palordrolap

It’s strongly suspected that Russia had some influence on Brexit, if not a whole heap of other things: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_interference_in_the_2016_Brexit_referendum

Nonetheless, that result weakened both the UK and Europe, which is the sort of thing Putin would have been very much interested in.

I mean, it could all be a massive coincidence, or it could be a massive coincidence like all those people falling out of windows.

You might find this 10-month-old Vlogbrothers video interesting.

Yeah, they’re trying new things again. Gotta squeeze that stone for all the blood that’s in it.

One of my accounts has been getting a long delay before the video starts. Pre-roll ads are trying to load and play but the add-ons I have installed are still stopping them from completely succeeding. For now.

I also have auto-play turned off, and I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

Pretty sure the systems at their side think that I’m seeing the ads because I’ve had pop-ups during the delay offering free Premium.

Journalists for RFA aren’t being sentenced to 3 generations of there family being out into concentration camps for disagreeing with the US govt.

Careful. If Trump could read, he’d think that was a brilliant idea.

My brain makes some dumb connections. This is basically Dom Joly with his enormous mobile phone, shouting INCREDIBLY LOUDLY into it.

So, has Musk straight up admitted to being a white supremacist or has he only dropped anvil-sized hints so far?

I’ve seen that picture online before, and pointed out (in whatever forum I was on) that it looks a lot like a cricket sweater, which doesn’t fit with his image at all, and I doubt he’s ever worn, let alone owned one.

At the time, someone suggested that it might have been a “portrait in search of a head” (my paraphrase) and Trump commissioned the artist to put his face on it. I reckon the artist might have been hoping to sell to someone like Shane Warne, but Donny bought it instead.

It is if you count your profit in terms of percentage of global profit, and then, should that break down, in terms of global wealth.

Similar to how it’s impossible to reach the speed of light, it’s not possible to reach 100% of global wealth unless you’re the only sentient being left alive, but you can get arbitrarily close. And getting closer requires more and more human suffering, as reaching light speed requires more and more energy.

Only time will tell whether the rich will (publicly) switch to this metric because so far, “Newtonian” measurements of profit have been sufficient, and fractions of global wealth generation look piddly by comparison.

There’s a famous quote attributed to Charles Babbage with regard to his difference engine (or some other calculation machine of his invention) which goes: “On two occasions I have been asked, ‘Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?’ I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.”

Apprehension is right, Mr. Babbage. You were lucky to find yourself talking to those who, in some unconscious way, suspected that something might be wrong in their thinking, leading them to at least enquire. There are those whose ideas are so confused, or even so completely lacking, that they will assume that no matter what is put into the machine, the right answers will come out.

It might be relevant to point out that what constitutes a Mars bar differs depending on country. The US and UK are different, for example: Simple picture demonstration

The picture doesn’t show what’s in a US Mars bar, but apparently it has almonds in it, as though it’s a Snickers just with a different kind of nut(?).

I’d never heard of it either, but a web search finds a Wikipedia article, a few pictures and the implication that it’s not sold in the UK.

Also, calling Cadbury “British” these days is a bit of a stretch. Yes, they were founded here and are still headquartered here, but they’re now a multinational corporation owned by an American corporation.

And despite that American corporation being run by a Belgian, the quality has definitely gone in the American direction.

Unfortunately, modern Labour are centrist, much like the US Democrats, so we see rather a lot of surprisingly right-leaning decisions from what ought to be a left-leaning party. “Liberal” isn’t a completely accurate term for them these days.

We also have a third party called “Liberal Democrats” who were positioned in that centrist position until Labour moved right and stole it from them. Now they still try to sit between, pleasing hardly anyone.

When there was a left-leaning leader running the Labour party a few years ago, much panic ensued among the rich and powerful, and dirty tricks and smear campaigns were undertaken to get him as far out of the way as possible.

It probably didn’t help that he didn’t particularly want to be PM, but he was the only man who would do it.

Edit: Reworded for accuracy.

“Of course, I know this through third parties, and not because I ever had dinner with any foreign operatives myself.”, he added, making a poor attempt at hiding several glaring nervous tics.

(This is a joke, but it’s probably not far from the truth.)

North Korea believes that the south was stolen by Western/US imperialism, and that it is Western influence that keeps it separate from unification under the Kim family. A whole “We’re not the separatists. They are.” kind of deal.

With the West currently being on the side of Ukraine’s independence, the North Korean troops are probably being told that this is a fight against that imperialism, especially with Russia being former and now current enemy of the West.

One side-effect of Trump’s pending plan to end that war will undoubtedly be sending some disillusioned, surviving Koreans back home, waiting any day for the reunification with their southern brothers.

I mean, there is an element of truth to all this. If we take our eye off that particular ball, so to speak, South Korea ends up reunifying with the North in a way they very much won’t like.

What makes you think they care about that?

And Ukrainians probably don’t want to be equated with Russians either.

I guess 80% doesn’t qualify for the adjective “largely”.

And a people largely indistinguishable from their own.

Edit: Note to self: Subtly pointing out that Trump wouldn’t want to invade Mexico because he’s a racist is not the way to go in the Fediverse because people will think you’re the racist.

Negotiation? That’s a funny way to spell capitulation.

Sometimes you want a change and so you have no bibimbap instead of no solyanka.