I’m a software engineer with 4 years of experience in a contract position that ends in a few months, with no renewal or conversion. Previously I was laid off in December 2022 and didn’t find work until March 2023, so I’m trying to stay ahead of unemployment by applying for jobs before my contract ends.

Since January I’ve been applying to all sorts of SWE jobs, either tailored to my experience or generalist roles I can fill. I’ve had two interviews, and they were for small on-site companies in my town. One I had to turn down an offer because their company was a nightmare, and the other went with a candidate who had more experience.

I feel demoralized, frustrated, and anxious. Only two interviews in nearly 6 months? I thought the job search in 2023 was rough, but this is ridiculous. I’m confident in my ability to perform above expectations and I think if I could at least get more interviews I wouldn’t be searching for so long.

I assume my resume must be the issue so I’ve rewritten it several times, getting feedback from managers and senior employees while also feeding it through ATS scanners. It’s come a long way but as of recently they all tell me it’s a great resume. They say it should at least get me an interview. And ATS scanners aren’t telling me anything is missing.

Recently I even got an internal referral for a position through a friend of a friend, and my experience lined up nicely with the job description too. I thought this would be a sure thing, most hires come from networking rather than cold applications. Their engineering manager viewed my LinkedIn profile and I’ve since been ghosted. This experience hurt the most, because what else could they want? I feel like I’ve got a sticky note on my back that says do not hire instead of kick me!

I can’t be alone in this experience. Is anyone else on here struggling in this job market? How long can this go on for and how bad is it going to get?

If I wake up with a medium full bladder, morning or middle of the night, sometimes I feel like my dream is still available and paused, and if I go back asleep right away, I can sometimes continue the dream. During these precious moments, while awake, I remember the details of my dream vividly.

On the other hand, if I go pee, then the dream rapidly fades away, like the door is shut. If I do dream again, it will be a completely new dream.

I haven't been good about keeping up my dietary log, but it could be related to certain foods, like if I had too much salt? Idk

Also a full bladder definitely doesn't guarantee dreams. I can have dreamless sleep with full bladder too, which is what makes me think my diet may be related too.

I've been friends with someone for 18 months that seems to be taking the friendship in an inappropriate direction. Well, it started inappropriate as well.

At my last job we all sat in cubicles. One day, having just led my ornithologist brother on a small bird tour of the area, I described the trip to a co-worker. Someone I'd never noticed before popped up from behind a cube wall and started asking questions. She introduced herself and for the next few days continued to strike up conversations with me.

After a certain amount of this I wondered if this was a romantic interest from her. I was already counting the days until I would quit the job so saw little reason not to ask her out for a drink. When I proposed the idea she gave me a devious smile and we quietly headed out. Afterwards, in the settling of the tab, I Venmo'd her for a beer and noticed her Venmo account had a different last name than she has at work and asked about that. She's Chinese and I wasn't sure if sometimes Chinese people might have an anglicized last name in addition to their first name. "Oh, sometimes I use one, sometimes the other" was all I got. Nothing physical occurred or was initiated.

A week later after texting and going to a company workout class together she tells me that she is married. I'm absolutely shocked and feel like I've been used as part of someone's adulterous fantasy. The style of our conversations seemed identical to the getting-to-know-you type of stuff you cover on first dates. But I wasn't sure. Maybe I misread the situation. I tell her I'm not comfortable with the situation and we stop talking for a week. But I'd already joined the group workout class on her recommendation and would see her there anyway. I decided that I didn't really know what her intentions were and would give her the benefit of the doubt. She seemed to be interested in us having a friendship.

But I really wanted to know... what did happen? One of my favorite podcasts is Heavyweight. In it, Jonathan Goldstein plays the role of a social detective. People come to him with relationship issues from their past and he, without the restraint most people feel, badgers people for answers with his journalistic skills. I suspect I am mildly autistic, so for me many mundane social interactions carry mystery. To have Goldstein take relatable life experiences and crack them open for all to see is powerful. It's like we can finally get some goddamn answers to people's closest kept secrets.

So as time went on I got integrated into her group of friends, met her husband, her dog. Her husband seems like a great guy. But my friend would give indications of unhappiness in her marriage, often in groups when he was not around, occasionally over text message to me. I never engaged.

