That's just wonderful. I love, LOVE, Handel's music. So much of it is full of joy.

@Horace said in Locked out of your "smart" home: fine print of some user agreement you agree to by clicking "yes" somewhere. Here is a website I have looked at that seems to give a good summary of the various Terms of Service. You type in a company, and it will give a simplified summary of their TOS. www.TOSDR.org

The funny thing is, is that Culvers is such a popular proposal spot, that the people in the picture are not actually April and PJ!

@Jolly said in The Chinese “just ran rings around us": @taiwan_girl said in The Chinese “just ran rings around us": Yes, I do. Then I would postulate you are living in denial. The Chinese will worry about the economic consequences of conquering Taiwan just a wee bit more than they worried about tightening the screws on Hong Kong or running one of the largest slavery enterprises on the planet. Hmm, HK and the internal slavery issues are just that, internal and quite a bit different than moving into Taiwan. There were no real economic consequences to either of those situations you describe. Using Russia and Ukraine as an example - Russia has been very strong in suppressing and eliminating freedoms internally over the past decade or so. Other countries may dislike and make a statement, but nothing other than that was done. Invasion of Ukraine brought a much different response. I would hope that the world would respond similarly if China attempted the same with Taiwan. I do think that @Axtremus has a good point. The Chinese leadership has not yet moved into the dictatorship role. Yes, at the last 5 year Congress, President Xi definitely consolidated his power, and has surrounded himself with a lot of "yes" men, but I do not think the Chinese leadership is quite at the point of only looking out for themselves as individuals, and have forgotten the consequences upon the country overall. While I may not agree with them, they are not quite to the point of Premier Kim in DPRK, who definitely puts himself above the country.

Nah, I got it... Just make sure you whistle and snap along... Link to video

The flavor? Biden Banana Republic. He's placing his politics above his writing. Bad move. He should've trusted the metaphorical substitution and just said "Banana Republic." Anyway, yeah, the headline's spot on.

I've been 8 and 9. jon's still worse than me, though.

The medical bills and any disability, certainly. But not the negligence.

Usually fatal, but of the seven people who have survived, four were treated in the U.S. I'm more familiar with E. histolytica, which can do a nice tap-dance on your brain, too. The latter is most often seen as an intestinal problem, but it does show up in other places. There have been documented cases of E. histolytica being transmitted by homosexual sex.

Too cute. Is this also Aqua bait?

I don't want revenge. I want a reckoning.

Goofy.

@Mik said in Vivek Ramaswamy is really coming out swinging: all candidates should commit to pardoning Trump Including democrats and independents.

Cool!

Scientists beam solar power to Earth from space for 1st time ever A space solar power prototype has demonstrated its ability to wirelessly beam power through space and direct a detectable amount of energy toward Earth for the first time. The experiment proves the viability of tapping into a near-limitless supply of power in the form of energy from the sun from space. Because solar energy in space isn’t subject to factors like day and night, obscuration by clouds, or weather on Earth, it is always available. In fact, it is estimated that space-based harvesters could potentially yield eight times more power than solar panels at any location on the surface of the globe. The wireless power transfer was achieved by the Microwave Array for Power-transfer Low-orbit Experiment (MAPLE), an array of flexible and lightweight microwave power transmitters, which is one of the three instruments carried by the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD-1).

Smarter people on this board than me can comment, but I think that main US Federal Reserve goal (or one of the main goals) is US inflation =2%. Numbers from yesterday show that inflation continues to drop, but they have hard job in trying to balance that without going recession.

@taiwan_girl said in Up to 46: @George-K said in Up to 46: and I enjoyed (?) some Tennessee moonshine from a now-deceased friend of mine. Does the question mark mean that is was not so good? LOL Yup. Terrible stuff. However, it was a gift from Larry, so I thought I'd indulge myself. https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/the_new_coffee_room/viewtopic.php?p=1354134#p1354134 [image: 1686705816132-screenshot-2023-06-13-at-8.23.11-pm.png] https://prichardsdistillery.com/whiskies.html By the way, 46 years ago TODAY, I was on call...

@Jolly said in Spies in Cuba!: And give Biden the credit for finalizing this week the plans for evacuating all Americans from Taiwan, when we hand the country over to the Chinese. In talking to people I know at AIT (American Institute in Taiwan - the "unofficial" US Embassy there), the US has always has had plans for evacuation. In fact, I understand that in every country, the US embassy does something similar, though I am sure that Fiji and Taiwan or Afghanistan will be quite different in complexity. LOL