I wonder if this has to do with actual growth of the faith, or consolidating in light of shrinking temple attendance, which is different from and more exclusive than church attendance . Western Europe in particular can’t be fertile proselytizing ground these days.

Oh, and my personal experience is a couple of decades out of date by now, but ExMo here. Happy to field questions. I’m no fan of the church, but I try to be somewhat even handed when discussing with folks.

Which is really how you’re supposed to present it in any ladder ranking. The top two being level on points doesn’t mean you weren’t third-best.

Or 35th best, apparently.

One of the things this SCOTUS has been doing, if you’re watching closely enough, is saving the administration from itself. They are absolutely ideologically on board with much of what’s going on, and even the “principled conservatives” think the constitution is some sort of lateral thinking interview puzzle to be decoded by any asshole who thinks he can Kobayashi Maru the thing without actually hacking the code. They’re all on board with throwing out stare decisis, even though traditionally that has only been done when it was just blatantly obvious the court was blinded by the prejudices of its day. They’re happy to find any place where the current Congress has declined to complain, or where there’s some loophole of statute or regulation that lets them expand presidential authority at the expense of the other branches or the executive agencies/departments that have traditionally needed some level of independence. No doubt about it, they’re completely fine with a MAGA world.

They are, however, also trying to be the MAGA babysitters for the terrible MAGA children, and they’re tapping the brakes every so often when something utterly idiotic lands in their laps, or where (assuming an election happens) the GOP would be fucking themselves if they’re ever back in the minority. They’re also trying to let Trump sand down the plating on the guardrails without immediately gouging into the base metal underneath, pitted and flimsy as it is. They know that without the last hints of legitimacy, physical control of the means of state violence is the last thing that prevents full-on revolt. It’s the same as Ted Cruz half-heartedly sticking up for Kimmel, or Thune not completely killing off the cloture votes for virtual filibusters.

I assume this one was even simpler if the administration itself was not yet prepared to actively push for her to have the conviction overturned, and they may never be since dangling a pardon is probably the best way to keep her in line until the theoretical end of Trump’s term. Even if they had pushed, I think this might have been part of the “ten” in the 90-10 split where Trump gets almost whatever awful thing he wants from them.

They will act like there’s a divine plan, but the rules of the corporation state that the longest serving “apostle” will take over. That’s 93-year-old Dallin H. Oaks.

It’s a literal gerontocracy.

I love the story that he was so deep up their butts and so stupidly entitled that he was asking if Turkey Airlines could fly him from New York City to Easter Island.

Even the AI generated animated eagle at the bottom of the page is like, “WTF is this? Why are you even looking at this bullshit? This is all a terrible idea.”

I suppose? But it’s also just dicking around at the edges to make a few more big companies move to the US (when every other policy is making that seem like a terrible idea) and to save financial departments a few bucks. Semi-annual reports will not significantly alter corporate incentives.

I grew up just across the river and my sister and her family are still in the general area. Not surprised at all he thinks this is a winning platform. I hope he’s wrong.

The actual website is, umm, quite the trip, and makes me think every single thing the school district is saying is true.

I would just about bet Meshy AI gave a “non-manifold” model. 3-D models that are intended to be digital assets can have that issue, and I would suspect it’s easier for an AI to produce them versus properly manifold objects ready to be made solid.

There are ways to fix them though, and Meshy even has their own suggestions (Blender and Meshlab).

Gee, I wonder which political party they belong to…

More than a dozen mayors from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, and hundreds of municipal officials have been arrested in recent months for alleged corruption…

Yup, there we go.

This is how you sell absolutely massive and unaccountable government spending to “small gummint” types. You couch it in terms of a righteous struggle against an external threat that ended with American dominance, and if you can hint at a bunch of non-white people getting disintegrated as a side effect, then so much the better.

I’ve used adhesive steel wheel-balancing weights on a couple of my modded keyboards. They’re cheap, low-profile, and have to be lead-free. If you have room on your bottom plate, just slap a bunch on there. You can put down masking tape first if you want to avoid damaging the plate if you decide to remove them.

It’s always sad to lose a friend, but even with a new administration, nobody can really trust USA anymore, USA is currently descending deeper into a authoritarian regime, and resistance is effectively being systematically removed. As it is, there seems to be little hope that USA will ever become a functional democracy.

I hope that a better US administration will come after this one and that it will improve the things that can be improved easily (tariffs, visas, rhetoric, and other transactional policies), but at this point Trump has poisoned the well and it will take a generation of good (or at least understandable and workable) behavior by both US parties to rebuild a fraction of the trust and soft power the orange idiot has squandered in barely half a year.

It amuses me to no end that the chucklefuck in no way realizes the inherent irony of keeping a gaudy bauble from a competition that is a race-to-the-bottom money grab and no one participating in it really wants to be there and is only doing it for money and threats of punishment.

Very cool, though JFC there’s no way MY printer will be fine tuned enough to generate the channels. The whole process reminds me of the rednecks who pour molten aluminum down fire ant hills, in a good way. The sealing with glorified Elmer’s glue is also clever.

Now all that said, you wouldn’t want to make anything that’s going to have much contact with water, so a lot of typical applications are risky: “My PCB is leaking!” I do wonder if you could do the same thing, but less immediately recyclable, with PLA and a 3D pen.

Carbon Fiber just wasn’t cutting it

Yup. Guy came up in aerospace, and while carbon fiber air frames have to deal with all sorts of freaky, weird stresses, simple compression is not one of them. The difference between sea level and basically outer space is exactly one atmosphere. The difference between sea level and the Titanic is… well… somewhat more.

Yeah, to be clear, while I wish we lived in a country where resigning out of principal would have a good end result, I think it’s better this guy stays and does what he can, which looks like it will be slow-playing and finding every loophole he can until he gets sued.

I’m not even supposed to be here today!

“I signed the damn thing…,” Demings said. “I can’t let our entire board of county commissioners and myself be removed from office.” The Mayor described much anxiety filled the county administration building this week after the Attorney General’s threat…

Demings says that based on the county’s reading of the addendum, ICE can request that county corrections officers transport detainees. However, the Orange County Jail can deny a transport based on its operational ability. “If we have the capacity to transport, I highly doubt that there will be such a time in the near future,” Demings said…

County Attorney Jeff Newton says by the mayor signing the agreement with ICE, it puts the conflict in the proper forum—court—if there ever were to be litigation. The mayor made clear that his opinion on the ICE agreement has not changed since Wednesday. He still is against the federal government having the ability to take county corrections officers out of their jurisdiction to transport detainees. “What I’ve changed is the process by which we will continue to fight,” Demings said.

Maybe a better person would become a martyr and throw away their official levers of power, but for public comments by a politician in a MAGA-led state, these are probably about as good as you’re likely to get.