JunkMilesDavis

Congressional republicans really hung the entire country out to dry when they chose to cross that line with him. That's what it all comes back to. These questions should never be riding on individual judges; it's why the legislative branch was defined as its own thing and not just another arm of the president. But they signaled to everyone that his actions were just fine within the framework of the gov.

I mean the whole point of this country was to NOT have power consolidated in one office, and these clowns are just going full-steam ahead on sending us back there again, and dumping all of their resources into convincing the public it's a good thing. Some days I just don't know what kind of backward mirror world we fell into.

I kind of wish everyone who set foot in that room was fitted with a device that electrically zaps them every time they say some disingenuous bullshit. It's always so uncomfortable to watch, and they know exactly what they're doing.

Glad it wasn't just me. It wasn't often I paid attention to usernames on the big subs, but it seemed like at some point they were absolutely flooded with "Adjective_Noun_1234" users, and I couldn't stop seeing it once I noticed. Those and the comment-reposting bots (which probably won't be called out by other bots anymore without a usable API) made me wonder how many actual humans I was interacting with.

Tell us about the infrastructure programs next.

Absolutely. Taking healthcare costs off our backs would go a long way. The birth of my first kid absolutely wiped out the savings I had built up since getting out of school, and that was WITH insurance coverage. Six years of careful planning and saving just flushed down the toilet in an instant. There's just no financially-responsible way to manage the risk of a hospital bill that could range from hundreds to hundreds of thousands depending on what does or doesn't go according to plan, not to mention the following 18+ years of unknowns. It's kind of a wonder that people are still having as many kids as they are these days.

As true as it all may be, these guys seem to absolutely thrive on their own hypocrisy. I don't think they would let the fact that they stink ten times as bad stop them from going after anyone else.

It's frustrating because so many of the older city and town centers actually have decent walkability, even if growth made things a little more complicated. It's mostly the later development surrounding the cities where the only thought during planning was how the cars get from point A to point B and then park, and now the barriers to fix that situation are enormous. Some of them will update their ordinances to require sidewalk construction during new development, but it's not all that helpful when you end up with sidewalk stubs connected to nothing. It also doesn't fix the existing arrangement of buildings and drives that makes everything so hostile to pedestrians.

So why is political representation so skewed that the "left" party needs to confine itself to the middle of the spectrum? That sounds like something to discuss.

With constitutional originalism being all the rage nowadays, a person could certainly ask what sort of arms existed at the time of writing.

Maybe the secret ingredient is human empathy. Not that crazies are unique to the right by any means, but the organized effort to dehumanize and attack segments of the population has gone disproportionately mainstream on that side of the spectrum. So many talking points involve a vaguely-defined "enemy" of some kind. It's unfortunate that people get sucked into it, but you can't really blame the individuals when the leaders they look up to are actively working to mobilize them in that way as a political strategy.

I guess the ideological space the left fills at the moment just isn't one that requires that type of anger to support. There are certainly issues to get angry about, but in general it's just taking that low-hanging fruit of giving your fellow humans the same respect you would want for yourself and your loved ones, even if they seem different or weird to you.

The theme here is that he doesn't even care enough to create the illusion of caring. The community was never given "democratic" solutions to dysfunctional mod situations until this business reason arose. There's no community liaison trying to do damage control or make the users feel heard right now -- just the CEO himself telling everyone in the plainest terms that nothing they say has any impact because he does not care. People should take all of this at face value.

The absolute worst. Sometimes they just have it on the emblem/branding, which is manageable at least. Then there are the ones like above with glossy plastic and reflective silver lining everything so the sun can find a direct path to your retina from any angle. It's almost recall-worthy in some vehicles.

It was apparent when that Georgia recording came out that he must have been calling all over the place making these unsubtle "suggestions" to various state officials. It was just a matter of who decided to grab a recording and hold onto it to cover their own asses. I think everyone involved knew full well that even having the conversation was crossing all kinds of lines, and impossible to defend.

We had an amusement park called Geauga Lake close to where I grew up in Ohio. Not quite as big as the famous Cedar Point park which was a couple of hours away by car, but it had quite a history, and was a really popular one for school trips, company picnics, etc. It went through some ownership changes, and was eventually closed and left to rot with many of the original structures still sitting there after the coaster parts were sold off. Haven't looked into it for a number of years, but it was weird seeing that same entrance building we walked through so many times just decaying.

