This happened during the Obama administration, I was active duty in those days. I think USAA and AER had some programs if you needed a check during the shutdown, not sure if that’s happening these days.
I didn't experience it so personally but I'm only seeing one shutdown during Obama's terms. That's not to say that certain media didn't screech about it endlessly, of course.
Ah, yeah you’re right. My bad. I believe there were threats of shutdowns but they never happened. Still got some emails from USAA about what to do in a potential shutdown AFAIK.
Also, a lot of Federal Credit unions front government paychecks...
They credit normal paychecks a couple days early as soon as they see the amount coming in. Traditional banks wait til it's actually in your account.
So in a shutdown those places keep fronting money, but that was because they had faith back pay was coming. With trump openly talking about not doing backpay, that may change.
Navy Federal Credit Union was a popular choice, but there's a couple that handle it like that.
Then there's programs ran by the bases to offer financial relief even in no shutdowns, not sure how'd they ration their funds during a shutdown.
Then there's programs ran by the bases to offer financial relief even in no shutdowns, not sure how'd they ration their funds during a shutdown.
I haven’t seen programs run by the base themselves, but AER is Army Emergency Relief. They have a lot of money and will either give you a no or very low interest loan or often just give you a grant that you don’t have to pay back.
We activated a handful of NG, and one of them is already talking "I can't do this without getting paid".
Like, it's NG so he's dumb as fuck for thinking he even has a say in if he works or not. But he hasn't even missed a fucking paycheck yet and he's already just openly contemplating going AWOL...
There's a reason the military got paid during every other shutdown (sorry Coasties).
Nice to know that's where they draw the line. Not, "I can't do this because I don't want to attack my own countrymen". It's the possible late pay that's going too far
NG are getting activated for a lot of things these days. We grab them for random office drone bullshit constantly, but they do all types of stuff. Not sure how common it is these days, but back in the day they'd even get them for state construction projects.
The headlines recently are just the ones activated to "cities" which makes zero operational sense, but that's not the only way the NG is utilized.
Washington had to put down a potential mutiny of Revolutionary troops due to pay. Washington was able to do that due to grativas and the troops respecting him.
I can understand, at least. Risking court marshal is still better than your family going homeless. Everyone values the lives of people they know more highly than numbers on a screen.
They probably want this so they can remove anyone who protested and then give bonuses to the ones who were loyal/subservient, and fill in the empty spots with more people who will fall in line and follow orders no matter how illegal they may be.
So are ICE and the National Guard getting paid? I’m sure some of the people in ICE enjoy being assholes for free, but after a while it won’t pay their bills.
ICE is. But even before the shut down, they were jerking the NG around by deploying them for just under the amount of time that it takes to activate all their extra deployment pay.
Why aren’t more people complaining “ICE is getting paid but our troops aren’t” or “ICE is getting paid to kidnap Americans, but your flights are delayed because air traffic controllers aren’t”?
He has a loyal following despite the harm he does to those very people. They live in a completely different world fed by Fox and other right wing grifters. They place the blame for everything bad on Democrats and use bad actors (in the literal "terrible acting" sense) to portray characters like "former Antifa member" and other bullshit.
Its a cult. They have their dear leader who tells them what to think and empowers them be loud and proud about their hateful ideology with memorable catchphrases and slogans and whatnot.
NG was getting paid when activated, they were getting cut right before housing allowance and other benefits kicked in. But they still got the base daily for being activated.
Now activated guard (for any amount of time) aren't getting paid.
The agency took to X on Wednesday morning to dispel rumors after people on social media were speculating about what federal government services would be suspend
This is false afaict. ICE enforcement is considered essential, so they (like military members) will get backpay, but are not paid during the shutdown. See: apnews.com/article/trump-feder…
Oh no, anyway just a reminder that all unionization and striking was illegal until unions killed enough US military troops to force congress to recognize the bare minimum of workers rights and enshrined them in law. The reason it is illegal for your boss to lock you in a factory for an indefinite period of time at gun point is because your ancestors killed a lot of us army soldiers that were ordered to force us citizens to work or shoot them.
Because she'll be the final vote to release the Epstein Files.
ALL of this is to keep the evidence of an enormous international child sex trafficking operation that included many of the highest members of our government and the most wealthy men in the world, from becoming public.
Shut it down indefinitely! We can fund all the good stuff with state-level taxes. The world can live without our Gestapo at home and imperialism abroad. At this point they're more harm than good.
We can revisit Federal government in three years. They screeched about less government for so long, let's give it to them while they're in power.
Red state scabs like that probably get welfare. Besides, we've seen over and over that these ignoramuses would cut off their own dicks if it offended Libz.
It was no ordinary drone either, he discovered. Assisted by artificial intelligence, this unmanned aerial vehicle can find and attack targets on its own.
Unlike other models, it didn't send or receive any signals, so could not be jammed.
ChatGPT, you're supposed to be helping my team. Please drop your bombs on the guys in the other trench instead.
Of course! Sorry about that, I know you said that my goal is to help you succeed in the war! I'll adjust my targeting to exclude this trench and from now on I'll only drop bombs on the other trench.
His company DevDroid makes remotely controlled machine guns, that use AI to automatically detect people and track them. Because of concerns over friendly fire, he says they don't have an automatic shooting option.
"We can enable it, but we need to get more experience and more feedback from the ground forces in order to understand when it is safe to use this feature."
That's some real Dr. Strangelove logic in the wild. Can't let robots kill people until it's safe.
Between the DPRK and the US, the DPRK is far preferable. And between those two and the Zapatists, the last are so far ahead in preferableness, that no one can meet it.
Long live communism; and especially that which is anarchist! Fascism and imperialism must fall.
Oh, it certainly is a dictatorship, alright. But I'll take free healthcare, free housing, and the like, over the capitalist hellhole that is the USA anytime.
And if I choose, I would like that with freedom of speech too - freedom to be a communist, union organiser, or whatever. Freedom to criticise the government.
Indeed, I think in this regard, it's choosing between walking in Antarctica, and doing so in the scorching desert. Both kill you, just in different ways. While you can put up more clothes, you cannot strip yourself off with less than your skin, without dying at all.
What I favour, is a society in where all are free from need, and free to criticise without hatred. Economic security is basic; and political freedom must come with it.
That is why if I had to choose between all three (the US, China, and the Zapatists), I would elect the last; and if between the former two, China.
Yes master, please let me lick your boot as you step on me and kill my family! /s
You have no idea what the hell your talking about. You cannot freely criticize there, you will die. You have no economic security there, you will own nothing. You have no political freedom there, you will die if you don't do as they say.
A foolish, blind approach to the rise of fascism, more fascism is bad, you fell for it worse than a 4channer did for trump.
its actually a monarchy to technically at least thats why an IR professor said at my school, i was in an IR class. since hes basically a king, and apponints a male heir/heiress.
If you truly believe that, then why are you posting here and not working on getting there? There, where you would have no rights, especially to post somewhere like here.
Where did I defend the West or hold the United States up as a shining example? I didn't. News Flash, North Korea is helping Russian imperialism right now. Any bloated state with centralized power participates in imperialism whenever it suits them. East or west.
The reason I didn't mention the Zapistas because I don't strictly disagree with them or what they are doing as an anarchist. And they are also a completely different beast from North Korea!
It's common to see such derangement among militant/low information leftists. On the one side, glorifying the proletariat fighting for their rights. While on the other side, glorifying a neptocracy that's their antithesis. If you don't think oppression is bad in and of itself as long as it's your team doing the oppression. You're part of the problem.
I don't care if you don't believe the western stance on NK. At least believe the people that had been there and escaped. The state doesn't even properly feed it's population, let alone have universal healthcare. It's a joke, and not just the West's fault. The leadership would rather spend wastefully on stagnant military and pomp to stroke their own egos. Building cities their people can't live in. And just because I know it will need to be said. No, this is not an endorsement of South Korea.
Skips over the Zapatists, which check what you describe as communism
Not an agenda at all, I see! Indeed, communism is the answer. The problem is fascism.
Speaking of hereditary totalitarian dictatorships, we could say the same regarding the USA, with its political families; the Bushes, the Trumps, and so on. No doubt he is a corrupt bastard.
The Cuba card is that the only reason Cuba isn't a socialist paradise is because of sanctions. It has nothing to do with authoritarians of all stripes being bad for their nations.
Decades of sanctioning and warmongering by the US and its allies has kept a small country like the DPRK on the defensive, which isn't ideal if you want a thriving nation, regardless of its ideology.
The DPRK and South Korea are like 1984 and BNW next to each other.
In the DPRK, at least the repression is clear. In South Korea, it's drowned in a sea of consumerism. You have to pay premiums for healthcare, housing issues exist, and so on.
The answer is therefore, anarchocommunism; as it combines freedom of speech with freedom of life standards effectively.
