I know that Tinder and Grinder are dating apps for smart phones. I think that Grinder is for gay people specifically and Tinder is basically for straight people, and bisexual people too I guess. I suppose gay people could use it too, I don't know.

I have to admit that I hate smart phones, I have tried them and refuse to use one. I use an old flip phone that has texting and a camera. The "smart phones" have too many damned buttons on the sides that I keep hitting inadvertantly. Also, when I want to either answer or hang up my phone, I just use one hand and don't even have to look at the phone to do it. But with a smart phone it takes two hands to answer the phone and I have to look at the screen and swipe it with just the right pressure and direction. Hanging up is even worse. When the call is over I have to find the right screen, the screen which has the icon for ending the call. I used to have to wake up the screen, then navigate back to the screen with the call ending icon and then swipe it. I don't want that. I want a button that is dedicated to the purpose of ending the call, a button which doesn't disappear, a button I don't have to search for. With my flip phone, I can simply close the phone and the call is over.

Anyway, I think the backlash you describe was bound to happen. Young liberals in the US are taught to see themselves as entitled, victims, who are outrageously offended by tradtional beliefs, and speech. They are taught to label anyone who fails to agree with them as bigots of some sort or other.
That might work for them on the school campus, but in the real world, their fatuous, victim Olympics histrionics won't win them gold stars. Straight men don't like getting hit on by gay men. We expect gay men to make sure they are talking to other gay men for that stuff.
Straight people who don't want to watch stories about gay people are not homophobic. We are not afraid of gay people. We are replused by the sight of a man kissing another man. It isn't fear, it's nausea. We are also tired of being insulted by the liberal apologists for gay TV tropes who pretend that the ubiquitous gay characters are sort of in the stories by accident. You know the argument: "well, there are gay people in society so naturally there are going to be gay people in TV shows", implying the gay characters just happened to be there. We all know how specious that argument is. There are millions of NASCAR fans in America. They almost never show up in a TV story or movie. But if there is a documentary on the history of downhill skiing, you can be sure at some point we will learn about some gay downhill skiiers who set records back in 1920 something, and we will see film of them sliding down the mountain, farting rainbows to the applause of the commentators.
So young, liberal, entitled, gay people, have been conditioned to believe that they are "part of the solution". They believe they are helping make the world a better place by flaunting their homosexuality in public, challenging the attitudes and beliefs of the "unreconstructed", racist, homophobic, white, cis-gender bigots. On the college campus they are heroes for thinking, speaking, and acting this way.
In the real world people don't pretend there are 57 genders, and it is still considered rude to criticize the random old white guy for being a privileged, bigot.

I am done with the first season of Frontier now. I like the Irish accent of that Grace Emberly. When she tells Declan Harp to "wait", it sounds like she is saying "wheat". I love that accent. I can listen to it over and over and not get tired of it.

Declan is one tough halfbreed. Lord Benton is a jerk, but he sure knows how to turn on the charm with Clenna Dolan. He didn't seem like the same person we saw in the first episode. Let me know when you have seen the first series.

Have you seen Season two, episode one yet? There is a compulsory scene involving Samuel Grant and Cobbs Pond.

I had to laugh at your adventures with "smart" phones - I am like you - I have a neat little phone that has a camera that I never use and all I have to do is press one button to take a call and another button to end it - now that is smart !! I haven't started watching "Frontier" yet - I am going to start that over the weekend. What you say about gays is very true - if they just acted with some dignity and normality there would be no issue. The truth is that straight people still outnumber them and as the majority their wishes should be taken into account at least - instead we are ignored - insulted - and forced to watch same sex slavering whenever we turn on the television. No wonder the straight community are starting to fight back. The LGBT dispute is still rumbling on over here ( the teaching of those issues to very young children in schools in Birmingham) the Muslim community are laying siege to the school concerned and wont let it go - for once I am on their side - it is completely against their religion. I am not religious at all - but if it was my child I would feel exactly the same way. What right has a gay man to insert his personal agenda into the teaching curriculum? Our new Prime Minister Boris Johnson is probably going to be asked to intervene. That should be interesting - he can't win - what is he going to say - exclude Muslims and similar groups from these classes? If he does then the white community are going to scream discrimination - why should white kids be exposed to this deviance and Muslim etc not? I think the only choice he has is to ban the classes altogether or give parents the choice to include or exclude their children from them. There will be a lot of empty classrooms if he does that.

