The major reason given is that taxes vary so much in the US by location that it would be onerous for businesses with locations in different areas to print different price tags and advertise prices broadly.

It’s even an issue online because, until you enter your address, the online retailer has no clue what your tax rate will be, and they have to assess tax based on the purchaser’s location. Postal code isn’t always enough, as they can be shared by different cities with different tax rates.

Some areas also vary tax by date (tax free holidays), though I don’t think consumers would care if their total ended up being cheaper than they thought.

A national standard VAT would be the only way businesses might start including tax in price, but there’s no way to do that without a constitutional amendment. States have the power to tax, and they’re not going to stop now even if they receive VAT revenues.

It’s not all of us ☹️

I got very randomly bumped up to first class on a transatlantic flight for business. I do not travel much for business, especially internationally. So, I definitely should not have had priority over more regular accounts. I have to assume I just got lucky, and that flight happened to have no frequent flyers.

It was an eye opening experience. I got to hang out in a secret lounge. When my flight was ready to board, multiple staff escorted us to the gate. When we landed, we took a private van to a secret side entrance, which had its own first class only passport check. We were brought to another secret first class lounge through hidden back hallways to wait for our connections. The lounge looked down over the terminal, and the exit was a nondescript door you’d assume was a maintenance entrance.

Being around that level of service and the other people in first class, it’s clear the wealthy live in another world. I looked up how much that ticket normally goes for after, and full price is for many people a yearly salary. It was nice, but it seems like a crazy way to divide resources.

I don’t think this individual understands what a hobby is. Your job by definition is not a hobby.

This reminds me of a person I worked with who would wait until the evening to reply to most emails. I assumed this was so at every morning standup they could say they were waiting on someone else to get back on something.

How much parmesan did you grate over the brussel sprouts after they came out of the oven? Whatever amount it was, you didn’t do enough. Also if you forgot lemon zest, add some too.

It’s crazy. He was already tied for sixth most SC justices appointed (with seven other presidents). If Alito and Thomas retire and he replaces them, he’ll only be behind Washington, FDR, and Taft. His numbers for other judicial appointments were already very high as well.

People really do not appreciate how long we’ll be feeling the consequences of this if we survive this term and move on to someone sane.

The solutions here don’t seem to really be solutions in my opinion, especially the third one. It’s like if the problem a patent solves was “being able to individually package sandwiches on a conveyor belt” and the solution was “have a machine that recognizes where one sandwich ends and another begins so it can stop and start packaging appropriately.” Like, no kidding, but how?

A Canadian I used to know told me their family would have some cheaper items in the back seat that they’d declare and hide the more expensive stuff. Apparently it did work.

Reading that article is a serious indictment of economic literacy in the United States. People don’t understand what role the president plays in the economy, what causes inflation, or how and why interest rates change. They draw really superficial causal links and don’t think about it after that; it’s fact to them.

It’s reasons like this education may be the single most critical issue, since we can’t make progress on the climate or anything else if the population is incapable of critical thinking. I hate to say it like this because it feels patronizing, but Jesus fucking Christ.

Indeed. I think it’s why cults of personality are so dangerous. You don’t need to convince that many people if you can get a large enough, dedicated number to consistently do what the leader says and push others around.

I’m not sure that love is the word for Bernie, but I was certainly much more enthusiastic about him. Some people did get weird about it which made me uncomfortable, though. The policy should always come before the politician.

I think the problem is that plenty of people might like Harris, but not so much that turnout for her matched Biden. The people who like Trump love him, and they turned out in the same numbers as 2020 basically. He didn’t need to meaningfully grow his base if people weren’t motivated to show up for his opponent.

It’s definitely a demonstration that having the most palatable candidate doesn’t matter. It might if voting were compulsory, but it isn’t.

The red mirage/blue shift will probably be much smaller than prior elections, since it seems Trump supporters are using early or mail in voting more than before. The splits by party for these methods are smaller so far this year.

There are some municipalities where landowners are required to remove graffiti in a timely fashion or be fined by the city. In such places, the landlord would definitely pass those costs to tenants. Not that they would lower rents if the problem went away, of course. One year of a graffiti problem would likely permanently raise rents unless you live somewhere with a glut of available affordable rentals.

Agreed. It’s basically the political version of reading tea leaves.

It takes a lot of the magic out of it. I’m sure a bit of this is rose-colored glasses, but it was a really neat experience as a kid. The entire neighborhood was out in the streets, people got to know their neighbors, and you felt like you were part of something. These days​, it feels spooky due to how empty it is besides cars.

Yeah, in my area trunk or treat is the main reason for no trick or treaters these days. It’s a very urban area, so getting a lot of candy on foot would be easy, but walking around a parking lot is way quicker. It seems to be what most parents prefer also, so I think it’s here to stay.

Then it’s not a binary system. It’s a system with two extremely dominant members. Those are different things. You can be more binary in specific contexts e.g., gametes and egg vs sperm.

I’d be very cautious about the healthy description in reference to intersex people. I don’t believe you are trying to say anything nefarious, but there’s a reason it shows up in eugenics arguments.

I didn’t say sex was a spectrum, though perhaps someone else you were speaking with did. I wouldn’t use spectrum for sex, since there are multiple differentiating factors with differing measures.

About half the states allow same-day voter registration, so there may be people who voted but did not specifically request mail in/early voting, and those who did request but have not cast their vote yet. So, for many states you could be in one set but not the other.

I’m not quite certain the point you are making here. Is the implication that because humans typically have two hands, those that do not are not a group that can be described? Or that they can be, but only should be as the product of developmental errors?

We don’t generally, where we know exceptions exist, refuse to acknowledge their existence. Saying sex is a binary is saying there are only males and only females. That’s literally what binary means. Like binary notation either uses 0 or 1. If it was possible for sometimes to have a 2, it wouldn’t be binary anymore. That’s a different thing.

This is especially true for something like sex that is based on a grouping of traits, genes, expressions, etc. which are not universally 0 or 1. Sure, we generally agree on a category when some are different, but there’s some points where it’s not so stark. Hence, the binary fails because there can be overlap and grey.

Nobody is saying we have to stop using male and female to describe sex in most cases, especially in a medical setting. But if you had a child born intersex, and the doctor turned to you and said, “Nah, my gut says male. Nothing will be different,” you’d probably ask for a second opinion.