I don't know, they could at least obstruct as much as the Republicans did for them whenever the Democrats were in power and had a chance to pass actual progressive legislation, but chickened out and said they needed to compromise the shit out of it to make a bipartisan effort, since the Republican minority was blocking anything and everything they tried to do.

Probably all the knives and the room full of people who spend 8 hours a day cutting things to bits with them. After a while, you get pretty good at finding where to cut through joints, so it doesn't take all that long.

Because, for many people, it's not all that easy to get the requisite visas to go to Europe legally. As it stands now, I'm pretty sure I'm the only person in my household of 3 who has a few options to get skilled work visas based on my work experience. In another few years, when we've all finished our degrees, we're looking at making the leap.

For other people, they might already have put down roots that hold them back before considering what a raw deal they're getting. Even if someone can qualify to emigrate, significant others, kids or property can make it more difficult for them to decide to go for it.

And, of course, you have plenty of folks who drink too deeply of the Kool-Aid, and believe Fox News when they say Europe is overrun by communist governments that implement Sharia law in their gulags, and force you to be gay to hit the national quotas.

I, too, am far from being either of those things, but it sounds like you could just track purchasing power to get a rough idea. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding it, but it seems to me that, if inflation or other factors have eaten into your purchasing power and you haven't gotten a corresponding raise to offset it, you can reasonably conclude that the economy is getting worse for you in your personal circumstances.

Nah, as in there's no reason for anyone to bring up F1 as a comparison, for the reasons you listed, and plenty of other safety improvements.

I don’t think you understood what I wrote or the context it was written.

I understood what you said fine, but you sure needed me to spell it out for you that I was agreeing with your point regarding most forms of racing these days, so maybe cool it on these comments until you work on your own reading comprehension and grasp of context yourself, there.

Nah, F1 has come a long way from back in the day, and really done a lot for driver safety over the years. I've been following it since shortly after Jules Bianchi died, and the only time I thought "Holy shit, I've just seen someone die on live TV!" was Romain Grosjean's crash, which he ultimately came away from with relatively minor injuries.

I think the motorsport equivalent would be something like the Isle of Man TT, or the motorcycle races at the Macau Grand Prix, where the approach to safety seems to mostly remain "Hey, don't hit any of those stone/concrete barriers while going as fast as humanly possible, but if you do, there's a doctor somewhere around, maybe they'll get to you in time."

Both of those events are, in all honesty, insane that they're allowed to continue as is. The Macau GP seems somewhat better in terms of sheer death count, but despite being interested in motorsport generally, I don't think I could ever make a holiday out of attending either one. I just don't want to go somewhere that has a very real possibility of someone dying an avoidable death because "Ah, fucking health and safety have taken all the excitement out of racing, but we're the real deal and hit stone walls at 200mph when we fuck up."

And? That some people within a certain group have supported them hardly means you can say that it's a problem with the group as a whole. I also saw a dozen metal bands who are explicitly pro-Palestinian, and have expressed that in their shows and online.

Metalheads as a whole haven't done something to be a disappointment, some prominent figures within the community have.

I hardly think Sharon Osbourne represents metalheads. I've been to plenty of shows over the last couple of years where acts have made pro-Palestinian statements, and the only time I witnessed any pushback from the crowd was one guy at a hardcore show, who was promptly shouted down by the crowd when he called the singer of No Time a Nazi for saying he supported the Palestinians and calling Israel's actions a genocide.

The metal scene has plenty of real issues to answer for (hello, NSBM), but Sharon Osbourne being an out of touch bitch is not one of them, in my opinion.

Edit: Also, before someone searches No Time and assumes skinheads in an Oi band must be Nazis, have the lyrics for their song "Everything You Hate" in the spoiler.

The Democrats have cried about "the most important election of our lives" too many times, and people tuned it out. For people crying how terrifying a Trump presidency was going to be, their actions told voters that they would be happy to let this happen and keep working with the same individuals they told them would end democracy, and so far, they continue to work with the Republicans, with a very few conspicuous exceptions.

People warned the Democrats they could only run that play so many times before it no longer worked, yet they decided to stick with it anyway. If the Democrats wanted to win, they needed to have run a very different campaign, if not a different candidate.

I don't know about that. I think in a lot of cases, it's also down to our parents not getting any help for their mental health and not knowing how to deal with stuff they're going through also making being around them a genuinely uncomfortable thing to do, even without anything like that going on.

