They don’t need to do 90% of the shit that they do, but “it’s their culture” and everything.

I just mean that the aphorism about drugs dealers is colorful and amusing. I understand it’s making a real point but it’s also funny.

I havent heard that one. That’s rich.

Have microplastics been declared non-kosher?

I mean I see the point that people used to live without these things but I’m not sure how much it matters. Any of us could be exhorted to give something up and it would be a poor consolation to say “people lived without xyz for centuries!”

Medieval times are hardly some kind of healthy baseline everyone should be prepared to return to. Much though we may all be just about to.

I’d really like to fix the whole mess. Our economy relies on these folks but they are kept a second class, subject to exploitation and prosecution at any time. All so agricultural and construction labor can be got for less than minimum wage. It’s disgusting and broken. And anytime the racists get riled up, they have a legal basis to browbeat everyone with. It’s ridiculous.

I have to wonder how many would ever use it to file for a tax refund though. Wouldn’t that out them to the government?

Yeah you can’t really talk though.

It’s not really a question of antisemitism - this is a kerfuffle between Jewish groups.

The ultra orthodox in Israel are on a whole new level of Judaism with prescribed clothing, hairstyles, foods, language, sabbath rules, and marriage practices. Many in-groups around the world insulate themselves by creating all these little divides with the out-group. “Oh no, you can’t eat with them - their food is contaminated and dirty. Of course you can’t marry one of them!”

So there’s quite a cultural divide between them and every other Jewish person there, many of whom are devout but live a modern lifestyle, and many of whom are just cultural members of Judaism, citizens of Israel, and not religious at all.

The reason disposable cookware is a division point has to do, I expect, with keeping kosher / observing the sabbath. Kosher isn’t just for food - a plate or spoon can be kosher to use or not, depending on whether it has ever touched anything “unclean.” Single-use plastics new from the box have never touched anything. And washing dishes counts as doing work (a sabbath tabboo) but dropping a plastic plate in the trash might not count. Hence: anything that affects single-use plastics may have an acute impact on the orthodox because they believe they need these things to adhere to their religious and cultural prohibitions.

I’m not justifying, just explaining. I think this shit is cuckoo.

The ultra-Orthodox community … use disproportionate amounts of disposable kitchenware

Is this because it’s kosher? I remember once a family member was going to host an ultra-orthodox person and had to figure how to cook for them. Everything got cooked in tin foil because that’s fresh and new and won’t be contaminated. I wonder if the disposable kitchenware is the same thing.

Only 3? Found the optimist!

There are so many countries even further down this path of collapse whose leaders hold on for long long periods. I mean if Russia follows the Syria recipe, then Putin’s children will rule for decades after he dies.

I’m not saying it does, but as an adult you are responsible for your choices. None of what you’re saying would ever stand up in court.

Just as a point of perspective, I’m 51 and my wife is 46. We are entirely independent and on great terms with all our parents. I still don’t relish the idea of staying overnight at her parents house with them.

Pretty condescending though and makes a lot of age based assumptions.

They go on their gut, not on data. And that too is a choice they make as adults which I think we can hold them responsible for.

I love reserved seating. And they seem to have given up on selling lots of tickets. The chairs in my theater are huge and widely spaced.

It’s interesting - the psychology of that. Recently I was answering someone who asked why the US doesn’t have more of a working class movement, and a big part of my answer was that no one in the US thinks of themselves as part of the working class. Even if they are unarguably at the base of the economy, their plan is to get out of the working class, not make it better. Similarly, I can see Americans having a problem accepting themselves as a permanent minority. In other parts of the world this is just a fact of life. Christians in Syria know they will never be a majority. When rebels ousted Assad, one of the first things they said was that they will treat minorities well. Those minorities know who they are. Similarly, Kurds are 15% of Iraq and that is just a fact based on hundreds of years of ethnic history in the region. But in the US, everyone is on their way to something better (at least so we think). Parts of Europe had very formal class systems for long periods of history so there are people who just think of themselves as working class and they stand for workers’ rights. Not so in the US. No one here is working class or a monitory. We’re too full of all the rhetoric about being created equal.

I’m saying they are adults and they have some responsibilities. I have lived in a place where thought options were actively suppressed, and I know how much freedom and information access Americans have. It’s true there is abuse and manipulation and lying out there. But no, I am not comfortable calling MAGAts victims and blaming someone else for how they vote. They are indeed getting fooled, but let’s be real: it’s a “fool me twice” situation in Trump’s second term.

I’m confused… China is dependent on oil imports flowing through the strait of Hormuz. Much more so than the US is. In fact the US maintains a naval presence in the region specifically so they’d have the capability to block that strait and starve China of oil. China produces very little oil of their own, though they have coal up the wazoo. Blocking that strait is the US’s main card to play if China invade Taiwan.