It’s messed up. When I was young I thought that’s what it actually meant. Do the things that cost us the least while getting the largest return on investment. Because conservative means you want to reduce risk, right? Apparently fucking not. I was duped when I was young by the phrasing.

What if someone is actually fiscally conservative? Like I have seen the studies where it’s cheaper to house the homeless than leave them on the streets. We need to cut wasteful spending on corporate welfare and spreading out the costs of things like AI datacenters to the local community. We need to balance the budget by taxing spending instead of income tax, taxing the absolute dogshit out of billionaires, and adding exceptions for necessities (food, hygiene products, someone can come up with a better list than me). While we’re at it, bake the tax into things into the cost. So if my subtotal is $100 I’m paying $100 instead of $108.25 or whatever.

None of that requires the least bit of empathy or caring. It requires only looking coldly at the numbers and seeing that the country was in a much better spot financially when we had a strong middle class and taxed the dog shit out of the rich.

There’s more than this by a lot. Empathy demands even more than that. But anyone claiming to be fiscally conservative while not discussing forcing companies and the rich to pay their sharing is lying or duped. Anyone wanting our tax dollars paying for folks who live in the street rather than in houses is cruel or duped, not conservative, because it significantly reduces healthcare costs, justice system costs, and emergency services costs. It’s prudent to house folks because it will cost the country less overall. Progressive taxes instead of income taxes makes far more sense, reduces manpower, and reduces government spending.

The people calling themselves fiscally conservative are not. They’re shitbags or they’ve been tricked.

I was mad when they got rid of our local Video Zone. That place had the best ridiculous horror movies. Blockbuster had only the most middle of the road bullshit.

Depends on how you count it. Northern Marina Islands were annexed in 1986 but they were a territory under our jurisdiction from the 40s and I don’t know much about the history of the place before that. If you’re talking about overthrowing a functioning government and taking the land, maybe Hawaii? McKinley was probably the last big expansionist.

That’s if you don’t count puppets. We’ve got and have recently had a few of those as well.

Even outside of that, I saw people claim he was a shitbag before the stroke. I mean, I’m glad he caucuses with the Dems for the same reason I was happy Manchin did. One more on that side. But we all know how he’s voting, even if he is a tiny iota better than his competition was.

I hope his ass gets primaried.

Let me state up front I agree with you. A less charitable reading of what I’m about to say would try to make it seem like I’m putting the blame on other things to deflect. I’m not. Insurance companies fucking suck and are among the reasons it’s expensive.

Like everything it’s more complicated than a single factor. Tying healthcare to jobs is part of it. Boosting the number of people signing up for the military is part of it for both VA insurance and college. The cost of college (with its financial middlemen as well) for doctors is part of it.

Insurance is a huge reason. There are a hundred other little reasons as well, many of them also dealing with financial middlemen, that contribute to the issue. It’s a Gordian Knot of idiocy and when it gets sliced it’s going to be painful and, once the initial pain is done, necessary in hindsight.

I saw somewhere (ok, I probably didn’t imagine it) that they believed pigmentation was linked somehow to adrenaline production. But it wasn’t proven at the time.

To add to this, political speech (much like online discourse) benefits from flattening.

Nuance (I enjoy guns and am pro-gun but I think there should be controls in place to make it more difficult for people who are likely to kill to obtain them) is harder to argue against and harder to make stick in people’s minds.

An adult or a pup? That’s going to make a big difference. You’ll never be able to domesticate it in one or two generations, but depending on temperament and dedication you could probably have a coyote that allows you to live in proximity to it after a year if you spent all your time working with it. But never turn your back on it.

A pup would obviously be easier. But I still wouldn’t turn my back on it.

They worked on domesticating foxes in Russia for decades. Selective breeding for less aggression and fear. It’s funny, the domesticated ones start looking slightly more like dogs, with some even getting floppy ears and little curly tails. I assume it would be similar for coyotes.

Reaper, Studio One (although we’ll see what Fender does to it, we all remember the Gibson Cakewalk fiasco), and Bitwig are all native. Kind of depends on what your workflow is and what plugins you’re using. Yabridge is workable for a ton of stuff and not difficult.

He didn’t shut himself away, but this isn’t far off from what happened to The Laundry Files by Charles Stross. He had an ending all lined up dealing with a cold type disease that made everyone stupider. Then COVID happened. He had a storyline about how some shitty British political shit. Then Brexit happened. He stopped writing the main line series for a few years because he couldn’t keep up with how batshit things were getting.

If you like computers, math, Eldritch monsters, dry humor, making fun of bureaucracy, and thinly disguised metaphors for anthropomorphic climate catastrophies, you might enjoy it. He’s got one book left in the main line coming out in 9 days. Thank goodness because I’m going to need him to stop predicting a worse future. He’s moving on to a space opera or some shit so I’m hoping he’ll start writing about how wonderful everything is so we can start heading that direction.

See, the problem is with Harris there would have been one genocide instead of 3 and I’m entirely unfamiliar with the concept of harm reduction. If it isn’t perfect it’s the worst thing that has ever happened.

They only really need to do it until the halfway point of this term. Then Vance can step in and is still eligible for two terms.

Yeah, I thought they just made the claim to tank Kenvue so Kimberly Clark could buy them.

That’s a feature to some companies and “creators” who have no talent. Music is great but let’s get these greedy musicians out of the way!

Musicians have been, in the eyes of these kinds of jackasses, the least important part of the music industry pretty much since its inception.

I assumed they were sending them to APO addresses and that’s how the military knew.

I mean, I get it. We’re also overwhelmingly neurodivergent. We’ve also seen people say this shit for real. We’ve also seen a ton of folks say “it was just a joke” to defend the indefensible. Let’s add to that we don’t know who we’re talking to and tone doesn’t always transfer to text. So a lot of us (me included) will sometimes see someone mocking jackasses and think they’re the jackass.

I caught this one because I make this joke A LOT. All the time. It will never not be funny to me. My buddy is writing a song right now that’s a pretty thinly veiled indictment of influencer and grind culture (it’s about giving up a piece of yourself to make a buck basically, and when you’re not willing to do it you don’t get to eat). He was bouncing ideas off me and I made that joke.

And when he releases it I will recommend it to everyone by making the exact same joke again. Folk musicians should stick to music and not be so damned woke! Can you believe this?!? Then I’ll link the song.

I 100% believe this is a joke that just didn’t land with the users here because almost that exact same thing has been repeatedly said by people who didn’t know the machine they’re supposed to rage at isn’t the dishwasher.

I’ve thought about that, because that’s just the flavor. I don’t know the marbling and collagen content. So could I cure and smoke it then pan fry it? Will it taste like regular bacon but have the texture of turkey bacon? I don’t know. I can’t say I’m not curious. That’s a definite try.

I was also thinking about a braised leg of Walter. Wet heat would keep it from drying out too soon and you can impart a lot of extra flavor.

I’ve been asked this twice. Both of them backed out when I asked what cut and how it would be prepared.