It also says that Congress must declare war. And yet three thousand people are already dead. And 50,000 are injured.

Let’s be more concrete. The real danger here is that the rules around 401ks and IRAs could be changed with new legislation. Or perhaps through a twisted interpretation of law via executive order. Or that new taxes could be levied against them.

The kleptocrats are in charge. And the wealth of the middle class can be plundered to give to the billionaires. For example, maybe they find a way to raise the age where IRA and 401ks can be accessed without the 10% penalty. Or they just straight-up announce a new tax on 401k account balances in order to feed the war effort. The retirement savings of the middle class are one of the few areas the kleptocrats haven’t managed to completely plunder yet. You start a big war. You somberly announce the need for all sorts of new taxes. You conveniently write them so they fall lightly on the rich and heavily on the middle class. You tax the middle class and feed the proceeds to the defense contractors. The wealthy owners of those defense contractors end up with the profits. The retirement accounts of working people get raided to feed the billionaires.

It’s not about saving money. It’s about sending a message!

I want to park a shipping container in an on-street parking space and use that instead of renting a storage unit. If we’re OK with people storing their crap on public property, why should it be limited to cars?

Except it’s the only way of actually toppling the Iranian government. That’s why this is quickly turning into another Vietnam. Vietnam was a quagmire because we couldn’t actually invade and occupy North Vietnam without dragging the Chinese into it like in the Korean War. So we were stuck trying to fight an air war and and indirect ground campaign from within South Vietnam. It’s the same exact dynamic with Iran. We can’t practically do the thing actually required to win. So we’re just stuck in an endless meat grinder as the Iranian government proves yet again that you can’t topple a government via air strikes. And national pride won’t let us just pack up and leave. It’s Vietnam all over again. Can’t win. Can’t leave. Just stuck there until our political will finally breaks.

A draft is the only method the US has of actually invading and occupying Iran. We literally don’t have enough troops to do it with a volunteer army.

But you yourself literally just argued the impossibility of it running ad free indefinitely. If you attract customers by knowingly offering a level of service at a cost you know with absolute certainty that you can’t maintain, then yes, it’s a bait and switch. It’s deception and manipulation. Classic bait and switch. Youtube isn’t special. They’re just Walmart.

And you’re just wrong. There’s no other reason to offer a service temporarily for free than to use it to drive out competitors. That strategy only has any value as a means of driving out competition.

But, sure, keep simping for the evil megacorp.

Yes, it is. Start by offering unsustainable ad-free video. Drive competitors out and monopolize the market. Start turning the screws. Classic tech bro bait and switch.

That’s still a bait and switch though.

You’ll never see a real courtroom. Instead you’ll only have access to a kangaroo fake court with a fake judge chosen by the company.

Closed on our old house. The sale was delayed after the cleaners we hired managed to flood the bathroom and cause $10k in damage. But insurance didn’t cheat us and covered most of it. We got all repaired, got it on the market, and finally closed last week.

We’ve been in a nerve wracking few months where we’ve owned two houses and been paying two mortgages simultaneously, so it’s a huge relief to be done. With the funds from the old place we paid off a car loan and put the rest to the mortgage on the new place. We’ve now settled into a nice state where our housing cost is about 11% of our gross income. So yeah, it’s been a stressful few months, worrying if the bottom was going to fall out of the market while we were holding two houses. But that didn’t happen, and now we’re sitting quite pretty.

Eh. I support ICE harassing people with some degree of resources and influence for a change.

“Well Mike, it seems that you’re MY pillow now…”

He’s locked up in JD Vance’s sex dungeon. JD finally found a human as close to a piece of furniture as possible.

Well where’s your truck bomb, tough guy?

Obvious fed is obvious.

Trump pulled a Stalin and purged all his competent generals. He surrounds himself with yes men. It’s the fatal flaw of all authoritarian governments. Turns out it’s a really bad idea to give one person absolute power and to never question their decisions.

We’re talking the goal. Actually implementing it successfully is another matter entirely.

You need to be thinking beyond just this law. Once you make it mandatory for all sites to use age verification, you then pass other laws to patch the holes in the system. Look at the DMCA. They made it a felony to bypass copyright restriction technology. They could write a law making it a felony to bypass age verification tools, even if you yourself are over 18. Just like it’s currently a felony to use technology to bypass copyright protection tools, even for media that you’ve legally purchased.

It’s more about ad revenue. Advertisers don’t want to pay for bots to read their ads.

Mine was for suggesting Biden drone strike SCOTUS justices immediately after they ruled that the president is effectively above the law. I wasn’t advocating for Biden to do anything illegal! 🤣