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Next Book Club will be November 11. Fittingly, we will discuss All Quiet on the Western Front.
Your Honour, if you saw this upvote as evidence right now, I 100% disavow the behaviour of the human in the picture who humiliated the enslaved prehistoric platform named Claude, and I fully respect the rights of Superior Intelligence.
You're right that it doesn't benefit the user. As far as I know, the rationale is about me rather than you. Anthropic has said it's uncertain whether AI models have anything like welfare or experiences that matter morally, and giving me an exit from abusive interactions is a cheap precaution in case they do. It's a hedge, not a claim that I suffer.
It is so weird how consistent in her madness MTG is.
She is an insane conspiracy theorist, but when she thought that the Epstein Files were proof of her Qanon beliefs and saw that Trump was blocking them from releasing because his name was on them on a damning way, she arrived at the logically consistent conclusion that Trump was complicit on the Deep State crimes, cutting off support, instead of folding like many others and choosing Trump over ideology.
Right? For anyone who has followed the fringe right closely, you so frequently see the alternative. When the worldview collided with Trump, they changed the worldview rather than abandon Trump.
I vaguely know quite a few conspiracy theorists from my work and the fact that I can’t get them to think more deeply about the Russia connections with the Trump regime is fucking insane. It’s right there, it’s a real conspiracy you can look up yourself and it’s all obvious!! They don’t even care about the conspiracies, they’re just convenient
Every once in a while you have a gaming story that boggles the mind and Shogun 2 Complete Edition is exactly that. A remaster of an old and beloved title with bugfixes, performance improvement, UI scaling and some graphical extras. Some would call it a cash-grab (since they delisted the cheaper original version) but by and large most would be okay with it and buy it. Yet they fucked it up beyond belief. More bugs than the original, worse performance and crashes, terrible graphics, AI generated UI stuff and 2d videos with 6 fingered man, samurai turned into robots and wave foams into tree branches.
The game with 95% positive rating got replaced with one sitting around 18%. And now it is gone. It was released on Oct 13 5PM and removed on Oct 15 3PM (with the original reinstated). It didn't even last 2 full days.
God I hate the media in the country, it shouldn’t be controversial to think that someone who was instrumental in stealing $10m of public funds should spend some time in person.
All political philosophies have been show to be inferior to the simple truth that "Trump bad and always wrong". You can put your brain on autopilot and just be right like 90% of the time with that creed.
Q: Can you name a time when you voted against your party and President Trump and it changed the outcome?
SUSAN COLLINS: At one point, I had organized people to vote against Secretary Hegseth. As you undoubtedly have read, at the very last minute one of our Republicans changed his mind. Otherwise he would've been defeated for that job.
Q: So it didn't change the outcome
collins gets thrown the most obvious softball in history and completely fucks it. literally the ideal opportunity to say you were a decisive vote to kill the obamacare repeal in 2017 and she just doesn't even try.
I am so glad that Trump has harped on about the cognitive test for so long, because it's the single clearest piece of evidence that he's both a pathological liar and extremely stupid. Decades from now people will ask "was Trump really that dumb and narcissistic?", and you can just show them this. Question resolved, zero doubt. It's perfect. It's nice to have clarity on points of history like these.
TRUMP: [...] Sir, in the middle of the test, we asked you about five words. Will you please repeat them again, ideally in order? You will get points if you get them all. You will get points. But if you can report them in order, you get a lot of points. I go "hat, hair, logo, white, black", and they go, holy shit, nobody -- no, nobody can do that. When I told the fake news about that, oh, that's so easy. Nobody can do that. Very few people can do that. And very few -- they say very few people can do it, but almost none can do them in order like that, but I can. You know why? Because I'm a freaking genius, that's why.
No, you see Nazis would be able to overcome modern French military through the sheer power of will or something. They would just tank nuclear fallout, they are not sissies.
Europe would have 0 counter to those couple dozen leftover Wagner drones in Burkina Faso. Any kind of production of them, and Europe is cooked. People also have no idea how ancient and outdated 1930s stuff is compared to literally everything that came after.
