Winter 2021 LC Thread—I Want Sous Vide

Oh and just let the King of England waltz back in and take over? No thank you.

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Seems like a good batch. If you’re not actually an opera nerd I can assure you that Justino Diaz is the shit. I can live without Bette Midler, but they never seem to ask me about these things.

Voting can’t be denied on account of age or race or a few other things. It can be denied on other criteria. For example, there is no constitutional provision that prevents non-citizens from voting. Federal law does that. In the absence of a federal law, states are free to allow them to vote–and some do in local elections–but non-citizens don’t have a right to vote in the same way they have a right to free speech or against self- incrimination.

So states can’t explicitly abridge voting on account of race, but states can get away with indirectly doing so if the Supreme Court allows it. The current court seems more inclined to let states get away with more shenanigans than in the past.

I just can’t see that being a solution that results in less violence.

As sad as mass shootings are, they were inevitable in a country with our relationship to the ME.

The Biden administration recently signed massive arms deals with the UAE and Israel.

Solutions born out of identity politics won’t work.

Homesteading and getting out into the community and doing positive work are our best chance. (I’m typing this last sentence to myself; not at you or anyone in particular).

so it’s not an absolute right, ok fine, but it is an explicit one. there are plenty of rights that are explicitly mentioned in the constitution that have exceptions or whatnot.

Voting is treated as a privilege rather than a right.

ok, maybe, but that is a different than your claim that it’s not explicitly in the consitution.

There’s nothing anywhere close to the language of the right to vote constitutional amendment sponsored by Mark Pocan.

Have you not seen Robocop?

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Here’s a situation I could use some advice on.

The Melkersons were scheduled to fly nonstop out of Chicago tonight on Southwest Airlines. Flight scheduled for later this evening was canceled this morning (notified by text message). After spending hours on the phone, the best Southwest could do is get us on a non-direct flight tomorrow, which would be suboptimal for numerous reasons.

So we found a flight ourselves on United that leaves around the same time and just booked the flight. That cost about $1200. Southwest will certainly refund the flights we didn’t use, which amounts to about $500. The plan will be to call Southwest on Monday and extract the $700 difference from them one way or another.

Any tips on what I can do to increase the chances of success? Anyone had any similar experiences.

FWIW, the reason they gave for canceling the flight is that they “picked up some new routes” and needed the plane for one of those (i.e., not weather-related or anything else that was not completely under their control).

Ive had luck complaining to Amex in these situations, assuming you booked with one. Chase may be good too.

Booked with AMEX, but plebe amex, not platinum

ME=Middle East? What does the ME have to do with mass shootings?

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The UK has problematic relationships with the ME and they also don’t have routine mass shootings.

Man, the more I research this, the less I like my odds of getting anything.

If you booked thru Amex Travel I like your chances, just ask for a supervisor after the initial rejection. I recently had a flight “rescheduled” to like 3.5 hours later, which totally fucked up my plans, and surprise, the policy is “fuck you if it’s under 4 hours.” I argued a lot with the level one person before asking for someone else, then the level two person immediately credited me the difference in fare. No idea who is actually eating the loss in this scenario.

I thought airlines were bad before, but they have recently taken it to a new level of ineptitude and shittiness.

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Molecules of higher concentration always move to an area of lower concentration.

Apply this to the violence of the ME and the lack thereof in the US while considering that they are crucially connected.

Then consider how the internet has ratcheted up everything to warp speed. The geopolitical and societal role reversals we are seeing should be interesting but expected.

The 2 party system starting to look like rivaling factions in the ME and the American worker starting to take on characteristics of Chinese workers are 2 that stand out to me.

We were the only country left standing after WW2.