She had some hard-to-get permits for a backpacking trip. It would be a trip of four. Her husband was not interested so she invited three friends including myself. I went on the trip, made a new friend who just moved to my city, and had a great time. Immediately afterwards we started planning a new trip.

At some point my female friend did initiate a conversation on what she was thinking when we went out for a drink and what happened during the days after before she told me she was married. It boiled down to her wanting my friendship but not wanting to change my behavior. In my interpretation she wanted the attention of being dated. I honestly wasn't sure how much I believed this explanation - and even on its face it didn't sound super great.

So we just got back from another backpacking trip - myself, my female friend, and a male friend of hers who is married. During the trip I ended up discussing my sexuality with the two of them. I consider myself to be on the spectrum of asexuality. I described, as best I could, what makes me attracted to people (an emotional connection, their personality and intelligence, etc.) and the short list of people I had found myself strongly attracted to. I didn't list my female friend - I had lost most of my interest with that initial feeling of being used a year and a half ago. And a couple weeks isn't quite enough time for me to really get things revved up. Visibly I could see she was very confused but I didn't acknowledge her reaction. "Wasn't there one more ... the married one?" I dodged the question.

On the drive back her male friend brought up the topic of my sexuality again. I answered his questions. My female friend seemed to again want to know if I was attracted to her. "Do you ever find your friends attractive?" "Are you attracted to older women?" (she's older than me)

On my side of things, this friendship has been predicated on the idea that as long as I didn't engage with anything I consider to be unethical there couldn't be any harm done. But now I'm not so sure. And what's worse - I'm finding myself attracted to her again because of her interest.

I've been thinking about having a conversation about how she's making me uncomfortable. I think it's past the point where there's any chance nothing's going on. I really do not get the impression she's trying to leave her husband. I just feel played with.

Edit: Okay, the friend in question is away for a few weeks but I'll have a conversation with them when they get back to figure this out.

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!

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!

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!

Where do you find support and friendship? Who are the folks who encourage you and add positivity to your life? It can be anything from a local gym to a sewing group to an online forum. I'd love to hear about every's little supportive corners and community networks!

• this was kicked off by the Bro summer waits for us all thread.

I picked ~misc and don't really have an idea of what tags would be appropriate. If there's stuff I can include in future posts like this I'll be glad to make sure they're there, just let me know. There probably won't be one for a long while but I'll remember. Technically I am advertising myself a bit, but I think I've framed it well enough that ya'll will see it's not really the point of the post. I'll never be bothering ya'll with offers and ads and shit.

This is a continuation from a post I made a while back about how it's going with the endeavor I've set in front of myself. In some ways, things proceed as I'd hoped, while in others there's been need for flexibility/adjustment. I wanted to give an update because a few big steps happened this past week which hopefully mean moving into a busier phase of the whole thing, and to add to the corpus, create the proof of what this all was as it begins if that makes sense.

The biggest thing has been an article published in our local paper. Two, actually, which were combined together into a front page spread I did not expect. Yes, there's a photo of us and our contact info in there, and yes, you're welcome to reach us if you've an idea for something you'd like to do. You'll be talking to me, and I'll be happy to go over details and land on pricing that actually does work for both of us. Primarily we are offering the space, with some ability to accommodate large groups and connections with folks who can provide stuff. It depends on what you want, how things will be priced. The less you need us to do, the less we need to charge. We don't want to regularly be a place where folks stay overnight, but I can probably swing that from time to time for someone coming from far away. If you aim to do something in the near term, do be aware it is hot as shit down here and very humid. The house is a-ok staying cool, but you'll want to be prepared for Mississippi in the summer. I have a dog too, so if you've got allergies you'll need to prep accordingly. She's gonna be 16 this year, she's nothing but friendly to people and sleeps a lot. Pets are welcome, provided they are house-trained and well behaved.

I am intentionally avoiding the internet on the whole for reasons I'll get into, but I do want to extend an offer to this forum in particular, as thanks for allowing me the space for expressing my thoughts as they took shape. I'm aware the site is public facing - what I'm going to share here is public already. I have to bite the bullet on sacrificing some anonymity and just try to control how that anonymity goes away, is how I've come to see it. You won't find me on social media, and what exists for the house/my grandmother is wildly out of date/largely inaccessible - it's gonna stay that way if all remains up to me, so this is just about the only way for someone outside of Brookhaven to know of us at this time. I'd like for at least a few people to know what we were up to, in a form that serves as proof of my intent from its actual beginnings. While the plan took shape before I ever wrote about it, it was in writing about it that I was able to make it clear to myself, what I aim to be doing, so I feel like it's part of completing things to share this stuff here.

