TrojanRoomCoffeePot

That's part of the problem, I can't even begin to figure out who or what to follow. I'm not kidding about the part where I browsed the random feed; there was random K-pop stuff, ultra-local politics with no context, posts about random low-key mobile games, stream of thought... I'm literally at a complete loss about where to narrow my focus with that platform, it might as well be a hacked feed of every single cell phone DM/individual group chat messages (minus the smut). I can't even figure out why I should give a fuck about it existing TBH, what am I supposed to do with this thing?

I hear you, but this is a problem that I've solved by browsing the splash as Posts/All/New. It helps to catch rando posts that I wouldn't normally stumble across.

I feel as though I'm still missing something about Mastadon that others have absorbed and moved past. There was remarkably little content there, aside from the spam shotgunned into my feed by the few brand/city official accounts that I subbed to... What's the appeal? I set it to display the rando posts, but it appeared to be literally that, random shitposting the way that people scream into the void of Twitter or Bluesky...

Bingo, it was a poor excuse for a poorly implemented security system (in a fucking prison of all places), and turned out to only serve as further obfuscation for additional problems with their story.

casually slides IP address across English Channel to France

The first analysis that I saw clocked the actual missing time as roughly 2:50 if I recall correctly, and this was when news first hit about there being a 'magic minute' when the system turns over during the AM hours. This is pretty typical for the FBI, not just lying, but doing a poor job of it and telling everyone who balks at their shit excuses to get fucked instead of furnishing actual credible evidence.

Fuck yes, that kid's got big things in his future. Hopefully less cobra mauling, but it's looking promising, I want to see him in politics in 20 years. Can you imagine someone topping a campaign slogan like;

• "Govinda killed a cobra as a toddler, can you imagine how hard he'll fight for you now that he's an adult?"

• "A cobra couldn't kill Govinda as a little baby, what chance does Opposition Party stand?"

• "Vote Govinda, he'll cut the corruption off at the head."

I first overheard people talking about this as a kid regarding speeding tickets of all things. Given the gravity of their effect on your license demerits and resulting escalating increases in insurance rates, I was given the impression that it's essential to show up to court and at least take a swing at contesting fines/charges. In keeping with the baseball analogy, it's sometimes enough just to bunt, i.e. show up and hold the bat, as officers are frequently scheduled on duty when whatever applicable hearing is held. Apparently it's enough simply to show up, given that they've fucked off to do something 'more important' instead of arranging the morning/afternoon away with their CO's ahead of time. For more serious charges, the lesson applies doubly, the pricks will go out of their way to derail your entire life for spite. Always fight it, always, always, always. The stakes are just too high to plead out.

To add insult to injury, they frequently deliberately waste the court's time as a tactic to overtax the defendant's financial resources. Making shit up serves to apply additional restrictions, bail, and possibly house arrest, assuming that the person targeted isn't broke and has their life ruined by sitting in lockup until the first hearing (fewer and fewer people have the resources to accommodate housing expenses, let alone all of their other personal/financial obligations in the meantime, and wind up unemployed & homeless). Fabricating spurious charges has been a weapon used by police and the courts for aeons, if the pigs in L.A. weren't still pulling this shit, I'd be shocked.

Thanks, very much appreciated.

I'm not sure where you've checked, but it appears that you may, in fact, qualify as a refugee in Canada: https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/refugees/about-refugee-system/2slgbtqi-plus.html

Can you elaborate on this more, please? I'm not familiar with EO's declaration regarding involuntary commitment, but if it means what I think it does, it's a sea change. Where did you first hear/read about it, and what was the verbiage exactly?