No idea. Some places have one or the other, some have both. Rules for local government vary widely by region.

In a city the chief of police reports to and is accountable the mayor. The major essentially hires and fires the police chief. There is no single analogous county leader for the sheriff to report to.

The real question is, why the fuck are coroners elected?

Before you get too concerned, coroners are politicians. Medical Examiners are the ones that do autopsies on folks that die.

(Or sheriffs, for that matter.)

Who would you want appointing the county Sheriff, if not the voters?

I’m disappointed, but if this is what it takes to get people thinking for themselves again, I guess I have to support it.

You’re just concern trolling over not having the findings of that investigation already available.

Having the requirement to know something actually occurred is trolling? That’s a bizarre take.

Yes, you read that right! Apple Inc. matches 100% to organizations in Israel that fund and arm illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land.

sigh, with zero evidence they ever have.

What the fuck are you doing besides running defence for apple here?

I’m looking at consistency from your outrage. I’m not seeing it. I don’t know if thats because you have an axe to grind specifically with Apple, or if you’re letting other people decide for you where outrage should be limited to instead of following the logic to others of the same sin you’re accusing Apple of. If your argument fails logically on something I have looked into, which it has on the Benevity angle, then it tells me if I should ignore the rest of your messages for equally sloppy or inadequate personal investigation.

I already boycott any company supporting israel and do my part for my local BDS movements.

And have you checked to see if the other Benevity-using-companies are on your BDS lists? What is the result? If they’re on there what does that tell you? If they’re missing what instead does that tell you? I’m looking for you to demonstrate critical thinking to know if I should lend credence to your complains or ignore you because you don’t research your claims.

You sure as hell ignored all the other connections Apple has with Israel.

I’m not ignoring those. I’m simply not disputing them. I haven’t personally looked into any of them, but those look like much stronger claims with actual possibly evidence than the Benevity angle which you’re leaning on hard here for Apple.

Except Thing 1 and Thing 2 are the same thing. Hundreds of companies are using Benevity and probably also have the same pathway for Israeli/IDF charities donations, yet you’re singling out Apple.

So your “Does not care about Thing 2” is “you don’t care about other companies possibly donating to Israeli/IDF charities through Benevity”?

You’re the only one who’s only focused on apple here

If your outrage on the non-existant donations is rational, where are your posts for the hundreds of other companies that are using Benevity?

The matching program is setup in such a way that we CAN’T verify how much apple has donated through the matching program.

Right, but there’s zero evidence the donation amount is more than $0.

I’ve explained how a corporate donation platform works in my first post. You’re misconstruing it at something else like a sinister plan cloaked in shadows. Not everything is a conspiracy. Instead its a boring corporate-outsourcing-bureaucracy. Apple (and other companies that use these donation platforms) want to offer the benefit to their employees for HR reasons as well as tax cuts for charitable donations. They contract with a benefits donation company, in this Benevity. The list of charities isn’t hand-picked to be Israeli/IDF charities, its likely all IRS registered charities.

On this topic, the issue is with Apple allowing donor matching to Apartheid, Genocide, and Settler Colonialism in the first place.

I agree Apple should exclude these charities even as an option for donation, but you’re painting this like Apple is donation money directly to the IDF. There is just zero evidence that is occurring even if it would support your argument better if they were.

I think I realized why I’m so disappointed in your line of thought on this. Its the lack of consistency in your accusation on the use of this donation platform. Why is it you’re only calling out Apple for “allowing donor matching to Apartheid, Genocide, and Settler Colonialism”? Why are you not calling out the literally hundreds of other companies that allow the exact same donation possibility?

There’s also the issue of Apple having factories in Israel. Either way you cut it, Apple materially supports Israel, and by extension the Apartheid, Genocide, and all other aspects of ethnic cleansing intrinsic to the Zionist project.

Cool, then go with those where there’s actual evidence of support of Israel. If you’ve got good examples with good evidence, why make up implications with the employee donation thing?

That article looks like a repeat of the other article. I didn’t see anything new in it that we haven’t see in the first one. Neither article shows any evidence that Apple employees or Apple themselves have contributed any funds to those Israeli/IDF charities.

Its unlikely Apple chose any of the charities listed. The charities listed are from the Benevity platform (which potentially lists every single 501(c)(3) charity registered with the IRS).

There’s far more going on than just the contributions, when it comes to Apple’s material support to Israel

That’s certainly possible, but the Apple/Apple Employee donations to Israeli/IDF charities claim looks like misinformation.

I agree that Apple should remove these as an option to contribute to.

I appreciate your new link. I answered a number of questions I’d formed myself. It also pointed out that there is no public evidence that Apple or its employees donated to those Israeli/IDF charities. I concede this doesn’t mean donations haven’t happened, but that we have no evidence donations happened and nothing to suggest that they did.

