It’s funny they act like piracy didn’t exist before the internet. The tools are different and easier to use, but the justifications are the same. People want convenience, so if companies really cared about stopping piracy they would bend over backwards to make their content affordable and easy to access. Releasing only in theaters and/or doing the subscription shuffle is not convenient to the consumer.
I was very disappointed by Biden’s speech shaming people for being mildly disruptive, like that’s the point of protesting, but I will still vote for him.
He’s not much better than Trump on handling Israel and Palestine being that there is still a genocide occuring, but he is still better than just being “not Trump”. He has been working towards a permanent ceasefire and has been air dropping aid into Gaza vs Trump who said he would help Israel “finish the job”. With Biden we also got a ban on non-compete clauses, a strong economy and job market, 144 billion dollars forgiven in student loan debt, restored net neutrality, pardons for nonviolent marijuana offenders, reschedule of marijuana, restored LGBTQ rights in education, and so much more.
We should also remind ourselves of what the Trump administration gave us. Raised taxes for lower and middle class people, lowered taxes for the rich, protestors snatched off the streets in unmarked vans, pardons for rich Trump yes men, lowered taxes for the rich again, death of net neutrality, stripped education rights for LGBTQ individuals, stripped abortion rights, a dumb border wall that is already falling apart and easy to climb, and so many more things that hurt lower and middle class people. We were heading into a recession under Trump too. If he gets another term, we will have all of those previous things at a worse level than before plus a dictator, executions of anyone who disagrees with or challenges Trump, death to net neutrality, restoration of non-compete clauses, nation wide ban on abortions/IVF and contraception, death of child labor laws, stripping children from single parents and LGBTQ parents, genocide of Mexico, genocide of LGBTQ people, and so many more awful things that you can find laid out in Project 2025.
His grandparents let him watch whatever is on nick jr or Disney jr, so he already has paw patrol shoes, toys, and books. I figure it’s a losing battle at this point. I should let him have fun. Paw Patrol isn’t the worst thing in the world for him and if he’s happy I am happy.
Parents know those other shows are better, but I am more likely to be asked to put on Paw Patrol than Bluey and my toddler doesn’t ever ask for Hilda. Kids have their own tastes, and it is impossible to shield them from everything you don’t want them to watch. Thankfully, everyone I know agrees Cocomelon is harmful garbage and off limits, so I’ve been able to avoid that completely.
I 100% agree that they should have gone further with the many things they accomplished during their super majority. A universal healthcare system would have been better, they could have gone further with digging the average American out of the recession, etc.
However, it is disingenuous to pretend they did/do “nothing meaningful”. ACA expanded healthcare to millions of people who couldn’t get insurance at all, expanded Medicaid and Medicare, and it lowered healthcare costs. That’s pretty meaningful and a major success even if it wasn’t universal healthcare.
I think it’s also disingenuous to compare democrats who make small progress forward to Republicans who are actively trying to roll all of our laws back to the 1800s. Again democrats aren’t ideal, and really we need a more progressive major party in the US because they don’t go far enough, but it’s better to make any progress forward than it is to fully regress.
Democrats not being progressive enough is an issue we can fix in time, but it will take decades of hard work (and continuous work even after we succeed). We need to start helping more progressive candidates with their campaigns and even personally running campaigns during local, state, and national primaries. It would also help for us to push for major election reform while we work towards getting progressives elected. It is unacceptable we only really have only two major parties and really only one choice during general elections.
The last time they had a meaningful majority they spent their time (72 working days) on ACA (a major healthcare reform), pulling us out of a recession, appointing two supreme court justices, and so much more. They are known as the most productive Congress since Lyndon B Johnson was president. The last official majority they had they spent their very thin majority cleaning up after Donald Trump and dealing with COVID.
Democrats don’t get strong majorities for long periods of time like Republicans do, and they are expected to fix every issue plus clean up after the newest national disaster that Republicans created. Maybe if we gave them time and a strong enough majority they would get more done.
Conservatives have been purposely tanking uncontroversial legislation so that “Biden doesn’t get any wins”. Do you genuinely think it is possible for the current legislature to pass bills that would fix something as complex as the housing crisis?
Most of the internet is made up of echo chambers now even though anyone and everyone can access a majority of it. I don’t think being selective in who we allow into communities worsens the pre-existing echo chamber issue. If anything it may help to be more selective. It can sometimes be impossible to tell the difference between trolls, bots, and real people, so I feel like we assume every person we disagree with is a troll or bot. The issue with that is that we may be outright dismissing real opinions. In theory, everyone in a selective community is a real person who is expressing their true thoughts and feelings.
“calcium carbonate in the (hard) water became solid at higher temperatures, trapping the plastic particles within”
No gas involved. They did recommend straining the boiled water through a coffee filter and the harder the water the better.
I do find it extremely odd they chose to build this project in the desert of one of the most oppressive countries in the world. If I had to guess why it is happening in Saudia Arabia, I would guess they are trying to green wash their image, and possibly make it seem like Saudia Arabia is a super futuristic place that people should visit.