Fun fact: the first capitalist ventures were colonial missions (Spanish missions to the Americas). The first publicly traded corporation was the Dutch East Indian company.

Though I’d say the root of all evil is imperialism or the desire of some to spread and maximize their control and wealth.

JD Vance says, “two trophies are better than one!”

It doesn’t look very happy being leashed to what I hope is a table leg but worry is a horse’s (or some other animal’s) leg. Even its pose looks like one of those “let me fucking go! I’m about to clamp down on anything fleshy I can reach!”

Even with civilisation or society, there’s always been a subset of people looking to exploit whatever facet of existence they can, whether it be religion, politics, crimes of opportunity, weaknesses in social systems, or even the justice systems that are supposedly meant to deal with those flaws.

And to add even more complexity, other people who aren’t pieces of shit looking to exploit others form emotional attachments to those who are and are fooled by their lies and will defend them. Others don’t have attachments but see parallels to themselves and worry that attempts to deal with the problematic ones will result in the same treatment being applied to them (and aren’t necessarily wrong because even justice trying to act in good faith can get it wrong).

It’s all a complex web of power struggles and religion is just one set of stands.

Unless it’s java.

I don’t have the patience to keep it up for a long time but I barely get any scam calls after pushing the button to talk to someone and then just asking about the plot holes in their script. Like the one claiming there’s going to be a warrant for me, why does the guy need to ask for my name and other information? Why would revenue Canada (of anyone who isn’t a scammer of some sort) ever want any kind of payment in gift cards? I’ll use a tone of voice on the verge of laughter, too.

One time, after I asked, the guy just asked me why I even pressed the button to talk to a person and then hung up. Most of the time they just hang up. Sometimes the English option seems to only be there to make it seem more realistic for those who would pick the Chinese option because the call disconnects right after picking English.

Though more recently I’ve just been hanging up early in the recording when I do get the odd scam call. They might filter that, too, because even the volume of those calls stays low. Which makes sense because even just making the calls probably costs them something, even if it’s just pennies.

Even if the original question was asked in bad faith (not that I think this was the case here, but to address what you’re implying with this comment), responding with “go look it up elsewhere” doesn’t negate its effect for anyone reading. I believe it plays into those bad faith hands because it looks like you don’t want the question answered here to anyone already suspicious of the situation.

I’ve been coming to the understanding that “bourbon” is like champagne in that it doesn’t describe a type of alcohol so much as alcohol of that type produced in a specific region (though with the caveat that there might be factors about that region that also means boubon is a distinct type of alcohol due to those factors). If that’s accurate, wouldn’t it mean that “the American bourbon industry” is redundant like “the French champagne industry” would be? All Bourbon is American.

The problem with imperialists is that they might say they are happy with whatever the current concession is on the table today but will still want to expand their power beyond whatever limits it currently has tomorrow.

Glass would also be better for heating it to melt crystals.

And the major action item is to do some internet videos with whatever video games are popular with those millennial kids these days playing in the background. Shot in Nancy Pelosi’s beautiful home–oh nm, she doesn’t want any dirty YouTube filmographers in her home but W is willing to let them use his ranch and his copy of EA Football Game 202425. See if we can get Joe Rogan to make a guest appearance, and we’re sure to recapture the millennial under 30 crowd!

Oh good, the corporate sponsorship money arrived, let’s split that up and go home. Don’t forget to set aside the King’s fifth!

Next step is to start thinking, “if this object wasn’t in this pile, where would I look for it next?”

The avatar bit is kinda funny because, if anything, between Ang and Korra, I (male) find Korra more relatable. Their ages had a bigger impact on that than their genders.

Neither do the two gravity wells the stick spans. And the earth and moon are moving relative to each other, someone would probably get their head knocked off by that stick. Before it eventually falls to the earth with quite a bit of force because earth’s gravity well will win. Then it’ll eventually settle into a giant teeter totter, assuming it is rigid enough to survive the impact.

I don’t drink as often as I used to these days and noticed that there’s short term tolerance for alcohol. Like if I get a case of beer, if I have 4 the first night after going some months without drinking more than one drink, I’ll often stop before getting to 4 because I’m feeling like the drunk is going in a bad direction. But if I have what I can one night, then the next night 4 isn’t a big deal.

Same thing seemed to happen with hangovers.

From what I recall about the reasoning behind abandoning the idea of closing Guantanamo Bay, the only options were releasing them in central park or keeping them in Guantanamo Bay.

It’s removing “gaining control of TSMC” from the lists of reasons for China to invade, making the whole operation less attractive. Though the more the US tries to deny China access to advanced chips, the less that disincentive matters.

I haven’t read the piece but apparently he didn’t even go into the why.

He punched a guy in 2015 over available food options, which got him fired from BBC. His popularity didn’t take that much of a hit from this incident despite him clearly being in the wrong (Hammond and May both left BBC with him and they started a new show The Grand Tour, which wasn’t as popular as Top Gear, but was still popular.

Then, in 2022, he wrote an opinion piece for the Sun about how much he hates Megan Merkle and included a bit where he said she should be paraded naked through the town. Amazon decided to not start any new projects with him after this, though they continued with the plans to wind down The Grand Tour which had already been established.

He’s got a farming show now, so he wasn’t cancelled over this, despite burning some bridges.

There was an observatory that was picking up these mysterious spikes in radiation that they couldn’t explain. They thought it might be something new but couldn’t see any events on other spectrums that would go along with this random event.

Eventually they figured out that the spikes were caused by people opening the microwave in the break room while it was still going.

So I don’t do that anymore after hearing that story.