North Dakotan?

I operated on 40m with a dipole I strung up in my attic, so this isn’t really true. In WW2 radio operators would build their antennas into plaster walls and other parts of buildings. Very easy to hide even long, large antennas

Yes, you must keep it as government officials, members of the public etc. and not let it turn into a revenue generator even then. The focus should be on enforcement with the end goal of safer public spaces.

I’ve always been a fan of the idea that you don’t need armed police to do traffic enforcement, you could get this done with another group of unarmed local officials of some sort with cameras, like meter maids but mobile. Headlights too bright, muffler too loud or missing, speeding, etc could be gathered and enforced much more rapidly. All the fines etc. are mailed out, no dangerous human-human or dangerous roadside interactions required. Would increase the amount and effectiveness as well. It would also free up police to do what they are (in theory, in an ideal world) supposed to be doing which is solving crimes.

Eisenhower orchestrated the 1953 Iranian coup, overthrowing a democratically elected government, and installed an authoritarian, US-backed puppet. He also overthrew the democratically elected government of Guatemala at the behest of a banana company (United Fruit, now Chiquita).

Every new Republican advances the evil, because it’s never punished.

Not OP but I bought a 45" LG UltraGear gaming “monitor” a while back that’s basically just a TV, no smart anything etc. Right now the only ones I see after a quick search are curved though, mine is flat.

False hope. Come election time Republicans will rally around some insane thing like “Democrats are eating babies” and they’ll pull the lever for whoever has an R by their name. Even non-crazy people will tell themselves some half-baked story that starts with “Well, I don’t like Trump but…” and do the same thing.

You mean RFK Jr didn’t have any medbeds for such an influential figure? Color me surprised

Without a way of knowing which satellite passing overhead was the ISS, in the narrow windows each day where you could see them well enough to correctly point a Yagi at one, you’d quickly run out of battery before making a relevant contact. Also the people on the ISS rarely listen or respond, the most used ham equipment on the ISS is basically a glorified repeater so you’d also have to get above the pileup of all the satellite chasers just trying to log contacts.

JS8Call and FT8 are digital modes that don’t require talking. Plenty of other things to do as well

I certainly agree that Harry Potter has fascist precursors within it, but that’s mostly my point: Neoliberalism itself is a fascist precursor in real life, or at least fascism easily exploits neoliberalism’s weaknesses. So to that end I think the labels do matter. For example, in theory it’s easier to right the ship and turn away from fascism or recognize its warning signs in a neoliberal society than in an actually fascist one. I.e. turning away from the path of fascism and towards a more egalitarian society might have been easier in 1990s America than it is now in a 2025 America. In much the same way no one thinks JK Rowling isn’t a huge bigot, no one could have reasonably claimed that 1990s America didn’t have its problems. Neither really fit the definition of fascism, although both lead to fascism.

I think the distinction is important because it hopefully makes it easier for imperfect, neoliberal places like Western Europe, Canada etc. that are having problems with rising right-wing movements to recognize problems before it becomes too late, rather than pointing out their weaknesses and jumping straight to a fascism label.

I’m not sure that the outcome of Harry Potter is fascist in nature. After Voldemort is defeated there’s no mythic national rebirth, no driving nationalism, no cult of personality at the top, and the society doesn’t treat violence as virtue. What it looks like to me is more of a reactionary neoliberal, paternalist world. Hierarchy is enforced and treated as natural, change is looked at with suspicion, institutions are trusted, and the only problems come about when bad individuals are in charge of those institutions. This is essentially the worldview of 19th century imperialist Britain.

To be clear, though, fascism does exploit these weaknesses in liberal/neoliberal thought to bring itself about and does share some of the superficial look, but I think it flattens the term to label Harry Potter and/or JK Rowling as explicitly fascist. I think at best her work is neoliberal slop and that she has some abhorrent views about gender that people who are fascists would agree with.

Fun story, he was killed with a bomb which caused the car he was in to fly so far into the air that he’s often referred to as Spain’s first astronaut.