Good.

Elden Ring, Stardew Valley.

Once you're in a Medicare Advantage plan, it can be difficult to switch to a different one; https://archive.is/T4mpm

My mom used to save gift cards and use them for "special things", to get something she really wanted but was a splurge for her. When she died, she had probably like $800-900 in gift cards waiting to be spent, and they'd lost like a third of their value. They were part of my mom's estate, so they went to my sister (the executrix). When my sister died, I found those exact same gift cards, still unspent, only this time they'd lost all their value. Plus she has a bunch of gift cards of her own that she'd been saving that had lost a bunch of value as well.

I know I'm fortunate that I don't need to scrape money, and that not everyone can afford to do this. But after losing out on a bunch of money, this is what I do: when someone gives me a gift card, I spend it immediately and enthusiastically tell the giver what I got - or, in some cases, supposedly got: occasionally I'll use the card to buy a gift for someone else, or I'll just buy gas or groceries. But I use it on something I want or need, even if it's just in the vaguest way. That avoids losing the value of the money, which I absolutely hate.

But I take the birthday or holiday or thank-you or thinking-of-you card that the gift card came in, and I'll tuck in the same amount of cash as was on the gift card. I have a little stash of cards in my desk (and my heir knows to check those cards), all with some amount of money in them. And when I'm feeling down, or really need a treat, or just need to remember that I'm loved, I go pull out the cards and read through some of them. And if I'm still feeling bad, I may pull out some money from the card and go buy myself something - an ice cream or a nice dinner or a pair of socks - it doesn't matter. To me, it's that person giving me a giant hug on a day that I really need it, whether that person is even still around - to me, that's an immensely valuable gift, and something that I always treasure.

Also, to keep each gift giving, I usually sneak back a couple weeks later and put the same amount of money back into the envelope: just because I spent that specific money doesn't mean my mom or grandma loved me any less, and sometimes I need to be reminded of that.

Great point. In the United States, there are between 17,000 and 32,000 rape-related pregnancies every year.

I'll also point out that, in most states, rapists get parental rights to their children, which ties the victim to her abuser for almost 19 years. Yes, yes, technically the victim can sever the parental-rights requirement but - like so many of these laws that put the "rights" of others over a woman's - it isn't easy:

One state doesn't allow severance at all; 25 others only allow it if the father is actually convicted of the rape, which only happens in 28 out of every 1,000 cases. Actually, out of those 25 states, a number of them only allow severance if the rapist is actually convicted of certain sexual offenses or degrees of assault that led to the conception of the particular child - so if the jury decides to convict of first-degree sexual assault and not rape, the rapist may still get to argue for custody or visitation.

Of the other 24 states, 18 require “clear and convincing evidence” that shows the rape led to the child in question; the other 6 require either clear and convincing evidence or a criminal conviction.

Fuck the Republicans and everyone else who's set up this entire "women are just brood mares" situation.

Good.

Thank you - I appreciate it!

An unusual activity report on the Campaign Sidekick app is auto-generated when a survey is filled out by a canvasser some distance from the location of the target voter’s home. The app has built-in tolerances and generates an unusual survey report after taking into account several factors, such as how quickly the canvasser at issue is supposedly hitting doors and if the responses are recorded more than 100ft away from the target door.

Sounds mostly reasonable.

a person familiar with the America Pac operation said: “Sidekick was never expected to handle the auditing of America Pac’s door operation.

Sounds like they didn't expect Sidekick's audits and therefore didn't fake-proof their data enough.

I am no help on this subject, but find it interesting. Are there any particular channels that you remember as especially 'good' that you could recommend?

Hunh, that's interesting. https://mynbc15.com/news/nation-world/british-labour-party-sending-staff-to-campaign-for-harris-in-us-swing-states-united-kingdom-uk-left-leaning-kamala-harris-2024-election-democratic-party-north-carolina-pennsylvania

Canada expelled the diplomats because India assassinated a Canadian citizen inside Canada. The murdered man was also a Sikh leader.

No, they shouldn't just pay a fine to get out of this -especially since it's just a measly one billion dollars "cost of business" fine. They should lose all government business for a period of years.

What pisses me off about this is that, in conditions of low visibility, the pedestrian can't even hear the damned thing coming.

And Faux wasn't looking for a viral gotcha moment when they invited her?

You just made my world a better place - thank you! And welcome to my block list :)

So, ghettoes. And not the US ghettoes of the 60s and 70s, but the German ghettoes of the 30s and 40s.

They just revealed that the head of the NRA very sadistically tortured and murdered a cat. No one will be near that guy anytime soon.

“One of the biggest functions of blocking is giving women the ability to stop weird men from constantly making them uncomfortable and scared,” one user wrote. “So of course Elon had to change that.”

Given how he constantly tries to insert himself and his opinions into everything he sees, it's clear he has no idea about how consent works, nor why people don't want him in their lives.

That person who was in a car that ended up crossing three lanes, hitting a pole and then hitting a tree. They declined an ambulance because they were scared of the ambulance bill - then got a bill for $150 for refusing the ambulance. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I desperately hope that the US doesn't let you down come November :(