Speaking of FSB assets: https://www.wsj.com/articles/fbi-investigating-ex-navy-noncommissioned-officer-linked-to-pro-russia-social-media-account-e0cf9a10?st=bvijn0ye6la1lsp&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

And branching out from my above statement a bit...We have a very serious problem in this part of the world. We have lost doctors right and left. Many due to retirement, some due to better opportunities in bigger markets. My thoracic surgeon is now in Lafayette. My guy that treats my May-Thurman is in Lafayette. My wife's endocrinologist is in Lafayette. Her ENT is in Baton Rouge. Her hand guy is in Shreveport. In 1980, we had a 200 bed state teaching hospital affiliated with Tulane, a 300 bed hospital ran by the Sisters of the Incarnate Word, a 400 bed hospital that was later sucked up by HCA and a 200 bed VA hospital. Now, the state hospital is gone, the HCA facility just lost their Level 2 trauma rating and the Christus facility is down to about 200 beds, IIRC. It's because of a variety of factors...A greying local population and lower reimbursements because of Medicare, a high percentage of Medicaid patients, high medical school debt and an inability to make enough money in this market, a lack of cooperation between the private entities in the area resulting in a duplication of services where nobody makes enough money. And...If you're from here, it's a great place to raise kids. It's boring. Hard to recruit young docs from elsewhere to move to boring. So right now, we have a high level of mediocrity in medical care and are probably 5 years behind where we used to be. Sadly.

@George-K said in Shooting People to Advance Gun Bans: Denied: https://www.dailywire.com/news/nashville-police-deny-daily-wires-request-for-trans-shooters-manifesto I'm guessing one of two things: There is something in there detrimental to the community or to the school...Something like an unproven allegation. There's some weird transgender stuff in there and the Democrat administration of teh city doesn't want to feed the Trans=Mental problems equation.

@bachophile said in Some good news: any tackle on the T wave [image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia4.giphy.com%2Fmedia%2FxTiN0mKP2Am8PuQW0U%2Fsource.gif&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=15a0aa09becce096e001e347b848b40ea1338775b4d3815caea91f2352ff764f&ipo=images]

Which is good. Too much barefooting about in one's own head is unhealthy. We'd all do better to follow the Popeye philosophy. Mr. Natural, too.

The doc is not protected. The judge that threw the case out, is not saying the cases do not have merit, he's just saying they need to be brought under malpractice statues. If that's the law, maybe they need to change the law.

Reasons 1 and 2 - Ok, we can leave those out, though I think in our culture Christian marriage is more the norm than not. Reason 3 - I think that's very hard to argue against. Porn is very exploitive of women. Women are trafficked within the industry, many made to perform sex acts they do not want to do. Reason 4 - Does porn promote violence against women? His figure given is 40% of porn videos do...I'll be generous and ballpark that to a third. That's still a lot of objectification and violence against women, through male dominance. Reason 5 - See 4 Reason 6 - Goes back to 1 and 2, but isn't that the thrust of the article? Prager's views on porn in both societal and religious marriage? Reason 7 - He uses Paul as an example, but his point is universally valid. In a monogamous marriage (and no, that's what we have, not what you would like), when you introduce sex acts with other people into the marriage, you eventually weaken the marriage. Porn is more insidious, since the act is not physical, but it does creates altered perceptions of intimate reality and eventually causes harm. Reason 8 - Does porn shatter trust in a marriage? I don't know if it shatters trust, but it constantly sends a message to the wife that she's not young enough, not built well enough, not adventuresome enough, not willing enough. In short, she's simply not enough. Reason 9 - see 8. Reason 10 - Does porn crush intimacy? Certainly, if the fantasy is replacing reality. Reason 11 - Duty sex. Exactly what it says. Reason 12 - Sexual dysfunction. This was the author's cite: https://www.insider.com/men-who-watch-lots-of-porn-worse-erectile-dysfunction-2020-7 You can look up the original paper, if you wish, but the findings were interesting, in that porn consumption and erectile dysfunction seem to be linked in a significant portion of men, especially young men. Reason 13 - That one is about rewiring one's brain. Again, the author's cite: https://neurosciencenews.com/neuroscience-pornography-brain-15354/ The statement that porn rewires the brain is the subject of more than one paper. One from PubMed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3050060/ Reason 14 - again religious.

Steinbeck being Steinbeck. That was excellent.

I think it's bad for the sport, especially when guys are gambling on games they are playing in.

https://www.rokdrop.net/2023/04/19/hyundai-to-increase-ev-manufacturing-in-the-u-s-in-response-to-inflation-reduction-act/

Almost like those pictures of people who do drugs. She looks like she aged about 20 years.

@Horace said in Boring homogenization: It's always struck me as weird to take pride in one's car I think it is related to the effort to get it. Natural to take pride in something that required a lot more effort and money to obtain. USD$0.10 hair tie vs USD$50K car

Oops!

Edit - never mind, all a bit too personal

@George-K said in Wheelchair dog: @LuFins-Dad said in Wheelchair dog: It’s a pain in the ass. I have no doubt. In Oliver's last year of life, he was diapered and that was a PITA as well. But, still. Damn happy doggo! Yeah, but it’s a little easier to ahem “express” the dog when it’s your dog that you’ve loved for years…

@Mik Probably more. The system in Russia is such that very few working on any given project understand the big picture. Russians suffer from over specialisation and rarely have much knowledge or ability beyond the details of their given task. As the 19 century revolutionary, Alexander Herzen, stated “Russia is Genghis Khan with a telegraph”. Has not changed that much since he wrote that observation.

56,000 migrants LOLGF

Saw it. Ain't buying it.