Not many people know it, but penguins are excellent brick layers and if they were smart enough, ostriches and emus would make excellent guard birds! Also, kiwis are just adorably awkward, so they’re there to keep the morale up 😉

I still have hope emotionally but intellectually I fully expect to be disappointed. Development hell of this magnitude can’t be healthy for the end result 😮‍💨

Oops, my mistake. Good thing we can edit posts!

I am indeed honored and will give this girl and her sister pets in yours 😁❤️

First of all, she’s magnificent! 😍

Second of all, I’m very sorry but I can’t stop myself from asking: if she’s your main coon, do you have a secondary one as well? 😛

I’m just gonna quote Grammarist as they explain such things for a living and as such do it better than I could:

To speak truth to power means to demand a moral response to a problem, rather than an expedient, easy or selfish response. The phrase speak truth to power carries a connotation of bravery, of risking either the status quo, one’s reputation or livelihood, or the wrath of the person one is confronting.

Are you unfamiliar with the expression, pretending that AIPAC aren’t powerful or pretending that anything AOC said about them isn’t true?

You’re goddamn right, they should! Especially since Texan fossil fuel companies alone kill thousands of people a year!

When your local charity that advocates for better mental health sends someone to speak

That’s worlds apart from profit-based corporations and rich people sending money, hosting high dollar fundraisers and bundling hundreds if not thousands of maximum “individual” donations. Not even the same UNIVERSE as unlimited dark money.

three course meal experience as the cost of having that talk with the lobbyist(…)Sure, we could make that sort of lobbying illegal

That it isn’t already is extremely embarrassing to anyone who claims that corruption isn’t rampant in American politics. It already IS illegal for doctors to do that and, while there’s a lot of people exploiting loopholes, it’s nothing compared to the number of politicians doing it like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

The IRS is already getting the shaft

Mainly BECAUSE of the rich and powerful being the de facto deciders of most laws

Do you think congress will ever agree to pay money to set up something to investigate themselves?

They will if they’re forced to. I’m thinking a general strike and just 1/1000 of the people dissatisfied with the corruption protesting in front of their offices every day for a few weeks or months ought to do it. Could even do it in shifts so no one person has to go more than a couple times a month and still have plenty enough to make the status quo that’s needlessly killing hundreds of thousands of people people unbearable to the corrupt demagogues maintaining it too.

The same place that most other democracies do: bribery.

Colossal SCOTUS mistake/intentional fraud aside, money isn’t speech and corporations aren’t people.

So what exactly is it that you object to?

Not to mention the fact that huge billboards along streets and roads are by definition either ineffective or an impediment to traffic safety, depending on whether or not they manage to catch your attention while you’re operating a vehicle…

That was about as complimentary as this is:

And you’re just obnoxious. Don’t let your own delusions of rationality tell you otherwise.

So what you’re saying is that 400 is completely random and because of that, it follows that 1 is meant to be accurate? 🤔

I’d say that it’s much more likely that they’re operating under the (incorrect but commonly believed) assumption that the US population is closer to 400m than 300m and both numbers are rounded up for simplicity.

Fair. Have a nice day 🙂

Nope. That’s just objectively wrong.

The choice of 1 almost certainly wasn’t a deliberate exaggeration of the actual amount. It’s just the nearest number that isn’t too specific to distract from the overall argument and/or small enough that pro-gun advocates can use it as an argument for gun violence not being a problem at all.

You seem to have a very binary view

Of distracting from the actual topic by needlessly fixating on an only tangentially relevant detail? Yeah, I’m kooky like that.

Is it not possible for someone to agree with a message, but think we can improve on how we tell it?

Sure, but that’s not what you’re doing. You’re, deliberately or not, pulling all attention away from the message by demanding a fix to something that, in the specific case, is unimportant.

If we want to convince people of something, is it not best to provide as convincing an argument as possible?

As I said before, being more exact would invite MORE distracting arguments about it, not fewer.

I’m not trying to distract from the message

You’re also not trying to NOT distract from the message either, though. Or you are and you’re doing a piss-poor job of it.

I’m wondering how we can tell it better

It was told just fine. You’re actively obscuring the salient point with your pedantry.

I’m not quite sure what you mean by ‘people like me’

Pedants, the easily sidetracked, those who will jump at the opportunity to distract from the message itself by hyperfocusing on an insignificant technical detail.

Take your pick.

Absolutely. Hell, with how much of the heavy lifting they’re doing for corporations destroying most aspects of the world, it should probably be illegal to advertise at all except in strictly limited circumstances.