Fresh8686

As soon as I read the part about the yellow bracelet, I thought about Jews being forced to wear the yellow star of David in Nazi Germany. I know they're not the same, but we're closer to that kind of **** than a year before.

Yea it’s cool, it’s got like a swap meet/flea market feel mixed with a club and rooftop restaurant experience for the one I went to. But there are also others that are just straight up some dudes house filled with little tables with vendors behind them. I love the CO dispensary experience too, it’s more professional, but that grassroots personal experience can be badass when it’s done right. That Ghost OG sounds nice. One of my favorite strains is chemdawg, which I’ve read is like the daddy of sour diesel and OG Kush (genetically speaking). I had some ghost train haze live resin when I was in Colorado last year from good chemistry and that **** would blow my top off with its head high. I ****ing love hazes like that or super silver haze for sativas. I’m also digging Durban poison by itself, the whole GSC/Thin Mints/Gelato crosses with Durban P are cool too, but i like that unadulterated landrace feel. You got some good taste man. For Indicas, my favorite right now is platinum bubba and King Louis. I’m also feeling this strain thats been created for some rapper named Currency, called Andretti OG. That sucks man. There are places online where certain ones advertise and also instagram is loaded with them.

Have you tried any pop-ups? I’m feeling some of those even more than Colorado’s dispensaries cuz you got like 4-12 different vendors to choose from, free dabs, raffles, and sometimes free edibles like tacos during cinco de mayo or whatever. Some can can be sketchy as ****, but the better run ones are pretty cool. Do any of y’all have a favorite strain or is it whatever you can get your hands on? Man, I’m name brand as **** when it comes to weed. I need to know the lineage and prefer to know the grower in some way too. And I’m all about mixing and matching different terp profiles for maximum effect.

I am. Kush has got a **** load of potential legal exposure from that 666 property, he was lobbying internationally for help there during the campaign. Plus, by his accounts he was responsible for trumps digital campaign which is more potential exposure. Second you have guliani going on tv and saying kushner is disposable but Ivanka isn’t. What kind of message does that send? kushner will flip on trump if he’s facing time and any information he is privy to will make it to mueller. Kush’s Dad is in federal prison right now, he’ll be quick to counter any “fall on your sword” talk from trumps side.

Exactly, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Kushner has turned informant and if so it could be said that he would be more valuable reporting on impropriety occurring during classified meetings while on a tight leash. He has a 6 hour meeting with mueller after a 1st interview that went 3 hours, which means way more follow-up questions. Then, kush’s lawyer comes out and tries to thread the needle of implying his client is a witness rather than target while also admitting that mueller did NOT give him that explicit assurance. Which means he has some other assurance, or else his lawyer would be doing more to protect him from exposure. And this is happening all the while the 666 property is hanging over Kush’s Head.

Especially since he has a history of paying off other people's mistress in order to cash in on investment deals and contracts.

Eh, sure there can be a subjective component, but if we're being intellectually honest, the majority of instances of abuse will be quite clear. Using the EPA, to create or remove rules that enrich companies at the expense of the environment is an abuse or misuse of it's designed function. Repeatedly lying over and over again as the President is an abuse or misuse of the public's trust. Gutting the CFPB and dropping it's various investigations into auto-lending, student loans, and other issues are an abuse and and misuse of it's mandate. The clearer the function or intent of an organization, the easier it is to recognize when they diverge from it.

Fear of someone abusing a system of accountability should not preclude us from enacting that system. Instead it should motivate us to create further checks and balances around that potential for abuse. While also signalling to us that we have a way of doing things politically and societally that needs to be improved. Are humans capable of creating a department or organization that is wholly devoted to ethics and the truth? Can the integrity of that organization maintain itself long enough for people to actually trust and rely on it? To give it the teeth it needs to actually hold government or the media or whoever accountable? I wonder sometimes, how do we motivate the right people to seek office and keep out the wrong ones? Those who actually care about the country and want the best for it, rather than these con-men, parasites, and extremists. Trump was the absolute dumbest response to the corruption and terrible culture that is pervasive in Washington. But, that choice was a genuine reaction to that issue for many people. An issue that still very much needs to be handled. Hopefully, we're getting some good people motivated to seek office in November.

