rufus

Weird Al Yankovic. The move was nice already. And Daniel Radcliffe a good choice to portray him.

Yeah, what I mean is, sure there are some specific counterexamples far and in between. But if it weren't for the pharma lobby, you'd spend $8.000 on healthcare instead of $14.000 per year. And you'd live 2-3 years longer on average. I think 99.9% of the population would gladly accept that. But it ruins some of the business model of the 0.1% who get to make the decisions. It'll never happen in the USA because it's just on the paper that the people decide. And some of them aren't even educated enough to do so. Same thing with school shootings and other things people regularly complain about.

I don't think it's an evened out system. It's that on paper. I think we can agree on that. But the proper question is: Is that paper worth anything, anymore?

And is it evened out? What percentage of their salaries do lower class people pay for taxes and healtcare and the infrastructure? What percentage is it for rich people? Is there lobbyism being the biggest influence on what gets decided in politics? Who can afford that and gets their itches scratched? The big companies or the rural population? And do they even get some audience in the TV news shows, their voices heard?

I'm not so sure. The US sure is a democratic republic by 18th century standards. But you still retain that system that makes someone win the presidency who doesn't have the absolute majority of votes. And some of the states don't really count in the campaigns since it's obvious if they're blue or red.

I've watched too much George Carlin. I think the system with the two parties is more to give you the illusion of having a choice. Same with the theoretical availability of 'left' individuals.

And I mean we have enough examples of systems suppressing people. A theoretical possibility doesn't help if there's no real choice. And you can keep the masses uneducated and occupied with lots of work so they don't have time to get to power. I think that's some of the dynamics in the USA that keep the system as is. Also, Putin also was elected somewhat democratically. It's just that he got rid of his opposition. And the USA is more or less doing a similar thing. Just that they provide the people with a second choice, some illusion of choice that gives the people something to keep busy arguing about. In practice they both are a slightly different hue of the same color.

So on the paper, it's a democratic system and you'd be correct arguing with me. In practice it's deliberately set up in a way that votes can't change anything of substance.

Because there is no party available to elect, who care for the workers/people.

You have a system that is designed to take money from the poor and lower class and give it to the rich. You don't have proper workers rights, spend about twice the amount for healthcare compared to an European person and get substantially less out of it. People work more than 40h/week in more than one job and can't make ends meet... There are vast rural parts that look more like a third world country. Everything is made for commerce and nobody cares for LGBT people or women unless there's some money or publicity in it.

And you have about 2 parties who both participate and stand for that scheme.

I also fail to understand how that addresses the infinite recursion with gods. I mean if there is something. And that requires a creator. Who created the creator? And who created that creator of the creator? I think I tend towards gnostic atheism. I'm pretty sure that the idea of god is a really stupid answer to that question. But I also know how science and knowledge works. So I technically wouldn't claim to know, unless someone claim's it's a different thing for Russel's teapot or the flying spaghetti-monster. That's kind of the benchmark to tell if someone understands what I mean by agnostic atheist.

Meh, since there are so many false claims about famous people, ways to profit and get an audience by making allegations... I think it's really hard to tell. Seems established fact that he was a creep. And gathered children around because of some mental illness, to compensate for his own childhood that he didn't have. That doesn't automatically mean he abused them. And he wasn't convicted of anything. I say: can't tell, in dubio pro reo, but I wouldn't let kids anywhere near people like that.

Uh, is that the response to Google saying Apple is blocking their Google "AirTags" a few days ago?

Thanks, didn't know...

"Vermont became the first state in the continental United States to ban billboards (1968). Hawaii prohibited the advertising signs back in the 1920s. Maine and Alaska are the only other states to outlaw billboards." (https://vtdigger.org/2021/07/11/then-again-vermonts-billboard-ban-followed-a-winding-road-to-passage/)

I didn't read all of it. Wonder how that's handled and translates to private property next to the road.

What kind of question is this? 😆 I think everyone older than 6 regularly does that. Especially when planning things and disagreeing and then you get to learn who was right. And even the kids like to bet who is right and then they look it up, ask someone or try it and one of them will have this as an outcome...

Wow. Nice group of people with old LG WebOS TVs! I have an 42LBsomething with 3D. Works fine. Sometimes the YouTube App crashes because it's out of memory. But nowadays with all the ADs it's barely usable anyways.

Software. 99% of the time there is some Free Software alternative that either somehow does the job for my personal tasks, or is better anyways.