If I had a real answer to that, I’d be a lot less confused by the election. I mean it most likely comes down to, as it always has, “it’s the economy, stupid.”

If I had to take a guess, all of these massive disagreements online about Gaza and immigration and regulation, to say nothing of Trumps general… terribleness all around… even abortion—it seems to me that all of these issues amount to a few 1/10ths of a percent.

I guess if the economy is good, we keep the administration. If it’s bad, we toss it. And that seems, from my perspective, to be the only thing that matters at all to the electorate. It seems crazy to me that no one is looking into the future to see what is coming.

Anyone who truly cared about the future economy would run screaming from tariffs, so I guess it’s just really about punishing a bad economy, no matter what.

I wish there was another explanation that presented itself. Something to help me understand that didn’t mean the country is a bunch of idiots. But I’ve got nothing.

I did. I understand that there is intellectual criticism of neo-liberalism. I don’t even necessarily disagree with that criticism. I just don’t see any evidence that the vast majority of people actually care.

I just don’t think that’s why. That said, I’ll acknowledge that maybe you’re right and I’m wrong.

The scope and ambition of certain animes like Legend of the Galactic Heroes and Berserk I can appreciate. I was never a weeb, but I barely watch any anime these days. My kids got me to watch Demon Hunter (which I’ve only seen like a single movie of and didn’t see the point) and My Hero Academia which is also not my cup of tea.

Studio Ghibli is pretty good, though. I like the depth, but sometimes they are so abstract and ethereal that my brain decides I’m already asleep and I just nod off. It’s usually worth it to watch a few times to try to get everything. Princess Mononoke was really a struggle. It’s a great anime, but I had to watch it a good 6+ times before I could stay awake through it.

Neoliberalism is often associated with a set of economic liberalization policies, including privatization, deregulation, consumer choice, globalization, free trade, monetarism, austerity, and reductions in government spending. These policies are designed to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society.

These things? Your position is the American people rejected her over these things? In favor of Trump?

Look, I don’t know what happened this election, but I don’t see anything here I think the American people would object to. Maybe globalization.

What swathe of policies were bad?

Nothing I enjoy more than asking a good ol’ boy his pronouns.

I’ve had great interactions with doctors. All the time.

On the very few occasions I’ve ever been visited by a cop (once?) it was fine. Couldn’t call it life affirming or anything, but it was polite and respectful both ways.

I’ve had some incredible teachers over the years. My 6th grade math teacher stands out. My biology teacher in high school was also my swim coach, and he was lots of fun. I had some good teachers in college. I had some good teachers in the Army.

I mean I’m not going to pretend the army was a good time, but there were lots of good people in it.

I don’t think I’ve ever really been to court. One time I got called in for jury duty and sat there for 4 hours and that was that. It was fine, you know?

Are there bad examples of all these things out there? Hell yes. Because ask of these people are human just like the rest of us. They have good and bad days. Some are sadistic assholes, others are empathetic and kind - probably just like wherever you are and whatever you do with yourself.

There is one thing I believe holds true. If you see assholes everywhere you go, you’re the problem.

My twelve year old is Evelyn. My 14 year old is Genevieve. Which is apparently still out there but I thought it was pretty uncommon when we named her.

So what’s the pros and cons of Mint on Ubuntu vs Mint on Debian? I’m more familiar with Ubuntu, and that’s what I’m running on my PC now, but I’m thinking about trying to go back to Mint.

Main things I’ll need to install is development tools (VSCode, IntelliJ, docker, java) plus Firefox, Discord. I’m also running KDE Plasma - it’s nice, but also I don’t really have a strong opinion so if I wasn’t i wouldn’t care all that much. Nvidea graphics, AMD cpu.

I’m a bit frustrated by the weekly or so discord updates and it would be nice if auto update or apt upgrade would just update it, but maybe that’s a completely separate concern.

Anyway if you time to respond I appreciate it. If not that’s cool too. Have a good one!

I think this is the key right here. The election is important, but most of us have far more immediate concerns.

Pretty sure I’d go full Sith. I’m not super big on hate, but if I could move things and influence people with my mind I’m under no illusions that I would use that power for good.

We simply don’t talk politics. My wife is the peacemaker. When someone brings up something political she shuts that shit down quickly.

It’s when people don’t know what to talk about other than politics that I think they are truly lost. Watch some fucking football and hate on each others’ team. I think some people need that sort of idle animosity.

Anyway, there are more to people than politics.

I have an iPhone 14 Pro Max. It’s a nice phone. I like IOS better than I thought I would. I do think the Galaxy I had before it was pretty good though, too. If I didn’t struggle so much with the iPhone keyboard, I guess this would be my favorite, but I use my phone so much and the swipe typing is so rough, it’s hard to give a full endorsement.

That said, I am probably overestimating how gos typing on Android was. I remember lots of autocorrect issues, but iOS has a bunch of keyboard bugs that make correcting errors even more frustrating than making them in the first place.

self- rectal exam

Just like checking your breasts for lumps, the fight against colon cancer begins at home.

I like this. Just one little further tweak: every hour block should be a time zone conversion to a completely useless time.

For example the hour long block at 8:00am would be: 0:00-0:59 Ugandan time

For even more bonus points, account for Uganda not observing DST.

Does your boss fish? If not, this might look disturbing to him.

Five Guys Hooker tournament 2-4. Entry: $75. Min length: 8". Biting = Big O

Fishing tournament sponsored by Five Guys from 2-4pm. Entry fee is $75. Any fish under 8" don’t count towards total weight. “Big O” lure is expected to perform well.

No but I’ll have to look them up.

I think it was Luxure? I think it’s French. I think some of the movies might be dubbed into English while others are filmed in English? Anyway thought it was pretty well done. It’s not winning any Oscars but I was never taken out of any scenes by bad acting. I was able to find at least a scene or two on PH.

I want to say it’s mostly like adventurous couple sexy time, but it could be that’s just what appealed to me. I was looking for things I thought would appeal to my wife and I. She’s not super into porn but she did enjoy watching a couple scenes while I was… well navel gazing in a manner of speaking.

Similarly, at airports they had these alternating white and blue lights that would sweep the sky for miles around. When we were on the road at night I used to know where we were based on that. I loved it.

Or showing pinned posts at the top.

I don’t think he knows about second vagina, Pip.