> A programmer receives a wedding invitation. It reads, "Your presence itself is a present. We don't want any presents at the wedding." After re-reading it repeatedly, the programmer decides not to attend.

I did not read in depth about him, but he looks like a human being to me.

@CowperKettle He seems to be.

He might have won the Democrat candidacy in 2016 and 2020, and it seemed as though he might win on several occasions, but alas.

@Cerberus I don't watch anything on dem-leaning news channels like CNN and MSNBC, but I've seen a few clips where they thoroughly trash Bernie as senile or ugly or some other low-blow insult. I think democrats don't really want him to win anything.

I guess he's supposed to be the loudmouth you never hand the steering wheel. The cynic in me would think his role is deliberate, but I don't wanna go down the intentions rabbit hole

What he's saying is the most sensible among any current US politician of course, though I guess it's a bit too close to home not to feel some suspicion towards

-14°C

Early sunsets, at about 16:50

Vice-Speaker of the Russian Parliament, Pyotr Tolstoy said today that Russia should spread to its former Imperial borders.

According to Mr. Tolstoy, once Russia has annexed several countries previously included in the Empire, other countries, such as the Baltic states and Finland, "will crawl to us on their own".

@M.A.R. The rich in America don't want Sanders, which of course includes the owners of all television companies, and their presenters.

And the Democrat party establishment.

@M.A.R. Sensible, indeed. And he has been consistent for a very long time.

I think he can be trusted.

New daily covid cases in Russia. This might be omicron, although test kits capable of detecting Omicron were only installed in some labs across the country, and have just gone into operation.

Still awfully low.

We're having higher peaks than ever, even though shops, horeca, schools, and everything have been closed for a month now

You can't play chess and watch TV at the same time

@CowperKettle Yeah, it's not pretty.

CNN Films and HBO Max are partnering for a documentary on anti-corruption Russian government opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

> Described as a documentary thriller and shot as the story unfolded, Navalny follows the man who survived an assassination attempt by poisoning with a lethal nerve agent in August 2020. During his months-long recovery he makes shocking discoveries about the attempt on his life and decides to return home. Despite the risks, he willingly returned to Russia in January 2021 and was arrested moments after landing in Moscow for leaving the country, related to a prior suspended sentence.

Lofti Hamza is a stomatology student in Tambov, he came to Russia from abroad.

This year, he paid 171 rubles ($2.5) for a short taxi ride to a Tambov citizen who is also an activist for the election monitoring ogranization Golos.

For this payment, the Golos activist was assinged the status of a "foreign agent".

Since any payment, no matter how small, from a foreign citizen, no matter on what pretexts, is grounds for labeling you a "foreign agent" in Russia.

Now the Golos activist will have to spend a lot of money on complicated procedures. He must from now on report on all his financial interactions. He must precede all his letters, social media posts, just anything, with a large paragraph-sized statement THIS WAS WRITTEN BY A PERSON DEEMED A FOREIGN AGENT ..

Any failure to use this warning statement is grounds for severe fines.

You can read daily that some poor person or a volunteer organization in Russia was fined 200 000 rubles or 500 000 rubles for failure to make a single mention of their foreign agent status.

It was recently discovered that Putin's propagandists received a lot of money from foreign organizations in form of grants. They were instantly made exempt from the action of the Foreign Agent Law.

Thus, just anybody can become a foreign agent for a couple of dollars sent from a foreign person. Yet Putin's friends are totally exempt.

@CowperKettle I wonder how many people all throughout the population get upset when this happens to someone they know.

Gosh, I didn't know this actually happened.

I don't remember there being a big outage, so I'm sure there are always back-up conexions.

Even so, this must be expensive to repair.