RemembertheApollo

It's always the super-rich assholes killing Civilization. They just keep leeching up all the money while crushing anyone who disagrees with them. Eventually the disparity is so huge you wind up with Haiti or some other authoritarian country run by absentee kleptocrats funneling all the money offshore while bleeding every last penny from the impoverished masses.

Fuck this clueless twat.

Probably the 90's in the US. For context I'm an '80s kid.

The dust from deregulation had mostly settled, healthcare hadn't skyrocketed, education and homes were still mostly affordable. Union busting and offshoring had settled down a little. Bankruptcies crushing retirements, too. You thought that the traditional paths of career, maybe getting married, and buying a house were still on the table. Politics were pretty stable and it was probably the last time you could make the argument that "both sides" were kinda the same. We were kinda coasting after the close of the Cold War...sure there were some skirmishes, but nothing huge. The were the "good old days" where shit was just going OK for the most part (please don't pedantically point out what was wrong with society, no period is perfect, it's just that the '90s had a few less bumps in the road). The internet was becoming a more widespread thing, technology was advancing rapidly. You could still save the Earth with a little recycling, Climate Change wasn't obviously having effects as veiwed by the average person.

Followed by the '00s where we got hammered really fast with dot-com bust, 9/11, recession after recession, decades of war, politics shifting hard right, rapidly rising costs thanks to speculation and corporate mergers...it's been pretty unsettled for quite a while and for those entering the workforce now it's rough.

Yeah...the '90s. Things were still looking up until TSHTF in '00s and after.

Common refrain from my perspective. No wonder kids don't like fruit. It's bred to survive picking and transport with minimal damage, often seedless, and have as long a shelf life as possible while looking attractive. It's picked under-ripe by a big margin.

It tastes like shit. Pithy, flavorless, sour, etc. Some vegetables even fall into this trap. They're big, pretty, and pithy. Dry. Hard.

It's been a noticeable shift since I was a kid, and I was spoiled by growing up in a major fruit-growing area. Could pick up a flat of fresh strawberries for $6. Fresh melons, tree fruit, berries...all were available during the summer. Didn't have too much cooler-climate fruit like apples though. That fruit was better than candy many times.

I've been making an effort to try to locate as much fruit or whatever to grow ourselves that tastes right, looks be damned. It's a lot harder than I thought. Many of the seeds found at stores around this time of year are hybrids that often fall into the same commercial trap - big, showy, and shitty. You've got to go places like Seed Savers Exchange and buy the older varieties that are less fucked with.

In Boeing's case that's probably the reality of the last couple decades. The beancounters have gotten in the way of Safety.

Lol ,no. That would be like 9 pm.

There were several missteps by vaccine proponents that undermined their case. There was also a lot of hyperbole from vaccine hesitant people that made them look hysterical.

Really. What missteps were made? The hysteria from ~~hesitant~~ anti-vaxxers and political fear mongerers were real, I would call "hesitant" people the ones who realize vaccines are a likely necessity but didn't understand how the COVID vaccines worked and were probably influenced by lies from the ant-vax crowd.

What middle ground could possibly be made here regarding "truth"? Vaccine risks are known and fairly well established. The risks of early COVID strains were known. The only people straddling a fence in the middle are those who lack the knowledge of the risks or have objectively real medical problem with vaccines, not some made-up junk about mercury or something.

Vaccines are neither a 100% safe panacea, nor are they injectable death.

OMG this is binary JAQing off. Nobody suggests either of these and it's ridiculous to even posit this phrase.

Like a greentext...just made up BS. Really, the "cowboy" was the only one dressed appropriately for weather?

And the leather soles get mushy...and the salt used to melt the ice absolutely shreds the leather just above the stitching when it dries out. Western boots suck in the snow, and it's a quick way to ruin them. Even rubber-soled ones like some of Ariat's don't last, but they're better on wet surfaces.

Frittering my life away, latibulating on my corner computer, earning skins, frippery, for my gaming character, while wearing my haku...a gaming headset.

Go ahead and buy. Shares generally tank pretty quick after IPO for companies that don't actually make anything, the dot bust ensured that. Only time will tell if Reddit shares improve or flounder around not going anywhere. An additional thought - Reddit would do well to do things like get rid of old.reddit, go after ad blockers, and maybe implement a "verified" fee program like Xwitter to boost their stock potential. And also ensure I'll never return.

But according to Putin Russia is an awesome place. How could they need assistance with military hardware from Iran?

I'm 100% for mandatory safe storage laws and prosecution of those who fail to do so, especially if that failure leads to injury, death, of theft of said firearm and that gun is used in a crime.

Unsecured handguns account for the majority of firearm suicide deaths in the United States, study finds

Overall, firearms used in unintentional injury deaths were often stored loaded (74%) and unlocked (76%) and were most commonly accessed from nightstands and other sleeping areas (30%).

It is difficult to ascertain the exact number of guns that are stolen from individuals in the United States because many of these thefts are not reported to law enforcement. However, estimates from a number of survey studies indicate that roughly 200,000 to 400,000 guns are stolen from individuals each year....Whether taken from gun stores or from individual gun owners, a firearm is stolen every 2 minutes. These stolen guns are often diverted directly into illegal trafficking networks and end up being used in the commission of violent crimes.

The Largest Source of Stolen Guns? Parked Cars.

All stolen guns are available to criminals by definition. Recent studies of adult and juvenile offenders show that many have either stolen a firearm or kept, sold, or traded a stolen firearm: According to the 1991 Survey of State Prison Inmates, among those inmates who possessed a handgun, 9% had acquired it through theft, and 28% had acquired it through an illegal market such as a drug dealer or fence. Of all inmates, 10% had stolen at least one gun, and 11% had sold or traded stolen guns.

The Southern [of the USA] region has the highest percentage of house-holds with firearms and the least safe storage practices (Okoro et al. 2005). Not surprisingly, most Southern states are “exporters” of guns traced in crime (Mayors Against Illegal Guns 2010).

So the assholes that need to have guns with them, constantly available, unsecured, because the "might need to access them instantly" or some such nonsense are the very people feeding guns into criminals hands and causing death and injury via accidental shootings and suicides.