From a philosophical standpoint beauty correlates to veracity ( / validity / authority) is a principle. Just not one that serves very well, IRL.

I will seek the best interests of beautiful women in order to increase my chances of mating with them is a valid survival strategy. I’d argue it’s a better one than those strategies expressed by folk in the alt-right (incels, gamergaters, the manosphere, alpha males, etc.)

…guns dont fire accidentally

Oh yes they do, and its a contingency in any theater of war. New guns are required to be safer but old guns that are less safe still exist and are in use. I was raised shooting guns well older than I was…or am.

And they can misfire which often means clearing a cartridge that might still go off. Fun times.

Depending on the state. In some states, you haven’t committed a crime until the weapon is discharged, and then not a seious one until it hits something important. But that can change based on the race and circumstances of the gunman. Most counties really don’t like black men carrying guns.

I’m worried you’re going to accidentally kill someone or shoot your femoral artery. No one is perfect.

This ismwhat I was taught handling firearms in thr eighties. So imagine my surprise and distress seeing the police lines during the Ferguson unrest standing or walking with their guns pointed at the crowd. One unintended discharge by law enforcement could have been disaster.

We’ve gone batshit bizarro regarding guns in the US.

Thank you for reminding me of one of the best ad campaigns ever! ( on YouTube )

I’d assume middle school teachers are fairly cringe just for being middle school teachers but if one is trying to learn the new lingo, at least they’re trying to communicate.

Then again, I was a Trekkie misfit in the 70s and 80s when we didn’t have TNG yet, and was commonly regarded as skibidi ohio.

Also, to be fair, Ohio was cringe and weird in the 1960s, especially after Kent State and CSN made Ohio into a folk song, and it’s lit if that’s where Alpha vibe gets its cred.

Abre a cortina do passado
Tira a mãe preta do cerrado
Bota o rei Congo no congado…

We the public have to keep making better ad blockers that better detect ads and prevent them from being displayed (or in some cases, activating their malware payload).

YouTube is trying to either detect ad blockers and deny service, or change the insertion paradigm so that ads cannot be blocked. We cannot let them succeed doing either.

If a guy likes the d but identifies as straight, then yes, he’s straight.

If a guy likes the d (and less so the v) but also musicals and brunching and still identifies as straight, then he’s straight.

At very least, the closet continues to be a necessity for some folk in intolerant circumstances.

Identity is something one works out for themselves. Heck the Kinsey scale implies almost everyone should be bi, (even if not very bi) and yet our booleanist society seems to want to categorize only Kinsey-0 as straight (with everyone else as Oh-So-Gay).

So about the Ohio pet eating, the first thing that made me ❌ Doubt is that we (folks in western civilization) eaten cats before, and they are desperation food world wide. Captured cats turned into food was called roof rabbit during the London blitz. There’s little meat to bone, and reports say it’s extremely gamey. Even scavengers will pass on kittens if they’re not desperate.

There are some Asian cultures that eat dog, which is a regional food in some parts of China, what is a product of living in a region where wild dogs (such as dholes) dwell and prey on children and wildlife. But this isn’t a food of choice, nor one for which they’ll hunt pets unless they’re desperate (in which case, some blame has to fall on social services for letting people go hungry), and there are markets for dog that has been specifically bred to be eaten, which is different from fancy dog breeds we are used to.

The local wildlife such as Florida’s alligators, or California’s coyote population (coyotes lurk everywhere across the US) are often that desperate and will totally eat your pets or livestock, so if Mr. Bitey goes missing, that’s your culprit in the rurals. In the meantime law enforcement in the United States will indiscriminately kill dogs, with officers afraid of even chihuahuas and toy terriers. The police kill rate for dogs averages around 50,000 dead pooches a year.

There are some Deep Rock Galactic gun builds (color and framework) that look like this.

This presents a good demonstration of what we can expect Alphabet / Google / Youtube to do if ever it should win its war on adblockers, or convince people to watch YouTube without vetting. Any time it promises to compromise and make a tolerable user experience, it will ratchet up advertisement plugs until it becomes intolerable.

This is why we can’t relent, ever.

This is a good place for that reminder that the big lexicon of sexualities, romantic orientations and gender identities are something to help you figure out what your business is. Other people will sometimes have identities that do not appear to match their behavior, and that is fine.

This was the whole point of Russell T. Davies television series Bob & Rose (Bob is gay man who falls in love with Rose, a straight woman, and everybody freaks the fuck out. )

Or to put it another way, if a friend of yours is a lesbian but sometimes likes the d, or has a d or is enby, id est, not a woman, they are still a lesbian.

Most of the lesbian community is down with this, in my experience, but the lesbian community – and the LGBT+ community in general – has a long history of gatekeeping, especially of shutting out bi folk and trans folk. And we need peers, friends and allies on the same page. So here we are with the bus driver tapping the sign.

Oh wow, this is such a relief. Yes, I just restarted and was dreading the pinch while transitioning from bio to coal.

It still may mean regular leaf-gathering sweeps just dumping them in the intake bin rather than feeding each generator individually, but even that is an improvement.

Waiting for Stheno and Euryale, Medusa’s sisters and main crew.

Lawrence Wright wrote that the hijackers chose the date when John III Sobieski, the King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania, began the battle that turned back the Ottoman Empire’s Muslim armies that were attempting to capture Vienna (present-day capital of Austria) on September 11, 1683. During 1683, Vienna was the seat of the Holy Roman Empire and Habsburg monarchy, both major powers in Europe at the time. For Osama bin Laden, this was a date when the West gained some dominance over Islam, and by attacking on this date, he hoped to make a step in Islam “winning” the war for worldwide power and influence. – Wikipedia on the 9/11 attacks

The real terrorists were the ones we were brewing here at home all along.

I’d like to see the 9/11 attacks become something like Pearl Harbor day (December 7th, 1941) in something we acknowledge happened but don’t actually have department store sales over, and speeches by elected officials are optional, usually if victims / veterans are getting together for a pageant.

From a statecraft standpoint, I remain impressed with just how low the 9/11 attacks smote the US, and I’m sure even Bin Laden regarded it as a lucky hit, intending it to be a sting like the Doolittle raid, but with such perfect timing that it accelerated the US dissolution towards one-party autocracy. Now, many of the failings of the United States as a free democracy are laid plain, and it’s our mess to clean up or to leave to fester.

If Harris wins in 2024, we’ll get that chance, but Obama also promised hope and change and didn’t deliver, and it cost us dearly. Again. So we’ll see.

Subprime Mortgage Crisis 2.0 with massive bank bailouts courtesy of US taxpayers.

Note that the obvious stratified capitalism rules (small businesses go bankrupt and die, big businesses get free government money) is what started OWS noting that all that equal playing field and invisible hand nonsense was SOME BULLSHIT. And they got quietly (brutally) swept away by law enforcement as Jon Stewart made fun of them on the Daily Show (because in the end, he too is owned by the networks).

So this time we’ll know that peaceful protests will be ignored.

What’s left is the language of the unheard.