I believe that’s the point being made. “Representative Democracy”, or at least the pretense of which some live under at this time, is the best we (“we” referring to a particular group of people, not humanity as a sum) have found so far.

Is this the case that was being watched because, as part of the settlement, the Sackler family was likely to be granted immunity?

…supposed to

Can you just sniff paint in your own home and stay away from reasonable people?

Celsius or Fahrenheit?

I love my Thursday boots. I do a fair amount of standing and walking in them and wear them all the time and they’ve always been comfortable for me.

Pretending the incident was random and unpredictable is your preferred way of preventing incidents like this from happening again?

Figure out what how and why the problem came to exist, that’s kinda a big part of solving it.

I don’t think I disagree with you, but with this comment you’re kinda being an ass

I appreciate this community and am grateful for the work you do to organize it and support its growth!

Oh this is fascinating! An example of the inverse could be maybe that Old/Older English didn’t have spelling rules so much as habits?

My anecdotal experience is that my pain threshold is much higher when I’m in a particularly critical phase of my depression

Unlease…

Hah

What the fuck? The Supreme Court made a decision that protects American citizens? Did they misunderstand the question?

Oooh, let’s see if they’ve got Bluetooth earbuds Edit: kickass

If you have apples lying around, tearing one in half with your bare hands is actually pretty easy. There are quick guides on YouTube but basically, if I’m remembering right, you put the heels of your palms together at the bottom of the apple and finger tips at the stem and kind of squeeze the apple and try open the apple like a book. It makes a big difference having freshly washed hands.

Thank you, hearing that my words were valuable to you is probably the most valuable gift you could have given

What you describe is eerily similar to my story. In summary, being so good at masking all the various symptoms of depression/anxiety/autism that I never considered it possible I was autistic. My entire life I’ve never belonged to the group I was participating with, I was always a step removed because the “language” of the group wasn’t native and took a degree of effort/concentration to use. That’s a tangent…

The question was raised by a new friend a few years ago and I finally got professionally evaluated a few months ago. Yeah, I’m obviously autistic.

Having that label, in my experience, has been intensely validating. No longer was my status as a social failure an implication of my lack of effort or disrespect for others or oversensitivity. Now I knew that I didn’t fit for a reason, a reason outside my control and not just laziness or selfishness.

That separation–being other, not belonging–absolutely still exists and it still is painful but now the difference I guess is that I know I’m not imagining it.

To your case; maybe getting evaluated could be a good idea. It opens up access to workplace accomplishments [EDIT: accomodations] that can, so easily, make a living less painful to earn. Or it can just bring a sort of peace-of-mind like mine did.

The label itself isn’t terribly important. So long as you understand yourself and are comfortable with who you are, maybe you don’t need a doctor to certify that you are exactly this-kind-of-weird. I went into my evaluation expecting I wouldn’t qualify for an autism diagnosis but rather satisfied already with my own conviction that I was not neurotypical.

I’d never heard of CAFE fees before;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_average_fuel_economy?wprov=sfla1

I think this is the specific bit that you are referencing;

CAFE has separate standards for “passenger cars” and “light trucks” even if the majority of “light trucks” are being used as passenger vehicles. The market share of “light trucks” grew steadily from 9.7% in 1979 to 47% in 2001, remained in 50% numbers up to 2011.

Interesting also;

In addition, a Gas Guzzler Tax is levied on individual passenger car models (but not trucks, vans, minivans, or SUVs) that get less than 22.5 miles per US gallon (10.5 L/100 km).

Mmmm I see you are a person of culture

These were the words I used when discussing an upcoming potential termination,

“But the person I’ll be on the other side of [this crisis of maybe termination] will be no more absolutely or permanently diminished than the one I became after any other of the subjectively substantial life-changing crises.”

I’ve lived through some pretty painful shit. I feel quite angry about the misery I consider my life to currently be, but I still choose to live. With these words I was explaining that this “disaster” couldn’t be any more miserable than the sundry other miseries I’ve learned to live with. The consequences of this “crisis” may absolutely be something I will hate deeply and bitterly, but I doubt it’s going to be the straw that gets me to break this camel’s back.

It’s been years since I played Minecraft, probably version 1.2 maybe, but

Glacier

was always a pretty good seed that I remember being shared a lot