hydrospanner

It would absolutely be Dr. Spaceman!

An atlatl for grenades!

A splatlatl, if you will.

It's looking more and more like this term will be "Celebrity Apprentice: Washington".

Which, as sad as that is, is still preferable to the alternative where he has a small inner circle of actually smart far right strategists, who he trusts completely and follows their recommendations to the last detail.

I don't know that it holds true across the board, but for Trump at least, it appears that in the right wing you get smarts or charisma/a following...but not both.

Trump is a flashy moron who appeals to the GOP base, which is comprised largely of morons. They need a moron at the top of the ticket to speak the language of their base, but in the process they're stuck with a moron at the top when they win.

They'll still do damage, no doubt, but I feel like the biggest check on Trump's power is that he's too stupid to wield it to maximum effect.

Jokelahoma

Hear hear!

When you bust your ass all year for that great review and much needed raise...only to go in for your evaluation and be told, "Great job! Unfortunately due to budget cuts and corporate policy, we can only give you a 1.5% raise, but you're welcome!"

Don't tell them, but remember that.

Remember that regardless of the work you give them, they're only paying you 1.5% more. And that's not even factoring in ~~information~~ inflation.

At the most generous, you should only give them 1.5% more productivity than it takes to not get fired. If you look at it based on value...the value of your time and experience and productivity against the purchasing power of your take home pay... you're getting a pay cut vs inflation as their way of thanking you.

As such, cut your productivity, attention to detail, reliability, and shits given by the same amount as the purchasing power you're earning.

They call it quiet quitting, but in reality it's the market economy working both ways. If they're buying less from you, give them less.

I mean, it's all very subjective, so "too much" for you seems to be what is a good amount for everyone else...but realistically, I don't think this is a legitimate complaint since you still need to be able to make all these adjustments anyway... it's just a matter of the way the adjustments are being made.

All a touch screen changes is that it can play host to multiple functions depending on context...but it loses much of the visual recognition and almost all the tactile feedback of a physical control.

And while vehicles keep getting more and more complex for sure, I feel like when I'm riding in a more touchscreen heavy vehicle, that screen is displaying the same static set of controls 99% of the time...and at that point, the flexibility it offers is largely irrelevant, and the tradeoffs mean giving up a lot to get very little in exchange.

They get really spicy!

Disagree.

Personally, I feel the problem is absolutely touchscreens.

I've only got five senses, and taste and smell aren't helpful in a driving situation.

Of the 3 left, sight is the most important for the most important task: driving.

For other tasks, sound is best used to alert or remind about something, and is frequently diminished as a driving aid by music.

That leaves touch and sight for all remaining tasks.

Touchscreens are, despite the name, effectively 100% reliant on sight, since there's no real tactile feedback to enable the user to make eyes-free adjustments. To use a touchscreen, you have to take your eyes off the road to see what the screen says and make your selections.

While some are better than others, I also feel like touchscreens are still embarrassingly and frustratingly prone to errors, missed touches, and generally not doing the things the user intended, requiring even more eyes off the road to undo whatever actually happened, get the interface back to the place you want it, and try again, hoping that this time it'll work.

My mid-teens vehicle has a mix of a medium sized touch screen for the entertainment unit but physical controls for climate, driving, and a few of the entertainment adjustments, and while I was all about the advanced new touchscreen when I bought it, I find it's my least favorite part of the controls this far along in ownership.

"I want things to be worse for everyone who isn't exactly like me."

You're the worst kind of person.

I feel like most people I have heard talking about them while supporting Trump seem to know that tariffs are taxes, but have no concept of how they play out in a real economic situation. Most fall into one or both of two camps:

A) Tariffs are taxes, but they're taxes for companies not individuals, and they're only applied to importing, so they won't affect me.

B) Tariffs are taxes for foreign companies, to level the playing field and keep American business competitive. Since the companies that have to pay it are foreign, it won't affect me.

Spoiler alert, guys: no matter where the tax is levied in the system, the consumer is the only person who ever pays for it, since they're the only ones that can't pass that cost on to anyone else.

Also, while this can make domestic competitors more competitive, it's important to remember two things: first, if it works, it's only working by making things more expensive for consumers, and second, this assumes that the domestic competitors want more business, have the ability and posture to increase their production to meet the new greater demand, and will operate in good faith. Much more likely is that they simply also increase their prices in reaction to the tariffs, so they're not producing or selling any more volume and aren't creating any jobs... they're just padding their profit margins at the corporate/shareholder level while doing nothing for their employees, all while having the average consumer foot the bill.

That's exactly what happened with the steel tariffs in the first Trump term and that's exactly what will happen now...the only difference is that this time it seems like there will be significantly fewer economic buffers between the tariff and the consumer, so more people will more directly feel the sting here...and presumably the mental gymnastics from the MAGAts will be even sadder in their attempts to somehow make it not a criticism of their orange leader's incompetence.

Implying anything needs to be proven in court when the judge is a Trump appointee.

Aaaaand those parents of those Gen Z kids probably said what they said because when they were kids, their parents told them to follow their dreams and do whatever they wanted to do, so they believed them and they went to art school and didn't work hard, then they got to the recession and lost their job (or never got it in the first place) because their degree was irrelevant for almost any job out there, and then they had to compete and improve in order to get a decent job to make ends meet as they tried their best to raise their little Gen Z kid.