The point does not stand. It's logically incoherent - as is yours. Nobody's saying any alcohol consumption will kill you. Your straw man is incorrect.

If you pick any one factor you can then say all the other ones drown it out. And so it's meaningless.

And what group are you comparing Muslims to? It has to be a group uniformly filled with drinkers, probably moderate to excessive. If that's not your comparison then I don't understand your point.

You miss the obvious (and intentional) reason.

In the US (to be fair, not just them) you can have as much "justice" as you can afford. They don't call it the dream team for nothing. If you can spend enough money, you can evade all manner of conviction. If you can't, you get stuck with minimum defense, if any. The public defender.

Justice is explicitly for sale. Nobody even pretends otherwise.

For sure. Don't mistake my objection for a complaint about the form. I'm saying modern audiobooks are usually consumed in a setting where something else is commanding some of the attention preemptively. If your attention is fully on it, I think the difference is negligible.

Although I think tea sucks in general, I also know some teas suck much worse than others. :) For instance, I don't hate some varieties of Chinese Green Tea. But would I go two steps out if my way for it on a chilly winter night? Nope.

Agreed. That's why I think they belong solidly in the second spot. And that's not to condemn audiobooks to some sort of distant inferior position. I think they have a great deal of merit, and your succinct point is well taken.

Actually, I regret catching Cliff's Notes in the crossfire. They had a specific purpose - to help students pass the tests. And I respect that. That goal is nicely contained, and honest,

Blinkist, on the other hand, is targeted directly at posers.

Pedantry at its finest. Technically correct, and fundamentally useless. By this extension, every beverage is some version of flavoured water. So the definition is meaningless. But well done. :)

Look, I have no beef with audio books. My gut tells me that a listener does not immerse in the material like a reader does, primarily because they're consuming while, driving, exercising, whatever... and when an interruption occurs, the stream might continue while the attention diverts, But at least audio books leave imagination some space. And imagination is mental muscle. It needs exercise, or it atrophies.

But what I really think is awful are the modern Cole's Notes services like Blinkist. These are lossy condensations. If you can't read a whole structured thought, then fuck off. Don't. But don't absorb a half assed version and pretend to understand it. That's the poser with the unblemished pickup truck in literary form. Or people thinking that watching "What the bleep do we know?" means they can have an informed opinion on physics,

So I think book > audiobook > most other stuff > summarization.

Yes, it's a generalization. But it's my starting point,

Honestly, that's where I sit on most divisive topics, especially when the US is involved. Except for the tea. Tea sucks. Seems like water that wants to be coffee, but can't commit.

The pedant in me finds it humorous that they needed to specify the false one, implying there must be a true Hindu God they could have immortalized instead. Or maybe they would have labeled any non-Christian God as false, despite Yahweh being just as implausible and conceptually younger. Of course my money would be on the latter.

What's extra entertaining to me is the fact that when a group excels at educational and financial outcomes, some people's reaction isn't to aspire to better, but to get rid of those people. That seems disappointing. I've never looked at a standout weightlifter in a gym and thought, "I can't do that. Clearly they have to go."

The course doesn't run $20,000 per student, at least not in the way the misleading question implies. The course seems to be offered for free, includes equipment. And even a "cost of living stipend". Apparently it costs Apple, the government, and a donor $20k per seat to provide it. But it's not education at scale, or in streamlined fashion. Of course it's going to be costly.

So the question doesn't include an important modifier. From whose perspective is it being asked? Is it worth it for the attendees? Probably. Is it worth it for the provider? What's the benefit in good will?

They also had trade relationships, alliances, intermarriage, negations, dispute mechanisms... gee. Like everybody else.

What does accommodation have to do with it?

My first thought was that it's ballsy to use such an innocuous term... like the US is doing some sort of favour by making room for them. They're coming, like it or not. The U.S. will have to adapt... not accommodate.

Well, as a great one once said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. :)