Thank god he’s old, then, because he’s not going to last long enough to be long time dictator. But maybe thats not the point, even if trump is gone, if hardcore republicans dismantle elections to ensure they’re perpetually in power, then who the current figurehead is will be the least of our problems

🫡

Anybody got that American political plane meme handy?

And 56% in favor of legalizing weed. Which is exactly why they raised the threshold for ballot measures to pass.

Isn’t Jill Stein effectively a republican asset at this point? Like not just a spoiler candidate but one actively funded by the right?

The ambien made me honest!

I’ve been wondering the same thing. Many countries around the world that are seemingly more religious have far less restrictions. Texas’ restrictions are absolutely draconian by comparison.

Looking at the two countries I live in, for example:

Portugal is a very catholic and traditional country. And yet abortion is legal for any or no reason up to 10 weeks, plus up to 24 weeks if the mother’s health is impaired (need not be life threatening).

Argentina’s population is like 75% Roman Catholic, many of them rather devout, and yet they allow abortion up to 14 weeks without any restrictions.

In both countries, these laws enjoy widespread support and are not considered controversial; the local conservative parties have zero interest in touching it.

This made me laugh so hard, I spit my drink all over my desk. Well played, sir.

They didn’t even name the country in the headline? What is this? Does NY Times think its readers have never heard of Moldova?

The economic situation is so complicated there that you probably need to sit through a 60 minute documentary to get an answer to this question, or really understand much about their crisis at all.

It’s very difficult to say whether or not the cure is worse then the disease; they were fucked to start, and the austerity measures weren’t the origin of the unemployment and poverty, but they did exacerbate them. But, they also lower the inflation rate, which itself was the largest cause of hardship, especially poverty.

Is the increase in suffering due to austerity worth the decrease in suffering due to cooling inflation? That’s the real question but I’m not sure anyone knows objectively, yet.

Anecdotally, as someone who spends 3-4 months a year in Buenos Aires: things seem to be getting worse; but they’ve been worsening for a decade, and the rate at which they are getting worse seems to be decreasing. So I guess a sort of Pyrrhic victory…?

It’s not that easy to “just move” for most people, particularly if they’re not working in a professional field where they can get relocation with a new job, or save up enough funds to move. I say this as an American who moved to Europe, by the way.

I looked out of curiosity, they’re actually not doing well, revenue shrinking quarterly. Seems like other players are eating their lunch. Makes sense really, 10-15 years ago Dropbox was innovative but now? There’s like 25 other cloud drive providers. Dropbox isn’t really offering anything unique now, they’re just a commodity, and they can’t meet the package deal pricing of competitors (like Google drive being included with Google Apps, or iCloud Drive being included with Apple One).

That’s cool, any details or link to share?

Not arguing with you, but I think Gaza is even worse.

What’s happening in Ukraine is terrible - but it’s a war between two countries, that each have an army.

What’s happening in Gaza is something else. It’s a country sending an army on a civilian population. Palestine has no army to defend itself.

And if, for the sake of argument, you accept Israel’s claim that it owns the Palestinian Territories, then it means Israel is turning its army against its own land and its own citizens.

AI may be a useless meme but evidently it’s also a forcing function for reasonable RAM minimums.

Given the corresponding elections it would be helpful if publications would state “Georgia, USA” or “Country or Georgia”, or something. “Georgia (Atlanta)” vs “Georgia (Tbilisi)”. Something to that effect.

To put that into perspective, the World Bank estimates global GDP as around $100 trillion, which is peanuts compared to the prospective fine. Google would therefore have to find more money than exists on Earth to pay Moscow.

Seems a bit suspect.

This is what I keep thinking. If we drew a Venn diagram of hardcore republicans and EV buyers, they would be two distant, non-intersecting circles.

More than that, they supposedly punish multiple generations of the family in labor camps. You can Google something like North Korea 3 generations to see the details.

Doesn’t trump fall under this tough? He swore to uphold the constitution in his oath of office at Inauguration day.