Open Thread

Open Thread #416: Clown World/Politics/Economics

Aaron "Sleazy" Elias

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56 thoughts on “Open Thread #416: Clown World/Politics/Economics”

    1. This is only the latest such cultural enrichment to have happened in Germany in the last few years. Ironically, the victims were attendees of a leftist labor union protest march. I have come across claims that some of the people in that organization were behind the staged “engineers welcome” events in 2016 at train stations, where young and not-so-young women welcomed new arrivals by waving teddy bears in the air. If this is indeed the case, then the chickens have come home to roost.

  3. I am scrambling through a website that teaches you Latin. I found this particular disheartening remark upon philology of the Western world:

    I can’t speak for Latin, but for Greek, quantity is up while quality is (far) down. You see lots of publications that are relatively easy to create. Many new commentaries lightly summarize older commentaries in slightly different wording. Publications that require elite knowledge of Greek, and that are therefore harder to create are rare. Greek composition is mostly dead. The Brill dictionary, that we discussed in the other thread, is mostly a summary (and in places a bad summary) of the LSJ. What of value that is created is almost always the product of specialized crabbing scholarship rather than a breadth of knowledge.

    You simply cannot judge a field by the quantity of paper produced. Quantity of publication is mostly driven by public funds, indirectly through student loans, etc., supporting staff positions at universities, and it is highly problematic to mistake that for real intellectual output. It’s often mostly spam.

    I would like to seek council from Sleazy about the future state of Humanities, but I find this regression beyond the means worrying, and disturbing, to say the utmost. For centuries, leaders from the West were schooled in the high tradition of Classics and History. American presidents were mostly well-educated or self-well-educated (Lincoln). The current drop of quality in research and in enrollments seem to put whole large but important fields into disrepute, and soon disrelict. I ask myself how society as a whole can maintain their current level of intellectualism, let alone make great leap forward.

    In my opinion, Humanities have always been an inner strive towards the world within each human, while sciences are a great struggle to discover truths beyond the confinement of our existence. As an observation that withstands time and proves counterintuitive in the physical world, an inner journey to the depth of human souls is just as profound as an outer expansion into the mystery of th universe. The world we are living seems to make a great stride in the latter, while neglecting the former. This makes most humans that I encounter seem very bland and undistinguishable. The degradation of language itself reflects greatly feeble minds human races possess. In not so distant future, humans perhaps will lose their ability to reason as well. It is disastrous, a monstrosity befallen upon all humans.

    I feel rather constricted in the world I live in, like being strangled by an invisible force. Money is not the knot that tights my neck, but the gloominess of the path that I am about to take, and an uncertain destination to which it may lead me.

    Reply

    1. I think there is great value in learning Latin and Greek, albeit I have only taken one semester of Greek at university. Standards are obviously declining across the board. In fact, I recently looked into the state of Latin and Greek at high schools, in particular the German educational system, as I have been wondering whether it is still a viable career path for a smart woman to pursue a career teaching these subjects in school. Demand for teachers with this qualification is unfortunately on a downward spiral. However, tertiary education is upstream from secondary education, and if not enough kids in school study these languages, a much smaller number will pursue these subjects at university. There is a glimmer of hope, though, in particular in light of Trump’s attempt to restore US culture. I think it was Elon Musk who recently stated that it does not make any sense that there are loans for people to attend “shitty universities”. If this leads to a massive downsizing of universities then you would be in a good position to once again create an environment where brilliant minds could thrive.

  4. Can you guys estimate the approximately true inflation rate of America. Something is wrong with the modern figure.

    Reply

    1. The official inflation data all over the Western world is heavily manipulated. To get an understanding of how bad the situation really is, pull up time series that show the cost of healthcare, education, and housing (median home) versus real-wage growth. Of course, “real wages” are based on the fake government inflation numbers, so you get the wrong picture. According to official data, real wages have been more or less stagnant while the price of all big-ticket items have exploded. If you adjust real wages downward, to take actual inflation into account, the situation is much worse.

  5. It has been increasingly wrong for at least 4 decades or so. Government began visibly manipulating the way they measure inflation in the 1980s, which leads to all sorts of “interesting phenomena”, like the GDP growth numbers being inflated, allowing for greater public spending.

