Just completed my 14th month of life without a phone (it's wonderful, thanks for asking).
So far I've had to give up online banking even though I'd never accessed my account from my phone (save when ELAN would text me the code to prove I was really me trying to access my account from the only computer that had ever accessed my account).
When I shop, I lie and use my old phone number because you cannot shop online without a phone number. You also can't fill out any online forms.
And now I could be ticketed for speeding and never know it until the summons arrives because I didn't pay the ticket I didn't know about?
Increasingly it appears to be all but illegal to live in this country without a phone.
I cannot think of any cable packages they offered in the early '80s that weren't higher than Netflix's rates and that's not adjusted for inflation.
Dive into cable and streaming and find me a package that lets me see every MN Timberwolves NBA game for less than $8/game. [Please respond w/something besides a Reddit link to pirated games]
Netflix is one of the better bargains out there, even with the rate hike. Honestly have no clue what people are comparing them to because only broadcast television is cheaper to watch.
Figured it out after deleting the Musk tweets. While I was locked out the 'hacker' drove about 40k views in traffic. I'm guessing most of that was from other hacked accounts and the real bottom line was that Musk is buying traffic for his social media accounts and this is where some of it is coming from.
And....Twitter finally got me back in and I found I had just followed Elon Musk and tweeted my appreciation for his account.
And then the 'hacker' closed my account.
Which makes no sense to me whatsoever. But rather than delete my original comment I'm leaving it up because as a long time Twitter user, stuff happens on Twitter that's really hard to explain.
Last night while watching my NBA team lose, I received four emails from Twitter urging me to change my password as someone from Vietnam had logged into my account.
By the time I saw the emails, I was locked out of Twitter and my account was closed. So far I have been unable to open a new account because the registration process does not allow me to not have a phone (I quit phones forever last year, never going back until our corrupt Congress gets rid of phone spam).
Twitter Help says they've given me access but only for my email address. They didn't notice the account had been closed and their system no longer recognized my username.
Not crying on anyone's shoulder here, but I do wonder if this wouldn't be the perfect way of "cleansing" Twitter without exposing the new CEO to heat over political account closures. I have been very abrasive here about Russiagate and more so at Twitter where I also have a long history of RTing news about a certain country's Apartheid policies.
I hate to think this way, but for the life of me I cannot see how anyone would gain from hacking into my account and closing it unless they intended to silence me. [Which did happen in 2005 when I was routinely blogging about that certain country's Apartheid policies and the server farm hosting my blog got hit with a DDOS attack and I had to find a new host.]
Much of the news media makes a big thing about Republican judges. Read any story about the Texas lege and the six-week limit on abortion, and you'll see mentions of who appointed which judge.
The Democrats have an equally abysmal record of making very political choices when picking judges. Pro-choice much of the time (but they are not as rigid as the GOP's choices which is why Roe v Wade is now under fire), but Democrats are rigidly consistent in picking judges who will side with authority figures whether they be in law enforcement, copyright or any area of conflict between property and nonwealthy individuals.
This judge made a horrendous decision and sided with a cop when there was no legal foundation for doing so. He was appointed by an authoritarian Democrat. Dan Malloy was an asst D.A. in Brooklyn for four years. It's now reasonable to wonder about his relationship with law enforcement.
And that's why I think media should always mention who appointed controversial judges. Now that you know a former prosecutor named this judge, you might see this problem as being bigger than just the judge. Connecticut may have lots of judges like him thanks to Dan Malloy. I don't know this, but if I lived in Connecticut I'm sure I'd be following Malloy's judges much more closely.
I've worked in politics and Superior Court Judge Cesar Noble didn't just fall off an apple tree. This decision surprised no one who had vetted him for his judgeship. A former prosecutor appoints a pro-police judge and I think the political parties should be mentioned. Not to mention how the overt politics involved props up our phony duopoly. Both parties stink when it comes to appointing fair-minded judges. Supreme Court justices picked by Clinton and Obama have been reliably pro-Wall Street. Etc., but mostly I'm just asking you label the players. In this case you didn't even bother to cite the judge's name despite his central role in making this case newsworthy.
It should be noted that the judge was appointed by Democratic Governor Dan Malloy.
Not criticizing this site, but it's rare for news media to tell us who appointed judges who make bad or controversial decisions. This is almost always helpful information when evaluating what's going on.
If disinformation worked, newspapers would still be able to sell advertising. Newspapers still delivering eyeballs, but advertisers have finally figured out that they weren't getting squat back on their investment.
