Easy? Which part of a trans person's live is "easy?" The life-long medications? The surgeries? The doctors' and psychologists' visits? The replacement wardrobe? The voice lessons? The education? The expense of paying for all the previous? The post-transition self care? The social stigma? The chance of losing friends and being disowned by family? The chance of losing their housing and jobs? All of the regressive laws being passed to make life even harder for them, up to and including denial of medical care? The ongoing campaigns of hate against them and the danger of being assaulted or even murdered just for existing? Please... enlighten me. Just what *exactly* about transitioning makes it a "shortcut to easy mode in life?"

I'm pretty bad at discerning sarcasm, and worse at using it myself; but I do suspect that's what you were going for there. But I'd also cite my entire above list as reasons why the anti-trans talking points are such total BS. Rowling DeSantis, and their ilk want me to believe that someone is going to put themselves through all of the on a whim, because it's trendy, or to get a blue ribbon at the fucking swim meet? Please.

No. There is not. In fact, the evidence is overwhelmingly in the opposite direction. You people continually fail to think your "groomers" talking point through to its logical conclusion. See, what you've repeatedly failed to understand is that if it is possible to "groom" or "recruit" or "spot" (Yes. I've seen you repeat the exact same talking point, only mad-libbing in a different word, in several waves over the years.) someone into becoming LGBT, it follows that it must also be possible to "groom" or "recruit" or "spot" them into being hetro and cis. And if THAT were the case; given the overwhelming pressure society inflicts on LGBT people to be hetro and cis... to the point that governments are now even banning books about the LGBT community and trying to deny us health care... there would be no LGBT people in the first place.

Ergo, your "groomers" narrative is nothing more than 100% pure, unadulterated, and intellectually dishonest, bullshit.

Oooo... you found an edge case. Goodie for you. Meanwhile, for every Chloe Cole you can come up with, I'd bet I could find a Kim Petras, a Laverne Cox, an Elliott Page, a Hunter Schafer, or even... on your side of the aisle... a Caitlin Jenner or Blair White; none of whom detransitioned and all of whom are (publicly, anyway) doing just fine and none of whom have (publicly, anyway) descended into self-loathing and internalized transphobia.

Oh noes... the sportsball game on channel 2 might become less entertaining than the movie of the week on channel 7. That's *totes* a valid reason to do away with civil rights, nondiscrimination, and equal treatment under the law for LGBT people.

> Removing simple things that people use

But how MANY people? None of these people who are so enamored with AM radio seem to be willing to produce actual numbers... data showing what portion of the car-driving populate listen to AM radio, want to listen to AM radio, or even remember that AM radio is still a thing. I think the only time I've even heard a radio tuned into an AM station in the last *decade* was when I test-drove my current car before buying it and the thing was in AM mode when I started it up. I switched that off for my test drive so I could listen to the car and road noise. And when I bought the thing, I switched it to FM, and programmed in the entire 5 stations I've ever even listened to on FM in the same last decade (And only 2 of which I've listened to on the radio in that car. Those would be the local news/traffic station and the local NPR affiliate.). Heck, I barely even gave the Sirius XM trial more than a brief listen. It's not the 1990s anymore and I'm not a teenager/twentysomething anymore so Howard Stern holds no interest in me and the value proposition versus Apple Music or Spotify is just not there. And I find it fairly hard to believe that I'm unique, or even atypical, in my driving habits.

You don't engineer mass-market products based on minuscule edge-cases, especially when there is no safety consideration involved and ESPECIALLY when superior alternatives are available. And superior alternatives to AM are available. So where are the numbers actually supporting the AM position? Because without some pretty compelling data, and versus the alternatives, it's really just another "dustbin of history" like 8-track tapes and wax cylinders.

