Lurker > ElatedVenusaur

Good. Retail is a garbage sector full of garbage companies run by garbage CEOs and boards that deserve nothing but to have to deal with their customers themselves.

Antifar, you're being awful mean to Stephen Breyer. It's not like this exact circumstance didn't literally just blow up in liberals' faces!

indica posted...

I think these are both great posts, but do you have links to the sources you're citing?

I am recalling what I remember from reading The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark. It's been a bit since I read it though: I may be off on details. I highly recommend it: it's very well-written and thorough.

No, he's not voting to end the filibuster, just for cloture.
There's no reason to think when it inevitably fails he won't just throw up his hands, smile smugly, and say, "Well, what can you do?" and go roll in his trough full of lobbyist money.

Customer Service/Store Support(my department) is basically in a constant state of collapse at my Whole Foods. They mostly hire cashiers, who are mostly not great at their jobs and/or smart enough to realize what an oppressive hellhole this company is and don't last. The cashier assistants they hire are almost always terrible(but then, they've hired four in the past year, one of which is ok and one of which is great. One is bad, and the fourth was so terrible they made my job slightly more annoying), and they've managed to hire a single maintenance team member who quit after one day.
They have two maintenance team members(they need like four: I and the full-time cashier assistant[the only one] that they just fired have been working half our shifts there for the past year): a sweet, hard-working Haitian lady in her 50s and a bitter, moody white dude in his 40s, and they don't get along. I doubt management is aware, because management is aware of precious little aside from the attendance policy and dress code.
They once wrote up a team member for not wearing socks, even though it's not in the GIG. Hours later, they told her it was in a byline in an unpublished supplemental.

But gee, I wonder why no one wants to work here?

Crazyman93 posted...

And because of that she won't appear again. Her whole reason to exist was to be a McGuffin that Morty wanted and never got either through his own failings, or because Rick is a selfish asshole who uses Morty whenever he needs anything from death crystals to a shiny rock he saw on the ground.

What character?

Actually, hell, Jessica's entire appearance in the episode made no sense considering she has never once shown any interest in Morty at all. That whole plot read like someone started off writing fanfic, then it got put in a draft and they decided to mess with it so Morty got kicked more.

Maybe she's just into freaky sci-fi stuff? She was at the party and helped Rick capture detoxed Morty one of my fave episodes, by the way. She wanted to hang out with Morty last season(she invited him skinny dipping, IIRC), and apparently Morty has her number and it's not super weird for him to call her.
But yeah, she really hasn't been developed at all prior to this episode, so no one can really say she was acting in or out of character, because she's basically just been an animate trope thus far. I don't think she's ever going to be much of a character going forward we already have 5, but at least now she might, instead of being a generic high school girl, gaze wide-eyed off into the distance as she speaks of the nature of time and existence. In fact, it would be great if she made Morty uncomfortable.

CosmicShadows made a bad future in Palmtree Panic!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJOIlzWmKks

cjsdowg posted...

I love Mr. Peanut Butter. And that got damn Bell Room was sweet.

Todd is a horrible person.Remember when he killed all those Clowns.

Yeah, Todd is a monster.
Mr. Peanut Butter is hilarious though.

Thats a relief, but this should be done nationwide.

Yeah.
The Yellow Devil freaking sucks though.

Crazyman93 posted...

That episode hurt. I've never felt so bad for Morty

I'm just glad they finally did something with Jessica, because she spent four whole seasons and a lot of screen time being nothing but "hot girl Morty has a crush on".
Now she's a Time God.

I believe you mean "Richard and Wine Boy".

Criminalt posted...

Much as I love Blackadder Goes Forth and admire Baldrick's, um, simple home-spun wisdom... It started because Vienna wanted to smash Serbia and used the assassination as a pretext for a war to punish "state-sponsored terrorism". Franz Ferdinand's murder was basically the 9/11 of its day; except this war of revenge escalated from a regional conflict (in the Balkans) to a global one, where the shooting reached from Cape Cod, Massachusetts in the west to Shandong province, China in the east.

You can lose the air quotes: the Serbs were 100% funding the Black Hand and although they accepted most of Austria-Hungary's ultimatum on the surface, their response was very mocking and condescending: they were, in fact, encouraged by the French and Russians to be provocative. Without such assurances, Belgrade likely would have folded.

One factor I think is important to highlight is this: all the Great Powers believed a general European war to be inevitable. And, for various reasons, they all felt 1914 was a good time.

