Would you give her blanket immunity for federal crimes over a more than 10 year period?
De Beers just implemented huge price cuts on raw diamonds of up to 10% because prices in the market were falling so fast and they wanted to implement a price floor.
There are a lot of things this could mean, but the narrative that makes the most sense to me is the middle, upper middle, and lower upper classes are cutting back on luxuries because they're being squeezed by inflation.
Some people claim that sanctions on Russian diamonds are causing prices to drop, but that's the opposite of the reaction you'd expect. Russian sanctions would be more likely to raise prices outside of Russia, since a major source of diamonds would be eliminated.
Another potential problem people cite is that lab grown diamonds are becoming more accepted, but there's no reason why that would have happened just recently to this extent unless something else such as economic pressures was causing people to rethink the natural diamond market. DeBeers has also reduced prices for its lab-grown diamonds by nearly 40%
There are a lot of things this could mean, but the narrative that makes the most sense to me is the middle, upper middle, and lower upper classes are cutting back on luxuries because they're being squeezed by inflation.
Some people claim that sanctions on Russian diamonds are causing prices to drop, but that's the opposite of the reaction you'd expect. Russian sanctions would be more likely to raise prices outside of Russia, since a major source of diamonds would be eliminated.
Another potential problem people cite is that lab grown diamonds are becoming more accepted, but there's no reason why that would have happened just recently to this extent unless something else such as economic pressures was causing people to rethink the natural diamond market. DeBeers has also reduced prices for its lab-grown diamonds by nearly 40%
I was watching the movie "singing in the rain" last night with my boy. He loved the singing and tapdancing numbers. He was pretending to tapdance during "good morning"
Two thoughts...
First, it might just be me, but I feel like they did a lot more with explicit body language than most film today does. The whole story of the blonde actress and the male lead told without needing words for anyone with an eye.
Second, I dated a girl who looked and sounded just like the blonde actress lol. Very pretty girl but deeply flawed (which maybe explains what she dated me lmfao)
Two thoughts...
First, it might just be me, but I feel like they did a lot more with explicit body language than most film today does. The whole story of the blonde actress and the male lead told without needing words for anyone with an eye.
Second, I dated a girl who looked and sounded just like the blonde actress lol. Very pretty girl but deeply flawed (which maybe explains what she dated me lmfao)
I think a lot of good people are realizing that postmodernism is a dead end. It's great that you can point out all the things that are wrong with the world, but that's all you can do. And if all you can do is tear things down then eventually there's nothing left. There's obviously things that should be torn down, we tore down institutions such as chattel slavery, we largely ended absolute monarchy, there are all kinds of things that we ended, and many of those things needed to be ended, but the problem is it's a saw -- and if you apply a saw indiscriminately to anything it's going to get cut.
In the Bible and Christianity there are two separate things that are needed.
The Old testament tells us that there are rules and that God has a vision for how people should be and how the world should be, and that if you don't follow that vision it won't just affect you, it could affect your children, it could affect your lands, it could affect your people. And by the way, whether or not you think it's fair it is true. There are many people out there today who live without virtue whatever you wanted to find that virtue as, and by rejecting virtue they seal their fates.
Even if you don't believe in a God who is enforcing the rules, there is a physical world that will enforce the rules, and it is unforgiving and will wipe you and your entire bloodline out if you are too huberistic. Prior to the Christian religion, religions such as Greek myth or Roman myth saw the gods as much less fair, and that they were Petty and cruel and would mess with Petty mortals for arbitrary and capricious reasons. This represents the fact that out there in the world arbitrary things can happen. How many good people died during the hurricanes this year? Christianity's solution to this problem is to tell us that this is not the end, and if those people were good then even if they unfairly met their maker, if they nonetheless followed God's commandments they would face a reward we couldn't see. This is consistent with a god whose character is not arbitrarily changing and providing us with boons on a hollow whim, but one whose character is stable and can be relied on forever as loving his creation.
The New testament tells us that God recognizes our fallibility, and loves us and in spite of our fallibility as humans, he is willing to forgive those who repent in their hearts for all the times that they miss the mark. The synergy of justice and love is the final overall product, not just the Old testament and certainly not just the New testament.
Postmodernism would reject both of these Grand narratives. It would tear down everything, and to what end?
