There are some absolutely cunning and insane stories in here. Fascinating.

In a last-ditch attempt, Fabian von Schlabrendorff gave a time bomb camouflaged as a package of two liqueur bottles to an officer in Hitler’s entourage, as a supposed gift to a friend in Germany. The bomb was supposed to explode on the return flight over Poland. The package was placed in the hold of the aircraft, where it iced up, causing the detonator to fail. Realizing the failure, Schlabrendorff immediately flew to Germany and recovered the package before it was discovered.

Nevermind all the terminology gobledygook. This sounds an awful lot like a temporary tag, or a temporary permit to relocate a vehicle without a plate. Which I think is pretty standard in any state, and I can see a dealership begrudgingly doing this if it gets the car off the lot. But it’s very temporary, like days to weeks in my experience. I think the DMV would catch on if you kept coming back for permits.

Also, I’m guessing sovcit here doesn’t have a “FARM USE” loophole in their state?

I can’t fathom it myself.

Even if you bought yourself all the cosmetic surgery, life extending treatments, life extending drugs, toys, mansions, planes, airports, boats, gourmet food, personal entertainment, and (why not) all the sex you could possibly handle every day forever, it still wouldn’t come close to the billions some of these creatures have.

It might also be possible that they’re in competition with one another, all while (re)building an aristocracy within the western world. 21st century wealth does not extend from land ownership like it did back in the 18th, and it can be argued that it now extends from control of labor itself; this mirrors the shift from industrial to information economy. I think that’s already happening with the consolidation of monster corporations we have these days.

Another possibility I’ve tossed around is a tad more dark. If these animals are in the accelerationist camp, they’re hedging their bets and are prepared to “lose” billions in worth in order to stay on top when things fall apart. And if I’m right, we should see the ultra-wealthy attempt to build their own survival compounds and purchase self-sufficient infrastructure to achieve this; that includes “buying” governments.

I used to have a friend like this.

Back in 2008, it was clear that she was watching Fox News for her primary source of “information” about the world and politics. Even then, it was a constant headache to push back against the one-sided, stilted, non-scientific, ideological slop that channel churns out. Since this was an election year, Facebook just made it even worse. She constantly re-posted all manner of emotionally provocative nonsense without thinking.

After the election, it only got worse. I watched this person go from semi-reasonable and rational, to a slowly devolving, emotionally driven, irrational, and fearful person over the following three years. It was as if reason itself was slowly draining out of her life. To make matters worse: at the start of this, all of her friends were socially liberal and left-leaning to deep left politically. I, along with a lot of others, slowly pulled out of her social sphere. I think she only has political sparring partners left on Facebook.

What makes me sad is that, outside of anything involving politics, this person was generous, kind, a great host, outgoing, and fun-loving. I want my friend back, but I also can’t afford the time to babysit another person’s broken brain forever.

Not even that. All your state’s comptroller¹ has to do is discharge debts made to the state, by writing “discharged with prejudice” with red pen on the DOT contractor bills. But this only works on pink collection notices, not normal paperwork. State stays out of debt and the roads stay paved.

¹ Yep, that’s a real word.

This is self-awarewolf material, right here.

Thanks for the insightful reply. I appreciate it.

I still know people who are die hard George W Bush supporters and think he was the best president we’ve ever had.

Honest question: do those folks say that because of how that campaign and presidency made them feel at the time, or is it honestly based in policy, politics, or something else tangible? Thank you.

devout Republican

I had the same thought. It’s not a sports team and not a religion. But man, some people treat it like that.

I really wish you well, but don’t see a way out for you.

I’ll admit, even the optimal path in front of us is not looking too good. And I’m the guy in the office that’s saying “no worries” most of the time. A Biden win still leaves us with a corrupt supreme court and equally corrupt and deadlocked congress.

You guys are an idea factory

Thanks for saying this. Perhaps our greatest export is our culture, but it would seem that’s the good, bad, and ugly all at once. I really do wish it was only the good stuff.

$18k “donation”

This is the part I hate the most about this. It’s one thing that we have this “squint a little and you’ll see it” kind of graft and corruption. It’s another entirely that the going rate for sending us all down the river is appallingly low. Especially since the kind of money a corporation can make for a favorable legal change could be a thousand times that, or more.

That was yesterday’s thread. Fellow was trying to get their car back from impound with magical paperwork (I think).

I feel like zip disks would have been a worse investment, so maybe they dodged a bullet here. Those drives were not built to last, and there might actually be more 8" media around than zipdisks these days. IMO, this article would have cropped up a long time ago were that the case.

Good point. “Rock the vote, not the boat” may as well be the campaign slogan.

I don’t know why, but this one really makes it clear to me. There are people out there with such a tenuous grasp on how things work, that they’ll seek out magic (“legal”) spells to make their problems go away.

I like your style. I went looking and found “switchbar” which kinda/sorta eases this bouncing between browsers idea:

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/open-with-switchbar/klgpknafjlhnpkppfbihchgfebbdcomd

It’s not elegant, but it supports the workflow you suggest. I kind of like the idea of using Edge for google.com and Chrome for microsoft.com. I’m not optimizing my experience (it may in fact be very sub-optimal), but I’m also using competition to neutralize potential shenanigans.

Yeah, “big-box-banknote bankers” or even “big-box-bank-ers” makes a little more sense and has the right kind of contempt for this rant. And to be fair, with the consolidation of small banks into major players these days, a tad relatable.

Possibly? Or maybe people will think twice about deadnaming you.

Just automatically started uploading everything on my hard drive to an account I didn’t set up

Wait, what?

Real question here: has anyone else had luck side-stepping the Live365 signup during/after install? I’ve done this, and I’m very confused that more people haven’t.