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Messages - ersi

2
DnD Central / Re: European Song Contest is a load of rubbihs nowadays
CNN from USA ranks Eurovision songs. I'll try to quote just one sentence per entry, and I won't quote for every entry.

The good, the bad and the raunchy: All 26 Eurovision songs, ranked from worst to first

Updated 11:06 AM EDT, Fri May 16, 2025
London
CNN

26. Armenia: PARG, “Survivor”
The song’s terrible, by the way.

25. San Marino: Gabry Ponte, “Tutta L’Italia”
Remember the infuriatingly addictive 1998 hit “Blue (Da Ba Dee)?” That was this guy!

21. Germany: Abor & Tynna, “Baller”
Germany won’t win Eurovision, but they do win CNN’s coveted award for the competition’s worst lyrics.

19. Spain: Melody, “Esa Diva”
Melody’s staging is fabulous, and this song is a hot, chaotic mess (complimentary), but it’s hard to see either jury or televoter falling for it.

18. Iceland: VÆB, “Róa”
VÆB will give you a headache.

14. Greece: Klavdia, “Asteromáta”
It’s ambitious and personal, and Klavdia’s vocals are top drawer.

13. Netherlands: Claude: “C’est La Vie”
If Claude makes it onto the stage, he’s already one-upped last year’s Dutch entrant, Joost, who was disqualified moments before the show...

12. Ukraine: Ziferblat, “Bird of Pray”
Nemo likes it: “One of the most interesting (songs) musically – it’s very daring, bold, but beautiful.”

11. Estonia: Tommy Cash, “Espresso Macchiato”
You won’t want to like this song, but you probably will.

10. Malta: Miriana Conte, “Serving”
"Serving" is an energetic, if a little dated, Maltese effort that has shades of "Je Me Casse," a similarly buzzy entry from 2021.

9. Denmark: Sissal, “Hallucination”
The competition’s longest absence from the final (they last qualified in 2019) has been snapped by a fabulous, epic, searing ballad that deserves far more love than it’s getting.

8. Sweden: KAJ, “Bara Bada Bastu”
This song is the favorite and it’s been endorsed by Finland’s president – which is awkward, since the country has its own contestant.

7. Luxembourg: Laura Thorn, “La Poupée Monte Le Son”
It would be a crime if this didn’t do well.

6. Italy: Lucio Corsi, “Volevo Essere Un Duro”
Corsi's song is a beautiful and gentle effort that subverts traditional ideas around masculinity.

4. Switzerland: Zoë Më, “Voyage”
Countries never win back-to-back, which is a shame, because this is stunning.

3. Finland: Erika Vikman, “Ich Komme”
"Ich Komme" is one of many severely horny entries this year.

2. Austria: JJ, “Wasted Love”
It’s the best song at the competition.

1. Albania: Shkodra Elektronike, “Zjerm”
They sing about an oasis – “There’s no ambulance around the street, no one talks to you arrogantly” – clearly oblivious to the British bachelor parties that blight Tirana, Albania’s capital.
4
DnD Central / Re: US Economy - what do you think??
The United States just lost its last perfect credit rating
Of the three major credit rating agencies, Moody’s was the lone holdout, maintaining its outstanding rating of AAA for US debt. Moody’s held a perfect credit rating for the United States since 1917.

It now ranks US creditworthiness one notch below that, at Aa1, joining Fitch Ratings and S&P, which lowered their credit ratings for US debt in 2023 and 2011, respectively.
5
Browsers & Technology / Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux
Another thing that I got around to way too late.

Q: How to execute a text file containing code, without having to create an executable shell script?
A: Pipe the text to the shell.

Prerequisite: Have a text file with code palatable by the shell. For example, create a text file with contents date and save it as whattime.txt.

Then either
Code: [Select]
cat whattime.txt | bash
or
Code: [Select]
bash < whattime.txt
6
DnD Central / Re: Constitutional Law, & the Courts - Original Intent v. Legislating from the Bench
These are not arguments on the constitutionality of birthright citizenship.

Cleverly, Trump administration is bringing a different question in front of SCOTUS: Lower courts should not issue nationwide injunctions (which they have on the question of constitutionality of birthright citizenship, an easy and obvious section of the constitution that Trump administration is violating).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzn0eQYeTSQ

Trump administration hates the constitution and some supreme justices go like, "Hmm, you may have a point. The president should indeed be able to issue random unconstitutional EOs and when people go to court to oppose it, the court should grant constitutionality only to those particular people." Under Trump administration, rights only apply to those who go to court for them and win, except you also have to be able to evade the ICE agents lurking around courthouses.
7
DnD Central / Re: What's going on in Scandinavia, North Atlantic, Baltic States and Scotland?
Two days ago Estonia tried to intercept a Russian shadow tanker and then Russian fighter jet showed up to breach airspace.