2016 made it convenient for the neoliberals to agonize over fake news while at the same time spearheading insanely aggressive warmongering lies about Russia electing Trump.
The Durham Report is coming out. It's been delayed because the establishment has stalled, refusing to be held accountable for their grotesque lies. If you bought into Russiagate, you don't get to point fingers at others for getting suckered by the fast talking liars who dominate the news cycles these days.
Both sides lie. A lot. It's time to let go of the things of your youth, and the duopoly should be at the top of that list.
"Put to one side the knotty question whether the benefits of modernity outweigh the costs. No one can deny the size and sweep of liberal capitalist disruption."
Being a socialist doesn't mean I'm to the left of the Democratic party, in fact, almost the opposite. Neoliberalism has proven to be a huge boondoggle, putting Wall Street on steroids while picking fights with countries all over the globe.
We need a sane conservative party as a check on all this warmongering (Bob Dole wasn't wrong when he said that Democrats start most of our wars). It's easy to look at the GOP crazies and think they're the problem, but I think both parties need to be purged and rebuilt from the ground up.
And then maybe public opinion polls will be on the same page as our govt for a change. Remember that it took both parties to keep us in Afghanistan for two decades. Share the blame.
Is there more than one Judge Lewis Kaplan? Because if this is the same one who's persecuting Steven Donziger on behalf of Shell Oil, I have to admit that I don't care what his opinion in this matter is or how he reasoned it as it's fruit from a very corrupt tree.
If, like me, you've sworn a blood oath to never pay for cable again, the only way you can watch NBA games without cable in many areas is to subscribe to AT&T TV NOW for $80/mo.
I only watch my home team (and local fans are blacked out from watching on NBA League Pass) and the cost per game has been mounting for decades. Last time I did the math it would have cost me almost $7 per game for legal access. For games that used to be shown for free on broadcast television. The necessary provider seems to change every year, and every year the price goes up.
I cannot imagine how kids in poor families get to watch sports anymore.
When I moved to Wisconsin, the first piece of mail I got was a catalog from a big and fat clothing store targeted to me based on my height and weight which they bought from Wisconsin's DMV. The same DMV that had big TVs on every wall running an occasional PSA but 80% paid commercials.
I doubt very much only two states are doing this crap. This is the kind of government you get when you put soulless business people in charge of government.
They never offer these bills when they can pass. This bill is being offered because they know the Senate will vote it down. It's just politics. If by some chance the Democrats win the Senate and White House this fall, I guarantee a "different" bill will be offered.
I've been watching them do this since 1978. It's a head fake. If this was real, they'd have some Republican cosponsors to help get it through the Senate.
I doubt very much a good 'red' bill could be drafted.
I've worked for the Democratic party. Throwing up a 'perfect' bill when you know it cannot pass the other chamber is virtue signaling. They're taunting us with a bill they would have never submitted if the D's controlled the Senate.
Shame on you for buying into this fraud. Republicans may be the perps, but Democrats enabled them every inch of the way.
The DFL system that anointed Klobuchar their Senatorial candidate in 2006 did the same smooth-the-way crap for Franken in 2008 who had two legit primary opponents. One dropped out when the party and local media took all the air out of the race (which they did big time for Klobuchar).
Franken was obviously damaged goods (sorry, you can't do coke with John Belushi and then run for the US Senate) but popular. He barely won against a truly sleazy opponent (Norm Coleman) but it was so close he wasn't seated for six months because of recounts.
I didn't think the issues that pushed Franken out of the Senate were disqualifying, and I think he was MN's best Senator since Wellstone, but I'm not in favor of a system that prefers celebrities to serious candidates and I'm fed up with state parties that manipulate their primaries/endorsement processes.
What if you don't have a phone?
Just completed my 14th month of life without a phone (it's wonderful, thanks for asking).
So far I've had to give up online banking even though I'd never accessed my account from my phone (save when ELAN would text me the code to prove I was really me trying to access my account from the only computer that had ever accessed my account).
When I shop, I lie and use my old phone number because you cannot shop online without a phone number. You also can't fill out any online forms.
And now I could be ticketed for speeding and never know it until the summons arrives because I didn't pay the ticket I didn't know about?
Increasingly it appears to be all but illegal to live in this country without a phone.
Early cable user
I cannot think of any cable packages they offered in the early '80s that weren't higher than Netflix's rates and that's not adjusted for inflation.
