My wife and I have location sharing enabled in case something happens to one of us. We usually don’t use it, but its good to have when we need to meet up at an unfamiliar place after something goes sideways for one of us.
But if your SO doesn’t trust you enough to allow you private moments and would accuse you of cheating, your relationship isn’t based on trust and thus is very weak.
Message to Europeans from an American.
It’s time to start looking for other trading partners. Canada and Mexico come to mind. So does South America and Africa as a whole. Be ready for us to shit the bed in epic fashion, and make sure you’re not in the poo position. And don’t be afraid to punish us for our BS. Just be strategic with the payback and don’t copy our fails.
That’ll hurt us, but it needs to happen. And targeted boycotts of Red State stuff for extra ‘FAFO’ energy.
Dealing with Trump is a daily example of ‘like playing Chess with a pigeon – the bird shits on the board and struts around like it won the game.’ Canadians need to tell the USA to fuck off.
I know this is in jest, but it’s definitely something the shitheads would push. And my answer goes thusly:
No. The Economy hasn’t done a damn thing for me, and it’s done less for my wife. I’m treading water, unable to afford a house or a car on what was once an unfathomable sum of money when I was younger. It has done less for my wife, who relies on my job to keep a roof over her head. You want us to have kids? Reassure us that our kids will have a better life, and stop vampire-squidding us and sucking down every loose dollar.
My wife and I made the same decision. We joke that Octomom had our kids.
8 billion people call Earth home. As another commentor has said, we probably should have half that. Your choice and our choice not to have kids enables that, even if only stupid people reproduce. With how the world is turning out right now, I think we both made the right choice.
Then you missed an opportunity to justify that opinion.
Germany isn’t perfect. Nobody is. But there is no lie that the USA no longer is the bastion of freedom it claimed to be, but is a lot more like 1930s Germany than today’s Germany is. Let’s talk some facts.
Germany scores 40/40 in terms of political rights, and 55/60 on Civil Liberties. This score matched their 2023 score, and while the 2024 report isn’t done yet, we can get a look at 2023’s view. Germany collected all available points on the political side of the equation, for its Mixed Proportional Representation system, vibrant political parties, and good political system balance. The areas it gets dinged on include:
Perhaps you take exception to ‘gave rise to Fascism’ and ‘unleashed two world wars’? I get you. From a pure factuality standpoint, this statement leaves something to be desired. Germany didn’t give rise to Fascism. IMO, that ‘honour’ goes to Italy. And World War 1 was mostly started by Austria. but let’s be clear here. Germany viewed the fight between Austria and Bosnia to be just the opening it needed to take on Russia and France. And World War 2? 100% started by Germany, in their quest to find lebensraum, or living space, while they displaced undesirables like Jews and Slavs. While Italy started Fascism, it was Germany that objectively planned to bring its own brand of fascism globally. Maybe you’d prefer: “The nation that fanned the flames of both world wars, starting one and enlarging the other, and was the largest force for the spread of the toxic ideology of Fascism, has become a global model of democracy”?
I agree with the rest of it, too. The USA has fallen to becoming what we fought against in the 1940s. And Germany may well become what has to fight against to us in the 2030s…
Seems like the mistake here was surprising a judge in their courtroom.
Heh, I’m noticing that. For clarification, I’m in the USA.
Man, wouldn’t it be nice if our courts would do the same for our far-right leaders?
There are also other ways you can resist a Fascist. I have a can of pepper gel I keep on me at all times. Anyone who tries to abduct me and put me in the back of a van, secret police or just random crook, is getting that sprayed in their eyes and mouth. Apply liberally to the face of the leopard trying to eat your face then run.
I advise everyone who is here on a Student Visa or similar circumstance to start carrying, whether it be mace or a firearm. But keep in mind the firearm salesman notes above. They are good ones.
If I were in charge, that’s exactly what I would do. “US ICE agents are detaining Canadian citizens at the border. Until and unless US agents stop detaining Canadians at the border and return those they have detained, we are advising Canadian citizens to not travel to the USA.” Post it right next to all other Canadian travel advisories.
…killing my consumption addiction…
This is the key right here. Do more with less. Keep that phone a year or two longer. Don’t spend money into the pockets of the billionaires lining up for Trump’s new fascist country. A 7 day boycott can show you you CAN go longer than a day without buying from Amazon. And if you can stay away for a week from them, maybe you can do without the unnecessary stuff they’re throwing down your throat.
The first day is the hardest. You NEED that thing that Amazon has made easy for you to get with just a click from your couch. You drag yourself off the couch grumbling and get on the bus/on the bike/in your car (if you have to) and go out and buy something just as good (if not better), from the local store. You repeat this a few times. By day 7, you realise…you can buy the stuff locally, not supporting a knee-bending billionaire, and the world hasn’t ended. Even if you still buy things you just can’t find from Amazon after the 7 day boycott, you find many things you can buy locally without funding Nazis. Your total sales goes down, and you’re more inclined to shut down Amazon Prime. Eventually, you are only using Amazon as a last resort.
And that’s how you go from a 7 day boycott to changing your life. ;)
Let’s put it this way. I have been shadow-banned on Reddit. Got an e-mail saying my account appeared to be hacked after I responded to an apparent call for violence with an observation that we’re generally not violent as a group but as time goes by, things might change, and a warning that you have to be careful with what you say because Reddit has a rule against calling for violence. I did the steps to secure my account, but while the message wenty away, I have verified that all my comments disappear into the ether. Sure seems like a ban there.
And now, you can be banned for even LIKING a call for violence? And Reddit’s admins basically black-hole you if you have support questions of any kind. So, you like someone saying, say, “If this crap keeps going on, I might need to do something more than holding a sign, if you know what I mean,” and some Reddit power-tripper with a hardon for Trump clicks the ‘ban ur account’ button, and then you are stuck in read-only mode in reddit.
How I explain Self-Hosting to the non-techies in my life: “This is me practicing my trade. As a server and systems admin, I need servers and systems under my control that I can experiment with, set up, configure, break, and fix, and self-hosting has a benefit that instead of four computers, two by my wife and two by me, each hosting its own data, I can set up a network storage device where both of us can store our data.” Any more than that, and I probably won’t go into detail, because I don’t ask my accountant friends to go into the weeds about their career and return that favour by not going into the weeds about my own. :)