A more reasonable argument is we’re in too much debt, and it will eventually come due, regardless of current fashion.

To go with your analogy of household debt …… there used to be a rule of thumb to keep your mortgage payments under 28% of income, and few other debts , until it was relaxed. Now you have people with debt payments exceeding 40%, even 50% of their income, making it difficult to pay for everyday needs. They’re”house poor”. At what point do we consider a country “house poor”

Yeah, I’ll bet you don’t have the debt we created to pay for our military industrial complex and further enrich our oligarchs

Huh, I thought they were “dog poop sensors”

It could be worse. My ancestors are from a different part of Europe, much closer to the front lines

It’s all on California. It’s not just that a California is big, but they’re the only state allowed to define air pollution regulations. The rest of us can only choose between California or EPA. We’ll follow it if California can hold it together

Not at all. The rules were developed over time as the internet expanded from a handful of us research institutions to the global presence it is today. As other people in this thread mentioned, the present country code top level domain rules were developed from fiascoes like .su and .yu. Now they do have solid rules: they should follow them, regardless of corporate speculation and profiteering

All those are good things. And yet the UN ranks Massachusetts higher in “human development index”, which is one possible way of quantifying that. Perhaps you’re unfamiliar with Massachusetts?

I live in a place with essentially zero chance of major flooding, but of course there are local floods. In addition to my homeowners policy, I would have to buy three separate coverages for various type of water damage, and at what seems like ridiculous cost for my area and relative to the rest of coverage. I Believe I can’t even get one of the coverages unless I have a sump pump, but my basement is almost always dry so that makes no sense: if I get water in the basement once every decade, what are the chances of a sump pump working after sitting a decade?

Ultimately it just shows ICANN’s inadequacy &/or incompetence,

I’m pretty sure it’s intentional that the owners of the top level domain set the rules for it. Why should ICANN control someone else’s portion of the internet?

This was especially a big deal as the internet expanded from the US to a global presence - you can understand why various countries wouldn’t want US control over their “territory”, wouldn’t cooperate without some form of self-determination

Some amount of organization is a good thing for many reasons. Think of an analogy to roads where basic traffic rules allow everyone the freedom to travel wherever and however but subject to the rules of locales. Feel free to pick your own domain within any generally recognized top level domain, according to the rules established by that tld.

In particular, two character top level domains are reserved for ownership by specific countries. They get to say who can have a presence there, under what standards, and they deserve any profit made from that. This was a way of giving everyone a voice, to expand it beyond the us, to give many interests their own home

The article said companies profit from it, so their prediction is no. It’s just an opinion, and not supported by any legal or diplomatic action in the article.

My opinion is it should cease to exist. Two letter domains are country codes and IANA policy is it should match a list maintained by the UN. IANA has no business deciding for itself and has said it doesn’t want to, and they’re opening themselves to all sorts of liability and complications should they stray from that. If the UN no longer says its a valid country, it needs to no longer be a country code domain, and that’s too bad for any companies speculating on its future

Otherwise we will never have the quality of life of Denmark

Eff that defeatist attitude. We should settle for nothing less, and it’s right there just ahead where we can almost see it. It is achievable, yes in the US. We need to prioritize it, vote for it, demand it.

https://medium.com/@rmfrankel115/massachusetts-human-development-index-ranks-higher-than-germany-most-of-scandinavia-b2baf968432a

Do I need to throw some tea in the harbor to get everyone’s attention?

And yet voting is about more than one issue. Atricities are happening in more than one theater. There’s more to life than one atrocity no matter how big. A US leader occasionally takes time off from running Israel to run US

Where the eff is this BS from? They clearly said if you cut off the toxic poisoned head spewing hate and venom, the Republican Party can rebuild around ideas, policy, maybe even around morality (doubt). If you’re a conservative, that ought to be a good thing. If you’re pro-democracy, the renewal of two sane choices battling for ideas ought to be a good thing.

I’m sure I also would disagree with those ideas, but I welcome the competition, I welcome the possibility of respecting g our national leaders.

All I can say is that when Mitt Romney talks family values, he means actual family values. When Ronald Reagan said he’d trickle down on you, you could smell the urine. When Ross Perot talked about corporatism, he meant it

You do have to vote for a good candidate though …. I challenge you: from one blue state to another, who can get the biggest margin of victory? My state vs yours (assuming we’re different) …60% Harris? 65% Harris? Can we do 70%?

Also in both the best case scenario and the worst case scenario, it’s very helpful to demonstrate the largest popular vote win for Harris. Politicians might turn like a windmill, spin like a whirlpool, but they do pay some attention to votes

I didn’t say anything about third party, but you’re right that maybe my attempt at not degenerating into political name calling made it unclear.

To be more blunt:

• Biden is clearly more fit to be president than Trump and likely will be until the day he dies, and several weeks later
• for myself, I focused on this. In the competition between the two, Biden is clearly the better choice and the most fit to be president.
• Historically, sitting presidents have had a strong advantage in an election. Biden is not only a sitting president but has been elected over Trump

This makes Biden a clear choice …. But all the noise about his age did make me sit back and reconsider whether that was true in general or in the context of this competition. If there was not so much on the line and not so much recent toxic history, I would agree that I prefer someone else, someone younger and more energetic. I thought Biden was perfect in the centrist position attempt to bring this country back together, and he did as much as anyone could.

But Harris came out swinging, showing energy, youth, life, and even strayed toward progressive (I don’t know if that’s still true). If I can step back from the competition between two old men, take a larger picture, ignore all the toxic blather, I can see that she is indeed a candidate I would prefer.

The guy’s not dumb, maybe he sees it too. It must have been the toughest part of his term, always battling for reality over toxic stunts, blatant lies so it’s all too easy staying in the trenches, focusing on slugging it out, when he’s the only sane person in the room. Maybe Biden stepped back and said, yeah, I’m tired of this and there actually are other choices.

I was going to post a Reddit style quip of bachelor stereotypes. I furnished my apartment like this when I was freshly graduated and again when I moved cities. But the difference there is it’s not really intentional, but other priorities. When you’re just starting out, where do you spend your money and time, and what do you care about?

I got a bed when the carpeted floor was uncomfortable. I got a second bowl when I was annoyed having to wash the first one so frequently. Hell, I didn’t graduate from a duffle to a suitcase until my gf at the time made me. It’s not about being minimalist but not having the need or the money

Maybe he also realized he was too close to it. All his speeches were in contrast to the other party’s candidate, and I still support that he’s much fitter to lead than the other party’s candidate. But if you step back from just the one on one contest, it’s a completely different story ……

I mean, the interstate project started in the 1950’s and people didn’t start being concerned about lead water pipes until the 1970s. Clearly this will all be fixed by the 1980s, 1990s tops

Similar here. The city spent billions a couple decades ago to replace mains, and had assistance for lower income homeowners but the cost of the waterline to a house, and everything in the house, was always on the homeowner.

Now they’re trying to create an inventory of what remains

My house has a copper water line, plus all the water pipes inside are copper. However given the age of my house, I have to assume they were replaced at some point. Given the drain lines are a mix of iron and galvanized and look older than the water lines …. And that copper is likely old enough to use lead solder which is not as easily checked