Russian Su-35 violates airspace as Estonia intercepts ‘ghost fleet’
tanker
While the Jaguar [the vessel] defied orders [of Estonian Navy patrol ship and helicopter], a Russian Su-35 Flanker fighter jet was observed in the vicinity, shadowing the two ships.

...the aircraft breached Estonian airspace near the Juminda Peninsula for under a minute, flying without a filed flight plan, with its transponder turned off, and without maintaining radio contact with local air traffic control.

After the short-lived confrontation, the Jaguar continued its route uninterrupted and eventually reached the Russian oil export terminal at Primorsk around midnight local time.

In November 2024, the German Navy frigate Nordrhein-Westfalen escorted a Russian corvette and a civilian tanker through the Baltic. When a German NH90 Sea Lion helicopter approached for inspection, the Russian crew launched flares rather than responding via standard radio protocols.
8
DnD Central / Re: The Inauguration, & U.S. President Donald Trump's First 100 Days in Office
Calling it "The Trump Doctrine" highlights the largest problem. Trump is not on board, and while naming flattery is cheap and possibly effective, clearly he has other interests and whims directly detrimental to this "Trump Doctrine". The tariff war is a good example, weakening rather than strengthening this strategy.
Some analysts would say that the inconsistencies and internal contradictions, while being inconsistencies and contradictions, and while being due to incompetence and thoughtlessness, are still on purpose and in service of the strategy, insofar as one of the goals is to keep the strategy obscure.

Another way to put it is that the goals *are* contradictory and inconsistent, and the magic of this administration is that it will achieve them all regardless — and the corrupt lawless self-serving goals first.
10
Browsers & Technology / Re: E-readers
Something I should say about Boox Palma is that the "Do not update automatically" system setting has no effect. Whenever you connect to the internet, the device for sure calls home.
11
DnD Central / Re: Democracy in America…
Steve Bannon predicts a constitutional crisis by summer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGKFJPbaFLc

Three takeaways:
1. The global geopolitical order is returning to the good old times of Treaty of Westphalia (1648)
2. The "constitutional crisis by summer" will be "a convergence of crises" where judges challenge Trump ever harder, but he will enforce the unitary executive principle
3. Interviewer: "What do you want to see from Trump in next 100 days?" Bannon: "Double down. More of that same."
12
DnD Central / Re: The 'Old World''s History
Uncovering Greece's dark past, 33 bodies found in decades-old mass grave
Workers were installing benches at a park in the ancient Greek port city of Thessaloniki when their excavator pushed brown soil off a fragile white skull.
 
It’s common to find ancient remains or objects in Greece. But hulking Yedi Kule castle was a prison where Communist sympathizers were tortured and executed during Greece’s 1946–49 Civil War.

Wartime legacy

Greece’s Civil War began in the wake of World War II. Coming after continent-wide destruction, it quickly lost international attention but the conflict marked a turning point: U.S. President Harry Truman’s policy of anti-communist intervention — the Truman Doctrine — was presented to Congress in 1947 as a means to direct funds and military support to Greece.

Etched on the newly excavated bones in Thessaloniki, then, is a playbook that went on to produce decades of repression, societal divisions and more unmarked graves in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Governments later addressing the Cold War-era abuses and atrocities faced a painful choice: To unearth the past — as attempted with investigative commissions in Eastern Europe and many Latin American countries — or suppress it for fear of fresh division.

Greek emergency laws were gradually lifted and only fully abolished in 1989. Records of summary trials and executions were never made public.
13
DnD Central / Re: The world in 2030
The American democratic republic has died. It was 236 years old

No official announcement was made of the end of the long-enduring republic, which was launched in 1789. No autopsy was scheduled.

The proximate cause of death was America’s rapid decline in democratic governance. In March 2025, the director of Varieties of Democracy, a Sweden-based think tank, cautioned that the U.S. was on the verge of losing its status as a democratic republic.

The American democratic republic is survived by a country of the same name, the United States of America, now a presidential dictatorship.

From the mentioned think-tank's report:
When we were finishing up the last touches on the Democracy Report three years ago, Russia launched its full-scale, illegal invasion of Ukraine. The war is still going on. But back then, the alliance backing this young, aspiring democracy was solid and included the United States of America.

