Dwain Northey (Gen X)

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/naacp-travel-advisory-florida-says-state-hostile-to-black-americans/

Remember the good old days when there were only travel advisories and or ban for, what some would call, third word countries? Well now because of the vile vitriol of one Governor Ron DeSantis the state of Florida, a vacation destination, has received a travel advisory by the NAACP.

The wannabe future President has made the climate so venomous in Florida the anyone who is a part of any minority group does not feel safe in the state. Black, Brown, LGTBQ+, these are all groups that are under attack in the Sunshine State. The majority Republican legislature and their fearful leader has passed laws that make almost everything a jailable offence and the fact that the state has very loose gun laws and a stand your ground law makes it more dangerous than being a blonde female in central America.

Florida residents are able to carry concealed guns without a permit under a bill signed into law by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. The law, which goes into effect on July 1, means that anyone who can legally own a gun in Florida can carry a concealed gun in public without any training or background check. This with their ridiculous stand your ground law, ‘Florida’s “Stand-Your-Ground” law was passed in 2005. The law allows those who feel a reasonable threat of death or bodily injury to “meet force with force” rather than retreat. Similar “Castle Doctrine” laws assert that a person does not need to retreat if their home is attacked.’ Makes it really sketchy to go there.

This in top of the don’t say gay rule and the new trans ruling that just passed.

“Florida lawmakers have no shame. This discriminatory bill is extraordinarily desperate and extreme in a year full of extreme, discriminatory legislation. It is a cruel effort to stigmatize, marginalize and erase the LGBTQ+ community, particularly transgender youth. Let me be clear: gender-affirming care saves lives. Every mainstream American medical and mental health organization – representing millions of providers in the United States – call for age-appropriate, gender-affirming care for transgender and non-binary people.

“These politicians have no place inserting themselves in conversations between doctors, parents, and transgender youth about gender-affirming care. And at the same time that Florida lawmakers crow about protecting parental rights they make an extra-constitutional attempt to strip parents of – you guessed it! – their parental rights. The Human Rights Campaign strongly condemns this bill and will continue to fight for LGBTQ+ youth and their families who deserve better from their elected leaders.”

This law makes it possible for anyone to just accuse someone of gender affirming care to have their child taken from them this would include someone traveling from out of state. This alone justifies a travel ban to the Magic Kingdom for families.

Oh, and I haven’t even mentioned DeSantis holy war with Disney, the largest employer in the state. I really hope the Mouse eats this ass holes lunch.

Well that’s enough bitching, thanks again for suffering though my rant.

  • They have a plan (a bad plan)

    Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

    It is sickening to realize that there are people in the nation that believe that it can be improved by forcing all to live under the dictates of one group’s point of view. The Project 2025 is an agenda that needs to be stopped and dismantled all the way to its base.
    Since it is set to dismantle the Constitution as it stands the entire project should be declared as treason and the leaders behind the project should be taken to court and tried. At the present time it may be difficult to find space for all that could potentially be occupying cells.
    Even though this project seems to be well advertised in some circles it does not appear to be a well understood program so finding people for a jury should not be a problem at this time. How are we not looking at this and seeing it as treason is beyond reasonable or intelligent. When someone or some group is plotting against the foundation of your nation’s basis for being it surely has to constitute TREASON and dealt with accordingly.
    The person behind the inception is already known to be treasonous and has been charged with multiple crimes. The other members of the political movement he is involved with seem to have very little interest in upholding our democracy or our Constitution except for the protection it provides them while they continue to undermine and defeat that same document.
    If the efforts of some of the state governments is any indication of where this group is headed then it would appear that turning back the clock to a time when only Rich White Men had the vote and all others are subservient or chattel. Women have no say, have to have a man allow them to make a purchase or whatever. People of color are kept in bondage because they are considered as lesser beings and if you are never able to afford to own property you will never have a voice in any decision. Being sent to fight the wars that the rich men will start in order for them to get richer and if you are lucky to come back you may be able to get on the welfare rolls if they have not decided to put an end to public assistance all together.

    As always comments always encouraged.

  • Leonardo the Procrastinator

    Leonardo da Vinci is the original “Renaissance man,” but his interest in, well, nearly everything also came with one big downside — he was a bit of a procrastinator. Compared to his artistic contemporaries, Leonardo didn’t produce nearly as many paintings, with only 20 or so — many of them still uncompleted — still around today. Instead, Leonardo was often distracted, and frequently caught doodling in his now-famous notebooks. Although Leonardo’s life is filled with remarkable accomplishments, it’s also littered with half-realized projects and unfinished masterpieces. One famous example is “The Virgin of the Rocks,” a painting that originally had a seven-month deadline, but took Leonardo 25 years to complete. Other works, such as the Sforza Horse — intended to be one of the world’s largest cast bronze statues — never saw the light of day despite years of work and planning.

    His chronic perfectionism didn’t help, and Leonardo himself even lamented his lifelong inattention. According to his biographer and art historian Giorgio Vasari, Leonardo allegedly mentioned around the time of his death in 1519 “that he had offended God and mankind in not having worked at his art as he should have done.” Today, modern diagnoses of Leonardo’s behavior suggest he might have lived with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Modern biographer Walter Isaacson argues that such a diagnosis could partly explain the creative engine behind Leonardo’s eclectic genius.

  • Long Life (?)

    What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

    I truly believe there’s a difference between quality versus quantity. Sometimes quality is far more important than quantity. If you can’t live along healthy, productive life, then quality is not there.

