My cat’s name is Nancy Reagan. She’s almost lived up to it. And no, she doesn’t like you either and if you try to pet her you’ll get what you deserve.

Some cats have official titles. I had another cat whose title was “Chief Inspector.” He was known to do home invasions and conduct snap inspections of my neighbors houses. He had more friends in the neighborhood than me.

And it was obvious that they’d already decided to invade Iraq long before Powell’s infamous UN presentation.

Is it not the case that kale, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage are all basically derived from the same plant?

This is what I’ve been told, but I am very ignorant of such matters and while you will say that I can simply Google the issue, which is true, it’s never been enough of a priority for me to do so, goddammit.

As for Sequoia sempervirens or Sequoiadendron giganteum being forms of broccoli, I do in fact know enough dendrology to know that it’s bullshyte.

So in other words you are unwilling to answer the question.

Got it.

This is precisely why I say that you aren’t intellectually serious people.

This is a pleasant fiction.

And your point is?

Please do share an example of industrialization that somehow doesn’t include unforseen negative health effects.

Go on now, we’ll wait.

I’m GenX as well and I will straight up admit that my wife and I got lucky, purchased a house in a “distressed” neighborhood in Portland because it was all we could afford, and now, 20 years later, the neighborhood is fully gentrifying and our house and property is worth way more than what we owe on it.

I’m conflicted as to how to feel about it. While on the one hand we very innocently bought the place because it was in a shitty neighborhood and was all we could afford, on the other hand I now know that we were what the urban studies people refer to as “bohemian colonizers,” meaning that without knowing it, we were, by moving into the neighborhood as poor artist types, part of a much longer process of gentrification.

Again, I am of several minds regarding how I feel about the whole thing.

Where do you live that there isn’t?

Conversely, if you actually are an expert on a specific subject, reading any comment thread about it is very disheartening and will leave you wondering how much bullshit you’ve accidentally ingested and taken at face value from other threads about which you are less knowledgeable.

You know, that actually makes sense. 14-year-olds. It would explain a lot about hexbears.

Ah yes, the tyranny of small differences. Let us tear each other apart over this trifling distinction.

Fact; fascism falls under the larger umbrella of authoritarianism.

It was good when it had only a few hundred thousand users, but obviously you weren’t there.

I downvoted you for being a condescending piece of shit. Can’t speak for others. There was a way to make your point without being a condescending asshole, but that’s not what you chose.

It’s not just the US though. The European powers are far more firmly committed. It’s not at all clear that the rest of NATO will simply walk away if/when the US does. Especially the former Soviet nations; this is not a fucking game to them. The loss of US support would be huge, but I don’t see a universe in which the Europeans just roll over for Putin once the US loses interest.

K

Yeah, it’s so strange that people confuse you with a Kremlin bot when you repeatedly spew the same fucking bullshit talking points as the bots themselves.

Fully agree. Unfortunately we are a very small minority.

Meritocracy in the US is almost entirely a myth, outside of a few sports.

Free will as it’s popularly understood doesn’t actually exist.

Most shoes are bad for us and cause injuries over the course of our lives .

Man, a lot of you Americans need to unionize. None of this happens at my work and it’s precisely because we’re unionized and have a contract that specifically says that our employer is bound by strict rules. Granted, we don’t get a month paid vacation, but we can’t be denied time off, can’t be compelled to be on call, can’t be forced to work overtime and we have PTO accounts, healthcare and a pension that get paid into on a weekly basis.

We do use it where necessary; in science, engineering and the military, for example. Some of our imperial units suck, but others, like pounds and feet and inches are superior because they are more intuitive. The reality is that it’s a non-issue for most people and because of that we will almost always have some version of a mixed system, as do most of the other Anglophone countries.