“Protect the children!” is a very good Trojan horse to sneak surveillance in. We’re not ending online anonymity in order to make persecution of dissidents more easy, we’re doing it to protect children from the harm of seeing a boob and who can be against protecting the children?
All wood is edible if you have the correct attitude and determination
Study after study had shown that most tap water from a reasonably well-maintained public water supply has less microbes and pollutants than bottled water. Most of the time it also tastes better.
This year they didn’t give out a Nobel peace prize, they gave out a CIA employee of the month award
We had a lovely Halloween, we took the smaller kids trick or treating in a part of town where people really put stone effort into it. Our oldest kid went to a party with her girlfriend, they had a nice time and by all accounts.
To make things even better, we were dog sitting and the dog, who is usually afraid of men, seems to like me.
Halloween seems to me like one of those things that showed how, if left to their own devices, people instinctively get the value of community. There’s nothing in liberal economics that explains what makes people spend a small fortune and significant time and effort to turn their garden into a spooky ghost house for local kids.
Hedgehog for scale
You’re giving the liberals too much credit by saying they admit that electoralism has never worked.
The liberal position is not only that electoralism works but that it is the only thing that works.
Robot vacuum. We have pets and children and our floors used to be disgusting all the time. But then my partner had the smarts to buy a cheap robot vacuum and now our floors are mostly clean most of the time.
Cheap Chinese diamond grindstones. I can have razor sharp knives any time I want now, it makes cooking so much more enjoyable.
What is this sorcery?
It turns out that the best way to cure ADHD is simply not to have it in the first place. Why haven’t anyone thought of this before?
To be fair, the name itself is not anymore bullshit than the name of a lot of other sweet treats. At least it has some connection to the place it’s named after.
A while back I bought a tiny bar of Dubai chocolate from my local Arab store to see what the fuss was all about. I love chocolate and I love pistachios. Chocolate with nuts is nice. On paper I should like this.
The bar was pricey enough but it was a completely underwhelming experience. The filling was a greasy sugary pistachio cream with a very faint flavour of pistachio that was completely drowned out by the chocolate. I might have been unlucky with the specific brand but I did not feel that it was worth the money they charged for it. A bar of chocolate with hazelnuts or gianduia would have been better.
If it makes you happier, very little “Dubai chocolate” in shops is actually produced in Dubai and no royalties are being paid to the Dubai-based chocolatier who came up with the thing.
It’s true. I can’t afford the middle option but I’m doing the two others.
That depends on what kind of South African we are talking about.
I don’t have an official diagnosis but I wouldn’t be surprised if I could get diagnosed with some mild form of autism. I have been diagnosed officially with ADHD which I understand to have a significant comorbidity with autism as well as with avoidant personality disorder which also sounds like it has something in common with autism. Anyways, a lot of the experiences I hear autistic people talk about resonate with me.
In one way, this is just the way I am. Yes, I focus intensely on things that interest me. Yes, I don’t give a fuck about social drama. Yes, I am more reserved than most people in social situations and they do seem to ture me more than most people. Yes, I’m really bothered by some noises and textures. Yes, I am absolutely allergic to bullshit and hypocrisy. That’s not a disability — at least it shouldn’t be — that’s just how some people are. People are different, that shouldn’t be pathologised.
But on the other side, this is certainly disabling in practical terms. A lot of the things that sucks and has sucked in my life can be active to me being a bit different. I would have fared a lot better in a kinder, more rational society but even then many things would have been harder to me than to must people. Most of the time growing up I was asking myself “why can’t I just be normal?” and to a large extent I still do. Feeling like I’m standing outside looking in seems to be an existential precondition for me and that is a very lonely and frustrating position to be in. Struggling with social interactions doesn’t mean they’re not important to me and being unable to form and maintain them at a “normal” extent has been a constant source of misery for me as long as I can remember.
It seems like a combination of racism (I bet they wouldn’t get worked up over two Norwegians communicating in their native language) and petty managerial tyranny.
Of course it is healthier, there’s a vegetable in it
We had those campaigns as well. It was quite alienating to me since I haven’t been able to stomach the idea of drinking milk since I was a toddler. The idea that a healthy diet has to include milk still lingers in folk wisdom, it is basically the only source of nutritional calcium that people know about.
The dairy campaign extended into the classrooms (and still do) in the form of a “school milk” scheme in which parents can pay to have a quarter of a litre of milk delivered to their kids at school every day. The scheme was originally started way back in the day to make sure poor city kids at least got some nutrition and ever since the dairy lobby has managed to protect this unique sales channel.
Don’t tell me what to boil! What is this, communist Russia?