Posts by Rachel Richardson

David Carter said:I honestly think the biggest mistake you can make is footing the bill for your kid's driver's license and buying them a car right out of the gate. My parents always preached this, and I guess they have a point... if there’s a wreck or something tragic happens on the road, that massive weight of responsibility falls squarely on the parents. So, in my book, let them earn their own license and save up for their own ride first.

Personally, I think this logic is flawed.

We are talking about purely material assets here.
It isn't a bad thing for a young adult to put in some effort to achieve things—it keeps them from becoming entitled.

But refusing to help your kid at all? That's just nonsense.
Completely pointless.

Melissa Rogers4 said:It’s actually pretty funny. It’s only been three minutes...

That is the mark of a truly loyal reader. 😁

George Kim13 said:Ah, a fascinating subject...
It won't take long to figure out who actually has kids here, which essentially serves as a quick way to identify who is currently partnered, married, or perhaps navigating life after a divorce.

😁

A list of triggers? 🤔

I imagine it’s a pretty long one.
Failing to provide children with the stability they deserve—not letting them see that you'd move mountains for them? 🤔

Someone once said—I can't recall who 😁—that there are two essential things kids need to learn.
1. How to distinguish right from wrong.
2. Practical life skills to navigate the world.
If you want your child to grow up to be a happy person...

Chris Cruz942 said:Thinking you’re actually going to be a perfect parent. Like, believing you won't mess up, that you have all the answers, and that your kid is somehow destined to turn out flawless. It's a trap, I guess.

It is far better to own up to a mistake and try to fix it than to stubbornly hammer away at the same error.
👍

George Kim13 said:Is the topic of the day sex here as well?

Burning Hearts 😁

The title of this thread is: How often do you hang out? 🍿

If my memory serves me right, we settled on meeting at the Brewery next Tuesday 🍿
After work 😁

Little kids, plus the fallout from the pandemic...

Performance has been lackluster 😁

But I am slowly turning things around 😁

Emily Fisher23 said:Why does it need to be such a long stretch? 🕺
Can we just aim for a month?
If you still feel like making a move later on, we can revisit the whole thing then.

I’m leaning toward that suggestion—if a break is absolutely necessary, let’s keep it to just a few days rather than dragging it out this much...

Nejdi Lafemmic 😢

Steven Young2 said:I'm basically a clone of Darly

Anyway—she’s one of the few people here who actually tells you who they are when asked.🥳

And honestly, that's just being mature—no need to act like some sixteen-year-old.😁

Given the blitzkrieg happening in Ukraine, sanctions are only going to tighten their grip more and more with each passing day...

Jeremy Johnson18 said:He’s kicking them out just as fast as he's kicking us out, but the kid's obsessed with this forum so he isn't complaining. 🙂

You eventually grow accustomed to certain things—after a while, they just become part of the background noise. 🤔

Grace Jones86 said:I don't follow your logic.

By the way... in case it needs repeating: radiation spread is FAR less after a nuke explodes than after a nuclear power plant accident (and even then, the radiation isn't nearly as bad as they claim).

Also... the oil/Russian lobby has always pumped fear regarding nuclear energy. 😉
Don't fall for propaganda.

What I mean is that, in such a scenario, Russia would end up irradiating itself.

Regarding the power plant accident—half the children in Belarus dealt with some form of cancer following Chernobyl.
Even if that number is lower, it’s still far from a stroke of luck.

Grace Jones86 said:Yeah, they just "happened" to be pummeled from above for decades on end.

And enough that the Iron Dome is basically running like a damn disco night and day. 😁

Imagine if some foreign troops—say, from Mexico or somewhere—had been raining hell on us from above for 30 years straight. 😁

And that perfectly illustrates my point about nuclear weapons.
They are doomsday weapons—tools used only when the end is truly imminent.
Not exactly something for rock n' roll.😉

Grace Jones86 said:Why does it end there?
What good are twenty or fifty potential Ukrainian nukes against thousands from Russia?
Nothing.

