I’m hopeful that this attack on Iran will have the long-term beneficial outcome of accelerating the move to renewables in the Global South. What’s happening to Cuba right now should be a warning to everyone: if your country relies on fossil fuels, the US can and will cut you off from those fuels if it doesn’t like the cut of your jib. I think that’s the real reason Trump is going so hard against things like windmills. He wants to see everyone dependent on oil - and is positioning the US to control global oil flows in order to force the world to bend to the US’ will. Any country that wants to preserve its sovereignty needs to be looking into getting off oil dependency yesterday. And thankfully, China is building out the capacity now to satisfy that demand for renewable energy.

I needed a Bluetooth speaker for my work PC (I work from home). I got one with a radio tuner as well. I’m fortunate that I have several radio stations in my area that play music I like. I prefer having some music on in the background while I work, but I was getting tired of having to actually think about what I wanted to listen to next. So I’ve been listening to OTA radio quite a bit, and it’s a nice change of pace from streaming music. And it’s not like the radio bits added much to the cost of the speaker.

Edit: also eyeglasses (sure, I’ll count that as a “gadget”). I hadn’t been to the eye doctor in probably 20 years. Hadn’t really noticed any problems but wanted to get my eyes checked since I had just gotten insurance. Doc recommended a prescription and now it’s like seeing the world in HD instead of standard def. If you’re in your late 30s/early 40s and haven’t gotten your eyes checked, it’s possible your vision has slowly degraded over time and eyeglasses will help more than you realize.

The bill is sponsored by Elise Stefanik and Josh Gottheimer, two of the more notable Zionists in Congress (and that’s saying something). If that doesn’t point to the real intention of these laws I don’t know what does.

I do wonder if it will get to the point we see an “all power to the soviets” moment but Hezbollah in Lebanon.

When OpenAI goes under, Microsoft will get ownership over all their IP (that’s a part of their contract), IIRC

Portal 2, Stephen Merchant provides most of the humor with his voice acting for Wheatley.

Presidential pardons have been totally corrupt for a long time. Check out what Clinton did for Marc Rich.

Trump is objectively a greater threat to attack another NATO country than Putin is.

I feel like it’s well known that kissing up to Trump is the wrong move. Deep down he hates that and doesn’t respect it. He might bluster at first but eventually he respects people who stand up to him or at least don’t give in and kiss his ass (Kim, Sheinbaum, Xi).

Gorbachev sending a letter to George H. W. Bush (which he would not respond to) practically begging to tell what kind of government he would like to see in the USSR is my #1 all time pathetic boot-licking given to a US president by a foreign leader. But Rutte’s “daddy” comment is a close second.

You know, the thought has occurred to me that it’s not impossible some sort of international incident occurs due Iran’s 0:30 time zone difference.

Netanyahu’s office:

“The United States has told Israel that it is committed to achieving these goals, shared by the US, Israel and Israel’s regional allies, in the upcoming negotiations.”

“The two-weeks ceasefire does not include Lebanon.”

I read that as “we agree to this ceasefire and will uphold it except in areas we don’t feel like it”. Perfectly on-brand for Israel.

Netanyahu saying Israel supports the ceasefire but that it doesn’t apply to Lebanon.

Couldn’t have happened to any nicer people….

I had assumed the part about “ending the war against all components of the Axis of Resistance” to include Lebanon.

I thought one of the points involved ceasing hostilities against the Axis of Resistance on all fronts, which I assume would include southern Lebanon, no?

If Trump did actually agree to these 10 points, then Katie bar the door because no way I believe the US will honor this and Trump is just saying yes to everything to buy time for an invasion.

But I also trust Iran, I think what they’ve accomplished over the last 5 weeks has earned our benefit of the doubt.

People who are just now starting to see this are also expecting to see Europe stand up to Trump (because why would any sovereign nation take orders from Trump of all people), but instead are seeing him constantly taking shots at them and the Europeans just keep coming back asking for more, practically begging to be seen as Trump’s good little doggies. I see people confused at this at first but they’re starting to connect the dots I think.

I don’t disagree, I just happen to find the theory that the US really only entered the war not because of high ideals but because if France and the UK lost, then the US would be left holding the bag as they defaulted on their loans, to be very plausible.

But when you dig into the history of the US in the 20th and 21st centuries, you start to notice this isn’t just a “Trump” thing. Outside of WW1 and WW2 (though the US had spurious reasons for joining WW1), the US has been the bad guys in every other instance.

The US is the imperialist hegemon, Trump has just been more open about it.