Someonelol

No means no, Microsoft.

I haven't heard too many fireworks go off in my neck of the woods these past few weeks. Even now on July 3rd there's hardly anyone blowing any up compared to last year's cacophony at the same time. People are either being environmentally conscious, too poor, or too ashamed of the US this year to light fireworks. Tomorrow's gonna be the real way to know for sure though. My town's hosting an event so I'm gonna poke my head out to see how the crowds are like to get a better feel.

The ratio of empty homes to homeless people in the US is roughly 15:1. We just need to redistribute a few but the average American hates the idea of doing something nice to people they see as unworthy of life to begin with.

Just forget it. Us Americans are too comfortable/scared/tired to do jack shit. We should've been out striking and rioting like the French day after day when ICE first started to make their move. At this point we pretty much deserve what's coming to us because of the election results and us not objecting loud enough.

Of course they are. They have connections through RFK Jr's brain worm.

Just copy paste the job description to Google and it'll likely end up to the original job posting. These recruiters are so lazy they don't think anyone will ever get to their secret client lol.

Too bad they're not more common in the US. They look so fun to ride.

How could this statistic be determined if the quitters couldn't confirm if there's a good post after logging off? Seems like a lie from Big Data.

Meanwhile the Big Beautiful Bill which this rider was attached to passed 51-50 in the Senate.

She has zero sympathy from me. Let her denounce Trump all she wants but I have no desire to consider her an ally. She knew exactly the kind of man Trump was the first go around and still decided to ignore it all to either hurt the people she doesn't like or believe the bullshit he said about improving the economy. If Trump weren't around she'd still have the same nasty values that'd make her vote Republican.

The one constant with China is change. There have been plenty of dynasties whose power waxed and waned over the years. Much of the current Chinese territory is being held through force, like East Turkestan or Tibet. As long as the people keep experiencing better living conditions they'll tolerate the tyrannical governance of the CCP. The government's betting big on censorship and shows of force, but I doubt it'll suffice if enough civil discontent rises at once. China's not a very resource independent country and all it takes is a shortage of food or oil to quickly destabilize its economy and its hold on power by extension.

Since much of the world still relies on China's factories for so many general goods there's a balance on its power through trade. As production and logistical chains continue to diversify outside its territories though, it'll have a harder time keeping its citizens in check through economic growth. It'll either have to start shifting into a service economy with good relations on its trade partners and neighbors for goods, or it may start to take a more nationalistic path. There's an argument that both paths are actively being followed.

China heavily investing in trade and infrastructure with African countries may keep things peaceful as it continues to grow economically. This prosperity will only delay the inevitable though. People will eventually want to move away from factory work into more lucrative but limited service jobs as inflation starts to take hold due to an ever increasing amount of money in circulation. Its expected population decline will also start to kick in as the much higher population of older citizens would burden the comparatively smaller one child policy generation that would be needed to take care of them.

China promoting nationalism will distract the resentment of its people from the government to outside powers instead, but it would come with some severe geopolitical consequences. It's already pissed off all its maritime neighbors by trespassing and overfishing in their waters, along with intentionally using its navy to attack fishing vessels. It's also trying to claim vast swathes of international waters by dumping a bunch of sand and establishing forts on them all over the South China Sea. China and India routinely fight in border skirmishes using sticks and stones to try to keep the conflict from escalating. Eventually all the regional countries might decide to form a coalition and starve China out of its oil via a few strategically placed blockades either on the Strait of Malacca or along Sri Lanka. The economic damage over something like this might provide enough domestic unrest to force the government to change.

I ended up making a rather large amount of purchases from GOG: the entire catalog for Prince of Persia, Crysis, Crysis Warhead, Vaporum, Hotline Miami 2, and Men of War: Assault Squad.

I hope you feel better soon Perfect Dark!