I think you underestimate people’s drive for a bargain.

This was a decade back, but the satellite paytv system here was not cheap. $50/m for base, up to $150/m for full. A technical crew worked out how to pirate it by hooking the verification card up to a dongle on a PC and sending the verification requests from each set-top box over a VPN back to their master device. They sold access to the system for about $100 (for the dongle & setup) and then $10-20/month for full access to the Fox-based service. Went on for years before loose lips sunk the ship, and their were thousands of users when it got busted. No marketing, no Internet presense, just word of mouth “I know a guy”.

The modern Internet-based streaming pirate services that people can buy cheap devices for on ebay preconfigured, and pay $5-10/m for access to all movies and TV? Cheaper and faster access, all online, nobody has to visit your home. Everything is easier and the barrier of entry is lower.

If Netflix and others don’t stop being so greedy, they’ll be reminded that people only play by the rules when the terms are reasonable.

The US is still helping Israel because Israel is effectively the largest US military base in the middle east, and monitors and protects many US interests in the region: ie makes sure the oil, gas, minerals, and rare earth materials keep flowing and in addition the Suez canal and trade route keeps clear to ensure international trade and transfer of these materials continue without any interference - terrorists, local warlords, or even just populist leaders that want better deals for their populace.

In short, Israel assists as an enforcer for capitalist wealth extraction from the middle east to the rest of the world.

As former US army general and secretary of state (under Reagan) and long serving white house chief of staff (under Nixon and Ford) Alexander Haig famously said, “Israel is the largest American aircraft carrier in the world that cannot be sunk, does not carry even one American soldier, and is located in a critical region for American national security”.

So that’s the main reason little kids continue to get bombed and shot in Israel. The US is addicted to oil & middle east resources, and the capitalists don’t care what the human cost is as long as order is maintained.

“Where were you when you heard that Trump’s plane went down?” is a conversation that does sound fun to have one day. But I just doubt it will happen. Too many other self-serving people in the admin will push to ensure it’s safe behind the scenes (for them).

Besides, I’d rather see him in a jail cell. Or an execution chamber, if the court determines it required given treason is a capital offense and he is a repeat prolific offender. Either is fine with me - beggars can’t be choosers.

I never said they don’t leak, all those systems have leaks with enough time and a certain failure rate right?

If they have increased their failure rate since being offshored largely to China and SEA I would not be surprised, as the manufacturing standards there are infamously lower than USA/EU/etc, but it seems like something where evidence is scant - I can’t find anything in my searches. I’m not saying your experience is not valuable, I believe you when you say you service more of the new ones than the old ones, but there may be other reasons for that than those models having a higher failure rate.

For example, it could be that people are buying fridges more often nowadays (like every 7-8 years instead of every 15+ in the 90s) because so many components on them are made cheaper and fail earlier… Everything is made to me more disposable nowadays (for the worse, IMO). If there are surviving models around from the 90s and earlier then you get survivor’s bias - you don’t see all the ones that failed as they went to scrapyards 25 years ago, etc.

I’ve just read through their wiki page and you’ve right, not sure why I had the Episcopal church as a quite conservative place in my mind but I won’t make the mistake again. Thanks.

The US didnt fail to invest in their own industries, its more that most of the US’ industries decided to hand all their manufacturing to China - and not just the primary industries but the secondary and a large part of the tertiary too, all because labour was somewhat cheaper for the corporations, and the health/environmental costs could be ‘externalized’. A lot of side-impacts too - they took all the IP they were given, and stole any more they desired: counterfeit products have never been more rampant.

As the US traded away its blue collar industries, and left blue collar workers in unsteady times, it found that the only things China wanted in return were high quality US food imports and raw materials - relatively inexpensive exports. So a fairly large trade deficit built, and with all the excess capital, China purchased US treasury bonds and property, etc. The largest foreign owner of US debt in the world is China and has been for some years.

Even as economic power ceded, for a long while the US could still exert power through its 50-100 years banked institutional power and goodwill, and US controlled organizations that operate throughout the world, but Trump and Elon have been sabotaging them openly intentionally as fast as they can. The soft power is now all but gone too with world leaders now leaving the US out of major geopolitical discussions - unthinkable just a year ago.

