I’m obviously no expert, but it is the people who are of value, not the land. I see evacuation as the most straightforward way to avoid loss of life or the enslavement of a free people. Taiwan has been useful, but it’s not like we don’t have military bases near enough in the Philippines and Okinawa. Taking the Taiwanese people permanently out of the reach of CCP dominance would be the biggest blow we could land against China.

I was kinda assuming it was a voluntary thing. Like the people are Taiwan, not the land.

Alabama isn’t THAT bad.

Give the Taiwanese people Alabama and move them there. Then give China an empty island

Then there is the BMW i3 which is fully electric with an optional “range extender” which is basically just a gas generator that charges the battery while you drive.

Until now it has been claimed by manufacturers that the vehicles used only a little or almost no fuel when in the electric mode.

I have a PHEV and the gas engine shuts off completely when in electric mode. I don’t see how it could be using gas when it’s not running. Are they confusing the hybrid mode with electric mode?

BMW driver’s can’t even change a tire in my experience.

I’ve definitely seen a couple places here in Chicago with $11 milkshakes. Jojo’s Shake Bar comes to mind.

They can shift around a little bit, but they don’t really walk as a means of travel.

Dragonflies.

Their nymph phase is aquatic and in their adult phase they only fly. Their legs are only for grasping.

I ran a drill rig for soil sampling for a few years. One day it was 100F outside and we had to drill inside a drycleaners. They had dryers and steam presses going , so it was a humid 130F inside. We used a remote drill rig which required running 100 lb hydraulic lines from the truck outside. These lines got so hot you couldn’t touch them with a bare hand. So imagine trying to move these heavy as hell lines without them touching bare skin and while having to shift your hands around constantly to avoid burns.

That ties for worst with the day we drilled at a gas station in a farm field in the middle of nowhere where it was -20F not counting the wind chill. The thing about soil sampling for contaminants is you have to wash the drill between holes. At those temperatures everything froze instantly and the machinery kept locking up with ice. It took us 8 hours to do what would normally take 2. And then we got a flat tire driving back…

1. Visible tattoos. Have to be off legal age to get a tattoo, right?

2. Talk to them. Even if it’s awkward, it’s practice.

I was thinking Russian Roulette, but I guess your way is fine.

I knew the first reply would be about a US centric comment.

I fully expect to see a similar headline about the US in the next 3 years.

I don’t do it as often as I should, but I like making a big batch of soup or stew and freezing it in portion size containers.

I wrote for 7 or 8 books of a popular role playing game. Won an industry award at GenCon for one of them.

It may not seem cheap at first, but 3D printing. What it costs to set up, you can quickly make up by not having to spend money on things you can just print for yourself. There are loads of little plastic parts that break that cost a fortune to replace. I’ve done new shelf brackets for my fridge and new locking clips for my windows for example. On top of that I’ve printed loads of presents for people. My mom can’t stop talking about the windmill I printed for her deck.

If the essentials of life are all shifted to “welfare capitalism” the power of class and capital to subjugate is greatly diminished. Add in mass union membership and it gets even better.

Not really. It’s entirely possible to pick and choose. We chose a socialist model for fire department because the capitalist model proved disastrous. Many countries successfully did the same for healthcare, retirement, and all sorts of things. At the same time, capitalism is great when you want a million choices on TV to watch or a grocery store with a whole aisle of different types of cookies.

To me, the difference is the impact of failures. If someone starts a company making a new type of cookie and it proves not to be profitable, it goes bankrupt. Unfortunate, but ultimately not a big deal. If someone has cancer and curing them isn’t profitable, you can’t just give up. That person’s life is more important than profit.