The comment above which started this discussion was complementary, and you admitted as much in your reply to it.

Others have also said and provided examples of the phrase sometimes being complementary.

You yourself moved from saying:

It is always cynical to describe someone as a “political operator,” because that phrase is inherently negative.

To:

It usually is, as in, more often than not.

Ie. sometimes it is positive.

You were wrong about a phrase sometimes having a different connotation, it happens, who gives a shit?

You’re right about the smooth bit. Don’t know how that happened.

In any case, operator isn’t necessarily negative, neither is political operator. It can be and often is, but not necessarily. I often see it being used as a compliment.

I did a google, here’s an example from NPR, which is clearly complimentary:

Street — who calls Obama “one of the biggest celebrities on the planet at the moment” — notes that he is “always able to put a distance between himself and whatever performance he’s giving. He knows he’s playing a game. He knows this is a bit of light relief, a bit of entertainment, but he keeps his dignity … and that seems to me a very clever trick. It speaks to him as a very sharp political operator.”

https://www.nhpr.org/politics/2012-05-10/obama-heads-to-hollywood-conservative-group-mocks-celebrity-president

It describes someone who is manipulative in a selfishly power-seeking way.

Not necessarily:

It describes how you achieve your aims, not necessarily what your aims are. Of course, given this is politics we’re talking about, it’s understandable you took it to be necessarily negative.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Mamdani is a relatively left-wing Muslim and non-white politician in America. It’s not cynical to say that he needs to be a smooth political operator, because if he isn’t he won’t survive.

And if he does fail, he’ll be replaced with a candidate who is almost certainly worse, and leave left-wing politics and colleagues in a worse position.

It’s not fair that the president is a rapist, while Mamdani can’t make even the slightest misstep (or something that can be portrayed as such), but that’s American politics. The deck is stacked.

Great for vegetables, IME.

Same here.

Meanwhile a reliable full size oven can easily cost 1000$/€ and consumes much more energy. Not always cheap/easy to install either.

For people on a budget, who often live in a small/rented place, an air fryer’s a life saver. Plug it in, cook something, pop it away if you need some more space. Don’t even need a kitchen. Just use it next to an open window or vent.

A rice cooker is similarly useful. Cheap, but you can use it to cook far more than rice, keep stuff warm, and largely replace a stove top. Once again, often without the need for space or installation.

Meh.

I have an old NEFF microwave. Fixing that involved popping in some new mica paper for a few bucks.

A more efficient and quicker small convection oven you can easily buy for 30 bucks and pop in a cupboard when you’re not using it.

And breathing in fly ash from the coal, which contains increased concentrations of uranium and thorium.

Compared to that an airfryer is a god send.

completely unavailable to obtain in the US

vinted/ebay

3G is being phased out everywhere

2G fallback.

specific apps that relate to taxi services and talking with my group

Yeah. That’s a no.

I find it annoying that everything’s an app now, when it could also still be a website.

In the Netherlands and Belgium employers sometimes offer what is called a “baaldag”. Basically, if you’re having an especially shit day, you can take the day off. No doctors note required.

That’s why I said you could have someone drive you.

And mandatory sick notes are stupid.

Plenty of places you don’t need a sick note for a day off.

This is probably not what you want, but I sometimes use a 2017 Nokia 3310, the one with 3G.

There are not really apps on that(IRC only twitter and facebook, and I don’t know if those still work), but you can install/upgrade to the latest version of opera mini, which does offer access to (some) more apps.

To be clear this is on my to do list. In the past I just used it as a dumbphone.

No thank you, I just ate.

I’ve never lived in the US.

Going to the doctor for the common cold is insane. Why waste doctors’ time on something that’ll pass on its own with a bit of rest and paracetamol? Utterly selfish.

Driving to a hospital if you’re not badly injured is also perfectly normal. Once again, why would you call an ambulance that could be helping someone in dire need, if you don’t need to?

Unless the injury is life threatening, drive yourself or have someone drive you. Not insane at all.

Fun fact: a tarot deck has 72 different cards. That means there’s 72! combinations, which is a number that is roughly 600,000,000,000,000,000,000,000​ larger than the amount of atoms in the observable universe.

That’s just what the woke media want you to believe! Also, did you know licking dog turds cures the common cold?

I feel it’s more important we focus on changing the world maps, so that Madagascar becomes Africa’s penis.

Thanks to smart phones, this generation of kids is roughly as tech literate as boomers.

I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

Dunk it in toilet bowl water and it’ll be fine.