It’s a great relief to come to the realization that there is no grand inherent meaning to life, and no need for one. No constant worrying about what the meaning is and how much time you have left to “figure it out”, no need to feel like there’s some big thing you have to accomplish, no pressure to be someone important or make an impact on the world. No need to find the correct religion or moral code. It’s simple: we’re all (humans and animals) just trying to live our lives in peace and find happiness, so as for goals: Live and let live. Try to not hurt each other, and better yet, help each other–helping¹ someone isn’t always easy but it’s a good feeling. It creates a feeling of meaning/purpose better than most anything else I can think of.

1: besides doing some task for someone, it could also be as simple as a smile, a kind word, or just listening/being there.

I knew this fucking piece of shit would stop us from being able to get our vaccinations. I hate these rich, cruel, power-drunk self-aggrandizing monstrous killers so much! 😡 🔥 🔥 🔥

That’s still $9.87 million too much

Bezos is to Trump as Trump is to Putin. IOW they each grovel and obey in the hopes their master will give even a slight positive acknowledgement, but it never happens.

Lesson: Before you move into a new rental, find out who was there before and how long it’s been empty. I can see this situation happening a lot as more targeted people move to avoid being found, and unknowing people move into the vacated rental unit.

Marisa said the agents tore apart every square inch of the house and what few belongings they had, seizing their phones, laptops and their life savings in cash as “evidence.”

“I told them before they left, I said you took my phone. We have no money. I just moved here,” she said. “I have to feed my children. I’m going to need gas money. I need to be able to get around. Like, how do you just leave me like this? Like an abandoned dog.”

As for Marissa’s phones, electronics, and cash, they have no idea which agency has those belongings or how to get those items back.

They’re totally fucked. Each agency that was there denies responsibility and refers them to the next, which does the same.

One mistake Temu is making is showing it as “Import fees”. That’s correct of course, but they should label it specifically as “Import tariffs” or “Tariffs”, so that it’s clear what this is. From the comments in the linked reddit threads, a lot of people just think they’re extra fees Temu is voluntarily putting on as retaliation, their brains still aren’t making the link between “import fees” and “trump’s tariffs on China”.

If Mangolini weren’t such an idiot, he wouldn’t have revoked the de minimus exemption (meaning orders under $800 were exempt from the tariffs), then his rube followers would never have noticed anything.

How about “Celebration” by Kool & the Gang? “Celebrate good times, come on!”

USA, $9/mo. ($9.36 with taxes/fees) for unlimited talk/texts and 1GB data.

Holy shit! The fascist shutdown of the judiciary has officially moved into high gear. JFC

My next toot will be drafted on a blank Libre page with no AI checking anything.

I have bad news for you. It’s in your OS, there is no space safe from surveillance in Windows. That said, LibreOffice is a pretty heavy and complex application compared to notepad. I’m sure they can find a much lighter and simpler text editor to use as a replacement.

Yes I oversimplified because the post was getting so long and the topic is American imperialism specifically, but of course there are exceptions. South Africa being an obvious example, where you had white rule and the oppression of apartheid up until not long ago. Point is, Europe is where it all stems from. Before you come back with exceptions from ancient history I’ll say that I’m talking about modern history (which is the post middle ages period).

Here’s my view:

The North American colonies of the European imperialists had one very significant difference from the other colonies of the European imperialists: when the European imperialists came over here and proceeded to brutally colonize this continent, and brought their slaves from Africa over here to work for them and send the products back to Europe, it was the European imperialists over here who rebelled against the European imperialists over there, and won.

So IOW when America/USA got its independence from the European imperialists, it was really just another group of European imperialists owning and running the new country. They still had the slaves so they just kept on going with the slavery along with continuing the genocide of the original inhabitants. The European imperialists in Europe lost their slaves and land to the American group of imperialists.

Whereas when the other colonies of the European imperialists in South America, Africa, etc. got their independence, it was the original inhabitants of those places who got their own countries, not just another group of European imperialists taking over from the previous group.

So Europe’s age of imperialism finally petered out and they moved on. Now they can sniff and tut-tut and pretend they are definitely not racist and would never, ever act like those horrible American imperialists. But it’s been Europeans and their descendants who have been in charge over here the whole time. This democracy was only ever intended to be a democracy by, of and for those white males (at first only white male landowners).

The reason things are falling apart now is that in their view, non-white males have gotten way too close to having too much power, and they can’t have that – that would be real democracy for all instead of the white-males-only democracy they want. Barack Obama winning the presidency totally freaked them out, inspiring the Tea Party movement which grew to become the maga movement and eventually took over the entire republican party. So now trump and the oligarchs are back in control. Phew!, they’re so relieved. But we outnumber them (which is why they want to purge non-whites and make white women have more babies). Who will win?

No matter how great your private insurance is, it won’t help you if the only hospital(s) in your area have closed down, especially when time is of the essence. Not just rural but in the less populated cities. That’s why cutting Medicaid and other safety net programs hurts everyone, not just “the poors”. Looks like a bunch of “I got mine, screw you” thinkers are about to do some finding out.

trump loves this, sitting on his throne while politicians (and business people and organizations) beg for help (or for him not to hurt them) while he gets to say “and what will you do for me in return?” or “I’m going to do you this favor. Some day I might also need a favor, you understand”

I have to say, I’m a little bit surprised, but I guess I shouldn’t be. I figured he’d gleefully screw over the blue states while continuing to help the red states, but obviously once he got into office he doesn’t need them any more. Which just goes to show they’ve got serious plans to make sure there won’t be any more free and fair elections.

(edit) I live in a red state, so all I can do is hope we don’t have any major disasters. At least our state’s finances have improved under our Democratic governor, but her term is only until the end of next year, when I’m sure a repub will replace her (we alternate our governors between repubs who screw everything up, and dems who painstakingly get us out of the mess over the objections of the repub-controlled legislature, just in time for voters to forget how bad the last repub gov was and vote in another one. rinse and repeat).

My god what a pathetic situation. trump and his freezing FEMA funds is only part of the problem–their own governor doesn’t give enough of a shit to do a damn thing about it; he’s a magat of course. There’s another article linked in the sidebar about him:

Governor Patrick Morrisey held a press conference today to look back on his first 100 days in office. Morrisey says he has made some “meaningful accomplishments” these last 100 days including the passing of 12 out of the 14 bills that he asked the legislature to consider this past session.

Those bills include banning cell phones in public schools, banning certain food dyes, ending state wide DEI programs, lessening regulations for data centers, creating “single-sex spaces” and more.

The topic of flooding was absent from the governor’s address today. The focus of the event was a retrospective of his time in office thus far and the disastrous flooding that killed three people and triggered major disaster declarations in six counties went unmentioned.

This is why they aren’t allowing due process, which would expose many more “mistakes”. There’s likely many more who were already sent to the El Salvador concentration camp than just Kilmar Abrego Garcia. For example, this poor guy. How many more?! 😠

Tesla’s stock price going up or down is a completely different matter than company earnings. The report is on their actual company profits, which are down 71% – meaning they aren’t selling as many cars. That’s a big deal. Let’s keep making sure that owning a Tesla becomes completely socially unacceptable.

Tesla reported lower than expected earnings on Tuesday, with first-quarter profits dropping 71% on much lower sales of electric vehicles.

I suppose historians will settle on a specific term, probably ‘maga’ (though I’d prefer ‘magat’), to apply to the members of this instance of fascism.