One thing that I do think is important is the fact that more than one ideology can exist and should exist at one time. Just as the Old testament and the New testament relate fundamentally different sorts of ideologies that must exist in synergy, Western Civilization further expands with things like classical civilizations philosophy which was the basis of the Renaissance and ultimately the enlightenment whose golden future we are living in today. I've written that length in the past that you need more than one ideology, and perhaps you need far more than one ideology. The one thing that you shouldn't have is your dominant ideology is the idea that you're tearing everything down.
Another thing that's probably quite important is the fact that where postmodernism and the current main line ideology of what's left of individualist consumerism is a road to misery, and so building to the Bible is a vision for how Christianity can help build communities. Church communities may be flawed, they are after all made up of flawed individuals, but they are important to the well-being of the individual, the community, city, and ultimately the nation. None of us are islands.
Of course, I'm just a retard on the internet so keep that in mind. I speak big words good, but I'm about his intelligence as dog digging up the yard trying to find that bone.
When my son was born, I bought an illustrated kids Bible that we are now on the second time through, and I bought him a beautiful leather-bound King James bible, but if I'm being totally honest with all the thees and thous, I have definitely considered picking up one of the modern English versions.
In the Bible and Christianity there are two separate things that are needed.
The Old testament tells us that there are rules and that God has a vision for how people should be and how the world should be, and that if you don't follow that vision it won't just affect you, it could affect your children, it could affect your lands, it could affect your people. And by the way, whether or not you think it's fair it is true. There are many people out there today who live without virtue whatever you wanted to find that virtue as, and by rejecting virtue they seal their fates.
Even if you don't believe in a God who is enforcing the rules, there is a physical world that will enforce the rules, and it is unforgiving and will wipe you and your entire bloodline out if you are too huberistic. Prior to the Christian religion, religions such as Greek myth or Roman myth saw the gods as much less fair, and that they were Petty and cruel and would mess with Petty mortals for arbitrary and capricious reasons. This represents the fact that out there in the world arbitrary things can happen. How many good people died during the hurricanes this year? Christianity's solution to this problem is to tell us that this is not the end, and if those people were good then even if they unfairly met their maker, if they nonetheless followed God's commandments they would face a reward we couldn't see. This is consistent with a god whose character is not arbitrarily changing and providing us with boons on a hollow whim, but one whose character is stable and can be relied on forever as loving his creation.
The New testament tells us that God recognizes our fallibility, and loves us and in spite of our fallibility as humans, he is willing to forgive those who repent in their hearts for all the times that they miss the mark. The synergy of justice and love is the final overall product, not just the Old testament and certainly not just the New testament.
Postmodernism would reject both of these Grand narratives. It would tear down everything, and to what end?
One thing that I do think is important is the fact that more than one ideology can exist and should exist at one time. Just as the Old testament and the New testament relate fundamentally different sorts of ideologies that must exist in synergy, Western Civilization further expands with things like classical civilizations philosophy which was the basis of the Renaissance and ultimately the enlightenment whose golden future we are living in today. I've written that length in the past that you need more than one ideology, and perhaps you need far more than one ideology. The one thing that you shouldn't have is your dominant ideology is the idea that you're tearing everything down.
Another thing that's probably quite important is the fact that where postmodernism and the current main line ideology of what's left of individualist consumerism is a road to misery, and so building to the Bible is a vision for how Christianity can help build communities. Church communities may be flawed, they are after all made up of flawed individuals, but they are important to the well-being of the individual, the community, city, and ultimately the nation. None of us are islands.
Of course, I'm just a retard on the internet so keep that in mind. I speak big words good, but I'm about his intelligence as dog digging up the yard trying to find that bone.
When my son was born, I bought an illustrated kids Bible that we are now on the second time through, and I bought him a beautiful leather-bound King James bible, but if I'm being totally honest with all the thees and thous, I have definitely considered picking up one of the modern English versions.
Which I guess is to say, he should absolutely do it. "Burn it all to the ground Biden". Lol the president who got more votes than any other president in history.
Lol can you imagine the political impact I'm doing something like that?
There would never be another Democratic politician elected for the rest of us history...
There would never be another Democratic politician elected for the rest of us history...
They actually have some hair but listened to a YouTube video that told them that if they're even a little bald they should just shave it all off.
Aliens don't yet realize you shouldn't trust everything you read on the internet.
Aliens don't yet realize you shouldn't trust everything you read on the internet.
Might as well, he's already being treated like it's entirely his fault Kamala lost the election. I bet you that he burns every bridge before he leaves, and no that doesn't mean for the maga side.
