Most restaurants keep reservations in a $2.75 spiral notebook.

I doubt an online reservation calendar would be $10k for a single restaurant, but still…the only profit is marginal: the people who eat there who would have without the online calendar, and I doubt it would recoup the costs in a quarter or two. Especially considering that the wealth gap and tech gap mean that the number of people who want to schedule online is inversely related to the people who can afford to eat out a lot.

When I said “more data than is publicly available now”, did you think I was referring to a title on Lemmy?

The article includes someone they refer to as a “whistleblower”. The analogy with ACORN would be noted liar Jacob Wohl.

The article also includes a statement from FEMA Agency head, Deanne Criswell. I was talking about her when I said “idiot Democrats who fired the accused without even the slightest inquiry”.

On second thought, I’m not sure she’s a Democrat. I assume she was appointed by Biden. But the article does not indicate any sort of inquiry or have a statement from the manager involved.

Are you under the impression that only NC Republicans hate FEMA? This conspiracy theory is decades old. I suspect you are referring to Helene because you are ignorant of the long standing antipathy between Republicans and FEMA.

If you have any reason to believe Republicans aren’t threatening FEMA workers after Milton, feel free to share it. Otherwise, maybe wait for an investigation before jumping to conclusions.

No, you should not have any “takeaway” without way more information than is publicly available now. This is the same thing that happened with ACORN: Republicans made a bunch of false accusations and idiot Democrats were way too fast about accepting their premise and firing the accused without even the slightest inquiry into what actually happens. I see we have learned nothing.

My money says this was entirely about keeping their crews safe. It doesn’t make sense for them to just arbitrarily not help Republicans, so I want to hear from the manager before they are pilloried.

I’ve decided to believe that there was a grueling audition process and he ultimately had to go forward with his second choice.

why aren’t you guys screaming?

I screamed when Bush won a second term. I screamed when Trump won his first term. The American people can’t really let me down any further than they already have.

Do you mean rioting? The guy even won the popular vote, possibly fair and square. Are you under the impression that there is some action we can take at this point to improve the situation?

because people couldn’t get no injustice, they stayed home

That’s not a valid interpretation of the situation. Millions of people who voted for Biden did not come out for Kamala. There’ll be a lot of people trying to discern why and you probably won’t like my guess, but it’s too early to really have good information. Exit polls said only about 10 percent of people cared about Gaza at all. This idea of progressives not voting, sending the election to Trump doesn’t hold water at all. Dems first instinct is to punch left. I hope they learn a better lesson from this loss.

People who don’t vote aren’t hanging out on Lemmy talking about politics. All of the vitriol from Democrats is even more misplaced than usual. This outcome was pretty much what I thought would happen, but when I talk about how Dem decisions aren’t exciting voters, the response is to admonish me to vote, missing the point entirely.

it’s broken deliberately by one side to suit them,

Refusing to admit the part the Dems play is part of the problem as well. We can’t keep doing the same thing we’ve always done, and if we don’t learn from this we are truly doomed.

That’s fair and I respect your decision.

I was excited about Obama. For whatever reason I thought he’d be a lot more progressive than he ended up being.

I phone banked for Clinton. Was never a fan, but I agree that Trump was/is uniquely dangerous.

I voted for Biden. He was explicitly picked to be the conservative balance to the liberal firebrand, Obama (😬), but hey vote Blue no matter who, right?

The counterpoint to this thinking, for me: Where does this end? Do I stick it out until the next “unimportant” Presidential election? At what point am I just enabling the Dems to run rightward to pick up imaginary centrist Republicans while ignoring the left and the working class?

I doubt the DNC will learn their lesson from this election. I hoped they’d learn from a win, but I pray they take this loss to heart. The idea that Republicans somehow convinced people that they’re the party of unions and the working class is laughable, but if they could do that, that says Dems aren’t making the difference in people’s lives that they should be.

I voted for the Unity party largely to make this point. I live in Colorado. That’s “shooting myself in the head”?

I heard someone say “Well what if so many voters vote third party that they lose the state?” If the Dems lose Colorado…if Colorado is even close…do you really think they have a path to 270?

I respect the right of people in swing states to vote their conscience as well, but that’s obviously a different consideration. But the vitriol a lot of Dems have without even asking where someone lives is just… unhelpful.

This is meaningless though.

You said “a clear majority voted for Trump”. In fact: a majority of Americans didn’t vote for a fascist. That is a good thing.

Neither did a majority of Americans vote for a milquetoast centrist, but I don’t expect anyone to take a great deal of comfort or pain in that fact.

It is on the candidate to inspire people. Yeah, the left was lukewarm to a candidate that was trying her best to court Republicans. How else could you expect that to play out?

Only 10% of the electorate even cared about Gaza. You’re giving the American people entirely too much credit.

You really think the 15 million people who voted for Biden but not Kamala was “misplaced sense of moral superiority”? Why?

Imagine thinking that billions of dollars in campaign funds were overturned by a picture posted on Lemmy.

The Left is a group so insignificant that we don’t need to cater to their positions at all, but so massive that they’re completely responsible any time we lose.

I really don’t think so. (Perhaps depends on how one thinks of “radically different”) I think the vast majority of roleplay characters could be described as “Me if I were $X” (A pirate/Evil/noble/etc)

That’s not an argument that being filmed at a polling place is dangerous.

I went to private religious schools until my second year of college. None had the 10 commandments posted anywhere. I know we’re all in agreement that this is a severe violation of the first amendment. As a Christian I hate that these idiots are using my faith as a cudgel (as has happened far too often).

But also, this is incredibly tacky.

I’m not sure a good argument can be made. Being at a polling place doesn’t say who you’re voting for. I don’t see the danger.

Having two different realities is not good. I’m not sure what is to be done about it though. Some people will always choose to believe the easy lie over the difficult truth.

Ignoring Fox and the crazies for a moment, how often have mainstream networks given equal time to climate change deniers and actual scientists, pretending there was a debate where there wasn’t one.

I want to push back a little on “we all agreed on what was and what was not reality.” When there were three TV stations, did any of them highlight police brutality? Overincarceration? The military industrial complex? Anything that would hurt their sponsor’s bottom lines?

The news networks we have today are all owned by large media conglomerates. They range from pro-corporate to pro-fascist. I’m glad that there are enough independent voices that we can hear from people who don’t profit off of the status quo. It’s unfortunate that right wing media is so prevalent and well funded, but if there is an answer to that, it’s not going back to the days when Walter Cronkite, CBS, and Gulf+Western would tell us “That’s the way it is”.

It is more difficult than a few years ago, especially if you don’t want to get sued or get a threatening letter from your ISP.

I would only torrent with a VPN and a private tracker. It’s certainly not difficult to learn, but absolutely requires some small amount of information to acquire.

ACAB

I met someone with a “Man shall not lie with another man” tattoo.

1. That verse is literally the previous chapter to the “don’t get tattoos” verse. Why did he think one was important enough to get tattooed while ignoring the other?

2. He really chose to get that tattooed?!

There was no way a conversation with this guy would go well, so I’m going to be stuck with these questions forever.