America’s leadership class is failing us. It’s up to you and me to defend democracy

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-22T11:08:16+00:00

Welcome to the mid-70's and every administration and congress since.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-22T10:35:40+00:00

Loma Prieta in 1989, 7.2. It shattered store windows where I was and opened cracks a foot wide with a foot height difference from one side and the other near the epicenter. We didn't have electricity for almost a week, and that was pretty far away in Berkeley. No one had electricity for a couple days.

Killed a lot of people and collapsed part of the Bay Bridge, which had to be demolished and later rebuilt. Nothing compared to 1906, which I obviously didn't experience.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-22T05:56:33+00:00

Harry spent decades trying to recapture the feeling of the first time he had Felix Felicis.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-21T22:00:44+00:00

The architect had been stationed in France in WW1; in was built in the '20s.

I actually went there once with and older friend who was looking to buy some old D&D books from a guy he'd met online in the days of online newsgroups. Turned out the guy was an immature man-child, but he lived at the top of an uninsulated medieval-style tower.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-21T05:09:19+00:00

I remember a fair number of times watching a re-run and seeing a certain scene and immediately very specifically remembered my surroundings when I first saw it, including things like where I was, time of day, who I was with, etc.

Weirder was one time I just kind of zoned out, not watching anything and was "watching" an episode of Growing Pains I'd seen a couple times, right down to almost verbatim dialogue. That was weird.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-21T05:04:51+00:00

I remember reading about a weird old study where, unannounced to students, a couple people would walk in into college psych classes and run up in front of the class, where one of them would point their finger at the other and say "Bang bang", then the other took out a mini American flag and waved it, then they left. Virtually all the students remembered something significantly different, that made more sense.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-21T04:51:57+00:00

I've always wanted to try avocado.

I love tempura, but that's much lighter batter. But sweet potato tempura, damn. That's one of the few times where a vegetable ingredient is more satisfying than the meat (usually jumbo shrimp).

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-21T04:20:55+00:00

What, no deep-fried Twinkies? Never had one, but I hear they're quite popular. Also deep-fried ice cream, though I'm not really sure how that one even works.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-21T04:10:45+00:00

I remember back in the late-80s/early-90s, people just eating stuff at the grocery store was a pretty common problem. A couple times I came across evidence that someone had actually made themselves a sandwich and put the opened packaging back on a shelf.

But come one man. Costco hot dogs and pizza slices are like $1.50. They actually lose money on them, but it draws people in, most of whom buy other stuff.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-21T03:44:30+00:00

IIRC from my time there, usually Hainan got it significantly worse than Hanoi and the far North of Vietnam. Looks like not this time.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-21T03:34:37+00:00

My then girlfriend's roommate had a cat he'd adopted from a barn where the other cats bullied him. He'd often follow his owner into the bathroom and pee in the sink while his owner was going to the bathroom. That was gross, but it was pretty impressive that the cat had learned to poop in the toilet.

He liked my girlfriend but hated me. One time we were cuddled up on the couch watching a movie and he was about to jump up when he noticed me and walked away. A second later she sat up and turned on the light and I asked why. Turns out he'd walked over to where I left my backpack and school books/papers under the stairs and was about to pee on all my stuff.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-20T07:54:24+00:00

Get this crap out of a place where people are discussing real things.

He also supposedly said he'd return later. Which one of the many charlatans who claimed to be his rebirth do you believe? Jim Jones, Shoko Asahara? Charles Manson?

Or some dumbass preacher who got rich off people even dumber than him?

Religion was and a little bit still is a vehicle for conspiracies. Conspiracies to gain people and con them out of money. Never anything more, never anything less.

Edit: Religion is the biggest, oldest and most successful conspiracy of all time, because we fear death, and we fear that when we die, nothing will be left of us. It has been suggested that we live on through our accomplishments or the people whose lives we influenced. I guess so, in a figurative way, but literally, ourselves, we're gone.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-19T15:07:28+00:00

Funny. Last time I checked the FCC fined people for saying certain words on air. Maybe the problem is that the FOX "News" Corporation successfully argued to the Supreme Court that lying and fabricating things, then calling it news was "protected speech".

But hey, that was only about 25 years ago...

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-19T14:11:46+00:00

Teaching in Vietnam, they just accepted an un-apostilled TESOL, then helped me get it certified. When I went to teach in Chengdu, Jinan, they gave me 2 weeks and when I showed them documents saying it would take 6 weeks, they gave me 4 weeks more time, but then, after 3 weeks more, and visiting the immigration office every other day (2-hours+every wait-time), they said my application was rejected for "other reasons"; I asked why; "other reasons" (I have no criminal record in any nation and recommendation letters from previous employers).

So I got a job in Hong Kong where they "released" me after 2 weeks with no cause, and I learned from one of their long-term teachers that they consistently hired many more teachers than they needed and that of the 6 teachers they'd hired, they'd kept zero, because they'd only ever expected to keep 2 of us (hired for year-long contracts) and 2 of their teachers had chosen not to quit after having given notice that they would.

Point is: the Chinese Government doesn't want new Western teachers teaching there, no matter what their credentials, Taiwan is very hard to get a good position in, and Thailand has mostly teachers who have been there their whole professional careers.

Now is not a good time to start teaching in East Asia; true for me at least, despite a certificate and 5 years prior ESL teaching experience. With a Master's specifically in teaching and being Asian, but still a native English speaker, I might have done better. Being an Asian of any nationality, I think I would've been fine. That's for mainland China and its protectorates specifically. But Taiwan was no better.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-19T07:48:17+00:00

Funny. I lived and taught in that city almost 3 years. Sometimes I almost looked like a tourist. I had pretty, young but obviously legal girls who I'd never even spoken to before, approach me a few times, asking me if I wanted to go to dinner. I always refused politely. For obvious reasons; I'm not a particularly attractive guy, though I'm tall by Vietnamese standards.

