Fair point

A lot has shifted over time, but the default state of American politics has always been two dominant parties.

That said, I could absolutely see a scenario where an American centrist party forms, still solidly to the right of most Western democracy, but centrist by current local standards, which not only pulls in the non-MAGA Republicans but also moderate Democrats, blue collar Dems from purple states, and once it gains traction and wins a few races, massive support from corporations and lobbies.

They’d win landslide victories over both older parties, especially as progressives and leftists gained greater control of the Democratic party through the flight of the moderates to the new centrist party, which would in turn drive even more establishment Dems to the new party.

They could run on nothing more than “common sense compromise, unity, and moving beyond the partisan squabbling that has plagued the country for decades”, and be successful for at least 3 cycles before they even had to really take up any issues in earnest.

The deep South would stay red, the West cost, new York, and Illinois would stay blue, but I could see all of the mid Atlantic, Midwest, plains states, new England, and Southwest going for a viable centrist party.

For a long few years, national level politics would be absolute fucking chaos.

Oh I thought she was salty because they’d discovered her new bf

The only thing I know about vesicles is that microvesicles are gross… thanks to paleobotanist Dr. Ellie Sattler.

What little blue house?

I get the concern, and it’s a good concern to have when you’re talking about what would be such a huge shift in so many ecosystems…

…buuuuuut…

I have to believe this change would happen slowly… mosquitoes wouldn’t just go extinct over a holiday weekend. It’d take years, if not decades, of dedication to the eradication strategy and even then, certain populations may prove immune to the best efforts of science.

That being said, even if it did execute as planned, I feel like the gradual decline of the mosquito would coincide with a gradual increase in other invertebrate species that would fill that niche. So as mosquito populations slowly declined in a local pond or creek, you’d see things like say chironomids (midges) thriving with the reduced competition for habitat, and the fish that ate mosquito larvae replacing that part of their diet with more midges.

Not saying there couldn’t be other complications, but I don’t think we’d see results fast enough that we’d end up with a broken link of the food chain leading to ecosystem collapse.

I wouldn’t want to make martyrs out of them, which is what that would do.

Instead, have a significant law enforcement presence on standby, and if things go that way, call them in, and round up every single one of them, in the moment, and put them all in jail, pending prosecution.

Speedy trial, sure, but another event like that will easily take months for investigators to sort out all the details and build the state’s case against them. Meanwhile, they’re all sitting in cells, losing their jobs, falling behind on rent and payments, having things repossessed, bringing shame and embarrassment to their families, and just so the state can’t be accused of any sneaky legal maneuvers, their names and faces are to be plastered all over the media.

And bring reasonable charges, no plea deals or consideration of good behavior or lack of prior issues. When these people come out the other end of their sentences (years from now) make sure they have a nice felony conviction dogging any attempts to get their lives back on track for the next decade or three.

Make their actions and the consequences truly hurt. For them and their families. Make the spouses and children feel the pain, create resentment toward their flawed ideology that will last for a generation. And again, make it public. If these idiots want to overthrow our government, they don’t get to slink back into the shadows of whatever armpit they crawled out of for the next 4 years. Let the media hound them, cameras in the street in front of the house, investigative reporters digging up embarrassing details of how they lost their jobs, the whole nine yards. Make their lives suck bad enough that the neighbor’s wife starts telling her husband, “You can be pro-Trump all you like, but so help me, if you bring that shit storm to our family, I will divorce you and take the kids somewhere safe so fast your head will spin!”

In short, don’t make martyrs out of them, make examples out of them.

I’ve long felt that regardless of the levels of “we factored that into our results” that pollsters can accomplish, at the end of the day, these polls can only survey that demographic of “people who agreed to be polled”.

That being said, I feel that Trump gets a slight advantage in any advanced polling thanks to his cult of personality: between Trump and any opponent thus far, a greater percentage of Trump’s followers are more likely to be “loud and proud” enough to want to have their voice heard by a pollster.

I feel this effect is even more pronounced now, with a significant portion of the voting public falling into the camp of “conservative, but put off by Jan. 6th”. People who voted for Trump twice but who won’t this year. These people are also less likely to want to participate in polls.

Where I feel this effect may have tricky implications is whether they stick to their beliefs in the polling booth or just cave in the final moment and still vote Trump…or if they simply don’t vote at the top of the ticket (or vote 3rd party)…but still vote for Republicans down-ticket.

While I’m no pollster, I would not be surprised to find that Trump underperforms vs projections, even as the GOP overperforms in House and Senate elections.