    Unemployment numbers are routinely fudged too, BTW, mainly by underestimating underemployment and ignoring people who drop out of the workforce altogether because they cannot find work.

    shadowstats.com used to provide regular estimates based on older methodology, but they went behind a paywall in mid 2023. I suppose there must be other sites doing similar work, but I have not bothered to look up and see whether there are any of comparable reputation. Back when I used to follow them, real inflation was often 50% higher than the official one, and it compounds over time.

    Read here to get you started
    https://www.shadowstats.com/article/no-438-public-comment-on-inflation-measurement

    Reply

    1. @CQV

      I just remembered I had this other link archived

      https://www.dlacalle.com/en/the-united-states-has-been-in-a-recession-for-years/

      People may agree or not with his political commentary in the last couple paragraphs, but the preceding part looks solid enough regardless of political sympathies (and there are plenty of sources linked to follow up).

      TL,DR: The real economy in tje USA has been in recession for several years now. Voters can feel it IRL, thats why Trump won.

    2. Yeah, I don’t think the USA has had a healthy economy since the early 1970s. GDP growth? Great, the rich are getting richer. Low unemployment? Great, more McJobs.

      I think home ownership rate would be a better indicator.

    3. A very good indicator would be an “American Dream index”, i.e. tracking the income necessary to be part of the historical middle class. There is the observation that the Simpsons were middle class when the show started but today, that same lifestyle puts them in the lower upper class. Certainly, a house, two cars, putting two kids to college, and staying financially afloat is a lot more difficult today than it was in the 1990s.

    1. I have not but thanks for the reminder! Hopefully, I will manage to free up some time this or next week. On one hand, I fully expect to get disappointed but on the other there is the sunk-cost fallacy and after having watched the first four or five seasons I may as well go through the rest, too.

    2. Yeah it was every bit as dumb you’re imagining it to be.

      Severance is the only show I’m truly feeling rn. A couple things I could complain about, but it’s holding my attention and I’m here for the world-building/lore they’ve created

    1. Kash Patel seems to be a hardliner and fully supportive of Trump’s policies so I am cautiously optimistic. So far, the second Trump presidency has been going extremely well, and infinitely better than I had hoped in my wildest dreams. There is of course the downside that if he is only draining the swamp in order to prepare the United States for war against Iran and China, the end result of his actions will be quite negative.

  11. Ok, its anecdata time. Topic is covid vaccines.

    Today I ran into a colleage at the university. Her 40 year old ostensibly healthy eldest son just died, he came down with something aggresive a couple months ago. Doctors still dont know what it was, something destroyed his bone marrow. In hushed tones she confided in me she suspects the vaxx, and was relieved to find I share her opinion. She also mentioned two friends of hers, healthy women, both having miscarriages post vaxx.

    I gave her some info to delve deeper, but this episode led me to take stock of other unusual health phenomena I have been witnessing in the last 12 months. In addition to this guys death, I also saw:

    – One of my best buddies, 35yo male, lifelong asthmatic but otherwise healthy, suddenly discovered last year his kidneys are ruined. He got the remaining kidney capacity of a 70year old, and may need a transplant later on if he intends to reach a normal life expectancy. Doctors cannot pinpoint a reason why this happened to him.

    – One of my employees had a mini-stroke on site. I was not there at the time, but according to the other guys he collapsed in the shower and remained motionless. They took him to the nearest hospital, he had recovered most of his mobility and speech by the time they arrived there. Doctors adminstered one test after another, could not find anything that explains it.

    – Another employee, age 35, seems to be getting the flu 4 times a year, he was not sickly before.

    – my lawyer just died. Ostensibly healthy woman in her 50s, came down with some sort of super aggresive cancer, spent 3 months in the ICU and died.

    – a former student of mine (female, 27, professional sports player, recently told me she came down with a clot in an artery. Almost died in the hospital. I mentioned vaxx and she thinks it plausible.

    Thats just off the top of my head, i may be forgetting some.

    Any of you guys noticing such “,isolated” incidents piling up in your wider social circle?