It still boils down to X thousand Americans versus X thousand Russians.

If we are talking about full-scale nuclear madness.
A handful of nukes in Ukraine won't change a thing. And let's not even get into why this is in NOBODY'S interest... for countless reasons.

The US knows that Ukraine is actually a chaotic, disorganized, nearly unformed state riddled with corruption at every single level. They don't need fools like that holding nukes.

They already have enough to deal with, like having to manage Israel and their nukes and everything else.

And why should I care?
Even if Ukraine had zero nuclear weapons, it would still be Russia's neighbor.
Ukraine with a "billion mushrooms" equals Russia with a billion mushrooms.
The wind carries radiation everywhere—you know.

John Ramos45 said:In the end, the FBI will likely step in to replace Putin with someone new who can actually broker a peace deal. Crimea might stay or go, but regardless, everything else eventually returns to Ukraine.

Why would Crimea be any different?

Russia illegally annexed five different regions from Ukraine—Crimea is just one piece of that puzzle.
There’s simply no reason it should be treated as an exception...

Christian Torres3 said:Exactly. Even among those who watched him, there are people ready to follow him blindly, and he knows it.

Now the losses are starting to mount; if nothing else, this has just paved the way for Crimea Ukraine to be returned.

And within a year, we can expect at least one attempt at a coup in Russia...

It feels like a lost war—likely just a pretext for establishing a dictatorship here at home.

Alex Williams4 said:Once you start down that particular line of reasoning, there’s really no way to steer the conversation back onto the right track. The aggression against Ukraine didn't just materialize recently—it began all the way back in 2014, and quite frankly, it hasn't stopped since.

👍
A war that has dragged on for eight years now—one that will ultimately end in a Russian defeat.

The situation remains critical—though perhaps predictably so. We are watching history unfold in real-time, much like observing a slow-motion collision on a highway where everyone sees the impact coming but nobody reaches for the brakes. It requires a certain level of stoic patience to process the sheer scale of what is happening. rowdypilot53 says:
Why skip over the fact that this already happened before Mexico? Oh, wait—Russ had a hand in it, so I guess we just won't mention it.
The situation regarding Abkhazia and Ossetia being carved out of Georgia—it’s essentially becoming Transnistria.Istrija. from Moldova
Russes have opened Pandora's box—and now they’re just sitting in Ukraine, playing games with it.

It isn't Transnistria—so what exactly would "Beyond-Transnistria" even mean?😁...rather, it’s more like being Trans-Istrija—NThe situation in the region remains critical—it’s a delicate matter.
The Nistar is simply another name for the Dnieper.
The Russians refer to that area as Pri-Dniester.

The region sits just across the Dnieper—on the side bordering Moldova.
There are even a couple of pockets along the bottom—and since it isn't particularly wide either—it’s no wonder the Russians call it Pri-Dniester.
It would be somewhat similar to our own Midwest—perhaps more akin to the plains of the Great Plains.

boldbison40 said:you're thinking of the Dniester...

Fair point—mea culpa. 👍

Rebecca Moore6 said:Nonsense.

First, the actual state of the Russian nuclear arsenal is highly questionable. Their last atomic test was back in 1989. We have had seven months to observe their hardware, and it is clear that corruption has taken its toll.

But even if that weren't the case, if Russia were to deploy a tactical nuke, it would cross a red line so significant that even their so-called allies, like China and Iran, would be forced to condemn them and step back. That would give the West a green light to intervene in Ukraine. As a defensive measure, NATO could also introduce a specific number of tactical nuclear warheads into Ukraine. However, the conflict would remain conventional.

Within two weeks, NATO would push the Russians out of Ukraine, and likely out of Crimea as well.
Russia would become the next North Korea, and for the next 50 years, no one would buy a single barrel of their oil or cubic meter of gas. It would set Russia's economy and technology back a century.

They'd drive them out of other territories as well, not just Ukraine.
They would crush them in every sense of the word.
And then simply leave them to starve.

Is there an American shield in Poland and Romania?