Thought this was an interesting (and long) read.

Yup, introspection and self-awareness are often painful and a lot of people are too weak to handle the pain/stress of owning up to their mistakes so they project that stuff onto others. To change takes effort and discomfort and those people don't want to take that on for a better understanding. That's why there will always be people willing to be conned. They want to believe the lie, it's more comfortable and easier for them, even if it's ultimately hopeless.

I hope so. It'll be interesting to see how we eventually move forward as a country from all this, especially after Trump is gone. With technology people are becoming more aware than ever of the events around them, while also more vulnerable than ever to misinformation. Eventually those two arcs have to be resolved in some way. Trust, accountability, and transparency will have to be earned all over again, with the voters holding the line of accountability by being informed and accountable voters and consumers themselves. Sometimes I zoom out and take a macro look at the shifts and swings of our country and I wonder what will be different, as the next set of actions and reactions take place. What happens if Dems do take control from November to 2020 and beyond? How will the Republicans respond? Especially, as the Millenials ascend into the forefront of political relevancy and the older generations fade out of political power. Will they stick to the Newt Gingrich script or will they adapt and increase their quality as a political party to stay relevant? A lot of people in this country feel left behind and forgotten by the American dream. A lot of them voted for Trump as a **** you to the government. What happens to them if the economic pressures and hopelessness continue to rise? We need healthier people in power, who have been trained to handle the pull of appetite when in office so they don't sell people short. People who have been trained to reconcile the individual wants and needs of people with the shared space of community and nation. People who are smart enough to realize that if you keep allowing companies and individuals to parasite of the American people it will eventually cause the people to turn on those parasites. People with courage to be authentic and actually speak their mind and risk taking a stand, rather than just pivoting, deflecting, and parroting the same talking points over and over again. Better quality leaders, discourse, and behavior which all starts with us having those very same qualities and demanding it from the people we choose to have as representatives. And all that starts with practicing those qualities and behaviors in every day life, challenging ourselves under stress and risk to hold up to those standards, so they break and build, again and again, like working and building a muscle. It's easy to complain about the state of things in this country, but what are we all going to do about it? What will we choose and decide to practice and invest in that we weren't doing before, to cause all this?

People talk about how our government is a system of checks and balances, but forget that the voters are also a part of that system and in a very real way the ultimate check and balance. There are different qualities of democracy, and higher quality democracies require informed voters, who can sift between quality and bull****. I wish our country would start having a national conversation about our responsibilities as people exercising that ultimate check and balance. A lot of people are waking up to this dereliction and getting to work, but I wonder if there is a way to get everyone involved in raising their standards, regardless of political leanings. Be what you want to be, believe in what you believe in, but do your damn due diligence. Understand that if a base is involved enough as that final check, these representatives will get in line. We have that power, but it is also a responsibility that must be exercised wisely. We as a people need to be able to recognize what high quality democracy looks like, so we can aspire to it and push back on iterations that fall short of it.

Gender fluidity does not invalidate gender solidity. In nature there is a spectrum with solid poles of male and female that softens and commingles the genders in the fluid middle. Its been historically the case in animals, so why wouldn't humans also have potential access to the different ranges of the spectrum as well? Why wouldn't we be able to deal with both solid and commingled categories of people at the same time? https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/09/22/7-gender-altering-animals/ "Some animals don’t just appear to change genders—they actually turn into the opposite sex. Clown anemonefish all start out as male. If the female dies, the dominant male can change sex and become female. Another male will become the dominant male." Don't you also have both a masculine and feminine side? A yin and a yang? And if so, would you be able to gauge based on how they express within you, in which part of the aforementioned spectrum you're placed on? I know I do and I can. But, I've consciously worked at it and faced the stress of who I am as a man, by challenging what it even means to be a man. Eventually, realizing that there was more to masculinity and individuality, than the box society currently has it caged in. I know you were talking more about physical traits, but there are mental and emotional traits as well. That's the amazing thing about the structure of nature. That spectrum I mentioned above expresses across multiple layers/tiers in a synergistic fashion, that is both foundationally sound as a nested principle and open to further expansion and change. It's an amazing dynamic balance of both solid and fluid, that protects the integrity for access and change across both directions. Matter to energy, solid to soft, man to woman, reality to potentiality, and everything in between, all able to be superimposed onto each other and operate in concert, while also operating individually. It's a beautiful design. God or whoever did a great job creating it

