Tariffs came in last Tuesday, were removed on Friday, came back on Sunday. I expect Tim Apple is loving the daily surprises.

Sorry, they walked back the walkback of the walkback? Does anyone know what’s going on?

They have to be doing it deliberately. The aim is to destroy the USA.

I think that’s it, and they victimize LGBTQ+ people and immigrants because their supporters love it and it buys them time to implement their kleptocracy. Some of the Trump people are true-believer Nazis, but some of them are just greedy assholes who will throw anyone under the bus for their own gain.

She’s a woman. It’s not a sure thing.

Clearly it’s time to deport the majority of Americans to foreign prisons.

Your criteria exclude much that is useful. For example, scientific studies that confirm theoretical predictions or replicate previous results, which are both essential to good science. Your emphasis seems to be entirely on challenging established understandings and institutions and shaking things up, but if that’s the only thing you respect as not “drivel”, you just end up pushing contrarianism. Sometimes it’s valuable to agree, or to come to consensus. Sometimes it’s valuable to delve into the subtleties of an existing way of understanding the world. Sometimes it’s valuable to explore how others already understand the world, while keeping quiet and not asserting anything of your own until you are well steeped in it. Not everything needs to be shaken up or disrupted all the time - to look only for this is the unwisdom of hubristic tech bros and conspiracists.

Yes, “reduce, reuse, recycle” in that order. It is better to sell or give away an old PC instead of just sending it for recycling or even landfill.

The Linux experience has changed quite a lot over the years. You’re unlikely to have trouble getting your computer to work with it now.

You’ll be more vulnerable to malware because it won’t be patched against newly discovered exploits.

You can’t generalize about public transport across the whole of the USA. It’s very variable between different cities, and some have pretty good systems.

They have played us for absolute fools.

The problem is that, as people say, the people who are rich enough never lose. They can parse any situation into greater wealth. It’s us little people who always lose.

They expect single Americans everywhere to be celibate. Except themselves, because that’s different.

All that time and money invested in agent Krasnov is really paying off.

It’s not that I feel any particular sympathy for Elon Musk. But I’m sure there are lots of people living with small dicks who don’t experience any need to become crazy Nazis, and lots of crazy Nazis with sizeable penises. I just feel this whole “a man needs a big dick to be secure, and any insecure man has a small dick” thing is a somewhat offensive outlook.

Would lying flat and wriggling your way to safety like a big wet human worm help? Or always traveling with a taller, damper friend?

This is just how he is. He did the same in his first term. If you took away anger and resentment, he wouldn’t have a lot else left in his life.

botched gender affirmation surgery that left him with a mangled useless sex organ

I keep hearing this around here. Is there any actual reason to think it’s true?

Even if the bit about the surgery is true, it’s a very reductive explanation of issues which clearly aren’t new in his life. He was brought up by far-right parents and his father apparently showed him no love. He has been poisonously insecure all his life, only now he has the power to inflict his psychological troubles on the world. Ever since he got financially lucky in the 1990s, he has had the money to buy influence and pay people to do what he wants, so he has never become equipped to deal with people as equals and has all kinds of issues and insecurities around power. He discovered early that, while he had trouble making friends, he could make an impression on people by being edgy and controversial, and has never managed to move beyond this into a more mature persona.

I feel like saying “it’s all because of his wonky penis” trivializes how profoundly this man’s life has messed him up, and how many complex factors are at work in his psyche. It also implicitly insults anyone else who doesn’t have “normal” genitalia.

More likely someone he didn’t like came from Norfolk VA or Norfolk MA or Norfolk NE, or Norfolk in England or Canada, and Trump’s team doesn’t know the difference.