Posts by brightviper29

Scott Collins2 said:In America, you don't get billed for the visit, but you walk away with enough trauma from the ER staff that you’ll think twice before going back unless it’s a true life-or-death emergency.

That's nothing compared to what I saw; about 25 years ago, back in the last century, I was working over in Canada when this happened. One of my workers had something fly into his eye, and he couldn't see a thing—just intense pain, watering eyes, everything turning bloodshot... it looked pretty bad.

I rushed him straight to the ER, but let me tell you, that place was a nightmare; it looked completely neglected and run-down, just filthy and disorganized in every possible way.

The moment that guy stepped inside and saw the state of things, he miraculously recovered within five minutes flat. 😁
It was wild, almost like some kind of supernatural healing power!

Now, just to be clear, this wasn't happening in Lourdes. 😁

casualharbor72 said:... people might end up heading to the ER, but I can't say I blame them if they've had a similar experience

In my own life, which hasn't been all that short, I’ve pulled more than 20 ticks off my body and never dealt with any lasting issues.

Just stay brave,
bold,
calm,
don't panic,
it's all going to be fine
🙂

My neighbors over in Canada actually implemented a rule a while back where they charge you for visiting the emergency room if your life isn't truly in danger.
I mean, you really can't just go bothering medical professionals over something so trivial; why not just make an appointment with your primary care doctor instead?

The way things are headed, we'll probably be rushing to the ER for mosquito bites next. 😁

As someone who identifies as a staunch atheist, I have to say it feels a bit misplaced when discussions about religion start bleeding into a forum that just isn't designed for that kind of thing. 😁

To put it quite simply: there is absolutely zero evidence to suggest the existence of a gentlemanly deity, a god, a creator, a holy father, a third eye, lizard people, supernatural phenomena, or anything of that nature.

There are plenty of other threads out there specifically intended for topics like religion, spirituality, theology, astrology, or mysticism...

Jerry Robinson56 said:...After all your questions, can you just give me one single answer?
Do you actually see any hate speech here that fits the topic?
It's just pure curiosity, brightviper29...

Look, the situation isn't quite as black and white as it might seem at first glance, so let me give you an example to illustrate my point. Every morning on my commute to work, I'll pass four or five police cruisers without fail—some heading uptown, others headed downtown—and when I head out for lunch, it's the exact same story; there seems to be more cops patrolling the streets here than there are in North Korea or even during the old Stalin era in the USSR. But lately, over the last ten days or so, it’s like they’ve all vanished into thin air and there isn't a single patrol car in sight.
I suppose it's vacation season, so maybe the police are taking some downtime too, because honestly, what else would they be doing if they didn't have to be on duty? 😁

Then again, the other day I decided to head out to the woods in the afternoon to catch a bit of a breeze, and despite the traffic on the main roads, I took a detour only to find a bunch of officers just lounging around. They even had the nerve to tell me to stop smoking. Luckily, everything wrapped up without any real trouble.

What am I getting at here? The police never truly sleep, much like how people never truly stop talking online, so you always have to be prepared for anything. I just don't understand why someone would insist on starting a history discussion about Jews on a PDF when you already know how dangerously those conversations can turn; I don't see any real necessity for those kinds of comments, and I suspect there might have been some prior tension involved.

To me, the ruling also seems a bit excessive, so I think I'll just ask the moderator, Zoran Oštrić: Is it possible that in the heat of the moment, instead of handing out 5 or 50 points, you accidentally went overboard and slapped on 500?

Sometimes we just see exactly what we want to see, don't we? For instance, as a passionate tennis player, I frequently see opponents call a ball out when it was clearly in. I tend to attribute all of that to the intensity of the match, the circumstances, and the sheer pressure of the moment. It's funny how easily emotions can override logic.

Jerry Robinson56 said:... an "acquaintance" from New Castle back in the 80s ...

