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4 mo. ago

  • Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Friday that the department was looking into program to help "mitigate any economic catastrophes that could happen to some of our farmers." Asked whether that would include direct payments, Rollins said, "We're working that out right now."

    So they're looking into a mitigation program, they're working out a payment system... now? After annihilating government programs, starting a trade war with everyone and wrecking farmers' prospective income?

    Thank goodness the US Govt is now in the hands of such professional, forward-thinking people who care about ordinary Americans and businesses. Such a relief after those radical lunatics who used to run things into the ground!

  • Aura Carreño Rosas is a Hamilton-based reporter from Venezuela, with a passion for pop culture and unique people with diverse journeys.

    What??? A Venezuelan who hasn't been rounded up, deported and slung into in a third world concentration camp without even the pretense of due process?!?

    Come on Canadia, is that really the kind of country you want to live in???

    /s

  • "It's a fact: jet fuel doesn't burn hot enough to make steel girders melt! It was the lithium-ion batteries from a Model Y and a Cybertruck fired by railgun into the Twin Towers, with Dick Cheney and Saul of Saul's 3rd Avenue Deli pulling the triggers. People seen jumping out of windows were actually trans crisis actors wearing batwing suits, who nowadays tour encampments of Venezuelan gang members and Haitian cat rustlers across the Heartland with their drag, Spanish-language version of Hamilton. Buy my supplements!"

    Whoa, sorry, don't know what came over me there.

  • From Twitter's "Fail Whale" to X's "Fash Crash". Make it happen, Anonymous!

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  • ... say the folks whose budget depends on you believing this kind of stuff?

  • I don't know why/how, just know that the admins saw the servers were being overwhelmed by traffic from Brazilian IPs and blocked it for a while.

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  • OK, here goes, everything I can think of. Probably forgetting some things or remembering them wrong. I'll put question marks around things I'm not sure of. Feel free to correct anything I get wrong.