Here is a related thought I posted in a blog recently: "I know that when I say I am repulsed by the sight of two men kissing each other that a chorus of liberals will chime in saying “he is homophobic”, meaning I am bigoted against gay people. But I disagree. It has nothing to do with hatred or fear or prejudice. It is just a gut reaction, like the way I feel about olives.

I cannot stand olives on pizza, or olives in general for that matter. If I eat an olive I feel nauseous. I know that other people love olives, and that doesn’t bother me a bit. If a group of us are going to order pizzas and some of them want olives on the pizza, that is fine…for them. But I won’t touch their pizza. I will order a pepperoni pizza, or a cheese pizza for myself, and for anyone else who likes those types.

That is how I feel about the sight of two men kissing; it repulses me. I feel like throwing up a little bit. I don’t care that they do that, but I can’t stand to watch it. It’s like with the olives. Still, to some young people, it is a problem that “I don’t like olives”, i.e. that I can’t stand to see two men kissing. They are only able to view that as ‘homophobia’ or prejudice, even though it isn’t. I don’t know why they think that way"

Question about the Birmingham gay school issue: What age are the students?

I think it is a very relevant question. Sex education used to happen when children were on the cusp of being physically ready to have sex. Prior to that age we just allowed kids to be kids. I still recall being a child, making a comment about something, and seeing the adults in the room have a good laugh as they realized what I actually meant. I knew there was private knowledge which made my comment humorous, but I was allowed to retain the innocence of youth, and the adults all knew that was the proper way to handle things.

But the liberals seem to want to push sex ed to much younger ages, and I have a theory about why that is. If kids are permitted to retain their innocence, to grow up naturally, the majority are going to learn that heterosexuality is the normal state of affairs. They have a mommy and a daddy, so that relationship imprints upon their developing minds. That is simply the natural, and normal way children grow up.

But the radical liberals who are angry that heterosexuality is seen as normal, and homosexuality has always been seen as an "other" state of being, these radical liberals are well aware that letting children grow up in heterosexual homes will learn that mommy and daddy are the natural, and normal kind of relationship. The radicals liberals favor using the power of the state to force their views on others, since the majority of people don't agree with, and won't adopt their views if left alone. I think this explains the push for teaching transgender counseling and medical therapy among young children. Admittedly that isn't mainstream.....yet. But I have read of cases of children in kindergarten being given female hormones because it is believed that the boy is really a girl in his mind, or at least the adults think this, and have possibly convinced the boy that this is the case. As liberals gain more power and influence, they are punishing those doctors who won't go along with this dangerous therapy, and punishing anyone who questions any of the radical positions taken by the transgender advocacy groups. It is the same with the gay advocacy crowd. They want to begin teaching the "normalcy" of homosexuality to younger and younger children, to interrupt the natural and normal socialization of the children.

IF...if the gay crowd were not so angry, and bent on revenge and dominance; IF they merely wanted to teach that some people grow up oriented differently, and adopt 'alternative lifestyles', that they have the right to do so, and that it is wrong to treat them badly because of their lifestyle and orientation, IF that was truly all they wanted to convey to students (of an appropriate age), then I doubt there would be any backlash. In fact, I think there would be overwhelming support from the majority.

BUT, that is clearly NOT their position. The radical liberal activists are intent upon prohibiting any dissent within the society at large by punishing thoughts and speech not previously approved by them. They are NOT tolerant of differences among people. They are bent on forcing group conformity and the adoption of their radical, liberal positions (social, and economic for that matter).

They want to force me to like olives.

update: I just read that those LGBT anti homophobia classes were being given from the "reception through the sixth year". That is clearly an indoctrination program, not an educational class.

