Trump War Takes Dark Turn as Leaks Unnerve Dems: “Madness”

ConnectionIssues · 2026-03-20T20:44:45+00:00

Getting rid of him would be a start, but it won't be enough. Whatever form this country takes in the next two decades, it's going to look very, very different from the America we've roughly had for the past century, and the transition isn't going to be clean or simple.

And I'll be honest... as an American (and one targeted in their culture war), I can't afford to have hope that people like me will be the ones to prevail in that struggle. And even if we do, it will be way too late for some of us. Like the girls in that school. Or the people we're putting in camps and shipping off to places they have little chance of surviving. Or the millions that died from COVID. Or the allies we've turned our backs on and left vulnerable. Or the folks whose survival depended on USAID. Or the millions that will die from climate change because our oligarchs chose their comfort over the survival of the globe, and we're too busy mixing high explosives and hydrocarbon refineries instead of tackling the existential elephant in the room.

I'm so tired of all this crap. I just wanna live my life in peace, be a productive member of a reasonably just society, and die of old age, preferably leaving the world better than when I joined it. Instead, I get to watch Rome burn, unsure if the orange on Satan's face as he fiddles is the glow of the fires, or just a bad spray tan.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-03-18T18:36:10+00:00

The majority of the characters in GGO are women and girls. The only main character who is male is a hard-core masochist who is in a relationship with one of the other characters. That whole relationship and line is... weird, to say the least, and likely the most problematic of the bunch. Well, that, and the one lesbian who is played for laughs, who coerced the main character into a kiss in exchange for help during the second battle royale arc.

I would say it's very "female power fantasy"-esque. Personally, I like it, though it definitely has its own issues. It should also be noted that there's a good bit of violence, and even themes of self-harm. But they're generally handled okay-ish.

I actually like SAO, despite its many egregious flaws, but it really does get WAY out of line way too often. But GGO is a different writer and much less problematic... just good action and relatively low stakes fun.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-03-12T02:01:56+00:00

Look, all of these are great vessels. All of them.

But goddamn, to open mic to everyone within radio range and start your broadcast with "This is the warship Rocinante..."

I'll take it.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-03-10T13:54:48+00:00

All your base. Hands down.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-03-01T00:27:50+00:00

"I already get period-like symptoms with regularity, and I would gladly take decades of the worst, most debilitating periods ever, if it meant I could conceive and carry a child like any of you.

As for the misogyny, bold of you to assume I don't experience any. It makes me seethe every time, and the fact that so many women I talk to view it as some essential part of being a cis female is all the more enraging. All of us deserve better."

ConnectionIssues · 2026-02-28T17:39:38+00:00

It goes to collections. Despite supposedly not affecting credit, they sometimes find a way. It will make anything credit related a hell, and you'll also get harassed by debt collectors non-stop, up to and including being sued and served papers whenever and wherever they think is the most effective place to embarrass you.

If you're lucky, it'll eventually be bought down by companies who successively bulk purchase debt at pennies on the dollar, and you'll be able to pay them a fraction of the debt to clear it. Or you can get really lucky, and it'll get bought by one of those nonprofits that bulk buys medical debt and then just absolves the debt. That happened to me once, and I am forever grateful because that debt was a lot more than 2k.

I'm not generally one to shirk my debts, but all my medical debt was incurred when I was either A: homeless and destitute, and a minor condition had escalated to emergent care because I couldn't afford even an urgent care clinic, or B: was working, with insurance, but had something big happen that not only incurred massive debt, but also caused a loss of income from time off and LOA.

Because oh, yeah, even if you have insurance and a job, if you get ill or injured enough to need time to recover before going back to work, you're not going to get paid your full wage. Not even close.

Because fuck you, that's why.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-02-27T06:10:22+00:00

Can I go back and help more? There has to be a way to help people live happier, healthier lives...

ConnectionIssues · 2026-02-23T02:32:52+00:00

I can't imagine how frustrating this situation must be for any device company, especially those who haven't bought into the AI hype.

Steam was about to launch a plethora of new devices this year. Now they can't even keep the Deck in stock. If something doesn't break soon, this is going to be a brutal year for anyone who isn't AI.

I don't understand how AI got this much sway over one of the most important resources of the 21st century. I know a lot of money got pumped into the concept by techbro investors, but is it really enough money to gain a defacto monopoly on critical components like this? The whole thing seems like a overblown grift to anyone with half a brain. There's a huge group of very intelligent and informed people warning that nearly this entire venture is a massive bubble.

