But paying attention to other people’s houses is how they avoid looking at their own.

I mean, he’s a Nazi presiding over a Nazi government doing Nazi things.

He isn’t as bad as Hitler yet; but Hitler wasn’t as bad as Hitler in the first part of his reign either.

Japanese Holly actually gets small purple-black berries (assuming a male nearby). Still good for birds though.

The peashrub can set a sort of tan fruit; but after flowering what people usually enjoy is the weeping form, pruning it to be more open to show that off (it’ll end up looking sort of like a snuffleupagus if you don’t prune). ‘Walker’ is a variety with more delicate foliage so it shows the weeping habit better.

I mean, if you want color, scent, and a long bloom time, you could go with a rebooming rose, like Scentimental or one of the Knock Out types. Most good rebloomers aren’t quite as tall as you were hoping for, although sometimes you can find them grown as standards.

There’s also lilacs, which even though you’d get only a short bloom, you could prune to whatever look you wanted.

If you want to just do a green dramatic accent, Ilex ‘Sky Pencil’ fits every other one of your requirements.

Probably the best tree that roughly fits what you want is Caragana arborescens ‘Pendula’. Not a rebloomer, but pretty flowers, a nice weeping habit, and a pretty yellow fall color do give it year-round interest.

Holmes had been buried in the morning papers all the way down, but after we had passed the Hampshire border he threw them down and began to admire the scenery. It was an ideal spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, which set an edge to a man’s energy. All over the countryside, away to the rolling hills around Aldershot, the little red and grey roofs of the farm-steadings peeped out from amid the light green of the new foliage.

“Are they not fresh and beautiful?” I cried with all the enthusiasm of a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street.

But Holmes shook his head gravely.

“Do you know, Watson,” said he, “that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.”

“Good heavens!” I cried. “Who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads?”

“They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”

“You horrify me!”

“But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.

Yeah, but his donation was something like 72% of the donations to that party by money given. That’s not just a donation; that’s him funding his own private far-right party. And if he wants his own far-right party, it’s probably not just for looks.

This guy co-owns Mullvad. That all Mullvad is doing about it is wringing their hands and saying ‘oh, but it’s his money, there’s nothing we can do’ is, quite frankly, disgusting. It’s his money that he got from your company, in large enough quantities he can go out and buy himself some racists like Phil Knight buying himself a fucking basketball team.

If a lower-level employee makes some shit-ass racist comment on their own time, they tend to get canned immediately. Yet all this asshole gets is Mullvad shaking their heads and saying ‘well, it doesn’t align with our values, but what you gonna do?’ Bullshit.

Sounds more like they didn’t even know it was there. Looks like Trump’s sycophants decorated the booth on their own initiative.

Personally I say props to the company for not merely ‘chastising’ or complaining but immediately withdrawing completely from the fair once they found out about the flag.

Huh. How the heck do they justify that?

Including what he actually says?

My old stray boy was so smart. One time he wandered into the kitchen looking for me, and my sister said, ‘oh, I think she’s in the living room’, and he nodded his thanks and went into the living room to find me.

I miss him so much.

I’m pretty sure it’s mostly his tone of voice and presumptuous attitude. But all that aside, given how many people in this country have said they want to see me and mine dead lately, I will be hanging on to my firearms, thank you very much, and if that makes me a ‘gun-toting readneck’ then so be it.

I guess that’s kind of like dozens…

Yup, the death of 3rd Party Aps did it for me too. It made me sad because I had to leave behind a lot of the niche subreddits I enjoyed, but I could see the writing on the wall.

Man, and after all that work we put in destroying those countries’ governments so we could grow those bananas…

If that’s the case they need to go back to school and take a few writing courses.

Quite a few countries, Italy for example, will either sell you a castle for dirt cheap or just give it to you, as long as you promise to restore and maintain it.

Which is, to be clear, an absolute pain in the ass, since those castles have very strict restrictions about how to repair and upgrade them, materials and even companies you’re allowed to use, etc. Not to mention they’re a bitch to heat in the winter.

May as well asked who the slave owners sold to since so many in the South were enslaved.

The answer is the same. They sell to each other. We don’t get a cut. They dream of the day they actually get to have slaves again. Most of them don’t see us as people; they see us as things that siphon off money that needs to be in their pockets. Money we don’t deserve because we’re not rich.

No, it’s called ‘being a fucking moron’.

Maybe they thought it was another case of AI being code for ‘An Indian’? Goodness knows enough ‘AI’ companies have tried pulling that shit…

Hey, staying alive to snuggle cats and spite your parents works too.