The children targeted are as young as five years old. Apart from anything else they are robbing them of their childhood and their innocence. It is outrageous. I think the only hope is that Britain is so intent on maintaining our "happy and successful" multi-culturalism that they will in fact capitulate and ban this subject - they may delay it by saying that it may be suitable for older children - but Muslims wont accept that either. Muslims - like most people have to go out to work so home schooling is not an option and private schools cost a fortune - and if they have three or four children - what then? As I said before - you can't excuse Muslims and not other cultures - that would really put the cat amongst the multicultural pigeons. All this because a gay man took it upon himself to alter the school curriculum. Gays just love to be martyrs - they would curl up and die if there was no homophobia in the world - nobody making them the centre of attention. They just can't understand that the sight of same sex sex is repugnant to straight people - just as a runny nose is to some people - it doesn't mean I hate noses !! It suits them to see it that way because it suits their tortured martyrdom and makes straights wrong and them right. They demand acceptance of their choices but attack straight people if they dare to have a choice which isn't compatible with a gay lifestyle. They are total hypocrites in my view.

They ARE total hypocrites. In fact, they know this and it is part of their game plan for changing society. Remember that Herbert Marcuse quote about tolerance?

"Liberating tolerance, then, would mean intolerance against movements from the right & toleration of movements from the left."

This is from a leftist radical whose writings had a major influence on leftist theory and strategy. They don't care that they are hypocrites; they just think they can get away with it. We have to point out how hypocritical they are, to bust them at it, to call them on it, just as you are doing.
They believe that if they consistently posture as the victim, and continually accuse us of victimizing them, that nobody will be paying attention to their hypocrisy.

The parents were able to stop those classes, for now at least. But the gay crowd is going to "demand equality" and claim homophobia is hurting them, and keep pushing for these classes.

Everyone else should sue the government for religious discrimination by the Equality Act which punishes their religious beliefs as "hate speech". Isn't that what the left says about traditional Christian doctrine about sexual relations? But it seems the left is very scared of saying that about Islamic teachings on sexuality. As you say, they are hypocrites.

I am serious about the left trying to criminalize Christian religious teachings concerning homosexuality. I think people should sue the government over religious discrimination. I have zero legal background, but I would think there must be other bases for suing the government. What about an individual's right to freedom of expression? How is hate speech defined? Who determines that definition? Who determines which statements violate the hate speech laws? What about the speech of liberals which offends others? Are such liberals ever arrested for uttering hate speech? Is there discrimination against non-liberals in the application of these laws?

Even if these lawsuits against the government fail, I think suing the government would be helpful if it raises the issues in public discussions.

At some point, all the injustice, the hypocrisy of the liberals, the discrimination against and the persecution of heterosexuals, and the forced indoctrination of children is going to enrage the public enough that civil unrest will result, and perhaps that is the only way to work toward a better resolution.

The British people have a reputation for being lazy and apathetic - and quite honestly - unless there is a war on - they pretty much are !! BUT - when something gets under their skin they will fight back - as recent homophobic attacks prove. Just wait and see if this sex education becomes law - and kids of five start asking awkward questions and start experimenting with other kids what they are learning - British parents with go apes**t. You can only push us so far before we start pushing back. We no longer have freedom of speech - we are barely a democracy - any opinion not accepting of multiculturalism is classified as hate speech or racist - even if such speech advocates no harm to anyone - Britain is a dictatorship - most people just haven't realised it yet.

Sometimes I wonder how our governments have been corrupted this way. In politics, nothing happens which wasn't planned, according to Roosevelt. I think that the people who want to create dictatorships in western nations cultivate these special interest groups, and even direct them. Currently the various leftist communities, gay, Muslim, and others, all support the government having the power to prosecute "hate speech" because they view themselves as the beneficiaries of these laws. But they are useful idiots (to borrow term the communists used to describe the true believers who helped them take power). Once a government is taken over fully by a dictatorship or totalitarian form of government, they no longer need the support of the useful idiots who helped them gain power. Once they have the power of the state and an oppressive legal system which justifies whatever they want to do to the people, they can disregard or even kill the useful idiots. But presently they coddle them because they need their support.

It is depressing to think about.