The paper is very much a local thing, they got a few details wrong and you'll probably pick out how the quotes don't quite sound like me if you've read a lot of what I've posted. It's fine, the details in need of correction aren't critical. There isn't a lot in there about the more high-minded stuff I like to write about, because I'm not there yet. For now, it's simply building a business out of something, I have to make the something from which that business will spring. I'll think more about where it goes when I've got it moving. The article was free, which was pretty awesome. The paper is in a slow time, and it's mostly one guy doing a lot of the writing, they were just happy to have something to include. I think he did great.

The articles worked, too. I got calls the day the print version went out, and am expecting some followups soon to set dates and square away payment. I go walking downtown every day in the afternoon, and got some extra attention. While it's possible, while the pressure is light, I've been taking advantage by trying to advertise almost solely through word of mouth and face-to-face interactions, fully aware it will take a while for that to have an effect and that I may need to branch out fast if pressures change. Thus far, it's been the local paper, a print ad in a different paper that goes out primarily to local businesses, and a radio ad. There's a couple of reasons I've stuck to stuff like that.

The first is that I think it will provide a good foundation for sustaining the enterprise. If it's possible to have enough business to stay around purely from what exists around me, that means I can capitalize maximally if/when we do extend advertising outside our area, and it means security if for whatever reason those means can't be utilized. I don't want to be dependent on the internet for a livelihood if I can possibly manage it. It's not so principled a position that I'd refuse to do it at any point, rather it's like a back-pocket option, something to be engaged with strategically at what I determine to be either the proper time or because the needs have grown past what I can sustain without it, if that makes sense. My aim is to be a part of this town, to be of it, so I want to keep what we're doing as local and simple as possible. I have to be ready to constrain everything and take care of my grandmother too. I won't let that priority slip and will endure whatever hardship is necessary to fulfill it. It's easier to do that the smaller things are, a bit of a balancing act.

The second reason is much more practical and kind of silly. My grandmother's computer is the biggest security risk I think I've ever encountered in person. I refuse to introduce new online components when such a risk exists, if that makes sense, and I will endure whatever hit to efficiency/development it means until I can get it corrected. Her usage habits are minimal which is a lucky thing - she sticks to old fashioned stuff for almost everything. But, a priority of mine is that she can see and understand everything I'm doing, so I need this machine to be in a better state before I can take some of the steps with that. The challenge of it isn't technical at all, I could get the thing in good working order in a day, probably.

To give you an idea of what's difficult here, imagine for a moment you just ignored the internet as a whole since it began. You used it, you know how to do some stuff on it, but only by way of memorizing actions, the steps necessary to do a thing you wanted, a setup someone made for you. You never really engaged with what the stuff you use is designed for, you didn't follow how any of it developed, you're (blissfully, I'd say) unaware of pretty much that whole end of things. It's very difficult to explain the danger of something like an AI phishing scam, to someone who for all intents and purposes, never learned what phishing is, and further doesn't tend to believe in the shittiness of other people. That last part is one of the reasons I love my grandmother as much as I do, but it does make this task harder, and delays further action on my part.

I've gotten the machine to as secure a state as I can, and have gotten the data backed up, so hopefully movement really gets going on this and I can feel better about spreading out our net, so to speak. I think what frustrates me about it is having been there across years of time - a lot of why this machine is the way it is, is because other people took it upon themselves to "fix it" and almost none of them knew what the hell they were doing. They didn't explain anything to my grandmother either. Their interactions mean misunderstandings on my grandmother's part, and the lack of a foundation of knowledge means it's starting from zero in a way I have never actually encountered before doing this kind of work. I've gotten close, seen some pretty absurd things, but the lack here is just of a different kind, more complex than it seems. I've been writing about it separately/on my own because I think the experience stands as a sort of ultimate test of a lot of the stuff I did before I got here.

