those statements don’t prove anything, they just express his opinion on why those Arab states shouldn’t be considered countries, which is disputed by the overwhelming number of other countries who recognize those governments.

Israel does have a problem that a good chunk of their neighbors deny their right to exist. I’m not smart enough to know how to solve the problem, but I do know the solution is not “No, U”.

If he’s concerned about the population, he can just stop sending young men off to war…

Jesus was a socialist Jew. We had one of those run for President, too, but couldn’t make it past the Democratic primary.

Back in the day, if I saw some braindead karma farming post on Reddit, I took a look at their post history and quite a few times it was a brand new account. I would simply reply “Welcome to Reddit! How has your first [week/day/hour] been?”. I think precisely twice it turned out to be a new human user, the rest of the time they would just delete the comment (or possibly even the account).

I got banned years ago from r/funny because I was browsing on “new” (like I do here), responded to a post with a lame joke within minutes after it posted, then the powers that be decided the poster was a spammer, and banned me too. I asked them why they banned me, but got absolutely nothing in response. It turns out, though, that being banned from there made absolutely no difference to my Reddit experience.

Now that Reddit is a public company, and courting income from paid official subreddits, it’s only a matter of time before there is a huge class-action lawsuit over their uneven moderation policies. Especially if companies start steering a good portion of their customer interaction there. It is super unfair to be cut off from legitimate customer service because of a power-tripping mod in a totally different part of Reddit.

Besides, I hit on the best way to ensure I never get banned from Reddit: I don’t go there anymore.

https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/769164/nutrients

INGREDIENTS: CARBONATED WATER, CARAMEL COLOR, ASPARTAME, PHOSPHORIC ACID, POTASSIUM BENZOATE (TO PROTECT TASTE), NATURAL FLAVORS, CITRIC ACID, CAFFEINE.

I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.

Think of someone who makes small crafts and sells them on some online platform. Someone who does this as a business will keep track of their materials costs, and subtract them from their sales cost, only paying taxes on their actual profit.

But the IRS will only let you do this if they determine your intent is to make a profit. If they think you are purposely just selling enough to cover your materials, but using most of the materials for yourself, they can tell you that you never had an actual business in the first place, and that all that deducting of expenses never should have happened.

Because too many people treat politics like a sporting event. You root for your team no matter what, and against the other team. You have to do it this way, because if the other side wins that means your side loses.

So there are too many people who view Trump as “Their Guy”, and are “rooting” for him. Anything they hear that might portray Trump in a negative light (like a criminal trial, for instance) must be the Other Side trying to cheat to win unfairly.

I remind people that Roger Ailes was Nixon’s media consultant, and the lesson he learned from Watergate was that Nixon could have gotten away with it if the media was more sympathetic. He then went on to be the CEO of Fox News. That’s no accident. There is a direct line from Nixon to Trump, and Roger Ailes drew it.

Each sport has different jargon for their officials, and some sports use them differently than others. Some sports (like football) use them all at once. There are some distinctions that tend to run across multiple different sports, not perfectly, but good enough to discuss.

Umpires tend to make binary decisions based strictly on the rulebook. Yes, sometimes there is some Grey area, like whether a batter “swung” or not. But the decisions are often yes/no.

Judges tend to make more subjective decisions, comparing against some sort of ideal rather than a binary decision. In most sports where scores are not accumulated based on goals but assigned by officials based on how well they perform their routine, those officials are judges.

Referees tend to make broader decisions that impact the overall game. They are also more likely to talk directly with coaches on either side, or the spectators.

And there is no perfect analogy. American football does have a “referee” who is the main official, as well as an “umpire” who has set duties, and all the rest are technically judges but enforce things like scrimmage violations and penalties in the secondary. When an announcer says “That’s probably a holding flag” it is because it is thrown by a judge who typically has responsibility for looking for holding. Baseball only has umpires, the one with the most seniority is the “crew chief” and acts sort of like a referee but they don’t call them that.

I find LinkedIn useful, but absolutely refuse to install the app on my phone. I figure it’s enough to give them access to my contacts and resume to monetize, they don’t need my location also.

Whenever I get an email notification that I have a LinkedIn message, I check it the next time I am at my desktop. Then, without fail, after I check it they send me a follow-up email reminding me that “LinkedIn is better on the app!”