Pretty much Russia was the only power who didn't think it was a great time, but the Russians felt that they had built their army up enough and that they couldn't be seen as being anything but 100% in support of Serbia due to their claim of representing all Slavs and prior failures in doing so.

Austria-Hungary, of course, was tired of Serbia's endless sabre-rattling, skullduggery, and general problem-causing. The murder of the Archduke was the last straw for them.

The Germans felt obligated to back Austria-Hungary, their most reliable ally, to the hilt, but they were also worried about Russia's development and feared that they couldn't win a war against her in as a little as five years time: in other words, they viewed it as imperative to their security to cut the Russians down to size. The French were largely inconsequential.

The French realized it had been some 40 years since the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, and also that Germany was growing and industrializing at a pace they couldn't hope to match: the gap between them and the Germans grew, year by year. They feared that Russia might chose to cast them aside as too weak to be useful and that they would lose their chance to wrest back their lost territory. It could be said the French were hellbent on having a war in 1914, though they were careful to avoid being seen doing so publicly, lest the British use French belligerence as an excuse to stay out of it.

The British, for their part, really wanted to expand their colonial empire, and were deathly afraid of Russia turning her eyes on Britain's holdings in Central Asia(better to let her gorge herself at Germany's expense, for Russians to bleed and die against the Germans and Austrians, and thus tie her strongly with Europe). Germany's naval build-up irked them. They also believed the French, motivated by their hatred of Germany and desire to reclaim Alsace-Lorraine, would choose the Russians over them. They decided they were going to side with the French and Russians before Germany invaded Belgium, but it made a pithy pretext for domestic consumption: Mighty Albion raising her sword in defense of weak, helpless Belgium sounded much more moral than the truth that the British hungered for yet more colonial possessions.

2Pacavelli posted...

It is weird that all of a sudden they want to switch up the rules to ther election

On the flip side I'm not a fan of any of the candidates. Morales would be my preferred choice of those who are running

You know she got caught trying to bust her own campaign workers union, right?
That seems to have killed her campaign dead, in any case. Wileys the best possible viable candidate.

Jeff AKA Snoopy posted...

I really love that image, but did not love Melbu Frahma out of nowhere. Especially since they already pulled the same twist twice. I.E. this person is actually a different person!
Also, I found the final boss really boring and overlong. Literally realized I had run out of items and MP and was just content to never beat the game if I died, but I won.
Oh, and I couldnt figure out Mayfil as a kid either. For some reason, I was convinced you had to somehow balance on the wires.

That was pretty good. Summer being hyper-competent continues to be gold.

What's political, and what isn't?

I got my shots practically as soon as I could get them, and have been urging reluctant friends to do the same. There's some seasonality to COVID, it seems, so I suspect it will be mostly fine until October or so. That's when Delta(or god knows what other variant) will really take off, if it's going to. We all must all do our part to keep it at bay.

As long as it dropped all the blackface.
Though I'm not sure if something that unabashedly and unironically campy could be made today which is a shame, because it's pretty great at it.

Lemmiwinks.

Gamefreak would just do that poorly too.

Counter-factuals are always hard: this one is basically: "What if Hitler and his Nazi buddies weren't morons ideologically predisposed towards underestimating the obstacles in front of them who could actually run a country for a decade without it collapsing due to their gross incompetence?"

What it would take for them to avoid their historical fate is for Stalin to screw up even harder. Maybe he has Zhukov put to death for calling him a moron Zhukov literally did call him a moron, apparently, proving that he had balls the size of the planet. Maybe Hitler tells Mussolini to stuff it and invades Russia a few months earlier, so they actually get Moscow, and...whoops! Napoleon totally conquered Moscow and it didn't f***ing matter!
Yeah...that's the thing. It's hard to imagine a scenario where the Nazis prevail in the East, because Russia is so ginormous and had so many dudes and it's difficult to theory-craft them just giving up on their core territories, because it's completely unprecedented. Maybe the Soviets collapse and the Nazis manage to convince Hitler turning Moscow into a lake is a terrible idea and they dredge up some old ass White Russian to be their patsy dictator they probably wouldn't use a Romanov? If there's civil war beyond the Urals, maybe the Nazis get away with it, but there would still be loads of partisans, because the Nazis were inveterate psychopathic monsters who managed to convince the goddamned Ukranians that maybe the Soviets were just the second-worst rulers on Earth.