    Reply

    1. I thought my anecdotal evidence regarding the vaxx was damning but it seems that my experiences are quite comparable to yours. I think we are about even here. I know of three colleagues, all between 30 and 40, who died suddenly and unexpectedly within the last four years, and several who, despite being relatively young, are racking up a lot of sick days. I know of one guy who had developed a benign tumor months. A good friend of mine, similar age as me, has developed endema in his extremities. He did not react positively when I brought up the vaxx as a possible cause. I have two other friends whom I suspect took the vaxx but did not want to reveal this toward me. One of them was quite hostile towards me the last time he saw me. He took Covid really seriously and probably is at least triple-vaxxed. For some reason, he looks a lot paler than he used to, but I do not know details of his medical records. The other guy has developed a psychosis, which could be unrelated, but there is some evidence that the vaxx may be to blame. Last but not least, my parents were both hit quite hard by the vaxx; both have had at least three shots, probably four. My mother is holding up well, yet has to take blood thinners. In contrast, my father was put on a whole slew of medications. His heart is down to less than 20% capacity and he gets out of breath on the way from the living room to the bathroom. The vaxx probably cut his remaining lifespan in half, and his quality of life has suffered tremendously. He is practically unable to leave the house.

    2. I have been following this a bit. What I gather is thatTrump puts pajeet in charge of FBI, Bondi demands files, gets a bunch of info that has already leaked and been known, Bondi demands pajeet hand over all the files by this morning, nothing come of it. Then there is some vague news about “phase 1”, whatever that means. As if they have a super slow fax machine and can only send over a few pages every hour. Something doesn’t add up.

    3. This was possibly an attempt by Kash Patel to establish dominance. I mean, who is Pam Bondi to tell him what to do? It surely is not easy for him to deal with the fact that there is this super-hot and powerful white woman bossing him around. I am not even joking. You can bet that there is quite some discontent even among Trump’s allies regarding his style of leadership as he dares to actually lead and not just spend 24/7 in a drug-induced stupor, not knowing what is going on.

    4. Hehehe, since the FBI Director reports directly to the Attorney General, Patel must be quite stupid if he’s playing that game with his own boss (who reports directly to the president). 😀

      Well, he’s of a peasant caste, so…

    5. @Yarara:

      The will to annihilation is an essential part of winning a war. When a state invariably pursue the goal of annihilating its enemy, it would succeed most of the times if other factors are favourable. The will of a nation cannot be measured by just interest, also interests of various within the society of that nation plays an important role. The will to war is actually the perception of the publics about the possibility of winning a conflict, even though that perception might be illusory and constructed entirely from propaganda. In history, there are various occasions when a state prolongs its war effort in face of immense casualties and adversaries from the battlefield. Nazi Germany was an example. The war, by 1944, was already hopeless, yet the Wehrmacht fought on until the total collapse happened in 1945. The North Vietnam is another example. Despite suffering horrendous casualties in comparison to the US, the political will of her leaders, the intensely effective propaganda and the large reservoir of manpower allowed her to the final victory. These are examples of how the will of war is sustained.

      America has a faint will and poor control of the media. She also does not censor information from other sources. Under the influence of foreign intelligence services, American publics are exposed to misinformation and distortion. Once again, they thought Ukraine would lose and Russia is invincible. If this then becomes the reality in their mind, then their country essentially hast lost the will of war. In war, the complete control of information through censor and propaganda are essential tools to prop up public morale.

      Russia still has a significant stocpile of military equipments. However, she also suffers from demographic crisis, she cannot openly conscript men like in Stalin times. She has to rely on North Korea and China for manpower and material supports. Her military equipments are also depleting despite significant reserves left by the Soviet Union. The reduction in quality of these equipments are unavoidable because she cannot effective manufacture new equipments under sanctions.

      Russian economy is also sliding into crisis, with high inflation despite very high interest rate. Her civilian industries must compete with military sides for raw materials.

      If Ukrainian people continue to fight on, with the help of EU despite the cowardice of Trump and his epilepsy diplomacy, then Russia would find herself in a battle for survival, and Putin risks losing his entire career if Russia is defeated. If Ukranian people, however, are happy with peace, and just want to return to normal life, accepting defeats then Ukraine will effectively lose this conflict. America will face the most shameful defeat in the twenty first century. She would lose her allies, lose her powerful grip on the European continent, and also lose everything she has ever granted to Ukraine. The consequence would be so devastating that her population will feel it.