That just reinforces the idea that I will never, ever install their app.

You are 100% correct, with the one exception that if Biden dies or resigns today, Harris wouldn’t become Acting President, she would become the actual 47th President, and Trump would have to reprint all of his 45-47 hats.

That assumes that the rest of the states shake out as expected. NC and Ohio have been polling a lot closer than expected. Winning one of those would offset a loss in PA or GA.

There’s a reason why we still hold the actual election, and don’t base the winner just on polls.

Ah, the smaller airports are probably worse, because they don’t have much to do and have to justify the investment in all the fancy machines.

Airport security, particularly in the US where many airports have international and domestic departures out of the same terminal, will not care about that. I regularly travel with OTC pills loose in a container and no documentation, and have had no issues.

Where you might encounter problems is on entering that foreign country. While they have never ever given me grief over my OTC medicines, I try to make sure to remember to buy stuff in original packaging to bring. But even then, as long as you are only bringing enough for your trip they probably won’t care. Prescription medicines should absolutely be in original containers, though.

Normally, yes, but Yotta looks like a form of “Prize-based savings”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize-linked_savings_account

They are “no lose lottery” in the sense that you don’t put up money directly to enter, you just open a “savings account”. But they pay far less than market rate to fund the payouts. So in a sense, you pay for the entry with reduced returns on your “savings”.

Dad here. I simply don’t offer if it involves their kids, it is far too likely to be misconstrued. Plus, that mom is probably doing all she can to keep it together, and knowing that someone noticed could put her in a worse place mentally. If I’m out with my wife, she has offered out help before, and that is much less likely to be judged. It’s just a fact.

(I will offer to do things like take the shopping cart back, but I would do that regardless of whether they have kids with them or not.)

I have sometimes seen little kids wander off while their mom wasn’t looking. I do pay attention to where they go, and try to keep them in sight. Sometimes it might have only looked like they were wandering, only to find they were going toward another trusted adult. But other times you can see that moment of panic on the mom’s face when they realize what happened. It’s enough to be able to point and say “they went that way” and they can go get the kid themselves.

I won’t interfere unless the kid is going into a dangerous situation, like a street or into water. Even then, I won’t touch the kid unless it’s the last possible thing to do to keep them safe, I am more likely to get in their way and ask them where their parents are.

See inside what? Did you link to anything?

As I see it, key deadlines are:

• The party conventions, where each parties nominee will be formalized. (But recall that the actual Democratic Nomination will be done before the convention, to meet some State deadlines).

• The election itself, where voters choose which slate of electors cast EC votes.

• The electoral college election that really matters.

• The counting of the EC Votes

• the inauguration

Once the nominations are formalized, they probably can’t be undone, since there are State deadlines involved.

But always remember that people are not voting for the candidates themselves, but for a slate of electors. And while the expectation is for these electors to vote for the ticket they were pledged to, if one candidate is subject to God’s Almighty Recall Vote, they appear to have the discretion to file votes differently.

Once the EC votes are cast, though, there would probably be no choice but to accept them. (Congress recently revamped the counting process to eliminate some of the shenanigans that happened last time). I expect that if either one croaks after that, they would probably just inaugurate the VP on the ticket directly.

(Edited to add: states may be able to change EC votes after the December EC election. That date is based on a “safe harbor” deadline which makes EC votes harder to challenge. So, if the winning candidate bites it on Christmas Day there’s probably a way for State Legislatures to certify new EC votes before Congress counts them Jan 6, but we should expect a challenge to that.)

(It would suck if Trump won, and Biden croaked on Jan 19th. We might have our first female President, for one day.)

As I understand it, it’s due to advances in the technology that supports biology and paleontology. When all scientists had to go on were fossils, the bone structure of dinosaurs more closely resembled giant lizards, so thats the conclusion they came to. But recent techniques, including genetic analysis on currently existing species, clearly shows the link between birds and dinosaurs. (And, in fact, alligators are more closely related to birds than they are to lizards.)

I found this article which seems to explain it well:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-dinosaurs-shrank-and-became-birds/

Moses : The Lord, the Lord Jehovah has given unto you these fifteen…

[drops one of the tablets]

Moses : Oy! Ten! Ten commandments for all to obey