Nope, sorry Lady. You don't get to say you're fighting oppression and use that as an excuse for exercising bigotry. We can protect both women and transgendered rights at the same time. We can recognize and accept a groups right to exist and identify as who they naturally feel to be while ALSO protecting women from those who would abuse that fluidity to prey on women. That's my main point and I'll park it for now, so I don't derail the rest of the thread.

As long as that blind-spot doesn't lead into outright bigotry I'm okay with just saying my piece above. But, she's toeing the line with some of those blog articles. I need to read up on the rules again, but we don't allow people to come on here and post antisemitic zionist consipiracy theories do we? Or to push articles that fly in the face of science in order to paint a group of people as being sick or perverted for being who they naturally are? We need to have these standards apply equally to all groups right? I read your last sentence and imagine if someone said to me, "yea he/she is racist, but they bring a lot of positive and different perspectives to the conversation, so sometime we just need to accept people for who they are". Nope, not gonna happen and I'm saying that as someone who genuinely likes most of what LadySkinsFan posts. In fact, I would be writing the same **** right now for her if someone stepped out of pocket and started posting anti-women or anti-gay writings. Who we are in this world, comes down to what we are willing to accept and reject. Those choices big and small form or deform the integrity of our principles. Hopefully if there any transgendered people reading this forum, they'll see the push-back to this stuff and won't feel like this place is unwelcome to them.

I read that blog post you posted and it doesn't have any data or citations. Frankly it comes across as prejudiced conspiracy theory rhetoric, that pushes this agenda that ignores the scientific data around genetics and transsexualism, for this fear that somehow there is some plot afoot where men are identifying as women in order to rob women of their power and voice in society. It is not a mental disorder to have a brain wired in such a way that it expresses a greater degree of gender fluidity. I understand you have a chip on your shoulder towards men, but you're acting from the same damn script bigots used to marginalize homosexuality. Anyways, here's an article from Harvard about this topic. I suggest you read it with an open mind... http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2016/gender-lines-science-transgender-identity/ "At the forefront of this, transgender identity is complex – it’s unlikely we’ll ever be able to attribute it to one neat, contained set of causes, and there is still much to be learned. But we know now that several of those causes are biological. These individuals are not suffering a mental illness, or capriciously “choosing” a different identity. The transgender identity is multi-dimensional – but it deserves no less recognition or respect than any other facet of humankind."

What do you consider to be biblical sexual standards? Do you consider them to be healthy, given what we know nowadays? From what I can see, I don't see very healthy sexual outlooks from religious people. It's very controlling, repressive, and demonizing of natural urges, that with training and understanding don't have to be handled or characterized with such fear and vitriol. Especially, when it comes to female sexuality. Do you agree with that characterization?

Right, thanks for that. So where does that leave us? Appreciating that minority in theory, but in practice focusing on the larger or more vocal/active and extreme majority? How much credence do we give to that minority in discussion, so those who belong to it feel seen, while still emphasizing the reality that pro-life in practice does not jive with their professed parameters?

You and other posters on here are correct that the pro-life group is not a monolith, however the other posters on here are basically saying, you may not be a monolith, but the legislative agenda and actions taken so far from the pro-life crowd are so prevalently sourced from the more extreme voices of the group, that "y'all" may as well be monolithic... so monolithic in practice if not identification, is still for all intents and purposes monolithic in wholesale. Does that make sense? However, I'd be open to information showing evidence of action from the pro-life crowd that runs counter to it's more extreme iterations. I'm by no means an expert on the subject, so there may be holes in my game.

