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From someone outside the US, I have to say that I hope somehow Bernie gets in, the other options....I don't know which I fear more.

partlyscot wrote:From someone outside the US, I have to say that I hope somehow Bernie gets in, the other options....I don't know which I fear more.

Don't count on it...

And let me just say right now, for my friends here outside of the U.S... that I wish to go ahead an apologize for the hell that we are about to unleash on the world.

Please know that not all of us are bat sh!t crazy. As it should be pretty clear by many of you who have read my writings, neither Clinton, nor Trump represent ME. That being said, I'm sure Clinton will just be Obama's third term. She's not going to do much for ordinary guys like us, even if we wear skirts. It will be just more of the same, only instead of race wars, we'll just have increased "battles of the sexes". Expect out of control feminism. If the other wins (Trump) expect out of control conservative religion.... and a wall.

moonshadow wrote:

JennC03 wrote:So you buying a bikini?

No

I was thinking of something more along the lines of....
http://www.womanwithin.com/Plus-Size-Sw ... ptId=22505

I like the idea of the skirt/dress bottom as I feel it would help to conceal the bulge, as opposed to your everyday standard "one piece" swimsuit.

Jury's still out on it... probably won't mail order this one, need to view a few in the stores.

Jury is back... not gonna do it! Mainly because virtually all "women's" swinsuits I can find have built in bra pads. Overkill for me.
That and a google search of "mens one piece swimsuits" reveals many options that frankly look exactly the same, minus the bra cups (as they're for men). Only thing that stinks about it is naturally, as in the case of everything "men's"... they don't seem to come in cool designs.
Will probably go own that avenue when the time comes....

The last few months I have been glued to CNN so I have gotten a lot of expert opinion and detailed data so I feel more qualified than usual to prognosticate.

Sorry to disappoint our English cousin who's rooting for Bernie, but to get elected President, he'd first have to win the nomination, which at this point is a mathematical impossibility.

I have enough faith in the American public to predict Donald Trump will not win the Presidency. Over the 200+ years since we declared our independence from the Crown we've done a lot of dumb things as a nation and even as a people, but we are smarter than that. Not only that, but the demographics are against the Donald. There is no way he's going to win over women, young people and our various ethnic populations. In fact, all of his bloviation about his precious wall has driven lots of Latinos to register to vote and even apply for citizenship so they can vote against him.

Both parties will change as the result of this election. Bernie Sanders has identified the biggest threat to American Society -- income inequality -- and mobilized millions of young people to end it. If more Democrats believed he could actually effect a cure to the problem, he probably would have gotten the primary, but I don't see it and Hillary has been organizing people all over the country for decades. She will win the Presidency, but Bernie will win the future.

On the other side of the aisle the Republicans have seen what the policies they have been promoting really look like and their leadership doesn't like what they see. They're also seeing how the winner takes all rules in their primaries can indeed get them to a quicker choice in Presidential candidates, but not necessarily a good one. The Republican Party may very well fracture by this time next year into a Tea Party and a much reduced Republican Party.

What both parties will need to take away from this election is that neither one has served the working class and the lower middle class at all well and they better get to work on that. the threat to both parties on this count is very real. The Republicans have been out of touch with the working class for so long they will have a hard time finding their way back to them, but getting clobbered so consistently should chasten them.

Democrats may take their electoral victories as a vindication of what they have been doing and ignore the clear message of Sanders's movement. Neither the party nor the country can afford that complacency.

I'm not sure what Carl is referring to when he said we have lost our rights and are living under the illusion of a charade because I agree with Moonshadow that our civil liberties keep increasing. Yahoo states like North Carolina come up with diversions like their bathroom law, but that just keeps the civil libertarians on their toes. The country has flip-flopped on gay marriage more massively and more quickly than on any other issue in history, except maybe independence.

Income inequality is a huge issue, but it's also one that has gotten incredible traction incredibly quickly. it wasn't that long ago that the Occupy Movement arose and then disappeared from the news cycle.