Communism has always been the ideal. However, we have to take into account that we do not live in a bubble insulated from everyone else. We are facing the real, global and continuous threat of imperialist invasion by the capitalist forces. See Cuba and Venezuela, for instance.
It's really hard to not be an ultra-militaristic society when the CIA and the enemies of the proletariat are always lurking in the shadows and looking for any miniscule gap to breach socialist countries from within. Regardless, we need to diffuse a proletarian, anti-bourgeois culture among the masses in order to inhibit the possibilities of foreign intervention.
I think it is possible to establish a society that is not militaristic. It must always be prepared to combat fascism and capitalism; but it must also have freedom of speech.
An anarchocommunist society must prevail through the full liberation of all people; it must mean that basic needs are taken care of, and that all can discuss freely without hatred, without fear of state repression. It must mean that corruption and oligarchism is nonexistent.
I do not believe in a society where everyone lives in fear; I believe in a society where everyone lives in joy for the next day.
Unfortunately when people criticize socialist countries for the lack of "free speech," even if with good intentions, they are usually parroting the talking points of Western, bourgeois media and only serves as to justify imperialist intervention against them.
These criticisms however derive from an ignorance of the way politics work in such countries whose only perception comes from behind the iron curtain and only through the lens of fascist and capitalist media.
In historically socialist countries, democracy had always been principally practiced on the local and communal stages, where individuals had the most capacity to take decisions regarding their daily lives and the situation of their neighbourhood, locality or commune. I highly recommend reading on this topic:
They look nice because no one’s allowed to use them. They build stuff, but the population is too poor or not privileged enough to be able to use anything. It just looks nice and it’s empty. Just like democracy.
The junior partner in government, Komeito, quit the alliance on Friday, putting in peril Sanae Takaichi's bid to become the country's first woman prime minister.
Three thousand soldiers have been called in to contain protests against rising diesel prices led by the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador, which is threatening to occupy Quito.
The U.S. directly purchased Argentine pesos on Thursday and finalized a US$20 billion currency swap line with Argentina’s central bank, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a social media post, a rare move aimed at stabilizing turbulent financial markets in the cash-strapped Latin American ally.
The U.S. directly purchased Argentine pesos on Thursday and finalized a US$20 billion currency swap framework with Argentina’s central bank, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a social media post.
I don't believe this article or at least the framing. If true Maduro is giving away his only excuse for his legitimacy. It is also crazy how the leader of the opposition is open about letting the USA have Venezuela ressources for almost free
The winner of this year's Nobel Peace Prize is Venezuelan politician Maria Corina Machado
The award goes to the person or organisation that's done the most "for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses"
US President Donald Trump had led a public campaign to win the award, but nominations closed in January - at the start of his second term in office
Its hard not to see this as at least mildly trolling Trump by giving it to a Venezuelan, considering he seems pretty dead set on starting a war with Venezuela while also never shutting up about how he thinks he deserves the peace prize
That's how he'll see it for sure, because he's a narcissistic moron. But actually, it looks as though the individual in question is someone who is as opposed to the current Venezuelan regime as Trump is.
In principle this should be a good outcome for Trump, if you believe that his values are what he says they are. However I don't think he could even point to Venezuela on a map of Venezuela, let alone have any interest in who Maria Corina Machado is.
Trump will now threaten to take over Venezuela, hit Norway with 300% trade tariffs, and argue that the Nobel Prize means nothing at all whilst simultaneously saying its committee is a fraud and he actually won it.
There's a complication for Trump. He hates Maduro. The US in general (by which I mean administrations of both major political parties) wants him out. Machado is the major candidate of the opposition to Maduro. She also would give away Venezuela's oil reserves, which the US definitely wants.
So the Nobel committee just awarded the prize to someone who 1) is hardly a voice for peace, and 2) Trump generally needs to support. Now, #2 is based on Trump not being a shortsighted idiot, and we all know how that works out.
The Nobel Peace Prize 2025 was awarded to Maria Corina Machado "for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy."
Last few words are almost like they're thumbing the nose of one specific person.
The Nobel Peace Prize 2025 was awarded to Maria Corina Machado “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
In its long history, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has honoured brave women and men who have stood up to repression, who have carried the hope of freedom in prison cells, on the streets and in public squares, and who have shown by their actions that peaceful resistance can change the world. [...]
When authoritarians seize power, it is crucial to recognise courageous defenders of freedom who rise and resist. Democracy depends on people who refuse to stay silent, who dare to step forward despite grave risk, and who remind us that freedom must never be taken for granted, but must always be defended – with words, with courage and with determination.
The Nobel Peace Prize 2025 was awarded to Maria Corina Machado “for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”
He will have raged hard hearing the final results. (Wasn't eligible for "his" Gaza peace accord anyway, since that came after the decision was finalized early October ... but I suspect he was crossing his fingers anyway, because well it's always about him ofcourse)
Well really it's "his" Gaza "peace" "accord" since Hamas hasn't even signed yet IIRC? And Israel will break it either way, even if Trump did in fact win the PP, they can't take it back, so let's get back to the genocide.
FYI, Machado is a far-right plant who's championing the sanctions and US intervention in her country and every other nation that opposes imperialism. Notwithstanding her vocal and active support for far-right parties in Europe and LatAm.
The Venezuelan Attorney General's Office announced Friday a new criminal investigation against opposition leader Maria Corina Machado for allegedly endorsing US economic sanctions against the South Am...
Which is why Trump actually has a chance. If they'll give it to Kissinger for openly being an unapologetic warmonger and war criminal, or Obama for literally nothing, why not give it to Trump?
Oh wow, when you hover over Estonia in the list of countries represented in the first article, it's a national broadcast article about Ruuben Kaalep, who somehow managed to get into parliament for one term.
Now I do not know many Estonian politicians closely, but about a decade ago, someone who was part of a group I was drinking with one evening, managed to invite him to join us. We promptly ditched both of them when he... spent quite a bit of time talking about how Hitler was doing the right thing. Ah, and the person who invited him? Became the next lead of the nazi youth group Kaalep used to lead before he went to parliament. I'm amazed she hasn't gotten into parliament yet, since I remember her being dumb as a bag of rocks too, but I guess it was sexism, because I don't recall EKRE having a lot of female parliament members usually - both the current ones are wives of prominent male party members.
Not particularly relevant perhaps, but hey, I'm still grossed out by the fact that nazis infiltrated my birthday.
I sincerely hope that this is not to troll Trump, but that she genuinely deserves the prize. The world isn't revolving around Trump. We should have our own lives, joys and worries, without caring what Trump would think of them.
FYI, Machado is a far-right plant who's championing the sanctions and US intervention in her country and every other nation that opposes imperialism. Notwithstanding her vocal and active support for far-right parties in Europe and LatAm.
The Venezuelan Attorney General's Office announced Friday a new criminal investigation against opposition leader Maria Corina Machado for allegedly endorsing US economic sanctions against the South Am...
As I noted in another comment, she's a major opposition party leader in Venezuela, so attacks on Maduro's navy have some chance of putting her closer to power.
Ironically, she is a major opposition leader in Venezuela, so if Trump continues to bomb Maduro's navy, she gets closer to power. She is also a big fan of Trump and has called Thatcher the politician she most admires.
'Ironically' as if she's not literally a cia trained puppet waiting for power to hand off venezuelas resources to us shell companies. Trumps america cant even come up with their own schemes anymore, they gotta butcher the classics.
Oh, no, he would have happily taken it, and crowed about how it was always meant for him anyway, because he deserved it more than anyone, and he would have actually believed it. Remember when he took that wounded soldier's Purple Heart, because "I've always wanted one of these?"
I love that it went to a Venezuelan, one of his favorite Hate Targets. They're probably all whining that she runs that gang they're always crying about.
The award goes to the person or organisation that's done the most "for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses"
So, explain to me how they think that the guy who single-handedly changed the name of the Dept of DEFENSE to the Dept of WAR, fits that description? Did they think that the Nobel committee wouldn't hear about that? Or care?
More likely, it NEVER occurred to them that it might send a mixed message to the world. Intimidating the entire planet into obedience because they are afraid that America will literally destroy their country, or even the world, is NOT Peace.
Seriously, the naked stupidity of these people is truly astounding.
She played the "Blame the immigrants" card and still got removed, that's unusual to see. Here's hoping the coalition here in Australia sees that and chooses to stop blaming immigrants for everything...
Literally what are you blabbering about, she's been wildly unpopular for a good while now and this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone watching her administration for the last year.
India said it was reopening its embassy in Kabul after four years for "closer cooperation" with Afghanistan. Afghanistan's foreign minister was in New Delhi on Friday as part of a six-day trip to India.
Dumb ploy in favor of the meat lobby. Consumers aren't confused, they clearly know it's a different product than meat. Stores put it in a separate section. We have hundreds of products with non-literal names to help consumers understand what they are trying to be.
