Well they're not an alternative, so I suppose not. No one is being chained to a desk and made to author reports on how their department is aligning with the new business growth strategy. And the robot slaves aren't being designed to mine precious minerals or attach buttons to clothes.
I still find myself quite taken by some sci-fi writing. Iain M Banks works, Rajaniemi, and Joan Slonczewski. The “problem” is that they are not popular the way Harry Potter or isekai are.
I find Apple weather incredibly frustrating… I keep wanting to use it like I used dark sky, but it’s just not there… And I still don’t think it’s as accurate. At least not in Europe. I remember with dark sky being able to know if it’s rain, and for how long it will continue raining to the minute
The author’s claims that “there was never any credible evidence that Iranian medium- and long-range air defenses against fixed-wing aircraft were attrited to any significant degree“ and that the B-2 is easily to track and target… seem rather questionable. Unfounded even.
I’ve heard Maduro was not elected in free and fair elections… The official results reported Maduro winning with about 51 % of the vote.
European Parliament resolutions and reports explicitly described the process as lacking transparency and integrity such as not publishing detailed polling station results, meaning the results could not be independently verified, and concluding the election was neither free nor fair.
You may recall María Corina Machado was barred from running shortly before the election itself.
Maduro was reported winning with 5,150,092 votes, or 51.20000% of the vote, and the main opposition had 44.20000% of the vote. These are considered suspiciously round percentages.
Which election. I find no source for that. And even if that where the case, it wouldn't be too far fetched to think someone computed votes from rounded percentages when writing an article.
The Carter Center has a 43 page report that goes into the facts of the 2024 election in detail.
For example “A few minutes after midnight, with 80% of the votes counted, the CNE declared Nicolas Maduro the winner, with 51.2% of the vote, followed by Edmundo González with 44.2%. The CNE did not publish the results by polling station, claiming - without providing evidence - that a cyberattack had made it impossible to upload the results to its website. However, the CNE did not release the results by any alternative method. The lack of detailed results prevented independent verification of the overall results announced by the CNE The CNE canceled three postelection audits that could have verified the alleged cyberattacks.
This included a second citizen verification exercise. The integrity of the elections was damaged by the lack of transparent information.
In a parallel effort, the opposition - through party representatives, observers, and citizens — collected and published online more than 80% of the results forms produced by the voting machines. According to these results, González received 67.1% of the vote, and Maduro received 30.4%. The Venezuelan government claimed - without providing evidence - that the results forms published by the opposition were forged. However, the result forms published were deemed legitimate by external auditors and academics. The Carter Center reviewed the data in the results forms and found it to be accurate.”
> I’ve heard Maduro was not elected in free and fair elections…
I've heard that American elections are rigged too. That still isn't an open invitation for an invasion by another nation to kidnap government officials on US soil. Even if Maduro had abandoned elections entirely and installed himself as king it wouldn't justify what the US has done.
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