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  nostr:npub1qfkcklnmes45z75y7y8dkud5yll8vp5eq5ysk9rmgqdxeasv8unsrfj6kq Where have you been? 
 (Big hug)

Some of us miss you! But I understand if you want a break!  
 Yes. I have been screaming to anyone who will listen that Bitcoin EFTs will be elder abuse at glo... 
 CAN CONFIRM, IS GOOD IDEA.

/me is a mommy's boy. 
 The problem is that we're so desperate to look for a magical solution for underpeforming black students that all of the old tricks didn't work, so we have a new generation of activists and educational policy makers with no real world memory of the past who don't see the awkwardness of this idea. 
 It’s sexy and you know it 
 I see you also work in a legal death trap. 
 Adjust to "worn-down, chubby, middle-aged mom of two WITH ENORMOUS BREASTS who works part-time as... 
 And yet, still very pretty. :-) 
 What's your earliest memory of the Internet?


#AskNostr 
 Assuming you weren't skipped ahead, you did this what I was in first grade in the extreme late 1980s so that's *amazing* to me. 

I didn't play around with the internet for at least another six years. 
 Meanwhile, my Catholic school had the updated versions of Apple IIes with color screens, educational games, and Logo programming for a surcharge over the tuition. No internet connection as this was years away from AOL being common knowledge. 
 I think somebody noted that DoD was basically the easiest way to live like a European as an American citizen...except for the whole military controls your life part. Otherwise, you had cheap healthcare, daycare, and excellent racially integrated schools. 
 Which leads one to ask if your dad was involved in the first Gulf War?

FWIW, my niece is currently overseas as DoD property so the positives tend to outweigh my fears of the negative for her. IOW, there's a reason I pray for peace and prudent leadership... 
 It's weird, I've known you for over a decade, and somehow never made the connection until now. 
 In contrast, my parents' generation came to the States just as Vietnam was slowly winding down, so they missed out on that, and they were too old for GW I. My cousin was out of the Marines by the time Iraq started up as well. A lot of Haitians from that era were unlikely to see the military as an option, especially since the bourgeois types were unlikely to rocket their way to officer status like back home, and the homless black veterans on drugs literally scared people into wondering what goes on in the military.

Now my niece and another cousin are DoD property. 
 Another movie or TV question: if you could play any fictional movie or TV character, who would it... 
 Racists: This is a way better choice than the black guy! (/grimacing) 
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 Merry Christmas! :-) 
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 I've jokingly noted that those types of dresses scream "hot" when it's worn by a hot girl, but "plain" when worn by even above average woman.

FWIW, the second dress in the white floral pattern looks the best. The others feel awfully, um, Little House on the Prarie-ish. I think some of us have some memory of an older woman in our life wearing something similar as a house dress, and it destroys the *entire* ability to see women in these as attract. They're de facto burkas. 
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 Happy New Year! :-) 
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 I just realized that I can't post into the +no name categorized posts. 
 It's weird in that I can see them, but any attempt in Coracle leads to not being able to click through and post a reply. 
 So, um, what should I do? 
 That’s the issue. It wont even let me *post* if it’s in NoName so you would not be able to see it in the fiest place… 
 What client(s) are you using now on the web side? 
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 Wait, candidates, or is First Communion done differently there? It’s basically a April/May thing here.

Also, do you guys have big parties, or we French Caribbeans the only weirdos that do this? 
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 FWIW, the US testing as well as it did is rather shocking.

Somebody noted that US whites and Asians were BTFO of other countries, and black people were outscoring some actual European countries. 
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 Lefty residents who didn't vote for him see this as their prayers because it's their best chance of removing him from office in the hopes of somebody that will be  more amenable to their perspective. 

FWIW, the same people that would argue that NYS is run by terrible machine politics would generally turn around and argue that the US Department of Justice is probably the least affected by said machine politics. 
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 Primarily because there's a line around the block to teach in a suburban school, and NYC had issues finding qualified black and Hispanic people to teach. DoE pays better than the alternatives, so until they find a rich husband, they're going to have to teach somewhere to pay back their student loans and then pay for a down payment on a home.

