There are two components to this question. Did many in the working class feel that Democrats had abandoned them? And is Trump’s economic policy actually better for the working class than Harris’s? I think the answers are “yes” and “probably no”. However, voters don’t listen to economists. If they’re not happy with the status quo, they vote for disrupting the status quo even if experts tell them that that’s a bad idea.

I suppose Sanders thinks that the working class would have supported a Democratic candidate who proposed a leftward (as opposed to Trump’s rightward) disruption. My guess is that that isn’t true and socialism is still a dirty word in America, but who knows?

lemon and sugar

Ah, memories. I can’t drink that any more unless I don’t want to eat for several hours until my teeth stop being sensitive, but during my childhood it wasn’t just delicious, it was a way to bond with my older relatives.

Impra Gold orange peoke. Get the loose-leaf kind that comes in a metal container.

But one time, I was dragged into helping a guy I didn’t know move a couch up stairs. Afterwards his wife (they were an Indian couple) made me some chai tea that was the best thing I ever drank in my life. I would happily carry another couch for one more cup. I was a fool and didn’t ask what that tea was, and since then I have tried different chai teas (including when I went to India) and I never even found one I liked at all.

Do people want to play Warcraft 2? I have a lot of nostalgic memories of when I played it as a kid but unlike the other remastered old Blizzard games, it isn’t very good by 21st century standards.

Why would you pay to make your Rhino’s bulge smaller?

Also, how is Warframe now? I last played eight years ago and I’m a little surprised that it’s still going strong.

Always remember to wear a steel codpiece.

They better hope they’re not in New York state.

Another thing to consider is that Melkor was never known to show understanding or mercy to his servants who failed him. I would have to think that any balrog who failed to come to his aid would have been killed (or worse as you postulate) as soon as Morgoth was freed.

Hah, now I’m imagining an alternate, sillier Arda where the balrogs had the same conversation as the villain’s abused lackeys did at the end of Disney’s Hercules. (A really underappreciated movie, IMO. Just don’t watch it expecting it to be about the Greek myth.)

He’s not going to be happy when he gets out of there.

You mean if he gets out of there!

If. If is good…

I did a 1000-calorie daily deficit for a few months, in order to lose two pounds a week. I got used to being hungry all the time after a couple of weeks, but having a lot less energy and being sleepy during the day were harder to deal with. My body was trying to conserve calories that way, but pushing through it was possible.

The hardest part was actually accurately counting the calories. It was relatively simple for off-the-shelf food, but a lot more annoying for things someone else home-cooked for me. I had to ask for the recipe every time, weigh how much I ate, and then track the calories per ingredient on a spreadsheet. Restaurant food was effectively impossible to count, but that didn’t matter much because I was so focused on filling food that I wouldn’t have eaten it anyway. I’m a vegetarian, so I ended up eating mostly beans, tofu (which is also beans, now that I think about it), and vegetables. Other things weren’t as filling per calorie as those foods.

I think you know much more about the legendarium than I do, but I want to nitpick one point:

Also, there were no more than 3 or 7 balrogs ever according to later writings by Tolkien, which indicates that no balrog was weak or cowardly.

I think I should have phrased what I said differently. No balrog was weak or cowardly in an absolute sense. Durin’s Bane attacked and defeated all the dwarves of Khazad Dum at the height of their power. It wasn’t initially afraid of Gandalf. However, Ungoliant was another matter. She had consumed the light of the Two Trees and overcome Melkor himself. She might also have been capable of doing something far worse to a Maia than destroying its body and banishing its spirit. I think that though the balrogs were able to drive her away, their victory was not inevitable and I can imagine even a balrog faltering when called to face such a foe.

They had to prove themselves worthy by fighting the oven with nothing but their bare hands, man to microwave.

That’s true in a trivial sense: there’s no law of nature that enforces verisimilitude in any work of fiction. However, most authors aim for verisimilitude, and the good ones achieve it. I’m not talking about the top speeds of balrogs because I think there’s some objective answer, but rather because I think that Tolkein does achieve verisimilitude (at least in some regards) and therefore there is a foundation for discussing the traits of his fictional beings. He easily could have given balrogs rocket skates, but he didn’t.

