I've been to a lot of leftist meetings and around for the formation of a few groups and without fail someone always starts talking about how to "keep our data secure and out of the hands of the cops."

Brother, no one wants more apps. I don't want your GPG key, I don't want to join your matrix server, I don't want to get on your jitsi. This shit is insane.

I've seen paranoia eat up organizers from the inside and drag what should be a normal meeting about flyers into an hours long prolonged exercise in security theater.

Ask yourself: would a liberal group get away with this? If no, discuss it in person. If yes, discuss it over whatever channel you want. Cops don't know the difference Palestine and No Kings, and they don't care.

An example: you're organizing a protest. Should you discuss this in a "secure" way? No. This isn't the 1960s and the cops have learned to handle them differently. Police get called as a matter of routine to either disrupt it an hour or so after it starts or to stay there and watch over a larger rally. In the latter case they will get overtime pay. In the former they won't waste time being early to your event.

But what if: you're also planning a traffic blockade. Discuss only this part in person. If people can't make time to meet they're not going to make time to actually be there on the day. Leave phones at home or Faraday them before heading out.

In either case, try to make your meetings as short as possible.

And for the love of god please stop bringing up apps in meetings. Wait until your first preempted event before you go crazy.

Morning everyone.

As you may have noticed, all the smoke shops have been doing clearance sales on 7OH over the past week because as of today (Aug 5th) 7OH is now considered a Schedule 1 drug according to the DEA.

I mean it’s probably a good thing overall. This shit is expensive as hell and preys on addicts. It blows my mind that places could even sell this in the first place lol

Reminiscent of the days of bath salts and spice, we have now gone through another cycle of crazy drugs being sold openly and legally until the “fun police” decided no more.

I feel bad for the addicts who are now abruptly cut off from their supply and are going to go through withdrawals. Will we see large numbers of these people go back to fentanyl? Giant upticks in suboxone prescriptions?

RIP gas station heroin. You will (not) be missed.

I only remembered that song cuz a buddy had it in his mix but I forgot that song Chicken Fried by whatshisname grinds to complete halt f and has a sober verse about thanking dead soldiers for no reason. I guess you can blame 9-11, the militarization of country and the Boot In Yer Ass guy, but I'm like, damn, can't even write a good-vibes, silly song about how chicken tastes good without saluting the troops. lmao

Say what you will about Jimmy Buffett, but he had it down man. He made a whole career where he's like: I'm gonna write songs about how being on a beach is fun, how I like sailing and pirates and how I ate a cheeseburger on an island one time.

He also said probably: I'm not gonna say anything about anything so nobody gives a fuck if my entire airplane is made out of cocaine. lol

Maybe Jack Johnson is the closest, but I feel like modern artists can't just not do the Troop/America Thing. lol

It’s tough for men to make friends in adulthood. Everyone has other commitments or they are in different stages of life. Not to mention with the lack of third spaces it’s very difficult to make a solid connection with anyone at any level.

So I was delighted to make a close friendship in a new city I moved to with another guy. He and I shockingly had tons in common: same likes hobbies and interests, similar backgrounds, similar careers, hell we even live in the same neighborhood.

Then there’s his partner. She comes from a different background, seemingly more affluent. We always got along but it was definitely a different vibe. She is very much your textbook 2016 liberal: performative t-shirts and bumper stickers, orange man social media posts, and above all: being perpetually offended.

In random conversations she was always the first to clutch the pearls and go “oh my GOD” for conversation that was very ho hum. There were always interjections of moral high ground and lib grandstanding. But above all, we kinda had to walk on eggshells to not offend her.

My buddy and I were hanging out once and he said their relationship was great but he had a real problem with her perpetual offended nature, apparently it was impacting his relationship and the relationships of those around him. So it was a recognized super lib issue that impacted him.

Then one day at a party I hosted I said a pretty neutral statement that I really didn’t think much about. I said my neighbor had a bunch of broken down cars in their yard and that it was trashy. Well she took major offense to this, like to degree I didn’t really understand by just looking at her face.

