I had understood it to be even worse:

The sacrifices at the temple were expected to be pretty much perfect, and had to be found acceptable by the temple priests. So the merchants would get “pre-blessed” sacrifices that they would sell at exorbitant prices to the pilgrims, who would have the sacrifices they brought deemed “inadequate” by the priests.

So if you brought an animal sacrifice, you’d still have to buy another (costly) animal. If you brought money, you’d be forced to exchange it at a significant loss.

The whole thing was an obvious scam, and Jesus was killed over it (and the rest of his message). I don’t believe he was God Incarnate, but I’m still a big fan of Jesus the man.

I’m pretty confident that all would have gone about the same way in this era.

Damon? Do you mean Dicaprio?

This reminds me of an anecdote talking about language differences between the US armed services:

If you told a Marine to secure a building, they would kick the door in and take control of the building.

If you told a soldier in the Army to secure a building, they would set up a fence around it and establish a sentry.

If you told a Navy sailor to secure a building, they’d turn off all the lights and close and lock the door on their way out.

If you told an Airforce airman to secure a building, they would write up a purchasing contract.

When you are talking large income to larger income, that makes total sense, but are there limits for access to things like child tax credits where if you go over you are no longer eligible, causing significant increase (I just looked, and it’s at $200k single of $400k jointly, so unless you have A LOT of children, I suppose there wouldn’t be a huge effect)? Similar to people on government assistance who go from getting full assistance to getting nothing at a certain income level?

Man, I do enjoy taking the wind out of the sails of presumptuous people knee-jerking a response without knowing any specifics.

I spent most of my career flying in relatively dangerous conditions in helicopters (or on small boats, before I went into aviation) in order to save people from drowning in the ocean or freezing in the woods. I’ve had two coworkers who’ve crashed (in separate incidences), one of which was at the door sending a dewatering pump to a sinking boat. I specifically joined the service I did because, as I told the recruiter, I can choose to join, but I can’t choose where I’m sent after, and I’m still responsible for my actions because I chose to join in the first place. There’s nothing morally ambiguous about saving somebody whose boat is sinking.

Now, don’t get me wrong, having more and more of our people being sent to “defend the border” definitely falls in the realm of “not what I signed up for,” but I haven’t personally been forced into that, and am extremely unlikely to.

So I may have dealt with some brown kids whose lives were threatened, but certainly haven’t found any that were a threat themselves (except to themselves… boaters tend to be their own worst enemies).

I remember that time well. Mine are 5 and 10, so I’m moving out of the more intensive child-rearing time. When I retire, they should both be at or near the “too busy for Dad” time, so other than giving rides, my days should be free and clear. I’m really looking forward to it.

Good luck with the little ones!

I retire (military) in 4 years, and my countdown feels like this, but more specific. I just had to re-enlist, and I was asking if I had to do full years, or if I could do 4.3 to line up with the anniversary of my enlistment (to retire THE DAY I am technically able to).

Not that I don’t enjoy my job, because I do, but I’m excited to be able to do whatever I want with my time and let my wife be the primary support for us for awhile.

If you set one end up in an air-tight room with an airlock, it would be just like a door from a mars station.

For safety’s sake, it might be better to put that on a space station, though. Better to wreck Mars than equalize Earth and Mars.

So it’ll be just like the bag full of Maximum Heal potions when the credits roll, except I imagine you could pass it on to someone with a message not to wait for the perfect moment.

I think he’s saying seeing a therapist that doesn’t specialize in gender dysphoria (kind of the “to a hammer, everything is a nail” thought). So going in and talking about all their mental health issues, and seeing if gender dysphoria comes out with it.

I don’t think it’s a terrible read, if it seems like gender dysphoria is coming out of nowhere. Very different if OP was showing signs of it most of their life, and their dad had just refused to acknowledge it. Tough to tell just from what’s written, but I think the dad is remarkably reasonable.

Even more, it’s the justifying it with the “I’m just trying to help them” and “tough love” bullshit. That’s not a mood problem, or anything like that. That is being abusive (not that they are mutually exclusive).

Do you wish to see them, PetaQ?!

It goes from 0 to Seig-sty in 7.6 seconds.

Original Mortal Kombat blood code:

ABACABB

Not exactly (from my reading). The Jewish communities tended to be fairly insular, and focused a lot of their business inward. They still dealt with outsiders, but money flow tended to move mostly in one direction, so it seemed like the Jewish people were much better off and “taking” from the rest, when the rest of the country struggled. It was really more that a marginalized community took care of their own. Shocking, right?

Plenty of other communities do the same. It’s still a bunch of scapegoating.

Then at 40:

“Oof… my hip is killing me…”

“What’d you do?”

“Got out of bed? My fault for laying down in the first place I guess.”

But I like burgers.

Oh, yeah, that’s a fair addendum: “unless you live in a state that does not allow the reduced minimum wage for tipped employees.” At that point I would agree that tipping is more or less optional.

I feel like “mental gymnastics” has become grossly overused, and I don’t think it applies, but regardless you are involved in the shitty food joint’s (read: all that have wait staffs that operate on tips) business model, by being their customer. By going to a business that you know pays their wait staff less that minimum wage, you are agreeing to their shitty business model. So then, not paying a tip is essentially taking a discount on your order at your wait staff’s loss. The business owner isn’t hurt by that, they still get the full rate for the food. And as long as SOME customers pay tips, they don’t have to pay any more (hence the taking from other tables comment).

It is a shitty system, but you agree to participate in it if you go to those restaurants. Which, for sit-down restaurants in the US, is most. If you go to one of those restaurants and don’t tip, you aren’t making some protest against tipping culture, and you aren’t hurting the business owner. You are only saying that the wait staff should be paid at $2.13 per hour to serve you.

Lobby against the labor laws that allow less-than-minimum for tipped employees, or don’t go to restaurants that rely on that model. Anything else, you’re just taking a discount from the wait staffs’ paychecks by not tipping.

And I absolutely can not believe that such anti-worker, pro-business owner bullshit is happening here. I cannot stress enough, you not tipping does nothing to the business owner. Billionaires jack up prices, stifle wage increases, and we’re out here complaining about having to tip a person who otherwise would get $2.13 an hour, because somehow that’s legal.

That being said, starting at 30% is ri-goddamn-diculous.

Also, since I didn’t get to your later point, I’m not sure of its relevance to what I was saying. You have no control (and usually no knowledge) of how tips are distributed. So not sure what you are expecting from me here.

Not for each transaction. So not tipping is like reaching over to another table and taking some of their tip for your table. They are still paid less than minimum wage for the service they provided you, but someone else’s tips will still keep them out of minimum wage for the shift.

So yes, at they’re worst they should get at least minimum wage for each shift. But per customer, their rate is below minimum wage without tipping, which is an awful system we need to get rid of.