Strange that politics who call for deregulation never deregulate useful things.

Funny that right? Those that call for deregulation would probably call for deregulating the legal time frame that a company has to support their devices.

And as to what we did with ours, effectively trash. We have a medical junk guy who comes through yearly and picks up the stuff thats getting thrown out, he parts pieces out he can sell, sells scrap otherwise, etc. Also sells a lot of equipment to smaller hospitals out in rural that will make do, and a lot of stuff we have goes to Project Cure which sends medical devices out of country to places in need. The funny part about the rural hospitals and Project Cure is… neither of those can happen because, as I said earlier, can’t verify their accuracy anymore so for my hospital, about 30 units of trash in one day.

I work as a biomed, our hospital had to buy completely new sets of a type of ultrasound machine we have. Why?

Because in order to do the yearly preventative maintenance you have to go through the manufacturers program to test calibration. They stopped supporting it this year and shut it down. Legit these machines were working just fine, but now in order to keep up with verifying accuracy they’re essentially bricked. They did it on the exact day they hit the year mark that they legally were required to support in order to sell medical grade equipment passed.

This is only going to get worse, not better.

Yea, I read this as a biomed and was like “We’re definitely not getting this.”

How to fix: Bloody revolution, that’s about it.

I disagree with this. It’ll take some revolution, but can be avoided bloody.

On revolution I do say vote. The 2022 election was a turnout of 52% of the voting age population. Just barely over half, and that’s the second highest turnout to a nonpresidential election year since 2000. All the oxygen always goes to the Presidency but what OP is dealing with comes up in local elections, and the local and state shit deals far more with your day to day than the national. Hell, when national laws even come up, weed is still schedule 1 “more dangerous than cocaine” to the federal government but just about every state has legalized it.

It’s not a quick solution, and it’s not as simple anymore as “go out and vote” but gotta kick everyone up who hasn’t given a shit (if they’re not voting, think they’ll back you in a revolution?). It’s a fucking slow ass slog that takes daily fighting, like I’ve got a group that I’m the one who posts the ballots, the dates, the links, honestly do everything but bang on their doors and drag them to the polls but it’s a little bit that helps. As I saw “A vote is not a valentine. You’re not professing your love for the candidate. It’s a chess move for the world you want to live in.”

The Republicans have been doing that for years, they’ve never let a single dem run even for superintendent across the country uncontested. They worked slow and methodically to get the supreme court. Their revolution can be argued to have started as far back as Nixon. We’re arguably at their end game, but it seems like they’ve overreached this time, it’s time to start clawing back territory.

The reason though I’m against a bloody revolution is, yes it’s useful as a last resort, but it honestly is at that in the chess analogy above picking up the table, throwing it in the room and starting a riot. You hope you come out okay but at that point it’s really up in the air who comes out on top. Guillotines come up a lot, and France is doing pretty well right now. But remember between modern France and the guillotines was a messy time post revolution that was stabilized by someone who declared himself Emperor and attempted to conquer all of Europe.

Remember 2016 when the media gave Trump an absurd amount of free publicity by covering every stupid thing he said and did then he won? It wasn’t the only reason, but it clearly didn’t help.

2016? Shit the press gave him all the free press when he was doing the birther shit with Obama.

FFXIV.

Would I be the Warrior of Light or some random scrub? Random scrub that world has godlike beings that just absolutely dominate your will just by existing, plus just massive monsters, and some terrifying organizations.

WoL, hooboy all the moments the story made me be quiet.

Another question is do I go as myself, or can I be a catgirl?

This one so absolutely fucking much, holy shit. After a year of dating apps and literally only getting one actual conversation (that didn’t go anywhere, but they were very nice) I’ve pretty much just said fuck it, I do well enough being a hermit I don’t need to be dating.

Frankly a lot less stress.

Oh no, instead she has step-children so was referred to as a “Childless cat lady” by checks notes the running mate of the opposing party.

The only place to the conservative crowd for a woman to be in is in a single relationship with her own kids. Though I’m sure they’d have a way to gripe about it too.

He can live out his remaining time in Russia as a wanna-be oligarch, and Putin will treat him like a leader-in-exile.

Honestly think he’d be safer in North Korea. Kim Jong Un could at least see him as an ally of “the world is against us.”

Putin already views Trump as a puppy that makes messes on the carpet… while running a dog fighting ring.

Personally I hope so. They’re burning the world, it’ll at least be fun to watch them flounder in the process.

Hell, I think my biggest problem is I can’t think of anything dumb enough before they’ve already got it

I used to think I was a pessimist. But now after multiple “There’s no way people are that dumb” and being wrong I must be an absolute optimist.

Or how about the part where all their chicken’s bland as shit. “Spicy” my ass.

Popeyes is the superior chicken fast food. I’ll fight anyone on this hill.

I’ve had practice eating at Popeyes.

This… is difficult.

See, the oligarchs love Putin because he keeps them wealthy and comfortable at the cost of his people. If I come in and start helping my people, it’ll come from the oligarchs, then they’ll turn on me. Which comes to the other Putin thing, he’s absolutely feared in Russia. Someone annoys him, polonium tea. To those that are absolutely loyal to him, he has an iron fist with a velvet glove. To those not in positions of power, the glove isn’t there. That’s what his power is.

I’d like to think I’m cutthroat if it were in the name of good… but we’re talking Ex-KGB with top tier paranoia, deservedly earned. I’m pretty sure Putin-Me would have a “self inflicted gunshot” to the back of the head within hours.

