All of those are definitely contributing factors, especially the sexualization (both of minors and adults), and the fan service in general. I also just don’t typically enjoy the types of stories they’re telling, and I have a difficult time articulating why in a general way. Obviously there’s a wide range of anime and there have been a few that I’ve enjoyed. Studio Ghibli’s productions have generally been very enjoyable, for example, but I’d estimate that’s only maybe 5% of the ones I’ve tried, and it’s easier to just say “I don’t like anime” than to try to explain to someone why I enjoy a very select few and dislike the vast majority, especially when people who really like anime are usually pretty rabid in their defense of it. I’m not interested in hearing for the hundredth time how Death Note gets really good if I’ll just get through the first 40 episodes, or how Full Metal Alchemist is “not like other anime” and I’ll definitely love it if I give it a chance.

I, as a general statement, don’t like anime. I get this all the time from my friends who do, while they constantly try to convince me that the one they love is different and if I just try it I’ll love it.

Can’t have another pandemic under his watch. Don’t you know, if we don’t do any testing, there’s no cases!

The issue is that it doesn’t matter if it’s illegal if nobody prosecutes it, and it doesn’t matter if they prosecute it if there’s no punishment. Or if they’re just allowed to keep doing other shit while the courts are being tied up investigating each individual thing.

Note that only 9 of these have notes about judge rulings.

He can do crimes a lot faster than the courts can rule on his crimes.

Hamas staged a public ceremony in Khan Yunis before releasing the bodies as they displayed images of the hostages and blamed Israel for their deaths, a claim Israeli officials strongly ‘rejected’.

Yeah, they spent more than a year basically leveling Gaza, killed tens of thousands of people, but the suggestion that these 4 might have been among those they killed is just unthinkable.

Diet.

Some Boeing workers could be real American heroes right about now.

I’m increasingly convinced that that’s his ultimate goal. Or maybe Putin’s ultimate goal and Trump is just being used as a puppet.

Also, inappropriately denied medical benefits should be theft with damages of 3x.

If they deny coverage on a necessary procedure and the patient dies because they didn’t receive it, it should be involuntary manslaughter at the very least.

If I’m reading this right, their plan is to basically make Republicans vote against popular things, in hopes that it makes voters turn away from them in 2026. That’s neat, and in an ideal world where people actually paid attention to what their senators are voting for and the republicans didn’t control the media and generate propaganda at an alarming rate, it might even be effective, but I am skeptical that it will have any real effect in the world we actually live in.

Fair enough, I might have the terminology wrong, but this sort of thing is exactly what I was intending to refer to.

Nominations are subject to the filibuster, unless articles like this one stating that a vote was needed to break a filibuster on Kristi Noem’s nomination are all incorrect?

We’ve seen the GOP weaponize the filibuster at every available opportunity; the fact that the dems are letting anything pass without doing the same is irritating to me. The time to respect decorum is long past, but they don’t seem to have gotten the memo on that.

I like that movie quite a bit. Watched it many times. Didn’t realize it was so critically disliked. :(

Funding all of these things cost every American a grand total of $2.14 each per year (assuming these costs are annual). (729M total cost, 340.1M US population as of July 2024.) He uses these big numbers to make the whole thing seem scary, but the cost is completely insignificant. The average person has no concept of just how much money the government brings in, and how completely meaningless dollar amounts of this magnitude are, and all of these sort of reports take advantage of that to make people angry.

Another way to look at it: The total cost of all of these initiatives is less than 0.1% of the US’s annual military budget.

They had two wolves inside of them and the experience left them feeling weirdly aroused and it scared them a little.

It does, though, because not every instance federates with every other instance. If someone is coming from Reddit, and they interact with a set of specific subs there, and they want to interact with the analogue communities here, they don’t want to join an instance like, for example Beehaw, that has very strict federation policies, or (probably) .ml or lemmygrad, where they’ll be exposed to stigma they weren’t aware of going in and which might not apply to them.

A list of servers with very open federation could solve this problem in theory, assuming new users knew to reference it, but that might not be what they want, either.

The invite code idea is actually solid, I think, assuming they’re handed out to people who have things in common with the target userbase of the instance, and not arbitrarily.

There’s also some instances that hold united views on specific topics, for example blahaj with trans rights, and someone arbitrarily choosing that instance that doesn’t hold those same views might feel that they don’t fit in.

Obviously anyone can just choose a new instance and move, but for a new user coming in, that’s a ‘quit moment’ in many cases. Giving an invite code to someone that leads them to an instance that at least broadly fits what they’re interested in could help solve for this.

Edit: I think having more instances that have specific themes and topics, like slrpnk or programming.dev (or pawb, for that matter) would help, too. Someone looking in from the outside might not understand federation, but if they see an instance geared towards a topic they’re interested in, they might be inclined to join it even if they incorrectly think that’s all they’ll be able to interact with.

Normally this is where I’d say “They should all tell him to fuck right off when he does find a way to contact him”, but that seems like a job we don’t want entrusted to some nepotism hire or college freshman.

He’s defunding efforts to install EV chargers, but wants to outfit the state department in EVs?

“I reject and resent the implication that congressional Democrats are simply standing by passively,” said Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.).

Well, maybe do something to show us what you are doing. My state’s rep recently sent out a very encouraging email to his mailing list going into detail on what Democrats in general, and he personally, are currently doing to fight back. Is Richie Torres doing that? (Honest question, I don’t know, not on their mailing list.)