Gonna ruin me, but seconding. Brick in the window video?

You’re right. I forgot about that. It was glorious.

When was the off? Motherfucker has been daily news, even during biden’s term. Fucking news can’t stand a day with out him. He was right about at least one thing: he’s good for ratings.

I’m so fucking tired

Reminds me of that scene from the emperor’s new groove

“Tell us where they are and I’ll burn your house down!”

“Don’t you mean or?”

Oh shit. I didn’t know that was illegal. I worked security in several hotels in the Knoxville and tricities TN areas, and probably 3 out of 10 of them did this. Mostly upscale hotels.

For what it’s worth, you’re objectively correct, regardless of what anyone else says. The majority of the country didn’t vote for him, and yes, inb4 “not voting is voting!” The people who didn’t vote are making a civic choice, and that choice lead to a trump presidency. But it doesn’t mean those people wanted him, or like him. It means they were politically un/underinformed, or didn’t want to have to make a choice between fascism and slower fascism (I hated making that choice, voted for Kamala). we are a nation of 340 million people. 75 million voted for trump. That’s 22%.

There’s your number. 22% of the US wanted this guy. Anything else is speculation. The only thing we know is that 22% voted for him.

Give Americans a politician worth voting for, someone with a backbone who believes in the universal right to healthcare, childcare and all the other things industrialized countries have by this point, and who doesn’t believe a little genocide is okay, as a treat, and you’ll see a different fucking result.

In other words, to my dear European friends blaming every American for the act of 22% of us, if we had a politician to vote for who would even try to give us 1\10th of what you already have maybe more people would have gotten off their ass and voted. But our elections have a different fucking vibe. We’re not fighting to keep what we’ve got here, we’re fighting to get some level of human decency so that we won’t have to watch our parents work into their late 80s with 3 days of sick time per year, and then die sleeping on the sofa in our living rooms because God knows their can’t afford to keep their house in this economy.

I can’t really speak for 41 million people

Of course you can! Just say it louder than other people, it works for politics in the US…

Yeah, I was familiar with, like, the nuts and bolts part. It was the emotional reaction, I guess, I was looking for. So most people just don’t have a problem with it?

In the us, we used to not be able to vote for senators. We elected the house, and the house elected the senators, and that shit didn’t fly. Lol. One thing about Americans, we want to have opinions on shit. Even when we shouldn’t, we gotta voice ourselves. If we tried to switch to a Westminster system here, people would be up in arms about not being able to vote directly for the PM, like we were about senators. Even if it’s a better system. It’s not the greatest trait our country has.

Question from the American here. Does it ever bother folks that you don’t get a direct say in who the prime minister is? It’s a superior system to the bullshit we’ve got going on down here, and clearly, being able to directly vote for the head of state/government doesn’t guarantee shit, I’ve always felt like it not being able to choose the PM was kind of shitty

Yeah, you nailed it. Obvious in hindsight, but until this I had just assumed it was accurate, like, even if everyone wasn’t counted, I guess had I been pressed, I would have assumed there was some formula or something to account for the uncounted or some shit. Kinda wild

Also, village isn’t a word we really use in the US, but now that you say it, I guess that’s kind or exactly what it is. A little village of insane, isolated, meth makin’ hillbillies up in the woods that aren’t accessible by road.

Obligatory it’s bullshit, will never happen, et cetera preface…

The problem with splitting it into multiple states is that each new state would get 2 senators. Our house is capped, the amount of reps we have is how many have, which means they can fuck around with the numbers a bit and potentially take democratic seats away to give to state of Canada, but with the Senate, if it were to split it into 10 new states, we’d have to add 20 additional senators, all of whom would be Democrats (or, at least, most of them). Some of the Canadian parties might last for a bit, but eventually the two party would take over, and they’d all become Democrats, and it would fuck the Republicans. Better to keep it as a single state, do some fuckery on who loses seats to add Canadian reps to the house, and only add 2 senators. Much easier to buy 2 senators than 20.