With that said, the school in question doesn't have a good reputation, and it's zoned for mostly black, Latino, and South Asian working class neighbourhoods. So add in some rabblerousing activist students, social media, some Muslim kids,  and black kids who are unlikely to have philo-Semetic views and you this level of lobo in a high school. 
 IIRC, these schools aren't as anarchic as say worst case scenarios you're thinking of from the DC and Baltimore metro areas.

With that said, there way more spots available in not nice schools than in nice schools districts. If you're not Catholic, you can't teach in the few Catholic schools left. So it's either charter schools, or um, you earn $50K with that BA in teaching. For most teachers, they'll ride it out for as long as possible until they vest in the pension plan, their student loans are paid off, or a better school comes along. My friends that operate buses and subways in the worst neighbourhoods are in a similar boat. 
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(insert joke about women joining the harems of the men who don't use porn) 
 A convent with none of the benefits.

Stability and prayer? No, just infighting and drama! 
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 This comes across as an awful plot line on a Tyler Perry produced drama on BET or OWN…

When the time was needed for somebody to be on their best behavior, she chose poorly. :-/ 
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 This one hits a little too close to home for me. :-P 
 Let's just say it's a reminder of a close female friend, except she has black curly hair. 
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 Is this early or normal for your region?

In NYC Metro, this is insane for the city and Long Island, but not crazy if you're in the Hudson Valley or Poconos. 
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 I think it's the bizzaro version of the strategy where men marry the woman that they're emotionally/intellectually compatible with, but cheat on her with the "hot" girl that evokes sexual desire. They're doing the inverse where they marry the woman for sex, but desire to cheat on her with the intelligent and interesting woman. 
 FWIW, that's the only thing some men have to offer. I've jokingly said the men who complain the most about women using men for their money and want women out of careers also want women to choose them over "bad boys" because they have "money". 
 ...they don't have the GMail app on their phone, but they have WhatsApp?

OTOH, you're admittedly in a rural area so maybe it's different there... 
 FWIW, these men to be anti-feminist because feminism leads to female independence and avoidance of them for "alphas" and non-white men. So if you take away feminism, the implication is that they'll remain chaste virgins who will be forced to date them* and magically find them attractive with zero ability to compare them with previous lovers solving whatever awkward inadequacy issues that they have.

There's a reason why the more extreme ones like Islam for it's stronger anti-feminist viewpoints while also permitting divorce and polygamy.

*They assume "he has a middle class job* would somehow make them attractive if in peak 1950s fantasy land. Meanwhile, they'd probably still be in envy of the women that the men with more money/charisma could attract. 
 *Personally, it's Millennial men that don't seem like real men to me.  
I've known several Millennial dudes who are in their 30s, never married,
 and don't really know where they're going in life.*

I suspect that I'm the unmarried, never had a real girlfriend, childless 40 year old example of this. As I've told Stella before, I still don't feel like an adult and still feel like a kid in relation to the older adults in my family, and I suspect a lot of us in this situation feel the same way, but we're probably unlikely to really change our situations. 
 ...but wouldn't that be true of Millennials? FWIW, a decent chunk of Gen Y is composed of siblings of younger Millennials in some cases. 
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 I thought pricing was always in grams in metric land? 

IIRC, at least that's what I remember from walking around Auchan. 
 If youre buying super high end cuts that usually go to high end restaurants and other upper class buyers, it seems sensible in terms of pricing.

If you’re buying average ReWe cuts, then this is just awful. 
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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Act_2003
For those who aren't aware, that's the legal framework permitting these types cases in the UK, and based upon the sample cases used below, it seems that saying anything in public or private social media in the UK is a raging liability risk.  
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 Germany does the "13th month" thing?

I've jokingly said that holiday pay for Thanksgiving *and* Black Friday is my employer's Christmas bonus. :-) 
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 FWIW, are they doing this to women outside of Southeast Asia?

