Belgian bus manufacturer Van Hool officially declared bankruptcy today, costing at least 1800 jobs. The deciding thing seems to be the Belgian government opting to let BYD build busses because they are cheaper. I just hope it is 1800 people getting unemployment benefits + severance packages cheaper. Top notch thinking, effectively shutting down a company that has the knowledge and capacity to build more public transport, a vital thing for the future 👍 fucking idiots

No dog pictures today, have one of a bee instead

users are harassing a trans person in the freedesktop organization for banning a well known bad actor from contributing, the guy who made hyprland, who encourages and participates in queerphobic harassment, especially against trans people

It's especially infuriating because previously people had reasonable discussions on /r/linux about how ridiculously shitty this guy is, but now pretend as if the accusations are completely unfounded, or pretend it doesn't matter (the usual defense is "it's his personal Discord, how can you ban him for stuff he does there??"), along with the usual complaints about "ideology infiltrating Linux" (this is especially hilarious seeing how many of these people also worship Richard Stallman), as well as the typical redditor idea that rules lawyering is perfectly valid because "debate" and any use of common sense moderation is "power tripping"

But all he has to do is say "Red Hat Bad!!" (this isn't even a Red Hat thing really) and write a few one-sided blog posts directly naming and shaming and everyone goes nuts

Words can't describe how upset I am at this situation, people like this are the absolute lowest scum of the Linux and free software community

Do you think they even realize how many of the people who write the software they rely on are queer 🤔

Edit: Feel a little more hopeful finding out that another thread was posted where people are far more reasonable, making it pretty clear that the thread I'm talking about isn't really the usual community response and is actually just brigading by the asshole's groupies

Elections for House of Representatives are coming up in my area. All the time, I get blasted with ads arguing in favor or against certain candidates. What stood out to me was this one ad where the candidate was condemned for voting against Israel, and stating that they "refused to condemn terrorism". And most of the people in my area are uneducated about the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict and why Hamas is fighting in the first place. It's really frustrating how they are taking advantage of that fact.

I hope you all have a nice week :D

one guy is not having it

Ugh… reading this brought back some unpleasant memories from my own youth.

I am guessing that they were silent because it should have been pretty obvious that if anybody tried sneaking around, it was highly likely that a patroller or a guard would have spotted them and shot their ass off, and these grandparents gave this kid the silent treatment because it was less rude than yelling or insulting him. Still, I became more depressed reading this.

Belgian socdems posterboy Conner Rousseau, who had stepped down after he got caught drunkenly calling for racist motivated violence against minorities, has been reintroduced on the electoral list for the Vooruit party 🫠🫠🫠🫠

Went clubbing yesterday with friends and had a blast. Maybe clubbing a day before an exam wasn't smart, since I have a huge hangover but don't regret it (yet).

"I wish my parents never get sucked down the QAnon pipeline."

monkey's paw curls

"Hey son, I'm really into watching this non-biased news program called the Young Turks..."

Israel lost

It's wild that Elon is currently beefing up with the head of the judiciary system here in Brasil, lol. I hope twitter is blocked in the process, it would be a blessing for everyone's mental health.

Pictured: Axis employé Chu Minyi observing a complete solar eclipse in Nanjing. Dated September 21, 1941.

A few years ago, the bus service in my town made massive cuts to routes and frequency, making the buses pretty much completely useless to me, I really miss taking the bus places

But you know what I'm actually finding I miss the most about it? Having an excuse to actually get some reading done, I have an e-reader and being on the bus was the perfect time for me to use it, these days I rarely touch it because I have trouble focusing on that at home for various reasons, the bus trips were just long enough I could get some decent reading done and the small size and weight of my e-reader made it very convenient to do so, while using other devices was often inconvenient

I almost never read through books, and that bothers me, especially since it means I'm really limiting myself in my understanding of theory, I basically had to fight myself to even get through a good chunk of State and Revolution, I don't think I ever actually finished reading it

I don't think "Israel doesn't actually keep Jews safe" is a compelling or effective anti-zionist/pro-Palestine argument. It doesn't matter whether so-called 'israel' keeps Jews safe. If it did 'keep Jews safe,' that wouldn't justify zionist settler-colonialism and genocide.

To be honest, I feel like throughout this Nakba I cared too much about foreign Jews and not enough about the Palestinian gentiles, and a lot of that simply has to do with my gravitation towards Jewish cultures. There are other reasons: expectations that the devastation is already familiar to you, and my desire to avoid focussing on depressing news too much, but whether either of those is a good excuse I can’t tell. While appealing to self‐interest is generally a good idea, at the end of the day, this is (and should be) all about the Palestinians, not the foreign Jews on their stolen lands. I feel like my coverage has been unbalanced and without good reason, too.

On the other hand, skimming my submission history it doesn’t look like I neglected the Palestinian side that much, so maybe I’m being too hard on myself.