I know someone who flies down about once a month to help his elderly older brother and sister. (He is himself a retired senior, they are even older.) I presume he counts as 12 visitors a year, but of course, he’s just one person with family obligations.

A generation ago, Iran was not like this. Islam itself does not require any of this. An important part if Islam is that the Qur’an cannot be translated, so it is in a form of Arabic few people can really understand. People must depend on the mullahs to tell them what it says. (Which was once also what Christians said about the Latin Bible, though that makes even less sense than the Qur’an because the Bible was translated into Latin.) This is anti-women conservatives using the guise of religion to push their hatred on women and control the population as a whole. As you say, Christianity was once used in the same way, but it still is now, isn’t it?

In the US, abortion is a bogeyman used to threaten women from getting healthcare (even to the point of death), and monitor and control their movements. It’s being done under the guide of “Christianity”. “Christianity” is used against people of different races (because they can’t really be Christian if they’re not white), actually other religions, sexuality, and gender. Yet, how much did Christ ever talk about these things?

And who or what exactly is going to stop him?

When no one (who is in a position to enforce) cares what is legal or constitutional, he can do anything he wants. Just look at the current state of the US and tell me anyone in any power or authority cares. Do you really think “third term” is where they’ll draw the line? I’d put every dollar I have that is not actually about not carrying, but that this is the desired outcome, to enrich themselves.

I only see one way to stop him, and it’s certainly not by law or votes.

Truly, I am shocked he is alive and looks as well as he does.

Well, to my understanding, Hegseth wants extra-Teed up dudes, yes? And she is not an extra-Teed up dude. This is actually gender-affirming.

Bet they’d take a trans dude who’s already on T and give him even more.

We have reached the point where I genuinely cannot tell reality from satire.
“Is this real? Am I eating the onion?”
I don’t even know anymore.

Around two or three years ago, I was on a sales call/app demo as a potential customer–not for TikTok, of course. It’s an American company and I’m based in Canada. I asked the sales guy about their data storage, encryption, privacy, and the like; he didn’t know. I said I needed to know that if our group uses the application to communicate internally about, for example, helping refugees, the government won’t be able to access it. The guy asked me if that really was a concern.

Well, you tell me now, sales guy, is it really a concern?

This is basically how we ended up with the burqa. A woman’s body is evil because it makes men unable to control their sexual urges, therefore women must be banned. Now, in Afghanistan, a woman’s voice must not even be heard.

How long until the USA reaches that point?

As bad as American prisons are, they are not on the scale as being deported (is that even the right word in this case?) to what amounts to a concentration camp in a foreign country without any process.

Dogs taking away jobs from humans? What a disgrace! Surely dogs are DEI hires, if I ever saw one. They’re not even people!

There are very many normal human sounds that are not speech, including, but not limited to: laughter, crying, yelling/screaming/yelping (in surprise, pain, fear), groaning, moaning, yawning, sneezing, coughing, vomiting, singing, whistling.

What constitutes human speech? There are languages that have sounds that don’t exist in other languages (said as someone still trying to get a hold on rolling my Rs).

In any case, we should all learn some sign language. Seriously, it’s useful to be able to communicate silently or just visually (e.g. Across a noisy room), plus it makes life way more inclusive for Deaf people.