Maybe, but third party presidential, when there is no legislators is never going to happen, never going to be elected, and never get any bills passed. Aiming for the white house as the first stop is just silly.

Well you go ahead and find those treaties for me, since I’ve never gotten a result back from a search. And I’d like to believe but have no proof of that.

Well the reason is that there are state laws against outside observers, and no treaty giving any foreign government the ability to monitor. So they’re just enforcing the laws, as they’re supposed to.

Mind you I’m not saying the UN or any other nation is going to interfere, but seems really important to follow laws around voting to make sure the attitude of enforcement isn’t lax.

Early on Russia said it would treat any foreigner fighting for Ukraine as a mercenary, and criminally punish them. Doesn’t matter that they sign with the Ukrainian government to fully be in the Ukrainian military. Just more rank hypocrisy, as they pull soldiers from all over Africa, India and China. Along with Americans caught in statutory rape charges that happened to flee before trial.

Looks tasty, wonder if I’ll ever get around to making it.

What I meant by cents on the dollar is usually, they broke rules, make $100 billion from it (imaginary scenario), and then the settlement from that wrong doing sees them pay out $2 billion to the affected customers that joined the class. It may be due to the fact that I’ve not paid attention to too many class action suits, but it seems like the settlement never comes close to the harm they caused.

I can tell you that I have arbitration on going, and it’s been well over a year that it has been happening. To assume that the arbitration wraps up in a month, when you’ve got lawyers involved is non-sense. I don’t believe arbitrators are in anyone’s pocket either. The arbitrators aren’t in-house council for Valve, they are a company Valve has contracted with, and they’re going to be neutral, and rule based on law, not who’s paying. As a lot of arbitration rules state that if you take the case to arbitration and lose, the one that is ruled against pays for the cost of the arbitration. Based on the “mate’s rates”, I’m guessing you’re UK based. I don’t know that legal system, so can’t say how fee structures work. But a great deal of lawyers that are suing on behalf of you, in the US, take a percentage of the settlement. So the biggest cost is all to the person being sued, as they do pay the lawyers by the hour instead of a cut of the ruling.

I don’t think Valve is changing their rules to screw customers, I think they’re doing it because they’ve found separating each case into a different arbitration claim is too expensive. And it would have been better for them all to be in one group. I believe Valve is the best game distributor, as it turns out. But if people with law degrees think they’ve broken rules, I’m all for punishing rule-breaking. In this particular scenario, it seems like it might slightly improve things for consumers, and greatly benefit small studios.

If you push everybody into a class action, it will be cheaper. Have you ever gotten more than a cent on the dollar from a class action settlement(unless you’re the class representative)? Sure the seem like the settlements are a lot of money, but if you can get the class action settled with very few claimants, no one will be able to sue over that particular issue again, so it puts it behind the company. Instead of being dogged by individuals for however long.

I am curious what region you’re from. I would guess it’s outside of the US, but perhaps there’s an area that differs from the norm I’ve experienced.

If you are indeed outside the US, I’m guessing it’s the American tradition of engagement rings, without the tradition of continuing to wear the engagement rings. That truly would be a (bigger) waste of money.

Wait, do you know women that stop wearing their engagement ring after they’re married? Every married woman I’ve met (that doesn’t have a hands based labor job) wears the engagement and wedding ring. All the women in my family have them soldered together some time after, so they don’t independently spin on the finger.

Handy guide, but this whole USB situation is a cock-up, since it needs the freakin guide in the first place.

You absolutely can ask them that. Noticing it is not the same thing as getting distracted by it. Allowing your focus to be highjacked by the environment is a sign of a weak mind. If you went to work and a coworker told you the shape of your nose was distracting to them, and you need to wear a mask so they can continue to work, that is on the coworker, not you. It is absurd to put someone else in charge of what needs to be done to stop you from being distracted.

People need to control themselves, no one else has that ability.

The one that wants to overthrow democracy and would like to fund the ethnic cleansing at an even higher rate/amount is the fascist. The one that has encouraged Israel to go faster / do more in Gaza is the fascist. I do not like Biden’s weakness confronting Israel, but one is a cheerleader, and one is weakly pushing for caution.

One is going to be picked for you either way. Not voting doesn’t stop the shit eating from happening, just allows the lighting on fire to also happen.

By choosing the less shit option, politicians will see they need to be less shit to get elected, eventually to the point of maybe even having good candidates. Allowing the worst candidate to win tells the politicians they can get worse and still have their coveted power.

They do, but they shouldn’t. You should not ask a stranger to change their behavior because you cannot control your own. Maybe family would do it for you, but even then it’s can be a shitty thing to do.

I would if I didn’t fear that the scarcity will then be artificial to keep groups in power. The idea is beautiful, our current direction is terrifying.

Man have I got bad news for you. Almost everything uses idiots as the baseline for making stuff. They’re so numerous. Probably because everyone’s an idiot about something.

Apparently, the classification levels in the US are illegal! Snowden will rejoice, he can come home, as the first amendment allows free speech, even when it damages national security.

I did not read the article, but the summary made me actually laugh out loud. Hell the supreme court has already said the government has the right to intern a whole class of US citizens based on national security. The SCOTUS rulings do seem rather crazy at times to me though, so perhaps this is a winning strategy for ByteDance.

Two things are happening simultaneously Russia/China are trying to spread discontent, and Trumps followers are being told they no longer have to abide by social norms that keeps societies civil.

I believe the uncivil thing just always comes in waves as the people that don’t like change are forced to change and get resentful. Some kind of event happens and resets the floor, or all the people that don’t want to change die off, and things settle down.

And this is the mental framework through which I see the world.

It was the 80s and early 90s, terrible clothes were the style