Somewhat ironically, Omar Garcia Harfuch, nominated to her cabinet by Mexican President-elect Claudia Sheinbaum, was a former Mexico Police Chief who survived an assassination attempt in 2020.
Garcia Harfuch is suspected of being involved in the infamous disappearances of 43 students from Ayotzinapa Rural Teacher’s College, being head of the Federal Police of the region who abducted and allegedly tortured the students before killing them. nacla.org/rebirth-omar-garcia-harfuch
It sounds like a clever provocation, and he probably made sure it catches attention before they can silently move it under the carpet. He didn’t do any crime, he even proposed compromises to make it seem OK and followed official procedures, so they can’t (now, publicly) presecute him by law, but it offended their homophobia that much they found nothing more clever than dropping him into a mental yard instead of, like, declining his idea for some made up reason. What’s that if not a high-risk high-reward prank activism? At least, we now know that the state of Pakistan loses it’s shit over him touching that nerve.
Way back in 1999/2000 I was working for a division of the company I was working at before that wasn't based in the UK. As such, while there was a physical office near me, there was literally no reason to go there. I was on a trial of ADSL at the time (2Mbit, and that was amazing for the time) and so, working from home was actually faster than the office.
A few years before, I'd seen the BT engineers hooking up the office's phone lines via fibre (ISDN30). The single fibre ran 30 phone lines, an internet connection and a frame relay for private connection between sites with capacity to spare. I thought that was pretty cool.
I got to thinking back then. Someone (with money) should really connect normal people up to a fibre network. Because that one cable could do many things. You could send your cable tv over that fibre, internet, phone, a private connection to the office (VPNs did exist then, but weren't really the main way you connected sites), and likely other things too. That is, the business would be just laying the fibre and providing access points for ANY service to run bits over the line.
20+ years later we're kinda getting there (albeit OK not actual cable but streaming services. And there's no real need for frame relay any more. But really there's no reason they couldn't do TV with some multicast setup, and vpns are doing the same job).
Before Ukraine Russia funded right-wingers because they were anti-EU. Some of them were quite open about it. I don’t think anything has changed. Money just takes a longer route and people keep quiet about it.
if a woman has a period and has had sex, there is a good chance a fertilized egg was probably somewhere around the blood, making every woman in Alabama who has had sex a possible serial killer
Fun fact, there is quite more to learn about everything after school. School will provide you with rather abbreviated and often simplified version of scientific conses from around 50 years ago.
Reproduction in humans is not very efficient. Only around 30% of natural conceptions result in successful pregnancies. Of the failed pregnancies around 85% are due to implantation failure.
Seems like it’s extremely normal for a fertilized egg to fail to implant and be flushed out during your next period.
Mate, are you just so confused with what is happening with the responses here? I’ve literally had an abortion; I’m pro choice. But there’s this random pile on of I’m assuming men, telling us what idiots we are.
Eh. Not the best article but I appreciate the sentiment.
I certainly agree with it. I think that there’s a level of friendship that I never allow others to crack unless they were bridged in as members when we were young.
All the people I meet now are “acquaintances”. They’re nice, I’m okay to reach out if I need anything, but more often then not they’re the partner of someone else. I smile at them. I tolerate them. I might even have a drink with them. But there’s a distance there that you can’t crack.
It’s like that great 80s movie, “Stand by me”: “I never had any friends later on like the ones when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?” youtu.be/l7r-R61W1DQ
You can have good dictators, even if they are rare.
If you can’t comprehend this, then you are a victim of propaganda and indoctrination.
Sometimes, it’s easier to convince the masses to vote against themselves than it is to convince a dictator to sell them out.
For example, Mexico vs. El Salvador.
15 years ago, nobody thought Mexico would have a worse gang problem than El Salvador. Without Bukele’s heavy-handed approach to suppressing gangs, they would still be running rampant like they are in Mexico.
Most of society throughout history has been ruled by dictators. There are probably a few who would pass for decent rulers, statistically speaking. A few, out of thousands.
But even if you’re lucky enough to get one of the good ones, some shit bag will inevitably take their place and everyone is absolutely fucked with nothing they can do about it. Even rebellion is less and less of an option as militaries becomes increasingly efficient vs. armed citizenry.
