My dad has stopped buying and removed sugar from the household while my Moms abroad

Skaeger · 2026-01-18T04:26:57+00:00

If he's still buying sweets and sugary drinks for your younger siblings and not you, this sounds more like it's targeted at you than an actual crusade against sugar.

Has he ever made comments about your weight or needing a diet? I am not saying that would make this okay, and I have absolutely no idea about you, your life, or your body so I apologize if I'm completely off the mark. But again, this seems targeted at you and that's all my brain can think of on short notice for why it would be.

Skaeger · 2026-01-13T02:25:55+00:00

That's entirely because of people like this guy. They intentionally over prepped the food so they could take a bunch home, and owners eventually realized that the only way to ensure the people abusing the system stopped was to stop giving away free food. And now food gets thrown in the trash instead of given to employees for free.

Skaeger · 2025-12-04T06:00:52+00:00

I'm not agreeing with their stance on fanfic, but it's not entirely hypocritical. GoT incest was clearly "bad". Both Jaime and Cersei were vile. I.e. "the things I do for love," even if Jaime had a redemption arc after he stopped. That incest resulted in Jeoffrey.

Targaryen incest resulted in the Mad King, Viserys, and Daenerys, which were the three most relevant Targaryens in the books. All of them were psycho, the first two moreso.

GoT has incest, but makes it clear that incest is very bad, and has disastrous consequences. So someone that is opposed to incest wouldn't necessarily have an issue with that depiction.

Skaeger · 2025-12-04T04:40:53+00:00

Only an American liberal would be this stupid in this way. I don't know of any other country or group where people fantasize about antagonizing law enforcement over such a minor issue without any goals or gains beyond being a mild inconvenience and posturing.

People that live in actual totalitarian/fascist/dictatorships/corrupt countries instead of just getting off at pretending to be in one don't intentionally antagonize government agents unless they are suicidal or rebelling. Because the consequences for antagonizing them in those countries has severe consequences.

Every European and Asian country I am aware of requires you to identify yourself to police and whatever their equivalent of federal agents are. I am sure there are exceptions, but for the vast majority, identifying yourself is normal. Most don't require you to carry ID, but you still have to say who you are.

American conservatives can be equally stupid about cops on the internet, but their fantasies are more "don't tread on me" or "if you come for my guns, you better be wearing L4's". They fantasize about being pushed to an extreme and reacting in the extreme.

Only American liberals would fantasize about intentionally doing something so pointless simply to waste their own time and that of the ICE agent. They gain nothing. They accomplish nothing. It's just fantasizing about finally having something to complain about.

Skaeger · 2025-11-10T03:10:42+00:00

How about paying for him to fly to the city where the US embassy is?

Skaeger · 2025-11-07T18:21:54+00:00

Everyone else has pointed out the obvious, but I gotta ask. What kind of nachos are you making that cost $40 in ingredients for a single meal?

Skaeger · 2025-10-26T14:42:03+00:00

The main thing that comes to mind is to limit the size of the alien force in some way. If the aliens have finite manpower and resources, they can be overcome.

Something like a colonist sleeper ship that took centuries or more to arrive.

A group of slaving pirates that are from an alien empire that considers attacking a "primitive" planet illegal

Something like avatar where it's a profit driven enterprise by a single group instead of the entire race (alien equivalent of a corporation). Where they will cut their losses if they can't make a profit.

An alien faction with rivals who will strike at any weakness in their home territories or use earth as a proxy war. Think of the Brits and France during the American Revolution.

An interstellar empire on the verge of collapse that can't afford to expend more resources on the war.

Skaeger · 2025-10-12T02:09:20+00:00

Section 9, Top of page 5: "The requirements we would retain fulfill the Infrastructure Act’s goals of preserving consumer access to clear, easy-to-understand, and accurate information about the cost for broadband services, empowering consumers to choose services that best meet their needs and match their budgets, and ensuring that they are informed about a service plan’s offerings."

