Earlier this month, Senator Lindsey Graham became the fourth member of the US Senate since 2013 to have died while in office and the sixth member of Congress to have died while serving in the 119th Congress. Because the US is the greatest democracy in the world, Graham has now been replaced in the Senate by his sister Darline.

That really is a tremendous paragraph.

The /mistake/ appears to have been Jefferson/Madison not lining the God-botherers up against a wall and shooting them when they had a chance.

Another normal day in the Federal Republic of Dumbfuckistan…

It’s a fair point. It’s also much easier to be all Billy Big-Balls “just kick them out” when it’s Hungary - but what about when Germany elects AfD or France elects Le Pen; do we kick them out too?

A federation of democracies needs to be resilient to the fact that democracies don’t always elect people we like. Kicking members out every time that happens is not reslience, it’s a deathwish.

The important thing is this: can you still deliver lectures to the rest of the world on the Importance of Freedom Of Speech, and the fact that only Yanks have it because Elon can worship Hitler on the Internet?

And the answer is, yes. Yes you can, and always will. So the actual reality isn’t really important. Because all you actually learned from 1984 is that of the government tells you that you have freedom of speech, and also tells you that Eastasia and Eurasia don’t, That’s Good Enough For You and you’re The Free-est People In The World.

Probably because it is not confirmed yet? The first drone was definitively confirmed to be a Russian Shahed, the second drone I’m not sure an announcement has been made yet (It was only shot down a few hours ago.)

I don’t think it requires a genius to guess, but it’s not really the job of news to promulgate guesses as facts. Not outside the US, anyway.

I don’t buy the Epstein files distraction, because it’s pretty clear the US public don’t give a shit. What would the Epstein files even prove?

You could release an authentic video of Trump fucking an 8 year old and then throwing the lifeless body down a laundry chute and most Yanks would just shrug and say “whaddaguy”. Hell, if the kid was an immigrant’s, his ratings would probably go up.

There is nothing in the Epstein files that could possibly touch Trump. It’s all already priced in and you elected him anyway.

You mean like the books on this list? https://www.cfpublic.org/education/2024-11-11/florida-list-banned-books-schools

No, not really. But thank you for providing an excellent example; it turns out your free speech absolutism is no protection from the “slippery slope” whatsoever.

It’s not censorship that’s the slippery slope to oppression. It’s electing demagogues that’s the slippery slope to oppression, and it turns out your religious worship of the ability to be offensive to minorities not only didn’t protect you, it hastened you on your journey.

I’d rather live in a country that banned Mein Kampf but doesn’t threaten to shut down media that fails to praise the Dear Leader, than one that searches people’s phones at the border for evidence of thought crimes while defending Elon Musk’s right to spread Nazi propaganda to the hilt, tbh.

I’m sorry, but that’s just trite. Why does censorship, within bounds defined by a democratic decision making process, eventually get abused for oppression when so can every other right which we accept governments can control? What is UNIQUE about censorship?

ALL society is a tradeoff of rights. When you put someone in jail, you deprive them of fundamental human rights more or less by definition. Jails absolutely DO get abused for oppression. Yet we accept that for a civilised society.

Grade-school appeals to Orwell are not a good enough explanation for why freedom of speech is a unique shibboleth in US society. Particularly if “because otherwise it will be abused for oppression” in particular does not stand when your much-vaunted freedom of speech is being abused for oppression; Citizens United is exactly the kind of decision that uses free-speech absolutism to oppress.

I have a suspicion that the kind of surge protector rating it’s reasonable to fit to the main electrical input for a building is unlikely to actually trigger on the small surges that the surge protector in a UPS will, and you will still get earth-leakage trips on the RCDs with UPSs downstream of them.

Having one radial (for the computer rack) NOT protected by an RCD seems like a cheaper and more reliable solution, but I confess it’s not bubbled to the top of my to-do list yet to get a sparky involved for advice.

You understand that the RCD is (mandatorily) in the electrical distribution panel where it hands off to the utility supply right?

Although it’s an absolute pain in the arse in certain scenarios. Surge protectors essentially present as a leak to earth any time they do their job, so my mandatory RCCBs on every circuit turn minor mains fluctuations into permanent outages.

I really need to see if I can legally run one circuit that isn’t RCD protected for my homelab…

Government censorship is not permissible in a free society, period.

Why?

I mean that as a genuine, serious question. Why?

I understand that Americans are raised with this as some kind of article of faith, but have you ever actually sat down and come up with a rational justification for that point of view?

There are many societies that are on all objective levels more free than tbe US, which are not absolutist on free-speech, so why do you believe that?

I moved everything I had in GC & AWS off onto Scaleway when the whole Greenland bullshit started, and I have to say - no regrets.

(At work I cancelled our migration to GC and we stuck with Ionos, for much the same reasons; having now road-tested Scaleway for a while there’s a good chance of introducing them as a second supplier.)

A few tens of thousands of dollars a month isn’t going to make much difference to them, but every little helps.

I turned kitty’s bed - that she slept in as a kitten, but then spent about 5 years refusing to acknowledge - back into a bed by putting an electric heating mat under it. Hey presto, it’s back in favour!

This is not correct; they haven’t been convicted of anything yet.

They’re out on the equivalent of bail awaiting trial. That they are not wearing ankle tags or the like and are allowed to travel was thanks to pressure from the US Government, though.

Cretin.

plonk, as we used to say in the good old days.

No, they’re not.

Next idiotic question?

At least a half dozen countries will block Ukraine joining the EU in its current state, and another dozen will secretly be glad they don’t have to take the flack.

Ukraine is decades away from EU membership. Anyone suggesting otherwise is doing all concerned a disservice (yes, looking at you UVdL.)

Hey now, can’t you tell? He Does Hid Own Research.