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  • CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.

The Schumer Shutdown

The Democrats refused to provide the votes. That was the Democratic strategy. Its their fault the government shut down.
Provide? I'm sorry, but that's quite the funny thing to say. What did the Republicans do to get those votes? They aren't entitled to them without giving the Democrats something. It's on them to negotiate.
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So.....did your insurance premium go up?

What is the better Republican plan?

Let's not mention at the moment that Obamacare was a Republican plan.

Oh, but the Speaker of the House assures us they are on it....

"....Louisiana Republican Steve Scalise, Johnson relayed, “has been working with the chairman of our three committees of jurisdiction . . . grabbing the best ideas that we’ve had for years, to put it on paper and make it work,” But, he added, “we know we’re going to have to arm-wrestle with Democrats over that.”

If this all sounds vaguely familiar, that’s because it is."


Have we even seen the "concepts of a plan"?
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President makes historic trip to Asia

DELIVERING PEACE AND PROSPERITY IN ONE HISTORIC DAY: Today in Kuala Lumpur, President Donald J. Trump brokered the Kuala Lumpur Peace Accords between Thailand and Cambodia, secured reciprocal trade deals with Malaysia and Cambodia, issued Joint Trade Statements with Thailand and Vietnam, elevated relations with Malaysia, and deepened U.S.-Cambodia cooperation on defense and transnational crime. President Trump also participated in the 13th annual U.S.-ASEAN Summit meeting.

iu



What many do not know is that while in Malaysia - other world leaders were coming to meet with our President

Trump meets with Brazil leader Lula in Malaysia amid trade tensions


President Trump and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met Sunday in Malaysia amid trade tensions between their two countries.

“President Trump meets with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva at [Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)] summit,” the White House’s account on the social platform X posted Sunday, featuring a photo of the two leaders.

The Brazilian president said that the meeting went well, also stating that the two countries’ teams will begin “immediately” on tariff discussions and beyond, according to Reuters.
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Is President Trump Corrupt? Three Stories.

US military officials required to sign NDAs tied to Latin America mission, sources say

WASHINGTON, Oct 27 (Reuters) - U.S. military officials involved with President Donald Trump's expanding operations in Latin America have been asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, three U.S. officials say, a development that raises new questions about a military buildup that Venezuela fears may lead to an invasion.

The step is highly unusual, given that U.S. military officials are already required to shield national security secrets from public view, and comes as lawmakers in Congress say they are being kept in the dark about key aspects of the mission.

The officials who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity did not know how many members of the U.S. Defense Department had been asked to sign the agreements and did not offer further details on the scope of the NDAs.

While the Defense Department has turned to NDAs from time to time since Pete Hegseth became defense secretary in January, the Pentagon's use of non-disclosure agreements specific to activities in Latin America has not been previously reported.

The Pentagon announced last week the deployment of the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier group to Latin America, escalating a military buildup that experts say far exceeds any requirement for counter-narcotics operations -- the stated intent of the U.S. mission so far.

The U.S. military has carried out at least 13 strikes against alleged drug vessels, mostly in the Caribbean, since early September, killing about 57 people. The Pentagon has provided few details about the people targeted but has acknowledged some of them include people from Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador.

The carrier strike group adds another roughly 10,000 troops and enormous firepower to a buildup that already includes guided missile destroyers, F-35 fighter jets, a nuclear submarine and around 6,500 troops.

The Pentagon has not explained why such firepower is required for the counter-narcotics operations.

Hegseth has taken a series of steps to try to control the flow of information since taking over the Pentagon in January. He told Pentagon staff they must obtain permission before interacting with members of Congress, according to an Oct. 15 memo. He has also launched leak investigations and demanded Pentagon-based journalists sign a new press access policy, taking away the credentials of those who did not.

~bella

From the story quoted by Bella: "The Pentagon has not explained why such firepower is required for the counter-narcotics operations."

After the first couple of boat strikes in the Caribbean I looked at some commentary. Lawyers say that it is against international law, blatantly illegal, and amounts to murder. One comment is that sending an aircraft carrier to deal with a drug boat is like using ten sticks of dynamite to kill a couple of roaches in your kitchen.

There is a problem with the Pentagon, that is, the Secretary of Defense, telling military officers to sign non-disclosure agreements. A non-disclosure agreement is a contract. No contract is valid if it is contrary to the law or contrary to the Consitution. Congress has investigative powers and it has had investigative powers since the first time Congress met. No "non-disclosure agreement" from Pete Hegseth can change that. Congress has the Constitutional responsibility to declare war, and so has the authority to investigate any circumstance that could lead to war. It looks like these non-disclosure agreements are void.