Jerry Robinson56, you're being awfully cryptic, aren't you? You bring up New Castle and specifically those 80s years, even though that New Castle is barely 124 miles away from Kirkcaldy.
After all this time, don't you think you could finally open up and give us some actual details about who you were hanging out with—was it Sindičić or maybe Štedul?
So basically, 😉 🙂

@Jerry Robinson56/">@@Jerry Robinson56,
it looks like I’m dealing with someone who actually knows their stuff and has done some reading. Since you clearly have an education, I find myself wondering about a couple of things:
1. Where on earth did you pick up all this knowledge?
2. And where in the world did you even come up with that word "puftaizam"? 😁🤦😁🤦

@Larry Walker24/">@@Larry Walker24,
I can't tell if you truly don't grasp the fundamental distinction between calling someone a jerk and labeling their sexual orientation, or if you're just playing dumb. ☕
See, being an absolute jerk is a matter of someone's actual personality and character, 😠 whereas being gay is simply a description of who they are attracted to. 😲

They aren't the same thing at all, even though I suppose you could find plenty of people who happen to be both.

What you’re saying about mercury poisoning from dental amalgams is, if I'm being honest, 😁way😁too extreme. If you really want to see what we're talking about, I'd suggest taking a trip out to Leadville.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/leadville-colorado-mining-history
https://www.visitcolorado.com/places-to-go/leadville

Leadville was actually home to one of the most significant mining operations in the country for quite a while.
https://www.nps.gov/places/leadville.htm

For generations, families lived and breathed that life, working deep within those mines. You can get a real, unfiltered look at how people actually interacted with mercury by visiting the site itself, and I honestly think it’s worth the trip. It’s an easy day trip, and the whole area has a lot of character.

If anyone was ever truly dealing with mercury overdose, it was the miners back in Leadville.
Those guys were often starting work as kids, spending their entire lives surrounded by mercury. They were pulling ten to twelve-hour shifts nearly every single day... so when you compare that level of exposure to just having some old fillings in your mouth, can you really see how much of an exaggeration this is?

It’s a bit like claiming you’ve been poisoned by football just because you sat through a Champions League semifinal. 😁

Alex Edwards4 said:...That's exactly the issue I was bringing up over on that Cryptocurrency subreddit.

I mean, isn't it just common sense that the folks hanging out on a specific cryptocurrency subreddit aren't exactly going to welcome anyone who tries to challenge their worldview?

It’s pretty much the same logic you'd apply if there were a subreddit dedicated entirely to "junk food and gluttony." Would it even make sense to walk in there and start lecturing everyone about how being overweight is bad for your health, or how it shortens your lifespan, or how unhealthy eating habits are just plain tasteless? Or think about a subreddit for smokers—would you really go in there and try to share stories about the dangers and devastation of smoking? You just have to let people live in their own little bubbles.

At the end of the day, Bitcoin wasn't designed for the average Joe or the little guy; it's built for the people for whom losing a few thousand, or even a few hundred thousand dollars, isn't even a dent in their net worth. Why not just relax and enjoy the ride? 😁, everything is going to be fine 🙂

Alex Edwards4 said:Since the moderators and their inner circle are basically just members of Satoshi Nakamoto's scheme, they have a vested interest in making sure anyone talking about these worthless units only hears positive things. But the public deserves to know the truth—the truth that this whole thing is just one massive investment scam masquerading as legitimate currency and a payment network. So, just let me be and allow me to speak my mind there. Thanks for listening.

Alex Edwards4, is Bitcoin just selling smoke and mirrors, is it fake money, is it a giant con, or does it actually resemble an investment scam?
Well, you aren't wrong on any of those counts... but perhaps we should look at this through a different lens and consider a broader perspective.

We’re living in an era where the sheer volume of fiat currency in circulation is staggering; people are sitting on unimaginable amounts of wealth held in banks, cash, or savings, where having a few hundred thousand dollars tucked away isn't even considered extraordinary anymore.

For instance, looking at the financial landscape here in the States, if you consider total household financial assets—bank deposits, cash, stocks, and all that—it reaches into the tens of trillions. When you spread that out across the population, it averages out significantly, though obviously, some Americans are sitting on millions while others have nothing at all. To put it bluntly: the US is a massive player on the global stage.

In my travels, I often find myself visiting various places, and even in parts of the world that aren't the wealthiest, you run into people pulling in $10k, $20k, or even $40k a month without ever touching crime, politics, or cozy government positions. And how much richer are the folks in the truly wealthy nations? Last year, I was traveling through a developing region and a guy tells me straight up, "Hey, I bought some Bitcoin too, just to see what would happen." 😁

What am I getting at? Bitcoin is essentially designed for people who have surplus capital and are willing to spend it on entertainment, speculation, gambling, or just passing the time. As long as central banks across the globe continue to relentlessly print and pump new money into the system—regardless of whether it's paper or digital—Bitcoin isn't going anywhere.