  14. Hey guys,
    Do you think that with Trump being president now, our European leaders will slow the insanity and loose the grasp on us, or, at the contrary, they will panic and go full totalitarian? News from Romania (anti-EU leader Georgescu, currently favored by polls, detained for 5 hours by police on bogus charges) don’t bode well.
    Also, I heard the turnout in Germany was unusually high, which may mean election rigging.

    Reply

    1. The European deep state is trying desperately to keep its grip on society but without the backing of the United States it is unclear for how long this can go on. For instance, what would happen if the EU insists on censoring free speech online and X, Meta, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snap, etc. just ignore such requests? I do not think they would have the balls to cut off access to the EU market for these social media companies as this would lead to a pretty severe public backlash. Probably people are more likely to protest such a move than unfettered illegal mass immigration.

    1. This is the least important issue. It is not hard for the president to find a suit. He might project an image of modesty and togetherness with his compatriots who are fighting and dying valiantly for a country they help to save.

      What is more worrying is the decision of Trump. At the beginning, when the war opened, I supported a ceasefire and wanted the war to end soon because that would reduce the casualties for Ukraine. But up until this moment, I see no reasons not to continue. Russia was already exhausted from this war, Ukraine could just continue in order to weaken Russia.

      It is always the same with the US. They lack the iron will to drive the last nail into the coffin of their enemy, and in that process betray and abandon their allies. It was like that in the Vietnam War, and so presently.

      You need the iron will of Rome when Hannibal was at the your door in order to convince the population to continue with the war you waged. This will has been given great importance to by Clausewitz, yet America fails once again to uphold her obligation as an ally.

    2. Alright, let us agree that the suit is the least important issue. However, he cannot even be bothered to put on a suit. It is a triviality. Instead, the multi-billionaire Zelenskyy prefers to pretend to be some kind of general who flies in to meet world leaders while taking a break from commandeering his military from his bunker. Him dressing in a sweater is a laughable PR strategy. This is the equivalent of you showing up for work in your underpants in the tech industry.

    3. “ Russia was already exhausted from this war, Ukraine could just continue in order to weaken Russia”.
      You have no idea whether this would happen. Maybe Ukraine will just loose more territory and more men.

      “ It is always the same with the US. They lack the iron will to drive the last nail into the coffin of their enemy, and in that process betray and abandon their allies. It was like that in the Vietnam War, and so presently.”

      Not at all. Russia is no threat to the US, Vietnam was no threat to the US. Why should America spend large amount of resources on conflicts where the outcomes doesn’t affect the average US citizen? On top of that to win these conflicts the US needs to escalate. In Vietnam that meant invading north Vietnam and Laos/Cambodia, in Ukraine that means setting up a no fly zone and having troops on the ground. But these actions involve massive risks and costs which are not worth it for Americans

    4. CQV:

      I agree. The U.S. hasn’t really gone balls to the wall in any important conflict since the Korean War. The Vietnam War was a tragic and completely preventable failure.

      Ceasing support for Diem and Vietnamization were two very stupid mistakes. If the U.S. hadn’t done that we could easily have had a situation similar to the Koreas today, and quite possibly a unified and free non-communist Vietnam.

      But Nixon decided to stop listening to the Department of Defense and start listening to the diplomats at the Department of State instead. Big mistake.

      OTP:

      I think you may have misunderstood the purpose of the Vietnam War.

      North Vietnam as a country was no threat to the U.S., but communism was, and a unified Vietnam aligned with the Soviet Union and/or China was. That’s why the U.S. was so heavily involved in that war, just like it was in the Korean War.

      But the Vietnam War is one of the most misunderstood American wars. A lot of people actually believe it was a war between the U.S. and Vietnam, for example, even though there wasn’t even a unified Vietnam until after the war ended. It was a war between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, with the U.S. backing South Vietnam.

      A growing Russia is absolutely a threat to the U.S. (and the rest of the world) today. Are we gonna let them reclaim all of the old Soviet Union and have a new Cold War? Not a good idea IMO.

