The thing I don’t get though, is that can’t you just lie and pretend your kids are sick? At least for a week. I suppose two weeks might be more difficult, I was never off school for that long as a kid so dunno if you have to provide some kinda proof if it’s that long.

Or do you have to provide some kind of doctor’s note for even a week now? I wasn’t even off for a full week to be fair so maybe I’m just unaware…

As an atheist, I would say that I can see the benefits of the community that churches provide. Basically having a close network of friends and supportive people is always going to be good.

But you don’t need religion for this. We definitely need closer communities. Like if we had some other place we could all go to and make some effort to actually go at least once a week for an hour or two or however long. This would definitely be a good thing as it helps with loneliness which is a big problem these days. It would also be a much healthier alternative to the default pub social setting.

However religion can be very harmful. So I’m definitely against religion. I’m not against religious people, apart from the people who say stuff about things being gods plan or that god made whatever bad thing happened to them for a reason. They’ll say it in a way that makes it sound like they’re being nice but it can actually be really harmful for people who have been through trauma. An example would be how people saying how god saved Trump. Which actually means god murdered those other (two?) people that died by pushing the bullets around Trump and into them lol.

Or if you come out as gay in a lot of religious communities that means instant rejection and you lose your whole support system overnight unless you repress your true self.

So yeah - religion bad - community good.

Incredible palm game.

Ah yes, I know it well.

Read that as “vid claiming migrants ARE cats” and I didn’t doubt it for a second.

Because he’s a shart fella.

Yeah I mean I dunno if it’s helpful to call them idiots. Cos ideally a really small number of these people might be capable of changing their opinions. I mean I don’t buy that anyone can be undecided at the moment, or for quite a long time really. I think the votes needed can either come from Trump supporters or from people who are lazy voting wise. Who would back Harris if they could vote from home, but just might not get their arse down to the polling station on the day.

Well I suppose there is maybe some republicans who just hate the Democrats and would never vote for them under normal scenarios, but are uncomfortable as fuck with Trump.

Meh. Maybe we can do without the Trumpers if we are lucky lol. I mean we might not have a choice in the matter. I suppose as much as we don’t want to alienate them by calling them idiots, they are in reality idiots if they’re literally believing stuff like the litter box examples and even if we don’t call them idiots, the reality is they’re probably too idiotic to be turned, so it likely won’t make a difference anyway.

Who knows…

Only a Sith deals in absolutes.

Ahaha yeah a photo was definitely needed. I just said all the words I could think of that might give a clue or be correct lol. I didn’t even know you could upload photos, only been on here for about a week.

Also; I think it’s actually working again now lol. It’s not great, like I was able to turn the “dial” which I wasn’t able to last night, which I think was in part because I was getting burnt trying to do it. But once it was cool I was able to turn it like normal almost, but then the same thing happened again, but because this time it was cold; I was able to get it back into the off position.

So think I will replace it but least it sort of works for now.

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Hahah literally what is the point!? Well like I say. Probably is about name recognition otherwise why bother.

Either that or Jill is retired and bored/senile… isn’t Jill the same name as Biden’s wife actually? Hahah. Maybe it’s Biden in a wig. Who can say?

Cheers dude

Ahh ok haha well that’s good at least. I can’t see any left leaning would-be democrat voters voting for the guy who dumped the carcass of a bear in… I wanna say… Central Park?

I love that they’re like “paper doesn’t grow on trees dude, we ain’t wasting anymore”.

I don’t really understand why these independents bother. Do they really think they’re gonna turn 3% (being generous) into 51%?? I don’t think so. I wonder if there’s some ulterior motive in play, like to just get their name out there and then with that name recognition, get elected into a much lower down position at state level.

Cheers, if I unscrew it, it won’t suddenly start leaking will it? Like is there a way for me to accidentally do that or not? Cos if there’s a way, I’ll find it.

Oh really? I don’t really get how your system works I guess lol. Cos I thought if he drops out he’s out. So he’s still running against Trump in some states basically? I would have thought he’d be taking votes from the right rather than the left though. But I probably just don’t understand your system properly tbf.

I thought Kennedy dropped out to support Trump? Maybe I’m wrong I’m not American, but thought I heard that.

But yeah I agree. It’s just splitting the vote, the same thing happens in the UK. For a long time until this most recent election we only had the Conservatives on the right, whereas on the left you had Labour, Lib Dem’s and Greens, yet the Conservatives kept getting back in because the left wing vote was split, they wouldn’t work together to step down in certain seats to let the party most likely to be beat the Conservatives stand.