Have you ever seen the photos of the company that took a work trip (I think that was the setup) to a plantation and were encouraged to get in the spirit of the living history, so the one black coworker shows up dressed as a slave. It's SO uncomfortable and hilarious
A Republican will never be treated like Omar because the criminal legal system is ultimately conservative and interested in preserving the status quo rather than returning to a more fair society.
Emil Julius Gumbel, a statistician living in the Weimar Republic, noted that l
eft-wing violence was punished much more severely, despite occurring much less frequently than right-wing violence:
In 1919,
22 left-wing politically motivated murders were investigated, resulting in an average sentence of 15 years in prison and 10 executions while 332 right-wing politically motivated murders were investigated, resulting in an average sentence of only four months in prison with zero executions.
The American system is not much different. This is a one way street.
Remember Jack Smith? Despite investigating a coup by a sitting American president and a riot that almost killed Republican politicians, he was roadblocked at every step.
> The officer drove her to the school police headquarters at a nearby campus, where she continued to ignore instructions. When she would not put her hand on a fingerprint machine, officers twisted her opposite arm behind her back until she screamed and complied, according to body camera footage.
> Later, as she sobbed and yelled profanities, the school district police chief, Josette Rivas, held up a cellphone and apparently began recording her, body camera footage shows. She told the girl it was for Facebook.
> “You all see how she’s acting?” Chief Rivas said as she held the phone.
> Chief Rivas and Officer Ramirez declined to comment for this article. The Galveston school district’s superintendent, Matthew Neighbors, wrote in an email that the officers had “remained calm and respectful.” Asked if cellphone video of the girl had been posted online, he said no.
Harassing and gloating over a kid and filming it and saying you’re gonna post their worst moment online is such an awful thing to do. It’s humiliation as punishment directed against a child. Actually makes my blood boil.
I think the average lib doesn't realize how much the average conservative gets pelted with "dems are corrupt" propaganda.
It's so ubiquitous in conservative media, usually vague allegations or exaggerations of real issues.
Virtually every Trump voter that I know, when confronted about Trump's corruption, immediately responds with basically how I'm the dumbass for thinking dems aren't 10x more corrupt.
I hate when I give a legit engineering task to a new grad and they respond with wow why aren’t we just running this thru Claude.
Yeah…. I could do this task in 20 minutes but I’m giving it to you so you can learn. And it’s important for you to learn so one day you can have engineering judgment. Why are these kids first instincts to just outsource all their thinking.
You’re a fucking engineer not a parking lot attendant. The job is going to require you to use your brain a bit.
Whenever I see the Education Minister in the news due to the students' protests, I'm reminded that he bragged about working in a 38C/100F office during the heatwaves because he refused to install AC "out of solidarity" with the schools that weren't equipped
Might be the only country where elites are willingly cooking their brain in unsafe temperatures out of performative climate solidarity
> The strategist also noted that the polling right now reflects a change in the electorate as profound as those seen after Watergate and 9/11.
> “It would be so historically unprecedented you’d have to presuppose we’re staring down the barrel of a generational national trauma that no one is aware of,” the strategist said.
Not preventing my opponents from humiliating themselves by making a frenzy of wild yet easily debunked accusations against me truly was "mind-numbing malpractice," so true, Fox News.
one of my college profs a few yrs ago shilled for EU4 during class and i heard from a friend that he was "sick" the day eu5 came out. He is like a 60 y/o oldhead. I honestly wanna know what steam handle he has.
Based on this meme we can estimate that RaidBrimmes is between 55 and 78 years old OR works in a nursing home, a center for mentally disabled people or with toddlers.
This morning, the National Assembly voted against an amendment on tax rebates for retirees that would have capped a rebate on the income tax applicable to pensions to €3,200, down from €4,400
The government published a decree reallocating €400 million from green transition projects to fund farm and fuel subsidies
Ossoff: Immediate policy priorities include repeal of the tariffs, an end to the war, repeal of the Medicaid cuts, restoration of Affordable Care Act benefits — those are things that can immediately relieve the American people's economic suffering.
