My anecdote was unclear; I apologize. My parents suuuuuuck, are boring AF except as a case study of Conservatives, and their only contribution to the world will be their absence when they’re gone. My parents’ best friends were a lifelong exemplar on how to live life and leave things better,

Growing old is compulsory; growing up is optional. My boomer parent besties (Edit to clarify: the best friends of my lame-ass boomer parents) taught me that. They were awesome, hard-partying, and so full of life. They would take me for long weekends and vacations with them, doing fun shit including breaking his RC cars doing ill-advised shit. He was an EE for Phillips NA and she was an EE for IBM. We stayed in close touch until they died.

If my own parents are what adulthood looks like, nah, I’m good, thanks.

The comic book was an interesting premise and what-if. https://archive.org/details/robocop-vs-terminator-vol.-1

I agree that there was unfavorable media coverage of the Vietnam Conflict. There was also a fire hose of positive media coverage, as well as a very intensive campaign to conceal how badly things were going, along with a lot of disinformation around why the US was there in the first place. Hell, I recall reading newly disclosed details about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident not too long ago.

Anecdotally, my family were boat people fleeing the Communist regime. To this day, to a one, they are all hard-line Conservative, even when subjected to profiling under this administration. I like to think I’m somewhat informed and have certainly consumed a lot of media regarding the US and Vietnam. Somehow, I only first heard of the My Lai Massacre around 2005. Again, merely anecdote, but media control by the governments is a hell of a drug.

My original points stand: we get to Monday morning quarterback a lot of shit; better an imperfect ally than more enemies; and however long it takes for someone to come around, better that they come around than not.

You are using a modern, privileged metric informed by an intensive media penetration that was unavailable during the first three campaigns you mention, and only to a slightly higher degree in the last two.

Most enlisted I have known, and it’s a lot, thought they were defending the world from despots. Hell, even the officers I know initially thought they were serving the public good. The rest I know who don’t fit into that category just wanted to be able to afford college and a family.

And even if the Marine in the picture knows NOW he only served a bloodthirsty tyrannical regime, the fraternity of the USMC, the commitment to the Constitution… It’s some deep, deep connection. Even the most disillusioned Marines I know are still loyal to the Corps and the Constitution. Moreover, it is better that one realizes US hegemony later than never, yes? So how about we welcome those have opened their eyes and remedied their ways?

Or we can just keep shitting on allies and see how that works for us.

What were the handful of instances wherein violence wasn’t required to defeat fascists?

Result: there are 16 beans.

I have a hypothesis that the Nassau pirates were a successful socialist economy. The Flying Gang/Republic of Pirates was founded mostly from former privateers (legally sanctioned and “licensed” marauders). The democratic and socialist nature of the republic was a growing threat to royalty and the American ruling class, especially given that Africans could be full crew members and even captains with all the rights afforded those roles. Furthermore, European royalty and American capitalists were the only ones “allowed” to pillage native lands. The pirates were in turn sacking European and American ships of their ill-gotten and exploitative gains.

Having a socialist, comparatively egalitarian and equitable society amidst the Carribean sugar plantations was too much of a threat to the ruling classes. The pirates were ruthlessly pursued and purged from history. Sure, King George I (and some others? don’t recall) first tried to bring the Nassau pirates (back) into the fold with offers of amnesty. This is analogous to offering modern engineers well-paying jobs; most terrorists whose names you know start out as engineers*. The ruling classes first wanted to put the pirates’ skills to use for their own gain. Benjamin Hornigold was one who returned, hunting down his former peers.

*think about that the next time you run across a bored, disgruntled engineer

I find it very odd that books on the golden age of piracy all remark how the pirates supposedly kept no records, yet discuss at length how the pirates had healthcare, disability, pensions, equitable wealth distribution… these things all require assiduous record-keeping. And so my bullshitspiration is that there were records. But the campaign to wipe out the pirates was so thorough that we are now led to believe that the pirates were just brigands and chaotic anarchists.

Wait, you said a 1x can have a similar range, and then immediately followed up with:

you do have to sacrifice either a bit of top end speed or climbing ability

It is impossible for both statements to be true at the same time.

superior due to the narrow-wide chainring

Fully agreed. Narrow-wide rings are absolutely a boon to mountain biking as are derailleur clutches. And 1x is superlative for hard trail riding on that factor alone.

