A book I mentioned in the book thread is called "Station Eleven" about a pandemic that kills not all, but most people. Goes through some of the same decay that you guys talk about. (interesting, but the book was written just a year or so before COVID).

@Renauda said: @Horace said: @89th said: I find the shooter's strategy to run really fast through the first security checkpoint intriguing. He made it through, although I think about 50 feet later was tackled or something. Imagine if it comes out his name is Leeroy Jenkins? I didn't read his manifesto, I try never to give the shooters any oxygen (name, face, manifesto...). Clearly I'm having an impact. He isn't crazy. I can understand dismissing the ravings of a crazy person, but this manifesto was informative on a number of levels. I agree he’s not kookoo crazy but rather crazed in his very own reality that leads to fanatic convictions and deeds. Probably not unlike your garden variety Islamacist suicide bomber. After all, I don’t think he expected to come out his deed alive. I agree. Anybody who does something like that is crazy on some level. IMO, anybody who does something that is an "outlier" to normal society actions is somewhat crazy. The problem is when those actions become normal behavior in a society. On a lower level, stuff like when there is a riot, and people feel it is okay to go in and take stuff from stores. Shoplifting and then when they are challenged, get offended. Etc.

For those who are catholic, is there a focus on sex? From the outside, it seemed that sex was part of their agenda, but not the main focus. Seemed like there were other things like poor people, etc.

@Axtremus said: @Mik said: Probably constitutionally correct, but bad for the republic. So much for the "Founding Fathers' wisdom." Well, yes. Elbridge Gerry, after whom Gerrymandering is named, was a signer of the declaration of independence. As governor of Massachusetts, he approved an odd shaped district to benefit his party in 1812. It looked like a salamander, so they called it the Gerry-mander’. And the name stuck.

Hey, no judging!

Great to hear @lufins-dad as well. Just like Jon's post, I appreciate the health updates.

You ain't lion about that

Yeah in Virginia we'd get probably 25% of our stuff from Trader Joe's. They had so many great "only at Trader Joes" items. One item which is a "not the WORST" snack are plantain chips. Purple and yellow bag, I think... try them out, there is also a spicy version if you need heat. Anyway... I could eat them forever and I think (!) they were Whole30 certified.

Me neither but it’s interesting to see betting markets thinking so.

I’m at the airport and a woman fainted at baggage claim and fell onto the carousel. But she’s slowly coming around now.

I hope it doesn't self-harm from the shame of it all.

https://www.wired.com/story/tech-bros-are-all-in-on-zyn/ ENTREPRENEUR GARRETT CAMPBELL has a 6-mg “cool mint” Zyn tucked under his lip at all times during his mammoth 15-hour workdays, aside from when he is eating. “I was always very against nicotine,” says the software company founder. The 26-year-old saw his peers using nicotine pouches at college, when they first emerged as a potential productivity-boosting hack, and considered it a “degenerate thing to do.” But then all of his fellow founders started fueling themselves with nicotine pouches, of which the Philip Morris International–owned Zyn is the market leader. The company distributed 794 million cans in the US in the last financial year, a 37 percent increase over the previous year. Now, Campbell says “every single one” of his friends that runs a company does so with a nicotine pouch in their mouth. Tech workers are increasingly attacking their marathon workdays like “racehorses” dosed with significant quantities of purportedly performance-maximizing nicotine, with each 6-mg pouch containing the nicotine of several cigarettes. Stripped of the smoke, smell, and stigma of cigarettes and vapes, nicotine pouches are being quietly rebranded in Silicon Valley as a clean, nootropic stimulant rather than a dirty habit. and Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson launched his own brand, ALP, short for American Lip Pillow, in 2024. “Nicotine’s super important,” the ex-smoker told podcaster Theo Von in December, embodying a plump Marlboro Man for the smoke-free age. “This country’s gotten far sadder and less healthy since it was discouraged, and it's coming back and it shows: People are just happier.”

The dinosaurs went anti-vaxx?

Wow. Our leaders have been asleep at the switch for 20 years.

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https://x.com/ariel_oseran/status/2048757909941535197?s=46 (Using this as the ‘hezbollah Israel war thread’ since it may have a life span independent of the Iran war)

I was sailing towards graduation from high school without a lot of cares in the world. I remember it, but didn’t pay too much attention. It was only 7 years after 3 Mile Island. A have an unusual memory regarding the latter. In 1994 I flew into Harrisburg PA for the first time. We flew over TMI and I saw two cooling towers with steam coming out and two that were just dead, corresponding to the reactor that went critical. Next morning I’m listening to NPR in my hotel and there’s a story about TMI. It was the 15th anniversary of the melt down.

Yeah but at least with real estate there’s a sense that the value will climb over time for most people. Or so cars and phones. I’ve heard people with not a lot of means talking about when they ‘get to’ upgrade their phone. They’ve just banked the idea that they’ll constantly have a phone payment but at least they ‘get to upgrade’ every two or three years like it’s some benefit of their plan and not an independent financial decision. I’m sure the same thought process goes into perpetual lease payers. I was once car shopping and overheard a salesman ask another guy what he could afford. He gave an answer in terms of a monthly payment! You just know he walked out of there with a nicer car than he needed and a 7 year loan or some shit.

I listened to that show.