ROTMetro

I would equally post complaining if there were monthly posts about how beautiful the Spanish Missions in the Americas were, and how they increased the literacy rate.

That said, if you have to defend yourself you dun did mess up. Add on you don't think I add to the community, and I that I don't want to make a community worse for my presence I'll refrain from further posting.

I read condemnation on this site every day against Europeans/Americans because of things done in the past that we were not a part of.

Yes, a social structure similar to Jim Crow in the USA should be condemned not celebrated as being tolerant or some mythical place. It was not a good culture, it was not kind. Islam only allowed enslavement on non-muslims. Nice 'tolerance'. You shouldn't enslave people, and my people we mean non-believers. As many as 1.25 million white Europeans were enslaved by Islamic slavers. Much tolerance, much beauty.

Lot's of non-Muslim non-Arabs were part of this Islamic golden age as well.

If taxes were paid on the money then your example makes zero sense.

But yes we must explain everything to the Government. Rights aren't inherent, but are granted to us by the government if we can explain good enough why we need them. Cops should pull me over and ask how I financed my car and if I don't have a good enough answer/documentation on me they should get to take it /s

It's probably using the VPN mechanism to grab traffic for inspection and can't do what it does without that.

The fees are required to be listed 'at the point of sale' not on advertising. Basically they have to tell you at signup what they are going to charge you. Seems like an extremely reasonable requirement.

Organic oatmeal costs $1 a pound. Add dirt cheap in bulk organic raisins, flax, walnuts, almonds, cinnamon, banana's and you have 1 meal, 2 of your fruit/veggie servings, tons of oils for like $1. Takes 3.5 minutes to make.

Fishing/hunting is the cost of a license. You can fill your freezer in 1 trip.

I eat healthy organic/gluten free for $25 a week and am overweight not starving.

I am so glad Teddy Roosevelt spent so much time in civilization on computers or we might not have had a National Park system.

One of these days will be the last time you pick your kids up in your arms, ever. And you won't know it when the event happens, only realize it has passed later.

Make your concerns heard.

https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/

I'll just leave this here in case anyone finds it useful. This system only works if you participate in it. When you think surely the government will do something about this, be the person to get that ball rolling, it doesn't happen by magic.

https://reportfraud.ftc.gov/

Problem with ACH is you have to cancel your bank account to stop withdrawals. There are horror stories of people getting fired and being unable to stop ACH withdrawals (I'd rather my rent bounce this month than not be able to eat, etc) and ending up hosed. With a card you can just cancel the card number. It's best to use your bank's bill pay (push) instead of any external automated billing (pull).

It's been worth it to me. I pay for NextDNS, Youtube Premium, and Kagi and the web feels so much better. From the threads here about taking your life minutes back I've also installed SponsorBlock for Youtube. Life's too short and brainpower too valuable to waste on all the crap. That is the value proposition. How much is your time worth? How much is avoiding wasted mental energy worth?

Yes, and Amazon has improved the shopping experience as they have gained these insights as well. As someone who went away from the world for 5 years so wasn't in the pot as it slowly started to boil, Google and Amazon are both significantly worse and less user friendly than they used to be.

Just look at Google Assistant. It has gotten significantly worse the last two years. Strangely, the only time it asks me for feedback is when it happens to work. Shouldn't be hard for it to detect when it craps out I talk frustrated at it, but they don't seem interested in getting feedback at that point. Ah, but it happens to turn one light on once (versus the 20 something went wrong times), prompt for feedback on that specific one time it worked.

What you are referring to is a zombie business. It does not offer enough value so it can only survive via low wages, something that is not guaranteed and is externally controlled. I think banks should does including this measure when it comes to financing. If have to pay your people below market wages to survive you don't have a business, you have a zombie that can't only survive as a parasite on others. Figure out how to manage the business or increase your value add or be explicate this is a passion project not a viable business. I cannot buy produce from a farmer for less than it costs them to grow it, but somehow businesses think they can pay people less than it costs to live.

There are more California plates in mine and the surrounding towns than there have been in the last 20 years. California wasn't about boom and bust, it was about optimism. The oil patch is boom/bust and it adds to making it a horrible place to live.

