Not actually true.

Hybrids are the most likely to catch fire, followed by ICE, and EV is least likely to start fire. (However, EV fires can be pretty bad when they do start.)

I know several people with EVs, and from what I understand, the spontaneous unannounced combustion is not part of the standard package.

Also, have you heard about gasoline? That shit BURNS like crazy. I've even heard of people using it to start bonfires!

I'm really not sure what you're talking about here. Gore and Clinton both conceded defeat in the election, whereas Trump did not.

Abrams is another story, but from my understanding she is not making claims about fraudulent voting. Instead, she is pointing to tactics that disenfranchised voters and prevented people from casting their legal ballots. For example, wait lines for voting in affluent Republican suburbs tend to be just a few minutes, whereas minority, Democratic-leaning districts, wait lines can be *hours* long..

Also, and this is key. None of these other people you mention have made pressured officials to illegally change vote counts. Or to replace electors. Trump engaged in a classic Big Lie piece of propaganda (ie, widespread fraudulent voting), which has undermined trust in elections.

If you want to push for more transparency and security in elections, I'm all for it. Let's can electronic voting machines and go back to humans marking pieces of paper, which provides incredible transparency to the voter and provides an auditable record of the vote.

Also claims of voter fraud are serious and any politician making those claims lightly should be ostracized unless they can produce hard evidence. This goes for anyone regardless of what corrupt political party they belong to.

WTF planet are you on?

Right now, the far-right republicans have rallied centrally around a Big Lie - that there was widespread fraud that overturned Trump's victory. In service of this lie, they are actively trying to take over positions overseeing elections, so that anytime they feel like the election wasn't how they wanted, they can overturn it, claiming "Fraud!" and clutching pearls.

Last time I checked, McConnell was extremely successful at systematically installing conservative federal judges at all levels. Also, election fraud is felony. Hence, if there was ever any actual evidence, we'd see people in prison. Instead, all of these "fraud" cases are getting thrown out.

Yes, the Dems are bunch of slimy, greedy liars, but as far as I can tell, they are just doing this at the normal politician level. So, yeah, the Dems are bunch of scumbags, but just the normal scumbag levels.

No, we use a lot of plastic because it is cheap.

Yes, there are applications were we want/need a robust packaging that lasts forever, but for the ubiquitous shopping bag, blister pack, etc. there is absolutely no reason to have something that will last eons.

Of course, 81 million people probably wouldn't vote for Biden in a vacuum.

I voted for Biden, but I didn't want to. He's too old, out of touch, ego-driven, etc.

The alternative was Trump, who is a remorseless grifter who is happy to burn down the country if he doesn't get his way.

Welcome to the disfunction of US politics, where at best you get to vote against someone even worse.

I wasn't in the market for a BMW, and now I know to avoid them. If I buy the hardware of heated seats, I want to run them any damn time I want.

Humanity did NOT ever become close to extinction in its history.

Modern humans actually came pretty close to extinction about 70,000 years ago, but I guess that counts as pre-history.

These days, there are enough people in enough far-flung corners of the earth, it is hard to see how any single event could wipe us out. That said, I find it extremely plausible that there will be a global civilization collapse and massive population collapse, which may eventually lead to extinction, but thats a different story...

LOL! Project much?

I was replying directly to you, but I was making a general observation about the state of this entire conversation. More specifically, I was actually thinking of a conversation that I had with my cousin-in-law. I forget all of the conversation, but I remember at one point I mentioned something about electric cars. His FIRST reaction to the idea of electric cars was to express concerns about them bursting into fire, as if this is a major issue intrinsic to the technology.

Of course flammability is an issue to consider with cars, where a badly designed system could cause all kinds of problems in a crash. At the same time, cars are fairly extensively crash tested and there are engineering solutions to mitigate these dangers.

I just find it odd that it seems that any discussion of EVs ends up raising safety issues, whereas ICE vehicles are also riddled with dangers. It is just that they are familiar dangers I guess.

I always shake my head about the FUD around flammability of electric car batteries.

Don't people realize that what powers most cars now is extremely flammable? Or do they think that "pouring gasoline on a fire" is a metaphor for de-escalation?

Tell me you've never had kids without telling me you've never had kids.

In a nutshell, what caused life to evolve was (in part) the long time to for simple organic compounds to react to form more complicated ones, etc. This complex mixture of interacting materials was essentially for early evolution.

Now, if there is any kind of this buildup, something living comes along and eats it.

So, no. Life is not newly evolving - the micro environments around the vents are similar, but the macro environments are WAY different these days.

I only wish this were possible for me. Last week, when the alarm went off to get up and start getting the kids off to school, there was daylight out the window. Now, it is full on dark when the alarm goes off. My body has been in constant protest this entire week, mitigated only by lots of espresso.

Well, a great deal of it went into the lakes, rivers, and streams, which are still fouled today.

In a lot of the lakes, if you take a core sample of the bottom, you will see what they call the "settler line". There is a discontinuity of clean sand transitioning to the muddy bottoms we think is normal.

(Note I don't say 'all lakes' - some lakes have always been muddy)