We have paper ballots that get scanned by a machine for the count. That way there is always a paper ballot that can be hand counted if the machine count is ever in question.

The question is better phrased this way:

Is worrying about death useful?

Being aware of your own mortality is a gift. Try to take some time to enjoy it while it lasts.

Food is a funny thing. It feeds and nourishes us, but it can also harm us. If I prepared the food and set some aside for myself, I would eat it. If the food was plated for a banquet and never served to a customer, I would eat it. If that same food was served to a customer and looked like it had not been touched, I would not eat it. I would never eat anything that had been served no matter how much I thought it was still edible.

Food can harbor unseen pathogens. Once food has been served, it should be considered contaminated and unsafe for anyone to eat except for the person it was served to. Unless you personally watched that plate go untouched the whole time and you never looked away, that plate should be considered unsafe for you to eat it.

No disagreement there. He’s not a smart man.

I just have this odd feeling that he can’t stand the idea of anyone leaving money on the table, even if that money was never part of any plan ever before. I really think he might have started the war because for no other reason than Iran wasn’t charging fees for passage through the straight and he couldn’t stand to let it happen. That would be supremely stupid and I think Trump might be just dumb enough to have done it for that reason and only that reason.

I feel like this was part of Trump’s plan all along. He sees a place where someone could be making money but isn’t, and that drives him up the f-ing wall. No idea what Trump’s angle on this might be, but considering how much of a hard-on he has for the Panama Canal and how the USA is missing-out on that revenue, I was pretty sure that fees would be charged when the straight of Hormuz reopened.

Hunger is not caused by people not finishing what is on their plate or by allowing over-ripe fruits and vegetables to be discarded.

Hunger is caused by our profit based food distribution system.

People with little or no money get little or no food. It sucks, but that is how it works.

Unless you can somehow take the profit away from the final destination so that anyone who wants food can have food, that will not change. I can’t even imagine a way to do it in an equitable fashion without a cultural shift away from money and towards having a healthy community that cares about the individual humans and is willing to share equally to do it.

No idea.

Check out “Reign of Fire.” (2002)
Christian Bale and a very bald Mathew McConnahey.

I feel like the real reason for the social media ban is to establish some kind of digital ID program and requiring that ID for everything a person does online. That makes it possible to curate not only where you can go online, but what you see when you get there. It is being sold as a way to “protect the children” but the reality is the children are the target audience. Children don’t have many preconceived notions about privacy, so violating their privacy will be so much easier.

Remember, in just a few years these “children” will be adults and any changes made for them today will eventually become the normal for everyone.

Homeless shelter and soup kitchen! The President is there every other Thursday serving food and drinks to the guests. As is tradition.

Deal! (i’m swithing to Linux)

I have no proof, but I feel like the AI push and Turnip getting re-elected and his regression of the EPA rules sounds like this whole AI thing was an excuse to burn more fossil fuels.

If I was invested in AI, and considering AI’s thirst for electricity, I would absolutely make a similar investment in energy. That way, as the AI server farms suck up the electricity I would get at least some of that money back from the energy market.

Based on what I remember from my biology class, many traits are decided by dominant vs recessive genes. The genes in your DNA are arranged in pairs. Your parents each provide you with one half of that pair.

• Recessive genes require both genes to be the same to be expressed.
• Dominant genes only require one to be expressed.

Let’s assume that tallness is the dominant gene and being shorter is the recessive gene.

If your father has one gene for being more than 182 cm and one gene for being less than 170 cm, he will be tall because the gene for tallness is dominant. If your mother has two genes that both select for being less than 170 cm tall, she will be noticeably shorter than your father because she has two recessive genes.

If your father gave you his recessive gene and your mother gave you one of her recessive genes, you would be noticeably shorter than your father.

This can also happen when both parents are tall but each of them carries both the dominant (tallness) gene and the recessive (shorter) gene. If they each provide only the recessive gene to their offspring, the result is an offspring that is significantly shorter than their parents.

This is some of the goofiest shit I have ever heard. If these biblical Nephilim giants ever existed, and someone had evidence of that existence, what would be the motivation for hiding it?

Scientists do not avoid biblical references because of some vast conspiracy. They leave that stuff out because those stories do not agree with their findings and/or do not add any useful information.

A great many scientists are Christian, Jewish, or Muslim. If the Nephilim ever existed and evidence was found that proved it, scientists would not shut up about it. It would be impossible to keep it quiet.

Can you imagine the museum traffic if such evidence existed? People would travel from all over the world to see even a tiny fragment. No curator in his or her right mind would pass up that opportunity!

Progressive lenses are complete garbage! The fact that you need to wear them for several days for your eyes (and your brain) to adjust to them speaks volumes. Keep in mind you will also see very poorly for the first few days.

I got some progressive lenses for my second ever pair of glasses. My first pair did not have bifocal lenses. I wore the progressive lens glasses for a few minutes in the store. Took them off, drove home, and tried to wear them at home. I hated them so much that I went back the same day and returned them. I have had lined bifocals ever since and have not regretted it one little bit.

Not clanker but simply: Clank!

The answer, at least in my experience, is that schools offer classes throughout the day and it is up to the student to select classes that fit onto their schedule. Unless a class is only offered in the morning, it is entirely possible to attend classes that do not start before noon and still get a degree.

Did I just get Cold-rolled?

With Trump, every accusation is a confession.

From my perspective, he’s still salty about her making fun of him back in the 90s on her daily TV talk show. He made it worse by not letting it go and taking out full page ads in the New York Times in response. She would then show the ads to the audience and read it on the air. Then she would make new jokes about what a giant man-baby he was.

That was enough to convince me, then, that Donald Trump was not a good person. That was about 25 years ago. I have not changed my mind about him. In fact, I dislike him much more now than I did then. It astounds me that anyone voted for that moron.