ObamaSama

“The ability of Jewish people to self-determine themselves is foundational,” he said, according to a recent report in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “The failure to recognize the state of Israel is taking away that self-determination. So it is antisemitic.”

Welp can't say I'm surprised but he's literally on record saying not supporting Israel is antisemitic, great stuff. More excited than ever to get out and

I woke up to half a dozen “sky is falling” RH notifications, saw my portfolio down 10%, shrugged, and went on with my day. I imagine it would be pretty stressful if I actually had money or, god forbid, open call options. Hooray for not having any real stake in the capital market, let it all burn 🔥

Kinda wild how many Americans’ retirement plans and long term financial stability are completely dependent on the whims of the market tho, genuinely disgusting how siding with the capitalists is presented as the only option if you want to be allowed to retire. Like yeah dude let me just give you my money and tie my future to the well being of the market with the promise that maybe I can get a tiny drop of that stolen surplus in the future. If the market isn’t crashing while I’m trying to retire of course. Glad an entire generation doesn’t have a brutal case of Stockholm syndrome because of it

Insane kdr on these fellas, impressive stuff. I have a suspicion the Chinese are cheating to pump their stats though (real gamers know it’s endemic in their culture after all). Just seems sus that Mao could get more than 3x second place, probably used some exploit

EDIT: checked the “source” and the dictator perk is giving him kills for everyone that died in the country for any reason, soooo broken. Prime minister doesn’t proc on anything, fuckin bullshit

FULLY

MODELED

I had 4 or so years of Spanish throughout various levels of school and never felt I learned much at all. I jammed Duolingo for a month or two before going to Mexico and was really surprised by how much I still remembered. I was able to test out of a lot by having a solid foundation that somehow had stuck with me, I felt pretty cocky going into my trip.

Unsurprisingly, my lack of practice speaking and listening made real time conversations nearly impossible even though I could still read and write well enough. That really didn’t help much with day to day stuff, you can always pull out your phone to translate what a sign says but there’s no substitute for being able to immediately understand and respond to someone. Several others have mentioned it but an academic setting is not a very good way to learn a language, the best is just continuous exposure to how it’s actually used. I taught myself Korean primarily from watching a lot of Korean shows with some supplemental grammar and vocab lessons, it was SO much more effective. I was conversational from the start and was able to connect on a lot of cultural references, after 6 months there I was pretty damn fluent (and even won the grand prize for a speech I gave entirely in Korean).

I’m so confused by that last bit, do they think countries can pull themselves up by their bootstraps and become perfectly developed without any trade? They’re literally saying “dang isn’t it weird that embargoes and harsh sanctions work” to prove their point. Yeah no shit you need to be integrated with global trade networks to gain access to resources you can’t extract/create internally. That doesn’t mean that trade deals with great powers are fair and not ruthlessly exploiting the different market conditions. Just because you get some benefit from a bad deal you’re strong armed into taking doesn’t make it not exploitative (labor). What a shock that becoming a puppet state in strategic location leads to more foreign investment, clearly this proves neo-imperialism is actually based and good for everyone

Was it to the point where they actually felt up your genitals? That seems insane, I’ve gotten countless pat downs but the most invasive it ever got was grazing my nuts while going up the inner thigh. Getting a legit genital inspection sounds like a horribly dysphoric experience, I’m sorry you had to go through that

Airport scanners have a problem with my genitals so nearly every single time I go through I get a red square there and “require” a pat down. It’s usually a quick obligatory show that seems completely ineffective as they don’t touch anywhere near the actual area in question. I make a subtle joke about my massive cock and balls, they laugh at the machine complimenting me, and I move on in under a minute.

However, sometimes there’s a false positive when they test their gloves after and then all my luggage gets searched through, accompanied by a barrage of questions. That’s when the vibe totally switches and they become very antagonistic. Once you’re seen as suspicious they go full cop brain and try their hardest to put the pressure on to make you crack. Even when they don’t find anything at all you’re still guilty in their eyes so they try to turn the most banal and innocent things into an excuse to “prove” you’re up to no good. I’m sure they have fantasies of being the one to stop some super dangerous terrorist (and then reflexively justify the whole security theater) so they will try to warp the facts to make you that dangerous terrorist if you catch their ire. You’re put in a position of having to prove your innocence rather than them having to prove your guilt, the absence of anything incriminating isn’t sufficient for them.

I’m lucky that I pass the initial vibe check just by virtue of being a “normal” looking white guy so I’m only subject to that extra scrutiny after failing two of their screening processes, many others are seen as sus by default. I’ve seen how ugly they can get once they decide you “deserve” it and can’t imagine how rough it must be to deal with that every time

I loved motorcycles until I lived in Mexico for a while and realized they have a different perception of what a “bike lane” is for. Constant lane splitting and going into bike lanes or even on the sidewalk to speed around traffic. My brother got hit by a motorcycle in a bike lane, thankfully his bicycle took the brunt of the impact and saved a mother and child from getting hit. Of course, the motorcycle likely wouldn’t have been in the bike lane if there weren’t cars congesting the road but there will always be impatient assholes and motorcycles are still dangerous for pedestrians

I fully agree that it’s a dumb question that presupposes the existence of some ethereal “essence” for the question to not be completely preposterous. My ex did not see it that way and did legitimately get very upset with me for responding in a similar way to the OP.

I think the anger was based on her concept of love being an idealized force that transcends the physical and can truly be “forever” which also would necessitate there being some lingering trace of a person remaining regardless of their physical form. Not sure though, she didn’t exactly elaborate and just screamed at me for a while

I can’t even get mad about these kinds of posts anymore, it’s just a simple reification that the status quo justifies and affirms its own validity by the very nature of being the status quo rather than by any external “political” force. No need to question it or have a single thought about how the status quo came to be, that’s too complicated. It’s easier to exist in a world where what is simply is and define yourself in relation to it. Building a foundation of the self on the “real”, the tangible, observable components that the status quo consists of, is much easier building a foundation on anything it is not which only exist within the mind.

From that framing any challenge to the status quo exists outside the realm of the “real” and is a distinctly separate phenomenon. “Political” becomes a simple catch all to describe anything that threatens to move from the conceptual to the real. Something that already is “real” simply cannot be political in this respect.

Chuds will have an absolute melty over the seemingly most inane and trivial shit simply because of the self affirming power an idea gains by becoming “real”. An empowered minority/woman/trans person in media IS real to them because their entire existence and concept of the real is based almost entirely off of the media they consume. That idea becoming “real” in any form is an existential threat to their position in the hierarchy of white male dominance. This is already long as fuck so I don’t want to venture into the rabbit hole of defining “real” and touching on Baudrillard, etc but I think this fairly simplistic framing gets my point across