Chris Ellis @intrbiz@bergamot.social

Did Zelensky shout at anyone during that Oval Office ambush?

I ask because journalists are routinely referring to what happened as a "shouting match" even though the abuse came from Trump and Vance, as far as I can tell.

New blogpost: "It is time to make the Online Safety Act 2023 fit for purpose"

I am concerned that, without rapid, targeted intervention at legislative level, the OSA will have a unwarranted and detrimental effect on the plurality of sites and services available to people in the UK, and impede and put at risk people running sites and services in the UK, for no material impact on the safety of people in the UK.

The government should:

Exempt small, low-risk services from Part 3
Fix an accessibility bug in Part 5

https://decoded.legal/blog/2025/03/it-is-time-to-make-the-online-safety-act-2023-fit-for-purpose/

#OnlineSafetyAct

Lech Walesa, the former Polish president and Solidarity trade union leader who played a leading role in the fall of Communism, signed a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump expressing "horror" at his argument with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winner posted the text of the letter, which was signed by 39 Polish former political prisoners, on Facebook on Monday.

---

This is the text we signed:

Your Excellency Mr President,

We watched the report of your conversation with the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenski with fear and distaste. We consider your expectations to show respect and gratitude for the material help provided by the United States fighting Russia to Ukraine insulting. Gratitude is due to the heroic Ukrainian soldiers who shed their blood in defense of the values of the free world. They have been dying on the frontline for more than 11 years in the name of these values and independence of their Homeland, which was attacked by Putin's Russia.

We do not understand how the leader of a country that is the symbol of the free world cannot see it.

Our panic was also caused by the fact that the atmosphere in the Oval Office during this conversation reminded us of one we remember well from Security Service interrogations and from the debate rooms in Communist courts. Prosecutors and judges at the behest of the all-powerful communist political police also explained to us that they hold all the cards and we hold none. They demanded us to stop our business, arguing that thousands of innocent people suffer because of us. They deprived us of our freedoms and civil rights because we refused to cooperate with the government and our gratitude. We are shocked that Mr. President Volodymyr Zelenski treated in the same way.

The history of the 20th century shows that every time the United States wanted to keep its distance from democratic values and its European allies, it ended up being a threat to themselves. This was understood by President Woodrow Wilson, who decided to join the United States in World War I in 1917. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood this, deciding after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 that the war for the defense of America would be fought not only in the Pacific, but also in Europe, in alliance with the countries attacked by the Third Reich.
We remember that without President Ronald Reagan and American financial commitment it would not have been possible to bring the collapse of the Soviet Union empire. President Reagan was aware that millions of enslaved people were suffering in Soviet Russia and the countries it conquered, including thousands of political prisoners who paid for their sacrifice in defense of democratic values with freedom. His greatness was m. in. on the fact that he without hesitation called the USSR the "Empire of Evil" and gave it a decisive fight. We won, and the statue of President Ronald Reagan stands today in Warsaw vis a vis of the US embassy.

Mr. President, material aid - military and financial - cannot be equivalent to the blood shed in the name of independence and freedom of Ukraine, Europe, as well as the whole free world. Human life is priceless, its value cannot be measured with money. Gratitude is due to those who make the sacrifice of blood and freedom. It is obvious for us, the people of "Solidarity", former political prisoners of the communist regime serving Soviet Russia.

We are calling for the United States to withdraw from the guarantees it made with the Great Britain in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, which recorded a direct obligation to defend the intact borders of Ukraine in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons resources. These guarantees are unconditional: there is no word about treating such aid as an economic exchange.

Lech Wales, b. political prisoner, Solidarity leader, president of the Republic of Poland III

Mark Bailin, b. political prisoner, editor of independent publishing houses

Severn Blumstein, b. political prisoner, member of the Workers' Defense Committee

Teresa Bogucka, b. a political prisoner, activist of the democratic opposition and Solidarity

Gregory Bogut, b. political prisoner, activist of democratic opposition, independent publisher

Mark Borowik, b. political prisoner, independent publisher

Bogdan Borusewicz, b. political prisoner, leader of the underground Solidarity in Gdansk

Zbigniew Bujak, b. political prisoner, leader of the underground Solidarity in Warsaw

