Good for Japan I guess? It’s typically the Conservatives who elect women first, because those are usually the ones who so vehemently oppose a woman candidate. It’s a bit of mind fuckery.

Now let’s see if they either set her up for success, or if she’s out sooner than a head of hakusai.

Nero fiddled as Rome burned. The Germans pillaged Europe’s art. Bankers profited off the Great Recession. Orange man builds a monument to himself while shutting down the government.

A reckoning is gonna come.

4/5 - coming of age film about a scrawny, scrappy poor kid. Opening shot is a fight against other kids in a trailer park to level up in status. Or maybe even earlier to my mom standing there pregnant, and then her mom punching her in the stomach upon finding out her teen daughter, though as much as she had tried to shut her away, had somehow gotten herself knocked up. And then following the resulting trail of blood. Regardless, it starts out by getting the shit kicked out of me a few times.

Sprinkle in the multiple times I almost died, slipping on wet cement that had just been coated with muriatic acid, that time a demented kid tightened a noose around my neck, the countless nights I’d wake gasping for air with my chest heaving because we had a cat urine and roach problem and couldn’t afford an inhaler. That one time two girls thought it would be funny to see how long they could hold me underwater, at a pool, of course unsupervised, and only stopping just so as things faded to black and all I heard was this saint of a kid saying to them “Stop! He’s dying!” Nary a parent in sight.

The sex, the drugs the drinking all at 13.

The divorce, the handoffs from family member to family member moving each year. Finally settling into a mountain town in rural Appalachia. Having a town general store purveyor of goods taking me under his wing. Learning a passion for the outdoors and skiing.

Going mudding in a Honda Accord with a bunch of other delinquents. Going streaking after we got stuck. Flash forward to a court house and nearly going to jail for vandalism and other stupid teenage mistakes.

Going back to the area I was raised and finding that everyone had 2 kids and a drinking problem…or worse.

Flash forward to the struggles of leaving my past behind. Failing out of university after 9/11. Constantly watching those two planes smash onto the twin towers in a dark dormitory until it was etched into mind.

And then more struggle to leave my past behind as I sought out a soulmate. Dropping out of the Peace Corps due to it.

Quitting my job and finding a love for cycling. Being given a dog who hated wheels, but even she eventually fell in love with cycling. The smartest, best damn dog in the world.

Nearly dying another handful of times. Motorcycle in the mountain roads of Tennessee, more motorcycle, sliding in the snow with a big rig behind, that time wrecking it the one dumbass time I went for a joyride after drinks. Being on the 3rd floor of a house as it collapsed on a rainy day in high winds and walking out mostly unscathed.

Discovering a love for travel. Still trying to escape my past, but working on it, like really really working on it. I try not to die anymore.

Could call it something like “The dirtbag’s field guide to survival, part one.”

If Daria got a movie and it did pretty well, surely you can.

There are all sorts of classes available at top schools via opencourseware. You can take the highest tier courses that the US has to offer, and become educated. While not degree offering, it still would look great on a CV, if you can somehow prove you did the work.

Free books. A few years ago, I read a free electrical engineering book available on the internet, which I found fascinating. It has been a little helpful in practice as well, but I think it’s just cool to know how capacitors and motors work. Public libraries exist for a reason. Gutenberg is another option.

Many 2 year community colleges are now free tuition if you reside in the state.

And of course, there are still ways to get a degree cheap, if the paper is important to you. I finally landed at WGU 15 years ago and it was very reasonable, and has paid dividends on my original investment.

Greek yogurt, walnuts, craisins, pumpkin seeds, hemp hearts, chia seeds, maybe cinnamon, maybe a dash of honey, possibly some frozen fruit if I feel like waiting for it to thaw a bit. Coffee with a dash of oatmilk.

1. Amendment to get rid of gerrymandering. Districts will be drawn up by statistical models that emphasize culture, values, demographics of the district. Every citizen also gets a vote by mail ballot.
2. Amendment to implement sensible gun control. Not ban guns, as people need some way to fight back against a tyrannical government. And some people truly do need to keep themselves safe from wildlife, crime, etc.
3. Amendment to bring in Puerto Rico and Washington DC as states in the union. If Texas wants to split into East TX and West TX, I’m fine with that too.
4. Law to require 2 years voluntary service. Meals, food, housing, recreational stipend will be provided. Similar to CCC, you’ll learn a trade and build up a camaraderie that will last a lifetime. As a citizen in a country, you should have skin in the game, it gives you a sense of ownership . Bonus is infrastructure gets kept up and senior citizens are cared for. Volunteer groups can be unionized.
5. Gas tax goes up significantly. Seriously, Europe pays $8/gallon. Why the hell do we need to keep it at $3? Tax will pay to build out much needed public transportation and sustainable energy grid infrastructure. We need trains people. If China can do it in a country much more mountainous than ours, we can do it.
6. Wealth tax. Anything over $100 million earnings is taxed progressively at 70% anything above $1B is taxed at 90%. Tax on unrealized gains, but can be balanced by unrealized losses.
7. Abolish tax exempt status for churches. You can be nonprofit, but you will still be taxed. No more slave owning mega-pastors.
8. Amendment to overturn Citizens United. Political contributions will be limited. You want your money to be speech? Sure, do it the old fashioned way and convince enough people to align with your cause.
9. Federal Healthcare for everyone damnit! What the hell is wrong with us!?
10. Give more power back to the states. There will be some cohesive things that we all agree upon that keep the tether of our society together, but New York is not Oklahoma is not Colorado is not Alabama. States should have more power to govern themselves. Think of it like Catalonia in Spain or Scotland in UK. States are the test beds of democracy.

