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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 22nd, 2023

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  • Don’t forget that when an amendment does get ratified, you’ve got to really nail it or else people will still be fighting over the verbiage.

    You’d think “keep it simple stupid” would suffice, but look at how we interpret this:

    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

    IANAL, but I see a few things as I read it:

    • Militias must be well regulated. I agree.
    • Militias are necessary to the security of a free state. Sounds a bit dated but I don’t disagree.
    • The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. Ok…so…is that “the right” can’t be infringed, or “the arms” can’t be infringed? Who are the people, and are they separate from the well-regulated militia? Because you can have a right to bear arms, but still limit what arms are available for civilian use. Non civilian use would be either military or para-military, the latter would be a militia, which ipso facto must be well-regulated, and as such there must be restrictions on arms because how are you going to regulate a militia if not its armaments? It’s not well-regulated if it’s a free-for-all. This is law. There are rules.

    Should I be able to buy a nuke? An ICBM? A tank? Live grenades? Where is the line drawn? When does it transition from “civilian hunting and defense” to “military fetishism” to “para-military/militia” to “military”. Because it must be somewhere. And I feel like there’s one group of those four that’s really being a stick in the mud over it.






  • We were in a weird spot after the Industrial Revolution but before globalism.

    Post WWII recovery changed that, when most of the developed world (sans America) was literally in shambles.

    I don’t think we’ll ever see another full out war between major powers. Capitalism and the all-mighty dollar will prevent that. But at the same time it will encourage proxy wars.

    Scarcity is a concern but again mostly for the smaller powers. More than likely it’ll be some sort of indebtedness between impoverished countries and their pimp nations backing them out of the proxy wars they created.



  • We have a two party system.

    We have the right, which is gradually shifting further and further conservative (really, let’s be honest now, at this point they aren’t conserving shit, they want regression). They market their platform primarily through fear.

    Then there is the left. It’s the big tent party and has also gradually been shifting right to the point where the critical mass of the party appears slightly right of center on the global scale. They market their platform primarily through empathy.

    I’m not saying which way is right, but I do have a good feeling of which approach is more beneficial to society and humanity as a whole.

    Statistically, there are significantly more people who place themselves on the left. Which makes sense, they are the big tent party after all. But that doesn’t matter in our federal elections, because most of them congregate in smaller population centers (and this helps with the empathy angle, they are regularly exposed to people of all walks of life, while primarily rural conservatives interact very little outside their comparatively small social sphere). The voting system gives two votes to every state, plus a share of the 435 that gets divided up based on the states population. Then most states give all of their votes to whoever won the popular vote in their state.

    Because of how the states tally their votes and break up their voting districts (because the party in charge gets to draw the maps), even a majority of people voting for one party can, and does, result in the state determining that the candidate with fewer total votes wins because they had won more districts. CGP Grey had a great video on this years ago, but using anthropomorphized animals as the presidential candidates, and talked about the strengths and weaknesses of our first-past-the-post voting system and on gerrymandering (the term for advantageously manipulating voting district maps).




  • From a matter of convenience I could actually appreciate what they are trying to do.

    Binge watching TV on disc, especially DVD, is frustrating. If you aren’t using the extra content (such as commentary), streaming is much better, as you can binge more episodes at a time or watch certain episodes without having to switch discs.

    If I was unaware this was available on a streaming service I had, I’d appreciate the reminder. But I’d appreciate it more at or before the main menu, not during the content, and certainly not more than once (or reset when the disc is removed).


  • I mean, the President-elect must take the Oath of Office as stated in Article II, Section I , Clause 8 of the Constitution:

    Before he enter on the Execution of his Office, he shall take the following Oath or Affirmation: – “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”.

    So it is on there. But it’s really just a pinky promise between you and a higher power. Whether that be a deity, the government, society/the social contract, or whatever.

    There are two problems with this:

    1, president Trump did not believe in a higher power than himself. He may present as Christian or even a twice-a-year Christian, but make no doubts, he saw himself as the highest power, answerable to no one

    2, the president shouldn’t be answerable to no one. But the system of checks and balances is broken by a party-before-country half of Congress and a stacked and obviously biased and hyper-political Supreme Court (that has at least one seat stolen depending on how consistent you are in your beliefs. More if you think back to Bush v Gore…which is also why I hate people spouting for third parties. If half of the Florida Nader voters held their nose and voted for Gore, there wouldn’t have even been a question. Were their virtues worth the result that came of them? I say the same for the Bernie Bros who couldn’t hold their nose for HRC).


  • There’s other factors than just brushing your teeth but brushing is probably the easiest factor that most people can reasonably take control of.

    Genetics, obviously you can’t do much about. But you can avoid sweets and decide not to get pregnant (hormonal changes during pregnancy can cause mouths to get more acidic and make plaque harder to remove, and can also soften the gums and bones that hold teeth in, or even weaken the teeth directly). Also, if you want nice teeth, it’s especially important to abstain from smoking crystal meth. And that’s even more important during pregnancy.

    But telling everybody “brush twice a day for two minutes” is a small ask with huge returns.


  • Guidance for preschools around me is for them to brush kids teeth after every meal that’s served at school.

    That was recently reinstated after being suspended for a couple years and the teachers are practically (as much as they legally can) begging the parents to sign the waivers to opt their kids out of it. I don’t blame them. It seems excessive and it’d take a ton of time for two teachers to scrub a dozen or so sets of toddler teeth, while also controlling said toddlers while they wait for everyone to finish.