• 0 Posts
  • 67 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 13th, 2023

help-circle
  • Biden is an average to above average president.

    It’s mostly republican lawmakers passing shitty laws in republican states that makes live for many American worse. DeSantis is the one fucking up Florida. Gregg Abott and Ted Cruz are fucking up Texas. Biden has very little influence on that.

    And Biden is fighting the terrible decisions from the previous Trump administration. Were many shitty things are only now starting to show their full efect. Like the increase in higher income tax for lower brackets. Or deregulating coal mining operations that were in place to protect rivers, or defunding the women’s health budget. Most of these things take time for the average person to feel the impact. And Biden is actively trying to reverse some of them. He recently signed a new bill that gurantees funding for women’s health research. Biden rejoined the Paris agreement (which Trump left), with the goal of reducing emissions and combating climate change. And a lot more. But just as with the negative efects taking time to be felt, so does reversing them.

    Biden for some reason just isn’t liked by many Americans. It has little to do with his policies or (in)actions as a president. People like to bring up the geonicde for why they don’t like him. But many of the same people have been critizing him before the situation in Israel even started.




  • Scottish Highland clans would use something called the “Fiery Cross” or “Cross of Shame” as a symbol for a call to arms/war. Basically sending a person carrying the thing from village to village and every able-bodied man had to get ready for war or be shamed.

    But whether or not they actually used a burning cross is very disputed. The main source for this is the author Walter Scott. He wrote Rob Roy, The Lady of the Lake and other Scottish mythology/historical fiction. While he claimed to try to be as historical accurate as possible, there are a lot of made up facts in his books. So not really a good source and sometimes even the only source for Scottish mythology.

    The original KKK didn’t burn crosses. But in the early 1900s Thomas Dixon wrote a book series that romanticized the KKK. He was very inspired by Walter Scott and included the Fiery Cross in his novel. Saying the flames symbolizing purity, purifying the people of their sins, and the light it gave is a symbol for “The Holy Light”.

    His books were the source for the movie " The Birth of a Nation" and that movie included the burning cross scene. And KKK members thought it looked cool and started to use cross burnings using the made up justification of purity and holy light.





  • What if that car thief suddenly charges you after you hear the alarm and go outside to check on it.

    I can see a situation where the kid was trying to scare his father as a prank. And unfortunately the father mistook it for a real threat.

    I assume the person who shot the kid claims he felt threatened. It’s probably not enough and even the police said so, but they still have a duty to look into it.

    The police jumping to conclusions is a big issue in the US, so let’s not criticize them when they follow proper protocol. In every civilized country in the world the police would investigate exactly what happened.

    Maybe the person giving the interview/report should have used better words. But what’s going to happen would still be the same.


  • That’s important to figure out because it impacts the kind of charges they are going to press. There are different degrees of murder.

    If the guy planned on killing his son, that’s first degree murder. If he mistook the kid for a car thief that’s second degree murder or depending on the exact circumstances maybe just manslaughter. And even with manslaughter the exact circumstances change it between voluntary and involuntary.

    So let’s not get our pitchforks out for the police doing their work right (for once).



  • I think they want to build a new front rather than joining an existing one. They might align more with Russia but I don’t see India and China getting closer anytime soon.

    The border clashes between India and China are getting more frequent. China and Pakistan are fairly aligned, which is a no-go for India. China doesn’t like that India is chiming in on the South Chinese Sea stuff (against China). China doesn’t like India “supporting” Tibet.

    I don’t know enough about the relation between India and Iran to comment on it.



  • The best advice here is to just not buy new. You can get a refurbished laptop from trusted sellers that will definitely exceed the requirements for under $200. If you are willing to spend up to $300 then there is literally no concerns.

    For example here is a DELL Latitude 7490 Laptop Intel Core i5 8th Gen 8250U (1.60GHz) 16GB Memory 256 GB SSD Intel UHD Graphics 620 14.0" Windows 10 Pro for $192 on Newegg.

    https://www.newegg.com/dell-latitude-7490-work-business/p/N82E16834833592?item=N82E16834833592

    If you don’t like Newegg there are tons of other stores that offer refurbished laptops. I assume you are in the USA and stores you can consider are Target, Walmart, Best buy.

    There is very little risk with refurbished laptops. They are usually tested before being shipped out and if you buy from a legit company they usually offer some kind of store warranty. Walmart for example offers a 90 day return policy for any reason.

    It’s hard to make suggestions on which laptop to get since availability plays a bigger role here. So just look around at your desired budget and pick what you think your kid needs.

    If you think your kid won’t accept a laptop that has a scratch, simply look for “As New”. Then there usually aren’t any visible damages. But if you are fine with some cosmetic damage you can get real bargains.





  • Because one of the biggest issues with sex work, human trafficking, gets worse with legalization. Studies across Europe have shown that countries that outlaw prostitution see a decrease in human trafficking victims while countries that legalized or decriminalized it see an increase.

    Unlike with drugs, you don’t just create a way to increase the supply. A very small minority of women actually want to engage in sex work. And the few who do, usually envision the high class escort lifestyle. But working in a brothel charging $100 per client isn’t something many want to do.

    But legalizing prostitution increases demand. Which makes it more profitable for criminals to utilize human trafficking to fill that demand.

    https://orgs.law.harvard.edu/lids/2014/06/12/does-legalized-prostitution-increase-human-trafficking/

    One source of it.

    It also doesn’t help at all with protecting victims of human trafficking. Victims of human trafficking are already protected. But they don’t step forward because of threats against their own well being and that of their families. Something that doesn’t change just because their work technically is legal now.

    Which leaves a small percentage of people who fall into financial hardship and consider prostitution as a method of overcoming said hardship. For them that might slightly improve their situation. But that still means exploiting vulnerable people and isn’t people engaging in sex work because they want to. And it’s even questionable if people in these scenarios would follow the legal way.

    So while initially it might seem like legalizing it solves a lot of issues, it is more difficult than that.



  • A lot of people seem to mistake carjacking for car theft. Especially mentioning that the person who shot the 13 year old was a security officer gives a wrong impression on what happened.

    Carjacking is when the robber(s) take control of a car with a person inside the car. This is what happened here, with the security guard being inside the car. Under these circumstances it’s perfectly reasonable to consider shooting the robbers and it’s unreasonable to expect the security guard being able to identify the robber as a 13-year old harmless child. There is significant plausible risk to the person inside the car to warrent lethal force during self-defense.

    Car theft is stealing an empty car. Shooting someone would be entirely unreasonable during a car theft.

    The article doesn’t mention wether the car had window tint and the two kids where unaware of the person inside or if they intentionally tried to rob the person. That information might change what can be considered reasonable response.


  • Bush was the worse president, Trump is the worse person.

    I can see a lot of potential presidents in 2001 act the same way as Bush did, especially any other Republican. Even Gore would have gone to war in Afghanistan. Unless of course we go down the rabbit hole of could he have prevented the 9/11 attacks. The Iraq war probably would have been avoided under Gore.

    But I don’t see any other president doing the same damages that Trump did. While the current status of the Republican Party has many people just as bad as Trump, I don’t think they would have the same traction today without Trump.

    And let’s not forget the worst of Trump was prevented. If his coup would have succeeded, he would even be the worse president.