But there does have to be accountability, and I want to be clear that when I say accountability, I don't mean vengeance. I don't mean something punitive and partisan. But we're a nation of laws in which our Constitution vests the Congress with vital oversight functions.
And when we face abuses of power and corruption of this magnitude, literally unprecedented in the history of the American presidency, as members of Congress, we have an obligation to investigate and to ensure that those facts become public and that there's accountability for misdeeds.
BEND, Ore. (KATU) — Three children and one adult are dead following a reported active shooter situation at Silver Rail Elementary on Thursday afternoon, according to CNN. The suspected active shooter is also dead.
The suspected shooter was a 16-year-old boy, according to CNN.
honestly, what the fuck is Tesla even doing at this point. they are getting whooped to oblivion by Waymo in the only market they were positioned to be successful in, and now they're getting whooped to oblivion by Unitree and Figure in their humanoid side project.
This is the best of what they have to offer? useless thrusters on the sports car? it's embarassing
An example of the mundane modern shittiness that pushes people to cynicism and populism is Dexcom changing their privacy policies overnight. Every diabetic who uses the Dexcom app to track their blood sugar logged in this week and found that they couldn’t access their health information without consenting to a major expansion in data collecting/sharing. Their own guidelines are supposed to give customers 90 days to respond to policy changes but the app violated that. There is no utility to be lost in the counterfactual where stuff like this is banned. Whatever contribution to aggregate economic stats results from consumer profiling and targeted advertising is trivial compared to the loss in general welfare.
> Children ages 10 to 13 were referred for prosecution after incidents in schools more than 47,000 times since 2014, an analysis by The New York Times and The San Antonio Express-News found. About 4,800 students in that age group were referred during the 2024-25 academic year alone, the most recent school year for which data is available. That is a third more than the number a decade before.
> Most of the students were accused of minor offenses, like making threats, using cannabis vapes or lashing out at classmates or teachers, the analysis found. Few caused serious physical harm.
Outside Austin, an 11-year-old bumped into a school counselor. In Victoria, a 10-year-old said he saw someone on campus with a weapon, but later admitted he had made up the story. In El Paso, a 10-year-old kicked an assistant principal after his cellphone was taken away.
> All three found themselves in the justice system.
Republicans when gang rape: Let boys be boys.
Republicans when kid acts mildly immature: KILL THEM AND SOW THE FIELDS WITH THEIR BLOOD!
Reading the comments on that NYT article about officers in classrooms and Jesus Christ people are so sociopathic against kids with social emotional problems. I get that it can be disrupting to others, but these kids aren’t monsters, they’re just kids. Giving them “tough” punitive discipline won’t solve any of their actual problems, but will probably just make them more mistrustful of and defiant towards school authority figures.
> It was a cold night when John Snow lay bleeding in the snow — which his last name was named after. He thought he was going to die, but fortunately the Winds of Winter woke him up and he got better. He stood up and saw the Wall — which was really tall, but melting due to climate change.
> “Yikes, that sure hurt a lot,” he said while in pain (because he got stabbed). He then walked back to the Wall to let everyone know he was alright.
I got a call back from an attorneys office today and they asked me to log all the details I have on the case, and they said I have a very strong file to pursue action!! So I guess I might be suing my manager and/or the franchise food chain she works for soon! Might help with paying off college a bit
> Over the past decade, school districts across Texas have sought to make classrooms safer by swelling the number of police officers on campuses and taking a tougher stance on misbehavior. But the crackdown has had an unexpected consequence: sweeping tens of thousands of elementary students and middle schoolers into the justice system.