There is also health to think about. The priority, for now, is to set things up in a way which is compatible with what my grandmother can do. I'm trying to set up situations that let her do the things that make her happiest, and do all of the nitty-gritty shitty stuff myself. That means house maintenance, yard work, grocery shopping, cooking, arranging for stuff like an electrician when something breaks, learning how to do some of the fixing myself. I've only ever rented. I've never been in a position to maintain a house before, and as I'm sure plenty of you know far better than me, that's a good bit to learn all on its own. Especially with a home as old and complicated as this one with an owner who hasn't done a lot of that herself. Can't exactly tell me what needs doing when someone else was being paid to come do it for years. I feel good about it though, I like to learn and I like to fix things, and there's lots of opportunity. I've been able to eliminate a lot of costs and reduce regular expenses by taking on a lot of what others were doing and applying effective fixes to longstanding issues. It's very fulfilling, like getting to do the type of work I always hit a wall with in all my other workplaces, improve and optimize. That it's for my family brings together a lot of what matters the most to me, keeps me constantly motivated.

The town is nice too. It's been a few months so I've gotten more acclimated, the slower pace of things and friendlier atmosphere really does a lot for me. Here are a bunch of images of downtown I took on some of my walks. Because of the slower pace, I can be measured, precise, take the proper time to consider things and work out problems without feeling like I'm in some inner state of siege/under the gun all the time. At first I missed a lot of what was available to me elsewhere, but as time went on I came to realize a lot of that just didn't matter as much as I thought it did. As much as I love a good Indian restaurant and a computer store, not having them is not the detriment my mind used to pretend it was. Along with that has come an explosion of creativity, I've done a ridiculous amount of writing and reading, and am slowly getting myself up to snuff drawing things. The house exists on an art school campus, and from what I've gathered reading local magazines the presence of that school has done a ton to really give this place character and variety. My hope is to really lean into that, support it and see if we can have our space be a place for folks to work their creativity. Connections are taking shape and that's made me real happy to see. I cannot tell you how heartwarming it is, for example, to talk about this stuff with the guy who does a radio show and then hear him on the radio a day later saying "this place is really good you should go see it!" Folks are really beginning to grasp my aims when it comes to the scale and type of stuff we want to do, and I haven't really encountered much suspicion/doubt/etc. Folks tend to just trust the simple motives. I can't ask for more than that, the sense of gratitude I wake up with every day is beyond my ability to capture here.

So, there you go. Another step taken, one more further toward whatever comes, as precisely as I can manage to get to the goals. I wanted to post the followup because I said I'd do that and as part of the effort itself, share the vision and the way it plays out in the hope others spot what my eyes miss, and/or that they might take something useful for themselves from it. I'd love to read it if you have thoughts, opinions, advice, experience. Or if you just want to talk about the high minded stuff, I do like doing that. Helps me stay consistent. Anyway, i've said plenty, so off I go to walk around downtown again. I've got that phone on me all the time, call/text whenever (text if it's after 5pm CST, is my only request with that). As always, I very much appreciate you taking the time and giving me your attention.

...and within a few weeks I was banned from r/iphone for "ban evasion", which I most definitely did not do.

I've had the same reddit account for over 16 years and other than a surprisingly HUGE number of deleted comments and posts (according to sites that track that) that seem perfectly benign to me (mostly deleted for stupidly trivial technicalities), I've never had any problems on the site. Sure, a few unpopular opinions here and there that get downvoted a little but, but nothing offensive, no trolling, etc.

So, I tried to respond, and here's how the conversation went:

Hello. I’m very confused by this ban notification. The only recent activity that I’ve had on this subreddit is to answer somebody’s question, and I cannot imagine how that answer in any way violated the rules. Can you please help me to at least understand what led to this?

...to which the mod replied:

Ban evasion not that hard to get

...and I responded:

I honestly do not know what you're talking about. It appears that you think that I have been posting with multiple accounts, but I have not. I've been using this same account for over 16 years without ever being accused of such a thing. I'd appreciate it if you could take a look and reconsider.

...to which I got:

No the system detects ban evader like you automatically

...

I'm sorry that you think that I have done such a thing, but I have not. I even co-moderate another subreddit that is a very serious one with its fair share of trolls to deal with, so I get it, but I honestly did not try to evade any prior bans.

