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.

Weapon degradation seems to be a serious and genuine complaint that a lot of people have with BotW and TotK but for some reason it never seemed to bother me as it has others. I totally understand the criticism but frankly I always had a full stock of good quality weapons - particularly with the Fuse function in TotK - and never ran low or out of decent weapons on hand.

I think they were implemented to try to force gamers to think about other options to take down enemies rather than brute-forcing every battle which appeals to me, but it seems to have angered a significant proportion of people. From my perspective, it helps to engender the puzzler aspect of Zelda games in a novel way - viewing battles as a puzzle to be solved for maximum efficiency rather than how well you can strike and dodge.

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.

Yeah, this is the right way to go about it. Don’t hold onto your big hit song for the encore. I’ve been to shows where they did the fakeout standard encore leaving the stage and the crowd stayed pretty quiet; then they had to sheepishly come back onstage to little applause to play the big hits.

Artists should prepare an encore in case the crowd wants it, but don’t hold onto your big songs for that - encores should be deep tracks that are rarely played or acoustic/re-arranged versions of popular songs. One of the best encores I saw was Devildriver (heavy/death metal band) whose encore consisted of a three-song acoustic/piano medley. Super cool way to end the night!

Essentially, yeah! There were three driving modes - kart, hovercraft, and plane. Some tracks only allowed certain driving modes and you would pick your driving mode before the race started. It was pretty novel for the era!

I’m surprised no one has mentioned The Brak Show! That was definitely one of my favourites back in the day.

Diddy Kong Racing was the best racing game of this era and yes, I am most definitely willing to die on this hill.

The Israeli government didn’t, but the Israeli population did. The strongest argument the public was making against the war was to bring the hostages home. Now that they’ve got that they have a much larger domestic social licence to continue the genocide. It was a real ‘rock and a hard place’ decision for Hamas given that Trump began alluding to the idea that the US would directly enter the war somehow if they didn’t agree to the plan.

The important part is that the protests are carrying weight with other people who care. The protests have been getting bigger and bigger, and when someone who cares about the cause but doesn’t show up sees this it gives them more imperative to show up too next time. The larger the protests get, the more likely that it will lead to a general strike, which is what will make a very big difference. Once the billionaires and centimillionaires genuinely feel like their profits are being threatened, they’ll pull the administration’s strings.