HelixDab2

TLA agencies would have no problem with a cover identity to "prove" who they are. Your average citizen is going to have a hard time buying a slightly used social security number that they can use to get an ID that will pass KYC laws.

He is punching down and attacking a group of people who are suffering in “the new world” just like him, and a fucking bag of cookies is one of the few joys they can still aquire.

I know a lot of people that are quite overall politically liberal that feel this way. I know a lot of people that get upset at the idea of inmates being given "free" educations in prison because they still have student loans 20 years after school. People that support the ideas of helping people up, that are fully on board with LGBTQ+ rights across the board, think DEI is a good idea, think it's critical that women have bodily autonomy, and so on, but still have a knee-jerk reaction to things that they don't fully get, or haven't had explained to them.

I don't know if he meant the song that way, or what. I do know that the people coming into the White House in a few months aren't likely to make things any better for people like him. Or people like you. Or people like me.

If you know anything about the history of punk music and east coast hardcore, Ian MacKaye was clearly one of the most principled people in the scene, and a genuinely good and decent person. So it's really weird to hear that people ever got the weird idea that he was pro-racism or something.

Then again, The Dead Kennedys had to make "Nazi Punks Fuck Off" because they were sick of their shows being infiltrated by the wrong kind of skinheads.

An old soul in a new world… Dude the south lost and slavery is bad. I’m sorry

I think that's an uncharitable reading. Which is understandable, but still.

I think that there are a lot of people--myself included--that would like to be able to make a living doing something that seems to matter, or where you make something. Like, factory work sucks in most ways, but it still feels like you're doing something. Spreadsheets and order projections? Staring at a screen all day, sending polite emails to people you'll never meet about ways to spend a lot of money electronically?

This "new world" of work and socializing ain't great. I think it snuck up on a lot of people, and now a lot of people are feeling like they don't know how to navigate the new reality of depersonalization.

Here's another song that explicitly references it. Better song too, IMO.

Yeah, but does he like his step dad? Maybe he's planning on ratting his dad out, ever think about that?

It's really shocking how many Philip K. Dick stories have been made into films. Off the top of my head, the ones I can remember are:

Total Recall (two versions)

Blade Runner

Screamers

A Scanner Darkly

Paycheck

Imposter

The Man in the High Castle (a streaming series, not a film)

The Minority Report

...And I'm sure that I'm missing at least some. If he hadn't died so young, he would have been insanely wealthy from how many times his stories have been adapted into major films.

Since the ACA was passed, Democrats have not held all three branches of the gov't. (In fact, Mitch McConnell refused to take up Obama's nomination of a SCOTUS justice because he thought that eight months was too close to the election. Or, that was his claim.) They haven't had any opportunities to make significant reforms to the ACA--or pass something better--because they haven't had the power to do so. Republicans came close to overturning it, but blew their chances in 2018. So, to be more accurate, the party that wants to fix healthcare has not had the political ability to do so.

Short of a political change, there is no way to change the system.

I'll keep that in mind. I live at a high enough altitude that I'm literally in the clouds pretty often (e.g., when it's overcast everywhere else, I'm in pea-soup fog), so cedar is one of the prime choices for anything that's going to be outside, just to keep it from rotting.

If Trump wins, expect it to be much, much worse. The ACA/Obamacare guarantees that certain things must be covered, that you can't be denied covered based on pre-existing conditions, and that you can't be charged more due to age, gender, etc. It also gives subsidies to people that are buying their own covered on the marketplace, which was set up by the federal gov't.

Under Trump, expect all of that to be tossed out. If Trump wins, it's highly likely that Republicans with flip the Senate, and retain control of the House, which means Republicans will have all three branches of the federal government captured, and there will be no brakes to repealing the ACA and going back to the old, much shittier system.

If Harris wins, don't expect to see many changes. If she wins, it's unlikely that Democrats would also have control of both the House and Senate. While it's true that she was in favor of a single-payer system five years ago, it's unlikely that she would be able to get that through the House and Senate unless they were both controlled by a Democratic majority. (In the case of the Senate, they would need to nuke the filibuster, which--IMO--is not a good idea in the long run).

Sadly: no attic. I need try making an attractive bat roost for them. I wonder how bats feel about cedar, since cedar is rot resistant?