True enough, but toxic toys aren’t super common in the US. It certainly happens, but they eventually get detected and recalled. That being said, with Trump’s plans for gutting regulatory bodies even further, I’ll be much less inclined to order cheap toys from online.

Yeah, wtf? I thought they were sanctioned to the extent that it made it so most US/EU companies literally couldn’t continue doing business with Russia?

Tons of people. My wife bought a $7 digital camera off of there for one of our kids and 2 years later, both of our kids still love playing with it and it works perfectly fine. We’ve bought a couple of other toys off of there without issue. But yeah, the majority of the products on there are typically garbage.

Think it’s supposed to be a pun since John Wick and Wicker Man.

It’s not the government that tells the insurance what’s cosmetic or medically necessary unless she’s on Medicare or Medicaid.

Regardless, there needs to be laws that make it illegal for insurance companies to try and overrule doctors’ medical diagnoses and deny coverage. I’ve straight up had my insurance company argue with my doctors about prescriptions before, requiring them to fill out a bunch of pre-approval forms that they have to renew every year, which then causes me to have to wait an extra few days before I can even get my meds. Luckily, my meds aren’t life-or-death. Unfortunately, they pull the same shit for people needing life-or-death medications, too. It’s fucking evil and I cannot comprehend how over 220 million US voters aren’t rioting to get a better system.

Straight representation? Lol, what? Like every major branching choice RPG with romance options offers plenty of hetero choices (Witcher, Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Baldurs Gate, Cyberpunk 2077, etc). Even in Veilguard, the first AAA game I’ve played that offers nonbinary choices, still has plenty of hetero representation. Culture wars are so god damn exhausting and unwinnable.

Police may be leaving phones online in case it continues receiving relevant evidence (texts, emails, etc).

I disagree. There are a number of Coromon creatures that also heavily resemble some pokemon. I mean, it’s to be expected, there are only so many variations of creature designs before they begin being similar to each other, especially with how long Pokemon has been at it, having like 1000+ creatures now.

Anyway, Nintendo is a greedy shitbag of a company. I love many of their games, but they’re the absolute worst when it comes to being extremely litigious and/or consumer friendly. I truly hope they lose this legal battle

How tf does Coromon get away with it? I’d say that’s waaaay more of a rip-off than Palworld. E: typo

Oh, I 100% agree that one of the biggest issues is due to corporate mass house purchasing and squatting. But my understanding was that is a problem in some large metros and the surrounding suburbs around those. For example, in San Francisco, much of the issue is due to NIMBY laws preventing high rise condos/apartments in many areas of the metro, which artificially suppresses the supply of new housing.

Really, there isn’t an all encompassing, singular reason that’s driving up the prices everywhere, but a multitude of them. It’s a difficult problem to tackle, but it’s incredibly frustrating that most governments (local, state, and federal) thus far have made barely any effort to address it.

Keep in mind that inflation has risen over 30% in just the last 4 years, which explains at least part of the rise in prices. I wouldn’t be surprised if inflation is even higher in certain areas of the country. I’d also not be surprised if Georgia is getting a lot of natural disaster refugees from places like Florida.

100% WFH jobs have rapidly dried up. They’re not super common like they were in 2021-2022. Most places either went back to the office or require a hybrid setup (x # of days in office every so often). I won’t deny WFH jobs have definitely contributed to a general rise in home prices in some areas, but I’d need to see data proving it is heavily contributing to a rise all over.

I think you overestimate how many women will simply prefer a woman leader by default. Several countries have had women as their PMs/leaders before and they don’t automatically win every woman’s vote each election cycle.

What’s going on here in the US is just pretty cut and dry: If you value women having bodily autonomy and equal rights, then the choice is pretty damn clear on who you should vote for. Unfortunately, it feels like so much attention is on the presidency, this obvious connection isn’t being evenly applied to other political offices as well (i.e. last I’d read, all projections have the GOP winning the Senate).

They’ve been actively fighting libraries over the years, with renewed fervor in the last decade. As numerous others have pointed out before–including the article I linked–if libraries hadn’t already been such a long-standing concept for centuries, they would 100% not be allowed to come into existence nowadays. Hyper greed has poisoned every facet of modern society.

What is that from?

This is incorrect. Look into how SuperPACs get around the normal laws for donator transparency.

I have rarely encountered places that don’t accept cash. The only places I’ve seen signs that state no cash are smaller businesses and/or street merchants/vendors.

Regardless, I agree with the spirit of your comment. I rarely use cash anymore simply because carrying it around is inconvenient. You have to know ahead of time exactly how much something is going to cost and then when you get coins back, that’s doubly more inconvenient/annoying.

Ultimately, OP’s post is a little melodramatic. Gift cards are meant to be more personal, although in the specific context they wrote, it does feel a bit half-hearted (“Thanks for helping, here’s a random gift card I found in my wallet that I never used!”).

The SEC is the regulating body for the US stock exchange. Numerous companies on the stock exchange are heavily involved in Bitcoin. And if I recall correctly, Bitcoin is also exchanged through platforms regulated by the SEC. There are other things the SEC oversees that could be directly/indirectly related to crypto as well.

I wouldn’t think so, since Mastadon isn’t inherently “owned” by any one company and doesn’t rely on an advertising business strategy.

Hah, that’s interesting. I tried looking up to see if that’s true, but I’m not finding any reliable sources, only sites and articles talking about the first message sent on ARPANET.