Lauchs

I think this every time I'm in the wrong traffic-wise!

This reminds me of that classic moment in A Fish Called Wanda:

"I've known sheep that could outwit you! I've worn dresses with a higher IQs but you think you're an intellectual, don't you you ape!?!"

"Apes don't read philosophy." (Said with a smirk.)

"Yes they do, they just don't understand it!"

Yes, Israel will surely change national policy that is costing them billions because a minor port is temporarily closed...

Is this actually the chain of events for which you are hoping? Or is there another step I'm not seeing? Because I hope you have something better than "Israel will have a harder time supplying potash! First the potash, then peace!"

How does attacking civilian freighters encourage any government to do that?

I'm trying to understand how you think this helps the Palestinean cause in any way.

What chain of events do "real leftists" see coming out of terrorists attacking civilian freighters?

Reality based observers will note that the international community is far more likely to retaliate against Yemen or put more anti missile ships in the area, leading to a significant risk of escalation..m

I notice you're not denying the super powered robot from the far future part...

Don't be ridiculous.

Though, it may have been the 12 foot piranha bees.

Weight training can be super dangerous if you don't know what you're doing, you can easily do significant damage to your back or knees doing fairly basic exercises like a deadlift or squat incorrectly.

Especially as weight training is increasingly encouraged for the elderly, personal training seems a fairly reasonable job. Admittedly, like any other job, there are folks who provide little to no value (think of the teachers just waiting to collect their pensions) but that's not to say it can't be a super useful industry.

Part of this always makes me uneasy. I grew up knowing a lot of kids from rough backgrounds who loved sports but also went to a private school where a lot of folks looked down at stupid sports fans. To me, there's always been an unpleasant whiff of classism to these anti sports takes. While sports finds fans at every strata, it's hard to deny that the poorer one is the more likely you are to be into sports. (Go to any working man's bar during a game night.) And it just has this taint of "sportsball is a waste of time for stupid poor people do and there are such better uses for the time and money!" And I just think back a couple months ago when I caught a playoff game in a veterans bar, watched as we scored and the whole bar waited patiently as an older Indigenous lady "ran" up and down the aisles draped in her Canucks cape to wild applause from the crowd. It's moments of joy shared by complete strangers who might have nothing else in common but come together for these magical moments.

Edit: I don't mean to imply or say that opposing sports is inherently classist or that you are being so.

I get where you're coming from on the use of space. But, at least in my hometown, our arena is used almost every night; it hosts I think three or four different sports leagues (well, a few sports leagues plus, ugh, e-sports) as well as all concerts, comedians and expos. (To the point where our local team often has to do ridiculous road trips because of the arena scheduling.) Or you could look at Paris for the Olympics which used the opportunity to clean the Seine as well as put a literally world class swimming facility in a run down neighbourhood as part of a revitalization. (Or, back to my city, Vancouver, we used it to add a mass transit train line which has spurred a bunch of lower cost housing around stops, put in a few popular facilities in underserved areas.)

Some fields are much less multipurpose but the parking lots, that's just a consequence of American transit etc. And while I think it's ridiculous how much some local governments pay for stadiums and I wouldn't want my government to do s but, they do it because those teams are incredibly popular. To blame their popularity and the poor decisions of governments on the sports though seems a little like getting angry at journalism because Russia, Hungary and others use it for nefarious ends.

fans fanaticism can utterly destroy local towns after a bad kick or pass or whatever.

I mean, I don't think any town has been burned to the ground. We had two of the worst North American sports riots twice in the last 30 years (yay) but the destruction was pretty limited to a small section of downtown and it was more just embarrassing than anything else. And frankly, any city that has a fanbase large and passionate enough to riot is probably a city that really loves that sports team. Even though we've rioted twice, every time the playoffs come around, the city is awash in Canucks gear, little flags, towels etc.

I don’t really have a problem with youth sports. But it shouldn’t be a “profession”.

I don't think you get youth sports without professional sports. We have lacrosse leagues (technically our national sport) but almost no one plays, it's not the same without your heroes whom you've watched growing up. Watch even young kids practicing or fooling around, a good number of them will have their favourite player's jersey on.

On the finances or advancement, okay, let's consider a simple one, pets. Americans spend more than 180 billion on their pets every year! They provide some psychological benefits but so do sports. That money could feed every hungry person in America maybe 6 or 7 times over. That's not to mention the environmental damage etc. But, rich people are as likely if not more to have pets and everyone basically finds them cute so, they aren't referred to as a waste of resources.

That's what the Golgafrinchiam people thought and they are no more! Let their fate be a lesson to all who would overlook the importance of telephone hygiene!

Could you set a timer or somesuch? I did that when I was doing windsprints and it worked out. (Though never felt like it came quickly enough.)