meep_launcher

It also will make your house smell great! I'd also suggest making enough for friends and visitors.

I'm in Chicago and it can get lonely if you decide to stay couped up in your house for too long. Make sure to be intentional on inviting friends over and becoming close with your neighbors. I noticed comments here are focused on the physical aspect of winter, but it's also important to take care of your mental health.

My theory is the Midwestern kindness is just a regional Stockholm syndrome. We're all in this together.

So you spent the day outside shoveling snow, maybe you had to walk 20 minutes to get to a friend's house, maybe the cold itself just took it out of you because your body was burning calories just to stay warm. You finally get home and you are out of breath and just wanting to dry off and get warm again- and that's when you thank your past self for what you did on meal prep Sunday:

French onion soup.

You can look online for recipes, but here's what I improvised last Sunday (probably not definition french onion soup, but at least a variation on a theme). Mine takes about 1 hour to make (10 min prep, 50ish minutes to cook)

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 tablespoon fat (I use leftover bacon grease)
• Onions (I used 4 but you could do more)
• garlic (I used 1 bulb, but you could always do more)
• Apple (I used 1, but you could always do more)
• veggies (I like zucchini and carrots)
• mushrooms if you like em
• protein (stew beef, ground meat, chicken, turkey, hell even sandwich meat will do)
• cardamom
• Curry powder
• vinegar (I use white balsamic, but apple cider vinegar or anything flavorful will do)
• chicken broth

1. Cut up the onions into thick chunks, no need to get precise, just hack 'em quick so you have less time being in a tearful agony
2. Peel the bulb of garlic, but leave the cloves whole- don't crush them.
3. Heat up your butter and fat, then add in the onions and garlic. Let it sautee for like... 30 minutes? If you have time to do a proper caramelizing then do that, but it's still good if you want to make it faster.
4. While the onions and garlic do their thing, prepare your meat in another pan. Of course if you use ham or something pre cooked you can skip this step.
5. Slice your apple(s) however you want, I like thin slices but cubes are good too.
6. Add in veg and apples, let them cook for 15 minutes or so
7. Add meat
8. A couple dashes of cardamom and curry and also pour in your broth to desired consistency
9. Give a taste then add a dash of vinegar to see how it really cuts through the fattiness

Dish and serve! If you want to really clog those arteries, go ahead and add some cheese on top, I like smoked Gouda. I also use a pipe sweater to torch the cheese and give it a little melty/ crispy texture. This soup should be thick and hearty to restore your energy and give you the gumption to brave the elements again. If you were link in legend of Zelda, you're getting at least 10 yellow hearts from this.

That and a hot tody will give you the coziness that will lift your spirits in the dark cold months.

Good luck!

Also I'd like to add while rereading the thread, I'm not sure where you see the disconnect. Everything seems pretty straightforward to me.

You are pretty darn passionate about voting and 3rd parties and that's great. I read your comment so I was replying to your comment.

Sometimes tangents happen online, and sometimes topics change. Please understand that I am also passionate about these things, so in a Lemmy thread we can end up in many different places. No need to get upset.

That was an aggressive reply and wasn't very Mr. Rodgers of you.

Did you learn nothing from PBS kids?

His bite is like a vampire's- those kids are about to become 80 year old politicians!

I think the challenge this argument has is that it ignores the spoiler effect that is the biggest problem in FPTP, and it assumes party changes have happened because a third party successfully unseated a traditional party in a sort of coup.

First, the spoiler effect is very real. You'll notice the better a third party does, the worse it is for that whole faction of the electorate. It's a bit of a paradox but you can see it with the notable 3rd party runs. Teddy Roosevelt got Woodrow Wilson elected. Ross Perot gave the election to Clinton by splitting the right. Ralph Nader solidified Bush as president. The better the third party does, the stronger the spoiler effect. It's not a conspiracy, it's just the math.

