the man who has openly declared since the 2000s that democracy is a mistake and that he wants to destroy the United States and European countries to establish city-states, each governed by a different corporation (fiefdoms), on our ruins

Wait. Did dude read Snowcrash and think “yeah, that future, that’s my utopia!”?

Boat.

Saving up for one now, but 20k should get me there.

Are we still talking about cars or back to bodies?

Like the mechanic handing you a $15 code reader and saying “just clear it whenever it pops up.”

I actually used this to explain a concern of mine to my wife. We had a Subaru Forester that had some minor but expensive issue that kept the check engine light on, so we ignored it. And because of that missed something else that made the engine 'splode (not literally, just turned the SUV to SCRAP). About 8 hours from our house and two hours from the nearest rental car agency (and no trains). With our daughter in the back and me needing to be at work the next morning.

Anyway, I was talking about how everything hurts a bit, and because of that my general pain tolerance is way higher to the point I don’t notice most of the time I’m hurt. Like the check engine light on the Subaru.

I imagine cancer is going to come along and when I find out at stage four, people will wonder how I possibly could have put up with it up to that point without going to the doctor. And I’ll say I didn’t even notice it.

I’ve heard about deaf people learning with horror that farts make sound.

An old buddy of mine commented once on the amount if minor havoc you could wreak with a handful of chain bike locks. Cheap, wrap around some door handles and lock, walk away. Yeah, somebody can bust out a bolt cutter, but for the amount of challenge to remove it, the low cost per use, and the speed of application, it’s pretty impressive for minor mischief.

Relatively harmless, too, as long as you aren’t doing any additional nefarious shit. Might work for some gated community gates.

The origin and story of Dogman is certainly dark.

BONE!

Oh, man, kind and fast. Hands down. Every time.

I don’t? I don’t think?

I’m honestly pretty light on any emotion except anger. But I don’t care enough to be anxious, and I’m pretty confident I’m not depressed. I’m reasonably unhappy about the state of the world (and my country), but I wouldn’t equate that to depression.

You either die a hero, or live long enough to become a politician.

My biggest gripe about it is that it should mean sacrificing a tenth (or a small portion) in order to preserve the whole.

So many words that mean completely destroy, and we have to make the one meaning specifically not that to also mean completely destroy. The language is weaker for it.

That’s right. Doctor Frankenstein was his father and creator.

It would be rude to refer to the good doctor without the honorific, so it stands to reason if someone mentions “Frankenstien,” they are talking about the monster.

So ultimately, the punishment for not believing is being destroyed? Like, oblivion?

Shit, this sounds like a win. I have no interest in eternal existence, even supposedly “blissful” existence. I feel like anyone who thinks of eternity on more than a surface level would feel nothing but existential dread.

I thought they accidentally got rid of Black Friday with their anti-DEI measures?

The wars in the Middle East are tricky, though, because to have a “victory” you would need a clear metric for it, a clear goal. It’s not like the US was looking to conquer and annex those countries

If the goal was to completely fuck up a country with little to no (physical, not financial) damage to our home country, mission accomplished, one helluva victory.

If the goal was to stop Terrorism… that’s like the War on Drugs, there’s no winning that.

If the goal was merely to occupy them in order to (temporarily) prevent them from being a staging ground and financial support for Terrorism… I guess that worked? For awhile?

Vietnam and Korea were about stopping Communists from taking over the country. Huge failure on Vietnam, and apparently a draw in Korea (considering the North/South divide). But it was a clear enough goal. The Middle East? Who knows what the specific goal was (other than trillions of dollars to the Military Industrial Complex).

Honest answer, as someone in the military:

A LOT of military people lament how “soft” the military has become, and someone coming down on beards, fat, etc, as well as being up front with what the military is for (e.g. Department of War), scratches a whiny itch they’ve always had. Because every old salty sailor and sandy equivalent feels like they came from the Old Guard.

I came from the Old Guard that my peers are nostalgic about. It was terrible and unnecessarily cruel. It was inefficient and left new people floundering instead of supported. The whole thing feels like a cycle of abuse.

But back to the point, they don’t care if he’s underqualified, makes bad and inexperienced military decisions, or has a host of DUIs (“who doesn’t?”). They only care that he’s calling generals fat to their faces and getting rid of beard ememptions.

1. Don’t carry credit card debt. Save money if you can. Get a handle on basic finances

Credit cards are this weird thing. If you need them, you shouldn’t use them (if you can help it). If you make plenty of money and don’t need them, they are a very useful financial tool. I have paid interest on one of my credit cards once in the past 3 years, and it was only to have extra available funds for buying a house. But I have accrued well over 100k airline miles and several hundred (far more than the interest I paid) in cash back. I use credit cards exclusively for everything but my mortgage, and have them set to automatically pay the statement balance prior to the due date. If you aren’t extremely confident you can do that, you should avoid credit cards.

I definitely ran afoul of credit cards in my youth, so the banks have gotten their pound of flesh from me.

Wow, people are really pulling the last bit out of context and assuming the worst implications. His “stand by you” and “knocking on doors” thing is him acknowledging his white male privilege to feel safe doing things like going door to door in most neighborhoods, and being happy to extend that safety to others by standing beside them while they do it.

I get the concern about having a Nazi tattoo for over a decade, and concern that everything he is doing is performative based on his past. But what he said was pretty unequivically that he will support LGBTQ+ people, including in action. Whether anyone believes him or not is up to them. But what he said was not mealy-mouthed, it was direct.