If you have insurance of any form, you already are. Sorry to break it to you.

Universal healthcare doesn't have to mean the government pays for it. I'd be perfectly happy with government simply handling the insurance side of it and making it mandatory for everyone, rolling all the existing government programs into it (VA, Medicare, Medicaid) and giving everyone say the option of Silver, Gold, or Platinum levels of care to choose from with limited ability to switch between the plans on a health event (benefits phased in, premiums phased out on switch for a long enough interval so people would have to pay for what they really need all the time or cover what insurance didn't cover themselves), and then adjust the premiums for everyone each year based on what the expenses were and actuarial analysis projected for the next year. Let them buy out the existing insurance plans based on some previous date to implementation so investors wouldn't be out anything, letting them adjust their taxes to handle any difference between the date the assets and liabilities were examined industry wide with the snapshot for the buyout price and when they transferred assets.

The medical establishment would win because of single payer and knowing exactly what they could do based on three plans. Let people pay for more if they need something special that wasn't covered by their insurance. The people would have less confusing crap to wade through, and wouldn't have to deal with insurance companies at all. Just pay the premiums every month for yourself and your family.

Actually, the Bible provides little context of the life of Ananias and Sapphira. Only their choice to withhold some of the profits from the sale of possessions and lying about it are really detailed. What they were doing and saying that caused the issue to be brought before the church isn't stated, but there had to be something about their lives that made them stand out and brought them in for judgment in the first place. We just aren't told what that was.

Forgiveness was always an option for them. They could have admitted what they had done and asked forgiveness and God would have been fine with that. They willingly chose another course, not realizing what the consequences would be. That was true for both of them.

That's the problem with so many people in the world and throughout history. They live their own lives the way they want, assuming that when they get old they can make things right with God, assuming they even believe He exists. But the day of death isn't cast in stone. It can happen much earlier than we think it will - or we can be in an accident and end up in a coma or get a degenerative brain disease or have a stroke or any number of things that make it impossible to process thought and make things right before the actual end happens.

The Christians then, and Christians today in many countries, live at risk of unexpected death at the hands of man. Certainly the percentage of Christians at risk then was probably higher than it is now. Ananias and Sapphira made a choice, and they ended up dying early for it. I'm not sure that God expects anyone to be "perfect", even after salvation. But He does expect us to ask for forgiveness when the Holy Spirit convicts us. I'm sure the Holy Spirit was dealing with both of their hearts. It's one of the things He does. But the Bible also says that judgment starts in His own house. He expects more from His people.

Lying about what they had done was wrong. But so was whatever wasn't stated in the Bible about how they were living that brought them under scrutiny in the first place. That's likely the more major issue, not that one sin is worse than the other. And the important thing is, ALL sin separates us from God. It doesn't matter a bit what our opinion of the severity of the sin was. Both of these people had grown up in the Jewish culture and religion and would have been well aware of this fact. Throughout Jewish history, God was consistent. Merciful for a time as the people fell away from Him... and then He judged. I'm sure that throughout their history there were thousands and thousands who said what I was doing wasn't any different than what my parents or friends did - why did He have to stop our party now.

God was starting a new church and a new religion and wanted it started on a different and stronger basis, while still reminding the people that He hadn't changed and that sin was still sin. That church has had a lot of issues throughout time as various people have failed God. I'm sure some more Ananias and Sapphira moments would straighten some of that out. But God would be judged just as harshly for such actions if He did more immediate judgments today.

My thoughts on Hillary's e-mails are the same as the classified document stash of Trump - or whoever has them now.

I suspect that Vance will be tarnished with Trump's choices in much the same way that Harris was tarnished with Biden's choices. It's far too early to tell for sure, but the independents which helped Trump eek out an electoral victory seem to be pretty solidly against the Republican party at the moment. It's not just saner heads among the politicians, but among the voters. Maybe I'm too hopeful...

Regardless of intent, Trump won't be in power for much longer and when he's gone, most businesses feel that saner heads will prevail and this whole tariff nonsense will disappear. If SCOTUS or Congress grows a backbone, maybe sooner.

The boards of companies may say things to placate Trump in the meantime, but they aren't going to do anything serious as long as they are of the opinion that they can ride out the short term effects. They are responsible to their shareholders to act in the best company interest.

Some sensitive production may drift back to the US. But don't bet on large changes.

If combining Netflix and HBO streaming services eventually results in having both at less than the cost of each separately, I'd call that a win.

It's Wikipedia... somebody probably changed the content since it was scraped.

You clearly haven't experienced the Amazon.com books section algorithmic and e-mail pushes to buy books.

Ask google if investing is a zero sum game - you might be surprised at the AI answer.

You can be certain that UBI, should it ever become a thing, will not give you enough money to do more than meet your basic needs, assuming you don't have medical expenses of any kind ever. It won't give you capital to invest.

Unless you own stock in the company, either directly or through an index fund. I'm pretty sure all the people with an ownership interest in AMZN wouldn't think it a win-win. And I'm not sure where the number came from either - stockholders equity / 8 billion would be around $42 TTM.

Let the seller beware - they agreed to the terms of the contract to sell on Amazon.

Having said that, the reality is that most of the third party sellers wouldn't have ever been noticed as a seller if they weren't on Amazon. Sure, google has a shopping tab, and I've looked there occasionally. But I don't look often. If I'm looking for something really expensive, it might be worth a search to see if I can find a cheaper seller that looks reputable. But for cheap items that aren't even worth going to try to find what aisle they're on in Walmart, I'm not going to do a lot of online marketplace shopping to look for a few more cents off.

TLDR is a slashdot synopsis of the issues. If satisfaction can't be achieved in 10 seconds (via text, AI summary, meme, or other quick sound byte), the younger generation seems to move on hoping for something else to tickle their fancy.

There's nothing like a good well written book. But books by modern authors frequently have many typos or wrong words or other issues. You can't even hire proofreaders or good editors anymore, evidently.

It's tough to read a book a day. I managed that one year - a bit over 88,000 pages. Down to 80,000 pages the year after that. I set my goal at 200 books this year and have achieved that, but haven't stopped. There's such a wide range to choose from today, it's hard to understand people who choose not to read. Challenge your mind. I'm reading some of Mark Hewitt's novels now. He's a far right wing conservative author that lets his bias show on every other page. But I find it worth a read just to see how the far far ultraconservative right thinks.

Mark Twain's comment "A person who won't read has no advantage over one who can't read." is still true today.

Good list. I'd also add the views on the chances of a global war affecting the first world also influence this. If you think it will happen, you might not want to bring kids into it. If you're of the opinion it won't happen, and to a point the fact that it hasn't happened since WWII, then that also reduces the need to have a larger number of children to defend your country or allies.

I'd also add availability of birth control and changing attitudes toward unexpected pregnancy have played a part.