Courts may rule evidence is needed before "punishing" Tik Tok, otherwise could be considered unequal treatment.

You don't consider it serious that you're essentially indentured servants of corporations and that they can easily circumvent due process and force you into settling on their terms?

O... kay...

Ukraine is not free

Give me a list of Ukrainian prime ministers since 2000, and compare it to a list of Russian presidents since 2000 . Thanks in advance.

Even before the conflict it was the poorest and most corrupt country in Europe

This is not even remotely true. Ukraine's Rule of Law Index in 2022 was 0,50; contrast with NATO members Turkey at 0,42 and Hungary at 0,52. And its scores were dragged down by the consequences of the war in Donbas.

with a military second in size in Europe only to Russia (hence the poverty)

Ukraine's percentage of GDP spent before the current invasion was 3,2%, and that was *with* the ongoing Donbas conflict . By contrast, the US, at peace, spends 3,45% of its GDP on the military. For some European contrasts:

Azerbaijan: 4,5%
Armenia: 4,3%
Russia: 4%
Greece: 3,7%

Before the 2014 Russian invasion, Ukraine's percentage of GDP spent on the military was 1,6%.

It's a problem for trans kids too and sure they only make up 1% of the population but when you've got several thousand employees you're going to have a few in there. That's just how math works.

Hey, these folks can play dress up all they want...but, we're just not going to tolerate biological men in women's restrooms and changing areas.

This is common sense stuff that has worked since...forever, not sure why they are trying to wreck women's rights in this and other areas they fought so hard for.....

Well i for one welcome our quadruped flame throwing overlords. Or wait... Imagine a beowulf cluster of those. (Yes i'm that old). but in all seriousness, A swarm of those assaulting trenches... you don't even need accuracy. The sheer horror of seeing those come at you would make you reconsider your life choices.

Nah...just pull out your EMP gun....*ZAP* they all fall over.

I may be wrong, but I think I heard somewhere that flamethrowers aren't classified as weapons in the US. Might be why it's legally easy to market Thermo.

They are not classified as a firearm...they are perfectly legal to own in the US.

... and simply mount an automatic rifle on the top. That after all is where this ultimately is all leading but no one dare say it.

Well, at least in the US, it is incredibly expensive to attain any full auto weapon (can't be manufactured after 1986 for any civilian possession)....and with that scarcity factor, you might be a bit apprehensive to modify or alter a collectors piece.

Then, you have to go through the lengthy federal background checks and licensing to possess a full auto weapon.

And frankly, IMHO...the ATF may see what you are doing with it and reclassify it as AOW (Any Other Weapon)....which I think (not sure) requires more paperwork, and/or might be denied as something a regular US citizen civilian can own...?

That last part I don't know about....but have my suspicions.

People keep seeming to think it is easy to own a full auto weapon (Machine gun)...it really is not.

An AR-15 is not a "machine gun"/Assault Weapon/full auto weapon.

It is merely a semi-auto rifle....it goes bang once each time you pull the trigger.

Security consulting in Abu Dhabi.

OOps...you're right.

There's no way I'd even go visit that part of the world for any length of time for any amount of money.

I value my life above all else.

Yeah, there's a lot of lamenting, but face it, it's tantamount to complaining that the Beef Wellington isn't exactly medium on point where everyone around you is starving to death.

Compared to the problems you face, we're actually, I hate to say it, pretty well off.

You are aware that the replacement rate of young people is not up to what it used to be, yes? For every 5 people you fire, you can only hire 4 new ones.

ED: Just saw your second paragraph. But the things you speculate on are not exactly common on Titan, if they even exist on the surface at all (it's an icy crust ,not a rocky one). And either way, it'd be much easier with compounds other than methane.

And no, there doesn't seem to be meaningful amounts of nitrates in the atmosphere at least. You can see a list here. Nitrogen compounds are cyanide and nitrile compounds.

Metabolized with what oxidizer?

It's just the opposite - methane on Titan is like nitrogen on Earth; it's things like acetylene and free hydrogen that are the potential energy sources, and to a lesser extent the more common (but less reactive) higher mass alkanes, etc.

The main problem is that LAWKI isn't even remotely compatible with existing in the cryogenic environment of Titan. There are a lot of interesting alternative chemistries, but they require basically redesigning life from scratch. We're simply not up to this task with our current technology.

Sadly it's being launched to near the equator, not the poles :( The geophysicists won out over the geochemists...

Freedom is great and neglectable, until you very suddenly don't have it.

History has not ended. The world order that makes life nice and comfy for you is not a given into the future.

It's funny how we so strongly disagree further down in the comments, but I 100% agree with you here.

0,38g being largely fine for health is... I mean, if I had to bet, I'd put my money on it probably being true, but it's anything but guaranteed. There was a private project to test this, the Mars Gravity Biosatellite, but it ran out of funding; I'm not aware of any similar experiments that have been conducted. There've been a variety of attempts to simulate various gravity on Earth, such as having people lie on tilted beds or hanging them from cranes at an angle or whatnot, but they all have obvious weaknesses.

There's not just the question of adults who visit from Earth, but also children who grow up on 0,38g, and what impact that would have to their physiology.