And the skewed power dynamic.

I’ll trade you the communal toothbrush for this joke.

You can always buy a rice cooker but I think it’s good to learn how to cook without specific instruments, it also cuts down clutter in the kitchen.

I take a similar approach, but wanted something better for rice, so I bought an aluminum pot with a ceramic coating on the inside as an alternative to a rice cooker. Does a great job with rice and can be used for many other things as it is a normal pot/dutch oven.

my former manager who wanted projects estimated in minutes.

That wasn’t a manager, that was a demon.

Despite calling Bernie out for at least some of his shit, I do think he has generally been one of the better Democrat senators in terms of progressive domestic policies. I wonder now if anyone actually can climb to that political level without being corrupted or rejected and black-listed by the system.

I used to support the Democrats and him in particular. It was demoralizing to see how he supported the DNC after his 2016 and 2020 campaigns, but I think there are lessons we can learn from his career. For me, he represents a good example of how operating in good faith within the existing US political system as a path to major reform is not a viable strategy (Jill Stein as well), but that you need to build organizations outside of this structure to seize political power and force the change that the system resists. Unions and other community organizations. The attempt at a general strike led by the UAW in 2028 for example.

I don’t believe this will fundamentally change any systems within the US, nothing short of revolution would achieve this, but I think it is an opportunity to improve lives. It’s a chance to show people not only that they have power, but how to build the power to fight for themselves.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m tired of putting my faith in these people when, you’re right, it feels like they’ve given up all pretense and dropped the bar on the floor. All they’ve ever done is disappoint me. Working and learning from socialist and labor organizations has given me hope again that there is a path to change.

Receives email invite to cyber security training

Email: “RSVP for Meeting”

Looks around suspiciously, then selects NO

For real though, I don’t do this…often. I’d laugh if I ended up getting signed up for one of these though. My institution isn’t that advanced on their IT front yet.

I like to click on phishing links and send them messages in the password section. Hopfully they find it entertaining.

outdated hardware

I think they prefer the term “time-tested.”

As a human being intrinsically tied to the fate of the Earth, you are legally required to mercilessly harass these friends for buying a new phone each year.

How the fuck can anyone justify this behavior?

They frequently didn’t allow me to use copy/paste around 10-15 years ago and I never forgave them for robbing me of such a basic feature. I switched to Android as soon as my iPhone died.

Bernie has been nothing but consistent. Selling out to the neolibs and supporting imperialism is nothing new for him. Don’t forget how he shilled for Clinton and Biden when he “lost” the nomination to the establishment candidates. He praised the police after George Floyd’s murder and praising the ghoul, Jeff Bezos, for raising the wages of Amazon and Whole Foods workers to $15/hour in 2018, only 6 years after the “Fight for $15” began (while they were investing heavily in automation, never improved their labor practices, and indications were that they had always raised wages during similar economic conditions so they could meet their seasonal employment needs, surely Bernie fostered a change in Bezos’ empty heart).

Here’s a disorganized list of some of Bernie’s votes ranging from the early 1990s to the 2020s:

• Voted in favor of H.R. Res. 64 Authorization for Use of Military Force in 2001, giving Bush Jr. carte blanche to use military force against those the US found responsible for 9/11. He continues to support “The War on Terror” by voting in favor of the authorization of additional funds for US military actions in 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. In March 2003, he voted in favor of a resolution expressing unequivocal support of Bush Jr and the Armed forces for their actions regarding Operation Iraqi freedom. This is an odd choice considering he voted against the authorization of military action in Iraq in 2003, something he like to brag about when in the media spotlight. What good is voting against a war if you are going to repeatedly vote to fund it for years afterwards?

• Voted in favor of the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998. This included economic sanctions that killed up to 500,000 children. This same resolution allowed for direct military action in Iraq (Operation Desert Fox). He had previously voted against the Invasion of Iraq in 1991.

• Voted in favor of the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act in 1996. Then voted to extend these in 2001. This was meant to cripple the ability of each country to develop their own petroleum industries.

• Voted in favor of bombing Kosovo in 1999. This decision led to him quite publicly losing staffers and long-time friends as well as an anti-war protest in his office. I wonder why?

• Voted in favor of sending military hardware and funding to Israel in 1997, 1994, and 2004. In 2006, he voted in favor of economic sanctions against Palestine after Hamas won an elections in order to remove them from power. His support of the Israeli military also extended to their actions in Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in 2014, but surely that was the end of his support, right?