    5. I didn’t misunderstand the purpose of the war. Vietnam becoming communist didn’t pose a threat to the US. That’s why after north vietnam won in 1975 the sky didn’t fall in the US.

      However, the war in Vietnam helped to propel the 60s-70s counterculture movements. Ironically all the cultural, social and political changes stemming from that has been the biggest threat to the west and probably leads to its downfall.

      There is also no reason why there should be a new Cold War if Russia reclaims the old Soviet Union – which isn’t going to happen btw.

    6. @CQV

      Political will is a function of the level of interests involved. If those interests are vital, they will elicit a correspondingly larger will to fight on, and this will be reflected in the amount of sacrifices a population and a political system will be willing to make. Its hard to argue that vital US interests were at stake in either Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, or now Ukraine.

      The first three of these conflicts were unambiguously lost by the US, as in their political objectives remained unachived and unachievable in all cases (war being in service of political objetives, as Clausewitz famously wrote). But given the disparity of power between the countries, the US could afford to bleed money and (some) troops into them for years on end rather than admitting defeat. And once they pulled out they suffered little consequence.

      Ukraine is still ongoing, so things can still evolve in unexpected ways. But the current trajectory points to a Russian military victory and a diminishig Ukraine/US leverage to dictate any terms on the outcome.

      Lack of political will is not the main variable here, its material contraints on US power (and the West more generally), which were laid bare during the course of this war. Other than directly intervening, they have pretty much thrown all they could realistically throw at Russia and they have withstood it quite well.

      The war is lost, period. Russia is not exhausted, and while on a longer timeline the current level of operations might be difficult to sustain, they have much more runway left than the ukrainians.

      The consequences of a defeat in Ukraine will be much greater for the US this time, however, because it will likely deal a severe blow, maybe to the point of fracture, to the system of allies/vassals that the US has in its western european sphere of influence.

      The Europeans have been shown to be useless without US power backing them up, and US has been shown unable and unwilling to keep propping them up.

    7. OTP:
      Nobody’s been talking about the sky falling in the U.S., so I’m not sure what you’re on about there.

      No reason there would be a new Cold War? I think Russia has been pretty clear about wanting to reclaim its former “glory,” and while it’s only attacked Ukraine so far, it’s also meddled militarily in Moldova and Georgia, and plans for the annexation of Belarus were leaked a year or two ago.

      Yarara:
      Whether Ukraine can persevere or not is really dependent on aid from the west and the U.S. If all the aid were cut off, the country wouldn’t stand a chance. If the aid keeps flowing, it’s another story.

      Of course, if the U.S. and the European countries actually intervened militarily on Ukraine’s side, they could drive the Russians out very quickly. But I don’t think anyone’s willing to go that far.

    8. Karl, I was under the impression that the US and Europe have been intervening heavily in this war, but somehow they have not fared that well. There are many reports of foreign soldiers who, akshually, are not really Brits or Frenchmen or NATO operatives but randoms who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    9. Karl:
      You said that a communist and unified Vietnam was a threat to the US. But we got a communist and unified Vietnam and…. it was no threat to the US.

      If Russia (and it’s a big if as Russia only invades a neighbor if the neighbor aligns with the west) re-established the former Soviet Union there is no reason for a Cold War. Russia is not interested in a conflict with the US. And the US should not be interested in a conflict with Russia as Russia is no threat to the US.

    10. Aaron:
      Nah, they’ve sent instructors and trainers, but not actual combat troops. A bunch of foreign volunteers have gone there to fight for both Ukraine and Russia (even a few Swedes have gone to fight for Ukraine!), but there haven’t been any sent officially.

      Of course we can’t rule out that there may be some special forces soldiers or the like which are there doing covert missions, but they’re unlikely to be engaged in direct frontline combat. Even if they were, their numbers wouldn’t be large enough to significantly affect the war.

      When I talked about intervention I talked about sending significant numbers of actual combat troops. AFAIK the only significant contingent of foreign soldiers in that war are the North Koreans (if enough of them remain to still be considered a significant number – I haven’t read up on them lately, but a few weeks ago it seemed impossible to get firm numbers about North Korean casualties from either side).

