If you murder a murderer, you don’t reduce the total number of murderers. You have to murder more than one, but then you’re a serial killer, which is arguably worse. If you’re a serial killer who only kills serial killers, then you are starting to maximize the offset. But once you fuck up and get close to being caught, so your serial killer girlfriend blows up Doakes to keep your secret safe and you pin all your murders on him, you’ve gone too far.

Ask yourself a question, have you ever heard of a toddler accidentally shooting someone with a bow? Firing a gun is so easy that you have to keep them away from babies or the babies are likely to kill themselves.

Are you using superglue to close cuts on your fingertips? Or are you trying to create a thick pad of glue to act as a protective layer? Do you already have a blister or cut? Or are you trying to prevent one?

To close a cut or cover a blister, superglue works in a pinch.

As padding to avoid blisters or cuts, it doesn’t really work. If you’re playing enough to cause a new blister, it just cracks and flakes off anyway. It might get you through a song if you’re desperate. Long term, you’re better off getting your fingers calliused and learning to play with different fingerings to take the pressure off an injury.

Pros have to go on stage and play. If you’re playing for yourself, for fun, you can take a few days off and let your fingertips heal.

“Deserved” is a bit loaded. Americans are exceptionally stupid and ill-informed, but that applies to our elected leaders, as well.

Does someone who is easily manipulated deserve to be manipulated? If so, isn’t that precisely the form of myopic conservativism that has overrun the right wing? Government for the people, by the people, is intended to protect all the people and enshrine our rights. Protecting victims from predators ought to be a primary function of law, and if you don’t believe that, then yeah you deserve the leadership we got.

Many years ago, I created a reddit sub for tracking instances of police brutality, naming the officers and following up on the lack of punishment. Within the first day, I was completely overwhelmed by the sheer number of offenses. I had a minor mental breakdown and had to abandon the effort.

My understanding is that is came from soldiers returning from WWI who did not speak enough German to communicate, but were seeking the trains home.

I don’t speak German, but I picked up a few phrases for work. They have a few idioms that I think of sometimes:

“Ich glaub, ich spinne” which means I think I’m crazy, but literally translates to “I think, I spider.” It’s a great visual metaphor, being overwhelmed by the threads going everywhere that you imagine you’re a spider spinning a web, and also you’ve entirely forgotten grammar.

“Bahnhof verstehen” or “Ich verstehe nur Bahnhof” means “I understand only the train station.” It’s something you say when you don’t understand anything, you’re completely lost, and you don’t give a shit becaue you just want to get the fuck home.

I might be off on those translations or the subtext, but that’s how I understood it.

Agreed, but his subjects singing and dancing along takes a different tone if you thing of him as a violent and petulant predator that could decide to kill any of them at any point. Beneath the smiles and harmonies, they are terrified of the boy-king and his betrothed sister-consort, who hold their lives in their pathetic little paws.

But I heard that in some procedures in America you have to say what your ethnicity is?

Not sure what you mean by “procedures,” but no. It’s explicitly forbidden for anyone to discriminate against you based on your race or ethnicity. You won’t be asked if you are black or white or anything else. People might be curious where you are from, especially if you have a strong accent, but you’re free to tell them to fuck off (especially if they are being racist.)

We even heard things like that in some places they divide people by “skin color” and base different cultures on that (we noticed that people from America even speak and behave differently based on whether they identify as “black” or “white”) and even have schools for primarily people with dark skin or so.

We have laws preventing creating neighborhoods or schools that exclude specific races, but there are regional schools in communities that are primarily one race or another. Generations of racial segregation, redlining, blockbusting, and gerrymandering have created persisitent segregation that survives decades after those practices were outlawed.

So no, you’re not misinformed. Historical segregation was real and still affects communities today, but there are no laws enforcing racial segregation. We do have a lot of bigots, as evidenced by the literal Nazi salute at the Trump inauguration today, so you should be careful in places like rural Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, Utah, and South Carolina. But if you’re visiting a major city, or any famous tourist attractions, you’ll probably not experience any overt racism beyond a Trump bumper sticker.

Are we caring what upsets racists?

Also, that doesn’t make it better.

If that’s not the most racist thing I’ve heard in a while…

HSAs are a misdirect to get you to ignore how shitty high deductible plans are. Never take the high deductible plan.

Everyone grieves differently. Some people want to talk about it, others want to be distracted from it. Only bring it up if you think she’s in a sharing mood, and let her drive the conversation.

You could say something like, “I know it must be difficult right now, but if you want to talk, I’m here for you.”

If she does want to talk, you could ask questions like “What was she like?” People like remembering good times if they can, and it can help them process the loss. But also, some people really don’t want to do that with coworkers. Be prepared for either, and don’t take it personally if she doesn’t want to share.

Why would she pay for her office renovations? Never pay for anything at your job, especially something you won’t get to keep, and doubly for a job that you know you might lose during the next election.

Because either she’s lying and was stealing bathroom fixtures, or she’s telling the truth and she’s incredibly stupid. Either way, the optics make her look ridiculous and petty.

I used to order a kid’s meal, and it was more than enough food for an adult. My kids enjoyed getting toys at the end of the day, too, but they were all plastic garbage.

Oh good to know. It’s been recommended to me for couch coop, but nobody ever mentioned that it was that heavy. My kids would definitely not enjoy that.

As a gamer dad, there are sadly very few couch coop games that make the third controller worth it. It’s good for them each to have one, though, so they can each be responsible for keeping it charged.

Sports games, whichever sports they play. Spider-Man was a big hit, if they can manage to take turns. I’ve heard good things about It Takes Two, but I haven’t bought that one yet.

I’m not sure who you mean by “you people” but that sounds kind of racist.

No but seriously, I don’t think it’s racist at all to describe shared experiences, as long as you don’t presume to know someone’s life experiences by the color of their skin. For instance, a lot of black people experience police discrimination in America. Being pulled over for no reason, needing to stay calm and respectful in the face of fascism, these are normal, common experiences that can traumatize a person. Talking about those experiences with people who have lived them can help you process and heal from the trauma.

A white person can also be pulled over by police for no reason. It could be because of the way they look. They may have been afraid that the police would randomly decide to murder them in broad daylight. This experience can happen to anyone, but because it disproportionately happens to black people, they are able to discuss it in short hand. “You been pulled over?” “Yeah, DWB. Motherfuckers.”

Two white people would not have the same conversation. “I got pulled over.” “Speeding?” “No, no reason at all.” “That happened to me once. Broken tailight, the cop was really nice about it.” “No, man, like he seemed angry and suspicious, and I thought he was going to arrest me or shoot me or something.” “For real?! That’s wild. You should call a lawyer and sue his ass.”

It’s not racist to describe these two realities. It’s not racist to ask about these experiences to learn from other cultures. It is racist to assume that these experiences are universal. You couldn’t say for sure that these are the experiences of a particular individual based on their race.

I had a neighbor who worked on cars in his driveway. Several neighborhood cats died before people realized what was going on. This was back in the 90s, though, and I don’t see so many outdoor cats nowadays.