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Mustang posted:I'm originally from FL, and I'm baffled at what DeSantis is doing in an effort to give red meat to the GOP base for a presidential run. I dunno, conventional wisdom said trump should have been a non-starter for many reasons, especially a video where he bragged about sex assault not getting him kicked out of polite society. I don’t like DeSantis but he’s not an idiotic and the democrats have plenty of stuff to get hit on: -DeSantis is 44, Biden is 80. -the border is a mess and provides lots of opportunities for easy photo ops, especially with Texas eager to hype up any crimes committed against white women by undocumented persons. -“billions and billions to a corrupt hunter Biden country they call Ukraine” -note that Florida kept schools open and support parents over teacher indoctrination. I think that worked in Virginia
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Feb 1, 2023 18:04
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shame on an IGA posted:competently following procedures is a pretty big loving ask in the 21st century GOP Didn’t Secretary of Energy Rick Perry realize how important the dept was including nuclear weapons, and had enough sense to step back and defer to folk who knew what they were doing? facialimpediment posted:Nearly all of the "Biden can't win again" articles assume a straight-up election when there's bound to be a lot of weird fuckery before the general even starts. Could be rando richfucks on the democratic side. Could be a rando richfuck that runs as Indy. DeSantis could out-fascist Donnie in the primary and get the nomination. Donnie could get pissed about that and run as Indy to blow the party up. Or Donnie wins and DeSantis decides to sabotage that campaign. Regarding the Democrat side, if Biden runs again it seems unlikely there will be a seriously contested primary. The democrat establishment wouldn’t support a usurper especially if they had little chance, and I don’t know why a Howard Schultz or Bloomberg would challenge as Biden is establishment enough he’s no threat to their interests, like Bernie would have been. One thing to watch for is Murdoch’s empire, Fox News & Wall Street Journal, seem much cooler on trump than they did in 2016, such as not giving much coverage to his re-election announcement. If he surges ahead would expect them to fall in line but if it’s close, their portrayal of him as a has been or irrelevant compared to DeSantis might be decisive. Lol Tom Brady is older than DeSantis that’s odd.
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Feb 1, 2023 21:34
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Zamujasa posted:are there even any serious d candidates who aren't trash and/or poison running I get the vibe CA governor Newsom is interested but hasn’t declared to avoid looking disloyal to Biden. Not ideal but seems aware of what the GOP has become and is running a major state. Some dumb stuff in his personal life but nothing disqualifying, not well liked by leftists but would be probably at least as tolerable as Biden, plus is 55. From the existing realistic options wouldn’t be worst choice. Pair him with Fetterman as VP & that could be a strong ticket.
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Feb 1, 2023 21:49
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facialimpediment posted:So I've heard of faking your own death before. But I've never heard of "killing someone that looks like me to take my place to fake my own death" before! That’s a plot point in the last season of Better Call Saul, Lalo keeps a lookalike on his property for exactly that purpose. Acebuckeye13 posted:I imagine that a lot of older Dems have strong memories of 1980, when Ted Kennedy's primary against Carter severely weakened him in the general. One of the benefits of incumbency is you can raise money and look good/competent while the other side is busy burning wads of cash trying to tear each other apart in their primary, and a real campaign to primary Biden would waste one of the biggest advantages the Dems have in that regard. When Carter was trying to brief the incoming Reagan about major issues, Reagan wasn’t paying much attention until Carter mentioned how South Korea’s dictator was using lethal force against students protesting for democracy, and Reagan casually wished such an option were available to US presidents. Carter expressed concern about this attitude.