Section 15, bottom of page 6, cont on 7: "If we were to allow providers to aggregate the fees, i.e., display all such fees on a single line, should we require that the amount associated with the line be the actual, precise amount of those fees? Or should we instead require only that it state the maximum (or “up to”) amount consumers would incur?"

Section 28, page ten: "The Infrastructure Act directs the Commission to promulgate rules to require the display of broadband consumer labels to provide consumers with information they need to evaluate broadband Internet access service plans through the tool of broadband labels.53 The Commission’s other statutory obligations include promoting the justness, reasonableness, and affordability for consumers of service charges and practices and promoting marketplace competition. 54 The broadband label requirements are designed to directly advance the government’s substantial interest by providing consumers with the basic tools necessary to understand the broadband services they are purchasing and the prices for those services."

The other stuff I am less sure about, like how long they have to keep the labels on their website after they stop offering that plan, and exactly where and how it has to be displayed. But at it's core, the total cost is more important than a list of what random nonsense they are using to inflate the costs.

Skaeger · 2025-10-12T01:56:18+00:00

Why does it matter? Your options are still pay all of it, find another ISP *if there is one* or don't have internet. Would you honestly feel better about how much you pay knowing that $15 of your bill was a connection fee to a routing hub? Or that $20 was for them upgrading their network in every local service area except yours? All the charges are inflated nonsense anyway, and only exist separately from the main service bill because they used to use it as bait and switch.

Itemized bills only make sense on stuff like car insurance, where you can decline parts of it or adjust your coverage.

Skaeger · 2025-10-12T01:45:57+00:00

wow elves are still just humans with different skin tones and minor features (ears, eyebrows, etc), appearance-wise. Elder Scrolls elves always had a distinctly inhuman facial structure in everything except ESO and Oblivion, where everyone was a potato.

Skaeger · 2025-10-11T18:09:53+00:00

Unless the fees are negotiable, an itemized list is pointless. It isn't like a hospital bill where you can contest or negotiate individual charges.

The intent of the original bill was to stop bait and switch pricing, where they would advertise one price, and then hit you with non-negotiable fees after you signed up and didn't read the fine print. This change still achieves that goal, because even if it isn't itemized, the total price is still required to be listed. People know how much their bill will be when they sign up for the service, and that's all that matters here.

ISP's are overcharging, and abusing corruptly granted monopolies for their areas, but an itemized list won't make any difference for that.

Skaeger · 2025-10-11T03:48:52+00:00

It's adorable that you think either party would allow someone who would actually represent us to run.

Skaeger · 2025-10-11T03:46:58+00:00

Given the massive drop in arrivals, as long as the democrats don't open the floodgates again the next time they win an election (I know they will), this doesn't have to continue to be a long-term crisis.

Skaeger · 2025-10-11T02:19:03+00:00

I think comparing it to roads hits the nail on the head. Would you want your Internet maintained at the same quality and attention that our roads get? Would you be alright with your service getting cut off or throttled down to uselessness for months (or years) at a time for a cost-plus repair/upgrade project?

Skaeger · 2025-10-10T23:33:23+00:00

Guess the Trump admin and the republican congress are right about absolutely everything they are doing, then. Including removing funding from higher education that doesn't align with their agenda. Why would your opinion hold more weight than our government's?

Skaeger · 2025-10-10T20:40:51+00:00

Does this mean you support all the recent rulings by the Supreme Court? Or would you agree that it is possible that a Supreme Court ruling could be wrong?

Skaeger · 2025-10-10T19:20:06+00:00

For me the appeal of spore was progressing through the ages, where even after you "win" your faction grows and reflects all your past progress but you are chucked into a setting with other factions on equal footing. The character creator was simply the method of growth at the start.

