Wandering Adventure Party

@cstross it does not look possible to physically plug this in. If so, that obviously calls for an "AI"-generated adapter to go with the plug!

@cstross I figure at the rate of the Accelerando, we are no more than weeks away from "agentic AI" demanding access to people's financial accounts. Hopefully some of those people will be billionaires drinking their own Kool-Aid.

@stux one night when living in California, I was sitting on the couch reading and suddenly heard screaming. Followed by two rats shoving a kitchen cabinet door open and tumbling across the floor fighting.

After I chased them out and calmed down, it turned out they had eaten their way through the back of the cabinet. I don't know why, because there was no food in that cabinet, just pots and pans.

It is times like that you really want a Cat who will defend the Homeland.

@stevendbrewer @cstross as a former resident of the Former US, I will say that I was at least *willing* to go into Target, because it was far more civilized, people controlled their children, and the employees generally did not seem in existential despair.

@stux while the Nazis in charge are scurrying to protect themselves right now, the Epstein Files were known to the previous administration as well, who did nothing with the information. I am certain there are wealthy Democrats who should be heading to prison, as well.

And this the result of just one pimp / enslaver. Surely there are others, some state-sponsored in authoritarian regimes. Burn them all down.

@stux happy to hear you are getting in a better situation. I have lived next to insane neighbors, and excessively noisy ones, and both are so draining to deal with.

@martinus Cat distribution system at work.

Alternatively: "We have received your return, but the returned item is not the item we sent. Also, it refuses to leave the receiving facility even when given fresh tuna. Consequently no return credit can be offered at this time."

@thomholwerda agreed. At the same time, many of the countries in Europe are already controlled by far-right regimes, or are just one election away from a conservative-Nazi alliance that will control them. It can happen here, just as there, and vast amounts of money and influence are being applied to make sure it does. Once 1/3 of your population is lost to continuous lying, it's difficult to see how a democracy survives long-term. Or reconstitutes itself, for the Former US.

@stux this is why you need more cats. My General Belisarivs occasionally Licks my hand when I'm petting her, but mostly she Licks Taoiseach Derpy. Initially she was semi-violent about her Licking rights and would literally pin Derpy down if she was not compliant, but their relationship improved over time and now Derpy actually seeks out the Licking. The vet complimented the General for her Non-Medical Interventions since Derpy is always congested and dripping from her eyes.

@stux Since moving to Lisboa I have noticed that the Chega (far-right party) posters are very widely vandalized

@stux the US presidency has been accumulating power since the 1970s, relative to the other branches of government. Now that the "president" has the supreme court and congress both utterly subservient to him, he is in fact a king in all but name. But parliamentary systems are not necc. better, look at Hungary - all you need is to get a dictator backed by a compliant legislature in power, once, and democracy fails.

@stux "Embrace the power of AND"

@stux custody disputes where one partner is obsessed and violent are awful, and it's hard to know if intervening helps. Had something like that happen many years ago where one of my neighbors was trapped in the parking lot with her kid while her ex screamed at her. I ran him off and he came back a few nights later, pounding at her door wanting to be let in. Called the cops and stood there filming until he ran off. A few days later, he kidnapped the child. Eventually she got the kid back but

@stux American car, European streets?
Just moved from California to Lisbon and upon seeing a Swasticar here, noted that it was *huge* compared to most of the vehicles on the street.