Nonsense. All of that can be true, but the vast majority of casual drug use never becomes problematic.

I'm so tired of this trope. It could not be more obvious that they're specifically referring to "the left" in an American rather than global context. Do we really need to harp on this every single fucking time?

It's a common lie. The reality is that red states score much lower on every objective quality of life metric, while having much higher rates of things like violent crime, addiction and suicide than any blue state let alone any of the US's peer nations in the rest of the developed world. It's not even remotely close. With very few exceptions, the social pathologies we see throughout the US are concentrated in red states. Blue states have problems too, but they tend to be related to the fact that they are highly desirable places to live.

My father in law doesn't like music. He doesn't dislike it either, he's just indifferent. Apart from that he's just your garden variety somewhat-curmudgeonly 80-year-old dude.

That's only one relatively minor factor among many. Anyone who points to it without also mentioning the much more significant impacts of things like global supply chain disruptions and the war in Ukraine is either ignorant, or is trying to spin a particular narrative while being intellectually dishonest about their priors.

Especially since those guys are pretty much all lard-asses. There's a reason why every competent military on the planet emphasizes physical fitness before anything else; it's because real combat --as opposed to playing paintball with your fatbody friends-- is one of the most physically and psychologically punishing activities known to man.

Dana Designs Arcflex Terraplane backpack purchased in 1994 at Teton Mountaineering in Jackson Wyoming for $400. I've since used it to travel the world and apart from having had to replace its foam back-liner and a buckle, it is still perfectly sound in every way.

Dana Designs doesn't exist anymore, but the guy and organization behind them is still alive and well and making handmade backpacks in Bozeman Montana under the name "Mystery Ranch."

You can get a Mystery Ranch Arcflex Terraplane that's basically the same thing as the original Dana Arcflex, only made with newer, better materials and technology.

I am a union member so this isn't a thing that happens. If management does something unacceptable, we do a strike authorization vote which, if passed by the membership, starts a clock ticking down to strike time and management knows that they are on notice and need to start negotiations.

All of which is just to say that unions are good for workers, regardless of what kind of bullshit you may have been led to believe.

It's also the case that several things can be true at once. Like, maybe you are part of the reddit mob-mentality, but on certain issues you have opinions that very much go against the grain.

This is correct. The idea is that bandwidth is public property and as such holding a license to use part of it entails public obligations. This is why radio stations are required to repeat their identification a certain number of times per hour, for example.

Cable networks are privately owned and therefore were never subject to the same kinds of regulation.

That 99% claim seems ridiculously high to me. Do you live in Oklahoma or something?

They were wrong. Spaniards are definitely not considered Latino here.