Yeah, but that $250 is a bunch of food, some books, and tacos instead of one ok meal and some mimosas.

Tribalism didn’t end when civilization started. Anyone not in the tribe is lesser, because the alternative would mean your tribe is lesser.

More specific to an iPhone, if you have one, you can do all the social iPhone things like FaceTime. Don’t have one? You can’t FaceTime, so there is a social friction or impediment to socializing. Then there is the “othering” of the green bubble and blue bubble thing. You can’t share photos or videos the same if you don’t have an iPhone. Since we are in a digital age and less physically present, not being able to digitally socialize the same way also inhibits socialization.

All of this is by design. Apple intentionally creates an ecosystem that will excert social pressure on people to buy their products so they can be part of the group like their friends.

All companies expressing any political meta is pandering.

Any adherence to a political meta isn’t a testament of their values, it is a testament of their customers’ values.

Companies want the money of their customers’ and they will say or do anything they think will keep making them money.

If you think any company supports DEI or LGBTQ issues genuinely, I have a bridge to sell you.

Their primary customer base is Republicans, your picketing means nothing.

Drive down a highway in any area with a decent population and it will be right off the interstate.

California spends over $50k per homeless person per year.

How has homelessness only grown?

Because of double dipping and lack of oversight.

One homeless person goes and gets welfare from one place and then another day goes elsewhere. Both places claim them for a period even though they may only actually be going to one place a day.

If California actually wanted to end homelessness, they could, but then the NGOs and administrators couldn’t profit off homelessness.

California is performative in altruisms and they will never accomplish anything of value on progressive values if they can’t use it to give money to wealthy people.

Brandon probably won’t run for President ever. He is also a right-wing conservative with strong libertarian politics.

Know your worth and you don’t know what you got.

One person’s trash is another’s treasure, but sometimes fixing and cleaning up an item devalues it to the right person.

A misprint is the most valuable form of currency, but most see it as a fake or worthless.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and ugly is ironically chic when value is irrelevant.

Self depreciation is fair value in your economy.

Putting money in a car for personal aesthetic taste or greater performance doesn’t add value if the engine is blown.

I think I was 10. The bridge made my nose hurt and I think I got headaches for a few days from it or the lenses themselves. Changing frames causes some discomfort for a day or two.

Now I can wear glasses for over 24 hours straight without issue.

My vision wasn’t that bad from what I recall, but now I am at a -5.50 or something. I wear contacts when I leave the house and greatly prefer them, especially the transitions contacts that tint like sunglasses in sunlight. Seriously, the transitions contacts are glorious with my light sensitivity and it makes colors really “pop”.

He isn’t afraid of gay people.

He is afraid of having to have the conversation with his grandkid about gay people having a baby due to the content of a kid’s movie.

Sort of like how a grandparent would be uncomfortable discussing procreation with their grandkid. Shit, parents are uncomfortable discussing that with their own kids and that is a far easier and more straightforward thing than discussing sperm donors.

He is scared that a kid’s movie will inspire questions that he is uncomfortable answering as a grandparent.

Fumigation after envelope repair.

You need to, or preferably a pro, need to go around and seal up every possible incursion point and then gas the fuckers.

There is no solution but the final solution. Traps and poisons are like addressing a leaking roof with a pot to catch the water falling on the floor. God help you if you are on piers or block foundation, your fight will be Sisyphean.

According to the admin, 1.6m people have self deported or been deported. They also said they arrested more than 352,000 and deported more than 324,000. Not sure if the 324k is from the 352k, I think the 324k is included in the 1.6m.

200 days, 1.6m deported. 8,000 per day average. 2.92m per year, 11.68m over 4 years. 11m is the conservative estimate number of unlawful immigrants, Pew says 14m, but the upper estimate is over 21m.

So they claim they have hit 1m a year a while ago, but we would have to trust their numbers are accurate. There are indications that at least 600,000 have left the US, but that is pretty much based on vibes because concrete numbers are impossible to obtain.

Well we are well past 1, so we are looking at at least 1 more if we are being disingenuously optimistic.

Some of it is that you have to be a legal citizen or have a TIN, so people will use someone’s account to deliver under if they don’t have those.

Every car has more HP than you get. Cars are tuned to be as reliable as possible in every condition with a variety of fuel qualities. That is why you see test vehicles on the road, they are gathering data to refine the engine tuning.

That is why you can tune as car and get more HP or even to make them more efficient without changing a single part.

Maybe with some fucking with the districts that won’t happen without some sort of judicial order.

Looking at the numbers, D presidents win with hundreds of thousands of votes and D governors win with a 10% or greater margin.

Pretty much zero.

The Dems would need to have an actual platform other than orange man and couch fucker bad. They keep running on feelings and vibes without a concrete plan to improve things. Not that they will be able to accomplish anything of value, given the circumstances, which will not help in 2028. Then there is the 3rd parties that could form that really makes things worse.

Without a serious effort by the Dems, we are almost certainly going to have another 4 years of Republican Whitehouse in 2028 and the best hope is a slight majority in Congress.

There is a round version, but it isn’t in production.

There are two types of this, those that pay voluntarily and those who are extorted. If you pay protection money to a gang voluntarily, it is like insurance. If your business has a problem, the gang will deal with it. If you are the extorted type, then you may be on your own and you still owe money. They may act on your behalf because of the disrespect of hitting a business they deal with.

Some businesses don’t so much pay protection money as they act as a money laundering node for the gangsters, so if your shop gets hit then their money gets hit and that is personal. These types are usually more affiliated or may be forced to launder.

All I am saying is that Rosa Parks deserved a better award then.