Look, I’m voting for Harris, and even as a leftist I’m half excited by it. But let’s not pretend a mainstream democratic party politician is anything other than a capitalist. She might have good policy ideas, ones that will genuinely help people, but she’s still a capitalist.

It’s just a very ungenerous interpretation of a lot of factually correct things. Brandon Sanderson is, indeed, Mormon and while I’ve never heard him say as much explicitly, the way he talks a out his faith makes me believe that yes, he does tithe to the church.

As for the audio book stuff, when Sanderson was doing his massive kickstarter for his four secret projects, he said that the audio books would not initially be available on Audible/Amazon. He said this was because he believed Amazon had too much market power and that he was successful enough that he didn’t need them and would thus withhold releasing his books on that platform. I don’t recall him ever saying that they would never be released there. Partway through fulfillment of the kickstarter, he announced that Amazon had changed its compensation structure (for all authors, not just him) in the direction he wanted and tbuse he felt it was okay to release his books on Amazon’s platform.

If you like heroic fantasy with unique magic systems, I recommend giving him a shot. I like to compare him to Marvel movies: not groundbreaking or innovative or the pinnacle of the art form, but competently made that hits all the emotional beats you want out of the story in a familiar and comforting way.

This might be the largest gap between technically correct and ungenerous reading of events that I’ve ever seen.

Someone eventually is going to come in here and say that no, because of modern typeface on computers the convention is a single space after a period and to that person I say this:

Go fuck yourself.

Manchin and Sinema are like schrodinger’s democrats. They’re not real democrats, but you better shut the fuck up and vote blue not matter who or some shit.

Secondly, passing a federal law is not like getting a Coke from the vending machine.

No shit. Passing federal legislation is hard. But that’s literally their job and why we elected them. “The democratic party not doing what we elected them to do when they have a majority in both chambers and the presidency.” is not the winning argument you think it is.

Democrats are never going to codify Roe. Want to know how I know? Because on June 25th 2022 they controlled the presidency, the senate, and the house and Roe still isn’t codified. They’ll never say it out loud, but the democratic party is happy Roe was overturned because now they get to use it as a fundraising issue forever.

Let’s not forget, trying to remove access to health care is an act of violence that will cause people to die. Restricting access to women’s health alth care is an act of violence that will cause people to die. Outlawing gender affirming care is an act of violence that will cause people to die. Appointing judges to support these policies - and those judges writing opinions enabling those policies as well as opinions restricting environmental regulations - are acts of violence that will cause people to die. Locking migrants in cages is an act of violence that leads to people dying. So why are those acts of violence acceptable but this one is not?

You might say that none of them are acceptable. But let me put it another way. Law enforcement shot and killed the perpetrator of this act of violence and we as a society deem it reasonable and justified. But why shouldn’t we do the same thing for this guy?

And the answer is: we should.

Tell that to our centrists. They hate our left more than our right.

To this point: for those who think that, do they think anyone else realistically could, at this point, other than Biden?

Literally anyone born after 1975.

Look, 45% of people are going to vote for the name on the D line no matter who it is. 45% of people are going to vote for the name on the R line no matter what. That last 10% is who you want to win over. And like, they’re tired of both of them. But Biden is the dude in office right now, so they’re gonna vote for the other one.

All Biden has to do is say “after some reflection, you’re right. I cannot serve at my best capacity. I’m going to step aside for the good of party and country,” and then they nominate literally anyone under 50. Hardcore democrats are going to vote for whoever is on that line, and middle America is going to see that and be like “that’s the honorable thing to do. I respect that. And I may not know who this new person is, but they’re not Trump” so democrats still have that tired platform without any of the baggage. They would cruise to retaining the presidency.

Tech bros reinvent broadcast TV.

This was a friend of mine, except it was cocaine.

Have we gotten that stupid?

Something something “these regulations are written in blood” anecdote something something.

Eh…

There’s quite a bit of low tax rates mixed in with that ink. Politicians want to boast about low taxes, but that revenue needs to come from somewhere and now it’s fines and fees.

I wish Buffalo was closer in size to Cleveland or Pittsburg, but being within driving distance of Toronto and to a lesser extent NYC (on top of the aforementioned Cleveland and Pittsburg) is pretty friggin great.

This is why Iive where the air hurts my face.

Nah, it was still the WW2 generation that fought for Civil rights. The Boomers were in elementary school in the 50s and only the oldest could even vote in 1963, 1964, and 1968.

But once all the Boomers could vote, who got elected? Reagan. So fuck them.

I once read an article that basically called the military a billion dollar vocational school program and it really shifted my perspective. Like I kinda don’t give a shit about most people or why they join - maybe it’s that chance at upward mobility, maybe it’s the desire to serve a cause, maybe it’s a desire to feel a part of something bigger, all of which are legit human needs and desires. As an idea, I’m kind of neutral leaning towards negative in the military. It’s when I start looking at it in the broader context thag I get angry, and it’s not necessarily at the rank and file, and sometimes not even the mid to high leadership. It’s the presidents and the politicians and business people who lead the whole thing and play games with people’s lives. I even have sympathy for the angry knuckle dragging meatheads because they just got duped, again, by the ruling class.

Literally how I bought my house. My mom died and I was a beneficiary on her life insurance. That was my down payment. I call it the Dead Parent Lottery.

I mean, the first one was a fun popcorn flick. Into Darkness was… Eh, not the worst movie I’ve ever seen. I can’t adequately judge Beyond because it came out about three months after my dad died (who introduced me to Trek and sci-fi in general) and he would have loved the ending.