Muskrat is openly on russia's side and using spacex to act against Ukraine! He bent the knee back in 2023, I think it was, by ordering Starlink blackouts strategically crafted to prevent Ukraine's communications in their defense from russia. And it's not even a general lack of service or anything he could blame on profitability or whatnot. He targets specific Ukrainian military operations and cuts the communications support for those. The only thing that's "black" about this "market" is the ink on the check that putin wrote.

I dunno about the other guy, but I am currently sitting in a red state hotel, and will be subjected to quite a lot of it tomorrow and Friday when I'm at my aunt & uncle's place for thanksgiving; and it will probably be on every television in every airport on Saturday until I get back to SFO. I don't know how often you have to venture out into the lion's den. But people here treat that shit like it's a 24/7 prayer service or something. It was also on just about every airport TV on the way here once I hit Atlanta. And it was on three different televisions on the hotel's lobby level when I checked in. You can't get away from it here unless you hide in your room by yourself.

I'm actually kind of surprised that they still exist in the first place. What do they even still make or sell anymore besides shitty DRM'd printer ink and the occasional toner cartridge for a 1990s-era Laserjet that just won't die?

There's not even a point to that anymore. Tapping those cables worked back in the day because everyone thought they were so untouchable that they didn't bother to encrypt the message traffic. Now? Ever since the US Navy demonstrated to the world that the cables CAN be reached and they CAN be tapped; you can take it to the bank that everything, particularly the military and government traffic that would merit tapping them in the first place, is encrypted to a fare-thee-well.

So unless the NSA has a quantum computer at Fort Meade no one knows about that can break all conventional encryption; there's not much point to the taps anymore.

You could use CAPTOR mines, placed along the cable's shallows and reprogrammed to fire if the adjacent cable section is cut. That little ASW torpedo isn't likely to *sink* a full-sized surface combatant. But it should be enough to muck up the prop and rudder such that the cable-cutting vessel will wallow around in one place long enough to round up a Super Hornet or Eurofighter to put a few Harpoons into the stack of crap.

Yea... I have long since forgotten most of my math. But I actually graduated with a minor in mathematics, basically because I only needed two more MA electives (Differential Equations 3, which, admittedly, was a beast and Advanced Number Theory, which was a "Why the heck is *this* a 400-level class?" class.) than I already had for my CS degree. A few years back, I ran across one of those "This is how kids are learning now under Common Core" articles. And DAMN!!! WTF sort of jobs do the people who came up with that garbage think they're preparing kids for? Counting out how many McNuggets to put in the little cardboard box? Because CC sure as shit isn't teaching them the math they need to be scientists or engineers.

On the plus side; the defective educations that kids were already getting at the primary level, combined with the current administration's war on higher education, means that my cohort of GenX, which is getting to be about the right age where it would otherwise be a concern, is going to have to worry a lot less about ageism than previous 40-somethings. So... yay for silver linings!

Yeah, but with RFK and "Doctor" Oz running the nation's health care, how can we even actually trust vaccines in the US at all anymore? If I'm going to get stuck with the needle, I want it to have an actual medication or vaccine in there; NOT colloidal silver or green coffee bean extract or essential oils or lysol or whatever other quackery has their attention at that moment in time.

Fortunately, I'm traveling overseas next spring. One of the things I'm going to get from my doctor at my next physical is a list of any boosters that are coming due any time soon. So I *WILL* be fully vaccinated because I will be getting my shots in a country with real medical leadership who practice and promote real science and medicine.

Ummm... it's Ryanair. And the EU has been forcing US tech companies in general, and particularly Apple and Google, to demolish their security models, strip protections from mobile (and desktop and server) OSs, and give every fly-by-night outfit in the world unrestricted access to (In gates-speak) ring 0 or (to the rest of the world) the kernel. I mention microsoft and ring 0 in this context because it's another fine and recently notorious example of the EU's overreach screwing over people by demanding lax security. But "permissions" and "require"? Come on... this is Ryanair! They absolutely will harvest and sell every single byte that can get their filthy mitts on. I mean... google the name and read any site but their own. They really are just the worst.

And... again... it's Ryanair. So you KNOW their app won't be available on the legitimate App Store or Play Store. It will be on the EU-mandated Cydia Mark 2; which will inevitably degenerate into the same morass of spyware, malware, spamware, and all-around crapware that the original Cydia did back in the jailbreaking days. And with no app reviews, no sandboxing, no security checks, no memory or kernel protections? Damn skippy an outfit like Ryanair will trawl through you entire phone, and any account it is connected or logged in to, in order to spy on you and sell your data for every red cent they can extract from it.

Heh... I put off getting dear leader's dumbass "real ID" too. I mean... I have my passport, passport card, and global entry card, all of which actually benefit me. So why should I waste my time jumping through stupid and unnecessary hoops to appease dear leader?

