This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their weekend. Did you make any plans? Take a trip? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

This thread is posted Monday/Wednesday/Friday - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate topic, but most should be posted here.

If you'd like to help support Ukraine, please visit the official site at https://help.gov.ua/ - an official portal for those who want to provide humanitarian or financial assistance to people of Ukraine, businesses or the government at the times of resistance against the Russian aggression.

This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!

How do you see the next 5 years playing out, politically, economically, socially, militarily? In areas that hit closest to you? I feel I'm not confident in making a forecast more specific than “nothing good will happen." And yet I have to make huge decisions about where to live and work.

For example Vanguard Russell 2000 Growth ETF shows a pe ratio of 19.5 on it's portfolio page, but etf.com (which reportedly calculates PE ratio in the "logical" method we probably all think of) says it's 236.89.

There is also the russel 2000 etf, which shows 14.3 on vanguard and 43.63 on etf.com (I saw no clear indication on the vanguard website they are removing losing companies), ishares does say that for it's etf.

I want to know the PE ratio because economic bubbles (like the dot comm bubble and japan stock market bubble) were characterized by very high pe ratio, and there is historical evidence low pe performs better (probably because of the optimism bias).

I can use etf.com, but would like another source to validate etf.com is reporting correctly .

Hey there people. Long time lurker here. I decided to start writing because it's late at night, my mind is running wild and I'm trying to piece together the situation myself here. This will probably turn out to be a wall of text. Apologies to anyone who might see it as spam or bothersome - my bad.

Context:
in the second half of my 20s. Working in Germany. Healthy and slim. Working as a field technician for a company installing machines for industrial kitchens. Since this whole pandemic started I have always worked (and traveled around the city). I had offered myself for AZ when people were refusing it, got my second as Pfizer and 3rd with Moderna after 6 months from my second shot. Always followed guidelines regarding masks, vaccines and the whole shabang.

These past 6 months the whole 'global pandemic thing' kinda started becoming 'old news' so-to-say for me. Yes, some people I know got it recently, yet most had little to no symptoms and all recovered without a problem. In my mind I have been thinking 'come on, in 2 years working in closed environments with no ventilation and all sorts of people I have never caught it - I am surely one of those fully immune or asymptomatic ones, right?'.

On top of that I have started to indulge actually going out: drinking with friends, dining with people, casual socialising... I still believe that there is no way going forward without it. I know I cannot stomach another Christmas, Easter, birthday or whatever by myself. And still here I am freaking out after actually getting COVID.

Being brutally honest I was actually quite chill up until about an hour ago. I had been watching the last episodes of a certain very lighthearted anime comedy series that's coming out while lightly coughing, cleaning my nose pretty often and drinking as much water as I could. At some point I came to realise that something was not right. Initially I couldn't put my finger on it, I was just feeling uncomfortable.

Then it hit me: I couldn't smell anything. Not the laundry I did today, not the soap I had used to shower myself with, nothing. Up until this point it had been nothing more than some cough, sore throat and phlegm. Now it felt real - or rather unreal, it still feels like a nightmare.

Thinking logically it doesn't even make sense to me - I mean, come on, it's just smell right? - still losing the sense of smell is the first thing that has truly scared me since testing positive 2 days ago.
I have been going around the apartment for 20 minutes trying (to no avail) to smell stuff:

• old spice deodorant stick
• mouthwash
• toothpaste
• perfume
• isopropyl alcohol
• chlorine (super concentrated mildew killer spray)
  I just feel like i have ice up my nose. It's a very weird and unpleasant sensation (or lack thereof).

I have now just decided for no particular reason to do a mouthwash, and since then I can faintly distinguish smells. What the fuck.
I am now in between putting paper imbued with mouthwash in my nose and drinking a glass of the heaviest edible alcohol I have in my apartment. This is just insane.

Noone I know has lost smell or taste since the original variant, 2 years ago. I am worried and scared. Be brutally honest with me people, should I be or am I just being unreasonable and overly emotional?

What have you been listening to this week? You don't need to do a 6000 word review if you don't want to, but please write something! If you've just picked up some music, please update on that as well, we'd love to see your hauls :)

Feel free to give recs or discuss anything about each others' listening habits.

You can make a chart if you use last.fm:

http://www.tapmusic.net/lastfm/

Remember that linking directly to your image will update with your future listening, make sure to reupload to somewhere like imgur if you'd like it to remain what you have at the time of posting.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

This thread is posted Monday/Wednesday/Friday - please try to post relevant content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Especially significant updates may warrant a separate topic, but most should be posted here.

If you'd like to help support Ukraine, please visit the official site at https://help.gov.ua/ - an official portal for those who want to provide humanitarian or financial assistance to people of Ukraine, businesses or the government at the times of resistance against the Russian aggression.

What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?

It's because they believe(d) he can(could) tear the whole thing down, so they can rebuild a theocratic empire on its ashes.

I was listening to Ian Masters' Background Briefing from sometime in the past few days, and he had some lady on who said it. She was speaking about the idiotic ruling from FLA on the mask mandate, then pointed out that this judge was one on the approved list from the Council for National Policy. Apparently Trump agreed only to appoint judges from this list, among other concessions, in order to gain evangelical support. And then she said, they want to tear down all American institutions, so they can install a theocracy instead. It finally all made sense.

This is terrifying to me. I was brutalized by evangelical fundamentalist religion growing up, and am still severely impeded by the trauma in my adult life. I would much rather live in a world where every lunatic open carries a fully automatic submachine gun than live in a theocracy.

I was recently informed about the Council for National Policy. They're a force for evil. A highly effective force, that his been working mostly in secret since at least the 80's to turn America into a Spanish inquisitors pipe dream.

This still doesn't quite explain why middle class Baptist Jane would vote for Trump, I guess maybe racial fear? Paternalistic conditioning?

I try to be solutions focussed generally speaking, but I don't see one right now, sadly. I aim to start looking and thinking..