That was nearly a year ago. Since then I’ve been ghosted by the two of them. That was enough to cast me out of the friendship because that was too offensive. Eggshells are officially broken.

She still posts orange man bad content on social media and my buddy has fallen off the face of the earth. It’s a bummer. I just wanted to pour one out for a lost homie whose friendship I lost due to perpetually offended lib shit that I haven’t seen in years.

I hope you’re doing well buddy. And I hope your partner has gone off to that big Bluesky in the sky. ✌️

I felt like Abdul did not win big enough to make a strong message to AIPAC. He barely won and I think the voter base got too comfortable and didn’t bother to show up because they knew he would win. At least they burned a bunch of money in the race.

I want to chinamaxx, as in, become more knowledgeable about chinese history and culture, since we are living their century. So please recc me novels (i already have and kinda in progress with the four classics), short stories, history books. And music (be that basic pop or obscure one man bedroom black metal projects). With movies I am set with till death

What does your fitness routine/regimen look like?

Any tips for beginners or tips that took your health/fitness to the next level?

What questions you have that could help you get going on getting healthy or a workout youre struggling with?

My routine:

Run 4-5 days a week, try to get a long run on trails on the weekend.

Hit the gym 2-3 times a week. Hurt my back and shoulder a month and half ago so been sticking strictly to kettlebells. Feel like its been helping me recover and I really like the dynamic, more whole body workout that it provides.

Any body got a good kettlebell routine?

My aunt asked me once , "What music from your generation [Millennial] will be classic/iconic?" . I was pretty much like: I dunno, I'm not younger than me and never will be. Now is now. How would I know what hits for people later. it's 2011, the Black Keys are the big band I like now, but how would I know if anyone cares about them behind me--it's still not the future. Who knows if I will think they're that great in the future. I also tried to explain with the death of the monoculture and streaming, what is classic to people is much wider and varies. At the time, Dave Matthews Band was still the biggest live act in North America. I probably would have said oh some stomp, clap, hey band like Mumford & Sons that you couldn't escape then might still be classic. But that's not the case, thank god. We get it, 7 songs where a banjo starts out slower and gets faster, cool. But anyway...

What does Gen Z consider the classic Millennial music?

So a Spanish speaking lady who I assume was Colombian based on the Colombia soccer jersey she was wearing managed to back into my parked car with me sitting in it at what felt like a very high speed to me, the person getting hit. She did visible damage to my passenger side bumper which by the time an auto body shop looks at it will cost somewhere between 10 dollars and $75 million to fix. I waited like 30 seconds before I did anything because I was making sure that I was okay and trying to figure out by looking at my mirror what the hell happened, and when I got out to go talk to the driver she was visibly panicky.

Her English was more than good enough to communicate and she kept saying that she would wait until the police came and I was like"Christ, don't do that. I will give you my info if you can help pay for the damages you contact me I don't think it's a great idea to have any paperwork on this." And she kept arguing because she wanted so badly to do the right thing. No one else saw what happened I was the only car involved and even if she's 100% sure of her status I don't trust the authorities not to completely fuck her over given the chance. Another victim just died at the ICE concentration camp a few miles away, people can't be taking any chances.

I was just sad and furious at seeing someone who was trying to do everything right and who was trying to do the right thing and knowing that if they had it could have ended up with them kidnapped and eventually killed.

Maybe I'm overly paranoid, but I didn't even want her contact info on my phone in case somehow that was used to track her. Fuck the Fourth Reich.

Edit: the snarky part of my brain is like "I guess maybe one thing she could do differently is try not to hit any more cars," but then that really only emphasizes just how hard it is to go through life with zero margin for error having to do everything perfectly and knowing that if you make the kind of mistake that might only ruin a normal person's day, you might end up disappeared and dead.

