So my car has been complaining I should put some exhaust emissions neutralizing fluid in it. A thing they call AdBlue I believe.
Bought a big 10l drum of the stuff ready to fill up.
But when I look at where I expect to find the hole for filling it, I just find a capped off tube and a warning sticker "See the GM Citreon Berlingo Blaze manual" for the adblue refilling hole.
Only user manual I have is the one telling me to expect it there.
The car was converted for wheelchair access at some point in its life. I think they are referring to the wheelchair-adaption manual, which the seller did not give me.
🤔
Have been looking around the car as much as I can for a couple of hours this morning to no avail. Where have they hidden this hole to fill up adblue?
Maybe it's under the engine or something now and you have to put the thing on stilts to find it?
🤷
Asked my mechanic about it and he says to bring it in on Monday. Gonna be a pain if I have to rip up the floorboards or something every year to refill that.
#mechanic #car #diesel
Suddenly, Trump’s effort to rig the 2026 midterms with corrupt gerrymanders appears in trouble.
A panel of judges just blocked the GOP gerrymander in Texas, which had added five seats.
In Indiana, Republicans currently lack the votes to redraw their congressional map.
Trump is angry about all this.
He lashed out at Indiana Republicans, threatening primaries and calling one opponent “weak” and “pathetic.”
So is the scheme dead?
-- No.
Several as…
Google advises some employees on visas, including H-1B visas, not to travel outside the US due to processing delays, following new social media screening rules (Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-tells-visa-holders-stamp-le…
@axbom@axbom.meSome leftists have criticized #NoKingsDay2 as useless. Though it was the largest protest in US history, it didn't change anything. I would go further to say that protests like these generally won't change anything. Dictators aren't forced to step down by 2% of the population coming out for one day. If they're forced to step down by protests, those protests are sustained. They are every single day. They are accompanied by general strikes.
We've been watching that happen all over the world. Portland in 2020 gave us a taste of that in the US. The George Floyd Rebellion was the type of resistance that actually brings down dictators like Trump. Occasional protests, no matter how large, can simply be ignored. That is precisely the reason the US developed a militarized police force in the first place. You need more, more than the largest protests in US history, more than Occupy, more than the resistance of the 60's and 70's, more than, and different from, anything we've seen in our lives.
And yet... Each protest has grown, and grown bolder. Some have grown more persistent. If you think of protest as the path to achieve change, you will lose. It is not. But it is a path to escalate. Some people, some otherwise comfortable white folks, came out for their first time. Some people got pepper sprayed for the first time. Some people questioned authority, stood up for the first time, and have had an experience that will radicalize them for the rest of their lives.
Protest is not useful in and of itself. It is training. It's making connections. Authoritarian regimes rely on the illusion of compliance, so visual resistance does actually undermine their power.
Liberals like to teach that non-violence is all about staying peaceful no matter what, that there's some way that morality simply overwhelms an enemy. I remember reading Langston Hughes' A Dream Deferred in high school. I said it was a threat. My teacher said, "you're wrong, he was a pacifist." Pacifism is a threat. If you can spit at me, beat me, shoot me, and I will not move, if I have the strength to absorb violence without flinching, without even rising to violence, what will happen when you push me too far?
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over—
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
For peaceful resistance to work, there must be ambiguity. It must not be clear if or when the resistance will stop being peaceful. Peaceful resistance with no possibility of escalation is just cowardice.
My critique then is not so harsh as some other anarchists. If you think that protest alone will work, you're probably going to lose. If you are prepared to escalate, if you are prepared to absorb violence without flinching, then it could be possible for protest alone to topple the dictator. The cracks are already beginning to show.
And then what?
The problems that lead to the George Floyd uprising were never resolved. The problems that lead to Occupy where never resolve. The DAPL was built, protesters were maimed, it leaked multiple times (exactly as predicted). Segregation never went away, it only changed forms. The fact that immigrants have different courts and different rights means that anyone can be arbitrarily kidnaped and renditioned to an arbitrary country. We never did anything about the torture black site. FFS, people can still be stripped of their voting rights and slavery is still legal in the US. The people who control both parties in the US are killing our children and grand children with oil wars and climate change.
Toppling the dictator does nothing to resolve all of the problems that existed before him.
No, #NoKingsDay was absolutely not useless. #NoKings and related protests are extremely useful but they aren't sufficient. But, I think we still need to challenge the movement on two points:
How do you escalate after you're ignored or brutalized?
What do you demand after you win?
#USPol
I know I shouldn't... but after a discussion with @…, I had to generate some AI slop.
#aigenerated #fiber
Trump promised Iranians the U.S. would rescue them.
They were betrayed.
Reeling from a crackdown on protesters in Iran that left thousands dead,
Iranians are now grappling with feelings of betrayal, confusion and uncertainty
after Donald Trump repeatedly promised to intervene on their behalf
and then declined to do so.
Some Iranians said in interviews that Trump’s words of support had added to their determination to resist the Iranian government
aft…
Letterboxd plans to launch the Letterboxd Video Store, a curated rental platform with undistributed festival standouts, restorations, and more, in December 2025 (Letterboxd)
https://letterboxd.com/journal/letterboxd-video-store/
So the US had a huge case using high-level informants.
Bukele wanted back 9 informants who could expose his govt's deals with that same gang to lower the level of violence,
fueling his image as a crime-fighter.
That Rubio made a deal was known.
That he reneged on informants was not.
https://
Sources: Google is offering voluntary buyouts to employees in its UK offices, following similar offers in several US divisions this year (Hugh Langley/Business Insider)
https://www.businessinsider.com/google-offers-voluntary-buyouts-uk-employees-ve…