We had a huge ice storm in 2007 across the entire state of Oklahoma. The whole state was without power. I didn’t have a chimney, and neither did anyone else I knew. It was easy to freeze to death as every road was ice, or covered with fallen trees. It took a month to get an electrician to fix our rental house, and we stayed with my dad who heated his house with the oven burners that used natural gas. You could die that way, but it was below freezing so we had no choice.

My next house had a chimney, and I got a small generator. I’ve had to use them both, since.

I will always have a chimney for emergency heat!

I’m just waiting on Chuck Schumer to put a stop to this with a strongly worded letter.

I would be happy if the nominee was AOC (it won’t be), but if they chose Nancy Pelosi I would be upset. One is actively fighting the establishment, and the other IS the establishment.

Yeah, the problem is we’ve been kept powerless over big issues. When we found out about oil companies poisoning the earth, we SHOULD have had the power to put the whole company on trial. Instead they said our elected officials were the only option, and they did nothing. That’s an excellent point. We’re told we’re powerless, and kept that way… So they can be richer.

Rooster Teeth and Donut come to mind. It’s hard to keep up with YouTube’s upload frequency demands, and the ones that I know are fully independent like Sarah-n-tuned work 7 days a week. It’s rough.

Kipp from Napoleon Dynamite. I greatly recommend watching it. It’s short, but very good at what it does.

I’m sure the last thing to go through his head, other than a Ukrainian bullet, will be “at least I saved my family from being woke”.

Pretty sad.

Yeah, my first thought was the cops, too. That’s usually when the authorities hush up.

Thanks for linking those. I can tell you that most people that know English as a first language have very little to no knowledge about the history between Poland and Ukraine. Like many things in the international world, it’s very complicated. But now I understand it a little better. I would agree that Poland is under no obligation to support a government that can’t seem to separate it’s independence from fascist leaders of the past, which does raise questions about the direction of the future. Yes, Ukraine needs to be free. They need an the help they can get. But what if they win, and fascism takes hold?

I mean, look at how the US is falling to fascism. People aren’t careful enough.

Maybe give us a quick synopsis? I live in neither country so I don’t know the nuances you’re referring to. Did Ukraine officially say something against Poland? Or a portion of Polish government? You’re pointing to a blog post and not a news outlet, so that’s a very niche source and not typically deemed credible in the US (where I live). If you have a link to like The Guardian, or something like that, I’d absolutely believe it.

He did likely make off with all of our previously government-only information, though. He’ll feed it through grok to try to catch up, and be shocked when Russia or whoever steals it.

So he’s got that going for him.

That’s a legitimate concern. Anything that’s on the Internet can also get an “update” (as if a dishwasher needs one ever) that accidentally bricks it, and you now need a new one.

I absolutely resist the Internet of Things.

I learned to fix it. Before YouTube, that usually means not so great. But now, I usually do at least as good as a job as the people I’d hire.

Fixing stuff is easy, and you have to accept that there’s no perfect fix.

Ants, set out ant bait traps. Look outside and see if there’s a trail, follow it to the source, and spray it with ant poison.

Cracks, YouTube that. They may be nothing.

Leaks, if it’s plumbing, you can buy pipes at home Depot and replace them.

Granted, it will take a while. Maybe all day. But you’ll get an endorphin rush when it’s done and eventually you’ll come to know all the ins and outs of your house.

But it’s you look at it and it’s too big, Google a company to do it. Even if you’re halfway, and find you’re stuck. No shame in getting help. This shines you don’t have a family member or friend who’s already handy.

But really, if you can’t fix it, can’t afford to have it fixed, just do what you can to keep the house clean and work on it a little bit or put aside money till you can. That’s hard, but that’s owning a house. Like anything in life, it’s difficult. But it doesn’t have to stay that way, with enough time and practice.

You’re already smarter than many, asking for other’s opinions. Don’t suffer in silence. I believe in you!

It also depends on what access they have. Easiest would be to axe subsidies to oil companies, but no way they’re be able to just do something like that. There’s too much protection around that money.

Of course, if they’re doing exactly as DOGE, they suck and I’m glad they’re blocked because DOGE has made terrible decisions.

Rachel Maddow and her blistering burns aren’t going to stop trump or save us from musk. They’re throwing sticks and stones while she’s throwing words that’ll never hurt them.

We need actual action. Ideally from elected officials pushing back, public figures, and every citizen refusing to be sucked into the MAGA cult and their objectives.

Allegedly, he was given liquid capital by Russian oligarchs to buy Twitter when the courts ruled that he was obligated to buy it. He might be rich, but that kind of money wasn’t just sitting in his checking account. It was his company valuations.

Once he got tangled into Twitter, that’s when he seemed to really go off the deep end.

As someone who does IT audits for banks in Puerto for FDIC audits, this is scary. The banks will embezzle, but they’ll also get hacked so we won’t know where the money went.

This makes me think twice about having a bank account at all.

Don’t worry, the Dems will always have their Joe Manchin types that vote with Republicans on everything.

Look on the bright side, he hasn’t even been sworn in yet! We have four more years to be outraged on actual policy, and this will likely pale in comparison!

They kind of have to, I suspect. But it won’t work. They’ll see things go bad, put in their sound bite as “we need to do something about ___!” And the average American won’t see it, and instead be inundated with right wing “Democrats are screwing it all up!” And not think of the logic that the Democratic party can’t do anything. And they’ll vote Republican again.

Democrats need to get better at media.