What I wonder is... how?! A quick search shows that half of people in the USA use Chrome, another 30% Safari, 8% use Edge, and only 5% Firefox. This study was done by Ghostery so perhaps they chose a biased subset of the population? It just seems weird to me to think that more than half of average users use ad-blocking, these days.
OpenStars
joined 10 months ago
I think it is more complex than that - as in yes but also no at the same time.
The media used him to gain moar profitz, fo sho. Forget "equal time", they git it to whoever says the most inflammatory stuff imaginable 😡.
Dems probably wanted him to win out over Ted Cruz, who may arguably have been worse, as in less amenable to being controlled. If you get a chance, watch that video of him where his family makes material for an upcoming election campaign, and the camerman only pretends to turn off the camera - you can get the real, unfiltered look at how they treat him and vice versa. He is legit scary.
And don't forget the hand that Repubs had in all of this as well: it was supposed to be Bush (JEB) vs. Clinton, but he fumbled, but then they could not punt it down the road to try to win Congress rather than the Presidency b/c they had previously spent 8 years denying all judicial nominations during Obama's Presidency. They HAD to get the Presidency, so ultimately they still backed Trump despite knowing what that would mean.
And it cost the Repubs dearly: most of their entire old-guard is gone now, having been replaced not with the newer Tea Party faction but now even the Alt Right. Very few have remained after Trump's multiple purges. Those that are there are extremely volatile - see e.g. Matt Gaetz ousting the former Speaker of the House a few months ago, and Marjorie Taylor Green the Jewish space-laser woman who had literally advocated openly for actual civil war, plus also threatened to oust the next/current Speaker. Trump opened the door to these... and others just like them.
Dems in turn had extremely little chance to have won that 2016 election: when else in modern history has a 2-consecutive-term, 8-year Democrat Presidency ever been followed by another Democrat one, rather than switching over to a Republican in the White House? (Obama x2 > Bush x2 > Clinton x2 > Bush Sr. x2 and also Reagan x2 > Carter x2 > Nixon & Ford - but not since Kennedy & Johnson has that happened for Democrats). On the other hand, if they had not tried to take the White House, then Roe v. Wade was at risk - which as we saw, happened, and now women are dying, some areas are turning into "medical care deserts" where people would have to drive HUNDREDS of miles to get even normal birthing care - and women are being tracked in order to prevent their access to "specialized" care, including abortion but so many other things as well too that are not just abortions.
So whether they wanted him to be crazy and edge out JEB and Ted Cruz back then or not, yeah I get it, but that was back then - that does not mean that they want him now!? Maybe, but that's a matter of opinion rather than fact, and I kinda doubt it, b/c there's a highly realistic chance that despite him having been impeached twice that he may yet not only run but win again!?
We all have our traumas. For instance my grandfather had a similar story - he would not entertain the notion of us having any relion besides Catholicism, though he himself had not attended church in decades. He saw too much how the sausage was made, and could not stomache it, though he still believed, ostensibly, except he did not, but again would not allow us to go our own way without comment. I realize that came from his pain, though have too much of my own to really be able to fully set foot into his shoes there. I realized from all that - and later from reading the irl backstory of CS Lewis, who walked away from his puritanical upbringing to become atheist - that a lot of people have a made-up "god", and that quite frankly Jesus Himself not only "would be" but WAS fucking PISSED at that aspect of life. We all should be more atheistic - yes, this from the very words of Christ Himself!!!!! (hehe, my rather... "liberal" interpretation of them anyway:-P, e.g. "be ye either hot or cold, not just making up whatever the fuck you want and call it a day")
I feel like there is a Truth to the universe - this is what makes e.g. planes fly in (or in Boeing's case fall out of) the sky - and while we do not have to choose to live in Reality, preferring our fantasy dreamland adventures, it really is (probably) better to do so. So the real question is whether God exists or not, not whether we want him to. Ofc that proves a bit hard to answer, or to prove even if someone knew for certain. Like in The Matrix movie, if Neo himself introduced himself to you and you saw him fly, but did not record it on camera (or even if you did), how could you convey that? Similarly, how can smart people convey the complexities of mathematics, of physics, of philosophy, to people who literally cannot - as in do not have the capacity to uptake - understand even a fraction of wha t you speak of? How can people who KNOW convey that both the Left and the Right side of politics are both WRONG, having been bought out by corporate special interests (but that even so, one side is most definitely even more so in that regard lately...)? Ofc we cannot, and really, except the "hard sciences" one, how can we even be fully sure of what we DO happen to know? (and even there, physics is constantly over-turning old ideas - like the latest thought that there is no need for all that "dark matter" that the media has been throwing about for decades now, just poof, it's all gone now!? ofc most things are merely supplanted by a higher-resolution version, like Newtonian is not gone just relegated to a subset of Einsteinian mathematical formulations of our understanding of the universe)
Another thing I use the Bible for btw is as a repository of the "wisdom of the ages", as in even though I believe in a God, putting that aside and conjecturing at worst as if that were a false statement even, there is still some merit in its depictions of things. And I definitely looked through its verses regarding teaching... which convey that you just CAN'T force knowledge onto people, not b/c of stupidity but rather b/c of obstinancy. "You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink." I still would have offered them the benefits of my knowledge & experience regardless, except it was heartbroken to think that they were being saddled with generational levels of debt, for a degree that they probably would not even use, b/c they lacked the emotional maturity level to handle life beyond the (post-No Child Left Behind era) high school level.
