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For those of you who are into nail polish or considering Christmas presents: Zoya is giving customers who order more than $35 in product the entire holiday 2020 collection (12 full-sized bottles) free -- promo code HOLIDAY at checkout.

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My order plus shipping came out too $46...under $50 for 15 bottles of nail polish (and a bottle of remover)! Which is...way too much nail polish.

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Just checked it out -- that's a great deal but I wouldn't wear most of those holiday colors because they're quite bright and shimmery. If you end up with any that's too dark for your preferences, let me know and I will take it off your hands!

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There is no such thing as too much nail polish. I have a bucket full.

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thanks. i might need some ideas like this for the female dominated household i live in

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Find new uses! Create art!

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Substack .. as in it looks like a lot of people are moving to this platform

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Vox.com has had a couple high profile departures lately. Ezra Klein left to join the NY Times and do more podcasts.

Matt Yglesias, another co-founder, left to do his thing on Substack.

https://www.slowboring.com/p/welcome-to-slow-boring

Today is my last day as a senior correspondent at Vox.com (still hosting The Weeds though!). I love Vox, but there was an inherent tension between my status as a co-founder of the site and my desire to be a fiercely independent and at times contentious voice.

My first media love is blogging, and while Vox has evolved over the years into many things, it is really not a blog.

Substack offers the opportunity to create genuinely social media not stuff driven by algorithms, virality, tech platforms, or fads — and I’m incredibly excited to throw my hat in the ring with a new publication I’m calling Slow Boring.

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I suspect a lot of this has to do with an incident where Emily VanDerWerff, a trans writer at Vox, called Yglesias out for signing a Harper's letter about free speech. The letter itself is fairly anodyne; the issue at hand was that the letter was also signed by J.K. Rowling. She said him signing the letter made her feel "less safe." (Personally, I found this whole controversy ridiculous.)

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/substack-and-medias-groupthink-problem/617102/

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JKR is a transphobic POS but I agree that the letter itself was a whole lot of not very much.

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the thing i dont get is how he expects anyone to pay $8/mo to listen JUST TO HIM.

at least w/ the NY Times i get a daily crossword too!

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Beach House is one of those bands I love listening until I hate them.

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ELSEWHERE IN COLLEGE

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Arizona St. has had to pull out of their game again this week. As a result, Utah heads to Husky Stadium Saturday night. The Utes were the last team in the country to get going, and got USC right off the bat, and got clobbered. Now they get to play at Washington at night at the end of November.

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Utah's starting QB out for the season. Grad-transfer 2nd string QB may cap Utah's season... I mean, beyond being ravaged by Covid

https://twitter.com/JeffCall12/status/1331259493552844804

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SC had a player test positive for the 'rona after the trip to Utah: https://twitter.com/USC_FB/status/1331263728877248513?s=20

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HISTORY

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Wow! I've been avoiding social media since September, but threads like this are worth reading. Thanks for sharing!

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TODAY IN COVID-19

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Cal vs. Colorado State canceled....but wait...!!!

https://www.si.com/college/cal/basketball/cal-hoops-to-face-osu

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OUR CRUMBLING DEMOCRACY

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Trump currently pardoning the turkeys (and I don't mean his family). It's so easy to tell when he is going off script and ad libbing.

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in which Trump supporters sort of figure out how to use donation statements but pick the wrong "Dominion" company:

https://twitter.com/lachlan/status/1331262479129862149?s=20

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this is an interesting way of describing Facebook's content "management" approach: https://twitter.com/MattZeitlin/status/1331256055091900417?s=20

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Actually not crumbling now, despite tons of stress.

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if the last few weeks - indeed, few years - have shown anything, it's that "norms based" government is inherently vulnerable to disruption. Nothing changes about that just because Trump lost the election.

