Racist Border Patrol officer is also anti-semitic. Color me shocked… 🙄

Have you tried GrapheneOS (since you have a Pixel)? I put it on mine, and it works great. It treats Google services as just another app, so you can control what it has access to while also putting it into a sandbox. Plus, with the user profiles, I have further segregated Google away from my data. I have a profile solely dedicated to apps that require Google services, and so far, I’ve had only minor issues (which may just be how I’m setting my security, so it could just be a me issue).

However, many times getting a carrier unlocked phone carries a price premium.

That’s a good point. I’ve started advocating for buying phones lightly used (1-2 generations behind). Until just a couple of months ago, I was rocking a phone from 2019 with no issues. When I upgraded recently, I bought a Pixel 9 from a reseller selling one with an open box and a slight scuff on the bezel (that gets covered by a case anyway). Now I have an almost new phone that works like a dream for almost 75% of what I would get buying it directly from Google.

I’m doing a Babylon 5 rewatch right now, and it’s amazing how relevant it is to this day.

So, I typically buy fabric in person since I live near a couple really great independent fabric stores, but one of my friends who doesn’t live near any good stores says she uses https://fabricdepot.com/. I can’t personally say they’re any good, but she seems to like them! One of the places I will sometimes go has an online store here: https://www.voguefabricsstore.com/.

I’m actually starting to get to the point that I want to start drafting my own patterns to make some clothes that are inspired by some futuristic clothes that I really like.

Unironically, yes. It’s such a great, fun hobby. I got into it back in '20, and I have loved making things for myself and others. There’s no better feeling than finishing a garment, and it looks good. (There’s also no greater annoyance than having to use a seam ripper on something you just sewed…)

The message above looks like a mixture of someone trying to meet their enlistment quota through outreach and a certain well-intentioned blindness that comes from years of indoctrination to trust the system. I’d be hesitant to say this recruiter is personally trying to round up immigrants, although there is always a chance.

This was my read as well. That E-6 probably doesn’t care about immigration and the like; he just wants to dangle whatever carrot he can to get bodies.

It’s scummy, but it’s not meant to be as malicious as it comes off.

That being said! Intention doesn’t matter. This is a program that can be weaponized and it should be ridiculed as such.

100%.

Then they’re idiots and the prize itself is worthless.

It’s been that way at least since they gave it to known war-monger Henry Kissinger…

Sounds perfect for some trust-busting action. If only we had a capable government…

Agreed. But that also puts those people into the category of stupid unless they’re also billionaires. Trump and his ilk won’t do anything for the vast majority of his voters. It’s plain as day to anyone who has a brain.

Truthfully, it’s because we have a critical mass of people who fall into at least one of three categories. They are either bigots, stupid, and/or utterly selfish. We’ve been on this path for a while. There’s a sickness in American culture, and Trump is just a symptom of it.

This is a DoD administrative action, so it lies in civil court. Doubt this would make it that high. Kelly will sue, and he’ll win.

The point isn’t to punish him through cutting his pay; the point is to tie him up in litigating the matter and spending the extra money. The point is to make an example out of him so that other retirees think twice about if they want to deal with the burden speaking the truth entails.

He’s right, but (and this is a huge but) it will get worse before it gets better.

Like others have said in here, there’s a hard 30% that will always side with Trump, the Republicans, fascism, etc. That won’t change. And in 2024, there was a swath of voters who just wanted change and voted for Trump (without realizing that the change would be bad and already attempted), and an even larger group was just apathetic.

The “change” people are the first to start to wake up. How many posts on Twitter, etc. can be summed up as “I didn’t vote for this”? Eventually, as things get worse, the apathetic will start to care. That’s when things will start turning but not a minute before. Trump and company are trying to consolidate power and can’t help but be incredibly cruel, brazen, and stupid in the process.

They will cause an economic crisis, hurt untold numbers in all communities, and more. That’s their undoing, though. If they left it to simple corruption, isolationism, pro-Russia, anti-trans etc. policies that only hurt small pockets of the country where it’s easy enough to stick your head in the sand, then the apathetic will stay that way. But this administration can’t help but generally immiserate everyone in pursuit of their fascist goals. When general immiseration arrives, that’s when we’ll see the reckoning. For now, it’s still too easy to ignore what’s happening if you want.

Like the apocryphal Churchill quote says, “Americans will always do the right thing, when they’ve exhausted all other options.” We still haven’t exhausted all other options, but we’re getting there.

🤣 What an impractical, stupid line of vehicles. There’s also something hilarious about being “built for the apocalypse” but also having a “luxury interior” and “premium audio.” Anyone who’d buy one must be so deeply unserious, and I hope constantly made fun of.

Great personal write-up. When I was walking to work and taking the train everywhere a couple of years ago (because I wasn’t living in the US), it was the best time of my life, and I am actively trying to recapture that. I also found myself being healthier, feeling better, etc. when not driving.

It’s truly amazing how driving is the default in American society, and it gets accepted as such, but when you’re able to break away from it, it feels like the world opens up. Despite the bitter cold of a Chicago winter, I’d much prefer to just walk somewhere than take a car, even if walking takes longer.

I have a sneaking suspicion that there will be more GOP reps who will be looking to “spend more time with their families” in the coming months.

If God’s mind were a soup of linear algebra doing stupid number tricks, then sure (with the assumption we’re just talking about LLMs).

In reality, no.

Source: I study AI and work on it professionally.

I totally agree with this. Babylon 5 is by far my favorite show when it comes to plotting and structure. I wish more shows would be like B5 in having 22-episode seasons with an overall arc to the series but more-or-less self-contained episodes.

Exactly. The leadership and a chunk of the imported foot soldiers. That gives the admin time to regroup and let the city cool off. Meanwhile, Bovino and his coterie will use the same tactics elsewhere. If the early rumors of him going to North Carolina are correct, then the courts may be more deferential; this can then be used as evidence if/when they return to use the same tactics again because they were “fine over there” (where there are judges more friendly to their position), and that can be used as evidence in the inevitable case.

Plus, he’s from southern CA. I doubt he’s had a real winter ever in his life and is afraid of it.

I think there are two possible reasons for this:

1. Winter is coming and these good ol’ southern boys can’t take a little bit of snow and ice from our own General Winter.
2. They’re escaping before their brand of brutality is ruled completely unconstitutional, and they have to face the possibility of facing real consequences or openly defying the court.

Personally, I think it’s mostly 2 with a little of 1. As lawless as the administration is, they really like to have a fig leaf of legitimacy by not openly defying the court, just flouting rulings and orders at the margins where they can pretend they’re still abiding by what the courts say. I don’t think the administration is quite ready to go full mask off just yet.