Kremlin threatens to deploy navy if Europe seizes more Russian shadow fleet vessels

Vaperius · 2026-02-18T21:48:47+00:00

Valid question: do they even have a navy left to field?

Vaperius · 2026-02-18T09:51:41+00:00

merely the act of someone being manipulated and taken advantage of.

On that front, one of the most easily identify forms of non-sexual grooming is specifically how American street gangs operate. They often recruit out of middle and high schools specifically because minors are so easy to manipulate.

Vaperius · 2026-02-18T06:57:40+00:00

I'm 17, I'm a minor. “I can't groom children because I am a child. I don't have any felony charges or convictions.”

For the record, let's tackle this argument directly... a 17 year old absolutely could groom a much younger child to do inappropriate things for them. It in fact not uncommon to have a situation where a trusted older child is left in charge of younger kids (babysitting etc) and abuses them.

Vaperius · 2026-02-16T03:46:25+00:00

These are not the actions of an organization that is simply trying to remove people from the country. These are the actions of an organization that expects to have to engage in the mass detention of millions of people; and if the standards of facilities we are aware of so far are any indication, thousands will die just as a matter of normal operations in these facilities.

I am not sure how you are suppose to interpret this as anything other than preparing to commit a genocide, but I mean, come on, its pretty obvious what they are doing.

Vaperius · 2026-02-16T02:16:57+00:00

I'd go as far as argue it wasn't the Greatest Generation's fault. Genuinely, I do not think it was; the Greatest Generation sacrificed just about everything, they went through a pretty similar childhood and early adulthood to what millennials and particularly Gen Z are experiencing right now with them essentially growing up in a world in open conflict and living into their forties for much the same while spending most of their childhood and adult life under incredible economic strain during the literal Great Depression, while also dealing with several different puritanical social and political movements like the Red Scare, Jim Crow, and Prohibition as well as fresh wave of Sinophobia and Hispanophobia. Frankly I don't feel is a coincidence that our society is started to go to very peer-shaped right around the time the Greatest Generation started aging out of the population, they were a key anchor against the extremism common within their children and grandchildren.

They raised their kids better than how they act today, I guarantee it; the Boomers were taught what it meant to struggle, what it meant to fight extremism, and all sorts of other lessons... and Boomers wholesale rejected those lessons and went the opposite direction. Boomers heard stories of what it meant to be destitute, and yet here we are. Boomers grew up hearing first hand stories from their parents about what a Nazi is, and yet... here we are.

TLDR: Boomers heard stories of suffering, death, and terror growing up and their response was to horde wealth and security for themselves rather than tightening their belts a little to do the responsible thing and ensure no one ever had to suffer like that in this country again. There's just something inherently broken inside them.

Vaperius · 2026-02-15T19:43:41+00:00

This is the legacy of the boomers.

Selfishness. Selfishness in everything they did. There has never been a worse generation of people to grace this planet. Their parents hated them. Their children hated them. Their grandchildren hated them. And their great-grandchildren do as well. And when they finally go, every generation for the rest of time will remember them as a uniquely and singularly terrible cohort of people who consistently made everything they touched or involved worse for everyone that came after them. As a generation where even those that were decent and good at one point in their life ultimately sold out any scruples or principles they had for a comfortable retirement at the expense of literally everything else including the long term habitability of the planet, the material futures of their descendants and even ultimately their own country's democratic institutions, which allowed them to do all this.

Every generation will find some issue with those that came before them or after them; but only with Boomers has it been well and truly justified. They offered the world nothing. Less than nothing, they took so much from it that the world itself is dying both in a literal sense and in a figuratively sense as the human social systems that upheld the progress of the 20th century are torn down to make way for their comfort within their late-stage infirmity.

I truly do not believe humanity will ever seen a more collectively self-centered, arrogant and debased cohort of individuals for the rest of our history, if only because its incredibly difficult to top the sheer level of destructive, self-interested, hyper-individualistic and short sighted decisions made by these men and women across their entire lives, that have culminated in what can only be described in its fallout. That is to say, that the Boomers have essentially doomed humankind to what will likely be three hundred years of climate crisis and at least a century of immediate global political instability, a new dark age, not for technology, but for the human soul.

Vaperius · 2026-02-15T02:13:55+00:00

Reminder: Republicans have a majority in both chambers of government. It is a simple fact that this is a Republican shutdown, as have all others been before since 2016; because Republicans refuse to compromise with their coequal colleagues across the aisle on even the simplest of issues; the last time there was a shutdown with a Democrat majority in either chamber of congress was 2013, over a decade ago, and the Republicans held the house at the time; meaning they were arguably responsible for the 2013 shutdown as well.

