SoylentNews

Anyone who worries that this place might be going downhill--did you ever consider the rose-tinted spectacle effect when you look at the past?

Like, when people pine for the heyday of Slashdot, there were shitposters even in the beginning--maybe SNR was a bit better--but maybe we're just cherry picking the best memories of the past and comparing them against the bad shit that's happening now?

Don't misunderstand me, I'm not trying to say the past and present were really equally bad. Rather, the opposite. The past and present of SoylentNews are both great. The green site, maybe not so much, what with the corporate sell-offs etc.

But meh, I don't know, just throwing ideas out there.

Things change. People come and go. But we're still all nerds interested in tech that enjoy sharing it. Let's carry that happy tradition on together.

Discuss.

Some of the Republican House members who this week excoriated President Joe Biden's strategy to pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan and evacuate Afghan civilians voted last month against legislation to speed up the visa application process for Afghan citizens.

The House overwhelmingly passed a bill to make it easier for Afghans who assisted the American military to relocate to the U.S. The Averting Loss of Life and Injury by Expediting SIVs Act (ALLIES) Act was approved by a 407-16 vote on July 22. The 16 "no" votes were all from Republicans.

The ALLIES Act removes some application requirements for Afghan special immigrant visas that led to long backlogs and wait times. It also boosts the number of visas for Afghans by an additional 8,000 to 19,000. Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., introduced the bill in June, with 24 bipartisan cosponsors.

These 16 Republicans voted against speeding up visas for Afghans fleeing the Taliban

These Republican House members voted against the bill:

Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona
Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado
Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama
Rep. Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee
Rep. Jeff Duncan of South Carolina
Rep. Bob Good of Virginia
Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia
Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma
Rep. Jody Hice of Georgia
Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky
Rep. Barry Moore of Alabama
Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania
Rep. Bill Posey of Florida
Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana
Rep. Chip Roy of Texas

But whatabout our ALLIES?!?!!?

GOP Removes Page Praising Donald Trump's 'Historic' Peace Deal With Taliban

Quick, memory-hole the fact that getting out of Afghanistan was the best idea ever merely six months ago!

The Republican National Committee has removed a webpage from 2020 in which it praised Donald Trump for signing a "historic peace agreement with the Taliban."

David Weigel, of The Washington Post, was the first to spot that the page had been removed with the web address redirecting to a 404 error page featuring the quip: "It looks like you're as lost as Biden is."

The Guardian's congressional reporter Hugo Lowell later confirmed the webpage's removal after successfully tracking down the now-deleted page via The Wayback Machine digital archive.

Featured as part of a section titled "President Trump Is Bringing Peace In The Middle East," the page described how the former U.S. president had "continued to take the lead in peace talks."

The page also claims that "while President Trump has championed peace, Joe Biden has taken the lead in pushing for endless wars."

I've taken the advice, "Make your own action", from the kind AC in the comments of my previous journal entry. I've occupied my brain for a little while by writing the following.

-------------------------------------------------------

Mr. Hoojgruggwidd's Untitled Adventures

Chapter One

Mr. Hoojgruggwidd picked his way carefully through the long grasses of the vast plain that stretched away from him endlessly in all directions. Running short of breath now, he paused for a while quietly, taking in his surroundings and he started to listen for sounds. He wondered if his mind was playing tricks on him because he'd just perceived a noise that was quiet enough and odd enough that he figured he must be imagining it. He held his breath, kept deathly still and concentrated hard and, yes, the unearthly, almost musical, muttering noise was still there, barely distinguishable against his mildly irritating tinnitus. Puzzled and a little disconcerted, he turned his head this way and that, trying to start to get some vague idea of the sound's direction. The purplish clouds had blown away now and scorching hot sun beat down upon his sore forehead. He sighed deeply and every one of his muscles seemed to ache terribly. He must have been wandering around these plains for about five weeks now. Almost nothing to eat and a few gulps of foul, slightly greenish mud was all he had managed to drink.

As he stumbled around erratically from one direction to another, always trying to close in on the sound, after what seemed like an eternity he noticed it finally seemed to be getting louder. He continued towards the strange sound for several minutes more until he suddenly caught sight of a number of shadowy, curvy figures, scattered around in the long grasses. They were a blueish grey in color and didn't appear to have any faces, which worried Mr. Hoojgruggwidd somewhat. Something about them reminded him of amphibians as well. Enormous tadpoles but with humanoid limbs and bluer skin, he thought.

"We're... the... Dzorgluns." The sounds the figure made were hardly even recognizable as a voice. Aside from the staccato pauses between their words, they sounded, Mr. Hoojgruggwidd imagined, a little like a cross between a low whistling wind and perhaps a very weird variant of a harmonica that also had been run over multiple times by stampedes of wilderbeest. There was an eerie, subtle sort of harmony in the figure's voice as well. It was very unsettling indeed.

"We... don't like doing.... anything other than.... what we... are... doing now." the figure explained.

"What's that then? What exactly are you doing now?" inquired Mr. Hoojgruggwidd impatiently, increasingly tired and bewildered.

"Well,... we just sort... of.... hang around.... waiting.... for... someone else to do... something interesting."

"Do you indeed? Frightfully sorry but I really don't think I would be able to assist you in that particular endeavor."

"Oh... But... Well... I... I mean... I... I rather expected... I mean,... when.... you first... arrived here I... did think that.... you were going... to..."