One of the ingredients in mayonnaise is raw egg. If you cook the egg, you can't make mayonnaise with it.
Even though it's in canada, it's basically a rust belt town. The whole region was largely forestry and paper before those industries were moved first to South America and then eventually just to China. The whole region has been absolutely devastated by globalization and the like, and none of these lefties care in the least as to the struggles of towns like that.
This is basically just kicking a homeless person on the street. "Get a job learning to code gay things!"
This is basically just kicking a homeless person on the street. "Get a job learning to code gay things!"
[Admin mode] Doing some maintenance behind the scenes, might be a bit slow for the afternoon. Hoping the maintenance will improve overall performance.
It just occurred to me that people who pronounce "actor" as "hawk tuah" want to tell us how to vote to run the country.
Either way, can we make John Bolton the ambassador to space and then just shoot him in a rocket into space? We can make it a lifetime appointment.
I sometimes wonder if AI will get so good someday that it'll be able to take your life's worth of social media posts and turn it into a simulacrum of yourself. Once I'm gone, will an advanced AI be able to take all my effortposts from the fediverse and create a longwinded, incredibly pretentious version of me (to fit my posts on the fediverse :P)?
I feel like anyone who doesn't see the story as redemptive has never been in the dark place as a NEET hikikomori.
I spent some time as one after a pretty good job I had right after high school ended. Part of the reason was that I was in the rust belt and the town's main employer just laid off 2/3rds of its workforce so every minimum wage job in town already had plenty of applicants, but I won't pretend it wasn't also somewhat my own fault for having some unrealistic expectations about the world. It was my millennial reality check. I wasn't going to get life on easy mode because being good on computers was a secret cheat skill and I was going to go work for cisco making six figures to start. I ultimately did get a job, but it was a shitty job pumping gas for half of minimum wage (no idea how that worked, I just needed a job)
Yes, that was almost 25 years ago now. Today I'm married, I have a son, I have a job scrubbing toilets at a truck stop (or something like that). It was an 8 month period back then, but I'm often reminded that my life didn't have to turn out the way it did. I meet NEETs, or I meet people who have fallen off and didn't make it to a good life in other ways, and I can see how easily I could have become that person. The way I ensured I did not wasn't by waiting until I became perfect, it was by leaving my room. It was by breaking down the walls I built between me and the outside world and showing who I was to people including the fact that I was and still am imperfect.
It isn't just about physically leaving your room, it's about a cycle of fear and self-loathing that makes you desperately want to go back even if someone coerces you outside for a few minutes. People who point out that Rudeus has negative characteristics doesn't realize that part of getting out of your room, getting out of your house, getting out of your yard, is realizing that it's ok to be imperfect, and everyone has their own imperfections, and the world isn't going to immediately and irrationally hate you for not being perfect. If you meet a woman and she realizes you like T&A it isn't this immediately disqualifying thing, and all the people on the Internet talking like there's a secret cabal waiting there for you to mess up even once and let the secret out that you're actually a man.
Then you're trapped on the Internet (I'm old so it was dial-up for me back then, and you had a limited number of hours even), and while the world outside seems so scary the Internet seems so inviting, like it doesn't care that you're weird. Altavista will just serve up the next search query without asking questions. It's why after the Internet became popular the phenomenon became so much more common.
In the end, Rudeus being imperfect is a requirement for the real redemption story -- it's about him going out into the world and being genuine and flawed and finding the courage to keep putting himself out there despite the fact that he's imperfect and he knows he's imperfect. Along the way, he also grows into a still flawed but significantly better person than he ever was in his previous life.
For the people who point out Rudeus is still flawed at this point in the story, the question needs to be: Should he go lock himself up in his mansion until he stops being a pervert then? Will that help? Should he lock himself up in the sex dungeon in his basement and stay there until he dies to ensure he doesn't accidentally offend a woman? He could, but he's had a positive effect on many people despite his flaws, including a major positive influence on Eris, Sylphie, and Roxie. Eris would have died on the demon continent if Rudeus wasn't there. Sylphie would never have learned the magic she did and would have died in the fall after the teleportation incident. If he didn't have that redemption of choosing to leave his room in this world, of choosing to make connections with people, of choosing to be open and let people in and not just put on a fake facade of what he thinks people want to see about him, none of that would have happened.