Regrets: I actually have very few of those in my life, b/c I realize that the past me did not know what the current me does, so how could I have done any differently, and furthermore why bother thinking along the lines as if I somehow could? That said, like CS Lewis (this being the main reason why I like him, b/c I so very much "get" his struggles), I often arrive at the correct conclusion from the most bass-ackwards route, which highly ironically may thereby end up making it potentially the wrong thing, for me in my circumstances. So am I "ahead", or am I "behind"? Yes! I have a feeling that you, having experienced more than one major "transition" in your own life, may understand exactly what I mean there!:-P (others may be born there already, while you had to struggle to get there, and vice versa) But no matter how painful, those struggles are also what define us and give us character so... tbh I probably would have skipped them, but I am also grateful, in a tiny way, that I am who I am now, and can appreciate so much that I otherwise would not have been able to - if that makes any sense whatsoever?
I would guess that people love you b/c you seem to have genuine empathy + depth both. That seems... rare these days. It should NOT be, and you would not think it, but given how often people take advantage, it does seem to be like a beautiful flower that gets mowed over quickly as if it were some weed that people feel the need to stamp out quickly:-(. Especially on the interwebz. If you want, you can use that power to make people feel better - as you already do, but I mean consciously! - but ofc I hope you also hold it in check, so that you manage to meet your own needs as well (which are ofc interconnected to helping others, so it truly is a balance there, not just all one or all the other way). I feel like it is good to be Masters of ourselves rather than the other way around. Which ironically... I accomplish by giving in to my desires? But like, making sure that I acknowledge ALL of those, not hyper-fixate on just one at any given moment.
Bring on the part 2 then! When you are ready. I know what you mean about ownership - I have nothing now but one day if I ever could, the thought of needing to do that worries me. As it probably should:-). 💫
I thought the article was saying that it already has told, in that yes it is?:-P
John Stewart (Daily Show) had a great message yesterday about what we were talking about wrt Trump: people around his orbit say one thing, but do the exact opposite irl, revealing how it is authoritarian BS and currying favor rather than reality. But he says it much better than I ever could so I will let you hear it from him.
It’s (downvoting) trash behaviour from sad people.
I need to talk with you a lot more often - this is stuff I need to hear:-). Speaking of, I am glad to hear that your mental health is improving. I thought mine was too but it is hard to navigate the storms of life and my sense of self is still tied up in the wrong things.:-( Then again, I will meditate on it and it becomes an opportunity to do better and grow... so that's always a boon. Nobody enjoys those opportunities, but we do become so much better - less Monkey, more Mind - as a result:-).
Green is such a beautiful, bright, shiny color... unmissable you might even say. I see it nowhere except the legend though. :-(
Including one of its two cofounders. They agreed they they would use puppets but never CGI, and they said that they would remain pure to the storyline rather than "sell out" for the sake of profits.
But then season 1 was a success and one but not the other cofounder wanted moar monay, so as soon as the second season it had already begun to lose everything that it spent that first season building up.
The magic was gone, not entirely, but mostly, having been sacrificed for the sake of chasing profits "above all else".
Or worse, after a successful first season, enshittify the entire thing for the sake of moar profitz. Stranger Things...
Yes it is available. It in turn points to another site Censuswide, but does say: