2 hours ago, BigEFly said:

Caps per Citizens United are unconstitutional but apparently Montana’s disclosure law isn’t. I would back that law everywhere.  Plus if you pass my Constitutional Amendment that Corporations are not persons, then Corporations lose their Bill of Rights protections as well they should. 

Yup.

Citizens United was the straw the broke America's back, IMO.

Just now, bpac55 said:

I hate the Saints so much but their white "Color Rush" uniforms might be the best in the NFL.

wrong. 

8 minutes ago, bpac55 said:

Weapon of Mass Destruction?

Yea. A 6'5 350lb jui jitsu black belt athletic freak could do serious damage

Just now, LeanMeanGM said:

Yea. A 6'5 350lb jui jitsu black belt athletic freak could do serious damage

Just making sure I had the right acronym and it didn't mean something else.

6 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

Yea. A 6'5 350lb jui jitsu black belt athletic freak could do serious damage to his Achilles tendons

fyp

18 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

wrong. 

What do you want to counter with?  I might say the new LA Chargers take the cake now but I really like the all white for NO.

21 minutes ago, HazletonEagle said:

fyp

too soon 

2 hours ago, justrelax said:

Yes, let's talk about these changes. After the Civil War blacks could vote, own land, hold office, move about freely during Reconstruction. Once Grant was out of office, however, all that dried up. A black on the road without a documented purpose could be seized and placed in a work gang for an indefinite period. Slavery by another name. The statehouses and Congress once again became all white. Then we have Plessy vs. Ferguson, separate but equal. That was, what - 1898? Then fifty years passed. No progress. Then came WWII and hundreds of thousands of black soldiers fought and died, albeit in segregated units. Harry Truman integrated the armed forces, a very unpopular move. When  these black GIs came home to the South they were assaulted in their uniforms, often lynched. That's where the Civil Rights movement began, much as the freedom of black soldier almost a century before. If you can  fight and die for the country you can be a citizen, although for roughly 80 years during that span you could not. I'll pass over red-lining for the moment. The Civil Rights movement did great things and then came the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Breakthrough! Umm, not so much. The minority group that benefited most from that Act were white women, black men were a distant second, and black women suffered serious setbacks. Voting? Well there were literacy tests, poll taxes, and today we have poll taxes under another name in Florida and Iowa, currently being challenged by the courts. We have hundreds of thousands of enrolled voters stricken from the rolls. We have mail-in ballots being challenged on spurious nonsense by the same people and states that did it before. We have Georgia, where if the election wasn't stolen it gave every appearance of it, and by whom and for what?

I don't mean to say we haven't made progress but it's two steps forward, one-step back or, post-Reconstruction, three steps back. Today, we see the spiritual descendants of those same miscreants attempting to suborn voting rights. Is there anything more basic to citizenship than that right? It's so blatant and so obvious.

Not so many years ago, my wife and I were returning from Gettysburg and we stopped at a roadside diner. Big Confederate battle flag on the wall. My wife said to me, "if anyone asks, I'm you're secretary." I ordered a hamburger and a Coke. She ordered a Coke. I got mu order. She got half a glass of warm Coke, no ice. I paid. No top. And drove 100 mph until I was sure there was no one following. Twenty-first century PA. Ha.

Agree on the Patriot Act. An abomination. A shredding of the Constitution.

That's why I distrust gradualism. It gives the villains time and room to maneuver. And I hope I have explained a tiny bit of back rage, when the rules keep changing and the bar gets higher, and the issues that were previously dealt with are raised again, and again.

Great points. Don’t disagree at all  

I was focused on the cultural and you focused on the political. I would agree that the glacial progress was not a pace I would want to see. I really wanted to believe my generation would bury the prejudices. We failed miserably to meet my hopes.  But at the same time, i see some progress  

I just worry about knee jerk reactions where we get bad law or bandaids that don’t move the needle forward.  We need to understand what we can legislate and what we, individually and as a society can do better to improve the culture.  We can’t legislate culture.  That change will probably continue to be gradual.

On behalf of South Central Pennsylvanians, let me apologize for the treatment your wife received. I assure you most of us aren’t that way. If you venture this way again, PM me and I assure you that she and you will be treated by my wife and me as the lady I am sure she is and the gentleman I have come to know you to be.  
 

5 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

too soon 

is it too soon for Achilles Tendons Matter?

2 hours ago, e-a-g-l-e-s eagles! said:

@justrelax hope you feel better and it doesn’t get really bad for you. 

everyone else i hope you all have been safe and things are getting somewhat better

If you know people in southern AZ reach out to them cause Tucson, Catalina and some other areas are being threatened by fires (some evacuated from homes), relentless pursuit by firefighters from all over. i believe there’s some ways to help if you are interested. fortunately my parents and then closer to my home didn’t have to but it was dangerously close. We are still on set alert. Luckily they have gotten the fire to about 30-40 percent contained after about nearly 2 weeks fighting it. I feel like 2020 is jumanji.

Anyway here’s some pictures of some of the crazy pictures that have been taken. 
 

 

Unbelievable pictures. Glad you are safe.  The real heroes are those that are running toward danger when the rest of us are going the other way.  Those smoke jumpers are that sort including the inmates that volunteer for such duty. 

2 hours ago, purplefiggy said:

Good, thoughtful post. Personally, I think the idea of "a career in politics” and all that entails simply scares off the kind of the people I’d most want to vote for. 

and, even taking message boards as a microcosm of society, there really is very little currency in the middle of any opinion These days, it takes a lot of energy, time, and brain capacity to sift through all the issues to understand where any candidate really falls. And even then, will the machine let them carry that same focus from candidate to elected official?

most folks don’t have time or patience for nuance - so views are forced to live further and further out from the middle.  Which again skews the type of candidate who can break through at a volume that produces the numbers to be "electable.”

