Why do you still work there if you feel this way?

Because the salary and benefits are good and I’m experienced in the work.

Working for oil and gas is only supporting the existing order, and most people in O&G have very transferable skillsets.

I spent seven years in Healthcare IT taking shit pay to help doctors process insurance claims faster. I spent two years working at a retail advertiser mass marketing annoying online micro target ads. I’ve worked on a couple political campaigns (for free) doing data analytics for candidates who didn’t actually read them.

I guess I could be working for… Microsoft? Walmart? Lockhead Martin?

Who is the Virtuous Employer?

At least in this role I can point to a number on a ledger and proudly say “I was involved in capping the release of this much methane gas into the atmosphere”.

Nonsense. I think if there’s one thing this US Senate has proven to be, it’s anti-pedophile.

SecurityCube 360 Pro

The Russian Federation being granted the former USSR’s permanent seat was conditional: the Russian Federation was required and expected to uphold the responsibilites that the USSR had, as well as the USSRs treaties and agreements. Failure to uphold those commitments would mean the Russian Federation was in breach of their agreement with the UN and should lose the seat formerly granted to the USSR.

Sure. But the mechanism by which the UN functions is such that the Security Council has extensive veto power over most actual policy set by the UN. Consequently, any effort to challenge Russia on its failed obligations or to penalize or remove them would be subject to… Russian veto of the action from the Security Council.

That’s because the UN doesn’t exist to set policy against its primary member states. The UN exists to allow member states a neutral(ish) space to negotiate international policy amongst themselves and to organize against non-members and non-state-actors. Even if you could kick a $1T/year economy and largest sovereign landmass on the planet out of the body… who would benefit? Its not like removing Russia from the UN makes the country not-a-state. It’s not like the BRICS wouldn’t continue to coordinate amongst themselves independent of the UN. All you’ve done is cut the cord to the Little Red Phone that helps a future Russian President and a future American President from hashing it out before they launch nukes at one another.

The USSR, interestingly enough, had signed many treaties recognizing the borders of its successor states before it was dissolved, one of which being Georgia. Thus the actions of the Russian Federation in Georgia in 2008 violated one of these USSR agreements they are required to uphold. This was a direct violation and one that is technically grounds for removal of the UN, at least removal from a permanent seat.

You can single out the USSR on this technicality and hold Russia to it. But then you could single out the US for its extensive violation of the Geneva Convensions or its withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords or any number of other historical treaties and associated promises.

You could single out the US for the Hague Invasion Act if nothing else. But we won’t, for the same reason nobody’s seriously interested in ousting Russia (or China or the UK or France for that matter).

This isn’t the G7 (formerly G8) where “We’re embargoing you, why are you even here?” would be the response to any Russian delegation. This is the body that exists to negotiate member states out of nuclear war. If anything, the Security Council should have significantly more members, given how nuclear weapons have proliferated over the last 70 years.

Maybe getting Pakistan and India on the panel could avoid the last great Pyrrhic Victory of human civilization.

Is it possible there are some SNAP recipients taking advantage of the system?

The federal equivalent of asking “Is anyone abusing our Take A Penny / Leave A Penny tray”. It’s such a paltry amount of money with so many strings attached that anyone serious about abusing a federal system looks elsewhere. Why would I fuck with food stamps when I can get take a job at an investment bank that got in on the Trumpcoin scam or take six figures beating up the homeless as an ICE Agent? Hell, part time National Guardsmen get way better benefits than anyone accepting federal cheesebux. Or take a job at the state or municipal level doing any of a number of annoying bureaucratic tasks that guarantee a stable income and good benefits.

There are so many ways to get money out of the federal government if you’re able-bodied, middle-aged, and sporting an IQ in the high double digits. Food stamps are for folks who can’t be exploited or coerced into exploiting others on the state’s behalf. You’re kept at just above starving in hopes you can be roped back into the system somewhere down the line, but systematically abused by the bureaucracy to get you to jump off asap.

Mafiosos in the 60s and 70s were more generous to their neighbors than the Feds are with their benefits schemes. Its the last place you should look for fraud.

I work in O&G and my own CEO - who has long and loud been a climate skeptic - decided he was finally turning a corner on the EPA in our last All Hands Meeting. The guy very loudly and proudly announced that the Federal Government (which is suddenly extremely trustworthy and reputable!) has released an abundance of New Data (no, we can’t see it) that categorically proves what we’ve been doing is good for the planet.

