Bingo.  I mean, I have family members who are always ranting about the evil dem gummit gonna spy on us with their covid vaccines and FEMA aid and stuff who then try and talk me into installing Gas Buddy and about fifteen other “deal” apps on my phone.

This is most likely true. What’s also true is that it’s turned out to be far easier than the data companies like to admit to un-aggregate data. They can sell it completely aggregated and anonymized, but third parties can often figure out where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing and what you’ve been buying, and…

Totally agree.  I also wish Tesla would wait to release features until they were actually working reliably.

Most perfect description.

An impact is definitely a possibility, although of course it’s not one that any of the articles I’ve seen like to bring up because “Boeing”. It’s very hard to determine after that fact, though, since the impactor would’ve likely been something untracked, and even tracked debris isn’t tracked well enough to present a…

Yeah, I kind of wonder how many classes he actually attended.....

Why am I thinking this is something the Bosnian Ape Society would come up with for their surreal videos?

I guess this does seem like common sense -- why, of course the government should be run like a business! -- but if you actually start looking into what it really takes to run the government, versus how businesses run, it breaks down fast.  It would be catastrophic to run the government like a business.

I think it’s a mistake to dismiss Trump supporters as stupid. For one thing, perhaps the most important thing, it puts us right into the trap that is allowing Trump to get so much power in the first place: it divides the electorate into “us versus them” camps. That’s most of why people are voting for Trump. Not so…

Re-reading your comment about “this is how it starts” reminds me of my honeymoon. We took a trip to Europe to tour World War II sites. We ended in Berlin, and one of the museums we toured was the Story of Berlin. Absolutely fascinating place, and very much dedicated to teaching people how this is how it starts.

I’m going grocery shopping tonight.  I think I’m going to make a side-trip to the liquor store.

It absolutely blows my mind that ANYONE supports this guy at this point.  I mean, he’s just getting worse and worse and worse and worse -- watching people continue to support him is like watching a good friend continue going home with an abusive spouse whose behavior is continuing to escalate.  What more can it take…

They teach this in Intro Taxation courses... which our “Stable Genius” obviously didn’t pass.

I just don’t think the Rank and file Republicans want to deal with him any more.

Had. During WWII, Port Cargill, in Savage, MN, built ships that were then floated down the Minnesota River and then down the Mississippi. And back during WWI, there were naval vessels built in Duluth-Superior. But that was a long time ago, and I’m not aware of any naval shipbuilding in Minnesota since then.

Well, I suppose if you had a big enough chunk.....

Oh, a lot of foreign agents are pumping money into him. That’s how investing works, and it really should be no surprise to anyone. They’ll invest on promises as long as the promises keep making them money as well — either because they can still either sell the stock the investment bought them, or because they can…

He’s as good a businessman as Trump is, which is to say, he’s a terrible businessman. Musk has been railroaded out of businesses before because of how bad he is. Both men are often surrounded by others who work to shield them from the consequences of their terrible business decisions. Trump has generally been…

Wouldn’t that have been the Falcon 1?

Precision duplication of human movements has been a thing robots can do for quite a long time now. It’s why the Da Vinci is allowed to do delicate things to people’s insides.