I don’t think it’s true, nor is it true if what he meant was that more people died per-capita. A perplexing and distracting mistake.

My parents have helped out at food shelf in the rural Midwest for a couple decades now, and the demand is way up, although not as high as it was during 2007-2008. The real unemployment rate is at record lows in that area, and wage growth is actually increasing, but not enough to keep up with ballooning grocery bills and rent hikes. So the families with lots of kids might have more income coming in from wage labor, but their costs are just out of control, and food aid is absolutely essential to keep the household afloat. I think what is not really appreciated is that there’s a huge shortage of rentals that have 5+ bedrooms (renting a house is the only real option).

I think the really cynical calculus from the political establishment is that these people are mostly non-voters, and so actually trying to address these problems is a waste of political capital.

I’ve been really getting into classic Sonic games, and have gotten most of the way through Sonic 2, as well as finally putting some time into finishing Sonic Mania. I dropped Sonic 1 after finishing a few zones, as it became clear that the level design in that game is not up to par with later releases. Also poking around at the Master System Sonic games, which are totally different games than the mainline release, but have some interesting stuff in them (my original exposure to Sonic was looking over another kid’s shoulder while he played Sonic on Game Gear).

I’ve always been a Mario Enjoyer, and just never quite understood Sonic… the platforming aspect of Sonic always felt so clunky because of how much less air control you have. But I think I get it now, it’s all about figuring out the right paths through the levels to just go fucking apeshit turbo mode and blast through them as fast as possible. GOTTA GO FAST.

Also helps that I’ve got a nice CRT tv setup and am playing on original hardware. The super fast scrolling of Sonic works way better, it’s not a blur like it is on a crappy LCD screen.

I think a lot of Americans are ready to do direct violence, but are being held back by pretty strong social taboos against it. The cops jealously guard their own monopoly on violence and power. And when some chud does take matters into their own hands, it seems to surprise them when they get clapped by the justice system. The desired dynamic seems to be “you call the cops, and then the cops do the violence”.

I’m curious to try it multiplayer, so I’m down.

I’d Like to See Ol Donny Trump Wriggle His Way Out of THIS Jam!

Red Army tanks enter Berlin:

Can’t wait for Joe to run in 2028

I thought I wanted VR porn, but actually…

O’Brien’s character did have some anachronistic flanderization to him. The writers clearly enjoyed writing him as though he were basically their 90s uncle in the Star Trek setting… including the weird racism. It would work better if he got called out for it more from other characters, but I recall that they usually just let those comments slide.

Real “all lives matter” energy

From chapter 29:

To the extent that the depreciation or increase in value of this paper is independent of the movement of value of the actual capital that it represents, the wealth of the nation is just as great before as after its depreciation or increase in value.

“The public stocks and canal and railway shares had already by the 23rd of October, 1847, been depreciated in the aggregate to the amount of £114,752,225.” (Morris, Governor of the Bank of England, testimony in the Report on Commercial Distress, 1847-48 [No. 3800].)

Unless this depreciation reflected an actual stoppage of production and of traffic on canals and railways, or a suspension of already initiated enterprises, or squandering capital in positively worthless ventures, the nation did not grow one cent poorer by the bursting of this soap bubble of nominal money-capital.

All this paper actually represents nothing more than accumulated claims, or legal titles, to future production whose money or capital value represents either no capital at all, as in the case of state debts, or is regulated independently of the value of real capital which it represents.

It seems like such a completely obvious point that you shouldn’t even have to make it. But in the 150 years since this was written, the financial press have not stopped talking about the speculative value of paper as if it was entirely 1 to 1 equivalent to actual existing productive capital.

Thank you for your service!

Giant sweeping vague suggestions for what should be done. Real “we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas” energy

We’re so spoiled for choice, we have TWO Palestinian Extermination Parties to choose from!

If you want to bring back some of the old functionality of the start menu, task bar, and right click menu, you can use ExplorerPatcher

A better comparison might be to the capitalist Dominican Republic, which is a very similar country both in culture and history. Cuba’s nominal and PPP per capita GDP are very similar, and they have similar HDI.

Handyman, general fixer and builder of stuff

If you are a member of a marginalized group of people living within the imperial core, you are in constant danger from the sharp edges of Actually Existing Fascism. I think it’s important to remember that most of the residents of the early fascist states were not huddled terrorized masses. They were indifferent or satisfied with the fascist regimes. Germans especially - in the post-war period, the Nazis were discredited not because of their atrocities, but because they brought war and defeat to Germany. A think similar conditions have existed for decades in “the west” today. We haven’t seen a conflagration on the scale of WW2 since then, but there have been plenty of wars of similar intensity and depravity (the decades of wars of decolonization being the major example).