Lord Ratner

When you are incapable of solving real problems, focusing on unsolvable or imaginary problems is a viable diversion tactic.

I'm only familiar with what Orbitz did, which was *showing* more expensive things to Mac users, not charging more for the same thing. https://millionmilesecrets.com/guides/are-airlines-raising-your-ticket-price-based-on-browser-history/amp/ That's a significant difference.

He wasn't, other than being one of the funniest people to have lived. Humanity has gotten consistently better for the overwhelming majority of our existence. There have been notable retreats (fall of the Roman empire), but in the modern world (last 500 years or so) you would have always wanted to live in the time you existed over living 50 or 100 years earlier. We focus on the negative because it is an asset to survival, especially in the harsher world of the past. But the "humans suck" arguments have always been at odds with the reality that if humans (and religious humans who constitute the vast majority of humans who have lived) really sucked, the world would not keep getting better.

Raise your hand if you're surprised...

Unfamiliar. Why did IX kill them?

Yeah, this is really depressing

When I was a cadet at Osan for a 3 week field trip, I remember asking the jag and security forces guys for all the juicy stories. It was remarkable how many colonels were openly dating e-2s and e-3s, but the most surprising part was that they didn't feel like they had to stop when they were sent back stateside. Still the strangest place I've ever been in the Air Force

You know, that might have surprised me at one point, but now that's pretty much what I expect. Don't make us look bad. I guess I didn't think about the car thing, but the rest is about what I expected 😂🤣

You have to want to do the right thing more than you want to progress your career. That's tough for anyone, me included, but it seems literally impossible for anyone over the rank of O-5. I was convinced they taught colonels a standardized response at whatever charm school they had to attend: I'll be able to do more to fix the problem on the inside. If I just quit I'll be replaced tomorrow.

🎯 They saw how his candidates did in the midterms. After that there can be no doubt.

It's almost as though religion is just correlational, not causal, to the tendencies of humans in tribes.

No. It doesn't. As I try to convince my overwhelmingly conservative captains, "the right" and "the left" include the political, academic, and activist classes, who are wildly at odds with "you guys," who generally agree on far more as Democrats and Republicans than the narrative would have us believe.

It's called a club. There are millions of them. Pick an interest and go. The problem isn't finding a group, the problem is showing up. Religion has always had the advantage of threatening you with eternal damnation if you don't go, and the social pressure from other parishioners if you skip out. Conversely, you don't get the same judgement or shame if you miss the pickleball meeting on Tuesday night. You gotta show up. That's all it takes. Put the same group of people in proximity to each other repeatedly and regularly, and the community and all the associated bonds will form. But you have to miss other things. TV shows, concerts, other parties, rest at home, etc. The internet has let us form more homogeneous groups, which is bad for diversity (mental, not skin color), and all the biological forces that build community are negated because they only work in person. Our brains need it. This is why impoverished cultures don't have the same suicide rates that the West is contending with. We are hyper-connected, yet all alone.

This is where your ignorance shows. Just because *you* don't know the academic basis for the policies being pushed, you assume they must be reasonable, because you feel like a reasonable person. But reading the works of the people who have been publicly embraced by the mainstream left, such as Biden, give a very different picture. Robin Diangelo. Ibram Kendi. Kimberle Crenshaw. This stuff is bat shit crazy, and will necessitate a civil war if it was actually enacted. Remember when reparations was just a conservative fever dream? You say the conversations have changed, but they haven't that much. What exactly are they against now that they weren't 30 years ago? Chemical castration for children? Illegal immigration? Reparations? Gun rights? The only difference is that 30 years ago no one was in favor of cutting the tits off a confused teenager. If the Republicans were inviting David Duke, or the proud boys, or any other right wing lunatic to the White House and espousing their theories to the masses, you would have a point. But they aren't. The difference has always been that the left embraces their lunatics. Saying that Joe Biden is a moderate is meaningless if the people he empowers to enact and develop his policy are radicals. And they are. I have no love for the Republicans in Washington. Just a bunch of assholes there to enrich their families. But they aren't trying to flip over the underpinnings of American society while they do it, so it's immoral, but not dangerous. The people steering the ideological soul of the left today fundamentally disagree with the American system, and their preferred replacement is a time-tested failure. Klobuchar is great, as is Gabbard. Even Ro Khanna (sp?) has reasonable things to say. But they aren't leading the party.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-considers-asking-black-americans-on-census-if-they-are-slave-descendants-f9b5eb09?mod=hp_lead_pos5 I'm not sure there is a "mainstream" Democratic party right now. I think there are (D) voters who believe their party is mainstream, but this is coming from the Biden admin. If Biden isn't a "moderate" Democrat, who is? Reparations for the distant relatives of slaves are about as far-left as you can get.

Except for the part that incentives nuclear power. That's the one silver lining

Not for the ones that love him. Thoroughly disappointing for those of us who feel he has gone way too far in his nonsense political maneuvering since losing to undo his rather (and surprisingly) effective policy moves. But I'm not so sure he wins the primary. Watching the attacks against DeSantis and how awkward it made the audience, he might be running out of whatever weird mojo put him in the oval office.

I really thought they couldn't be this stupid, but that's the sad part... The people running this country really are.

Homelessness has nothing to do with homebuilding and everything to do with drug use. You'd accomplish precisely nothing by putting addicts in the suburbs, except for maybe freaking out a lot of soccer moms.

I said it before, men really are better at everything, including being a woman.

Maybe your best post ever. Bravo

We'd have a lot fewer commander removals if we had the French disposition towards cheating

If you need the lounge access, its pretty hard to beat amex. The new chase lounges are supposed to be very competitive, but there are fewer of them. I just couldn't justify $700 when I don't have weekly opportunities to use the lounge. We recently just switched over to the 2% Wells Fargo credit card. All of the hotel and airlines are going through another devaluation process for their points and miles, so we're just going to take the cash back for now. And Costco. 3% back on restaurants and travel, and 4% back on gas is pretty excellent. Everything else will go on the Wells Fargo card

I wish you were joking

Not very familiar with antifa are you? Extremes are extreme on both sides. Try not to be so partisan and for once *think* about the other side. Why would so many people be "wish casting" a civil war? If you really think tens or millions of people are so vastly inferior to you and your side, you are a narcissist and a fool.