But honestly, the smartest route would be to make Canada a territory. No senators, no reps, no voting for president. But still citizens. Give it the Puerto Rico treatment.

I personally know of ~400 people who are absolutely not counted on any census and I’d be willing to bet not included in any population stats. Whole town up in the mountains. I’d imagine if that can happen in the us, it’s not unlikely to happen elsewhere, so sure… But when they do the whole earth population calculations, I always assumed they just checked in a few extra people to account for, like, uncounted towns and shit

“The Canadians are mutilating children. They’re cutting their genitals off, and forcing them to live as the opposite sex. They’re brainwashing children into thinking that this is normal, that it’s good. A cult of child predators has taken over the government in Ottawa, and they’re using their power to mutilate, to brainwash, to destroy children and families. And some of them speak French!”

And that’s all it will take to get plenty of soldiers on board. Whether or not the US can hold Canada I don’t know. A Canadian friend of mine seems to believe not. But getting violent, hateful, transphobic bigots to sign up? It’s that easy. Hell, most of em might not even be service members. Just happy bigoted volunteers, crashing the border and setting off fertilizer bombs attached to department store drones, all for the simple joy of “owning the libs” and “protecting the children”

“The Canadians are mutilating children. They’re cutting their genitals off, and forcing them to live as the opposite sex. They’re brainwashing children into thinking that this is normal, that it’s good. A cult of child predators has taken over the government in in Ottawa, and they’re using their power to mutilate, to brainwash, to destroy children and families. And some of them speak French!”

And that’s all it will take to get plenty of soldiers on board. Whether or not the US can hold Canada I don’t know. A Canadian friend of mine seems to believe not. But getting violent, hateful, transphobic bigots to sign up? It’s that easy. Hell, most of em might not even be service members. Just happy bigoted volunteers, crashing the border and setting off fertilizer bombs attached to department store drones, all for the simple joy of “owning the libs” and “protecting the children”

D:

What? I had no idea! I manually migrated my subscriptions over when I switched!

It was hard for me, so I vote everyone must manually do it, for character building or some such bullshit.

I always mention whenever I see libro.fm brought up: if you don’t have a local store you want to support for whatever reasons, Firestorm in Asheville, North Carolina is a fantastic refuge for the local queer community, it’s a worker cooperative, and they’re struggling to survive. Please consider them if there isn’t another local place in your own community. With the big book stores and then Amazon, a lot of communities don’t have a physical local shop anymore, so if someone has a plug for their local, I think it’s worth making on these kinds of threads.

Thing is, I only had a minor sore throat for like 24 hours, with a couple white spots, and honestly, I just thought the sore throat was from some, uh, recreational activity the night before. But I felt just awful and flinchy* for several days, then I got these red bumps all over my back and shoulders, and then almost died.

*I get flinchy when I have a fever or get sick. Something touches me and it’s like my body jumps or flinches and I don’t understand it at all. It’s happened my whole life, but about 6 months after the scarlet fever I got mono, and got super flinchy as well, and now that’s just a thing that happens to me now, where my body involuntarily flinches whenever anything touches it. It’s not all the time, but it’ll do it for several days with no reason, and then not again for months. Doc doesn’t know why, but guesses it’s because the mono virus sticks around in you forever, and it’s just an after effect. Says hopefully it’ll go away eventually, but it’s been like 5 years, and every so often (coincidentally happening the last couple days) I just suddenly become a scared Chihuahua or some shit

TIL why my mom always checked my throats for spots whenever we mentioned any kind of not feeling well. First thing she did. I always assumed it was just a strep thing, but she grew up in a time when measles was still an active threat. I just remember white spots in the throat being the biggest thing. No white spots, go to bed. White spots, go to doctor.

Fun fact: I ignored that advice in my late twenties and ended up with scarlet fever. Like a fucking Victorian child. Didn’t even know scarlet fever was still a thing.

Computer, arch.

Computer! Arch!

Computer! Exit this hell hole! Arch!

… Why am I never in a holodeck when I wish I was in a holodeck