Are people in Ukrainian controlled territories free to protest against forced conscription and withdrawal of passports? No, they will get put into prison, and given a choice to join the military or serve a long sentence.

I wish. Min wage in some parts of China provides a similar purchasing power as I have making more than 4x the min wage in the US. I would actually be able to afford a house in my lifetime if that were true.

In fact, when losing a war miserably, one should expect to make concessions to the winning side. This delusional belief that losers can dictate term terms will result in the death of every Ukrainian man of fighting age.

You don’t ask the loser what they want to stop the war. You go to the side that’s winning and say, “what would it take to get you to stop?”. Either Zelensky is a fool or he’s so posturing for more western money, because he has really no leverage and so his insistence on continuing the war is costing hundreds of thousands of lives. Support domestically for the war has collapsed, tens of thousands have fled the country, tens of thousands more dodge the draft. Everyone willing to fight in this war has already done so, they’re literally arresting people for draft dodging and telling them go to prison or join the military and we’ll absolve you of the “crime” of not wanting to fight a losing war. Is this just a collapse in western understanding of war after so long without a major one? Or is it just selfishness on the part of the west who cares more about “hurting Russia” than it does about irradiating Ukraine and destroying an entire generation of people? Or is it just idiocy on the part of Ukrainian leadership, who keep getting removed for not wanting to continue sending their men to die?

I was driving this weekend, a truck turned onto the road ahead of me, stayed stopped in the right hand lane until I got near to them, then slammed on the gas spewing a massive cloud of filth that entirely enveloped my car. Thankfully my wife and I noticed it beforehand and rolled our windows up.

That’s their mini kit. I recommend their pro tech toolkit for most people, has all the bits and accessories you’ll need for most things, and then I also have their Manta kit, but that’s overkill unless you’re really into repair. I have a lot of toolkits though. I have a great Wiha set similar to the pro tech toolkit, and Drivesavers sent me a really nice kit as swag from when I used to outsource customer data recovery to them that I use at work.

面 = men = noodles. Now you know the kanji too!

The legalization of cannabis in my state was brought about by activists, not Democratic Party members, and was passed by the public, which is made up of a majority of unaffiliated voters. Our Democratic governor vehemently opposed the measure. He did implement it when it passed, which Republican legislatures and governors have not done when similar bills were passed by the public in Republican states, though.

Hamas charter excerpt.
16. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.

I mean, I know it’s pretty common to reinterpret things such as that through a modern lens, and I support this law that’s being overturned, but well-regulated has a very specific definition in 18th century America, and it is not what you describe. Not to mention that ARMING EVERYONE (white, at least, the rest weren’t considered people by those racist fuckheads) was an explicit goal of the US, in order to support their settler colonial project.