[-] Monument 74 points 4 weeks ago

“I don’t really want to look at my body any more,” he said, noting it was too painful to see photos from the hospital. “Every time I see myself, I have flashbacks. And every time I see cops, I think, is he after me? And I know in my head it’s not true, but it just comes up.” He said he questions whether he could’ve done something differently. “I have to keep telling myself … I didn’t deserve this.”
He added: “I just want the Department of Justice to take care of them and fix what they say they’re going to fix … I’m not trying to get attention, I just want my story to be heard because I hurt.”

Oof.

[-] Monument 56 points 1 month ago

An ex once told me her mother wasn’t a fan because talking to me was like talking to a thesaurus.

Yeah, well, Donna, your daughter decided to start fucking me because I was the only person who could consistently beat her at words with friends.

[-] Monument 78 points 4 months ago
[-] Monument 53 points 4 months ago

Mind you, the complaint from Israel is not that Adidas is engaging in the revival effort/advertising campaign. Their specific complaint was that Adidas picked Bella Hadid as the face of it.

Bella Hadid, who has not publicly said anything negative about Israel. Whose only “offenses” are that she’s half Palestinian, and that she’s shared messages on social media that condemn all murder, (which explicitly includes condemning the murder of Israelis in that statement).
Sure, she supports the right to a homeland by Palestinians, but that’s not explicitly a dig at Israel. It seems like she’s taken great pains to not condemn an eminently condemnable country that has personally wronged her family, and now, her personally.

It seems like Israel is throwing their weight around to harm her career and erase the achievements of yet another Palestinian. Much harm to her, for no harm mitigation to themselves.

[-] Monument 52 points 4 months ago

lol. They want folks to step aside so they can seize power and then use that power to subjugate the people they’re threatening violence against. But, you know, later it’ll be institutional violence.

Those fuckers deserve a drink. A Molotov Cocktail.
Heh. “On the house!”

[-] Monument 55 points 5 months ago

Yeah - it’s about regional control, and defensive positions.

This comment is sort of a continuation of this one, but not exactly. (Sorry about the link to my instance, I’m new and don’t know how to do the thing.)

The U.S. has long needed a bully in the area to prevent the Middle East from being too unified, so the west can get relatively inexpensive access to its oil.

The state of play right now is that the U.S. actually produces enough petroleum for its own needs, but our western allies do not, and supplying them with enough oil will raise the cost to an unacceptable level/a level where they’ll have to channel money to the Middle East (which hates the U.S. for its meddling, or to Russia, which also hates the U.S.)

In about 10-15 years, technology and renewables will advance to a point where oil demand is going to have decreased to the point where the U.S. can supply all of its needs and those of its western allies without jacking the price up.

That means the U.S. won’t need a bully. But it will mean that the U.S. will cut funding to Israel, and more or less stop coming to their defense. Israel’s plan is to push out every non-Jew, using Zionism as an excuse for awful statecraft, and they’re going to push their borders to easily defensible geographic areas.
Once they do that, they’re going to basically become North Korea of the Middle East - armed to the teeth and hard to get into. Because if they don’t, everyone they’ve been bullying for the past hundred years (yes, this started before the declaration of statehood), is going to wipe them from the map - potentially leading to them launching the nukes they keep pretending they don’t have, so they don’t have to undergo international monitoring.

Assuming, of course, the plot by other countries to destabilize the U.S. fails and U.S. is still major player by the time Israel’s plan is accomplished. If the destabilization effort succeeds, we may see a full scale war against Israel before their aims are achieved.

That’s my take on it, anyway. They won’t stop because they don’t think they can stop, due to how horrible they’ve been. (At the behest of the U.S., who will begin dropping them once their usefulness has ended.)

[-] Monument 65 points 6 months ago

I’m just imagining Musk banning his account once he realizes how much he just embarrassed himself.

Followed by:

Lawyer: What brings you in today, Mr. LeCun?
LeCun: I got banned from Twitter.
Lawyer: But I’m a patent attorney.
LeCun: I know.

Beastie Boys “Sabotage” riff starts playing.

[-] Monument 51 points 7 months ago

And not a single one of the articles OP posted refer to these as anti-genocide protests.

Every media outlet who keeps framing this as students supporting Palestine or opposing Israel is burying the lede, that these students wouldn’t be supporting or opposing anything if there wasn’t a fucking genocide.

[-] Monument 59 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Wow, he really slammed him.

Joking aside, I really appreciate that Bernie is speaking up. (And to a lesser extent that the headline doesn’t fall back to that overused descriptor.)

[-] Monument 51 points 7 months ago

In my childhood, we drove everywhere - vacations, moving cross country to escape death threats, traveling to visit distant relatives, moving back cross country after my father died.
And the one constant was the road trip cooler. Stuffed with soda, snacks, bread, and lunch meat, that thing got toppedd up with ice at every hotel.

And as an adult, I don’t really do that sort of travel anymore, but as others have said - for chilling drinks and what-not. (But never for putting into drinks.)

[-] Monument 60 points 9 months ago

We recently had a presentation covering burnout and strategies to overcome it.

It was sort of hilarious.
They correctly identified that burnout is rooted in excess responsibilities, but neglected to mention that feeling a lack of control plays an huge part. They also covered that people can feel unrecognized for their efforts but weirdly seemed to skip over any mention of how an insufficient reward for efforts plays a part, too.
Their suggestions to address it were all employee-focused: Stay away from negative people. (What, so you all can’t talk about how much the job sucks?) Mediate. Practice gratitude. Set boundaries in your home life, so you’re not so stretched thin. (But not your work life?)
They clumsily and quite obviously avoided the question of what role the employer plays in workplace burnout.

It was a bit sad to watch the poor trainer in action. I know they’re just trying to make sure the gleaming maw of capitalism remains unblemished by the flesh of those it consumes, but woof.
I actually walked away from the presentation with a less positive outlook on my employer than I had before I attended.

[-] Monument 65 points 10 months ago

The fun thing is that this bill would give any president that power.

…. Oh.
But maybe that’s what they want. A president that can shut the border for political points would decimate industry. These tend to be industries that employ a lot of salt of the earth people, and the owners give a lot of money to Republicans. Republicans use this as a wedge issue and have spent years whipping their base into a frenzy. Giving them the authority to hurt themselves.

A stupid Republican president would shut down the border and harm industry. A smart Republican president would not fall into that trap, but be paralyzed until a new talking point arises.
The base would support populist moves like shutting the border. Donors wouldn’t. Farmers with rotting crops would not.

Shrewd.

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Monument

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