Clippy

dental hygiene is important to maintaining health i have heard an electric tooth brush works better than a manual one at cleaning teeth.

the textbook i skimmed and comments i read suggested soft toothbrushes to avoid gum reccession (while applying a low amount of pressure on teeth with the bristles [pressure on par with the amount you apply to shining shoes])

they also said that at some point when you hand dexterity is more developed in your youth, you should adopt the usage of the modified bass technique.

also if you hate tying floss across your finger, you can tye the floss into a loop. i cut the floss at a lenght of 37 cm and tye it into a loop

edit additional rinsing your mouth after a meal/ beverage

having your coffee/drink all in sitting go instead of sipping throughout the day, as the acidic level in the drink can weaken teeth

there is also different types of abrasive levels for each toothpaste (if you are worried about brushing away your enamel on your teeth, which causes extreme sensitivity)

i read these stories from this ig account and i think it is kind of interesting so i am reproducing them here and would like to see what kind of comments they create

the post is more orientated to arabs, but i figure there may be some similar sentiments expressed in the hexbear lot

A Beijing resident, infected for nearly 10 days, experienced fever, sore throat, blood-streaked phlegm, nosebleeds, and extreme fatigue, calling this wave “terrifying.” - epoch times source

poster source origin on twitter

apologies, i took as fact due to it originating from the covid conscious folk - there is low confidence in reputability of these claims due to source of reported symptoms being from an anti china faction.

I was just watching the new season of andor that made me go like "fuck i'm going to have to read theory aren't I."

she says "propaganda isn't enough, you need to support a radical insurgency on the ground that you know are going to do the wrong thing"

we're not for everyone just the 1%

source via xcancel

ALL MY APES GONE. (alongside my life savings)

source xcancel or twitter

It's becoming clearer and clearer that we're looking at a seismic shift in the US's relationship with the world, between:

1. The US dismantling its foreign interference apparatuses (like USAID 👇)
2. Marco Rubio stating that we're now in a multipolar world with "multi-great powers in different parts of the planet" and that "the postwar global order is not just obsolete; it is now a weapon being used against us"
3. The tariffs on supposed "allies" like Mexico, Canada or the EU

This is the US effectively saying "our attempt at running the world is over, to each his own, we're now just another great power, not the 'indispensable nation'."

It looks "dumb" (as the WSJ just wrote) if you are still mentally in the old paradigm but it's always a mistake to think that what the US (or any country) does is dumb.

Hegemony was going to end sooner or later, and now the U.S. is basically choosing to end it on its own terms. It is the post-American world order - brought to you by America itself.

Even the tariffs on allies, viewed under this angle, make sense, as it redefines the concept of "allies": they don't want - or maybe rather can't afford - vassals anymore, but rather relationships that evolve based on current interests.

You can either view it as decline - because it does unquestionably look like the end of the American empire - or as avoiding further decline: controlled withdrawal from imperial commitments in order to focus resources on core national interests rather than being forced into an even messier retreat at a later stage.

In any case it is the end of an era and, while the Trump administration looks like chaos to many observers, they're probably much more attuned to the changing realities of the world and their own country's predicament than their predecessors. Acknowledging the existence of a multipolar world and choosing to operate within it rather than trying to maintain an increasingly costly global hegemony couldn't be delayed much further. It looks messy but it is probably better than maintaining the fiction of American primacy until it eventually collapses under its own weight.

This is not to say that the U.S. won't continue to wreak havoc on the world, and in fact we might be seeing it become even more aggressive than before. Because when it previously was (badly, and very hypocritically) trying to maintain some semblance of self-proclaimed "rules-based order", it now doesn't even have to pretend it is under any constraint, not even the constraint of playing nice with allies. It's the end of the U.S. empire, but definitely not the end of the U.S. as a major disruptive force in world affairs.

All in all this transformation may mark one of the most significant shifts in international relations since the fall of the Soviet Union. And those most unprepared for it, as is already painfully obvious, are America's vassals caught completely flat-footed by the realization that the patron they've relied on for decades is now treating them as just another set of countries to negotiate with.