Old California was buying a cheap vw van for $800, getting a bunch of friends together and going on a surf trip to baja. Having fun and being unpretentious. New California is paying $30,000 for a vanagon and making videos of it by yourself to post to the internet.

A lot of people like me that were forced to leave for financial reasons are grasping for justification for leaving other than 'because we didn't have enough financial value'. It sucks when your hometown kicks you out because you're a 'poors'.

Seasons get less nice the older you get. At first I loved them, but 20 years on I really wish I was in California and just went to Tahoe to get my snow fix. If you leave California, think hard about how much snow you have to remove when looking at homes. My ex was smart and she nixed a lot of homes with crazy long driveways because she knew. Also remember that in super heavy snow you don't just shovel the sidewalk/driveway but also the roof to prevent collapse.

I miss California so much, but then I grew up there.

My mom had cancer that was treated. The official correct follow-up was to get checked to make sure it didn't come back every 2 years. At the 2 year check it was too late and untreatable. I no longer trust doctors/advisory panels and their 'statistically what's best' and never will again. It cost me my mom. I just want my mom back.

Why are product companies going on earnings calls and saying that inflation is coming from their raising their profits if it results from deficit spending?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/apr/27/inflation-c...

I'm currently modifying a car. Each part is a drop in the bucket yet once I add up the price of them all...oh look I can't afford it and something has to give. Want to guess which 'something' has never been looked at to give for, well, at least my entire past middle age adult life?

If you are called the 'Justice' system you are out of a job when there's no longer a need to implement 'Justice' because you solved the issue higher up the food chain. Why would they put themselves out of work?

My little hatch can do that for 5 people. And it's actually sporty and fun to drive unlike a truck.

Are you really proposing an 80/20 rule where if you prosecute someone for a crime you have to dedicate X amount of energy to procedure whom 'besterarm' has designated as opposition to the person who broke the law? Now that sounds like a whacked out legal system. You think Biden broke the law? You think you have evidence? Report it. That is how the legal system works.

Our court system is already constitutionally violatingly too slow (but we overlook it because who cares about the constitution nowadays) but yes lets change cases to have 15 judges that ought to be a workable solution. Or wait, we can have an appeals court (that normally has three judges hear an appeal) that though slow at least moves. I can't imagine if the courts were 15 times slower (because the judges were all on one case). I can't imagine every po-dunk jurisdiction that can barely justify 1 judge having 15.

And that is why we have a balance. The legislature can change the law to be more explicit if they don't like the judicial interpretation. Our system ONLY works if judges have this power.

Why does the current incarnation of Silicon Valley have to always be shady? Why can't it say 'our service is X' and then deliver service X, not some who knows what other agenda? A car parts store just sells car parts, they don't change and offer refrigerator parts since they already have a distribution system for parts and then tell their customers 'we have to do this in order to keep selling car parts'. Also, 'we are shifting our required by law in store oil recycling to 'contractors' and if they happen to just be dumping it into the river not our problem, wasn't us, we tried' (narrator: they didn't try).

Silicon Valley deserves the hate and bad reputation they now have. They've acted in bad faith for too long while fostering an air of 'trying to make the world better'. I'm so glad they've lost their sales tax exemption and I hope they get kneecapped on every other 'advantage' they have (i.e. 'we don't have employees, we are empowering independent contractors who happen to look just like employees').

America had so much optimism for tech and now they hate it, maybe reflect for a bit on why.

There needs to be a requirement that Police are insured. The city/county shouldn't pay the bill for poor personal behavior of police with a side of accountability in the form of keeping insurable.

And ironically, the courts and DOJ tend to not do anything unless publishers shine a spotlight on it. Luckily the internet has done away with most local news making everyone in the chain's life easier.

It makes me so sad that Russia has chosen to not be part of the western world going forward. Such a needless divorce created by Russia for what, so that they can kill their 'brotherly' slavic neighbors?

I always wanted to see the Hermitage. I have Russia adjacent ancestry (from talking to Russians online to try and trace it I was told I am jewish and not Russian and was then told in very crappy ways that the two are very much different). The old Russia literature is still great and of huge influence in the west and I am still very much interested in old Russia no matter that new Russia has chosen to extract themselves from the western world I live in and that embraced my great great grandparents when Russia rejected them.