A factor in the issue I take is the proprietary nature of modern bike drivetrains. With older drivetrains, we could mix and match to our hearts’ content. But now, even within a component line, e.g. Deore XT or SRAM X[n], specs such as pull rates can be different even for the same cog count. “These are the only combinations of components we think you should use, and we will do everything we can to block you from customizing.” Shimano is especially egregious about this expensive mess, and they know it, which is why they tried to un-hash things with CUES.

Pretty much everything 3x9 all works together. Road derailleur and cassette with mountain crank and bar-end shifters? Sure! Gear range for days. I sincerely believe this is to sell more bikes. Want to climb hard pack and mixed surface? You need a gravel bike! Want to get groceries? You need a commuter or loaded tourer! Want to go on a fast road ride? You need a road bike!

It used to be really easy to build up a bike that could perform most bicycle functions well. Mixed-surface, loaded, commuter/grocery-getter, randonneuring, snow, rain, club rides… one bike with maybe a wheel change*. Good luck with that now. Gravel bikes are kinda filling that niche now, but the components and frame manufacturers are again trying to fracture that even further. The gravel drivetrain won’t have the range to cover all the use cases without a cassette or crank change.

Moar rant, moar example: my partner works in an LBS. We can literally afford to buy any bicycle we could want. She wants a general-purpose gravel bike, and it’s not even a case of “just spend more money to get these additional features.” Component selection on a pre-built, geometry, wheel selection… all tightly engineered to cover as few use cases as possible. Okay, we’ll build from a naked frame. Oh, the more racy geometry frames lack braze-ons and can’t fit a 50mm tire.

*It makes complete sense to have a full-squish mountain bike for the aggressive off-road stuff, and those bikes are necessarily different. Even for that case, I can hang with the LBS trail/flow rides on my do-almost-everything bike. My current do-everything took me more than six months to source compatible parts and troubleshoot. This used to be a matter of just pulling the trigger on the parts I wanted.

The root cause of what you describe is a build or maintenance issue. Properly built, tuned, and maintained bikes don’t drop chains.

Bicycle drivetrains keep getting more complex and expensive. A 3x9 drivetrain is beyond adequate, bulletproof, and inexpensive. But NooOoOoOooo, it’s nearly impossible to get a quality bike with 3x9 now, without a full custom, DIY build. Everything has to be 1x11/12, which is expensive, touchy, and very particular, all while still lacking the gear range of 3x9.

It all seriously sticks in my craw.

No paywall link: https://archive.ph/bn5e5

That’s your example of softcore porn? There’s much racier content on magazine covers in the grocery checkout line. Stop trying to impose your puritanical aesthetic on the rest of the world. It’s called /all for a reason. What’s wrong with you?!

Negative. I got mine at 23, but only because it took me five years to find a doctor who would perform it.

Good luck. Also, the recovery times are very serious.

And everyone is different (duh), but there has been a complete absence of regret. Added bonus: my partners have been very appreciative that the onus of birth control is not on them.

I see a lot of “For the PR” comments. This is only a fraction of why ads are purchased by utilities, large companies, and other entities with whom you never directly do business. The overarching reason they purchase ads is to have influence over narratives by those networks.

Source: used to develop software in the energy sector for a multinational; my employer and their corporate customers regularly bought ads to help bolster energy efficiency initiatives. These initiatives and interventions are frequently countered and opposed by exactly the corporate dickwads you think would oppose reduced consumer energy consumption.

CBL is one of my all-time faves! Add in Sync24, which is Daniel Vadestrid, AKA ½ of the studio lineup of CBL.

For the coffee drinkers: https://velo-orange.com/products/soto-helix-coffee-maker?keyword=coffee. We use these as daily drivers with a really good manual coffee grinder. Added bonus: our coffee can be about the same as we get at home.

• The United States is a righteous, fair, and just country.
• Success and a comfortable life necessarily followed hard, diligent, smart work
• Adults, by virtue of having been around longer, necessarily knew more and knew better than I.
• Socialism bad.
• All kids get beaten on a daily basis for transgressions such as a B grade on their paper, a speck of food still stuck to the dishes after washing, or for listening to music on the radio that their parents didn’t like.

Oh, yup! I totally missed the approximately sign.