kindness seems pretty exclusive to white people.

I suppose big portions of history would nod quietly at this, if they could.

With maybe a clarifying note that the real goal was classism, and racism was just a convenient way to achieve more classism.

Exactly. My phone is for texting and calling out. Receiving calls is an unfortunate bug.

Perfect score. Social obligations fulfilled: 100%. Words spoken: 0. Emotional energy cost: 40%.

Certainly after they put him back in, he will be.

I keep expecting Jeff Bezos to get angry at the portrayal of Lex Luthor to top it off.

nobody just breaks out in song when they get dumped, for example.

You’re one of today’s lucky 10,000!

Thank you for sharing this. Patman was a delight. He made some of the best “History of” videos for classic games.

RIP Patman QC. He will be missed.

THANK YOU. I AM PLEASED TO JOIN THIS DISCUSSION AMONG FELLOW NON-ROBOTS.

" ((Candidate who Lost)) ((Previous Election Year))" bumper stickers after it has been a few years.

It feels needlessly divisive.

Although I saw a “Bob Dole '96” in the wild recently, and I kind of grudgingly admire that level of procrastination.

“We could be in serious legal trouble.”

“Don’t worry. My billions will protect me.”

Tbf, the tsp by default I believe throws your money in a G fund which is basically bonds iirc.

Most funds now default to a “target retirement date” type of fund that correctly offers stocks early and moves into bonds later.

If you want my advice, talk to them constantly as if you are the narrator, and smile and make eye contact at every opportunity.

This is great advice.

I’ve always done this, and my kids all started talking surprisingly early.

But my motive is just that it calms them.

Some baby fussiness comes from insecurity, and I find that a running narration makes them more relaxed about being set down and returned to - that kind of thing.

Basically they get the same comfort from my narration as I get from leaving the TV running when I’m alone in the house.

I don’t know (or worry about) if it really makes any serious long term difference - but it was occasionally convenient as heck when they could tell me what they wanted a bit earlier than I (or anyone) expected them to.

With my last kid, I felt more brave and also mixed in some singing, and think they are more musically inclined because of it.

You’ve shared the real life hack.

My kid was born with a love for the opening theme to “Star Trek: Enterprise”, because we were bringe watching it while the kid was in the womb.

Playing “Faith of the Heart” came in handy when the kid started teething.

Worth adding - let’s all shop from unionized businesses whenever possible. There’s strength in solidarity.

please stop taking absolutely everything as a permanent debate.

But I think there’s a case to be made that everything is a permanent debate. Let me just paste a quick wall of text here on the topic…

Sorry. Just trying to make you laugh. I will see myself out.

That looks promising. I wonder if it will be friends with me?

The little squiggles are necessary to ensure election outcomes acceptable to the ultra rich.

I’m joking. (Mostly)

The squiggles are probably county line divisions, and probably simply the smallest existing land divisions with good population data available to make the map from.

I say “mostly joking” because existing county line divisions are already weird in some cases, to ensure election outcomes acceptable to the ultra rich. So there’s an unpleasant grain of truth in my joke.

the very fact that there is a big urban/rural cultural divide is one of the things killing America.

I agree wholeheartedly about the problem. But blind highest count vote on every topic is one of the big dividers between rural and urban folks.

Rural folks will simply never have the numbers to influence outcomes in a pure vote count scenario. They’re aware of this, and it leads to animosity.

Incidentally, I agree that financial decoupling would be ruinous for both, as well.

The real solution is represtational seats that give everyone a voice - no matter how the voting zone is divided.

I suspect that requires doing away with first-past-the-poll. The winner of that race will almost always be a city person, by raw numeric chance. That’s fine, city folks have some good ideas. The problem is when there’s no rural voice at the negotiation, at all.

And I think any sensible person realizes we also have to put a stop to all gerrymandering.

Also, we need to give seats to what remains of all of the first nations, while we’re at it.

This still has the representative issue that each of the narrow bands are narrow due to a huge metropolis within them, and the rural population of that band will always live with rules created by the metropolis for the metropolis.

It’s a pretty map, though.

And is still makes more sense than “carefully negotiated by powerful ultra rich a few hundred years ago to protect each of their giant egos.”