Would I get a second term? Hell no. I’m a change agent technocrat. People like a showman. There’s a reason city planners are divorced from mayors at the municipal level. I come in like a four mile freight train then I go home. Some populist demagogue would probably replace me.

South US, but in the mountains where it is much cooler. SO is vegetarian and I am an omnivore but skew vegetarian, especially at home. I leave heated things out to cool from hot to warm before putting in the fridge. About an hour, maybe 2 when I am being forgetful. Anything over that is taking risk. I’ve had a few nasty bouts of food poisoning before so I skew on the safe side.

My mom on the other hand grew up very differently. Lives by the beach in a much warmer more humid climate. She’ll leave moist dump cakes unrefrigerated for days. She’s more homeopathic than me, says the spices have been used for ages to preserve food. She’s not wrong, but you have to throw in a lot more cinnamon than what our Americanized palate is accustomed to. We are very careful about what we eat when we visit, and even then, small bites to try first.

I’m sure you’ve heard this so many times before. It’s not necessarily the bacteria itself, but their waste products that put you at risk. I’m not sure what the salt content of taco meat is, and if your taco meat is dry or wet, but I do think you may be putting yourself in this particular instance.

Federal workers will get back pay. You’re parroting the right’s messaging. People wanted the left to fight.

Because of how the people gave the right all of the levers of government last election, this is one of the few areas where dems have any power to wield - senate needs 60% to pass any funding legislation.

You wanted a battle, the dems took it to the mattresses. We should be praising them for being bold and we, the left, should be seeking out those government workers who are struggling the most and doing gofundme’s to care for them. This is a war and they are soldiers on the front lines, directly in the line of fire. We need to be their support regiment.

Conversely, the right needs to feel the pain of what a lack of federal government looks like, because a lot of them don’t value it at all, because they don’t understand how it serves them. They only see it as “protection money” that come out of their paycheck. For them, we need to find the union workers who left the left. We need to gain back the dirt farmers in Montana, the disenfranchised Hispanics in Southern Texas and in the burroughs of NYC and the suburbanite moms in Bucks County. Moreover, we need to fight like hell to show that we give a damn and have a spine and that we will, we will, fight for them.

It’s not too much unlike Obama. There’s going to be a power vacuum. I’m not saying Obama was a cult leader, but he was a cult of personality. He was able to rally the 3 major factions of the dem party behind him and bring in independents as well.

When he left, no one was left to pick up the pieces, and worse, he fostered so much animosity that we got the backlash that we are still dealing with today.

The left needs to rally and find their champion, just like the tea party did.

FIGHT LIKE HELL!!!

Consider Spain, Argentina, France, Italy, Libya, Panama, Syria, Germany

The only thing that works once these fools get entrenched into the political machine is a good old fashioned ass whoopin.

FWIW this is why I think it’s so important to keep the farmers and union workers on our side. They are the means by which everything else is built upon. If they’re on the other side, well then the machine can keep on grinding.

Man, Pavel is an absolute badass. How’s this fuckstick even getting traction at all?

Think of that one guy in the office who is just average. Does their job OK, but your life is better when you don’t have to interact too much with em.

Not really all that interesting to talk to. Maybe has some dull hobbies, probably not all that deep into them. Drives a midsize sedan or a minivan. Can do some household repairs so long as it involves a hammer or duct tape: Probably likes to mow the grass as a good pastime. Sits a lot, enjoys watching the TV. Hasn’t read a book in years.

Now realize that 50% of the population is him or worse.

Hell, 16% of people think nuclear war would be a good idea. So yea, morons.

This one goes out to you, Dan.

Here’s what I think I know, some may be wrong:

• It’s in the land of the Stans
• It has steppes, high mountains and high mountain deserts
• it has a bit of the Fergana valley, one of the fertile and most contentious valleys in the world
• the president is a dictator, but not as bad as Uzbekistan
• y’all make a giant dish that you all share and scoop with your hands
• you have a fermented sheep or goat milk drink
• you’re on the Silk Road and had one of the most populated cities in the world at one point
• some if the Turkic people moved to Turkey and Hungary, which is why those countries exist
• you really weren’t organized as a country before the USSR rolled in, more of loose group of regional leaders (I hate the term warlord)
• y’all are known for your horses

Porn. It’s going to be when they get rid of porn.

Also not where he got his start. Kimmel was on the Win Ben Steins Money game show before The Man Show and radio before that.

It’ll probably be turned into offices.

I agree with you that it’s a flex, but I think it’s to let Russia know that we mean business about them invading NATO airspace.