Iirc this affects roughly 1/3 people and does so by activating the gastrocolic reflex

10x worse than 9/11 where 2,977 people died? So nearly 30k people will die? I won’t be holding my breath for that one

Thank you! I really don’t mean to complain. We really have it very good. I think it’s a common sort of story here. We are extremely lucky to not be lower SES, a targeted racial minority, etc.

We’ve considered it, but my wife really doesn’t want to move far from her family, and especially not out of country. I have some friends who moved to Canada, though, and have found it to be very welcoming & they have had a lot of success with the process. My sister has definitely thought about emmigrating if things get worse - I believe she has a plan to get out. Luckily she seems to have a great group of friends who are able to support each other

It makes it risky to have kids here. We have some risk factors for it. Some of our friends had a rough time, and all had to make emergency plans to leave the state if worse came to worse. They also had to be careful to hide the pregnancy since the government was talking about tracking who was pregnant to catch people who left the state to get abortions - that hasn’t happened yet though. And if we left the state permanently, we’d have to do it without family support which would be hard.

So, no direct harm of course, but it has caused us to delay having kids. More than anything it causes anxiety - which is why all this stuff affects most people: not because of direct harm right now, but because it makes the future uncertain.

No worries. I’ve heard (not that you said this, but in general) people say that folks are anxious just because of politics & things that don’t affect them - I think that’s sometimes true, but more often the politics affect people’s lives directly, or at least threaten to, and that causes real stress,anxiety, and harm.

That’s why I tried to tie systemic causes into my rant. Literally every single stressful thing in my life I can point back to a systemic, “political” cause. And I have it pretty freakin good, all things considered. There’s a lot of folks I know who are much less fortunate who are impacted much worse by… gestures at stuff broadly

I’m pretty anxious.

Fascism is advancing very rapidly in my country and is dismantling everything from science funding to the basic rule of law to basic public health and disease prevention while being openly corrupt and literally just stealing tax money.

My country is helping to perpetrate a genocide and has launched a completely voluntary war against Iran for no reason. It also did something that “was totally not war” to Venezuela and is threatening both Cuba and Mexico now.

I work minimum 45 hours/week, usually closer to 55 hours/week. This is nice because I was working 70-80 hour weeks last year, but things have slowed down for me a bit. Idk who in the US is working 35 hours, but it’s not me…

Trying to plan for the future is very difficult because my government is running pump and dump schemes on the market literally constantly while also effectively destroying the bond market, threatening the dollar’s status as world reserve currency, etc. There’s no safe place to put money away for retirement and it is very unlikely the Social Security program will exist by the time I retire. I am lucky to have begun saving for retirement early and live well below my means in a low cost of living area, but even though I have saved like half my income for my entire working life that may not be enough.

Speaking of the future, it is very dangerous for women to get pregnant in my state because if they have an ectopic pregnancy or the fetus dies, the doctors will basically make the woman get sepsis before treating her because of the anti-abortion laws here. Many women have died. So even though we’re lucky enough to be in a position to afford to have kids, we’ve had to put our lives on hold & consider fleeing our home state where our families live.

My relationship with my family is strained - my parents, older relatives, and one of my sisters are all completely brainwashed by fascist propaganda. It is getting better, but during Trump 1 and Biden, they became more hateful and crazy than they ever had been prior. My other sister is trans but hasn’t come out to them yet. I expect that to be very difficult because they’re bigots and have been spewing hate about trans people for years at this point. My sister is doing a very good job of prepping them, and I’m helping how I can, but I’m worried for her. Our government has labeled trans right organizations as domestic terrorist organizations. Trans people are constantly under attack.

My younger siblings and older family members are also hurt by the economic state of affairs, either struggling to get a start in life or having a hard time making ends meet in retirement, paying for health-related expenses, etc. That causes me some anxiety.

I have a good standard of living because my wife and I are highly educated professionals. We are lucky to have had a lot of advantages. So really, we don’t have a lot of financial stress many others do. But even still, prices have risen on most goods like 30-50% or more over the past 6 years or so. If this continues, it may or may not threaten us right now, but it does call into question if we can afford kids, retirement, etc.

The environment & ecology is rapidly getting worse and the government is doing worse than nothing to help. We have flesh eating parasites coming back after having been eradicated since the 60s. Our government is attempting to destroy the national parks and wildlife system and allow.strip mining and drilling. Temperatures are rising and rainfall is decreasing, fires are becoming much more widespread, tornadoes have been hitting our area much more than in the past, etc. New Orleans, a city my wife, I, and our families have a connection to is projected to literally sink into the sea within our lifetimes.

Bringing stock buybacks up as a policy issue would be fantastic.

As a reminder, up until 1982 with the Reagan era introduction of Rule 10b-18, stock buybacks were often just illegal market manipulation. Most buybacks were explicitly made illegal before that by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 because they artificially inflate stock prices allowing for bubbles, rug pulls, general instability and shenanigans.

Now companies do this nonstop to manipulate their stock prices and get off scott free due to the 10b-18 safe harbor provision.

It bothers me when people aren’t consistent.

Like when something good happens to them: god is rewarding me for being so good

When somehting bad happens to them: god is testing me and will reward me later for being so good

When something bad happens to someone they don’t like: god is punishing them for being so bad

Or like how they pray to god for individual favors. Like “dear god even though I didnt study please let me do well on this test” as though god should care and give them special treatment for… nothing. Yet they claim to value hard work, god only gives you what you can handle, are generally fatalistic, etc.

Yeah fair point. Pretty much exactly like that. Though, I think that with so many republicans being rural and poor, their feet are disproportionately shot despite them doing the shooting.

Idk lol i think a lot of people imagined this. And warned the rest of the people very loudly & frequently.

“Hey don’t shoot that loaded gun at your foot. If you shoot yourself in the foot, it’ll hurt a lot and make walking difficult”

shoots self in foot “OW MY FOOT ^take ^that ^libtards”

“Yeah it was a bad idea, right?”

shoots self in foot again “I HAVE DIMINISHED MY FOOT IN UNIMAGINABLE WAYS”

Came here to say this. Very confusing

Yeah Thomas has done about as much harm to black people as anybody living. He’s incompetent and undeserving of his appointment.

Big الْمَسِيحُ الدَّجَّالُ energy

But… but… the DOW

Ya don’t say…

Sounds like miller tried to explain the concept to him but he didn’t quite get the details

Didn’t she and her husband get together when she was a minor and he was 24 and had been convicted of indecent exposure to 2 minors at a bowling alley?

Get wrecked, bozo 🤡

He had a weird habit of being overly touchy with people of all ages and seeming to sniff their hair. It was a longstanding pattern of behavior: but, one that was apparently harmless. Afaik there were never any actual complaints or accusations of anything untoward. Edit: there’s at least 1 allegation of assault, but not related to the hair sniffing.

Its the heat, mostly. If you use the low or very low/delicate settings, it will help.

I find that there is no benefit from using medium or high heat. It just shrinks my clothes. Low/delicate doesn’t and I haven’t noticed any damage.

Other trick: wash and dry pants inside out to avoid fading. Also, this stuff only applies to fabrics that are dryer safe, obviously