A "community" has 50+ flags? Don't think so.

Okay Mary, sorry for the confusion. Just to add one more point, many of us myself included tend to engage in negative cherry picking on events such as the The Pride Parade and overlook the positive aspects like the friendly vibes, love and comradery that exists among many of the Pride Parade participants and attendees. This should be acknowledged and commended but many of us sort of gloss over it and focus on the objectionable stuff... Putting my negative cherry picking hat back on I do wish these Pride Parades would clean things up at their public events. What they do in private is none of my business but what happens in public is the communities business and it is my business at least in part to speak out since I am part of the community. A case in point [and there are far worse examples of this] is the recent Seattle Pride Parade through a community in Seattle where a large group of fully nude cyclists are parading in front of young children..https://x.com/TPostMillennial/status/1673057359911075840..I wish someone involved in the parade would speak up and say "Hey buddies! You are cycling through a community where families live and where young children are in attendance. Could you please put on some shorts a speedo or at least a damned jock strap you Sick F#%ks."

New evidence that being queer causes obesity https://x.com/itslinklauren/status/1939465307736690723

Stabbings are the newest Pride ritual https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8AjrxWvmXq/ Maybe because the cities that have them defund the police

If you queers are going to behave so badly in public, you are going to have to expect "homophobia" https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8AjrxWvmXq/

@crestrider I was talking about bruce, who took the time to write an entire homophobic, transphobic, racist, anti-drag piece in response to me (as a gay man) during Pride, not you.

"I ended up being attacked here on Splice Today by "another writer" who "loves to overuse quotation marks" in the comments section". I plead guilty to the overuse of quotation marks but who is attacking who here Mary? I made 3 comments on your Corporate Pride piece all of which were focused on public indecency at my cities annual San Diego Gay Pride parade and none of the comments attacked you or even mentioned you. I pointed out the beyond the pale indecent behavior of what takes place at the parade where children are present and you call that "homophobia" and for describing the details of what the parades participants engage in you accuse me of having a "fetishized fantasy" but say nothing about the people who are actually doing these lewd acts in front of children. They are the real fetishizers here are they not? Your only response was "parents have agency over where they bring their children". If these kind of over the top displays of public indecency happen at events like the SD Gay Pride Parade which takes place on a public street for the whole community to see at least they should have a public advisory notification for the parades attendees which might read something like " Welcome everyone to the annual Gay Pride Parade. We hope you all have a great time today and enjoy all the festivities. For parents with children or minors under 18 we would like to notify you that there is a strong possibility that this event will contain nudity, displays of perverted exhibitionism and lewd and lascivious behavior among the parade participants. Those who are sensitive to these types of displays and behaviors should take this advisory into account when considering attending this event. We thank you all for attending and may each of you have a wonderful day!"

Nate Silver does not identify as a conservative, if we are not going to force people to accept labels they don't use themselves. I'm not a homophobe (yet) as much as the gay Left, with mutilating kids and prancing Drag Queens through kindergarten libraries, would like me to be. I was concerned though that Mrs. McCarthy found it hard to follow my article, though I wrote it in word salad as she notes, the patois of the white women Kamala voters. So here's a longer version of the same piece; maybe the connective tissue will help. Now I'm off to toast the Supreme Court decisions. https://brucemajors.substack.com/p/pride-isnt-it-queer

"Parents have agency over where they bring their children". The SD Gay Pride Parade is not held in a private setting. It is a public event held on public streets for the whole community to attend including young children. If the people in the parade would tone it down a bit and forego the lewd and lascivious public acts there wouldn't be an issue and to the point of this article they may even bring in more sponsorship for the event rather than alienating potential sponsors. A little more consideration for those in attendance including the young children of the community and a little less narcissistic self absorption would go a long way.

I think Pride parades have largely devolved into a place gays with no money to go to the beach can be naked and drink beer in th sun.

Parents have agency over where they bring their children. I attended Baltimore Pride and there were many children there taking part in the moonbounce and other children’s activities. Honestly your detailed description sounds more like a fetishized fantasy and classic example of homophobia versus something a child asks a parent at a parade. Might want to give that some more thought, because these comments say more about you than people celebrating love, joy and civil rights.

A parade coming to town is an occasion to spend a nice afternoon with the family watching the decorated floats go by with costumed people dancing and marching bands playing music. Imagine a tolerant minded parent bringing their child to the San Diego Gay Pride Parade which is a publicly sanctioned event on a public downtown street. "Here we are at the parade Billy. Let's see if we can find some balloons". "Hey mommy why is that man on the float with the really small underwear wiggling his tushy at us". "Oh it is just his way of expressing himself dear". "But mommy why is that other guy on the float with the really small underwear bending over and rubbing his tushy against the privates of that man behind him". 'Oh they are just showing pride in who they are dear. Would you like some cotton candy?"