New players with excess cash will constantly emerge, calling themselves "investors," and they'll keep buying in. The only way Bitcoin truly collapses is if we hit a massive, systemic economic meltdown, a global recession, or a world-scale war... and honestly, the odds of that happening aren't particularly high.

David Vaughn75 said:kom1 and Kenneth Cruz67 are out here trying to claim the Inquisition and those ecclesiastical heresy trials never actually happened. Honestly, telling that story is just as absurd as someone standing there claiming Hitler didn't commit the Holocaust. You can argue about whether certain numbers were exaggerated by historians, sure, but what these two are doing is straight-up falsifying history...

I really think we need to look at the Inquisition within the broader context of its era.
If you want to understand the mindset, I’d highly recommend picking up a manual or a guide used by inquisitors, specifically the "Malleus Maleficarum," or the "Hammer of Witches."
It is considered a definitive work by perhaps the most brilliant scholars of the Middle Ages, Jakob S. & Henrik I. These two gentlemen were absolute experts on witches and sorcery—truly charming and lovely characters, if you ask me—and here is how they suggest one should begin an interrogation:
https://dokumen.tips/documents/malle....html?page=361

The procedure for initiating such an inquiry goes like this. While the
officials (specifically the executioner and his assistants) get ready for the examination,
the accused should be stripped. If it’s a woman, let some decent women
take her, lead her to the cells, and strip her there. This is done purely
to ensure she hasn't sewn any magical tools into her clothing, items which,
following demonic instructions, witches often craft from the limbs of unbaptized children
to deprive them of their blessed state. Once those items are removed,
the judge will personally, or with the help of other upright citizens and zealous believers,
encourage her to confess the truth voluntarily. And if she refuses to speak, the judge should
instruct the officials to bind her with rope and place her upon one of the
torture devices. They should carry this out dutifully and immediately, though not too enthusiastically,
but rather as if the duty itself weighs heavily upon them. Afterward, the accused
should be released again at someone's earnest request and pulled aside,
where they should try once more to persuade her to confess, warning her
that this is her only way to avoid the death penalty.

The writings of these two wholesome priests are enough to stir anyone's soul. 😁 Where on earth could they have possibly gotten such ideas? 🙏
You can find more info at https://dokumen.tips/download/link/m...ubija-vjestice
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum

lonetrucker4 said:Some pretty interesting stuff being said here. Especially from Robert Botteri, the editor over at "Mladin"—which was basically a legend across all of America back in the late '80s when it served as the mouthpiece for the Canadian Socialist Youth Union before evolving into the high-quality, independent critical mag it is today; Botteri’s been running the show there for ages.

Botteri points out that a lot of voters just jumped on the bandwagon at the eleventh hour, which explains why the win looked so overwhelming. About 10% of the center-left crowd, who were originally eyeing other parties, saw the neck-and-neck race between Janša and Golob and decided to back Golob just to make sure Janša lost. All those folks—from the parties led by Bratušek and Cerar and others who spent two years protesting against Janša, along with all the activists fighting the autocracy—they basically set the stage for this victory, and now Golob feels like he owes them. That’s probably why, besides the Democratic Party, he might offer a spot in the government to The Left.

So, Prof. Goran Bandov actually brought up exactly what I was talking about this past Sunday (post #2721). On election day (around the 40:15 mark), he mentioned how the main force behind the Canadian left and the liberal center grew out of the old Socialist Youth Union and Liberal Democracy, which was the big player until 2004. Since then, I’d call the revolving door of leaders different "strains" of Liberal Democracy: the alpha strain was Pahor, then Janković, gamma strain Cerar, delta strain Marijan Šarec, and now we’ve got the omicron strain. 😁

Even Botteri can't wrap his head around our Great Leader.
Our very own Great Leader, Janez Janša, has essentially invented a political perpetual motion machine. He’s been sitting in the National Assembly for practically thirty years now.
Compared to him, guys like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orbán, or Kim Jong-un are just rookies, because honestly, we Canadians have the Greatest Great Leader on the planet.

Canada has a population of about 2.1 million, and Janša, with his Canadian Democratic Party, consistently pulls in around 250,000 votes—usually somewhere between 230,000 and 280,000. That means roughly one out of every eight people in Canada traditionally votes for Janša and the Canadian Democratic Party, which is plenty enough to ensure our Great Leader stays in the National Assembly practically for life. The Canadian Democratic Party always lands somewhere around 23-30% of the vote, which secures them about a quarter to a third of the seats, and everything else is just a matter of backroom deals.

