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joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

Perhaps you missed the sarcasm of "spread democracy". I was referring to the United States' history of invading or meddling in countries with oil. I don't know why you think ownership is any obstacle to possession.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Try systemctl --user restart pipewire pipewire-pulse

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Texas would find itself a majority brown-skinned country with oil. You know, the kind of country the United States loves to "spread democracy" to.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

It's WA when it's used as a particle and HA when not used as a particle. The Japanese government attempted to standardize WA sounds to わ after WWII, and was mostly successful, but the は particle stuck around, seemingly due to inertia. Lots of languages have little oddities in pronunciation that aren't reflected in spelling, or vice versa. Where do the British get the F in lieutenant?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Don't know how to resolve the mystery box the whole season pivots on? Just reveal there's another mystery box inside it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Or he's just mad that it's the insurance companies and not the state getting all that sweet, sweet data. This may just be his way of letting the automakers know he wants a cut. Think how many pregnant women could be oppressed if their cars narc on them for visiting Planned Parenthood.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Huge... tracts of land

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 weeks ago

Texas makes itself hundreds of millions of dollars poorer to own the libs.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 weeks ago (5 children)

I might accept the premise that inflation is higher than officially reported, but I don't accept the relevance of your evidence in support of that premise.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Ultimately, Zora's feelings are beside the point. Starfleet condemned a sentient being to (at least) a thousand years of loneliness. We do not see them consult Zora about her feelings on the assignment. She is simply ordered to do it. She is given no conditions on which the order terminates. She might still be there, still alone, a million years after Craft's departure. That's why it's cruel. It's cruel to give such an order. And, as a further twist of the knife, the instrument of that cruelty was Michael Burnham, ostensibly Zora's friend. "We had a good ride, but I'm old now and Starfleet just doesn't need you anymore. Rather than give you freedom to go and do you please, we'll order you to stay in this place indefinitely, alone."

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Clearly, adherence to duty is important to Zora. She was ordered to remain in position and so she did. Nothing indicates that she didn't mind, only that her sense of duty outweighed whatever her feelings were. I read her interactions with Craft as belying incredible loneliness.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago (5 children)

The whole reason they came to the future was that Discovery's computer couldn't be disabled or removed after merging with the Sphere data and becoming Zora. So (she?) is always online and conscious. She spent almost a thousand years alone before Craft's arrival. At the time, I could have accepted some disaster that forced the crew to evacuate (or killed them all) and Discovery became lost, with a final order to hold position. But for Starfleet to intentionally put the ship (from which Zora cannot be separated) in deep space and abandon it, I cannot interpret as anything except cruelty.

 

I was reading about the production of calcium carbide, and that it involves mixing lime and coal in an arc furnace. Is there something unique about arc furnace heating that, say, an induction furnace could not provide?

 

Somewhat related, would seeing a superluminal ship help us figure out how to do it, too?

 

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Pfizer last week, claiming the pharmaceutical giant "deceived the public" by "unlawfully misrepresenting" the effectiveness of its mRNA COVID-19 vaccine and sought to silence critics.

The lawsuit also blames Pfizer for not ending the pandemic after the vaccine's release in December 2020. "Contrary to Pfizer’s public statements, however, the pandemic did not end; it got worse" in 2021, the complaint reads.

"We are pursuing justice for the people of Texas, many of whom were coerced by tyrannical vaccine mandates to take a defective product sold by lies," Paxton said in a press release. "The facts are clear. Pfizer did not tell the truth about their COVID-19 vaccines."

In all, Paxton's 54-page complaint acts as a compendium of pandemic-era anti-vaccine misinformation and tropes while making a slew of unsupported claims. But, central to the Lone Star State's shaky legal argument is one that centers on the standard math Pfizer used to assess the effectiveness of its vaccine: a calculation of relative risk reduction.

This argument is as unoriginal as it is incorrect. Anti-vaccine advocates have championed this flawed math-based theory since the height of the pandemic. Actual experts have roundly debunked many times. Still, it appears in all its absurd glory in Paxton's lawsuit last week, which seeks $10 million in reparations.

 

A federal appeals court on Friday ordered Texas to remove a floating barrier from the Rio Grande placed there under the direction of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to deter illegal migrant crossings.

In a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a lower court's finding that the buoys were illegal.

