Polling currently makes Democrats slight favourites, assuming election tampering efforts are not too successful.

No, that’s just an ad-hoc rationalization. Before refrigeration, people didn’t just leave fresh meat lying around. Either it was consumed immediately after cooking it, or it was smoked, cured or dried right away after butchering (people used much more salt than they do nowadays for e.g. modern hams to make sure the meat lasted a long time). The climate doesn’t really matter - in temperate climates fresh meat goes bad rapidly as well.

The origin of Abrahamic dietary laws is not certain. There is no obvious benefit in terms of hygiene, also not in ancient times (they long predate “medieval” times). Keep in mind that poultry carries a significant risk of salmonella poisoning.

It has been suggested that the origin might have simply been that pigs are viewed as unclean due to their own diet including carrion. Another speculated reason is that rulers might have wanted to promote poultry due to it being a more economical way of raising livestock.

In a game created by (but fortunately no longer run by) a neo-Nazi. Ironic.

The US has never had a free and fair election. The attempt to introduce universal suffrage for citizens in 1965 was never fully implemented. I guess what you’re trying to say is: “…if democratic backsliding is contained.”

9/11 has critics questioning Bin Laden’s motives

Drug use, and especially problematic drug use, has low price elasticity and the US is a relatively high-income country. The cost of living is almost certainly a negligible factor in the decline of alcohol consumption.

Although most of the gains have gone to top earners, US real median household income has trended slightly upwards over time and is not “way [down].”

Moreover, high-income European countries where even fewer people are budget-constrained when it comes to drug use have also seen dramatic declines in alcohol consumption.

Derp de derpity derpy derp. Until one day, the derpa derpa derpaderp. Derp de derp. Da teedily dumb. From the creators of Der, and Tum Ta Tittaly Tum Ta Too, Rob Schneider is… a fascist!

A nationwide coalition of DAs who pledge to… do their jobs?

Not if you slice it by spending as a percentage of GDP, in which case the US ranks above average among NATO members but does not especially stand out. Of total NATO military spending, about two thirds comes from the US mainly because of its large productive capacity. Most of the NATO members, especially in eastern and southern Europe, are simply not very rich countries. Indeed, those three I mentioned are all rich Nordic countries (the top 10 is rounded out by Israel and Gulf states).

If you want to reduce military reliance on the US, which you unequivocally should do, it will require either significant investments in defense or the acceptance of a significant reduction in military assets and preparedness for the EU as a whole.

It’s a fiction that European NATO members spend little and rely only on the US for defence. None but the US itself could realistically oppose a coalition of non-US NATO members. This is precisely why increased spending is necessary, to hedge against the uncertainty of an increasingly erratic and authoritarian US.

Of the top 10 countries in military spending per capita (as of 2023), three are European NATO members.

Israel has neither universal health care, nor free education.

Also, any of the extant universal health care systems are cheaper than the current US health care system, so it’s not like saving money elsewhere would enable the funding of universal health care in the US.

The definition of insanity: continuing to run your game company horribly and expecting different results.

Unfortunately, her case will almost surely be denied since the US has been designated a safe country by Dutch officials, and the trend in most of Europe, under pressure from racist voters and the surging popularity of fascism, is to make the already extremely strict asylum rules even stricter. In some cases (e.g. Denmark) refugee asylum has been all but abolished, in an egregious violation of treaties on assisting refugees (and preventing genocide).

The good news for people like Arc is that for US citizens it is overwhelmingly easier to obtain residency status legally in the EU in countries like the Netherlands, compared to getting a Green Card in the US. She probably should have figured that out before panicking and booking that flight.

Those are laudable goals, but the appetite for democratic reforms currently seems rather anaemic in the US.

Unfortunately, many UK voters don’t realize they’re setting themselves on the same path in the next election. The UK has one of the most fragile democracies in Europe, and its system is ill-prepared for a fascist majority in the Commons. Farage may be less of a moron than Trump (a low bar), but his voters are cut from the same cloth as Trump’s.

If it makes you feel better, the graph only goes to 2018, and the gap has widened since then.

Will be?

Far less efficient, even. There are losses due to conversion, and further losses due to material cost being higher than simple electrical heaters, and more losses due to the innate negative value generated by Bitcoin, which is used exclusively for crime and gambling.

I think it’s a sign of a healthy democracy if most people view politicians as servants of the people, rather than viewing themselves as serving the politicians. I have 20 choices, not 2, and I can certainly find candidates more closely aligned ideologically than most Americans can. Yet I would never say I “am” party such-and-such.