The balrog in Moria was chasing the fellowship. If it could move at 400 mph (by any means) then it would have caught them immediately. We know that some balrogs are weaker than others since it is said that Gothmog was the mightiest. My conclusion is that if the balrogs literally flew by mundane means to Melkor’s aid, then the balrog in Moria was particularly weak (and cowardly) and did not participate in rescuing Melkor. I presume that’s also why it hid deep underground for so long rather than fighting and being banished along with the other balrogs.

With that said, I think Melkor summoned the balrogs to himself by magical means (but they can’t teleport on their own). None of them could go 400 mph. That’s just silly. They’re not Sonic the Hedgehog. I also think that balrogs can’t fly. The word “wings” is a metaphor for the way flames spread from them.

(I don’t claim that the text rules out the possibility of wings and flight. The balrog might have fallen with Gandalf because they fought a metaphysical battle, dragged down by the “weight of its sin”.)

Edit: I think we actually agree. I’m just elaborating.

Edit 2: I found a picture that shows what I think a balrog’s “wings” look like.

If you’re a billionaire intent on becoming even wealthier, that usually implies that you really enjoy being a successful businessman. I don’t see why business success for its own sake would be inherently less satisfying than other sorts of accomplishment.

The answer does say

The reason isn’t some special string of A’s, G’s, T’s or C’s found in dad’s DNA.

It’s true that two same-sex parents of either sex have the basic genetic information to create a female child (a male child needs at least one male parent) but the natural process of embryo development is a big deal!

Don’t forget about device drivers. I can’t even install a newer version of Android on my Android phone because the community never managed to get the antenna to work after upgrading the OS.

You don’t have to go to a specialist to get antidepressants; many GPs will prescribe them if you ask. I also see a lot of online clinics offering prescriptions without an in-person appointment, but I don’t have personal experience with that. The standard antidepressants are fairly safe and I wouldn’t be too worried about side effects to take them without a psychiatrist’s supervision. Nothing except antidepressants worked to end my depressive episodes, as opposed to making them easier to bear.

Other than that, what helped me most was realizing that I couldn’t trust my own thoughts. It’s hard, because generally “X is true” and “I think X is true” are subjectively the same thing. When I went through periods of depression, I sincerely believed that I had never been happy and that my depression would never end, but as a matter of fact I had been happy (or at least reasonably content) for most of my life and prior episodes of depression had ended. Being able to realize that I had actually been happy and probably would be again, despite what felt true in that moment, made depression much more bearable.

Another key intervention for me was moving closer to my family. It felt like a huge defeat (here I was, an adult who couldn’t handle living on his own) but I told myself “plan based on who you are, not who you wish you were”. Having supportive people around helped a lot; when I’m depressed I don’t want to be around other people but that is actually the wrong strategy. “I just want to be alone” is one of those thoughts that I shouldn’t trust.

Finally, a really useful mental strategy is to consider what advice you would give to a good friend in a situation similar to your own, and then to act on that advice yourself. My depression was accompanied by a great deal of self-loathing but that loathing didn’t extend to my friends (even my imaginary friends). I found that I often knew exactly what advice I would give a friend, and it wasn’t to do what I had been planning to do.

I oppose letting anyone define hate speech as a matter of principle, because even if I agree with the definition completely now, I may not continue to agree with the definition in the future. Look at what has been happening in the USA since the October 7 attack: a lot of people I had considered my political allies turned out to have beliefs I consider to be hateful, and meanwhile these people consider my own beliefs hateful. The solution is not to empower a single central authority to decide which sort of hate is allowed. It is (as it has always been) to maintain the principle of free speech.

I’m a little surprised to hear people so willing to let the government of Ireland determine who they are allowed to hate and for what reasons.

Most financially secure people still work full time. I suppose that in theory, they’re able to quit their jobs without suffering immediate, catastrophic consequences but if they actually did that sort of thing, they wouldn’t be financially secure for long.

(In my experience, many financially secure people actually work much more than full time. I think they would be better off if they didn’t because at some point time becomes more valuable than money, but they have the sort of personality that compels them to. This is often related to starting out without financial security.)

The very rich can do crazy stuff without consequences but they’re such a small part of the population that I don’t think comparing oneself to them is useful.