Like, at this point, I’m pot-committed to sucking at the teet of the Permian Basin. And I honestly can’t complain too loudly, because someone in middle management realized a few years back that if you plug all the leaks in your gas mains, you not only help the environment but save a fuckton of money. Identifying and plugging leaks via drone surveillance (and proving out the cost savings) has been my job for the last three years.

But holy fuck do I ever get tired of hearing this asshole yap about how good petrochemicals are for the economy, the country, and the planet. I’m already sucking your dick, you don’t need to lie to me about how it tastes.

Finally, we can get to the bottom of this whole “Did Donald Trump has any kind of involvement with Jeffery Whatisface?” question, once and for all. I’m excited to see these files released so that the FBI can act and any prosecutions of those involved can begin forthwith. Can’t wait for this decision to Release The Documents to put this whole matter to bed, once and for all.

Preach. I almost got suspended for being punched in the face, because the school logged me as “being in a fight” and considered that evidence I’d broken a rule. My assailant was straight up walking down the hall and shoving anyone in his way, eventually deciding to punch me because I didn’t move aside fast enough. But because I was the only one who complained to a Vice Principle (and because his parents had enough money and influence in the school to make things ugly), school admin effectively tried to extort me into retracting the complaint.

Took six months and multiple hearings, along with a threat of lawsuit, to eventually get the school admins to reverse their decision.

Why would anybody use Threads?

Let’s say you were a Bitcoin spammer who wanted to appeal to a higher quality of bullshit techbro crowd.

Unfortunately, the Epstein Files are full of Liberals, too.

It’ll never top the folks who are convinced $25k in Facebook ads cost Hillary’s $2B campaign the election in 2016.

But it is dizzying to see how quickly we Doublespeak about Russia/Ukraine. It’s The Battle of the Somme every day in America.

They were. Donald Trump was as much of a racist, sexist, xenophobic shitbag when he demanded the execution of the Central Park Five as he is today. Joe Biden was as committed to the Zionist project under Ben-Gurion as Netanyahu from Philly. Dianne Feinstein was fighting to put the Confederate Flag up over San Fransisco over forty years ago. Mitch McConnell has been fronting for fossil fuel companies all the way back to his days as legislative assistant to Marlow Cook and and campaign aid for Tom Emberton. My man was an aid to Robert fucking Bork ffs. Hillary Clinton was a Goldwater Girl.

These people all sucked back then. They have always sucked. They were the teenagers screaming at the first black students to cross the segregation line after Brown v Board. They were the Vietnamese veterans doing war crimes at My Lai and flying bombing runs over Cambodia on behalf of Kissinger. They were taking money from Walmart and DOW Chemical and Raytheon and Salomon Smith Barney as soon as they were old enough to cash a paycheck. They were at the forefront of the Red Scare and the first in line to bend the knee to Ronald Reagan.

These people have been awful for eons.

I will commit unlimited holocaust on the developing world if I do not see women dressed like this.

Every time you save a file in Microsoft, your credit card is charged $.50

those people did not have the values you associate with them back then in the 1960s and 1970s

Oh yeah. Nobody was suggesting we round up all the immigrants, criminalize homosexuality, segregate people by race, and deny women rights over their own bodies in the 1960s and 70s. And we definitely weren’t cooking up a Cold War with an Eastern Power, or picking fights with left-leaning democracies in Latin America, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa, during this time.

It’s actually totally different now!

Anyone who suggests Russia wasn’t involved in <insert bad thing here> is a Russian bot or a Chinese Wumao or a radical Islamist trying to trick me into not blaming the Russians for something.

I won’t fall for it.

~ NotHasbara

Feels more like a Dan Brown novel, tbh.

You can do it now. It’s a rich enough game that I only vaguely remembered the high notes and was delightfully surprised at a bunch of lower key plot beats I’d forgotten.

Also, the mobile adaptation is pretty good.

He did have that problem, and he had outsourced large parts of his memeories. Electronically, and in the form of an explorable virtual world.

Ah, yes. Sherlock Holmes’s Mind Palace. I really hated that arc.

Hum… Probably some 5 to 10 years. Maybe less.

Your personality changes over time, but there are formative memories that stay with people until they die. You can see it in phobias and other mental disorders very explicitly, but also in favorite foods or cultural preferences or adherence to certain dogmatic beliefs.

Like, imagine if people who came of age in the 1950s were to just live forever ruling over the rest of us and imposing their standards and beliefs generation after generation, with new members only added to the gerontocracy by demonstrating a nostalgia for an era they never even grew up in. Imagine what kind of place that would be like to live in.