AS WE ARE finishing up this year’s Democracy Report, recently inaugurated President Trump is voting against NATO allies in the UN joining with autocracies like North Korea, Russia, and Sudan. Military support to Ukraine was just cut off, and the words coming out of the Trump administration echo Kremlin rhetoric. European leaders are scrambling to mount a sufficient response. The world is going through another convulsion.
On page 14 of the report there is a ranking of the countries, USA still in the most glowing category of Liberal Democracies based on 2024 assessment.
14
Browsers & Technology / Re: E-readers
The latest update to Boox Palma put an AI icon on its homescreen. I'm not sure what to make of it. Never was it my plan to have much besides ebooks and Termux+Emacs there.
15
Browsers & Technology / Re: Ways to search stuff on the net
The interim US attorney for DC claims Wikipedia is ‘allowing foreign operatives’ to rewrite its website.
Interim DC attorney Ed Martin has written a letter to the Wikimedia Foundation — the organization behind Wikipedia — that calls into question its status as a nonprofit entity... Martin alleges that Wikipedia is “allowing foreign actors to manipulate information and spread propaganda,” including by “rewriting” historical events and through “other matters implicating the national security and the interests of the United States.”

Martin is known for thinly justified legal threats against media organizations. In recent days, Martin has sent letters to the New England Journal of Medicine, the CHEST Journal, and Obstetrics and Gynecology, accusing them of being “partisan in various scientific debates.”
16
DnD Central / Re: The Inauguration, & U.S. President Donald Trump's First 100 Days in Office
In an interview with Time from yesterday, here are the successes the first 100 days of Trump 2.0.

Your trade adviser, Peter Navarro, says 90 deals in 90 days is possible. We're now 13 days into the point from when you lifted the reciprocal, the discounted reciprocal tariffs. There's zero deals so far. Why is that?

No, there’s many deals.

When are they going to be announced?

You have to understand, I'm dealing with all the companies, very friendly countries. We're meeting with China. We're doing fine with everybody. But ultimately, I've made all the deals.

Not one has been announced yet. When are you going to announce them?

I’ve made 200 deals.
200 deals when there were not even that many countries on his tariffs list. While trying to top Peter Navarro, Trump outdid himself! Truly impressive.

You said you would end the war in Ukraine on Day One.

Well, I said that figuratively, and I said that as an exaggeration, because to make a point, and you know, it gets, of course, by the fake news [unintelligible]. Obviously, people know that when I said that, it was said in jest, but it was also said that it will be ended.

Well what’s taking so long? When do you think it will be ended?

Well, I don’t think it’s long. I mean, look, I got here three months ago. This war has been going on for three years. It's a war that would have never happened if I was president. It's Biden's war. It’s not my war. I have nothing to do with it.
From a figurative Day One to a literal "I have nothing to do with it." Standing ovations.

Edit: Here's what's more likely going on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDSz62i6F3Q

The longer version of the referred-to doctrine is here https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/the-prioritization-imperative-strategy-defend-americas-interests-more-dangerous
17
DnD Central / Re: The real Pope Francis??
The president of Finland to the one side of Donald and Melania, the president of Estonia to the other. What to make of this? Probably that nobody else wants to be anywhere near that couple.



(Well, the actual reason is the alphabetic order of the countries in French, still the international language of diplomatic decorum: Estonie, États-Unis, Finlande, France. Macron is just outside of the picture next to the president of Finland.)
18
DnD Central / Re: Constitutional Law, & the Courts - Original Intent v. Legislating from the Bench
Stephen Miller says anybody who isn't as corrupt as Alito or Thomas is part of a "rogue radical-left judiciary" that should be opposed.
Now it's gone from ignoring or opposing court orders to arresting judges in the courthouse.

FBI: Judge accused of helping man evade immigration agents is arrested
FBI Director Kash Patel announced on social media the arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan, who he said “intentionally misdirected” federal agents away from a man they were trying to take into custody at her courthouse.

“Thankfully our agents chased down the perp on foot and he’s been in custody since, but the Judge’s obstruction created increased danger to the public,” Patel wrote.

Court documents detailing the case against the judge were not immediately available, and the Justice Department didn’t immediately have a comment Friday.
19
DnD Central / Re: The Worst People in the World
International Monetary Fund said yesterday,
Forecasts for global growth have been revised markedly down compared with the January 2025 World Economic Outlook (WEO) Update, reflecting effective tariff rates to levels not seen in a century and a highly unpredictable environment.
Without naming his name, IMF has declared Trump a global threat.
20
DnD Central / Re: Immigrants
A few years ago Estonia extradited some cryptoscammers to USA as USA had demanded https://www.justice.gov/usao-wdwa/united-states-vs-sergei-potapenko-and-ivan-turogin

Now Trump administration has sent them — guys under court order and bond conditions to stay in Seattle — emails to self-deport.

