The probable cause statement says the investigating officer contacted the Stillwater, Oklahoma, police department about a “past rape charge” against Sparkman and obtained information that case involved a 10-year-old victim.

Fuck it. Burn it all down. I think dolphins are next in line. Let’s hope they do better than we did.

EDIT - Goddammit I forgot dolphins are extremely rapey too.

There are about 2,500 Sudanese immigrants in Finland. Why not have a law criminalizing the Darfur genocide too? Or better yet, how about a law against denying any genocide in the furtherance of hate speech?

Unfortunately, I think I know the answer to these questions. I suspect it’s related to the fact that Finland does not recognize the Palestinian state, unlike their neighbors in Norway, Sweden, and Iceland. A law criminalizing the denial of any genocide in the furtherance of hate speech would end up legally including the genocide in Palestine as soon as a case lands in a Finnish court. At that point, it would be really hard to defend their one-sided support of Israel, and lack of Palestinian state recognition.

That’s part of it, but the other part is so much worse. The DNC and the Clinton campaign strategy was to elevate “unelectable” far-right nutjobs like Trump so that the Democratic party could intentionally pivot to the Right and still look like real opposition by contrast. They saw the writing on the wall ever since Sanders (and left-leaning policies in general) started gaining mainstream popularity in the late 2000s. The Dems are beholden to the same corporate billionaires as the Republicans, and the mere whiff of Leftism-lite made them all terrified that they might become slightly less wealthy under a SocDem government, and that “we the people” might become slightly more influential in said government.

The Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee called for using far-right candidates “as a cudgel to move the more established candidates further to the right.”

It’s important to note that this also applied to Democratic candidates. With the Republicans moving 100 miles to the Right, Democrats didn’t think anyone would notice them moving 20 miles to the Right. Clinton and the DNC are just as responsible for the Overton window shift as the Republicans are. If not more so. Had they embraced and supported people like Sanders, who would have absolutely demolished Trump, we wouldn’t be in this fucking mess.

Jesus fucking Christ… Qatar is basically a scumbag real estate agent conning an idiot into buying a condemned shack in a swamp as a “cozy waterfront getaway”, but on a colossally stupid level.

We will get somewhere, but I’m not sure it’ll be a good place. Here’s my prediction of how it will go:

Once Gaza and the West Bank are fully and exclusively populated by Israelis and American tourists, once the Palestinians have all been slaughtered or run out of their own country, once all the dust has settled and resort hotels have been built on top of all the mass graves, then and only then will our news agencies finally refer to what happened as a genocide. Some well-known news anchor will look into the camera with weary eyes and a little ribbon pinned to their lapel, they’ll take on a somber tone, and they’ll say “never again”. Someone will win a Peabody for the story. And just as society starts to believe those words, “never again”, the history of those events will be banned from schools and libraries, and those teaching it will be fired and jailed. The memo will come down from corporate and that same news anchor will again appear on TV. They’ll look into the camera with a sparkle in their eye, flashing their overly white news anchor smile, and talk about how all the trans people being rounded up and put into camps is definitely not a genocide, and saying so means you hate God.

“This is Jim Tradman for Channel Five News, signing off. Blessed are the fruit, under His eye.”

But then, I’m a bit of a pessimist.

Yeah, this is a big problem with the early stages of practicing medicine in the UK. Once you make it past about the 7 year mark, it’s all well and good, but those early years, you’re kind of on par with retail workers, which can be demoralizing. A big mistake the UK made was when the pandemic hit, they didn’t raise wages for doctors to compensate for the absolute chaos. BMA should have gone to war over that the way the French did over retirement age.

Things definitely could be better, especially for young doctors, but I would still rather be a doctor in the UK than in the US. No amount of money is worth that kind of burnout, and I don’t want to be treated by any doctor who thinks it is.

Check out this YouTube channel from Dan McClellan. He’s a biblical scholar with a Bachelor’s (BA) in Near East Studies from Brigham Young University with a minor in Classical Greek, a Master’s (MSt) in Jewish Studies from Oxford, a Master’s (MA) in Biblical Studies from Trinity Western University, and a Doctorate (PhD) in Theology and Religion from the University of Exeter.

He’s gotten kind of popular over the past couple of years debunking religious nuts on TikTok, but he’s got a lot of very informative videos on the Bible and biblical history, what certain books or passages were actually talking about, and so on. He presents things in a clear and understandable way, without fluff or editorializing. I can’t recommend him enough.

King Heron is once again eating all the frogs.

Or turning them gay.

Yes, both are very important points. I’ve never met a British doctor who had to drive for Uber or suck dick on Backpage to pay off student loans.

