Even the DDR wasn’t doing socialism. The public had to be all-in the idea, or they were discredited or arrested. It was an authoritarian autocracy acting in the name of socialism.

Lol. Nice erasure of the existence of McCarthyism.

Communism pwnd itself bruh - shit sucked so hard they didn’t need Anti-Propaganda like:

Is This Tomorrow? America under communism!!

Shit was so bad, that the US didn’t need to run any covert operations to subvert, discredit, arrest, jail, or even, allegedly, assassinate the prominent figures and leaders of progressive, socialist, and communist movements – I mean, if they did, they certainly wouldn’t have called it COINTELPRO. It’d be a dumb name anyway.

Pfft

…they put just enough oxygen in those helium canisters consumers can buy to stop people…

I’m not so sure that’s true… At least, I know for certain it wasn’t true for at least one brand of consumer grade helium canisters sold in the US, around 12 or 13 years ago.

In the early 2010s, I worked the day shift as an EMT for a small town ambulance company. One morning, right as I was clocking in for the 5am shift change, a call came in for an adult male unresponsive. My partner and I didn’t think much of it - it was a college town and we worked the Friday morning shift, so it wasn’t unusual to get early calls for drunk frat kids passed out in a yard from the Thirsty Thursday parties - don’t get me wrong, these were often serious situations, but run of the mill stuff for the job. So we told the overnight volunteers to go home, jumped in the rig and got on our way to the scene.

I started to get a bad feeling on the way over though, because it was at the local fishing pier, which was in a park - kind of a scenic place, not really near the college - but my partner played it down, said rush week had just finished so it’s probably some pledge bullshit or something.

We arrive at the park, pull into the parking lot, and see the police lights off to the right - the dock is off to the left, with a small beach to the right, with the parking lot overlooking the coast - the police officer has back against the trunk of a grey Nissan, thumbs in his vest, head hung low - looks up at the ambulance makes eye contact with me and shakes his head.

We get out of the rig, ask him what’s going on, he tells us that we’ll need to pronounce, and it isn’t pretty.

I walk around the driver side of the car and see a kid in the front seat. He couldn’t have been older than 20. There was a clear plastic bag over his head, the edges pulled taught to his neck with a length of string tied in a bow, the bag mostly inflated so it wasn’t touching his face. There was one end of a tube inside the bag, held in place with an extra knot from the string. The other end traced back to a tank sitting on the front passenger seat, still in its cardboard box with pictures of happy children playing with balloons on the side. There was a bottle of brown liquor in the cupholder.

I’ll never forget the blank stare of his semi-open eyes, set in his young, handsomely featured, yet now lifeless face - his skin the ashen, mottled, and pale blue-grey color of the recently deceased.

It was immediately obvious this young man had parked there for one last nice view of either a sunset or sunrise, drank up some courage, donned his gear, and drifted off to a final sleep.

I stood there only for a moment, but it felt like an eternity passed as I absorbed the emotional intensity of what had transpired there. I regained my sense of composure with the crack of my partner shattering the driver-door’s window, saw him reach to check for a pulse, turning his head away after a moment while waiting for the full, painfully requisite 60 seconds, pronounced him dead, and we were back in the truck on our way back to the station.

I’m still not right from that call.

I really hope things have changed, and that manufacturers are required to add oxygen or bitter compounds or something that prevent this kind of thing from happening.

If you’ve read down this far, I thank you. Writing this out was helpful for me to process - I took a few minor liberties in writing this story, mostly to obfuscate potential recognition, and for dramatic effect - but made no changes to what I felt and saw in my description of that scene.

And lastly, if you’re struggling with your mental health or substances - you’re not alone. This world can be hard and cruel, terribly isolating and dark - but there is warmth and kindness too. If you feel like hurting yourself, please don’t. You are loved. You will be missed by the ones who love you. If you’re in crisis, and there’s someone you know and trust, call them and talk to them. If they cant talk or don’t pick up, or if there’s no one you feel you can trust, call a crisis prevention hotline any time, any day, and they will listen to you with the utmost respect, dignity, and empathy.

[US and Canada] Call 988 for the suicide and crisis lifeline. Call 911 for life-threatening/imminent situations. https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/suicide-prevention

[Most other countries] Call your local emergency line, most often it’s 112 if you’re outside of North America - they will direct you to help if you’re in need.

Additional information: https://www.cnet.com/health/suicide-hotlines-crisis-hotlines-to-call-when-you-need-help/

What do you mean by “police speech?”

Yes, but …

Setting aside the polarized nature of named generations, as a class; for these are entirely arbitrary and designed to create polarization …

There’s fun theory on the “Gen X are forgotten” meme. Yes yes, you Gen Xers got shafted, here’s a cookie 🍪 Please hear me out.

Most people fall on the cusps of their “generation” and Gen X is no different - in this case, you’re either old enough to identify with boomers, and are shouting “snowflake millennial” with them; or you’re young enough to identify with millennials, but still too old to identify with Gen Z, so you’re shouting “cringe zoomer” with the millennials, they who are cuspers themselves and too old to identify with Gen Z. The quintessential Gen Xer is uncommon, but exceptionally kind. You always know when one is around though, because they are quick with a self deprecation point out that Gen X was “forgotten again.” 😉

The sad thing is that many of the so-called boomers are being replaced by Gen Xers. And the millennials shouting the same inter-generational slurs will eventually take the throne of generational bully.