Is this a link you found when exploring our conversation here or did you have this second link when you made your first post claiming “They also fund the IDF and are involved with illegal settlements.”? I’m not making an accusation against you. I know I frequently learn new things that contradict my held position when others share information and it causes me to examine a topic further in search of truth and accuracy. I didn’t know if this was a case similar to my experience.

I’m not OP, but I can understand subtext so I’ll translate for you:

I’m not a religious person in fact I hate religion in general…

[…however, I understand that it is very common for established religions to have a character that represents pure evil…]

…but more and more I’m just starting to think this guy is evil incarnate…

[…lending validity to the idea that religious folk actually are right about something, specifically a person being “evil incarnate” existing among us…]

and it’s spreading across the world…

[…which is also a common trope in established religion that evil spreads and must be pushed back against]

They also fund the IDF and are involved with illegal settlements.

Are we sure about that?

I’ve used one of these corporate donation matching programs before (obviously I’m not donating to Israeli or IDF charities). Its essentially a large donation platform and web interface that allows corporations to offer the charity donation/matching systems to its employees. The donation platform Apple apparently uses is called “Benevity”.

To be clear, I don’t believe the corporate employer chooses the charities listed, it simply allows donations to all the charities the platform has registered. When I was searching for charities I donate to, I found many small obscure charities which surprised me. This suggests to me it doesn’t take much to get registered if any action at all. Does Benevity simply get a list of every 501©(3) organization registered with the IRS?

From your article:

“Apple will be expected to take swift action to investigate and potentially cease matching donations to organisations linked to the Israeli military and illegal settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

My question would be: Do we know for sure that any Apple employees even donated to these Israeli/IDF charities (and therefore received matched donations from Apple)? Just because the charities are listed on Benevity doesn’t mean anyone actually donated? If zero Apple employees chose to make donations, then Apple would also have made zero donations. So before we crucify Apple for donating, do we have proof that there actually were any actual donations made?

I will say the effort to have the Israeli/IDF charities delisted as choices to Apple employees through Benevity is still a reasonable request, but that is a far smaller need/sin than actual donations to Israeli/IDF charities.

I don’t have info here for a full system, but my airport is one of these that allows the non-passengers through TSA permission. When you scan your boarding pass at the jet bridge to get on the plane, a picture of your face comes up on the display and the airline gate worker appears to verify the person with the boarding pass matches the person entering.

Can we just jump to the end of this meme coin idiocy and make one called “RugPullcoin™” then go through the inevitable run-up and short order liquidation leaving coin owners holding the bag?

Appliance based DVRs are turn-key solutions. I hope we both agree setting up a Linux box, obtaining a compatible OTA tuner, downloading and configuring Jellyfin all on hardware that is easily integrated into a general home entertainment setting is not a trivial task that most non-technically inclined folks can accomplish.

I personally ran PC based software DVRs for many years predating Jellyfin, but even in those years we had a Tivo for the wife.

Depends on the use case. If you’re someone that wants to watch shows that air on broadcast television, OTA (over the air) DVRs are a great way to get TV content without a cable or streaming service subscription. With the increased number of OTA stations now that represents a lot of ad-skippable content. We get close to 40 OTA stations at our house with just an antenna in the attic.

about how he would fix a nonexistent problem

Nazi-Musk aside, Its not exactly a non-existent problem. Its just a very very small niche problem that doesn’t justify the tremendous resources poured into creating it. Its also an old problem that doesn’t exist much anymore.

There was a time when solar panels were pretty ugly and expensive. Those two things would deter a certain number of people from installing panels. So the idea of cheap solar panels that matched the traditional look some buyers wanted did exist. Heavy emphasis on some buyers because it was a pretty small pool to begin with. What really made solar shingles largely irrelevant was the dramatic drop in cost of regular panels, the drastic increase in performance of regular panels, and the noticeably improved aesthetics of all-black regular panels. So the prior tiny market for solar shingles shrank even more, and the costs of Tesla solar shingles continued to rise without any performance improvements. It was a tiny market before and its a nearly non-existent market now. Solar shingles are bad business.

Lastly, social attitudes changed and having solar panels on a roof switched largely from being seen as an eyesore to a point of pride for many. This last point isn’t totally solved yet. My own housing community doesn’t allow panels on the side of the house that faces the road…except in some circumstances (making the rule even more stupid).

I’m looking forward to the day when I can slap some panels on the other side of the house for even greater solar generation! I’m still have no interest in solar shingles though.

They’ll sell you custom dietary supplements so your farts can smell like your favorite celebrities.

I’ll occasionally spend frequently flyer miles for a business class/first class domestic ticket. Buying tickets with frequently flyer miles is a bit different than paying with dollars. When paying in dollars, most everyone’s idea about the price difference between economy and first class is mostly accurate. In dollars, its double, triple, or even more for a first class ticket over economy. However with points (miles) its sometimes only 1.25x more for the first class ticket. Its not like you can spend airline miles on rent or groceries, so spending a bit more for a much more comfortable experience can be worth it. This is especially true if you only fly a few times a year and you’ll have enough points re-earned by the next time you need it for a ticket.