    • Burma / Myanmar: two different names derived from the same language but from different registers. "Myanmar" is from ¿the formal register? And "Burma" from ¿the informal register?
    • Also related to "Bama", the main ethnic/linguistic group, who are traditionally Buddhist and speak a language that is part of the greater Sinitic-Tibeto-Burman group. Its own script (¿but related to Indic scripts?)
    • Many Buddhist monks and nuns, ¿often not for life but for a shorter period? A few monks extreme ethno-nationalists, expressing / inciting hatred of ethnic minorities in public and on social media (Facebook).
    • Lots of other ethnic groups around the edges of the country: Karen, Shan, Rohingya etc. Several long-running (like, since the 1940s) ethnic rebellions against the central Burmese state, often based in inland mountainous areas. These ethnic groups and rebels often finding refuge just across the border in Thailand, sometimes fleeing by boat to Bangladesh, India and Malaysia.
    • History of wars with Siam (Thailand). ¿Powerful empire 11th to 18th centuries? War elephants!
    • Bordered by Thailand to the east, China (¿Yunnan province?) to the north and Laos to the northeast; India and/or Bangladesh to the west, and the Bay of Bengal. Amazon Prime series Jack Ryan got the geography wrong (IIRC they claimed some "cove" (i.e. an inlet of sea or ocean) in the Shan state, which is up in inland mountains).
    • Mandalay is a major city ¿and port? there. And the inspiration for a casino in Las Vegas.
    • Coastal areas subject to cyclones, occasionally truly devastating.
    • Former British colony, briefly united with British India. Eric Blair (George Orwell) worked there in the British colonial administration.
    • Occupied by Japan during World War Two. British and some US forces fought against IJA there, inc Chindits and Joseph Stillwell. Lots of dense jungle warfare. "The Bridge on the River Kwai" was set there, written by Pierre Boulle, the same author who wrote "The Planet of the Apes"!
    • "Golden Triangle": Kuomintang forces exiled from China by Communist takeover established themselves in northern Burma and went into the opium growing business. The Triangle, I think a reference to the area where the borders of three countries meet: Burma, China and Laos. Later, that area became a centre of both legitimate cross-border trade, and transnational (often Chinese) organized crime: people-trafficking/slavery, scam call centres, smuggling, casinos etc.
    • Aung Saan key leader in Burmese independence, assassinated. Father of Aung Saan Su Kyi.
    • Since independence, mostly long periods of authoritarian, military control, often with a socialist bent. The military is often called the ¿Tatmadaw? Oppressive, ready to use violence against the people.
    • Ne Win was one such military leader, Burmese of Chinese (¿Hakka?) ancestry.
    • Occasional periods of democracy or almost-democracy (e.g. the military writes rules that favour themselves, like guaranteed seats in the legislature; ¿veto power on legislation?). Periods of democracy usually ended by violent action from the military.
    • The Tatmadaw have dictated changes to names, flag, capital etc. "Burma" to "Myanmar", "Rangoon" to "Yangon". Moved capital from largest city Rangoon to ¿purpose-built? ¿Napidaw?
    • Old flag a bit similar to and often confused with the flag of the Republic of China (Kuomintang, still used in Taiwan). Some people from Taiwan now bring the old Burmese flag to international sporting events that ban the Republic of China flag, e.g. the Olympics.
    • Aung Saan Su Kyi long a leading figure in the democracy movement (NLD?). British husband. Spent long periods in exile and house arrest. The military wrote the rules to specifically exclude her ¿and her kids? from power e.g. 'no one with a foreign spouse or parent or children may become president'. So when she did "achieve power", she essentially governed through a proxy president. Subject of the film The Lady. Lost some favour outside of Burma when she seemed to be OK with the Tatmadaw's persecution of Rohingyas (Muslims accused of being Bangladeshi migrants).
    • Latest coup... 2-3 years ago? (The yoga influencer with the coup happening live in the background!) Led by a general whose "business interests" were beginning to be threatened by the actions of the almost-democratic government. Tacit or open support for the coup from China and Russia (including ¿arms sales?), condemnation from the West. ¿China building/already built major port or naval base in Burma?
    • Finally greater cooperation between mainstream Bama democracy supporters (especially younger ones, students) and the ethnic rebellions. Quite a lot of defections/surrender by Tatmadaw personnel to the rebels. Some battlefield successes for the rebels, including taking the major city in the Golden Triangle and freeing the slaves in the scam call centres. China maybe now more ambivalent: they prefer the pro-China authoritarians of the Tatmadaw but many/most of the victims liberated by the rebels were Chinese, and they want the Chinese gangs suppressed, which the Tatmadaw didn't do (¿too profitable?).
  • The Linux Mint forums have been knocked offline multiple times over the last few months, to the point where the admins had to block all Chinese and Brazilian IPs for a while.

  • I do. Used to use Google Reader, since its demise, Feedly, but exploring other possibilities like free-gratis hosting of FreshRSS (signed up tp Cheredeprince.net found via this page on free-libre online hosts: Chatons.)

    Great all-round feed: Metafilter, an old school content aggregator, collating "the best of the web" since 1999. Interesting content on all kinds of topics.

    If you want, you can even subscribe to posts with specific tags, .e.g. startrek :D

    Other feeds really depend on your interests.

  • Nice report on FF mods and forks.

    To me things like Librewolf and Zen are FF mods, whereas Pale Moon and Basilisk are forks. Mods track the mainstream project, incorporating its updates. Forks say "Goodbye" and go on their own merry way. My 2 centavos.

    Got a bunch of these on my computer (FF, mods: Firedragon, Floorp, Librewolf, Zen, ¿Agregore?; fork: Pale Moon) and Zen has been my mainstay since last autumn.

    Also tried out a handful of non-FF-related browsers (Dillo, Falkon, Kristall, NetSurf, Servo). Falkon (using it now) seems to be the only one I can really use for proper web browsing. Servo is getting there. Netsurf and DIllo just don't seem usable with the modern web.

    I think I'll keep Zen as my main web browser, and Pale Moon or Falkon as a lightweight backup or for special purposes (e.g. web radio). And keep an eye on Servo.

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  • TL;DR - After Durov's arrest and subsequent increase in Telegram content moderation, the Neonazi terrorists have migrated to... Twitter.

  • As a child he was homeschooled

    I think that's the bigger red flag.

  • Interesting, thanks.

    I didn't really know anything about AT Protocol. The idea & potential of the PDS sounds great. The centralized control of the PLC directory is concerning.

  • "Give me juſt the title, not the compleate novel."