Mostly_Gristle @ Mostly_Gristle @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

I like the two random giant bullets of different calibers arranged next to the AK as if to suggest that rifle could suddenly become capable of firing them. If the IDF had found either of the guns capable of firing those rounds it would be front and center of their "evidence," because those guns are huge and scary looking.

Those rounds are about the right size for a soldier to carry around in their pocket to "find" and imply the existence of heavier weapons, but I'm sure the IDF would never stoop to such obvious and underhanded tactics.

It's basically the entire point of fascist movements: to create an in-group who is protected by the law but not bound by it, and an out-group who is bound by the law but not protected by it. The hypocrisy isn't just endemic, it's foundational.

I used to have this idea of shady lobbyists skulking around Washington with big bags of money, trying to entice wayward congresspeople and lure them to the dark side. Then a friend of mine did a short internship in the office of a congressman, and I found out it's actually very much the other way around.

You'd think a congressperson spends most of their time reading, writing, debating, and voting on the laws on which the country is run. That's their job description. That's what we're taught in school that they do. But what they actually spend most of their time doing is cold-calling people and soliciting donations. So if you define their job by what they spend the largest amount of time doing, your congressperson and your senators' job to beg for money so they can keep their job. There's a big call center just off the Capitol grounds, and as soon as the session at the Capitol ends they all walk over to the call center, plop down in their cubicle, and spend the rest of the day calling past and potential donors.

But a principled politician could just choose not to participate, right? Maybe, but even if you could self-fund your own campaigns, you still have to get out and earn for your party. Having the support of your party is contingent on hitting predetermined fundraising metrics based on the population, demographics, and economics of your constituency. If you don't hit those metrics you might suddenly find that it's tough to find support for your legislation. It's the same in either party.

It was one of the most disappointing things I ever learned about how our country works. The corruption isn't just baked into the system, it's all but mandatory. And this was like 25 years ago, before Citizens United. I can't imagine it has gotten any better since then.

Coming soon to a London borough near you...

The Great Stink Two: Fecal Boogaloo!

Sponge bath?

Wash basin.

The last time I went to McDonald's I got two regular hamburgers and a medium fry, no drink. It was almost $10 after tax, the fries were cold and I had to pull out of the drive-through and wait for it.

I didn't eat McDonald's a lot to begin with, but it's just not worth it to eat there anymore. It was always crap food, but it was at least fast and cheap. Now that it's crap, slow, and expensive, there's absolutely no reason to go there. The entire time I was sitting in my car eating my sad little mostly-bun burgers and cold fries, I was looking at the Costco across the street thinking about how, for the same $10, I could have gotten a huge slice of pizza, a soda, two churros, and an entire rotisserie chicken.

It's not surprising, that's how their search engine has worked forever. But yeah, icky is a good word for it.

Is it just me or is this article written under the false assumption that Facebook not serving you ads is somehow the same as Facebook not collecting your data? Because just yesterday I read an article about Costco being in trouble for allowing Facebook's tracking pixel to collect their customers' HIPPA-protected medical information through their pharmacy's web interface. I can't imagine that serving ads or not serving ads is going to stop Facebook from collecting and exploiting all the personal data it possibly can. Paying to opt out of seeing ads seems like it would, at best, just make Facebook's data mining less visible.

Is anyone else surprised it's even worth that much?

Somewhere in storage I have a tapestry of dogs playing pool.

That is Larkspur. I'm from Denver, and recognized it immediately (also I image searched Larkspur ren faire to double check I wasn't misremembering what it looks like). I'm sure other ren-faires have similar things, but that castle facade has been there since at least the 1980s, and I kind of doubt that was something you could get pre-fabricated back then.

Is this a shocking headline for people who weren't alive when the Cold War was still going on? Because when I was a kid Russia making plans for nuclear retaliation was just a typical weekday.

I don't think it's from anything, but it has kind of a similar look to Robby the Robot from Forbidden Planet, so maybe that's why it looks familiar.

Is it too late to bring back the lettuce?

If there's one thing the Republicans have made abundantly clear over the last decade it's that they have zero integrity. Not personally as individuals; not collectively as a party. It'd almost be weird if they suddenly started keeping their word now.

Probably someone throwing rocks at something, and instead of the normal clack-clack sound of rocks hitting other rocks, one time it went bing. And once they found out that one rock can go bing they probably started checking every rock to see if it might go bing too, or possibly bong.

I would think word of something like that would spread pretty fast, too. Like could imagine being a neolithic cave dude visiting the next village to trade some jewelry-quality bear teeth or whatever, only to see a guy playing a pile of rocks like a xylophone from the Flintstones? You'd be telling everybody about that shit. It's pretty trippy to watch now; It must have been mind-blowing back when it was first discovered. I wouldn't be surprised if it took on some kind of magical significance. And once you knew it was a thing you'd probably have your head on a swivel for the rest of your life keeping an eye out for some magic bing-bong stones of your own.

No, it wouldn't. When I say I work in a high noise environment I mean that I'm surrounded by enough machine noise that I wear ear plugs to protect my hearing. Active noise cancellation isn't a substitute for actual PPE. It'd be cool if it worked that way, but sadly not.

Bone conduction works great with earplugs though. The only minor downside is that earplugs make the bass frequencies stronger, so I need to open up the EQ settings and tweak things a bit if I'm listening to music, but that's not really a big deal. I'm usually listing to podcasts or audio books at work anyway.

it doesn't block any external sound, so don't use in noisy environments

It's actually because I work in a high noise environment that I got into bone-conduction headphones. They still work when you're wearing earplugs.

I haven't flipped through one in since I was a kid but, if I remember correctly, it actually did contain a bunch of recipes for cooking meals. Pretty much all of them were horrible ways to add marijuana to spaghetti and stuff like that.