barsoap
You call it unregulated, but that is the natural trend for when the only acceptable goal is the greater accumulation of wealth.
Nah unregulated is the exact right word and that isn’t the kind of neolib you’re out for. Those would use “free” instead of unregulated, deliberately confusing unregulated markets with the theoretical model of the free market which allocates resources perfectly – if everyone is perfectly rational and acts on perfect information. Which obviously is not the case in the real world because real-world.
There’s a strain of liberalism which is pretty much the cornerstone of Europe’s economical model, also, generally compatible with socdem approaches, and it says precisely that regulation should be used to bring the real-world market closer to that theoretical ideal – they’re of course not going all-out, you’d need to do stuff like outlaw trade secrets to actually do that, have all advertisement done by an equitable and accountable committee and shit. But by and large regulation does take the edge off capitalism. If you want to see actually unregulated capitalism, have a look at Mexican cartels. Rule of thumb: If you see some market failure, regulate it away. Like make producers of cereal pay for the disposal costs of the packaging they use and suddenly they have an interest in making that packaging more sensible, can’t externalise the cost any more.
Defeating capitalism ultimately is another fight altogether, it’s nothing less than defeating greed – as in not the acquisition of things, but getting addicted to the process of acquisition: The trouble isn’t that people want shit the problem is that they aren’t satisfied once they’ve got what they wanted. Humanity is going to take some more time to learn to not do that, culturally, (and before tankies come along nah look at how corrupt all those ML states were and are same problem different coat of paint), in the meantime regulation, rule of law, democracy, even representative democracy, checks and balances, all that stuff, is indeed a good idea.
Cutting yourself is the absolutely worst way to assess sharpness. Source: I absolutely happen to have a semi-shaved left forearm right now and the first thing I do when in my mum’s kitchen is to curse her knives they’re practically indistinguishable from pestles. Expensive knives, too. Expensive, not necessarily good, you can max out the grade of steel you’re getting for about 30 bucks for a Chef’s knife. Victorinox Fibrox or F. Dick ProDynamic, that’s what you see line cooks and butchers use.
Testing sharpness by moving your thumb along the edge is more or less valid, sharpness correlates well with how much your neck hairs are on edge if you’re cutting yourself you’re not listening to that. In any case doing that won’t let you assess how smooth and regular the edge is, slicing paper is good for that you’ll feel every jag.
When someone says “I’ve been sober for a year” and a commenter says “I’m proud of you, OP”, is that narcissistic?
No, it’s an instance where what people say is not what they feel: The second doesn’t comment on their own pride, but is expressing something like admiration. At the most, pride in being friends with such a fine chap who would manage to be sober for a year.
Mostly, though, it’s just a fixed phrase of encouragement and praise, unrelated to the actual words used. The fixed phrase could be “cowabunga!” and it’d mean the same.
Fat tends to reduce heat perception (capsaicin is lipophilic), and then there’s stuff like Szechuan pepper which manages to balance out heat by stimulating the movement sensors. A raw ghost pepper certainly doesn’t come with either. Also parts of that thing will be way hotter than others, for the whole thing to have an average of what 1M SCU the pith near the stalk needs to be absolute hellfire. Protip: Always try the very tip first, if it’s making you spit fire you don’t want to eat the rest :)
But here’s a government… literally cutting military spending
Germany is increasing military spending. Not by as much as the defence ministry would like, but it’s definitely not a cut.
As to the Ukraine aid the government is pointing at those Russian central bank funds, interest on those more than makes up for the shortfall: They’re in fact estimating that the money they budgeted won’t even be used up now that that stuff is available and, unsurprisingly, has priority. Why should Germany spend money when we can make the Russians spend it.
How is an American supposed to argue in favor of funding the defense of Europe
Seriously? Don’t bother. We’ve written you off as fickle bastards long ago and are completely prepared for a Trump re-election and the US going full isolationist. Russia will react with a renewment of effort, Europe won’t falter, Putin won’t know what’s happening (completely convinced that you somehow rule us), he will be replaced not by kinder but at least a bit saner people, war will end.
And definitely don’t wait for us to shape our policy to be convenient for your own political struggles. We’ve got more important stuff to do.
Also, do have a look here. Germany spent around 40bn so far, the US 70bn. The US has about 4x the population. We’re spending more than twice as much as the US per capita, and that’s not even counting in that most of what the US sent was military hardware that they would have decommissioned, anyway, valued at replacement cost, not what it actually cost you: Negative amounts, because you don’t have to spend money on actually decommissioning it.
That’s generally how SCU are measured nowadays: They’re measuring the concentration of three or four types of molecule, then weigh them according to how hot they’re perceived to be. The scale itself is very sensible: “I have a litre bottle of red sriracha, it has 3000 SCU, that means if dilute it with 3000l (3m3) of water I won’t taste any heat any more”.
Sriracha red is about the most you can throw at people not accustomed to spiciness before they get more than mildly uncomfortable, that is, people who actually still taste all of it, haven’t build a tolerance. That’s about 3000 scoville.
Yes, people eat jalapenos over here. With other stuff. Habaneros? Only people eating those pure are people thinking they look cool doing it.
Also, IMNSHO, nothing above about 10000 should be eaten without Szechuan pepper. And you can definitely start adding it as low as 2000.
I’m pretty sure average Danish horseradish would kill your usual WASP. And don’t get me started on that abomination Americans call mustard. Or alioli.
Go, go ahead, take a bulb of garlic, remove the sprouts, put them in pestle and mortar and mush them through with some good olive oil and salt until you have a nice emulsion. Taste the result and dare again to speak about “white people and spice”. Nope, it’s American puritans who invented corn flakes and Graham crackers so people would stop masturbating.