Not that we need to open this can of worms here, but it’s a pet peeve of mine that “vanilla” has become a term used to mean plain, boring, sheltered, standard, mediocre, underwhelming, basic, and uninteresting.

Vanilla is an amazing flavor that comes from orchids that must be hand pollinated to cultivate at scale, and has a long and interesting history. It’s the second most valuable spice after saffron.

Just feels wrong to use that as a synonym for bland and blah.

Fucking cormorants…they kill lots of fish that they can’t even eat, plus a ton of fish that they do eat…and they’re federally protected.

I mean, that’s logical, practical, reasonable thinking there…but I don’t want to have to hope and trust that someone who was able to think themselves into mugging me can be counted upon to think themselves out of doing anything else.

they struggle to reload a sex shooter

They make a pill for that!

The best self defense firearm is a small, dependable 9mm that you won’t be sad about losing forever, should you ever need to use it.

To throw at the snail as a last ditch defense.

legions of career bureaucrats who run federal departments get replaced with Trump loyalists.

For many of those bureaucracies, this is absolutely foreseen and intentional.

See…while bureaucracies often get a bad rap for being slow and inefficient, there’s often simply no (superior) alternative. It’s like how everyone bitches that it takes so long to get from point A to point B on the interstate, but taking an alternate route that avoids it takes even longer.

And while they may be frustrating, they’re usually run by capable people in the federal government. The lazy federal workers that the civil service is known for do exist, but they don’t typically rise to the level of making their bureaucracy work or not work, they’re low to mid level functionaries who’ve found a niche where their team will carry them and pick up their slack without creating a department-sized blip on the radar of any high level official.

These P2025 people…and MAGA Republicans in general…are trying to set up a win-win for themselves with this tactic: either they replace bureaucrats with loyalists and turn it into a reward system they can use to shore up support…or they remove enough pieces of the Jenga tower that it collapses under its own weight, proving their accusations that these agencies are dysfunctional, and using it as a flashpoint to push to eliminate these agencies and privatize the functions they performed…both allowing them to turn that service into a profit source for friends while also freeing up those tax dollars for their own purposes. And in the process, the American taxpayer gets sold down river to an organization looking to charge as much as the market will bear for the services that were once funded through taxes. The people will still pay the taxes, of course… they’ll just get less in return for them and have to pay more of their wages to get the same or worse services.

And the side that actually, verifiably tried to use fake electors to subvert the will of the people (even against the stacked deck of the electoral system that benefits their side)…is also the side that loves to spread constant (and constantly disproven) lies about their opponents’ voter fraud.

Like…even if I agreed with their platform on the issues, the GOP would still not get my vote based on the way they try to get that vote…in order to gain power…to realize their goal…of getting to a point where my vote loses its power.

Right?!

Like…even if you had no idea what either party stood for, or what positions they took on the various specific issues that concern the population in the present, all you really need to know is how a democracy works in theory, how presidential elections work in the US in practice (and by extension, how these two things differ, thanks to the Electoral College)…and where each party stands on voting rights, voting access, districting (and gerrymandering)…and as a dark horse…public education.

One side wants as many people as possible to get out and vote (and while they obviously hope they’ll vote Democrat, most of their messaging, to their credit, is focused not on ‘go vote for us’, but instead ‘the most important thing is that you get out there and vote’), wants to make sure that everybody who wants to vote is able to do so, has no roadblocks, hoops to jump through, bureaucratic red tape, etc., wants every voter across the country to have a voice equal to every other voter, and wants everyone to have a good (and improving) baseline of education, as a foundation upon which to make an informed decision about their voting.

The other side wants to suppress the vote, wants to disallow voting by default unless the individual takes steps to prove themselves, wants to introduce obstacles to voting access, wants to maintain and perpetuate a system where some voters have disproportionately more impact than others on the overall results (a system which, by the way, has much of its origins in the political maneuverings of slaveholders)…and most telling (and disturbing) of all, in the long term, actively, directly, and overtly makes efforts to reduce and degrade the quality of public education, literally seeking to reduce access to quality education for anyone not fortunate enough to be born into a family with the means to provide for a private education.

Seen to its logical conclusion, one side is literally seeking to revert decades if not centuries of progress on education and return to a situation where an education (and the opportunity it provides) is a privilege reserved for the children of affluence, where wealth, opportunity, class mobility, and professional occupations are reserved and exclusive to the wealthy, and in effect secured to them and their future generations indefinitely. And the best part (for them) is that once this happens, the future generations of uneducated lower and middle classes won’t have the education to understand what’s being done to them, or how it might be different.

Better yet: on Lemmy it doesn’t matter if you’re right or wrong, support yourself with facts or have someone else do it, admit mistake or not…if what you post isn’t in alignment with the overall masses, it’s jail downvotes.

Honestly I’m not on the spectrum at all (that I know of) and your SO’s half of those exchanges sounds utterly exhausting.

Like, in their shoes, I’d probably just start sharing less and less about how I feel, especially when I’m not feeling well, specifically because I wouldn’t want to have to play 20 questions every time until you finally gave up on the analysis.

Like, I totally get that you’re just trying to help because you love them…but maybe you could simplify the process (and cut to the chase and give them some more agency) simply by saying something like “Ugh, I’m sorry you’re not feeling well. Is there anything I can do for you?”

That lets them express their own thoughts/feelings/desires without having to pass a gauntlet of questions.

Again, I totally get that you mean well (I end up on your side of this exchange whenever my own SO isn’t feeling well…you just want to fix it for them), but I’ve also learned by time and experience that often my best move is to offer help, and if the answer is just needing some time and quiet, I just tell my SO what I’ll be doing nearby (but not up in their business) and if they need anything at all, just let me know and I’m happy to help.

Or it has little to do with emotions at all and more to do with physical changes based on environment.

And the middle east and their known long history of free expression.

Isn’t she that crazy woman that ran the bakery with her criminal husband?

Except now you’re wracked with crippling guilt every time you mow the lawn, chop up veggies for dinner, or walk by some poor little scrawny weed growing out of a crack in the sidewalk.

Excelsior!

God damnit.

And in fairness the Romans did do it, but only at the absolute insistence of the Jewish religious leaders.

Depends who’s saying it.

I remember many moons ago I was on a hike with my scout troop and one night we camped in this group campground with a lot of…well…super rednecks, most of which appeared to just live there.

Anyway, one of these little redneck kids (maybe 6 or 7 years old) for whatever reason picks one of our scouts (who was maybe 15?) and just basically starts following him around the campsite calling him “Daddy”.

It was hilarious…to everyone except him.

I wish I could say that was the weirdest thing that’s ever happened on one of those hikes.

Yeah the entire Senate should just start to only ever refer to him as Rafael.

But intentionally mispronounce it “ruh-FAIL”.

And when he inevitably gets bent out of shape over it, tell him to sit down and let the grown ups talk.