lucky 10,000!

Time to go down the Panspermia rabbit hole!

That the primary motivator towards forcing the sale wasn't the algorithm as such, it was the probability that the PRC would use TikTok as a propaganda tool.

The Republicans aren't conservative in any sensible meaning of the word. They are radicals. The Democrats are far more conservative than the Republicans these days.

Lots of medical workers, especially in rural hospitals, are on H1-Bs.

I never stopped coming in to the office. Before that I worked in industrial automation, and that work couldn't be done remotely either.

"diesel engines are known for being especially difficult to start in cold."

When I was in the Army in Korea in 1985/86 one of the duties on the duty roster was to start every vehicle in the motor pool every 4 hours and run it for half an hour to keep it warm. Nothing like getting up at 0200 on a Sunday morning to spend an hour in the motor pool.

but not just any old plastic, rather specially made stuff that doesn't shed or leach anything into the water. When I was a baby chemist 25 years ago it was all ultrapure tin containers, but things seem to have changed since then.

Yes, buying. I lived in Cedar City Utah and first encountered Linux in a RedHat 2.0 beige box at a gaming store in Red Cliffs Mall in St George. Probably in 1994 or 5. Came with a couple of manuals, a boot floppy, and a CD. Had the 0.95 kernel. Getting dial-up configured was interesting since the ISP only knew about Trumpet Winsock... Then leaving it running for a few hours in the evening to update everything.

Within a week I was at the local BN buying O'Reilly books.

Way back in 1973, him and Fred were sued by the Federal government for denying fair rentals to Blacks.

But you're making an argument that's been so easily and laughably debunked that I just gotta pile on.

Imagine trans-ness is left-handedness. For centuries, left-handed kids were abused into the Right Way (no pun intended, and also an oddly astute observation on today). After the stigma of left-handedness was rather quickly done away with, we saw an absolutely meteoric rise in the number of kids identifying as Leftie...until it plateaued, at a representative level. Turns out that when you suddenly free a group to exist, they have a period of massive growth as they become free to be recognized, and then they settle down into a normal, accepted, if small part of society.

Kids aren't all suddenly being "brainwashed" into being trans, rather the kids who are actually trans are feeling safe to come out now. Your dreaded "unreal rise" is not only very real and accountable for, it'll stabilize at (i'd guess) 1.5-2%. That's how people under 18 identify, and despite people like you I'm postulating America has become safe enough that most trans kids will come out now.

Calvinball is described on the Wiki thusly (emphases added):

Calvinball is an improvisational sport/game introduced in a 1990 storyline that involved Calvin's negative experience of joining the school baseball team. Calvinball is a nomic or self-modifying game, a contest of wits, skill and creativity rather than stamina or athletic skill. The game is portrayed as a rebellion against conventional team sports and became a staple of the final five years of the comic. The only consistent rules of the game are that Calvinball may never be played with the same rules twice and that each participant must wear a mask.

When asked how to play, Watterson stated: "It's pretty simple: you make up the rules as you go." In most appearances of the game, a comical array of conventional and non-conventional sporting equipment is involved, including a croquet set, a badminton set, assorted flags, bags, signs, a hobby horse, water buckets and balloons, with humorous allusions to unseen elements such as "time-fracture wickets". Scoring is portrayed as arbitrary and nonsensical ("Q to 12" and "oogy to boogy") and the lack of fixed rules leads to lengthy argument between the participants as to who scored, where the boundaries are, and when the game is finished. Usually, the contest results in Calvin being outsmarted by Hobbes. The game has been described in one academic work not as a new game based on fragments of an older one, but as the "constant connecting and disconnecting of parts, the constant evasion of rules or guidelines based on collective creativity."

Also, that is such a perfect description that's how I'm gonna refer to SCOTUS from now on: The Calvinball Court.

Not a mortar, but a frigging NUCLEAR BAZOOKA.

I'm hearing they bought frickin' DISINFECTANT LAMPS so it's not that the cheap garbage didn't block the harmful stuff, it was literally engineered to only emit UVC, and TWELVE WATTS of it at that. I do hope nobody goes blind, but I also hope their recovery is long and agonizing (have had both corneal sunburn and corneal sutures, it's horrific).

The Joker; they're a founding member of ARM.