Bill Flarsheim

Ph.D Engineer, Old Guy, ADHD dx at 53. America is great when it lives up to its founding ideals. When we don’t, we’re just another nation.

[𝕊𝕦𝕟𝕕𝕒𝕖_𝔾𝕦𝕣𝕝 @SundaeDivine]

@joshtpm Offered without comment.

[Bill Flarsheim @billflarsheim]

@noturtlesoup17 I admit to being bluegrasspilled, but I love Governor Andy. He’s a moderate, but he’s a firm follower of a lefty named Jesus. Crazy sh*t like feeding the hungry, protecting the weak, and valuing the lives of people after they are born. A counter to anti-LGBT+ Christian cruelty.

[Bill Flarsheim @billflarsheim]

@JoelleNemecek @robertNorth14 @DanielStrauss4 No VP pick is that important, and I’m sure Josh is good too. Besides labor, Beshear is a Christian (FWIW I’m not) who can talk about Christian themes like “feeding the hungry” and caring for “the least of these” as a unifier of the greater community, not a divider.

[Bill Flarsheim @billflarsheim]

@LauraJedeed Looks like nice weather.

[Laura Jedeed @LauraJedeed]

Good morning from Milwaukee, where today's RNC protest is just getting started

So far it's pretty mellow. Hopefully this will be the most boring thread I've ever done

[Carolyn from Maryland™ @carolyn_from]

@upland_guy @lisasoma49 @PaulWoods007 What the hell is this?

[Bill Flarsheim @billflarsheim]

@Acyn @BDeMayo His Uncle is Noem Chomsky? (Currently Professor Emeritus. Affiliated with MIT since 1955.) Chomsky has been at MIT a lot longer than John Trump was.

[Dustin Kittle @dustinkittle]

THE REAL KRISTI NOEM STORY AND WHY THIS RANCHER CALLS BULLSHIT:

I was born on a cattle and poultry farm — I have spent the majority of my life living on the farm — and I currently have a ranch in Tennessee with cattle, horses, and sheep — and what I am here to tell you is that Kristi Noem was wrong.

From the time I could crawl, I’ve been around hunting dogs — my dad raised treeing walkers and we currently have a treeing walker and a German shorthair pointer bird dog on the farm with us now.

I am neither a Republican nor a Democrat and have limited knowledge of Noem’s political dealings — I base my opinion on her own words in describing what was done; words that many people supporting her decision have not read.

As a rancher and an agricultural attorney, I 100% support the right of farmers and ranchers to protect their stock, including the use of deadly force on any animal, dog or otherwise, who is attempting to kill the stock — or poultry, as it was in this case.

But contrary to the false narratives being posited on this site, that is not what occurred in this case.

In the quotes published to date, Noem spends a fraction of the time in addressing the poultry incident, while attempting to justify her actions by opining on the dog’s hunting abilities.

The dog in question was a 14-month old German wire-haired pointer, a bird dog in training to hunt pheasant. Noem had taken the dog on a hunt with some older dogs to help train her but said the dog ruined the hunt with her overexuberance and puppy-like behavior.

On the way home from the hunt, Noem stopped by a friend’s house; however, Noem or someone else from her party apparently did not latch the kennel, and the young dog got out, got in with the neighbor’s chickens and began taking one bite at a time to kill each chicken, then moved on to the next one.

I have seen that exact behavior previously from young hunting dogs with chickens, to include our own GSP. That is not a blood-thirsty killer, but is in fact a condition of curiosity in most any dog’s behavior who finds themselves face-to-face the first time in a pen of chickens.

If Noem’s friend had walked inside her home, grabbed her deer rifle, and shot Cricket right between the eyes before she killed another of her chickens, that is an act I would fully support and is an act that is allowed under the law.

And while that is the scenario some are screaming in support of regarding Noem, it is not at all what occurred in this case.

— CONTINUED —

[Bill Flarsheim @billflarsheim]

@dp270 @Ty_Seidule I’ve read that he was considered the 3rd best president when he left office, behind Washington and Lincoln. Then the makers of the Lost Cause myth besmirched Grant’s reputation and tried to make Lee a saint.

[Dov Waxman @DovWaxman]

I’m a scholar of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a longtime advocate for peace and for Palestinian rights. I have publicly opposed Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, and its blockade and now destruction of Gaza. I support the rights of students and faculty to peacefully protest against Israel, including by establishing protest encampments, such as the one on my campus at UCLA. I do not want these protest camps to be removed by the police, whose propensity for unnecessary and excessive use of force is well-established.

