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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • 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.



  • That depends a lot on the exact prison. Because many prisons don’t follow guidelines and provide less food than they are supposed to.

    In theory, inmates are supposed to get between 2,400-2,700 calories a day. The actual amount might be closer to 2,000 or even below that. For a small person that might be enough to sustain themselves but bigger people will lose weight.

    Unless a prisoner has money. Then they can use the commissary store to buy additional food and eat as much as they can afford.

    And that’s for the entire western world. Some countries are better at enforcing guidelines than others but every country has a few prisons that are run terrible.


  • 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.



  • While I wish it wasn’t necessary to go take these steps, the cost of going to a different country for an abortion are much smaller than you imply.

    The total cost to get a surgical abortion in Canada is at most USD 5,000. That includes flight, hotel, the procedure, and going back to Canada for a checkup after 2-3 weeks. That’s still a lot of money but not take a second mortgage money.

    Depending on the exact clinic and circumstances the total for a surgical could be closer to USD 2,500.

    If you notice the pregnancy early and can get a medical abortion the total cost is below USD 1,000 and that includes 3-4 nights in Canada so you don’t have to take any medication into the US.

    Again having to go through this is bullshit and it is still more money than some can afford. But I don’t want anyone reading your comment to think it costs tens of thousands of dollars to get an abortion out of the country.


  • 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.


  • Games developed by Paradox have been like this for decades and it’s fine. The player base is aware of it and buys the game with the expectation that it will take an additional 2 years and several dlcs for the game to be actually good. Everyone knew Victoria 3 won’t be good on release.

    And crucially, the developers of Paradox are also aware of that and delivery a product that is still somewhat enjoyable on release. They know where to cut corners that will be fixed with dlcs and what needs to be focused on for release.

    But when Paradox is just the publisher things don’t work out that well. Because the developers might not actually plan their game around that kind of thing. And when they are then forced to release early, their game is still a huge mess.



  • 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.




  • That kind of punishment is used all the time in the USA. It’s criminal and/or civil forfeiture depending on the circumstances. But just as in the case in China it’s mostly applied on people who can’t fight back. Big mega corporation are mostly safe from it. But occasionally it hits rich people.

    Civil forfeiture is even heavily abused in the USA because the police department gets to keep the seized money and the burden of proof is shifted. The person who’s assets have been seized needs to provide proof of their innocence.