The Off Topic Topic

[Josquius]

I was actually low for the US; I thought it was around 10%, but it's about 14%.  Where you live could also distort your view; based on the time I've spent in Toronto I would assume about half the Canadian population is foreign born (it's about 22%.)

I would be curious to see such a poll conducted on a national level.
Though other data in the UK, like voters for far right parties, brexit support, and such things, suggests there's an inverse relationship between believing the country is being overran with immigrants and actually getting exposure to them, so it might well be the opposite of what you think here.

[Sheilbh]

Extraordinary but the last of the White Rose died yesterday. RIP

Traute Lafrenz, the last of the White Rose anti-Nazi resistance, dies aged 103
Lafrenz was arrested twice by the Gestapo and eventually liberated in April 1945 and settled in the US
Agence France-Presse in Berlin
Thu 9 Mar 2023 20.40 GMT
Last modified on Thu 9 Mar 2023 21.00 GMT

The last surviving member of the White Rose resistance movement, which urged Germans to stand up against Nazi tyranny during the second world war, has died, according to the group's historical foundation.

Traute Lafrenz died at her home in South Carolina on Monday at the age of 103, the group said in a statement on Thursday, paying tribute to her "courageous resistance and lasting testimony".

One of the most famous groups to resist the Nazis in Germany, the White Rose distributed anti-war pamphlets at Munich university in 1942-3, calling on people to rise up against the regime.

According to the foundation, Lafrenz met Hans Scholl, one of the founders of the group along with his sister Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst, in the summer of 1941.

A year later, Lafrenz, a medical student, came across a flyer and realised Hans Scholl's involvement from the literary quotations used in the text.

She carried flyers to Hamburg where they were distributed by friends.

When Hans and Sophie Scholl were arrested in February 1943, Lafrenz drove to the city of Ulm to inform their family.

Following a summary trial, the original White Rose leaders – the Scholl siblings and Probst – were beheaded at the Stadelheim prison in Bavaria, along with others including their philosophy professor Kurt Huber.

In April 1943, Lafrenz also fell into the hands of the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police, and was sentenced to a year in prison for "complicity".

Shortly after her release, she was arrested again by the Gestapo in Hamburg. Lafrenz spent time in four Nazi prisons before her liberation from the one in Bayreuth in April 1945.

She emigrated to the US in 1947, where she completed her medical studies.

On her 100th birthday in 2019, the German president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, praised her as a "hero of freedom and humanity".

Lafrenz was one of few people who, "faced with the crimes of the Nazis, had the courage to listen to the voice of her conscience and to rebel against the dictatorship and the genocide of the Jews", he said at the time.

Lafrenz's contemporary Sophie Scholl, born on 9 May 1921, has become the most famous face of the resistance movement, with surviving photos showing her distinctive cropped hair and determined smile.

Hundreds of schools and streets now bear her name, and in 2003 she was named the nation's fourth favourite German behind Konrad Adenauer, Martin Luther and Karl Marx.

[viper37]

My credit card offers monthly financing plans for some purchases.

Lately, I've been noticing that grocery purchases are admissible for the monthly financing plans...  I am worried...

[Josquius]

My credit card offers monthly financing plans for some purchases.

Lately, I've been noticing that grocery purchases are admissible for the monthly financing plans...  I am worried...

I've noticed quite an uptick in micro loan companies with funky branding offering pay in installments for basically everything. Take away food apps for instance.
This shit needs cracking down on.

[Sheilbh]

I've noticed quite an uptick in micro loan companies with funky branding offering pay in installments for basically everything. Take away food apps for instance.
This shit needs cracking down on.

Yeah Klarna and the like. I think it's been a particularly a big thing in fast fashion and is not good.

[viper37]

My credit card offers monthly financing plans for some purchases.

Lately, I've been noticing that grocery purchases are admissible for the monthly financing plans...  I am worried...

I've noticed quite an uptick in micro loan companies with funky branding offering pay in installments for basically everything. Take away food apps for instance.
This shit needs cracking down on.

Yeah, the interest rates are very high, something like 12-14% yearly.  Much less than the credit card rates, but much higher than a personal loan or credit line.

I'd hate to see people less financially savvy fall into this trap.

[grumbler]

Here's a new one:  the Adams County Colorado Veteran's Memorial, just outside Denver.  A picture:



Yeah, that's a sorta-Lego-style version of USS Colorado BB-45, a WW2 battleship.  A rather bizarre choice for a veterans memorial almost one thousand miles from the nearest ocean.

[The Larch]

Note to self: don't get into road rage incidents in Florida.

Charges dropped against man arrested for road rage shooting on I-95

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office has dismissed charges against a man who opened fire from his car on I-95 nearly two years ago.

Eric Popper said he was being tailgated on the highway on his way to work in June of 2021.

Chilling dash camera video obtained by Local 10 News shows Popper slamming on his brakes, and then opening fire seconds later.

