"Did you run into a lot of traffic on the way here?"
"I dont want to get into politics! Fuel costs, public transportation, lets just not go there."
"Oh, umm, well I love these bread rolls, dont you?"
"I said no politics. And yes, i get it, subsidies and tariffs impact commodity wheat quality."

That was around when AOL was merging with them and it was shocking enough, but yes AOL was mailing around a lot of CDs, so it would make some sense.

Then at the doctor's office:
"Your plan has a negative minimum deductible, so you pay up to the deductible and anything above that is out of pocket."

"Whats the difference between gold or platinum?"
"Gold has a limited benefit premium copay of $5000, whereas platinum has a benefit limited copay premium of $5000."

Confession: I had a handle when I was a kid (decades ago) with 88 in it, totally unaware of the nazi symbolism, but thinking the number was cool because it's the number of keys on a piano.

Right? It's a damn hypothetical, there's no premise here that needs foundation.

Same SCOTUS declared that any consideration of race whatsoever in admissions (to promote diversity) was unlawful. But to gerrymander, no problem. The throughline is white supremacy.

Can we include ambient tensions about a video game that doesnt exist being controversial and banned for reasons that never quite make any sense but which a lot of gamers are passionate about?

I like your katamari analogy but also, it makes me more sympathetic to megacorps, because who can resist "must grow" with a katamari.

I.e. it's not outside the realm of possibility that congresspersons calling this a war crime is one day cited by SCOTUS as evidence congress tacitly signed off on a war.

I'm on the fence about whether it's a good strategy. The power to declare wars matters, and probably shouldn't be conceded by congress even to catch someone in an act like this.

I think the point is, if it's not a war, it's just murder. If it's a war, it's still a war crime, and the strategy is, let's just skip past that debate and give you that it's a war to remove the argument.

bsky.app/profile/hear...

Tearing down the ballroom and rebuilding the east wing would have tremendous symbolism of moving on from this era.