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Feb 2, 2023 03:00
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Red Storm Rising update: in the book the French carrier Foch is sunk by missiles. The real ship was sold to Brazil in 2000. They are now trying to scrap it except there’s the problem of it being filled with asbestos so the company that bought it for scrap can’t get a port to accept it so a tug is going in circles wasting 20 tons of fuel a day. Brazil now plans to sink it and environmentalists aren’t thrilled. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/climate/brazil-aircraft-carrier-asbestos.html
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Feb 2, 2023 20:03
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Nick Soapdish posted:https://twitter.com/Ugarles/status/1621289442974613504?t=UlLOoj7LfrNUVRJO_N02nw&s=19 Ugh yeah, I rewatched Judge Dredd and fun nostalgia and surprisingly good set designs. Not a good movie by any stretch but entertaining, except for Schneider. Somehow manages to be the worst part. He was doing casino shows nearby this summer so got to hear nonstop radio ads during baseball games, including a joke about why are there cash for gold places everywhere, who’s carrying bars of gold, pirates? That was much better told when Pete Holmes had it on an album a decade ago.
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Feb 3, 2023 17:57
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Milo and POTUS posted:I have a soft spot for it too. And god those sets were cool Oh yeah, the sequel of course has it beat in nearly every category except Mega City One street level scenes, with cyberpunk cars & fashion. Plus it was cool to see the Cursed Earth, the ABC robots were neat, and interesting to see how the rich folk lived in their nice towers. Balloon chat, is a likely reason it wasn’t shot down that they probably don’t know 100% if it is manned? Would guess probably worth the trade off to let it linger a bit and work it out over back channels rather than risk China having to react to a pilot being killed.
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Feb 3, 2023 19:38
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Stravag posted:Ds9 was the only trek worth watching until lower decks that wasnt made by jj Strange New Worlds is surprisingly good, they allow them to have some peaceful exploration and character development. Enterprise was a frustrating show, badly cast captain hobbled storytelling along with the bad idea to have them chasing the post 9/11 Suliban. But oddly season 4 was good and could feel them turning it around, it has the best mirror universe ep in trek. So much wasted potential with the storyline of a pre-federation Earth. Have them forced to retreat constantly because they’re just a minor power. Have colonies get enslaved by the Breen and not be able to do anything about it. Instead we got Klingons running in cornfields for some reason.
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Feb 4, 2023 19:31
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Comrade Blyatlov posted:Red letter media absolutely savaged Picard, if that means anything I’ve only seen season 1, would call it worst Trek. They could have had a retired Picard visit his friends and get into little fun adventures so fans could see how their favorites are doing. Check in on Troi on Betazed, visit Chief O’Brien at the academy, tour the shipyards with Admiral Riker. Could have been a relaxing send off to the characters. Instead we got Romulan sword fighting space elves, bringing back minor characters only to kill them off (my wife was upset when a Voyager character had an eye ripped out in a gruesome scene), Riker & Troi had a kid who of course died why not it adds misery, all in service of a Mass Effect ripoff plot. Felt like they were trying to mimic Game of Thrones but only took the lessons of killing off characters & downer plots.
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Feb 4, 2023 19:48
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ASAPI posted:This about sums up my experience with DS9 as well. That’s fair, I was watching during the original run and got invested in the characters and story arcs and felt they paid off well, but would understand trying to watch 25 years later and dealing with some of the clunkier eps. I still think the two part ep with changelings on earth and how the Federation must contend with trading democratic freedoms for security theater, and how that is shown to be a way for a free society to destroy itself as a completely disproportionate response is a masterful take on 9/11, and it aired in 1996. I had a similar experience with Babylon 5, had been hearing for years it was comparable to DS9 so gave it a try but couldn’t get invested and bailed mid way through season 1. I liked some parts but not enough to keep watching. Hyrax Attack! fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Feb 6, 2023 |
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Feb 6, 2023 17:53
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CainFortea posted:That whole bit about the changeling menace was one of the things I really didn't like about DS9. The Federation is supposed to be better than us. Yes it's unrealistic but I don't care. It's space ships, it's okay to not be real. That’s fair, although I appreciate DS9 writers take on the federation in how it’s shown as flawed and makes mistakes but overall still a good place to live. Little things like how Sisko’s dad runs a restaurant cooking non replicated food to preserve New Orleans culture, new books are being written, and many people aren’t in starfleet and that’s fine. I liked how the maquis offended Sisko by how he’s gotten so much from the Federation that he doesn’t understand why anyone would leave even if they have defensible reasons. Also excellent (if not perfect) takes on the Ferengi where Quark notes his people are greedy but at the same time never committed a genocide against other Ferengi, or how there’s a Klingon restaurant on the station populated by a guy who’s not constantly at war with everyone.
