southsamurai

I slept in the floor with my girl the last few weeks. Couldn't do it all the time, and she didn't always want to cuddle as she got closer to the end, but sometimes she would get scared and need company to sleep well. But she wouldn't stay in the bed, so floor it is.

You know, I should be a little miffed at someone sneaking fiction into casual conversation, but it was a fun ride lol.

Legit though, I think most people can tell whether you're looking at their face, their boobs, or their dog. For one, most people aren't grinning and making baby talk to boobs. I do, but only my wife's.

Back before my little girl went off to whatever goodness awaits perfect dogs, as antisocial as I am, as much as I hate talking to strangers, I could always tell whether someone was smiling at me or my dog, even if I couldn't see their eyes. There's an openness and joy when people that like dogs smile because of a dog that even the happiest and most friendly of humans won't give for another person.

I have resting psycho face, but when I see a dog and start smiling, even little old ladies can tell I'm not a threat.

Yeah, some people can fake it, but still.

After my girls died, it took me a while to see other dogs and not cry. It still makes me sad sometimes, and it's been almost two years since the one passed, but most of the time, I see a dog and get that goofy grin on my face the way I have since I was a kid.

As a side note, some dogs do have blue-ish fur. My girl had what's called a blue merle coat pattern as part of her fur coloration, and it really does look blue in most light, the same as the blue colors of other breeds. It's really pretty.

I was a nurse's assistant. A pretty damn good one, and one that managed to get partway through two degrees before running out of money both times (rn and psychology), but kept to with reading via the medical library I had access to at one employer.

In other words, I tended to stand out from my co-workers, but ain't qualified to do shit other than personal care, blood draws, and sweating.

But it might disgust people how often someone asks me to do some kind of procedure I'm nowhere close to qualified to perform. Anything from the simple stuff that's safe for anyone to do, like removing stitches; all the way up to pulling teeth, putting stitches in, cutting out cysts, removing ingrown toenails, setting broken bones, and pretty damn much anything they think I'm magically able to do because I worked in nursing.

And I always tell them they're crazy if they think I'm qualified to do it. And they pretty much always say something along the lines of it being better than nothing, and they can't afford a doctor.

And they'll even offer me money to do the stuff. Not as much as doctor would cost, but way less than the legal fees would cost if I did it.

No bullshit, about five years ago, a guy that lives down the street comes knocking on my door one afternoon. We know each other, but aren't friends. Dude has a rag wrapped around his hand, dripping blood. Says he's got a bad cut. I start going for my phone to call 911, and dude says nah, just stitch me up, I can't afford an ER bill.

Like, dude, what the absolute fuck?

That is the state of US healthcare. People are willing to let some rando stitch them up than go to the ER because it's too damn expensive.

It's also both sad and interesting that people just assume I can get the job done. I mean, I could do some of the stuff I get asked, not all of it is difficult. But I'm not the typical NA, most of us don't bother stepping outside of personal care in our off time. But some of that stuff, an RN isn't qualified for either. Folks don't really have an understanding of what the various certifications and degrees mean.

It's crazy

Every day. I wake up, my wife and kid are in my life.

What could be better?

You know, I think Evan Williams gets a bad rap. It isn't the best bourbon out there, even in their more top shelf varieties, but they're consistent, and they're palatable. That's important for mixed drinks imo, moreso than enjoying bourbon on its own, but still important for that too

I mean, I occasional eat insects because they're tasty when prepared well.

And I've eaten them just to see if there was any internal "ick factor" that I couldn't figure out how to disassemble and understand. And I've eaten them in the context of doing so while exploring the most primitive survival situation I could arrange safely (a bit of an oxymoron, but still).

Most of them are edible with minimum preparation. Not yummy, but no worse than something like a badly cooked mushroom, or maybe something like pickled pigs feet that's not bad, but is an acquired taste.

But then you've got crickets that are nutty and umami, be it sauteed, roasted, or fried. You've got ants that are delightfully peppery when dry roasted or fried, and provide pleasant crunch as well. Mealworms aren't horrible, but I don't like them; but they're fairly widely enjoyed by people that eat insects.

Most insects, if you dry them and roast them, then grind them, they're like adding protein powder to something. You'll notice the taste there, but it won't be identifiable as "bug", it's more akin to mushroom salt or dried mushrooms, sometimes more like dried shrimp. There's an earthiness and a hint of "game" to things, but not in a bad way.

Seriously. You might not want to try free range critters, unless you enjoy risk; but there's a good bit of truly nice eating out there.

