Not really; one guy died, by his own choice, but came back to life two days later. A real “cult of human sacrifice” would require it as an ongoing practice and for the victims to stay dead.

Simple. We let them get away with it. Compare:

“Your PC is out of date” “Don’t be stupid, it’s only 2 years old and still works fine” with

“Your phone is out of date” “OK I’ll buy a new one”.

There needs to be a lot more of Answer A to Statement B.

Maybe it’s a Samsung phone and a “Made in USA” sticker, shipped in as components and stuck together in the USA, thus fulfilling both “designed” and “made” in USA even though there are some foreign-made components (2). Then onshore those components bit by bit until the process is complete.

They’re not a property market or game show either.

Technically that’s 100% buffering.

I once got rid of ants by leaving a small pile of sugar out for them.

I like to think the ants that found it took it back to the nest and said “hey guys look what we found!” then got “don’t be so stupid! humans never do that! It’s obviously a trap, don’t ever go back there”

There’s also the Escher picture of a (smoking) pipe, captioned “Ceci n’est pas une pipe”.

Referring to himself in the plural? Classic monarch gaffe.