The real reason for using trigger locks.

In modern America this is not a hypothetical situation.

And doing it quite beautifully, too.

She is the classic “stopped clock”. The vast majority of what she believes and says is still vile and wrong, but the media is only reporting on her rare points that diverge from her fellow extremists.

I appreciate a good work ethic. Just make sure he gets plenty of downtime and doesn’t burn out.

Both of the events here in Madison involved marching to the state capital building for a rally. They were well organized, with an appropriate public address system, and a whole roster of speakers. Bernie Sanders called in to the first rally to address us.

I think it helps to clarify that we are talking about the current US Progressive movement and not just the abstract definitions of the terms. US Progressives have non-economic goals (restoring and expanding civil rights), but they generally agree that society should take care of everyone, not just the rich. That means providing at least food, housing, and health care without regard to income. There are a lot of different ideas about how that could be done. Everything from a Basic Living Stipend within a largely capitalist economy to a adopting a fully socialist, or even communist, economic system.

Vitamix blenders truly are in a class by themselves. As far as I know, they’re the only blenders that include cooling fans to keep the motor from overheating. And if you do somehow manage to overload it, the thing automatically shuts off until it has cooled down to the point where it’s safe to run again. They’re virtually impossible to damage, short of active vandalism.

Their motto really should be “Fuck the worst case scenario.”

The answer is, of course, yes.

There is a critical difference in the way we treat police vs firefighters. Both the law and their training teach police that almost anything is justified if it keeps them safe and that there will not be any consequences. Officer safety takes precedence of the public’s safety. Murdering a few innocent civilians is a small price to pay for that.

Firefighters are simply expected to risk their lives in service of the public. Efforts are made to reduce the risks, but they regularly go in to rescue people knowing they may not make it back out.

Both jobs involve operating in high-risk environments, but the police prioritize police safety and firemen prioritize public safety.

Shame and hypocrisy are both obsolete in American politics. Voters mostly assume that no one is honest and that everyone does terrible things. Neither is actually true, but truth is another thing that voters no longer demand or expect.

The saddest part is that those changes in attitude are why shame, hypocrisy, and truth are no longer considered important in elections. We have a president who now lies nearly every time he opens his mouth, is often called on it, but whose voters simply do not care.

Bad faith arguments about false equivalency have had a huge role in undermining our democracy. Yes, there are a lot of terrible people in politics. No, it is not universal. And the choosing the lesser of two evils is still important.

We need to get back to recognizing that while no one is perfect, some flaws are much greater than others.

We also need to push for genuinely good candidates in primaries. They exist, but they are frequently pushed off-stage early in the process by the mainstream party hacks.

I’ve been using Aegis for several years now without any problems. It replaced the Google Authenticator seamlessly.

CVS will synchronize your prescriptions if you ask. I suspect other large pharmacies will also.

I’m in my mid-60’s, although I haven’t entirely accepted that yet. My recovery rate hasn’t changed much, if any, but I do get more minor injuries than I used to. My joints are not as forgiving as they were 40 years ago.

Honestly, my answer is zero. It’s a rare day when I click on one.

I particularly dislike talking videos. I would always prefer to read instead of hearing someone talk.

Pro cat owner tip: Always buy two beds.

Epubor Ultimate is the only solution I know of that was updated to handle Amazon’s change from earlier this year. It’s a commercial package, but worth the money. It took them a couple of months to work around the last changes, but they did it. I expect they will continue to do that as needed going forward.

He’s not entirely wrong. Calling Trump authoritarian does incite Trump to violence and terrorism.

Our tax dollars are being spent on corruption, parades, and “cool” special operations.

These are all valid questions and I think a lot of good ways to think about them have been presented.

I suspect that the reason a lot of people are grappling with this right now has to do with the bizarre social and political environment of the moment. When large portions of the population have chosen to ignore objective reality, and make up their own, you can’t help but wonder if it’s all just arbitrary. However, there is an answer to that, and the answer is no, it is not. Within our perceptual reality, however it exists, things do behave in consistent ways and can be observed independently of belief. Those who attempt to ignore that do ultimately fail.

Our lack of knowledge about the underlying nature of our reality does not change the way it behaves for all of us.