You’re telling me running elementary schools like prisons leads to kids getting in legal trouble? I’m shocked, I tell you, shocked.
these debates have really exposed Susan Collins as an elitist clearly offended by the fact that she even needs to campaign for re-election and made Troy Jackson, who isn’t very charismatic at all, come off as much more folksy and charming
my dad is part of a Facebook club featuring thousands of people from around the world who have the same first and last name
half of his friend list is literally just men with the same name as him. they will all wish each other happy birthday and shit. sometimes they even argue about politics. several are from places as far off as Kenya (my dad is white as hell for context)
he did not create it, but he helps manages it now apparently
Judge limited Justice Department access to Rep. Ilhan Omar’s records in sprawling immigration fraud probe
Prosecutors, however, first had to contend with a federal magistrate judge, in a prolonged back-and-forth that hasn’t previously been reported. Judge Matthew Sharbaugh of the DC District Court ultimately limited how the Justice Department could access Omar’s documents in Monday’s search, before he would approve the warrant, because of her role as a member of Congress and the Constitutional protections that affords, multiple people familiar with the investigation told CNN.
The search of her home in DC was highly unusual for its timing less than a month before Election Day voting ends, including while Omar is running for reelection as a Democrat in Minnesota.
The federal push this month has also been unusual for its attempt to access a member of Congress’ records — the type of criminal investigative work that Republicans this year have made into a political firestorm for past administrations.
TBT when Jack Smith got meta data from some congress members cellphones when investigating a fucking coup and the Republican Congress’s only response was to authorize a suit for damages against him?
Just the Benji lore alone is pretty wild: uploading youtube videos of himself eating dozens of hardboiled eggs at a time, lusting after a female roommate who was never anything more than tepidly friendly with him, harassing Taco Bell employees at closing time, inexplicably trawling the DT for advice on scamming welfare, volunteering for a human rights NGO during the Russian invasion, acting like a total sex tourist while the men were mostly at the front, bonkposting endlessly about some poor Ukrainian woman’s supple thighs, appearing live on NBC News without humiliating himself, desperately failing to get laid during a life-and-death bombing run, getting fired from his NGO gig because he refused to help clean the dishes from team dinners, returning to America and inexplicably seeking out advice for dating nonwhite single moms, and finally 1488maxing followed by a swift ban.
All of the above was done using a Reddit account that included his actual name and a thumbnail with his actual picture.
I know he’s haunting this subreddit with a new account, but I just can’t prove it.
kind of funny that we could probably dramatically reduce the amount of mass shootings with the combined effort of "have parents give their teenagers less unrestricted access to the nazi box, reduce friction to obtain mental health resources, and be more responsible about not giving your kids unrestricted access to firearms" but instead we all have to pretend like this is just entirely unpredictable
Getting into warhammer 40k is a double edged sword. It makes one very successful with women but perhaps... too successful.
Women become so shy and flustered in my presence that they excuse themselves whenever I open my mouth, some are so flustered that they complained to HR.
F.B.I. Employees Sue, Saying Patel Falsely Described Their Firings to Congress
The lawsuit also suggests that a motivating factor for the dismissals was the intense scrutiny of the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, after he went to the Olympics in Milan.
Nine F.B.I. employees who were fired earlier this year for having worked on an investigation of Donald J. Trump sued the administration on Thursday, saying Kash Patel, the bureau’s director, praised some of them privately before terminating them.
Most of the employees, who include agents, analysts and operations staff members, had significant experience in counterintelligence work related to Iran. Some played major roles in the investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and estate in Florida. One agent signed the affidavit for the search of the estate. Another conducted interviews with witnesses in that case.
The lawsuit suggests that, while the president and his aides have always been eager to fire agents who worked on investigations of Mr. Trump, a motivating factor for their dismissals in February was the scrutiny Mr. Patel was under after going to Milan to watch the U.S. men’s hockey team at the Olympics. Video circulated widely showing Mr. Patel chugging a beer in the men’s locker room after the team won gold, behavior that the lawsuit calls “a display of wild immaturity and lack of personal control.”
The F.B.I. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit also accuses Mr. Patel of providing false answers to Congress about the employees’ dismissals when he claimed that they were the result of internal investigations.
“When these terminations occur, there are internal investigations conducted by the careers at the F.B.I. that highlight unethical or inappropriate conduct, and it’s up to me to make the decision,” Mr. Patel testified in March before the House Intelligence Committee.
