swansont

But the bulk of federal employees are not officers of any sort. Hired (competitive) rather than appointed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Officer_of_the_United_States an officer is “a position to which is delegated by legal authority a portion of the sovereign power of the federal government and that is 'continuing' in a federal office subject to the Constitution's Appointment Clause. A person who would hold such a position must be properly made an 'officer of the United States' by being appointed pursuant to the procedures specified in the Appointments Clause.” I think it boils down to this: if Trump replaced someone, they’re an officer. If they were simply fired (DOGE or other actions) they aren’t

But these are high-level positions - upper-level management - not rank-and-file employees or even lower management. But it’s moot, since the people who do have authority are carrying out Trump’s wishes anyway.

Last year we briefly had two moons, and it happened in 1981 and 2022, so it’s not shocking to find evidence that there are other instances https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2515-5172/ad781f “Near-Earth objects (NEOs) that follow horseshoe paths, and approach our planet at close range and low relative velocity, may undergo mini-moon events in which their geocentric energy becomes negative for hours, days or months, but without completing one revolution around Earth while bound. An example of NEO experiencing such a temporarily captured flyby is 2022 NX1, which was a short-lived mini-moon in 1981 and 2022. Here, we show that the recently discovered small body 2024 PT5 follows a horseshoe path and it will become a mini-moon in 2024, from September 29 until November 25.”

This came up in a thread on UAPs https://scienceforums.net/topic/124844-aliens-from-space-split-from-time-to-talk-about-ufos-or-now-as-the-military-calls-them-uaps/page/7/#findComment-1265816

“Congress may by law invest the appointment of "inferior" officers to the President alone, or to courts of law or heads of departments.” So there has to be a law that congress has created allowing the president to do this. One might assume that any appointments previously had been done in accordance with the law, so if the president didn't hire them, then s/he can’t fire them. i.e. if congress has not invested the power in the president, the president does not have that power. (until SCOTUS again rules that this means the president can do whatever he wants)

Interesting how many times it mentions morals and morality, which this allegedly is not

How’s that an ethical question? What code of ethics demanded it? I thought it was a strategic decision, no different than recognizing that in any battle some people will die. You weigh the benefit with the cost. (and not all cultures value people this way)

One problem is that gerrymandering isn’t the only tactic being used. They also put barriers in place to registering and voting. “Just vote” is harder when they take away early voting days, make the lines long and put polling places in inconvenient locations in areas where the opposition is in higher numbers. e.g. eliminating or restricting mail-in ballots, or removing polling places from campuses and disallowing use of student IDs for voter ID depresses the votes of college students, who tend to vote for democrats. If it took an hour or less to go vote more people could vote. But make it a three- or four-hour chunk of your day and that’s different. Not everyone can do that.

Yes, which is why I was out, but meteors move much faster, have a skinnier track and were streaking to the southwest at that time There are now some news reports https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2025/08/13/what-was-white-spiral-flying-in-the-sky-ufo-pennsylvania-perseid-meteor-shower-vulcan-rocket-launch/85639137007/ “According to ABC news reports, the spiral light was likely a frozen plume of fuel for a rocket's exhaust, "which reflects the sunlight and appears to spin in the atmosphere." The mysterious white spiral image was reported hours after Europe's Arianne 6 rocket took off at 8:37 p.m. ET from the European Space Agency's spaceport in French Guiana in South America, according to news reports. It has not yet been confirmed to have been the cause.”

