Dems need to learn how to take the W quietly instead of rubbing it into R's faces.

Dems didn't campaign on LGBTQ+, GOP did! Dems barely mentioned it during the campaign. GOP knows how to mouth wedge issues loud and wide, it's how we ended up with Moutholini.

how numerous friends of his became Trump supporters due to the LGBTQ discussions happening in their children's schools... just not popular and it was a major reason that dickbag was re-elected. Even if it seems like the correct moral decision, the unpopularity of it led to a far worse situation.

GOP successfully spooked parents with LGBTQ+ bullshit. They cherry-picked a few bad apples and painted it as common-place. Plus, school content is controlled at the state level, not national, and was thus moot for the election.*

Stupidficial gimmicks worked on US's gullible population, just like 1930's Germany; Don pulled Jedi Clown Tricks. The parents ALSO need more education in critical thinking. Stupidity snowballs. Maybe America is just too dumb to hold a democracy, as too many want a theocracy. Perhaps we can negotiate an amiable split before they drag blue states into their cave.

* An exception may be firing or jailing teachers for merely mentioning LGBTQ+ in the classroom, which should be protected under 1st Amendment and separation clause, but the GOP SCOTUS seems overly bribed by rich evangelicals handing out grift-wrapped RV's. The idea that a non-transgender student will become transgendered by mere mention is dumber than rocks. Idiots!

>They didn't say whose value it strengthened.

LG's, Westinghouse, GE, and so forth!

Actually, if they had the testicular fortitude, your Samsung would display an add reading, "if you had bought LG, you wouldn't be seeing this!" :)

hawk

>Has about the same importance as smart tech in a fridge for me.

I live in the desert, you insensitive clod! :_)

but seriously we doohave many days of 115-117F most summers. Self-replenishing ice is *important*.

it's not why we bought it, but our LG actually has two ice makers; one in the refrigerator door, which you can actually clean out, and another for larger square tubes in the upper freezer drawer (which we turn off for the cooler half of the year)

>A fridge will last for a decade or more,

you would *think* that, but my prior fridge was a Samsung.

The ice maker died of its own buildup just out of warranty, the drip tray for the water dispenser caused rust lines through the paint below it, and the whole thing failed at 4 or 5 years--we came out one morning and it was at 50.

Compare to the Samsung dryers whose stainless steel barrels tend to crack and go out of round, wanting a $400 replacement!

The refurbisher who came out with our temporary dryer told us that from his experience (primarily washers & dryers), Samsung had the highest failure rate, while the other Korean brand, lg,had the lowest, with everything else in between.

>Agree, and don't even allow my TStat's to connect to wifi.

Have you *read* the license on those?

I brought home a wifi thermostat, thinking it would be nice to be able to change it half an hour out when coming home, and then read the terms.

It was like a parody of the terms you find offered sarcastically around here.

Pretty much, "you agree that we can send armed goons into your house, torture your dog, rape your cat, and sell your children into slavery. We may do anything we want with your data, and even more so if someone is willing to pay us for it."

It went back.

They tried that, briefly.

Then they gave up . . .

I dunno. China is a "market socialist" system -- which is a contradiction in terms. If China is socialist, then for practical purposes Norway and Sweden have to be even *more* socialist because they have a comprehensive public welfare system which China lacks. And those Nordic countries are rated quite high on global measures of political and personal freedom, and very low on corruption. In general they outperform the US on most of those measures, although the US is better on measures of business deregulation.

It makes no sense to claim Chinese courts have a lot of power, although it may seem that way â" itâ(TM)s supposed to seem that way. One of the foundational principles of Chinese jurisprudence is party supremacy. Every judge is supervised by a PLC â" party legal committee â" which oversees budgets, discipline and assignments in the judiciary. They consult with the judges in sensitive trials to ensure a politically acceptable outcome.

So it would be more accurate to characterize the courts as an instrument of party power rather than an independent power center.

From time to time Chinese court decisions become politically inconvenient, either through the supervisors in the PLC missing something or through changing circumstances. In those cases there is no formal process for the party to make the courts revisit the decision. Instead the normal procedure is for the inconvenient decision to quietly disappear from the legal databases, as if it never happened. When there is party supremacy, the party can simply rewrite judicial history to its current needs.

An independent judiciary seems like such a minor point; and frankly it is often an impediment to common sense. But without an independent judiciary you canâ(TM)t have rule of law, just rule by law.

I'm not saying cloud is necessarily riskier than on-premises*, but cloud failures can easily make headlines due to the scope, and such could set the likes of MS into a financial tailspin. While that is perhaps a good thing, they'll hurt a lot of customers in desperation for cash during their spiral to Hell.

* The average org didn't manage on-premises well either.

If you are transgender then you pretty much need to avoid red states, as frothy evangelicals would be happy to hang you or lock you in a "correctional facility". And they are growing ever more medieval.

That's the secret to the Chinese government's success - they give a shit about the citizens

Good one. Most leaders, including Xi, don't have a flying fuck about their citizens and one should never assume they do. They care about personal glory and power. If helping citizens HAPPENS to help them reach their personal goals, that's great, but it doesn't always align.

Hereâ(TM)s the problem with that scenario: court rulings donâ(TM)t mean much in a state ruled by one party. China has plenty of progressive looking laws that donâ(TM)t get enforced if it is inconvenient to the party. There are emission standards for trucks and cars that should help with their pollution problems, but there are no enforcement mechanisms and officials have no interest in creating any if it would interfere with their economic targets or their private interests.

China is a country of strict rules and lax enforcement, which suits authoritarian rulers very well. It means laws are flouted routinely by virtually everyone, which gives the party leverage. Displease the party, and they have plenty of material to punish you, under color of enforcing laws. It sounds so benign, at least theyâ(TM)re enforcing the law part of the time, right? Wrong. Laws selectively enforced donâ(TM)t serve any public purpose; theyâ(TM)re just instruments of personal power.

Americans often donâ(TM)t seem to understand the difference between rule of law and rule *by* law. Itâ(TM)s ironic because the American Revolution and constitution were historically important in establishing the practicality of rule of law, in which political leaders were not only expected to obey the laws themselves, but had a duty to enforce the law impartially regardless of their personal opinions or interests.

Rule *by* law isnâ(TM)t a Chinese innovation, it was the operating principle for every government before 1789. A government that rules *by* law is only as good as the men wielding power, and since power corrupts, itâ(TM)s never very good for long.

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The Clippy Army. Clippernators?