I wonder if the investors are happy yet

I work near Yosemite, we don’t need one extra body there in the summer at all.

I tend to agree with you, nature should be experienced as-is, imo. I just don’t think this is that terrible.

This doesn’t seem all that awful to me. The waterfall isn’t fake, it’s just something they do in the dry season so visitors don’t feel like they wasted a trip. It’s not the choice I would make if I were running the park, but it doesn’t seem that bad to me.

I’m starting to think it’s about time we had some meaningful consequences for these bastards, and I don’t mean the journalists.

What’s a pirate’s favorite letter?

I don’t have one, but the pirate one is pretty good

What’s a pirate’s favorite letter?

I was alive and in the US then, too. I very plainly remember the nationalist fervor that the US was wrapped up in at the time; I remember the Dixie Chicks getting cancelled before cancelling was a thing because they called Bush out. Nothing exists in a void, history is ALL context.

Look, in a week, I’ll be drinking water, downloading memes, and going to work, not thinking about freedom fries. If you want to still be thinking about this shit by then, don’t let me get in the way of a good time.

Yep

It’s the internet, take a breath. I mean that seriously; you don’t have to like me, idgaf, but it’s not worth getting worked up about. You might benefit from taking a break, maybe drink some water or something.

No need to respond, I concede, you won the argument. Just take some time and reflect on the good things you’ve got.

Thanks for this insightful response. It’s clear I need to do more reading on this.

Okay, bud. I re-read and I didn’t see what you were talking about about, so I really think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. But okay.

Not my jokes, and I don’t think it’s funny. You might want to re-read my post, I certainly wasn’t celebrating the attitude that spawned freedom fries.

Yep. Dunno what else to say, we’re absolutely responsible.

IIRC, one of the effects of Brexit is that the UK’s sewage outlets to the ocean were no longer bound by EU regulations, which led to extremely high sewage contamination and closing of a number of English (specifically English, I want to say) beaches.

I think that’s a bad take. Here’s the thing, “freedom fries” wasn’t a self-enclosed phenomenon. It was part of a broader jingoistic fever that swept through the US post-9/11. Yeah, sure, it’s fair to joke about Americans being dumb, but our brains dead ass shut off after 9/11, and anyone could do anything if they just waved their hands and said “terrorists, 9/11”. And Operation Iraqi freedom was just one of the turd sandwiches we ferociously gobbled down under such framing. Freedom fries happened because France wouldn’t support our stupid, pointless invasion, and the boomer email network kicked into overdrive to create a new meme (in the literal sense of the word) of replacing anything having to do with the treacherous French with Freedom. And that was what we did to people who owed us nothing, so it felt much more dangerous to step out against it as an American, at least in the early days of the war.

The right in the US really isn’t so different. The thing we know for sure is that fascists lie and lie often. The fascists here in the US aren’t above paying lip service to certain issues; Trump tried to convince the libertarian party to vote for him by letting the guy who ran Silk Road out of jail, for example. But they’d be fools to believe them, as Europeans are fools to believe their own dollar store Trumps when they say they’ll protect or embrace the social programs. Exhibit A: what the Tories have done to the NHS. The program really isn’t all that complex, they just sneak in some modest reforms that erode the service and enshittify it slowly, or do some bullshit temporary measure that puts the service permanent behind in terms of (one to all) money, employees, or output. Then, they use that as evidence for why they must further enshittify the service and give more taxpayer money to the private sector.

I mean, not trying to sound like a pessimist as much as a realist. Even if Europe started paying the full sum of what we’re paying in defense subsidies, I seriously doubt we’d cut that spending. Raytheon and Lockheed’s investors are counting on us.

This is so frustrating to watch as an American. I spent much of my youth on the internet getting clowned on by Europeans for the consequences of my country’s hard right policies. The UK has been deservedly getting clowned on for the consequences of embracing the Tories. It beggars belief that the same people clowning on the US and UK would then turn around and say to themselves “yes, but it will be different for us, it will work for us, our situation really is different, you don’t understand”. No, it won’t be different. Pretty soon, you’re going to be following the path that the Tories set the UK on, marvelling at how dysfunctional your government is, and hearing about how the only solution is even more gibs to the people who are already the most economically advantaged and the private sector. Before you click reply, just consider that you guys deserve to get fucking dunked on, because you guys spent decades laughing at other countries for doing this shit just to say “hmmm… but what if sticking the fork in the electrical socket works out for me?” I’m honestly sad and disappointed for Europe, not least of all because after years of deservedly shitting on the US for being racist, all it took was one big wave of immigration for you guys to hold up blonde dumbasses with bad hair and worse ideas as the solution to all of your problems.

“Oh, great bozo of the European trailer park, what is your wisdom to save our culture from the immigrants?”

“Deregulate sewage plants. You will certainly not regret deregulating sewage plants.”

Enjoy your US-style healthcare system in a few years, I guess.