... and the only response I get back is:

Stop

I'm so sick and tired of that site, I don't know why I went back after doing so well avoiding it after the somewhat recent events that caused me to uninstall all of the apps and stop using the site. The mods there are abusive and power-hungry and it's a toxic place to be. It's a shame because my account is over 16 years old and I remember the old days when it was nothing like it is now. :(

So, hopefully this time I'll stop using the site for good, this was the reminder that I needed. I've avoided Facebook and other social media due to the toxicity, I don't know why I expected reddit to be any better; please stay above the fray, Tildes!

There was a question on reddit about whether rich people ever think about all the poor and starving people who are suffering while they live in luxury. It got me thinking about the "rich" more broadly, as many of the people like me who are on the internet are part of the global 1% if not the local.

I think a lot of rich people dont like to think about the idea that maybe the truly morally right thing to do would be to give up all their money and work a day job like everyone else.

So they try to avoid thinking about it at all to avoid having to constantly feel guilty about not doing the thing they know is right. Making a contribution to helping others just opens you up to other people or even your own conscience saying you could be doing more, and youll never be able to do enough to fully justify not doing so. Or alternatively you can embrace selfishness and give up on constantly trying to be a better person and never have to think about it again.

Maybe its easy to look at some billionaire and say they could lose 1/2 their money and not notice any change in their lifestyle, so they should be considered morally contemptable for not even offering a fraction of that when it could make such a difference for so many. But somewhere between that and living in poverty, there has got to be some line where your right to take care of yourself and your right to try and invest in your own future stops outweighing the shame of allowing the evils of the world to go unchallenged.

Then there is a fuzzy region around that line where its ambiguous whether you are doing enough good in the world or if you should feel morally compelled to change how you are living your life. And I think its probable the for a lot of people the place where they envision all their dreams coming true is somewhere on the negative end of the spectrum. So if your dream is to be a famous movie star, for example, at some point that dream might not be compatible with your moral imoerative to oppose classism.

Personally I hate having to work an office job. If I got the chance to make a fortune Id build a cabin in the woods and have food delivered to me and never have to deal with anything ever again. But doing so would be selfish. So I guess if I ever had the opportunity Id be corrupted by riches in a heartbeat. Which is kind of a downer of an ending to this line of thought.

I did it. I called the police with a very kind noise complaint. A house party down the street was going at 0130. I typically wouldn't care, but this was so loud that I could ask siri what a song was and it told me. The house is three houses away, across the street, on the next block.

For fellow party-poopers, how late did you let it go before you did something?

I don't want to say I'm an alcoholic but I might be. Over the last several years, my drinking has increased from once or twice a week to daily, to the point where I'd start my day off in the weekend with a drink. I knew it wasn't good, but it was a habit I fell into.

Obviously I'm aware enough about it to do something. I've quit smoking cigarettes, so I at least understand the quitting process, but I also don't want to (and don't think I could) give up drinking forever like I did with quitting cigarettes.

My wife is also a drinker, but is much more moderated about it. Thing is, it meant that even if I didn't buy drinks for me, there's always been drinks in the house and so... I drank that. I've finally convinced her that for financial and dietary reasons it would be beneficial to us to stop buying drinks for at home. For my own self, I know that if I don't have a drink around I just won't drink.

This works great but, I find myself lost and listless now! It's a frustrating feeling that I remember well from when I was quitting cigarettes, and I know I just need to work through those moments and keep myself busy otherwise. With the nice weather, I've been biking a lot more and spending more time outside with my kids. At night is when it's toughest - those times after everyone else is asleep and before I go to bed.

I'm not really looking for advice or anything, I just want to share somewhere my experience so far, because it feels good to write about it and express my feelings. Maybe it'll help.

Also if anyone has a suggestion for something to replace beer, I'd appreciate it. I don't like fruity, or soft drinks. Currently I'm getting by with enormous amounts of sparkling water but sometimes I want some flavor, but most drinks that aren't beer are cloyingly sweet and disgusting.

I live in a country that's extremely dominated by the right. Leftist people are almost non-existent, and it's even often used as an insult. By leftist I just don't mean it in the anti-capitalist sense, but also for cultural stuff like not being a homophobe, racist, misogynist, etc. In fact, these are even more important qualities in this context.