Boy howdy I’m just imagining HIPAA with this.

US Here, I’d like to but not having the skill sets right now makes for difficult to move to another country.

Which leads to another problem, if I do I leave my entire social network behind to a culture that I don’t know and trying to live there. While I’m not against that, I realize that can be VERY isolating so not sure where the place I’d want to go right now.

I mean 2 parts. 1: Ukraine is fighting off a bigger countries tanks with Molotovs.

2: Logistics, supplies, etc is a HELL of a fight in two directions and the US has a hell of a home field advantage. If someone (I’m going to say from the Asian continent for this argument) any supplies they want has to cross the ocean. Then right now unless we do something to massively piss them off, we’ve got allies to the north and south so no country is giving a foothold next door (This is why South Korea and Japan being allies is important to the US, and why China really likes North Korea being there. So far the only foothold the biggest enemies to the US can get is Cuba… which right now involves circling the globe the even longer way).

But now our hypothetical military force has beaten back the US navy which is filling the oceans with all sorts of attacks, they get to the shores where they contend with the US Coast Guard, the US’s second navy. That gets beaten back, and now the land war has started. Lets say they take LA and that’s where the invasion is starting.

“Defeating” the US Military is truly a defeat of the US because now it’s a home front war. You’ll have the US military fighting on US soil, which I think the last time that happened was the civil war (correct me if I’m wrong), the Reserves are getting called in. Then even before you get to the “random guys with guns” the actual US militia gets mobilized where the National Guards of each state is called in. And you better believe they’ll definitely take their gun nutty neighbors in this because the national guard works day to day in civilian world.

So now we’ve gotten to logistics. The US likes to beat its chest when it comes to military, but the true might of the US in history has been logistics of “We need x here today” and we can ship troops to the other side of the globe faster than Amazon can deliver a package to a doorstep in country. The US has a robust interstate system, designed after the autobahn of Germany for the same purpose, moving hardware. So whatever military is fighting now has to contend with whatever front line is existing getting supplied by the factories in the middle of the country with semis running supplies daily as well as military hardware from the side of the country not getting attacked at the moment (I live near multiple military bases that’s as far from any border as one can logically get, where there’s tank divisions just waiting).

But we’re calling a defeat scenario for the US, so the hypothetical beats back the US military, who’s probably tearing apart the infrastructure as it backs up if it’s smart and plays like the Russians do. Granted the US doesn’t have a Russian Winter, but if you’re coming from the West you have the Rockies, coming from the East you have the Appalachians. Mountain ranges that makes mobilization difficult if the infrastructure is fucked, but the infrastructure is fine on the other side.

I legit cannot imagine a country, even the US, with the infrastructure to break through that wall scenario delivering hardware across the world.

But hey, we don’t have to talk a complete invasion of the US. Just some area. Remember, many US states are as big as countries, especially the western ones. So an invasion happens, now you’re dealing with large swaths of territory. Russia had trouble with the Finns in the Winter War, with Russia being right next door because the Finns didn’t just up and fight the major people. No they’d let tank battalions pass, then when the logistics crew following the battalions showed up they’d get sniped. Or the US tried to fight in Vietnam and were beaten back by civilians. Or occupied Afghanistan and ultimately the Taliban managed to regain control. Occupation is REALLY hard because even for a small territory you have to have a large soldier to civilian ratio for those “military grade” weapons and tactics to beat civilians (the difference between a “military grade” AR-15 and a civilian one is the ability to turn it to fully automatic. That is something that modifications exist to do.) And if an invasion is coming I guarantee you every Scheels, Bass Pro, Cabelas, Academy Sports, and every mom and pop gun store will be having a fire sale on ammunition.

TLDR: It would be a logistical hurdle to even shut down US military bases before reaching one of the mountain ranges, while the US would be sitting in its logistics hub. Invading forces only really truly succeed historically long term when the civilians are on the side of the invaders because occupying long term is really hard, and I think you’re underestimating the military logistics of a country that has ammunition vending machines.

And while the Navy is brought up, lets not forget the Coast Guard.

While the Coast Guard is joked about as dollar store Navy, it’s a legit military service that has been actively at war against drug smugglers past few years, but gets sent over in previous wars to fight in riverways. This gives the US navy the entire pacific to fight against Russia, and when they do get to the US, there’s a second home based one under a completely different administration to fight at the shores.

the right’s attacks on her are likely to be a lot more openly bigoted

They’re already dusting off the ole Obama birther playbook and asking if she’s qualified to be President due to citizenship.

From the US and I pay a lot of attention to politics.

Her past is she was a bulldog in the courtroom, absolutely a firebrand and ready to take on anyone. By making her VP, her job was mostly to not make the administration look bad, which is a tough job for a firebrand so for years it felt like she was put in the back and kept quiet.

Roe v Wade decision happened, making the abortion argument on the side of the Republicans getting what they wanted, Biden is a Catholic and male so completely uncomfortable using the fact that abortion is the winning ticket item for the Dems so Harris has been beating that drum hard and getting out. GRANTED the media has been focusing on “Biden too old!” (Legit had to learn a Biden policy from BBC because American news isn’t going to talk about that) so she’s still feeling a relative unknown to the country at large.

There are people calling for wanting the DNC to do a vote, but we’re past that marker, there’s people disappointed, and then there’s a lot of people excited. Right now this election is going to shape up to be more “interesting” than Bush v Gore or Trump v Hillary.

I have one for those that worked at Disney World. “What time is the 3 o’clock parade?”