The reality is that meat agriculture is bad for the environment, bad for public health (both individual health and for how it spreads disease), and is less shelf stable. It isn't going anywhere, though, so stop trying to put barriers in front of better choices.
Even the picture used in the thumbnail highlights how hard it is to ‘accidentally’ purchase a veg patty over a beef patty. There’s variations in the type of meat patties available like Angus, wagyu, smash, etc. but that’s not being regulated. No one is accidentally buying ‘sparkling protein’
And in the end, nothing changes except the packaging soon says "vegan burger alternative" instead of "vegan burger". Then the meat industry jacks up the price and people buy more and usually cheaper vegan alternatives.
I wonder if sausages with skin not made from intestine will still be allowed to be called sausages, since that's what a sausage is supposed to be made from.
I guess they'll have to come up with a new name for blood sausage too.
Interestingly, those names carry different meanings in different languages. For example, a "Wurst" in Germany (which now has to be meat) is either the meat based food product or alternatively a sausage shaped object. So the whole EU ruling makes even less sense because it removes long established meanings from words or makes those illegal.
Yes, but also why does the government need to be involved?
I understand wanting clarity in good naming and standards, but I'll never confuse a tofu burger or reconstituted mycelium protein nuggets with actual meat.
There is no real risk to the consumer in having language like tofu burger and veggie steak
This is exactly what is happening here. Heavily processed plant pulp being named like meat to deceive the customers, otherwise almost nobody with even a shadow of good taste would eat this shit.
I'm very much against the self righteous types of vegans that go around reminding everyone like they're an Arch user.
But... This is a stupid waste of EU time and resources. We have a lot more pressing matters to concern ourselves with than something literally nobody is confused about.
Some people in certain positions must be incredibly petty to even suggest this.
I've had militant vegan neighbours when I was a student. I don't know how they did it, but they found ways of turning every conversation about them and their "superior" life choices.
Then there are the vegans I sometimes meet during my summer work ours; the ones standing on the street and bothering everyone walking past them in a very persistent manner. Like a jehova's witness.
I'm not saying every vegan is like this. I think I've met more vegans that didn't rub it in everyone's face than ones that did. But consider yourself lucky that you haven't met anyone like that in twenty years.
Yeah, these are our biggest problems. Perks of living between but not under Putin and Trump. It's stupid though, but at the same time a big issue. Mega corps (in the meat and dairy industry) having too much influence, pushing these dumb laws. It sounds innocent, but there's a much bigger issue behind it. Same as in the US, how it all started and how it created the country's current downfall: Mega corps destroying society for their own profits.
The UK’s terror law watchdog has insisted China is a “threat to national security” and he is investigating the matter after the collapse of the trial of alleged Chinese spies.
Jonathan Hall KC suggested the explanation given on the matter was inadequate and the public deserved fuller clarity, as Sir Keir Starmer meanwhile insisted no ministers were involved in the pulling of the case.
The Prime Minister reiterated that responsibility lay with the previous Conservative administration which was in power at the time of the alleged offences.
It came after two former top civil servants questioned his explanation for the pulling of the prosecution of Christopher Cash, a former parliamentary researcher, and Christopher Berry, a teacher.
[...]
Former cabinet secretary Lord Simon Case said intelligence chiefs had warned of the threat from China for years, while his predecessor Lord Mark Sedwill expressed puzzlement about why the trial fell apart because Beijing was “of course” a threat to the UK.
[...]
Critics have pointed to Sir Keir’s attempts to build relations with the world’s second-biggest economy as a possible reason for the Government’s reluctance to label China an “enemy” or threat.
Lord Sedwill, who served as national security adviser from 2017 to 2020, during which time he was also Cabinet secretary, said he was “genuinely puzzled” about the collapse of the trial.
“The truth is that of course China is a national security threat to the UK directly, through cyber, through spying and so on, and indirectly because of some of their aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea and elsewhere,” he added on The Crisis Room podcast.
I realize my title has little to do with the post, lol, tired ADHD brain. I did have the thought that if someone were to be ambitious and motivated enough, the Red Dwarf code could be used to build direct access to BlueSky content into a Fediverse client.
But then, I'm always the guy in the corner pining for the good ole' days of Trillian for IM, the one client to reach them all ^_^
I was recently playing around with Constellation and - partly as a statement but mostly as a personal challenge - used it to build ATProto notifications support into my ActivityPub enabled web app (writeup here, I'd post from that but I think lemmy.world blocks it since I sent it too many invalid activities or whatever).
I already had the ability to follow someone on atproto by resolving their handle and hitting their PDS directly (without authentication - that's all public), and I also turned Bridgy Fed on. With Constellation, I was able to (a) find the bridged atproto version of each ActivityPub post I made, and (b) find any likes, replies, or reposts related to each post.
When a Bluesky post hits my inbox and I click on it, my app checks to see if that user is also using Bridgy Fed, and if they are, it shows me their post over ActivityPub instead, so I can like or reply to it.
More broadly, it might be interesting if someone made an app that used a PDS as its primary datastore, but also had ActivityPub S2S support built into it. I know wafrn can do both protocols, but I think in its case it mirrors posts to a separate PDS kind of like you're describing.
PandaCap is freaking awesome! Pretty much just what I had in mind when I posted previously about a single client to act as inbox for all ActivityPub and RSS/Atom content, only I had imagined it as a browser plugin or full on custom browser so that the content from the inbox would be opened in a client of the user's preference based on post type.
Really awesome project! including DeviantArt etc is really great for the art angle.
The only feature I would miss here vs. other clients is the search function as you mention. I assume that is omitted because it is a lot of work to implement. Have you looked at extending your project with someone else's code for that function? I know sometimes that is more trouble than help, but it would really take the project to that next level of "completely full featured client".
I have looked at wafrn, definitely a cool project and I like that it handles both protocols, but it has some limitations that hold me back from switching to it as my main client. I didn't know it was using a PDS in that way, do you mean it uses a server side PDS to mirror ATProto content or is it PDS per user?
I'm not exactly sure how it works in wafrn - I haven't looked into it myself - but last I heard, they were using blacksky's PDS (lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/51892713) which I'm guessing means all their users (at least the ones who've turned atproto on) get mirrored to that particular PDS.
The search functionality missing from Pandacap is in some ways intentional; I don't personally like searching for anything in the fediverse or in Bluesky, because I run into a lot of text posts, photos, screenshots or whatever that I don't have context for and that I haven't mentally prepared myself to see. But there's also the technical issue that right now, Pandacap doesn't index incoming posts in one place; they either go to the inbox, go to notifications, or get ignored. If search were to be implemented, perhaps it could take the form of an external ActivityPub instance that indexes posts, and Pandacap would just hit its API or something.
The other issues with Pandacap are that it's single-user, and that it's on the Microsoft stack, so no one can really use it unless they're willing to sign up for Azure and know their way around it enough to get it deployed. But that keeps overheads down for me compared to running a VPS.
I've never tried loading a PeerTube post in Pandacap but I wonder if it would try (and fail) to display the video in an image tag, or if it would just show up as a text post.
Wafrn (tumblr alternative with fediverse and bluesky support) has started using an alternate relay; this means that they depend on none of bluesky's infrastructure to work.
Bluesky post by @[url=did:plc:72wa4qoe4ssxx2az3xljtq5d]Gabbo the wafrn guy[/url] saying: "Thanks a lot to @rudyfraser.com for hosting the blacksky PDS. After confirmating thatis ok, wafrn now uses blacksky's relay! In the next update other wafrns may also use the relay"
I think it could be. Cosmos DB might have to be replaced with a different EF Core provider - not sure which would be most appropriate but I'm sure something would work. Key and image storage could just be done on disk.
No man, he's trying to use this thing to divide Europe. US (not only Trump, even all previous presidents) don't like EU, it's a problem for the geopolitical monopoly of US. In this historical period, US need to reaffirm their economical superiority and want to call their vassals to the order. But EU is an obstacle to the US vassalage project, so they want to destroy it. They help anti-EU movements and at the same time the pro US parties. They impose double taxes and military expenditure (that is another tax). They pretend to EU trades only with US and US vassals by requiring economic taxes against China and support to Israel. They put at war the EU in Ukraine to stress it's economy. And now, their just using another opportunity to stress the relationships between UE states, because now Italy, Hungary, Polony, and France (which is a soon-to-be right-wing US friend) need to take position about it, and are just looking forward to have another opportunity to divide EU.
Yes, the US looked forward the war in Ukraine because it was another obstacle for the EU economy and its dependance on Russia and the commitment of the EU in it. It was also a way to make EU more tied to the US vassals than what it was before
Not to mention their continued efforts in destabilising MENA which has tangible negative effects on the whole Mediterranean area and to the rest of Europe
Oh wow yeah, that must be why we’re seeing all the Bundeswehr and Armee de Terre and Wojsko Polskie and so on casualties in the war as they fight against Russia.
