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It's a problem when you are part of a nation that purports to lead global democratic values... it is an oxymoronic/counterproductive attitude. This is what polarized national politics looks like to the rest of the world. China will be more than happy to fill the vacant geopolitical hotspots if it gets too crazy. Let's not forget that the 'rest of the world' is not just W. Europe and does not have the same collective mindset and expectations... our priorities are not necessarily the same. If the US wants to go its own way, it needs to stop talking like it's leading a global team. That's the conundrum the GOP in particular have to face. They can't be "All-American" at the expense of the other nations.

I think we should move the discussion off from the main thread, but I don't think of Grana Padano as a better or faster Parmigiano Reggiano, it is just a slightly different product. Like aged wine or whiskey, (somewhat) different notes for different tastes and occasions. An important bit is also the quality control of the process for these protected products. Some, such as dietary requirements for the animals, or cumbersome, long winded processes can have more or less subtle effects on quality. Many optimized methods can get close (e.g. by adding the major components affecting flavour), but there is often something missing in depth. Also I feel that because industrial production is so much more efficient, they scavenge off a lot of (unprotected) mid-class products. Regional products can still be great, but it is often hard to find them in grocery stores (and then they tend to be similarly expensive as European imports). What I found especially in the USA is that folks are so used to these products (e.g. American "cheese") and oversweetening of products that often many standard (and usually cheap) products such as sausages contain ungodly amount of sugars and fillers, whereas the actual meat remains on the bland side. I know it sounds snobbish (though someone with Italian heritage should be used to that) but the mass produced foods seem to twist the taste of folks toward sweet, overflavoured products. There are in fact studies about this phenomenon (mostly in the US) and while origin production might not be the best solution, it is a way to incentivize the maintenance of more convoluted, but ultimately less overproduced food.

Unfortunately we cannot even agree on what is 'extreme'. I remember the teacher who got in trouble for using the word 'niggardly', which I found to be extreme. However I don't feel that trying to find a place in sports for a subset of my fellow humans any more extreme than trying to accommodate those who are confined to wheelchairs. Trying to find the middle ground is tough when I feel I'm already in the middle and you feel I am at the extreme.

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I dismiss your ideas because they are just made up statements with no evidence. You introduce things like 'spacetime particles' without a shred of evidence to back it up. You go on to say that these made up 'space time particles' are virtual particles because they are really small, which is nonsensical. In short I dismiss your ideas, not because they challenge the status quo, but because you have absolutely nothing to back up your ideas other than hand waving mumbo jumbo.

Same reasons as everywhere else. Blame de Tocqueville for getting us started on the whole American exceptionalism narrative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism It's harder for politicians to get people to pay taxes and fight in wars, if they start to realize their nation came from theft and plunder and genocide and wealthy landowners protecting their interests. Many nations have whitewashed versions of history they teach children - the latest whitewashing spree by the US GOP is nothing new.

I thought this might be incorrect reasoning, because you could change the east/west direction of the shadow simply by changing the rotation rate of the Earth, without affecting how the moon moves relative to the sun. But I think your reasoning must be right. It seems then that if the Earth were spinning much faster, then even though day-to-day the moon appears to have lagged behind the sun, during a single day the moon would appear to be overtaking the sun at lower latitudes. This would be due to parallax. The animation at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse_of_August_23,_2044 shows how the shadow can go "backwards" at high latitudes. It seems that in this case, the sun and moon are "to the North", eg. during "night time" where there is midnight sun. The sun still appears to be overtaking the moon, but they're both moving in a west to east direction that late in the evening! This should happen anywhere at high latitudes when there is an eclipse in the evening after the sun has passed the westernmost point in the sky and begins moving eastward again before setting, or at dawn before the sun reaches the easternmost point.

Gravitons, if they exist, would be massless spin-2 particles - and as such, they would be perfectly stable and can have no decay modes.