Don’t say nobody warned you.

The Supreme Court of Alabama (surprise) ruled that fertilized eggs (mainly from IVF patients) are people and anyone destroying fertilized eggs or allowing them to expire can be charged with their deaths.

This means anyone in Alabama who’s tried IVF now has an obligation to try to birth them all (they can only live frozen for so long, and if you don’t try to save them by implantation then you become a murderer many times over).

This means any facility storing frozen embryos is in a catch 22 if the parents die…they must find a birth mother for every one because destroying them or allowing them to die is murder.

Expect IVF and other fertility treatments to end in Alabama, anyone practicing it risks murder charges under the best circumstances.

Expect Texas to follow suit, they’re probably sick about the fact that they didn’t think of it themselves.

The next step is the same thing for frozen unfertilized eggs or sperm- use them or face charges, then it’s outlawing birth control. Hide and watch.

Edit- if you live in a red state and have stored eggs, sperm, or embryos you should look into moving them to a blue state or destroying them while you can.

Lol.

“Your”. “Says”

You know it’s true since Chris Licht took over, which was exactly when you started posting CNN videos with the caption “even CNN something something” as if it wasn’t common knowledge they tried to become a right wing outlet to capture Fox viewers, destroying any credibility they once had and tanking their ratings which you celebrated.

But of course you’ll pretend you don’t know that, just like you don’t know about the “southern strategy”. Just like you pretend you don’t know Ashley Babbitt is a catch 22 for you that completely destroys one or more narratives you hold sacred, which explains your absolute refusal to ever even acknowledge her existence anymore.

Only far right anti Biden outlets would host hour long free campaign commercial Trump softball “interview” events packed with only supporters and infomercial level questioning, and Trump only goes on far right outlets. Proof enough for those not blind that they’ve sold their soul.

If anyone cared to look, they pre-labeled upcoming hearings as “democrats attack whistleblowers” before the hearings even started….”whistleblowers” when talking about the disgraced paid activist actors/ex FBI agents that are 100% not whistleblowers by any definition of the term, which was clearly determined by the courts when they applied for whistleblower protection from being fired for insane violations of duty, clearances, and the law including stealing secret FBI data, refusing to serve warrants, lying to protect Jan 6 defendants, threatening other agents, refusing direct orders from superiors, etc. and who the courts clearly determined aren’t whistleblowers, but now far right CNN calls them “whistleblowers” anyway, bowing to the MAGA crowd’s factually incorrect nonsense once again. Sure sounds pretty far right to me….excuse me if I trust my proven ability to determine facts over your proven inability.

This proves once again that you are incapable of comprehending anything that doesn’t fit your narrative.
To be clear, you are only worth listening to because you expose the complete insanity MAGgots are telling each other annd which propaganda outlets they come from, offering an opportunity to investigate myself and learn facts to contradict their baseless claims and projection with. You are an unwitting tool for me. Without you I would be ignorant of so many MAGA crimes, lies, and schemes. Thanks.

The catch 22 is that Rudy HAS to defend himself by arguing that his claims were the truth. Any other defense is an admission that the fraud claims were all lies.

Trump naturally wants to be loved but he can't let that happen. In his heart everyone wants him for his money. He believes he can buy love and that's exactly the kind of love that keeps him unsatisfied without a clue as to why. Catch 22. Trapped behind his own wall. This is the reason why he needs so much attention. But, it never fills that void.

There is no evidence whatsoever that he lived again, and barely anecdotal evidence that his body went missing.
You vastly overestimate the theories acceptance outside devout religious theological scholars.
It's not all nonsense, just the magic parts.

History. Constantine converted and compiled the bible to consolidate and grow his political powers.

Satan wrote and fulfilled the bible and prophecies to trick you, just like every other religion. See how that falls apart?

Verified "truth" is a fact demonstrable in the physical world.
I don't buy into isms.

No, they were clearly instructions to individuals, not government...please. Even accepting your view, it's still killing, so no one could carry out the governmental stoning imperative...catch 22, you defy god either way.

But, since I don't believe, I don't accept or reject him.