I've gone through and am still going through my fair share of ideological growth. Even though I've always been progressive by the standards of my country, well, it was a low bar. So I had to unlearn a lot of things, and learn a much more critical approach. I'm a constant learner, and I'm interested in politics, so in the long run it's changed me a lot.

Another thing is that I've always had a strong egalitarian tendency since my childhood. I think this is an important trait that enabled me to grow past the conservative hierarchies. I'm really glad I did, and I plan on continuing to do so. However, this came at a personal cost I deem great.

Simply put, I have a lot of trouble connecting with people anymore. I still can connect with people at some level as long as we don't talk about politics, but it's an important area to me, and more importantly, as a human being, I don't think I will ever be able to overlook someone who grossly objectifies women every day, expresses queerphobic sentiments constantly, jokes about violence against minorities regularly, or genuinely wants pogroms to happen to minorities.

This is not a single person, but it's the general attitude of the population here. Men tend to make more edgy reactionary remarks, but women aren't that different politics-wise either. Some of my friends are left or left-leaning, but most of them are right-wingers who say and believe in stuff like that.

I've tried to be understanding, see it from a different angle, tried to consider that people are 3-dimensional. But there's a limit. Both because I grew, and because some of them regressed, I now look at these people and feel like I'm a complete stranger. As a person who bonds with people hard, this is extremely upsetting to me. Loneliness has been a burden of mine for a long time for various reasons, but in the last few years I was finally starting feel like I had found a social circle I could truly belong to. Despite all the stuff I mentioned, in personal relations, these people had qualities I found quite positive and precious at the time. For example, they were much less the stereotypical "feelings are for women" type of guys, which are extremely common here. Maybe first time in my life, I was feeling truly at home. It's probably why I struggled for years to keep it going.

For a very long time, I tried having talks with them, explain stuff to them, listen to them. They didn't work. I tried being aggressive, because they are still kind of dudely dudes who sometimes "respect" a dominant attitude, but that didn't work either. I feel like they are truly lost, and infuriatingly, unapologetically reactionary.

I fear that if I abandon them I won't be able to find a new social circle like this one. I have international friends as well, and I love them, but anyone can guess that for some stuff you want local people to bond with.

Part of my frustration is due to how most people here tend to follow comically evil beliefs. If this was just a rare occurance, I wouldn't have reacted this strongly, because I'd know there were a lot of egalitarian people. But they are an extreme minority. The dehumanization is suffocating.

There isn't much to add. This is a cost I didn't consider would come to pass, but I think I've outgrown these people, except for a few friends who I appreciate. It's demoralizing losing your social circle again at this age, to start all over. Again. But I think it's mostly unavoidable, because I am done trying to be tolerant of their evil.

Has anyone gone through, or is going through, something similar? What was or is your experience like?

I write this topic knowing that it might get removed for being too controversial or incendiary or bring the anti-Semites out of the woodwork, in which case, I understand why this topic might get removed.

I am just hoping that tildes has a better capacity of engaging in such a charged topic, at least more than reddit.

onto my question:

Like anyone else who watches the news, I have been pretty aware of what is going on in the latest escalation of the Israel-Palestine war. I would not claim to be the most educated person ever, but I'd like to think I at least understand the broad-strokes.

And I consider myself generally a progressive person (not a liberal) so I personally am not a big fan of the Israeli govt. And yes I do condemn Hamas, I don't care what your struggle is, Oct 7th was a terror attack and only makes the situation worse for the people you claim to be freedom fighters for.

Having said all that, and seeing how much control Israel seems to have on the western powers, or specifically U.S., I will admit, my thoughts sometimes veer towards "they really do control things" and shit like that, but then 10 seconds later, I realize how ye-like that sounds and it's the exact same kind of thinking that led to the Holocaust. But then I also wonder if that is not entirely my fault and more because of the Jewish leaders who insist on making fervent support of Israel a strong part of their identity, thereby linking any criticism of the Israeli govt with criticism of Jewish people (or at least the Jewish leaders in the media who are supportive of Israel) rather than distancing themselves from a right-wing government.

So yea, I guess my question is: I don't think its entirely unreasonable to think that Israel has a surprising amount of control over western powers (specifically U.S.) but that sentiment in and of itself also veers dangerously close to antisemitism for my liking so I wondered how folks on here approach it?

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!