In my neck of the woods though, the DMV simply forced the issue by no longer allowing online renewals; and now I have to actually go in to and renew my license in-person. So as long as I had to go through the hassle of the stupid and unnecessary hoops for my ID itself, I may as well jump through a couple more stupid and unnecessary hoops while I'm already stuck at the benighted place. And my California drivers license is now tainted with that mark of MAGA. Gross. Fuck MAGA. Fuck trump. Fuck ICE. And fuck realID.

The same thing will probably happen to you.

> On the other hand, if your card got refused at that
> grocery line - would you go back? Likely not.

Oh, I would absolutely go back. And after I unload my entire cart, including meat, dairy, and frozen foods; if they reject my card, I will just say "Oh? Okay. Never mind then." and I will walk right out... repeatedly... until they knock off the shenanigans.

Sure. First, lower the copyright term to match that of patents. Second, restore the latter (both) to the original 14 years. Once there is a reasonable balance between all of the interested parties again, let's talk. But the conciliatory ship sailed with Lars and Hillary and has never had reason to return to shore. And so long as one side is an abusive cartel with regulatory capture with absolute power to screw over the other everyone else, fuck 'em.

In theory, yes. The district attorney's office is supposed to be completely separate, independent, and skeptical of the police. That's that whole "separate and equally important" soundbite from the Law and Order intro. In practice, here in the US the DAs are so corrupt and in bed with crooked cops that the two departments may as well be one and the same. In the vast overwhelming majority of cases, all a cop has to do is say to a DA: "he done it" and someone will be in a cell and charges will be filed, no actual investigation or confirmation of the cop's story.

And, of course, the abomination of injustice that is qualified immunity makes it all but impossible to see the dirty cops and crooked DAs who arrest and/or charge the innocent properly punished.

No. What should happen is: Accuse, "arrest," approach, or in any other way whatsoever harass or accost, someone who is not, in fact, guilty of the crime; and the "cop" instantaneously and forever loses every privilege or protection of the badge and is considered just another random violent thug to be treated like nothing more than that ever again.

Once enough of them are prosecuted for assault, battery, and kidnapping; and locked away never again to breathe free air or to look upon the sun or sky without bars interposed... the rest will start to get the message.

I'm convinced that's a big part ofthe reason for our curent descent into fascism. I'm part of the younger cohort of Gen-X. My grandparents' generation were the original Antifa. Only they didn't pussyfoot around like the current iteration does. They way THEIR generation delt with poeple like richard spencer, stephen miller, stormtrooper barbie, their brown-shirted henchmen in ICE CBP and DHS, and the rest of their kind, was to drop high explosives on them by the tonne from B-17s and Lancasters; of, if it was for some reason necessary to get up close and personal, to cut out their living goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of their tanks.

But most of them are dead now and cannot tell their stories. My cohort of my generation are the youngest people now who were old enough to grow up with, and have adult conversations with, the World War 2 generation. I grew up with my grandparents and their buddies in the Masonic Lodge telling stories about island hopping in the Pacific as SeaBees, landing their crippled B-17 in the English Channel after not bailing out because he couldn't swim and setpping from the plane onto the rescue boat hever having even gotten a foot wet, hauling ass through the deserts of North Africa in dune buggies while machine-gunning nazi airplanes. And when I got into my late teens and 20s, one past-Master of the lodge told us about what he saw when his unit got to the camps.

I will never forget what those men told me. Because of what those men told me I will never, EVER, support, aid, or have even the smallest or empathy for any fascists in any form, or their enablers or symphasizers. Because of what those men told me I will forever support Antifa in any form. In fact, I wish it really WERE an actual organization that I coule offer more support than moral. I will forever honor their legacy and what they did directly for this country and the world and indirectly for me when they were too goddamned young to be asked to bear the responsibility they were given. I will forever be greatful to the greatest generation.

But they were also people I knew persionaly. I grew up with them. I was even part of a Masonic youth group named after a Templar for which Master Masons were the advisors; so, for a kid, I was at the lodge a lot. I loved some of them as family and others as may-as-well-be-family. To me they are real. Their lives are real. Their stories are real. Their history is real. To the younger generations though? They did not grow up with those people and their lives and stories. To people who did not grow up around WW2 vets, that's just all trivia for the history test before they move on to the latest tweet or tiktok. I really do think that a lot of people have missed out on a LOT... particularly the perspectives that came from fighting... REALLY fighting... to destroy fascists. And I would bet good money that if that generation were still around; we would not be where we are in this country today.

Maybe they can start putting USB sticks on magazines like they used to do with 3.5" floppies back in the day? That would... well... it might at least increase the demand for the brand name.