Sludgehammer

The thing in the lower right is a overcooked hamburger patty. But the grey thing... that's what's stumping me.

I thought it was fish at first, but it's the wrong texture for that. Then maybe re-fried beans... but why/how would they be shaped like that? About the only thing I can think of given the shape/texture is some sort of polenta?

Honey Bee

is the bee that needs help the most

I'd argue the opposite. There are thousands species of solitary native bees in small niches that need help way more. By contrast honey bees are either livestock or feral livestock that are competing with the native bees.

April fools!

TIL that I've been using "star crossed lovers" wrong my entire life. I thought it meant fated lovers.

It's not so much "Yucking someones yum" so much as "I think such a large age gap is going to be a big strain on this relationship. But if you wanna... fine." Like, one of these people was born around when 9-11 occurred and the other was born around the time when Pac-Man was the new hot game in arcades and these "CD" things were starting to catch on for music storage. That's quite a generational gap.

However, they're both old enough to both know the what they're doing... and maybe it will all work out. Thus my "They’re both old enough to know better" comment. Maybe they're star crossed lovers and it will all work out... but in the end, it's a case of "Not my circus, not my monkeys".

Whatever. They're both old enough to know better.

There's something to be said for a computer that's as dumb as a calculator.

Man, it sure didn't take long to pivot from "We need to invade Iran to protect those poor protestors from their evil government" to "Bomb 'em back to the stone age".

How strange. It's almost like Trump didn't have the best intentions of the Iranian people at heart from the get go.

I mean we've seen Alex Jones with a "Naughty tbabe" tab open on his phone.

I betcha you could find some quotes from Charlie talking shit about Trump from back before the Republicans bent knee to him.

I'd argue it comes down to three factors:

One, the rejection of modernism. People will argue that things were great in the past and now we are a fallen people (thus the popularity of the MAGA rallying cry). Obviously then, everything modern is suspect as it may be part what robbed us of our 'greatness'.

Two, machismo. Among many illness is seen as punishment for some nebulous moral failing. You're sick? Oh, you must not of eaten right, or you didn't work out enough, or god is punishing you, etc. As such protecting yourself from disease is un-manly. You saw this a lot during COVID, masks were "face diapers" and Covid was "just the flu" and only the "libtards" were getting the vaccine (which via point one was was branded the "clot-shot"). Covid was seen kind of like a "Snake handling" ritual, proof that you are "moral" enough to live through it as well as proof you don't fear death.

Three contrarianism. We all know this one. "If it's popular it must be bad!" is a creed has holds a deep grasp in the psyche of many. Usually it's pretty trivial, it doesn't really matter if you liked but hated them when they hit the mainstream. However when contrarianism starts getting applied to lifesaving medical procedures you start having problems.