The term “flashpoint” has nothing to do with assigning blame. It just defines an event/place where things kicked off into something way bigger. If WW3 started due to a strike on Taiwan it would be accurate to refer to Taiwan as a flashpoint, because the conflict in Taiwan would be the origin. I don’t see how any of that takes away from China being the aggressor, or why the conflict would happen.

I get wanting to make it clear China is the problem here, I agree, but we have terms that refer to things objectively for a reason. You don’t have to say everything at once with every sentence.

I don’t think it would prompt some kind of vindictive vote. That side of it is only going to energize those who were vehemently republican anyway. Republicans would hammer on any and all sympathy they can eke from having their candidate assassinated (regardless of the truth they will say it was the left, and at best people will think the guy was just crazy), and the average person only half paying attention will eat it up. Dems would be even more hamstrung in their rhetoric against the GOP considering the gravity of an event like that. Even with that aside, they’re now running Joe Biden against whichever face the GOP tells their voters to line up behind – who you can bet will be all in on the kind of stuff that will do even more lasting damage to our country. Biden is not a strong candidate, and without the uniquely unlikable personality and character of Trump I’m not sure there’s enough motivation amongst voters to carry him to another term.

But all of that was a lot to type, so I just said it would give them a massive boost

I tentatively agree. The man himself I have no sympathy for, but an assassination of presidential nominee would have made everything even worse. GOP would get a huge boost, and could replace Trump with someone that is actually competent enough to fully implement their 2025 treason-esque bullshit. Not to mention how much that would have inflamed an already looney tunes level of political discourse.

It’s also just not how we should do things in America. Call me a hopeless patriot, but we should try to live up to the ideals we espouse.

People who’ve never lived in Texas really don’t get it. Everything is spread out to an almost ludicrous degree. I drive an hour to get to my friend’s house, and I don’t even consider him to be far away. We both live in the same metroplex.

Public transportation is almost complete failure here due to not being prioritized, and driving anywhere is a pain in the ass with drivers from all over just winging it on congested streets. Don’t even get me started on overpriced tolls that have become the only reasonable way to travel 30min+

Texas is not ok.

I haven’t seen it because I have the opposite problem.

I can relate to that. I’m one of those people who won’t even squash bugs, and even heavy-handed, poorly written emotional moments in movies can make me tear up because I’ll inevitably find something in there that speaks to me. Shits wild compared to my friends and family

It’s the use of “rigged” that throws me. I agree money in politics is bad, and adds improper influence and incentive into the whole thing. That is not the same context that we have widely seen “rigged” used in the last 8 years. The term brings to mind GOP lies about election integrity, and bogus claims of fraud.

If this was just someone I was talking to I would brush the statement off as bad word choice, and move on if there was nothing else. With it being a statement after an election loss from someone with political experience I struggle to let it slide. Word choice and presenting ideas/policy is a major part of the job she is running for, and I think such poor word choice in a statement she had every opportunity to proofread and consider is worthy of some criticism. Doesn’t make her an election denier, or anything of the sort, but it does warrant a little slap on the wrist from the public.

Overall she’s right, but there were many better ways to say it.

It’s really about the lack of context. Its fine if the focus was on a minority of idiots, but you should also be reporting how insignificant the support is in general and an objective look at why they’re there. I don’t have faith in most 24/7 media to do that.

I could see it working as an animated “job of the week” sitcom style show about a team of DRG miners. There’s nothing about DRG that ties it too strongly to the concept though. You could just make a show about space dwarves without any mention of DRG, might even be easier without whatever “lore” the game has in place (I like the game a lot, but if there’s a story I haven’t found it).

You’re gonna get a lot of different answers. The primary issue we’re facing with the border right now is not so much an unprecedented wave as much as it is an overloaded asylum system. Due to how we handle claims and the lack of manpower, individuals who may eventually be denied asylum are living in the US (still unable to legally work, I believe. Someone might check me on that) for years awaiting a trial date. Republicans are tackling this issue by focusing on solutions to non-existent problems, or are tossing the issue out when it seems the outcome might benefit democrats (i.e. no border bill, because then Dems can rightfully run on progress with the border issue). Dems have kicked this particular can down the road for a bit, and recently made a good faith effort in the Senate to construct a bill that would have addressed the actual pressing issue (the degree it would help is debatable, but it was objectively progress). That bill was killed by republicans for the aforementioned political reasons.

Not a landlord, but I had a similar excuse thrown at me by a dealership. Towed my car an hour for a recall to a college town because everywhere else was booked for a while. They did close to $1000 of unauthorized work and then threw a fit when I told them I would not be paying for it unless they could show me a signed document where I agreed. When they realized I wasn’t a broke college kid after I threatened legal action and to report my car stolen if they were not willing to give it back, I got the “this was a misunderstanding, it never should have went this far” from the owner who had just called me a liar 10minutes prior. Such obvious BS

Interestingly enough, 2/3 of those are subs I dropped within the last year or so based on a lack of quality/content for what they cost (never bothered with ESPN, NHL games are easy to find). Seems like streaming is starting to collapse a lot quicker than TV did.

