Many people said it wasn’t the worst stuff they’ve ever drank (since it was mostly made from concentrate juice I think that’s pretty good). The ciders and whites would end up pretty yeasty but if you let them sit for a year they developed this intense floral scent and lost a lot of the breadiness. I had a peculiar friend that didn’t like alcohol all that much but loved the mango-habenero-apple cider I made. I made one red and it was this thick dessert wine that was 17% alcohol and responses to it varied from projectile vomiting to asking if I could give someone another bottle.

My first apartment was a tiny studio where I had a bed, table, a bunch of storage, and a five gallon bucket I made wine in. I don’t see what’s wrong with that.

The clearest answer: right now, probably not, but things could change.

This is not accurate. Gwynne Wilcox was fired from the NLRB and while the courts are deciding whether or not Trump had the legal authority to do that she remains de facto not a member of the board. If Trump were to fire Powell there is no reason to think he would be allowed to remain chair while litigating the matter. The courts have already decided that the burden is on the former officials to prove Trump cannot fire them, not the other way around.

Ireland last invaded in 1649

Northern Ireland

In addition to what’s already been said here, their presidential campaigns and their extremely strong media strategy have really set them apart from a lot of other orgs. People hate on the presidential campaigns but they really put the party out there in a way that nothing else does.

They basically say this every convention and then do fuck all to further the goal. Even in this past year the “left wing” NPC was prepared to endorse AOC after everything and only unendorsed because of some fuckery that was almost certainly in violation of the bylaws.

I’ve always wanted the DSA to do well but the organization is thoroughly strangled by its opportunistic social democratic right wing. Even if they manage to reach a better stance on any issue from Palestine to domestic labor disputes actual agitation and organizing is sabotaged and will be until the left of the DSA either splits or purges the right.

Because most Americans are dumb and most American boomers are even dumber. “Bringing back manufacturing” is not a thing they have ever dedicated a modicum of thought to. If they have it’s probably “factory work manly, service work gay” or whatever. There is no thought about industrial policy or even an assesment of the current industrial landscape.

For instance where I live there are basically nonstop free or even paid courses to train and place people in industrial trades so that they can work in manufacturing or construction. These jobs cannot find enough employees. i honestly don’t know why more people don’t do it. My only guess is that these jobs are quite brutal and require a ton of OT compared to making 60k a year in an office/wfh working ten hours a week.

The boomers up here still say “bring back manufacturing though” as if it means anything.

In the US at least it starts off with the fact that something like half of all births are totally unplanned for. Then through some combination of hubris and stupidity most Americans don’t actually make any substantial effort to learn how to be a parent. Then between the cost of it all and the general social malaise lead to the parents lashing out at the weakest and most vulnerable people in their vicinity - their children.

Of course our society facilitates this bad parenting. Family planning is extremely inaccessible and sometimes even looked down upon. The same goes for therapy or counseling. Children cost a lot and there’s very little universal support. Still though it’s kinda shocking to me that people don’t take it upon themselves to make an effort to learn and plan. Anecdotally it seems that millennials and Gen z are more inclined to that though which is good.

At work I created a simple spreadsheet to help with a task where you have to add two values in a row together and then subtract a third and then round up to the next multiple of eight. All of these are whole numbers, most of which are less than thirty. A substantial number of the people I work with clearly struggle with it and I’m constantly finding mistakes from when they use it stemming from bad arithmetic.

Realizing this was actually what made me give up on organizing here more than anything else. If Americans can’t do first grade level arithmetic no wonder they’re so clueless as to how badly they’re getting screwed over.

This whole thing has been such a naked attack on trans people, public education, and the state it’s absurd that nobody seems to see what is going on. It all started because a trans girl competed in the pole vault here. Now as someone that participated in high school track in Maine I can definitively say that nobody except the couple dozen girls who compete in it care about high school girls pole vault here. A few years ago a trans girl that ran in a cross country race was also targeted despite people caring even less about girl’s cross country.

