@FlashMobOfOne
Oof. Sounds achey.

I keep seeing this pop-up and keep refusing access to DRM. Usually the only effect of refusing that I can tell is that advertisements sometimes don't display.

Seems like requiring additional permissions in order to show ads is counterintuitive, but if sites want to be their own ad blockers, I thank them.

Most maps of the concentration of anything should be laid over population maps to see if those are just the places where the most people live.

For example, I just saw someone who thought a map of COVID infections seemed fishy because in the Midwest concentrations of infections were spaced out in a loose grid.

Looking at it though, I can name pretty much all of the red and yellow places on the map because they are all cities.

Sometimes I just get really, really mad at my partner's parents for being bad fucking parents.

He and his dad are close now & his mom passed away, but like...

They sucked. As parents.

They didn't want to put in the kind of effort it takes to care for and nurture a child.

And that sucks. I'm mad about it.

I know there are loads of bad parents in the world, but I will never understand it. It doesn't make any goddamn sense to act like that.

When you criminalize homelessness, you effectively make it a crime to not be employed.

You better accept whatever work you can in whatever conditions they offer for whatever pittance they'll pay because otherwise you go to jail.

We play with the cats a lot, but they want to play ALL THE TIME, and we have other things to do. So my husband buys toys. They love the toys and have a lot of fun. The latest is an automated laser pointer that moves around randomly.

Kiwi is having a blast.

BUT it does not matter how sophisticated the toy is or how enjoyable the activity, pretty quickly they start demanding that we get involved in some way or other. It's not a GAME until we are involved. Adorable, but the demand is constant 😅

@FlashMobOfOne
It could definitely be the case that the type of thing in question doesn't qualify as a prize, for sure

But in any case, the entire email read like an utterly desperate attempt to extract money from supporters so that was really funny.

Okay, I'm not an expert, but you know what kind of sounds like an illegal lottery? (might not be...again, not an expert)

Donald Trump sending an email to his supporters telling them if they "chip in" donations to his campaign, they will be entered for a "chance" to win a ride on "Trump Force Two".

Maybe this is fine with campaign donations?? But entry with a price with no "no purchase necessary" option, a random chance selection, and a valuable (to his fans at least) "prize", is this allowed?

Maybe campaigns can do raffles?

I don't think campaigns can (legally anyway). Again, not a lawyer, just skimming some info, so do your own research or whatever, but it looks like—while exact details vary from state to state—generally speaking raffles have to be done by a 501c3 non-profit and may still have to be registered in some way with the state.

So if there isn't a "no purchase necessary" this seems like it's at least in some legally gray territory.

Did anyone else find the Series of Unfortunate Events books unbearably smug?

They were really popular when I was a kid, but I just found them really off-putting and sometimes downright insulting to the reader. There's a lot of "you probably think such and such will happen... you're wrong!" which is combined with actually pretty predictable storytelling (okay, we get it. The gimmick is that bad things keep happening).

No reason I bring this up. I'm just whining about something.

"you probably think..."

No, I don't. Of course I don't! You have told me many, many times to expect things to turn out poorly, so you can stop saying it like I'm not clever enough to catch on to the *entire concept of this book.*

Being a good wife right now and eating dinner even though my husband isn't here to feed me. He worries because when he's gone all day sometimes I forget about food.

"Mass Deportation Now" is obviously inhumane. Horrifically so.

But I am curious if the people asking it have thought about what would happen if we deported 10-20 million people (target numbers that have been thrown around by Trump and gang) from this country. Do they really think their lives would be unaffected?

They think 20 million people could disappear and nothing would change?

There's obviously the jobs immigrants do (and it's not JUST agricultural work—so many industries would be affected), but there's also the money they spend.

Immigrants buy things here. Everyone needs groceries. And clothes. And everything else. You think we could suddenly disappear 20 million people and there would be no economic impact?

Really? Really?

"Mass Deportation" would be our Brexit (but a million times crueler). It would be a disaster.

If you think that undocumented immigrants have so little impact on your life that you wouldn't even notice them being gone (which you're wrong about), why do you want them gone so desperately? You apparently believe you never interact with them and that they have no connection to you or anything else in this country.

My mom changed her FB profile picture to Mrs. Banks from Mary Poppins wearing a sash that says "Votes for Women" and received angry comments about it from conservative "friends".

This is fine.

The young cat relentlessly hunts bugs. It's almost scary how determined she is.

My visit with my parents was great.

What was grim however was getting reports for people who are still conservative Christians, who know other more conservative Christians.

My mom read me some Facebook posts from Christian nationalists who run in the circles my parents (and I) used to run in, and they chilled me to the bone. It wasn't exactly news, but the fact that my mom could open up FB and show me this level of Nazi bullshit openly on display among "Christian" communities just scared me.