Finally, the US could do worse than for the next President to act like a Barrack Obama clone. No one could do better than he did in person with contentious issues than Pres. Obama did in CNN's Town Hall on gun laws and his speech in Havana. If you missed them, try to find them in the appropriate on-line archives (CNN and NPR respectively). They say we Americans elect the President we deserve, in the present case we got better than we deserved and we probably won't figure that out until 10 or 20 years from now. Kind of like Harry Truman.

moonshadow wrote:[...] Civil liberties seemed to have been on the upswing.

I found this to be entirely illusory with what happened to me last year. Civil liberties have been under constant and unremitting assault since the early '80s in the US. Note that we still have the "Patriot Act", police are allowed to search individuals at random (viz "Stop and Frisk" and "'routine' traffic stops") and are allowed to confiscate property at whim ('routine' traffic stops), the NSA spend massive amounts of time spying on US citizens, drugs laws are tightening to the point where now if you have shattered bones it's difficult to get pain-relievers that are up to the job, and the fact that there are "security" cameras everywhere. We live very much now in a surveillance society, and one that is becoming increasingly repressive. We're just not encouraged to talk about it. True, some table-scraps have been thrown to the masses, but we're almost entirely much worse off than we were 30 years ago.

Don't be surprised if a few dark points in history repeat itself after next January.... Scary times ahead... scary times indeed....

It won't matter "who" gets "elected"; the power behind the scenes will remain solidly in control, as it has been for decades. All else is theatre -- skilfully-crafted theatre to be sure, but theatre nonetheless. Look behind the curtain, no matter what the man behind tells you to do.

moonshadow wrote:I'm sure Clinton will just be Obama's third term.

"[George] Dubya [Bush]'s fifth term", please. We've had the same batch in power since 2000 -- at least when viewed from the perspective of policy.

Judah14 wrote:]
Are scarves considered "women's" wear by other people? .

Seems an odd question to me. I think everyone wears a scarf round the neck in cold weather.
Head scarves however were worn by most European women until the 50s, but now only the queen of England and Muslim women wear them. But I can,t remember seeing a man in a head scarf outnabout.
The chequered arab scarf is a political statement rather than a piece of clothing.

Martin

Couya wrote:

Judah14 wrote:]
Are scarves considered "women's" wear by other people? .

Seems an odd question to me. I think everyone wears a scarf round the neck in cold weather.
Head scarves however were worn by most European women until the 50s, but now only the queen of England and Muslim women wear them. But I can,t remember seeing a man in a head scarf outnabout.
The chequered arab scarf is a political statement rather than a piece of clothing.

Martin

That sorts of contrasts with what I wrote earlier, which means a lot of cultural dissonance is involved. Here keffiyeh scarves are rarely, if ever, worn as a political statement, instead they are worn for practicality.

moonshadow wrote:

moonshadow wrote:

JennC03 wrote:So you buying a bikini?

No

I was thinking of something more along the lines of....
http://www.womanwithin.com/Plus-Size-Sw ... ptId=22505

I like the idea of the skirt/dress bottom as I feel it would help to conceal the bulge, as opposed to your everyday standard "one piece" swimsuit.

Jury's still out on it... probably won't mail order this one, need to view a few in the stores.

Jury is back... not gonna do it! Mainly because virtually all "women's" swinsuits I can find have built in bra pads. Overkill for me.
That and a google search of "mens one piece swimsuits" reveals many options that frankly look exactly the same, minus the bra cups (as they're for men). Only thing that stinks about it is naturally, as in the case of everything "men's"... they don't seem to come in cool designs.
Will probably go own that avenue when the time comes....

The padding is not normally particularly thick. My advice would be to order a swimsuit which you like and try it and see. If it bothers you, with a bit of careful unpicking and then re-sewing, you should be able to remove the bra padding.

Pdxfashionpioneer wrote:
Sorry to disappoint our English cousin who's rooting for Bernie, but to get elected President, he'd first have to win the nomination, which at this point is a mathematical impossibility.