Władysław Frasyniuk, b. political prisoner, leader of the underground Solidarity in Wrocław

Andrew Gintzburg, b. a political prisoner, activist of the underground Solidarity

Richard Grabarczyk, b. a political prisoner, Solidarity activist

Alexander Janiszewski, b. a political prisoner, Solidarity activist

Peter Kapczy .ski, b. a political prisoner, activist of the democratic opposition

Mark Kossakowski, b. political prisoner, independent publicist

Christopher the King, b. a political prisoner, independence activist

Jaroslav Kurski, b. a political prisoner, activist of the democratic opposition

Barbara Swan, b. a political prisoner, activist of the underground Solidarity

Bogdan Lis, b. political prisoner, leader of the underground Solidarity in Gdansk

Henryk Majewski, b. a political prisoner, Solidarity activist

Adam Michnik, b. political prisoner, activist of the democratic opposition, editor of independent publishing houses

Slavomir Najniger, b. a political prisoner, activist of the underground Solidarity

Peter the German , b. political prisoner, journalist, and printer of underground publishing houses,

Stefan Konstanty Niesiołowski, b. a political prisoner , independence activist

Edward Nowak, b. a political prisoner, activist of the underground Solidarity

Wojciech Onyszkiewicz, b. political prisoner, member of the Workers' Defence Committee, Solidarity activist

Anthony Pawlak, b. a political prisoner, activist of the democratic opposition and underground Solidarity

Sylwia Poleska-Peryt, b. a political prisoner, activist of the democratic opposition

Christopher Push, b. a political prisoner, activist of the underground Solidarity

Richard Push, b. a political prisoner, activist of the underground Solidarity,

Jacek Rakowiecki, b. a political prisoner, activist of the underground Solidarity

Andrew Severn, b. political prisoner, actor, director of the Polish Theater in Warsaw

Witold Sielewicz, b. political prisoner, printer of independent publishing houses

Henryk Sikora, b. a political prisoner, Solidarity activist

Christopher Siemien Krski, b. political prisoner, journalist, and printer of underground publishing houses

Gra ,yna Staniszewska, b. a political prisoner, leaders of Solidarity of the Beskids region

George Degrees, b. a political prisoner, activist of the democratic opposition

Joanna Happy, b. political prisoner, editor of Solidarity underground press

Ludwik Turko, b. a political prisoner, activist of the underground Solidarity

Matthew Wierzbicki, b. political prisoner, printer and publicist of independent publishing houses

British PM Starmer hugged Zelenskyy. That’s how bad U.S. foreign policy has gotten—it’s driving the Brits to physical displays of emotion.

Dear @EUCommission , can we get a #WeStandWithUkraine ASAP? thx!

Trump showed himself to be the loud-mouthed quisling we all knew he was.

Zelenskyj showed himself once again to be the leader of the free world.

#SlavaUkraini

The EU must invite Zelenskyj to Strassbourg on his way home. He must be shown he has the support of Europe. A speech at the European Parliament would be good.

#PostgreSQL has the highest adoption rate out of any other database in the last 1-2 years. For good reason - it's an excellent #OpenSource solution that is incredibly flexible, allowing it to suit just about any use case.

Check out the full report from #Redgate (2025 State of the Database Landscape) to learn about the current state of #database management and get "valuable insights into how organizations can navigate and simplify the growing complexities." https://buff.ly/431mI26

#tech #dev

Congratulations, USA and Russia, you’ve managed to out evil the guy who had a journalist chopped up in his embassy.

https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2025/02/18/7498959/

#USA #Russia #fascism #Ukraine

At least once a day I'm reminded of this slide from @bagder last year at FOSDEM

@SecurityWriter common mistake, thinking that you need to put something *into* your brain to use JavaScript. What you *actually* need to do is remove best practices, separations of concerns, sanity, and hope. Then you'll finally be a JavaScript developer.

Come see Chris Ellis (@intrbiz) talk about "PostgreSQL Tips & Tricks For App Devs" at Nordic PGDay in Copenhagen!

#postgresql #conference #copenhagen

https://www.postgresql.eu/events/nordicpgday2025/sessions/session/6427-postgresql-tips-tricks-for-app-devs/