Next, when there is a party change, such as the fall of the federalists or the whigs, it is because they fell apart due to losing a war or their positions (such as opposing manifest destiny) became moot and they no longer had a purpose. This created a void that was then filled with a new party. This was not because a 3rd party arrived and had a David vs Goliath situation. In this metaphor Goliath was already dead when David showed up.

Some questions to ask: what does it mean to have a politically diverse election? How does FPTP or RCV have impact in a time where we have more tools for social engineering (like social media and surveillance tools)? What assumptions of the Republican and Democratic parties are we making? What assumptions are we making on the electorate that they are composed of?

Thank you, that rings so true.

I've felt very isolated because my work is in the evenings, so it's harder to make plans with friends, but this month I get my Mondays and Thursdays back.

As the host of an open mic told me after I had a bad break up- "it's time to summon the boys"

You have good points and valid reasons to be upset in this election. If we don't see change in this administration now, why should we expect it going forward?

That said, I would like you to consider a perspective shift on the impact of voting. Put yourself in the shoes of a politician. What is your bottom line? It's to get reelected.

If you aren't in a position of power, you can't pass any bills. You can't push any agendas. You can't stop wars. You affect nothing. This is true for politicians, CEOs, Popes, dictators, board presidents, school principles, and homeowners association presidents.

In order to keep that power, you need to make your keys to power happy. In a democracy, there are a lot of keys- those are your voting blocks. The rich, the military, unions, families, students, different ethnicities, different religions- you need to calculate which blocks are most likely to get you reelected.

Now a lot of people wonder why is it that American election campaigns seem to go on forever. They take years. This is because candidates are looking to see who they can bring in to their side. Voters who they don't please go to their opposition.

Let's fast forward to after the election. You have won the presidency and are eager to get to work- but guess what, in 4 years you will need to do this all over again. This time, you look at the blocks who voted for you. These blocks were the ones who successfully got you in power, and you want to keep them happy. It's easier to keep voters than to flip voters, this is the incumbents advantage.

You look at your voting blocks, and you notice there is a large chunk of your previous "supporters" (not that they like you necessarily, just that they voted for you) who want to end arms sales to Israel. If large enough, this group will be pivitol to your next victory. You may have run on a pro Israel stance, but if your electorate needs you to change, you will change.

This doesn't mean protest sit outs aren't effective. Michigan had a large vote for Palestine in Biden's primary campaign. After that result came through, the administration took on more moderate rhetoric. It's empty, but a first signal nonetheless. If this happened in Illinois or Washington State, his campaign would have ignored it, but since Michigan is a swing state, they paid attention.

In this election, I'm voting for Harris. However, down ballot I'm voting for pro-palestine candidates. Trump's voting blocks clearly favor Israel, but Harris has a divide she needs to address, and if she sees enough voters voting pro-palestine down ballot, she is much more likely to change her course.

For a deeper look into power structures and how leaders are influenced, I'd recommend watching CGP Grey's 20 minute video on the rules for Rulers.

There is so much nuance in this discussion that it's difficult to put all counterpoints into a Lemmy comment while I'm sitting on the pot, but I hope this gives you some more questions to consider as you make the bridge between your values, ideal outcomes, realistic outcomes, and pragmatic strategies for getting that done.

I said it once, I'll say it again-

Until ranked choice vote is established and the electoral college is abolished, there are no serious third parties.

The most serious third party imo is the Forward Party, only because they have one platform which is RCV, and they are quietly working in local elections only. They aren't running any candidates in federal elections, although they had a big win in helping Alaska switch to RCV for their congressional race, which nudged out Sarah Palin.

With the forward party in conjunction with fairvote.org , they are laying the groundwork to create possibly the most revolutionary change to American politics ever.

But in order to do that, we need to have elections. Vote Harris.

Yep, be the change you want to see in the world.

Also, making communities is fun! I made !cartographyanarchy@lemm.ee and it is booming thanks to several lemmings who I got to post consistently. Shout out to thepiccardmanuever.

I lurker is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.