Oh, bullocks. All you need to see that is a load of dingos' kidneys is to look at the 2020 democratic primaries and who our current president and VP are. The new far right likes your narrative... that the democrats have gone so far left as to be communists and that Biden and Harris are some sort of moonbat loons... sure. But you didn't bring the receipts. You forget... Joe Biden has been in various public offices since my parents were kids. He was a senator for longer than most of the population of the US has been alive. And you know what? His legislative and voting records are documented and public and the only reason they're not ALL easily found online is that past a certain point (senate.gov only goes back to 1989), the records are just soooo old that they've not all been converted from dead-tree format. But the paper records are also public. And if you ignore the dipshitted hyperbole and look at his actual record, he's probably the most boring milquetoast centrist of the last half-century.

Harris is just a functionary. I remember both when she took over as DA from Terrance Hallinan and when she took over as AG from Jerry Brown. Both times there was teeth-gnashing on the left about her being to the right of her predecessors and on the right about how she was going to be a "revolving door" do-nothing prosecutor. And both times that calmed in short order as she showed herself to be an unremarkable, and neither controversial nor inspirational, placeholder in the offices. She does her jobs adequately and not much better or worse. And no strong feelings about her, in either direction, are justified.

Yes, you can fine examples of crazy in the left equivalent to Trump, Palin, Boebert, MTG, Matt Walsh, Milo the pedo, and the rest of their ilk. But unlike with the republicans, the crazies are not the mainstream. And they are definitely not Biden or Harris. The left at least has the good sense to be embarrassed by its loons and tries to marginalize, or at least ignore, them.

Sure. But what is different now, versus when California used to flip-flop in the past, is that the Republicans have fully embraced the crazy of what used to be the most extreme wing of their party. Not only do they spurn California and Californians; they are actively and overtly malevolent to us, even to the point of re-writing the tax code to harm us as retribution for voting blue in 2016... this despite the fact that, if you check the numbers, they actually have more of their own here than there are even in Texas, Florida, or any other red state.

I know all about the pavement on the road to hell. But, sorry not sorry, I'll go with the good-intentioned fuckup over the SOBs who actually wish me harm and are working to bring it about.

For the same reason we banned leaded gasoline even though unleaded is superior and when most new cars were already being produced with unleaded-only gas systems. Even when the transition is inevitable, and clearly so, there will always be troglodytes who will kick, scream, and drag their heels to avoid progress for no other reason than to be ornery. Did you know there are people out there who still keep pre-197whatever beaters on the road because having to pass smog is communism and makes the baby jesus cry? And you can bet your ass that if leaded gas were still available, they'd insist in using it because lead-replacement additives are *also* communism, or a conspiracy to deplete our precious bodily fluids or give everyone autism or something something 5G and birds are actually government spy drones.

But we eventually figured out that leaded gas isn't just harmful to the driver, but to everyone else as well. We seem to finally be figuring out that burning as much gas as we do in general isn't just harmful to the driver, but to everyone else as well. So if we need a bit of a nudge to keep progressing, so be it. Your rights end where other peoples' rights begin.

The only shortcoming... literally the only one... of EVs at this point is the charging infrastructure. If the muskrat had, instead of pissing away $44B so he could have no limits to his shitposting on the internet equivalent of the mens' room graffiti at public parks and freeway rest stops, done something productive like buy a gas station chain, tear out all the pumps, and replace them with superchargers; I would already own one... possibly even a Tesla. If I owned my own home instead of renting and could put in garage charger, I would already own an EV.

Probably about 95% of the driving I do would be covered by a home charger. Tesla's supercharger network solves the road trip problem that covers 90% of what's left. So for that small fraction of driving that really does entail being out in the middle of nowhere like Burining Man or other remote camping trips; I don't think it would break the bank to occasionally rent a dinosaur burner. And if the muskrat HAD bought a gas station chain instead of twitter, even that small sliver of driving would be covered.

And that one, final, problem with EVs isn't even an engineering challenge, it's merely a question of will.

The only surprise here is that these mods have existed so long as they already have *without* Nintendo getting them taken down... or suing the pants off the modders, Gerry, and Valve... or trying to get one or all those prosecuted and imprisoned. Nintendo has a long and reliable history of being very litigious with anyone who even looks at their IP funny. This goes at least as far back (in my own memory) to the old Game Genie for the 8-bit NES, the makers of which Nintendo sued and tried to put out of business. You think Apple is bad about jailbreaking or sideloading? Just you try to dare to mod-chip your Switch. Nintendo's lawyers will be on you like stink on shit. Tell others how to mod or sideload unsanctioned software on their Nintendo kit? Say goodbye to your website and hello to C&D's, fines, and litigation. Actually encourage people to mod and sideload on Nintendo hardware, help them to do so, or sell the tools to enable them? Well... I was not kidding before when I mentioned the possible fate of being prosecuted and imprisoned.

