Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[iam416]

Wiz:

Canceling products with followings is hard. Tough to undo brand loyalty. The Progs couldn’t cancel Joe Rogan. Not even a dent. Or Chick-Fil-A. There’s zero way AB or Nike suffer anything in terms of material losses. Won’t happen.

The bigger story is that a TikTok “star” and just flat weird dude is so commercially viable. It’s really astounding. As I said, it shows any no-talent assbag can succeed bigly in this country.

[THE_WIZARD_]

It also shows the fear that some corporations have of being labeled with some bs prog term...

[Whitley]

The modern day Dem Party is further left than ever in history...it's the party of freaks....and they are proud of it. Look...I'm ok with people who want to be freaks...enjoy your freedom to be a freak...but when it gets forced down non-progs throats it has gone too far. We are way past that now...the Dem Party has been hijacked by loons and and now lunacy is their mainstream...

The modern Dem party is much farther to the right than the days of FDR and LBJ. This is especially true on economic issues.

[Whitley]

It also shows the fear that some corporations have of being labeled with some bs prog term...

Nah, like with Nike and Kapernick they likely have made a calculation that it is much better for their bottom line than to do it than not do it.

[Tom W]

It also shows the fear that some corporations have of being labeled with some bs prog term...

Not to mention that prog wokeness has an uncanny tendency to ruin all of the things that make life enjoyable.

[lineygoblue]

Its ironic to me that Title IX is going to be a casualty in letting the boys play on girls teams, and compete against the girls. Title IX was won after a long struggle for equality in sports competition for women, and now, the prog left has lit the fuse that's going to destroy it. Of course, the "maga right" will get the blame when Title IX is destroyed, because the prog left is super efficient in deflecting blame for things that they have caused.

Just this week, Michigan renamed their Softball complex to honor Carol Hutchins who retired after last season. It is now Carol Hutchins Stadium, when it used to be Alumni Field. I wonder how long before the boys come along and start populating the teams that play there. Hutchins was a champion of Title IX at Michigan, fighting hard her entire career to see it implemented not only for softball, but in the entire athletic program. How ironic that just when she is being honored for her accomplishments, the 'boys' are coming along to take over, and destroy everything she worked for.

[iam416]

Title IX is, IMO, a great law at its core. There are administrative enforcement decisions that I disagree with strongly, but, at its core, it's fantastic. I will defend the effort to create opportunties for women to play sports all day.

But I don't, for a goddamn second, think that men should be allowed to play women's sports in HS and College and beyond. It's ludicrous. Now, it doesn't happen all that much, but the fact that you can't even take that position w/o being labeled a bigot (or TERF) and, heh -- boycotted -- JK Rowling is feeling the sting, for sure (much as Bud Light will!) -- is a sign of where the fuck we are in this country.

In Canada, they don't even require any testosterone levels. Just that you say you idenfify as a women. An olympic, full-bearded dude went to a meet in Alberta, said he was a woman and smashed all the Alberta women's powerliting records. The records he beat, of course, were a trans-woman's records who was allowed to compete as a woman. BOY, was she pissed -- perhaps completely missing the entire point of the performative nonsense.

Fortunately, the US isn't as batshit crazy as Canada.

[Mike]

Fortunately, the US isn't as batshit crazy as Canada.

Yet.

[THE_WIZARD_]

EFZ

[lineygoblue]

But I don't, for a goddamn second, think that men should be allowed to play women's sports in HS and College and beyond. It's ludicrous.

Exactly. And I want to be clear that letting little boys and girls in the pee wees and midgets play sports together is not what I'm opposed to. Shoot, when I was in 4th grade the girls kicked the boys' ass regularly in kickball and soccer. I'm not opposed to those ages being mixed together.

But HS and beyond, then no. Let the girls have their own teams, and the boys should play the boys.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Racist. Misogynist, Xenophobe, Homophobe, Transphobe.

[Mike]

Exactly. And I want to be clear that letting little boys and girls in the pee wees and midgets play sports together is not what I'm opposed to. Shoot, when I was in 4th grade the girls kicked the boys' ass regularly in kickball and soccer. I'm not opposed to those ages being mixed together.

But HS and beyond, then no. Let the girls have their own teams, and the boys should play the boys.

Right. Puberty should be the line of demarcation.

[lineygoblue]

Racist. Misogynist, Xenophobe, Homophobe, Transphobe.

You left out twatwaffle.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Well I figured that was assumed.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I think its time for a Ukraine update:

Much larger strategic and security interests of directly or indirectly involved sovereigns are emerging. The reporting of these emerging issues is pushing news of facts on the ground and in the battle space into the background. It is clear to me from sources I'm reading that along the entire FEBA that runs southward from Svatove in northeastern Luhansk region through Kreminia, Bakhmut and Marinka in the Donetsk region. This FEBA is about 80km long. Russian and Ukrainian forces do nothing more than exchange control of territory along this line. Each side asserts control of key terrain. For Russia such claims, whether they are accurate or not, are mostly symbolic and of no strategic value. Russian territorial gains in its renewed offensive that started in January amount to single digit kms. Putin must, for a third time, face failure of his special military operation.

Regardless of the reality, Russian principals continue to frame the invasion of Ukraine as necessary given the eastward expansion of NATO and western attempts to bring Russia's boarders states into the EU. That, Russia perceives, is a threat to the way of life that exits in Russia or states under Russian control. The Russian line also includes threats to the multipolar world order that Putin seeks to remove the US as a single, unipolar and dominant hegemon. IMO, Russia's stated aims are a big deal exposing a clash of ideologies pitting authoritarianism v. liberal democracy.

A high level member of Putin's security team defected to Turkey probably in October '22 and his defection was just announced last week. He's been able to provide meaningful intelligence on Putin that reveals he is completely isolated from the reality of events on the ground in Ukraine. He is purposely oblivious to accounts of countries that have condemned his invasion of Ukraine and only wants to listen to Russian state controlled TV and radio. As a head of state who would represent Russia's interests in future negotiations to end the fighting he would be undertaking those completely and purposefully uninformed. IOW, although the media likes to focus on potential for peace negotiations. first, there is little chance either side is interested in these and second if they did get to the point of heads of state at the negotiating table, negotiators would be dealing with a blinded Putin unaware of his battlefield losses.

Within days of the news of the defection of a top level Russian, news of a leak of western "battle plans" involving a spring Ukrainian offensive hit the front page. The documents were published on several social media platforms including TikTok and Telegram. I've read extensively about this from various sources. Western observers along with the Ukrainian intelligence community believe that the leak is a Russian disinformation operation. There's enough that's accurate in the documents to make them believable but a lot of clues that point to it's origin as coming from inside the Kremlin. It will be non-news by Monday.