Ahhh, so he didn't die for the world, only his supporters, you say, with non supporters (mostly tricked thorough no fault of their own) getting eternal torture. Diabolical, monstrous in fact.

Only like cancer that only exists when you believe it does.

I do those things for myself, it's working fine and I take responsibility for myself. I would suggest if Jesus worked as you say, to perfection, no Christian would ever be depressed or do wrong, they would be perfect people without problems....1)what about when you/they don't behave perfectly, is Jesus busy?

If there was zero law enforcement on earth and no vigilantes, it would be like that.

A sign, like the cardboard sign the driver's holding? Yep.

I might get in the car out of curiosity, but wouldn't just accept that coincidence or mental implantation means divinity. I would think it's likely I'm being visited by ET, who would be easily mistaken for gods by believers.

2)Again, I must ask, if you know he has that power of personal revelation, but chose to not use it, why would you defy your own God's wishes to try to convert others? Maybe he needs us heathens to be heathens.

It does seem like a catch 22 situation. If the signs don't attract attention then...whats the point, but if they do then surely that is attention that would otherwise be on the road.

I'm quite pro gun rights generally, but to me it seems insane that "self defense" is the #1 stated reason for owning a gun in the US now.

Jim Jeffries' bit on self defense covers my concerns in a pretty funny but honest way. In your home, keeping your guns in an accessible place where they could easily be used in a self-defense situation makes them not safe. Much more likely to have accidents, or have a criminal end up with them and using them on you. Securely storing them away from ammo to prevent those issues precludes using them for self defense. Catch-22.

For concealed carry, that's a bit different. With the right kind of setup, I suppose that I must admit that the risks of accidents could be low, the chances of needing to use the weapon low, but some real potential for situations where some people would be better off having a weapon than not.

...There are some *major* caveats to that, though. For example, if I was black, I'd never concealed carry because that seems like a recipe for disaster. Is that fair, or reasonable? Fuck no. But it is reality.

I think personally as a white country-bumpkin dude, if I was going to carry semi-frequently, I'd go with the old redneck standby of a shotgun or hunting rifle on a rack in the back window of my pickup. Lock it to the rack with a combination lock, and keep ammo separately in a glove compartment or something with another combination lock. If I actually needed it, it would be there.


One thing I do agree with @Mordhaus 100% on is that suicides should NOT be considered, or at the very least should be specifically denoted as suicides, when showing numbers for "gun violence" or "gun crimes".

In normal circumstances, I would agree. These were/are not normal circumstances.
He sought out a store that would be the most hostile to his request intentionally with the hope that they would do something like this, no question about that.
In a more perfect world, I would mostly agree (except it literally IS their business). This is far from a perfect world.

It's a trap, because most liberals are against allowing businesses to deny service to those they dislike for religious/political reasons, even though they would really like to mimic them. That means that denying him service plays into their hands even more than making a snide subliminal addition to the interior of the shirt. This is the catch 22 they have put themselves in, where there's no good option.
I think they should be allowed to refuse service to anyone for any reason....but those they refuse are allowed to make a public stink about it and 'boycott' (like this guy would have had they refused to make a shirt).

If 'unequivocally disavow' are 'pretty complicated words' to Trump, he's completely unqualified for office.
But he actually asked him to 'unequivocally condemn' Duke, not 'disavow', then went on to dumb it down farther and said 'and say you don't want his vote, or the votes of white supremacists'. Trump replied clearly that he knows nothing about David Duke or white supremacists, so he won't even discuss them. The Duke part is a blatant lie, he's publicly condemned David Duke in the recent past. Condemning or not condemning white supremacists requires no additional information, unless you simply don't know what white supremacy is, which in itself is also a disqualifier for any high office.
At the time of the interview, there was no problem with him understanding anything or bad communication/equipment, only later when his answer bit him in the ass.
I knew that at some point this catch 22 of either being caught agreeing or disagreeing with blatant racists and white supremacists would catch up with him, because taking either stance alienates 1/2 his supporters and makes him lose the election.

The inference being that I have a choice..? =) We don't in Aus.