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Feb 6, 2023 19:00
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McNally posted:That's the thing, though. The Maquis don't have defensible reasons. That’s fair, you could see where they were going with the concept as they wanted a reason for some of Voyager’s crew to be in tension with Starfleet far from home, but felt like they abandoned the idea fast and the former rebels were happy to wear the uniform. And it didn’t make a ton of sense why grumpy colonists would attract high level federation defectors or why the Federation was afraid of starting a war with the Cardassians who were simultaneously a threat to the federation but too weak to deal with rebels. It might have made more sense if the federation had conceded a home planet like Betazed so you’d understand why the population wouldn’t have accepted resettlement and why defectors would help their plight, but for a colony that hadn’t been settled long their motivations were weird. At least it made sense when the Dominion wrecked them instantly. And For the Uniform was fun when Sisko gets sick of Eddington and starts war criming his planets.
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Feb 6, 2023 21:54
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bulletsponge13 posted:That's one theory put forth by fans post 9/11. My theory is Feds discovered bugs occupying some far off planets, minding their own business, not a threat unless someone lands and moves in. Maybe they were neutral but Fed first contact procedures meant the appearance of Feds mean death so they learned to aggressively defend themselves. Feds allow disposable settlers like the Mormons to take a planet they know has bugs. Very photogenic aftermath for propaganda. We see on a map that the arachnid quarantine zone is huge and menacing, but most of that is empty space and not like anyone could fact check. Feds have overpopulation as referenced by needing a license for childbirth, and having a massive standing army with no external threat isn’t sustainable and risky for their leaders. So when they have a fleet ready to go, they pick a city and asteroid that is big but not too big and hit their own planet, then blame the bugs. Why would the bugs send an asteroid from light years away with absurd precision then slow it down when it reaches earth when a full speed strike would be impossible to defend against and mean no more humans, and the bugs don’t try to use asteroids to attack the invasion fleet? The commentators don’t ask. Plus slow asteroids can continue to be “shot down” to justify Fed defense. The twist is that when the Feds screw up and lose hundreds of thousands of guys, they don’t know bugs can brain drain. So while the bugs probably didn’t know where earth is or how faster than light tech works, they do now.
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Feb 7, 2023 22:15
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lightpole posted:Can also directly email the authors and ask, they should be more than happy to send it out. Oh yeah don’t they not get any money from the journals?
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Feb 8, 2023 00:29
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CommieGIR posted:Right now its a lot of conjecture. Reminder that this is the guy who doesn't believe Bin Laden was involved with 9/11 and made some really odd claims about the Syrian chemical weapons attacks. Yeah I listened to his autobiography, used to be amazing but when it reached his current work it was weird and confusing and almost seemed pro-Assad. There have been articles asking what happened with Hersh even before these latest claims: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/whatever-happened-to-seymour-hersh
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Feb 8, 2023 21:37
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Mustang posted:Lmao Desantis is doomed, Trump is going to drag his name through the mud for the next 2 years. Wonder if DeSantis could bribe trump for an embarrassingly small amount. Like $40k to drop out, then promise to name an aircraft carrier after him.
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Feb 9, 2023 03:26
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facialimpediment posted:It's going to be a weird version of funny to see what Republican hopefuls do with all this. After years of telling their base that Donald Trump is a deity made flesh and bone for 6 years, they have to somehow convince said base that Donnie is a lying loser who lost to Dementia Joe. Don't think that's going to fly with 50% of Republicans! If they were rational actors, yes. But we’re in a world where if a candidate ran with no platform and his ads were just him silently putting bibles in an wood chipper, if he had (R) next to his name he’d still have a floor of 30% of the vote.
