… surprising absolutely no one.

Putin is far from the only one. But again, as a journalist, I prefer not to speculate. This is very much “I know it when I see it” … it’s just unclear what “it” is.

I was linked to this earlier today, and when she said she’d been covering the right wing, I had no idea she meant on TikTok. I have an admittedly archaic definition of “coverage”: reporting via the written word. I honestly had no idea there were people doing serious reporting on there.

Never been on there and have thus far not seen a reason. Same reason I’ve never been on Instagram: Shortform doesn’t interest me unless it’s The Onion.

That’s rather the million-dollar question, eh? I lived in Victoria for a time way back at the turn of the century, and Canada waved us in with a driver license and like two questions. This is literally straddling 1999-2000, so 9/11 hasn’t happened yet. We had to go back and forth as I was working in Seattle, and she was working in Vic.

CBP was already a bag of dicks. I remember one time we finally crossed the border going south after unnecessary questions, and she turned to me and said, “What, they think I’m sneaking into your country to take advantage of your tremendous social programmes?”

The wild card overall is: What do the rank and file do when ordered to invade an ally? The military isn’t a bunch of MAGA yahoos; they’re trained to know when orders are illegal. Sorry to bring up Nuremburg twice in such rapid succession, but I have hope the first layer below political appointees will immediately put a stop to this.

The problem here is I see two outcomes: Full breakdown of the U.S. military as senior staff resign or … instead of taking Canada, now we have a military coup. I never thought I’d say this, but we might need the latter.

What Trump is achieving is making China great again. It’s certainly a leap forward. This is all so idiotic … we’re actively ceding leadership in industry to other countries, discouraging the best and brightest from coming here to study in the first place – and don’t even get me started on Intel.

We’re seeing an engineered collapse. To what end is unclear.

And don’t come at me with “christofascist”; that’s a problem, but tanking the economy and our standing as the premier country to study and do advanced R&D isn’t that. I don’t know what it is and have a few thoughts, but I’m unqualified to try to untangle why Trump’s handlers are doing this, and I generally don’t like to spout off without evidence.

On the local Discord, one of the users pointed out it’s a Tesla dealership, which by definition means they always have incendiary devices parked there. If anything, we dislike Musk even more than most places for the environmental damage his companies are doing in the vicinity.

Unfortunately, sometimes things have to go to complete shit before the peasants revolt.

No, no … capitalism is working just fine. It’s a lack of bootstraps. Preferably the straps of jackboots.

I can’t speak to the local team, but the Oregon one I spent time with took no shit and gave no fucks. They’ll beat the shit out of each other on skates but are then laughing and fiercely protective of one another once the bout is over or in other social situations. And, well, after a few beers, making out.

We’ve actually covered this to some extent.

TIL that the current incarnation of derby started up here in Austin. I went to a few bouts in Oregon, where my ex had a friend on the local team. We went camping with most of the team once, and it was pretty crazy … they know how to party.

Neither germane to the JFK assassination nor mentioned in the article. If you’ve a source for what’s actually interesting, feel free to make a new post.

That’s fair. This is an area where I have no expertise, just the limited knowledge from online coverage of satellites. I’d been left with the impression imagery and transmission are more advanced than they are. I’ll stop talking out of my ass now!

I was referring to geostationary satellites. You get way more than once or twice a day.

Refused to pay Trump $400 million for noncontiguous-to-campus property estimated by Goldman Sachs to be worth $65 million to $90 million.

I’m having an impossible time suspending disbelief.

Thank you for the context. Given the speed of military, this actually makes a lot of sense. And given Trump’s ego, of course he had to make it sound like his idea.

I feel that would be too on-the-nose for U.S. operations at this point in the takeover. Poison is indicated, preferably the sort that causes an MI or some such so it looks natural.

That thread is at once the most hilarious thing I’ve read all day and also the most depressing. Most of us can see what’s going on plain as day, which I suspect was how things started with Hitler. Except Trump had the advantage of 30% support (from registered voters) to get the ball rolling.

With the sort of satellite surveillance already deployed and the fine resolution, what use is a “stealthier” fighter jet? You can see the fucking thing coming from orbit, so deceiving radar is very much an outdated concept.

This is a solution perfectly suited to, at best, the aughts. One teeny temporal problem with that.

I remember a bumper sticker one of my elementary school teachers had, but likely not verbatim: It will be a great day when education is fully funded and the military has to hold a bake sale.

Don’t get me wrong; historically, military advancements have been the only thing that actually trickles down. Microwave ovens, usw. And we’d not have the internet without ARPA (don’t think it was DARPA yet), but a new fighter jet to take care of already 20-year-old needs now in 2037 isn’t going to present any benefits.

This is just corporate welfare for an incompetent company.