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There is no substitute for judgement that is both good and reasonable. You can't fully legislate it because no one will ever anticipate every combination of circumstances that could arise. You can't prevent it either; all you can do is try to avoid it by choosing carefully who you put in position to make decisions, and rely on oversight by enough people who have demonstrated good and reasonable judgement. Instead, we have adopted the model of not only putting people who are unqualified in positions of power, but are also of the opinion that once installed, they are beyond question about anything they say or do, with no accountability for results. Why exactly this ever seemed like a good idea, I can not fathom.

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Look, I'm no Pangloss, but it's important to pay attention to what went right as well all the problems created by Trump & Co. - Cyber Command effectively kept foreign actors out, unlike 2016, in the middle the worst pandemic, voting was both at historic levels and smoothly efficient, and the MSM learned to stop the BS of reporting "both sides" - hence the Hunter stuff completely fizzled.

Also, looking forward, as bad as Trump has been for the country, my guess is now he's going to equally destructive to the Republican party in the years to come.

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there is no evidence of foreign tampering with actual votes in 2016 of which I'm aware at any rate.

I think you're discounting the damage down to the civil service and to oversight / enforcement of oversight of the executive branch. Another term and Trump would have taken this country back to the mid 19th century in terms of political control of notionally civil service jobs. As it is, he's left behind a massive trail of corrupt spending and procurements, significant gaps in senior management, substantial damage to rules / rule enforcement, and so on. This administration made the unitary executive abuses of the Bush the Younger and Obama administration look like amateur hour. These are the kinds of changes that have brought down presidential style governments in the rest of the hemisphere. The fact that the NY Times only got slightly befuddled over the Hunter Biden claims isn't really that much of a plus tbh.

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I'm not discounting any the bad stuff that Trump did, and although Russians didn't tamper with the votes in 2016, they did have a significant impact on voting, IMO.

Did you read any of the nightmare scenarios before the election? Not a bit of that happened, and no local republicans were willing to go along with Trump's attempt to steal the election.

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You are entirely missing my point.

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I certainly agree with everything here, in regards to all the positives that often get overlooked.

I hope your last point comes true but I though Trump would already be destructive to the GOP and that hasn’t happened.

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Already cost them the governorship in Kansas, more to come.

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With all do respect to Kansas, I am going to need more of a National and high profile reckoning. Also, it didn’t cost them the senate seat in Kansas.

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True, but now we are more aware of it.

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Go Bears!!!

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GENERICS

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During Cal Football and Basketball seasons, I buy generic Pepcid...the more Famotidine the better!

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Ha! Me too. But not for basketball anymore. I just drink myself into a stupor.

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Generic wine by the case? What could go wrong?

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Drinking generic wine during a bad Cal basketball game leads to only one predictable outcome: Taking generic ibuprofen for the generic hangover that ensues.

Never get drunk during a Cal football game... don’t know why.

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I have observed Cal fans not wasting any time afterwards in getting to that though.

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In lab, we had certain enzymes that we could make in-house OR we could spend hundreds of dollars to order vials from companies. For most of us, the in-house enzymes worked great. One labmate, though, always asked, "What's the brand???" (She was very brand-conscious in general.)

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basic stuff like ibuprofen or acetaminophen.

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I just buy all that stuff in name brands at Costco.

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We don't shop at Costco so... 🤷‍♂️

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I don't use that much ibuprofen, otherwise I would get it at Costco.

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that was the first thing that came to mind for me. generally i'll buy the generic version of the medicine after looking at the active ingredient even for less familiar OTC stuff

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I've been getting Target's Up&Up for ibuprofen. Much cheaper than Advil.

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on the other hand, because my wife works at Pfizer, our Rx drug coverage is such that there is no co=pay or charge for any Pfizer drugs.

they also used to have a "employee drug store" when they still had a consumer business and she could get a lot of the branded things like Advil effectively for free.

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And Claritin

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Rather than Cheez-its (as in the Bowl) I get Cheese Bites from Safeway.

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Is that as in a soccer tournament instead of a football bowl game?

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Judging by the score, yes.

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