It’s not alarmist: A second #Trump term really is an extinction-level threat to #democracy Why a second Trump term is a mortal threat to democracy — though perhaps not the way you think. Zack Beauchamp
..."Hungarian democracy did not die of natural causes. It was murdered by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who seized control of nearly every aspect of state power and twisted it into tools. Not just the obvious things, like Hungary’s public broadcaster and judiciary, but other areas — like its tax administration and the offices regulating higher education.
Bit by bit, piece by piece, Orbán — whose support Trump regularly touts — subtly took a democracy and replaced it with something different.
It’s not alarmist: A second #Trump term really is an extinction-level threat to #democracy Why a second Trump term is a mortal threat to democracy — though perhaps not the way you think. Zack Beauchamp
..."Hungarian democracy did not die of natural causes. It was murdered by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who seized control of nearly every aspect of state power and twisted it into tools. Not just the obvious things, like Hungary’s public broadcaster and judiciary, but other areas — like its tax administration and the offices regulating higher education.
Bit by bit, piece by piece, Orbán — whose support Trump regularly touts — subtly took a democracy and replaced it with something different.
In this, he was a trailblazer, creating a blueprint of going from democracy to autocracy that has been followed, to varying degrees of success, by leaders in countries as diverse as Brazil, India, Israel, and Poland. ... Democratic collapse nowadays isn’t a matter of abolishing elections and declaring oneself dictator, but rather stealthily hollowing out a democratic system so it’s harder and harder for the opposition to win. This strategy requires full control over the state and the bureaucracy: That means having the right staff in the right places who can use their power to erode democracy’s core functions.
Trump and his team have plans to do just that. They have discussed everything from prosecuting local election administrators to using regulatory authority for “retribution” against corporations that cross him — all steps that would depend, crucially, on replacing nonpartisan civil servants who would resist such orders with loyalists. ... If the first Trump term was akin to the random destruction of a toddler, a second would be more like the deliberate demolition of a saboteur. With the benefit of four years of governing experience and four more years of planning, Trump and his team have concluded that the problem with their first game of Jenga was that they simply did not remove enough of democracy’s blocks. ... A second Trump term risks replacing Rawls’s virtuous cycle with a vicious one. As Trump degrades government, following the Orbánist playbook with at least some success, much of the public would justifiably lose their already-battered faith in the American system of government. "...
I took a proper photo with the morning sun. This still needs to be wet blocked to help with the slight puckering, but I’m pleased overall. I would love to knit more Caitlin Hunter patterns with Spincycle yarns in the future. I finally understand the appeal. #knitting
Beehive fences, introduced in 2007 by STE and KWS, in partnership with the University of Oxford, offer an innovative approach. These fences consist of a series of live beehives strung together between posts, creating a physical, auditory, and olfactory deterrent to elephants.
The elephants' natural fear of being stung keeps them away, while the fences also benefit farmers by providing pollination services and generating income through honey and wax production.
During six peak crop-growing seasons (November to January 2014–2020), 3,027 elephants approached the farms and the beehive fences successfully deterred an annual average of 86.3% of elephants from raiding crops. Across all seasons and the entire study period, including a drought, the fences deterred an annual average of 76% of elephants.
Today I hiked the beautiful landscapes near Lake Rørbæk, which is a 3 kilometre long lake at the bottom of an ice-carved landscape in central Jutland.
It is such an interesting, varied site with pretty hills, oak thickets, and many different bird species. And if I was the local weatherman I would describe this as “photo weather”.
@CppGuy no actually, we often have cloudy rainy days in the fall, and don’t get these clear days before the frost comes. But all year, the weather in Denmark has been absolutely strange, and very, very warm.
For those who prefer GNOME to KDE, GSConnect is an independent project which implements the KDE Connect protocol into GNOME and uses the same Android app.
Either could potentially be a replacement for @syncthing, which recently canned its ailing Android app. Although at first glance, it appears KDEConnect can do a *lot* more.
To say KDEConnect could replace Syncthing seems misleading to me. KDEConnect strictly operates on the local network and is geared towards information exchange between two devices that are both within reach to the user. Syncthing is network agnostic, it easily tunnels even through firewalls and is geared towards synchronising files between arbitrary number of devices with the help of the relay server infrastructure generously provided by volunteers and especially by Kastelo.
@SanskritFritz > I used Syncthing-fork already anyway because that was much easier on the battery
Is this a "soft fork" or a "hard fork"?
What I mean is, does the developer create new releases by applying a set of patches to releases of the upstream app (soft fork)? Or are they actually maintaining the whole stack themselves, in a way that's diverged from the original code (hard fork)?
If it's the latter, maybe this could replace the abandoned SyncThing Android app?
So, here's my #MonthlySummary for October! I forgot to publish it since yesterday, but here we are now. This is also my first entry of blog posts for #WritingMonth! and day 85 of #100DaysToOffload, let's go!
Last night, Jewish Network for #Palestine founder Prof. Haim Bresheeth was arrested at a demonstration demanding the deportation of the Israeli Ambassador to the #UK
United Nations chiefs say disease, #famine and ongoing violence risk an escalation in deaths in war-ravaged North Gaza.
#UN aid agency #UNRWA says #Israeli bulldozers damaged its office in the #WestBank's Nur Shams camp on Thursday.
Israeli attacks in the central #Gaza Strip killed 47 people and injured dozens of others on Thursday night, according to the #WAFA Palestinian news agency.
Doug Whitfield [Minneapolis]
in reply to marc [sustain release] ✅ • • •marc [sustain release] ✅
in reply to Doug Whitfield [Minneapolis] • • •Absolutely. ;)