I dunno, I like going slow- that is to say near the limit- and will have people ride me the entire time in a passing zone or blaze past me in a double yellow.

Edit: It’s the best because I get to watch these same cars pull into the parking lot 500 yards down the road. Really saved them the extra fraction of a second.

Damn. If only there was a way that cars could pass each other.

The aristocrats of the western empires may have still carried weight to their names, but the Great Depression was really putting strain on the legitimacy and popularity of the established order.

As for Japan: they were already scrapping with the Soviets at the time in Khalkhin Gol. If anything the American entry to the war freed the Soviets to just a single front. American efforts in the European theater I largely take to be more “maintaining market access” to the UK and France than any real desire to be there.

France may have sat back, but I kinda doubt it. A weakened Germany after fighting the Soviets would have tempted them to retake lands east of the Rhine that they’d lost following the Napoleonic campaigns. My take is that none of the powers were peacable or invested in the status quo, just less rabid about expansion than the Nazis.

Does the foreign vacuum work better? Is it more compact? Are the technologies it is built on protected by IP law? If it’s a cheap junk crescent wrench that I’ll use once because I need it only once, I’d rather not pay double for quality.

Do they? As much as we like to play it quiet, the US exports a lot of food globally- China gets some $17b worth. Those tend to be perishable, so any hot war would have to be over quickly for China to come outahead, and any protracted war would see them need a new breadbasket eother domestic (reducing the industrial/military work pool), or international (which comes with the same risks they have now over US ties).

I’m afraid you’re gonna have to come up with a specific timeframe here.

WW1? The Germany Empire wasn’t really the spark for this one. The entire royalty of the continent was effectively cousins. There may be some wiggle room, but most of them were literal cousins, with Wilhelm II and Nicholas II being most notable in this context.

Nobody was ‘fond’ of Russia in any way. Most European nations then saw it as they do now- large, unpredictable, and territorially aggressive. France and Britain were a part of the Triple Entente not because they trusted each other, but because it was a reasonably sensible counter to the Triple Alliance.

WW2? Royal intermarriage was mostly a moot point after the first go around even in nations that managed to not get their entire lineages deposed. As for the Soviet Union, still wildly unpopular. If your point is that Nazi Germany might have gotten away with things if they’d stayed tied up with Russia instead of trying to diversify their murder portfolio- I’d disagree. They would have gotten the OK from other Western powers for a time, but would still crumple from internal strife, the war was as much a wallpapering of those issues as it was any grand ambitions of Hitler’s.

Any other wild takes? Is Hamas hiding the Fountain of Youth? Do they coordinate Iranian weapons shipments with the Mothman?

Do you make your cottage pies with minced beef?

For some reason I find the beef fat takes on an unpleasant flavor/texture when chilled and reheated. Maybe I’m doing it wrong.

Pizza is one of my favorite ledtovers, though. Cheese is good warm or cold.

They were convicted? Last I’d heard the trial was set for… March?

Yum! Definitely something to try. Might mix weirdly with crispy cabbage/soft mushroom, but oh well.

Damn, that’s a lotta cabbage. I’d guess this was more a harvesttime affair, with the goal of getting through all the crops before they spoiled?

Recently got one to help dicing onions for soups, definitely helps.

I won’t impose, but thought folks might like to share. At least give her a quick text to brighten her day, though.

That’s the impression I always come away with - similar to Montana or one of the Dakotas in the US. How was the language barrier?

Ah, but I have a surplus of time and a fiendish addiction to internet that I’m trying to wean myself off of. And I’m sure GamGam is gonna take her secret recipes to the grave unless you intervene with her on my behalf.

I’m thinking of moving to Mongolia one day. Vast open spaces and a bitter cold winter. It’s nice to be forgotten by the world.

How am I to read “xaddies”? Is this a gender-neutral “daddies”? A gen-z “baddies”?

Just so. The periphery of the parks may be visited- a shared border between worlds where the most intrepid of both may briefly meet, but just as bears and raccoons are driven out of suburbs, so too should people be driven from the deeper parks.

As for the sanctity of life, it’s more of a balancing in my eyes. No life should be valued so as to cause undue stress to survivors. But I suppose my rather callous attitude is anathema to most.

Absolutely not.

Alas, I am but a blue collar shmuck without the patience to slog through theory nor the oratory skills to convincingly pass on what theory others share.

Yes? I’m not so optimistic about humans becoming interplanetary, but if it were to happen, I’d make noise to try and limit any human settlement. I’d argue that if humans want so badly to be off this rock, they can make space arcologies designed around themselves rather than inserting themselves where they ought not be and fucking up wherever they land.