For all his faults and evils, Vance is not a narcissist who pathologically seeks the approval of those he sees as high status, which is what has compelled Trump to try so hard to be buddies with dictators. Vance is more cunning than Trump and would need to have a profit motive beyond just an ego stroking before putting his position at risk (even if the risk is evidently slight, but his relatively low popularity / lack of cult following makes me think/hope he’d have a harder time getting away with stuff than Trump). I suspect most dictators don’t have much to offer Vance in the way of profit that he couldn’t just as easily secure for himself as president without the personal risks of selling out the country to foreign adversaries, and the most salacious scandal we’ve heard about him has to do with a couch rather than Epstein so the kompromat is probably minimal or nil.

Don’t get me wrong, a President Vance would be awful in a lot of ways, and arguably worse than Trump in some ways. It’s just that I don’t imagine him as being quite as much of a national security risk. But, again, maybe it’s just naive hope. 🤷

I suspect (naively hope?) Vance would be less inclined to just hand over national security information to Putin, so … maybe two benefits?

Or if it is Trump’s fault, it’s actually a 4D chess move that will make things better in the end, we’re just too dumb and educated to understand.

And immigrants. And occasionally black people.

90 years ago the entire US population was less than that 140 million, let alone eligible voters. Percentage of eligible voters would make a better argument than absolute numbers when you’re comparing over time.

That said, 140m versus 158m is a huge drop. An astonishing drop. The final total could still amount to a >10% reduction in turnout, despite a slight increase in the number of eligible voters. I don’t understand how that could be viewed as not sad, regardless of who you vote for.

C. All of the above.

They are too busy with the laptop to have much attention left for patients.

I’m a nurse practitioner, and can confirm this: I spend at least half of my time tapping away at the computer, checking boxes, and completing often-redundant forms for insurance and regulatory compliance and whatnot. It’s really frustrating, and there’s a lot of room for improvement.

Yes, but to clarify: the time constraints are imposed by for-profit healthcare businesses trying to optimize billable time because insurance will only reimburse for so much time, rather than being imposed by the insurance companies directly. (It’s generally not quite as silly in the non-profit sector.) I work in healthcare in the US: we all hate how it works. The system sucks and it interferes with the quality of care that can be provided, leaving patients worse off just so that greedy can be fed. It’s just asinine that anyone who has no medical knowledge/training is making decisions about how patient care can be implemented, especially where there’s a profit motive involved. We really need to pivot to single-payer or national healthcare system, and abolish for-profit ownership of hospitals.

And which ones are reproducing more?

I’m a nurse. We usually recommend at least 350 calories, but ideally with a meal, but it also depends on the medication. For some, it’s to slow how quickly the medication is absorbed and/or reduce side effects, and isn’t necessary for the medication to work (e.g., stimulants, some antidepressants). For others, taking with food is necessary for the medication to be absorbed effectively so that it works (e.g., Latuda, used to treat mood and psychotic disorders).

In my hyper religious, Southern Baptist upbringing, I often heard Christians say that Christianity is not a religion. The mental gymnastics employed to explain this position were varied. Most often it was “Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a relationship [with God]”, or something along the lines of “Christianity isn’t a religion because it’s true”.

“Religion” in general was thus deemed a bad thing, because it was a term used to encapsulate all the other (and thus false) faith-belief-philosophy systems that were used by Satan to lead the world away from God. It bears noting that Catholicism and other major denominations always all fell under that umbrella of “other”.

May or may not be relevant. Statistically, people with illnesses like schizophrenia are no more likely to commit violent crimes than the general population (but are more likely to be victims of violent crimes). There are documented cases of people with schizophrenia killing or commiting other violent acts in response to delusions, but it’s usually in an act that they perceive as self-defense rather than being driven by malice or desire to harm. I.e., it’s generally more like “I killed my dad because he was going to kill me” rather than “I went out and murdered some random women because no women like me.”

As an Arch-using vegan, …I have no retort.

(I use arch, btw (also I’m vegan btw))

Yeah, they’d take the plane straight back to a gate and pass you off to EMS. And then leave without you.

Private browser mode in many browsers disables plugins by default, and also doesn’t do anything to stop trackers or data collection. All private mode does is keep your activity private from others who also have access to your device (e.g. family members, roommates), by not saving browser history/cookies/etc.

Also, VPN’s can be helpful, but there are ways to “fingerprint” individual users behind VPN’s by how they move their mouse and click speed and what websites they visit etc… I imagine plugins like AdNauseum could help with that. It’s a clever idea, I’ll have to check it out - thanks!

I contend that it’s chaotic good.