iNow

I'm certain that will be the case with the popular vote. Sadly, that's irrelevant. All that matters is a few hundred votes in a handful of counties mostly in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. In those counties, it's right now either a coin flip or Harris is trailing. Teamsters chose not to endorse either candidate this year even though Harris' policies are far better for them and union members versus Trump saying they should all be fired on the spot when striking. Reason: Too many of their members are rabidly behind Trump. Again, I fully accept Harris will win a landslide of votes. I'm not yet convinced they'll be votes from the right places.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you appear to be suggesting that the acknowledgement of "we don't yet completely know" is functionally equivalent to the assertion that "this event happened bc there is an invisible dragon below my chair."

According to the NYT: Israeli agents built the pagers. From Axios: The plot thickens: The supposed pager-maker, BAC Consulting of Hungary, was said to be under contract to produce the devices for Taiwan's Gold Apollo. "In fact," the N.Y. Times reports, "it was part of an Israeli front, according to three intelligence officers briefed on the operation." "They said at least two other shell companies were created as well to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers."

It’s reasonably safe to assume that pagers and walkie talkies ordered by Hezbollah leadership for use by Hezbollah combatants to specifically communicate Hezbollah attack plans and tactics were primarily in the possession of Hezbollah members when they were detonated. Except for proceeding early for fear they were about to be discovered, this was probably one of the most precisely targeted attacks we’ve seen anywhere in decades. Anyway, much like trans discussions, the exchanges above reminds us of the reason our enemies so often seek to inject these topics into daily conversation given the way they so easily lead friends and family to feud. X-posted with SJ

Rocks are evil because petrologists study them and science is evil. That’s just logic, yo.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/us/politics/republican-officials-harris-endorsement.html

You might if you were as dumb as one.

Don't worry. I feel confident they aren't either.

If for no other reason than they're filthy and contaminated.

I think it's unethical to use legislation to ban lab grown meat because rich people in the cattle and ag-community pay off and heavily pressure their congress people to do so (not due to any genuine health risks). Same for the treatment of nut milks bc the dairy industry doesn't like it.

They did, but it was pathetically insufficient, and challenges to it thus far handwaved away:

Some ways are more likely to result in collateral damage than others. Here, the pagers blew up right next to children and non-combatants, and killed at least one.

Always possible, but seemingly irrelevant to the point I was making

Did you mean canis familiaris?

Pretty certain those are homosapiens in the boat

There is also the psychological reward of simplistic scapegoats and "otherism." Complex issues are hard to comprehend and emotionally process so many instead comfort themselves with easy fictions. It's about more than just distrust (which is a critical element), but also involves cartoonishly simple "just-so" explanations. The MAGA cult and antisemite community exemplifies similar trends where blame for multi-faceted multi-variate global issues gets placed squarely and neatly at the feet of monolithic caricatures... "them" or similar "enemies" of the "outgroup" from other "tribes." And while it's entirely possible the term "conspiracy theory" gets overused, it's entirely certain that conspiracy thinking is also overused. It's far easier and requires a far lower cognitive load.

You first. Perhaps you can come up with an example that clearly shows an invisible undetectable dragon can't possibly be sitting below my chair right now.

https://www.axios.com/2024/09/18/hezbollah-pager-explosions-israel-suspicions

From the cipher brief (intelligence knew the order was made and intercepted it along the supply chain): Lebanese media outlets and Sky News Arabia quoted sources claiming that Israel’s Mossad spy agency got hold of Hezbollah’s new pagers before they reached the group, placed the explosive PETN on the devices’ batteries – and then detonated them today by raising their temperatures from afar. Speculation notwithstanding, this much is clear: if Israel was behind the explosions, it marks another successful, highly sophisticated and provocative Israeli operation against an Iranian proxy far behind enemy lines.

Thanks. I prompted Llama 3.1 for a summary of the strengths and weaknesses of each instead: Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) and Rated Choice Voting (also known as Score Voting) are two alternative voting systems. Here's a comparison of their benefits and weaknesses: *Ranked Choice Voting (RCV)* Benefits: 1. Encourages civil campaigns: Candidates are incentivized to appeal broadly. 2. Reduces strategic voting: Voters can rank candidates sincerely. 3. Promotes majority support: Winners often have majority support. 4. Minimizes spoilers: Third-party candidates don't split votes. 5. Simple to understand: Rank candidates 1, 2, 3, etc. Weaknesses: 1. Complexity in implementation: Requires specialized software. 2. Difficulty in counting: Multiple rounds of counting. 3. Potential for exhausted ballots: Voters may not rank all candidates. 4. Limited expression: Voters can only rank, not express nuance. *Rated Choice Voting (Score Voting)* Benefits: 1. Expressive voting: Voters rate candidates 0-10 (or other scales). 2. Nuanced preferences: Voters can express subtle differences. 3. No strategic voting: Voters score sincerely. 4. Simple counting: Scores are summed. 5. Flexible scale: Allows for varied rating systems. Weaknesses: 1. Cognitive burden: Voters must consider multiple candidates. 2. Inconsistent scales: Voters may use different scales. 3. Tactical voting: Voters may strategically score. 4. Potential for lowest-common-denominator winners. *Key differences:* 1. Expression: RCV uses ranking, while Score Voting uses ratings. 2. Counting: RCV requires multiple rounds, while Score Voting sums scores. 3. Nuance: Score Voting allows for more nuanced expressions. *Hybrid approaches:* 1. Mixed-member proportional representation (MMPR) 2. Instant-runoff voting (IRV) with rated ballots 3. Proportional ranked-choice voting *Real-world examples:* RCV: - Maine (USA) - San Francisco (USA) - Australia (national elections) - New Zealand (local elections) Score Voting: - None widely implemented, but used in some organizational elections.

Golf courses are hard to secure. If he were still president, he’d have more secret service agents assigned and the whole good course likely would’ve been shutdown. As others noted, this wasn’t part of his agenda for the day and was just Trump deciding a bit as his to go out and play a round with a mega donor. For that reason, secret service wasn’t even able to sweep the perimeter of the course first. For obvious reasons, it’s harder to secure a golf course than a gymnasium or tennis court, especially those exposed to public roads. The suspect was there for 12 hours beforehand per his cell tower connection. He would’ve been within 100 yards had Trump continued on to the next hole without secret service seeing the barrel of his gun sticking through the fence and engaged him with shots of their own before he could fire even a single one.

Ditto, though we call it ranked choice voting (only in use in a few precincts)

It’s called a blog

Yes, they git intercepted in the supply chain after Hezbollah leadership had them switch to pagers for fear of Israel intercepting comms.

You misspelled baseless unsupported assertion again I’ll even grant you that humans tend to be predisposed to look for a god or gods as a type of “first parent,” but (as I hope is obvious to all readers including you) that’s not evidence for existence… which is the actual topic here you continue to evade and introduce red herrings to avoid. You have faith, and faith alone. Nothing more. Surely you’re honest enough to acknowledge this. Right?