Nailed it on the head. I think also that you need to include that Canada’s relationship vis-a-vis trade with China will be affected by tariffs the US is placing on Canada, and same with Mexico. I think much of everything is from the viewpoint that China is a bigger problem than Russia at the moment. China is also recovering from some economic turmoil, and one way to do so includes expanding their reach, and so the intent is to limit China in other areas.

Makes life more exciting.

Ha, I should’ve mentioned that you definitely won’t. It seems to paint this damned if we do damned if we don’t picture. But it at least paints a picture, versus what can at times feel like this great big unknown. It may also shed some light on some of the motivations for what’s happening. I dunno.

My brother sent this to me the other day and I gave it a watch. It feels pretty unbiased (although I’m uneducated), and seems to have a more macro, zoomed-out view of America and just nations on the whole. I thought it was pretty interesting and it helped to put some things in perspective.

The East India Company is the first example that comes to mind. I’m sure others.

I really don’t think we are living through unprecedented times, unfortunately. People have sucked for as long as we’ve existed.

Just access GMaps through your VPN through Mexico, and your wildest dreams can come true.

Google is worth more than Mexico. A frivolous lawsuit, which is what this would be, will hurt Mexico more.

You won’t hear me disagree.

I think MAGA represents to Republicans what progressives like Bernie and AOC represent to Democrats. Republicans were able to reimagine their party into a form that isn’t just going to follow the status quo that, like you said, has led to a stagnant existence for average Americans over the last 50+ years. And stagnant is probably a nice way of putting it, since buying power has essentially disappeared, on top of wages barely moving.

So Trump comes in, he says drain the swamp, and you hear that to mean the whole machine, everyone who, for the last 50 years (and some folks have been involved in that government for a good chunk of that 50 years, just perpetuating that status quo) has allowed the rich to get richer at the expense of the working middle class.

And so you toss on your blinders. You’re not necessarily a bigot, but you believe social issues are a distraction from actual problems (i.e., ones that affect you directly), and you vote in a way that you hope will better your life. It’s hard to blame someone, especially someone just exhausted from grinding through their shitty life, for thinking about themselves. It’s not the right way to think, but I get it.

Well, that is Richie Rich we’re looking at.

Easy, you pack courts with shills, you eliminate government oversight, and then you do whatever you want.

The cynic in me says there’s a big overlap between the unemployed and the unrepresented, so to speak.

My parents bought a beach house (a bungalow on a postage stamp, before anyone gets an ideas that we’re some 1%ers) and it came with an old washer dryer. My old man put a single pair of jeans in the dryer and seemingly forgot about them. He says he did it for a timer. Leaves the house. Nobody there for a week. My mom comes in, dryer still running, jeans essentially translucent at this point. One of the things you can laugh at only because it wasn’t a tragedy.

Yeah, good point, perhaps there is some engineering rationale for having them powered the same, so that the speakers are guaranteed to work as long as the Starlink does.

Yeah, Subaru can have the Starlink disabled pretty easily by removing, essentially, a module behind the head unit. The only problem is that module also sends power to the front speakers. There’s been workarounds created, but it’s just asshole design at its finest.

There seems to be this idea that it’d be this nice clean break, everyone happy to part ways, and not, at the very least, embargos and trade war, and at the very most all out war. “America” would stand to lose a lot by having it’s coadtlines secede, to the point that they couldn’t allow it to happen. It would benefit no one in the short term, and I’m not sure it would survive into the long term.

Yeah, we certainly share a similar sentiment in Jersey. I’m not sure breaking America up solves more problems than it creates, though. Like many problems I encounter, personally and as part of some larger whole, I don’t see solutions.

Just a couple corrections. I have a '24 WRX and the volume knob and physical buttons work when the pop-up is in screen; they work immediately when I start the car. There’s only temperature up and down and front and rear defrosters, so not exactly a lot.

Also, prospective not perspective.

I generally agree, hate the pop-up, hate the touchscreen, but when it’s the only option it’s kinda like, okay then.

If you block political words and Linux this place is a ghost town…

… Except for LotR memes of course.

Except the only thing that will be prosecuted, or adjudicated, is the claim of libel entered by Meta, for suggesting their millions are anything other than legal contributions to something or other.

There is a solution, though, staring us all right in the face.