Teachers like this exist. One of my kids had an elementary school teacher like this. Two examples:

1. The math assignment was about currency denominations; what coins and bills you need to make up $7.42, for example. My kid answered using $2 bills (uncommon in the US but still printed), as we have them at home. Teacher marked the answer wrong because teacher didn't mention $2 bills in class.
2. The writing assignment was to rewrite the Snow White story from the perspective of another character. My kid, having read a bunch of those "twisted tales" and recently fallen in love with "Wicked", wrote from the evil queen's perspective and made her a sympathetic character. Teacher marked her down for "changing the story" without acknowledging my kid's creativity. Teacher did not back down when we confronted her on this during our parent teacher conference.

(FWIW, in both cases we reassured our kid that they did great in both cases, and that we were proud of them.)

County sheriff, not town sheriff.

Also, I got punched in the face by a fish while I was down there.

Please elaborate.

Be careful, you might start a new birther rumor.

The word "pinny" pulled forth visceral memories of my middle school. Wow, impressive.

Pretty sure the goal here is to funnel more money to Trump.

Captchas haven't been effective at protecting important websites for years, they just keep the script kiddies away who can't afford the tools.

To be fair, keeping the script kiddies away has some good value. Whether that value outweighs all the wasted time and impact to sight/hearing impaired people is another discussion.

No matter how much you think both candidates are shit, you must be able to realize that one is far and beyond worse than the other.

Biden hasn't been great. He dragged his feet on issues he campaigned on (e.g., student debt relief), he sounds eve older than he is, and perhaps most gallingly, he didn't unequivocally renounce the genocide in Gaza immediately. Inflation sucks and wages aren't high enough for most to survive, let alone thrive. I can name a dozen progressives off the top of my head I'd rather have as president.

First past the post voting and the two-party system give us little chance at the national level for meaningful fast change.

But have you seen the shit Trump has promised he will do as president? We all learned an important lesson from the first Trump presidency: take him seriously, not literally. I shouldn't need to list the things Trump has promised to do, but here's a highlight reel:

• Enthusiastically support Israel's "invasion" of Gaza
• Waste billions on a useless border wall
• Deploy the military domestically to "fight crime", "coincidentally" in blue states
• Slash federal education spending and let states handle their own education
• Repeal background checks, reopen the gun show loophole, roll back federal laws against gun trafficking, and make it easier for kids under 21 to get guns
• Undo Title IX trans rights

And he won't stand in the way of any of the Project2025 insanity the GOP wants to pursue.

So, on the left, you have an old man who has maybe made things a little better for some too slowly while ignoring a genocide. On the right, you have an old man who endorses that same genocide, promises to make the country an actively worse place for many, and who has empirically proven he will encourage and endorse insurrection and treason to stay in power.

The best play for the future is two-pronged:

1. For the medium/far future: push for electoral reform like IRV/ranked choice voting at the local/state level (to get people used to it), endorse third-party candidates, run for local office, donate time/money to causes that matter to you.
2. For the near term, to allow the first bullet point to take root and thrive: Don't let Trump get elected, which means, unfortunately, voting for Biden.

Ukraine (then known as Ukraine SSR) joined the UN as a founding member state in 1945, then joined as a sovereign state in 1991.

You might be thinking of NATO, of which Ukraine is not (yet) a member state.

Oh wait, now I realised that's basically r2d2

Is that a bad thing?

I mean, 2011 was 12 years ago.