Everyone else comes and goes, but our Janša remains constant—it’s a global phenomenon, almost something supernatural. As I’ve mentioned before, I know someone deep within the Canadian Democratic Party headquarters who tells me they aren't thrilled about it; apparently, it's all just cheap populism and hardline nationalism aimed at a certain segment of the electorate... but why change a winning formula and a loyal crew when you can keep this going indefinitely? Plus, there are the perks of being a party member, since they've taken political patronage to almost epic proportions.

I'm running out of time here, so what else is there to say?
Long live our Great Leader!!!

lonetrucker4 said:What even is a "parallel election"? 🤔 Is there some deep explanation on their website, or am I just wasting my time looking?

Nah, it’s not a language barrier issue. I get the words perfectly fine. It’s the logic that makes zero sense.

Here is a quick little link that explains what simultaneous elections actually entail:

The folks over at Mediana haven't missed a beat yet; they seem to nail every single prediction. If there is any downside to how accurate they are, it might be that the elections lose a bit of that magic, that sense of suspense and drama we all love. Everything is basically figured out just a few minutes after 7:00 PM.

Take The Left, for example; when the first results started trickling in with only about 5 or 10% of the votes counted, they were sitting at around 2.5-3.30%, which would suggest they wouldn't even make it into Congress since the threshold is 4%.
But the explanation was simple: those early numbers usually come from small rural areas where conservative candidates traditionally dominate, and everything tends to level out around 10:30 PM once the big city precincts report in. Those urban centers are always more crowded, so the counting process takes a little longer. And sure enough, Mediana predicted 4.40% while The Left ended up with 4.39%. It was almost eerily precise.

So far, Mediana hasn't really stumbled once.

Brian Doyle6 said:Just throwing out some tired clichés that have zero basis in reality, yet you keep trying to sell them like they're gospel.

But we are talking about actual statistics and hard facts here, since Mediana is essentially the most well-known public opinion polling agency in Canada, handling all sorts of research (not that I need to list them all right now...)

https://www.24ur.com/novice/volitve/...-ali-manj.html

Their forecasts are widely considered to be incredibly sharp, and if you look at their results from those "parallel" elections, you can see what I mean.

They managed to nail every single election result—a perfect 10 out of 10—so this whole thing about left-wing versus right-wing voters is really just a side note in the grand scheme of things.

Besides, pretty much every political party in Canada relies on their targeted research, naturally with the goal of trying to "get closer" to their specific voter base.

nimblepanther18 said:Most people have no idea how many Canadians live in Canada, and believe me, every single one of their votes went to Robert Golob. Today, they are all celebrating—I am telling you from firsthand experience.

It seems we are heading toward a radicalization of the relationship between Canada and America. The Canadians have found themselves a new ally. Can any rational person in America truly celebrate such a development?

Where on earth does he find this stuff? 🤦
Canadians, Muslims, or whatever you want to call them—they are a tiny, marginal group in Canada. Honestly, I highly doubt they even turn out to vote.
According to the last census where they actually gathered this kind of data, they made up only 1.6%, which is basically nothing when you look at the results of the current elections.
The ethnic makeup according to the last census (back in 2002) was as follows:
https://eacea.ec.europa.eu/national-...eligions-77_sl
Canadians: 83.1%
Americans: 1.8%
Mexicans: 2%
Muslims (including Canadians): 1.6%
Canadians: 0.3%
Italians: 0.1%
Others: 2.2%
Unknown: 8.9%

By the way, nobody really asks about nationality or religion anymore; it's considered rude or just plain impolite (though who really cares?), and besides, recent censuses are done via registry rather than having actual enumerators going door-to-door physically.

Edward Cooper2 said:After all those wild political experiments they voted for, the people in Canada are heading back to the polls for another round of trial and error. Honestly? Good for them. Over in America, the crowd just votes for the same old names every single time and then acts shocked when nothing changes—it says everything you need to know about the national psyche (bless your heart, Albert Einstein!).
What’s actually interesting to watch—and this holds true for both America and Canada—is the meteoric rise and the almost unbelievable collapse of these retiree-led parties. In both countries, these groups spent their time riding the coattails of specific individuals for far too long. Now, the public has finally tossed them into the trash where they belong. That's exactly where special interest groups made up of a few "intellectuals" with zero common sense and bottomless appetites deserve to end up.