• Remember that racist, dumpster fire of a movie “Black Hawk Down” which inaccurately portrayed the events that led to the US pulling out of the conflict in Somalia? Bernie voted for that military intervention.

• Supported providing $1 billion in military aid and training to Ukraine in December of 2014. I’m sure all of this was used in defense and none of it contributed to the conflicts that killed civilians from 2015 to today. I’m also sure that Bernie would never again vote to send funding to continue or escalate this war and the suffering it’s caused.

• Refused to end the drone program while running for president in 2016 and 2020 as he thinks it’s useful and promised that he would use it responsibly if elected.

• Supported military action in Libya, Lebanon, Bosnia, Yemen, Syria, Congo, Haiti, Liberia, and Sudan.

I’m tired of describing how his actions have spoken and I haven’t even gotten into his economics and how far removed he is from a socialist on the front too. There’s plenty to criticize even if you aren’t a socialist or don’t expect him to do a socialism.

The point is that any integrity Bernie Sanders had as a revolutionary or leftist was lost decades ago. His radical stances and actions are romanticized now. The only way Sanders is relevant to progressives and socialists these days is how he acted as a catalyst for driving many people in the US further left.

Why not take it a step further and be fully serious?

I would like to see a new set of laws where if there are any employees at an organization who aren’t earning a living wage with full benefits (not PTO or that 1 week vacation bullshit, paid sick leave and 5+ weeks of paid vacation per year, minimum), and if employees are regularly (more than 1 week out of a year) required to work more than 40 hours in a week, a timer starts.

They have 1 week to rectify the situation or the owners and entire executive team are given a prison sentence for 30 years and all of their assets are seized. No outside amenities or special privileges allowed in prison. Mandatory reeducation classes with public written and oral presentation assignments where the person must describe what they did that was wrong, why it was wrong, how their actions negatively affected others, and what actions they’ve taken to right their wrongs and learn to be better since their violation. When released, they are permanently barred from owning any portion of a private company or acting in a paid supervisory role for 20 years unless granted this right by unanimous vote by all of those they will supervise, subject to a new vote at the workers’ discretion.

Supervisor pay is tacked to no more than 1.5x that of their lowest paid worker. Executives cannot receive stock options as any form of compensation. If a private company is found in violation, it and all of its assets are equally distributed, becoming the collective property of the employees unless they wave this right, in which case it becomes property of the state and can never be sold to a private party again. The law applies to all organizations where any participant is paid. In the case of the state, the rules for the executive team apply to the head of state and their cabinet.

Have fun fucking around with those laws, but I’m sure I could come up with more as they search for loopholes. For instance, those found to be subverting the system are subject to a 50 year sentence instead of 30.

I’d accept a socialist society as an alternative. I’m sure the workers could come up with laws they find appropriate in that case. My hope would be that mine would be oppressive enough toward the ruling class to make them desire the reprieve of socialism, the sadistic, parasitic fucks. This is more than they deserve.

“A different damned drink.”

I agree with the term enshitification for this thing normally, but this is just a “bait and switch” at this point.

This argument is hilarious with the intended implication that Republicans would somehow be different

Irrelevant hypothetical. The Democrats are complicit in an ongoing genocide.

Dems are still far better for the US though

Keep dreaming. They’ve been telling you this for decades, but there’s functionally no difference at home (besides the crackdown on protests against the genocide, fascism much?). Roe v Wade was overturned under Democrats despite them using the abuser logic, “if you don’t vote for us, our opponents will take away this right.” Speaking of, the Democrats have had multiple opportunities to codify RvW over the last 50 years, times when they had super majorities, but they didn’t. The Democrats decided to hold it over our heads as a threat instead. The Democrats decided to allow the Republicans to bully them into filling SCOTUS with right-wingers who would support their agenda. The Democrats have fulfilled none of their domestic policy promises to the people (only wealthy “investors,” let’s be honest, they aren’t contributing to campaigns, they are investing in the ability to shape policy), they have taken no actions to address the frequent abuses of the filibuster made by Republicans, and they’ve by far been the more deadly of these two parties when it comes to foreign policy (sanctions) and military operations.

How much longer are you going to continue eating their shit and pretending it’s chocolate? Do you really think you are so helpless as to have no option but to vote for one of these two parties? Do you think the only political action you can take is donating, campaigning for one of two shitty parties, and voting? Oops, my favored political party is doing shit I don’t want (contributing to a genocide), but I’m not going to do shit and will still vote for them despite that.

Quit your shit and just own it. I’d say it’s hilarious, but it just isn’t anymore. You want to vote for fascists, you are pressuring others to vote for fascists, and it’s either because you fucking want fascists in power or you don’t want to oppose these fascists. You are supporting a genocide and it’s sickening.

Just shut the fuck up with the fascist apologia and classic liberal moral grandstanding. No one buys the lie that the Democrats are the morally superior party anymore. The Democrats aren’t progressive and never will be. Your support of them reflects on you and your values. You aren’t progressive, you support these fucking ghouls despite claiming to have morals and values and desires that are opposite of the actions your chosen party is taking.

Get fucked.

Any chance you’d be willing to provide answers to any of my questions based on what you saw?

Good points. It’s difficult to find a clear answer to how important lend-lease was to the Soviet war effort. During the war, the USSR and US obviously had good things to say about the program, but the start of the Cold War soured this discussion, leading to the US overstating and the USSR understating the impact. Here’s an excerpt from a paper by a British scholar exploring the topic. Emphasis is the author’s:

It is neither possible nor fruitful to try and put a precise measure on the material value of allied aid to the Soviet war economy, if only because of the unavailability of many Soviet production data. Whatever the value of western aid, the Soviet war effort was measured in human life and suffering incomparable with material aid from outside. Further, the Soviet economy became much more of a war economy than other combatant nations. Nonetheless, it seems that the contribution made by deliveries from the USA and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Canada, played an important part at crucial times and in crucial areas. First, and above all, was a vital margin of food supplies, second was the provision of specialist or deficit products such as aluminium and copper, specialized tools, high quality steels. In this respect lend-lease supplies overcame bottlenecks. However, it must be stressed that the major impact came after the Soviet counterattack and the beginning of German retreat. Such aid directly and indirectly helped defeat the German forces, and was in such a way a substitute for a second front, but it did little to defend the USSR from the initial onslaught. Third, some of the raw materials and more especially machinery and transport equipment was of positive value to the Soviet economy after the war. For this, the tyre plant is the best but not the only example.

It is nonsense to repeat the figure of four per cent of Soviet wartime production and disingenuous to disparage western aid - a feature evident in Soviet literature and one criticized even by Khrushchev. It is nonetheless true (and this is a point repeated in some Soviet works) that Britain and the Empire received far more than the USSR from the United States. Lend-lease, in this respect, may be seen as a temporary substitute for foreign trade. Britain was a major trading nation, highly dependent on imports, especially for food and raw materials. The USSR, on the other hand, was an economy with little trade dependence whose foreign trade turnover had fallen steadily during the 1930s…

The part left off at the end compares repayment of aid sent to the British vs the Soviets. A fairly short read that will give some more context to the conclusions I shared above.

One of the main points the author makes is that lend-lease was used by the US as a stand-in for entering the war and opening a new front in 1942 as the allies (and Stalin in particular) were requesting. In this context, lend-lease was a replacement for reopening the Western front in 1942, an action that could have been far more impactful. The US provided material aid in lieu of entering the war, shifting the human burden of the war onto the other Allied forces and particularly the USSR from 1942 to least at 1944 (note that lend-lease aid extended wider and was provided from 1941-1945).

Overall, the impression I’ve gotten from sifting through academic writings on the subject is that while lend-lease certainly helped take some of the pressure off of the USSR (mainly in the form of producing food, trucks, and raw materials), it’s most likely that the result would have been the same. That said, wondering over historical what-ifs, while fun, should really be constrained to recreational musing and shouldn’t be taken seriously.

I will, but this is an 8 hour series.

Full HD and in stereo!

There are people who always have super solid movements that don’t leave a trail. Many of us have a variety of textures that smear as they exit.

I get that, but my experience has been that even greasy, sticky shits get properly washed off my bum so long as I use a decent bidet and know how to use it properly. I haven’t found an instance where a bidet has been insufficient and I don’t mean to belittle anyone, but there is a bit of a learning curve and perhaps it was a lack of experience or the lack of quality equipment?

Poops that would leave me wiping 20x and with a sore, bleeding asshole while wiping are not an issue with a wash. I guess someone’s poop could be very different from mine, but I haven’t run into such an issue after using one for years unless I just didn’t wash properly.

A bidet removes the majority of it but never all, and wiping reveals what is left behind.

This can absolutely be true, but it’s an indication of improper washing and the need for a repeat or a better bidet.

For real, the US committed a coup in Australia with Whitlam. They don’t constrain the CIA to just poor countries.