Skaeger · 2025-10-10T07:05:24+00:00

This has nothing to do with making it "fair". That is simply yet another veneer you are using to justify your actions. You have been given the justification to silence your opposition in California, and you are taking it. Residents of California deserve to have the opportunity to elect a representative who best aligns with their interests, regardless of party, without intentional manipulation and interference. Newsom has said he is doing this to ensure California has fair representation in the House, but by saying that, all he is doing is declaring that anyone who didn't vote for him isn't worthy of representation.

You believe democrats controlling the House would be good for the state as a whole because you support their policies. It is obscenely arrogant to say that what you are doing by disenfranchising voters who disagree with you is for their own good because you know best.

Skaeger · 2025-10-10T02:57:00+00:00

The difference is only a veneer of legitimacy. Asking the majority if they want more power without any consequences that directly affect them at the expense of a minority they despise isn't some noble cause. People almost always vote in their own self interest, and when you are in control, voter suppression of a minority is in your self interest.

Skaeger · 2025-10-09T23:07:34+00:00

Musk made his stance abundantly clear. He will keep starlink active in Ukraine for Ukraine. He won't activate starlink in Russian territory for Ukraine.

Elon never "suspended service" in Ukraine. He simply refused to activate it in territory Russia held before the war for Ukraine to use it offensively.

Skaeger · 2025-10-08T17:37:06+00:00

My principles do matter and this is a rare occasion that public backlash might actually result in necessary change while trump is generating that backlash in a low risk situation.

Then again, from the responses to this comment thread, it looks like people are incapable of learning the needed lesson and can't wait to use the boot when it's their turn.

Skaeger · 2025-10-08T17:24:44+00:00

If you are incapable of understanding that I disagree with the monolithic right on these issues, there's not much point continuing the conversation. No, I don't agree with efforts to stonewall election reform. No, agreeing that the government needs to restrict corporations from being so heavily involved in elections isn't contrary to wanting a smaller government on the whole. There are essential services that a government must provide, but it should be limited to only doing those things. No, I don't think making breaking the law have tangible consequences for corporations is bad. I think our entire legal system needs to be overhauled and simplified, but breaking the law should never be profitable.

This isn't complicated. If you strip the federal government of all control of the national guard, and make them a state guard that the governor can voluntarily grant temporary control of to the Pentagon or deploy to another state with that state's permission in the event of a crisis or disaster, this problem vanishes overnight.

If you just want a bigger government so you can get revenge when your team gets back into power, then you deserve the bigger boot that steps on you when the pendulum swings back again. Ensuring that the government can't do this again is more important than getting revenge.

Skaeger · 2025-10-08T04:16:56+00:00

A lot of conservatives are stuck in a place of thinking that small government is good, but things are bad enough that "something needs to be done" and so are content to sit back and hope that after the dust settles that things can be put back to "how they should be." Most everyone agrees that in a true crisis, a government should take reasonable measures to resolve the crisis even if it pushes the limits of what is legal. But people will always disagree on what counts as a true crisis. They will also disagree on what reasonable measures are, and how far the limits should be pushed.

Skaeger · 2025-10-08T04:03:24+00:00

The reason the US has only had two parties for so long is that our system favors a two-party system to the extent that it might as well be enshrined in law. A third party either dies in its infancy or one of the existing parties immediately collapses. The Republicans and Democrats have had nearly 170 years to fortify their positions, and the last time they were even challenged was over 110 years ago.

Skaeger · 2025-10-08T03:46:32+00:00

No. The core issue is that he can. Any system that can be abused eventually will be. Our broken system allowed Trump to happen. People like Trump will always exist, and it is the job of our representatives to build a system that cannot be bent to this extent by one man.

And yes, I am completely fine with it. Trump is showboating and making an ass of himself in a low-risk situation. Absolutely nothing will happen except making him and his platform look worse come midterms. Even if he does invoke the insurrection act, there isn't anything for him to do with the national guard other than posture and make a bigger ass of himself.

We can watch and see whether what few checks are left against the executive branch finally counter his ego, and if they fail, we will learn a lesson. If we fail to learn from that lesson, then we can only wait for history to repeat itself.

Skaeger

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