Conservatives want their women to be able to get abortions while also being able to tell everyone they oppose it. It’s a phenomenon you can look up called “the only moral abortion is my abortion”.

A lot of people did in fact set aside Gaza until Trump was stopped. As for those that didn’t, they should have listened to Bernie Sanders. I did months ago and went all-in on Dem support. There were multiple times when I wrote up an angry post about US support of Israel and then didn’t post it because I didn’t want to turn a voter into a non-voter or worse a Trump supporter.

I understand their position of never rewarding ethnic cleansing and war crimes though. They chose to make sure the Dems know they would never “settle” for the illegal killing of civilians. The support for Israel made it especially hard for Arab Americans to vote Dem. It’s difficult to support a party that has been in power during the whole conflict yet gives unconditional support for the internationally condemned murder of Arabs.

I’m sure a lot also felt disenfranchised by the bipartisan protest suppression and condemnation. Even in Dem states peaceful protesters were punished, and sometimes pro-Israeli protesters who attacked got away with it. Then there was the whole “vote with us or else” pressure that went on for months. Dissenters like the “uncommitted” voters were insulted by the party that wanted their unconditional support.

So it’s not like it’s completely insane. But as Sanders points out that position only makes things worse and has done so.

Man, the Onion is back to being ruthless and I love it. I’m not happy that circumstances give them so much to work with, but boy are they letting the fists fly lately.

If you want to stop support for Israel’s war crimes, Kamala is slightly better than Trump. If you want support for Ukraine to oppose Russia, she’s much better. If your issue is the environment/global warming, she’s immeasurably better. If you’re concerned with things like democracy and rule of law at all levels of government, then she’s literally the only choice.

• Take time off from social media once in a while, or at least avoid doomscrolling all day. Bad stories generate FAR more engagement than good stories, and every form of media knows this. If 100,000 people in your area have an average-to-good day and 5 people have terrible days, all 5 stories presented to you will detail how things are in your area are terrible.

• Physical health affects mental health and vice versa. Eat healthy (or healthier). Stay hydrated. Get 7-9 hours of sleep regularly and use sleep hygeine. Get 90+ minutes of exercise (anything that raises your heartrate) a week which is like 15 minutes/day. Don’t worry about doing it all immediately - if you try to change everything at once you’re more likely to get overwhelmed and burn out. It’s way better to make slow, sustainable changes over months than it is to do a difficult crash course for a short time and get fed up with the process.

• Do thankfulness exercises. When I go to bed at night I think of 3 things I’m thankful for in the day. On average or bad days it may be that I wasn’t in constant/chronic pain, that I got to eat and drink, and that I’m in a safe place and a soft bed. Just remembering those basics (that many of us take for granted) helps keep me aware of good things in my life.

• Find ways to enjoy hobbies that require participation - arts, sports, board/video games, whatever. Just something other than passively taking in TV/online media. This will help you feel engaged and double points if it’s something that allows for improvement because you’ll feel rewarded as you get better.

That boss has a 2nd phase:

• Tucker Carlson has always been creepy and ludicrous and everyone knew it. In a lawsuit against Carlson a federal judge literally ruled that his flaws are so obvious that no reasonable person takes Tucker Carlson seriously.
• Elon Musk has always been creepy but IMO the world didn’t know it until a few years ago because he rarely expressed anything publicly outside of Tesla and SpaceX news.
• Trump has always been Trump. Here’s the magician Penn Jillette talking about why Trump was a great reality TV star and a shitty President. It only takes a 94-second video for Jillette to absolutely destroy Trump.

Replace “kill” with “imprison for life regardless of applicable law” and this isn’t satire anymore. It’s an oft-repeated campaign promise and has been for quite a while.

I like that it’s moderated fairly lightly but reasonably. Often I can have an actual discussion with someone who doesn’t agree with me without either of us getting banned by a mod who likes one side or the other. From what I see generally a user needs to be very obviously abusive/racist/violent before a mod steps in, even if the content is controversial.