That and a lot of people wind up having kids when they're in no position to actually care for them and raise them properly, which aggravates the above, as well as providing material incentives to kick them out earlier.

A therapist probably wouldn't hurt to give a try.

You could also take stock of sources of stress in your life, especially any that have emerged/increased in intensity in the last few months. At my previous job, my anxiety took a massive spike due to a crazy boss, layoffs hanging over everyone's heads and an increasing workload. Even on anxiety meds, I was getting massive headaches on a daily basis and would spend hours on the verge of being ill from it. Once I got laid off, the anxiety went back down to my more manageable baseline, and the medication became a lot more effective for managing it.

Obviously, just entirely leaving the situation isn't a great option for everyone (heck, I lost the best paid job I ever had in the process, which wasn't great), but even if that isn't feasible, it might give you some insight into how you might mitigate the issue.

Also, keep on going when treatments don't work. There's no magic bullet here that works for everyone, so while it can be frustrating, keep trying things until you land on something that does the trick for you.

Nope, it's true. When I went for the first time a couple of years ago, my bank decided I needed more £50 notes than anything, and I got several "Wow, it's been a while since I've seen one of these," comments when I used them.

Also, fwiw, depending on where you're heading in the UK, cashless payments can be way more prevalent than they are in many places. I've been to multiple bars in and around Manchester that just didn't accept cash, and would bring out a card terminal to tap for every £2-3 beer I ordered.

On the other hand, bring a coin purse or something with you, because when you do use cash, you'll get a ton of coins back, and it becomes a pain to have rattling about in your pocket real quick.

It's pretty commonly used to refer to pickled gherkins here, I can't remember the last time I saw them just sold as cucumbers.

Didn't even really need to overlevel him for that, though. He was fast and had a high special attack, so he got the first move in most situations and could oneshot most things. Even when it first evolved, my Kadabra carried me through pretty much every gym on its own, just because of how broken the psychic pokemon were in gen 1.

I don't know, I'm pretty sure I've got aphantasia, but I love reading. I just tend to skip over character descriptions and have no clue what any of them are supposed to look like. On the plus side, I'm pretty much never disappointed with casting of an adaptation meaning the characters don't look as I'd imagined them, since it's just not something I do.

I think it was last year that I had to break it to my mother that pickles are not, in fact, a naturally occurring relative of cucumbers, but rather the result of placing cucumbers in some sort of brine. She's almost 70, and apparently believed there were pickle plants out there that you could just walk up to and grab a gherkin, or something.

The last time I played gen 1, this was my strategy up until I caught an Abra. After that, once I got.some.levels on Abra and he got a psychic attack, my starter only came out when Abra ran out of moves. By the time you hit the Elite 4, you can just one shot pretty much everything with a well-leveled psychic Pokémon.

Eh, if I knew it was permitted going in, that's on me. If it's a new movie and there's no notice that they'll allow that behavior, and they allow some guests to be loud and obnoxious for the whole showing, I wouldn't go back to that theater unless I heard things changed. That was more than enough to avoid teenagers being insufferable at Friday night horror films when I was growing up. Some of them allowed it, and they had ongoing problems with teenagers being little monsters (breaking stuff, causing fights, bothering other patrons outside the theaters, etc), and gained reputations for being dumps not worth going to. Others required teenagers to be accompanied by parents, to control them a bit and shame them into behaving. Others just didn't indulge in it at all, and would just straight up kick out disruptive people.

I'd prefer more places had a system like Alamo Drafthouse's, where they post on the site when it's going to be a screening with audience participation, or a children's screening, or whatever. Everyone is free to choose the sort of screening they want to attend, and those who opt for a quiet theater experience without some muppet feeling the need to scream "Oh no! He's gonna get you bitch, run!" or similarly obvious outbursts, don't have to put up with it.

Honestly, 9/10, I find the people shouting and carrying on really only add something to the experience for the friends that went with them and find them funny. Save that for when you're watching at home with them, or when there's a screening that explicitly allows it.

For stage shows that have some audience participation as an element, sure. For most other cases, it just seems like people who don't know how to behave themselves in public. Like, sure, go for it if you're at a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening, or the theater advertised it as a sing along screening, but otherwise, it's inappropriate and inconsiderate.