There is no turning the clock back on globalization, but perhaps the first big step for America is getting money out of politics with strong legislation and harsh penalties for those that break it - overturn Citizens United, no more SuperPACs - prise the power away from corporations to dictate law and pick leaders, because they have crafted every issue you speak to. I’m not sure what hope the US has with that in the short term though, you’re living through the second Trump presidency - and he just accepted a $400million bribe gift from the Saudi govt, which his been A-OK’d by his mentally vacant Attourney General. Who knows though, even MAGAs are starting to get pissy with the outward corruption.

Rare Episcopal Church W

Edit: actually I’m told the modern (like for a long time) Episcopal Church is not that bad as far as churches go.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Episcopal_Church_(United_States)

Did you comment on the wrong post?

Upvote as thanks for teaching me a new word

Canned/tin foods are often lined with plastic.

Because of course they are.

The industry has only recently finished phasing out bisphenol A (BPA) linings in their cans. No doubt phthalates will be the next damaging thing they realize they need to phase out circa 2040.

https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/bpa-update-tracking-canned-food-phaseout

Had a workmate that said helmets are ‘just for kids’, he was riding his bike home from work one evening and slipped on some sand on the path while rounding a corner that he’d ridden hundreds of times prior. No cars involved, nothing but him his bike and a pavement. His head hit the cement path, and he was dead before an ambulance arrived.

No helmet.

His funeral was the largest I’ve ever attended (200+) and his teen son reading a eulogy was something I’ll never forget.

I miss him. He was a great guy, intelligent and funny and always had interesting stories, enjoyed discussing conspiracies - but more the ones with evidence (COINTELPRO etc) over pure speculation. The one dumb thing I thought he did regularly was ride daily without a helmet.

So yeah, you guys who think helmets make no difference - you’re wrong. The impact forces delivered to your skull is enormously reduced by wearing a helmet, and everyone that chooses not to wear one is convinced, “that won’t be me, I ride safe, I know the path well”. You’re wrong, and you’re gambling with your life - for what?

That’s a bad reason to make (or keep) something illegal. Having legal weed does nothing to stop enthusiasts breeding their own strains or propagating ‘heirloom’ varieties - because they were already doing that illegally since forever before it was legalized.

Put another way, swap weed for alcohol. Should alcohol be banned because Anheuser-Beusch ans InBev exist and lobbies the government for favourable legislation? No… Fighting against the crap legislation is a better idea, and who would be better positioned to do that than an industry growers union or an independent growers union or similar.

Making something legal or illegal doesn’t magically make it immune to capitalism, it just goes back to a black market where you have no protections as a buyer nor as a seller.

At least they got the hands right

Many of them literally called it the German equivalent of ‘fake news’ after Hitler spent many years persecuting the independent press, which he and Himmler would smear with the derogative term ‘Lügenpresse’.

One of the many reasons that Eisenhower forced Germans from towns nearby to tour the camps, and had army documenters and media film the camps to later force adult German citizens to watch while under occupation. Many of them simply chose to believe the obvious lies, and ignore all the evidence they’d seen - it was easier than the awful truth.

https://archivesfoundation.org/newsletter/see-for-yourself/

And while their was some backlash from a few people, the majority of their fans shrugged and kept on watching them, judging by their subscriber and view counts.

Absolutely pathetic from the ‘facts don’t care about your feelings’ crowd that purports to bravely face uncomfortable truths.

Yeah the limit at my library is 14, which is more than generous even if you happen to be researching a topic for a report / thesis etc.

Show us where the government in Australia has banned music / artists? I cant find anything about this.

Yep, so in Australia NSW police have been contacting Spotify/YouTube/etc with requests to delist certain songs from Sydney drill rap bands that glorify and promote gang violence against Spotify’s/Youtube’s/etcs policies, the streamers have in some cases agreed and delisted the music, in other cases they have not and the music remains. This is after the groups theyve had issues with (eg One-Four) have caused multiple riots and had several charges and convictions, so it’s arisen from a desire to serve public good. Only certain tracks have been targeted from what I can see, not whole albums or artist catalogs.

That’s a far cry from the government deciding what art people can or cannot listen to in my opinion. They have only asked some streaming platforms to adhere to their own policies, and then tbe platforms have made their own decisions on case by case basis.

Is there other actions I’m not aware of? The govt hasn’t passed any laws to block the sale of drill rap nor banned its play on radio etc?

There’s chicken, and then there’s the weird, chlorine-cleaned, antibiotic-pumped meat that the US calls ‘chicken’.