Bella, thanks for sharing this information!
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Is Christianity Like a Necessary Drug with Bad Side Effects?

I know that this may seem to be an anti-Christian post, but it is not.

Christ dying on the cross made it possible for people who trust in him to go to heaven; however, there are several prices that may have to be paid to go there.

The Bible says that a person must clearly repent of their sins in order to be saved. I know repentance is more about the changing of the mind and heart. But certain sins are hard to repent of. Sometimes a person can become very attached emotionally to their sins whether it is a certain vice or the homosexual lifestyle. After all, homosexuals love their partners as much as heterosexuals and a divorce would be just as painful (if they are married).

Becoming a Christian can cause a person to be in conflict with their family or nation depending on who and where it is. In Muslim countries, the person who denounces Islam in order to accept Christ could not only be ostracized from their family but could also face death. The same thing is true in atheistic Communist nations where you hear about persecution of believers all the time. A new Christian in this nation may come from a family of atheists/agnostics/secularist where there will be religious and ideological clashes.

The third issue is totally unrelated to the first two. It has more to do with who spread Christianity than the actual religion itself and how it affected certain people groups. I am talking about European Colonialism. Most nations that were established in the Americas(the New World) and elswhere are the result of Christian apostalization, whether it be Spanish Catholics or British pilgrims/puritan Protestants. Whether is was intentional or not, this resulted in the displacement/genocide of the native people and the importation of African slaves to these places. Most of the famous missionaries of the past have either been European or American like David Livingston, Hudson Taylor, and William Carey. I realize that this is not necessarily the fault of Christianity but how it was interpreted by the colonizers.

But none of this should be surprising considering the one person who suffer the most because of Christianity was Jesus Christ himself! Not only was he crucified, but before that he was rejected by his own people, tortured, whipped, and beaten. He even prayed drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Looking at this from an eternal point of view, after a person has been in heaven over 10,000 years (which is longer than recorded history itself), all the sacrifice, pain, suffering, and death might seem worth it according to Revelation 21:4

Thus, the metaphor Christianity is a drug with bad side effects.
By placing love, the love of God and neighbor, the love that God has, that God is, above all else in this world, we end up with the most beautiful "drug" the world can ever know, one that cures, that heals, that uplifts, that forgives, that elates, that lays down its life for others, even its enemies. Somehow that can't be bad, especially in a world that far more often places selfishness ansd pride above love, trampling on it and causing harm to each other as we pursue worthless, temporary desires and values that never satisfy anyway. The side effect is that love, together with its compadre, truth, may get you ostracized at best, killed at worst, as they did with Jesus, as they oppose and interfere with those worldy pursuits and status.
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Is 'once saved always saved' a biblical teaching?

-
Paul writes to believers so he does not need to evangelize believers. John writes to the person who has not believed yet in Jesus.
But when Paul did evangelize he used the message he was taught from Jesus.
But I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ.
and what does Jesus teach
Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me has everlasting life.
Specific?
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B flat B♭

Sorry, I have misunderstood you again. I posted: "So now after many posts where you have stated your belief in the earth being a flat disc, are you now saying you believe it to be a flat square?" You replied: "I didn't say that, did I?" I thought by "I didn't say that" you meant you never said that the earth is a disc, particularly as my post had been in reply to yours where you posted an image of a square earth.


You were replying to my post 228, where I said;

No - I understood Scripture first, it was the reading of Genesis 1 and other verses that pulled me into the flat earth & to seek out the truth plus I did have a friend who drew out a picture of the flat earth & told me that earth was shaped like a Mexicon hat so I looked it up and wo behold I found this image.

You replied,

So now after many posts where you have stated your belief in the earth being a flat disc, are you now saying you believe it to be a flat square? Perhaps in a few month's time you will change your mind again and you will say it is an oval, or some other shape.

What I should have said was;
'Read my post again, this is not what I said.'
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Love codified in the Ten Commandments

The New Covenant is established on better promises Heb8:6
It's a no brainier. . .

So I'm sure you'll understand if the focus of the born again by the Holy Spirit of God is on Jesus' new command of the New Covenant: "love one another as I have loved you" (Jn 13:33-34), rather than on the obsolete Old Covenant (Heb 8:13) Decalogue: "do no harm."
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The auto-pen scandal is going to be massive

Biden’s autopen pardons are null and void due to ‘mental decline’, House Oversight Committee says


Republicans on the House Oversight Committee have written to Attorney General Pam Bondi claiming that former president Joe Biden’s “cognitive decline” was so severe he may not have been aware of pardons he allegedly signed by autopen.​
Conservatives on the committee advise Bondi that the 4,245 presidential pardons and commutations issued by the Democrat, 82, should therefore be placed under review and could be considered invalid.​
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Does Regeneration Precede Faith?

