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Cake day: June 1st, 2023

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  • Not with that attitude, they’re not. Back in my day we had good old-fashioned corn dogs made of every kind of dog you can imagine. German Shepherds. Dachshunds. Labrador Retrievers. Irish Wolfhounds. Greyhounds. Golden Retrievers. Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers. Border Collies. Normal Collies. Bull Dogs. Giant Schnauzers. Miniature Schnauzers. Corgis. Poodles. Airedale Terriers. Lhasa Apsos. Shihtzus. Chihuahuas. Xoloitzcuintles. But that was back when men were men and dogs were corn dogs.









  • Finance-wise, have an wmergency fund and well-diversified portfolio. This is not financial advice, and I’m not a professional, but this is what I’d do with retirement funds and personal stock accounts:

    Emergency fund: if you already have this handled, then look at your investments. If you dont have an emergency fund, do everything you can to save up at least 3-6months of living expenses - ideally in a high-yield savings account to protect your money from inflation.

    US stocks: Don’t be over-exposed to US stocks, especially riskier ones. Historically, bonds and foreign stocks have been recommended to balance your portfolio, but many people have ignored that in recent years due to the dominance of US large-cap stocks, especially the tech sector. Ensure you’re diversified in accordance with your risk tolerance/retirement time-horizon.

    Non-US Stocks: It would be good to have a non-US ETF or index fund with developing and emerging markets. It may not perform as well, but can potentially hedge against US market volatility. The counterpoint here is that US stocks are globally interconnected enough that getting non-US stocks would overexpose you to that part of the market. Caveat emptor, do research.

    Bonds: bond ETFs/funds, I-bonds (inflation protected securities, you can buy $10k per year), and automated bond ladders can give you steady returns. Remember buying bonds directly is fairly illiquid - your money will be stuck in the bond for the duration of the bond’s term.

    Cash: Inflation isn’t crazy right now. Probably wouldn’t be bad to have more cash than normal sitting in high-yield accounts (earning around 4% APY right now) since the market is likely to dip. Maybe consider liquidating some investments that are riskier than you’d like. I wouldn’t really advocate trying to time the market, but also it doesn’t seem like a bad time to be a little heavier on cash imo.

    Check out Boglehead 3 fund portfolios and their variations. Imo it is time to be safe and boring. If you have a long time until retirement, don’t panic - ride it out and consider rebalancing your portfolio to the standard, oft-recommended asset mixes. If your retirement timeline is short, make sure that you aren’t over-exposed to risky investments like stocks.



  • Explaining chinese memes to help me learn chinese:

    我的父母

    Wŏ de fùmŭ

    My parents

    你以后不生孩子,

    Nî yîhòu bù shēng háizi

    (You later not birth kids) - the characters in yîhòu literally mean “at [later time/future/after]”

    等你老了

    Děng nî lăo le

    (When you old) - le indicates that an action has completed, so this means “when you get/are/have become old”

    谁照顾你?

    shéi zhàogu nî?

    (Who [take care/attend to/look after] you?) - zhàogu has several meanings including to “take into consideration” and also to take care of.









  • ALoafOfBread@lemmy.mltoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldTrue Story
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    4 months ago

    It really isn’t leftists’ fault, though. Trump easily won the popular vote and flipped georgia, pennsylvania, and wisconsin from their dem vote in 2020. Low voter turnout/voter suppression are the real culprits - along with dems failing to do almost any of the things that could’ve changed this outcome. Leftist memes did not lose dems the election. Voter apathy and the sheer popularity of fascism did.


  • I don’t think it’s possible to abolish prisons for all crimes. But why does a thief or a drug dealer (or worse, just a drug user) need to be in prison? What about the nature of their crimes necessitates imprisonment as a reasonable method of corrections?

    If the point is stopping people from reoffending, prisons don’t do that. Like objectively. Recidivism in the US is super high, and going to prison predicts increases in the severity of crimes people commit.

    So, what reduces recidivism? Eliminating the factors that drove them to crime in the first place. So, you monitor them closely - house arrest, assigned social/case workers, etc. Like a more robust parole system for nonviolent offenders. With enough surveillance, you can reduce the liklihood of reoffence by making the chances of getting caught much higher. This enhanced monitoring would be temporary.

    For violent offenders and more serious criminals, maybe prisons are still necessary. But they don’t have to be dehumanizing and can provide necessary health/psychiatric, educational, social, and job skills training.

    You could make the corrections system more effective by making society easier for criminals to reintegrate into. If you’re a felon and you can’t find work because you’re a felon - how are you going to afford to live within the confines of the law? Step 1) jobs programs for felons with a path to eliminating non-violent offenses from your record as it relates to work with exceptions as necessary. Step 2) improve the education system to prevent people from turning to crime and to help give former criminals relevant job skills to earn an honest living. Step 3) provide healthcare to people - having access to healthcare for mental and addiction-related conditions is super important to reduce crime.

    Basically - prison abolition isn’t about just letting rapists and murderers go free with no consequences. Instead, people in favor of prison abolition are typically in favor of reducing the societal pressures to commit crimes and preventing reoffense.