It is a statistical improbability, that is not the same as a mathematical impossibility.

This leaves out the scenario of an intense conversation for HRC with the FBI, also not an impossibility. Somewhat unlikely, I agree, but judging from the news this week, not as impossible as it was.

Stevie D wrote:The padding is not normally particularly thick. My advice would be to order a swimsuit which you like and try it and see. If it bothers you, with a bit of careful unpicking and then re-sewing, you should be able to remove the bra padding.

I may try that... I don't know I'm not quite ready to give up just yet. While the men's swimsuit seemed like it would work, I REALLY wanted a women's just because I can get the little skirt on the bottom. I'll BOL for one. If anyone happens upon a swimdress in a medium size with NO bra padding... let me know!

Pdxfashionpioneer wrote: Sorry to disappoint our English cousin who's rooting for Bernie, but to get elected President, he'd first have to win the nomination, which at this point is a mathematical impossibility.

Not quite, but... http://fortune.com/2016/05/24/clinton-s ... gate-math/

Couya wrote:

Judah14 wrote:]
Are scarves considered "women's" wear by other people? .

Seems an odd question to me. I think everyone wears a scarf round the neck in cold weather.
Head scarves however were worn by most European women until the 50s, but now only the queen of England and Muslim women wear them. But I can,t remember seeing a man in a head scarf outnabout.
The chequered arab scarf is a political statement rather than a piece of clothing.

Martin

Martin, there is no Queen of England. The last one was about 500 years ago. The current one is queen of Britain.

Cheers

Ray

partlyscot wrote:

Pdxfashionpioneer wrote:
Sorry to disappoint our English cousin who's rooting for Bernie, but to get elected President, he'd first have to win the nomination, which at this point is a mathematical impossibility.

It is a statistical improbability, that is not the same as a mathematical impossibility.

This leaves out the scenario of an intense conversation for HRC with the FBI, also not an impossibility. Somewhat unlikely, I agree, but judging from the news this week, not as impossible as it was.

It would require a massive swing of un-anchored "super-delegates", which is not impossible, but highly unlikely, for Bernie (aka "Sanders Claus") to take the nomination. Should Clinton be indicted, before the National Democratic Convention, for her email scandal, that swing could easily happen, but, under the current circumstances, no one sees that as likely or soon forthcoming.

This is going to be a "hold your nose and vote" election; unfortunately Democrats do not have quite the imaginative capacity of Republicans when it comes to their likely nominee, i.e. the self-delusional ability to pretend the candidate "really isn't that bad." America gets the choice between a treacherous, scandal-plagued figure of less than stellar appeal, or a buffoonish grandstander who cannot, himself, believe that he has succeeded, and runs his campaign like a windsock ("If this is the Southern Baptist Convention, then I must be an Evangelical today..."). Luckily this country's social progress turns upon generational tides of human consciousness, and not upon the acts of politicians, whose current legislative function is to placate the inevitable losers by enacting knee-jerk Draconian law with feigned outrage, rather than gently and thoughtfully facilitating ethical and commonsense change.

Things could be worse, however. When one thinks of the choice Republicans had - a self-inflicted wound, thanks to two-plus decades of fomenting irrational, propaganda-fueled anger - between a sour, self-serving, ghoulish theocrat (Cruz), and a ranting, raving, blame-the-media, howling lunatic (Trump), at least they picked the one less likely to destroy the US Constitution, and the one more likely to let society evolve than to nail it to the wall. The Cruz wing, that deeply disturbed T-Party crowd (T for Theocracy), are the scary ones. They basically took a huge pile of BS, wrapped it in a flag, stuck a cross on top, and called it The Sacred Mountain. They're still awaiting a Moses to come down and lead them through the wilderness of their own philosophical bafflement; they would be fortunate if that was House Speaker Paul Ryan, but I fear he is too thoughtful and intelligent a fellow for the GOP zombie apocalypse now running rampant; they would eat his brain and spit it out.