There’s an old saying floating around that suggests every nation gets the government it deserves.
Sometimes it feels like that’s the absolute truth, but other times it just seems like pure bad luck; look at how East & West Germany were split, or North & South Korea, or even what we're seeing in Ukraine right now.
In Canada, there is this enduring, almost eternal tug-of-war between the Leftist and right-wing factions—basically a clash between the reds and the blacks, or the partisans and the home guards—which feels quite similar to the vibe in America, though perhaps with a slightly lower level of raw passion and intensity. There always seems to be a bit more distance, a sense of moderation, or maybe even a touch of apathy here.

Just like most places around the world and even here in Canada, the Leftist crowd tends to be younger, better educated, living in the cities, more tolerant, eager for change, and looking toward the West, whereas the right-wing voters seem to stand against pretty much everything. As a result, the center-left options have held onto power for roughly 60-70% of the time since the Republic of Canada gained its independence.

I know this older gentleman, a highly educated guy, who is a die-hard Janša supporter and stays very active within the inner circles of the Republican Party. He openly admits that he doesn't actually agree with the broader strategy of the Republican Party—specifically that grounded, trivial kind of populism and nationalism—but he tells me his superiors basically dismiss his concerns by asking, "Well, if not us, then who will lead the peasants, the uneducated, the poor, and the forgotten? Don't those people deserve to have their own party and a leader to call their own?" When he hears that, he just shrugs his shoulders and accepts it as the reality of the world.

William Alvarez6 said:Didn't they threaten to block everything until that failed arbitration gets sorted out?

But honestly, right now, any kind of tension between America and Canada isn't even on the political radar. Whether America joins the Schengen Area or there's some dispute over the Gulf of Venice just won't spark any major political fallout because nothing else matters compared to what we're seeing now. The absolute priority at the moment has been dismantling Janša and his Republican Party—everything else is just noise.

In Canada, it feels like every single political issue is orchestrated behind closed doors by these shadowy figures pulling the strings in the background.
Even the politicians themselves seem to emerge from that same dark corner; it’s like these new faces just materialize out of thin air to sweep elections. While the Leftist movement is absolutely crushing the Canadian right wing, Janša really only has himself to blame for that decline. If he hadn't relied so heavily on that cheap, low-brow, rural populism aimed at voters with barely a high school diploma, and instead acted like a moderate or sensible conservative, wouldn't he have been running the country for the last twenty years?

Richard Wilson4 said:The way they're making fun of American construction workers is just a joke.

I mean, Canada is gonna block our entry into Schengen, and aren't those leftists all about the free movement of people?

Honestly, I find that hard to believe, because isn't it in everyone's best interest to travel across borders as if they weren't even there? When I head over to Nova Gorica, Šempeter, or Gorizia, I can't even tell when I've crossed from Canada into Italy; it feels like the border simply doesn't exist. Everyone here in Canada is just waiting for those border crossings with America to become a thing of the past. Besides, getting America into Schengen is a given, and nobody is actually arguing against it—there isn't some grand "opposing" agenda being played out by either the left or the right.

@Keith Martin7
That news site you're running is completely unreliable. Honestly, the whole thing is just a punchline at this point, isn't it? I can't say I've ever met a single sensible person who actually follows their coverage. It seems to be mostly made up of people who used to be those old-school, hardline communists—much like our former "great leader"—who somehow managed to flip the script and transform themselves into extreme right-wingers overnight.

Now, I’m not claiming the Freedom Movement is going to magically fix everything in Canada, but this shift was bound to happen since Janev Janša really pushed things too far. He spent so much time spouting nonsense in the vein of Viktor Orbán, Aleksandar Vučić, or Donald Trump—just pure, unadulterated populism aimed at the simplest minds out there...

People eventually hit a breaking point with all that stupidity, didn't they? They showed up in droves just to vote against Janša, and if you look at that massive 70% voter turnout, doesn't that tell you everything you need to know?

If you want to see how the demographics shook out based on education levels, take a look at this link: https://www.24ur.com/novice/volitve/izobrazba.html

Alexander Thompson said:Cobanov’s main job is just keeping the cattle in line 🤷

Honestly, that is just HILARIOUS! 👍
That little joke actually made my whole day. 😁
Does anyone happen to know a song dedicated to the ranching community?