conditional_soup

Yeah, I've learned some discretion over the years. I once told a story that dead ass got me sent to therapy.

Me telling an EMS war story that brings the vibe to a crashing halt.

I'm not too worried about this, tbh. I think the people that RFK attracted post-Kamala really aren't likely to vote for Trump or Harris anyway. They'll likely either stay home, vote libertarian, or write in Vermin Supreme

America in one picture

No, nothing ever happens, actually. Nobody ever does anything interesting or worth talking about. Hosting exchange kids has, predictably, been one of the most boring experiences of my life, along with everything else.

Nah, he found a smooth reflective mask and a huge red robe, then we took a toy sickle and rubber mallet and spray painted them with gold paint.

I hosted a Russian exchange student who really liked joking about that stuff. He went as the ghost of communism for Halloween

I can't imagine a governor, let alone a governor of a state as populous as Florida, inserting himself into fucking school board elections. Ron, don't you have anything better to be doing, like, at all? Really? This is the best way to serve the public in your post as governor? What a nincompoop.

I don't know that I'd agree that the EU and the articles of confederation are comparable. There were a few big differences, including states printing their own currency without a common exchange medium (as opposed to the Euro), and that the mechanism for funding the federal government was (IIRC) entirely voluntary. States could just choose to not send money without consequences, and most or all made the obvious choice of not funding the federal government. The articles of confederation also had a few things about it that were more progressive than the constitution; for example, if I'm remembering right, it offered automatic citizenship to all native Americans, which pissed a lot of the farmer-settlers right off.

This is how nations destabilize. States perpetuate themselves through maintaining the exclusive monopoly on violence and using that monopoly to secure certain guarantees for or against its people. The Roman empire saw a similar decline of administrative willpower and rises in both vigilantism and shitty little civil wars between the wealthy elite who really ran the show (spoiler alert). I'm convinced that Balkanization of the US is, at this point, inevitable. I'm not saying that's necessarily a good or bad thing in its own right. On one hand, it might be better for both the states and the world if we went to more of an EU type structure. On the other hand, a nuclear armed independent Texas.

This is really cool, but it would have been cooler if they'd named their scouting missions Hugin and Mugin, since they're Odin's ravens that scour the earth for secrets to give to Odin.

Oof. There's fucking up, and then there's getting banned from Wal-Mart. The only lower position is getting banned from the dollar store.