Thursday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "apparently something big is about to drop about mark robinson..." and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster embedded two tweets, the first saying that Republicans in North Carolina were pressuring Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for Governor, to drop out of the race. The second suggested that information harmful to Robinson was about to be made public. For those not familiar with Robinson, which at this point is probably nobody, he has a history of controversial statements including anti-Semitic remarks and Holocaust denial. Beyond his crazy statements, the staunchly anti-abortion Robinson also admitted that he paid for his girlfriend — now his wife — to have an abortion. Recently he was accused of having regularly visited pornographic video stores. Given the sort of information that had already been made public about Robinson without causing Republicans to distance themselves from him, posters immediately began speculating on what it would take to reach this point. Former Governor of Louisiana Edwin Edwards once famously said, "The only way I can lose this election is if I'm caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy." Thinking the same about Robinson, some posters guessed that whatever was coming might involve a live boy. Others joked that it could involve eating a cat. It soon emerged that what was motivating the North Carolinian Republicans to pressure Robinson to drop out was a story about to be issued by CNN. When that story finally dropped, it reported that Robinson had been linked to posts on a pornography website’s message board. As CNN explained, many of Robinson's posts were too graphic to be published and described them as "gratuitously sexual and lewd in nature". In addition, Robinson referred to himself as a "black NAZI!" and supported the reinstatement of slavery. While Robinson campaigns as being strongly anti-transgender, he posted that he enjoys viewing transgender pornography. The CNN story was pretty damning for Robinson, but even worse were excerpts of his posts that started appearing on social media, including one detailing a sexual encounter with his sister-in-law. It was clear why CNN has been unable to publish them. At any rate, the midnight deadline for a withdrawal passed with Robinson still in the race. The North Carolina Republican Party issued a statement accepting Robinson's denial that he had made the posts in question and attacking Vice President Kamala Harris. Robinson had already been trailing in the polls and, presumably, the latest revelations will not help him. The real battle in North Carolina is not the governorship, which Republicans appear to be willing to write off, but rather its electoral college votes. The state is essential to former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump's re-election hopes. The Republicans' fear, and the Democrats' hope, is that Robinson will drag Trump down. This is a real concern given that there is video of Trump praising Robinson and saying that he is "Martin Luther King on steroids."

Yesterday's next most active thread was also posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The thread, titled "Lebanon / Israel", was created after reports began emerging of pagers exploding across Lebanon. Lebanon is a particular interest of mine and I am just going to give my own perspective on this story rather than try to summarize the 25 page thread. There are so many aspects to what is going on that it would really take a book to do it justice. The pager explosions were targeted at members of Hezbollah, a Lebanese organization that emerged after Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Hezbollah played a leading role in forcing Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon and has been in repeated battles with Israel ever since. The American government has labeled Hezbollah a terrorist organization, a description that many posters in this thread readily accept. However, Hezbollah is an official political party in Lebanon and holds many elected seats in the country's Parliament. It provides several quasi-governmental functions and has strong support among Lebanese Shia Muslims. Notably, while the "terrorist" label is used to condemn Hezbollah, the fact that a convicted terrorist currently serves as Israel's Minister of National Security does not seem to be given similar importance. As such, I suggest that the "terrorist" label has been so politicized as to be useless in this discussion. Based on what we know so far, it appears that Israel somehow managed to place explosives in pagers used by Hezbollah. In the U.S. and, probably in Israel, it is more or less accepted that the pagers were exclusively used by Hezbollah operatives. Reports from Lebanon, however, suggest that the pagers were used by a broader group of individuals and that the dead and wounded include many who were not connected to the organization. Certainly the children who are among those killed were not Hezbollah members. I think that we can both marvel at the ingenuity of this attack and acknowledge that it may not have been as targeted as it has been made to appear. Certainly, had things been reversed and Hezbollah been able to kill and wound thousands of off-duty Israeli soldiers, the Western media would be describing things much differently. While this event has a number of elements suitable for a Hollywood movie, it also inflicted tremendous harm on Lebanese civilians and likely moved the region closer to a wider war. While the explosions may have been a significant strike against Hezbollah — the impact is not clear at this point — it obviously was not a knock-out blow. Hezbollah has already returned to firing rockets into northern Israel and does not appear to have have been deterred by the exploding pagers. What is clear is that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been doing everything possible to keep the region in a state upheaval. Yesterday reports were published that U.S. officials don't expect a Gaza ceasefire before the end of President Joe Biden's term. That probably spells the death of the hostages being held by Hamas. It would not be surprising that Netanyahu now plans to do to parts of Lebanon what he has done to Gaza. Therefore, while Israelis and many Americans are euphoric and gleeful about the pager attack, it probably portends a more violent future. If there is any certainty about war, it is that the consequences are uncertain.

