Miles O'Brien

“but whatabout…”

Well here in the US we’ve been speedrunning Germany in the 1930s, so it tracks that the places we fuck up and try to control would also be speedrunning their own thing.

The only good fascism is MY fascism!

I’ve only interacted with two dementia/alzheimer’s patients, so I’ll admit I don’t know much about the conditions.

While yes, they could get belligerent and uncooperative, but largely would agree with pretty much whatever you were saying, as long as you weren’t using a mean tone. Basically they were thought sponges that had no problem agreeing with whatever you said, and even repeating it for a short time before losing it.

Trump is clearly a thought sponge for whoever he last spoke to that wasn’t immediately adversarial to him.

I think most genuinely don’t understand what it’s like living in a country the size of a continent, with hundreds of millions of people scattered all over, with a heavily militarized police force that has been trained to see anyone but themselves as a threat, surrounded by a significant portion of the population that would love the opportunity to murder you without legal consequences and the tools to do so, with your healthcare, shelter, food, and basically everything tied to your employment that could end on a whim, in a system designed to keep you perpetually exhausted so you can’t even begin to imagine a world where you are fairly treated, let alone have the energy to fight for it in any meaningful way.

I mean most Europeans live in countries the size of a single state, with relatively high population densities (comparatively speaking). “Americans think 100 years is a long time, Europeans think 100km is a long distance” and all that. I’ve traveled daily for work what some of my UK friends won’t travel to see family on holidays. The US is insanelt large, and any sort of organization is already an uphill battle from that alone. Get into the fact that most people can’t take a day off work without risking their livelihoods, and that opposition is armed and begging to be let loose, and protesting alone is hard to do.

Historically, any left-leaning organization that arms themselves gets heavily targeted by the Alphabet Squad (FBI, NSA, BATFE, etc) and individuals get harassed and tossed into prisons for the smallest infractions simply due to association with the leftist group.

Anyone who doesn’t look at the history of government opposition in the US when they demand action, all while saying we aren’t doing enough because protesting isn’t enough, is (hopefully ignorantly) telling you to go kill yourself.

Oh, so the US should have claimed Venezuela was US property, then they aren’t playing world police!

I fully expect oil companies to convince governments to tax their citizens 150% to subsidize their new oil wells, just so they can continue looking for and opening new ones LONG after it ceases to be profitable.

It’s like conservatives and democracy. They’re okay with it as long as they can keep “winning” but when they can’t win anymore, they won’t change their behavior, they’ll stop using democracy.

I’d argue we already passed that point for both conservatives (in most major countries) AND oil company profits.

The cost of dealing with fossil fuels has been far outweighing the cost of using them, and has been for many many decades. If our species makes it that long, our grandchildren’s grandchildren’s great great great grandchildren will still be dealing with our mistakes.

Some AAA game company releases a big-budget title that turns out to be a complete buggy mess (like MindsEye)

[FREE SPACE] contenders in here, but I like this one the best. The next one is a very close second.

They were already doing so, and this wouldn’t excuse anything Russians have been doing even if Ukraine had bombed the fuck out of the place.

It’s definitely a false flag (in my opinion, not actual confirmation by anyone as far as I’m aware), but not a very good one.

Well, putin orchestrated apartment bombings decades ago, so this isn’t too much of a stretch.

I guess he didn’t actually want to damage it though, since locals say nothing happened. You’d think he’d at least set off a grenade in the front lawn to make it more convincing.

Doesn’t targeting individuals for political purposes during a war break a bunch of international agreements or at least come close?

I’m not sure. That said, I don’t consider “ending a war” to be a political purpose, but if the “rules” of war say you aren’t allowed to take out the leadership, then the rules are “only the poor have to die” and fuck that classist bullshit…

And while your enemy being Warcrimes-R-Us doesn’t excuse your own war crimes, I think if your enemy is trying to genocide you, then you are within your rights to fight however you need to in order to not be genocided.

Genuine question to anyone with an answer: why the FUCK would ANYONE think drone-bombing the ABSOLUTE SHIT out of his residence would be a bad thing?

If anything, this just makes them look even weaker than usual. “we can’t keep this small country that we said would fold in 72 hours from making large-scale attacks against our country’s leadership” isn’t a great look unless you want to look pathetic.

I’m confused as to why they’re saying this like it’s some kind of “gotcha” moment that the world will somehow turn on them for.

I can only assume it’s because they believe Putler is somehow “above” the rest of us and the rest of the world should agree that you don’t harm the nobility.

Hey now those were TERRORIST KIDS looking for TERORIST FOOD because of their TERRORIST STARVATION

See you know they’re the bad guys because I called them terrorists.

You’d leave in a fucking second if you could.

Not op, but happily. In a heartbeat. Wouldn’t even have time to finish the conversation if it were an option.

And yes, they absolutely can be vocally pissed that a privileged old white rich man and his privileged rich kids will get to continue living much better lives due to their riches that allowed them to leave.

It’s like people here WANT to be pissed off at everything.

Lol

I’d love to if I could afford it. Neither my wife or I are particularly tied to our families.

Whaaaaat? Are they suggesting the United States would ever do anything to harm people? People who have done nothing to deserve it, and certainly not to the united states?

And then the US lied about it???

Noooooooooo, that could never happen… repeatedly… throuought our entire history…

I would agree if it weren’t painfully obvious the Russian elections that brought put in in weren’t heavily influenced by putin-run domestic terrorism and election fraud.

Wait, actually, it still is a good comparison.

Carry on.

I mean, half of my hammers have had their handles remade with whatever hardwood was closest. So I’m gonna go with those.

However, the most complex thing that I can repair with sourced parts would be either my truck, or my truck. I’ve had to fix it with “close enough” parts before, and I will fix it until the frame rusts (which given Northern states and salted roads probably won’t be more than a few more years)

There’s a smattering of electronics that I’ve seen mentioned multiple times as well.

One thing that is theoretically repairable, but is hard to find parts for, my washing machine. It’s a old 50s model with a lever to engage the motor, a roller on top to squeeze water out, and a simple steel gear system to drive everything. I should be able to open it up with a crescent wrench and flat head screwdriver, but I doubt I will ever be able to find ready-made parts (I have looked briefly when I thought I had a problem with it that sorted itself) but I might be able to bodge some things together if needed.

Why would you give water to a country that has threatened to invade you in recent months?

I love how when I point out it’s owned by a nazi, people rush in to defend their use of twitter and most usually it’s some form of “it’s the best for what it is/it has a huge user base” and me responding with a picture of musk doing the ol’ Hitler Salute saying “okay but you’re supporting this guy, and if you sit at a table with 10 nazis…” usually results in being blocked, people simply ignoring me, or saying something dismissive.