Obligate. You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
In all seriousness, pandas are still bears and can/do eat meat on occasion. Gorillas regularly eat insects and larva, digging up termite and ant nests. Our closest cousins the chimps are not only fully omnivorous, but are accomplished predators. Most herbivores (like ungulates, bovines, etc) will not pass up the opportunity to eat carrion, baby birds, small rodents, and the like.
I've been wanting that since 1994. Jawsome!
No, but it's equivalent to the $180-280 most of the current JNCOs are actually priced at. I think the $2000 comment was exaggerating for effect, because I can't even find anything on their website over $300.
They were $80-100 jeans in '90s dollars back then, so about the same price with inflation really. They were always a niche corner of the market when compared to regular jeans, they were just a popular niche for a while.
So it is the level of "privilege" that does or does not allow the commission of -isms then. The better off the target is, the more acceptable discrimination is? That is also a very Western perspective. It would be ok to tell Muslims in the Middle East that terrorism is their responsibility because their country's power structure does put Islam firmly above others?
This "some animals are more equal than others" stuff is moral equivocating. If something is wrong if done to a group that isn't "in power", then it is also wrong to do it to the group "in power". This isn't a zero sum game. We don't have to weight the guilt by association for a black man when compared with a white man because systemic racism competes with systemic patriarchy. If you do think that the immutable characteristics a person is born with are the most important things about them, I would encourage you to self interrogate how messed up that is.
Are we also going to tolerate the same with Islam and terrorism? POC and safety because "crime statistics"? If those are not acceptable because it's not anyone's individual responsibility for others in an involuntarily assigned group, why is this ok?
That is because the "well regulated militia" part is neither the subject of the sentence, nor a qualifier for the rest of the sentence. It's pretty straight forward English sentence structure. It explains a primary reason why the individual right to keep and bear arms "shall not be infringed" is important, and like a comment line in computer code it doesn't "do" anything to the rest of the program.
The federalist papers and the militia acts back up that "originalist" interpretation.
Yeah, let's have a constitutional convention in this environment to update the entire Constitution, let's see how quick the bill of rights gets tossed out for a complete police state and possibly a theocracy. The most fractious the country has ever been is a great time to remove and replace the foundation of a country. Or are you thinking more of a coup where only one political "side" makes the new constitution they want, and it just gets enforced on everybody else?
Since the entire union doesn't work anymore and needs to be reworked from the ground up devaluing/depowering States, let's be honest: there is no way the entire country re-forms whole under its existing borders. We will end up with at least 2 or 3 countries in what was once the contiguous 48.
I guess it's been a while since there's been a good civil war.
You seem to be confusing taking no action with taking positive action when compared to a negative action, conflating both to be the same thing under an "if you aren't explicitly with me then you're against me" view point. If the University we're going out of its way to dump more money into new Israeli investments, then that would be the same belief but opposite. Not changing anything is by definition the only neutral action, and any change in any direction would be political. Not saying anything about what is ultimately "right", just that there "is" an apolitical option and that is to do whatever would be done if this whole thing wasn't happening.
Do you have a better word for lending money and charging exorbitant interest rates, fees, or conditions to unjustly enrich the lender? I could just call them legally gray loan sharks, which they are, but the laws surrounding the governance of money lending are actually called usury laws. That's why I used the term. I think the Banks and Credit companies that have bled the countries bottom 50% dry and have nearly succeeded in eliminating the middle class qualify for the label, but you do you.
So if I spend my life being a right bastard, like 50 straight years of kicking dogs, stealing from old ladies, being a slum lord and extorting people, breaking people's legs in mafia style protection rackets, dumping toxic industrial byproducts into rivers, and using my wealth and power to keep and enforce "sundown laws", but then in my 60s open an animal shelter, fund bingo nights and retirement centers, set up community reinvestment grants, sponsor efforts to get the wetlands to get cleaned up as a Superfund site, and get diversity and equality training implemented for the police department, would I then be considered to be a good person because my attitude shifted? The thousands of people I hurt and potentially indirectly killed over those 50 years don't count against the good I am now doing?
Even simpler, if I steal and destroy your car, causing you to lose your job because you don't have transportation which then causes you to lose your home, should I then be praised for giving you a nicer brand new car a year later?
Sticking to politics in case that's the only place this kind of behavior gets a pass, what if someone didn't cheer for Don't Ask Don't Tell but instead had sponsored bills undoing limitations or bans on gay conversion therapy. Does later supporting a bill making conversion therapy illegal undo the suicides and trauma they inflicted because their apparent attitude has changed? Are they now equal to the person who spent their entire career pushing for gay rights, because this person supported strengthening of domestic partnership laws instead of marriage equality 20-30 years ago? They both support gay rights now, so is saying that the first person is doing the bare minimum and shouldn't really be called an ally "moving the finish line"?
Prior to being the VP and now President, he had a long political career as an establishment corporate Democrat. His home state is where almost all US usury is headquartered, and he consistently sold out the American people to those corporations. He sponsored the bill removing bankruptcy options from student loans, sided with the banks and credit card companies on interest rates and fees, was a war hawk, and was more than "it was just how it was at the time" racist.
Essentially every bit of the "whole lot of good" has been an 11th hour change of heart and fixing problems he was more than complicit in creating. Add to that the DNC manipulation to block other candidates, and you have the South Park special of a Douche vs. a Turd Sandwich.
I deduct credit from a President if they are primarily fixing problems that they themselves caused or greatly assisted in creating throughout their previous political career. In Biden's case, that means that he is unlikely to get better than absolute neutral due to his incredibly long history of selling out the American people.
I will not give Biden an 11th hour passing grade just because he is up against Trump, he doesn't deserve to be graded on a curve.
Each Wyoming is worth one California in the Senate due to the fact that California and Wyoming are both single states. The messed up part is the missing like 140 representatives that should exist to balance population to representative for each state.
Not a single person shot by Rittenhouse was black, and were in fact all white.
A new trial for what? He was found not guilty. They don't get to keep trying people when there is an actual not guilty verdict just because some people disagree with the verdict.
I like where you're going here, and the only things I disagree with are the Senate merge and Electoral College as these still serve a purpose. The removal of the House cap will rebalance there, and if anything the Senate could be reverted from popular election back to being appointed by the State Legislatures so they rebalance back to being actual actors for the State as intended vs overpowered Representatives.
The Electoral College helps balance democracy being 2 wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner, but maybe get some math experts to review the equation for apportionment and/or set all electors to be proportional to the vote percentages in every state.
Bees kill a number of people every year, yet people keep them in large numbers. Dogs do to, but we keep millions of them. This guy got unlucky with underlying health problems. Gila venom hurts like a son of a bitch, but is otherwise about as medically significant as a black widow bite. People keep those as pets too.