Oh, bullocks. The internet has never suffered a shortage of idiots and assholes, going at least all the way back to Usenet. Whatever came before Usenet was probably also infested with idiots and assholes as well, but that would have been before my time. All "social media" does is give the idiots and assholes a louder voice. It doesn't create them.

Amazon Linux 1 and 2 were based on RHEL (6 and 7, respectively). After the RHEL shenanigans, Amazon Linux 2023... isn't. AL2023 is a half-baked, poorly-done derivative of Fedora. Seriously... just try it and compare and contrast versus AL2. I did. I was neither happy nor impressed, and am not looking forward to AL2 going EoL.

Red Hat... or more specifically IBM's recent shenanigans with RHEL and sabotage of CentOS, Amazon Linux, and the like... is a better and much more current example than Lotus. And it's a fine example as to why the pessimism wrt/ Hachicorp and Terraform is justified.

Considering all of the rank, invasive, unconstitutional, freedom and privacy stealing, and otherwise outright abusive, steaming bullshit that has already been done in the name of supposedly helping to "stop the next 9/11", absolutely not. For starters, I've already made it crystal clear why I would not work in government/defense/etc again, and enumerated a number of reasons why. But, quite frankly, I don't trust the TSA/DHS/NSA/CBP or the other TLAs that purport to be protecting me from "teh terr'ists" any farther than I could spit a rat. Have you missed all of the news about that pack of SOBs that has gotten out over the last 20+ years? They have long since expended every shred of anything resembling trust, goodwill, grace, consideration, or benefit of the doubt I might ever have once afforded them.

And there will never be a next 9/11. That was assured by 9/11 itself. Now that everyone knows that a hijacking no longer means a couple weeks of chilling on the beach in Cuba while the State Department arranges for your return via Canada, but certain death along with everyone else in the aircraft plus whoever is in the building that's being targeted... Well, no one just sits back and lets the cockpit be breached anymore. There have been multiple cases where people who've tried to do so have, quite literally, been beaten to death by the passengers for their trouble.

Also, there is more to not wanting to work for a defense contractor than whether or not you think supporting the military is ethical. Working for a defense contractor, or a government contractor in general, is a goddamned miserable workplace experience. I made the mistake once in my career. ONCE. Never again.

Every workplace misery you ever thought was stereotyped hyperbole right out of a Dilbert strip? In defense contracting it's a reality. Clueless PHBs? Lazy and unmotivated cow-orkers just taking up space until their pension vests? Officious semi-peers and dotted-line managers who will make you go on a quest through the Black Gates into Mordor for them before coughing up the resources or information you need to do your job? 20-year obsolete maybe-supported hardware and software that is not only not fun to work on, but does nothing to further your career? Writing a page (or more) of documentation for every single line of code? Writing user-facing documentation down to the 8th-grade reading level? Multiple days of the week that are 100% booked, and sometimes double-booked with meetings? Getting lost in a maze of cubicles stretching as far as the eye can see? It. Is. All. 100% True.

And all of the above come AFTER you get your security clearance, which is required to even get close to doing anything fun. Until then; for the first 6-12 months of your time there, or sometimes longer if your project is lower-priority or the government is being particularly slow; you're doing zero-value zero-interest zero-skill scut work. And you're treated by your "colleagues" like the second-rate, non-cleared, dirt you are to them.

So yeah, take ethics or professed ethics out of it, and there're still plenty of very good reasons to be opposed to your employer becoming a defense contractor. I would be inclined to make my displeasure and opposition known too. I'd probably not likely choose the same method and would have an updated resume ready to go beforehand. But yeah; I would definitely be planning my own departure in the event my employer were steadfast in getting into defense/government work.