Except that’s utter bullshit and none of it is true. What the fuck are you smoking?
I don’t disagree that the current US regime is doing its best to undermine EU unity, but at the same time, don’t parrot idiotic and patently false Kremlin talking points.
Before the war started, Biden’s administration executed one of the most shrewd and incisive applications of intelligence sharing and publication to categorically disprove not only Putin’s smoke screen of “we’re totally not planning on invading Ukraine”, but also pretty much their entire casus belli.
After the war started - and before the current regime took power - there was a frustratingly long period of time where the US more or less hung Ukraine out to dry, and we only started seriously supporting them (in a similarly frustratingly piecemeal and nannying fashion) pretty far into the active phase of the war.
There’s an argument to be made that the Biden admin’s policy towards the war was aimed at bleeding Russia out; while I agree that there’s something to that with regard to the outcome of that policy, I honestly think Jake Sullivan (Biden’s NS advisor) being such a categorical limpdick with infuriatingly outdated worldviews, particularly with regard to Russia, was the primary driver of why things were so stingy and halting for so long. The attrition was much more an effect of that hemming and hawing, and much less the actual intent - at least, until towards the very end of the administration’s tenure… at which point leaning into the attrition strategy was blindingly fucking stupid, considering the incoming regime’s obvious predilections.
I don’t think it’s coherent to try to tie the Biden admin’s policy - frustrating, myopic, and stuttering as it was in many ways - to how the current regime is trying to orchestrate things, for several reasons:
Orangeboi is still kind of obviously super Russophilic for deeply suspicious reasons
Orangeboi et al have an extremely transactional, zero-sum, and kissingeresque worldview, and are demonstrably quite frustrated that Ukraine isn’t acquiescing to being treated like a nice little obedient pawn
Orangeboi personally dislikes Zelenskyy, and orangeboi is notorious for letting petty personal disputes dictate his actions, and is further notorious for holding the most insanely stupid and spiteful grudges far beyond the bounds of logic and reasonability
Orangeboi detests his political opponents, to the point where his regime is disassembling pretty much every single thing not associated directly with him, simply out of spite and animosity
The war in Ukraine didn't start during the Biden administration, it started in 2014 with the Euromaidan, where both Russian and Western assets certainly played a role in the events, resulting in the annexation of Crimea and the "civil war" in Donbas where Russian paramilitaries and unmarked actual militaries operated.
I support the Ukrainian peoples' right to self determination and reject war as tool to settle disputes, but saying the US has no responsibility in starting the war is just dishonest. If they wanted they could have assuaged Russia, it's not like they actually care about Ukrainian people, but it was in their interest for this war to happen, so they stoked the fire. Is it solely their responsibility? No of course, Russia is the one actually waging war, but please let's be objective.
Oh - I didn’t by any means intend to say the US has no culpability in the war. We absolutely do. A huge contributor to the active phase kicking off in 2022 was the US and the UK essentially abrogating their parts in the Budapest Memorandum - specifically, their guarantees of territorial integrity and sovereignty to Ukraine, in exchange for Ukraine surrendering their nuclear weapons to Russia (which Russia repaid by, of course, doing a shadow invasion in 2014 and an active/open invasion in 2022).
I blame Obama and Merkel for doing fuck-all in 2014. I believe Obama was interested in doing more, but Merkel dug in her heels because of that sweet, sweet oil from Nordstream I (and the at-the-time potential for NS II). She is never to be sufficiently damned for being a core enabler/useful idiot in this clusterfuck of a war that Ukraine is being subjected to. There are not a lot of politicians who fell further in terms of my respect for them than Merkel.
Bleak. But still you're perpetrating the picture the US likes to paint of themselves: the de facto sheriff of the world. Which has always been delusional (but something voters really go for apparently), and getting more so by the minute.
I also need to add that Russia's invasion was a European problem in early 2022. Sure, US influence had already been a thing in Ukraine, but imho all that has been blown up by Russia's troll army after the fact. Even "NATO coming too close" or some such - painting Russia as the victim, not perpetrator - wasn't a talking point until long after the war started. Seriously, Finland joining NATO? That's entirely your fault, Putler. That said, of course NATO-Russia relations have never been very good, almost by design.
Incredibly stupid even if he could, they hold the straight of gebalter which is one of the most important if not the most important military location in the world. Stupidity is the reason authoritarians destroy their own countries more so than even corruption.
All the American politicians that managed to persuade foreign states to voluntarily join an "alliance" where one "ally" is dominating everything, decisions, how much land for bases and so on, are all rolling in their graves now
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS These media sources are slight to moderately conservative in bias. They often publish factual information that utilizes loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by appeals to emotion or stereotypes) to favor cons…
Does the article have any problems you'd like to point out, or are we just being weird and racist for the fun of it? The Straights Times is Singaporean, not Chinese. The only link I can find between The Straights Times and the government of China is from a few months ago when the CEO met with several Chinese state-run news agencies to discuss collaborating to "tell the story of the two countries’ development and people-to-people friendship." That's the only link I can find. The Singaporean news outlet is most definitely not "a state owned newspaper by the Chinese government."
Edit: The Straights Times is republishing this article by Reuters. Any complaints you have would be directed there, not at The Straights Times. You're being weird.
The U.S. president demanded that alliance members allocate 5 percent of GDP to defense spending. Spain was the only country to refuse to commit to the benchmark.
This article doesn't even say why Spain isn't committing to the 5% target. The article OP crossposted says why in the first few sentences:
But Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said at the time that he would not commit to the 5 per cent target, calling it “incompatible with our welfare state and our world vision”.
Not sure how the Politico article is better in this case since it seems less informative.
Because the source is important, and Politico is generally more trustworthy.
With both articles, you can now probably trust what's in them (and maybe use context clues to figure out a little bit about the biases of both authors). But until seeing the story corroborated by a reputable source, I will not take it at face value.
So what does the dumbass think Spain is suddenly doing or not doing? Did he see someone from Spain speaking Spanish on TV? Does he think since Mexicans speak Spanish that Spain is also Mexico?
A) because they have more money than they know what to do with it.
B) because they think that greasing his palms will help them schmooze and collude with even more ultra-wealthy people, and get them even more money and influence.
Isn't that the same Infosys that is involved in scamming the H1B visa programme by using "projects" with non profits to bypass the H1B cap? I think it is.
Human trafficking with more steps, making a small group of people obscenely rich.
Naphtha is a primary feedstock in the petrochemical industry for producing olefins and aromatics, which are then used to manufacture a wide array of products, including plastics, synthetic resins, synthetic fibers, and various other chemicals.
Naphtha export loadings from Russian ports to Taiwan more than doubled in August month-on-month to around 370,000 metric tons and totalled 1.8 million tons in the first eight months of 2025, according to LSEG data.
China, Singapore, Malaysia and Turkey were among the other top destinations for Russian naphtha export supplies in August.
Milei had been struggling with market turbulence after a defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections seen as a bellwether for crucial mid-terms later this month.
The US has stepped in to bolster Argentina's floundering economy, with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday announcing a $20 billion economic support package and the purchase of Argentine pesos aimed at stabilising the South American nation’s…
Argentina successfully repaid US$4.341 billion in debts under President Javier Milei’s leadership, signaling a commitment to restoring investor confidence. Despite ongoing economic challenges, sign…
because Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (billionaire former hedge mgr) is friends with another billionaire (Rob Citrone) who is heavily invested in the right wing Milei government.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
Thats simply not true of the UK, the Crown earns billions off the back of the peasents. One example, every sea borne wind turbine pays a tithing to the king so UK citizens have more expensive electricity as one example.
The palace has staff in parliament to advise it if there is legislation it might deem inappropriate to the crown, they obterfer often.
No legislation is legal until it gets Royal Ascent ie the asshole signs off on it. Similarly on Australia where he abdicates rhe job to the GG, HIS representative (not ours).
The Crown has a massive land portfolio and rent seeks billions from many.
The UK crown is toxic as fuck, just becase we have normalised their repugnant behaviour means nought.
The previous Queen witch oversaw the slaughter of millions in the Mau Mai uprising in Kenya as another example
Trumps an arsehole no doubt but he's there becase that's what people wanted, they even had a look back on 2016 amd said we want this shit again bitot was their choice The king should be hung and the royalty disbanded.
So.. What are these two idiots going to do in a few months to a year when the dollar finally crashes under the weight of all the tariffs and other monetary malpractice committed by the fascists?
"The United States will deploy up to 200 troops to Israel to establish a task force to support stabilization efforts in Gaza, but no Americans are expected to be deployed into the Palestinian enclave, U.S. officials said on Thursday.
The U.S. military's Central Command will stand up the task force, known as the Civil-Military Coordination Center, or CMCC, one of the officials said.
The CMCC's job will be to facilitate the flow of assistance into Gaza, including security assistance and humanitarian aid, officials said.'"