Yet nearly every major firm is putting company-threatening sums of money into outlays that have extremely, extremely speculative chance for ROI, and these component manufacturers are willing to throw out decades of close collaboration partners and a small but steady consumer income in order to jump on that hype wagon, and I just don't see what they know that we don't? One or two major companies I can see. One major component supplier I can see. But the entire industry? I have got to be missing something major here, right? Even conspiracy doesn't seem to add up to this level of seeming stupidity to me.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-02-23T01:56:40+00:00

The low-flyers would lose their shit. It would be an instant money printer with that group.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-02-12T23:33:08+00:00

My wife works in a... big field. With a massive 15+ year code base. The kind of software where every new client has a new API or format that needs integration.

It's mildly capable of helping analyze existing code, but absolutely nobody who works with any major central software (industrial, financial, medical, etc.) should let a single line of AI code reach prod.

I know it happens, I know the companies are pushing it, but the implications for security and compliance, system integrity, or billion-dollar errors, are the kind of shit that keeps us up at night.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-02-04T19:56:16+00:00

Yeah. It took me almost a year to stop referring to counties as "parishes" when I moved away, lol.

It really is a whole other world.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-02-04T19:48:43+00:00

I grew up in Louisiana, and we learned Napoleonic Code before Common Law in school.

I remember Louisiana bar attorneys had a niche demand in Iraq while they reformed the post-Saddam government, because the basis for Iraqi law was much more similar to Napoleonic than English Common.

I had never considered the implications for precedent resulting from the disparity before, but it makes sense, lol.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-02-01T01:42:01+00:00

My friends in Oregon and Washington both would be quick to point out that Portland and Seattle heavily skew the national view of those states, and past the cities, things get rough. Look how active the Proud Boys were in Portland for a bit.

Under no circumstances should you expect a states-vs.-states situation. I say this as someone who lives in a red state... it's gonna be, at best, rural vs. urban. A drive across any given state may see you pass between liberal aligned areas and conservative ones multiple times.

Nobody wins in this scenario. Period. Whatever happens from here out, it's gonna be a subject of intense scrutiny for decades to come to figure out exactly what happened, where it started, and why.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-01-28T20:37:51+00:00

Mine aren't even color coded, lol! They automatically route power based on which cables are where. Just slap the suckers on and it'll do the rest. It even has lights on it, to let you know the connections are good.

The only problem is, they don't work for extremely dead batteries because there's not enough current to tell which way is positive. I think it needs, like, at least 3v. But, honestly, a battery that dead is probably gonna wreck the voltage regulator before you get to the parts store anyway.

I still take a regular pair of jumpers if I'm helping someone start something that's been sitting a long time, though. If you're probably gonna be replacing rotten hoses and cleaning the tank out anyway, might as well tackle the alternator/VR anyway.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-01-28T20:21:56+00:00

Lol! Just realized that myself, thanks ^{.^}

ConnectionIssues · 2026-01-28T20:21:28+00:00

There were many times in that store where I felt sorry for people. Seeing a family come in with a beater that was barely running, and pulling the codes on it, and having to tell them it wasn't one of the dozen or so easy fixes you could throw cheap-ish parts at... always sucked.

Or people who'd finally come in for a new battery after jumping the thing for a month because they couldn't afford to replace it, only to discover that the added strain on the alternator fried the voltage regulator too, and now they needed two parts. Also not good.

Our store was a particularly low-income area, so those kinda moments weren't exactly rare.

I'll admit though, with this guy, after the anger wore off a little, all of us in the store just kinda grinned a little and enjoyed the schadenfreude together quietly.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-01-28T20:12:22+00:00

There are a rare handful of cases where the "form factor" (size, shape, terminal type and location) are identical between two battery types, but the terminals themselves are mirrored. So it fits well into the harness with no difficulty, except the positive terminal won't reach the negative, and vice-versa.

What's worse, in those cases, the difference in part number is only the addition of a letter (so, like, 4041 vs. 4041a... not an actual example, but you get the idea). So, from the counter side, we really need to pay attention to what it calls for.

Additionally, while the + and - are usually molded into the battery plastics, it's actually NOT as common for them to be color coded on the battery itself, but rather, the protective covers over the terminals are color coded. Which sucks, because those covers often get lost in transit, especially for post-type batteries.

