In my experience the only thing we buy regularly that hasn’t substantially increased in price in the last year is gasoline. Just about ever kind of food is substantially more, electricity has gone way up. Clothing prices are significantly more and as everyone who’s renting knows, rents have gone nuts. There is no way we’re spending 3% more than a year ago, it’s more like 8%.

Bottom line, I don’t believe anything that’s coming out of a Trump controlled agency is remotely accurate. He is already claiming prices are down by 300%-3,000%. I’m just waiting for him to say, “There’s no inflation if we don’t count the prices that have gone up.”

There is only one Bureau of Labor Statistics in the world and it’s in the US.

I’m apparently living on another planet.

A friend of mine has a WF account and we have talked about their criminal activity several times. His response? “I’ve never had any problems.”

He’s a smart guy, but there’s no question he’s selectively stupid in this case. IMO selective stupidity is least part of the reason WF still exists.

Exactly. The Canadian versions of Maga imbeciles are regularly demanding their 1st Amendment rights.

The vast majority of people have already activated Windows with an email address. I have several friends who have done so and for them this cost nothing.

Not something I’m willing to do, but it’s not a problem for most users who entered their email address long ago.

How do you figure?

Imagine being such a huge piece of shit that you’re actually banned from a continent.

Queue Maga imbecile outrage about her First Amendment rights.

I had very similar problems with Realtek wifi on an HP laptop.

A possible fix:

Run “iwconfig” and check your adapter power management setting. If it’s on turn it off: “iwconfig [interface] power off”.

This solved most the wifi problems on my system.

It’s Russia manipulating malignant narcissists.

“Doddering old fool watches “Backdraft” and calls 911. News at 11.”

I’ve long believed that Trump himself is not a fascist, mostly because his brain just doesn’t work that way. He’s an ego-driven, sociopathic petty tyrant who just wants his own way…

A distinction without a difference IMO. Whatever the psychological reasons for the behavior and no matter who he surrounds himself with, the results are the same.

I do agree that just like any malignant narcissist he can be easily manipulated in many situations by people who know how. Putin’s a master at it.

I’ll believe it when I see it, and I don’t think there’s any fucking way we’re going to see it.

That was on sale last year and I took a look at it as a 2nd machine. I ended up with a bit nicer Philips from Amazon that was also on sale. Looking at Amazon right now the only thing you get for $100 more on their model 1200 is chrome. Another option for $50 more is a 2230 with an automatic milk frother, but I’ve repeatedly read that the daily cleaning requirements aren’t worth the trouble and people wish they had just bought one with a manual frother.

If you don’t need any additional features (like 1 button Café Americano), the Costco model should be a big upgrade from other home brewed coffee and better than what most chain stores serve. It won’t be the quality of a high-end machine or an excellent coffee shop, but shots from these kinds of machines are quick, easy, and IMO taste quite good. (Espresso lovers with big dollars to spend and who don’t mind the time and effort required with a manual machine won’t agree.)

Start with a medium or light roast and take time to play with all the settings to find what you like best. You can change the grind, the quantity of coffee, quantity of water, and on some machines the water temperature. Philips sells a water filter that is designed to seriously reduce the amount of scale that builds up in the machine - worth the money IMO.

You’re not supposed to freeze or refrigerate beans, but we did a blind taste test with beans stored in a sealed container on the counter for 1-2 weeks vs. beans frozen and then thawed in the fridge as needed. We far preferred the frozen/refrigerated beans. (Do not put frozen beans in any grinder, let them thaw first.)

Enjoy!

Costco and Amazon usually have some sub $300 machines around Black Friday including super automatics that do everything for you including grind the beans. I’ve used both supers and manual machines and prefer the convenience of the super automatic even though manual machines produce better coffee, IMO even with moderately priced Costco beans it’s world’s better than what Starbucks puts out.

Starbucks chars their beans because it masks the harsh flavor of the low quality beans. The other benefit for the mega corporation is that all burnt coffee tastes pretty much the same, meaning coffee origin and crop variations aren’t important and every mediocre cup of Starbucks coffee taste the same. Whoever convinced the public that ‘burnt’ equaled ‘high quality’ was a marketing genius, but maybe the public’s waking up to the scam.

Espresso made using even using a moderately priced home espresso machine and high quality beans is far superior to anything Starbucks puts out IMO. The machine can pay for itself in well under a year too.

At the same time they’re accusing universities of indoctrination, Republicans are openly implementing government indoctrination in public schools.

Everything is projection with Maga pedos.

This is breathtaking.

We have a Supreme Court that is literally granting Trump any power he demands. They’re letting him demolish the building even before they rule on the point of law because they clearly believe he can preemptively do whatever the fuck he wants. I’ve been hopeful there would be a backstop of sanity somewhere we’d eventually run up against, but it’s clear that’s not going to happen.

I expect the six evil fuckers on this court will soon gleefully grant Trump the power to imprison anyone on a whim while taking a break from their celebration of the death of American democracy. I would not be a bit surprised if they block 2026 elections and allow the felon a 3rd term.

All the while Democrats keep chanting “They go low, we go high.”