I believe that’s not the law though. The law outlines the conditions under which a person has an “expectation of privacy.” If you’re inside your house, you have an expectation of privacy and so should not be filmed. If you’re on the sidewalk in public, you have no expectation of privacy. If you’re in a private establishment (restaurant or store for instance), the owner or their representatives can ask you not to record and you have to comply.

All of street photography depends on this kind of legal framework.

Theoretical biologist here. I consider viruses to define the lower edge of what I’d consider “alive.” I similarly consider prions to be “not alive,” but to define a position towards the upper limit of complex, self-reproducing chemistry. There’s some research going on here to better understand how replication reactions (maybe encased in a lipid bubble to keep the reaction free from the environment) may lead to increasing complexity and proto-cells. That’s not what prions are, but the idea is that a property like replication is necessary but not sufficient and to build from what we know regarding the environment and possible chemicals.

I consider a virus to be alive because they rise to the level of complexity and adaptive dynamics I feel should be associated with living systems. I’ll paint with a broad brush here, but they have genes, a division between genotype and phenotype, the populations evolve as part of an ecosystem with all of the associated dynamics of adaptation and speciation, and they have relatively complex structures consisting of multiple distinct elements. “Alive,” to me, shouldn’t be approached as a binary concept - I’m not sure what it conceptually adds to the discussion. Instead, I think it should be approached as a gradient of properties any one of which may be more or less present. I feel the same about intelligence, theory of mind, and animal communication.

The thing to remember when thinking about questions like this is that when science (or history or literature…) is taught as a beginner’s subject (primary and secondary school), it’s often approached in a highly simplified manner - simplified to the point of inaccuracy sometimes. Many instructors will take the approach of having students memorize lists for regurgitation on exams - the seven properties of life, a gene is a length of dna that encodes for a protein, the definition of a species, and so on. I don’t really like that approach, and to be honest I was never any good at it myself.

You unambitious fools. I’m going to en passant onto the board of the people playing next to me!

That’s how you expand your territory.

This is recreating the Civ weapon progression. Start with swords, then rifles, then cannons, then ICBMs.

“I’m going to ban electric vehicle sales and also appoint Elon Musk as a White House advisor.”

-TFG

Bye, Felicia.

Nothing that you’re saying about INR is remotely true. They’re academics and specialists who produce long form research and in depth studies. They’re not “in charge” of anyone.

Up until the post-9/11 shuffle, the US intelligence community (IC) was led by the director of the CIA, and the IC comprised CIA, DIA, NSA, NRO, INR, defense branch agencies, and others. CIA and DoD were the ones with operational branches alongside analysts, the rest were pretty much analysis-oriented or technical (eg cryptography). Although there is some overlap, the individual agencies largely have complementary missions.

Foreign actors were already at work in the Palestinian elections. Netanyahu spoke about how his administration was supporting Hamas as the best way possible to avoid having to establish a two state solution with a stable Palestinian government in Gaza and the West Bank.

Instead of arguing why you seemingly want to lay all of this at the feet of INR, due to some hatred towards Hillary Clinton you’re trying to get out of defending your assertion by criticizing IS foreign policy as a whole. That’s not arguing in good faith, and you’d be better off just acknowledging that you didn’t read the article and have no idea what you’re talking about.

And then?

We’re gonna need a bigger board.

Are the Indian soldiers a UN unit or is that their regular uniform?

Is that supposed to be a gotcha? I’m asking because you entirely dodged the fact that he’s grifting the republicans, which calls your point into question.

It would be stupid if the Dems didn’t also fund third party candidates. That doesn’t change the fact that Kennedy and Stein are grifting Republican money to try to run as spoilers. You’re so all in on the line about democrats being evil I really have to question whether you’re arguing in good faith.

Why don’t they have cameras on every door that sends an alert and a video of who is going in and out? This seems like a solved problem. They can even do facial recognition on some of them.

He’s gotten tens of millions of dollars from large money RNC donors, my peaceful friend.

No, like Jill Stein he’s just grifting. He’s gotten tens of millions of dollars donated.

Ironically, New Hope PA is a small town well known for its LGBT scene. It’s a great day trip.

Come on Brian, cheer up!

I mean, what have you got to lose? You know, you come from nothing You’re going back to nothing What have you lost? Nothing!

Always look on the bright side of life!

It’s not only not a valid question, it might not even be a legal question.

I’m a hiring manager for a very large tech company in California. I cannot ask any questions about age, ethnicity, country of origin, citizenship status, veteran status, marital status, health, and so on.

HR can ask if they’re eligible to work in the US, and I can ask whether they have the skills and talents I need for the position, but it’s tightly limited.

It still crops up all the time. There are decades worth of studies showing how having a non-white looking name or having age indicators present in work history or graduation dates influence reviewers to reject applications they’d otherwise accept.

Republican House Candidate Posted IRA Cosplay Video The “gunfluencer” turned Texas Republican congressional candidate Brandon Herrera posted to YouTube a video in which he wears a balaclava, fires an Armalite rifle, uses Irish stereotypes while joking about the IRA, and says he “fucking hate[s] the British.”