But you're missing the point, X >= 1 feed in tariffs are being subsidised by other users on the grid. You upload your power regardless of demand peaks (so you could be sending power when it really isn't required). Electricity companies are not going to massively drop production of regular power as it takes a considerable amount of time to spool up/down baseload production, and they are still going to switch on high cost gas turbines during peak load just in case a big old cloud blocks out the sun for an hour or so and solar production falls in a heap...

And peak usage times are usually ~8-9am (schools and business start up, switch computers and air con on etc) before solar production really kicks in, and later in the afternoon when it get's hotter, people are getting ready for dinner. If you have significant daylight savings time shifts, then you can certainly get better production when peak demand in the early evening is occurring. If the panels are facing west rather than east or north (because that's where you maximise production and make the most money... =)

As for "the idea that it might take more energy to produce a panel than it will produce itself is ridiculous", I didn't say that it did, just that it's return on that energy invested is comparatively poor. You coal analogy is patently wrong though. Depending on which source you go to, coal is anywhere from 30:1 to 50:1 for EROEI (energy returned on energy invested). It's cheap to obtain, burn and dispose of the waste, despite being toxic/radioactive.

eg. http://bravenewclimate.com/2014/08/22/catch-22-of-energy-storage/

When you talk about solar PV and the energy required to make it, you're not just talking about the production line, you're talking mining the silicon, purifying, the wasted wafers which aren't up to snuff, the cost of the workers and the power that goes in to building, transporting etc, lifetime maintenance, loss of production over time and disposal. The above link puts PV at the low 1.5-3:1 which is well beneath the roughly 7:1 required to sustain our modern society (and does not cover the massive increases in energy demand and consumption from developing countries). And as the author of the article notes, these are unbuffered values. If you add buffering to load shift, the sums get even worse.

"Put simply, if solar PV is such a bad deal, how are they saving me so much money even without any rebates?"

I didn't say solar was a bad deal, I said it's a poor way to reduce carbon pollution. If the electricity company you are connected to is willing to pay high feed in tariffs to you and you save cash, that's great, but that doesn't automagically (intentional typo mean that solar PV is making any sort of serious inroads in to reducing carbon pollution.

If we're going to fix man made climate change, we need to be prepared to pay a far higher cost and worry less about our hip pockets. Nuke might not be economically viable without causing jumps in bills, but in terms of the energy output it provides over it's life time, it is one of the highest returns in energy for the energy invested in building it, paired with very low carbon emissions.

Obviously, the figures on EROEI depend on which article you read, as it's a very complex number to work out (and will always be an approximation), but it's fairly commonly acknowledged by people who do not have a vested interest in solar PV (vs low carbon power sources in general) that PV is a feel good technology that doesn't actually do a hell of a lot in terms of carbon reduction.

here's the problem I see with that...these things are initially going to be expensive. ideas like this only pay off when used widely. Sure I might be able to invest in making a driveway from these things and I might get a small return on my electric bill, but it just won't be very productive initially. standard catch 22.

but the bottom line is that we've got to invest in infrastructure...it's a necessity that we invest in technologies that show promise such as this. they won't get cheap until pretty much after we've invested in them.

but if they hold up, then it should work out. I figure that's probably going to be the biggest thing...how long are these individual hexes going to hold out? replacing a few here and there won't be a big deal, but replacing entire sheets of them for miles just won't work out long term.

Catch 22

Pretty much on point. Its one thing to protest with no idea what position the police or school have on the subject, it is entirely different point to see both sides of the situation and presented with evidence see how fault could be found either way. Howe had been told what the new rule was and after the fact has stated that like it or not he has to follow the rule. The officer is a dumb ass who started with the high ground (in that by school policy he was correct) and took a shit all over it by using it to sour the situation. The lady at the desk was at least trying to help get Howe his kids and defuse the situation despite having her hands tied by the policy. All of this is a shitty situation caused by a poorly thought out policy, but despite this the correct way to deal with it would be to argue the policy in the correct forum and not get into an argument in a place where the school and the officer have a catch 22 of breaking policy and facing repercussion or upholding policy and looking like the assholes the video made them out to be.

