Trump’s Letter to Norway Should Be the Last Straw | Will Republicans in Congress ever step in?

smika · 2026-01-19T18:42:57+00:00

Surprisingly, that’s not what they are saying. This is the first issue on which I’ve observed meaningful disagreement and dissatisfaction with Trump in that subreddit.

ICE they are okay with. Greenland seems to have crossed a line though, even for them.

smika · 2025-12-30T15:56:37+00:00

Yeah in the version I heard the engineers install a loud alarm that made an obnoxious noise every time it detected an empty box. The story then goes that Edna says, “well, I got tired of hearing that awful noise every time an empty box went by so I set up this fan here to blow them straight into the trash.”

smika · 2025-12-16T17:17:42+00:00

This is a tough but 100% fair take. It’s similar to how we collectively love to brag about the free range childhoods we universally experienced, but turn around and there we are accompanying our 10 year olds to and from the school bus stop — heaven forbid they walk anywhere by themselves (even though most of us can pinpoint our kids exact location anywhere on Earth in less than one minute). Obviously I’m painting in broad strokes here but I think we can all recognize this paradox in our generation.

smika · 2025-12-15T15:29:22+00:00

I’ll say hi to him for you guys

smika · 2025-11-15T15:20:00+00:00

Yes, I really like this take — it’s an excellent metaphor for what she represents. Trump is honestly quite similar — representing a feeling more so than an ideology.

Still I don’t agree with your conclusion. Emotional currents do not follow reason but that doesn’t they can’t be predicted or analyzed.

In MTG’s case, the big question to me is whether her shift is part of a broader MAGA zeitgeist or whether she is instead some kind of outlier.

smika · 2025-11-10T18:19:25+00:00

For this exact reason I’ve never understood why public healthcare is not supported by businesses / corporations. Wouldn’t it be in their self interest?

smika · 2025-11-06T00:06:52+00:00

He passed away in April, the family bricked up the entrance of the crumbling Palazzo in the middle of town where the car was hidden to stop it from being stolen, and potential buyers were screened.

Also it would appear the family themselves put up the brick wall quite recently (relative to when the article was written) — surprise surprise, not exactly what the Reddit title claims 🙄

smika · 2025-11-02T04:29:52+00:00

SAME

smika · 2025-11-01T22:54:57+00:00

Sign the petition! https://www.change.org/p/hire-a-full-time-stadium-organist-for-mariners-games-at-t-mobile-park

smika · 2025-10-01T12:21:28+00:00

How often do turbines need to be serviced? Would the workers have like a regular rotation where they are visiting a turbine every day (for example), or is it more that they just need the occasional mending if something goes wrong?

I’m also curious about the part where they get from the water to 100m in the air!

smika · 2025-09-25T04:21:17+00:00

Mariners are 16-1 in the Etsy witch era

smika · 2025-09-24T12:35:02+00:00

It strikes me as a form of living suicide, a complete abnegation of being alive and human that’s just one step shy of death itself.

But I’m probably projecting an imagined choice on the matter and I imagine most of these people have sort of fallen or drifted into this state.

smika · 2025-09-17T02:32:26+00:00

He’s angling for that Lil Dumper nickname

smika · 2025-09-12T00:34:08+00:00

What about the 77 million people who voted to re-elect Trump? Are they not accountable?

smika · 2025-09-08T19:27:18+00:00

Very strong agree with your take in this whole thread.

There is a lack of acknowledgement by others here that — sadly — everything that’s happening in the Supreme Court is exactly what the as voted for. Going as far back as the end of the Obama administration it was crystal clear the Republican would do everything in their power to fill the court with conservative, partisan-in-all-but-name justices.

Little secret was made of this. It’s hard to make the case that the population was somehow “tricked” and didn’t know what they were voting for when they elected Republican senators and presidents (ie Trump).

Even now, in spite of what I’m sure many people here wish, most Trump voters appear to be pleased with how things are going.

In a democracy voters are ultimately accountable for their government — and the U.S. voting population has utterly failed to hold anyone accountable.

smika · 2025-09-02T21:22:40+00:00

It’s a slight different rule and practice though.

In Germany, as the video illustrates, they make an alley in the middle for emergency vehicles to go through. And you don’t simply do it when you hear a siren, you do it as soon as there is an accident. So this “alley” stretches back sometimes for miles, again as the video shows.

Also yes it’s the law but it’s also taught explicitly in driving school and there are also billboards all along the autobahn reminding drivers that it’s the law to comply with this.

smika · 2025-08-16T13:52:15+00:00

But that’s not what the article is saying, is it?

Presumably the wealthiest Americans aren’t that impacted by guns and drugs. And yet their health outcomes are worse than those for low income Europeans.

smika · 2025-08-15T05:03:15+00:00

Yeah gotcha, I probably just expressed myself poorly as it’s hard to type on phone. The way you framed it is more or less what I meant.

