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• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Re: 'Your government is trying to make the people defenceless, kill them with vaccines, and install communism. Sheesh. I gave you the example of Bridgen speaking for UK.' Whoa! - can't tell whether you're being serious or 'ironic' and I...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Re: '... hope to get some enjoyment out of the summer, at least.' And your key source of enjoyment out of the summer is likely to be ... ? (aside from this blog of course :))...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Re: '... a standard form of recruitment when there is a shortage of volunteers since time immemorial, in many countries.' Still? - Which countries? I did see 'The Dirty Dozen' but hope that the US military at least learned its...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Re: 'I have never seen such claims reported in an even vaguely neutral source, and I can't check on the the official Russian line because of UK censorship.' The below source does not mention 'manpower' - that was entirely my...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Re: 'If you go by the talking heads in Russian media, the end goal is to resurrect the USSR -- ahem, the Russian Empire ...' Wondering whether Putin's new general is going to try this by still mostly relying primarily...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Re: '... "wife stays home" also seems to have religious significance to Muslims, even African and SE Asian Muslims,' Okay - I can see this working two different ways: 1-wife works/runs a biz from home or 2-uber religious male dominated...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  RE: '... whichever combo of age-gender-body-type grabs attention of a targeted demographic of buyers-users-oglers' Okay agree - but that younger demo no longer makes up the largest segment with the most available funds. I think the current most attractive market...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Re: '... underground market for hacked cars/batteries that will allow them to be used past the factory preset limits.' There may be a financial incentive for locating and re-using/re-building such batteries. Apparently how the batteries are sealed impacts their 'life'....
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Re: '... this discussion is not about the medical techniques necessary but rather the impact upon society' Haven't read all the posts yet since my last visit, so apologies if this was already covered. Thanks but not sure it's possible...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Re: '... whereas each 'virt' is selected based on precisely defined matching of skills to task, trained once quite effectively (including behavioral modification)' Considering that human behavior has been scientifically studied for over 100 years and those scientists say that...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Re: '{ What would Granny Weatherwax do? }' I'm guessing that Granny Weatherwax (pterry) would look at the above scenario as being no different than the Golems. Sentience is sentience regardless of exterior/packaging. While I haven't read our guest author's...
• Commented on Make Up a Guy
  Re: 'But in my view it's important, or at least valuable, to work backwards as well as forwards' Great perspective - haven't read your fiction yet but based on your essay above I definitely will so thanks for the links!...
• Commented on WTF
  Thanks! Just read this article via a news summary email I get. My main take-aways: There have been eight previous instances where it took longer to elect a speaker. The more 'elections' the more divided the parties, i.e., emergence of...
• Commented on WTF
  Re: 'Where "congress" must pass a "budget" to allow for yearly Federal spending & ...' I'm not clear on this either. From the bits I've read, it seems 'sorta'. 'Sorta' because not all departments get shut down - although the...
• Commented on WTF
  Re: 'By the way, if the GOP can't elect a Speaker, how in h--- do they expect to help run this country? [/sarcasm] :-' Since religious/ideological/economic/political, etc. are on the table for discussion and it looks as though the US...
• Commented on WTF
  Re: 'Are there potentially Congressfolk who might say "screw it" and vote for one or the other regardless of consequences?' Only if the vote was by secret ballot. My guess is that the largest party funders are watching how their...
• Commented on WTF
  Re: '... a billionaire is still better at allocating resources than everybody else' Nope - a billionaire is better at EXtracting resources usually by offering parts of his/her domain on the altar of one of the Stock Exchange pantheon gods....
• Commented on WTF
  Happy New Year everyone! Ditto Howard NYC's question ......
• Commented on WTF
  Re: 'religions are ideologies' I tend to think of religion as the fallback argument/reason when you have no data and you're looked to as the expert (wise man) in everything - and the folks looking to you for an answer...
• Commented on WTF
  Re: 'So you've got the glass to set up cold frames that give you a head start on getting your crops going.' There's also various broken glass, beer bottles, jars, etc. - all of a sudden they're worth their weight...
• Commented on WTF
  Re: '... address the issue that the global elite who saved nobody but themselves (and some of The Help, because they're depending on them) would be totally unsuited to survive the aftermath of a global catastrophe of that scale, let...
• Commented on WTF
  Re: '... chemotherapy ... poison the cancer or melanoma faster than ... the patient.' Yep - in the chemo scenario though there's usually a dedicated nurse/medic monitoring the infusion plus lots of follow-up tests. And that's also why CRISPr-Cas9 was/is...
• Commented on WTF
  Re: '... the real evil was illicit hooch.' Maybe - some years ago there was a story about some teenagers who drank some mixture of methanol and ethanol. They had no idea that 'alcohol' was a chemistry term. (I've been...
• Commented on WTF
  Re: '... change in enforcement policies reported on the news for marijuana use WOULD NOT RESULT in a cannabis smoking free-for-all.' Okay - thanks for the clarification!...
• Commented on WTF
  RE: '... legalise, regulate & tax drugs, this problem doesn't completely evaporate, but diminishes to tiny proportions.' Not necessarily - I think this is likelier to blur some issues. As a gardener you're well aware that plants can be hybridized/cultivated...
• Commented on WTF
  Re: 'The penalties for smoking pot would be no different that those for smoking tobacco ...' How well did that work for vape? Over here, not so well - lots of (underage) teenagers managed to get vape products easily and...
• Commented on WTF
  Re: '... police doing arrests of weed smokers' Wonder what the stats are along political party lines and pot usage. If 'smoking' pot in public becomes okay this would be the excuse tobacco companies would jump on to get all...
• Commented on WTF
  Re: 'All I can say for sure is that the Ruling Party will not allow them to be subjected to embarrassing scrutiny, ...' And here's the latest US installment ... Freshly elected GOP Rep who campaigned on how his life...
• Commented on WTF
  Re: 'Appendicitis ... Or by detecting poisons in the blood-stream, because the damn thing is almost ready to go "pop" ...' The appendix can also leak ... very slowly. Found this out the hard way. Mind you losing the appendix...
• Commented on WTF
  Re: Tom Lehrer His name sounded familiar but I wasn't sure who he was and had to look him up. Yep - the 'Poisoning Pigeons in the Park' and 'Elements' guy. Anyways, his songs are already in the public domain...