It’s a losing bet every time. Not ever worth considering in any modern society.
Dictator didn’t mean back then what it means now: It was a time-limited emergency position, then oligarchy resumed. The Romans would call our current-day dictators tyrants and they tended to go the way of Caesar: Stabbed in the back (literally) by the senatorial power they usurped.
You can have good dictators, even if they are rare.
Hard disagree there.
But it really depends on what you value as good and bad.
For instance, if you think that people have an inherent right to have a say in how they are governed, then a dictatorship can never be good because it infringes on that right in the most serious of ways.
If you think a stable and sustainable system of government that will last beyond the life of a few leaders is important, then dictatorship is not a good system, because one good dictator creates no guarantee that the next dictator will be good, and establishing a system of dictatorship affords a bad dictator that much more power to ruin lives.
If people vote against their own interests, it is solely their fault, there is no way around it, deal with the consequences and do better next time. Saying that people must be protected against themselves means that you believe that your fellow human beings are inherently inferior to you and that they are not rational beings, akin to animals.
If you believe that you have intellectual superiority but you are not able to communicate that to your fellow countrymen, then you have failed thoroughly at being a politician, or you are not as superior as you think you are.
Results? If you want to talk results let’s talk about millions upon millions of dead Jews, political prisoners, and homosexuals.
That’s just one bad example, right? How about the millions that starved because of bad management in a single party regime, I’ve got two of those to pick from.
Read a fucking book and try not to choose Mein Kampf.
The absolute best case scenario is a Francisco Franco. Absolute best case.
And yes, it’s an inherent part of human nature. The more consolidated power is within an organization, the more vulnerable it is to abuse. Dictatorships are on one end of the spectrum, direct democracies on the other.
Have you ever heard a parent say “eat your food, there are starving children in China”? The children were starving in China because Mao decided that sparrows were eating too much of the grain harvest and launched a pest eradication campaign. With nobody in a position of authority with the ability to stop the campaign (or even question the wisdom of it) and sparrows were killed en masse.
Sparrows eat grain but they also eat insects. With the sparrows gone the bugs got out of control and sparked a famine. It was the worst man-made disaster in human history. As many as 55 million people died because a dictator tried to do a good thing and was able to act without restriction or oversight.
One bad decision - even if made with the best intentions - can end in disaster. That’s why checks and balances matter. Do they slow things down? Yes. But the chart-topping governmental fuck ups are all put there by totalitarians.
You said that they are rare, so what do you do if the ruler is bad and has the power to ruin the country for decades and can pass the rule to his song who may be bad too?
One good dictator is one thing but what happens after him? What are the chances he’ll be succeeded by another supposedly benevolent dictator? It also increases the chances someone gets tired of the dictator and coups him which may turn into yet another bloody civil war.
Democracy sucks but it’s the best system we have,
One can argue for his emergency decisions to handle the gangs but democracy should be restored once the dust settles.
Europe tried it. Ended up with guillotines and the Great War. After that they tried it again but without the royalty branding and we got World War Two.
But thanks to your comment now I see that my history books indoctrinated me. My belief that the enlightened despot of Germany that pulled their economy out of the Great Depression, built up a modern infrastructure, and was a champion of animal rights was a bad guy is clearly just propaganda influencing me. I should get redpilled and cheer for people’s power over their own government being taken away.
God Lemmy has the biggest whack jobs on the Internet.
Swiss cocaine so cheap and widely used they’re considering legalising it
As prices halve on ‘highest quality we’ve ever seen’, Bern says ‘war on drugs has failed’ and looks at it being sold for recreational use James Crisp, Europe Editor 21 December 2023 • 2:53pm Switzerland has one of the highest levels of cocaine use in Europe
Switzerland’s capital is considering legalising cocaine after admitting the “war on drugs has failed”.
Bern is weighing up a pilot scheme to allow the sale of the class A narcotic for recreational use – a radical approach which is thought to be a worldwide first.
Switzerland has one of the highest levels of cocaine use in Europe, according to the levels of illicit drugs and their metabolites measured in waste water, with Zurich, Basel and Geneva all featuring in the top 10 cities in Europe.