I thought this was an interesting and ironic excerpt "This all ultimately seems to explain why House Republicans were so eager to get these memos into the public. It seems as though they thought the memos would prove Comey had illegally leaked classified information and lied about it. It seems as though they were basing this entirely on a bit of contradictory—and likely inaccurate—Fox News reporting. And it seems that this contradictory, likely inaccurate reporting was done by Fox News to help validate this Donald Trump tweet, which was sent two days after Comey’s Senate testimony"

I feel you. There is a risk to being open and vulnerable about this stuff for many. When we take a position in life, it often means either defending it or facing some kind of consequence for doing so. Personally, I'm not too bothered by it in most cases, but I completely understand it. Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences Z, I appreciate it. It's a hard thing to feel that fire and change yourself. For me, what redemption truly is, is recognizing deep in your soul that a line was crossed and living everyday dedicated to not crossing that line ever again. And that sentiment is hard to truly share with people unless they've had that moment of self-recognition of wrong that shakes them to their core like you experienced. Let's not get into a who has or doesn't have absolute proof debate Rather than absolute proof, it would be more productive to focus on consistent repeatability and probability. I can't speak for others, but I actually am open to many religions while belonging to none. I have a connection to Jesus, but I'm not a Christian. I also have a connection with the Egyptian Gods Horus and Bes, but I don't "worship" any of the three (I practice relational equality with all things). I just have connections with them, while at the same time feeling that they are expressions/symbols/vehicles/shapes of the very fabric of reality that makes everything we can conceive of. Whether they "exist" in a tangible/provable way or not doesn't matter to me, because there is an energy or pattern that does exist which provided the impetus for humans to begin speaking of these deities. There are things inside us that yearn to protect others, to see the truth, and those things have existed and shaped the direction of human life for the entirety of it's history. These patterns are not only inherent, but essential to accessing greater levels of complexity and potentiality as human beings.

Awesome man, thanks for sharing this. Isn't it funny how things happen when we're on the edge of things and something has to give and a breakthrough comes? I have a lot of similar stories like what you posted as well man. I never felt the holy ghost or whatever in Church. I remember one time these baptists were trying to almost force a manifestation of the spirit from us and I ended up trying to fake speak in tongues as a kid so I could finally get to use the bathroom. But, I also remember on my 1st or 2nd night in jail after being arrested by the DEA and ICE on major drug charges... it was almost 1 in the morning and the whole cell block was quiet and I was just laying there with my eyes closed and saw behind my eye lids the form of a being take shape and send me - to what still to this day - is the purest form of love I've ever experienced in my life. It came out of nowhere and I wasn't looking for it, or expecting it, or on drugs or anything, and it is still one of the most amazing moments of my life. It let me experience that I was part of a family beyond what I currently knew. That all that love and care I'd been pouring out into my prayers, rather than asking and trying to take during prayer, was going somewhere. I wasn't being "saved" but I was loved and in a way maybe even protected? Either way, the love was more than enough and something I've held onto in traumatic times. I also had an experience not too long ago, where I'm just taking a shower and minding my own business and out of nowhere I'm transported to experiencing Jesus being put on the cross, as Jesus. Feeling what he felt, the pain of each nail, the sadness, and the anger and disappointment of those who were doing this to him/me and turning their back on love and humanity. It wrecked my **** and since then I breakdown crying every time I see a documentary or movie showing the crucifixion. My body holds the memory of that vision as strongly as if it happened to me (I'm not trying to say I'm Jesus, just in case anyone was wondering. I've been working hard on empathy and sensitivity so that shift of growth in those areas, probably had a part to play in this experience). And really as crazy as those things are, none of them have changed my life more than what happened to me 5 or 6 years ago in Costa Rica... but I'll hold off on talking about that for now.

