Nougat

If you have some spare bandwidth, and a little compute, this is a way that you can help Internet Archive. There are a number of different "projects" to focus on, including "US Government."

Make sure to check all the FAQ stuff there, especially "Can I use whatever internet ..., because you should not be using a VPN, or public internet, or TOR, or a few other things. Because of that, this won't be for everyone, but I'm sure there are some who could help keep things from going in the memory hole.

What I mean by "gatekeeping resistance" is commentary along the lines of "that suggestion is useless, you have to do what I think you should do," or "that just makes you feel better, it has no effect."

Why we're not going to do that here is because resistance is better with all efforts, great and small, from all kinds of people. While any individual bit of small resistance is unlikely to have a great impact all by itself, the cumulative effects of many over time can. Those effects are about gumming up the cogs of fascism in action, but they're also about giving some hope to the quiet bystanders who need to keep their heads down right now.

As always, we're in this for the long haul. Nothing is going to "get back to normal" any time soon, and even when it does, that "normal" isn't going to look anything like what we're accustomed to. We're all finding our way, and if that means doing very small things today to get into a new mindset, so be it. And of course, if you've done something "large," you shouldn't be talking about it here anyway. If it gets into the news, then get someone to post an article about it. Maybe that will mean this place appears a bit milquetoast on the surface. Fine. Let it be the tip of the iceberg.

Last note - I have not "strongly moderated" here, and I have no plans to. When I have something to say "as a moderator," I put on the "ModeratorHat". I'll continue to do so. Whether that hat is on or off, disagreement is welcome and encouraged, and disagreement is never a "punishable offense." "Being a dick about it" might be, but not the disagreement itself.

Have fun storming the castle!

Tonight, Tuesday Feb 4, 5p ET. US Department of the Treasury. If you can be there tonight in DC, or at any other federal Treasury office, do it.

Plymouth is a ghost town and the de jure capital of the island of Montserrat, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom located in the Leeward Island chain of the Lesser Antilles, West Indies.

In the last two weeks, a lot of things have happened which are making a lot of people a lot of scared, and justifiably so. I'm not pretending that my personal situation is more dire than anyone else's. While some of the things going on do directly threaten my family, they're still currently at arm's length.

Someone was talking to me tonight about being scared, and I had some thoughts that might be useful.

Fear is what makes you focus and pay attention, and react to immediate threats. Humans evolved in an environment which is far more immediately dangerous than what we enjoy today. I think that fear is simply part of being human, and that when our brains don't get to experience dangers, we have to compensate for a lack of fear.

Now that there are "real" things to be afraid of, and we're so conditioned by personal experience to not be afraid, and we're still compensating for not being afraid ... while being afraid ... well, that's disorienting.

What I have done, what seems to be working for me, goes back to why I started this place here to begin with. Don't be worried, be prepared.

Worry is one thing, fear is another, of course. For me, I am adding Don't be afraid, pay attention and act accordingly. Again, I think that fear is what makes us focus and pay attention. Once you're paying attention, then you can better assess what the actual danger level is, and what your response (if any) should be.

This can be practiced in everyday situations. Example: I was driving the other day, and found myself at a stoplight. Cars in front of me, next to me, behind me. A curb and a steep slope down to my right. I didn't have an exit path for my car; if something "stupid" had happened at that moment, I would have had to abandon my car and take off on foot.

I wasn't afraid in that moment, but it came into my head to "look for an exit." What would it be? It would be running. I estimated that the likelihood that I would need to hoof it before the light changed was insignificant, but I was just a little more prepared than I was moments before.

I feel better thinking about fear as an important and necessary aspect of being human, and instead of trying to avoid it entirely, feeding little pieces to my brain consistently, and then consuming that fear with attention and planning.

Again, there are plenty more people in plenty more dire circumstances than I'm in right now, and I'm not trying to portray myself as some kind of superhero. But I'm finding that this way of addressing my own fears seems to be working for me, and if it works for me, it might work for someone else, too. We're all going to need a lot of endurance, and figuring out how to keep fear from taking away from that is a good thing.

USAID’s website has dropped offline without explanation in the Trump administration's two-week-old funding freeze of U.S. foreign aid and development funding.

tl;dw:

Modern cars are not as easy to siphon gas out of. You're going to need a narrow, semi-rigid tube to get past any check valve. Make sure this tube is long enough to reach the bottom of the tank.

Of course, if you're not concerned about the car, you can punch a hole in the bottom of the tank and capture the fuel that way, but you'll certainly waste some fuel.

@horse_battery_staple makes an excellent point: If you are uncertain about the quality of the fuel you are siphoning - whether that be because of its age, contaminants (rust/water), or if it has two stroke oil in it, be aware that the vehicle you run the fuel in may run badly, and you may incur mechanical problems, either in the short or long term. Generally speaking, "she'll run," especially if you're cutting the acquired fuel with known good fuel, but you should consider this as an "oh shit" option.

If I heated it up any longer, it would be a glasswich.

After a volunteer confirmed an officer’s identity, they would alert neighbors to the agent’s presence, and our dispatch team would send a text message to our contacts in the area. ICE agents almost never carry judicial warrants giving them the authority to enter private homes or businesses without permission, so they often wait to make an arrest when the person they’re looking for leaves their home or car. And in every case we worked on, when the agents realized they were being watched, they abandoned their stakeout.

This is a very rough start for a guide to getting involved in activist work in your community.

The Tuskegee Airmen was a group of primarily African American military pilots (fighter and bomber) and airmen who fought in World War II. They formed the 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group (Medium) of the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF). The name also applies to the navigators, bombardiers, mechanics, instructors, crew chiefs, nurses, cooks, and other support personnel. The Tuskegee airmen received praise for their excellent combat record earned while protecting American bombers from enemy fighters. The group was awarded three Distinguished Unit Citations. All black military pilots who trained in the United States trained at Griel Field, Kennedy Field, Moton Field, Shorter Field, and the Tuskegee Army Air Fields. They were educated at the Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University), located near Tuskegee, Alabama.

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects people from random and arbitrary stops and searches. Although the federal government claims the power to conduct certain kinds of warrantless stops within 100 miles of the U.S. border, important Fourth Amendment protections still apply. This helps you understand your rights within the 100-mile border zone.