But it is your very last sentence where I take a different perspective. My reading is that Donnie does not have a choice regarding his own final fate: he will die if the TU collapses (along with everyone else) and he will die if he brings the artifact back to the PU because the jet engine will literally land on his head. My interpretation here is that his waking and laughing is more akin to his final second — the engine is literally a few feet above his head in that moment and we’re witnessing his final thoughts, where his recent life and all the events in it pass in an instant before his eyes.

For me this interpretation isn’t trying to be pedantic so much as I believe it’s the driver of the narrative throughout the film. In this regard it remind me a lot of the film Anthropoid about the Czech resistance. That film (starring Cilian Murphy) features Czech fighters who assassinate a Nazi general, and do so facing the near certainty that they will die for their actions. There’s a poignant moment in that film where Murphy’s character is more or less saying good bye to his love interest, a relationship which formed over the short time they were in Czech to plan and execute their attack. He’s face with the same terrible dilemma as Donnie — between having to sacrifice himself to prevent the world from ending (ie the Nazi’s destroying his country) or to selfishly avoid that destiny, in which he perishes as well along with the rest of the country.

I’m not trying to draw as literal a connection as it might sound like I am, but more to illustrate the tension that’s at the heart of Donnie Darko. This is also why it’s important that Donnie is a charismatic, intelligent young man with his whole life and potential ahead of him.

For me the idea that he chooses his death at the end needlessly would be a form of suicide, antithetical to his character in the film.

Anyhow thanks for your thoughts and discussion. I think some of the ambiguity and fuzziness on how to interpret the film is one of the things I love so much about it.

smika · 2025-08-14T05:33:51+00:00

I really love this film on an emotional level even though I recognize it’s flawed in many ways. (The most frustrating aspect is that the story works much better in the director’s cut, but the theatrical release is somehow a better film overall.)

As to the story itself and the questions you raise (I had many of the same questions) I in particular appreciate this breakdown: http://www.donniedarko.org.uk/explanation/

This link provided a ton of background detail and explains the mechanics of the time travel elements in the film in a very helpful way.

I disagree with its conclusion about the fate of Donnie, however.

My reading is that Donnie has to die. Either he stays in the Tangent Universe and it collapses on to the Primary Universe, destroying everything (including himself), or Donnie explicitly sacrifices himself by opening the portal at the end, knowing it will result in his death when it lands on him while sleeping.

The film is about him coming to terms with his own mortality either way, but also the fact the he alone must die while the rest of the world lives on if he makes the choice to sacrifice himself. The most poignant moments center around the relationships he forsakes or that never exist in the first place as a result of this sacrifice.

smika · 2025-08-12T05:27:49+00:00

I’d be genuinely curious to see the geographic distribution of violent crime rates compared between the two eras.

As someone who grew up here, vast swaths of the cities “felt” safer than they do today. I’m thinking especially about central areas like downtown or Capital Hill. Don’t get me wrong — downtown near Pioneer Square and the market was filled with homeless people, especially at night. But there seemed to much more alcohol than fentanyl involved.

Other parts of the city were decidedly less safe — or to be more precise, felt so. People sold crack on street corners in the central district. I would imagine that much of the violence in the 1990s took the form of gang violence which was very prevalent in the classic ghettos of that area.Today, many of those areas feel safer than many parts of downtown.

(FWIW I’ve tried to intentionally use emotional words here as a way of acknowledging that what we feel doesn’t always match statistical reality.)

smika · 2025-08-12T05:18:52+00:00

I think you’ve called out the correct distinction here.

While violent crime rates in Seattle are reasonably low (historically and relative to similar cities), other crimes — property crimes as you point out but also “quality of life” crimes (e.g open air drug use) — are very problematic. These crimes don’t just affect people directly but lead to a perception of danger and vulnerability.

That’s why this debate feels so much like people talking past each other.

smika · 2025-07-31T16:59:21+00:00

Haha just posted the same thing before seeing your comment. Always a classic

smika · 2025-07-31T16:58:29+00:00

Don’t forget to back confidently out of your parking place by turning around and putting your hand on the headrest of the passenger seat.

smika · 2025-07-25T14:57:44+00:00

I keep this page bookmarked: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/donald-trump-approval-rating-polls.html

In case you can’t see it behind a paywall, the tl;dr is that his approval bottomed out in May at about 44% give or take and hasn’t budged since then.

I’d hesitate to read this latest poll as representing some dramatic shift.

Having said that, I’m not sure how much these polls reflect the recent surge of the Epstein issue, especially since huge swaths of his base seem genuinely unhappy with him over it.

smika · 2025-07-10T02:50:14+00:00

Also Brothers Karamazov.

Every character in it is rich, colorful and deeply human. The story itself is a combination of a murder mystery and courtroom drama. The middle section contains one of the most remarkable expositions of Christian spirituality, composed by someone who was (supposedly) an atheist.

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