I have a theory - I think that after the end of the last world war - when they were carving up the globe to benefit themselves - I think they had to have a think tank to do that - and I believe that this think tank when studying global trends - including population - suddenly realised that the black populations were going to expand at a much faster rate than white populations - and that it was unstoppable. The black populations would inevitably burst out of their countries of origin and seek to settle elsewhere - where they would do exactly the same thing. They realised that white populations would eventually realise this and would rebel as we are seeing with the rise of the far right groups. The only way to avoid this was to force multiculturalism on all white countries which is exactly what they are doing. It is not for votes or cheap labour - it is to avoid civil war. I wish Bill Gates and his mates had been successful - but I think they realised also that it was impossible. It has been said that A.I.D.S. first appeared in Africa - it makes you wonder if that was a natural event.

I believe the global elites have formed many interconnected think tanks over the years. And overpopulation seems to be one of the issues they have game planned.
Read the quotes by various world leaders and influential people on this page: http://www.green-agenda.com You'll see some of them deal with their goals for population control. They want drastic reductions.

Someone once told me that AIDS was a manufactured disease, but that it jumped into the general population, something he said wasn't planned or expected. And that is the problem with any measures designed to cull the human population. Nobody can foresee accurately the various ways the plans may fail, or the unintended consequences which may result from them. But I fear that the sort of people who can rationalize executing plans for world wide genocide have no concerns for how their plans may go wrong. There are many Deep Underground Military Bases (DUMBs) already constructed in various parts of the world. Ostensibly these were designed to protect the leadership against all out nuclear war. They are said to contain systems which scrub CO2, produce oxygen, grow plants, etc, to have everything needed for extended living deep down underground. It has crossed my mind that the global elite likely have DUMBs set up and ready to go in the event that things go really badly up here. They could decide to go underground before they released deadly biological agents.

I used to be in Homeland Security, very low level, force protection for the guys who run into the danger. They needed pharmacists so after 9/11 I joined. My back gave out and I had to quit. But I know from the education classes I took with them that the Soviets continued their bio weapons research long after Pres. Nixon shut down the American research on biological weapons. After the fall of the Soviet Union, one of the issues was how to deal with all the deadly stuff they created. Consider smallpox.

There is a naturally occurring variant which is 90% fatal. The Soviets worked on making it even more lethal, and they created thousands of tons of the stuff! Very few people are still vaccinated against smallpox.

An infected person will spread the disease to anyone within breathing distance for 3 days before they show signs of the disease. As a terrorism weapon it is scary. A true believer who is willing to die for the cause could go to a busy airport and walk around asking for money, handing out literature, etc. Infected people would then fly all over the place, each of them infecting everyone they contacted for three days before showing signs, and so on. If those elites ever decide that the population is too unruly to control, they can bug out down to their DUMBs and let the highly infectious and very deadly diseases to do the work of depopulation for them.

Sounds like crazy talk, but I don't know that all of the Soviet's bio-weapons were destroyed. I hope it doesn't, but something like that could happen.

It is a terrifying thought - but I think they wouldn't take that risk. It is all very well having underground bunkers - but humans are pretty hard to maintain - they need clean air, sewerage, food, a means of disposing of their dead etc. If the ground above is infected then bacteria and viruses could well find their way inside via any one of the above. You can't manufacture oxygen out of nothing - and the carbon dioxide humans create would have to have a means of expulsion. And what of water? We need it to drink to wash - to clean. Where would such a huge supply come from and where would it go once it was used?. What of light - of power - of heat? I can't imagine that humans can live below ground for very long without any contact with the outside world. In any case who would want to? The elite are used to luxury and power - just surviving isn't in their game plan. The Soviets may be paranoid but they aren't stupid - many viruses have the possibility of becoming airborne - and we are all at the mercy of the wind - outbreaks can jump continents - you can't pin point one country and expect it to stay there. I think would be terrorists have to consider all the above as well or they could well end up wiping out their own countries.

I agree that they would rather not have to go that route. As we have talked about, plans can go awry and unintended consequences might be devastating.

But as to the other issues you raised, most of those can be overcome. Oxygen can be chemically created, and of course underground greenhouses create oxygen, and scrub carbon dioxide from the air. There are chemical CO2 scrubbers which can be used to adjust the air to the optimal level. The technologies needed to make DUMBs feasible for relatively long term use already exist and have been used to varying degrees. Water could be tapped from the closed aquifers, underground rivers which never contact the surface. There are technical solutions to almost all of those problems. Artificial night and day conditions can be produced. These things have been field tested in bunkers of various sorts for many decades. Entire underground cities can be constructed, and are rumored to already exist in some places.

