Got a nice action shot of a heron trying to get some dinner. I've also had several geese start hissing and coming after me as I jogged past.

Speaking of, how many geese do you think you could take in a fair fight? Assume your choice of a natural environment. I think I could take at least 6. You can grab one of them by the neck and use it as a club to take out the other ones.

Hi I'm from Europe and unfortunately in the past few years I realized how much racism there is in the world which really messes up my mind since that concept didn't exist for me as a kid and I thought it's normal that people look different.

Having very pale skin and not having visited too many countries I was wondering if I might encounter any problems in America because of my skin. Can I just talk to anyone or will people reject me because of my skin? (I have blond hair too)

I have a bad habit of impulse buying the most random stuff, but to my credit, most of those turn out awesome. If you wanna hear about great impulse buys, that'd be a good topic for another "ask" post (which I will leave as an exercise to the reader).

Here, I want to hear about your worst impulse buys; ones that you regretted almost immediately.

Banned is maybe too far, but why should we as a country allow people to have petty power over meaningless things their neighbors do? Could we ban HOAs from being included in house sales, and every time it's sold the new owners have to opt in?

For the most part, I'm wondering about this in the context of single family homes since for homes like condos, you could make the case that HOAs are useful for shared things like roofs and whatnot. Maybe limit mandatory HOA involvement to things like what's truly necessary and shared and not how tall your grass is?

Picture was pretty much me, frolicking through nature as I worked on my garden

Not the best, not the worst. The one that most makes you go "meh, you're ok". Or the one you keep forgetting exists.

I think this is the ultimate red line that the US crossed from a democracy to a fascist authoritarian country. Here are my points:

• Trump is a known criminal who encouraged a terrorist attack against the government and government officials. The fact that he was not only free of punishment but also legible for running as president shows that the democracy was already extremely vulnerable to a hostile takeover.
• Trump before that has repeatedly tried to convince the public that the election he lost was rigged, this is a blatant attempt to hurt the government and derail the people twoards an insurrection. At the very least he should have been investigated for conspiracy against the government (If he was muslim he would have been fucking assassinated as a terrorist already)
• The insertion of an unelected and unqualified person into the government and letting him run around and fuck with confidential and extremely sensitive systems and data (Elon) is something that should have been stopped way before he was able to start gutting public services.
• Trump did a pump and dump on NFTs, meme coins, and most recently the literal US economy. He is not even investigated for securitys fraud.

And now the really really bad things:

• Deported legal residents without due process and with secret "evidence" that no one is willing to share past "terrorism and national security"
• Ignored the supreme court and deported innocent people to a literal concentration camp. This is the 101 of a democracy being shattered, the authority ignoring the law and the police (ICE in this case) listening to the authority and not the law.
• Has now publicly and shamelessly announced that legal, US born citizens are next. This is past illegal, this unconstitutional and is the very thing the founders of the USA had in mind when writing the constitution.

And all of this without mentioning Trump as a private person being a convicted felon, rapist and a failure of a businessman to a degree that any sane person wouldn't let him run a fucking easy-bake oven bakery.

So, am I crazy or did we just witness the actual moment that historians would label as the fall of the US democracy?

Also, wtf was Bush doing during her time in Congress?

Whoops, forgot to post yesterday 😅

Saw some turkeys with impressive feathers yesterday. Anyone else have good photos, wildlife or otherwise?

E.g. freelancers, contractors, small businesses, etc.

I always wondered how Americans are so resilient. Do they have some secret? It seems like they're always confident and hard working no mater how hard the situation is. I'm trying to work on myself and America always used to be my role model

I do target shooting as a hobby but I'm genuinely curious. The US is known (for better and worse) for it's culture of gun ownership but the US is also know for widely differing experiences

As a Chinese American, I kinda have this self-imposed rule to never enter the boundaries of a red state, and even within Blue/Purple states, to avoid ending up in some rural town. Bascially, half of my country is inaccessible to me due to my perceived fear of potentially being a victim of racism.

Am I being paranoid?

Trying a text post this time, but feel free to respond with GIFs like before if you'd like. Also taking suggestions for future posts. Emojis?

The weather around me is nice enough that I'm starting to run and bike again, which is nice. We had a few days of the worst sort of half-frozen sleet, but that's finally over.

I also upgraded my desktop. Partially because I had been planning to, and partially because who knows how much we might shoot ourselves in the foot with tariffs 🤦

Personally, I've moved most of my investments into money market funds and plan on buying the dip, just like the multi millionaires. Other than that, I'm getting stocked up on shelf stable foods, and trying to get to know my neighbors a little better.

Obviously Republicans control the Executive & Legislative branches right now, and can afford to sacrifice some of their agenda to filibuster. But it’s obvious now that the Trump admin has no issue committing crimes and violating the constitution almost every week.

Are the courts the only thing that can stop them right now? A military coup isn’t happening without direct threats to us. And the GOP is to far up Trump’s ass to impeach and convict him. So that only leaves the courts, do you think the courts are being purposely overwhelmed to slow down their action against MAGA?

How was your week in the US? And should we keep doing GIF responses like last week's thread? Respond to both or either questions with a GIF! Try to guess what other people's responses mean if they don't explain them! Posted image is my answer for both

Not what you'd prefer to wear, but what you have to:-).

For me: as casual as I can possibly manage. In the past that has varied anywhere from shorts, up to button up shirts and slacks, or down to pajama type pants (combined with maybe a nicer shirt during a Zoom call:-).

But I'll probably have to dress up more in my next job, maybe, and I'm not really looking forward to it.:-(

If you're up for it, respond with an image/GIF summarizing your week. Explain it, or let other people guess the meaning. Here's mine

HN thread

My guess is cry and not much more.