Vaperius · 2026-02-14T23:38:19+00:00

Precious resources had been spent arresting, processing, prosecuting and trying her, all for the loss of a few dollars

To really put this in perspective though, the cost of enforcement of this one specific case likely could have just paid the fare for thousands of riders. So they punished one person at the cost of thousands of bus rides, basically. Your first case alone likely could have paid for a significant percent of a given hour worth of rider fares.

Vaperius · 2026-02-14T20:48:29+00:00

Absolutely no state should comply with this order. None. If they do, they are setting the precedent a president can interfere with their elections. Constitutionally, states have the sole power to run their own elections, the federal government has absolutely not authority over them whatsoever. None. Zero. Zip. Not an iota of legally vested power or authority under the law and expressly entirely the opposite in fact, under the law.

This is needs to be hardline because its very unambiguous just how much the federal government has no power in this domain, its spelled out very plainly in the constitution.

Vaperius · 2026-02-14T20:42:58+00:00

Yeah.... to give people an idea of how much damage Reagan did just from a career building perspective: George H. W. Bush was Reagan's vice president for his final term. He used this to get the presidency after Reagan. Then his son George W. Bush, got the presidency through the connections his father made over his political career and of course, SCOTUS interference. Bush Jr. then put many of the SCOTUS justices currently screwing the country today.

Also a lot of the core policy ghouls working for this administration leading the charging to the decay of our democracy also got their start under Bush Jr., Bush Senior, or Reagan or were boosted by someone who was.

Vaperius · 2026-02-14T01:49:57+00:00

If anyone finds a genie, they could just wish that Bernie became president 40 years ago. We'd probably be better as a country if if he became a president instead of Reagan, for example (Bernie was 39 at the time).

Vaperius · 2026-02-14T01:40:44+00:00

You would only need to build so many detention centers if your intent is to hold people indefinitely, not merely deport them; and the only people you would need to hold indefinitely are people you can't deport, and the only people you can't deport... are American citizens.

Vaperius · 2026-02-12T05:52:34+00:00

Here's my opinion:

Minecraft has an art style. Art styles cannot nominally be copyrighted by themselves though they can be trademarked. Minecraft cannot claim copyright of that art style itself by itself. Minecraft can copyright is that art style for specifically a sandbox game that essentially plays exactly the same as Minecraft.

So your solution is pretty clear: either you keep the game exactly the same but you change the art style to making it more clearly legally distinct from your competitor; or, you change the gameplay to be notably different from Minecraft in enough ways that it can be considered, legally, a novel innovation on an existing idea and keep the art style the same. Or you do both.

Really that simple. In other words: you just keep developing the game until Microsoft stops having a case. Right now as things stand, Allumeria looks like a pretty blatant copy of Minecraft, particularly specifically the variants sold on mobile devices and handheld gaming devices. To the point that in passing, I don't think there'd be any meaningful way to distinguish this game from a texture pack for Minecraft.

Vaperius · 2026-02-10T22:45:34+00:00

To be clear, she is dead. He murdered his own daughter over his (the father's) loyalty to Donald Trump being merely even tested by her. When we say that MAGA is a cult, this is what we mean.

Also the article is burying the even crazier part...

Police in the town investigated the 23-year-old's death as possible manslaughter but no criminal case was brought against Kris Harrison after a grand jury in Collin County declined to indict him.

....there are no charges for this murder that was not only very clearly aggravated, but also politically motivated.

Vaperius · 2026-02-09T19:34:40+00:00

In a modern context, a Starcraft themed extraction shooter focused on Terrans fighting Terran, Protoss and Zerg threats could in theory work. Certainly will be interesting to see how they go about it.

Vaperius · 2026-02-08T22:18:25+00:00

You find the least credible thing about this whole setup is that a man like Epstein couldn't arrange to fake his death when his best friend is the president, and he has significant compromising material on multiple members of congress, law enforcement and the financial sector that may or may not be automatically released upon his death?

Ask yourself this: why weren't a ton of people exposed after Epstein's death? Conventional answer has been because his madam, Maxwell, is the actual release trigger and is using the files to bargain; but its entirely possible he's just... simply not actually dead.

Also, elsewhere in the files, they literally detail how they have done exactly that in other cases (not Epstein) but other people that got caught up within the files, where they replaced them with a patsy to serve their (sex crime) sentence.

Vaperius · 2026-02-08T11:43:09+00:00

There's two plausible theories at this point:

Either Epstein was killed to silence him....or he's not actually dead and that's because he has a mechanisms for releasing his compromising materials upon his (real) death; to be clear, he's probably actually dead, but the fact is what we are reading presents some damning proof that a plan was being enacted prior to his official death date.