As a Jew, I do not personally feel threatened or unsafe because of the protest encampment at UCLA. I know some of the students taking part and believe they are well-intentioned. Many, probably most, of the protesters are simply horrified by the mass killing and near-famine in Gaza and want it to end. So do I. But I cannot join this protest because it is not just a protest against the war in Gaza.

Among the demands of the protest organizers is the demand to “sever all UC-wide connections to Israeli universities, including study abroad programs, fellowships, seminars, and research collaborations, and UCLA’s Nazarian Center.” Needless to say, I oppose the demand to boycott the Nazarian Center, which I direct. The Center is devoted to the academic study of Israel and has no ties to the Israeli government. I also oppose boycotting Israeli academic institutions and academic boycotts in general.

But it isn’t only the demands of the protest organizers that I have a problem with. One of the organizations behind the protest, Students for Justice in Palestine, has expressed support for Hamas and has even celebrated the massacre of Israelis on October 7. Being in solidarity with Palestinians does not necessitate supporting Hamas. On the contrary, Hamas oppresses Palestinians and has no concern for the lives of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. They have openly stated that they are willing to sacrifice countless Palestinian lives—“martyrs”—for their cause, which is the ultimate eradication of Israel. They have spent billions building a vast underground network to protect themselves and their weaponry, but they haven’t built a single bomb shelter for Gazan civilians or sheltered them in their tunnels. They are prolonging the devastating war in Gaza, and the humanitarian crisis there, in order to maintain their power and authoritarian rule in Gaza.

I know that many people in the pro-Palestinian movement don’t support Hamas and don’t praise the October 7 massacre, but groups like SJP lead the movement on many college campuses, exploiting the sympathy that many students rightly feel for the suffering of Palestinians. Students and faculty demonstrating in support of Palestinians shouldn’t ignore the fact that the organizers of these demonstrations are, in many cases, ideologically committed to eradicating Israel and expelling Israeli Jews, supportive of violence against Israeli civilians, and willing to ignore or even justify Hamas’ strategy of sacrificing Palestinian civilians for their political ends.

[Patriot with attitude problem @ScottBu98883067]

Was just talking with a NATO officer about the Russian Army and asked him how long it would take the Finnish Army to seize St Petersburg. He said, ‘not long, only problem they’d face is that the Poles would get there first.’

[Bill Flarsheim @billflarsheim]

Thread

[Hank Green @hankgreen]

Can we...just accept that we suck at this?

I want to tell you a story that has made me kinda hopeless about Twitter's ability to affect positive things happening, and it starts with this tweet from Hillary Clinton.

https://t.co/CCWzdwPSUu

[Bill Flarsheim @billflarsheim]

@JRubinBlogger When books are written about the 2024 campaign, I would not be surprised to learn that the Biden campaign described the period from Fall 2023 to the State of the Union as “Rope a Dope!”

[Bill Flarsheim @billflarsheim]

@LauraJedeed I’d like to add adopting the stray puppy you saw on the street as you were leaving a meeting at city hall. Hats off to my daughter and son-in-law.

[Bill Flarsheim @billflarsheim]

@LauraJedeed Plenty of respect of NYC, which I will visit in June, but my son and I had six tasty beers at a craft brewery within walking distance of both of our houses for $40 plus tip. KY politics are horrible, but life is good in Louisville’s old neighborhoods.

[Bill Flarsheim @billflarsheim]

@JeremyWingert79 Redirecting is a most useful parenting skill. By bedtime, kids are exhausted. She probably couldn’t process or learn from anything you did to correct her behavior. Better to redirect and get her to bed. Save behavior correction for when your kid has the energy to understand.

[Bill Flarsheim @billflarsheim]

@LakotaMan1 I admit I don’t have strong feelings, but I am changing over to Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

[Bill Flarsheim @billflarsheim]

@MaxBoot If McCarthy had talked to Dems 3 weeks ago, this would have been a good path, but after starting the impeachment hearings and trying to give the hard right everything they wanted, before actually working with Dems to pass a continuing resolution, McCarthy is damaged goods.

[Bill Flarsheim @billflarsheim]

@MaxBoot And by god, you mean blonde haired, blue eyed Odin, because no one from the Middle East looks like that.