I believe the VP only becomes “acting President” and doesn’t assume the actual office until sworn in by a proper authority (usually the Chief Justice of SCOTUS but I believe contingency plans exist). So it would be interesting to figure out when the immunity attaches.

hey look buddy I’ve got some amazing advice for OP over here but I had another OP call me 10 minutes ago asking for the exact same advice so I’m gonna need you to make a decision right away.

The question was “what term annoys you” not “what term annoys you that you’re sure Lemmy will approve of” (or that a malignant narcissist billionaire isn’t also annoyed by).

I’m open to an explanation of a commonplace situation where it’s necessary to have a separate word for “is of the gender that matches that assigned at birth.”

To me it’s like if I say I enjoyed the sunrise" and someone says, “you mean the Earth sunrise?”

I mean yeah, sunrises happen all over the solar system, there are different kinds of sunrises, probably all beautiful in their own ways, but in general the default “sunrise” a human is likely to be talking about is the one we experience on Earth.

“cis” I feel like it’s an extra term for “straight”. The “default” for lack of a better term (and one that isn’t othering) is near the not trans & not gay part of the gender / sexuality spectra. To me everyone in that zone is “straight” (boring/default/whatever).

“begs the question” because people exclusively use it wrong. Just say “leads to the question” or “poses the question.”

And I’m still really salty about everyone giving up on the term “literally” to allow it to mean its exact opposite.

Right it’s so lazy too. I’ve seen way better attempts to justify throwing away a century of international norms around territorial sovereignty.

I mean I’m not gonna give any pointers, but c’mon guys…

Pulling the ladder up behind you is something that happens pretty often in human history.

That’s not to say it’s intrinsic to us or destined to happen. But “hurt people hurt people” is probably what causes that to manifest.

In certain circumstances I bet most if not all of us would do it, too. A full life raft will swamp and kill everyone aboard if one more person gets on, for example. If there’s a guy trying to force his way on, what should the people on the boat do?

There’s a fair amount of that misguided belief among some anti immigrant movements: “we’re full” or equivalent.

https://www.childstats.gov/AMERICASCHILDREN/tables/pop1.asp

70-something million children. Let’s make them eligible to vote, and let parents vote on their behalf if they’re too young. As another poster said, the parents who abuse that on “both sides” would more or less come out in the wash. The parents who took it seriously would probably adjust both their vote and their child’s vote to benefit the child.

(One interesting thing is that would mean citizen children of non-citizen immigrants would get to vote.)

So your contention is that Nation A considering joining an alliance that Nation B doesn’t like - not actually joining, just considering - is a provocation worthy of military invasion?

Jesus what a world that would be.

I think we’re gonna have to agree to disagree as I see a fundamental difference between a multi national joint military operation targeting international terrorists and a unilateral military operation aimed at reconstituting the USSR.

Updated

What on earth are you talking about occupying Syria?

If the point of supporting Ukraine is to support the international order of respecting borders, then an absolutist interpretation would mean you stop at your border when repelling invaders.

On the other hand, that would certainly result in invaders loading up on personnel and materiel on their side of the border until they reached some critical mass for a re invasion.

A lot of people might not remember the first Gulf War where the international community defending Kuwait stopped at the Iraq border. I think it could be argued that was a mistake on multiple levels, even ignoring everything we know that came after.

Those poor people spending time only on HB for four years, never going anywhere else, never finding 4/8chan, never even finding reddit…

Is your question why a propaganda operation focused on disrupting or presidential elections would “go live” 18-ish months before the presidential election?

And are you asking if I have specific evidence that they’re trolls? Or that the governments I’ve listed have troll farms? Or that specifically HB is specifically rife with trolls from this governments’ farms? Because I definitely don’t have specific evidence. Just the historical evidence of (attempted) general interference from those countries in our previous elections.

I think HB and some of the other groups are mostly trolls or Russian, Chinese, Iranian, North Korean, or aligned operatives trying to gas up trolls or wannabe trolls.

There are definitely some well meaning Americans and others who get suckered into the bullshit tornado that is those sites. They are definitely worth saving if we can. But it’s hard. They ban and block anyone with a dissenting voice no matter how calmly presented.

If someone calls me insane, the response that proves them wrong is a reasonable, chill response at most. The actual sane thing to do is ignore them or make a joke about the claim.

Just like if someone calls me weird, the response that proves I’m not weird is to say, “hahaha, sure, whatever” or “so what?” The response that would prove their point is along the lines of, “I’m not weird, you’re weird” or “they’re not calling me weird, they’re calling my associate weird.”

I have it on pretty good authority that everyone who likes having sex with humans likes female boobs. And plump round asses. It’s some deeply ingrained evolutionary stuff.

Doesn’t mean a gay guy is gonna go straight because of some nice tits, but he can appreciate them erotically.

Hmmm maybe we should ignore #1 and focus on #5 then

If Mastodon wins out in the long run the only reason will be persistence.

All these other “like Twitter but ______” micro blogging or whatever sites only stay viable while they’re profitable.

If Bluesky or Threads become (net) unprofitable, they’ll die. Mastodon is already unprofitable, so that can’t kill it.

I think we could compete with #1 just by word of mouth.

For #2 some person or group needs to develop a Mastodon app (FOSS obviously) that has a “just do this part for me” option, probably automatically enabled.

#3 is on us. We have to do what we can to make Mastodon (and Lemmy) more open and accepting without falling pretty to the paradox of tolerance.

#4 is hard… Although I think if Mastodon follows or tries to replicate the “early” Facebook user experience where most or all of the content people got was from people they follow, that could be better. The only challenge is that algorithms tickle our anger/hate/disgust impulses to drive and maintain engagement. That’s some very strong “lizard brain” stuff.

So… let’s get going y’all! :)

I bought a squirrel proof bird feeder pole thing

https://jcswildlife.com/products/squirrel-stopper-deluxe-squirrel-proof-bird-feeder-pole-system-with-baffle

It works great, now I’m happy to watch the squirrels run around not eating my birds’ seed.

Only downside so far is some wasps built a nest inside and stung me. But they’re dead now.