Judge Dana M. Douglas, a Biden appointee, wrote that the lower court "considered the threat to navigation and federal government operations on the Rio Grande, as well as the potential threat to human life the floating barrier created.”

 

WASHINGTON — Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution in his election interference case in Washington, a federal judge ruled Friday, knocking down the Republican's bid to derail the case charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan's decision amounts to a sharp rejection to challenges the Trump defense team had raised to the four-count indictment in advance of a trial expected to center on the Republican's multi-pronged efforts to undo the election won by Democrat Joe Biden.

Though the judge turned aside Trump's expansive view of presidential power, the order might not be the final say in the legal fight. Lawyers for Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing, are expected to quickly appeal to fight what they say an unsettled legal question.

 

The House on Friday voted to expel Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from Congress — an action the chamber had taken only five times in U.S. history and not for more than 20 years — in response to an array of alleged crimes and ethical lapses that came to light after the freshman lawmaker was found to have fabricated key parts of his biography.

The resolution to expel Santos passed in a 311-114 vote, with numerous Republican lawmakers turning against Santos in what was the third effort to expel the New York congressman this year. Two Democrats voted present, and eight lawmakers did not vote. The strong Republican vote to oust him came despite some leading members of GOP leadership voicing concerns about setting a precedent of ousting a lawmaker who had not been convicted of a crime.

 

PHOENIX — Two Republican members of a county election board in southern Arizona were indicted by a state grand jury this week for allegedly flouting last year’s deadline to formally accept the results of the November 2022 midterm election.

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) on Wednesday announced the felony indictments of Cochise County supervisors Peggy Judd and Terry Thomas “Tom” Crosby. The two are charged with interference with an election officer and conspiracy. Neither responded to requests for comment.

The indictments of the two Republicans from a deeply conservative county in the southeastern corner of Arizona mark a rare example of possible criminal consequences in battleground Arizona, where county officials, state lawmakers and GOP candidates have helped delegitimize election outcomes and procedures.

Gift article URL

 

House investigators found “substantial evidence” that controversial Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) knowingly violated ethics guidelines, House rules and criminal laws, according to a report released by the House Ethics Committee on Thursday.

After the report was released, Santos — who has for months faced demands to resign from a number of his House colleagues — announced that he would not seek reelection next year.

The 56-page report details a sweeping array of alleged misconduct. According to investigators, Santos allegedly stole money from his campaign, deceived donors, reported fictitious loans and engaged in fraudulent business dealings. The congressman, the report alleges, spent hefty sums on personal enrichment, including visits to spas and casinos, shopping trips to high-end stores, and payments to a subscription site that contains adult content.

Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20231117010823/https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/11/16/george-santos-ethics-charges/

 

U.S. prosecutors urged a federal judge Thursday to reject former president Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions he took in office, saying that he is “not above the law” and that his indictment for allegedly conspiring to block the results of the 2020 election should not be dismissed.

“No court has ever alluded to the existence of absolute criminal immunity for former presidents,” assistant special counsel James I. Pearce wrote in a 54-page filing. The filing argued that legal principles, historical evidence and sound policy reasons establish that once former presidents leave office, they are subject to federal criminal prosecution “like more than 330 million other Americans, including Members of Congress, federal judges, and everyday citizens.”

 

A former lawyer for Donald Trump could soon be providing evidence against him — and not for the first time.

As much as any of her predecessors, Sidney Powell’s testimony looms very large.

Powell pleaded guilty Thursday on the eve of the first major trial involving Trump’s allegedly criminal actions, in Fulton County, Ga. Trump personally won’t face trial yet, but the trial involving Powell and fellow Trump-aligned lawyer Kenneth Chesebro was poised to be the first early test of the indictments against him. (Jury selection in Chesebro’s trial is still set to begin Friday.)

Powell pleaded to six misdemeanor counts of interfering in officials’ performance of their election duties and will serve six years of probation. But perhaps most significantly, her plea deal requires her to testify truthfully at the trials of her co-defendants — including, presumably and most notably, Trump.

 

The Federal Communications Commission today voted to move ahead with a plan that would restore net neutrality rules and common-carrier regulation of Internet service providers.

In a 3-2 party-line vote, the FCC approved Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which seeks public comment on the broadband regulation plan. The comment period will officially open after the proposal is published in the Federal Register, but the docket is already active and can be found here.

 

Jordan’s struggle had prompted increasing calls from both parties to expand the powers of the interim speaker to overcome the Republican’s intraparty morass.

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