Yes. I voted for her because there was no other viable option. Claiming that she’s the best choice in primaries, for a 2028 presidential run is absolute nonsense. Running her again would be beyond stupid; it would be like running Clinton (Hilary, not Bill) a second time.

Fuck sake, get someone that’s a charismatic populist running on messages of, “hell yes, we’re going to tax the shit out of billionaires, we’re going to tax them until they’re millionaires”, with expansion of gov’t services and de-privatization as major platform planks. Dems need a Project 2028 that lays all of this shit out on an eyes-only basis so they can get the majority of it through in the first 4 months, too. Not just unwinding the damage that Trump has done to the federal bureaucracy, but EXPANDING it, and hardening it against any future interference from the executive branch.

The problem is that there are not nearly enough people that hunt to even keep the population stable through hunting. The fact that hog hunting has become a business is the reason that real solutions to wiping out feral populations aren’t making headway.

Have your corpse wrapped in a tarp and weighted down with concrete blocks from a construction site, and have it tossed in an abandoned quarry. That’s probably about the cheapest way; should only cost about $10 for the tarp, and then gas money.

No they fucking haven’t.

I don’t know who they’re polling to come up with that trash. Dems didn’t turn out for her in 2024 because she had no answers on the economy, and refused to admit Israel was genociding Palestinians, so they sure as shit aren’t going to turn up for her in 2028–if there’s even an election in 2028–when she still won’t have any answers about the economy–which will likely be in full depression territory by then–and all she’ll be able to do with Israel is say, "well, it’s too late, all the Palestinians have been genocided, oh well).

“She says they would still say ‘Don’t do the shots,’” an unidentified translator for the parents said. “They think it’s not as bad as the media is making it out to be.”

Their child literally died. How could it have been worse, exactly?

[…]if you’re male and your partner is female then I’m surprised that she has any interest in things like Thundercats or He-Man regardless of her age.

First, I wouldn’t suggest assuming that.

Second, the point isn’t that a partner has to like these things, but they do have to have some kind of awareness of them. You could substitute Smurfs, Family Ties, Michael Jackson’s breakout album Thriller, or watching the Challenger explode on live television because everyone in the school was watching Sally Ride go into space. Or George Bush’s famous “Read my lips: no new taxes” speech. There are a million events that are foundational to who you become. When the person that you’re dating–or in a relationship with–don’t share any of those cultural moments, it’s much more difficult to build a lasting relationship. Not impossible, but harder; that’s true with any cross-cultural relationship as well.

Common interests are nice, yeah, but they aren’t everything. Shared values—and values are very strongly shaped by the things you were exposed to growing up–are probably the single biggest thing; if you don’t share core belief systems (morals, ethics, what is important, meaning, etc.), then it’s unlikely that a relationship can survive.

I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt here, that you really believe this. But the problem is that you’re missing a huge cost: tools. If we assume that, as you say, a house is given (?) to a formerly homeless person, that person is going to need to come up with money for materials, yes, but also all of the tools. When a professional does the work, they are amortizing the cost of equipment over many, many jobs, so that the cost may be fairly negligible for any single job. When you’re only doing one job, you need to include that in the final price.

I’ve done a number of the repairs and renovations on my home, but I’ve also spent likely somewhere north of $20k on tools since I moved here. Some get used quite often, like the table saw, miter saw, the Makita cordless drill set. Some are used very, very rarely, like the framing nailer (esp. since I switched to using structural screws and hangers instead of toe nailing). Some have been used for a single job, and never touched again, like the flooring nailer (I still want to tear up the shitty carpet and do hardwood flooring, but I want to use unfinished cabin grade and sand/stain/varnish myself, but my partner wants something that’s about 5x the cost but faster to install).

Not only that, but if you don’t already know how to do a thing, you’re very likely to end up doing it wrong, e.g., putting flashing under shingles instead of on top. Until you have a degree of proficiency–and you’ll need to be proficient in a lot of things–you are also more likely to have more waste, which raises costs again.

That’s an exceptionally dangerous claim to make; it’s going to cause people to further alienate people that are on the autism spectrum. When you look at the report that the US Secret Service released on mass shootings (I’d have to find it; I’ve got a copy saved somewhere), autism spectrum disorder is not listed as a factor, while things like divorced parents is.

Perhaps you missed the part that said, “[Forensic psychiatrist Dr Iain Kooyman] found Prosper had an ‘extreme lack’ of empathy and remorse - something that could not be explained by ASD alone.”

And, BTW, people on the autism spectrum lack effective empathy, not empathy. That means that a person on the spectrum has a reduced ability to understand what a person is experiencing or feeling, not that they don’t feel empathy when they do know.

The thoughts I’d be sending are all “fuck this dude, I hope she divorces him when she finds out this is what he voted for”.

There’s a house on my way to work that’s vacant. I saw an ambulance there about two years ago; I’m betting that the owner died, because it’s now entirely overgrown, with weeds and grass completely overtaking the yard and driveway.

How many of the ‘empty houses’ are places that were abandoned and are in such disrepair that they’re not safe for habitation, and how many of them are places that are second houses and/or bank-owned rentals?

For reference, the house I live in right now was repo’d around 2010, and my partner and I bought it in 2018; it had been vacant for almost a decade, and required a lot of work, almost as much as it cost, to get it safe. And it still needs work; I need to shore up the floor that’s sagging, and the exterior walls need to be opened up from the inside and be fully sealed b/c I can feel breezes inside when it’s windy outside.

I’m… Unfortunately older than I wish I was. I am very solidly Gen X. I still find young people physically attractive. But I also find people my own age attractive; I most certainly would not have found people my age attractive when I was in my 20s. Even though I may find younger people attractive, I have zero interest in relationships with them. Not only do I already have a partner, but I simply have nothing in common with most of them. If I make references to Thundercats or He-Man, that shit is going to go entirely over their heads, and I’m likewise not going to understand any of their cultural references.

37. Covid and my gym shutting down fucked me over.

I agree in part that the death of god has been bad. But that’s only in regards to community. That is, we broadly lack communal spaces now where people that might be wildly divergent in beliefs–other than certain core religious tenets --come together. The loss of faith has meant a loss of community for many people. Attempts to build communities of non-believers have largely failed, or run afoul of the same problems that mire religion in general.

The result is that non-believers appear to be more likely to live more solitary existences, whereas people that have religious faith and go to church appear more likely to have some kind of community support group.

Oh, no, I would never be sarcastic about that. Being sarcastic would mean that I was condoning violence directed at democratically elected officials that are surely doing what the people want and expect them to do, and are fulfilling their duty to the country and constitution.

That makes sense to me; I think most EU countries that allow private gun ownership require licensing for each firearm, or something similar. I know that it’s exceptionally difficult in many areas, and the guns that I shoot matches with–semi-automatic pistols with 15-20 round magazines, and semi-automatic rifles with 30 round magazines–are very tightly controlled in many places.

Of course it’s not time for violence; violence have never solved anything. Asking nicely and remembering to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ will surely convince them to step down.

Anything I would have to say would get me permanently banned from the site for advocating violence.

Remember, as Napoleon Bonaparte said to Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, “Violence never solved anything.”

Well, I hope it’s not necessary. But you don’t know until you actually do need to, and once you need enough for multiple years it’s too late to start stockpiling.