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Feb 9, 2023 15:50
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pantslesswithwolves posted:My sister quit believing in a Christian god after her church group leader earnestly explained that no, pets don’t go to Heaven because they can’t profess their faith in Jesus Christ. If that’s true, God’s an rear end in a top hat for imbuing something with life and then condemning it to hell because they can’t participate in his popularity contest. i thought I was misunderstanding Calvinism, regarding the idea that billions of humans live their lives (including before Jesus was born) without having the option of being saved then are sentenced to eternal torment. And that this is how it is supposed to work, and God controls everything and is pleased with the system. And wouldn’t you know it, the elect are oddly concentrated among upper class white folk whose parents happened to also be elect. As this made no sense I was asking questions and got informed by a mansion dweller that this approach boosts God’s glory. Hyrax Attack! fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Feb 10, 2023 |
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Feb 10, 2023 03:34
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slurm posted:US pet culture sometimes feels like a competing cult The best is reading nytimes articles about wealthy NYC apt dwellers with entitlement and demands that the world accommodate their choice to own a dog in a high rise building. You get building installing heated sidewalks outside so that pet toes don’t get cold in the winter, furious folk asked to use the service elevator as this offends their pet’s dignity (really), and working all day but buying large dogs who need tons of daily exercise so paying for them to be taken on field trips to New Jersey for hikes. Although for that last one dog walkers are getting six figures a year so not all bad.
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Feb 10, 2023 16:12
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pantslesswithwolves posted:gently caress, I’d like to get in on this racket. I’m already walking my big dummies like six miles a day as it is; might as well get some bennies and pennies for it. Apparently some charge rich folk $35 a walk? Seems like a good deal although you might have to deal with dog owners like my cousin who decided her labradoodle had every form of anxiety and therefore needed the most expensive possible diet. Dogs are great but holy cow I’ve heard of some cases when people are in a stage of life not pet appropriate who decide to get them anyway. One was in a tiny apt working ten hours a day, but you see having two dogs meant they’d entertain each other when left home alone five days a week and were trained to poop in the tub.
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Feb 10, 2023 16:31
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stealie72 posted:A few years back we looked into getting a dog from a couple of recuse groups, and they all wanted insane bullshit like you are describing. References, home inspections, interviews, trial periods, and an agreement that they group could take the dog back at any time. We looked at several groups and they all had this batshit insanity. Good puppy! That sounds like a better procedure than my coworker driving hundreds of miles to get a pug from a breeder, then immediately having a massive vet bill after it ate the rat poison that they had set up in their yard and hadn’t bothered to do a quick walk around to remove stuff like that.
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Feb 10, 2023 16:44
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Wonder Free posted:We got one of ours from a rescue that seems to specialize in large breed working dogs, so the background check focused more on that. No home visits or whatever but I’m sure these places deal with the fallout after someone tries to stick a farm dog in their apartment. Good puppy! Oh man a sibling was taking care of a dog for someone who had inherited a ton of money and decided to get a maximum energy dog bred to tirelessly herd Australian sheep. Even with two long walks a day it would not calm down, totally not the dog’s fault as he didn’t ask to be kept indoors. On a more lighthearted note, sibling also took care of a good boy who was a massive yellow lab and knew it. If he didn’t want to leave a room he’d go into passive resistance mode where he lay on his side and refused to move, and had to be pushed from room to room.
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Feb 10, 2023 20:11
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facialimpediment posted:And it's not exactly in China's interest to suddenly pull back their previously-undetected poo poo. Wait why wouldn’t it be in China’s interest to stop using them if they are being regularly shot down, especially after air defenses are tuned to find them? Seems pointless to keep violating airspace if they aren’t getting useful data, and would continue to increase tensions and not make China look great. AreWeDrunkYet posted:What’s the cost of sending up a few F22s and the missiles(s) they fire compared to the balloons? Probably significant number figure but just a rounding error to the DoD.
