It happened here in Michigan a few years ago. It took a ballot initiative, but it’s made a positive difference - it broke the Republican gerrymandered grip on the legislature

I read it a couple years ago, but Doppelgänger by Naomi Klein. It did such a good job helping me understand what happened with the conspiracy mirror world that rose up during Covid.

More recently? Yes, You Are Trans Enough by Mia Violet helped me come to understand myself a lot better.

Behind the Bastards did a four-part series on the Zizians, I highly recommend it

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4QEmgDQ7dj0Z1eY5OfF4tG

Just wait until he has a conversation with the AI freaks in his admin. He changes policy based on the last person he talks to. What an idiot.

Oh, that makes sense, I suppose.

Which med is that?

Everyone’s risk tolerance is different, but a 99.96% chance that I would not experience irreversible side effects feels like pretty good odds

Why is that?

I have this constant patch of razor burn and ingrown hairs, and I hate it. Letting my beard grow out for a few days seems to help with that, but it starts to really make me feel dysphoric. I can’t wait until I can do laser and electrolysis, I just can’t afford it right now

YUP. The moment that someone first told me that I interrupt all the time is seared into my brain. Ever since, I’ve made an active effort to stop myself. Especially without meds, it’s hard.

Knowing when to set boundaries and sticking to them is not one of my strong suits, admittedly. But it’s something I’m working on.

How do you know when to set a boundary? How do you enforce it without feeling like an asshole?

I think it depends on if the money is already out the door or not.

It’s funny, but I feel like I strive to be kind because I’m aware of how the world really works. Like, I’ve been let down by reality and know the world can be a nightmare already, so why would I want to pile even more on someone and make their life harder, you know?

I’m a fan of the line from Ted Lasso: be curious, not judgmental. I try approach things from the perspective of “how can we solve this problem”, since I don’t see any good in finger pointing. You can’t change the past.

I’ll admit, I am a people pleaser at times, but it’s something I’ve worked on - identifying the line when I start to be too much of a pushover.

Thank you 😊

I actually was very into Buddhism a few years ago. I had a better meditation practice then, and I did a lot of reading, some on metta, but moreso insight. I don’t think I’d consider myself a Buddhist, but they have a lot of good ideas!

A tariff is effectively just an import tax. When an importer brings the goods into the country, they have to pay the tariff to the government. But they still need to make a profit, so they raise their price to the distributor they sell to. And the distributor has to cover the increased cost, so they charge the stores more. And then the stores charge higher prices to the end consumers.

In some cases, tariffs might be used to target a specific sector or industry to protect domestic manufacturing in that area. The idea is that by raising the price of imports, you make domestic goods relatively cheaper, so consumers will prefer the domestic. But if tariffs are applied broadly, and the country doesn’t have enough domestic manufacturing to meet demand, and its economy relies heavily on imports, then tariffs just raise costs to consumers for no reason.

Getting qualified as an electrician is not a simple undertaking. That would be beginning an entirely different career path. Not to dissuade from it, but it’s not the kind of thing you can just do on the side like tending bar.

It’s also worth considering that many people change career paths entirely, even after getting degrees in one field. A bachelors degree, more than anything, demonstrates that you are able to be taught and you can complete a long term, self directed project. Exactly what you get a degree in matters, but maybe not as much as you’d think, especially if you broaden your studies with taking a minor, or volunteering, or doing internships.

Has the state Republican Party kicked his wife out yet? Of course not. I’ll be surprised if they do.

Way too many fash in the rural parts of Michigan.

And tbf, I can’t imagine a more beautiful thing

The real answer to that question is the dairy industry. Same reason there’s high fructose corn syrup in so many random things - corn industry.

Pete Buttigieg can fuck all the way off.