I’ve seen this once or twice but barring knowing the goal of the owner wasn’t sure if it’s appropriate to help restock.
As a big example I believe many of these are lgbtq or diversity friendly but that can be controversial. It’s not my business to make a statement in your library: should I donate an lgbtq book? a western? Romantic? Children’s? I have them all and support almost any goal encouraging reading or thinking, i just need to know what it is
I mean it’s true that it’s just more noise in the horror show that remains of American democracy. It’s difficult to focus on yet one more fascist action, far from home
They claim the boats are drug traffickers. Of course they’ve squandered any good will or reputation so no one believes it. Even if they were, you can’t just randomly kill people.
Much more likely it’s to put pressure on Venezuela for I’m not sure. Presumably it’s “the art of the deal” for oil companies that have laundered bribes through trumpcoin.
Yeah, but now it’s tiny compared to Antarctica
We can still hope the playing field will tilt back to level. Four years from now there will be no evil orange overlord to pardon all his minions and groupies. They’ll have to face justice with no way to cheat it.
That hope is what keeps me going. If the Trump kids are fine profiting off their fathers position and to the detriment of the country, I hope to see the day where it all comes crashing down when they’re no longer above the law
While I do agree, the difficulty is plausible deniability. If you want people with something in common to have a voice, perhaps a suburban ring around an urban core is a fair choice that looks like one of these.
I’m sure it’s not, but that could happen and whatever rule should allow that possibility. This is why it’s not easy to set a clear rule or a clear determination. Now it’s case by case and up to the judicial branch.
Perhaps setting a speed limit would go a long way - you can only redistrict on certain large changes such as the census every ten years and it can’t go into effect without judicial review, without all the appeals being exhausted. In this case Texas doesnt seem to have a legitimate reason to redistrict, and was it Georgia last year trying to argue that they had to use the new map for an election despite it being likely illegal
i guess in the US there’s gridlock anyway, so what the hell right?
Historically there were many compromises where representatives worked with the other party to find a solution they could all agree to. We like to think that’s how politics work.
However over the last few years it’s gotten much more divisive. Currently it seems like everything is a party line vote. It seems like one party especially elevated party loyalty above serving constituents, above doing the right thing. There is no more voice of the people, only the party and the evil orange overlord.
Filibusters have always been a thing, where you can hold the floor as long as you can talk about something, delaying everything. That was both a challenge for someone to do and had a huge impact when Congress had the motivation to do what they saw as right for their constituents. Now it’s automatic. You simply need to declare it. A majority vote is no longer enough for most choices because you always need the supermajority sufficient to overcome the filibuster, to “silence the representative “. Now you can’t get anything done.
For most of our history, Congress understood their highest priority was to pass a budget, and they did. Now that is no longer important. Brinksmanship means there is no longer a downside to hold the whole country hostage over whatever issue so they do. “Shutting down the government” by not passing a budget has become the new norm. Meaning we not only can’t get anything done but disrupt everything else.
The last one might be the most fair, if it were based on criteria other than voting tendencies. Complex districts are meant to let different voices be heard, but what those voices are makes it challenging.
Let me make a hypothetical scenario. Consider a state where half the people are urban and half are rural, and has two representatives. Those groups has different priorities so districts drawn only for simple shapes means that someone’s voice is not being heard. It would be better to have one representative elected by urban voters and one by rural voters. Now picture those urban areas following a winding river because that follows historical settlement patterns. The most fair choice might be a complex shape following population density to result in one representative speaking for rural voters and one speaking for urban voters, but indistinguishable from gerrymandering.
Of course that same exact result might just be a proxy for political affiliation, which is unfair. This is why preventing gerrymandering is impossible: whether it’s good or bad depends on what you’re trying to do not how you do it
They focussed more on term length
While these don’t seem to be working right, anyone proposing changes needs to understand what they were trying to do and not make it worse trying to fix another aspect
You need districts because not every race is national. Sure it allocates electoral votes but also Congress-critters. When a state has multiple Representatives, who elects each?
Districts are good so that people with something in common are better represented. We do NOT want a “tyranny of the majority” where minorities have no voice.
Some amount of gerrymandering is good to create districts where people have something in common. But that’s the real problem: how to allow “good” complex shapes while prohibiting “bad” gerrymandering? How do you even define that?
Personally I thought there was some law connecting it to the census so that any changes are based on data, not political whims. However clearly not
If they tried to send me to my country of ancestry, it no longer exists
As others say, ID has always been issued by states and is usually a drivers license, but also
What about a “Real ID” drivers license?
While a regular license makes no claim about citizenship, id expect “Real ID” to only be obtainable by citizens
At ideal conditions. As the temperature difference is greater, the efficiency goes down. So right when you need heat the most, gas is still at 90+% efficiency while heat pumps are closer to or under 200%.
Then you have to look at capacity. It can be expensive sizing for the greater temp differences when it usually isn’t. If you have a heat pump that can be 400% efficient, do you really want to pay for quadruple the capacity so that even when it’s at 100% efficiency it still puts out enough heat? No one can afford that
I’ve been looking at that decision. My furnace is well beyond its expected life and I’d like to replace it before it dies so it’s not an emergency. I’ve looked at heat pumps and really want to make that choice. The incentives help with the initial cost, at least for a couple more months.
But then it comes down to gas is cheaper than electricity. If electricity is twice the cost per unit of energy, is it really sufficient for the heat pump to be twice as efficient? How can I rationalize the choice that is not only more expensive to install but more expensive to run?
And the answer is not sinking yet more money into also doing solar. My house is mostly shaded, and I’m not killing treees just to make this mess work together
Definitely part of the answer needs to be adjusting subsidies to bring the cost of electricity per unit of energy closer to the cost of gas, or maybe incorporating. The externalized costs would actually be sufficient
If we had just moved ahead with solar heat and hot water, or even solar panels, back when President Carter was trying to encourage it, we would already be moved away from fossil fuels
My interest in renewables, in ecology, in recycling, was all from growing up with that. But how did we let fossil fuel companies take over the conversation, guide our choices down the road to their profits at our cost?
I’ll agree with we should have started 40 years ago. We knew we should have and we did have sufficient technology to take other paths.
But I’ll disagree on whether we have the technology now. There was a recent post on Lemmy that in a sunny place like Las Vegas, you could replace 97% of energy generation with renewables and batteries. Cheaper. Not just that you can but that it’s cheaper. We have the technology.
The challenge is always to bring the cost down. We do have technology to create aviation fuel from green sources. We do have several options for fueling shipping that we know how to do. Even if we’re just making ammonia or hydrogen or green diesel, that is a huge step forward that we have the technology for. The problem is we don’t yet have a compelling economic case to (especially since climate change is externalized, not counted as a cost), nor anyone with the fortitude to make it so
The problem is the flock of Trump-wannabes.
Trump not only poured gasoline and lit the match, but he proved that outrage politics work. He proved that it’s ok to be blatantly dishonest, immoral, and corrupt, and there were no consequences. He proved you can ignore the Constitution and legal restrictions.
And others in his party have copied that approach, and also found it working (admittedly to a smaller extent). I don’t see this approach going away
Yeah, don’t use that huge amount of oil. I’ve never had eggs stick in my cast iron, using 1-2 tablespoons of oil or butter. It shouldn’t need to swim in oil and if it is, you’re doing something wrong
Thanks for the map, I see the one in my immediate neighborhood is not listed but there are two others within an easy walk!
I’ll have to let them know
I did always wonder what the goals and protocols were. Can I donate to one or respect their choices of content? Am I acting suspicious if I stand there to “browse the stacks” and see if there is anything that interests me?