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Feb 12, 2023 04:07
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facialimpediment posted:China can continue to figure out our general response times, what kind of poo poo we scramble/try to shoot down their stuff with (and if it works), and most importantly, the poo poo they have in the air that we still can't detect. Lots of intel value in all of that. Plus, Biden was making noises that all of this was being done without President Xi's knowledge, so it could be superhardliners that really want to increase the tensions in the first place. Really not about looking great at this point. I agree it is generating useful intelligence, but is also a very hostile act that is getting a lot of the US population and political establishment fearful and irritated which could lead to meaningful damage to China, far beyond the value of air defense data could be worth. I’d understand if the flights weren’t being detected, and I’m sure we are doing something similar, but Gary Powers being busted made the US lose a lot more face than the Soviets did. Grip it and rip it posted:I wasn't aware that the US flew missions over Canada, however. Do we have some kind of standing joint defense resolution or something like that? Yeah, Canadian airspace is part of NORAD as Canadian NORAD Region (CANR). Makes sense as any serious intrusion especially during the Cold War would likely be aimed at the US and it would be strongly in Canada’s interest to help, especially as they’d get the benefit of the world’s largest military budget for their national defense. Like why they don’t need a nuclear program and can have a relatively small Navy despite having the world’s longest coastline.
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Feb 12, 2023 05:08
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Lol nice
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Feb 13, 2023 01:32
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Steezo posted:Goddamn superbowl ads this year have me wishing for a Taliban callback. I liked the Ben Affleck Dunkin one. Past that meh?
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Feb 13, 2023 02:08
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facialimpediment posted:Currently trying to figure out if the anti-tesla ad got aired in just the DC market, or nationwide: I’m in Seattle area and have been paying semi-close attention but haven’t seen it.
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Feb 13, 2023 02:47
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Soylent Pudding posted:An air force guy once told me that a stadium overflight basically trains all the steps for a precision bombing operation minus the ordinance release. Not sure how true that is but on the surface it sounded plausible. I went to Mariners opening day once and the overflight was a cargo plane. Felt about right, wasn’t a great season.
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Feb 13, 2023 16:42
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Grip it and rip it posted:My cousin's college had constant bomb threats for their last exam period. Society is definitely not recovering from covid and the past couple years at the same rate across the board. Young people seem hosed up Yeah it’s bad: https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/teen-girls-engulfed-in-violence-and-trauma-cdc-finds/
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Feb 14, 2023 05:19
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Flikken posted:I thought we didn't have a diplomatic relationship with the taliban. Is there an Afghan government in exile? I don’t think former president Ghani is spending his days in a UAE villa to organize a team of Jagged Alliance 2 mercenaries to retake the country.
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Feb 16, 2023 05:33
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golden bubble posted:https://twitter.com/highbrow_nobrow/status/1626331112824881153 Ahahaha I have a buddy who’s an economist living in his district, time to give him poo poo
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Feb 17, 2023 18:17
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I’d highly recommend The Outlier: The Life and Presidency of Jimmy Carter by Kai Bird, I learned a ton. It’s a well researched account and doesn’t overlook his flaws and mistakes, like his terrible relationship with a democrat Congress preventing big stuff from getting done, but is also highlights his achievements like his ridiculously intensive effort to get the Camp David Accords done. Also lots of interesting tidbits like his grandfather being murdered by a business partner in a dispute over office furniture and when he left as governor he carefully make sure the mansion’s furnace was turned down.
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Feb 19, 2023 23:18
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Handsome Ralph posted:I've had this on my "to-read" list for awhile now. Should probably get around to it sooner than later. It’s a top tier audiobook.
