Man, this hits close to home. Just yesterday I decided to get in touch with an old friend from college and I found out that she had died in a car accident years ago, not long after I lost touch with her. Don’t put things off, folks.

How big does a human hand thriving in the UK get?

What fraction is under 18? It’s hard to tell by looking at the graph. I want to calculate what ratio of combatants to civilians killed a number of 70% implies.

There are two components to this question. Did many in the working class feel that Democrats had abandoned them? And is Trump’s economic policy actually better for the working class than Harris’s? I think the answers are “yes” and “probably no”. However, voters don’t listen to economists. If they’re not happy with the status quo, they vote for disrupting the status quo even if experts tell them that that’s a bad idea.

I suppose Sanders thinks that the working class would have supported a Democratic candidate who proposed a leftward (as opposed to Trump’s rightward) disruption. My guess is that that isn’t true and socialism is still a dirty word in America, but who knows?

If the quotes are accurate then I think my original reply still stands, just without that first paragraph. I don’t understand how anyone could argue that the Israeli army has already achieved all its objectives in Gaza. Maybe it should withdraw because the remaining objectives are impossible to achieve, but that’s a different matter.

I see. That makes this hard to interpret, given that a lot depends on the specific language that he used.

There’s no quote of Gallant saying that the army has achieved all its objectives in Gaza. It’s just something an anonymous source said that he said. What the article quotes him saying on the record is

He reportedly told the families that the idea that Israel must remain in Gaza to create stability was “an inappropriate idea to risk soldiers’ lives over”.

and

“The IDF commander and I said there was no security reason for remaining in the Philadelphi corridor,” Channel 12 reported him as saying. “Netanyahu said that it was a diplomatic consideration; I’m telling you there was no diplomatic consideration.”

That’s strong criticism but far from “nothing left to do”.

(I’m not sure how fighting this war but then withdrawing from Gaza without creating stability would be in Israel’s long-term security interest.)

“Don’t talk about politics on the first date” used to be a thing but now even as a man I think I would need to know someone’s political views in detail before a second date. It’s not enough to just vote for the same candidate. Plenty of people who despise each other’s ideology voted for Harris. I’m even afraid to talk to some old friends about politics. I know they’re Democrats but it’s still possible for one of us to say something that would seriously damage the friendship.

It’s like being Goldilocks. This one is too far right, that one is too far left…

lemon and sugar

Ah, memories. I can’t drink that any more unless I don’t want to eat for several hours until my teeth stop being sensitive, but during my childhood it wasn’t just delicious, it was a way to bond with my older relatives.

Impra Gold orange peoke. Get the loose-leaf kind that comes in a metal container.

But one time, I was dragged into helping a guy I didn’t know move a couch up stairs. Afterwards his wife (they were an Indian couple) made me some chai tea that was the best thing I ever drank in my life. I would happily carry another couch for one more cup. I was a fool and didn’t ask what that tea was, and since then I have tried different chai teas (including when I went to India) and I never even found one I liked at all.

But… Do you want to? I don’t feel like this is a country I want to contribute to anymore. I’m not going to leave (because that’s very impractical) and I’ll still support myself, but the goodwill I had towards my fellow Americans is very much diminished.

It’s easy for me to say that because I could leave if I needed to. The situation is very different for the people who can’t. Maybe I should have more concern for them than I do right now, but instead I just keep thinking how one upside of Trump winning the popular vote is that whatever happens, most Americans will deserve it.

Do people want to play Warcraft 2? I have a lot of nostalgic memories of when I played it as a kid but unlike the other remastered old Blizzard games, it isn’t very good by 21st century standards.

He’s not wrong about the squirrel…

Note that I’m the original commenter rather than the one you’re replying to. I don’t want to talk about fertility but I do have a few questions for you.

As an elder Millennial, I have zero interest in someone half my age. Or younger.

I think you and I are about the same age. What do you mean by “interest” here?