I dislike that I’ve needed to heavily restrict my use for my mental health until after the election. A lot of people (not all by any means) believe it’s ok to bully and abuse other users because their cause is righteous - it’s already shown up in this thread. E.g. the daily posts and comments, with a lot of upvotes/support, that label anyone who disagrees with or criticizes Kamala (used to be Biden)/Democrats a bot, idiot, worse than useless, foreign agent and so on. I’m not talking about downvoting which is just expressing disagreement - I’m talking about outright insults and upvoting those. The attitude of “vote with/support me or else” has no place in a democracy founded on free voting without persecution, even if the bully is sure they’re right. If I didn’t mention it, perhaps even though I have, we might see a version of “but it is actually ok this time” and reasons why. It’s happened before.

Guess what? Very few “policy bullies” think they are evil - they’re positive it’s justified. Christians demand abortion bans, Muslim deportation, religion in schools/government and so on because they truly believe they are saving eternal souls. I was raised in that environment. That a sizable amount of Lemmy users believe it’s correct/admirable to insult others into “proper” behavior makes them very similar in character to those religious extremists IMO. Apparently when the issue is really important abuse is ok.

I’ll end by saying Gaza/Palestine is incredibly important to me - I am legitimately very upset frequently by the stories and media. However, Bernie Sanders convinced me to support Biden and then Kamala. Bernie laid out his argument with logic and facts and did not once insult my position. I also doubt the aggressive posts/comments are winning over undecideds. “I wasn’t sure if I should vote Democrat until I was called a harmful idiot and had my concerns dismissed as being in bad faith”.

“Hang loose” is what you tell someone who needs to chill out and let the waves carry them away from their problems man. Align your chakras with the Earth and so on.

Seriously though, the reason I wrote like that is I’m using the slang of roughly 90s/2000s-ish California surfer culture, which is where the hand signal was used to tell people to relax and be happy. Or say hi and let them know you are relaxed and happy. If you imagine it as a gang sign for surfer hippies you aren’t far off.

Dude, radical emoji. That’s just a gnarly way of tell someone to hang loose, bro. I’ve usually seen it done left-to-right instead of up-and-down, but the universe is infinite so if you wanna flip it that’s totally copacetic.

Edit: I started thinking about surfers and it dragged up memories of this legend on Tosh.0

I almost never buy multiplayer-focused games anymore. Of course not all gamers are shitty, but enough are to matter. Having left those games behind I can see how they were taking more joy from my life than they added. If friends want to do private co-op that’s cool, but it’s also rarer now that we’re all older.

As far as sales go, I love playing a year or two behind new releases. Patched games at a discount ftw and timing doesn’t matter in single-player games.

Every time I get close it says “Press X to Interact” but I don’t think my stats are high enough yet. I’m grinding on unattended toddlers until I level a few times.

Source is Oglaf.com, an adult webcomic equal parts humor and smut.

“Baby, that was amazing! I feel completely different about 110,000+ dead and wounded Palestinians. Turns out I wasn’t morally conflicted about my country’s involvement or where taxes are going, just horny.”

“Ground-breaking new study discovers that being loved makes people happier”. I understand why it’s important to formalize results like this so you have data to inform policy etc, but man…it’s like reading a study about how the sun is quite warm. Parents who won’t support their kids without being told to do so have some foundational family problems to sort out.

I’m of the opinion that as long as you aren’t hurting yourself or others without consent, do what you want to. The consent thing is important because people will play contact or combat sports, do BDSM stuff, etc. - so long as it’s informed go nuts. It’s also important because some people can’t give informed consent, e.g. kids can’t agree to underage sex because they don’t know about the harms and are more vulnerable to manipulation.

A couple of years ago I watched a doctor review a video of someone who likes having sex with balloons. The doctor said he would only diagnose that behavior as a problem or illness if it was hurting him or others around him. His argument was if there’s no harm and it makes that person happier then what really is the problem? I was initially taken aback because it’s weird right? But after some thought it really made sense to me - just because I don’t relate doesn’t make something bad. I don’t have to want to do it myself - there’s room in life for multiple (non-harmful) preferences.

Link to the article the image is from since I don’t know how to internet well enough to make the image expandable. TL:DR genetics/biology show it’s complex and there are many intersex possibilities on and the gender spectrum.

Hastily Made Cleveland Tourism Video: 2nd Attempt

I wouldn’t say I frequently forget my age, but it happens. It’s only worrying if you can’t calculate it on demand. For what it’s worth, after your late 20’s or so you’re basically the same person mentally and what changes are details like how much a day spent working in an office chair screws up your neck and back.