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OT - Concerts this summer for old geezers.

I am tired of this portal crap. I am happy with our current lineup. Pretty sure another National Title. That being said: what concerts are you going to this summer. Lots of classic rock guys are passing away. So far I have 2 concerts booked. Doobie Brothers 6/8 in Charlotte and Little Feat 9/16 . Set up a man cave in my bonus room. Set up my 1970's stereo. I found out I have over 400 vinyl lp's. My top albums are Beatles White Album, Stones Exile on Main Street, Zappa Apostrophe, Little Feat Waiting for Columbus, Allman Brothers Eat a Peach and Jethro Tull Aqualung. What say you?

Is the truth about to come out? UFO version

This is a pretty fascinating thread. Very long with a lot more details than anything I have seen before. Either this guy knows his 💩 or is one hell of a story teller.

I was one that never believed that aliens have visited earth or crashed. But the last few months have been very strange indeed. Massive numbers of drones over New Jersey, military bases….credible video of objects that seem to defy physics.

I always thought these were black ops objects developed by our military/spooks.


Trump said he will tell the people what all the drones over the east coast was all about.

He also, while he was President, we have weapons that our enemies have no idea. And he said with awe. Maybe that was him just okay acting to intimidate…..but maybe we hzve these incredible weapons.

The next couple months could be the biggest in history if this guy is honest and accurate.

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OT Apple Air Pods Pro Hearing Aids

Yesterday Apple released IOS 18.1 which contains the software to use Air Pod 2 Pros as hearing aids. I believe the minimum requirements are iPhone 15 or greater with this update and Air Pod2 Pro ear buds. I downloaded the software and went through the setup process which was relatively easy. My initial reaction after 24 hours is mixed. I'm getting way too much amplification on very low sounds. I can hear silverware touching the plate, light switches and the latch click when you turn a doorknob. This is unneeded and very annoying. The speech, TV etc is pretty good, the noise cancellation has two levels, one is good the other is outstanding. I'm still figuring everything else out and will report any significant findings. One of the things I want to do is to retake the hearing test, to see if maybe I missed a tone that is causing certain frequencies to be over amplified. I also think you can add an existing hearing aid test done elsewhere, but haven't had the time to try this. Based on the cost if you already use an I-phone vs the cost of hearing aids with similar technology these look like a no brainer value. Has anyone else that uses hearing aids tried this software yet? What are your thoughts?

Democratic Politicians Are in Denial on the Education Crisis

What aren't democrats in denial about? America loves dudes breaking records in women's competition??

Even the assclown @LafayetteBear would agree it's foul.

Making standards lower makes students learn more.... lmfao...

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/democra...al-on-the-education-crisis-ef57095b?st=RrfaiF

As Democrats examine why Kamala Harris lost and how the party should change course, education policy should be a top issue. But few party leaders are talking about it.

Many voters are still unhappy with Democratic support for excessive school closings during the pandemic. Too many elected officials, pandering to teachers unions, kept schools closed well past the point when it was clear that in-person classes could safely resume. Children paid a terrible price, and they are still paying it.

This week brought more bad news. On the most recent National Assessment of Education Progress, a test that functions as a national report card, student scores hit new lows. One-third of eighth-grade students in the U.S. are reading at a “below basic” level. Fourth-graders fared even worse: 40% were below basic. The divide between high-performing and low-performing students, which is correlated with family income, has widened.

This is a disaster for our country and our ability to compete internationally. First and foremost, it is a disaster for our children, especially in low-income areas. Many of them are being condemned to lives of minimum-wage jobs, government dependency and, tragically, prison.

There was a bright spot in the NAEP scores. In the four localities and states where Bloomberg Philanthropies has been most active—supporting charter schools, high standards and system accountability—students bucked the national trend: Their test scores went up. We’ve shown what works in raising student achievement levels, and we have the data to back it up. But instead of pursuing these proven strategies, Democrats have been fighting them.

In New York, the teachers union has fought to maintain a cap on the number of charter schools, which have dramatically raised achievement levels, even as student waiting lists grow longer. Gov. Kathy Hochul and the Legislature have refused to repeal a law prohibiting longstanding charters from receiving the same kind of rental assistance that newer charters do. The state also gives charters far less funding than traditional schools, discriminating against their students.

For a party that speaks a great deal about equity, the Democrats ought to put their money where their mouth is. And the problem isn’t only that Democratic leaders are fighting reforms that would help students. It’s that they’re trying to pretend the education crisis doesn’t exist, in part by papering over it.

In New York, state education officials are planning to abolish the requirement that students pass basic proficiency exams to earn a high-school diploma. Students will still take English, math and science exams, since they are required by federal law, but failing them won’t matter. High-school diplomas will become participation trophies.

Love or Hate Trump, Left's Hyperbole Is Breathtaking

Trump, Making Leftwing Extremists Unhinged Again.... MLEUA (pronounced mil-loooo-uh).

https://edgyoptimist.substack.com/p...e&r=67wdy&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email

And this guy is a never Trumper too.

That said, the hyperbole surrounding the new administration is also breathtaking: “Trump 2.0: The most damaging first two weeks in presidential history,” began a Washington Post column by Ruth Marcus. “This Isn’t reform; it’s sabotage” went one by David Wallace-Wells in the New York Times. Yuval Levin speaking on Ezra Klein’s show talked about the “breakage” of the Constitution. Law professors are having a high-time being quoted as saying that Trump is leading a “coup” and conducting a “blitzkrieg on the law” (Nazi analogies are never far from the front of mind, if not the front of war).