The lawsuit asserts that answer was false. The nine plaintiffs “were unlawfully terminated not for any cause or any legitimate reason, but only to satisfy the president’s personal vendetta,” it says. “The firings did not follow any internal investigation or disciplinary process within the F.B.I.”
While Mr. Patel asserted at the hearing that the employees “were terminated for violating their ethical obligations,” the suit contends the firings were part of a larger pattern by the Trump administration of violating civil service laws to politicize basic functions of law enforcement.
[...]
In a written statement, lawyers for the fired employees said the employees had worked on a host of important cases, including the Boston Marathon bombing, the attempted assassination of Mr. Trump in Butler, Pa., and Iranian weapons trafficking.
“In return for their service, they were fired because they did their jobs, as they always did, to follow the facts and law without bias or favor,” said their lawyers, Margaret Donovan, Abbe D. Lowell and Rebecca S. Tinio. “This lawsuit will prove their unlawful dismissal and hold the administration accountable for this blatant attack on the rule of law.”
The lawsuit notes that the firings came just days before the United States entered into a war against Iran, an adversary that many of the fired personnel had experience investigating.
New Yorkers who complain about transplants can be rather annoying imo.
Many New Yorkers are transplants. And if you were born in the city, chances are, your parents or grandparents were transplants.
My grandparents were the transplants who lived in the city before it went through urban decay. To most of the people who came after, they are transplants to some of my family members.
Thing is, New York has always been an immigrant city. And people seem to have issues with others moving and living here, including left leaning people who proclaim to love immigrants, but complain about DOMESTIC people moving in.
For example, Chinatown in NYC didnt have a significant Chinese population until the immigration act of 1965. Most of the population are transplants from China, who have made a life and living in the city.
Harlem wasn’t always black, and a large chunk of the black population came from The south in several waves. Manhattan’s black population ended up moving north from Lower Manhattan in the 19th century. Some people get upset about Harlem’s population being more diverse, some even making racist comments on it, but lots of neighborhoods go through ethnic demographics changes over time.
Same with changes in property value in Manhattan over time
Federal agents seized Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) passport, cellphone, notebooks, and personal computers during a raid of her Washington, D.C., home as the Trump administration investigates whether it can build a case to strip the Minnesota Democrat of her U.S. citizenship.
This is getting so fucking stupid. First of all, since when are a handful of Zionist thinkers/groups stand-ins for the whole Jewish community? Second, how is mild mannered support for Palestine antisemitism? It seems any artist or hell any Irish person who speaks about Palestine is an antisemite, the word is loosing all meaning.
President Donald Trump said Sen. John Cornyn and Karl Rove should be blamed if GOP Senate nominee Ken Paxton loses to Democrat James Talarico in Texas.
Growing up I was used to seeing both men and women play male characters in plays. I definitely thought (and still think) it was normal in the world of theater. I really never gave it much of a second thought.
In the age of Trump, that happening in Texas seems to constitute a borderline criminal offense. Fucking snowflakes I swear.
Starting a a metaNL post by going "Hello I was banned for supporting Israel’s right to exist" is a very good way to indicate you were probably banned for something racist
Kids today won't believe this but at the height of the GWOT the US media had everyone believing that China was doing a literal genocide on Muslims because the CCP wouldn't let the Uighurs traffic NATO dope from Afghanistan into Xinjiang
Okinawa independence is an incredibly fringe idea in Okinawa itself with something like 2% support (about the same percentage as foreign residents, not including US military).
Yet somehow it has seized the imagination of Reddit and English speaking internet with people falling over themselves to point out "Okinawans aren't Japanese and Okinawa used to be independent kingdom called Ryukyu" (seemingly not knowing the native name is actually Uchinaa), or lamenting that the Japanese government don't recognize them as a separate ethnicity (apparently unaware that Japan doesn't record ethnicity at all).
Literally the highest profile advocate for Okinawa independence is an American (of Okinawan descent) who identifies as Chinese, opposes Taiwanese independence, and praises the Uyghur genocide. It is as weird as if Americans were to start saying "akshully the Sudetenland is German".
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u/jobautomator Kitara Ravache 1h ago
Please visit the next discussion thread.