There are a lot of problems with women’s high school sports here. They underfunded, there’s basically nobody to coach them, they lack adequate facilities, transportation, and equipment, they don’t even really get attention in the local news. These fascist hogs don’t give a shit about any of that though.

Now maybe it’s a bit conspiratorial, but these attacks on Maine coincide with state Republicans unprecedented efforts to cause a months long government shutdown with a people’s veto of the proposed budget law. I personally believe that this is not just a spontaneous attack on trans kids or rebellious governors, but a test case to see if the Republicans can effectively gut state governments through quasi-legal means where they otherwise couldn’t win power through elections.

It’s the only thing that really makes sense. All these cuts will fall way harder on Northern Maine (which is Trump Country) than liberal Southern Maine. They don’t like trans kids but they’re not targeting the big liberal states over the same issue. They certainly don’t care about girls sports. It would fall right in line with Project 2025 to strangle a small purplish state until it gives in just enough for Republicans to take power and then set us back 40 years though. And if it works here they’ll try it out in other states. They’re targeting Maine because it’s isolated from the national consciousness but there’s plenty of states with slimmer Democratic majorities that would be easier to topple.

Yeah because we absolutely refuse to invest in good medical infrastructure instead insisting on a byzantine network of isolated capitalistic care providers increasingly pressured by market forces to withold care mediated by a parasitic private insurance market. Maybe the wealthiest percentile can afford their own private infrastructure but anyone below that, even people making 200k a year, aren’t going to be able to afford their own hospital, let alone a network of doctors working in tandem like is typical in basically every even partially industrialized society.

Not to mention the pollution, consumption, or social rot. Those probably are not good for us either.

I went to my local protest. While it was huge I have to say I think I was more scared inside of it than anyone outside would have been of it. The whole thing was incredibly poorly organized. Everyone was body to body in the middle of it with no paths to get through. People brought dogs and small children into that which probably didn’t go well. Walking through I kept getting smacked by people being careless with their shitty cardboard signs with smug one liners painted on them. There was no unified chanting or anything like that but also it was too loud to actually talk with anyone or hear what any of the speakers were saying. It’s unclear who set the rally up or if there’s anyway to get involved further. I’ve been in moshpits that have been better organized.

If you have a safety net and no high interest debt keep contributing and hold your positions.

Getting out of stocks in January would have been smart. Now it’s kind of a crapshoot. it depends on how old you are and what you’re planning on doing with the money though. If you’re young it’s probably better to just hold your positions. If you’re nearing retirement you should probably already be investing a lot more conservatively regardless of the state of the market.

If you don’t have an emergency savings or you have high interest debts then it might be better to put your income towards that rather than the 401k, moreso the closer to retirement you are. If you’re young and have a safety net you should probably just keep putting the money in though.

Be like the Chinese and think in centuries

So invest in gold, guns, internationally and in food stocks (that is actual bulk food because it’s gonna get a lot more expensive)

Imo it’s the former. Take a hit in the short run but ruin everyone else and buy what they have left. They genuinely could be trying to reshore industries but they will be even more monopolized than before so they could offset the losses by dictating the new cost of everything.

American unions frequently do fucked up shit. I can’t speak to the rest of the world but here most of them are quite bad. They do occasionally help working people so it’s not for nothing but there’s a reason they continue to bleed membership despite being quite popular.

Edit: to be clear I do support workers organizing. The big unions in the US just suck and oftentimes impede good organizing more than they help it

If only there was some term for soldiers captured by their enemy. Perhaps we could even have some sort of international legal code to govern the conduct and treatment of these people.

All he’ll have to do is say he’s not leaving the office after the 2028 election and Democrats will be in shambles.

It’s gonna be a big year for the grocery industry. Dozens of cbas are up all over the country. Unfortunately UFCW is also a joke of a union. Let’s hope they can pull their shit together.