Is that why the far right made such a stink about genital inspections and bathrooms?

Did you not see the video of the guy wearing his new tim apple ski goggles, in his semi-self driving Tesla cyber truck?

What makes you think people can behave?

Unless they’re evil radical leftist Democrats, those Marxist-Leninist Antifa communist fascist socialists. Then they’ll be hanged.

MAGAts get a wrist slap.

Ha it totally IS how one would write the Kiwi pronunciation for Bradley. Didn’t even occur to me. I’m just a Brad that likes bread.

Thanks, did you know your username is a Dutch phrase meaning “headhunter”?

It could also be Norwegian, meaning “cup snails.”

I’m not saying they have any chance - just making the point that “legal” and “illegal” are arbitrary and determined by whoever is the dominant power. Texas seceding is “illegal” only so long as the US remains powerful. If by some unholy miracle, Texas were to win independence from the US, they would probably write their own laws to say rejoining the US is illegal.

Another pair of cases to make my point - the Holocaust was “legal” to the Nazis. After they were defeated, the UN made genocide “illegal.” But how many genocides have occurred around the world since 1949?

Laws are only as good as they are enforceable, which is exactly what you underscore by citing the strength of the US military. Is it “legal” to make drone strikes or drop a nuke on Texas? 🤷

This is a fantastic write-up.

I got downvoted elsewhere for saying this, but let me ask - if they just …went rogue and reeeeeeally started stirring shit up - like setting blockades on highways, rail stations, and ports, stopped exports - like really tried to cause the US economic trouble - attacking federal buildings etc.

What’s any legal precedent matter? Aside from justification for getting totally railed by the US military.

The thing about law though, is that it’s just a framework of written social contracts between rational parties agreeing to abide by the terms and consequences.

Reality is a bit different.

Texas could halt physical transport of goods/services. Refuse to buy US imports. Stop collecting tax revenue. Gun down federal employees that don’t swear Texan allegiance.

It doesn’t really matter what legal papers say, when it comes to actions.

Sure - there may be consequences for such “illegal” state actions, and the documented illegality would be articulated as official justification after administering such consequences.

But that also only matters if Texas is defeated … in the unlikely event they “win,” - they’d write their own narrative with legal justification.

Texas has made an issue over their independence and God-given right to be Texas, in defense of their the right to own chattel slavery since their first secession. From Mexico. In 1836.

Texas reconfirmed their desire to die on the hill of their divine right to own people, by seceding from the US in 1861.

After the civil war, Texas was a haven for the Confederates - and their ideology has been fomenting ever since

They’ve been talking of secession openly since at least the 1990s.

I think this is the first time since the civil war that other states have involved their national guards in support of a hotbed issue that could lead to a secession.

Edit: correction to grammatical error.

Yeah kind of - I think “a complete body” is neither necessary or sufficient to make one a “human being.”

For example, there are plenty of murderers, rapists, and pedos with “complete bodies,” that have entirely lost their humanity in commission of their crimes against humanity. (However, I will always argue that this can never be a justification to exact cruelty upon them, as we necessarily lose our humanity in that process).

And there are so many people with “incomplete” bodies who are amazingly beautiful and strong human beings.

What if we use the little fetus bones to replace some of the smaller adult bones, and take those smaller adult bones to replace some bigger adult bones, and so on until we have a big ol’ femur?

I appreciate what you’re saying here - people come in all shapes and sizes, with different abilities, limb counts, etc. Every one is a human being deserving respect and dignity.

But OP didn’t say “a complete human being” - it said “a complete human skeleton.”

If an individual is missing a limb, by birth or by accident, they don’t have a complete skeleton. It’s a plain fact. Doesn’t mean they are any less human.

I’d heard of project 2025, but had not read anything about it yet. Terrifying.

You seem to really know your shit. I’m realistic about my WAN speed needs (symmetrical 350 Mbps is more than sufficient) - but I’m pretty tired of my shitty Netgear setup. I’m not really sure what I need LAN wise, and the price tags of Ubiquiti/UniFi systems have me worried about buying more than I really need. I know pfsense/opnsense can be useful alternatives to start with in minimizing prices, but the steep learning curve has me a bit intimidated.

Do you have a suggestion or recommendation on where to start? Is there something that’s functional at a sub ~$500 initial investment, but would be upgradeable/expandable and ultimately more reliable/dependable in the long run? Do I need to wait for this wifi7 gimmick?

Thanks mate.

Oh - that’s quite a deliciously nuanced take, a subtext that I indeed did not catch.

I’m at times a simpleton; I chuckled at “billionaire jerky” and “pickled billionaire,” as the phrases reminded me of the Bubba Gump quote.

I hear your point now - compared to the hundreds of millions of cattle, pigs, and chicken processed annually, 2000 billionaires would be small potatoes. The end product would be so scarce, supply/demand would necessarily dictate an ironically immense price, only affordable to those that served as the raw material.

I’m sorry, they did what? Out of the loop on this one, but that guy is fucking brain cancer

…by working 370,000 times slaves in his daddy’s emerald mine harder than the rest of us.

Fixed that for you.

Good thing Ocean’s Gate already started that process for us.

Wirelessly charging EVs from your iPhone?

Well, hold on - that isn’t only a perception - it’s objective reality.