Trump 2.0: A Survival Guide for Democrats

David Hogg to the RESCUE!!!!

Gotta love Ruy Teixeira.

https://www.thefp.com/p/trump-20-a-survival-guide-for-democrats

The DNC settled on 24-year-old school-shooting survivor David Hogg as its new vice chair. Here is Hogg’s take on why Democrats did badly among Gen Z voters: “We had to grow up worrying about dying in a school shooting today, or dying of climate change tomorrow, and then being crushed by student debt and the housing crisis in between. . . and I think on the issue of Gaza in particular, it was emblematic of the fact that people felt like we were not listening to them—that we didn’t care.”

Hogg is almost as out of touch as the winning candidate for DNC chair, Minnesota’s Ken Martin. He confidently asserted: “We’ve got the right message. What we need to do is connect it back with the voters.”

In short, all the early signs point to a party that has learned nothing from defeat. If only the Democratic Party were wearing lapels, because then someone could grab them, shake hard, and yell: “What part of ‘the voters just rejected your fixation on identity politics’ do you not understand?”

........

So here is the million dollar question. Can lefties follow this simple guidelines? My take? NO F'ING WAY... lmfao..


1. Avoid the name-calling
Let’s start with something easy: Don’t drop the F-bomb. Democrats must resist the urge to characterize Trump or his policies as “fascist”—as Kamala Harris did in the home stretch of the presidential race. Why? For a start, it’s not true.

2. Moderate—starting with immigration
That moderation should start with a decisive issue in the last election: immigration. Voters want a secure border and an end to runaway illegal immigration. They believe Democrats don’t. In his first days in office, Trump tightened border security with a series of executive orders; his administration has started to implement deportations targeted at criminal immigrants; and he signed the Laken Riley Act, which is named after the Georgia nursing student murdered by illegal Venezuelan immigrant Jose Ibarra in 2024.

3. Partner with Trump when he’s right—like on DEI
It’s a similar story with DEI and affirmative action. In a series of executive orders, Trump has set about dismantling DEI and affirmative action within the federal government and for federal contractors. Democrats appear willing to lie down on the railroad tracks on this one.

4. Embrace energy abundance

Democrats also need to show more pragmatism on energy. Trump has taken steps that he says will increase fossil fuel production and make energy more abundant.

Choosing new leaders, Democrats are still in denial

Good. It might be bad for conservatives if they learned from their mistakes.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/daily-memo/3307091/choosing-new-dnc-leaders-democrats-in-denial/

The key issue facing the DNC now is, of course, reforming the party after its defeat in the 2024 elections. No, it wasn’t a landslide, as Democrats point out. But the party lost the White House, including the popular vote, and also lost the House and Senate. It lost all seven of the swing states. Nearly every jurisdiction — states, counties, cities, and suburbs — moved to the right from the 2020 election. The Democratic Party’s losses were across the board.

One might think such a drubbing would motivate a party to examine its mistakes and take a hard look in the mirror. But that would not be the DNC way, or the MSNBC way. So, the Georgetown forum was, in significant part, an exercise in denial.

Perhaps the key moment came when Capehart asked the candidates and the audience for “a show of hands — how many of you believe that racism and misogyny played a role in Vice President Harris’s defeat?” Everyone onstage and in the audience raised his or her hand. It was unanimous. “OK, so that’s good,” Capehart said. “You all pass.”

You all pass. In a brief moment, Capehart gave voice to the test the Democratic Party has imposed on itself on the question of why Harris and the entire party lost ground in 2024: You can talk about the issues if you want, but we know it was racism and misogyny.

Others echoed the moment. “We have a racist, homophobic, misogynist president and party on the other side,” said Michael Blake, a candidate for DNC vice chairman, “and too often, we’re unwilling just to call it what it is. There is anti-blackness that is happening, there is racism that is happening, there is sexism that is happening, and if we are unwilling to be real about that, that’s why we’re going to keep losing.”

Others stressed the timing of the race in which President Joe Biden, mentally and physically unable to campaign at a high level or serve another term, withdrew on July 21, after which the party raced to give the nomination to Harris. “Remember, we had 107 days to run this campaign with Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket,” said Nikema Williams, another candidate for DNC vice chairman. “So, it was difficult to get into communities and help people to understand or feel like they knew who Vice President Harris was and that she was the person fighting for them.”

As for Biden, the problem, as the DNC candidates saw it, was that he and the party did not do an effective job of explaining to the public what a great president he was. “We lost black men by the boatload,” said Robert Stephens, another candidate for DNC vice chairman, “and I began to explain to them all the wins that President Biden accomplished in his first two years, like capping the cost of insulin … these things impact people in real places, and we have to message them effectively.”

Other topics received almost no attention. Inflation was one. The border was another. Crime was another. In other words, you heard little or nothing about the issues that most concerned voters in the presidential election. Indeed, the Georgetown session was newsworthy not because of party introspection or self-analysis but because it was interrupted many times by far-left-wing environmental protesters from a group known as the Sunrise Movement. The constant interruptions clearly irritated some Democrats, but not enough to crack down on the party’s leftist troublemakers.
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