Uriel238 [all pronouns]

This raises a big question of what the heck comprises city dust. Is there a microplastic element to concrete or asphalt? Is it just more tire deterioration? City dust is a conspicuously vague category.

I became sexually active in that window where women commonly kept their pubic hair unless they were kinky or specifically into the bare feels¹, and porn was rife with shaved offerings and French-style runways.

¹ Every woman I was around for too long would reveal that yeah, she struggle with the maintenance process, whether in-grown hairs or surprise scratchiness or whatever. Full bush is a lot easier to maintain.

So my brain associated real relationship sex with pubic hair. It was one of those signals that indicated we’re not just honeymooning or doing a one-night stand but trying to do something real.

It wasn’t always true, to my disappointment, but brains work in funny ways.

That’s a part of my problem. My suicidality is high enough that I hope they gun me down when they come for me, and I will be strongly tempted to encourage them to do so.

I’m not going to their torture prisons where my life would be forfeit anyway. That is – to me – for certain.

Here in the house we have re-usable, washable plastic straws.

Out and about I’ll use the disposable straws because the whole turtle-death thing was over-exaggerated. (Microplastics from automotive tires are killing us, though. There are real great filters to be navigated)

I also just don’t eat out much, especially since the 2020 lockdown.

No, this is a line of reasoning that leads to something different than what we got, which could be authoritarianism, or could be a better democracy… or we could try sortition, eliminating the role of the politician, entirely.

This was established in the Federalist Papers, that democracy works when the constituent a) knows their personal best interests and b) votes accordingly. In fact much of the post Southern Strategy GOP movement towards authoritarianist domination of the federal theater has been focused on getting constituents to vote against their own best interests, whether in favor of vibes or towards single issues (e.g. abortion access, gun control) or based on cultural pressure (liberalism = communism).

There are many directions we can go to make the system more democratic, many of which include moving away from FPTP elections (which promote a two party system, making third parties untenable) but we’ve also had some success in actually educating the constituency and instilling in them a sense of duty to do their civic homework and know what they’re voting for.

If people didn’t respond to these, then Trump would have won in November 2024 by a much wider margin than fractions of percents spread across several battleground states, and he wouldn’t have needed the support of the EC and gerrymandering to give the illusion of a mandate. The GOP and its vibes-based voting system is propped up by a trillion-dollar propaganda machine to keep Americans uninformed and believing in the Joe Rogan way of life.

If that’s the best that democracy can do, I will be the first to dispose of it for something better. But I believe democracy can absolutely do better.

The warnings were there when the George W. Bush administration was doing all the things. We should have learned then never again to vote Republican, but we did. Twice. For the same monster both times.

We need to be having a sober conversation as to why and how that happened, given democracy doesn’t work when people vote based on vibes or propaganda feels.

I think the demolition of the White House is particularly poetic. It also shows us what our federal government is willing to let the regime do without input from the commonwealth.

The No Kings numbers was a warning, a bellwether. Let’s see if they’re able to pick up on what it means.

Avolition Toast

Not a good racer.

And how!

I blame executive dysfunction.

Mom needed to start me with a comprehensive checklist of specific tasks. Clean the kitchen isn’t sufficient. Wipe down the counter, being sure to get under all the counter-top appliances is better.

Otherwise, my missed spots are due to insufficient instruction and insufficient training.

We’ve been in an oligarchy for a while, according to an Oxford study of US history and the policy voting behaviors of elected representatives. It’s only gotten spicy since Reagan, when the Republican party decided it had enough power to take all the cake (and is trying to do so).

The Federalists tried this before, which caused the party to die out and the Democratic Republicans to split. (Source: Helen Cox Richardson) It’ll be exciting to see how this all plays out.