Emotional intelligence and availability, shared experiences, and common ground are also factors in potential mates. Add societal factors like education, financial stability…

Those sound like your criteria for long-term compatibility rather than your criteria for sexual attraction. I think they are different things. I have met people who would have been great long-term relationship partners if not for the fact that I was not attracted to them. I have also met people I was very attracted to who turned out to be terrible partners.

Some people (usually women) say that someone who wasn’t initially attractive to them became attractive once they learned what a good person he was. I was taught that judging people based on their appearance was shallow and wrong, so I tried very hard to make relationships with good people I wasn’t attracted to work. They never did. They were doomed from the start and there would have been less pain for everyone if I had been honest with myself immediately rather than pretending that my initial lack of attraction didn’t matter or that it could change with time.

The actual transcript:

But [Dick Cheney’s] daughter is a very dumb individual, very dumb. She’s a radical war hawk. Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her. OK, let’s see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face, you know, they’re all war hawks when they’re sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, oh, gee. Well, let’s send, let’s send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy, but she’s a stupid person. And I used to have, I have meetings with a lot of people, and she always wanted to go to war with people.

I’m no fan of Trump but this is unambiguously not a threat. The clear meaning is that she would would change her mind if she was one of the soldiers who would be fighting a war that she supports, not that Trump would threaten her with a gun until she changed her mind.

Not all older people are sexually attracted to other older people. A 70-year-old friend of mine confessed that he’s sad and frustrated because any woman he is attracted to is way too young for him. (He’s not a creep who would actually bother younger women.)

I worry about this myself. I’m still young enough that I think women my own age are attractive, but to be honest I can’t imagine being attracted to a retirement-aged woman unless she is one of those celebrities who have a hidden painting that ages instead of them.

I think “freedom” resonates emotionally in different ways for different people. If you try to pass a law making it illegal to drink bleach, I will oppose that law. I certainly don’t want to drink bleach, but right now I have the freedom to drink it and you would be trying to take away that freedom. It has value to me even though I intend never to exercise it.

Taxes, unlike drinking bleach, are a matter of trade-offs. I’m not categorically against them. However, I don’t buy into the argument that I shouldn’t oppose them as long as I will never have to pay them.

I did a 1000-calorie daily deficit for a few months, in order to lose two pounds a week. I got used to being hungry all the time after a couple of weeks, but having a lot less energy and being sleepy during the day were harder to deal with. My body was trying to conserve calories that way, but pushing through it was possible.

The hardest part was actually accurately counting the calories. It was relatively simple for off-the-shelf food, but a lot more annoying for things someone else home-cooked for me. I had to ask for the recipe every time, weigh how much I ate, and then track the calories per ingredient on a spreadsheet. Restaurant food was effectively impossible to count, but that didn’t matter much because I was so focused on filling food that I wouldn’t have eaten it anyway. I’m a vegetarian, so I ended up eating mostly beans, tofu (which is also beans, now that I think about it), and vegetables. Other things weren’t as filling per calorie as those foods.

Yeah, it seems like both sides are trying to pick a fight now. I wouldn’t go to that coffee shop but I’m not sure how

3,000 nearly identical emails titled, “Coffee and terrorism in Oakland.” … addressed to County and City electeds

are supposed to help.

Heh, in that article the proprietor claims that

Ice In Tea Fada has been a featured drink on their menu from day one, and was not a response to any one event.

However, Google has photos of an older version of the menu without that drink.

One drink is called “Iced In Tea Fada,”

That doesn’t sound very subtle. I wonder if this guy really did come to the cafe by coincidence or if it was an act of protest. Either way, the proprietor doesn’t seem to have a good legal defense…

Edit: The place has an Arabic logo but otherwise it looks like a completely normal Bay Area hipster cafe. (Although I suppose that Bay Area hipster cafes aren’t particularly welcoming to people prominently displaying a Star of David.) “Iced In Tea Fada” really is on the menu.