Prices of the drug have halved in the country in the last five years, according to Addiction Switzerland, and usage is rising. Some politicians and experts have criticised complete bans as an ineffective means of addressing the crisis.
“We have a lot of cocaine in Switzerland right now, at the cheapest prices and the highest quality we have ever seen,” said Frank Zobel, deputy director at Addiction Switzerland.
“You can get a dose of cocaine for about 10 francs these days, not much more than the price for a beer.”
Cocaine prices have fallen because the market is flooded with large amounts of the drug.
In 2022, more than 160 tons of cocaine were confiscated in Antwerp and Rotterdam alone, and much more got into Europe undetected.
While prices have dropped, purity has increased. In Switzerland, 70 to 80 per cent of the substances sold are now pure cocaine. ‘Legalisation can do better than repression’
Many European countries, including Spain, Italy and Portugal, no longer impose prison sentences for possession of cocaine, which is highly addictive, but nowhere has gone so far as to legalise it.
The plan will require existing national law banning recreational use of the drug to be changed, but Bern’s parliament supports the scheme, which would follow trials now under way to permit the legal sale of cannabis.
“The war on drugs has failed, and we have to look at new ideas,” said Eva Chen, a member of the Bern council from the Alternative Left Party, which co-sponsored the proposal. “Control and legalisation can do better than mere repression.”
She said it was too early to say how the scientifically supervised pilot scheme would develop, including where the drug would be sold or how it would be sourced.
The sale of cocaine could be based on the model for selling cannabis but with stricter rules.
Any legislation would be accompanied by quality controls and information campaigns, Ms Chen added, with the aim being to curtail a currently lucrative criminal market.
Bern’s education, social affairs and sports directorate is preparing a report on the possible cocaine trial, although this does not mean it will definitely take place.
There will be many political hurdles for the proposal to clear before it can be implemented. Concern about potential dangers
Bern’s parliament leans towards the Left but the government of the canton of Bern, one of 26 member states of the Swiss confederation, tacks to the Right and may yet be able to block the required change in national law.
Still, the decision to go ahead could come in a matter of years, or earlier if the current cannabis schemes - where the drug is on sale at pharmacies - show successful results.
But opponents of the plan have voiced concern about the potential dangers.
“Cocaine is one of the most strongly addictive substances known,” said Boris Quednow, group leader of the University of Zurich’s Centre for Psychiatric Research.
He said its risks were in a completely different league to alcohol or cannabis, citing links to heart damage, strokes, depression and anxiety.
“Cocaine can be life-threatening for both first-time and long-term users. The consequences of an overdose, but also individual intolerance to even the smallest amounts, can lead to death,” the Bern government said
“Cocaine is one of the most strongly addictive substances known,”
Isn’t sugar also strongly addictive, and very damaging to the body? Yet it’s marketed like there’s no tomorrow, and obesity doesn’t grow at an alarming rate?
I guess it all depends on your definition. If you take only one gram of sugar per day, you probably have a very weird diet (keto?). Even a slice of bread will get you above that. On the other hand, a gram of cocaine per day…
One gram of cocaine a day is an enormous amount. It’s like one gram of caffeine… You can go way higher, but that’s a ton
On the other hand, half a bag of cocq leaf? Half a box of coca tea? People have worse effects and addiction to caffeine
Here’s the thing about cocaine… It’s very addictive, but the withdrawal is minimal. People with crazy cocaine habits can spend 20k a week on it, and lose their life savings. And, when they’re out of money, they can just stop. More likely than not, they do just stop
You can’t buy pure caffeine normally… It’s quite dangerous, you can buy enough pills or energy drinks to kill yourself, but it’s not easy to take a lethal dose. If you could buy pure powder, you could.
We should treat coke the same way - we can sell it in products, but we shouldn’t sell the pure form. Cocaine is safer… And that means you can take insane amounts of it
Coca is a smoother, more effective, less addictive simulant than caffeine… Cocaine is not a good idea, and shouldn’t be sold directly. Coca products are great, but concentration, informed consent, and age need to be taken into account
telegraph.co.uk
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