God has given every person born the ability to exercise faith in something.
Atheist have faith in science...
Are you suggesting that faith in Christ is of the same kind of thing as faith in idols, false religions, or mere human reasoning? Scripture explicitly distinguishes natural belief from saving faith, the former being a capacity common to all, the latter being a gift wrought by the Spirit (Phil. 1:29; Eph. 2:8).

How do you reconcile your view with texts like Rom. 8:7-8 and John 6:44, which explicitly deny that the natural man has the ability or inclination to come to Christ apart from divine enablement?

Linking to articles instead of making your own argument isn't very helpful for advancing discussion. Please state your own point rather than outsourcing it to a secondary source.

Also, GES is a strongly dispensational organization that tends to assume its framework rather than demonstrating it. I've previously invited you to defend this directly, though you chose not to respond. In that same earlier exchange, I also took the time to interact with a few GES articles you had shared, and again, you did not engage with my reply. So, respectfully, this appears more like a way of avoiding the responsibility to defend your own claims than it does a sincere attempt to discuss ideas.

If you could summarize what you believe John 6:37 actually teaches and how it supports a point you wish to make here, I'll be glad to engage with you directly.
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There’s a Giant Flaw in Human History

Ok I thought you said we should go and find more precision vases so we can get better provenance vases to test to verify they have used advanced knowledge. I was saying that may take years and why not work on authenticating the many vases we already have.

OK so your talking about finding the devices or methods that may have made the vases. But would not be just as difficult and therefore could be years if and when we find anything. We can't even find the traditional tools.

If it is you contention that not finding the tools or method means the vases cannot be verified as to how they were made. Then you would have to apply the same logic to the fact that we have also not found the traditional tools and methods for the predynastics as well. Certainlt noting like a potters wheel or even copper saw or chisel. That all comes from later dynasties.

So what then we are left with nothing. We have to sit in limbo for years hoping to find something. Until then we cannot do anything. That seems a strange way to work out whats happening.

But as I've said repeatedly, making the claim of advanced tech existing is worthless without the actual evidence OF THE TOOLS THEMSELVES EXIST, especially since we know of other methods of how such things were made with the tools we know to have existed at the time. I even posted links showing and describing how such vases can be made without things like potter's wheels or lathes. It's not all that hard to figure out. You claim otherwise.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So either put that evidence forward or stop making the claims.
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Curious as to what precisely makes Full-Preterism considered an non orthodox heresy?

I'm not asking as a Preterist. I disagree with them as strongly as I disagree with dispensationalists and pre, mid, post, ah= millennialists as far as the scripture is concerned. But I have never seen someone cite anything other than what they believe to tag them as "heretics." So it is something I have been curious about for decades.
That view denies the future Second Coming of Jesus and the Physical resurrection that would happen at that time, so historical has been seen as heretical view
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Trump knocking down historic East Wing to build Ballroom - is this LEGAL?

Funny, I was thinking the same thing about you.
If you'd been following the thread, you'd know.

What "peaks" and "valleys" are you referring to? This is pretty much a flatline across the board.

View attachment 372297
That is just his second term... When you look at his first term, you see the broad spectrum which includes his peak (which was 49%) and his valley (32%). If you'd like to state that he's had flat disapproval with no peaks during his second term, you won't hear me disagree.

However, the cherry-picking of data in order to extrapolate the facts you want, while fun, doesn't change the overall data. Nor does it mean I think you particularly qualified for a discussion on statistical analysis.
Sure you did. Specifically, you said:

"It’s a statement that the red state people crying into their Cheerios over Trump doing something that impacts them badly have nothing to cry about as they were warned it would happen. Honestly the red staters bemoaning the bad things happening to them goes to speak more to his unpopularity than his popularity."
Where in there did I say people were souring on him...?

Somebody else said:

"We can argue about polls and percentages all day long, yet it remains more than a few do like Trump. A tacit admission of this can be found right here on CF whenever something bad happens in a red state and someone invariably chortles that they got what they voted for."

To which I said:

"And somebody saying that a red state is having the say they voted for isn’t a tacit admission that he’s a popular president. It’s a statement that the red state people crying into their Cheerios over Trump doing something that impacts them badly have nothing to cry about as they were warned it would happen. Honestly the red staters bemoaning the bad things happening to them goes to speak more to his unpopularity than his popularity."

