Don’t know why it took them this long. Seems like such a simple thing to mount a gun to a drone. In most of these drone videos, the soldiers are standing, laying on the ground, or running in a straight line. Easy targets for a rifle.

Harris and Michelle Obama

Pulling out all your money or selling your home and possessions would give you away. And a pauper with a boat would be a red flag for any investigator. You’d have to be willing to give it all up. Your family would have to believe you died.

A better option would be to slowly siphon off money and be seen frequenting a casino, or become known as a drug addict. Once you’ve liquidated everything and racked up tons of debt, fake a suicide. Become aberrant or hyper-religious/political. Tell everyone that you’re going on a hike to “find yourself” or that you’re volunteering to fight in Ukraine. Never come back.

Not recommended for lycra or spandex suits, or any suit that has elastic closures, particularly during the summer months. They will rapidly degrade in the heat of the car. My wife left hers in the car after a vacation (never used it). It was tucked in the trunk. Found it a month later and it disintegrated in the wash.

It wasn’t any particular scientific discovery that weakened religion. It was the popularity of science fiction that did it. As Arthur C. Clarke put it, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” People can now imagine how miracles are done without invoking anything supernatural. We might not have the tech to do it yet, but we have a pretty good idea of potential methods. That has placed a lot of “creator god” religions under pressure. Create life? Tech will eventually do it. Create a world? Sure, tech again. Given enough tech, a solar system can be spawned. Water into wine? We’re halfway there with Kool-Aid. We already have vimanas (those ancient Hindu flying vehicles). We call them airplanes or helicopters. We can destroy a whole city with a single weapon. So why should we worship a supreme being who supposedly did those things?

Assuming we can conquer poverty, religions that survive will be centered around improving the human condition. Worshipping dieties will eventually fall by the wayside. It will still be a long process. You can’t dispel faith with reason and facts. And people in poverty tend to embrace religion because it gives them comfort and hope that things will be better in the afterlife.

Animals were doing it long before humans even existed. Some birds will “bathe” in an ant nest because the formic acid excreted by the ants rids them of parasites. There’s even a word for it - zoopharmacognosy.

Long before recorded history, people knew what plants were helpful to treat or cure various maladies. Who knows what possessed the first human to chew on willow bark to relieve pain or reduce a fever? The earliest documentation of it was 400 BCE by Hippocrates, but it was probably common knowledge for much longer than that. The Chinese have been using various herbs to treat disease for at least 3000 years.

Every time I do a search, the bot usually provides enough info. The problem is that I don’t trust the bot because it’s been wrong before. So I still need to continue the search to find an authoritative answer.

That’s the problem with bots. If you trust their answers and they’re wrong, it can be a real problem. There was a story a while ago about an Air Canada customer service bot that was giving out bad info about bereavement travel. When a customer tried to get the promised refund, the airline admitted the advice was wrong, but claimed the bot was a separate legal entity, therefore they were not responsible for the advice it gave.

The only voters that matter in this election are the moderates. We will decide the winner in November. The Hard Left and Right will vote for their party’s candidate, but neither can ensure the Oval Office without moderate support. I look forward to the debate, mainly to see how Biden handles himself without a teleprompter. I already know Trump is going to spew word salad.

Maybe someday (in my wet dreams) I’ll have a ranked-choice vote. Then I won’t have to base my vote on the lesser of two evils. That’s unfortunately the way things are in our two party dominated political system. It’s another election where I have to vote to keep the worst contender from winning.

Isn’t this illegal? The Stolen Valor Act of 2013 prohibits false claims of earned military awards and medals if the intent involves tangible benefits. Obtaining public office is one such benefit, isn’t it?

Biden needs to start putting up billboards with these Trump quotes, referring folks to his “trumpsucks.com” website, which now simply redirects to the “joebiden.com” website.

That low-res picture of the suspect is why Walmart has such a problem with theft. Meanwhile, Sam’s Club has 4k cameras on either side of the entrance and the exit. Same parent company.

I was with you up until you decided to hide under the insulation. Seriously? I start scratching just looking at the stuff!

My house is built on an old vertical mineshaft. I’d take the secret elevator to the bunker 300 feet below ground where my command center is. Then I’d take control of the gun emplacements hidden in the trees and the fleet of AI enhanced drones. When the agents are eliminated, the robotic dogs will drag the bodies to the incinerator shaft.

Or maybe not. You didn’t think I’d really tell you what awaits you Agent CraigOhMyEggo, did you?

Plenty of people make a decent living writing. They’re technical writers who create documentation. My friend makes over $140k/yr writing for an Internet security company.

Creative writing, on the other hand, is an overcrowded field.

If it’s just one room, use a tower air purifier. Mine is set up in my workshop at a window. I cut a piece of fiberboard to adapt the purifier to the window frame, but cardboard works.

I like this method better than the box fan/filter combo because it provides greater air flow and removes pretty much everything with the HEPA and carbon filters. It’s saving my sanity right now with all the pine tree pollen and smoke from debris pile burning.

For a whole home, place a window fan in one room pointing out. Then put air filters in the windows of other rooms. This has the benefit of keeping the noisy fan in an unoccupied room while you’re trying to sleep. Alternatively, if you have an attic, you can get a fan that fits the attic access. This works better because you’ll be cooling your attic as well. You can also consider a dedicated attic fan which can knock 10 degrees off the inside temperature on a hot day.

Look up how to debate. Success is not measured by how bad you make the opponent look. That may work on one person, but you have to repeat it for every person who advances the same argument. Instead, take apart their argument, reveal underlying motives, expose untruths with irrefutable documentation, uncover false logic and bad assumptions, and respond without attacking the messenger.

For instance, “The economy is terrible! Everything is so expensive.” Well, stuff -is- expensive. But is the economy really the reason behind it? The US stock indexes are at record highs. Most companies have been beating the expected earnings per share. Isn’t it more likely that things are expensive because companies are taking more profit to give to their shareholders? Which candidate do you believe is more inclined to change that?

The object is not to defeat the opponent. It’s to prevent others from being convinced by their arguments.

Keep doing what I have been doing - dragging MAGA fence sitters back from the brink one by one. The ones who have adopted Trumpism as their religion are too far gone. But there are a lot who just need to be taken by the hand and shown a better path.

When you see MAGA BS, challenge it with well-reasoned arguments. The object really isn’t to change the mind of the poster. It’s to prevent them from changing the minds of others.

Her base may not care, but she can’t win an election with only the votes from her base. Moderates and independents do care and make the difference in who wins.

That there is an all powerful supreme being that demands our worship or else we will suffer for all eternity after our death.

The same things were said when industrial robots replaced assembly line workers, when farm equipment replaced agricultural labor, and now with AI systems. People still need jobs. But looking at the big picture, those improvements made sense. Most displaced workers found other employment.

Our medical system costs much more than it needs to, creates anxiety about long term medical needs in “at will” employment, has forced millions to declare bankruptcy over medical debt, destroyed the financial security of millions more, and in some cases, has lead to patients who opted to forgo medical treatment because it wasn’t covered. And when payment for care is tied to a job, that leads to age discrimination - older employees cost more to insure.

Taxes were meant to pay for things everyone needs. I can’t think of a better example of that than medical care.

(Edit for clarity)