I don't know if we are already at critical mass nationwide.

But as someone who moved to new york a couple years ago (wife's job) --- blue states are already here.

My last boss was barely literate. And i was in management myself.

The Buffalo crash in Dec. of 2009 is the last one iirc.

I remember that because it made my fear of flying worse in winter weather.

Anecdote no one asked for: I think I accidentally cured my fear of flying with a dose of magic mushrooms one time. I flew out of Vancouver the next day and ever since then... it's just... been gone. My wife remarks on every flight since that my palms aren't even sweaty anymore.

FWIW, most countries have backtracked on everything at this point. Even Japan it's normal to see people not wearing masks again, so that's a good bellwether.

I've found good people and great conversations in several places over the last calendar year, and I'm headed to Asia in a couple months' time, so I'm sure I'll do the same.

13 hour drive from Manila or 1 hour "hold your breath" flight to Bicol-Legazpi?

I lean towards the drive, but that's enough of a time save to make the flight unavoidable. And the Philippines might be a small step above your Sub-Saharan Africa/Rural India or Indonesia where these crashes happen regularly, too.

As a rule of thumb, I tend to trust any airline that can fly to either EU or USA -- it means they have to maintain the standards and practices of the FAA/Equiv. EU Body. Even in third world countries, you should be alright.

It's when you fly on your Spice Air, or your Lion Air (or any of a myriad of small airlines in Africa) where you shit your pants.

Fairly good assessment. Especially when she got to the end and said the dumb thing.

Most of us, I think, can see the logical route we are on in an argument. She could have tried to reframe the argument or said it wasn't relevant to the discussion and/or she doesn't worry about that... any of these options would have ended the argument.

But no, doubled down on "god wants me to do porn."

Genius.

Which anyone with a 4th grade social studies education circa 1995 could tell you is massively fucked up and runs contra to everything this nation was founded on.

They want you stupid and complacent.

Well that's also retarded. Precedent and standing should only apply when a law has been used.

"Well it's been sitting here for 10 years even though its never been used so it has standing" is the exact opposite of logical.

Well, the short answer is that Islam is largely right about women.

They (largely) aren't fit to be leaders because they take minor shit too personally. They are too emotional and this gets in the way of pragmatic solutions. Seriously, if you have argued with a woman ever in your life you know what I am talking about.

Red Pill theory states that women are essentially adult adolescents. Islam ain't going to argue with that.

Which is a bad way to put it because it implies one is better than the other. And the end result of that is where we are now: women wanting to have their cake and eat it, too.

Being exceptional is hard. Especially in social settings. For many, it is hard to find a place where you fit in (or can just be yourself).

Women (being clustered in the center of the bell curve) have advantages in this area. They have an easier time in social environments because will never have a problem finding people they can relate to.

There is nothing wrong with being average in intelligence. It has pros and cons just like being exceptionally smart has pros and cons. Being exceptionally dumb has some advantages, too, believe it or not... though their lives are not something I want to emulate.

I really think this whole thing ends when women realize they don't want the things they claim to want. Which, if past arguments with women are any guide, will be about 2 weeks after they have burned the whole world to ashes.

Let's be even more real: the American populace has been actively ignoring that our government hasn't built anything and instead let the country fall into disrepair.

You wouldn't look at a falling down, foreclosed house in Detroit and say "ah they built a shitty house."

I live in NY State -- and one of the biggest things I have learned is that blue states are AMAZINGLY worse off than Red states.

Basic infrastructure isn't failing, it has failed. I am talking about traffic lights that never turn green, or turn green towards a parking lot for 45 seconds at 3am. Potholes that never get filled. Police that never show up when you call 911 (had a guy in the middle of the street stopping cars and screaming at people).

Why would anyone have any trust for anything when basic services are broken beyond repair?

I met some amazing people from all six continents in my time there. But the worst -- the absolute worst -- people I've ever encountered were the "Seoul foreigners."

I made the mistake of living there one year -- none of my coworkers spoke or could even read Korean, and had no interest in learning. They would go to Hongdae (college party neighborhood) 5-7 nights per week and hang out with other foreigners and pretend they're cultured.

But to another, interesting point -- my wife had a Japanese colleague who was here in the US doing research for a year. We didn't see each other often but we were like best friends when we did, and I think it's because we each had that shared experience of living in a foreign culture.

I haven't watched that particular channel, but I did live in Korea for 5 years... a lot of what you said rings true... it has good and bad aspects just like anywhere else.

Best example I can always come up with to highlight the core cultural difference:

About 10 years ago there was a horrific ferry disaster in South Korea. A lot of people, including students, died when their boat sank. The reason so many people died is that they stayed below decks even as water was rushing in because the captain (who later escaped) told them to remain below decks.

If that happened in the west, the loss of life would have been significantly less because westerners aren't going to blindly listen to authority. As soon as the boat started tipping or water started coming in people would be running to the top decks and demanding answers.