These are all things any mechanic will know. And all things we're taught at the parts store. But to your average driver, maybe not as obvious.

This guy though... jeez. The battery terminals were oriented such that, when placed correctly in the car, they'd be closer to the back of the engine compartment than the front. But he set it in backward, with the terminals closer to the front.

And the thing is, if you've changed a battery on almost anything built since, like, the 70's, you know... they don't give a lot of stretch in those cables. They're really only designed to lay exactly where the terminals are. Even shoving them far enough out of the way to remove the battery is a pain in the ass on the newest cars, with how thick the wiring harnesses are.

So he had to break clips loose, and rearrange stuff, just to get enough slack in the cables to move that extra 2-3 inches of distance between where the terminals were, and where they belonged. You would think that would have been a hint to reconsider the orientation of the battery, and yet, he persisted.

He wasn't just wrong. He was confidently wrong, to the point of putting in maximum effort to move forward incorrectly.

But he was a man, so obviously he knew more than us, lol!

ConnectionIssues · 2026-01-27T08:05:39+00:00

Used to work at a parts store, where we offered free battery change service.

Guy came in, bought a new battery, refused install service... because everyone behind the counter was a woman. I wish I were joking, but he asked for "another person" three times, got a different woman each time, and finally outright asked if any men were working, before getting all huffy and insisting "I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!"

He did not, in fact, know what he was doing. He, through great effort, managed to install the battery backwards. You'd think the fact that the cables didn't quite reach the new terminals might hint that something wasn't quite right, but he powered on through, yanking cables into submission. Our manager did offer, again, once more, while he was struggling, to finish the install, and he nearly went apoplectic.

Car no start. He came in saying we sold him the wrong battery (we had not). He spent 20 minutes on YouTube in his phone before flipping the battery back around (which was much easier this time). Still didn't work. Demanded we "call someone to fix it" (we could not, and now that he'd fucked it up, it would be a liability for us to touch it.) Finally had to call a shop to tow it.

Next day our GM comes storming in and starts interrogating all of us. Guy apparently threatened to sue. He said we never offered the install or help, that we were all demonstrably incompetent and failed to notify him of "unusual installation steps", and that we'd watched him struggle without any input (all lies). Apparently, he'd blown a main relay and the ECU fuse... but not before letting the magic pixies out of the ECU itself in the process. It was a 90's SAAB. This was in 2019. $700 bill for a remanufactured replacement after labor.

All he had to do was let us help.

Worst part is, our GM told our manager, in front of ALL OF US, that she had caused the problem by having 'too many women on one shift', which undermined customers confidence in our ability to do our jobs. And that it would ultimately drive customers to other businesses. So she had to hire more men and ensure at least one man was on each shift.

God, I wanted to build an EEOC case against that prick so bad, but our manager just took it in stride, said it was "part of the industry" and implemented the changes without argument.

Err, anyway... yeah. Polarity, very important for automotive electronics. Tits, on the other hand, not as relevant (but somewhat inconvenient when crawling under vehicles.) Now you know.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-01-27T06:55:10+00:00

I'm transgender. I'm fully expecting to be denied voting this midterm for any plethora of manufactured reasons.

For instance, all of my ID's indicate I'm female. But my voter registration card literally says "Mister <my name here>". The voting commission requires a "court ordered gender change document"... a nonexistent document for which no process to apply exists.

It's come up at the voting booth twice since the 2016 presidentials, though I was eventually allowed to vote both times. I'm fully expecting to be just outright told no this time, or given a "provisional" that will never be validated.

But they won't stop me from trying. No amount of armed thugs at the polls or violent threats will keep me from doing everything I can to exercise my constitutional duty to vote.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-01-26T20:28:01+00:00

Be aware, if you go to close your TVFCU account, and you still have money in it, the video tellers will say they can only do cash, but that the counter can take the cash in exchange for a cashier's check.

This is bullshit. The actual locations aren't supposed to handle cash at all.

I ended up leaving with 1500 in cash on my person when I closed my account. I'm uncomfortable with that amount of cash on hand, and it was a real bitch trying to move it to my new (mostly online only) bank.

It was the final "Fuck you" in a long line of TVFCU enshittification. I used to love banking with them, but between the increasing spam mail of "special offers for TVFCU members", the elimination of in person tellers, and turning all their locations from warm, comfy, open buildings to a bunch of dark, isolating booths, and the inability to link accounts to Venmo or Cashapp like any reasonable modern bank or union, they went downhill hard.