I also think there is simply too much power in party.  Especially when consolidated down to just 2 majors that are consistent (and interdependent) at every level.  

at least that’s how I view things...

 

 

I have thought about running for office. The problem is I refuse to raise money. I would never take PAC money, corporate money or union money. I think the money in elections is what discourages many.  Being a citizen representative isn’t realistic in today’s America, unfortunately. Makes us all poorer. 

56 minutes ago, hputenis said:

You should have moved the paddle back, swung forward, and smashed the sheet out of that devil bird.  They're already an invasive species in the northeast.  

Safe assumption that you're not a PETA supporter?

30 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

Unbelievable pictures. Glad you are safe.  The real heroes are those that are running toward danger when the rest of us are going the other way.  Those smoke jumpers are that sort including the inmates that volunteer for such duty. 

Yup. I feel for the firefighters. There’s another fire to the south they had to also fight. And now there’s supposedly some closer to the Phoenix area and today it was so windy they couldn’t have planes fly in and use retardant or water. So it’s like non stop for them. 

36 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

Unbelievable pictures. Glad you are safe.  The real heroes are those that are running toward danger when the rest of us are going the other way.  Those smoke jumpers are that sort including the inmates that volunteer for such duty. 

Yea those firefighting teams that crisscross that whole multi-state area do some insanely difficult work to try and stop mother nature in her tracks.

If you've never seen Only the Brave with Josh Brolin, I highly suggest it.  Based on a true story about the Granite Mountain Hotshots in 2013.

 

 

22 minutes ago, ManuManu said:

 

I can't see the union being against this.

1 hour ago, Asg 15 said:

Safe assumption that you're not a PETA supporter?

People Eating Tasty Animals?

5 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

People Eating Tasty Animals?

Yeah, that too

46 minutes ago, ManuManu said:

 

Why would the NFLPA stand in the way of more players getting paid?   That should be a slam dunk.

20 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

People Eating Tasty Animals?

So tasty!   I got a new grill, just to help make them tastier.

 

2 hours ago, BigEFly said:

I have thought about running for office. The problem is I refuse to raise money. I would never take PAC money, corporate money or union money. I think the money in elections is what discourages many.  Being a citizen representative isn’t realistic in today’s America, unfortunately. Makes us all poorer. 

It's why IMO that any money raised by ANY candidate go into a central fund and distributed evenly to ALL the candidates so no one candidate can 'buy' and election.  Works in the NFL, revenue sharing.  Allows for parity and the teams that run the best overall organizations (excluding the cheating baztid Patriots or the scummy whining pedo Saints) usually are in competition for the playoffs most seasons.  This way every candidate gets the SAME voice.  I think if you told the Founding Fathers that elections could be essentially bought that they would have written some different laws into the Constitution.  They weren't perfect, as they only allowed for male white landowners to vote, but they did make the Constitution a living breathing document that could be changed as times changed.  Too bad that doesn't happen enough.

 

2 hours ago, Green Dog said:

Yea those firefighting teams that crisscross that whole multi-state area do some insanely difficult work to try and stop mother nature in her tracks.

If you've never seen Only the Brave with Josh Brolin, I highly suggest it.  Based on a true story about the Granite Mountain Hotshots in 2013.

 

My first thought in seeing those pictures was the Yarnell Fire.  Winds could back in those canyons in a tough way. Tinderbox conditions. Another good one is "Young Men and Fire” about the Mann Gulch Fire in 49.  Insane stuff  

 

 

 

2 hours ago, ManuManu said:

 

Seems like there ought to be a roster exemption for players quarantined or recovering from COVID-19. 

5 hours ago, HazletonEagle said:

Out on the kayaks yesterday 3 swans in the distance took off from the water. They were flying away but circled around and began heading right for me. Getting closer and closer still headed right for me. Eventually came so close I thought it was literally about to attack. At the last second it turned just enough to miss my face. I had to lower my paddle because it may have hit it if I hadnt moved it. I could hear, and feel the air displaced by its massive wing span. It was pretty impressive. I wish I got pics with my phone but I was more worried about trying to figure out if this thing is really coming at me or not. 

I had a Swan mating pair on my lake.  They had 3 cygnets last year, but only 1 survived.  They are big and while they are also beautiful, they have sharp beaks and claws and can inflict some hurt if they want to.  This year, though, I have only seen 1 Swan on the lake.  Don't know if it's the cygnet all grown up and the adult pair left the lake for it to find its own mating partner of if one of the original mating pair died and it's now all alone.  But when one takes off from the lake, even at the opposite end, you can hear the beating of their wings on the surface of the water.

 

7 hours ago, Green_Guinness said:

It's why IMO that any money raised by ANY candidate go into a central fund and distributed evenly to ALL the candidates so no one candidate can 'buy' and election.  Works in the NFL, revenue sharing.  Allows for parity and the teams that run the best overall organizations (excluding the cheating baztid Patriots or the scummy whining pedo Saints) usually are in competition for the playoffs most seasons.  This way every candidate gets the SAME voice.  I think if you told the Founding Fathers that elections could be essentially bought that they would have written some different laws into the Constitution.  They weren't perfect, as they only allowed for male white landowners to vote, but they did make the Constitution a living breathing document that could be changed as times changed.  Too bad that doesn't happen enough.

 

Why would I bust my a** to raise money for someone else's campaign?