I get why you're so viscerally against it, but if this all done on a consensual basis, I personally see nothing wrong. If a bunch of white dudes started marrying off Caribbean women, I wouldn't be mad. That just means the apex people think our women are pretty too! :-) 
 FWIW, one of the more interesting quirks is that contracts that would have gone to European (and Japanese) firms are now going to Chinese firms. It's arguably a make work scheme for the Chinese to fuel internal economic growth, reduce unemployment, and ensure greater control over their own natural resource supply chains. 
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 Retirement *insurance*? 
 (Does a google search)

Um, do the riesters offer guaranteed payouts upon retirement, or are they subject to the succces of the markets? 
 I tend to be somewhat concerned about pensions given that I'm a single adult with zero chance of marriage and kids at this point, so a guaranteed payment upon retirement is attractive to me, but outside of government and a few unionized workforces and non-profits, you're left with far less secure defined contribution accounts and IRAs which guarantee nothing.

FWIW, this seems that this is basically a German substitute for our 401ks/IRAs. 
 Principle + 2% is better than "OMG, where's my money".

This isn't play money, it's your *retirement*.  
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 *  Same feeling I had when Covid broke out. Global must-see-TV.*

I was on leave from work, so that was *definitely* the case for me with Covid. BBC, France 24, CNN. Always hungry for the next drip of news to develop during peak pandemic. 
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 I wonder what you think of the chemists and nerds that play with sensors that create photography. :-) 
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 Pet Theories:

1) It's relatively easy to fly back home and stay "Turkish" with cheap flights on Wizz Air, and WhatsApp chat groups.

2) Erdogan lifting Kemalist secular cap allowed religion to blossom which means any immigrants from his era are more likely to be wedded to their faith.

3) The Turkish economy improved to the point that the smart fraction types and the mid level types don't leave anymore. You either get the activist/artist types, or the dudes from "the back" who are poor and looking for the short cut to success via Germany. 
 It's weird, Haitians have a weird "the Americans messed up our country, but yeah that dude is corrupt" vibe, so I don't think you'd see the same degree of support for a Haitian leader. If he's so good, *why* are you here?

FWIW, Haiti doesn't allow for dual citizenship, so a lot of Haitians held onto their passports for years. 9/11 and various changes to Medicare qualifications during the 1990s made *many* Haitians sign up for citizenship*. Oddly, to think back to my childhood, it's interesting to note that my family discussed American politics despite not being able to vote for years. Mind you, they never went to the embassy to vote in Haitian elections either.

*My maternal grandmother wanted her citizenship ASAP in the 1970s. Mom became a citizen almost 30 years after arriving in the late 1960s. 
 *If he's so good, *why* are you here?*

For me, the viewpoint is, if you're in a pays blanc, and it's better than home, you should want home to be just like a pays blanc. In other words, copy the white people and be secular and educated so you and your people can be a pays blancs too. 

But I'm the child of foreigners that looks in awe of everything in the first world. 
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 How so? 
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 "Why Northern Europeans have six weeks of vacation. To spend three of those weeks in the winter in Southern Europe and the safe for tourist parts of the Middle East" 
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 Belarus did something similar with Poland, and the few who were sent back were shot at by Belarusian soliders and border patrol forcing them into the Poland. I suspect those who crossed in to the Polish realm ultimately ended up in Germany. 
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 Test :-)

FWIW, American Transit Twitter is infatuated with takt because they want regular coordinated schedules that don’t need to be “checked” in order to improve ridership, but it seems that Germany osnt able to keep the takt going at current service levels. 
 FWIW, it seems to hold up in Switzerland and Netherlands, but they're admittedly smaller countries where the Intercity service there is akin to a RegioExpress service in Germany. 
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 FWIW, I suspect it's a combination of the fact that if you're a member of the Green Party, you're more likely to be idealistic about this issue, sympathetic to poor people struggling to enter les pays blancs, and have friends who are non-white. 
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 FWIW, Medicaid pays for nursing home stays. In most states, it does not pay for home care, so it's easier to state parent X is broke and have the state cover the care than to spend your own money to care for your relatively while you're at work. 
 $15/hr at 6 hours per day for 5 days per week over four weeks is $1800. 
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 *Everyone resident over the age of 18 pays €100 and basta.*

Sucks to be you, unemployable/low wage adult. 
 For sampling purposes, my (Republican run) township has 750K residents and a budget of $500M budget. $100 per resident isn't enough.