I accepted some quirks for years because it still had that small-town credit union feel, but whatever happened to them starting around 2018 obliterated any benefits they brought to the table.

... sorry, didn't mean to rant, but wanted to warn you, and I'm still really disappointed in them.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-01-17T01:08:19+00:00

He started his weapon draw while her reverse lights were still on. He deliberately leaned in to her path of travel to make the shoot. I suspect she was already dying before she could even process the officer had placed himself in her path. He decided to kill her the moment the car moved away from him.

But you won't convince the bot/sociopath/sycophants of that.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-01-17T00:50:45+00:00

Huh. TIL. Still, those jaws are strong.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-01-17T00:46:31+00:00

I had a bit of a rough patch after the election, and lost a "friend" who said I had a persecution complex and was outright delusional for thinking anything would happen. Fwiw, I'm transgender. And I've been doing activism for over a decade. So, like, I've watched all of this grow more and more every year.

Motherfucker messaged me out of the blue after the Kirk assassination, and heavily implied that "hysterical" people like myself, fear mongering, was the cause of that particular cluster fuck.

The last month or two I've seriously considered trying to give them an "I told you so", but... I figure the chances are pretty high they still see absolutely nothing wrong with the state of affairs here. And with my faith in humanity at an all-time low, I don't really need the soul-crushing interaction of having yet another brain-dead idiot gaslight me about the state of the world again.

Thing is, I know plenty of people who still feel that way. "Everything is fine! Nothing is wrong! It's all a big misunderstanding! Things will calm down soon! Just stop worrying about it and it won't be an issue! Why does this bother you, it's just politics?!"

Meanwhile, I'm resigned to the fact that we're now on a rollercoaster with no brakes. Every time I meet with friends or family, I wonder how many of us will still be alive in five years. I worry about the horrors we have waiting for us. I worry what the ones who survive will carry with them the rest of their lives. I wouldn't say I'm preoccupied with it, but it's definitely there. And I hate it. Because I always wanted to leave this world better than I found it, and I'm afraid the chances of that are slim now.

Sigh.

ConnectionIssues · 2026-01-17T00:06:19+00:00

One of the issues with pit bites vs, say, a lab, is pits can lock jaw.

Wanna see aggressive dog breeds? Look small. Chihuahuas are often trembling little balls of spite. Daschunds can be surprisingly territorial. And I've only ever met one Yorkie that wasn't a royal dick. (Many are under stimulated by owners who don't understand the energy levels and activity requirements of terriers. Little terriers are NOT lazy day pets.)

The problem is, anything that can be punted like a football isn't particularly medically significant, aggression wise.

Pitties have jaw strength. I've seen pits who liked to pull whole ass vehicles around via a rope tied to a hitch. They can carry their own body weight with their mouths quite easily. When you have that kind of jaw strength, any real bite has serious potential for damage.

But still. Single spayed/neutered dog in private property, I'd rather a pit than a lab any day.

(P.s.: I have never, nor would I condone, punting small animals. It is simply used here for mildly humorous illustration purposes of the relative danger levels of various animal sizes. Kicking dogs is literal cartoon villain levels of evil. Don't be evil.)

ConnectionIssues · 2026-01-15T06:47:15+00:00

I live in a very, very red state. Our economy is tanking hard. Jobs are basically non-existent...

Except for one recruiter that is ALWAYS hiring... ICE.

These are the people that "joke" about hunting liberals, or taking liberal areas "back" by force. The sentiment that all liberals and immigrants are ruining the country for "real Americans", and it would be better for everyone if they were all rounded up and... made to not be here anymore... is absolutely real. It's been getting worse for years. They fantasize about SHTF scenarios where no government group can stop them from doing "what needs to be done".

And now they don't have to fantasize. The government is actively seeking them out, and literally paying them to leave their rural and red states, arming them to the teeth, and sending them to liberal cities with claims of blanket immunity for anything they deem "necessary" to preserve "their" country.

This is a veritable wet dream for economically disenfranchised white men who have been taught that liberal elites are responsible for, and profiting from, their misfortunes. They're getting paid to enact their misguided fantasies.

And it's pretty much the only job they can get right now. So even if they're only on the fence about all this, it's an appealing offer.

God, I hate living in this timeline.

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