“Ice? There’s never been any ice! Ice is just a myth.”

We already have started to see this with the way social media companies bend their algorithms to match the whims of their political benefactors, both in the West and East. The process of manufacturing consent Chomsky wrote about has only become more refined over time as social media companies developed more and more ways to manipulate people and abandoned any pretext of impartiality.

Look into technical writing. I took it in college but I’m sure you can find free resources online about it. In short, good technical writing is:

• accurate
• concise
• clear
• usable
• readable

Of course, that’s easier said than done. It makes sense to make a rough outline of what you want to write before you write it. It’s also good to look over what you’ve written afterwards. If you keep these basic principles in mind while planning, writing, and revising, you can make your writing more effective.

It matters very little. It’s performative, trying to justify the conflict by framing it one way or another. The reality on the ground will remain the same no matter what the media calls it. Ultimately, it will be historians that name the war.

The combatants are Israel and Hamas. The location is Gaza. Conclude from that what you will as far the “proper” name for the conflict.

This coming massacre brought to you by taxpayers like you! Thank you!

Dr West is already running independent, so I doubt it makes much of a difference. How many potential RFK voters would have voted for Biden over Trump or West?

https://xkcd.com/1002/

The prompt just says the revolution was successful and that now it’s time for a new constitution. It’s not even US-specific, so there’s no reason to assume that state governments even exist in the context of the prompt, much less need to approve this new constitution. There’s no need for such niceties if we’re in a world where a revolution has destroyed the old regime in its entirety.

Frankly, that’s a ridiculous scenario. States are an artificial construct. There’s no reason California couldn’t be split into five states so they can get more senators, and there’s no reason tiny east coast states couldn’t be merged together. It’s just a matter of political will. States rights do nothing to benefit the individuals living in those states. Often when we talk about states rights, states are imposing some kind of oppression or restriction on their citizens, abortion being the most recent example. The Supreme Court threw it back to the states, many of which banned it immediately.

The states don’t matter! They’re overgrown, glorified municipalities. If we are going to redesign the system, we need to reduce their power all together. States are a relic of a colonial system founded by the British, where each colony was individually granted a charter, and a of a constitution written at the same time the Holy Roman Empire was alive.

What stops ridiculous, punitive laws from being passed? What stops them from being passed now? The courts, for one, and the federal government. Often it’s the states that are trigger happy in committing some kind of mayhem.

We’ve lived with states for so long that we’ve been gaslit into thinking that their existence is in our best interest. While states might be useful in some form, like in organizing regional infrastructure projects, their power should be diminished, and they are not deserving of house on par with the house of the people.

Of course, Congress is in need of other dire reforms as well. It should be bigger, for one, and first past the post should be replaced with some kind of alternate system (perhaps California-style jungle primaries?).

Should we care about the states or the people in the states? There are less people in Rhode Island than California. Are those people so much more important that they get more representation, proportionally speaking?

People have locational representation in their local governments. Let them rule over themselves if you want, but don’t give them disproportionate authority over the rest of us.

Occupy and commit war crimes in the name of “nation building.” Do this until political winds change at home and force us to pull out.

What was the question, again?

Pedophile (stands for Minor Attracted Person)

Just start your car. It’s cheaper

A bit of both. It dries out your skin to shower every day, and I honestly don’t feel like I need to shower every day with not-particularly-active lifestyle. Saves water and electric, as well, but not enough for that to be the reason why.

Every other day, but sometimes more often depending on what I’ve been up to

Off the top of my head and in no particular order:

• Highway 61 Revisited (Bob Dylan)
• Blood on the Tracks: New York Session (Bob Dylan
• Willie and the Poor Boys (CCR)
• Marvin’s Marvelous Mechanical Museum (Tally Hall)
• 1990 (Daniel Johnston)
• Z (My Morning Jacket)
• I Had A Dream That You Were Mine (Hamilton Leithauser & Rostam)
• London Calling (The Clash)
• Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (The Beatles)
• Roast Beef (Biff Rose)

If I thought about it longer, I’d probably end up with a more varied list as far as genre.

I’ve heard this before, but more in the context of a proverb than a proper joke. As far as meaning, I think it’s along the lines of “correlation doesn’t equal causation,” but not exactly.

CIA blew up the Nordstream pipeline.

Double post, but focusing more on the real computer. Do you have access to a library? Sometimes they have computers people can use. You might be able to load a program to rip onto a USB stick and run it portably (that is, without installing it onto the computer.) Not ideal, but if it’s Windows I think Windows Media Player can rip CDs natively.

In that case, bring in the CDs and the MP3 player, rip the CDs, then load them all at the library. There might even be CDs at the library you can check out as well.

Find the cheapest MP3 player possible, maybe one of those built like a USB stick that can plug into a computer.

Here’s one. There might be better options out there. The idea here is no wifi, no Bluetooth, etc. You could presumably load MP3s onto it just like you could a flash drive. Unlike the flash drive, it can play it back.

As far as ripping CDs, I use EAC. It supports ripping compressed to MP3, among other things. The linked player can play FLAC as well. I imagine most can, but the larger files size of FLAC might become an issue. Other programs exist, of course. It can be done!