“I’m not doing it because I like or support the IRA,” says Herrera, now 28 and a candidate for the Republican nomination in Texas’ 23rd U.S. House district, in the video posted on March 17, 2023—St Patrick’s Day—and titled “The AR-180: The IRA’s Lucky Charm.”

“They were pretty heavily socialist. Of course they really hurt a lot of innocent people sometimes. I’m not doing this video because I like the IRA or I support them. I’m doing this video because I fucking hate the British.

“Guys, I’m kidding, I’m kidding. Mostly.”

On Tuesday, Herrera will face incumbent Tony Gonzales in a primary runoff.

Gonzalez, a U.S. Navy veteran, has represented the district, an agricultural swath of south-west Texas and parts of San Antonio, since 2021.

Texas 23 includes Uvalde, where 19 children and two teachers were shot dead in May 2022 at an elementary school.

Gonzales’ vote for gun control reform in the aftermath of the massacre has helped make him a target for far-right attacks. Matt Gaetz of Florida and Andy Biggs of Arizona are among far-right members of Congress now supporting Herrera. The actor Matthew McConaughey is among figures supporting Gonzales.

Speaking to The Daily Beast, Aidan McQuade, from Northern Ireland and a former director of Anti-Slavery International, the world’s oldest human rights group, condemned Herrera for displaying “jaw-dropping stupidity” in his IRA-themed video.

“It is quite an achievement to make a video of which the anti-Irish stereotyping is the least offensive part,” McQuade said.

Other remarks by Herrera in the video include a promise to get “belligerently drunk” to celebrate St Patrick’s Day and, “The IRA [were] very famously unhappy for a certain group of folks going after their Lucky Charms,” a reference to famous ads for a U.S. breakfast cereal featuring a leprechaun character.

Over footage of a gun jamming, meanwhile, Herrera says: “This is why Ireland isn’t free.”

McQuade said: “From a historical perspective it is jaw-droppingly stupid to suggest that the course of the Troubles could have been changed with a more dependable Armalite.

“From a human perspective, Herrera’s attitude to violence seems that of an adolescent video-gamer blissfully ignorant of the trauma that war inflicts on a society, and the unending grief of victims’ devastated families.”

The Armalite assault rifle was an American gun that became synonymous with the Provisional Irish Republican Army or IRA, the dominant republican terror group during the Troubles, the period of violent unrest in Northern Ireland and mainland Britain from 1968 to 1998.

The accepted death toll from the Troubles, established in the book Lost Lives by authors David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton and David McVea, is 3,720. The Provisional IRA killed more than 1,700 people–hundreds of them civilians. According to Ulster University, a college in Northern Ireland, more than 47,000 people were injured in shootings, bombings and other acts of violence.

McQuade grew up in South Armagh, on the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, during the Troubles, seeing violence close up. A former winner of the BBC’s Mastermind quiz show, answering questions about the Irish independence leader Michael Collins and the U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, McQuade is now an independent human rights consultant and the author of historical novels including Some Service to the State, set in 1925, an earlier period of Irish civil strife.

McQuade added: “Coming from a comedian, as Herrera attempts to be, such attitudes would be tiresome. But coming from someone who hopes to be an elected representative such callous and facile thinking is inexcusable.”

Also known as the AK Guy, Herrera has more than 3.4 million followers on YouTube. His videos have courted trouble before. Earlier this year, in response to a video in which Herrera fires a German World War II submachine gun (which he calls “the original ghetto blaster”) and goose-steps while an associate wears a German uniform, Gonzales branded his opponent a “known neo-Nazi.”

Herrera denied the charge, saying: “This is the death spiral ladies and gentlemen. He has to cry to his liberal friends about me, because Republicans won’t listen anymore.”

Herrera has also attracted criticism after joking about suicides among military veterans and previous links to neo-Confederate groups.

His IRA-themed video runs more than 19 minutes. It includes discussion and demonstrations of different versions of the Armalite rifle and is scored by a version of “Come Out Ye Black and Tans,” a rebel song attributed to the Irish writer Dominic Behan.

Herrera says: “Today’s topic for our range video is the AR-180, aka my little Armalite.”

“Little Armalite,” sometimes known as “My Little Armalite,” is another Irish rebel song.

Herrera’s campaign manager Kimmie Gonzalez responded to an email from The Daily Beast but did not offer comment on the video or McQuade’s response.

A representative for Gonzales did not respond to a request for comment.

Chris Harris, vice-president of communications for Giffords, a gun control group founded by Gabby Giffords, a former Democratic congresswoman who was shot and seriously wounded while in office, said: “Brandon Herrera is reckless and dangerous. He gleefully promotes violence and extremism.”

If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.

~Jack Handy

Are they barred from veteran’s day and St. Patrick’s Day parades as well, or does the NPS participate in those? How about 4th of July?

Has this always been the case? If not, who was on the board that made the decision and what is their political affiliation?

In a world where half the electorate thinks a judge must be prejudiced and has no problem with their autocratic leader saying that ethnicity decides whether someone is “fair,” I think these are legitimate followup questions.

We needed a de-trumpification of the government. Anyone appointed by Trump or hired by an appointee should have been dismissed. This is basically what Trump is planning on doing.