True about the pay.

In general I just feel like our representatives are too far removed from the people they’re supposed to serve.

Here in Canada, we’ve had a couple of floor-crossers from the Conservatives to the Liberals, and social media is up in arms about how that shouldn’t be allowed. “We voted Conservative, not Liberal”. Whenever someone points out (and rightly so) that in the parliamentary system you’re voting for an individual, not a party, they freak out and say that’s not how it works.

They fundamentally have no idea how a representative democracy is supposed to work.

A part of that comes from an American culture bleeding up into Canada a bit, with people thinking they vote directly for the Prime Minister the same was Americans directly vote for their president. But a bigger part of it is that those representatives spend more time in Ottawa than in their own ridings. And if a representative loses their seat in an election, they can just pick a different riding where they don’t even live and run again. It’s ridiculous.

Basically democratic socialism but with a few rules:

1. No billionaires. After 500 million, it’s taxed at 100%
2. No Corporations. Private business ownership only. No Shareholders or Hedge Funds. Basically no wall street.
3. Lobbying on behalf of an industry is banned.
4. No party “whips” that exist to make a representative vote the party line even if they’re personally disagree with the party on that particular issue. Representatives need to truly represent their constituents, not their party. In fact, fuck the entire concept of “party politics”. Ditch it.
5. By law, a representative has to have actually lived in their riding for 5 years or more.
6. Representatives are required to spend at least 80% of their time in their constituency, in their office. It’s a 9-5 job. No more of this showing up to vote bullshit and then fucking off to Mexico. You serve your constituents, and your job is to be in your office to listen to them tell you what they want 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. Otherwise, what do they pay you for?
7. With the exception of meeting twice a year in person, most bills in congress/parliament are able to be done completely virtually. The representative studies the issue, consults with his constituents and votes accordingly. They do so without any input from their so-called peers. The only input they are allowed is from their constituents and legitimate experts in whatever field they are looking into.
8. Representatives have a strict two term limit and an age limit.
9. At any point, your constituents (and ONLY your constituents) can trigger a recall election due to no-confidence.
10. You’re a “servant of the people”; not the other way around. You get a working man’s salary; enough to live and a small dispensation for travel expenses, office staff, etc… But using your position to enrich your own personal wealth is grounds for an immediate arrest.

Someone: “Hey, how old are you?”

Me: “I’m ‘Tia Carrere was a thing’ years old”

Someone: “Shiiiiiiit”

My desktop that was powerful enough to do most things died a few months ago at the worst possible time; it came on the heels of emptying a lot of my savings on vets to find out that my girl had advanced bone cancer, and then even more on sending her over the rainbow bridge and getting her cremated.

So both as a way to save some money and a way to keep my mind off of her, I’ve been putting together a new computer using a few spare parts that I have had laying around. Truth is, my old computer, though old, had been upgraded up the wazoo through the years to the point where most of that stuff could just transfer over (750 watt powersupply, Nvidia 3060 12gb card, max amount of RAM that it could take, etc…)

All I really needed was a new mainboard and processor. As long as I bought a used one that used DDR4 instead of 5, I already had everything I needed.

The “Project” is adapting my second-to-last PC case to accept newer components. (upgrading the front USB ports, things like that) Because it’s an OEM Acer case, I can’t simply order in an upgraded swappable unit, so I’m having to get creative with soldering.

It’ll probably fail and I’ll have to buy a new case too, but oh well. It’s fun to try. I have so many old computer parts laying around, let’s see how Dr. Frankenstein I can go.

Nope. Not broken. Just feeling very safe and contented.

Having a dog sleep like this in your house is an honour. You’ve done a great job and your pupper is telling you they appreciate it.

Lost my soul-dog to bone cancer at the end of February.

R.I.P. Ripley. Love you, baby-girl.

Let’s start with everything and go from there, shall we?

Exactly.

What an idiotic take.

“Celebrity” worship has existed since the dawn of cinema. Star Power is what brings people into the theatres.

People have always wanted to know all the salacious gossip about their favourite celebs, and that’s what makes Hollywood go around; they want to fell like they “know” their favourite actor/director etc…

For example:

• The only reason anyone remembers "Mr. And Mrs. Smith is because its the movie that gave us Brangelina and broke up Pitt and Aniston.
• “The Whale” was a mediocre movie at best that won awards in part because of Brendan Frasier’s comeback after being shunned in Hollywood.
• Martin Sheen being legitimately drunk and cutting open his hand created an iconic scene in Apocalypse Now.

I could go on and on. Point is, actors being themselves into the roles that they play.

You can’t replace that with soulless homunculi that have no life off screen.

Corporations are not your friend. Ethics plays no part in it. It’s economics. If they price themselves out of the competition, that’s their problem, not yours.

Can anyone make out what the piece of paper says?

I vote the Fediverse just invents it’s own fake language, like Esperanto, or French.

No one can tell me that Leavitt wasn’t desperately trying to avoid winking when she said “shots will fly”. That smug look on her face said everything.

They’re super confident and cocky in their incometence. And why wouldn’t they be? No one…literally NO ONE…has called them out on it.

He’s just thinking 'Hey…if she takes a shot to the belly, it’s an easy abortion for Elon’s latest bastard child"

Favourite: Chick Peas

Least: Fava beans

Wasn’t it leaked in a memo that Trump was planning some kind of “confrontation” at the dinner?

Is anyone stupid enough to believe this asshole?

Anything by Bear McCreary.

Black Sails is my personal favourite.

https://youtu.be/XFTcA4QLHw0

But, welp, it’s been a long while since I tinkered with Kerbal Space Program.

My desktop went to the big compost bin in the sky a couple of months ago and I’m just about at the point where I’ve saved enough for a replacement, and KSP is literally the first thing I’m itching to dive into when I do.

In both models, the rings are way to small. The speed at which they would need to spin would create an unacceptably large imbalance between the gravity at the person’s feet and the gravity at the person’s head. You’re astronauts would be puking 24/7.

Exactly. I think this is what we’ve fundamentally lost in our communities. People helping neighbours.

We’re all taught to distrust one another and to be self-sufficient, but that’s never how our society evolved in the first place. Cities evolved because cooperation was needed. Division of labour, etc…

I’m lucky that I live in a small city that still mostly has some of that going on. But it’s getting more rare every year. Elderly lady that lived across the alley from me had too small a backyard for her usual garden, so I said she was free to use mine because I wasn’t needing the space for anything. In return, I got to know my neighbour, and I got veggies come harvest time. She unfortunately passed away two years ago, and the young family that bought the house…haven’t even met them yet; they ignore eye contact whenever we’re both outside.

Maybe I’m just weird because I grew up in the country. We had a small acreage within a cluster of small acreages. And we all knew each other. The family down the way was a mechanic looking at our vehicles for us. When hay baling needed to be done, we would all pitch in and help. My dad was a construction worker, so he’d go help the neighbours build stuff. It’s just how it was for us.