On the other hand, there is hope inspired by this meme - all we need to do to stop inter-generational trauma is stop perpetrating it.

I kinda wish these schmucks would spend their billions on Mechas and battle it out anime style.

It’s an entirely pointless undertaking, but think about it - it would be an outlet for their sociopathic and narcissistic need to win; it would keep them relevant in headlines as they desire, yet far enough away from the political sphere; the news media gets their headlines; the people would get both work and entertainment out of it.

He really would have done well as the lead in a fictional Michael Jackson biopic that’s an alternate retelling of how his life took a turn in the mid/late 90s, when he discovers that he’s actually in the Matrix and is the one. And instead of Annie, we’re asking “Neo, are you okay? Are you o.k. ne-o? – Sha-mona”

Adguard and pihole rely on DNS redirects - googs has already implemented “secure DNS” for Chrome in Android, which circumvents network level/local DNS by connecting to a Google owned DNS, serving content using those listings instead.

They’ll likely bring this to all flavors of Chrome.

Yes, one should use Firefox. Yes that could also avoid the android problem, but also no, because Google forces chrome at weird times (eg, some apps will load a minimal web viewer for hyperlinks links, without leaving the app - sometimes apps don’t respect the default browser setting and instead just use chrome.

🤷

Not a lawyer either, but although I agree with that interpretation, I’m not sure where Class C Misdemeanor comes from.

The article states that:

Cameron County prosecutors pushed for Class C felony charges of “terroristic threat” and argued for two more weeks of detention. Instead, Judge Adela Kowalski-Garza ordered a safety risk evaluation and conditional release home until his hearing November 8.

I used your link to search for “terroristic threat,” and found this statute:

Penal Code Section 22.07 - Terroristic Threat

There is no mention of a Class C Misdemeanor in that statute; so I’m not sure what the Texas Observer is talking about.

Again, not a lawyer, but by my reading of 22.07, it seems like this ridiculous charge would be a Class A Misdemeanor under:

Subsection (a)(2):

(a) A person commits an offense if he threatens to commit any offense involving violence to any person or property with intent to: … (2) place any person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury; …

With the penalty described in subsection ©(2):

© An offense under Subsection (a)(2) is a Class B misdemeanor, except that the offense is a Class A misdemeanor if the offense: … (2) is committed against a public servant.

Class A misdemeanors carry both a fine up to $4000 and jail time up to 1 year.

Texas Penal Code Section 12.21 - Class a Misdemeanor

Not with an arrest record at age 11. Medical school applications, state medical licenses, controlled substance prescription licenses, hospital credentialing applications, etc - all of the underlying bureaucracy of being a clinician (understandably) require background checks with clean records.

Unless his lawyer can get the record sealed and expunged, he’ll most likely have to explain this event at every turn. One would hope that juvenile records could be explained away, but the field is so competitive that it could very well be the thing that keeps him from pursuing his dream.

All because a shitbag principal didn’t want to deal with the requests of an 11 year old grieving his father and opportunistically punished him for it on the alleged word of another dumbass child’s idea of a practical joke.

Even if he actually said it - he’s an 11 year old, with a prefrontal cortex that is just starting to come online, on the hormonal cusp of puberty, trying to deal with the complex social dynamics of being 11 and changing schools, getting bullied about his haircut and clothes by a shitty adult abusing their authority.

I cant help but wonder how the situation would be if he was white.

Maybe I’m a smooth brain - but I always thought private trackers were kept private/exclusive as a way of promoting seeding - the exclusivity of private trackers lowers risk/fear of seeding, so people seed, files are kept alive. - the ratios are a stick to enforce the rules and boot leechers. Centralizing seed logs with private trackers always gave me the creeps though.

Honestly, it sounds like there’s essentially no risk of seeding on I2P. Wouldn’t more people be willing to seed in general? And wouldn’t that in turn obviate the need for private trackers?

Alas, perhaps my smooth brain brings naivety along with it.

…my mistake.

I think you meant “missed steak.”

It’s literally the capital of your country and the seat of your government. How that “isn’t Germany” is beyond me.

No, I fully understand the point. By “German” you mean Fachwerkhäuser, Oktoberfest, Lederhosen and Dirndls, Bier Steins and Weißwurst, and you’re correct, these cultural symbols are not characteristic of Berlin - these are Bavarian. There is so much more to German culture than Bavaria though, despite what the Bavarians think.

But that’s not what OP said. OP Made a stupid claim about how only visiting Berlin means one hasn’t really visited Germany.

To your point, my analogy works quite well - If you go to NYC expecting to find the stereotype of cowboys, massive steaks, and barbeque, you’ll be disappointed, because that shit is in Texas.

It’s all relative to how one defines a country’s culture and the lens it creates. Just because someone has myopic expectations does not mean that NYC is less American than anywhere else in the US. The same holds true for Berlin and the rest of Germany.

Lol.

It’s like saying you didn’t visit the US because you only went to NYC, but not Texas.

Are the red flags in the room with you right now?

Tell me you don’t understand anarchism without telling me you don’t understand anarchism.

Keeping the same personality and opinions despite new experiences and perspectives is a giant red flag.