I’m equally perplexed. So tourism to places like North Korea or places in active war like Libya or South Sudan have gone up?

God damn, why am I not surprised that Republicans voted down a grant for counties to upgrade/improve/develop disaster response infrastructure.

Ahh, damn… Yeah, that sucks. Do you guys have HOAs, at least? I know they get a bad wrap, but properly run HOAs can be a large boon for unincorporated neighborhoods.

Have you called the police? They fucking suck, but even in legal states they still have city ordinances that don’t allow lighting off fireworks all night long. I know in the last city I lived in that allowed them, you had to stop by 2230 and they typically enforced it on every day that wasn’t the 4th of July. The city went on to eventually ban fireworks year-round except for NYE and a 2-week window around the 4th.

My point is, if your city doesn’t have these types of ordinances, you should rally local support to get them implemented. I guarantee you there are tons of people who feel the same as you about assholes lighting off big booms at 1am.

I think the begging for the job is more, “I need this to keep a roof over my head and put food on my table,” than any real desire to work at a soulless job.

Yeah, banning by IP from such a big website is pretty silly on the site admin’s part. Tons and tons of places share 1 to a small handful of IPs (e.g. apartment complexes, school dorms, etc).

For sure, I’m not saying that bugs aren’t important to the ecosystem. The way the article was presenting the information, it seemed like they’ve become much more numerous starting around 2022. To me, that indicates that the ecosystem there is out of balance (unsurprisingly, given that climate change seems to be the catalyst for this).

As a side note, I have a friend who lives in New Orleans. When she was telling us about the annual termite swarms, we were legitimately aghast, lol.

Did you see the pictures in the article? They’re blanket everything so thoroughly that the dude was able able to scoop up piles with a shovel. Feels like that is a genuine nuisance, as I can imagine they’d be clogging vents and other things with how intense the swarming is in some areas.

If it gets to the point where the States are withholding money from the federal government, I’d wager it’s because they no longer view the federal government as legitimate. I guess, good luck to the IRS trying to collect?

My wife has had to follow a low FODMAP and gluten free diet for the last 6ish years. It’s miserable and I wouldn’t wish such a vast allergy as this on anyone. I know there are plenty of haughty taughty vegans in this thread making jest, but these kinds of allergies fucking suck and I guarantee vegans consume shit that has these compounds without even realizing, since like you said, it exists in far more than just basic meat-based foods.

which is why big blue states like California and Illinois and Massachusetts and New York also refuse to implement the far more efficient and equitable public health reforms common to countries in Europe with much smaller GDPs.

Those states do have a lot of benefits for low income families when it comes to healthcare that red states don’t offer.

But a big reason they don’t do universal healthcare, aside from billions of dollars in insurance and healthcare capital lobbying politicians, is because you need all the neighboring states to also be on board as well. Why would it be beneficial for me to have universal healthcare if I live on the state border and work in another state? If I get hurt and I need to go to the ER in the other state that doesn’t have universal healthcare, I’ll be super screwed when the bill finally hits. I bring this up because people in the US travel between states quite often.

But aside from that, I’d argue the biggest issue is that even though California and other blue states have large GDPs, they don’t usually have much money to spare. The fact that the Federal takes so much money from regular people in addition to State taxes, it wouldn’t be feasible to offer universal healthcare without buy-in at the national level.

The simple fact is, the healthcare system is broken. Costs are so high because they’ve been able to get away with it due to millions of people throwing money into insurance and not needing to use their insurance the majority of time outside of routine appointments. As a result, these companies had billions just sitting around and for-profit hospitals knew this. As such, it’s become a greedy race to the bottom.

A typical surgery even 40 years ago would not drastically hurt anyone financially. Yes, technology and medicine has drastically improved, and correct me if I’m wrong, but fixing a basic broken bone hasn’t changed much in the last 50+ years. So why does getting a broken leg fixed now cost thousands of dollars when it used to only cost maybe a couple hundred?

Greed, is my conclusion.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 was the most creative game I’ve played in years and years. Amazing story, amazing characters, amazing art and world design, all topped off with a beautiful soundtrack. The gameplay was of course good-- not perfect–but, very satisfying when it hit its stride.

All that to say: Yes, I want more weird and creative games of that caliber. I haven’t played Death Stranding 2 yet, but I definitely plan to at some point.

The rich people live in non-polluted areas.

I think this is a large amount of the issue, along with what others have commented. There literally is.a hostile sentiment towards the “common/greater good” in the US if it means individuals have to sacrifice even a modicum of inconvenience. COVID and asking people to mask up was a perfect example of it in action. And that wasn’t even entirely a democrat vs red hat cult thing, though the cultists definitely were much more pissed off and loud about it.

Whenever I’ve rented from Enterprise here in the US, they explicitly do not charge you for simple scuffs/scratches that aren’t deeper than a specific amount (like 0.5cm or something).They’ve always told me they don’t charge for dents that are smaller than around 2-4cm in diameter. In other words, basic wear and tear on cars being used by hundreds of people over their rental lifespan.

If Hertz ultimately goes down this path and their competitors do not, I would almost guarantee they’ll lose tons of business.

Flock also said it launched a new tool that blocks impermissible searches in real time. “If a search involving Illinois camera data includes terms that indicate an impermissible purpose under Illinois law, the Illinois data will automatically be excluded,” the company wrote.

Lol, I feel like this can be easily sidestepped. ICE and the other fascist fucks enabling them don’t give a shit about laws anymore. They can easily just change the purpose of their search to be one of the legally permissible reasons. Flock is supposedly working on a tool to automatically flag suspicious searches, but I doubt they’ll work hard on ensuring it’s effective.

As much as I am loathe to abandon this kind of tech to help find missing/kidnapped persons/human traffickers, it’s way too easily corrupted when law enforcement is actively hostile to citizens no longer viewed favorably by the regime.

Oh I’m sorry, the Iranian government hasn’t violently put down any female civil rights movements there?

Yes, I pointed that out in an earlier response.

They never said Win 10 would be the last ever. That was an off-handed comment made by one of the developers during an interview that the media spread as an official Microsoft statement, which it wasn’t.

And yes, MS said the EOL was October 2025, but anyone that’s familiar with any of Microsoft’s previous software sunsets know that they always offer paid extended support. For example, Windows Server 2012R2 was sunset in what, 2023sh? But they offer paid extended support up to sometime in 2026.

Again, you’re ignoring that the IAEA’s entire purpose is non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Why deny compliance to third-party inspectors? If their endeavors were truly so innocent, then they had no reason to be uncooperative.

Sorry, I will not feel pity towards the Iranian government. I sympathize for their people, but their government can shove off.