Hazor

I don't understand why you're being downvoted. Current "AI" based on LLM's have no capacity for understanding of the knowledge they contain (hence all the "hallucinations"), and thus possess no meaningful intelligence. To call it intelligent is purely marketing.

For all his faults and evils, Vance is not a narcissist who pathologically seeks the approval of those he sees as high status, which is what has compelled Trump to try so hard to be buddies with dictators. Vance is more cunning than Trump and would need to have a profit motive beyond just an ego stroking before putting his position at risk (even if the risk is evidently slight, but his relatively low popularity / lack of cult following makes me think/hope he'd have a harder time getting away with stuff than Trump). I suspect most dictators don't have much to offer Vance in the way of profit that he couldn't just as easily secure for himself as president without the personal risks of selling out the country to foreign adversaries, and the most salacious scandal we've heard about him has to do with a couch rather than Epstein so the kompromat is probably minimal or nil.

Don't get me wrong, a President Vance would be awful in a lot of ways, and arguably worse than Trump in some ways. It's just that I don't imagine him as being quite as much of a national security risk. But, again, maybe it's just naive hope. 🤷

I suspect (naively hope?) Vance would be less inclined to just hand over national security information to Putin, so .. maybe two benefits?

Or if it is Trump's fault, it's actually a 4D chess move that will make things better in the end, we're just too dumb and educated to understand.

And immigrants. And occasionally black people.

90 years ago the entire US population was less than that 140 million, let alone eligible voters. Percentage of eligible voters would make a better argument than absolute numbers when you're comparing over time.

That said, 140m versus 158m is a huge drop. An astonishing drop. The final total could still amount to a >10% reduction in turnout, despite a slight increase in the number of eligible voters. I don't understand how that could be viewed as not sad, regardless of who you vote for.

Some people are genuinely apathetic or feel like it doesn't directly impact their life, but a lot of people fall for the propaganda of "both sides are the same" and that it makes no difference either way, and a lot of people are intentionally disenfranchised by various voter suppression efforts by Republicans. Then there's the electoral college nonsense which leaves the populace of 43 states with essentially no say in who the president is, leading some to wonder why they should bother, not being mindful that their vote may carry weight for the federal legislature and state/local elections. And many people are just too busy surviving to worry about anything else.

For my part, voting straight Democrat in a heavily Republican-leaning state, my vote literally means nothing at all because my state will inevitably give all of its electoral college votes to Trump, and will elect nothing but Republicans to the federal legislature and for almost all state/local offices. But I voted on the first day of early voting, and I will vote in every election, because we have to show support for change if we ever want there to be change. There are enough left-leaning people in my state for it to be a swing state (hell, we had a Democrat for governor 2003-2011, and he was popular), but so many see their votes as meaningless simply because their fellow left-leaners also aren't voting...

Maybe one day they'll enjoy it enough to elect representatives who will try to extend democracy to the rest of us by eliminating gerrymandering and the electoral college.

Do you remember that time Biden rode a bike? With a helmet of all things? So weak. Not like that Putin fellow who rides HORSES without a helmet OR EVEN A SHIRT. So stronk. Much manly.

Well, you see, the Dems control the justice department because deep state hunter's laptop biden crime family buttery males, q.e.d. the poll monitors were only there to rig it for the Dems. Pizza gate!

CPR. Doing 2-3 chest compressions, seconds apart, and then some mouth to mouth, followed by 2-3 more chest compressions. Or the needle into the heart thing. Or the shock a flatline thing. All of it. It's just all wrong.

On Andromeda? I believe it was, a villain used the stereotypical twist the head to break the neck and they fall over dead bit. The character proceeded to be not dead and did the stereotypical express their love while dying in the protagonist's arms bit, talking and moving their neck as if it wasn't broken. And then died.

I work in a hospital. Unfortunately, people don't stop being sick on holidays, so someone has to work. I don't see how it could be different in any other country.