Yeah, Trump is a stupid target and this is bad timing. Now if someone had gone after the Supreme Court a year or three ago, that would’ve been a good thing. Even now it might still be. But Trump? Terrible choice of targets. He’s…his relevance has already happened. It’s too late for his death to be positive in any significant way.

Hell, I suspect that it might boost the Republican candidate, whoever is selected to replace him, unless they wind up having a really nasty fight where various supporters get extremely entrenched against each other. But that’s not likely - Republicans are very tribalist, once they select a candidate, most of them are going to support him, regardless of how badly they were speaking of him five minutes ago when they were in full support of his opponent.

Despite Musk, Teslas did have some positive effect as they helped push electric car adoption. The big automakers were not interested in taking risks, and nobody was eager to build out large charger networks.

I certainly don’t credit Musk himself for it, but no one should feel ashamed of having bought one of those cars back then. Today there are other good options for electric vehicles from companies run by slightly less bad people, but let’s not kid ourselves. Everything we buy comes from some company that is enriching monsters…it’s just that some of them are more monstrous than others.

I do not believe in ‘undecided’ voters. I don’t think they exist.

So this is not going to be decided by then. This is going to be decided very simply: will enough people in the right states bother to vote?

Yeah, that’s not a Borg cube, that’s Ozma. It’s gonna change into a sphere and then suck everyone in like a black hole any second.

If we managed to get through a Trump term, with him being actively malicious and looking to do as much damage as possible, it proves exactly the fucking opposite.

Good intentions and a willingness to listen to knowledgeable advisors (but not simply follow them, genuinely listening to their explanations and then making a decision) is enough to be a good president.

Qualifications, like with most jobs that require all sorts of degrees and high requirements, are bullshit.

Better to try to get them not to vote at all I think. Push that and it might convince them to go vote when they might possibly have been willing not to. And other offices are also very important.

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Not ‘to grant them greater control’ or even ownership. To secure exclusive right for a limited time. And this only because it was meant to promote science and art.

Using copyright to prevent a work from spreading is a direct perversion of the intent, it is using it in a manner diametrically opposed to what it is supposed to do.

I’d go the other way, adhering very strictly to the letter of the law without the tiniest bit of wiggle room or interpretation of anything as nebulous as the ‘spirit’ of the law.

Trouble being that natural languages that people use to converse are ill suited for that level of precision and detail. I’ve thought that perhaps a constructed language, something between a language and programming code may be a better way to write laws.

While breaking off diplomatic relations is an extreme step I wouldn’t recommend, I do wonder if it might not be practical to severely limit the number of diplomatic immunity eligible people allowed in after something like this.

Tell China that henceforth they get to send no more than three or maybe five people to whom it applies. Still gives it to the ambassador and a very small staff, but removes the feasibility of sending in teams of spies and kidnappers thus protected.

These changes could be applied retroactively; this isn’t like creating an ex post facto law and then jailing people for breaking a law that didn’t exist at the time of the event.

How about reword it slightly: it must be available for purchase if you want to use IP law to prevent others from distributing it.

Too fucking bad? The purpose of IP was to give the public access to novel ideas and art, not to increase the control creators had over it.

Prosecutorial discretion is a big problem really. It’s what allows laws to be applied unequally, why black people are prosecuted way more than white people, and, as you mention, provides justification to jail anyone at any time because you ARE violating some law every day, almost certainly.

If prosecutorial discretion did not exist, if agents of the law were required to prosecute all crimes to the fullest extent of the law, it would require the entire legal system to be restructured in a more precise way, and would have far less room for racial, sexual, and class discrimination as well as far less capacity to be weaponized against enemies of those in power.

And yet, instead of answering a simple question, you’ve launched into a ‘if only we could change the past’ screed.

If there was a good answer to the question, people like you would just answer.

I feel the reference went over your head…

You know, eventually, after we’ve seen enough of this shit, I feel like there’s a point we have to ask…will no one rid us of these turbulent justices?

Perhaps foolishly, I got rid of most of my older systems 20 years ago, so the oldest one I have left is my Sega Genesis.

In small (population-wise) rural areas like that, where positions are running uncontested or only contested in the primary, it’s actually possible individuals could make a difference. But there’s some caveats.

If the area is extremely Republican and would never vote for a Democrat, don’t run as one. Unlike in races like President and Senate, independent and third party are actual choices at this level, they’re not simply false choices.

An individual could find some local issue that matters to a lot of people in the area but seems to be being ignored. Talk to neighbors, local people, etc, figure out what they’re upset about that actually falls under the purview of local or state government, then make that the core of your platform.

As long as you’re not officially listed as a Democrat, you’re not platforming on things that the locals would never vote for (and you probably couldn’t do anything about anyway in the lower office you’re running for) and you’ve actually done some local research and found an issue that a significant number of people in your area are upset about, you actually have a chance. You’d probably lose, but there’s a real chance.

If they raise the prices in those countries they would make less money because volume of subscribers would go down enough for total income to decrease.

If they lowered the price in the US, they would make less money because the subscribers they would gain would not be enough to offset the reduced income from each.

That’s it, it has nothing to do with operating costs or fairness, it’s just a question of what price point they believe will make them the most money in a given market.

Odd to me is Her Majesty’s instead of His, considering Charles is now King.

Do these places just retain the gender of the ruling monarch at the time of their construction?