THANK YOU. I AM PLEASED TO JOIN THIS DISCUSSION AMONG FELLOW NON-ROBOTS.

" ((Candidate who Lost)) ((Previous Election Year))" bumper stickers after it has been a few years.

It feels needlessly divisive.

Although I saw a “Bob Dole '96” in the wild recently, and I kind of grudgingly admire that level of procrastination.

“We could be in serious legal trouble.”

“Don’t worry. My billions will protect me.”

Tbf, the tsp by default I believe throws your money in a G fund which is basically bonds iirc.

Most funds now default to a “target retirement date” type of fund that correctly offers stocks early and moves into bonds later.

If you want my advice, talk to them constantly as if you are the narrator, and smile and make eye contact at every opportunity.

This is great advice.

I’ve always done this, and my kids all started talking surprisingly early.

But my motive is just that it calms them.

Some baby fussiness comes from insecurity, and I find that a running narration makes them more relaxed about being set down and returned to - that kind of thing.

Basically they get the same comfort from my narration as I get from leaving the TV running when I’m alone in the house.

I don’t know (or worry about) if it really makes any serious long term difference - but it was occasionally convenient as heck when they could tell me what they wanted a bit earlier than I (or anyone) expected them to.

With my last kid, I felt more brave and also mixed in some singing, and think they are more musically inclined because of it.

You’ve shared the real life hack.

My kid was born with a love for the opening theme to “Star Trek: Enterprise”, because we were bringe watching it while the kid was in the womb.

Playing “Faith of the Heart” came in handy when the kid started teething.

a) I would not be driving a car with my child in it if I was so tired that I would forget I had a child. The fuck?

I hope you’re thankful for a lifestyle where you have that option. We should all strive to build a world where everyone does.

Pen and paper is great for whenever I can’t get my hands on a chisel and rock wall.

This is the way.

I’m sorry you went through that. I’m glad you got your trapper keeper, though. Your mom made the right call.

please stop taking absolutely everything as a permanent debate.

But I think there’s a case to be made that everything is a permanent debate. Let me just paste a quick wall of text here on the topic…

Sorry. Just trying to make you laugh. I will see myself out.

I felt the same, until I had my first lousy sleeper (child who had trouble sleeping due to minor health stuff). After a month of lost sleep, I couldn’t remember my own name sometimes. I read once that sleep deprivation is effectively brain damage, and after that experience, I believe it.

The left shoe trick - throwing my shoe in the car next to the kid - probably saved my kid’s life more than once.

One kind of parents who have these tragedies are tired ones. Which is most parents with small children.

Edit: not relevant in this case, but I’ll take any chance to advertise the shoe trick.

The little squiggles are necessary to ensure election outcomes acceptable to the ultra rich.

I’m joking. (Mostly)

The squiggles are probably county line divisions, and probably simply the smallest existing land divisions with good population data available to make the map from.

I say “mostly joking” because existing county line divisions are already weird in some cases, to ensure election outcomes acceptable to the ultra rich. So there’s an unpleasant grain of truth in my joke.

the very fact that there is a big urban/rural cultural divide is one of the things killing America.

I agree wholeheartedly about the problem. But blind highest count vote on every topic is one of the big dividers between rural and urban folks.

Rural folks will simply never have the numbers to influence outcomes in a pure vote count scenario. They’re aware of this, and it leads to animosity.

Incidentally, I agree that financial decoupling would be ruinous for both, as well.

The real solution is represtational seats that give everyone a voice - no matter how the voting zone is divided.

I suspect that requires doing away with first-past-the-poll. The winner of that race will almost always be a city person, by raw numeric chance. That’s fine, city folks have some good ideas. The problem is when there’s no rural voice at the negotiation, at all.

And I think any sensible person realizes we also have to put a stop to all gerrymandering.

Also, we need to give seats to what remains of all of the first nations, while we’re at it.

This still has the representative issue that each of the narrow bands are narrow due to a huge metropolis within them, and the rural population of that band will always live with rules created by the metropolis for the metropolis.

It’s a pretty map, though.

And is still makes more sense than “carefully negotiated by powerful ultra rich a few hundred years ago to protect each of their giant egos.”

I’m forced to assume that you are now surprisingly attractive, as well. That’s the way out goes with the person I never noticed in school.

Of course, part of it might be that my definition of attractive grew up to be a lot healthier than it was when I was a kid.

Oh!

As they say, them who laugh lasts, probably needed a minute to think about it. Today, that was me.

That tracks with some human social groups I have met or been welcomed into.

There’s usually one or two guys who are willing to play the “big scary” when necessary to get rid of creeps. The rest of the time they’re usually the chill ones whose couch anyone can crash on.

I guess that is a kind of leadership, in itself.

But they usually aren’t the one who decides which theater to go to.

I don’t see how even Amazon can try to kill the competition in a market that huge, regardless of price or convenience.

So I assume you wrote this after picking up groceries from your locally owned grocery store? Because you still have one - it didn’t collapse due to a Walmart coming to town?

Most of us have a solid example of what driving a grocery store out of business looks like, though.