Again, you disingenuously cherry-picked a statement to lop out the part where it made clear I was explaining somebody else's rationale for a statement they made, not making a statement myself. Not to mention, nowhere in there does it say he's becoming unpopular. I'm saying that people's lack of sympathy for people who voted for him crying about his policies are hurting them stems from how everybody was warned this is the president he'd be and they're having the day they voted for.

Either you need to read the thread to catch up with the conversation, or you are resorting to some pretty desperate moves to try and contort a narrative that makes you feel better, and that's gross.
You're not the only one to posit the theory that voters have "buyer's remorse" with Trump.






If there is any "buyer's remorse" over Trump, it is certainly not reflected in his approval polling, which has remained "objectively" constant. If there were this epidemic of buyer's remorse, one would expect to see it reflected in his approval rating as people defected from him. But that's not happening, despite all the chaos he's instigated.
I never said anything about "buyer's remorse." You invented a narrative, inflicted it on me, hurt your own feelings over it, and now are spending your time proving to me why something that I never said that hurt your feelings isn't true. And for some reason you think because other editorials have said it and you intentionally were deceptive about something I said, I need to be answerable to your deception and their editorials.

Sorry, your girl doesn't play that game. Argue with yourself, because you won't get anywhere with me over it.

That's demonstrably false. Biden only had a positive approval rating for the first 6 months of his presidency. The remainder of his 3-1/2 years he was, to use your vernacular, "objectively unpopular".

View attachment 372298
So two presidents. I didn't scroll up enough to read Biden's, but yes, he was objectively unpopular through his whole presidency. Something I pointed out later when I said he was only popular for 23% of his presidency, which is still twice as long as Trump was. That all being said, however, he was an objectively unpopular president.

Yes, Trump has a higher disapproval rating than approval. To your point, he has for his whole political career. And yet, he's won not one but TWO national US elections. Does that tell you something about the "objectivity" of the polls you're citing? It really should.
It tells me I understand more about how elections work than you do, apparently.

He's run for president four times, yet has only won the popular vote once. Because we don't elect based off of popular vote, we do it based off the electoral college, it means he still got to be president because he won in the only metric that counts, and he did so twice. However, that doesn't mean he's objectively popular. It means the system we've set up to elect presidents means occasionally the most popular person for president won't actually be president.

I'll take the eye roll as an admission that you know I'm right, but it bothers you.

Even the self-appointed fact-checkers admit that Trump never told anyone to "inject bleach".

Sigh...

Y'all need to really read the things before you post them as things that supposedly support your claims. It makes things easy for me, but it's just so disappointing to see how little people actually research things and how hard they will work to dwell in the land of misinformation so as to avoid dealing with how awful Trump was during COVID.

"Rating: Mostly False

What's True
During an April 2020 media briefing, Trump did ask members of the government's coronavirus task force to look into whether disinfectants could be injected inside people to treat COVID-19. But when a reporter asked in a follow-up question whether cleaning products like bleach and isopropyl alcohol would be injected into a person, the then-president said those products would be used for sterilizing an area, not for injections.

However, at no point did Trump explicitly tell people they could or should inject bleach into their bodies...
Though Trump's comments made little sense and were ridiculed and described as dangerous by experts, under any reasonable interpretation of his words, he didn't explicitly suggest people should inject themselves with bleach or other household disinfectants.

Instead, while floating the idea to the government's coronavirus task force and the media, Trump asked whether injecting disinfectants "inside" could help fight the virus, as we further outline below."

So yes, he did talk about injecting bleach. You're hanging your hat on the "Well, he didn't EXPLICITLY tell people to do that, therefore there's no problem." What the rest of us hang our hats on is that saying "And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that. So, that, you're going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds — it sounds interesting to me." is not a well-informed comment to make, nor is it a presidential one. My kids, who were in middle school at the time, are able to pick out that spitballing if it's feasible to inject bleach to cure people of an illness is a profoundly moronic thing for anybody to say, but for the president to say it...? It's shockingly uninformed and dangerous.

And Ivermectin is not "horse medicine". Before it became a political flashpoint (note that the following article was authored in 2011), Ivermectin was approved for human use in 1987 and was labeled a "wonder drug".

There are few drugs that can seriously lay claim to the title of ‘Wonder drug’, penicillin and aspirin being two that have perhaps had greatest beneficial impact on the health and wellbeing of Mankind. But ivermectin can also be considered alongside those worthy contenders, based on its versatility, safety and the beneficial impact that it has had, and continues to have, worldwide—especially on hundreds of millions of the world’s poorest people.

Your regurgitation of demonstrably false, yet sanctioned, COVID propaganda calls into question your objectivity.
As you said, your regurgitation of demonstrably false, yet sanction COVID propaganda calls into question your objectivity.

