The first person convicted of killing a transgender person under a hate crime law, mind.

There have been plenty of examples of people prosecuted, convicted, and imprisoned under ordinary murder laws for the same actions. It's not like it was legal to commit murder before this if your victim was transgender.

The removal of cars has nothing to do with the ultra-low emissions zone, but is a normal part of collecting debt in the UK. In the UK, once a judgement has been issued by the County Court or High Court, a writ will be issued and the claimant can hire County Court bailiffs or High Court Enforcement Agents to enforce the writ. They will go to the defendant's address and either collect the payment, arrange a payment plan acceptable to the claimant, or seize goods and sell them at auction to offset the amount owed.

If you so much as owe £500 in rent arrears or fail to pay back a £1,000 loan, you could have bailiffs knocking at your door shouting through your letterbox or clamping your car in just a few months time.

Transport for London has no extraordinary authority to seize cars—they go through the legal system and hire bailiffs to collect money owed like any other claimant.

There's even been a film series about it. It's called Can't Pay, We'll Take it Away. A documentary crew follows a pair of High Court Enforcement Agents as they travel around the country collecting debts. It's available on YouTube.

"Woke" originally meant "aware of and well-informed about systemic social issues affecting everyday people". Conservatives have co-opted this word and use it to describe anything associated with leftism or social liberalism. It is intended to be negative in that context.

"DEI" stands for "diversity, equity, and inclusion". It refers to policies that intentionally include people of diverse or minority backgrounds in the context of employment or political appointment. Conservatives use it to describe (in their view) hiring practices that select less-qualified candidates of these backgrounds against the favour of those who may be more qualified. In that usage, a "DEI hire" or "diversity hire" is a person hired or appointed solely on the basis of their race, gender, or some other status as a minority even though they are not qualified for the role.

The only realistic way I see the situation being better here is if the United States imposes it. Nobody else has the power to do so and keep the peace. The United Nations is losing its credibility every passing day but maybe there is still enough time where Palestine being placed under UN trusteeship with the USA, Israel, and one Arab nation as joint trustees would be acceptable to the key stakeholders here. Eventually, once the situation stabilises, the goal would be to grant the Palestinian state independence from the Trusteeship Council.

The socialists of Lemmy will decry this solution. They'll call it colonialism and an example of Israeli and American imperialism. And it is. But it's better than whatever shit-show is happening now. Israelis today will not accept a sovereign Palestinian state and will devote all their resources to destroy it. Organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah will not accept an Israeli state and will similarly continue to expend their resources to destroy. These are resources that could otherwise be used to rebuild Gaza and the West Bank and to make reparations for those whose lives were destroyed in this decades-long conflict.

Israelis see the situation in reverse—if they don't beat the Palestinians to a pulp every single time without mercy, organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah will overrun Israel and do the same thing to them. It's kind of like the reason why Japanese troops in World War II wouldn't surrender to the Americans; they thought the Americans would treat Japanese POWs like how the Japanese treated American POWs.

Terrorist groups are more likely to form in bad social, political, and economic circumstances. Astute observation.

FiveThirtyEight gives Harris a 16% chance to win Texas. That's over 1 in 7. So it's definitely doable.

If that's what's needed, I can say with some certainty that adoption isn't going to be picking up any time this decade.

I still have no idea how to use passkeys. It doesn't seem obvious to the average user.

I tried adding a passkey to an account, and all it does is cause a Firefox notification that says "touch your security key to continue with [website URL]". It is not clear what to do next.

It's not a national election, but in Hong Kong, a 1,500-member Beijing-controlled electoral college elects the Chief Executive of Hong Kong and controls nearly half of the legislature.

It's true that many large established liberal democracies right now have only a maximum of two major parties with any realistic chance of holding power.

In Germany, that's the Social Democratic Party and the CDU/CSU. In Spain, it's the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party and People's Party. In Taiwan, it's the Kuomintang and the Democratic Progressive Party. In New Zealand, it's the National Party and the Labour Party. In Singapore, it's the People's Action Party and the Workers' Party.