Havent read the whole thread, but a bit of it and I’ve read a good part of the Bible, all of the Koran, and spent time as a Muslim, Catholic, and Christian. Also, spent time with meditation and eastern religions/philosophies. Why do you ask? I resonated with that passage based upon my personal experiences, but I apologize if it came across as challenging or bull in a china shop in any way. The way I see it, people tend to project their limitations onto God or whatever is the substance or impetus of the universe and build sometimes unhealthy stories from it as a result. In my experience it is better to experience or live spirituality and explore the mysteries of life, let it change you, and then start drawing theories, rather than overly cling to religion to the point where it dilutes that unveiling process. If you dont don’t mind me asking, have you had any deep spiritual experiences that changed your life and played a part in who you currently are?

I saw this on my wife's FB page and thought of this thread. The point in bold is where I'm at in my life. What need have I for a bible or koran or any man-made ideation of a flawed God crafted by human limitations, when I have the universe right in front of me? I don't need a bible to learn about morality and love and trust, I can feel it working in real life. I can see how it's tied to health, how mutuality, cooperation, and the expansion of more complex and progressive forms of human civilization require it. How our very humanity requires we act and behave in certain ways in order to maintain access to those parts of who we are. Personally, I can feel my soul and that has nothing to do with Jesus or Mohammed or going to church, and everything to do with risking myself for things that mean something. Opening my ability to feel, considering more than just myself, and expanding my spiritual capacitance. These actions have no direct tie to religion, but direct ties to humanity and emotion and energy moving in certain patterns, manifested through behavior and intent. Interacting and connecting with the mystery of life, each step unfolding more and more of what really is. I have a spirit because of what I care about and what I accept and reject in this world, not solely because of what I believe or who I ask for forgiveness from. What's the point of religion when you have spirit? In my experience, it's an ill-fitting shell, that can't contain all that comes forth when you have an authentic relationship with the world around you and the spirit inside you and those around you. Thomas Paine wrote this in 1797 in response to a friend that had been trying to convert him to Christianity. "In your letter of the twentieth of March, you give me several quotations from the Bible, which you call the Word of God, to show me that my opinions on religion are wrong, and I could give you as many, from the same book to show that yours are not right; consequently, then, the Bible decides nothing, because it decides any way, and every way, one chooses to make it. "But by what authority do you call the Bible the Word of God? for this is the first point to be settled. It is not your calling it so that makes it so, any more than the Mahometans calling the Koran the Word of God makes the Koran to be so. The Popish Councils of Nice and Laodicea, about 350 years after the time the person called Jesus Christ is said to have lived, voted the books that now compose what is called the New Testament to be the Word of God. This was done by yeas and nays, as we now vote a law. "The Pharisees of the second temple, after the Jews returned from captivity in Babylon, did the same by the books that now compose the Old Testament, and this is all the authority there is, which to me is no authority at all. I am as capable of judging for myself as they were, and I think more so, because, as they made a living by their religion, they had a self-interest in the vote they gave. "You may have an opinion that a man is inspired, but you cannot prove it, nor can you have any proof of it yourself, because you cannot see into his mind in order to know how he comes by his thoughts; and the same is the case with the word revelation. There can be no evidence of such a thing, for you can no more prove revelation than you can prove what another man dreams of, neither can he prove it himself. "It is often said in the Bible that God spake unto Moses, but how do you know that God spake unto Moses? Because, you will say, the Bible says so. The Koran says, that God spake unto Mahomet, do you believe that too? No. "Why not? Because, you will say, you do not believe it; and so because you do, and because you don't is all the reason you can give for believing or disbelieving except that you will say that Mahomet was an impostor. And how do you know Moses was not an impostor? "For my own part, I believe that all are impostors who pretend to hold verbal communication with the Deity. It is the way by which the world has been imposed upon; but if you think otherwise you have the same right to your opinion that I have to mine, and must answer for it in the same manner. But all this does not settle