My advice to anyone wanting to see if they can handle the idea of it, order some of the roasted crickets online, pick the flavor you want (and they're kinda like potato chips, it's really about the flavoring dust), and try a handful (or a couple of them if you wanna start slow).

My bet? If you can overcome the learned "that's not food" barrier, you'll probably either enjoy it, or be pleasantly surprised that it isn't bad. But, and I think this is very important to say, if you can't overcome that barrier, that "ick factor", that's okay. It's there for a reason, and we aren't obligated to break it down. It doesn't make you a better person for breaking it, nor a lesser person for deciding not to. Eat what you want, don't eat what you don't.

Fucking weebs.

I'll say this again.

Anyone down voting a post here is a jerk.

Doesn't matter if it's a repost, if you don't like the article, disagree with the article, this C/ is 100% people taking extra effort to give other people access to something.

They only time a down vote here would be acceptable is if it wasn't actually a "gift", as in the link was paywalled, or maybe if it wasn't from the Times (seeing as how the name of the C/ is specifically for that organization, but you still shouldn't downvote if it's a similar thing).

Votes are kinda bad overall, but since they're in place as a part of lemmy you never, ever down vote something done in good faith that provides access to information you would otherwise have to pay to access. It's just a dick move.

Man, a minigun that shoots knives would be awesome.

Well, as others have covered, the us has engaged in imperialism directly, in the past, and indirectly even now.

But I don't think that answers your question.

The "modern" US, and I use the word modern to represent the post ww2 era, has a very different place on the world stage than it did before ww2, though that place started shifting after the first world war.

You simply can't ignore ww2 and the effects it had on global politics any time something like this comes up. Most of what we think of as the way things work go back to that time even more than the nations' individual histories. There really wasn't any nation that wasn't deeply and radically changed by that.

After ww2, there was a global desire for peace and stability, with stability being the greater goal. The UN, NATO, all the major alliances and blocs stem from that.

Nukes played a huge role in major nations not being willing to just go out and conquer. It forced everyone to play a bit less overtly, so we ended up with proxy wars and coups and other fuckery when world powers wanted to extend their influence.

But, there's also another big factor. You go out and conquer somewhere, you have to manage it. You take over Columbia, you now have to run Columbia, protect your ownership of it, and deal with the people there being your people. That's a heavy burden for a world power. It's one thing to maintain a small island as a territory (think Guam as an example); it's a whole nuther thing to try and take over a nation that not only isn't going to be done without worldwide resistance, but is harder to maintain control over because it isn't contiguous.

The U.S. has a pretty major advantage by stretching across the entire continent. We've got entire oceans as borders, and entire nations that also stretch across the continent as neighbors. It's a nation that's damn near impossible to invade, blockade, or otherwise use direct methods against. Why would a nation give up those advantages by taking over somewhere else?

It's way easier to use other methods to control other nations rather than own them. Fund groups inside the country that are friendly to your nation, let them take over the country, and profit (literally, since there's a long history of the U.S. interfering with other countries' governments for nothing other than capitalist gain).

If the other country doesn't have an economic value, but have strategic positioning, or can serve as a puppet state or as a distraction, it's still easier to just stage a coup, rebellion, or otherwise put the country in a condition that's better aligned. It isn't and wasn't just the US engaging in this kind of activity, but the U.S. was pretty dominant on the western side of such activity. Our allied nations backed those plays, but the U.S. often called the shots.

In other words, the U.S. has never wanted or needed to conquer anywhere else after ww2. There were better ways to achieve goals.

You know, I ain't mad.

Dude was crazy. Did something horrible (regardless of the horrible person he directly targeted, and he did harm two other people). Was in supervision and treatment for decades.

Why the fuck should anyone care if he's trying to do something with what's left of his life? If he had gone to jail, I'd say he served his time, and that's the end of it.

He Was in supervised release at first, and hasn't caused any trouble since.

Fuck it, let the man have a life. If we can't give someone the chance to have changed after over thirty years, we're all fucked. I'm not the same man I was at 25. I'm not the same man I was at 40. Mind you, I didn't try to kill a president, but I was deep enough in the PTSD cycle that I'm kind of amazed I didn't try something that insane. Gods know that I did my own dance with self destructive shit, and that included chasing more trauma sometimes.

Give people a chance to be better.

Jfc, I did this, kinda.

I got stopped before I got my finger in, and it wouldn't have fit anyway, but I tried this fucking joke.

I am very lucky my wife has as silly a sense of humor as I do, or I likely wouldn't still have a wife lol.