TommySalami

I think that character was supposed to be an amalgamation, so you're kinda right. I was getting Tucker Carlson vibes everytime I saw him. That "grown man in a bowtie who desperately wants to hard R it" kinda energy.

There are rooms clearly marked with mask and droplet precautions on the outside of the door, and the staff will take a mask from a box next to the door, go inside to deal with that person, and then when they’re done they take their mask back off and go back to walking around treating patients with no mask. What do the people in those rooms have?

This is pretty standard, and maybe I can shed some light on it. You don the mask as you enter the room and take it off as you leave to avoid spreading the contaminate out of the room. The mask adds a barrier and reduces your risk of contracting whichever disease (and subsequently spreading it to other patients), and all the stuff it's blocked stays in or at the room when you shed it. So the people seen doing that are actually playing their part in keeping whatever that person has limited to the room they're staying in.

As for what people in those rooms have, it can be a lot of things, but it really is what it says on the tin. They have something that can spread by droplet, which ranges from the flu to stuff like whooping cough or, yes, COVID. The system to keep these things contained is pretty consistently updated and has worked well when implemented. We were all wearing masks everywhere for a time because COVID was spreading like wildfire, and concerns of people becoming contagious before showing symptoms with no way to reliably innoculate/vaccinate medical workers

West by God Virginia. I spent a lot of time there reminding people we fought for the north.

I don't think it would prompt some kind of vindictive vote. That side of it is only going to energize those who were vehemently republican anyway. Republicans would hammer on any and all sympathy they can eke from having their candidate assassinated (regardless of the truth they will say it was the left, and at best people will think the guy was just crazy), and the average person only half paying attention will eat it up. Dems would be even more hamstrung in their rhetoric against the GOP considering the gravity of an event like that. Even with that aside, they're now running Joe Biden against whichever face the GOP tells their voters to line up behind -- who you can bet will be all in on the kind of stuff that will do even more lasting damage to our country. Biden is not a strong candidate, and without the uniquely unlikable personality and character of Trump I'm not sure there's enough motivation amongst voters to carry him to another term.

But all of that was a lot to type, so I just said it would give them a massive boost

I tentatively agree. The man himself I have no sympathy for, but an assassination of presidential nominee would have made everything even worse. GOP would get a huge boost, and could replace Trump with someone that is actually competent enough to fully implement their 2025 treason-esque bullshit. Not to mention how much that would have inflamed an already looney tunes level of political discourse.

It's also just not how we should do things in America. Call me a hopeless patriot, but we should try to live up to the ideals we espouse.

I mean, in context that verse is about being aware one's belief in Jesus may cause strife with their family/community, and how Christians are meant to endure this strife without denying their faith. The choice of wording makes sense in the context of the time it was written, when affirming Christ is God would have absolutely caused some major animosity with those who don't believe. It's assuring the reader that the division and pain that will come from those disagreements is not lost on God, and also not something we can turn away from and ignore.

The Christians that everyone is up in arms about all the time are close to the worst representation of the faith as possible, and you can easily point out their lazy interpretations as well as scripture that, more often than not, outright rejects their twisting of the faith. Modern day Pharisees all the way. Unfortunately the church on a national level is inundated with them, and has done a poor job of separating from them.

People who've never lived in Texas really don't get it. Everything is spread out to an almost ludicrous degree. I drive an hour to get to my friend's house, and I don't even consider him to be far away. We both live in the same metroplex.

Public transportation is almost complete failure here due to not being prioritized, and driving anywhere is a pain in the ass with drivers from all over just winging it on congested streets. Don't even get me started on overpriced tolls that have become the only reasonable way to travel 30min+

Texas is not ok.

To play devil's advocate, though, I do wonder what the exact rationale was for this. Was Al Jazeera engaged in legitimate espionage, using their news organization as a front?

Even then, it's a broadcast that Al Jazeera could just go view somewhere else and get the same info. Its a very thin excuse, and I think it just is what it is at face value. A poor justification for limiting coverage of the the war

I agree with this. I use the phrase essentially as "this is the reality" to either set a baseline, or just a different way to say c'est la vie. It frustrates me when people say it's always a dismissive phrase, because when I am dissmive with it I'm not doing so in a negative way. There's something to be said about letting little inconveniences lie and fade away.

You know what, I'm here for it. Anytime I hear about the cicadas coming back it's always over the top dread. People freak out, and there's so much acting like seeing a cicada is going to grind life to a halt. Everyone seems to lean into the bit.

The fact that the growing answer to the cicadas this year is a wildly different "fuck it, we'll eat them and then they can't get us" could not be more beautiful to me.

I think it is definitely a weird "first world" thing. I've run into it a couple times on a personal level, and just about a week or so ago I got a "wait, you're an android person??? Ugh" when trading numbers with someone for a work thing (as in this is the first time I was meeting this person, and the interaction was entirely "professional"). This is all separate from the friends I have that play it up as joke, since I'm one of the only people with an android in the group.

Idk what the kids are doing, but it's absolutely a thing for some people in their twenty's and beyond.

I haven't seen it because I have the opposite problem.

I can relate to that. I'm one of those people who won't even squash bugs, and even heavy-handed, poorly written emotional moments in movies can make me tear up because I'll inevitably find something in there that speaks to me. Shits wild compared to my friends and family