Ahh ... I had not considered the "taking matters into one's own hands" scenario. You are correct. And I support it if it happens that way.

It's not the ones refusing the shot that are the concern. They're just the problem. The vaccine isn't 100%; it relies on herd immunity. If these anti-vaxxers bring the flu into a submarine, even some of the vaxxed troops will come down with it. The recirculated air will be rife with the virus.

The flu could literally kill our troops by impairing their performance and leaving them weakened against enemy forces.

A tiny plastic sphere with an indentation on one side that was stuck over the ball of a ballpoint pen. Size approximately 0.75mm

The pen and the tiny plastic cap that covered the ball in the point.

I got a ballpoint pen from with a candy shipment. It dragged across the page without a hint of a line. As I tried to get it to write, I thought I broke the ball out. Instead, I found out it's a tiny little "cap", which I suspect protects the ball from drying out until its first use.

Don't discourage him from trying, provided those are the exact actions. He'd never know it didn't work. Let him do it on TV for the insane ratings it'd give him. He loves ratings.

I looked into Scotland a bit. My grandmother was born there, which makes citizenship easier to obtain. But my job wouldn't support it (I already work remotely, across the nation from my office). I'm only a couple of years from full retirement, so I'm stuck here unless I'm willing to give that up.

Why are pickup trucks ridiculously huge? Blame government. Regulations, tariffs, and other government-imposed hurdles reward American companies for building bigger, more expensive trucks.

It's effectively a scam. The EPA loosened mileage restrictions on bigger pickups, so carmakers just made most pickups big enough to use that loophole. (article from 2024)
reason.com/2024/02/02/w...

D'oh! That was Lightning Seeds, not Wire. I think I was mixing it up with "Ahead", sorry.

Love Vigilantes (2015 Remaster) YouTube video by New Order - Topic

Maybe you can help answer a question. In their song "Pure", there is a little guitar riff that sounds a lot like one from New Order's "Love Vigilantes". Would you happen to know if that's intentional?

The link should be cued to the right place.

youtu.be/-VFWqLmVWx4?...

And her own influence in turning our democracy into a tyrannical autocracy.

Is she even there? My guess is she's in a landfill to make room for a few more stolen documents in that ridiculously heavy casket.

She didn't even leave a body. She was cremated to avoid any investigative autopsies Trump didn't control.

Yup ... AI's greatest edge needn't lie in its intelligence, but in its speed and thoroughness. The smartest human can only do so much with millions of people's info.

AI has only to be smart enough to identify sought traits, and then it can look at every single bit of data, anywhere it has access.

I knew I would forget or get lazy, so I turned on the alt text required setting. Consider this my suggestion to the OP.

They tried unhinging it, and now no one knows how to reinstall the hinges.

I went to school in Poughkeepsie, and I liked it there for my four years in school housing. So years later, while I'm working remotely and can live anywhere, I started digging into surrounding areas, and apparently they are very conservative. I felt so let down.

I grew up in Queens, NY. Technically NYC, but by no means Manhattan. I lived in a neighborhood like the credits of "All In The Family". Just like that show, many of the houses around me featured an Archie Bunker. Awful MAGA jerks unaware how they even sound among civilized people.

The meat is more likely real, too. Unless Canada has better restrictions on garbage ingredients in fast food than the US.

Who am I kidding? EVERY nation has better restrictions than the US. It's just a matter of what degrees of better.

Still, you had a better burger experience either way.

"Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that reci...
Wait. What's this? Where'd you find the recipe?"

"On the counter by the mixing bowl, where you left it."

"No way! I checked there! I looked! It wasn't there!"

How I BlueSky:
• read a few posts
• get pissed about the news
• write a few angry political/societal replies
• post a few jokes or memes
• compliment other people's posts
• disappear for four days and forget to interact with replies to my posts/replies

The joys of impermanence and time blindness. 🤣

Yes, Trump, make your list. Alienate even more of your disappearing followers.

In Futurama, Dr Zoidberg tells Fry to say a word in his language. Fry tries to say it, apparently mispronouncing it, and Zoidberg gets furious, saying, "WHAT? MY MOTHER WAS A SAINT!"

That made me think of this ...

In one breath "not all men". In the next, "how could men be both predators and protectors?" as if all men must be the same.

I've mentioned it a number of times. I seriously cannot think of a single time I've heard them quote their religion's namesake.
bsky.app/profile/pseu...

🎶
I like your pin shot
I keep it with your letter
Done up in blueprint blue
It sure looks good on you
🎶

That lyric from Steely Dan popped into my head the moment I saw this.

And it must be the Word of God because man did not understand the very words he was writing.

What I may have missed conveying in that post is that I think many, if not most, already grown men are past saving because also built into the culture is resistance to accepting that change.

It's like an adaptive computer virus. It innately knows how to spread and how to avoid removal.

We need to work hard on teaching healthy emotional expression to the boys who will become tomorrow's men. This is culture, not genetics. Men can be emotionally intelligent, if men's culture doesn't forbid it.

Today's men will pass on their toxicity eagerly if they can. It's built in to the culture.

Don't deny him the one honor he actually deserves!

Not if he ages into the grave in office. They have to move fast ... as in NOW!

(note: I support Mamdani and this plan ... I just thought this was funny, since we're viewing it from the rat's perspective)