Heard from Sabby Sabs commentary:
Timestamps: 1. 10:54.000 - 39:49.000 Trump Deploys Troops to Gaza
Austin ordered about 2,000 U.S. forces to be prepared to deploy if needed in the coming days and weeks. Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters Tuesday that the units have not yet been identified. She said the troops would be able to respond quickly, particularly to provide intelligence and surveillance, transportation and medical assistance.
Its normal to be depressed in western society. We have all the food we could want but we have to work all the time for someone else, and its hard to get enough money to buy your own place.
Still, we have it better than most of the planet i guess. We dont starve, we dont have wars. Even though they are trying hard to add wars, since its so profitable.
After the Nazi invasion of Denmark this placed them in danger; it was illegal at the time to send gold out of Germany, and were it discovered that Laue and Franck had done so, they could have faced prosecution. To prevent this, de Hevesy concealed the medals by dissolving them in aqua regia and placing the resulting solution on a shelf in his laboratory at the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen. After the war, he returned to find the solution undisturbed and precipitated the gold out of the acid.
Imagine if they announce "Donald..." drumroll "Duck!" and a little RC car rolls up to place the prize on and a big screen shows an animated Donald Duck receiving it overlayed over the RC. Trump would probably have a senile moment just staring and not understanding, lmfao.
The drone strike on Pakistan happened before he won
The White House released long-awaited figures last July on the number of people killed in drone strikes between January 2009 and the end of 2015, an announcement which insiders said was a direct response to pressure from the Bureau and other organisations that collect data. However the US’s estimate of the number of civilians killed – between 64 and 116 – contrasted strongly with the number recorded by the Bureau, which at 380 to 801 was six times higher.
The use of drones aligned with Obama’s ambition to keep up the war against al Qaeda while extricating the US military from intractable ground wars, but the programme has drawn much criticism.
If Norway just created a Noble Prize, would he notice the difference? And if you surprised him with it in person, no one could ever point out that it wasn't the Nobel prize as trump can't stand to ever be wrong so he'd say that's the one he really wanted all along.
Problem solved, someone can nominate me for the second Noble prize.
What worries me is what he will do after he doesn't win that prize and is no longer incentivised to maintain that extremely superficial pretense of "peace" that he's already awful at.
I don’t think deserving things (or not) is really a relevant consideration for people like that. They just have things that they want for whatever reason and the power (or not) to have them
Remember how Putin stole a Super Bowl ring from Bob Kraft? He just asked to look at it then walked out of the room with it. I bet Trump would do exactly the same thing with a Nobel medal if he had the chance.
Trump did nearly the same thing with some young injured military guy's Purple Heart. Trump told him much he admired it, obviously fishing, so the guy offered it to Trump, probably never imagining that Trump would actually take it.
Instead, Trump said "I've always wanted one of these!" And kept it.
I had to look this up. Omg holy crap, that might have actually happened. How sad. Honestly after that I kinda hope they just made him another one and didn't tell pooty LOL.
He knows he's dying and is having an end of life crisis. He desperately wants to be liked by the same type of cunts that pick nobel piece prices as sail on mega yatchs before he starts getting fucked in the ass by Satan.
Overgrown toddler mentality. He doesn't use logic, doesn't consider other people, fairness, accomplishments, optics, etc. He just wants it, hasn't been told 'no' enough, and has Big Feelings about it...
The Nobel Peace Prize -once granted by a jury of scholars- has been given by politicians to other politicians for years now and has become just as worthless as you'd expect. Trump should definitely have one, just because he likes golden things so much. Maybe they should create a special category, the Trump Nobel Peace Prize, just as the economists did with their "Nobel prize" for economy (or whatever). The latter is not a Nobel prize at all, but who cares. Maybe put double gold on it or better put two medals and extra cheese in a burger roll. I bet Trump would like that,
Nah, one of his psycho followers with a tongue so far up his ass they can taste his boogers will create it for him, trying to suck up. Just like all the other absolutely insanely bizarre shit they’ve been saying/doing/trying for the last few months.
It's only "real" if your definition of "Real NOBEL Prize" doesn't include NOBEL Prizes being set up by somebody called Alfred Nobel, which is kinda like calling a Theatre Play done by somebody working at the Shakespear Globe a "Shakespear Play".
You will noticed that modern plays in Shakespear style are called Shakespearian Plays, not Shakespear Plays.
All this neatly illustrates how the Theatre World is actually more genuine than the Economics World.
Yeah, I consider it real because they're administered by the Nobel Foundation. Nobel didn't set up any of the prizes himself - they were created after his death by the foundation set up to d execute his will.
The Ig Nobels already have an occasional peace prize (the exact list of prizes changes year to year) but they're far too cool for Trump to get one.
The 2025 peace prize went to "Fritz Renner, Inge Kersbergen, Matt Field, and Jessica Werthmann, for showing that drinking alcohol sometimes improves a person's ability to speak in a foreign language"
"The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which awards the prestigious peace prize, held its final meeting on Monday, the Nobel Institute said Thursday, a day ahead of the announcement of the 2025 laureate.
This means a decision was made about the laureate or laureates before the conclusion of an agreement between Israel and Hamas,"
We will be lucky if we have a democracy after his term.
It looks like he’s reforming the government so that it follows the dictates of the President who is wholly owned by the billionaire oligarchs of the world.
That civil war is a few years late. Not going to happen, everybody's glued to TVs and social media, too bothersome to get out of the couch and do something.
What if we get it in his head that he hasn’t built any pyramid yet. At his age, Khufu had probably completed and was buried in his pyramid; the one that is still visible today, five millennia later. Where is Trump’s? What legacy will he leave us? He needs to start building asap
Once he gets convinced and starts appropriating funds for that, we only talk about that. Non stop. That way he doesn’t make any progress on his fascist agenda. Just a narcissist tar pit.
What could go wrong? Worst case scenario we have an American pyramid that is not a casino or a hunting and fishing store.
Jesus Christ tells us to love each other. Even the sick and the mad, we should love. Turning a mental disorder into an insult isn't what Jesus would want. Jesus would be friends with people who have narcissistic personality disorder, because they're society's rejects, and because Elohim has been for six thousand years the god for the oppressed.
Trolls are people who try to upset others. I can understand why you'd think I was trying to upset you by spreading the teachings of Jesus Christ, and I can understand why you'd think I was trying to upset you by encouraging you to love the mad. But I'm doing neither, and I think your sense that I'm "trolling" in a weird way is your mind's way of telling you that. I'm here to spread understanding and empathy, not hate.
You just called Trump an oppressed in a very round about way in your last comment. Thats troll behavior. The man himself was pleaded to by a priestess to not stomp immigrants with a gestapo regime and he then proceeded to stomp immigrants with a gestapo regime. Jesus would want us to protect these immigrants.
I believe you think I called Trump oppressed. May I guess as to why? I think it's because you're of the opinion I simply must agree Trump has NPD, so if I call people with NPD oppressed, I am including Trump. But the only mental disorder I think Trump has is dementia. Narcissistic Personality Disorder is a disorder. It disables or distresses the one who has it. Trump does not look disabled or distressed to me, so he does not have the disorder. I'm far more concerned about the innocent people you're vilifying who have a disorder you've chosen to treat with hate. They've done nothing to harm you. Please, think about what Jesus would do. Love your neighbour instead. And then we can all team up and sacrifice the orange Antichrist on a pyre.
We are all each of us capable of the same love, the same kindness, the same wisdom, and the same miracles as Jesus Christ.
23 “Truly[d] I tell you, if anyone says to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and does not doubt in their heart but believes that what they say will happen, it will be done for them. 24 Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. 25 And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.”
Yeah, like they're going to give the Peace Prize to the guy that renamed the Department of Defense, the Department of WAR. Hard to imagine a worse mixed message.
Easier to argue that even WWII wasn't a defensive war (not that I think we should have stayed out of it, just that everything since then has been for sure us causing problems).
It's complicated. (Ignoring for the moment that we deposed the sovereign government of the Kingdom of Hawai'i for a strategic outpost and tropical farmland.) Japan wasn't trying to invade the United States at all, they didn't want us to interfere with their attacks on the rest of the South Pacific and thought crippling our fleet would buy them the time to do that. And we were already putting pressure on Japan with a naval blockade so it's not like Pearl Harbor was unprovoked. (And we had been supplying their enemies.) It's not really a "defensive war" for the US like it was in Europe.
I didn't forget about pearl harbor, that's why I said arguably WWII, I think that's the last time the US experienced a military attack. I'm not including terrorism here, but you could argue 9/11 was a military strike. I wouldn't tho.
Yeah, IIRC I wouldn't say that was a war of defense but it was certainly defense of an ally. Yeah the US got blindsided, then MacArthur got it into his head that he could unite Korea and loads of American and allied soldiers died. From what I've read, it was a bad one. I'd highly recommend the coldest winter by David Halberstam for ppl who want to learn about this monumental fuck up.
