it honestly depends on how much you use the service.

i had an account for a while to a site that shut down. while i had it i was downloading a bunch of different files, not necessarily pirated stuff.

i’d say if torrents isn’t a viable option and you would be using that site downloading at least 500 mb worth of data a day, it might be worth it. if something you want is available only on one of these sites, it depends on how bad you want it and how soon you want it.

i agree with hogg that the party needs a reset, but the vice chair of the party should not be the one making that comment because it gives all appearances that the party will be picking and choosing the primary candidates and throwing their weight behind their preferred candidate. that’s going to lead to party fractures and a lot of hard feelings. you want to ensure more republicans winning easier than they should on the local level? have the party pick the candidate instead of the people in the district.

that’s why i am very glad the chair has pretty much laid down the law. the party leadership (save one) is committed to electing democrats wherever they are whoever they are. one person in leadership is committed to electing specific democrats to office.

which if you think about it is a colossal failure. he’s down in florida. he’s had ample opportunity to elect his chosen democrats in florida with his pac. how successful were his candidates? and you’ve got people who see that (lack of) success he had in florida and say, “yeah, let’s take that plan and apply it nationwide, even if the better democrat for an area isn’t someone that hogg prefers.”

can I just say as a cis male how weird it is how everyone forgets trans men exist and that everything they say that applies to trans women also applies to trans men. I’m surprised how no one has ever brought up a 14th amendment equal protection clause argument against these laws because clearly the the intent of the laws and the language of these laws was written exclusively for trans women.

and then there are the opposite cases, where in order to comply with the law, manly masculine men would be forced to use the women’s restrooms.

you know, with women.

especially the easily frightened at everything because they have been societally coddled and protected for the entire history of this country white women.

i don’t know. I’m not ever going to personally deal with that, but I think that if all trans people were going to comply with these idiotic and pointless laws that don’t protect the people they are written to protect the trans women probably would have it easier than trans men. I really don’t see too many men being seriously traumatized seeing a woman in the men’s room (especially when cis females have used men’s rooms with men in them regularly at places like concert venues when the line to the women’s room is long or too far away).

but then again I don’t really give a shit, just flush and wash your hands.

so how are we going to pay for it? where are we going to get the money?

I’m also in kentucky. I may save $25 but that’s only because of my investments that aren’t much and are getting smaller by the day.

they are doing this when the federal government is slashing disbursements to the states, especially the funds that those very same southern and very republican states rely on.

i honestly hope they do it. because it’s going to jack up property taxes and sales taxes to sky high levels. you thought southern states were old and homogeneous now. wait until the next generation can’t afford housing, can’t pay for the basics, can’t even find poor poverty wage jobs, and have no social safety net to catch them because social safety nets is soshulizm and communust.

this is excellent news.

the public already hates him. and by wrapping his arms fully around the republicans the people will hate them both even more.

we’re having chili for dinner, but not that disgusting cincinnati style variety.

in other words, this is a reason for the workers to unionize.

who else but a genius would buy a social media company, remove the things that made it functional and useful, reintegrate and allow to overpopulate elements that made it worse, and destroy a multi-billion dollar icon and name render useless a word that the thing you bought created and is universally understood because he thinks calling stuff X is cool?

not only a genius but ta soooper genius.

I wouldn’t buy one. good job. elon destroying your brand name.

there’s a lesson that I learned in college that I still follow today: never eat lunch at lunchtime. unless I’m traveling I’m not eating at peak periods anyway so I really wouldn’t be affected by this pricing change.

I still don’t like it though. unless that wendy’s is the only game in town (literally) this isn’t going to be good for business.

what are the chances it would have been way overpriced compared to it similar competitors?

the last time I was on an airplane was december 31, 2000.

nothing since that time has encouraged me to break that boycott.

people are wondering if bluesky will end up like twitter. I’m not for one reason, twitter didn’t start going to shit until elon took over, fired the content mod team, and let the neo nazis, porn bots, and cryptobros run rampant. twitter before elon was fairly functional and useful.

when they eventually scale up I can see bluesky being what pre elon twitter was, especially with content moderation.

didn’t elon just have twins with a tesla staffer or am I misunderstanding? cause if that’s true I can very much see that kind of thing going on at spacex too.

the government should investigate that, and they really could do it since spacex has that multibillion dollar government contract.

the lesson that I’m afraid is being taught is that if we vote for our leaders and our leaders not only do nothing but act like they are or will do something just to get elected that voting is meaningless. I don’t want to perpetuate the thought that nothing will change so don’t bother voting because then nothing really will change.

I could have told them that. congress knows about school shootings and child poverty and healthcare and ineffective methods of teaching and they overwhelmingly choose not to do anything about it.

legislating mentions of homosexuality and transgenders out education doesn’t protect kids. refusing to acknowledge history to “protect” one subset of kids feelings doesn’t protect kids. and using kids as political chips because they don’t have agency doesn’t protect kids. it really and solely protects the old establishment which is becoming smaller and more irrelevant to society every day.

I don’t have kids myself but I would tell them that anyone who claims to speak for you you need to listen to what they are saying and decide for yourself if they are speaking for you. because I am for damn sure the vast majority are only appealing to the parents, not the kids.

it’s disgusting that those in charge in israel are using what was done to their people in the 30s and 40s as a universal shield for when they commit atrocities. you can’t tell any israeli they’re doing bad or else you get accused of being antisemitic. you can’t negotiate anything that way unless israel gets everything they want.