Coincidentally, this doesn't cover our county or local school district budget. 
 You know most of us aren’t as smart as you. :-/ 
 What if nobody wants to donate for them?

I guess I’m a bit more willing to accept that some people are unemployable and unlikable. 
 Then how does my town function? Nobody is going to work for minimum wage, and the town doesn’t even run a social welfare state since those functions are done by the county. 
 Weird fact: $100 per head is $75M for my town.

My town spent $25M on health insurance for their employees. 
 IIRC, my portion of the town property taxes comes out to 1500, so I'm effectively paying a little over that now if you split the cost between myself and my younger brother.

*then they should move someplace cheaper or demand higher wages*

So people complain about price increases due to wage increases, businesses don't want to reduce their profits, and landlords don't want to cut rents. And people moving to lower cost of living locations ends up driving up rents in the new places. So there isn't a magical escape plan. 
 *The solution for high prices is high prices.*

Increase the supply of housing!

I shouldn't have to go move halfway across the country to find somewhere to live, and then spend the bloody savings on daycare because I can't afford to live near my kids grandmother who would be a far better babysitter. 
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 Wait, is that a digital artifact, or is that the infamous blue hair? :-) 
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 Could you, um, rock the chestnut coloured hair? :-) 
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 There goes my plans to visit Ireland. :-/ 
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 FWIW, a local supermarket chain was taken over by Lidl in an attempt to beat Aldi to Long Island. It was *very* unpopular with locals due to the loss of a deli counter that sold Boars Head products.

The bagged salads, brautwurst, raclette cheese, sliced chorizo, and German potato mix ensure that I keep coming back. Otherwise, fruits are meh and the freezer containing the chicken seems to have a weird smell. Salmon is *great*, but there's only boneless steak. I'm feeding two people in my household so I can be a bit more picky in terms of paying more for nicer stuff at other places. 

With that said, Shop Rite (local chain), WalMart, and BJs are where 90% of my food shopping is done. 
 TIL that Egypt grows potatoes. 
 Organic 2% milk is $1.50 less at BJs compared to anywhere else. We buy a half gallon on a weekly basis. The membership pays for itself when combined with eggs and some cold cuts. :-)

I'd love to try Aldi, but it's near the shopping mall which means it's too far and too annoying to reach for weekly shopping, so Lidl wins. 
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 The trick in the US, IIRC, is basically to refuse to issue visas until the country submits to taking back their citizen. I suspect the Germans aren't willing to do this, and have far less leverage in this regard. 
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 I'm still shocked at how a US spec car managed to survive life in Germany for so long. :-)

Has a replacement been selected yet, or are you discovering the wonders of German rural cycling? 
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 We admittedly outsourced that once every moderate sized city or county ended up with their own SWAT team. Plus, admittedly, the risk of invasion is low, and most people don't have "two weekends a month, two weeks a year" to devote to training. 
 I tend to not see it as an invasion given that, well, it's not exactly an organized takeover of the country. The Haitians and Venezuelans showing up at the border aren't seeking to overthrow the US government. They're just looking for somewhere better than home where they can work and eventually send for their relatives. 
 They basically either liquidate whatever assets (including ancestral land) they have at home to sell to coyotes, or they end up owing them with a high interest loan, or they attempt to make their way up north with some money and some luck and kindness from others. Once they're here, if they don't find work or support from fellow members of their ethnic group, at best they're looking at help from non-profits. 
 FWIW, judging by the Hispanic guys that I see sleeping under blankets in the subway system, they're not exactly securing free housing. 
 FWIW, NYC has a right to shelter regime due to a court ruling some years ago, so they're technically entitled to somewhere in the shelter system. My dad used to work at an intake center so seeing immigrants show up seeking help wasn't new to me, but the difference is the numbers seeking shelter.