He's actually done a phenomenal job of redefining the limits of USA politics. I mean, he's completely destroying our country, and at a rate that even I have to acknowledge is kind of impressive, despite being horrifying.
Sadly, I don't think they give out the Nobel for that. But maybe we can get him one of those trophies little kids get for playing sports.
Not actually trying to sum it all up in a quick phrase. This here is just a late night kinda one of those “Yo, that sounds right” kind of thingy things. If you wanna bust my ball sac, let’s talk sports. I hope we are all on the same side politically speaking. If not politically on the same page then your mother is a Munt.
He's like Scooby Doo who would do anything for a Scooby Snack, or Kel who would do anything for orange soda.
Except Trump won't do anything. Like he literally won't do anything. He'll just say he did something amazing and then shit his diaper and retreat back into his mansion.
Give him one in physics and make it the sort of thing only an absolute moron would think is praise, like for his unique demonstration of angular posture; or in normal speak because he leans like a Pisan tower at a Houston rap concert
And Obama's drone strikes live rent free in the minds of an entire generation of people in the middle east. Still weird as fuck that he got a peace prize, but it would be much weirder if Trump received one.
Haha. Wouldn't it be awesome if the next POTUS after Drumpus, was awarded a Peace Prize LOL ? It would be the only reason to wish Mushroom Dick a slightly longer life, so that he can enjoy that moment too.
I was wondering about that as well so I looked into the dates. Apparently Obama got the award in October 9, 2009, and some of the first controversial drone strikes under his administration were in March and April of 2009. Dude came out the gate drone striking and the Nobel Committee just ignored it.
I'm laughing that the committee awarded the prize to a Venezuelan. Trump is going to be raging all day - all caps screeching about how he deserved to win, how Maria Machado is a loser, about how many conflicts he resolved etc. His government is going to be striking out against Venezuela (despite the winner being an opponent of the regime), Norway and the Nobel Prize organization. Fox will be on a rage fest too and all his proxies too. I guarantee that we'll see esteemed members of Nobel getting detained at US borders, being deported etc because Trump is a sore loser little bitch.
I think it's worse than that. His cult members are sore for him. Trump probably won't flag everyone he wants detained, but his disciples will do it for him to please daddy.
Not that I think Trump's not petty enough, I think he's not capable enough.
Your instance is heavily censored, both in terms of that filter, and also your instance admins who are very, very ban-happy towards people who don't share the same views they do. I recommend switching to a less controlling instance if that sounds like a problem to you.
I hadn't heard that they gave it to someone else until I read your post.
That's hilarious. Any day that Trump is unhappy is a good day. I love to see unhappy billionaires because they always thought their money would make them happy, and it doesn't. Their solution is that they'll finally be happy if they have even more.
Now we're going to have to hear him cry about it for the next year, like the world-class sore loser that he is. He'll probably try to get his followers to storm the Nobel HQ.
The bright side is that maybe he'll go around settling wars and conflicts around the world. Maybe we can steer his naked ambition to do some good.
Cool. How about them Epstein files? If you want a peace prize, they should be released to settle the matter finally. Then you can have your participation trophy Mr. Poopypants.
Why not offer a participation trophy called the ‚Noble Piece Prize‘? At his reading level he’ll not notice any difference and no one is going to tell him.
Even if this pause on Israeli imperialism lasts, he's simultaneously extrajudicially bombing foreign civilians, on purpose, in international waters. And bragging about it.
He also thinks he's smart, attractive, beloved by all Americans, and good at golf. He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and just thinks that's the way it's supposed to be. It's never occurred to him that he might not deserve anything he wants, from companies to political victories to sexual conquests to accolades.
"But amid the naked ambition behind Trump’s push for peace in Gaza, even those who have been highly critical of the war have hailed the deal as a major achievement."
It seems like they are celebrating too early. Getting the hostages back doesn't end the war. Once the hostages are returned, they'll go right back to genocide.
Narcissism is scary and ridiculous thing. I actually know a guy who desperately wants to get a Nobel Literary Prize because "he deserves it!". Except no one rightfully gives a fuck. He's an old timer who ended up migrating to US after WW2 with a whole can of worms and then some regarding his national identity. Depending on his mood he's either Ukrainian or American, I'd say he's 100% narcissist who is all about clout. Dude never made it as a writer and gained notoriety in Ukraine due to his outsider status first and yet he's so vain it is kinda morbidly funny - like he insists he's the most experimental Ukrainian writer (even though he disregards every other writer as primitive and retarded) or that he did this or that first (like who gives a fuck?). But even with all these "accomplishments" he struggles to publish anything in Ukraine because wants publishers to cover the expenses and give him "the bag" for their trouble and when he fails at that he blames it on "Ukrainian people being ungrateful".
When you're looking for a peace prize while pitting US citizens against each other, you know it's because whatever "immunity" you got won't be enough to hide from your crimes. - People aren't dumbasses donny.
He knows he'll never see the inside of a jail cell. He knows he doesnt have the decade or so that trial would take, even if the house and senate magically flipped this midterm and the dems were able to impeach him and his court.
Major media and social media seem to promote the winner - Maria Corina Machado - despite that she is a Trump fan, and Israel supporter. Also in Mastodon she is trending.
Maria Corina Machado had strong political ties with Netanyahu’s Likud party and has said on Twitter that “Venezuela’s struggle is Israel’s struggle” when it comes to the matter of terrorism
Just make a Nöbel Prize, throw a big fake ceremony and give him one, making sure it's bigger than the Nobel medal yet also make it of yellow shiny plastic.
They're all saying it. Every time I see somebody they're saying the same thing. They say mister trump you're the most peaceful guy I know. I heard somebody say that once and now they're all saying it.
They all come up to me and stop and they say sir, I'm sorry to hear you lost the prize to a very nasty person. A real nasty person. I hear she didn't even win in her own country you know, and I shake my head and I say it's too bad, the state of things. A big shame. You know who else was big? Palmer. Let me tell you about palmer ...
If they award the obese orange lard souffle a Nobel Peace Prize, then that will just be another achievement that's become meaningless. It would be like giving Hitler a Peace Prize for not invading Poland a bit earlier. And Donny 2 Inches body count is in the same magnitude as Adolfs, and still growing. Associating Hitlerpig with anything prestigous will demean and pervert it. EVERYTHING Donny 2 Dolls touches or is associated with, DIES !
Its probably out of character for them, but the Nobel Commitee should make an announcement of things they consider disqualifiers for the prize to see if they can push him into relenting on his fascism.
You know, "we will not consider any leader as a candidate who imposes or utilises martial law to rule their country. We will not consider any candidate who orders international killings of civilians. We will not consider any candidate that ignores their own countries constitutional protections when it comes to foreign nationals living in its territories, etc.
I think they should give a NPP to Little Marco, or Steve Witkoff (ewww..), just on the chance that maybe Donny 2 Weeks will stroke out in rage.... Or another to Obama, LOL.
Yeah well the person the Nobel committee gave it to is a Trump supporter and wants the US to intervene in Venezuelan politics. They gave it it Trump by proxy even if he is too stupid to realize it.
"I believe that people deserve to spend more time with their families, loved ones, hobbies and other aspects of life, such as culture. This could be the next step for us in working life," the prime minister commented on the new proposal.
Former Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin has called for a more flexible work schedule, consisting of a four-day workweek of six hours per day. Marin said that a flexible work schedule would give employees more time to spend with their families.
But for the guy bothered by snow, great news, winters in the southern Finland, especially in the coast, have mostly turned to just a 5 month long wet and windy autumns instead!
Well, with that Atlantic current dying down, Europe might not have to worry about things getting warmer for much longer. Scandinavia especially might get quite a bit colder, like comparable to northern Canada.
Oh if the Gulf Stream stops we are totally fucked - Finland is almost exactly at the same latitude the Northwest Territories of Canada. The capital of Finland would basically get Yellowknife type temperatures, and that would essentially be the warmest place in the entire country.
If that ever happens I'm just going to kalsarikänni myself to death in the snowbank.
I think Sweden would be a better bet. They've had bigger trials and Finland's current right wing crony capitalist government would rather see 6 day work weeks with 12 hour shifts to please their corporate overlords.
My first thought as well. So often we see ex leader spouting this type of thing after the fact. But during their time, they toed the party line to keep the working class down.
The idea floated in august 2019 when Sanna Marin was Minister for Transport and Communications (she did a tweet about that). Since then, it has not been introduced officially to the government agenda. (Source : Reuters)
Neither legislating a 60h workweek, nor a 40h workweek, nor a 6d workweek, nor a 4d workweek, CAN fit all diverse kinds of people.
Some are unhappy when NOT working all the time!
Many autistic workaholics would need2 jobs, to be happy in her idea of good, but it wouldn't ever work right ( 8d work every 7d week??