But there is no way to compensate for the limited underground space, nor the knowledge that one is underground, no matter how much effort is made to make the bases look like and function like above ground facilities. People would go stir crazy after a while.

Presumably the elite would be inoculated against the biological weapons in case of any accidental exposures either before going underground, or later when they resurface. But any of these systems is subject to a failure because they are man made.

The global elite don't care about killing millions of us, but they care very much about their own lives. So they would not want to expose themselves to the risks of bio weapons and temporary underground shelter. Even though the risks are minimized as much as possible, why take even the small risk if it isn't necessary?

I am claustrophobic - it works in ways you wouldn't expect - not only can I not use lifts (elevators) or be in an enclosed space - I can't be in a crowded room either or in a crowd outside. I think the worst problems would be psychological - as you say - the knowledge that you are below ground - that you cannot see the sky or the sea - that you are trapped there albeit alive. Who would want to live like that? Not me. I feel a spiritual connection with nature - sometimes I long to see the sea so much it is like a physical ache. Maybe because I am an islander!! Anyway if the worlds elite end up in such places - it's about as much as they deserve. In a living coffin for many years if not forever.

I agree. If they ever decided to hide out below ground while they killed us off above, I like to imagine that tectonic plates would shift in such a way that a new magma funnel would be created and cook them down there, something like that.

But you and I would be safe and free above. I imagine that pockets of people would isolate themselves from others and ride out the epidemic. Some infected people would survive, and from them vaccines could be produced and given to the survivors. Eventually smallpox would be eradicated once again.

That's the way I like to imagine it working out.

As Dana Scully once said in an episode of "X Files" "There are always survivors" - and this being the case I would love to see their reactions when the elite came crawling out of their holes - all bright eyed - well fed and bushy tailed. Somehow I don't think they would survive for long !!! I am struggling with "Frontier" most of it seems set in a permanent twilight and I have just reached the point where Clenna has been brought over - Michael has seen her and has snuck into her bedroom. So - what does she say? You're dirty - take your clothes off - get washed and then we'll go to bed. Oh please - there is stupidity and then there are these two. I really struggle with this kind of silliness. I don't know if I will continue to watch it - I am easily irritated as you have no doubt noticed !!

@strangebedfellows said:

• there is stupidity and then there are these two. I really struggle with this kind of silliness. I don't know if I will continue to watch it - I am easily irritated as you have no doubt noticed !!

I laughed when I read that. I am the same way. Some of the fans of these shows have become really angry with me at times. You know the type? They like the lead actor or the show itself, and so they are ultra defensive about the show. They attack me when I criticize the show, even if 90% of my comment is positive.

I think the shows are mostly written by and for young, emotionally labile people. The writers routinely have characters create dilemmas and crises for themselves by making really, really stupid decisions.
The writers make characters exhibit extreme emotional instability, and posture as outraged, injured, victims, or extremely immature children.
To some extent that is the nature of television these days; it is how writers evoke reactions from their target audience. But there is something called verisimilitude, and when the characters lack it, viewers get fed up and turn off the show.

It's one thing for people to pull off impossible feats in fantasy or sci fi shows; we know that will happen because it is ipso facto what the show is about. BUT... we expect the characters to be realistic enough in their behaviors that they seem like normal human beings, so we can relate to them.

I thought the same thing about Clenna. Her savior, the love of her life, risks almost certain death if he is caught as he breaks into her quarters to help her escape from months of captivity.
Is she overcome with emotion at the sight of her love? Is she relieved? Does she tell him she loves him?

Nope. She basically says "ewwww. You smell bad, go take a bath or something." Not only that but when he tries to get her to leave with him she says "What? You want me to go into the forest with you? NO! I won't do that. I will stay here as Lord Benton's prisoner."

So we are supposed to believe this girl is prim and proper and afraid of having to rough it. This is the same girl who was part of a gang of thieves in London, where she was not exactly living a life of luxury. THAT is what I call poor writing.

The script calls for her to fail to follow the kid. OK, but there should have been more realistic ways to achieve that.

Jason Momoa is good in his role. But I am not sure whether to invest much more time in the show.