I wouldn’t delete, if I were you. Extremists on both sides - those who would excuse Israel’s war crimes, and those would excuse Hamas’ atrocities - will certainly insult and belittle you. But they’re a vocal minority.

Having a definition of Zionist would probably help?

I think Israel is committing war crimes in Palestine, Netenyahu should be tried by the ICC, and that what is happening in Palestine at present is in fact genocide.

But also, I think Israel should contiue to exist, and should - given the crimes committed against their citizens by Hamas - be entitled to demand that Hamas play no part in governance of a future Palestinian state.

Uncertain whether that counts as a zionist position, or not.

That’s okay; they generally come in pairs.

Mattermost user here, I self-host an instance for friends and family (and their children).

To upgrade and discover I’d lost access to the message history on my own instance was infuriating. I’m investigating alternatives right now.

So far Zulip seems reasonable - although Google and especially Apple being shits about push notifications means you can’t self-host push notification servers 🙄 So I’m considering forgoing push notifications altogether and leaning on email notifications instead.

Not for self-hosted installations, where Zulip aren’t paying for the storage themselves.

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert. I have several of his print books and still enjoy reading them; ditto his old cartoons. They really spoke to me years ago, as a cubicle-coder.

That was a power that the court effectively granted to itself in Marbury v. Madison, in 1803.

Jesus that does go back a while.

… reads …

Huh. I always sort of assumed, as a non-American, that that was the one of the main purposes of the Supreme Court.

It does seem like a good idea, though, to have some court responsible for deciding the Constitutionality of laws.

Since FDR stacked it to push through the New Deal, if not earlier.

Your friendly reminder that the Democrats helped to set up the levers of power that Trump and his fascist ilk are now cheerfully pulling.

Surface of the ocean? So, no chance of randomly arriving at submarine-crushing depths?

Hell yes. In fact I’d probably pay for the experience 🤣

I’m in Australia (and before that, New Zealand). So I’m in the same boat - seems lofty, but I’m really hopeful that it happens!

We’re not as isolated as you might think, though. The MAGA movement has, sadly, helped to shape the development of our own right-wing parties here. I don’t just hope that the US gets it shit together for their sake - they’re corrupting our politics as well.

Bonus points for hitting all categories in a single sentence.

I’m still hoping that, if the Democrats win the next election (and, if there is a next election!) that the US is able to do some serious soul-searching and reject things like …

• Military action without a declaration of war by Congress.
• Executive orders to push through legislation that’s otherwise unconstitutional.
• Court-stacking.

Administrations on both sides have done this since FDR and the New Deal (and possibly before; I don’t know). They’ve been setting the scene for someone like Trump to come along and continue the tradition with some astoundingly vile abuses of power.

Instability in my WIndows NT 4 development machine. I’d been using Linux as a hobbyist for several years, but switched to it at work so I had a machine that didn’t crash every few hours.

You don’t win elections by appealing to your opponents.

If there is just one lesson non-Republicans should take from Trump winning two elections, it should be this one!

Your suffering is not a KPI

Some days I doubt that.

Speaking as a non-American with an interest in politics and philosophy: I really hope that if (if!) you have free elections again, and if the Democrats win, that you start taking your Constitution seriously for the first time in a century.

That means no more going to war without Congressional approval. No more extrajudicial executions of American citizens. No more commerce clause loopholes to regulate that which clearly shouldn’t be a matter for the Federal govt. to regulate. No more executive orders as an end-run around Constitutional limitations, instead of Constitutional amendments.

Someone will always argue that it’s just pragmatic politics. That you couldn’t have had the New Deal, or the EPA, or Obamacare, or the War on Terror, whatever, without court-stacking, executive orders, illegal invasions, etc.

But you know what? Every time you did that, every time you got what you wanted despite the Constitution and laws in the way, you weakened the system, and you weakened respect for it amongst voters and their elected representatives.

In the end, you got Trump and MAGA wielding power that you helped to normalize.

Please don’t make that mistake again.

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Can confirm! Chickens, dogs, and children - all noisy as hell in their own way, and all make our garden sound great :)

Neighbours had a rooster for a while, until someone complained to the Council and the “rooster police” made them get rid of it.

But I loved it! Waking up early in the AM for meetings with folks in the US, and hearing a rooster, just started long days the right way.

Boy the original NAZIs would have loved to have genetic data on everyone, once they got rolling on the Holocaust.

I wonder if IBM will help with the next one, too?

First there was nothing

That might be the cause of your agnosticism, here. The big bang certainly didn’t happen from nothing; we’re just not up to working out what it did come from, yet - and there’s a chance we may never be able to know. But that didn’t mean it came from nothing.