Vanon

Also for a sense of perspective, Twitter is owned by a Trump salesman that lies about everything (including user numbers that affect ad revenue). I’ve seen Bluesky users mention that actual engagement with real people is already higher than Twitter. It definitely feels more “alive” to me as well.

we’re in Vermont

Um, f*** you? (Joking. But it could be worse: Imagine living in Texas, Bernie replaced by Ted Cruz, rain replaced by heat that kills half of everything outdoors.)

“I can’t afford another four years of this. I did better under the other guy although I hate him.”

I just can’t get over how lazy it is to blame “the current guy” though. I want to say to these people: Surprise, the response to a massive global pandemic led to a couple of years of inflation! (On top of that, poorly regulated capitalism and corporate consolidation led to opportunistic greed and historic profits, what a coincidence!) Who is trying to solve these problems (and who is obstructing)? What are their plans (and are they already improving the situation)? Connect the dots and vote for intelligent policies and people with real plans. This is not a game.

And then there’s the wars.

I would hope people don’t see Ukraine and Israel support as the same thing, but I’m all out of hope. On one hand, we have a newly democratic Ukraine and Zelinskyy trying to survive an invasion from a longtime US enemy and so-called superpower, after every heinous thing Putin done in the last decade? (But I’m sure “some people” think brutal dictators should be free to steamroll Europe again.) Seems like we finally found a worthy cause for our obligatory trillion-dollars-per-year military industrial complex! On the other hand, Netanyahu bombs civilians on a daily basis so he can avoid prosecution (sounds familiar). Hmm…

Sure. Costs are too high. People are angry. But angry people are not very reasonable or logical, and easier to manipulate. They just voted against any helpful progressive policies, in favor of tariffs, austerity, oligarchs, fascism, chaos, etc. This was very dumb.

To me, the core problem is that Democrats lost the information war, esp. with the average low info voters (“I get my news from Facebook/TikTok”). It didn’t help that Biden funded genocide and Harris ignored progressives.

I’m sure the totals are so absurd that I can’t really comprehend the numbers. But Citizens United set the rules of the game. And Democrats don’t have that sweet cult advantage.

Embarrassing, but so is Trump and Vance winning so many working class votes, while being extremely wealthy anti-labor anti-union cunts, backed by world’s loudest and richest dipshit, which will demand more tax cuts (for them), tariffs and austerity (for us). “But Biden prices went up!” SMFH.

And why do they serve them: All points back to the insane amount of money necessary to run a campaign (esp. at higher levels, vs billionaires, etc).

I’m kind of amazed that more politicians don’t just promise to try to implement all the highest polling ideas. (Spoiler: Most are progressive and socialist policies.) Especially presidential candidates running against potentially catastrophic fascists.

Likely, although all votes are not counted yet. All while getting fewer votes than previously, so he was very beatable. It seems people were just not excited to vote for Harris.

Coincidentally, a woman has never been elected POTUS, and she shifted right to embrace “former Republicans” while shrugging off progressives. Total coincidence.

Congrats to China, Russia and Israel. Ironic that Biden admin mishandling just one of these issues, even while handling others well, may lead to worst outcome of all three. Perhaps a tiny ME country just changed the course of history. In the dumbest timeline at least, for whatever that’s worth.

banhammer.jxl

I also found this interesting:

'Life Is Complicated’: How a Scourge of Oligarchs Fell in Love With One

Natalia Morari once reported on corrupt business in Moldova. Now she has upset many by having a son with a tycoon accused of corruption, and running against the pro-West president in elections.

Feted by many fellow journalists and Western diplomats as a fearless scourge of corrupt oligarchs, Moldova’s most popular television host torched her soaring career and stellar image three years ago with a startling life choice.

She fell in love and had a child with one of her country’s most notorious and, according to prosecutors, most corrupt oligarchs.

Ostracized by many of her onetime friends and admirers, Natalia Morari, 40, has now caused yet more dismay by refashioning herself into a politician. She no longer works for the independent, award-winning television station she founded in 2006, and is running for president in an election on Sunday against the incumbent, Maia Sandu, the standard-bearer of a pro-European cause for which the journalist was for years a prominent champion.

Unfortunately, your statement probably only deserves bothsides.jxl. Please attempt to honestly and objectively compare things, despite the personal inconvenience.

They make mistakes, but Firefox and Mozilla are obviously nowhere near as fucked up as Chrome and Google by any measure. And Firefox would only improve if people stopped running back to Chrome when something was not perfect.

Definitely check voter registration. Quick and easy at state or county website. And register any change of address (along with updating ID, DL).

I usually remember to check about a month before election, or when I see a new illegal “voter purge” in the news (always GOP).

Agreed. It seems Biden decided at some point that he must side with Israel, no matter the cost. (I’m sure Iran intel is not helping.) Netanyahu sees no downside to ruthlessly using this against him, with a bonus of helping elect a more useful idiot.

I’m not sure if Biden has jelly for brains these days. The poor fool has been getting increasingly humiliated by Israel for a year. It’s painful to watch, along with the devastation it’s caused.

Indeed. She must be keeping very busy. I haven’t read much about her in a while (since she publicly defended him from sex scandals).

I wonder how she really feels about his spiralling mental illnesses and tragic obsessions (social media, conspiracies, politics). He seems quite useless and irrelevant to any business decisions these days. Just another investor to keep happy.

Any day now, “AI” will stop producing this garbage. They just need another trillion dollars…

At least MS account may be slightly more useful (OS, software, school, work). There is literally no reason to have PSN account except a few exclusive games on PlayStation. Even worse are smaller game devs and pubs nagging for accounts.

Of course there is no great reason offline/SP/old games should require an account to play, and out of principle “nope” should be considered. But almost every goddamn thing requires an account these days. At least we have decent password managers now…

Honestly, that window of opportunity for Russians has closed, possibly for a very long time. By now, much of the gov is designed to quickly and brutally control opposition and protests.

For contrast: Just on the other side of the border a decade ago, tens of thousands of courageous Ukrainians seized a very similar opportunity. They fought and died for it, did not give up, and won the battle. Fuck Putin and his Yanukovych puppets, hello Zelenskyy and EU. But Ukrainians are still fighting to finish the war. They should be incredibly proud of their achievements so far.

On very special occasions I’ll ride an escalator.

Sometimes I think people forget we are animals, who have been acting civilized for a relatively short amount of time. Also, there are plenty of ways to damage our brains and increase aggression (violence, accidents, substances, etc).

Those early digital years were brutal. 28 Days Later looks worse with every passing year, probably never fixable (the cam’s resolution and quality was just too low).

Edit: Wow, it was shot in SD 480 for some reason (I thought the cam was capable of HD 720). Fantastic article, full of tech details.