Florida Highway Patrol troopers said the other driver then hurled a water bottle toward Popper's Toyota Venza, but Popper maintains it was gunfire.

"I've watched the video many times. Did not see a water bottle," he said.

"I think under the stand your ground law, Mr. Popper was perfectly reasonable and justified in his actions," said Robert Gershman, the attorney representing Popper. "There was no question when you look and listen to the facts of the case, Mr. Popper was shot at."

Popper said he is ready to move forward with his life.

"Hindsight is 20/20. There are always things we can look back and say we wish we could have done differently. Definitely, I would have done --would be to not have pumped my brakes. I would have taken another tactic. Definitely try to de-escalate a little better," he said.

[garbon]

Note to self: don't get into road rage incidents in Florida.

Charges dropped against man arrested for road rage shooting on I-95

MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. – The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office has dismissed charges against a man who opened fire from his car on I-95 nearly two years ago.

Eric Popper said he was being tailgated on the highway on his way to work in June of 2021.

Chilling dash camera video obtained by Local 10 News shows Popper slamming on his brakes, and then opening fire seconds later.

Florida Highway Patrol troopers said the other driver then hurled a water bottle toward Popper's Toyota Venza, but Popper maintains it was gunfire.

"I've watched the video many times. Did not see a water bottle," he said.

"I think under the stand your ground law, Mr. Popper was perfectly reasonable and justified in his actions," said Robert Gershman, the attorney representing Popper. "There was no question when you look and listen to the facts of the case, Mr. Popper was shot at."

Popper said he is ready to move forward with his life.

"Hindsight is 20/20. There are always things we can look back and say we wish we could have done differently. Definitely, I would have done --would be to not have pumped my brakes. I would have taken another tactic. Definitely try to de-escalate a little better," he said.

Might be better to simply not going to Florida.

[Valmy]

The Stand Your Ground Law seems like it makes it kind of difficult to convict somebody of violent crime. All you have to do is come up with some paper thin story of self defense.

But I am not an attorney.

[DGuller]

It does sound like the recipe for Wild West if you're ever alone with someone.  Who's to say that the person you shot wasn't trying to assault you with fists?  And if they're stand-your-grounder themselves, then even better, they have a gun on them.  And if they've actually tried to draw their weapon to legit stand their ground against you, you're golden, although in that case you better be a quick shot.

[Tamas]

Strong winds created a very thick dust cloud at one of the Hungarian motorways on Saturday. 40 cars collided. I think no fatalities, amazingly, but about a dozen adults and I think 8 children are in serious condition.

Here's one of the later arrivals, a lorry, smashing into the crowd: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1165468077335249

(sorry about the Facebook link, it seems Hungarians live their lives on Facebook, just everything gets hosted there).

[The Larch]

The Stand Your Ground Law seems like it makes it kind of difficult to convict somebody of violent crime. All you have to do is come up with some paper thin story of self defense.

But I am not an attorney.

It's even more egregious if you check the footage, because it can be clearly seen that it was not a spur of the moment thing, but a calculated attack.

[Sheilbh]

This should be a very interesting election:

Hümeyra Pamuk
@humeyra_pamuk
New polls show the Turkish opposition's presidential candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leading against President Tayyip Erdogan by more than 10 percentage points ahead of elections on May 14 seen by many as the most consequential vote in Turkey's history.

Turkish opposition have also agreed to rally behind one candidate. I think parliamentary polls show the AKP still ahead - but their coalition partner falling below the threshold which if it happened would like mean they lose there too.

[viper37]

Amqui is a small town in Eastern Quebec.  Square in the middle of Gaspesia peninsula, where it begins.

This afternoon, several pedestrians where ran over by a dude with his pick-up truck for about 700m.  So far, 2 dead, 5 other people were transported to ERs outside the immediate area (as far as Montreal, 900ish km away and the airport is another city) due to the severity of their injuries and may not survive.

The driver surrended to the police as soon as they arrived on the scene.

Details are still fragmentary at this point, so we do not know what happened exactly.  At first, I thought it could be an accident.  It is a major secondary road, one of only two provincial roads in the area.  If the pedestrians are outside the city, there's often no sidewalks and in the spring, they will often walk on the side of the road.

They my dad's gf told me he ran over them for 600m, then I heard on the news 700m.  I've also heard he was just coming out of a local brewery.  So he could have been intoxicated.  Very, very, very drunk.

But Jesus, 700m...  I'm leaning toward the deliberate act at this point.  It's apparently a local man, no specific victims, just people walking on the sidewalk.  It's disturbing to have this kind of things in a small, quiet city of 6000 souls.

CBC news article

La Presse


EDIT:
Some medias are reporting this as a deliberate act, but the provincial police has not confirmed this yet.

EDIT 2: Officially confirmed to be a deliberate act.