      Anything else seems very unlikely. The U.S. or other NATO countries sending actual combat troops to fight openly on Ukraine’s side seems very unlikely, as Russian and NATO soldiers warring against and killing each other is undesirable for both sides. Same thing with the Chinese (though they have much less interest in helping Russia than the west has in helping Ukraine, so it’s a moot point anyway).

      —–

      OTP: Re: Vietnam, yes, the free world lucked out with Vietnam. The domino theory turned on its head, since Vietnam aligned more closely with the Soviet Union than China, so it was the Vietnamese who stopped the Khmer Rouge when Cambodia fell to communists. That wasn’t something that was possible to predict in advance, and it could easily have turned out much worse.

      I don’t see why you’d think a Russia with its old territory (or at least most of it) restored would be any more friendly than the Soviet Union was. Once Stalin expelled Trotsky and established his socialism in one country they didn’t really have any more reason to be hostile toward the U.S. than Russia has today.

      Since as I mentioned before Russia has concrete plans on how to annex Belarus, the notion that they’ll somehow leave countries alone if they don’t align with the west appears false. There’s no country more closely aligned to Russia than Belarus.

    11. Aaron:
      I don’t understand why he dresses like that either. It’s obviously because of the war, but then it’d make more sense to dress in an actual uniform, rather than some casual-looking field gear.

      Uniforms are often accepted as equivalent to civilian formal wear under formal dress codes, so while it would be unusual for a president to wear one, with an appropriate uniform it wouldn’t be a fashion faux pas. Certainly less unusual than what Zelensky wears. He looks kinda like he’s dressed for manual labor work.

    12. @Karl

      When there is enough will to resist, you can go on for a long time, like the Vietnamese or Afghans showed, but you have to go down to the asymmetrical level. It does not make anyone invincible, and the Russians actually have a better track record at crushing insurgents and terrorists than the USA, their debacle in Afghanistan during the 1980s is an exception.

      In case of the Ukraine, they are close to a spent force on the conventional level. Many a western warmonger imagines that if defeated on the battlefield the Ukrainians will revert to asymmetric warfare (guerrilla, terrorism) and deal Russia another Chechnya or Afghanistan. But Russians have plenty of experience dealing with this stuff, and if more subtle methods fail, you can always resort to levelling the entire place with artillery, which they have done repeatedly. Ugly bussiness, but effective.

      I very much disagree with the idea that Europe/USA could decisively intervene in the war against Russia with their own forces on a conventional level, and “drive the russians out” as you say. European forces are not only much smaller, they are at terrible levels of readiness. Most of their equipment is not fully mission capable and has not been for years, their units are understrength and have no relevant combat experience to speak of. Check out the sorry state of the UK;
      https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/02/18/british-army-3-uk-division-tanks-armour-artillery/

      And their magazine depth is close to zero, if they entered high intensity combat they would run out of ammo, depending on the country, somewhere in between 2 weeks and 2 months. And they lack a lot of the ISR enablers, and even the logistical bandwidth to deploy at any meaningful distance. I recently read the German railway does not even have the capacity to properly transport troops and armor anymore, thats why so much gets sent by ship these days.
      https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-354-of-trains-and-tanks

      The US still has combat capable forces in reserve, and a sizable stock of precision munitions, but they have to project that power across the Atlantic. The US Navy Sealift command is in a pretty sorry state these days, and its the better one in NATO. The UK sealift capacity is in tatters.

      And it would still lkely not be enough to take on a Russian army that is now larger and much more experienced than 3 years ago. Air defense and electronic warfare crews are now experienced enough that they can severely degrade any aerospatial attack the US can throw at them, while having enough ballistic missiles to lay waste to their home bases in the mean time. So yeah, if you are the USA, and you take an honest look at how the actual capabilities of your forces match up, you would be very reluctant to enter that fight.

    13. Yarara:
      Those are some sad comments about the U.K. armored divisions and the German railway system indeed!

      Still, Russia has been bogged down against Ukraine for over three years now. Ukraine + the U.S.A. + Europe would obviously be more than enough to drive them out of Ukraine, despite the weaknesses of their respective militaries.

