Your grandfather was very brave ❤️ It’s sad that ordinary people are sometimes forced to choose between bravery and monstrosity. But there it is.

And frankly, us military members are not forced. They can just…have a normal life instead.

The grocery’s job doesn’t rely upon the imperial pillaging of other places to make economic sense. “Non combat roles” in the military do. The military doctor’s job is to get the boys back out doing more slaughter. That’s the point. If they didn’t do that they wouldn’t be doing their job. Other doctors, that’s not the point…it could be some distant effect, sure, but for a military doctor it’s direct. Other doctors see patients who are not involved in imperialist slaughter of innocents. Military doctors do not.

This is like Von Braun saying “I was only an SS officer developing military weapons for the science! I wasn’t like…info it, you know, you can’t hold it against me.” Accountants for the Nazis should have quit, and it’s okay to say they’re awful people and complicit in the holocost. Anyone who works for the US military is complicit in the imperialist crimes of that organization. I’m sorry if that’s you or people you love. If it is, you should do something about it.

I think he’s not a moron, and so he doesn’t actually think it’s good for the US to attack Iran. Of course it’s measured, he wouldn’t say “rah rah, go trump go” if he didn’t think he should. But he thinks he should because of cowardice.

Yeah this is my thought too…like if you’re so scared that you can’t say what you think is right, fine…but keep your damn trap shut and quit licking boots.

So much for his Davos speech, eh?

I know the article is ringing the alarm bell, but I just gotta say I hate the way folks use the phrase “few bad apples” these days. It’s a shortening of the saying “a few bad apples spoil the bunch” meaning even if it was “just a few bad apples” we still ought to fire everyone and start again lol

Lovely! The hobby aspect definitely appeals, though so does the idea of getting everything running well! Have you heard anything about Manjaro as a user-friendly version of arch? I guess it may cut against the arch ethos of “precisely what you choose to install and nothing more,” but I feel like if it’s any good I could get the sort of ease-of-use that I have with mint while having the option to dabble and experiment more with the guidance of the arch wiki available?

I am very happy with mint. I can imagine making arch more of a project and having a lot of fun with it, and as I said, the wiki really seems like a big draw! I probably wouldn’t swap my daily driver from mint for a while, but I’m gonna put together a desktop to maybe run 24/7 and run a little plex server or whatever. I am interested in the possibility of even running it headless…maybe even streaming games from it to a laptop (I don’t have a very good space for a desktop set up in my home right now…too snug!).

Anyway thanks for your thoughts. Arch does seem really cool but maybe I should stick with something a bit more beginner friendly for a little longer, and come to arch when I’m more “ready,” or when my new little obsession with linux has solidified into a habit or whatever!

e: anyone have experience with manjaro as a user-friendly version of arch?

Thank you for making this! I am finally going to make the jump and get started fooling around with this thanks to you!

I’m a newbie, just put Mint on an old laptop and I’m blown away; it really does just work!

I have been thinking about trying Arch next because it’s so well documented. I don’t know maybe put together a little home server or something.

Do you think it’s appropriate for a relative newcomer? I’m excited by the documentation but also a little intimidated by it! I suspect I’ll need to ask for help but would worry about not having read everything there is to read first.

What’s amazing to me is that regular Canadians are agreeing with this bizarre US policy of trying to get their “allied” countries’ to spend more on their militaries.

First, that’s ludicrous because the US is the empire, (when they’re not doing the plundering themselves) they garner the vast majority of the benefit of stability and an absence of piracy. Of course they, who reap the benefit, should have to pay the cost. Or don’t, you know, I’m not even convinced that Russia or China have the intention or wherewithal to start invading other countries via the arctic. Maybe they want to claim territory that doesn’t currently belong to anyone, I don’t know. But like…I don’t think either of them is interested in marching an army into Whitehorse.

Second, what are we gonna do to increase spending? Could it be that we’ll be paying US companies for these weapons? When the gun merchant says “buy guns or else” I don’t think it’s very insightful to do mental gymnastics to justify why “maybe it really would be better for us.”

Don’t get me wrong, there may be good things too, especially if we focus on domestic manufacturers, and on weapons of defense and resistance (i.e. large quantities of small arms to make occupation by anyone difficult - like the Finns!).

Instead I’m sure we’re gonna see us buying overpriced U.S. military hardware that will only really be useful helping the US do imperialism (fancy jets and the like).

I don’t think we bear the brunt of it lol, in fact we’re a willing participant when it suits us. Today it’s Cuba bearing the brunt.

Canada keeps surprising me with how much it’s willing to strain against the imperial leash. I hope the decent people of the world can come together to help Cuba.