https://www.reuters.com/world/us-national-tortured-death-ukraine-by-russian-soldiers-moscow-says-2024-09-20/

The article reads like regular internet bad behavior.

there is rarely a single story everyone is talking about and where it is impossible to hold anyone’s attention for more than a few minutes at a time…

Exactly what the press contributes to.

Goes on to suggest digging through old accounts, maybe finding the right person of interest, making stuff up based on what you find, then harassing people associated with the person.

But that’s ok, because it’s “journalism.”

Copeland is something scary wearing an Edgar Suit.

Why not?

TBC, I don’t use the MSN homepage or the Yahoo! homepage. I go directly to the email account.

I mean, should I change just to change and not be associated with what “old people” use?

Sure, I could use Proton (guess what, I do! You can have more than one mail account!) but all the contacts I know and all my accounts are tied to the old mail address. Some of the people are older and getting them to change my contact info is more pain than it’s worth. I’m not going through all the accounts and dealing with the change of email, 2FA emails, and likely password change demands. Despite my account being under the prying eyes of Big Data, they’re stable. Odds are my account will still be operating in a decade, and using a newcomer comes with the possibility that they’ll disappear or just be bought up by Big Data.

No.

The killing of the CEO was a one-off event.

There would need to be readily apparent will to revolt, or a slow buildup of tit-for-tat escalating action/reaction between have-not and the rich…. More killings and active attacks, more police trying to crush any protest or anyone rebelling, harsher and harsher punishment for resistance or protest, and a wealthy class protecting themselves as much as possible while telling everyone (most likely through the press and government they own) how bad it would be for everyone were they to be killed or the system disrupted.

We normal people need to recycle harder to save the planet and cut back on greenhouse emissions from power production so corporations can continue to consume with impunity.

Ok, but frame some of those same problems in the context of the times and their peer countries. Did France’s rights or republic keep pace, lag, or were they actually ahead despite the turmoil? There were many places with awful monarchs that were effectively dictators. Maybe they were stable dictatorships…and it took global conflict to unseat many of them.

Farm subsidies, ad subsidies for that sector, pesticide use and regulation for vegetables, labor laws for harvesting, etc. etc.

That’s a pretty funny joke.

Replying to a meme criticizing Biden’s pardon of his son that was being commented on by several liberals-are-funding-genocide types.

I would have pointed out trump’s basically saying he was going to take whatever leash remained on Israel off, and trumps pardon of family and criminals, but that never goes well. I get exhausted by the refusal to acknowledge the reality of the situation. So I deleted it.

Rejecting torture.

Most everything wrong with Star Wars happened because of the money grab. We could spend all day talking about the all-star cast ruined by awful writing/direction, wooden acting, and awful, ever-present, ridiculous sfx in 1-3. And of course, Jar-jar. They tried to make every film a “blockbuster” at the expense of the actual film in order to rake the cash in from fans.

The straight up cash grab, more awful writing, and bludgeoned fan service in the recent films. They had potential, but meandered as execs made sure to cram in merchandising opportunities and a veritable commercial or two.

The bright spot was Rogue One, which I thought was a fantastic and dark addition to the universe that explained some of the references made in the films. Andor, too, is pretty decent, leading up to Rogue One.

A gym membership. Implies overweight.

Makeover service. Implies not looking so good.

If you know a right-wing prepper, get them a subscription to Mother Earth News, a magazine that touts self-sufficiency and off-grid living with occasional ads that lean to conspiracy theories like “free energy”. It’s full of food saving and growing ideas. It’s also liberal AF.

Charitable donation in their name to an organization they likely oppose, but not “in your face”. Like if they’re republican, don’t donate to a blatantly liberal org, donate to one that teaches kids critical thinking skills and welcomes lgbtq or something like that. They get the tax writeoff, a real benefit, but would have to be visibly hateful of they rejected where the money went. Edit: how about a LGBTQ shooting camp. That’d take some mental gymnastics.

Gift tickets to a nice cultural event to someone that is anti-lgbtq. Local city playhouse has an Opera with lots of men in tights.

Any subscription or service that makes potential commentary on personal appearance or personal beliefs would be effective.

At some level extreme governments are the same, Left or Right. At that point the polarity of the government doesn’t really matter to anyone except the people looking to escape it. They’re authoritarian dictatorships, oligarchies, kleptocracies, whatever…they just pay lip service to whatever form of government they claim to run “for the people” and hoard wealth and power to the top. So it may be a “leftist” government on the surface, but it’s just an authoritarian one in all the points that matter.

He always screws the people that do jobs for him. Can’t believe his voters thought it wouldn’t happen to them.

Let’s look at it this way - they were already going to be dictatorships, the dictator picked what he told the people they’d get. Most of the big ones all say Power To The People as they’re pushing their way to the top, but as soon as they get there they make themselves permanent. Some of them took a pretty good stab at it like Mao or Stalin, but they killed their people in droves to make it happen. Once that happens you gotta stay in power or they’re going to kill you. And of course, with themselves at the top of the heap, they took everything for themselves and The Party, and The Party became the end all and be all instead of actually advancing the country.

Riding on the coattails of cyberpunk shows they shouldn’t have canceled - The Peripheral.

It was just getting into some really great storyline and characters…poof…canceled.

All the trolls that were “liberals = genocide” or “eggs are $99” or “cant afford gas” while completely ignoring normal egg prices, seriously low gas prices, and trump’s plan to let the Israelis do whatever they want have switched to “Biden bad because pardon!” Again, completley ignoring trump’s pardons of criminals in his administration, family by marriage, and the fact we got a law absolving the president of any “crime” committed while president if the (captured) SCOTUS says it’s fine. But no…who cares about trump. Biden bad!!

I’m glad to see Twitter/X collapsing if only to add to Musk’s problems, but at the same time just changing the corporate logo over the outhouse doesn’t make it smell any better. It’s a better place, but I’m sure it’s temporary, the same people/bots/trolls will just migrate right along with the rest of them.

Round trip?