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Cake day: October 6th, 2023

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  • I mean it’s some pretty serious overstepping… Nobody even does that to North Korea, even though they get ever closer to developing a ballistic missile, something capable of delivering a nuke (which they do have). But nobody is bombing NK… Why? Because that’s a fucking act of war!

    Bombing Iranian facilities is just an egregious breach of their sovereignty. If on the other hand, some country tried that against the US, it would be a major international incident as soon as they crossed into our airspace, regardless of whether they deployed a single munition. But if they did hit a target, a completely unproportional retaliatory bombing campaign would ensue.

    And the only reason Israel gets away with this dangerously aggressive behavior is that they have the military might of the US at their back. They believe they’re untouchable because they assume the US will always be an ally. And truth be told, it’s all a terrible policy for their own longevity. Some day, eventually, we’ll have a president with a conscience and a Congress that supports them, and then we’ll stop giving weapons to Israel. And on that day Israel will finally have to take responsibility for their actions, and we’ll see what their neighbors really think of them. Until then, they continue to dig themselves into a deeper hole, convinced that it’s the safest way forward.


  • It’s not good at all. Israel forces have been murdering so many civilians that collateral damage has become part of their plans.

    So… you must know that the atrocities committed have nothing to do with the quality of their intel.

    In other words, the comment makes 0 sense as a reply. I mean it’s a fine comment on its own, it’s just not at all a reply to what you quoted. I really only bring it up for your benefit, because being unrelated to the quote like that makes the comment seem dishonest, which makes the rest of your message less credible.



  • Do you actually believe that? It’s a pretty simplistic view of the situation.

    I think if you honestly look at the situation, it’s pretty clear to see that conservatives definitely love America, but they have a VERY different idea of what America is and how to make it better. They are working towards that goal of making America better, it’s just that their privileged, bigoted, deeply problematic views would produce a truly horrifying version of the US.

    The other issue is conservatives seem comfortable using an “ends justify the means” mentality, when the means are evil and the ends are only based on one interpretation of their faith. That kind of thing would certainly bother most progressives, but in their own eyes, they’re “doing God’s work”.


  • I’ve been thinking about this, and I’m afraid I agree. I’m not sure how you could enforce this. Paying federal tax seems like a personal choice and the consequences would be felt by individuals (tax evasion charges, unless trump manages to get it treated as a terrorist act). I’d be interested to see if the state was actually offering to shield CA citizens from being arrested by federal agents or subpoenaed by federal courts.

    Also, for the most part the Fed already has our money, right? The majority of that federal tax is withheld from paychecks and goes directly to the Fed…


  • It seems to me that the problem isn’t that we shouldn’t be subsidizing farm insurance, but that we need tighter controls on what the insurance companies are allowed to do. We’ve seen it in every sector, insurance companies will take advantage of people with unfair policies and always refuse to pay out if they possibly can. But crop insurance is an important and valuable safeguard, we shouldn’t throw it out entirely, we just need to keep the insurers from being criminally greedy and make sure that even smaller farm operations have access to this service.


  • But why? I mean the effects of that are pretty regressive right?

    As a country, we want to be able to produce lots of food, that’s a good thing. And we want to keep the price of food down, that’s also a good thing. We don’t want a scenario where food is so expensive that more people need to start making hard choices between eating and rent. And regardless of that extreme example, if we see higher prices on food, that’s going to have a greater impact on the poor than on the wealthy.

    We subsidize lots of things, fuel, education, home renovation, etc. Many of these subsidies are pretty important to making our economy operate smoothly. Food production seems like one of those things that’s worth paying for.




  • Who’s buying satellites?

    SpaceX is putting up satellites for SpaceX, they’re the manufacturer and operator…

    It’s definitely in their best interest to keep them working as long as possible.

    That said, they’re high end communications devices, very fancy routers essentially. And like all computer technology, these things become obsolete quickly. So even if they could last 20 years, you wouldn’t want them even 10 years from now. 100 GB/s speeds might be great now, but 10 years down the road 10 TB/s could be the norm, so at that point why are you still trying to provide service with ancient hardware 100x slower than it should be.




  • I’m not a fan of the use of glue in the joycon sides and the fact that the color strips under the controllers are hiding screws.

    I’m not even surprised when I find screws under stickers or rubber pads anymore, it’s become all too common. And like a dad, at this point it doesn’t make me angry, just disappointed.

    It does tell me a lot about what to expect from the manufacturer though. Anyone who actively hides their screws is no longer on my side, they’ve just branded themselves as an adversary. At that point I know I’ll be better off buying 3rd party replacement parts, I know to ignore any “recommendations” from the company.


  • Great video. That’s a disappointing outcome though.

    It was interesting to hear though that Nintendo hasn’t made any replacement parts available for the original switch, despite the fact that New York State apparently requires this by law.

    I wonder if they’ll be forced to comply with that at some point. There are probably other jurisdictions that require this or that will require this soon. I’d love to see some pressure applied to companies that don’t make replacement parts available.



  • It’s wild to me that you think that the US government would do a worse job of running SpaceX and Starlink than Elon Musk.

    Two things. First, I’m not suggesting the US couldn’t run SpaceX given the appropriate funding. I’m suggesting the US won’t run spaceX. Trump will figure out how to deprive it of all funding, or appoint some lackey as a director to totally disassemble it. Do you honestly have any doubt that’s exactly how it would go down?

    Second, It’s wild to me that you think that the SpaceX is run by Elon Musk. Go look up who the CEO is.


  • The article is not far off from the mob mentality in this thread. It makes one good point, that one oligarch should not be in control of a global communications network, but it fails to notice that this move would take the power from one wealthy individual and hand it over to another, who now holds all the power.

    And let’s be clear, if we nationalized, Trump would ruin SpaceX, run it right into the ground like every company he’s ever touched. Starship would never be finished, despite being within sight of the rocketry holy grail, reusable rockets. Washington would take control of starlink, which would probably be good, except it gives trump control over a communication system, which is a terrible idea. But it wouldn’t last long, because when we mismanage and underfund SpaceX and it crumbles, we’ll have no way to replace starlink sats and the whole network will disappear.

    Nationalisation is SpaceX is a dumb idea because people aren’t really thinking it all through. The outcome would be a lot worse for everyone, especially with a vindictive president that would like nothing more than to seize the assets of his opponents and liquidate them into his own coffers.