That’s correct, Congress could pass a law removing its independence or eliminating it entirely whenever it so chooses. Until then, it’s independent because that’s how Congress created it using its powers under Article 1 of the Constitution.
The “skill” line is what gamblers tell themselves to justify it. A much more useful demarcation is “does this game have any positive impact on the world” (entertainment value of the gambling itself doesn’t count). For example, insurance is not gambling even though it is itself a zero sum game, it enables societally beneficial risk taking. Options trading on real assets like stock aid in price discovery. Memecoins, sports betting, your local poker game and the way prediction markets actually function in practice are all gambling.
That’s what they say, but that’s not how they actually operate. There’s not nearly the liquidity there (and probably can’t ever be) to actually protect against downside risks. This niche is already better served by boutique insurance.
I always re-read this on MLK day and learn something new each time. Pull quote for this year
“All that is said here grows out of a tragic misconception of time. It is the strangely irrational notion
that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time is neutral. It can be used either
destructively or constructively. I am coming to feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than the
people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people but
for the appalling silence of the good people.”
I think this pairs well with and contrasts to the quote that I think many prefer to quote, that “the arc of history is long, but it tends toward justice”.
I looked at a few, and the overall consensus seems to be that at least EVs are not worse than ICEVs (and I suppose EVs will get efficient faster than ICEVs(.
Please don’t be so naive as to think that this administration is above creating a pretext for raiding the home of their real target while claiming it’s about something else. It’s the same thing (minus the raid, plus an indictment) they’re doing to Jerome Powell.
I would gladly be part of a neighborhood battery swap pool if it would help get rid of the near constant running of gas powered lawn equipment every morning. The sound and pollution are such a menace.
I've witness two municipal employees using gas powered blowers on bushes for like an hour right in front of my building. It's completely useless because no one ever goes in the bushes (duh), and it's depleting the ground from nutrients for no reasons.
We really have to stop acting like gas is free and unlimited, burning fossil fuels used for legitimate reasons is bad enough, but burning them for such dumb tasks is an insult to nature.
I don't find gas leaf blowers exceptionally annoying. They aren't really anymore annoying that anything else going on in my area. It's what leaf blowers are used for that bother me. I see people just using them to blow leaves either into the street or into neighbors yards. What is the utility in this? Do they think leaves disappear?
They’re much louder than other common lawn equipment. People also tend to use them more frequently. Most of my neighbors will only run a lawnmower once a week or every 2 weeks. But they’ll be out there every day with a leaf blower during parts of the year.
Agreed, but I'm comparing them to the other stuff that is always going on. During the week you can always hear: roofing nailguns, wood chipper, backup beeper, & someone playing music.
That depends on where you’re at. I live in a neighborhood with 2-5 acre lots. I can’t hear any of those things unless my immediate neighbors are doing them, which they rarely are.
I can hear leaf blowers constantly though because you can hear them in a quarter mile radius.
Also local ordinances in most places ban loud noises without a permit. But lawn maintenance equipment is a specific exception.
I've owned the property I've been referring to for over 6 years. Never seen a street sweeper. Leaves in the street from my neighbors yards are about 1 foot deep at the curb
Those bushes they're fluffing up likely only exist because in order to get the stormwater calculations to code they had to put them there for absorption for rain runoff (i.e. part of a SWPP). Or meet some stupid municipal requirement that precludes too much drab solid frontage on a building.
You paid for half a dozen people to spend a bit of labor on what would have 50yr ago been a simple "sidewalk for walking go here, grass everywhere else" exercise. And then every week you get to pay again to be annoyed by them maintaining it (in perpetuity, as they are required to by law, assuming it's part of a SWPP).
I couldn’t fathom running lawn equipment in the morning. If I try to mow in the morning my clippings are just globs of wet spinach thanks to all the dew. I get much better performance out of the equipment if I wait until the afternoon once everything has had a chance to dry out.
The USA-led coalition conclusively won the Gulf War. We don’t think about it as much precisely because it wasn’t a boondoggle that lasted years and years.
The goal of the First Gulf War was, expressly, to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi control and (to a much smaller degree) to remove Iraq as a possible regional hegemon for the next decade or so. Which it succeeded at. Once you've succeeded at your objectives, and the enemy has capitulated, what value is there to prosecuting the war further?
The USA-led coalition finally managed to overcome ISIS insurrectionists and helped Iran install Iranian sponsored militias in the Iraqi parliament and government.
I am so pleased by ty’s stance that I should not have to add annotations to satisfy the type checker. I ripped out last type checker out because it was constantly nagging us about technicalities, but ty immediately found issues where we annotated that a duct was an acceptable input, but actually doing so would break things.
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