the point, whether the Bible be the Word of God, or not. It is therefore necessary to go a step further. The case then is: - "You form your opinion of God from the account given of Him in the Bible; and I form my opinion of the Bible from the wisdom and goodness of God manifested in the structure of the universe, and in all works of creation. The result in these two cases will be, that you, by taking the Bible for your standard, will have a bad opinion of God; and I, by taking God for my standard, shall have a bad opinion of the Bible. "The Bible represents God to be a changeable, passionate, vindictive being; making a world and then drowning it, afterwards repenting of what he had done, and promising not to do so again. Setting one nation to cut the throats of another, and stopping the course of the sun till the butchery should be done. But the works of God in the creation preach to us another doctrine. In that vast volume we see nothing to give us the idea of a changeable, passionate, vindictive God; everything we there behold impresses us with a contrary idea - that of unchangeableness and of eternal order, harmony, and goodness. "The sun and the seasons return at their appointed time, and everything in the creation claims that God is unchangeable. Now, which am I to believe, a book that any impostor might make and call the Word of God, or the creation itself which none but an Almighty Power could make? For the Bible says one thing, and the creation says the contrary. The Bible represents God with all the passions of a mortal, and the creation proclaims him with all the attributes of a God. "It is from the Bible that man has learned cruelty, rapine, and murder; for the belief of a cruel God makes a cruel man. That bloodthirsty man, called the prophet Samuel, makes God to say, (I Sam. xv. 3) `Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.' “That Samuel or some other impostor might say this, is what, at this distance of time, can neither be proved nor disproved, but in my opinion it is blasphemy to say, or to believe, that God said it. All our ideas of the justice and goodness of God revolt at the impious cruelty of the Bible. It is not a God, just and good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes. “What makes this pretended order to destroy the Amalekites appear the worse, is the reason given for it. The Amalekites, four hundred years before, according to the account in Exodus xvii. (but which has the appearance of fable from the magical account it gives of Moses holding up his hands), had opposed the Israelites coming into their country, and this the Amalekites had a right to do, because the Israelites were the invaders, as the Spaniards were the invaders of Mexico. This opposition by the Amalekites, at that time, is given as a reason, that the men, women, infants and sucklings, sheep and oxen, camels and asses, that were born four hundred years afterward, should be put to death; and to complete the horror, Samuel hewed Agag, the chief of the Amalekites, in pieces, as you would hew a stick of wood. I will bestow a few observations on this case. “In the first place, nobody knows who the author, or writer, of the book of Samuel was, and, therefore, the fact itself has no other proof than anonymous or hearsay evidence, which is no evidence at all. In the second place, this anonymous book says, that this slaughter was done by the express command of God: but all our ideas of the justice and goodness of God give the lie to the book, and as I never will believe any book that ascribes cruelty and injustice to God, I therefore reject the Bible as unworthy of credit. “As I have now given you my reasons for believing that the Bible is not the Word of God, that it is a falsehood, I have a right to ask you your reasons for believing the contrary; but I know you can give me none, except that you were educated to believe the Bible; and as the Turks give the same reason for believing the Koran, it is evident that education makes all the difference, and that reason and truth have nothing to do in the case. “You believe in the Bible from the accident of birth, and the Turks believe in the Koran from the same accident, and each calls the other infidel. But leaving the prejudice of education out of the case, the unprejudiced truth is, that all are infidels who believe falsely of God, whether they draw their creed from the Bible, or from the Koran, from the Old Testament, or from the New. “When you have examined the Bible with the attention that I have done (for I do not think you know much about it), and permit yourself to have just ideas of God, you will most probably believe as I do. But I wish you to know that this answer to your letter is not written for the purpose of changing your opinion. It is written to satisfy you, and some other friends whom I esteem, that my disbelief of the Bible is founded on a pure and religious belief in God; for in my opinion the Bible is a gross libel against the justice and goodness of God, in almost every part of it."[1]

I feel you. I'm just not that doom and gloom about it being pointless and there being no results/no justice.