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Feb 19, 2023 23:27
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bird food bathtub posted:Whenever I was working on a flight line I just always figured that whatever closest line of apartments I could see had a representative of every other major government and a telephoto lens recording me. The cost/benefit would just be so incredibly valuable I can't imagine why it wouldn't happen. An uncle who was on B-52s over Vietnam that took off from Guam said the Soviets parked a boat offshore and would radio the North Vietnamese about take offs so they could get air defenses ready. He mentioned they were hyper attuned for flashes from the ground that indicated SAM launches, and they had a moment of panic when there were dozens of simultaneous flashes. They then realized they’d hit a SAM warehouse and the mood brightened.
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Feb 20, 2023 18:50
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I wonder if there have been measurable bumps in popularity for world leaders who are photographed with Zelenskyy, and that might be part of the motivation. Also I’m trying to think of previous examples of world leaders being targeted during major conflicts. I know the Germans shot down the plane of an actor who looked like Churchill, and Operation Long Jump was gonna go after the Allied leaders in 1943 although the Soviets might have made it up. Yamamoto was the big successful one although he wasn’t the PM. Probably lots of others. Hyrax Attack! fucked around with this message at 00:24 on Feb 21, 2023 |
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Feb 21, 2023 00:10
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SerthVarnee posted:I don't recall the Japanese Emperor getting sniped out of a plane during the war. Yup my mistake
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Feb 21, 2023 00:23
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That Works posted:Buddy and I did a double feature of The Day After and it. I have no idea why sometimes you get a morbid feeling I guess. For less grim quality 80s Lithgow, Terms of Endearment is excellent. One of my favorite nuclear themed 80s films is Special Bulletin, the framing device is tv news coverage of an incident in South Carolina. Excellent plot, acting, and tension, plus a five second Michael Madden cameo. Whole thing is on YouTube.
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Feb 21, 2023 01:06
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Defenestrategy posted:So what I'm getting is that my bank account is far less secure than AT&T internet. There was a Darknet Diaries episode about something like that, where a guy had a valuable Instagram handle and was being targeted for SIM swapping so he went into his phone company store and tried to get them to make it as hard as possible for someone pretending to be him to reset his password. Spoiler: didn’t work
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Feb 23, 2023 18:56
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CommieGIR posted:We're not talking city states here. China is wholly dependent on exports to support their economy. If they were not, they'd likely already had tried invading Taiwan. Yeah I’ve wondered about that, if China pulls off a quick invasion before the US could intervene there’d be sanctions but would be plausible it would be like Hong Kong where there wasn’t much disruption. But if it’s a long war with US Navy ships getting sunk, even if China did overrun Taiwan no way in hell anything leaves their ports for a NATO country even if that badly disrupts the world economy, and Russia and India aren’t gonna buy enough to prevent hundreds of millions of factory workers from becoming unemployed which is a recipe for social upheaval which is very much what China does not want. Except the same could be said for Russia invading Ukraine so I guess it comes down to what their leader wants. Dang the anti-Asian hysteria would be nightmarish in the US, it was bad enough with the Wuhan Flu nonsense. mlmp08 posted:https://twitter.com/armystrang/status/1629310150241669124?s=46&t=Uiw5LJj9dPRqqcJvx5EEdA Dang, I went to a Jewish wedding a few years back and an attendee had a SS neck tattoo. He was invited and a friend of the family and wasn’t causing trouble but that was baffling. I’d assume it was from prison but still dunno why he wouldn’t have had that removed immediately or at least put a bandaid on it, especially with many elderly Jews present.
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Feb 25, 2023 16:43
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CommieGIR posted:Ah yes, Israeli Utah. A Jewish buddy had a chuckle when he learned Mormons include Jews in their category of gentiles. Soylent Pudding posted:Back in high school my grandma gave me some alt history book where after the Holocaust the western powers refused to allow Jewish resettlement to British Palestine and as a compromise the US basically gave the European Jewish refugees a reservation in Alaska. I never read more than a few chapters and it was weird. The Yiddish Policemen's Union, I thought it was an interesting alternate history story.
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Feb 27, 2023 19:44
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