"Going to WHAT?!" snapped Mr. Hoojgruggwidd, who was far too weary and hungry to be humoring these odd beings who, he suddenly thought, might be incredibly dangerous.

"I... When... you first... arrived... I rather... expected... you were going... to do..." the figure continued in its wheezy gusts.

"YES, going to do WHAT?!"

"When... you first..," (Mr. Hoojgruggwidd lowered his head into his hands in utter despair) "arrived... I did... think... that you... were... going... to... do something.... interesting. That was it. Something interesting."

Mr. Hoojgruggwidd looked up amazed and raised his eyebrows but didn't dare speak again and eventually the figure continued "But... you... didn't do... anything... interesting."

Mr. Hoojgruggwidd had looked away for a second trying to make sense of this bizarre situation, but when he looked back, the strange figures had completely vanished. He dropped to the ground, totally baffled but within fifteen minutes he had fallen fast asleep, the scorching hot sunlight still streaming onto his dusty skin.

One highlight I think needs more attention is the "disparagement of non-OEM parts". At least personally speaking

Lame as it is, the console modding scene where we soldered chips on that beat the bios over the head until it loaded grub remains one of my finest memories of applied hacking. To see them finally decide to start discouraging that "void if removed" nonsense gives me hope that the new gen aren't going to be a bunch of dummies playing with fisher price toys they don't know how to crack open.

I'd have preferred they paid attention before the guzzle-gas-before-guzzling-diabeetus-juice consumer segment was affected. But I mean... The largest segment of an economy does tend to be the loudest.

You guys still piss me off something fierce every time I read the comments too long. And I don't trust you to not degenerate back into RT.com reposting fuckwits. But I have hope that we'll piece our community together again someday. And I still love you. So I couldn't think of a better place to relink this PDF. <3

As previously stated, I write as a socially awkward, nerdy prima donna. I'm entitled to my internets. Somebody give me my dopamine hit, dammit. Depriving a needy nerd of his textually-sourced dopamine hits is tantamount to theft, I'll have you know! It just isn't cricket.

I wonder what the theoretical maximum number of dopamine hits is that a human brain can receive in a day through using an internet forum. Who holds the world record and how did it happen? Urgh, I guess there are some questions that shouldn't ever be answered. I'll leave them to the likes of Farcebook.

Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg surrendered to authorities early Thursday after prosecutors secured grand jury indictments against him and the former president's family company, which declared the move an effort to harm Donald Trump.

Charges against Weisselberg and the Trump Organization are expected to be unsealed later in the day in New York's Supreme Court, several people familiar with the developments said. On Wednesday, people familiar with the case said the charges were related to allegations of unpaid taxes on benefits for Trump Organization executives.

Weisselberg is the first individual to be charged in connection with a long-running criminal investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. (D), who is now collaborating with New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) to investigate Trump's business practices. The Trump Organization also will be arraigned, represented in court by one of its attorneys.

Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg surrenders in criminal case over company’s business dealings

A New York court has suspended the law license of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, citing in part his work as counsel to former President Donald Trump.

The ruling was made in response to a complaint filed by the New York Bar Association seeking Giuliani's suspension.

The New York Bar Association "has sustained its burden of proving that respondent made knowing false and misleading factual statements to support his claim that the presidential election was stolen from his client," the court's decision said. "There is uncontroverted evidence that respondent communicated demonstrably false and misleading statements to courts, lawmakers and the public at large in his capacity as lawyer for former President Donald J. Trump and the Trump campaign in connection with Trump's failed effort at reelection in 2020."

"These false statements were made to improperly bolster respondent's narrative that due to widespread voter fraud, victory in the 2020 United States presidential election was stolen from his client," the Appellate Division wrote. "We conclude that respondent's conduct immediately threatens the public interest and warrants interim suspension from the practice of law, pending further proceedings before the Attorney Grievance Committee."

Rudy Giuliani suspended from practice of law in New York

The House voted Thursday to repeal the 2002 legal authorization for the war in Iraq, marking what the bill's backers hope is a first step to curbing the President's expansive war powers enacted after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The House voted 268-161 to repeal the authorization, with 49 Republicans joining Democrats to back the measure authorized by Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat. One Democrat voted against the bill.
The vote occurred after the White House said this week that it supported repealing the 2002 war authorization -- the first time the Executive Branch has explicitly backed the effort -- saying that the legal authority in Iraq was no longer necessary.

The Senate is taking up similar legislation in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next week, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he planned to put that legislation on the Senate floor this year. It's still not clear whether the measure would be able to gain enough support from Senate Republicans to reach the 60 votes needed to pass, however, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell expressed his opposition on Thursday.

House votes to repeal Iraq War authorization

The White House announced Friday that President Biden hopes to shut down the prison at the Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, a tall task that the Obama administration failed to do nearly a decade ago.

"We are undertaking an NSC process to assess the current state of play that the Biden administration has inherited from the previous administration, in line with our broader goal of closing Guantanamo," she said. "There will be a robust interagency process to move forward on this, but we need to have the right people seated to do this important work."

Former President Barack Obama said the detention center went against American values and was a "stain on our broader record" when he argued for the prison's closure in 2016, NPR reported.

Later that same year, then-President-elect Donald Trump vowed to keep the installation open.

"We're gonna load it up with some bad dudes, believe me," Trump said in 2016.

Biden Administration Aims To Close Guantanamo Bay Prison