This comment doesn’t really mean a lot without context. The pay for doctors in the UK varies quite a bit depending on which level of their career they are at. Resident doctors (Foundation Year 1 & 2) earn anywhere between £33k and £37k, Trainees (training in a specialized area of medicine, CT 1-3, ST 1-9) can earn between £43k to £63k. All of these are considered Junior Doctors, who work under the supervision of a Senior Doctor. When they have completed full medical training in a specialized area of medicine (7-10 years), they are Consultant level, which is a Senior Doctor. This can pay between £93k and £126k per year.

For further context, the median individual wage in the UK is £37,430, which is about what second year Resident doctors earn on average. Much like the US, this can be good or bad, depending on where you live. In the North of England, an FY2 earning £37k is solidly middle-class. In London? He’s working-class, but still making far more than minimum wage, and his income will only increase from there.

Speaking of minimum wage… For people 21+ years old, it’s £12.21 an hour. At 40 hours a week, that’s £25,396 per year, or about £7k a year less than a first year resident. There are ZERO doctors in the UK earning “almost below the minimum wage, given the number of hours they actually work.” Unlike in the US where doctors work a billion hours a week, doctors in the UK are unionized (most with the BMA, but there are other unions), and their contracts prevent this. On average, the workload for FY1 & 2 (Residents) is 48 hours per week. They do occasionally get hit with longer weeks, but it’s not normal. Their union contracts are designed specifically to prevent overworking and allow them time to work and study/take exams. Doctors working 80 and 90 hour weeks is mostly a thing of the past.

The bottom line is that Doctors in the UK generally make a good living and have strong unions that ensure they continue to do so. That’s not to say things can’t or shouldn’t improve, but their situation is far from bleak. If the only reason you’re getting into medicine is to get rich, then please get the fuck out of medicine. There are much easier ways to get rich than spending the next 20 years studying while you watch people die in front of you.

Most definitely. And since their entire job is illegal, why not go all-in and do more illegal stuff on cam for higher pay? That would be my thought process.

I have a lot of thoughts on this game.

First, the production and release of the game itself was like a living metaphor about how corpo assholes ruin everything good. It was obviously rushed for the Christmas release when they clearly weren’t anywhere near finishing the game. I think they could’ve used another solid year, but no, the suits upstairs needed you to hand over those holiday eddies ASAP. Everyone knows about the bugs, so I don’t need to go into that. My biggest complaint about the gameplay is that 90% of the dialog choices really don’t feel like they have any substantial impact on the story overall.

Complaints aside, it is one of the most beautiful games I’ve ever played, and probably the best designed open world in any game, in my opinion. Night City really feels lived-in. The city itself is a character in the game, not just a backdrop. The different neighborhoods and districts all feel very unique without feeling like that uniqueness is forced. It just makes sense, and works really well. One improvement I think Night City could use would be more substantial random events happening independently of the player, instead of people just milling around. Like rock concerts, protests/riots, car meetups, parades, stuff like that. Not a big deal without them, but would be a big improvement, in my opinion.

The characters are also great. Judy and Misty are my favorites, and I wish there was a lot more story (or even side quests) with Misty. They are well written and have depth and their own motivations, and their stories were emotionally impactful. But all the characters are well done, and they provide a great experience, even when the main story itself feels thin at times.

Overall, I love the game. It’s been a while since I played through it, so I might go check out the mods and see if anything catches my eye for my next play through.

Some will. But like with alcohol prohibition, many of the people who work in the industry will just go to work in the black market.

Yeah that $3 billion won’t do squat. California spent $24 billion over a five year period and didn’t track any of the money, how it was spent, or the outcomes. It’s a safe bet that most of the money went to contractors charging extortionate fees for services while providing almost nothing in return, and probably quite a bit landing in the pockets of local politicians. It was basically a big scam to further enrich a bunch of greedy parasites. A few low-level idiots were charged with fraud and embezzlement of like $400k, but that doesn’t even scratch the surface of corruption involved in that whole scheme.

This is exactly it. A couple of days ago there was an Ask Lemmy thread about the legalization of marijuana. My entire argument is “Prohibition of vice does not work and only empowers organized crime.” This has been proven over and over again throughout history. It shouldn’t even be a question anymore.

Just think about the popularity of the “schoolgirl/barely legal” image as it currently exists in porn. If it becomes just as illegal to hire a young-looking 25 year old actress as it is to exploit an actual child, a lot producers will opt for the latter.

Alternatively, the number of fistfights I’ve almost been in with Albanians who aggressively refuse to let me pay for anything is off the charts.

If you think the porn industry is exploitative and abusive now, just wait until they push it all underground.

The comment you were replying to was clarifying to someone else that the person Trump paid hush money to (Stormy Daniels) was not the person who was alleging rape (E. Jean Carroll). Your reply that E. Jean Carroll did in fact allege rape made me think you were also conflating Carroll with Daniels. If I misunderstood the intent of your reply, I apologize.