Just consider how much of that ethos you can tolerate. Even as a foreigner I was expected to defer to authority in the workplace.

I will echo the sentiment about 'not being friends with the usual Japanese' (Koreans in my case). Foreigners will never be accepted into the culture and you just... accept it. You certainly can't change it.

Even in Osaka, which is renown for its "legal" red light district, about 80% will pretend foreigners don't exist.

Outside of that area, it is probably >99% japanese only.

But oddly enough I don't think this would be popular in Japan. At least not popular enough to overshadow the real thing.

Just a little amendment: the phrase is "the greatest thing since sliced bread" -- which refers to the automatic bread slicer.

Sorry to be pedantic but I just think understanding the info behind the idiom helps.

Starcraft 2 is actually in a good place. I was so disappointed by Wings of Liberty that I fell off for like a decade... but the story works well enough and the single player alone has enough replayability it keeps me engaged.

Throw in a bunch of fun pros in the scene and you have an enjoyable ecosystem. It has also helped that Korea and Koreans are more accessible than ever before (so their pros don't seem as mysterious anymore).

It remains to be seen if the recent balance change is good long term, but the game is in a really healthy state right now.

Exactly.

Now, the living can get all the scorn they can get and more. That little shitstain that go de-biceped by Rittenhouse? Beautiful.

I also have a special level of scorn for the families of stupid communist victims saying "don't be mad at their murderer, that's not what (victim) would have wanted."

Well, sorry for your loss, but they are dead because they were a fucking idiot, and you aren't too far behind.

One of my general rules is: "don't celebrate the death of anyone."

Doesn't mean I am a saint. I have taken personal pleasure in the death of some people -- but I don't run around gloating about it.

This guy got what he fuckin' deserved, though. Right down to the communist harpy barely helping and just waiting to make his death all about her.

British girls seem to have the biggest variance. The high value women are pure class, and the rest are shameless, vile, self-obsessed whores.

Even when I visited last month -- I didn't see a whole lot to refute that perception.

The problem with Kamala is that no one -- and I mean NO ONE likes her or thinks she is competent enough to do anything.

Reportedly she thinks it's because she has been thrown under the bus... but we all know the reality.

Abstract in the way that they are fed bullshit that is presented as unassailable truth. Students have to twist their brains into some serious pretzels shapes to make any sense of it. Most students (especially with the lowering standards in higher ed) aren't capable of understanding the bullshit enough to realize it's bullshit, so they just repeat the lies as unquestionable truths.

So you get in a lecture hall of 200 people. The professor spouts bullshit that no one in the room is equipped to refute, and 150 of the students want to believe the bullshit. So if you're one of the other 50, and you speak up, you're washed away in a sea of vitriol. It's happened to me and it's happened to others.

It's actually relatively easy to explain. They spend 4+ years in college (and increasingly time in high school, as well) in classes where they are fed unfalsifiable bullshit based on theories that can be traced back to the Frankfurt School.

At some point, when you're fed years of lies about things that don't exist and are easily disproven, it becomes a game of the Emperor's New Clothes. It has nothing to do with the reality -- it's a choice of "accept the bullshit and stay in the club" or "burn every bridge and live on the outside." In my experience there is no middle ground between those two positions, and students are implicitly made aware of this.

So you have true adherents (mostly women, because they don't need logic to feel correct) and reprehensible losers who are 'faking it' until at some point they stop faking it because they have too much social capital to lose. It's also relatively basic psychology that if you 'fake' being someone or something for too long, you will eventually become it.

Call it a social contagion, call it a cult -- whatever you want, you're pretty accurately describing how fucked up it is.

To be equally fair, she killed her neighbor's dog.

She's just a piece of shit person who doesn't care about anyone but herself. Why does anyone think she cares about other people?

Okay, forget family values. I threw that in there because she divorced her husband and is now doing this. It's a bad look regardless of where you stand.

But I will not bend on integrity. This behavior is not the behavior of someone who cares about their integrity of the perception of their integrity.

At best she's a liability, at worst she's a snake. What a great ally to have.

This really is a non-issue. Hard stop.

Having said that, however, I hope "our side" (whatever that means) realizes that MTG and Boebert are unreliable, fickle, and ineffective.

MTG is off fucking her yoga teacher and simping for RINOs because she is addicted to that DC gravy train. Boebert is exactly the intellectual lightweight she was purported to be and will be a liability for as long as she's around.

I consider them both AOC of the Right. Useless media punching bags who say the talking points and generally do more harm than good.

Seriously -- I don't really care how slimy and unrelated this smear job is, you just can't be doing this shit in public when you are yoked to the political party that is supposed to be about family values and integrity.

Fuck em both. I am not necessarily a big fan of Kari Lake (something about her doesn't seem genuine) but she at least walks the walk and talks the talk on a consistent basis.

That comment had nothing to do with my wife and was referring to cheating whores, bud.