Thank god, in a weird way, for Reform UK, massively splitting the right wing vote this time around. Allowing Labour to win. If Labour don’t change the voting system to proportional representation now that they’ve finally got the chance after a 15 year wait, then they are truly mugs. They won’t though I’m sure. They are hopefully supposed to be letting 16 year olds vote which should help.

But yeah, that Hitler story gave me the shivers lol. Apparently we aren’t allowed to call Trump a fascist because it pisses off Republican voters and caused that assassination attempt (even though I swear the guy was a republican voter??)

But like; he is literally a fascist. For me personally, if someone said, “we can stop Trump from ever being elected, but the price is you have to cancel the election and just say that George Bush won and let him have another term”. I’d take that deal. I genuinely think Trump is so dangerous, it shouldn’t be a republican vs democrats thing, it should be an Americans for Democracy thing.

Final thing: I think you have it backwards. I think the culprits you’re referring to, lack the empathy in the first place, making them sociopaths. This lack of empathy allows them to ascend the ranks stepping on the shoulders of whoever.

I think you’re possibly describing sociopathy. Which is of course more common among the rich and “successful”, politicians are typically mentioned of having higher incidences of sociopathy, than the rest of the populous.

Because to get up to a certain level you have to be pretty cut-throat. You have to not care about shitting on other people in order to progress.

But this is the more extreme category of people. Like highly successful politicians as I say are the main culprits people usually mention.

I certainly don’t think you have to, to simplify things, be a “dick” to be a doctor. I’m sure some are but certainly not all.

What if one of your good friends decided to train as doctor? You wouldn’t suddenly call them a sociopath for achieving that aim, would you?

I’d agree there’s a higher incidence of them amongst doctors compared to say… carers. But it’s nowhere near all of them.

There is also this thing I often hear and have actually experienced first hand (obviously this is not to be taken too seriously as it’s just a personal experience) but people who care for vulnerable people like nurses or carers, can sometimes take those positions in order to gain power over vulnerable people.

There’s a fair few documentaries that show these kinds of people abusing their vulnerable patients. Pretty disgusting stuff. Imagine bullying say a non-verbal autistic person. There is very little chance that person can defend themselves. They can’t even communicate effectively.

So much trust is given to these low paid carers, caring for the most vulnerable. You definitely get bad apples there.

So it’s certainly not only a problem with doctors. Who can be probably a bit more easily found out.

Just thought about Lucy Letby as an example of an evil nurse with power over the most vulnerable tiny premature baby’s. (Although see some stuff about people doubting her conviction and her not fitting the typical serial killer profile, but that’s a tangent anyway).

But no I don’t think it’s automatically wealthy privileged people. I hate capitalism as much as I suspect you may do unless I’ve misinterpreted your tone haha. But this is the system we have and going back to the main thing, doctors and similar professionals are valued much more than the lowly nurse or extra lowly care worker who works physically twice as hard but without all the the risks that doctors take.

Aha I think I get what you’re saying though. There is also a thermostat on the wall downstairs that controls the central heating. So if that is turned off, then my radiator wouldn’t heat up even if I turned the dial from the photo up.

It’s like the main thermostat has executive control (pretty certain of this anyway) but then each room has a radiator which its own controls so if I get too hot I can turn mine off while the rest of the radiators in the house stay on.

I’m guessing you’re not from the UK? The dial, as I’ll now call it, on the radiator is on every radiator I’ve ever seen.

Anyhow dunno why I’m telling you all this cos if you don’t have the same system you’re not gonna be able to help but just as an FYI I guess. Hopefully someone on the other channel is from the UK!

Yeah so basically you don’t give a shit because Mexico isn’t more powerful than the US.

You’re privileged (feel a little weird saying this about America) to live in the world’s most powerful country. But things change. Look how quickly China has changed. Just in my lifetime they’ve gone from the equivalent of the poorer parts of Africa to having a pretty decent standard of living.

You can’t just isolate yourself and say fuck you, you’re on your own Ukraine, when they get invaded by Russia. I mean you can. But as I say, it won’t stop there. It didn’t stop with Crimea. Appeasement failed.

Your balloons comment just indicates you actually have no credible argument. You know that I’m right. Just admit at least that you’re selfish and care only about yourself.

That Russia can invade the whole of Europe if they want to do, kill as many people as they want, just so long as they don’t attack the US.

That’s basically your argument isn’t it? At least be honest about it and we can just conclude that you’re not a very good person but at least you’re honest.