There's still the problem of the Japanese going to war with the Americans and Hitler being hell-bent on honoring the alliance even though he would never actually be able to meaningfully help unless the Americans invaded. Mussolini was useless and his lunch probably still gets eaten. Best-case for Nazi Germany is probably the Allies decide landing in France is pointless with the Eastern front gone, and you get the Germans as suzerains of Europe lording over some puppets, but with the Brits in control of North Africa and possibly a partitioned Italy or a unified, allied-aligned Italy. Japan is a bit more stubborn without the threat of Soviet invasion but is still doomed regardless. The Nazis manage to genocide even more people before inevitably collapsing under the weight of their own stupefying incompetence.

Its extremely decadent and messy. Best when bacon is there, since it kind of bridges the gap, so to speak.
I highly recommend giving it a go.

Yall just throwing spoilers of later events out there like it isnt obvious hes just witnessed the Reunion.
But yes, this is the games actual twist: who is Cloud really and what even is Jenova?
But yes, Cloud existed prior to Hojo experimenting on him. Hojos just intentionally lying to mess with you because hes a psychopathic monster. It will all be cleared up later, and make sure to swing by the Nibelheim mansions basement before the point of no return.

Finally!
One of my best friends smokes it because it helps with her chronic pain, so I'm glad it will soon be easier for her to come by. Maybe she could even get into growing her own...

Scorsese2002 posted...

It was always celebrated, now it can be capitalized off of

Eh, holidays are a good thing. It's just also a very minor thing compared to everything else that needs to be done.

ImAMarvel posted...

I remember the summer before my senior year of high school, I was supposed to read Frankenstein. I actually have a pretty high interest in literature but I just didn't feel like reading it. >_>

Funny enough, I'm finally reading it now. I actually really like it so far, though I'm not very far.

Frankenstein owns.
I feel like making it an assignment just makes reading seem like work though.

You said players but only linked one Twitter melty. I am disappoint.
As a poster and as a Bills fan.

Yes, and it's often used to undermine wages.
Wage labor itself is questionable, but that's a different can of worms.

Lost_All_Senses posted...

Where did all the cowboys go?

They rode off with the manic pixie dream girls, and now they're running tiny bespoke ranches in Montana.

Keep your gubmint hands off my Obummercare!
LOL Thomas voted to uphold. Alito and Gorsuch dissented.

Yes.

I really like that segment. Damia is quietly tragic: she barely lived at all before being thrust to the forefront of an apocalyptic war in which she died, and her fellow Dragoons were the only ones who ever made her feel as though she belonged. Syuveil is a resolute philosopher seeking answers to the nature of existence; of life and death. Belzac cannot accept that he sacrificed his life to save Shirley, only for her to die anyway(as we all, inevitably, do). It is only when he is reminded that his life and death meant more than that that he can accept it.
And Kanzas? Men like Kanzas have probably been drawn to the battlefield for as long as we've fought wars. A well-composed psychopath can kill as he pleases on the field of battle, and may even be remembered as a hero for doing what comes naturally. I'm sure he enjoyed his powers to a degree that made the others uncomfortable.

cuh posted...

Fair. It would be better to actually make progress towards a more just society.

Going to have to tag this.

catboy posted...

What's more important: Asgard or the Asgardians?

CE collectively being Hela makes a depressing sense.

Pogo_Marimo posted...

The modern world is one of ennui.

And deeply impersonal. Almost every relationship or exchange is one-off.

More straight talk from Diamond Joe.

Gheb posted...

It'd probably be easier to list FE games where Paladins weren't dominant.

Three Houses!
If only because everyone can get on a wyvern instead and they nerf your growths for so much as looking at a horse.

It depends. If you're hanging a flag around 4th of July, or just occasionally on your property or whatever, you're probably fine.
If you're prominently displaying a flag at all times, especially from a vehicle or on clothing, you're 100% an insecure ass and probably racist to boot.

Please instead direct your ire towards Rep. Omar for stating basic facts about Israel while being black, female, and Muslim. Thank you, we promise to try again to extend your voting rights if you elect 2-12 additional Democratic Senators.

I think the saddest was the girl with multiple tattoos telling me she wont get it because shes afraid of needles.

CanuckCowboy posted...

I've been sticking with basic twinnings teabags lately.