Feds Mistakenly Order Estonian HashFlare Fraudsters to Self-Deport Ahead of Sentencing

“It is time for you to leave the United States,” an email to Potapenko and Turogin dated April 11 read. “DHS is terminating your parole. Do not attempt to remain in the United States - the federal government will find you. Please depart the United States immediately.”

The email, included with the letter filed last week, threatened both men with “criminal prosecution, civil fines, and penalties and any other lawful options available to the federal government” if they stayed in the country. It resembles emails that undocumented immigrants and U.S. citizens alike have received over the past few days.
This is not administrative error. It is administrative terror, known from early Bolshevist times.
23
DnD Central / Re: Constitutional Law, & the Courts - Original Intent v. Legislating from the Bench
Heh, he even says "Dissolve the Supreme Court entirely if they push." Of course, lucky for the Supreme Court, they do not push. They only emit paperwork and when you ignore the paperwork, they may or may not emit some more.

Among conservative talkers it is nowadays mandatory to be overtly and double-down positively fascist or at least lie with a happy smile for the God-King. Gone are the good old Rush Limbaugh days when there was no God-King and it sufficed to be viciously anti-Democrat with no positive programme.

By the way, I had to look up who this Jesse Kelly dude was. My intake of post-turn-of-the-millennium American political commentary is apparently patchy. And I probably am not going to fix it, because the commentary has become worthless and the way to fix it is to stop having any more of it.
24
DnD Central / Re: The real Pope Francis??
Papa Francesco è morto

Poco prima delle 10 del mattino, il cardinale Kevin Farrell ha annunciato con dolore la morte di Papa Francesco, con queste parole: «Carissimi fratelli e sorelle, con profondo dolore devo annunciare la morte di nostro Santo Padre Francesco. Alle ore 7:35 di questa mattina il Vescovo di Roma, Francesco, è tornato alla casa del Padre...».
You heard it here first, maybe.
25
DnD Central / Re: A blast from the past… :)
Hitler liked tariffs too.

“National Socialism demands that the needs of German workers no longer be supplied by Soviet slaves, Chinese coolies, and Negroes,” [Nazi Party chief economist Gottfried] Feder wrote. Germany needed German workers and farmers producing German goods for German consumers. Feder saw “import restrictions” as key to returning the German economy to the Germans. “National Socialism opposes the liberal world economy, as well as the Marxist world economy,” Feder wrote. Our fellow Germans must “be protected from foreign competition.”

Even though Hitler’s own foreign minister, Konstantin von Neurath, was concerned that the strategy would spark a trade war, and could drive up the price of imported eggs by 600 percent, Feder’s tariffs fit into Hitler’s larger vision for “liberating” the German people from the shackles of a globalized world order.

Hans Joachim von Rohr, who worked at the Reich’s nutrition ministry, went on national radio to explain the logic of Hitler’s tariff strategy. “The products that Germany lacks must be made more expensive; then farmers will produce them in sufficient quantities,” Rohr explained. “And if foreign competition is kept at bay by tariffs and the like, city residents will prefer domestic production.” Rohr offered lard—“Schmalz”—as an example.

The primary targets of the Hitler tariffs—the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands—were outraged by the sudden suspension of favored-nation trading status on virtually all agricultural products, as well as on textiles, with tariffs in some cases rising 500 percent. With its livestock essentially banished from the German market, Denmark, for example, was facing substantial losses. Farmers panicked. The Danes and Swedes threatened “retaliatory measures,” as did the Dutch...

Hitler launched his trade war on the second Friday of his chancellorship. That evening, he appeared in the Berlin Sportpalast, the city’s largest venue, for a rally in front of thousands of jubilant followers. It was his first public appearance as chancellor, and it served as a victory lap. Hitler dispensed with the dark suit he wore in cabinet meetings in favor of his brown storm-trooper uniform with a bright-red swastika armband.
Hitler had two key differences from Trump. One, he was principled, i.e. he did not do on-again, off-again, ramp-up-and-then-postpone tariffs. Second, even though his understanding of economy is said to have been primitive, he did not do the stupidest idiotic Trumpite nonsense blanket tariffs, so evidently he had available and listened to sound advice on this point.