This is already kinda too long, but my favorite direct hikiomori story is Rozen Maiden, and in particular season 1. One of the top moments in anime of all time for me is in Episode 11 where Jun's sister Nori is inside Jun's inner world, and it's filled with his self-doubt and all the reasons he's a loser keep playing on TVs in a dead world. She doesn't snap him out of it by saying he's perfect, she snaps him out of it by saying everyone is struggling, everyone is failing, and admits she's struggling because she feels like a loser for not being able to help her little brother. It speaks to exactly what I'm talking about that the key isn't to be perfect, but to just get out there and try and not let your self-doubt stop you. (I've attached a copy of the video, but unfortunately it's the far inferior dub because I couldn't find the sub anywhere)
I spent some time as one after a pretty good job I had right after high school ended. Part of the reason was that I was in the rust belt and the town's main employer just laid off 2/3rds of its workforce so every minimum wage job in town already had plenty of applicants, but I won't pretend it wasn't also somewhat my own fault for having some unrealistic expectations about the world. It was my millennial reality check. I wasn't going to get life on easy mode because being good on computers was a secret cheat skill and I was going to go work for cisco making six figures to start. I ultimately did get a job, but it was a shitty job pumping gas for half of minimum wage (no idea how that worked, I just needed a job)
Yes, that was almost 25 years ago now. Today I'm married, I have a son, I have a job scrubbing toilets at a truck stop (or something like that). It was an 8 month period back then, but I'm often reminded that my life didn't have to turn out the way it did. I meet NEETs, or I meet people who have fallen off and didn't make it to a good life in other ways, and I can see how easily I could have become that person. The way I ensured I did not wasn't by waiting until I became perfect, it was by leaving my room. It was by breaking down the walls I built between me and the outside world and showing who I was to people including the fact that I was and still am imperfect.
It isn't just about physically leaving your room, it's about a cycle of fear and self-loathing that makes you desperately want to go back even if someone coerces you outside for a few minutes. People who point out that Rudeus has negative characteristics doesn't realize that part of getting out of your room, getting out of your house, getting out of your yard, is realizing that it's ok to be imperfect, and everyone has their own imperfections, and the world isn't going to immediately and irrationally hate you for not being perfect. If you meet a woman and she realizes you like T&A it isn't this immediately disqualifying thing, and all the people on the Internet talking like there's a secret cabal waiting there for you to mess up even once and let the secret out that you're actually a man.
Then you're trapped on the Internet (I'm old so it was dial-up for me back then, and you had a limited number of hours even), and while the world outside seems so scary the Internet seems so inviting, like it doesn't care that you're weird. Altavista will just serve up the next search query without asking questions. It's why after the Internet became popular the phenomenon became so much more common.
In the end, Rudeus being imperfect is a requirement for the real redemption story -- it's about him going out into the world and being genuine and flawed and finding the courage to keep putting himself out there despite the fact that he's imperfect and he knows he's imperfect. Along the way, he also grows into a still flawed but significantly better person than he ever was in his previous life.
For the people who point out Rudeus is still flawed at this point in the story, the question needs to be: Should he go lock himself up in his mansion until he stops being a pervert then? Will that help? Should he lock himself up in the sex dungeon in his basement and stay there until he dies to ensure he doesn't accidentally offend a woman? He could, but he's had a positive effect on many people despite his flaws, including a major positive influence on Eris, Sylphie, and Roxie. Eris would have died on the demon continent if Rudeus wasn't there. Sylphie would never have learned the magic she did and would have died in the fall after the teleportation incident. If he didn't have that redemption of choosing to leave his room in this world, of choosing to make connections with people, of choosing to be open and let people in and not just put on a fake facade of what he thinks people want to see about him, none of that would have happened.
This is already kinda too long, but my favorite direct hikiomori story is Rozen Maiden, and in particular season 1. One of the top moments in anime of all time for me is in Episode 11 where Jun's sister Nori is inside Jun's inner world, and it's filled with his self-doubt and all the reasons he's a loser keep playing on TVs in a dead world. She doesn't snap him out of it by saying he's perfect, she snaps him out of it by saying everyone is struggling, everyone is failing, and admits she's struggling because she feels like a loser for not being able to help her little brother. It speaks to exactly what I'm talking about that the key isn't to be perfect, but to just get out there and try and not let your self-doubt stop you. (I've attached a copy of the video, but unfortunately it's the far inferior dub because I couldn't find the sub anywhere)