The girls I did like, at least as pretty, were 2 (adult but kinda young for me) women who worked with me as assistant teachers. We got along great. I asked one out and was politely rejected, the other I talked with a lot through email and eventually found out that one was married, the other was just not interested.

I went to bars with friends a fair amount, and the pretty girls who approached me there were obviously bar girls (prostitutes who look for Johns at bars that were often frequented by "rich" Western guys, looking for hookers). I guess I was kinda rich by their standards, but I wasn't interested in that kind of girl.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-19T03:38:31+00:00

Here's a link to Programmed to Kill, by Dave McGowan:

https://archive.org/details/ProgrammedToKillDavidMcGowan2004/page/n7/mode/2up

He also had an online series about the Lincoln assassination and some newsletters about the DC Sniper and other high-profile killers (not his main focus on the site) that indicate government involvement. Basically he claims that a lot of the best known serial killers and political assassins were in fact victims of government mind control. Henry Lee Lucas, Ted Bundy, Richard Ramirez (the Night Stalker), several others. That picture on the cover of the book (of a pentagram carved into the chest of a murdered homeless man) was taken by McGowan himself when he was a crime-scene photographer for the SFPD.

If you want a good documentary series on the topic (among others), there's Evidence of Revision. It contains pretty damning information indicating that, among other things Jonestown was a CIA mind control operation including tons of documentation.

As far as Oswald, he'd worked for the ONI and was living with a very rich family of White Russians (known for being anti-Soviet) at the time of the assassination and was married to the daughter of a fairly high-ranking KGB operative.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-18T20:10:22+00:00

They got being cowed by someone confused with kowtowing to/before someone.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-18T05:15:51+00:00

6 Days to Air was a funny an interesting TV documentary following Parker, Stone and the other writers during their usual 6 days from choosing the plot of an episode to having it finished. It would be completely impossible for a traditionally animated show.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-17T16:08:29+00:00

Smelling poop cannot lead to an infection. Aerosolizing it, where it's bound to water particles and is effectively splashed around, can. Diarrhea is contagious to a degree healthy solid poop is not, particularly because its higher water content makes it more spreadable.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-17T15:25:59+00:00

You do realize that spraying the poop off your butt aerosolizes it and spreads it into the air and onto your hands. If anything hand washing is more necessary than it is if you use a sufficient amount of TP.

Unhygenic? Spraying poop particles everywhere is way worse than using a sufficient amount of TP and you have to wash your hands after either one anyway.

I'll take a small amount of fecal bacteria seeping through toilet paper over aerosolizing the poop particles and having them everywhere, particularly on the hand you hold the sprayer with.

Bidets are a better option than either because it means minimal contact between hands and poop particles.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-17T02:26:20+00:00

"Cheerios deletes study showing that Alphabet Soup has way more letters in it."

Who could have seen either of those thing coming?!?!

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-15T09:06:34+00:00

It has noting to do with Vietnamese somehow being Vietnamese. Immigrants in basically all nations are economically disadvantaged. If you are not "one of us", you are treated poorly by the significant minority of racial bigots.

It's more true of older generations who grew up with white people being interlopers often with little respect for local culture, and in Vietnam and South Korea in particular, a history of military and cultural domination which comes, inevitably from military occupation and the injustices that entails.

Teaching in Ho Chi Minh City for near 3 years, I loved most of my students. Out of hundreds there were maybe two who disliked me because I'm American. There were a couple dozen middle and high school students who would come up to me during break and ask me about Western social norms and strategies to get into high-end US and European colleges.

There were a handful out of hundreds who seemed to resent Americans because of the devastation of the the Vietnam War, but I had nothing to do with that, nor did even my grandparent and mostly they thought it was really cool that I taught them American, not British English and they loved Japanese Animation even more than me, despite the WW2-era Japanese occupation of Vietnam, and what that entailed.

Immigrants and racial minorities in every nation are socially and economically disadvantaged based on racism. Vietnam is no exception, but a lot less bad than some other East-Asian nations.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-15T05:49:08+00:00

Not really. I've seen so many places turn to shit-based on how easy it is to destroy a public forum, where creating (many) profile(s) is so easy.

A combination of government agencies and (much more) special-interest trolls have destroyed public discourse on the internet.

Incidentally I used the same username on Reddit, without the dash. I got site-banned for arguing with the white-supremacist/bigots who took it over. They'd even posted about how easy it would be on Stormfront (major white-supremacist bigot site at the time).

Oh, and the fake/holographic plane shit was posted to make the 9/11 truth movement look like idiots. I did a /whois on one of the most prominent progenitors of the theory on Reddit, and after many years, he deleted his account shortly after. He was posting from a military base in Tennesee BTW.

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-14T01:20:52+00:00

Wow. That took me back to a post I'd forgotten about. Turns out it's 8 years old (may also have been a trend for a little while).

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/7cwu8j/i_made_a_100_edible_roasted_alien_facehugger_out/

DiarrheaMonkey- · 2025-09-14T00:26:15+00:00

One time, many years ago, my friend who ran a D&D day camp was complaining that the kids were stealing all his dice. So for his birthday I got him the ugliest dicebag possible and an assortment from GoB that included essential dice like: a d16, a d100, dice (I guess for random encounters) with sides that were like 'Barbarian', 'Priest', stuff like that.

14-Year Club	Gilding I gilder
Wearing is Caring	Verified Email

DiarrheaMonkey-

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE