Every country in the world needs all the other countries more than all of the other countries need it. There’s just no real leverage, because we’re all interconnected; you can snip one country out, and it’ll slightly hurt everyone, but it’ll *wreck* the country that was snipped out.
This is just such an absolutely perfect summary. I wish we could American politicians to speak this clearly to explain why this is such a bad idea.
He wasn’t taken to a hospital but instead was transferred to another cell where he was found dead seven days later.
I just was thinking about how horrified everyone should feel about this sentence. Like in what planet is it ok to be legally responsible for another person’s safety and not find them dead until 7 days later. Even in situations where you aren’t restricting 100% responsible. Imagine:
“…transferred to another hospital room where he was found dead seven days later.”
“….transferred to another table at the restaurant where he was found dead seven days later.”
I’m so tired, boss.
I wish it was that simple my friend. I’m a medical doctor but unfortunately English is the only language in fluent in. Although many Europeans speak English, and I’m willing to learn other languages, realistically there is no way I will ever be proficient enough to practice medicine in a second language. So my options are pretty limited in where I could go and how many jobs there really are available to me.
Have you tried smiling more?
I’ve had a similar experience overall. The breaking point for me was about 2 weeks after I set up Apple Intelligence I had a vacation planned and important details were on my calendar (flights, hotels, rental car, etc). My wife and I were discussing logistics of the day we were leaving and she wanted to know what time our flight departed so I asked Siri “What time is my flight on Saturday?”
It was literally one of two items on the calendar that day and she couldn’t answer the question. She kept resorting to trying to search the web for “flights for Saturday.” I tried a lot of other things also before disabling the feature but it was just useless for most basic things.
Are you kink shaming?
/s
I’m working on that. I have little previous experience with Linux and self hosting but I’m slowly making progress. I now have switched my gaming PC over to Linux almost full time. I know I can switch to Jellyfin for video streaming but it’s been a lower priority to figure out compared with other services I’m trying to understand how to self host.
Definitely true. I’ve been putting off an upgrade of my NAS because they have randomly decided to completely remove the video streaming software that came with it when I bought it. So infuriating.
Thank you this is such an important thing that often goes unsaid. We are all really busy people, all of us, and we don’t have time to microanalyze the nuance of very person’s situation.
If you’re a public personality and you do/say something awful - how you act when called out is all most people are going to see or care about. If you don’t acknowledge you were wrong then I assume the bad action was deliberate and I move on. Life is too busy to give attention to people that act badly and then refuse to apologize or take responsibility.
Recently one of my opposite numbers, a columnist up in Vancouver, B.C., announced that he couldn’t take America anymore. He broke up with us.
“Goodbye, America,” wrote longtime Sun columnist Pete McMartin.
“Goodbye Bellingham, Seattle and Portland — how I’ll miss my Cascadian cousins with our shared Pacific sensibilities.”
“What was once so close has never been so far.”
McMartin, channeling the bitter mood of betrayal in Canada right now, said the heedless U.S. president is forcing all Canadians to make a choice — between being “vassals or enemies.”
“I’m choosing the latter,” he announced.
“So, goodbye America, it’s been nice knowing you, but I don’t know you anymore. I’ve reached that point in our relationship where any admiration I have had for you has been replaced by a new, angry resolve, which is: I won’t consort with the enemy.”
Ouch. The enemy? What can I say to that in return?
The awkward reality is I don’t know what to say to Canadians at this juncture in our shared history. On the Peace Arch at Blaine between our two countries, the inscription reads “Children of a Common Mother.” This feels then like the world’s biggest family breakup — with us as the cause.
Would it help, Canadians, if an American said he was embarrassed for America right now?
Would it count for anything if I pointed out that we were as blindsided as you by Donald Trump’s suggestion of annexing your country, and making it the 51st state? That he didn’t bring up his weird Canada animus until after he’d won the election?
No, that probably won’t help. The bitter truth is we knew Trump was impetuous. We knew he loves to bully his allies more than his enemies — witness how he relishes humiliating, say, GOP senators. And we knew he would act out the Ugly American shtick on the world stage. We elected him anyway.
Still, picking on … Canada? I think I speak for more than a few Americans when I say that the only people more baffled by this sudden choice of enemies than you, Canadians, was us.
So for what it’s worth, Canada, let me say that I admire how you’re rallying to our threat.
I loved how you mocked the idea of Trump requesting Canadian troops on the border by instead posting hockey sticks in the snow with googly eyes on them.
I love how everybody’s wearing “Canada is not for sale” hats.
I smiled at how a British Columbia coffee house has started a movement to change the name of the espresso drink “Americano” to “Canadiano.” Quiet acts of resolve matter, even silly ones.
I also like that there’s now a weekly protestoutside the U.S. Consulate in Vancouver, with signs like “Stop Him, Americans” and “Toque off, Trump.” And I endorse how your sports fans are lustily booing our national anthem. Atypical for you supposedly polite Canadians — but exactly what the times demand.
All this makes me envious, Canada. You’re behaving as we ought to be.
That we’re not protesting or booing right along with you blameless Canadians was the most wounding part of Mr. McMartin’s breakup note.
“Goodbye to my American friends,” he wrote.
“Your silence and the silence of all Americans in response to this aggression leaves me disheartened. That silence speaks volumes. I — we — have heard you loud and clear how little our friendship as a country means to you.”
How can I explain this quiescence? I cannot.
I could report to you that people here are exhausted. I have readers in Seattle who write to me daily saying they no longer read the news, because they can’t take it anymore. It’s their way, I guess, of also saying goodbye.
I could tell you that some people here still regard Trump as a buffoonish cartoon figure not to be taken seriously. He won’t really try to annex Canada, they blithely say.
Or I could try to convince you that we’re only hibernating. That you just have to be patient, Canadians, as the old America you once knew, the one that famously does the right thing only after exhausting all other options, is about to burst onto the scene.
But I can’t honestly sell any of that right now. You got it right in your breakup note. You called us quiet cowards, which hurts because it’s true. We kicked up a million times more fuss when a transgender celebrity drank a Bud Light, or when they asked us to wear masks, than we are right now that our bonkers boss is threatening to economically crush, and then imperialistically occupy, our closest ally and friend.
As one Canadian wrote in response to McMartin’s goodbye:
“The United States is not what I once thought it was. Their true character — or lack of — is in clear view. I can think of excuses, but in the end, Americans had a choice, and this is the one they made.”
What can one say to that?
I have a friend in Canada who insists the main difference between Canadians and Americans is the apology. Canadians apologize two or three times before breakfast, he says, while you Americans won’t do it even after you’ve, say, invaded the wrong country.
So that’s what I got, Canadians. It’s bound to be small solace. It won’t end the tariffs or the takeover madness. It won’t “stop him.” But it’s the only thing I have from the heart to communicate that there are some down here who not only hear you, Canada, but who stand with you.
Which is to say: I’m sorry.
I think you’re falling into the trap of making a good faith argument when the people pushing to destroy encryption are not.
I think you will find, Mr. West, that it is not so easy to unring the bell. If you are truthfully NOT a Nazi then I would say you have a long road of public actions fighting Nazis convincingly if you wish to be believed.
You ever seen this XKCD about “today’s 10,000?”
Your rant reminds me of that because I think you’ve got this idea in your head that everyone in life is at the same point in their journey as you are now. Linux has been on the edge of my mind for awhile but I’m a really busy working person and learning a new operating system seems daunting when you don’t have the experience.
Then I bought a Steamdeck last year and a switch flipped in my head; I was like hey this gaming on Linux and it looks like it is actually doable. Then a few weeks back a misfortune resulted in Windows getting nuked on my gaming PC and I had some free time so installed Linux for the first time and started trying to figure stuff out.
My point is that there are people who are truthfully interested but overwhelmed with life or it’s just not as high a priority to them so it hasn’t happened yet but that doesn’t mean that it won’t happen. This approach of “they would have done it by now if they were going to” just seems silly to me. People have lives and we are all at different places in our journey.
I’ve only played 2 games with dwarves this year
Rock and stone!
Whatever you do, don’t look up silicosis. Not a problem at all. Not relevant.
What a great breakdown on your thoughts, thank you for sharing. I’ll admit it’s not a perfect game but I think it worked for me much better than for you. When the game switched to Abby I had this sense that the writers were going to try and make me feel something besides hate/contempt for her and my immediate reaction was “Good fucking luck.”
But it really worked and as the narrative unfolded with Abby I found her to be a very sympathetic character and by the ending I was more worried about her than Ellie.
When I realized this I felt super conflicted because - who didn’t care about Ellie going into Part 2? And I think that message about having empathy for people you hate was such a powerful theme to make a whole game about that I was willing to let a lot of the smaller narrative mistakes go.
Have a good day.
I’m a huge DRG fan but wasn’t interested in Survivor because that’s not the type of game I usually play. A friend bought it for me so I felt obligated to try and it and holy heck it is so much more fun than I thought it would be. It is my go-to game when I’m on my Steamdeck.