Dive into cable and streaming and find me a package that lets me see every MN Timberwolves NBA game for less than $8/game. [Please respond w/something besides a Reddit link to pirated games]
Netflix is one of the better bargains out there, even with the rate hike. Honestly have no clue what people are comparing them to because only broadcast television is cheaper to watch.
Re: Re: Re: Currently locked out of Twitter
Figured it out after deleting the Musk tweets. While I was locked out the 'hacker' drove about 40k views in traffic. I'm guessing most of that was from other hacked accounts and the real bottom line was that Musk is buying traffic for his social media accounts and this is where some of it is coming from.
Re: Currently locked out of Twitter
And....Twitter finally got me back in and I found I had just followed Elon Musk and tweeted my appreciation for his account.
And then the 'hacker' closed my account.
Which makes no sense to me whatsoever. But rather than delete my original comment I'm leaving it up because as a long time Twitter user, stuff happens on Twitter that's really hard to explain.
Currently locked out of Twitter
Last night while watching my NBA team lose, I received four emails from Twitter urging me to change my password as someone from Vietnam had logged into my account.
By the time I saw the emails, I was locked out of Twitter and my account was closed. So far I have been unable to open a new account because the registration process does not allow me to not have a phone (I quit phones forever last year, never going back until our corrupt Congress gets rid of phone spam).
Twitter Help says they've given me access but only for my email address. They didn't notice the account had been closed and their system no longer recognized my username.
Not crying on anyone's shoulder here, but I do wonder if this wouldn't be the perfect way of "cleansing" Twitter without exposing the new CEO to heat over political account closures. I have been very abrasive here about Russiagate and more so at Twitter where I also have a long history of RTing news about a certain country's Apartheid policies.
I hate to think this way, but for the life of me I cannot see how anyone would gain from hacking into my account and closing it unless they intended to silence me. [Which did happen in 2005 when I was routinely blogging about that certain country's Apartheid policies and the server farm hosting my blog got hit with a DDOS attack and I had to find a new host.]
There is a third way to look at this
It's not binary: Trump can be wrong and the NYT/WP should return their Pulitzers.
Re: Re: Democrat-appointed judge
Much of the news media makes a big thing about Republican judges. Read any story about the Texas lege and the six-week limit on abortion, and you'll see mentions of who appointed which judge.
The Democrats have an equally abysmal record of making very political choices when picking judges. Pro-choice much of the time (but they are not as rigid as the GOP's choices which is why Roe v Wade is now under fire), but Democrats are rigidly consistent in picking judges who will side with authority figures whether they be in law enforcement, copyright or any area of conflict between property and nonwealthy individuals.
This judge made a horrendous decision and sided with a cop when there was no legal foundation for doing so. He was appointed by an authoritarian Democrat. Dan Malloy was an asst D.A. in Brooklyn for four years. It's now reasonable to wonder about his relationship with law enforcement.
And that's why I think media should always mention who appointed controversial judges. Now that you know a former prosecutor named this judge, you might see this problem as being bigger than just the judge. Connecticut may have lots of judges like him thanks to Dan Malloy. I don't know this, but if I lived in Connecticut I'm sure I'd be following Malloy's judges much more closely.
I've worked in politics and Superior Court Judge Cesar Noble didn't just fall off an apple tree. This decision surprised no one who had vetted him for his judgeship. A former prosecutor appoints a pro-police judge and I think the political parties should be mentioned. Not to mention how the overt politics involved props up our phony duopoly. Both parties stink when it comes to appointing fair-minded judges. Supreme Court justices picked by Clinton and Obama have been reliably pro-Wall Street. Etc., but mostly I'm just asking you label the players. In this case you didn't even bother to cite the judge's name despite his central role in making this case newsworthy.
Democrat-appointed judge
It should be noted that the judge was appointed by Democratic Governor Dan Malloy.
Not criticizing this site, but it's rare for news media to tell us who appointed judges who make bad or controversial decisions. This is almost always helpful information when evaluating what's going on.
You can't sell ads anymore
If disinformation worked, newspapers would still be able to sell advertising. Newspapers still delivering eyeballs, but advertisers have finally figured out that they weren't getting squat back on their investment.
2016 made it convenient for the neoliberals to agonize over fake news while at the same time spearheading insanely aggressive warmongering lies about Russia electing Trump.
The Durham Report is coming out. It's been delayed because the establishment has stalled, refusing to be held accountable for their grotesque lies. If you bought into Russiagate, you don't get to point fingers at others for getting suckered by the fast talking liars who dominate the news cycles these days.
