Instigate

I really, really hope you’re right.

I dunno, the big males will also staunch you and try to throw down with some pretty nasty claws if you get too close to what they see as being their territory. They can kick like motherfuckers too by leaning back on their tails.

There was a big boy we called Ol’ Roger who used to live near my friend’s holiday house and when Ol’ Roger decided he wanted to hang out in the yard we made sure to give him a wide berth. He was about 6’6” standing upright; had ripped muscles like he had just got out of a 10-year stint in gaol; and always had a really mean look on his face. Thankfully he never got into any biff with us but there were a couple of close calls where people had to duck inside quick smart when he started heading towards them.

Even adjusted per capita (Aus population is 8%, or roughly 1/12, of the US), the difference in mass shootings is orders of magnitude.

Australia actually has a much less spread out population - more than 2/3 of our population lives in just five cities across the country (Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth).

Is that you, John Oliver?

You make a great point - not all of us have the same capacities and there need to be protections in place to prevent people falling for scams - but I just don’t know where the line is between personal responsibility and collective responsibility. Like, for society to function, we all need to assume some amount of collective responsibility to protect others but that can’t be at 100%. People need to take some amount of personal responsibility for their actions, otherwise we slide towards a society with no learning and no repercussions which is a recipe for disaster and collapse.

It’s a tenuous relationship, and extremely context-dependent, so I don’t think that there is an objective and quantitative answer to the question. Would make an interesting philosophical/ethical debate though.

That’s the heart of the meaning of MAGA - to take the USA back to days where there was no inclusivity or accessibility at all. The entire phrase Make America Great Again implies that things used to be great (before inclusivity and accessibility) and so they want to wind back the clock on everything. Civil rights; human rights; inclusivity; accessibility - all of these things and many more have been blamed for the state that the USA is in by politicians and talking heads to distract from the fact that it’s neoliberalism, kleptocracy and crony capitalism that have hollowed the country into an economic husk.

Hmmmm, Germany and Austria siding with Nazis? Now, where have I heard that before…

The Narcissist’s Prayer:

That didn’t happen.
And if it did, it wasn’t that bad.
And if it was, that’s not a big deal.
And if it is, that’s not my fault. <— we are here
And if it was, I didn’t mean it.
And if I did, you deserved it.

If the second-to-last box at the bottom had an honest message from the company:

“Did you know you could do all this in a way that’s cheaper for us while we continue to charge you the same price that we keep raising inexplicably so that we make more money? Just go to w-w-w dot…”

I grew up as a single child (boy) with a single mum for most of my life and that taught me all the life skills I needed to manage a home myself. In hindsight, I’m really thankful for that.

Communism doesn’t mandate a single-party government though. Single-party government is just authoritarianism. That’s why there are, and have been, communist parties in democratic countries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism

“Communism (from Latin communis ‘common, universal’) is a political and economic ideology whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange that allocates products in society based on need. A communist society entails the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state. Communism is a part of the broader socialist movement.”

By this definition, PRC is decidedly not communist as the common people do not own the means of production; products in society are not solely allocated based on need; private property exists; social classes exist; and money exists.

Whose definition of communism are you relying upon?

Salty Persimmons?
Spare Parts?
Significant Pasteurisation?
Salacious Pragmatism?
Seven Pills?
Settled Pieces?
Startled Poltergeist?
Scalded Privates?
Serendipitous Pimples?
Spelled Poorly?
Sour Plums?
Sexual Prowess?
Semitic Principles?
Santa’s Profile?
Sextet Polka?
Salmon Pendant?
Saucy Politics?
Schadenfreude Pig?
Smithsonian Pedestal?
Soggy Pants?
Small Penis?
Shouted Preamble?
Sorting Place?
Shifty Panda?
Spandex Poll?
Sentient Pentagram?
Silent Parable?
Stationary Pigeon?
Smelly Pugilist?
Shoddily Preened?
Starter’s Pistol?
Symbiotic Parasite?
Self-Preservation?
Synergy Pyramid?
Soot Pole?
Semblance Provider?
Scunthorpe Party?
Smashing Pumpkins?
Seaside Porgy?
Steely Pumpernickel?
Storage Purpose?
Seemingly Perfect?

We may never know

I withdrew $11 dollars from the ATM machine using my PIN number to buy some DC comics which I converted to a PDF format to view on my LCD display e-reader.

Thank you for that clarification; I was genuinely wondering why anything smaller than 2.5 millimetres would pass through an air filter! When it comes to filtering air, 2.5 millimetres is MASSIVE

To be clear, he wasn’t found guilty because it wasn’t a criminal trial. The judge ruled, on the balance of probabilities that it was more likely that he raped Carroll than he didn’t. That’s a different bar than for criminal trials which require that it is beyond a reasonable doubt that he raped Carroll.

Now my personal opinion is that he absolutely raped her beyond a reasonable doubt, and that he has definitely raped others on numerous occasions, but sadly those aren’t legal facts as he hasn’t been found guilty of them by a criminal trial jury or judge.

I don’t think that nobody will care, but I think the point you’re trying to make is that his supporters won’t care. That we can definitely agree upon.

I know exactly what you mean. When I (cis man) was freshly 18 in the 00’s I was indecently assaulted by an older woman in a bar when I walked past her and her group of friends and I never reported it. I have friends who experienced similar who never reported it either. When I told my friends that night what had just happened I was told I was lucky to be non-consensually grabbed by a woman. I tried to tell myself that was the case for a long time; it took many years before I came to realise that I was assaulted and, by that point, there was nothing I could do about it.

Not sure how it works in USA but can’t you elect to not have your employer withhold your taxes for you and then have to pay your annual tax in a lump sum at the end of the fiscal year? That’s part of standard HR taxation forms here in Australia and some people do it in order to invest what they would otherwise be paying in taxes then divest at tax time, pay their tax, and hold onto the capital gains from their investment that they’d otherwise not have had access to. Sure they pay capital gains tax on that but it’s still a net windfall if their investments accrue.

Musk is a piece of shit nazi whose public opinions are actively harming his companies, but let’s not get all puritanical about the use of drugs. Plenty of people use the drugs you’ve listed (and many more) and aren’t hateful fuckwads.

Coal is dying as an investment but existing coal plants will likely run for a long while.

I think that might vary from place to place.

Here in Australia our most recent new coal-fired power plant was built in 2009 and very many big ones we rely heavily on are already past their original planned lives. We’re lucky to have such good solar generation here though that even residential rooftop solar is kicking some serious goals but have been leaning more on gas for base load distribution (trust me, we’re not gonna meet our targets). Coal isn’t gonna last too much longer here, but we’re not gonna be carbon neutral for a VERY, very long time.