      Not like Russia doesn’t have its own issues. I mean, their transporting military supplies by donkey, and attacking Ukrainian positions in civilian vehicles! No, I’m not joking:
      https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/03/03/russian-armys-use-of-donkeys-in-ukraine-underscores-a-staggering-equipment-shortage-a88174

      A bit of a sidetrack, but for those who may be pro-Russian, I recommend this video series:
      https://odysee.com/@JohnnysGhost:8/a-study-on-russian-propaganda-1:f

      But beware! IIRC the creator is a national socialist, which of course means he is pure evil, and cannot be trusted. The video is recommended for entertainment purposes only.

    14. Before someone mocks me to (a well-deserved) death, I just realized I messed up “their” and “they’re.” Pretty much the most low-class, undereducated type of grammar mistake you can make.

      May God and all of you who read it have mercy on my soul. 😀

    15. Karl, I think I’m finally starting to like your posting style 😂

      I can’t imagine if people took the time to correct my litany of spelling errors. Even autocorrect says, “fuck it, you’re on your own.”

      Did I spell that right? 😂

    17. @Karl:
      One of the reasons why I shift my attitude from appeasement and surrender to supporting wars was because there were signs that Russia were already tired of this war. That does not, however, blind me from the fact that this country is massive and has all resources to concentrate on this conflict. To use the word of an American historian who described the Union in relations their conflict with the South, and to paraphrase him, if Russia’s left hand has ever been beaten badly by the Ukrainians, she would present another hand from her back.

      The material commitment of America and Europe falls far below what Ukraine needs, even for defensive wars, which I find to be an immoral thing to do because they deliberately prolong the war to strangle Russia, while keeping themselves in a safe distance from the conflict.

      I am not sure if morale was high in the Ukrainian army. The country was not prepared for war and had difficulty of conscripting troops.

      So, Trump had some reasons to stop it, because the future was undefined.

      But if America truly wanted to bring down Russia, she must be ready to go much further than this. 3 years is nothing compared to 30 years in Vietnam, and perhaps fiscally, this is no longer feasible for America.

    18. the Russians actually have a better track record at crushing insurgents and terrorists than the USA, their debacle in Afghanistan during the 1980s is an exception.

      I believe you are referring to the two Chechen Wars. I have been trying to look for Western aids to Chechen rebels but could not find any reliable source. The success of Russia there was simply massive force discrepancy and wise post-war arrangement, in which Russia sought to instal Kadirov as their loyal strongman instead of turning Chechnya into a “democracy”.

      Apart from this, I don’t think you could find other examples in the 20th century.

    19. CQV:

      Yeah, I share your view on Chechnya. If anything, the Chechen Wars were examples of Russia’s impotence. They’re stronger now than they were back then, though, but not as strong as some people seem to think (as we can see from them failing to take Ukraine after over three years).

  17. Fucking unreal. I checked to see who the winners were at the Oscars to see that Adrien Brody won best actor.

    This is his second time to win the award putting him in the company of Tom hanks, Marlon Brando, and Jack Nicholson.

    Brodie won his first award for The Pianist where he plays a persecuted Jew during the Holocaust.

    Get this. What sort of role did he win for yesterday? He plays a “Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor who immigrates to the United States”.

    He’s won two best actor Oscar’s for playing a fucking Holocaust Jew

    Reply

    1. Holy hell, they made a movie about the Holocaust? First time for everything I guess 😉

      Seriously though, I think Adrian Brodie is a better actor than Tom Hanks. Neither are on the level of Jack Nicholson.

  18. The DOGE X feed is wild. Here are some examples of how various illegal immigrants casually fleece the taxpayer. My favorite example is the guy from Peru who has had checks mailed to him (in Peru!) for almost two decades:
    https://x.com/doge/status/1896969471476011405
    Of course, all of this only means that this is the most effective foreign aid there is as there is no middle man to go through and these people undoubtedly invested the money into the local economy, multiplying the benefit for the US taxpayer over and over.

    Reply

    1. Those payments are insane!

      The U.S. cross-checking of records must be among the worst in the western world. Paying out benefits to dead people is especially ridiculous.

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