Next was a thread titled, "What country would you rather raise kid in?" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original poster says that her family is looking to move somewhere with a slower pace, less reliance on cars, better air and soil quality, and more focus on community and asks others in which country they would choose to raise their children if they did not live in the U.S. Many of the replies are simply lists of countries and, as I have repeatedly written, I struggle to summarize threads that are just lists. However, some posters offer longer comments. Unfortunately, most of those comments are from posters who have negative attitudes and don't contribute much to the point of the thread. Instead of saying where they would like to live, these posters generally provide reasons not to choose countries which others have listed. Among them are several "America First" posters who will not countenance any criticism of the USA which they consider to be better in every way than every other country and, if you don't agree, leave. I suspect that many of these posters have taken a break from criticizing the U.S. government and threatening to move to Russia, but I didn't take time to check. Among the pro-US contingent were a number with a particular bone to pick with Canadians. If I learned anything from this thread, it is that if you really want to provoke others, say something good about Canada. Some of these anti-Canadian posters had such twitchy trigger fingers that they even attacked a poster who wrote she would die on the hill of the US being better than Canada. Somehow, that statement was interpreted as indicating that the poster was Canadian and she was roundly told off. But that was nothing compared to the ruckus caused by an Australian poster. She managed to rile everyone up so much that I am surprised there were not demands to ship her off to Botany Bay. Probably the most popular countries listed were Scandinavian and Nordic countries. Many posters who have lived in such countries praised them. However, others, including some who had also lived in those countries, were very critical of them. The biggest debate was about raising children in Nordic countries. These countries generally have abundant healthcare and retirement benefits. In addition, they frequently have mandatory lengthy maternity and paternity leave. The schools are top notch and university education is low or no cost. Despite all of this, some posters argued that raising children is actually more difficult in these countries and that life is harder for women. Other posters simply could not understand the logic of such thinking and strenuously debated it. One contradiction that appeared is that many posters were drawn to countries in which they might have a good life but in which there is considerable economic inequity. It is exactly that inequity that makes parenting easy for such posters because it means there is widely available cheap household help. On the other hand, the expense of household help in Nordic countries is one of the reasons some posters consider those countries difficult for raising children.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Money and Finances" forum. Titled, "Disagreeing on when to retire with spouse", the original poster says that when dating, the original poster and their now spouse discussed the original poster's desire to retire early with the spouse then supporting the idea. Now, after kids, childcare expenses, and buying a house, the original poster's spouse believes that they should both work at least until the traditional retirement age if not longer. The original poster still wants to retire early and asks how to reconcile their differences. This thread probably is better suited for the relationship forum since it is really not a financial discussion. Nevertheless, most of those responding address the topic from a financial angle. Also, the original poster tries very hard to obscure genders in this discussion. That forces me to guess a gender with which to refer to the original poster and their spouse or use "they/their" in this post. Most of those responding in the thread seemed to have assumed that the original poster is female and that her spouse is male. I'll will go with that assumption as well, though it may be wrong. Posters ask whether the original poster can afford to retire. There are suggestions to have a financial planner outline various scenarios for the couple so that they can see the results of retiring now as compared to retiring later. Posters suggest listing their goals for the type of lifestyle they desire and determining whether retiring early will allow them to meet those goals. In follow-up posts, the original poster says that she thinks it would be possible to retire now if her spouse continued to work with minimal lifestyle cutbacks. However, the original poster's spouse doesn't want any cutbacks. Therefore, the math is pretty clear. If both spouses retire early, significant cutbacks in their lifestyle would be required. if only the original poster retired, smaller cutbacks would be required. However, since the original poster's spouse doesn't want any lifestyle cutbacks, neither of these scenarios is acceptable to him. The only financial solution would be to improve their financial situation so that one or both can retire without lifestyle changes. Outside of that, this is really a relationship issue in which, like other relationship disagreements, one or the other of the two must give in or they have to come up with a mutually-acceptable compromise. Other posters focus on the cost of retirement, pointing out what might be unexpected costs such as health insurance. That led to an in-depth discussion of insurance plans available on the Obamacare exchanges. Some posters reveal that they have millions of dollars in assets that have allowed them to retire early. However their retirement plans are structured so that they have low annual incomes. As a result, they are eligible for premium subsidies on the exchanges. When other posters realize that their taxes are subsidizing the health insurance of 40-year-old retires with millions in assets, they are outraged.