It worked incredibly well from my perspective. Pretty much everyone I know that watched either show would watch both as a single block. I remember Colbert and Stewart doing little bits between the shows as well sometimes. Back-to-back was honestly a fantastic idea.

Biden needs to send the Army in and take over the Texas Border enforcement.

He legally can’t. He is not able to unilaterally use the military as a domestic police force. This keeps the executive from using the military as their personal cudgel.

I agree with the strong arming via national guard though. I think there are some hoops, but there’s absolutely plenty of precedent for a president taking command of a state’s national guard (specifically in regard to border control as well).

Yeah, I’m right there with you. He came up in a conversation over the holidays and I had to go through how in my opinion he had potential to be one of, if not the best, comic of his generation and he squandered it by needlessly punching down and taking oddly vindictive stances. Maybe this is always who he was, but I think the fame and frustration that came with how his career played out changed him.

I can’t reconcile the Dave from old interviews and shows with this one, and it’s kinda sad.

It’s a skill issue. It’s takes intelligence to conceptualize an issue or idea without accepting it. Seems many people talking about Israel/Palestine (in terms of everyday people) just aren’t bright enough to break it down for themselves.

The whole thing is a legit clusterfuck. Israel has been commiting war crimes against Palestinians for as long as I’ve been alive, and Palestine’s de facto government is a legit terrorist organization who has done some unforgivable things. In the middle you have everyday people suffering for no reason beyond being born in the “wrong” place, and being further radicalized by unconscionable IDF actions. There’s no good guy on either side (in terms of those capable of taking action on a collective scale), and that breaks the brains of some. People ignorantly want a cut and dry solution, and a bad side to rail against, much more than they want to actually understand the issue and it’s causes.

I’m not sure the comment calling for regulation is a corporate shill. It’s a pretty level-headed look at things imo, because the truth is YT cannot afford to operate for free. We live in a system that just doesn’t allow that, for better or worse. Unfortunately, the way we went about funding things on the internet (outside of ridiculous amounts of capital flowing to startups for years, which doesn’t really apply to YT/Google) was ads, and they have gotten wildly out of hand. This is on top of an insane amount of data harvesting. We have to face the reality that any major, data-heavy platform like YT is going to need significant revenue.

We need a solution to either lower the cost of (opening things up for individuals to host), or more efficiently fund, services we like if they’re going to stick around in the current state of the world. Even if we say “google can eat the cost” we’re still putting all our faith in the goodwill of an entity that is designed to do the opposite of what we’re asking. That’s begging for issues.

Peer-to-peer stuff is the best solution I’ve seen, or self-hosting. I’m far from an expert, but from what I understand the tech just isnt there yet for it to become the norm. All that data has to go somewhere, and storage is prohibitively expensive at a certain point.

The way nasa puts it in layman is if Earth was a nickel, Pluto would be about the size of a popcorn kernel. So not quite as small as this picture makes it seem, but still tiny compared to the other planets.

I like Pluto though, let the little guy play planet.

How do you factor in the overabundance of cheap, nutritionally fucked food, and how that may affect those living paycheck to paycheck? It feels odd to recognize it’s a problem, but then also claim obesity is an absolute failing that should be universally shamed.

Side note, as a nurse I’ve seen patients who are obese because of circumstances and medical issues. Someone who has to work two jobs, has a kid, and newly discovered hypothyroidism is not obese because they don’t care. They have a medical issue and no extra time/resources to compensate for it with a refined diet and exercise (especially considering one of the most common symptoms of hypothyroidism is fatigue). You’re not even factoring in the undiagnosed, or those who don’t have access to sufficient healthcare.

My overall point is if you’re targeting obese people specifically, you’re not on the right track.

I think it’s just something people are sensitive about, and understandably so. Most obese people (by choice; i.e. self admittedly just have a bad diet and sedentary lifestyle) I know are never really offended by memes and consistently express a desire to do better. Fact is fixing the problem is genuinely difficult once you pass a certain point, as it requires a dramatic lifestyle change. Anyone who says that is easy is full of shit.

I avoid jokes like that mostly because it feels like punching down on people who are not happy with their health/weight and struggling to fix it. Especially when it’s the typical low hanging fruit, it’s just not fun when the joke makes me feel like kind of an ass.

Well, you can definitely narrow it down to what you want to read and talk about. I’m interested in doing that with politics (US), and I’m very far away from any kind of PR or marketing person. People can genuinely want to talk politics, it’s not always a corporate conspiracy.