@enoch

Well, note that the "governs best, governs least" quote IS Thoreau speaking, and although I think it's nonsense (I don't personally want to live completely outside any social structure, I don't think it's practical to separate myself from all of the advancements of society), I DO still think that Thoreau was a brave and noble person for believing in something and seeing that belief come to fruition. That's freedom.

But, when you're constantly putting down a system that you seem to wholeheartedly disagree with, but still support, that's hypocrisy, again, acc to me.

I brought up the issue of taxes because that's what Thoreau did. It's not terribly complicated. He felt that the system of government he was a part of was corrupt and restrictive, so he chose to not participate in it by not paying his taxes. He was jailed because of it, and when his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson bailed him out of jail he was upset. He WANTED to remain in jail because he didn't want to contribute to the social system he disagreed with so.

So when blankfist compared himself to Thoreau: http://videosift.com/talk/Gov-t-stopped-funding-charity-private-donations-surge-500#comment-1185054

I felt, and am reminded every time I see this type of propaganda, that there are a few ways of looking at this american libertarianism and those who follow it:

1) They don't believe in the government, but still support it through taxes.
2) They don't actually believe in the principles outlined in their own philosophy, and that's why they support what they affirm is a corrupt, freedom crushing, system, and that explains their support of it.
3) They believe in their ideas, but want to change things through the current system of government, which seems like a bit of a weird Catch 22.
or
4) They just want to have a theoretical discussion.

I've asked and asked, but he maintains that he's a freedom fighter who supports the government that he hates (through the payment of taxes, etc.)

There are other options I've probably considered along the way that aren't mentioned here, but I really put more thought into this than trying to tear blankfist down. It's genuinely confusing to me for someone to seemingly believe something so strongly and not act on those feelings.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. My first teaching job was in a very rural part of the US. Word got out quickly to the principal that I didn't say the pledge of allegiance in the morning (I have a variety of reasons for this, but the main one is that I am an atheist and don't agree with the phrase "under god"). I was brought into the principal's office after his stooge assistant "stopped by" my room several days in a row before and after the announcements. He wanted to know why I wasn't saying it and the conversation was respectful but went something like:

"Well, I choose not to, and I make sure everyone, including myself, is respectful during that time of the day, but I make it clear to the students that they don't have to as well."
"But don't you think you're setting a bad example for the students?"
"Well, no...? (at this point I knew they basically wanted me to just fall in)"

Long story short, at the end of the year, my job no longer existed. They moved the journalism teacher to another building and my position went from Eng teacher to Eng/Journalism teacher (I don't have a journalism license). Since I didn't have a license for that, I couldn't stay. :-/

It was hard to deal with, impossible to prove, but I'm better off 7 years into my career not being surrounded by those people anyway. They REALLY wanted me to just say the pledge, but it wasn't in my job description that I had to say the pledge every morning, and today, I'm happy to be in an inner city school with a more diverse and understanding population where I don't have to.

That's one BIG example from my life, and I'm no Thoreau, but neither is Blankfist. Now if he would just admit it.

@Kofi / @Yogi

I agree with what you are both saying. I'm sure you guys are aware of the origins of Al Qaeda both in the context of (1) their Mujahideen origins in Afghanistan propped up by the US against their Soviets and (2) their inception during the radicalisation of the Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt through the government's imprisonment and torture campaign while supported by the US.

However, by the time of 9/11, I'd argue Al Qaeda was long detached from any of its original goals (partly as a result of US actions that radicalised them) and had lost its idealism and was an organisation seeking power and global recognition.

That's also why I think the situation visa vi the US/Middle East has destabilised to a point that even were the US to withdraw from its military bases, propping up of dictators and disentangle itself from Israel then Al Qaeda would still target the US simply because those actions have replaced its initial aims and have become its raison d'etre.

That's not to say the US shouldn't get out of the Middle East because continued presence in this way is creating more groups that grow from local conflicts to global war with the US but I'm more saying, that it would be naive to expect organisations such as Al Qaeda to dissapear were the US to do this. Their existence is predicated on opposition to the US and were the US to disengage, they would simply manufacture reasons to continue their own global jihad. It's a bit of a Catch 22, damned if you do, damned if you don't at this point.