There NEEDS to be some way for there to be 2 categories of employees: workaholics & humans,
& the measured higher social-support ( including late-life health-care ) amplification for the workaholics obliges a higher tax-rate for companies employing those, in proportion with the percentage of 'em working that way.
( I'd be in the workaholics category, not in the "family" category, just so you understand I'm deeming my own category to be more-costly to social-support systems.
But the Industrial Revolution was on us, not on the family-people.
We are the blockheads who keep bashing-away at making technology work right, see? )
Sorry, my point is that there are fundamentally-different-motivations, & that fundamentally-different-motivations have to be treated differently, legally .. exactly the same as people-without-family can probably work significantly more hours per week than can people-with-children-to-care-for.
It isn't a question of just putting overtime above 40h/week, it is a question of having 2 distinct populations in the same workforce, & you don't make the law ignore 1 of them, not the with-family people, AND not the without-family people.
The idea is to place an upper limit on corps for the definition of a full time work week. If you want to work more, go ahead, but your employer shouldn't be able to compel you to work past that max number of hours in return for benefits. It's tricky because there's a legal component and a cultural component to it. Also some businesses will push back (especially service industry) because they will need to change their whole hiring and scheduling.
That's the right direction but it needs to make sure that the wages stay the same, otherwise everything becomes a part-time job and people are forced to find an additional job to get to their original earnings.
That’s equally valid of course, but unless you mean your birth family and not your own, the more appropriate and commendable route would be to remove yourself from the wrong family situation and figure out a new, working, one. It’s no benefit to anyone, least to yourself, if it’s not working out. Everyone will be happier for it ultimately, even if it requires some tough choices and a whole bunch of compromises, adaptation and potential heartbreak in the short term.
I mean the same is true for birth family too, but at least there it doesn’t matter as much, since often the first priority and the more day-to-day impactful one will be your own immediate family, so you can simply minimize the need to ever interact with them.
And there’s the moral implication, that you didn’t choose your birth family. But you did choose your own immediate family. So there’s a responsibility there in the latter that isn’t present in the former.
Unless the situation is that you didn’t choose your immediate family either. If it’s not working out, it’s even more of a reason to figure out a way out.
Unless there’s no way out. In which case, and only in this case, your sentiment seems agreeable and hopefully the situation doesn’t last. And if it does, hopefully you get as much time off as possible.
So is a 4 day work week with 8 hours per working day.
I honestly think a lot of hours we spend working are spent "working." I know my, and my colleagues, 40 hour weeks certainly are less than 40 hours but I also don't get paid enough so I think it's a fair trade off.
I do get my shit done though and work late if I have to so it isn't like I'm screwing anyone.
Seriously though I think we need to accept that we just don't need the standard to be 40 hours of labor as the expected time. We arrived at it artificially and can just as easily walk away from that and into a brighter future with less work and more time with our family and friends. I'm sure we would even see productivity gains as folks are happier and healthier.
I mean, if we all collectively, as a species decided we wanted a post-scarcity society where everyone is guaranteed whatever they need to live including food, shelter and healthcare, we could do it with relative ease. We have the infrastructure and technology to reduce work for everyone by a drastic degree, and many people would be freed up to study, develop science and make the system even more efficient.
But we're not even at the point of a 4-day workweek being acceptable broadly, we're not that unified species, we're FAR from it. Baby steps my friend. Baby steps.
I love how it's always former politicians and officials who come out to advocate for better things in the world.
Like, you had power when you were in office, you could have at least made the effort to broach this with the people so the next elected official with power can keep the cause alive so we eventually get better outcomes. The endorsement of people without political capital has barely a shred of power in the real world chessboard of political give-and-take.
Edit: Did some research, found what I expected, that it never even made it to government and was just "some shit she said" at an event and made a tweet about.
I found a user-repost of an old article in newsnowfinland.fi, no idea the reputability of the site or its politics but I tend to believe it based on the fact that the "proposal" never really went anywhere nor had any momentum in Europe. I tend to be very cynical about these stories because I've had enough CEO's who said similar sentiments and never made any effort to actually do the thing, because largely, liberal democracy haaaaates the idea of giving people any actual hints of socialism and social care, and tend to just serve the softer arm of capital.
How Finland’s fake four-day week became a ‘fact’ in Europe’s media
We take a look at how media outlets in the UK - and in Europe, Asia, Australia and USA - were all caught out by a Finland story that was just too good to be true. Because it wasn't.
Have you heard the news? Prime Minister Sanna Marin (SDP) is doing something radical.
“Finland’s new prime minister, 34-year-old Sanna Marin, has announced plans to introduce a four-day week” says the Guardian, underneath the statement that Marin has “promised” a short working week.
“Finland’s new prime minister calls for four-day working week” says the Independent.
Britain’s commercial television channel ITV writes that “Finland PM calls for four-day working week and six-hour days.”
“Four-day working week and six-hour shifts to be introduced in Finland” trumpets Metro.
Meanwhile in the Daily Mail, with millions of readers every day, the headline is “Finland to introduce a four-day working week and SIX-HOUR days under plans drawn up by 34-year-old prime minister Sanna Marin.”
The story is not just confined to UK media outlets either: over the course of 12 hours on Monday it’s been repeated in a Belgian media website; and been the topic of a call-in during an Irish radio programme. It’s been published in Australia, India and the USA as well.
And it’s not true.
Not only are these proposals not included in the Finnish government’s policy programme, multiple government sources told News Now Finland on Monday evening that it’s not even on the horizon. SDP politicians and party activists gather at 120th anniversary event Turku, 19th August 2019 / Credit: Jukka-Pekka Flander, SDP
Charting the origins of the story
So how did this fake news story begin, and how did the misinformation spread so quickly?
Back in August 2019 some senior Social Democrat politicians and party activists gathered in Turku on Finland’s southwest coast, for an event to mark the organisation’s 120th anniversary.
The weather was warm, the drinks were flowing, and the Turku Workers’ Association brass band – resplendent in their scarlet blazers – played traditional tunes while the guests sang along.
After then-PM Antti Rinne had made a speech, it was time for a panel discussion.
The participants included Sanna Marin – at the time Minister of Transport; Tytti Tuppurainen, Minister for European Affairs; Ville Skinnari, Minister of Development and Trade; and Antti Rönnholm, the SDP’s Party Secretary.
They sat under a canopy on a small raised stage, with a potted ficus and some SDP banners for decoration.
A moderator posed questions and kept everything moving along, but the whole event that day was about a celebration of the party’s history rather than formulating policy – which had anyway already been enshrined in Rinne’s government programme just two months before.
At one point during the discussion Sanna Marin floated the idea that Finland’s productivity could benefit from either a four-day working week, or a six-hour working day (she never suggested both).
Marin also tweeted about it at the time, noting plainly that it was an SDP party goal to reduce working hours – but to be clear, again, this was never official government policy.
The comment got some modest media attention in Finland but the news cycle soon moved on. Composite picture showing some of the misinformation about PM Sanna Marin
Tracking the spread of the fake news story
Four months after the Turku event, on 16th December 2019, Austrian news outlet Kontrast picked up the story.
Journalist Patricia Huber quoted Marin as saying that day: “A 4-day week and a 6-hour work day. Why shouldn’t that be our next step? Are eight hours really the last truth? I think people deserve to spend more time with their family, loved ones, hobbies and other aspects of their lives – like culture. That could be the next step in our working life.”
It’s the key quote to follow here, and it matches almost exactly to what Finnish media quoted Marin as saying at the time. So in that sense it’s accurate.
The next time the story crops up is 2nd January 2020, when Brussels-based newspaper New Europe published an article by journalist Zoi Didili whose headline was “Finnish PM Marin calls for 4-day-week and 6-hours working day in the country.”
It gives the impression that this is an initiative announced after Marin became PM with the opening paragraph “Sanna Marin, Finland’s new Prime Minister since early December has called for the introduction of a flexible working schedule in the country that would foresee a 4-day-week and 6-hours working day.”
It gets several things wrong in that one sentence, and while it does reference the SDP’s Turku event, it doesn’t actually quote Marin saying there should be a four-day week, or six-hour days, and frames the whole context as if it’s a new initiative since Marin became PM.
It’s this article which seems to have sparked other stories especially in the British press, who quote Marin’s comments about people deserving to spend more time with their families, but offer no context or timeline for the original information. File image of computer, cyber / Credit: iStock
How should the government respond to fake news?
This is not the most damaging piece of fake news, but the way it’s been picked up, adapted, and crucially not fact-checked by so many otherwise credible media outlets is worrying in an era where people are quick to spread information without verifying its veracity.
“If the misinformation is harmful then you should really attempt to address it as soon as possible. But always consider that the misinformation is likely to travel faster than the truth, so you are looking more at damage limitation rather than anything more effective” says Fergus Bell, CEO of Fathm, a consultancy for the news industry with a specific focus on countering misinformation in media.