I think I can even argue that liberal electoral democracy in general trends towards two major political parties or permanent coalitions—a centre-left liberal coalition and a centre-right conservative coalition.

Or the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact

It's a lot more complex than an ordinary vending machine though. That increases costs. A curry machine is nothing more than a normal vending machine with a heater. A ramen machine is nothing more than a normal vending machine with a tap for hot water. Adjusted for inflation, the pizza machine would cost $8 for a small pizza. You can buy one from Little Caesar's for the same price and it's bigger and probably tastes better as well, since, as cheap at it is, the crust is at least fresh.

The Holy Roman Empire was not a contemporary of Julius Caesar nor was it united. If your subdivisions are fighting wars with each other then I don't consider that a proper "country".

Not really. The existence of a unified German nation-state is less than two centuries old. Sure, there was a place called "Germania" by the Romans but it was just a name for a place and the categorisation of all Germanic tribes as essentially one barbaric people was just racism on the part of the Romans.

Just like even though the word "America" is twice as old as the United States, and just because that label was adopted by that country doesn't mean the country is as old as the label.

Think about it realistically. Considering just food machines, what foods popular with Americans can realistically be sold out of a vending machine?

Popcorn is a clear winner. It can be made in advance, stored for a while, and then easily dispensed. Its profit margin is high. You can charge two dollars for a bag of popcorn that only cost you twenty cents in ingredients.

Packaged food like potato crisps is also a good idea for the same reason. You don't even need to keep the vending machine heated. Similarly, cold drinks and ice cream can also be easily dispensed out of a cooled vending machine, although I don't consider those different from "packaged food".

But what other American classics are there to consider? Hamburgers are out immediately. They're too complex to prepare fresh and most people wouldn't buy a reheated frozen burger.

Hot dogs might be viable, but a machine that sells hot dogs can only see hot dogs due to the mechanical complexity. I think many people would also question the freshness of a vending machine hot dog unless you cooked it right in front of them and let them see it via a glass window. Additionally, a hot dog has a much lower profit margin. If you charge four dollars for a hot dog, it might cost nearly a dollar in ingredients along with the mechanical complexity of the machine. Most people would expect the machine to also dispense condiments like ketchup, mustard, and relish.

Pizza is also complex and would take several minutes to bake from fresh or reheat from frozen. I don't think people would stand around for several minutes waiting for a machine to heat up pizza. Unless you can get the cooking time under sixty seconds, forget it. Pizza also traditionally baked at 700 degrees Fahrenheit, or 370 degrees Celsius. It's not an easy to safely install a component that gets that hot in a machine. Pizza that is pre-cooked and kept warm tends to not taste very good.

Fried chicken tenders will lose their crispness over time, even when kept warm. There is no temperature you can keep fried chicken at where it will remain crisp for hours but also not overcook. Hot oil in a machine is a recipe for disaster. French fries are a possible inclusion (the machine in the post sells French fries), but Americans don't really eat French fries on their own; they are usually served as a side dish along with something else.

Ideally, a machine should be loaded with frozen or pre-cooked food, which it merely keeps warm and dispenses to a buyer when purchased.

Think about Japanese food. Curry, in particular, can be served just barely hot and still delicious. Rice balls can be served refrigerated, as can cold Lawson sandwiches. Instant ramen is also popular, but that's just packaged food that requires a hot water spigot. I argue that Japanese food in general is just more suitable to be served out of a vending machine.

What's Germany? What's America? What's Coca-Cola? What's an embargo? What's Naziism?

He is "accused" of piling debris behind his podium but there's literally video evidence of exactly that happening.

Genocide denial is okay when it's done by a country claiming to be communist

Who is Bibi?

I mean... the fact that the Government cannot really control cryptocurrency is viewed as a downside by quite a large portion of the population.