Yes, people can be prescribed Ivermectin for human use for things like parasites, skin conditions, and related conditions, but it's no longer the first-line drug for such things (especially in the US).

However, people were not using that Ivermectin. They were using horse medicine. And officials, both dubious medical ones and personalities with no experience in the field of medicine, much less infectious diseases, were telling people how to procure it. And it wasn't the human medication they were getting, it was the horse medicine. Trump also tweeted about other treatments, unproven ones, that had no basis in medicine and led people to accessing all sorts of inappropriate medications, and lead to an increase of poisonings so demonstrable that WHO tracked it (and determined it was a largely America-specific trend related to the comments of "officials") and even led to death. The problem was so well known that livestock stores had to restrict sales and the FDA had to make numerous statements for people to stop doing it. The effect of this misinformation and the deaths it caused has been studied and is well documented. For a time, the most common call to Poison Control was related to people taking it and the officials became inundated trying to deal with it.
I don't really care if people think Trump is popular or not. I'm certainly not a fan. Trump was a catalyst for me to change my voter registration from Republican to Independent in 2016. But what you're arguing here defies reality. How can a person who is "objectively unpopular" win a national election TWICE? For any "objective" person, this should call into question the objectivity of the polling.
I mean, apparently you do care since you're fixating on it.

And again, if the election was based off of votes, he would have lost. Why? Because he was not the winner of the popular vote. A majority of voters did not choose him. He was elected based on the process we use in the states, which is influenced by popular vote, but as we've seen lead to situations where the most popular candidate isn't the one who gets elected. This is middle-school level US History and Civics information. He has run 4 times. Lost the popular vote three times. Elected twice. And he is objectively unpopular.
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Trump live updates: President expands ‘narco’ boat strikes to Pacific Ocean as 8th boat is struck

Whats a legislative terrorist? Would that be Cuomo who killed thousands of old people in NYC?
Apparently the Democrats according to the Speaker of the House. If terrorists have it coming, just curious if it applies there too.
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There’s a Giant Flaw in Human History

What of course it is about provenance.

This is the discussion in context:
Yes so we have machining marks on a vase fragment from under the Stepped pyramid which is at least 2650BC. We have vases with 1st dynasty Kings inscriptions 3100BC. We have others found in pits and tombs going back 3600BC.

No matter which way you look at it the provenance doesn't matter as its all pre potters wheel and bore stick. Let alone sophisticated lathing.
When I say "No, that is not true" I'm saying that questioning the provenance is not "people are actually admitting the vases are too modern to be from such early times." When the provenance is questionable they are uninformative in any conclusionary sense.
I am not sure what you mean. Of course the reason provenance is questioned is because of the fact that the claim is that these precision vases existed and were made at such an early time. The provenance issue is the very thing that questions the timeline lol. It does for no other reason when it comes to the precision vases.

When someone claims these vases are advanced tech and knowledge the first thing that is mentioned in objection is the provenance. The skeptics own response is the evidence that the provenance is all about undermining the timeline and vases. And they are right to do so as long as its fair and balanced.

But lets forget about all that. Thats why I went to the actual machine marks on the vases under the pyramid. This cuts out all the conjecture and shows direct evidence that pretty sophisticated machining was involved.
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Even if (more likely "when") Momdani becomes NYC Mayor studies show the richest New Yorkers will stay

Meanwhile, JP Morgan just moved into a brand new skyscraper in midtown. "Certainly not NY" indeed, lol. Whatever you say.
Before October 2025, JPMorgan Chase's global headquarters was located at 383 Madison Avenue in New York City. The company moved to its new headquarters at 270 Park Avenue in October 2025

JP Morgan has moved 0.1 miles around the block -

mad.JPG


over 150 have moved out of state:

Whatever you say....
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Hubble Constant (Ho) fixed to light speed, C and calculated as 71 k/s/Mpc. God did it!!

I have no idea what you mean. The post from Hans Blaster to which I original replied asked, "What is a mile?" It seemed (and still seems) a strange question to me, as sure most people know, or can look up if they have forgotten, the fact that a mile is a linear measurement equivalent to 1760 yards. Perhaps I'm just being over simplistic, but I still don't see the point of the question.
@Hans Blaster has explained in the post preceding yours that his question was a joke about people who still use Imperial units. However, it also implicilty highlights that the Hubble relationship being discussed is not a matter of discussing a measurement in different units. I took the question to AV to mean "What are miles AV? Whether you are talking miles, or centimeres, or chains, or light years you are just changing the units. So your comparison of such an equivalence to the use of Hubble's Law just doesn't work." I may have read more into it than was intended, but it made the question "What are miles?" seem to me to be a useful one. Did that help?
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