Share your art, not your fart!

Which is why there should be legal mechanisms to place legal responsibility for decisions like this personally on those in leadership positions when they’re being made, even if those people no longer hold those positions.

You bet your ass the chucklefucks who came up with this little stunt would’ve thought twice about it if they knew that there was a decent chance they’d go to prison for it.

Also gotta make this shit sting the shareholders too: make the company pay the victims not only the estimated value of their data but also a portion of all profits made while a policy like this is in effect. Since there’s no easy way to tell how much money was made off their data, unless the company has the numbers, let’s say half.

Suddenly the quarterly report’s got a nice repayment shaped dent in its side and all the sudden the shareholders care about following the law and respecting the rights of customers.

The bounty is posted by Iran… wouldn’t it be better for everyone if we dropped him off at Tehran?

Maybe not the best parallel but a good point nonetheless.

A more apt comparison might be:

“What’s the best all-beef hot dog I can buy at my local supermarket?”

“Ugh! OMG! Don’t do that to yourself! Why would you even want to bother with eating beef if that’s the shit you’re going to put in your body?! Just get some Japanese A5 Wagyu ribeye and thank me later!”

Most jobs like that, or really any pay scheme other than piece work or an hourly wage usually has the process of:

1. You can take as much PTO as you like.
2. You can take as much PTO as you like…provided you get all your work done.
3. You work like a dog, get all your work done, and take time off.
4. Since you were able to get everything done and have time left over to not work, your boss increases your workload, so now you have to work like a dog, all the time, or else you’ll never get everything done.

It’s like playing chess, and while the other player can’t change the rules as they go, but a condition for playing with them is that they get two moves every turn.

Also, it’s not just targeted at people perceived as “other” in many of these traditionally masculine realms.

Often, it seems like so many of these men see patronizing and second guessing as the only ways to establish and defend their own credibility on their given subject. It’s not just the “oh it’s a woman/someone who doesn’t look the part…I bet they don’t know what they’re doing” factor, it’s also that they’re a product of the culture that tells them that the most important thing is that they’re perceived as more knowledgeable than anyone else, and that the only way to establish that is to have their own opinions and views on every subject in the field, and then aggressively defend and promote those views while dismissing, undermining, and discouraging any views that conflict with theirs…or the people who hold those views.

And it’s not just big picture “world view” type stuff. It’s crap like, “which brand makes the best widget in your hobby?”. If they’re a “brand red” guy, they feel the need to not only let everyone know that they like brand red…they have to let everyone know that brand red is the best, and that it’s objective, and that if you prefer brand blue, you’re just a clueless newbie who hasn’t learned yet. If you like brand green, well you’ve just been taken in by their marketing. And if you’re one of those brand orange people, well you know what they say about those people…

I like this one as well. Part of the reason I think this movie just works is because it doesn’t even try to be a gritty realistic action thriller adventure movie, but rather it instead combines larger-than-life, over the top action with a healthy dose of wise cracking, levity, and failures…just like an actual RPG session. It’s fun to watch but not mentally and emotionally exhausting like, say…a war movie.

Also wild seeing this…I had never heard of them till I started dating my gf. She and most of her friends are big fans and I just saw them live a few weeks ago.

Nope.

And even if it did, it was restarting itself anyway.

Bought a pixel 3 as soon as the 4 was released.

It was a fantastic phone… except for the two times it got stuck in a boot loop until the battery died.

Bonus points for the second time, when, thanks to a google update for emergency services, it decided it should dial emergency services every time it restarted…meaning I had to stay up until 330am that night, hanging up on emergency services, until the battery finally died.

A year or two ago, I bought a P7 Pro to replace it, hoping it’d have all the good of the P3, but with better camera, bigger screen, and no boot loop.

It is indeed bigger, the camera can zoom more, but isn’t necessarily better, there’s no boot loop issues which is great…but I find i have more cases of the phone locking up and needing a restart…and the in-screen fingerprint sensor (and gesture controls) are absolute hot garbage compared to the P3.

The fingerprint and gesture annoyances have been enough that my plan now, unless there’s something significant that changes things, is to go back to an iPhone for my next phone.

My thought is more along the lines of, “Regardless of his talent level, is this really the kind of person that his country wants representing them on the world stage?”

Like, okay even if he’s the absolute best by an order of magnitude…if he were from my country, I’d rather lose every match than win on the talents of someone like that.

Not only that, but there’s a 100% chance they sell this shit to you as a forever mouse, then in a few years if it’s not making them money hand over fist, they’ll discontinue it and keep your money.