Both sides lie. A lot. It's time to let go of the things of your youth, and the duopoly should be at the top of that list.
We need TWO parties
"Put to one side the knotty question whether the benefits of modernity outweigh the costs. No one can deny the size and sweep of liberal capitalist disruption."
Being a socialist doesn't mean I'm to the left of the Democratic party, in fact, almost the opposite. Neoliberalism has proven to be a huge boondoggle, putting Wall Street on steroids while picking fights with countries all over the globe.
We need a sane conservative party as a check on all this warmongering (Bob Dole wasn't wrong when he said that Democrats start most of our wars). It's easy to look at the GOP crazies and think they're the problem, but I think both parties need to be purged and rebuilt from the ground up.
And then maybe public opinion polls will be on the same page as our govt for a change. Remember that it took both parties to keep us in Afghanistan for two decades. Share the blame.
The Durham Report is finally coming out
and when it does, I'm sure Mr. Cushing will be equally horrified by the FBI leaks it will highlight.
Our government is rotten to the core because our institutions are all corrupt.
The Federal Bureau of Entrapment does whatever it likes and neither party lifts a finger to stop them.
Good luck changing Schiff's mind
Adam Schiff is barely smart enough to have an opinion, let alone rethink one.
Judge Lewis Kaplan?
Is there more than one Judge Lewis Kaplan? Because if this is the same one who's persecuting Steven Donziger on behalf of Shell Oil, I have to admit that I don't care what his opinion in this matter is or how he reasoned it as it's fruit from a very corrupt tree.
AT&T wrecking sports as well
If, like me, you've sworn a blood oath to never pay for cable again, the only way you can watch NBA games without cable in many areas is to subscribe to AT&T TV NOW for $80/mo.
I only watch my home team (and local fans are blacked out from watching on NBA League Pass) and the cost per game has been mounting for decades. Last time I did the math it would have cost me almost $7 per game for legal access. For games that used to be shown for free on broadcast television. The necessary provider seems to change every year, and every year the price goes up.
I cannot imagine how kids in poor families get to watch sports anymore.
Wisconsin has been doing this for at least a decade
When I moved to Wisconsin, the first piece of mail I got was a catalog from a big and fat clothing store targeted to me based on my height and weight which they bought from Wisconsin's DMV. The same DMV that had big TVs on every wall running an occasional PSA but 80% paid commercials.
I doubt very much only two states are doing this crap. This is the kind of government you get when you put soulless business people in charge of government.
Here's another article
Professor Starbird wrote a similar article in 2018: https://medium.com/s/story/the-trolls-within-how-russian-information-operations-infiltrated-online-c ommunities-691fb969b9e4
Frankly, I'd be more interested in reading about how the CIA uses these strategies domestically.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Who are the bill's sponsors?
They never offer these bills when they can pass. This bill is being offered because they know the Senate will vote it down. It's just politics. If by some chance the Democrats win the Senate and White House this fall, I guarantee a "different" bill will be offered.
I've been watching them do this since 1978. It's a head fake. If this was real, they'd have some Republican cosponsors to help get it through the Senate.
Re: Re: Who are the bill's sponsors?
I doubt very much a good 'red' bill could be drafted.
I've worked for the Democratic party. Throwing up a 'perfect' bill when you know it cannot pass the other chamber is virtue signaling. They're taunting us with a bill they would have never submitted if the D's controlled the Senate.
Shame on you for buying into this fraud. Republicans may be the perps, but Democrats enabled them every inch of the way.
Who are the bill's sponsors?
It seems incredibly disingenuous that you would fail to mention that ALL the bill's sponsors are neoliberal Democrats: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/7302/cosponsors?s=1&r=24&overview=cl osed&searchResultViewType=expanded
Re: Re: Hennepin Co Prosecutor taken off case by Governor
The DFL system that anointed Klobuchar their Senatorial candidate in 2006 did the same smooth-the-way crap for Franken in 2008 who had two legit primary opponents. One dropped out when the party and local media took all the air out of the race (which they did big time for Klobuchar).
Franken was obviously damaged goods (sorry, you can't do coke with John Belushi and then run for the US Senate) but popular. He barely won against a truly sleazy opponent (Norm Coleman) but it was so close he wasn't seated for six months because of recounts.
I didn't think the issues that pushed Franken out of the Senate were disqualifying, and I think he was MN's best Senator since Wellstone, but I'm not in favor of a system that prefers celebrities to serious candidates and I'm fed up with state parties that manipulate their primaries/endorsement processes.
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