The most memorable tea I ever tried was Russian caravan. It tastes like thick, nasty smoke. Like inhale wildfire smoke directly and its like that.

That's the exact tea that got me into the component that makes that smoky: it's lapsang souchong, a pine-smoked tea produced primarily in China's Fujian province. It's my favorite tea.
I used to get it from Choice, but they recently dramatically curtailed their selection(they've stopped selling both Russian Caravan and lapsang souchong), so now I get it from Harney&Sons. It kind of sucks: Choice sold it in 2 lb. bags, but Harney only does 1 lb. bags.

I'm personally a big fan of Chinese, Tibetan, and Nepalese black teas. They tend to not be as strong as teas from India or Africa, so they're more appealing to my palate.

As long as UBI is in addition to existing programs and also truly universal, it would be an unambiguous social good that would help people out.

Atralis posted...

https://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

That's a kind of ugly secret of the American labor market," David Autor, an economist at MIT, told me. "Part of the reason our unemployment rates have been low, until recently, is that a lot of people who would have trouble finding jobs are on a different program."
Part of the rise in the number of people on disability is simply driven by the fact that the workforce is getting older, and older people tend to have more health problems.
But disability has also become a de facto welfare program for people without a lot of education or job skills. But it wasn't supposed to serve this purpose; it's not a retraining program designed to get people back onto their feet. Once people go onto disability, they almost never go back to work. Fewer than 1 percent of those who were on the federal program for disabled workers at the beginning of 2011 have returned to the workforce since then, one economist told me.

We've put a time limit on unemployment and other benefits in order to push people off welfare but a significant number of the people that have been pushed towards work instead end up on disability and they never return to work.

Its an open secret that this is happening. We have the data showing that the % of people on disability increases with the rate of unemployment when there is a recession and we can look at locations with depressed economies in the US and, surprise, the % of people on disability is many times higher than the overall US average and the causes of disability have shifted away from clearly diagnosable illnesses and injuries.

We've created a system where people are given an incentive for exiting the workplace forever and created a perverse disincentive for self improvement and resilience. Even if someone feels like they could return to work doing something, anything, they are basically told that if they do that they will lose everything in terms of their benefits.

UBI would fix this. I'm not saying it wouldn't create other problems but it would fix this. If someone is able to work in any capacity they would be able to do it and still get their benefits. People that are working at McDonalds wouldn't be making less than that's only income is the safety net.

This problem exists because our economy, as it currently exists, is profoundly anti-worker.
I have a friend who suffers terrible pain daily due to a back injury suffered at work. Shes not on disability, because the company(Whole Foods/Amazon, if youre wondering) is suing, alleging she wasnt disabled due to a workplace injury, because employers claiming they have no duty to their employees (former or current) is de rigeur in our economic system.
She goes everywhere with either her cane or her walker, and is desperate to keep busy: shes gotten into making candles and gifted me some theyre incredible.

My point? More power to anyone who successfully claims disability and escapes this soul-sucking rat-race. Even those who manage to do so fraudulently are morally superior to most employers.

Glad someone is looking out for Russias oil industry!

Antifar posted...

I agree; we should get rid of life sentences too. Putting people in cages for decades doesn't help society.

Hell yeah!

Im currently reading Debt: A 5,000 Year History by David Graeber, which is, essentially, a comparative anthropological study of human economic development. Its really thorough, well-written, and engaging work.
And funny, when he quotes this medieval Turkish satirist named Nasruddin.

When he said nothing fundamentally would change, he actually meant nothing would change for the better.
Drop this BS and do something decent, old man.

I dont see how those skills could be quickly and easily taught, or that many of those things are relevant today, particularly given how few teenagers today will ever be able to afford a home.
Basically, our education system often fails at teaching what its currently trying to teach, standardized testing that doesnt actually improve outcomes and only sort of measures anything is cannabalizing everything from Shop(which would teach a lot of what youre ranting about) and Home Ec(see previous parenthetical) to art, music, and phys ed despite evidence these subjects improve student performance in core subjects.
High school history and economics tends to be a joke in part because they are carefully designed to avoid anything remotely controversial and people with science and math degrees have way more lucrative and arguably less stressful career options than teaching high school.

Difficult to imagine: his legacy would undoubtedly have been tarred by Vietnam. He would probably have backed his brother in 68 over LBJ, but RFK would probably find it harder to question US strategy/involvement in Vietnam if JFK was its architect.
Its a question for Rick Perlstein.