If a rope hangs from a helicopter that is moving forward, what shape does it make hanging down?
What if there is a weight at the end of the rope, same shape or different?
Lastly, what if there is a parachute at the end of the rope?

I guessed wrong on the first question but that was because I didn’t put much effort into it. Even if I had I’m not sure I would have decomposed the problem correctly. I didn’t bother trying to answer the next two questions.

I found this posted to the comments section of this Reason article (https://reason.com/2021/09/30/joe-manchin-is-forcing-congress-to-think-about-the-deficit-good/#comment-9133692) and thought it worth posting here:

Politico released a document signed by Manchin and Schumer showing exactly what Manchin’s demands were in order to support the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill. You can read it for yourself here:

https://static.politico.com/1e/ef/159cabd547868585f9b1a8f06388/july-28-2021.pdf

The most interesting thing about it is that it’s dated July 28, 2021.

The Democrat leadership has known that Manchin wouldn’t support anything with the $3.5 trillion number for two months. He won’t support anything more than $1.5 trillion according to the agreement he signed. Meanwhile, his support for that is conditional on things like the Fed ending quantitative easing. He also says that anything appropriated over $1.5 trillion could only be used for debt reduction . . .

Based on the agreement he signed with Schumer, Manchin was never about to sign onto the budget reconciliation bill. The progressives were blind men in a dark room looking for a black cat that was never there–and they’ve been doing it since July 28th. It shouldn’t surprise anyone to learn that they didn’t find it.

Looks like there is a chance CA governor Newsome could be recalled, based on recent polls:
https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/your-voice-your-vote/new-survey-shows-how-californians-feel-about-the-newsom-recall-election
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/newsoms-recall-problem-is-with-hispanic-voters/

Election is Sept. 14. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Larry Elder would be great, but a fellow by the name of Kevin Paffrath has a slim lead among the alternatives. Found his election web site with a mix of crazy proposals:
https://www.meetkevin.com/

Long, but worth watching. (I watched at double speed and found it comprehensible, but I’be had a lot of recent practice at watching sped-up videos that are mostly people talking.)

Stossel says “I once was unsure if Edward Snowden -- who leaked documents showing that the NSA spied on Americans -- was a hero, or a traitor who made us all less safe.

Now I've done my research, and I think he's a hero.  What do you think? Our full interview, above, will help you decide.”

Covers his rationale for why he did what he did and makes the point late in the interview that big tech has set things up to manipulate people who use their services. Presumably only to make money, but there is nothing stopping the government from pressuring the firms to use those tools of manipulation to the government’s will.

I grew up in the 60s and enjoyed model rocketry. I think some here also did, so you may enjoy this video:

Word is he died Dec. 7, 2020.

"One presidential candidate received approximately 29 votes. He's surprised he got that many.

Zac Scalf is an Iraq War veteran, a Texas A&M grad, and the content production manager at Nine Line Apparel, a store in Savannah, Georgia. He is also, according to the ongoing tally at Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections, running last in the presidential race, with a current total of 29 votes. That's 97 fewer than Keith McCormic of the Bull Moose Party and 112 fewer than Gary Swing of the Boiling Frog Party—though Swing might belong on a different list, since his website claims he was running for "president of Vermont."

Since Scalf wasn't on the ballot in Georgia, he didn't get a chance to cast a vote for himself. (He voted for Donald Trump instead.) But he wasn't really trying to win. The whole thing was a "social experiment," he tells me: It's easy to get on the ballot in Vermont—"and that's the way it should be"—so he flew up, got himself listed as an independent candidate, refrained from doing any campaigning at all, and waited to see what would happen. "On Election Day, I was sitting here at work and I thought it would be really funny if someone voted for me," he says. So his support exceeded his expectations. "Twenty-nine people went in that voting booth and checked my name and knew nothing about me."
[...]
While Scalf finished last among the officially recognized candidates, he still outpolled an assortment of figures who attracted write-in votes. I don't have the full national totals for these, but one state has helpfully listed all its presidential write-in votes online. It's the same state that gave Scalf a place on the ballot.
[...]
But I'm going to give the last-place crown to the man who made the effort to get on the ballot and then made literally no other efforts to get elected at all. Scalf thinks more states should make ballot access as easy as Vermont does: "You shouldn't have to be a billionaire to be part of the democratic process and be part of what makes America awesome," he says.

He adds: "People should take it more seriously.""

Full article: https://reason.com/2020/11/10/the-man-who-finished-last/