It's well known that the judiciary at the time was very lenient towards right wing extremists. His time in jail was rather cozy and gave him time to develop and write down more of his ideological underpinnings. And come up with a more comprehensive plan for taking over.

That's why I find it very worrisome when people like Donald Trump get what amounts to a slap on the wrist for staging an insurrection. Not just that but they actually put him on the ballot again 😱. And this time the people propping him up in the background came up with an elaborate plan for claiming the election and then completely restructuring the executive authoritarian style (aka Project 2025).

Saw a policy expert say it's a mixture of 3 things really:

1. Trump likes to blame outsiders for problems and this is well received by his loyal base and gives off strongman vibes
2. long term plan to switch from income tax (scales the more you earn) to consumption taxes (the poorer you are the more you pay for for consumption, relatively speaking) which benefits the rich at the expense of the poor. this wealth transfer is easier to sell when the populace is focused on outsiders
3. Trump doesn't understand basic economics

source: https://youtu.be/2I1L1fXaYDs?feature=shared

Let us hope that one day the US, or any democracy for that matter, will come together to implement ranked choice voting.

Please note that in Germany you get 2 votes in the federal election. 1st is for a candidate to directly represent your district, 2nd is for a party nation wide. The map only shows the election result for the 2nd vote.

Here's another map to show the party affiliation of winners of the 1st vote:

Colors are the same, except blue. Blue represents CSU, essentially the Bavarian version of the CDU (Christian Democratic Union).

There's so many parts and pieces that all failed to get to where we are today. Each time you reflect a moment and realize that we shouldn't be be here in the first place:

• The FBI // justice department shouldn't be a tool of personal revenge.
• But wait Trump/Musk shouldn't have become presidents to begin with.
• Voters should be educated and well informed enough to simply not vote for an autocrat.
• Merrick Garland should never have become attorney general and even so Biden should have pressured him hard to do his job.
• Trump should have been impeached multiple times already.
• But the democrats too should have had a better alternative candidate.
• The democrats should have had a real primary contest.
• Biden should have never announced to run for another term out of the blue.
• And his handlers shouldn't have tried to hide his frailty for so long.
• If only Donald Trump should have been sentenced for his many crimes.
• And he shouldn't have had the backing of the Republican party for this long.
• Arguably voters should have realized he's inept the first time around.
• The media shouldn't have sensationalized him as much when he first ran as a publicity stunt

The list is not exhaustive and goes on and on...

And in the background there's all the systemic failures and problems that enabled this: terrible public education, ignoring a large chunk of the electorate for too long, citizens united, social media and outrage culture, rampant disinformation and propaganda disguised as news, the electoral college and de facto 2 party system, too few checks and balances being hard codified, obvious loop holes like presidential pardons, ...

Petty sure historians will analyze this for generations. If we will still live in a world where historians are allowed to about their work freely.

Luckily steam presents visitors with both the all time score as well as an average of recent reviews. Quite fair to do this, as it can cut both ways.

I initially wrote 'temptor' in the title but then double checked. Not today, Titivillus.

Nice. I'm wondering how often this cycle has played out so far ...?

For gluten free products: the whole production chain needs to use different tools or be sealed off from the rest. You can generally use the same mill, kneader, oven, tray for barley, wheat, rye, etc without meticulous cleaning in between. But if you want it to be gluten free you now need to either do that expensive cleaning or more realistically have an entirely separate set of machinery and ensure it never gets in contact with your main line.

After watching the original video I started putting some additional powder at the bottom of the loading tray every wash and it works great. Clean dishes ever since, no pre rinse necessary. Can recommend 👍.

Just ask the parents what (s)he likes.

According to the study 37% of participants verify information before sharing it on social media.

There you have it folks.

Disinformation campaigns don't need to be super convincing with the latest tech or elaborate fake outs, although it certainly helps. For the masses (ie election interference) it's easy enough to to establish narratives, vibes by users simply sharing headlines to fake or manipulative reports. The people that bother to deep check and cross reference sources you typically couldn't convince anyway. Sadly enough, most users never read beyond the head lines (75% this Facebook study estimates).

Think of your own feed: how many head lines // posts do you just scroll by w/out ever opening them? Even if you don't share actively it still can influence the your perception of the world today and shape your mood.

Social media is eating away at the fundamentals of Democracy 🫠, change my mind!

So reportedly this guy got caught in a right-wing echo chamber of conspiracy Youtubers. That's why his coup came so out of nowhere:

https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/inside-south-koreas-right-wing-youtube-world-openly-embraced-by-yoon

I don't think it works well here because the art styles don't match and the way the bar keeper is drawn looks nothing like the old woman.

This feels quite politically motivated. Trump appointment aside, the CIA specifically uses the words "low confidence", so even if they deem it the most likely, it's still only the most likely from several low confidence options.

But look at how lawmakers exploit it:

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton said he was “pleased” the CIA concluded in the Biden administration’s final days that the lab-leak theory was the most plausible explanation of Covid-19’s origins, and commended Mr Ratcliffe for releasing the conclusion.

“Now, the most important thing is to make China pay for unleashing a plague on the world,” Mr Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, said in a statement. BLOOMBERG

Source: https://www.straitstimes.com/world/united-states/cia-now-favours-lab-leak-theory-to-explain-covid-19-origins

It's nothing short of amazing that this already deep game keeps on gaining new content and improvements. And for free at that.

Search engine optimization ruined the web. Change my mind!

The crowd was literally chanting "hang Mike Pence". Kudos to him for not going along with Trumps plan of overthrowing the election.

Yet still I can't help but wonder whether he was secretly hoping for Trump to lose the 3rd election and the Republican party returning to its old ways somehow. Why? Because he's been suspiciously silent ever since when he had the cachet and moral standing to be one of his greatest detractors (from the Republican side).

Never understood the whole conspiracy angle on the pyramids. When I was in school we always learned that the fascination with the pyramids wasn't just with the labor, engineering and man power required but with the division of labor, the social command and the economic planning required.

Remember that the pyramids have no direct tangible return on investment and were multi generation endeavors. So the question encroaching a contemporary observer is: ¿What must the structure of a society look like that produces such monuments?

"Wir sollten Russland anbieten, die Waffenlieferungen sofort zu stoppen, wenn Russland einem Waffenstillstand an der jetzigen Frontlinie und dem Beginn von Friedensverhandlungen zustimmt", sagte sie. "Die endlosen Waffenlieferungen haben die Position der Ukraine nicht verbessert, sie war im Frühjahr 2022 stärker als heute."

Ja ne, ist klar, Sahra. Man könnte ja auch auf die Idee kommen, dass es dank der Waffenhilfen die Ukraine als Land überhaupt noch gibt. Und bei noch mehr Hilfe aus dem Westen würde sie heute eben noch besser da stehen. Aber dann gäbe es natürlich auch keine Empfehlung vom russischen Außenminister für die BSW. Den Spitznamen Zarenknecht hat sie sich redlich verdient.