Quote (Goomshill @ Jul 4 2024 10:23am)

What are the parallels? There have been a lot of more repressive more disagreeable regimes than the Taliban, who are mostly a decentralized bunch of goatherd tribal chieftains. And other countries have experienced huge quality of life increases in the past few decades, but that's also been dependent on actually having resources or those centralized powers to sign up for urbanization paid for by the Chinese as they snake their tendrils into the third world. Similarly the world bank has been able to leverage western investment to not just prop up quality of life but also force our own moral system on them, which would have hypothetically been a hedge against the regressive Taliban. Maybe in another timeline we could soften their policies and have some liberalized enclaves like Kabul in exchange for us building up infrastructure that wasn't just going to get torched in a war.

Best case scenario, Afghanistan just wound up in the same lack of development except with tens of thousands of civilians dead and a more militarized and empowered Taliban. Worst case scenario, we stopped them from modernizing at the hands of foreign masters whether east or west. Either way they're worse off than if we had left them alone

Quote (Goomshill @ Jul 9 2024 01:15pm)

https://nypost.com/2024/07/09/us-news/supreme-court-justice-sotomayors-bodyguard-shoots-would-be-carjacker-outside-her-home/

A reminder that they do indeed live in DC

Quote (zorzin @ 10 Jul 2024 15:05)

Based Biden now has my vote!

https://i.postimg.cc/52vtY1Xx/1720583109958951m.jpg

The banger of a line starts at 12:05
https://youtu.be/MeP7z1GCsDM?si=eYRfc3lHV035YBCJ&t=728

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jul 10 2024 08:12am)

Nothing burger. Biden clearly meant that he had talked to Stoltenberg's wife before asking Stoltenberg to extend his service beyond the date when he was originally scheduled to retire. He's thanking Stoltenberg and his family for making a personal sacrifice because NATO needed stability in such a moment of crisis.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Jul 10 2024 09:12am)

Nothing burger. Biden clearly meant that he had talked to Stoltenberg's wife before asking Stoltenberg to extend his service beyond the date when he was originally scheduled to retire. He's thanking Stoltenberg and his family for making a personal sacrifice because NATO needed stability in such a moment of crisis.

Quote (Goomshill @ Jul 10 2024 09:27am)

He's flubbing his canned lines even with a teleprompter so badly he winds up saying something ambiguous about what he did with another man's wife that needs forgiving

Quote (Goomshill @ 10 Jul 2024 15:27)

He's flubbing his canned lines even with a teleprompter so badly he winds up saying something ambiguous about what he did with another man's wife that needs forgiving