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Numanumanei numanumanumanei

Merz is in his 70s. He is not the most gifted politician. One nickname given to him by a journalist is “the unavoidable” in reference to him having no good competition for leadership in his party after a perceived century of Angela Merkel in charge who had successfully sidelined him. For a reason, it seems.

He is very good at dropping shit like this in the media and then having it walked back or watered down. I do not see this idea getting a majority in the country where Google street view is useless because people rebelled against having the public facing side of their buildings photographed for easier navigation. And I can see a few arguments that would occupy the supreme court for a decade, were this to become law.

Jeez! Cut the gingerbread man in the gingerbread house some slack.

Why? What’s stopping you from finding news sources you trust on your own and bookmarking them? I understand the defeatist stance for some local stuff where most of the news has hidden behind paywalls - although paywalls can often be creatively avoided. But when it comes to coverage of the continued American embarrassment that is 47 on the world stage, the world is your oyster. You have news from other English speaking countries, of which there are loads. And a lot of public broadcasters and news organizations that normally speak or write in something else will offer English language articles. If you stop at consuming what is presented to yourself by our friend Al Gorithn, that is a choice.

Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred tutelage.

While the Kant certainly wasn’t referring to consuming news in the digital age, his abridged quote can be wiggled to apply as a motto in this context as well.

A nightmare is still a dream.

I heard the clip haha

Best boss I ever had.

I don’t necessarily understand why they chose that director but I kind of get why they wanted to try someone else. IX hadn’t been a great success. They wanted to find new momentum like a sports ball team swapping coaches when the season is going south. Team still got relegated. Life is like that sometimes. It’s easy for me to say Frakes would’ve been better because I have the benefit of hindsight.

Get your head out of this “the media does this or that” gutter where they are maybe part of a big conspiracy by the man to keep us docile. Media has never been perfect, reporting on all stories fairly and balanced and all that. That’s an unattainable ideal. You have to pick and choose what you read. They always jump on the big stories and neglect the smaller ones, especially if they operate under a need to generate profits.

47 came up through reality television. He will stay on topic as long as it generates headlines. Whether he is heel or hero doesn’t matter. There is also the behavioral pattern of TACO, he looks to play chicken with the world but backs out of it again quite quickly. And BTS he works to make himself and other rich people richer. Anything he does can pretty much be explained through this prism, after the fact.

Greenland, like wanting Canadian anschluss, generated headlines. He looked like he had a grand plan, the real estate developer in him came through. There was opposition and with it attention, which he likes. And then even members of his cult were sceptical to critical about this neo-imperialist bullshit. If the world had rolled over and let him have it, he would have took it. But European leaders managed to group up on him and gave him the most face saving out out of this bullshit. And it took away attention from other things, like the famous pedophile case.

He is not a details guy. They say anything that cannot be put on a single page with lots of pictures he will not take in. The agreement the US has with NATO ally Denmark already allows for 99% of his grand plan. They packaged the info he never absorbed into something that looks like a win for the great deal maker. And they probably awarded him the clubman of the year trophy to please his ego. Good enough, for now at least. Now, let’s escalate tensions in Iran or kidnap a south American dictator.

If you dig for European sources, you can read about developments that are the long tail of this failed Greenland grab. Officially, no European leader but maybe Spain’s Sanchez will be on record saying the US are no longer a reliable partner for anything. But off the record, that’s their tune. Efforts are underway to de-Americanize the defense industry and spending. Another slow building wave is the European desire to break free of dependence on US tech firms. These stories maybe would made the news in North America, if there wasn’t the bigger so-called AI bubble inflating at the same time.

I didn’t hate it when I saw it in theaters. Thought it was better than IX and VII but not VIII. It was a hit heavy on wanting to be star wars. The buggy ride, fighter ships, fights on gangways above huge chasms on the ship, the humorous banter while pew pew. Didn’t like the death of Data. Didn’t we learn anything from Spock? I liked the world building for the Roms and the Rems. I liked Hardy in it.

I don’t mind rewatching this movie. I feel it benefits from aging a bit like III doesn’t (but V does for me). And I’d argue it’s definitely better than PIC S2, if not the whole show.

The general vibe around this movie is bad because the box office take wasn’t great and then we learned all these little tidbits from BTS: Wesley (the boy?!) being cut out of the wedding scene or the director thinking Geordie was an alien. I think Frakes in the chair would have done a better job with it.

I appreciate the air of publicity this story brings.

You probably can’t trust your password manager if it’s compromised

In other headlines: water is surprisingly wet.

And that’s why perjury exists as a crime. Or the right to refuse to testify against family members (depends on your location). Or the right to shut up lest your testimony incriminate yourself.

Most people testifying in court have not committed crimes. They will be suitably impressed with the seriousness of it all so they won’t lie.

95 percent of court proceedings are fucking boring. Even in most big cases. That’s why writers fluff it to to keep viewers viewing and readers turning pages. It’s not like that.

If I understand this correctly, what they need is an AI that can also drink a lot of beer! Solving two problems in one fell swoop. But where is Silicon Valley on this front? Nowhere. Sad!

This is sign that Google is worried that a market of 500 million people could decide to move away from the US tech giants. Very worried, judging by this flimsy fear-driven argument. Good.

Would you agree though that there is a qualitative difference here? Platonically befriending a person and having an intimate, probably sexual relationship with a person are two different scenarios. And the question was about dating in particular. I’ll have a much easier time trying to humor a person I don’t share a bed with. People tend to not take one for the team to get them over their misogyny.

I suspect the lack of experiences of being with or even having a significant other is what drove the majority of these bastards to this proto-SA. Where they can be powerful grunt grunt and dress up in GI cosplay. There is this lordofthefliesification that takes place when all these frustrated men get together. Anyways, that’s why I suspect this is almost a trick question. How can you detect if you’re dating an ICE prick? You won’t have to. Chances are they are socially very awkward, behaviorally weird and therefore undatable. It’s this quality that set them on an authority loving, very likely misogynic, for various reasons chronically underfucked path in life where they thought hunting and terrorizing innocent people and shooting them if they can get away with it is a great career choice. It shows.

I would like to add to my upvote a personal note of gratitude for the time and effort you put in here.

I think that is a slight misconception. The full name is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. So UK≠GB. Great Britain is just the three contiguous home nations (and possibly all the weird little islands I think). And then the British Isles include all the islands including all of Ireland. It is no wonder people are confused.

It’s a question of shorthand and relative distance to the country. In most European languages, the spelling equivalent of America refers to the country by default. The continent as an entity doesn’t get mentioned that much and when it does either context gets you there or a regional attribute like a cardinal direction or central. In my experience this applies to British English as well. “The United States” is often more cumbersome in translation and might require grammatical inflection when used in a local language - and confusingly could refer to Mexico as well. Funny enough though some languages adopted “USA” as another way to refer to the country, even if in translation this should get you a different letter combination.

Because of the dominance of the English in the United Kingdom, a lot of continental Europeans lazily refer to the UK as their version of “England.” Might be Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, a channel island or what have you. We gave up in trying to distinguish. People and how they call places are like that. Quiet understanding beats accuracy.

I think you overthought that one.

I looked at them too. I opted for Heliboard because FOTO’s management made the news last year or maybe '24. I don’t remember the details but it was enough to overcome the Google hurdle for me.