The magical fruit

There have obviously been legit sightings. They closed that airport in the Hudson Valley for an hour because of a drone sighting, and they also restricted airspace over Wright Patterson AFB at one point. I don’t think the FAA or Air Force does that on the basis of an unverified tweet with grainy video.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/15/us/drone-sightings-east-coast/index.html

With that said, though, now that it has entered the national consciousness everyone is “seeing” them. I think most of the ones in your social media feed for the past two or three weeks are fake.

Someone is obviously doing something, but once it hit the news it all got blown out of proportion. The fucking media is still reporting that ex-Maryland Governor Larry Hogan saw drones there, even though the video he posted is shit and everyone realizes they are just stars.

It seems like the kind of stunt Musk would do…

It’s just some ETs, looking for Aaron Rodgers to bring him back to his home planet

The Kremlin had banked on a contested election outcome in the US, followed by months of disarray that would discredit US democracy across the world. The polite interregnum has been a cruel disappointment.

An interesting idea, if true. Putin didn’t even think that Trump could win again, and thought that his value as an agitator might be higher than his value as a leader. I wonder if any polonium is being spilled into the Diet Coke machines at Mar-A-Lago…

He would never accept a deposit from the interested parties before making this decision. That would be a bribe, and extremely illegal.

He will accept his deposit from the interested parties after making the decision. That is a gratuity, and is now totally legal, thanks to SCOTUS.

Have you ever looked at the makeup that theater or TV performers use? It is layered on super thick, so that it looks good from far away, but up close it looks overly made up.

Trump has been on TV so much that he knows all about that. He wants to project an image of vitality, so he layers that stuff on as thick as he can to mask his natural pallor.

I bet there is a hidden lower bound to the size of packages their Economy rate, so you are essentially paying the same rate for this Economy letter as you would for a small box. While the First Class rates have separate rates for letters vs. small boxes.

If it’s any consolation, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort is only about 1m above sea level and will be among the very first properties to get flooded by the encroaching sea.

I find it interesting that Giuliani doesn’t appear to be part of the ascendant Broligarchy. Out of all the major players in Trump’s orbit, he seems to be the only one facing any major consequences.

That tracks, because he acts like a first grader. He’s proud of it, too.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/575962/donald-trump-tells-biographer-hes-same-now-first-grade

“When I look at myself in the first grade and I look at myself now, I’m basically the same. The temperament is not that different.”

The impeachment process is equally broad, though, and while it must function on a case-by- case basis, it can be used to put guardrails around “essentially unlimited” powers like this. While the Pardon power itself is broad, it is not a license to violate the rest of the Constitution.

Congress can step in and say “Yes, there are limits to the pardon power, because if a President goes too far we can put him in check”, and then define “too far” in the impeachment resolution.

I’m surprised we haven’t seen Hulk Hogan put forward for Press Secretary. Although the Hulkster’s ties to Peter Thiel did put Gawker out of business, so something good came of it.

Donald Trump did not get re-elected by listening to experts…

Or, better yet, Lara Trump will get the seat first, then DeSantis will blow his confirmation hearing, and end up not getting confirmed.

No, it is not a crime by itself.

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2017/dec/02/kathy-sheehan/being-undocumented-immigrant-us-not-crime/

You are confusing this with entering the US illegally, which is a crime, and typically a misdemeanor on the first offense

https://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/us-immigration/crime-enter-illegally.html

But quite a few undocumented people here (perhaps the majority, I didn’t look it up) came here with permission, but then overstayed their visa. They committed no crime in doing that, but if discovered they are subject to civil penalties, including deportation.

I am not an immigration lawyer, but I question exactly how much Biden can do here. Simply being undocumented is not a crime. Now, some undocumented immigrants commit crimes in the process of coming here, but in most cases being undocumented is a civil violation, not a criminal one . So, what exactly is there to pardon?

Now. If Biden wanted to be real snarky, he could pardon Elon Musk for any crimes committed with regards to his immigration status. I don’t think he committed any, other than the rumor that he once crossed the land border after being denied entry on a plane from Canada. But that puts Musk in the position of having to formally acknowledge the “grey area” in his immigration journey, and put the GOP’s hypocrisy about this on center stage.

The media won’t actually be state-run, because that would be “Communism”. But it will be run by the same Broligarchs that are running the country. So, not really much of a difference.

Yes, it is possible to be a “landlord” in this fashion and keep your ethics intact. Just don’t be an asshole about it.

Charge a reasonable rent for the other apartment, don’t harass them if they are a few days late with rent, keep the place updated and well maintained. And certainly don’t let an AI tell you what to charge. The best possible situation is to rent to a young person just starting out or a young family, who can use the time renting from you in a non-predatory fashion to build up savings to buy a place of their own, then rinse and repeat. Wouldn’t that be fulfilling?

On the other hand, though, look into the basic tenant law in your area so you know what you’re getting into, and make sure your lease contract is enforceable should it come to that. Some locales are notoriously tenant friendly. You might rent out your space to someone who signs all the paperwork saying that they will pay rent, and then when the time comes they never pay. This might persist even after their lease is up, and not move out when required to. But as a landlord, it will be totally your choice to decide what to do in that situation. While the law may allow you to evict that person, you don’t have to escalate that far on day 1. The choices would be up to you. You can choose grace and patience if you want. It may not always be enough.

Your relative is doing this to give you a sustainable path to a better, more stable life. While this path is not for everyone, it doesn’t automatically make you exploitative.

All of those points are true for some crypto projects, and untrue for others. There are some projects with their own Blockchain that have ultra-low fees, others with quick transactions, and others whose algorithms are much more environmentally friendly. (There are other projects and tokens they are full-on scams with no redeeming value whatsoever).

And consumer protections are something that can be added to crypto, but out of necessity they involve trusting some entity to arbitrate when protection is required. Cryptocurrency is designed to be trustless, so any protections need to be added on top, like the escrow someone else talked about.

The worst thing that ever happened to crypto was for it’s price to balloon. Because improving all those other aspects that make it usable as a currency took a back seat to “wen moon?”. OG Bitcoin explicitly rejects improving its energy footprint and fee structure because it sees itself as a Store of Value.