IMG_2890.mov Object appeared just after 2230 eastern, slowly moving to the north Photo is a 2 or 3 sec exposure so the object is blurred. Video shows the object better but you don’t get the background. (edit: some the stars visible in the picture are: big dipper to the right, Arcturus is on the left, peeking out behind a tree) From social media, the likely explanation is that it’s stage 2 of an Ariane rocket that launched last night, venting, and would soon burn up on re-entry (which would have been neat to see) So now it’s a probably-identified object/aerial phenomenon

Hmm. I did read it again. What you wrote was “There is a point I'd like to discuss, which is the following AI statement on Google:” and I’m pretty sure that no matter how many times I read it, it’s going to say discuss and not say anything about questioning the statement. The original reference you asked for was only for 30 SPF, not the skin tone claims, and by asking for a reference it’s clear you were accepting the claim, not questioning it. My comment was a caution not to rely on AI as a source, which is against the board rules. Asking for a reference of a claim is not “drawing a circle” it’s heading off a potential waste of time of conversing about something that’s not established. This is a science discussion site. You should expect claims to be challenged. If you want to make a plausibility argument that’s fine, but you have to phrase it as such and not assert it as fact.

If the betting markets odds vary with the amount wagered, the insight is into peoples’ perceptions and not the actual probability.

Right. Some of what Trump is doing is unconstitutional, so you can’t blame the Constitution for it. Other things are from people violating their oath of office or otherwise abdicating their duty. I think the solution the FFs had to that was to vote them out.

The question was asked. Don’t read things into it. Nothing was said about root of problems.

Is there any credible scientific study to back this up And not AI crap. Get the source if the information, not a possible fabrication

He actually can’t hire and fire at will, other than some close advisors. A lot of positions require senate confirmation, including SCOTUS justices. Rank-and-file workers don’t work for the president. Most of the firings have come from various administrators and directors, who have ceded their independence and violated their oath to protect and defend the Constitution. Executive orders don’t carry the weight of law, though people are acting like they do. IOW a lot of what Trump is doing isn’t the result of legal authority, which is why a lot of court cases have gone against him. The problem is that a majority of congress and SCOTUS are corrupt and complicit, which is what the founding fathers did not anticipate

Cite chapter and verse (use a search engine if you must) or admit you’re wrong and retract the claim. The fact that you’re finding it inconvenient to back up a bogus claim is not a reason to lock thevthread.

But they made three co-equal branches. Over time the executive has consolidated power, with the de-facto consent of both congress and the judiciary, which became more pronounced in recent years. It wasn’t set up that way.

No. The proper response is to cite chapter and verse.

It’s all the ones who showed up saying “I have some new physics but I need help with the math” because they think that the math is just a trivial part, combined with the over-unity crowd’s “I just need to make this one change and it’ll work” but now they have AI to fatten the idea up. But the same overconfident notion of “I’m right” is there, despite not having experimental confirmation or falsifiability.

They’d be massless (or some new particle with a vanishingly small mass) So, what is the wavelength of such a photon? hc/E is around 2 x 10^38 m A LY is 10^16 m, so 2 x 10^22 LY To get destructive interference you need a path length difference of half a wavelength. Seeing as this is much, much longer than the size of the visible universe, I’m guessing no. Plus the time it would take to run the experiment. The contrast you get with a reasonable size interferometer would be vanishingly small Not sure of your units. J/Hz? Did you mean J/s?

We also have governments providing aid https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/most-of-the-worlds-foreign-aid-comes-from-governments-not-philanthropic-foundations “95% of foreign aid comes from governments. Less than 5% comes from private philanthropic donors. This data focuses on larger private donations in the form of grants; it does not include the smaller, individual charity donations you or I might make” edit to add: the shuttering of USAID is expected to result in more than 2 million deaths per year, and private charities can’t possibly fill the gap. https://healthpolicy-watch.news/usaid-shut-down-lancet-millions-deaths/ The impact for killing food bank funding similarly can’t be made up with donations.

Saying one number is bigger or smaller than another is not judgement. The OP asked why a number was bigger in the past as compared to now. And it was answered, because we know reasons why it’s so.

And it has 119 protons, which is at odds with your first sentence.

If you do not wish to, or see the utility of it, then you don’t have to participate. But that doesn’t mean you should disrupt the discussion of those who do. We are not obligated to justify it to you.