only lead to the creation of refugees from elsewhere.
 
This wall must not be built!

Agree. For a myriad of reasons, but this one is good enough.

It may require some non-violent direct action to stop it, though.

Why is our country so FUCKING STUPID? I really, really thought that the idea of Trump presidency would bring everyone to their senses. I was wrong. The fact that their are WOMEN who voted for this misogynistic asshat astounds me. I get the whole "shake things up" bit (I registered Republican for a hot second {chills} so I could vote for Ross Perot) but to hand the reins to Trump?!??!?{I have to go off and quietly vomit now.}

[If you are a Trump supporter, don't tell me, I will think less of you.]
 
There isn't going to be any wall. It's just a pipe dream. Some would argue it's a crack pipe. It's a rallying call for racists. I'm not talking about just the KKK types. Average Joe Citizen is racist and most don't even realize it. The Wall calls to them. It gives them an excuse to hate us for not getting what they want.
 
There isn't going to be any wall. It's just a pipe dream. Some would argue it's a crack pipe.

That's what almost everyone said about the idea that Trump would win his party nomination. Then it's what they said about him winning the presidency. It's what I said about the level of likelihood that the Citizen's United case in the Supreme Court would be decided as it was -- f**king impossible! It turns out that I have a crappy crystal ball. I'm no frigging good at predicting the future. I suspect most of us aren't. I'm WORRIED.

Every comic on tv laughed long and hard about the preposterous idea of a Trump presidency. I laughed with them!

It's worth mentioning that about a third of the wall / fence has already been built. It's been under construction during the Trump fiasco, already. It's happening as we speak. Trump is simply trying to complete a project begun by Bush.

I don't think we can wave this one away. I think we should stand up and actively fight it. But I'm not talking about writing letters to congress. That will get us nowhere. Other means of resistance are required. I don't know what, exactly, but congress clearly doesn't care about what Americans want. At all.
 
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