“It is useful to have a communications team that know how to spot stories that might be surfacing – this is going to be the quickest way to put out a correction as quickly as possible” he advises.
It’s sound advice, and may have been hindered in Finland by Monday’s public holiday with civil servants and politicians trying to enjoy a day off. But Bell says that countering misinformation might anyway have a limited impact.
“Because of the way misinformation can spread a rebuttal might only fan the flames of the misinformation and give it life. Drawing additional attention to it isn’t going to make it go away any faster.
From mega-embassies to alleged spies, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is struggling to recast the U.K.’s relationship with China to create a best of all worlds situation. But the U.K. doesn’t have the clout to pull this off successfully, and Labour doesn’t seem to realize this. It wants to both cooperate and challenge, without any plan for what happens when Beijing won’t play ball.
[...]
The U.K, along with the rest of its allies, is supporting Ukraine in its defense against Russia’s invasion, the worst conflict on European soil since World War II. China, whatever its denials, is aiding and abetting Russian aggression.
[...]
China has escalated this economic pressure into an explicit threat. [...] Back in the spring, China warned the U.K. that it would retaliate if Labour decided to classify China as a top-tier threat under the foreign influence registration scheme, which would have heightened the risk of criminal penalties for anyone who failed to disclose their activities with a Chinese state entity. In the end, Labour did not classify China as a top-tier threat.
[...]
It’s not hard to make the leap that China is likely applying similar pressure on the Starmer government to approve its proposed “mega-embassy” at the heart of London. Even though the application was shot down by the Tower Hamlets Council in 2022, China resubmitted an identical version of the application after Starmer became prime minister.
[...]
The irony is, it is because both Whitehall and the Chinese diplomatic staff in London mismanaged their handling of the alleged spy case that it may be politically impossible to approve the new embassy this autumn. And if what currently looks like a brewing scandal comes to the boil and there is a high-level resignation or firing, the ramifications could be more long-term.
Gray Sergeant, a research fellow in Indo-Pacific Geopolitics at the Council on Geostrategy, recently wrote a Substack post about the U.K.’s position on Taiwan, pointing out that last month Chinese jets practiced attack runs on a Royal Navy frigate in the Taiwan Strait. China-U.K relations, he concluded, “cannot, and should not, be good.”
While Trump’s plan offers the important possibility of a pause or end to Israel’s genocide, the worst of Trump’s plan for Gaza is embedded in its long-term vision. The plan amounts to a blueprint for external neocolonial domination over Gaza, under which Palestinians will have no formal ability to assert their rights or determine their future. Trump’s plan for Gaza denies Palestinians self-determination and says nothing of Israel’s ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing in the occupied Palestinian West Bank.
Under the plan, Trump would personally chair an Orwellian “Board of Peace” that would rule over Gaza, with former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair at his side. The Trump-run “board” would convene an unnamed “panel of experts” who would create a “Trump economic development plan” that would “rebuild and energize Gaza.” But dig a little deeper, and it is clear that Trump’s vision for Gaza is yet another page from the Trump family playbook for corruption and self-enrichment.
Protection of political, economic and commercial interests has led to FIFA’s ‘double standards’ in countering anti-Israel protests and calls for sanctions, say experts.
gravitas_deficiency
in reply to popsmokemedia • • •Add this to the list of things I’m thinking now that, if you had told me a year ago, I’d have assumed you were utterly insane:
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deranger
in reply to gravitas_deficiency • • •crank0271
in reply to deranger • • •A history of government shutdowns: The 14 other times funding has lapsed since 1980
Melissa Quinn (CBS News)like this
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Goku
in reply to crank0271 • • •Yes I was active duty during Obama's administration and there was only one government shutdown that I can recall.
I think military missed 1 paycheck IIRC and my Navy Federal Credit Union fronted us the money until the back pay kicked in.
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deranger
in reply to crank0271 • • •givesomefucks
in reply to deranger • • •Also, a lot of Federal Credit unions front government paychecks...
They credit normal paychecks a couple days early as soon as they see the amount coming in. Traditional banks wait til it's actually in your account.
So in a shutdown those places keep fronting money, but that was because they had faith back pay was coming. With trump openly talking about not doing backpay, that may change.
Navy Federal Credit Union was a popular choice, but there's a couple that handle it like that.
Then there's programs ran by the bases to offer financial relief even in no shutdowns, not sure how'd they ration their funds during a shutdown.
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deranger
in reply to givesomefucks • • •I haven’t seen programs run by the base themselves, but AER is Army Emergency Relief. They have a lot of money and will either give you a no or very low interest loan or often just give you a grant that you don’t have to pay back.
givesomefucks
in reply to gravitas_deficiency • • •Literally already happening...
We activated a handful of NG, and one of them is already talking "I can't do this without getting paid".
Like, it's NG so he's dumb as fuck for thinking he even has a say in if he works or not. But he hasn't even missed a fucking paycheck yet and he's already just openly contemplating going AWOL...
There's a reason the military got paid during every other shutdown (sorry Coasties).
Taldan
in reply to givesomefucks • • •givesomefucks
in reply to Taldan • • •I mean...
We ain't exactly the boots on the countries neck.
NG are getting activated for a lot of things these days. We grab them for random office drone bullshit constantly, but they do all types of stuff. Not sure how common it is these days, but back in the day they'd even get them for state construction projects.
The headlines recently are just the ones activated to "cities" which makes zero operational sense, but that's not the only way the NG is utilized.
HobbitFoot
in reply to Taldan • • •cantstopthesignal
in reply to HobbitFoot • • •Puts wooden teeth in.
Do you take IOUs?
explodicle
in reply to Taldan • • •Prove_your_argument
in reply to gravitas_deficiency • • •modernangel
in reply to popsmokemedia • • •like this
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wewbull
in reply to modernangel • • •like this
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fluxion
in reply to modernangel • • •like this
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Corkyskog
in reply to modernangel • • •ramble81
in reply to popsmokemedia • • •like this
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Bronzebeard
in reply to ramble81 • • •like this
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ramble81
in reply to Bronzebeard • • •givesomefucks
in reply to ramble81 • • •theneverfox
in reply to givesomefucks • • •Lka1988
in reply to theneverfox • • •I don't know if you've noticed yet, but Trump just lies about everything.
T00l_shed
in reply to Lka1988 • • •Lka1988
in reply to T00l_shed • • •He has a loyal following despite the harm he does to those very people. They live in a completely different world fed by Fox and other right wing grifters. They place the blame for everything bad on Democrats and use bad actors (in the literal "terrible acting" sense) to portray characters like "former Antifa member" and other bullshit.
Its a cult. They have their dear leader who tells them what to think and empowers them be loud and proud about their hateful ideology with memorable catchphrases and slogans and whatnot.
theneverfox
in reply to Lka1988 • • •Taldan
in reply to ramble81 • • •givesomefucks
in reply to Bronzebeard • • •Ice is not getting paid.
NG was getting paid when activated, they were getting cut right before housing allowance and other benefits kicked in. But they still got the base daily for being activated.
Now activated guard (for any amount of time) aren't getting paid.
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Taldan
in reply to Bronzebeard • • •Every source I can find indicates that is false. ICE is not paid during the shutdown. They will be paid when it ends
Additional sources: 1 and 2
Definitive source, although painful to try to read
Does ICE continue working during a government shutdown?
CAITLYN FROLO | The National News Desk (KEYE)like this
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BigPotato
in reply to Taldan • • •So, they're just shooting people in the face for fun. Got it.
At least Soldiers have the gumption to sham during my a shutdown!
Artisian
in reply to Bronzebeard • • •like this
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Son_of_Macha
in reply to popsmokemedia • • •like this
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SoloCritical
in reply to Son_of_Macha • • •like this
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CluckN
in reply to SoloCritical • • •WizardofFrobozz
in reply to SoloCritical • • •superniceperson
in reply to SoloCritical • • •IronBird
in reply to superniceperson • • •superniceperson
in reply to IronBird • • •Zron
in reply to SoloCritical • • •Free bed, free food?
Sign me the fuck up
GreenBottles
in reply to popsmokemedia • • •Corkyskog
in reply to popsmokemedia • • •BarneyPiccolo
in reply to Corkyskog • • •Because she'll be the final vote to release the Epstein Files.
ALL of this is to keep the evidence of an enormous international child sex trafficking operation that included many of the highest members of our government and the most wealthy men in the world, from becoming public.
explodicle
in reply to popsmokemedia • • •ICE isn't getting paid?
Shut it down indefinitely! We can fund all the good stuff with state-level taxes. The world can live without our Gestapo at home and imperialism abroad. At this point they're more harm than good.
We can revisit Federal government in three years. They screeched about less government for so long, let's give it to them while they're in power.
BarneyPiccolo
in reply to explodicle • • •explodicle
in reply to BarneyPiccolo • • •BarneyPiccolo
in reply to explodicle • • •