It is good and reasonable to be continually skeptical of the people and organizations we get involved with, and I appreciate your warning and looking out for bad organizations.

On the other hand, my experience in politics leads me to believe that if you sit around waiting for the perfect allies, you will usually be waiting alone for a very long time.

Looking at this group, it looks like in my state (Utah) they have been key support for a couple of well respected local nonprofits that have done great work on RCV and anti gerrymandering. That doesn’t sound like such a bad thing to me.

I think it’s a mistake generally to view Republicans as the enemy. Even if they are in a leadership role like in the RNC. For example, in Utah, nothing gets done without Republican approval. So saying “I won’t work with you because you’re Republican” here is a losing strategy to make changes. And we now have the beginnings of progress on RCV.

So I think we should continue to be vigilant and watch out for the first signs that people are acting in bad faith. But if we want our ideas to be popular, we are going to need to learn to (without compromising our own values) build a bigger tent.

Rose was secretly in bed with the deep state.

Awhile back I was at an event where I happened to sit next to a Moms for Liberty chapter leader, and she turned to me and uttered the most insane conspiracy theory I’d ever heard about how “they” deliberately sunk the Titanic because everyone who opposed the creation of the fed was on board.

Of course it’s Mike Lee.

Fuck Mike Lee.

“Here’s muh pocket constitution” Mike Lee.

We are sick of him here in Utah and made a serious effort to get an independent in Congress instead, but fell about 10 points short :(

They don’t tho

Why not? I thought fivethirtyeight helped me get a handle on the political odds in 2020 and 2022.

From what I can tell it is IP address + browser fingerprinting. Possibly a little more emphasis on the browser fingerprinting.

Good question, actually it all happened a few days before I even got to the airport, so I was aware which flight I was supposed to take. I don’t think that really technically counts as “denied boarding” but it seems like they probably did it because my original flight was very oversold.

Here is a link to Frontier’s current contract of carriage, though note that it’s effective 2/19/24 and I don’t know what it looked like before that.

https://f9prodcdn.azureedge.net/media/9690/cs_coc.pdf

I wish we did, maybe someday.

The nice thing if you ever fly first class is that you’ll typically get boarding priority and sometimes even your own door on larger planes so that you don’t have to interact with the poors (j/k I’m a poor too, I’ve just booked first/business class before when I have enough points saved up so that it’s worth it).

Yes, in the US, 14 CFR part 250.7 means that they can’t throw you off after you’re checked in and your ticket has been scanned at the gate during the boarding process. It was changed by Congress after that doctor got thrown off a United flight in 2017. The airline can still throw you off if you’re disruptive, and my understanding is that a pilot in command can order you off for pretty much any reason, as they have full command of the aircraft, so if you’re ever in that situation then you better follow the pilot’s instructions. But if the pilot does throw you off due to a bumping situation then the airline is breaking the law.

Airlines can also make their own policies on which passengers have the highest priority to get bumped, which can involve check-in time, and I imagine can involve basically who is at the gate, ready to go. So there are some advantages to being there and queuing early.

Yes, this is also true if you board the plane and your luggage doesn’t fit (for example, regional flights on a CRJ or ERJ). As long as it’s within the airline’s policy for carry-ons, they’ll gate check it for free.

Yes, it is in the US. It’s in the federal aviation regulations: 14 CFR part 250. There is a link to the regulation at the bottom of this article from the DOT:

https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer-protection/bumping-oversales

Just going to make it very clear though, there’s big differences between being denied boarding (bumped due to overselling), a flight being delayed, and a flight being canceled. Each is its own situation.

There is no legal requirement for compensation if a flight is delayed. If the flight is canceled entirely then you are owed a refund of what you paid. There’s no law requiring the airline to rebook you or pay for accommodations or alternate transportation in any situation. What the airline will do in situations outside of “bumping” mostly follows the contract of carriage and their customer service policies / discretion (in my experience customer service agents can have a lot of discretion especially if they’re not busy and you ask nicely).

Since you said your friends’ flights were canceled, not that they were bumped (denied boarding), basically only the contract of carriage applies (and any relevant tort law). Also, just in general, Frontier is a low cost carrier, and when you fly with them you have to understand that they do not provide the same level of service as other carriers. In exchange, you get a lower price. For example, their contract of carriage says nothing about ground accommodation due to unforseen circumstances, while other airlines have clauses about paying for hotels and other forms of transportation.

That being said, Frontier does agree to rebook you on a Frontier flight in the following circumstances:

(i) a passenger’s flight is canceled, (ii) a passenger is denied boarding because an aircraft with lesser capacity is substituted, (iii) a passenger misses a connecting Frontier flight due to a delay or cancellation of a Frontier flight (but not flights of other carriers), (iv) a passenger is delivered to a different destination because of the omission of a scheduled stop to which the passenger held a ticket, Frontier will provide transportation on its own flights at no additional charge to the passenger’s original destination or equivalent destination as provided herein. Frontier will have no obligation to provide transportation on another carrier. If Frontier cannot provide the foregoing transportation, Frontier shall, if requested, provide a refund for the unused portion of the passenger’s ticket in lieu of the transportation under the foregoing.

IANAL, but it sounds like your friends could probably still request a refund of the premium that they paid, since Frontier was contractually bound to transport them at no additional charge. If Frontier refuses, then it sounds like it could be a good fit for small claims court.

It’s always worth knowing your rights and the legal background when you’re dealing with companies, especially when they are as profit-driven and operate at as low a margin as the airline industry does. Note that even in Frontier’s contract, the burden is on you to request a refund. Airlines will basically do anything possible to not pay money if they can help it, even if it means sometimes “forgetting” about federal law when it comes to bumping.

On the other hand, you can also benefit by being able to recognize when an airline is not required to do something, but does it anyways out of goodwill. For example, when I got bumped onto the earlier flight, they called me up offering me something like 25k points for the inconvenience. I tried to negotiate higher, but they refused, so I accepted the 25k points understanding that I had no leverage because they weren’t actually obligated to offer me anything.

We don’t have cool trains like you do in many parts of Asia.

And the Asian countries that don’t have trains are probably small enough that you still don’t really need to fly to get from one side to the other.

Yes, the rule for involuntary bumping is:

1-2hr delay: 2x ticket price up to $775

2+hr delay: 4x ticket price up to $1550

It must be paid out at the airport, or within 24hr at the latest.

They are required to give you a written statement of your rights, though in my experience they usually “forget” and you have to go and assert your rights.

Airlines are well aware of these rules, and unfortunately there is no compensation if they involuntarily bump you onto an earlier flight, so I’ve had to take some flights before at the asscrack of dawn due to bumping.

Pixel 5a was great, but the units that are a couple years old are having major issues with the charging circuitry / motherboard. My phone bricked overnight while charging. It seems widespread enough right now that they’ve completely run out of refurbished stock of 5as and 6as to send out for replacements. I waited 6 weeks for an RMA with absolutely no updates – was about to just give up, buy a new phone, and take Google to small claims court. Finally got a replacement unit because the “social media team made an exception for me” after I tweeted them.

Maybe so, but it’s not against the rules, and Lemmy can use more interaction in general, so I support it.

Wool socks are where it’s at.

Recently discovered subs2srs. Super useful if you are learning a language. It can take a video file of a show or movie, extract the subs, and create Anki flash cards for each line of dialogue. It can even add snapshots, audio, and video clips to the flash cards (though video can have lengthy transcodes, so I just stuck with audio/snapshot on my cards).