I honestly have no idea where you're going with this. You're comparing carving the skin off a baby's penis for basically no reason, to trimming their hair? Vaccines, back braces, and dental work are not purely cosmetic or cultural. And I have no idea what Elon Musk has to do with it, or where resentment comes into the conversation.

It's entirely possible for most rational people to recognize that a practice was not a great idea, and change moving forward without resentment.

I don't know if this is a strawman, or you're trying to make your case against someone else.

There are a number of reasons why one could be medically necessary. I agree that medically unnecessary surgical procedures to infant genitals for purely cosmetic or cultural reasons are pretty unjustifiable, but "any healthcare provider... Should be arrested" is either a bit ill informed, or a wildly extremist position.

While the RNC is not nearly as rigged as the DNC, They absolutely stacked the deck against Trump in 2016.

Mega donors poured money into his opposition throughout the primary. Hit pieces ran left and right. There was a "Never Trump" movement on the right during the general. He was staunchly opposed by some of the biggest names in right-wing media (Glen Beck and Mark Levin).

But he won anyway.

The left may never get a fair shake but it is incumbent upon us to win anyway. If you put a true leftist economic populist in the White House for just one term you will see dramatic change across the political landscape. But no one's just going to give it to you.

It took decades of planning and learning hard lessons to truly turn this country fascist. If right-wing extremists had thrown in the towel when Barry Goldwater got washed we wouldn't have Trump today.

I think people would do well to let go of the idea that the parties as a whole have an ideology. George W. Bush and Donald Trump are not remotely the same. Bernie and Manchin are not the same.

Yes there's a good bit of overlap in the venn diagram of their supporters, but MAGA was functionally a hostile takeover of the GOP. The old guard was made to get on board or find a new job.

If Bernie had been elected in 2016 the outcome for the DNC would likely have been just as dramatic. If you want the Democratic party to be a leftist party, go make it one. We've literally seen a major party pushed to fascism. You know know change is possible.

This always struck me as an odd argument. I hadn't voted for the Democratic candidate since 2008 (all 3rd party), and I hate how they run their primary. But this was EXACTLY what registered democrats voted for in the primary.

There was a primary, and a published, publicly available ticket of Biden/Harris. That ticket had all the deligates, all the funds, all the votes. It was VERY clear who was being voted for and who Biden's successor would be in the highly possible event something should happen to him. When he bowed out and endorsed her, the deligates, acting in good faith... went to her.

Literally any other outcome would have been unfair to the primary voters. Maybe better, but not what they voted for.

When I was a kid I told a Special Ed teacher who I trusted that one of the gym teachers was having sex with high school students and grooming girls as young as 14.

Rather than report this to the authorities he told the gym teacher what was said. The next day the gym teacher (who was a big former semi-pro football player or something like that) cornered me and intimidated me into shutting my mouth.

2 years later a former student confronted the gym teacher's wife. In the fallout his behavior came to light and he left our school and went to teach a few towns over. The Special Ed teacher joked about it after the fact.

It was probably 20 years before I fully understood the scope of how disgusting that situation was.

Manufacturers of "less lethal" rubber rounds do not consider them safe at that range. They're considered very dangerous with a high risk of death within about 10 meters.

That's a seriously injured, unarmed, citizen and not only do they not lift a finger to help they seem to fire at the woman trying to help her.

There's a distance at which they stop being "less-lethal". At 10 meters/30 feet they're considered extremely dangerous. The "effective range" at which they're generally considered less likely to penetrate is 20 to 30 meters (65 to 100 feet).

Lenses make estimating distance tricky, but based on the lines in the road, I don't think she's 20 meters away from that cop.

These journalists need body armor and helmets if they're going to be that close to American Police. Back in 2011 an Iraq War vet named Scott Olsen was head shot at a distance of a few feet fracturing his skull and when some protestors tried to rescue him they flashbanged the rescue effort. It's extremely unsafe to be that close to these guys.

One of my primary takeaways from the BLM protests was The efficacy of open carry protest at Stone Mountain in Georgia.

In LA protesters are getting the shit beat out of them. In New York protesters get the shit beat out of them. But as soon as there's 200 protesters with AR-15s suddenly it's "can't we all just get along"... Suddenly the cops are cool headed, rational, and preventing escalation at all costs.

It really sucks to say this, but the 2A people spent decades telling us we were throwing away a fundamentally important right that could protect us from tyranny. Lots of people scoffed at them and explained you can't stand up to the government. Too many of us have forgotten that gun control was started in California under Governor Ronald Reagan to prevent the Black Panthers from armed protest.

The 2A people are still poised to protect themselves and their interests from government abuse, they're just not going to protect YOU from tyranny. You have to do that bit yourself.

I don't know of a specific theme in the neubrutalism/neobrutalism style (names that are generally used to describe this style or aesthetic), but it shouldn't be too hard to make.

For anyone unfamiliar it's generally defined by flat, blocky layouts, with thick borders, single color drop shadows and a few bold high contrast colors (think CGA and EGA monitors if you're that old). It often features “unpolished” elements like flat simple shapes. Bold fonts and monospace fonts are pretty common.

There are a few resources out there if anyone wants to play around with this style.

https://github.com/ComradeAERGO/Awesome-Neobrutalism https://dribbble.com/shots/20764973-Neobrutalism-UI-How-to https://www.nngroup.com/articles/neobrutalism/

In the US there are organizations that focus on and advocate for employee ownership. National Center for Employee Ownership, The ESOP Association, The Employee Ownership Foundation, and Employee-owned S Corporations of America.

I think the public should absolutely be more educated in ESOPs because it's an absolute win/win (IMO). It is not the communist concept of workers seizing the means of production (i.e. taking the capital away at a loss to ownership), so that may be why you don't hear communists advocating for it. In most cases, a business owner who wants to protect what they've worked on for X amount of time "sells" the company to itself and the company gives ownership stake to the employees by some predetermined formula.

So Bob spent 30 years as owner of a widget company. It's been in the family since his grandpa started it. He'll be retiring in the next few years and his family doesn't want to take over. He also doesn't want to sell to his competitors or some conglomerate that will close the factory, fire everyone, keep the name and the customer list and sell cheap imported knock offs. So the company takes out a loan and buys itself from him. Every employee gets shares and as they pay down the debt over the next 5 to 10 years the value of the shares go up dramatically. Bob gets all the benefits of capitalism. The workers get the means of production. ESOPs get some tax advantages.

ESOPs also tend to outperform their market. Turns out employees perform better when they can personally benefit in a direct way from the outcome of their labor.

With all that stated it isn't what a communist would want. It still has to exist and operate under the rules of the US market. If an ESOP needs to hire a manager or director they're going to need a competitive compensation package. And you'll still end up with managers makeing 2 or 3 times what their workers do and depending how the stock rules are set up they may get more stock.

TLDR: What you're asking about exists. I think it works great. I wouldn't consider it something that would appeal to a communist as a social goal.

It's a terrible replacement for Assistant. It's just the wrong tool for the job. Assistant was listening for commands and trying to turn those into actions. Gemini takes a second, misses the first half of the command, tries to figure out if I'm conversing or giving an instruction, and it's hit or miss if it gets that right.

If I ask "what's the weather today?" I have no idea if I'll get a forecast, the definition of the word weather, or the song "what's the weather like today" by the Kiboomers (which sounds like a cool indie band but in fact makes childrens early education songs).

Does anyone know an open source alternative for Android? Preferably something that works with home assistant.