Makes me wonder if Trump actually has someone in mind that wouldn’t have gotten approved unless he put someone so unlikely that the actual pick gets a pass.

I use Teams on linux on the desktop with no firefox. You might try that.

And the huge shift right by male GenZ people. Reading posts by them specifically today: they felt marginalized by democrats and ignored. They felt like Maga cared about them, and they could belong in the Republican party. And some of them simply wanted revenge and to feel powerful.

Now this isn’t everyone, but I gotta say:

WTF are you doing thinking about feelings? And fitting in? Look at the damn effects your choice is going to make based on “feelings”. That group is going to lose consumer protection, worker protection and safety, medical coverage, relief on college tuition, housing subsidies, debt relief, small business loans. What they gain is higher prices, worse infrastructure, and possibly the nastiest thing of al:l the direct path of their income going to the wealthiest people and perpetuating generational wealth for the very few.

Because they wanted to “feel” like they were seen and heard as men. You got played!

I have been really impressed with Fedora’s handling of KDE. Updates are quick, system is solid and sanely configured.

This is good news. I have it on a laptop, and I am thinking about switching over on my desktop.

So how far are you going to move the goalposts in our conversation? This all started with “did they blame Biden for inflation”. Yes, yes they did. That was all we were talking about. You moved it to something else. He at least was doing something.

I have no love for democrats so stop with the abused significant other crap.

At least Kamala wanted to change the tax structure for the wealthiest, but that wasnt good enough.

By the way, in that chart, you claim Kellogs is a monopoly. But they are only one of the ten, so…

I am amused that the that the headline reads “These 10 companies control everything you buy”. Because I buy none of those products. But chances are the people we are talking about that ask why their cereal is so expensive do.

But here is where we probably agree: If Biden said “I am going to break up the top 10 companies to get competition (never mind that several are not US companies)” the investors, the banks, the newspapers that are ran by them, would all have articles and opinion pieces on how Biden is trying to be socialist and un-american. The people that didn’t like him before REALLY wont like him now.

I don’t think he would have, he knows where his political donations come from. We can all talk about how they really fucked up by not going far enough left. But to bring this back to the original conversation: even when he took some steps in the right direction, he never was going to get credit for it and their would always be something to complain about to make sure people didnt think about it too hard.

Except he did do something. Like we discussed previously. But nobody cares. If he had done price fixing they would have complained about that. But nobody wants to talk about how Trump put this all into motion in 2017 by signing the the tax bill.

And exactly what SHOULD be done if a company wants to charge $7 for their cereal? Perhaps if you didn’t want it to be $7 you wouldn’t buy it. But here we are, blame someone else for their lack of self control. Harris would have given money to a small business that wanted to make quality cereal at an affordable price to get it off the ground. But they wouldn’t go for that either.

Their is no solution to stupid. That is why she lost.

In the end the prices of food today are NOTHING compared to what they will be. We have droughts in all states but 2 right now. Tarrifs are going to limit imports so we are going to rely on local farms that are going to start really seeing the effects of climate change, that are only going to be made worse by poor environmental policy and increased carbon emissions. The stupid have spoken. They want to be told things will be fixed: when the only thing that will be fixed is an acceleration of money up. Like always. Kamala may not have fixed that, but at least she wasn’t going to put it on the fast track.

The question was if they blamed Biden. Nothing to do with Harris, but since you mention it, yeah that is really troubling for Harris supporters.

I agree Americans dont pay much attention. They also are bizarrely confused about who to blame. The president doesn’t set prices, companies do. There was a period of inflation put into place from Trumps tax policy in 2017 expiring to recovery acts during Covid. Prices went up. Why would a business lower them now? They are no longer going up at 7%, but the prices were coming back down.

So “Why are my kellog flakes $7 dollars when the store brand is $3”? Because people will pay for it?

Yes. They blamed him for inflation. That is the buzzword.

Biden ordered the FTC and the DOJ to work together and fight shrinkflation, price gouging, and deceptive practices. In March!

He also went after credit card fees and deceptive and predatory loans. He said he took this on when the economy was recovering and inflation was going down.

So what are you talking about?

The FTC has been very active, deceptive practices, fraud, schemes, price gouging, data leaks, personal data protections… so many things.

I suppose that is all going to end now.

Under Trump in 2019 inflation was 2.3 percent. It dropped during Covid and then jumped to 7% in 2021. It has been declining ever since to 2.4% today. So a disaster, then a recovery, and people STILL think it was Bidens fault.

Price gouging is what it became and that is slowly getting better. The FTC is taking steps to help. But somehow people think “lets vote for the billionaires! Surely they have a plan to make chips 99 cents again!”. We only need to deregulate and cut corporate taxes (again) and it will all be better for Johnny Six Pack!

Putting a poison

It’s not a poison, this type of bullshit fear-mongering just highlights how hollow your arguments are. You’re arguing that the delivery method of fluoride is wrong, and then you call it a poison. Stop taking cues from anti-vaxxers.

If you do not think fluoride is a poison you are out of your mind. You didnt seem to understand how chlorine worked, so I guess its par for the course. There are 188 superfund sites in the US to clean up… FLUORIDE. There are even communities that have to remove it from their drinking water. There are strict limits on the ppm in water, so you think everyone is getting the same dose by adding it?

