Well, on the increasingly unlikely possibility that they are not increasing the budget to target American citizens, I hope other nations in the world know they have to dramatically increase their own defense spending.

What chance is there that this means the US defense budget can be cut?

I feel like sooner or later they’re going to try this shit on someone who both has guns and isn’t interested in living, and it will end badly for some of the ICE thugs.

You need to upgrade to a better friend.

I once played tuba.

My gift to music was deciding to stop and never play again.

Until the punishments are targeting the people hiring undocumented workers, it’s all just racist bullshit.

As demonstrated with Brexit.

You spelled con man wrong.

I listen to the Up First podcast every morning. Then I see what I see while doom scrolling lemmy. That’s pretty much it.

My wife leaves MSNBC on just about all day long, and it’s rare she mentions anything I don’t already know about.

Ok, this is interesting because this question just came up with my wife.

I started playing the original Civilization game in college.

I shifted to freeciv when it became available.

If you consider them the same game, I’ve been playing that game about 34 years.

You’re cruel.

I like it.

How can sliced bread not be great? It’s been the ruler by which all greatness is measured since it was created!

would you like a recipe?

If you have a good recipe, I’d suggest that your question should be restated in a form that includes that recipe.

… bottled water, canned food, fuel, underground bunkers…

But the thing about that kind of concentration of power is it’s not a matter of if that power will be abused, it’s only a matter of when.

I’m thinking it’s more about how much of the abuse you can tolerate. It’s not like the US has been all that hesitant to abuse our allies in the past. It’s more like our allies have previously been able to convince themselves that the benefits outweighed the costs.

Like the friend who’s an asshole, but he’s got a 120" TV and is happy to share his booze. When he gets drunk and makes an inappropriate joke, you might ignore it. You tell your wife that he’s not that bad and you owe him for all he did for you in college.

The US has reached the point of whipping it’s dick out and waving it around at everyone at the party. It’s time to leave.

Me in the future, bleeding to death because I can’t remember I already did the test.

Why do you think this administration would care about Americans living abroad when they don’t care about Americans living in the USA?

People who are already dead inside.

Please. Recording in color.

We just managed to get my wife’s mother to use “people of color”. Don’t give her an excuse to backslide!

I think when people think in terms of “my dad did this, I won’t do that”, they often miss what the real issue was. They end up being bad parents, just in a different way.

My wife and I raised three kids, and I fucked them up in my own special way. Not anything like how my parents did me.

If I were to look back over my life and offer advice, the advice I’d offer is: get some therapy. Have a disinterested, professional person to talk to every, single, damn week for the rest of your life. Being a parent will fuck you up.

And that’s coming from someone who doesn’t regret having kids.

When I was first thinking about having kids, I was thinking I didn’t have the right personality. I spoke to my brother who had one child at the time, and he explained that when you have a kid you’re so filled with love for them that nothing they do bothers you.

I had a kid. From birth to about 18 months, he screamed. He screamed for everything. He would scream for hours about anything that bothered him. My mom worked as a nurse in a hospital nursery. She cared for her kids, friends kids, family’s kids. She said that in her entire life she never heard a baby scream so loud. My MIL was also a nurse and worked in maternity. Same deal. She was amazed at how loud he was.

I called my brother up to yell at him. He said I was right and he got it wrong. His first kid was easy. His second kid would get him so tight he’d have to leave the house to get away from her.

Back to my kid: Everyone asks, “oh, was it colic?” No. Not colic. The instant he started talking, he stopped screaming. The screaming was just what he did to communicate before he could talk.

I mention the story about the screaming because that was the easy part of parenting.