  • Dictator… don’t think so

    Lyle Northey (Silent/Boomer)

    The idea of having one person rule is as arcane as you can get. Most of the citizens of this nation have a problem listening to their parents, their teachers, police officers, religious persons, employers, customers, if they are in the military their NCO’s and Officer’s and their spouses. Based on the lack of cooperation given to any and all of these mentioned individuals it is hard to imagine that they are going to do well with a one man show.
    There is a concept of control that says most positions of power are capable of managing 3 to five units. Generally a unit is considered a single individual and if that is the most that is known to be controllable then how is a single person going to control an entire country? It may happen but it will mean that very many extremely brutal people will be employed to make sure the leader’s wishes are carried out or at least some semblance of his wish is carried out. This is the case in all of the dictator-run countries of the current world, the ruler may think he has control but he is just a puppet the real power belongs to those that “serve” him.
    These people stay loyal only as long as they see that the loyalty serves them. Are they allowed certain freedoms that they would not otherwise have? Can they commit crimes with immunity, is their lifestyle much better than other peoples?All these differences are important and they will be kept secret even if they must kill to insure that.
    Prisons will be filled with all that have in any way been known to be anti the person in charge. That person’s family may be in as much jeopardy as he is and have no choice in the matter. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and we definitely saw that with Trump. His desire to rule is the force that is driving him at present and will continue to drive him till the day he dies.
    The idea to be a dictator is an ego trip that with luck will end when someone decides that they have had enough of his bull and decides to do him in, sooner as opposed to later. Every dictator needs to be eliminated in one way or another with the most violent method that the oppressed can think of.
    All the issues with his being able to run much less serve are to be settled by the supreme court. This is a very unsound arrangement in that Trump appointed 1⁄3 of the court and they may feel that they have to give him his way. If they made this and issue in a special election for all to vote on and the results of the vote give yes or no to the problem.
    It is very unlikely that the majority of this nation’s populus will want to give up their way of life to be run by a dictator. If it turns out that they do then it’s time to move out of the country to somewhere else that has more to offer.
    The results of this vote would also be used to determine if the members of Congress that supported Trump will remain in as well and to cleanse the Supreme Court of dead wood, all that choose to listen only to the people that wish to turn back the clock.

  • Why 24?


    Ever wondered why there are 24 hours in a day? We have the ancient Egyptians to thank, at least in part. The basis for our modern calendar dates back to the New Kingdom period of ancient Egypt, around 1550 BCE to 1069 BCE. During this era — about a thousand years after the construction of the Great Pyramids of Giza — the Egyptians became the first civilization to divide the day into 24 smaller parts — though with a couple of key differences to how we do it today.

    For starters, the ancient timekeeping system tracked daytime and nighttime separately, with each divided into 12 parts. Also, these parts — which were measured in various ways, including sundials and water clocks — were not hours as we think of them today. Known as temporal hours or daylight hours, their length changed with the total amount of daylight at different times of year: For instance, the daytime hours would be longer in the summer than in the winter. So why 12? There are a couple of theories. Ancient astronomical tables suggest that nighttime was divided into 12 hours based on how the stars moved across the sky over time, as well as the cycles of the moon. It’s also possible these Egyptian timekeepers were following the duodecimal system, which is based on the easily divisible number 12, and was used in many ancient cultures.

    It wasn’t until the second century BCE that the idea emerged to break the day into 24 parts of equal length, a concept first introduced by the ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus. The 24-hour day became the standard for tracking time throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, and remains so to this day.

  • Interpersonal Conact

    What could you do differently?

    I could work more on interpersonal contact I don’t tend to have friends, not true don’t have close friends, tend to keep people at an arms distance it’s just easier that way, and I suppose that’s something I could absolutely do differently.

  • Thing you probably don’t know about Napoleon

    There are few individuals in European history as influential as Napoleon Bonaparte. The historic leader is remembered for his iconic bicorn hat, his allegedly short stature (a bit unfairly, since he was actually of average height for his time), and his singular military skill. During his lifetime, Napoleon went from a student in a French military academy to the ruler of an empire that spanned nearly all of continental Europe. By the time he was finally defeated in 1815, his series of conquests, known as the Napoleonic Wars, had changed the European continent forever. Here are seven facts about Napoleon Bonaparte that offer a small glimpse into his spectacular rise and fall.

    French Wasn’t His First Language

    Despite the central role Napoleon played in the history of France, he didn’t start learning to speak French until he was 9 years old. Napoleon was born on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, where most people spoke a regional dialect of Italian, and this was the language he grew up speaking. He spoke with a Corsican accent throughout his life, and even after he became emperor of France, this accent continued to mark him as a foreigner on the French mainland and served as a reminder of his Mediterranean origins.

  • Random Facts

    Sloths can hold their breath longer than dolphins can.Sloths are masters of living life in the slow lane. These tree-hugging mammals, split into two-toed and three-toed varieties, travel only about 125 feet a day — so slowly that moss and algae grow on their fur. This lethargic lifestyle is actually a survival strategy suitable for their slow metabolisms and low-calorie diets, which are mostly based on tree leaves. In fact, three-toed sloths have the slowest metabolism of any mammal (followed closely by pandas and two-toed sloths). 

    Their sluggish metabolism, as well as their ability to slow their heart to one-third its normal rate, give sloths an unexpected superpower — they can hold their breath for an impressively long time. With estimates suggesting that some two-toed sloths can hold their breath for upwards of 40 minutes, this makes sloths better at conserving oxygen than even some marine mammals such as dolphins, who can only hold their breath for 15 minutes, max. The sloth breathing technique, aided by the design of their lungs, helps make sloths excellent swimmers. So while their leisurely lifestyle may seem a bit lazy to the untrained eye, don’t blame the sloth — they’re just built that way.

  • Driver Message

    If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?

    I wouldn’t want an actual billboard, but our freeways have the electronic billboards that they write messages on every day. Some good some bad my message would be “stop driving like an asshole”… “Yes, I’m talking to you. “

  • Conundrum