“in English” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Any number of illiterate adults is a problem worth solving, but someone who can read in their native language is not illiterate. Teaching adults to read is an entirely different process from teaching adults how to read a foreign langauge.

Bacon is great, but death by rectal cancer is more bad than bacon is good.

Honestly, it all comes back to narcissism. American exceptionalism, manifest destiny, Free market capitalism, the root is always “I’m great so I deserve what I want.” Nobody actually cares if anything goes to far, as long as it affects other people.

USA is more narcissistic than most advanced democracy, that’s why our government is more corrupt than most of the EU, even if we have a Democrat in power. That’s why there’s no UBS or universal healthcare or human rights. Class warfare is over, and the uppermost class won. They rule and the lower classes accept it because we assume that people deserve their lot in life. Because of the narcissism.

I’m not dismissing him, I’m saying that conservativism isn’t left or right. That’s a false equivalency putting the conservative/progressive ideologies on a spectrum. That’s not how conservativism works. There is no left or right, only selfish and principled. Do I want this? If yes, then it is a critical part of our culture and history and must be protected from all change at any cost. If the answer is no, then it is an abhorrent condition that must be stopped at any cost. Did I have a different opinion yesterday? Doesn’t matter, because that was yesterday. Will I change my mind tomorrow? Doesn’t matter, because if I do, then I’ll have a really good reason.

No, you couldn’t. Most political ideologies are built on fundamental principles and core values. When ideology is principled, it is consistent even when the believers are not direct beneficiaries of the policies.

Take freedom of speech. People who value free speech will defend it even when they don’t like the speech they hear. That’s a principled belief.

Conservatives will shift their principles when faced with a policy that does not benefit them. Conservatives demand abortions when they need them. Conservatives demand gun control when they feel threatened. Conservatives demand freedom to travel anywhere while closing their borders. They hire undocumented immigrants. They capture regulatory bodies to edge out the competition. There isn’t a single conservative value that is consistent among conservatives and applied equally to others as well as themselves.

Yes, that’s the joke.

Edmund Burke, the father of conservativism, was a narcissist who opposed the French Revolution, and Louis XVIII was a narcissist who crowned himself king and called the government he liked “conservative.” They did not share an ideology. There was no consistency in either of their positions. They both simply declared the things they like to be conservative values.

They’re both actually great examples of exactly my point.

I appreciate you taking the time to write all of this, but you’re buying the bullshit. The question that you haven’t answered is the crux of my point. “Conserve what?” And the answer is always the same, for every conservative, everywhere, since the first conservative: “Whatever I think is important.” That’s why they are constantly shifting their positions, why they seem hypocritical or paradoxical when they say one thing and do another. It’s how they criticize their opposition for the same choices they make themselves. They rail against abortion and have abortions. They complain about immigration but demand freedom to travel where they like. They want low taxes for themselves, government spending on their preferred programs, and strict regulations that benefit their businesses.

It’s not ideology, it’s narcissism. And there are zero exceptions.

More likely Polish, like she’s married to Fromi. If it was Russian, it would be Fromiova.

That’s because “conservative” isn’t an ideology, and it never has been. Conservativism has two core beliefs: “conservatives” refers to a specific group of people defined by common traits, and those are the good people. Each tranche of conservatives defines their own identity, and then they define whatever they want as “conservative values.”

This German guy on the train probably is very conservative. He is not more progressive than an American conservative. He has simply defined his group of conservatives to include the people who benefit from universal healthcare. He sees the value to his own group, and so he supports it.

You need a doctor to sign off when you have a cold? What a shitty employer you must have.

Or you could get the vaccine, don’t get sick, and take a few days off while healthy.

They’re including a tracking chip in the vaccine. I learned about this on the Google News app I have installed on my cell phone, television, computer, car, gaming systems, smarthome appliances, and eyeglasses.

Active macrophages can damage healthy cells. It’s a very serious condition when they do, and it can lead to runaway cellular death. It doesn’t mean that this treatment will cause MAS, but it’s a risk that should be investigated with human trials.

It also has a metabolic cost, in that the active cells consume energy and oxygen, but I don’t know if it would be a noticeable effect for the average person.

My guess is that this would be something you use when you are at increased risk for cold and flu. Like nurses and doctors, teachers and childcare workers, and nursing home staff during the fall and winter.

I was hoping for a decentralized version of discord ever since they started requiring phone numbers.

You’re right. They add it to your homescreen without asking, and then one of the kids clicked on it. It’s not a terrible app, actually, I just resent having to turn off all the bullshit they keep adding to my home screen. Once I realized that someone had enabled it, I picked some images that weren’t too bright or distracting, and left it alone because I figured why not? Then I walk into the room where someone left the tv on, and it’s got this qr code across the bottom.

Thankfully, there wasn’t any burn in, but still. It felt like a “Beware of Sign” sign.

If you look closely, when Trump opens his mouth wide enough, you can see the palm of Putin’s hand.

It’s crazy we’ve never had a Metroid/Mega Man crossover game. Like consider a team/squad shooter RPG with Samus, Mega Man, Zero, X, Roll, and you run around collecting upgrades and weapon types. I feel like the two universes would work well together.

Right? Like even if tourists are visiting the countryside, they’re going to be spread out across all the available space.