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Joined 26 days ago
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Cake day: March 10th, 2025

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  • You were correct in your initial assumption. The show The West Wing only focused on a core of close advisors, but you often got reference or hints at others that were just never featured much on screen.

    Traditionally, a President has a very large staff. They have panels of experts on all kinds of different things (The President’s Council of Economic Advisors, the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, etc, etc). A quick (and not at all thorough) web search shows that the Executive Office of the President of the United States typically employs ~2,000 people.

    The current administration is run by neophytes and morons who have little-to-no experience in government and don’t really know what they’re doing. They’re running the government like the mob, where they value loyalty and ideological purity over experience and expertise. So they only give important jobs (like making their tariff list) to very loyal people who will do whatever the President wants. As such, the people doing the work have no clue what the fuck they’re doing, so they look for shortcuts. That’s why we keep seeing things like programs being cancelled which include the word “biodiversity” as a result of them just ctrl+f “diversity” and hitting delete. That’s also why they turned to ChatGPT to figure out their tariffs, because they have no clue how else to do it, and have nobody with intelligence and experience to ask.






    1. Belgium for 10 days as part of a school exchange trip in high school. Was a lot of fun. We saw a lot of touristy stuff, but also the first time I was able to legally buy alcohol or go to a bar. That was over 20 years ago and I still have a pair of bowling shoes I stole from a bowling alley on that trip.

    2. Belize. I’ve been twice. The first was for 2 weeks when my uncle was marrying a woman from Belize. We spent a week near where her family is from so we could meet that side of the family, then a week on the island where the wedding was. The second time was for a week for a vacation. My friend’s dad owns a house in Belize, so we had a free place to stay. Second trip was MUCH less touristy than the first one, which was nice. We mostly hung out in local bars.

    3. Guatemala. During my first trip to Belize we took a day trip to visit Tikal. I really wouldn’t say I “visited” the country as Tikal was the only place we stopped, but my passport got stamped, so I’ll include it.

    4. Mexico. Spent a week on vacation. We stayed in Playa del Carmen and did some very touristy things.

    5. Costa Rica. Again, for a week. Again, pretty touristy. I liked Costa Rica a lot.

    6. China. Went for the first week of my honeymoon. I have friends who live in Beijing. We spent the first half of the week there, mostly going to restaurants, bars, parks, and other places my friends hang out at. We also went to the Great Wall. For the second half of the week we went to Xian to see the Terracotta Soldiers.

    7. Malaysia. Spent the second week of our honeymoon here. First few days were on a resort island to do the SUPER honeymoon resort thing. Second half was in Kulala Lumpur where we mostly just wandered around checking out the city.

    8. Japan. Spent an hour layover there on our flight home from Malaysia. Again, I wouldn’t really count it, but they stamped my passport.

    9. Cuba. Spent a week in Cuba on vacation. By far, the most enjoyable country I’ve ever visited and most fun vacation I’ve ever had. Before getting to the country, the only prep we did was book a room for our first night. Everything else we just figured out along the way and stayed where people suggested might be fun. Also the only country I’ve felt a strong desire to visit again. (Not that the others were bad, but I tend to want to go somewhere I’ve never been when I vacation).


  • It makes me feel like they’re trying to minimize or discount my own feelings (of disappointment, anger, betrayal etc) to present themself as a victim. To me, an apology doesn’t really mean much. It’s just words. If you apologize, then continue to do the same thing that elicited the need for the apology in the first place, then you’re not really sorry. You’re just apologizing to get me to stop being upset/confrontational/etc.

    Say ‘sorry’ once, but demonstrate you’re actually sorry by changing your behavior. Otherwise, you’re just repeating false platitudes in order to dismiss my own feelings.






  • At the Tesla protests, yes. it’s mostly standing there with signs and chanting. At the one I attend, the dealership is on a major road with a TON of traffic. People line the street on either side stretching for about 1/2 a mile. The first protest had a bunch of people at the front door of the dealership, but police came and arrested one person. Since then, there has always been a police presence right at the front door. The cops tend to leave us alone if don’t go up to the door of the dealership. A couple of times every hour a group will organize to try to block the road. They’ll usually hold the space for about 5 minutes before the police come and force everyone back to the sidewalks. The point here is to challenge authority.

    On a broader scale (I attend a LOT of protests), it depends on the protest. At those that are planned and coordinated by a larger organization (think the Women’s March, March for Science, etc) there’s usually a stage with a series of speakers “preaching to the choir” to energize the crowd. There’s lost of people chanting in unison various slogans/chants. Usually there’s a single rallying point where the speeches happen, then there will often be a march from that point to somewhere else. Along the route the crowd shuts down the streets, chants, carry signs, etc. The point here to make connections with like-minded people and demonstrate that there is popular support for whatever issue/concern there is.

    At less coordinated protests without a central organizing committee (think the 2017 airport protests, the 2020 uprising) there’s not as much of set “schedule of events”. It’s more of a way for a community to express their collective anger/fear/outrage/etc. The specific goal will depend more on the specific event. For example, the 2017 airport protests were against the first version of Trump’s Muslim Ban. People entering the US from the countries he had tried to ban people from were being held in holding rooms at airports. A large number of activists showed up at airports where those people were being held and the sheer numbers and anger we were expressing got the people working at the airports to let the people go. There were also immigration lawyers who showed up to those protests. When the people in holding were released, they had legal representation right there waiting to support them. The 2020 uprising events were about showing that people weren’t afraid of the police and wouldn’t be silenced by police violence.

    At every protest I’ve ever been at, there are always people from various organizations walking through the crowd trying to get people to sign up. Sometimes it’s just collecting names/emails/phone numbers for a fundraising list. Sometimes it’s staffers for politicians raising signatures to get on a ballot, or to get a referendum on a ballot. Sometimes it’s activist organizations trying to get people who might be willing to take further actions.

    As virtually every protest winds down, there’s usually a group of people, almost always not affiliated with the “official event” who organize to continue taking action, typically less sanctioned, and dubiously legal actions.

    Most protests don’t achieve their immediate goal. That’s how it’s always been. The way we tend to talk about it, any given movement or event has 3 sets of goals: short-term/immediate goals, mid-terms goals, and long-term goals. We usually fail at the short-term goals (although not always). But we’re almost always successful at the medium- and long-term goals. These Tesla protests, for example. The short-term/immediate goal is to shut down the specific dealership we’re protesting at. That has only happened where police presence has been light and where protesters are willing to take illegal action and get arrested (which is always a minority of protesters). This goal has largely been unsuccessful. The medium-term goal is to destroy the Tesla brand so much that the stock price plummets. This is already happening. After the election, Tesla stock prices skyrocketed. Since the protests started, the stock price has already dropped back to where it was before the election, wiping out all that value added since the election. Keep this up, and we’ll hopefully force it even farther down. If we’re lucky, they’ll have to start closing dealerships. The long-term goal is to remove Musk and Trump from power. Obviously, that hasn’t happened yet, but that’s why it’s a long-term goal.