Maybe you’re right. But I don’t really bother to try and read too deep into the motivations of any kind of corporation. I assume they’re all primarily motivated by profit. And my point is that individuals who have the capital to buy millions of dollars of real estate are functionally no different from a corporate investor, be it a REIT or a “housing company” motivated solely by “providing service.” They’re all going to do the bare minimum as required by the market to stay competitive and government regulation.

It should be illegal for LLCs or trust funds to purchase housing of any kind.

I completely agree that LLCs, REITs, and institutional investors shouldn’t be able to buy single family homes (and maybe even duplexes), but I don’t know about “housing of any kind.”

Large, multi family units like apartment buildings serve a vital need in the affordable housing market. Private individuals who have the capital to purchase a multi million dollar apartment building aren’t any more likely to be a conscientious landlord than a corporation. At that point, it all boils down to effective enforcement of tenant rights laws.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/16/business/bill-melinda-gates-divorce-epstein.html

I am absolutely terrified of the potential of real time deep fakes combined with AI voice impersonations being used to scam the elderly. Obviously, that’s a ways off. But I fear it’s not that far off.

“Republicans” never gave two shits about abortion. It was always a wedge issue that whipped the evangelicals into a frenzy and got their preachers to stump for Republican candidates from the pulpit, and drove them to the polls.

And in your opinion, does the 14th amendment of the Constitution prohibiting individuals who engaged in seditious acts against our democracy from holding office count as a “backdoor disqualification”?

That WHO study is highly problematic. It has some fairly serious methodological flaws. It’s been disputed by the FDA. It is biased due to the panel comprising:

eight WHO panelists involved with assessing safe levels of aspartame consumption who are beverage industry consultants who currently or previously worked with the alleged Coke front group, International Life Sciences Institute (Ilsi).

Source

But it’s up compared to 2020. Is that really apples to apples? Isn’t it reasonable to think the pandemic and resulting lockdown might have put downward pressure on the number of abortions?

Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Flourine, Oxygen, Iodine, Chlorine, and Bromine

Can you imagine living in a world where American farm subsidies went to make fresh fruit and produce affordable to all income levels, but the fuel lobby had to pay top dollar if they want to distill corn into ethanol so they can dope our gasoline?

How would this work though? You’re not ordering your food via the QR code link, you’re telling the waitstaff. Unless they ask you what price your saw, how are they going to correlate their variable price to a particular customer?

However, this would make it a lot easier to implement “peak pricing”. Their menu could automatically update based on time of day, or day of week, and certainly holidays.

To specifically answer their question: No. There is no state that will allow your family to euthanize someone who currently objects, just because that person, while younger, signed a will stating that was their wish.

Personally, I find all the other eschatological possibilities much more disturbing. The heaven/hell dichotomy is unnerving on a lot of obvious levels. Reincarnation seems fraught with neverending suffering. And the idea of becoming a “ghost” or a spirit, forever consigned to haunt some old place is as terrible as it is ridiculous.

I’m looking forward to my hard earned non-existence, thank you very much.

some functionality will be restricted without a paid license

I think that’s why. But maybe I’m just overly cynical.

This is a minor quibble, but I’ve never been charged a fee for an extra plate. They usually only charge when you request to “split the order”, meaning the kitchen splits the entree onto two plates for you.

Not on a “per calorie” basis they aren’t. And I’m not really sure by what other metric you can compare them. But look at how many calories of broccoli $3 gets you compared to potato chips. Then you have to add in the time of preparation.

Additionally, many impoverished people tend to live in “food deserts”, areas without grocery stores, but many fast Food locations.

The deck is definitely stacked against the impoverished.

Just because a slur appears with a definition in a dictionary, does not make it acceptable. And maybe it was acceptable at one time, but things change.

I recently (a couple of years ago now) reached out to a psychiatrist because I was finding it increasingly difficult to cope. My responsibilities at work continue to expand and become more cerebral, requiring more time in front of the computer.

I made sure and told him of my childhood history of being diagnosed young and having to go to the nurse’s office every day at lunch to get my afternoon pill and how that made me feel isolated and different. But that over time the pills helped me pull up my grades. Having been diagnosed as a child makes this process much easier as an adult.

The weird thing? He didn’t ask for any records or proof of my childhood diagnosis. I really was on Ritalin from the second grade through high school and then Adderall in college. But he didn’t ask for any cooborating evidence of that.

I guess you can take from that what you like. But they just don’t seem to follow up on your childhood history of treatment.

I feel for people who weren’t diagnosed as children and had to suffer with this without any assistance. It seems unfair that those people can’t get help now, just because they weren’t offered it in the past.

Do not try and bend the spoon, that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth… there is no spoon. Then you’ll see that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.