HelixDab2

Hmmm, simple majority vote. Interesting. So if we somehow got a Democratic house with a Trump presidency, they could just refuse to confirm any VP at all, which would make the speaker of the House 2nd in line for the presidency.

I'm not entirely sure that the president can simply appoint a new VP once they're in office, since VP is an elected position.

It's a fascinating question, and I hope that there's never any reason to see it answered.

I'm not so sure that he can be. He was nominated by Trump, and the party as a whole voted on both Trump and Vance, together. Would they need a new convention in order to select a new VP? I don't know. I don't think that anything like that has ever happened before, so it would be uncharted territory. Much like if the VP died in office.

You get “compensated for you time” not paid

That's what they say, but that's not what actually happens. If the phlebotomist fucks up the draw, and your flow rate is so poor that they can't get what they need, you don't get paid. (Ask me how i know this.)

And yeah, IIRC most of the plasma goes to create clotting agents for people with hemophilia.

Blatantly false. "MSM [men who have sex with men] accounted for 67% (21,400) of the 31,800 estimated new HIV infections in 2022 and 87% of estimated infections among all males."

When you consider that gay and bisexual men make up a small percentage of the overall population--under 5%--the fact that gay and bisexual men account for 87% of all HIV infections in men tells you just how alarming this is.

When you're talking about 'richest people', that's total wealth, not just liquid money. The Rockefellers and Rothschilds may be wealthy as families, but no individual within them even comes close to having the amount of overall wealth that Musk and Bezos have.

This is not a good thing, BTW.

According to Forbes, he's the richest.

Simply require ALL electric powered two wheel vehicles that aren't motorcycles--whether nominally assistive or not--to comply with the same regulations as scooters. Easy, done.

Will is conservative, but also believes in America, and in Democracy. He knows that Trump is terrible for both of those things. So even though he's going to disagree with Harris on damn near every policy position that she has, he recognizes that she's the far, far better option for the country.

Musk is the richest person in the world, AFAIK. I believe he's rapidly approaching trillionaire status.

In the past, I’ve had my local hospital call me asking for a blood donation, for example, because of an upcoming surgery of a hospitalised kid that shares my blood group. I got money for that too.

In the US, AFAIK you can't get paid for whole blood. If you did, you would have to be paid significantly more than they pay for plasma, given that you can only do whole blood every two months.

To the question, it's not a "scam" by any conventional definition. You are getting real money in return for the plasma.

The problem with the whole system is that if there was no payment for plasma, there wouldn't be nearly enough people donating plasma for the need that there is. (You're typically looking at 1+ hour per session, 2x/week.) That doesn't include whatever travel time is involved. That's a pretty steep time commitment every week for something that's a very nebulous public good.

I think a better question is, is the amount that you're being compensated fair and reasonable? Give the profit margins that are involved in products made from blood plasma, my inclination is that it is not a fair and reasonable amount. Plasma centers in my area vary in how much they pay, but it's typically in the neighborhood of $50-$75 (USD); in other parts it's lower, and in some areas it's significantly higher. It's clear that they can pay more, but choose not to because it increases their profit margin. That is something I have a problem with.

I can't imagine Graham switching parties even if he did come out of the closet. He's like the Log Cabin Republicans.