I actually like Biden and still plan on voting for him, but I’m not sure I can say the economy is “good” right now, definitely not good for regular people. Just because the stock market is picking up doesn’t mean shit if rent just went up 10% or food is expensive as hell everywhere you go. People are getting priced out of making a living and this shit can’t go on for much longer.

Retail chains actually have a lot of pull over the market, the individual food companies are more beholden to the grocery chains than you might think.

Prices were always going to rise, COVID just gave them an excuse to accelerate it in a shorter amount of time. In Capitalism every company with stockholders has to show ever-increasing profits, because it’s never enough. Even if you knock it out of the park one year, you’re expected to knock it out of the park even further the next year. And so they keep charging as much as they think they can get away with, and it’s really not sustainable. We’re approaching the limits of it now as everyone is taking so much that the average citizen doesn’t have much more to give.

Hand to hand, with no weapons and just my bare hands & teeth? I could maybe take a mouse… and I’d still probably come away with some wounds. Probably a small, non-venomous snake as well.

We’ve gone from Charleton Heston talking about guns, “From my cold dead hands!” to DJ Trump saying, “KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF TRUMP TOWER!” as if they were some sort of American national monument and not the sleezy shithole that it is.

What would it take for you to see five lights?

He’ll still get a golden parachute if the company goes to shit.

I thought filing for bankruptcy was smart? Isn’t that what he said before about his previous bankruptcies?

Different kinds of bankruptcy, but essentially he said they were smart, business decisions: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2015/sep/21/carly-fiorina/trumps-four-bankruptcies/

“Hundreds of companies” have filed for bankruptcy, Trump said earlier in the debate. “I used the law four times and made a tremendous thing. I’m in business. I did a very good job.”

American zombies will still only eat burgers.

I’d rather he had a Game of Thrones-esque ending before that eventuality happened. He should watch everything he ever got in life get torn from him bit by bit first, before having some totally mediocre ending on a toilet seat shitting himself.

Jack Smith has given me some small hope that maybe the rich & powerful can be made to answer for their crimes, but given the shenanigans getting pulled by the judge in that case, I’m not so sure.

Yes, let me pay for the privilege of using an automated lying machine that has a high probability of getting me killed due to faulty medical advice. I don’t see what could possibly go wrong with this.

We kind of dealt with that for my Dad, but it was never really an issue. My brother just assumed control of the account and that was that. We already had all the access info, so it wasn’t like we had to ask them for anything. We just got it setup on this new Family thing yesterday though, so I can actually access most of his games again (for some reason on the old Family Sharing, his games got blocked out).

I think the balance of power has shifted a bit between the US and Israel, such that many people are overestimating how much sway the US has over Israel. Since about the 90’s, Israel had set about trying to reduce their own dependence on the US for its military needs, specifically because they didn’t want to be beholden to our demands and they didn’t see us as a reliable partner. While the GOP mostly gives them the greenlight on anything (at least since after Bush I’s term), the Democrats have the gall to want a more balanced approach to the peace process, to actually consider Palestinians. Everyone still has this idea that Israel is completely dependent on the US for everything, but that’s just not the case anymore. Pre-Oct 7, they’d made peace with neighbors, it’s relatively cheap for them to maintain the Iron Dome system (that we did most of the setup for, but it’s drastically cut down on the effect of rocket attacks), and the amount of aid that the US provides is a smaller % of their GDP. It’s just a different world now.

I think if we were to push the subject of them ending their offensive, they’d say, “Fuck off,” and go to China or maybe Russia for whatever weapon needs they still have, someone who won’t give them any shit about genocide. I think we should still do it anyways, because we can’t be an impartial broker of peace as long as we’re supplying weapons to one side of the conflict. I think Biden/Democrats are trying to walk a fine line here, they probably honestly want the Gaza war to end, but there’s a fear of pissing off weapons companies and AIPAC, it would hurt them bad in elections. It’s still the right thing to do, but I’m guessing that’s part of the calculus.

Same. I’m making more than I’ve ever made in my life and I can barely afford paying both my mortgage and my mistress’s rent, something has got to give.

Freeuse is the future.

That’s cool, though Republicans aren’t giving up on it anytime soon

I think it’s more a matter of, “We know there’s something that’s causing an effect, but we can’t see it or fully explain it… yet.” There’s something in the science and observations that’s just not lining up the way it should. There are some ideas that have floated around that say that dark matter isn’t necessary, it’s just a misunderstanding of one factor or another, but nobody has really been able to nail the question yet, so it persists.

I believe that would be a Torus-shaped universe that could produce that effect, basically a donut where space loops back in on itself. I think it’s something that’s been considered, though it sounds as if there’s no evidence for or against that idea, and it’s not considered likely.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2021/07/21/why-the-universe-probably-isnt-shaped-like-a-donut/?sh=11e56b426e60

We use standardized tests because they’re cheap pieces of paper we can print out by the thousands and give out to a schoolfull of children and get an approximation of their relative intelligence among a limited range of types of intelligence. If we wanted an actual reliable measure of each kid’s intelligence type they’d get one-on-one attention and go through a range of tests, but that would cost too much (in time & money), so we just approximate with the cheap paper thing instead. Probably we could develop better tests that accounted for more kinds of intelligence, but I’m guessing those other types of intelligence aren’t as useful to capitalism, so we ignore them.