Current tax assessment of Livingston is $1.6 million. I thought it had sold in January but the couple who own it simply put it into a trust. Unrelated there are at least two realtors named Sartwell in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Update 2: Big Balls back. https://www.thedailybeast.com/nuts-plot-twist-as-elon-musks-big-balls-lands-new-government-job/

As Friday approaches I begin thinking about when the next episode will be available and when I will have time to see it. It's so good.

Update: Big Balls is out. https://www.wired.com/story/big-balls-coristine-doge-resigned-us-government/

The notion that Mossad is tricking us is about as laughable as believing that the media is preventing Americans from doing something about the genocide taking place in Gaza.

Of course Trump was never an isolationist. He's a nationalist who thinks American comes First and all (foreign and other) policies should serve that. Which means getting rid of most foreign policies that are anti-American. Hence looking a lot like isolationism, a word then used by his critics, who think "isolationism" is scarier than the interventionism they've done for decades.

Shutting down one of the two LIGO detectors is a stupid bean counter's error. Having built them at great expense, they must be maintained, and accumulate data. But how much of the $48 M budget is supporting admins, professors' salaries, and overhead at their universities? They and their research are great, but not really of practical value.

OK I saw it. It was a B. Not so bad. And wasn't actor Cillian Murphy, who is a director or producer on this, in one of the earlier iterations as an actor?

Now I don't know what to do. You are right that "Last of Us" seems to have lost all fizz (is that why Pedro Pascal left? or did his leaving take away too much of what was making it interesting?) But "Yesterday" was great and I love Jodie Comer, so...

I'm not seeing much correlation. The least religious states (% "highly" religious) per https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2016/02/29/how-religious-is-your-state are 41. Colorado 47% 41. Hawaii 47% 43. New York 46% 44. Alaska 45% 44. Washington 45% 44. Wisconsin 45% 47. Connecticut 43% 48. Maine 34% 48. Vermont 34% 50. Massachusetts 33% 50. New Hampshire Highest suicide rates per https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/suicide-mortality/suicide.htm Montana Alaska Wyoming New Mexico North Dakota Idaho Utah South Dakota Oklahoma Colorado

The most secular U.S. states (the mountain west) also have the highest rates of suicide.

I hear you, except violent crime has actually been decreasing in the USA for the past 30 years. You can look it up. Political violence may be on the rise, but it's just a tiny subset of violent crime. Another good reason to steer clear of politics.

Such a great song. So sad youngin's don't know our music in the 60's and 70's was SO much better than their music is.

"If you only know a cup this way, you don't know the cup." David Thomas threw off sparks every time he opened his mouth.

A loving/moving biography of Les Baxter: https://lesbaxter.com/pages/biography

This is great. please add a blusky link one of these days.

Just saw it yesterday. She was terrific.

Kamala Harris makes a surprise SNL cameo appearance on the weekend before the election and gets rewarded with a slobbery kiss from SNL and their informal endorsement. Unlike the SNL portrayal of Kamala from early in October where she was humorously mocked this appearance was a cringe inducing fawning over her by SNL which came across as contrived and particularly unfunny ..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ff-rqlU4ZWw...I'm sure this Kamala SNL appearance and portrayal by Maya Rudolph got Howard Sterns full approval though.. .For a minute there I thought SNL was getting back to it's roots of prioritizing comedy and being funny but I guess I jumped the gun on that. For SNL it is back to their primary objective of being left wing propagandists..

There was a time when the politically incorrect Howard Stern tested the social boundaries with his unique and edgy form of humor. In recent years Howard Stern has become a tyrannical establishment weasel. During the Covid-19 epidemic he said "When are we gonna stop putting up with the idiots in this country and just say it's mandatory to get vaccinated? F--- 'em. F--- their freedom. I want my freedom to live," He said this months after the data proved that the Covid vaccine did not prevent people from getting infected or from becoming infectious... In this recent butt kissing interview with Kamala Harris he criticized SNL comedian Maya Rudolph"s mocking portrayal of Kamala saying " I hate it. I don't want you being made fun of." How dare comedy get in the way of his political agenda. What a sad pathetic stooge Howard Stern has become.

Their best album. I will never stop listening to it.

Decades ago, I was at a party in my uncle's Manhattan high-rise apartment when the building suddenly filled with smoke and we had to evacuate down the stairs. My uncle grabbed a Picasso lithograph, and I grabbed a big tray of roast beef.

Great pic of Riverrun. Really miss that place!

In college I had a bartending job at Steak and Ale. Tips were good so I always had a couple hundred bucks in my wallet. It felt good to be a student and be able to walk into any restaurant that I felt like dining at. I rarely did that, but it was still a good feeling to know that I could.

As former Friendly's waitress of the year, Friendly's is always a yes. Wattamelon roll FTW