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"They are literally chopping off the private parts of young kids." https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/aug/10/ron-desantis/transition-related-surgery-limited-teens-not-young/

A huge part of it is that states have slashed funding for universities. State Funding for Higher Education Still Lagging A majority of state legislatures spent far less on public colleges and universities in 2020 than they did in 2008, an NEA analysis shows. This means colleges and universities must rely on students to pay the cost of college—and those students are borrowing to do it. https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/state-funding-higher-education-still-lagging

"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew. Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true." https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43909/the-hunting-of-the-snark That's from Lewis Carroll's great nonsense poem. Maybe Jonnyf also believes that 3 times does the trick? Only time will tell.

The point is that thaibeachlover's comment was ridiculous. People are buying a candy bar that they don't like just because they believe that they are special people? I'll say this for Toblerone and After Eight; unlike Cadbury they don't use cheap vegetable fats in their candy bars.

Well since you've tasted it yourself, does that mean you have bought it and consider yourself special? Or did you steal it?

I don't know so much about the waiting part. They've already committed armed aggression against other Asian countries and justify it by claiming that these territories used to belong to the Chinese empire.

The Chinese factories basically assemble the iPhone. The chips are designed and manufactured elsewhere.

Once again, you claim she broke the rules. Has that, in fact, been decided? And once again, you go after alleged motivation. You've got nothing.

That proposal doesn't stand much chance for passage. But the one that Desantis is backing looks pretty close to a lock. If there were honest conservatives on the Supreme Court, this bill would ultimately be judged unconstitutional. As it stand now, who knows?

There you go again. Another case of mind -reading about someone's motivation. "The dress was hideous". And one of the cliched tropes in silly films is about gay men making criticism not based on the issues at hand but rather about fashion. Congratulations for emulating that ridiculous behavior. And I didn't know that it had already been decided that the dress broke ethics rules. Can you link to a source for that?

Thanks to you and everybody else for the advice. I do appreciate it.

Look familiar? "If you add all of his sentences together, he has still been in prison 18 years longer than his sentences." He was sentenced to a discretionary life sentence.

Here's what you said

Well, I don't think Russia counts as a Communist country. The communist party runs a distant second to the ruling party there. And the ideology is, rather, fascistic based on a doctrine called Eurasianism and on a perverted version of Christian orthodoxy which extols warfare, and on mineral wealth and industry being treated as fiefdoms for the favored few.

'If the case means joining NATO grants some kind of immortality or unlimited exit card "Cant touch me I am in NATO and I can do anything i want", i dont think so,' Who has made such a ridiculous claiim? But if any country in Europe comes closest to fitting that bill, it's russia with troops stationed not only fighting in Ukraine, but stationed in Georgia and Moldova against the will of those countries' governments. And then there's Putin's speech in which he spoke of restoring the Empire of Peter the Great.

No,it was a discretionary life sentence. Here's an explanation of what a discretionary life sentence is as opposed to a mandatory life sentence Discretionary life sentences There are a number of crimes – such as rape or robbery – for which the maximum sentence is life imprisonment. This does not mean that all or most offenders convicted of these offences will get life. Parliament has made provisions that deal with how offenders who are considered dangerous or who are convicted of a second, very serious offence may be sentenced to imprisonment for life. https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/sentencing-and-the-council/types-of-sentence/life-sentences/ Bronson is currently serving a life sentence after taking a teacher hostage in prison, and has been through six Parole Board hearings without release since his minimum term expired in 2003. https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/notorious-prisoner-charles-bronson-open-justice-parole-board-high-court-a4464331.html I think taking a teacher hostage probably counts as a very serious offense.

It's not really as convincing as you think when someone offers future scenarios as evidence to support their case. Unless of course you have a time machine or a fully functional crystal ball.

Yes, the real victims are white heterosexual males. Actually, in his mostly mediocre comedy special, Chris Rock did have a funny bit about the rioters in the capitol building. They were mostly white me who were there to overturn the power structure. Rock's point was that, in effect, they were there to depose themselves.

You sure about that? Accordiing to the BBC article you linked to he was given a "conditional life sentence".

And that was only due to war fever.

Here's something else Knowles said in the same article: “And the whole point of transgenderism is that it has nothing to do with biology.” Which just shows what an ignoramus he is: Research on the Transgender Brain: What You Should Know “When we look at the transgender brain, we see that the brain resembles the gender that the person identifies as,” Dr. Altinay says. For example, a person who is born with a penis but ends up identifying as a female often actually has some of the structural characteristics of a “female” brain. And the brain similarities aren’t only structural. “We’re also finding some functional similarities between the transgender brain and its identified gender,” Dr. Altinay says. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/research-on-the-transgender-brain-what-you-should-know/ Brain Sex in Transgender Women Is Shifted towards Gender Identity https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8955456/ Once again, the right reveals itself to be the party of denialism of science.

Well, I hope not because I have some devices that can only be controlled via a 2G channel.

What this bill is really about is empowering the wealthy and powerful to suppress criticism. It's right out of the standard Republican playbook. Do something that will increase the power of the wealthy and powerful, but do it in the name of ideology, in this case going after the liberal media. When it come to the Republicans the rule should always be "follow the money". In the UK, where libel laws are much stricter, this has allowed wealthy individuals virtual immunity to practice skullduggery. There was the famous case of Robert Maxwell who pillaged the pension funds of his workers but got away with it because the media was too intimidated by the prospect of a ruinous lawsuit to go after him.

The only name change was from Octopus-2G to Octopus. I do notice that apart from Octopus, my computer isn't finding any other 2G networks. That is a new development. I may try your suggestion. Right now my mobile is providing a hotspot.

A decade ago, Pennsylvania’s Republican state Senate leader and state party chairman both pointed to the state’s new voter ID law as helping their party win the presidential election in their state. Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) did the same thing in Wisconsin in both 2016 and in 2012. And after that 2012 election, former Florida Republican Party chairman Jim Greer claimed his party was indeed trying to limit early voting to suppress Democratic votes. “It’s done for one reason and one reason only,” Greer told the Palm Beach Post, before saying that Republicans essentially believed, “we’ve got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/14/gops-increasingly-blunt-argument-it-needs-voting-restrictions-win/