I gave two examples, you want me to write a damn paper? There are PLENTY MORE. The study in the UK came to the same conclusion. But no matter what I say, you are going argue. True Brita basics do not remove flouride.

And yes I am suggesting, the WHOLE FUCKING TIME, that the US can do better. That this stop gap is stupid, because of the reasons I gave. Why do you want to argue this shit?

The examples of negatives are the deaths that occurred in Alaska, and the injuries in Utah due to human error. Those are rare though. Chronic ingestion of fluoride in large amounts interferes with bone formation. But then there is the study that prompted this discussion, which is interesting, but it needs more review. I looked through the 300 pages and the summary, and I am not convinced.

We are not far apart on this: I am not against fluoride. I am just not hugely in favor of adding it to the water supply if we don’t have to. Ingestion is not the same as oral application. A person drinking black tea is already getting decent amount of fluoride. Should their water also be fluoridated? Looking at other countries that do not need to do this is something to strive for.

So explain to me how Denmark has the best DMFT index score (decayed, missing, or filled teeth), yet they do not add fluoride to their water.

Or Kuopio Finland, that was the only city in Finland that fluoridated then stopped.

This study indicates that, among children and adolescents whose permanent teeth erupted in the mid-1970s or thereafter, even a longitudinal approach did not reveal a lower caries occurrence in the fluoridated than in the low-fluoride reference community. The main reason for the modest effect of water fluoridation in Finnish circumstances is probably the widespread use of other measures for caries prevention. The children have been exposed to such intense efforts to increase tooth resistance that the effect of water fluoridation does not show up any more.

Again, better health care, better outcomes. Putting a poison that becomes a random dose depending on age, consumption, and concentration into water is stupid. You wont change my mind. It may be a necessary evil to get to better care, but we should be able to stop doing that.

And yes, I don’t know any kids who actually are willing to drink tap water anymore. Its all bottled, brita, or filtered these days.

Bozo? So are we having a discussion or what? Do you just want to argue about how you feel and have a slapfight or are you willing to actually discuss this? Uneducated indeed.

Yes, Kids these days. How much water do kids drink? How much TAP water do kids drink?

The latest studies show a rise in flourosis

Along with a decline in having teeth rot and fall out, damn what a tough choice.

Except NO. That is what I am telling you. The studies that have been done have discovered that the effectiveness we saw in the 1950’s is not the same as today. With the rise of Fluoride in toothpaste the differences are negligible.

Do you know the difference between Chlorine and Flouride? Chlorine is an evaporating compound. Don’t want chlorine in your water, let it sit for a day. Boil it.

Fluoride does not evaporate. It concentrates.

You literally are disagreeing with decades of evidence

Nope. I am willing to look at and understand current studies and evidence. Are you?

I hate that this stance appears to agree with RFK Jr. He is an idiot. I said it was a municipality issue, not a federal issue. I said I would support flouride in toothpaste and a program to assist with that. I also can agree that a municipality may find it necessary to fluoridate their water if dental care and oral hygiene is unavailable due to various factors like poverty, remoteness, cost effectiveness etc. But in the end it would ALWAYS be better to prescribe the treatment in measured amounts, instead of adding it to the water. That is why I think it is stupid and we need to move beyond it.

Did you read the second part of my comment? Just how much water do kids drink these days? How much more effective is using fluoride AND developing good brushing habits?

The latest studies show a rise in flourosis, and a decline in effectiveness since the widespread use of fluoride toothpaste.

It seems crazy to me to add a chemical to water that had no dose control and concentrates upon boiling if there are better options.

Isn’t this a state and municipality decision?

Personally I am in favor of removing floyride from water. I think it’s stupid.

But I am fine with replacing that with free fluoride toothpaste for children.

Either way that is not a federal decision to make.

Yep, you gotta do what you gotta do. I could never blame anyone for that.

Then when you are your own boss you can do it your way!

It sure is a popular app regionally. Lots of people in different countries I know use it interchangeably at this point: when they say text, they mean whatsap. I get it.

But I will not support Meta, there is a line. I don’t need family or friends that cannot use open source alternative. Worse case, I just drop back to sms.

But work requires it? Or you happen to have work that needs to support many customers? I suppose I could see that, but work would then be a completely separate phone only for that purpose.

Life fair. It’s only trying to help you not have to use whatsapp.

And yet I am watching a re-resurgence of collecting crap began anew. Take vinyl for example: heavy, bulky, environmentally awful and on par with if not worse sounding than alternatives. But people want something tangible. Which I am also beginning to see with old collectables. Also art: there is a movement to get physical art since digital is not tangible and possibly not even made by a human.

China, silver, and plastic ware: I have seen an uptick in those as well which is bizarre. Is it just a matter of time till the cycle comes around again?

Every single ununtu release since Warty has been trouble. Ubuntu breaks. Does wetid things. Makes weird choices. Upgrades often fail.

I am surprised it took you this long to run into issues.

I agree, but I am not sure what that will look like. Restructuring? Bail out?

They currently don’t make anything anyone even wants. How long till they can retool and get competitive?

In any case, it would seem like whatever is promised to employees now may not be what they get in the future.