ShittyBeatlesFCPres

Like two or three generations ago, they fired female teachers who had kids. Also, he’s Catholic. I know he’s an adult convert and so mega weird — adult converts are usually just attracted to the hierarchy and lore instead of the charity and service parts — but he should at least know about nuns teaching school.

I’m glad police in the U.S. don’t protect corporate interests even at the expense of basic civil liberties. That’s just fucked up.

I got a relatively inexpensive espresso machine for like $100 with the main downside being it’s not very tall (so putting a mug under it is out). It’s been perfectly fine for like 8 years, though. I’m sure for $500+, I’d get a slightly better espresso but I’ve found buying good coffee beans and grinding them fresh — basically getting the other steps right — makes more of a difference than the machine.

I imagine the expensive machines are more foolproof or consistent or flexible? But it was just me making espresso before work basically every day. It didn’t take long for me to get the timing and stuff down. (I have a De’Longhi one, for the curious, but I don’t necessarily want to steer anyone to that particular brand since it’s been so long. The brand might be owned by some Private Equity firm or something called like “Guangzhou Plastic Manufacturing Concern” and the quality parts were replaced by lead pipes with arsenic in them.)

I don’t know what kind of neighborhood it is but sprinkling cat food or something like that everywhere would probably attract something. Your friend could even do it to his own yard. I’d be weirded out if my neighbor moved and suddenly his yard had 25 raccoons in it.

In addition to the historic reasons mentioned in the other comments, there’s places facing famine right now that aren’t getting much help and several more countries where we should be preparing for mobilization and aren’t.

Source for that image is the World Food Program’s early warning report: https://docs.wfp.org/api/documents/WFP-0000153539/download/

Big Pharma doesn’t really do as much basic research as they claim. They do a fair bit but I’d guess it’s mostly universities funded by NIH (and other governments’) grants making the most important discoveries. Then philanthropists, investors, more government grants, etc. often fund the early stage clinical trials and the creation of the small company. Big Pharma does obviously invent a lot of medications in house but it seems like the more typical path is that they buy a small company in later stage trials and provide the marketing and manufacturing/distribution at scale.

Which is fine. They aren’t pure evil or good. The discoverer, university, people who took financial risk get paid. But there’s other ways for scientists, universities, and early investors to get their return (which usually funds the next round of research). Government “bounties” is one idea. Like, if you create a miracle cure, rich governments buy the IP rights for x amount and release all claims on the patents so it’s generic from the start. If done correctly, the savings to national healthcare systems (and the 17 systems the U.S. has duct taped together) would cover the bounty and then some. Big Pharma’s manufacturing and distribution would still be important in that system and they could focus on things without bounties.

Honestly, I’d like to see that anyway, especially for diseases that are sort of ignored by capitalism. It’s perfectly ok if the bounty system loses money curing things Big Pharma isn’t so interested in (like less famous third world diseases). It’s not like bombs and roads are profitable for governments.

I found tons of copper in my neighbors’ A/C units. There’s no shortage.

And Trump technically wasn’t “born.” He hatched from a goose egg like all goose-stepping fascist dipshits.

Assuming no one nukes the world or that all air defenses work, it’d be a mess. There’s no force in human history that can stop NATO in a traditional war. (Maybe the Mongols because they’re always the exception.) But it’s very likely China, North Korea, Iran, and others would be much harder to conquer/occupy at the same time.

It would be widespread suffering in most of the world. The truth is that war is obsolete as a means of accomplishing 99% of political goals. Most of the world would descend into chaos and civil war. Food would be scarce and in times of scarcity, the drunkest, most violent people usually end up in charge. You’d have warlordism in the vast, vast majority of the world.

The natural state of humanity isn’t trade and property rights. It’s warlords offering protection in exchange for whatever they need. No one “wins” wars in 2024. Groups like ISIS would thrive, not law and order.

When I studied International Affairs we were assigned a book called “The Road to Dayton: A Study in American Statecraft” about the Dayton Accords ending the Bosnian War. Richard Holbrooke and Warren Christopher weren’t the only players, obviously, but I remember it being excellent for the time.

I went to college a long time ago so I have no idea if the book is still relevant. But there’s even a Simpsons joke where Homer is afraid Bart is gay and Moe says, “Time was, you send a boy off to war. Shootin' a man'd fix him right up. But there's not even any wars no more—Thank you very much, Warren Christopher.”

In retrospect, it was all very September 10th but we used to actually end wars. Probably sounds crazy to young people but it’s true. There used to be peacetime where joining the military just meant you trained and maybe went to Germany or something.

It’s called “brokedishing” and choosing the right dish to break is an art form.