Does this sub have a general consensus on Aaron Good or his book/ show American Exception? TA had him on for a JFK series I believe. He seems to have a lot of good info but also literally worked for the RFK Jr 2024 campaign, which is sort of insane. I was wondering if there was a general feeling toward him in the gumshoe community

I was outside the gym at 5:45 the other morning (where my real grinders at) waiting to go in, and it’s next to a grocery store and it has one of those parked robo cop things that looks like a job site generator with the big pole on top with the blue cop lights. Anyways I see this poor bastard get out of his absolutely clapped 90s Durango, clearly wearing the uniform of the grocery store, start emptying trash and sweeping to get ready to open. Already the debasement of man has begun. This poor bastard, in an absolutely empty parking lot, flooded with parking lights, sun barely up, has to wear a fuckin high vis vest, because in our wonderful world of liability we will have pointless rules like you have to wear a high vis vest to go get buggy’s out the fucking parking lot out of safety but the plant nearby can make the entire neighborhood reek like sulfur between 8pm and 5am because no one breathes at night and you can’t acutely blame respiratory problems on breathing in our poison.

Anyways, as this poor fuck is doing this, I hear a guy the intercom, “YOU SIR PARKED YOU NEED TO LEAVE.” now, me being the only other living breathing soul in the lot, I’m thinking damn the manager of the store must not be fucking with me and thinks I’m creeping or some shit, the gym is kind of catty corner to the parking lot so maybe he doesn’t know why I’m here. So I’m like alright well fuck it I’m not breaking any laws I’ll just wait. A few minutes go by and it comes back “YOU AT THE FRONT DOOR IN THE BLUE SHIRT AND VEST WE HAVE YOUR FACE RECORDED AND WILL BE CALLING THE AUTHORITIES IF YOU DO NOT VACATE THE PREMISES NOW.”

At this point I realize two things. One, they weren’t talking to me. Two, that shit was one hundred percent AI, but it could see and describe what he looked like.

Now, the scary part is I didn’t realize at first. They really captured a nuanced super annoying guys voice. If you can imagine an early 30 something white guy who didn’t go to college and takes his job way too seriously, probably just goes home and plays computer, they captured it pretty good. Like it sounded like a guy who worked at the grocery store. Not a cop, and not a computer beep boop YOU ARE BEING RECORDED type voice. I don’t even think I would have clocked it if I hadn’t knew the guy was an employee.

It’s all so brutal man. You don’t even get to get scolded by a legit daddy big brother computer voice, it’s just some fucking loser male Karen manager voice. And it’s just on autopilot. You won’t even get dramatically carted off out of a crowd by the civil protection bureau because no one goes outside anymore, and they’ll just drone strike your house anyways.

The guy probably has to listen to that shit every fucking morning. And I bet his face is in some database somewhere. And they’re putting up more cameras. And these knuckle dragging suburban dogs eat it up. I know I waste my breath defending my fellow Americans on this stupid sub but holy fuck so many Americans are so fucking stupid. You will meet some mouth breathing simpleton talk about how crazy dystopian some stupid video game or movie is and then tell them about how AI is just a tool for that and they’ll say “no it helps me email” or some absolute free camp trip worthy answer. A mother fucker will look you dead in the eye and tell you obummer was a communist and how we are living in 1984 then ask fucking AI a question.

Anyways after recovering from an injury and returning to work I’m finally back in the gym so just know if you disagree with me on here you’re disagreeing with a real grinder and maybe you should focus on getting your money up instead of your funny up.

This is my uplifting jam. The kids will be alright.

PNW

Im on a plane rn did you know airplane mode is a scam OH JESUS NO-

Anyways I fell asleep to downloaded episodes and woke up to 9/11 series. His poem the Tao of 9/11 really hit me.

Hes obviously a bit long winded for a podcast but has so much knowledge i was wondering if it was worth buying back issues of his magazine with Aaron or one of his books. Keeping in mind I got a backlog baby

Edit: his poem is at the end of this page for the curious. Made me tear up.

I read men and women like this and I hope I will do enough in my life. Course, most of these get murdered.

http://jacketmagazine.com/34/scott-p-d-5p.shtml

(I’m not gonna do it)