IIRC, hotels and temporary camps have been the main housing sites, but other alternatives have been abandoned Catholic schools and surplus land at a mental instutition. They floated using school gyms, but the parents revolted at the idea of cancelling gym for unvetted men with free access to the school. 
 Based on what I was seeing on my commute to work, with the 60 day cap on shelter stays, they're slowly starting to use the subway system as their overnight rest point. Most seem to find an outlying station, look for an empty corner, and setup some blankets for the night... 
 FWIW, I have family members who overstayed their visas, and I wouldn't call it Lebensraum... 
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 I must admit, you're good for challenging my preconceived notions. :-)  
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 At best, you'll get the "he's a sell-out" comments in regards to his maternal ancestry. For all intents and purposes, he comes across as a white guy to most people, and as a reflection of that, he's not going to see himself as a member of non-white group that would need protection from his party's political manifesto. 
 OTOH, the fun narrative buster is the fact that Mark Rutte's successor in the VVD is Turkish and seems to have more moderate politics, but is potentially willing to support him in a coalition government. 
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 FWIW, you're admittedly in a wonky spot given that while your American peers had student loan debts*, you missed out on their working years. So you married and had kids versus the others who maxed out their income and rode the housing ladder.

*You're slightly younger than my comp engineer cousin who was single for *years* and earned relatively high incomes compared to the rest of us. 
 NGL, my debt from some irresponsible spending was eating away at me. I can service the debt, but it still eats away at me compared to having no debt or just debt for something like a car loan.

With that said, I suspect I'm not feeling food inflation to the same degree because the giant package of chicken only serves two people with multiple feedings here. 
 *middle class primarily from active income, but also passive income and 
with enough assets to not fall into poverty during hardship*

Then there's going to be a lot of Americans who deem themselves to be middle class who are really high proles with white collar jobs. In effect, you'd have to be a $500K managing director to really be "middle class" by this definition. Meanwhile, an accountant and teacher couple consider themselves to be middle class despite only owning one home and some investments that sit in a retirement account. 
 *And you don't need $500k. He estimates that you just need a bit over 6-figures per household.*

IOW, as I've jokingly said, you live like an immigrant.

The problem is that most people don't do all of this work to merely live like an immigrant. 
 IIRC, I have 1, 2 is *highly* theoretical for long drawn out real world reasons, 3 is *definitely* not true unless I take a huge hit to my lifestyle, 4 is somewhat true but that's due to a generous match at my previous employer that started when the market was at its lows, 5 was tested a few years ago and definitely not true, 6 is somewhat true but I don't know if I could replace the cars with brand new equivalents. 7 describes my brother's household...

8 and 12 are definitely not true, and given what Catholic school costs, I definitely can't afford high prole children so we can discount 9... 
 In retrospect, if one looks at my net pay, it's roughly 3.5% that I set aside for savings. I don't count the small amounts that I put into the 401k at work, our pension plan deductions, or the disability insurance deductions. 
 The disability insurance has no resale value and takes up 6% of my net pay. The retirement is near 7% of my *gross* pay or roughly 10% of net pay. 

The 30% seems awfully harsh, but it's easier for some people to live simply. :-) 
 I remember reading that Germans love insurance, but its rather cheap compared to the US. Hell, full coverage for my decade old car is $180 per month, and thats with a multicar discount. Its cheaper than Canada, but it’s been hinted to me that ten timwa my coverage limit is near what I currently pay… 
 …and now you see why Americans feel broke.

The fun part is that the insurance industry is highly regulated in the US, its not very profitable, and home insurance is slowly becoming unaffordable due to natural disaster risk with some states losing coverage because regulators won’t allow even higher rate increases…