Yeah it's not really my place to tell anyone what they need to do, but I would be really worried about putting a ton of money into a big asset that can be pretty easily destroyed or outright seized by pigs because they think you look like you're up to something or just easy to pick on.

I mean if you think it would accomplish anything to just tell her how you disapprove and that would be the end of it I don't see any harm in saying so and moving on. It sounds like she's capable of downplaying this stuff in order to have a relationship with you.

If that wouldn't accomplish anything or would make you feel way worse I guess I'd not do it, personally. Knowing when there's no point is a judgment call in the end.

It's hard out here, cars are so expensive and the used market is nuts. Sorry comrade.

WHY ARE YOU DELIBERATELY KEEPING RATES HIGH IF THAT IS MAKING PEOPLE AFRAID OF A RECESSION?!

Legit I felt like I was taking psychic damage reading that shit.

Maybe they wouldn't be unprepared if he would pack it in and go back to ruzzia. Just wait for the peace conference to happen, then he'll really have egg on his face when they all agree that he has lost and has to go back to his part of the map.

/s

I've been dutifully putting money and time into brand loyalty regardless of how the product or the CEO perform, why am I not making money?!

Solved itself to some degree, they can't sell me service apparently. Guess I live in a monopolized zone.

Turns out they can't even serve my address so it's irrelevant. Saves me having to waste time on a bunch of phone calls I guess.

Yeah, I'm normally assertive about that sort of thing, I actually thought I caught what he was doing during the call but when I challenged him on it he said it was just part of getting internet service. And since there was nothing in front of me and no way for me to just order what I wanted myself I had no way to double check.

Which is part of why I'm reluctant to call again, they'll just keep talking around this stuff and I have nothing solid to point them back to.

Still love the truck though!

I'm sorry, friend. I notice your contribution to the hexbear community (partially because of your very distinct profile image), I upbear your comments quite a bit and would like you to know you've improved my life with your thoughts. It's not much, I know, but I'd feel bad if I never told you.

Your situation sounds very hard. I hope you give yourself credit for how much you're doing, and how capably you're handling it with tools that you clearly understand and use well to take care of yourself. It's easy to feel like things like that don't matter, but you're doing a lot.

Apologies if I've overstepped in any way. I'm rooting for you, at any rate.

Right, I acknowledge that, although China unfortunately also had a hand in the radicalization effort: Blowback season 4 goes into it a bit, they wanted to poke the USSR so they actually helped fund the sources in Afghanistan that later backfired into Xinjiang. But like I said, they're dealing with a real security problem.

I would still say that an ethnically delineated camp is probably too broad of a response, but I'm also not one of the people that got stabbed. Maybe that's bourgeois decadence for me to think. Deradicalization appears to be very difficult to do while abiding by the convention on human rights, a more humane and successful attempt at what China is doing doesn't come to mind.

At any rate I am skeptical of the nightmarish cartoon version you normally hear, I wish there were more robust third party organizations that could be trusted to investigate something like this without being weaponized by the US or some wacky fundamentalist. It's just that there's a lot of room between "a genocide of Uygurs" and "everything is totally fine."

Thanks!

I believe China acknowledges the facilities exist, they would dispute that they are torture camps though. I'm of two minds, on the one hand I can easily imagine a government committing human rights abuses in response to a security threat. I think it's good to be skeptical of the state narrative that they're nice vocational training facilities. There's a decent chance things are happening that I would find unacceptable, I think that's fair.

On the other hand I see how our government and media are treating the Palestine conflict. I remember WMD, and the babies that were supposedly unplugged from the incubators in Kuwait. I've read about the Gulf of Tonkin. I know what we did to Mossadegh, and how we spun that coup against democracy as liberation.

I'm deeply skeptical of US and 'western' narratives of people that threaten their order. And yes I do believe a lot of things can be faked, especially things happening in a language almost no Americans speak or read and have to trust the interpretation of events being given to them by actors with a stake in the outcome.

If they aren't I'm not sure if I understand the point. That seems extremely uncomfortable.

Is Q supposed to be meaningfully older than Mark? I know the synoptics all are believed to be taking from it, but I don't remember ever being told how distant of a predecessor it was imagined to be.

Lol I was a nepo hire at one of the facilities that made their pies. Folks there were pretty nice too.

GT Pie Company? If so, weirdly small world.

Actually it looks like momentum is on the side of "It's funny to remain federated while banning the admins" so unless your admins pull out I think we'll remain federated?