And remember how they made a big deal about Bernie’s age in 2020? They asked for medical records, and even after getting letters from two or three doctors, that wasn’t enough. It was like the birthers all over again: when they got what they asked for, they moved the goal posts and wanted the long-form documents.

Meanwhile, not a peep about Biden, who is Bernie’s junior by fourteen fucking months, as if that made all the difference.

And then, four years later, it wasn’t an issue anymore. Just run the guy again.

On top of that, the DNC would condescend to anyone left of center about electability.

Yeah, pretty much. It ties into the “white genocide” and “great replacement” conspiracy theories, where the mere existence of nonwhites is taken as violence. It also often blames Jews for orchestrating it. It doesn’t make any sense, but it appeals to paranoia and supremacy, and provides a scapegoat for literally any actual systemic problem.

At least in the contexts I’m talking about, and I’ve never seen it used in another, it’s really not that. It’s coming from talking heads fearmongering about nonwhites, portraying nonwhite immigrants as criminals, ginning up a “border crisis” narrative, and even calling it an “invasion.”

When conservatives fearmonger about immigrants and brown people, one of the current favorite talking points is to say they’re “military-aged.” It’s vague and meaningless, but it implies something sinister, and plays into just about any conspiracy theory an audience member might be inclined to believe.

On top of that, they’re afraid from merely seeing these people. They’re just scared to death of brown and black kids and young adults.

Really reminds me of the “military-aged” thing. It’s just so pathetic.

I would put these in my D&D campaign.

I recently got into hiking, which provides some nice changes in scenery!

Granted, that’s hard to do as a regular thing multiple times a week. But still, a walk around your neighborhood, or especially local parks if you’ve got any sizable ones, might be fun in a way going on the treadmill isn’t.

First thing I found when I searched for “Maersk IBM blockchain”:

A.P. Moller - Maersk and IBM to discontinue TradeLens, a blockchain-enabled global trade platform

That REALLY depends.

Year One? Absolutely.

The Dark Knight Returns? Agree to disagree.

All-Star Batman and Robin? Christ no, it might be the worst.

I believe that’s Andy Ngo, so yes, absolutely a pro-fascist activist. He was caught on camera actively coordinating with Patriot Prayer, a far-right extremist group.

My favorite version of this is when they try to lie about what he “meant,” only to then tell on themselves by saying something that’s still awful.

Like with the recent “poisoning the blood” quote. I saw several people say he didn’t mean ALL immigrants. Okay? That’s still some racist shit. It’s not even lying about crime anymore, it’s straight-up eugenic garbage.

Hold on, a brioche bun can totally work! Toast the bun, put a little mayo on it, put the veggies on the bottom (at least the lettuce), and a regular-sized burger will hold up just fine.

Not saying it can’t go wrong, especially in a place that just wants the decor and the food to look good on Instagram even if it’s disappointing when you bite into it. But for burgers I’ve made, a brioche bun can be a nice option. :P

I went hiking recently. State park, at least a mile from the campground, peaceful and quiet.

Then I noticed something scrawled on one of the trail markers. Some dipshit wrote “Fuck Joe Biden” on it.

Holy shit, how miserable do you have to be to do that? To carry a marker and tag a tree just to express how you can’t stop thinking about the guy, and make it other people’s problem, even in the middle of nowhere when you’re not even around.

Yeah, I used to use it to fix my RPG PDFs. (Seriously, it’s astounding how many publishers either omit or completely fuck up bookmarks.) I found out it went to shit when trying to help someone else do the same, and the newer free version was significantly cut down.

Absolutely. While I can be convinced on markets for some things (with regulation to protect consumers and prevent monopolies), it completely falls apart in others. Necessities absolutely should not rely on free markets because capital holders hold an extortionate amount of power, most people have little to none, and if it’s more profitable to let some people die, then the profit motive will let those people die.

In case you want the good faith counterargument (I know, I know, socialist wall of text):

I’d be willing to bet you have a different definition of “capitalism” compared to socialists. For most people, capitalism is just trade, markets, commerce, etc. None of that is incompatible with socialism (broadly speaking). When socialists talk about capitalism, they’re referring, specifically, to private ownership of capital. It’s not the buying and selling, it’s that ownership of companies is separate from labor.

We don’t owe technological development to capitalists, we owe it to engineers, scientists, and researchers. We owe art to artists, performance to performers. Socialists want those people to be the primary beneficiaries of their own work, not someone who may or may not even work at a company, but whose wealth means they can profit off of other people’s labor by virtue of owning the property those people need to do their jobs.

And you’ve probably been bothered by enshittification in one form or another. Some product or service you like has probably gotten worse over time. That’s not a decision made by the people who take pride in their creation, or the laborers who want long-term security. It comes from the capitalist class that doesn’t really give a shit about any of that, they just want quarterly profits, long-term survival be damned. That’s capitalism, as the meme was getting at.

Sure, but I think this example also commingles labor with ownership (as is often the case).

Like you said, your plan involves building a four-family home. That’s labor and worth fair remuneration. It’s just that, in order to get that remuneration you’d be taking payment from tenants who build no equity for their money. Yeah, you’ll have to renovate in 30 years, but you’d still have property and the money paid in rent while they don’t.

A landlord can also simultaneously do valuable work supervising and managing a property. That’s not mutually exclusive with profiting from ownership, and we can separate how we evaluate the two. It even comes up with billionaires: Bill Gates obviously did work worth payment as CEO of Microsoft, it’s just not where he got most of his fortune. It can simultaneously be true that he’s a talented guy who deserved to be paid, but most of his fortune came from exploitative business practices and profiting off of the labor of others.

Also, to be clear, there’s a difference between structural and individual criticism. Obviously slumlords are pieces of shit, but there’s a difference between that and someone who really does work as a property manager doing right by their tenants, or a family renting out a part of their home to make ends meet. I can think that landlords should be judged on an individual basis, while landlording as a thing shouldn’t exist.

That’s one of the things that bugs me about conspiracy theories. So many of them don’t even have a point.

How can so many be people be so wrapped up in conspiracism, but never once have the though, “Oh, wait, why would anyone do this? It’d be pointless.”

No worries, I was just playing along. :P But I have embraced the unfashionableness.

Also, I’ve put on some Birkenstocks with wool socks before. I feel no shame for it. It’s comfy.