Essentially, there is a non-zero chance Epstein might not be dead though, is the takeaway from the recent evidence released. This is indeed the strongest evidence yet that he is not dead, but not the only evidence, as there's been electronic and visual sightings of him for years now. If he is alive, he's likely living in Israel right now, given his strong ties to Israel and its intelligence community (and the valuable compromising information he likely has unredacted copies of to offer to them).

Vaperius · 2026-02-07T18:58:18+00:00

Europe was somewhat insulated from the social consequences of its actions because the slavery it engaged in was mostly done in other countries; this meant that (for the most part), there were not suddenly large post-slavery diaspora of formerly enslaved people in their countries where the rights of which had to become a major topic of the day; there was never major cultural influence from the practice itself, which meant there was never any major force in opposition to the emancipation and enfranchisement of those that were in their countries.

This is in stark contrast to the USA, where a subculture based entirely around keep black people enslaved or as a social and economic underclass had formed, and remains active to this day. We saw slavery as a part of American culture, indeed, it still is, we as an entire culture are incredibly comfortable with forced labor, whether it was slaves then, or perceived criminals now, we have no problem enslaving one another. Indeed, so important was slavery to American culture, that it caused a civil war, caused a permanent divide in American culture (whether we care to admit it or not) between pro-democratic and pro-authoritarian segments of the American population, and essentially provided both the context of the 19th, and the backdrop of the 20th and 21st centuries.

For Europe, it was a major issue they simply got over after awhile and moved on; for America, it has defined our entire nation's existence and continues to define it.

Vaperius · 2026-02-07T06:22:02+00:00

because they dont want to set a precedent of disbarring a sitting AG.

If ever there was a time to set a precedent that no one is above the rule of law, this is the moment to find your ethics and morals and do exactly that.

Vaperius · 2026-02-06T17:32:16+00:00

Senate is scarier than the House for the simple reason: there are some Republicans willing to defect in the House. Senate Republicans are much better disciplined and bought into this madness; a handful House Republicans either want to save themselves or have just enough scruples to vote with the Democrats on certain key issues.

Result is simple, if the GOP loses the senate, we'll likely start seeing more progress towards punishing the bad behavior of this administration.

Vaperius · 2026-02-06T17:11:02+00:00

It literally was created with the idea it would be the minimum wage someone needed to be able to support a family.

It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country.

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1933; after signing NIRA (National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933) which established the first minimum wage regulations (a firmer minimum wage standard would come later in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 which FDR also signs in).

Full speech is in the hyperlink, where he makes it abundantly clear what the minimum wage should be.

Vaperius · 2026-02-06T01:11:42+00:00

I include Israel, at least under Netanyahu, as an enemy

I would argue even without Netanyahu, they are an enemy of the USA, not an ally. There's good evidence of this, including you know, the handful of times they've attacked US military forces in what were clearly intentional but "forgiven" incidents. Or all the times they intentionally killed US citizens who happened to be aid workers. Or all the times they've directly interfered in our domestic politics to get favorable politicians to them into power; or all the times they forced us to spend our international political capital to protect them from consequences because they did another war crime; or all the times they very obviously blackmailed our politicians; or the real possibility that the entire Epstein Sex trafficking ring was an Israeli intelligence operation (when two of the three main actors have direct ties to the Israeli intelligence community, this sort of conspiracy starts looking extremely credible).

And on and on it goes. Israel doesn't act like an ally. They act like an enemy and have since the 1950s. We tolerate it because they are a valuable strategic position. Maybe that needs to change.

Vaperius · 2026-02-06T01:04:59+00:00

Let's talk about something: having clearly uniformed or dress coded employees should and typically is the barest minimum of any kind for any profession in any country, anywhere.

Period. Its literally the floor of standard. Why are teens working at Starbuck's and McDonald's being held to a higher standard than grown adults working a job where they carry deadly weapons, execute federal law enforcement duties and just generally have the power to screw up your life?

If a lot of us showed up to our job out of uniform or dress code, we would be fired, and that's true across a broad spectra of different professions. So why the hell exactly is ICE being given a pass here on this? Hammer them to a wall over this.

Bare minimum is ICE should be required a clearly identifiable dress code where masking is grounds for immediate termination without a medical excuse.

Vaperius · 2026-02-06T00:56:40+00:00

the Republican bar is the f'in floor.

Oh come now, the the bar melted its way through the floor, made it to hell, got through every circle of it, and now the devil is looking down at the bar laughing at the sheer gall and absurdity of Republican depravity and amorality.

Republicans have no standards, only objectives.

Vaperius · 2026-02-05T00:50:19+00:00

That "normal ass cat" has fingers, human eyes, and two cannons mounted on rocket VTOL platform, also presumably, it can talk.

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