I seriously appreciate all of the points you're making, but the idea of men and women as cohesive social units here might not be realistic or helpful, especially for issues affecting sub-groups. Sometimes the people actively working to improve something are fighting an uphill battle against societal expectations and/or larger portions of their own group who don't recognize it as an issue. I'm sure you know that doesn't make it any less valid.

While I'm fully uncomfortable with the influence donors have over these institutions, I also feel like the handling of some of those hearing questions was catastrophic. Lady got maneuvered into giving them exactly the weak non-answer they were fishing for. It's bad all around.

There's that and the fact that most people who sell a house will still need new housing afterward. The value can be kind of moot unless you're in a position to majorly downsize or relocate to a lower cost-of-living area.

Yeah, this is kind of the issue with walling the workers off from the success of their product and converting it all into poker chips for other people to play with. Imagine how different things could be if everyone's pay grew with the success of the company.

It makes sense if you run with the assumption that a chunk of people serving in Congress genuinely treat the whole job as a competitive game or roleplaying scenario. It was all good for a while, but now they have drawn in the weird kids who play too aggressively, and there's little they can do to bring everything back on track without giving up and breaking character.

Definitely seems like a pattern with these things. So many of these people who are into some stuff, but rather than accept it as a personal battle, they channel everything into finding some external "evil" to help them rationalize the existence they're struggling with. It's too bad they can't see how many others they're hurting.

I guess in any kind of properly-functioning government, the FBI would have been acting in the wake of (and with the support of) some decisive political response by Congress. There's no sane version of reality where half of our elected reps should watch a direct attack on themselves and the core of our country, then huddle up and decide to play it off as nothing in order to preserve their power, and yet here we are. They have signaled as a group that they will not support any response to anything surrounding Jan 6, will reject factual information about it as needed, and will use their position to harm anyone who attempts to act on it. This doesn't excuse the FBI's lack of action, but it has definitely yanked a critical pillar of support out from under their work. They should not be in this position, where even doing their duty in the most objective way possible is considered a hostile act by a portion of Congress.

Not that we had much choice along the way, but you're right, we were almost completely in the dark about how much anything was going to cost as it happened. Various groups were mailing us bills for the full amounts even before insurance had settled their portion. Nobody in the entire insurance and billing game is on your side.

It took me like three hours to finish the shading on your upper lip.

If anyone believed the line about how community members should have a say in what happens to their subs, there you go. Congrats on your upgrade to Democracy Gold.

I would guess it's about as calculated as a fish swimming. The guy has simply always done this in all situations, and it has never not worked, so why would he stop. It's like the world-record run of playing "Do you know who I am?" with the police officer.

I've had too many of them, and yeah, they were mostly easier to sit through than a routine cleaning. It's definitely the kind of work where it's worth going to that small practice that ONLY does endodontics though. Nothing against the regular dentists, they just have a lot on their plates, and generally don't have the same perfectionist attitude about it when they have a schedule packed with all different types of work.

Thanks, I do remember the first documentary, but didn't realize there was a follow-up. Sad that nothing good has really happened with the property since then. It could have been reverted to a nice public space around the lake if nothing else, but all they get is a historic marker and apparently too much leftover trash to even develop it commercially.

The old "just walk out" skeleton meme has never been more relevant.

Imagine we're at the point where the Titanic has split in two, and the remaining portion is held afloat by trapped air. You can patch the hole made by the iceberg, but it probably won't change my plans too much.

It should be interesting to hear how they plan to make this determination. I just know from the rural side that the burden to serving poorer communities usually is both technical and financial, like building out a few miles of fresh fiber to serve a handful of residences. That's why they have programs in place to push expansion into those areas, and the telecoms involved there are already bound by progress and reporting requirements. I guess it could be a different situation in areas where the population density is pretty consistent across the board.

While I'm fully uncomfortable with the influence donors can wield against these institutions, I also feel like the handling of some of those hearing questions was catastrophic. Lady got maneuvered into giving them exactly the sort of weak non-answer they were fishing for. It's bad all around.

That's certainly the overall picture for the party, but at the lowest level these are still a bunch of actual, individual humans filling seats. So many of them are so forthcoming in speaking out about being on the wrong side of history the moment they step out of those roles. I would like to understand what's compelling them to consistently vote and speak in unison against the things they swore to uphold, and lie directly to our faces every day right up until the point where it doesn't matter anymore. Whatever is at work there is going to burn everything down eventually.