kirklennon

1. Most Americans already knew he was a criminal and either strongly opposed him or strongly supported him, in part on that basis. There are a lot of other people who usually or often vote Republican, but also just don’t always vote. Those people aren’t going to be enthusiastic about showing up to vote for a felon. I think we’re looking at extremely low turnout among non-MAGA Republicans. Optimistically, this scenario can also lead to a blue wave as those same people skip down-ballot races as well.
2. First-time offenders get lighter sentences. He’s going to be convicted in multiple upcoming trials, and in all of them he’s now going to enter the sentencing phase as a felon. We can look forward to extended prison sentences in Georgia and the federal cases.

It’s up to the judge and can range from no prison to four years. A nonviolent first-time offense usually means a lighter sentence, but the judge can also factor in the complete lack of contrition and the numerous egregious gag order violations. These make prison significantly more likely than it otherwise would be.

A long exposure allows more of the light to be captured but that’s not the reason for the color discrepancy. They really are as colorful as they appear in photos but human night vision is primarily black and white. We just don’t see a lot of color unless it’s sufficiently bright and since auroras are still quite dim in absolute terms, our eyes aren’t capable of recognizing the full intensity of the color.

Of course you can. The iPhone never lost any of the basic features of the iPod and is perfectly capable of storing and playing DRM-free music in popular formats.

How is this relevant to anything at all? If you want a streaming music subscription, you can pay for one. If not, don’t. You can use any service you want on an iPhone, and you can likewise use Apple Music on an Android phone. The availability of services is just a totally separate issue.

No, because aspartame is not unhealthy.

it’s as valid IN ENGLISH to use it to refer to the country as it is to refer to the continent(s)

It’s really not but you already know that, just as you know the (s) is incorrect because, in English, there is absolutely no such thing as a continent called America.

It’s not about confusion, it’s about the US acting like the center of the fucking universe.

It’s about you being a hypocrite and accusing a group of people of acting like the center of the universe because they use a word differently in their language than you use it in yours. You are being incredibly disrespectful of other cultures by trying to impose foreign definitions on how people describes themselves.

when the “America” in that name actually refers to the continent too

In English, there is North America and there is South America. Collectively, you can call them the Americas. Just “America” on its own refers to the country. It doesn’t matter what A-M-E-R-I-C-A mean in a different language. Spanish has what is fundamentally a different word, with the same spelling, to refer to something else. In linguistic terms it’s a false friend. The etymological origins are, indeed, the same, but it took on separate meanings in different languages. Nobody is confused about this, however. You’re just being an asshole.

I consider your comment highly offensive. You can’t tell a people what they are allowed to call themselves in their own language just because the same word means something else in another language. In English “America” refers unambiguously to the United States because there is no continent called “America.”

I would love to see people’s reaction if France started calling itself Europe or China called itself Asia

This comparison would work only if “Europe” meant one thing in French, and if the word “China” meant one thing in Chinese, and they both meant something entirely different in other languages.

Then why did you waste time describing what you believed was the intention behind it earlier when you said

I never said that was the intention. I said that’s what I think of it as. In practice all it does is underline a point. These same people also totally screwed up how we chose the president and vice president and failed to provide a proper mechanism for replacing a dead president.

horribly incompetent at writing legal language

Horribly incompetent? No. Flawless, or even particularly prescient? No. They got a lot of big stuff right; they got a whole lot wrong.

it is worded incredibly clearly and explicitly as a prohibition

And yet it’s inherently non-operative. I’m unconcerned with how it was intended since that’s totally irrelevant to what it actually is.

Indeed, the limitation in what can be amended is in practice totally powerless. I think of it as a rhetorical flourish to emphasize the importance they placed on representing states rather than people. For what it’s worth, I advocate for the full abolition of the Senate. It’s an anti-democratic institution. There’s no way to fix it without making it a clone of the House so let’s just do away with it entirely.

And yet that provision is itself still part of the constitution so really an amendment just needs to have an initial sentence to override that limitation first. If there’s actually support for a change, anything can be changed.

No, my phone went into SOS mode yesterday. No apps, just a button to call 911.

That’s not a thing that exists. The closest thing is the shutdown screen, where the options are “slide to power off,” “Medical ID,” “Emergency SOS” and a cancel button, which requires you to enter your passcode and then takes you back to the home screen.

Sounds a bit sensationalist and doesn’t contradict what I said: if you already added your boarding pass to your phone, it will still be there, regardless of whether you have internet access at the moment. Furthermore, the staff can still pull up your record so nobody is going to miss their flight.

Mattresses have an enormous variance in thickness, and sheets vary considerably in the depth of the “pocket.” If your sheets can barely fit over a too-thick mattress, then they’re going to pop off when you move on them. You might just want to buy some new sheets with a deeper pocket. Alternatively, you can buy elastic straps that go under the bed and clip onto the sheets. You’ll generally either find these as a four pack of short ones that are meant to go only at the corners, or as a two pack of long ones meant to stretch under the entire bed and attach opposite sides. Get the long ones; they generally perform much better.

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But the stakes are too high to skip the 5 minutes it takes to print a paper copy. I can almost guarantee that everyone else is one close call/missed flight away from doing the same thing, too.

I don’t understand what scenario you’re imagining where there’s a problem. You check in 24 hours before the flight and add the pass to your phone. It’s not going anywhere. How would you ever miss a flight because you didn’t print it? Absolute worst case scenario: they have to look it up at the gate.

I know that you can’t fire someone just for being a sex offender unless it directly interferes with work duties (in the US)

You can definitely fire someone for being a sex offender in the US. Outside of a few exceptions that probably don’t apply in your case, you can also fire someone for being merely an accused sex offender.

You can also fire someone for laughing in a weird way, or wearing a color you don’t like, or being born on a Monday when you don’t like Mondays.

Because we have an elected government. If the government causes somebody a loss, voters, and by extension their representatives, and by extension, the government itself, wants to make them whole. Without allowing lawsuits, the only option is passing individual laws for each possible claim, and also creating a way to adjudicate those claims. We already have courts to handle the exact same kinds of issues between private parties. Congress decided to let it apply to the government too, when appropriate.