You are spot on. Water is absolutely not flavorless.

Fortunately I live in a place with high quality clean water, and on a warm day if I’m very thirsty, the taste of water is really really good, it clearly beats any soft drink IMO. I can even prefer it over a cold beer when I’m thirsty!
But even minor contaminants can make it taste way worse, if you live in a house with old plumbing, or if you can see buildup in the metal filter most taps have, the taste of your water is probably influenced by contamination besides Iron from the pipes. Good iron pipes are OK, but new synthetic pipes are better.

If I drink a carbonized mineral water, I can also most definitely taste the carbonation.

If the water smells like rainy weather or wet skin or in some other way smells off, it is probably contaminated. However the water can have a slight metallic smell because there are actually naturally occurring minerals in the water. BUT if your water is discolored, it is definitely contaminated, and drinking it can make you sick.
Our water is pretty high on calcium, but there is for instance also a small amount of lithium. Lower calcium water taste a bit sweeter, so natural water definitely exist that is even better than our water.

Remember always let the tap run for a short while before drinking from it.
If the water doesn’t taste good, it’s probably because it’s not good.

The supreme court was stacked specifically to help topple democracy, so how could anyone see that as politically neutral?

I believe the agreement with Xi included that Chinese students in USA could finish their studies.
But Trump is not trustworthy, and after that for sure…

Yes you did:

Major powers like China don’t simply stand by and let rivals control vital resources like Iranian oil

Yes that’s all true, except I don’t see how China would be behind Israel attacking Iran? The west is destroying itself right now because of Trump.
And here in Europe we are scrambling to find footing in this new reality where we cannot rely on USA anymore. But 100% Europe will NOT help Israel in this. And for now USA doesn’t seem too interested either.

China is definitely benefiting, but I don’t see any indications they are behind it.

American society has become sociopathic, and you are definitely not helping.

They absolutely do, don’t interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake.
USA is fucking up badly, and ruining it for their allies too, China doesn’t need to do anything right now.
China may use the distraction to help Russia more, but they will probably just use such opportunities, and silently take over where USA fails.

They are headed for global dominance anyway, they don’t need this.

No doubt Iran is bad too, the death warrant on Salman Rushdie is very clear evidence of that.

The fact they have a reward for the death of Salman Rushdie is enough for me to know they are criminally insane.

Like WTF! Death penalty for writing a book?

The Iranian government cannot be trusted. But it’s the same for Israel. They deserve each other.

I’m not really on either side of this conflict, both are assholes IMO.
But it seems to me Israel just demonstrated why it is that Iran wants to have nuclear weapons to defend itself.
Also it was kind of USA that started all this bullshit, undermining and overturning a democratic government in Iran, to instate the Shah as a totalitarian dictator.
So I guess it’s understandable that Iran doesn’t trust USA, and Israel by proxy because it is heavily supported by USA.

AFAIK the sanctions against Iran is mostly because Iran want’s to be able to defend itself against superior forces.

FUD

Very true.

I suppose that would be Android, since that’s the only non systemd OS I use.

It’s the same thing here, but still if there’s an accident, the parents will be fined and the scooter confiscated.
There are also periods that are less hectic than others, and then police will go for the lesser stuff.
Most police forces also have systems, where they allocate time to focus on things that are not everyday priority.

My guess is that Finish police is as well organized as most other European countries.
Obviously this isn’t a high priority, but that doesn’t mean the police will just let it pass if they spot a blatant violation.

IDK what country you are from? But most European countries already enforce this for other types of motorized small transport like mopeds. Here (Denmark) a moped requires a license.
We also have speed restrictions on e-bikes, here it’s 25 km/h that is also enforced.

I was never into it, but my brother has many stories of escaping police on his moped that could go twice as fast as the legal limit! 😋

The first change to the law sets a minimum age for operating an e-scooter at 15.

I suppose that’s sensible, we have the same age limit for driving a moped.

All claims and no reasoning.

Hogg, who has levied harsh criticism over elderly incumbent Democrats’ refusals to step down from their offices,

The concept that a Democrat in office who refuse to step down, is almost never challenged because nobody want to fund it, is undemocratic and counterproductive.

David Hogg is absolutely on the right side here. USA is a deeply flawed democracy, and it starts already within the parties, and it should be pretty self evident that it needs reform.

It’s crazy the DNC goes against him because of “tradition” when he is so clearly right. They had 2 major presidential losses to GOP because of similar stupidity.

If the “Democrats” aren’t even democratic, what hope is there for democracy in USA?

It shall be intersting to see if Israel underestimated Iran.
I wonder if the Israelly population find this interesting too?

It sure is the time of the lawless states. 😬