Good.

We should have stopped buying it at the start of the war.

Only if words no longer have meaning, or one is speaking without a wit in one’s head, or one is speaking with intent to deceive.

There are many good reasons why a nation might seek ownership of a strategic resource. There are also many bad reasons, and there are corrupt reasons. None of which relate greatly to the efficacy of any given purchase, and all of which are wholly separate as to the economic system at play.

Big jump in the use of poorly written mod bots, annnd the roll out of an AI profiler which gives mods a summary of the personalities & interests & Reddit behaviour of any user participating in their subreddit.

Reminded me that I want to do this, so may try running some up this weekend.

Would be a cool project for a beginner too, once they’ve cracked rectangles of basic fabric. Very little of the crochet I did at the start was stuff I or those around me would have use for, so I’d unravel to avoid wasting yarn. Everybody finds learning easier if they quickly arrive at items they want to keep or gift.

Funny that, as I know a bunch of Israelis who are very active in BDS, and have been for decades.

Though I suppose these fascist yanks who are so giddy for Armageddon would happily attack them also.

Majority of them will be operating within the law, and advising their clients to do legal things.

Two things are needed: massively ramped up enforcement and reform of the law.

They might want to introduce an exit tax before bringing in wealth taxes, and to tax unrealised gains by taking a % of shares (or whatever).

Most will get back in line in the end, meantime it gives some permission from their own egos to get out.

Have to assume that part of his inability to put this back in the box is because Musk is pouring money into keeping it in front of MAGA’s eyes.

A removal of Trump in favour of some other hyper-authoritarian hazard is not good, but one hopes the replacement fails to capture the ardour of enough of Trump’s base.

Just came across her case now, when trying to find the article by the guy I mentioned (unable to, and had major difficulty a while ago, so suspect it has been scrubbed).

They like to suppress the existence of these laws too, and to shift them around - easing, tightening, easing, tightening, and changing, so neither activists nor whistleblowers nor journalists nor randomers who stumble across horrors can know how to keep themselves safe, or to have any ability to weigh up the level of risk they are taking on with any action, and so it is considerably harder to challenge the law let alone any conviction.

That journalist wasn’t an activist at all at the time or connected to activist circles. He’d been investigating reports about a worsening legislative climate, and had taken care to keep well within the confines of the (publicly known) law.

Remember that journalist who ended up in FlorenceADX in the 2000s without having had access to a lawyer, simply for reporting on the AgGag legislation and being found on a public road taking photographs of an empty feedlot?

He managed to get released, but he was straight up blackholed for a while, potentially indefinitely.

It is very possible, however housing near the better state schools is typically very expensive, so for many families it is considerably cheaper to shell out for private school instead.

Additionally, the high achieving state schools have selective entry, so even if you buy the expensive house within the catchment area, your child isn’t necessarily getting in even if they’re bright and studious.

What are the squirrel & beavers in this context?

Peculiar blend of uber-bland and brothel.

Now you’re living with someone who dreams of being a risky fart, the kitchen counter has won a war of attrition against your left hip bone, and you will never be free of the heady aroma of Lynx & gamer rinsed in a little stagnant water, and you cannot begin the day without a slug of cheap whiskey.

At Towerburn!

Just today a number of my searches had me wondering whether AI slop generators were generating articles and suitably titled websites in response to the searches I was making on my search engine.

I don’t know how they’d do that without being able to snatch search terms I make to my search engine (DDG, with its AI features disabled), just don’t find it plausible that anyone is bothering to generate hundreds of sites on extremely narrow aspects of obscure topics, even if semi-automated.

Then both of you are old enough to remember those creepy Monchhichi dolls which were everywhere, that these new dolls look like descendants of.

And they often have the same question worded slightly differently three or four times in the first paragraph.

Increasingly find that search engines ignore instructions to filter by date or site, which coupled with ignoring all operands will kill off their utility entirely.

Idk, politicians seem dirt cheap!

One wonders what, exactly, these fetid ghouls deployed to get their rancid snot-encrusted whinging acted upon.