Russian marines and paratroopers

Apparently these are elite troops as well.

Yeah, I was just thinking “is KLM not working, or what”?

Rescue planes are usually for places where commercial air traffic has broken down and there is no safe way out of the country.

And I was just making a lame joke about your spelling being exactly one typo away from two differently valid spellings.

IMO, the whole topic is nothing but a political tool, and most people wouldn’t care either way.

So there is this one playbook that the Russian-aligned right likes to play, which is: take an issue nobody but a very small minority of people care about, but it has to be something they can’t just let go. For example, the rights of trans people in the US, but in Hungary it has been the existence of one particular university at one point.

Then start bombarding your base with misinformation about how this thing is bad for society and has to be opposed, and introduce legislation. Finally, watch the small minority protest continuously and very fiercely for the issue that is existential for them, and lay back while this issue occupies public discourse for months and years, precluding other serious issues being discussed as you can comfortably be in a majority position while doing whatever you want without public attention.

The insidiousness is that the issue is really existential for the people affected, so you can’t tell them to let it go, and a lot of very loud people would demonize you for letting it go as well since it is existential for them.

So you have three options:

• Take up the fight in the issue and let it be the deciding issue for elections, driving turnout for your opponent - see gay and trans rights
• Try to take the opposite side and leave the minority group to fend for themselves, and lose them as voters - see funding the Gaza genocide
• Be a stereotypical politician and change the topic each time it comes up, which will blunt the first effect, but you will still get some of the second - this is unfortunately usually the good choice

But to actually win, what you have to do is:

• Use the tactic to your advantage and make your own attacks, keeping the topics on your talking points

Just off the top off my head, here are a few ideas the Dems could have done the same to the Reps, and I’m not a genius:

• Declare the KKK to be a terrorist organization
• Make it illegal to fly the Confederate flag on public buildings
• Institute a federal ban on child marriages

I know each of these would rile up some small segment of the Republican base, but that’s the point! You want to make them fiercely defend points that not all of them care about, as not all of them will turn out for all of these issues. You want the Mormons out in arms on the streets protesting the child marriage ban so you can be “tough on crime” and “crack down on the rioting Mormon paedophiles”.

Es ist entweder “Gesundheit” auf Deutsch, of “gezondheit” in het Nederlands.

Not the person who you were talking with, but I think it’s nuanced. Short term tradeoffs should be made for effectiveness, while long-term strategies should be relentlessly pursued for inclusivity.

E.g. as a man, I think that the women-only carriages in a lot of SEA countries are a necessary thing, but it has to be a short term solution with a healthier society should be always consistently pursued, for example with educational measures.

It is somewhat relevant, though. For example, it’s relevant for designing stuff so that everyone regardless of their phenotypical makeup is equally able to function in society. For example, if it didn’t matter at all if a lot of people have no penises, we could have urinals everywhere, or conversely for the opposite, we would have no need for urologists. Or if it really didn’t matter what colour someone’s skin is, we wouldn’t have to have differentiated medical care for people of different phenotypes, or we wouldn’t need to think about calibrating sensors for different skin colours for detectors so that every device functions for everyone.

But I get your point, a lot of the reasons people think biological differences matter are all made up and mostly bullshit.

It’s explicitly a war crime, whether or not it was “targeted”.

https://lieber.westpoint.edu/exploding-pagers-law/

Yes it is, and not because of whether the attacks were targeted.

“It is prohibited to use booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material.”

This is a US West Point essay BTW.

It’s only bigotry if it’s cishetwhitemen doing it, otherwise it’s just sparkling discrimination.

I’m not in the trenches of this particular culture war, so I don’t know shit, but I really do wonder why not phrase it as “people who want to be better allies” instead of targeting a single racial group and sexual orientation. Would feel more inclusive.

Welcome to Europe Squid!

Rule number one, the French are dicks.

Oh of course, the Brexit idiots were also faulting the EU for “retaliating”, as in reinstating border controls for UK citizens when the UK pulled out from the relevant international treaty.

They are never wrong, are they?

Subject: Fire

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to inform you of a fire that has broken out on the premises of 123 Cavendon Road

**no, that’s too formal.**

Fire! Fire! Help me! 123 Cavendon Road. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Yours truly, Maurice Moss.

That’s what they want you to think. Otherwise, all the tourists would be taking their shits on Tiktok in this “hidden gem”.

It’s not just Americans, remember the Brexiteers realizing that due to Brexit, they need a visa for their Spanish holiday, and they have to stand in the “rest of the world” line?

We will see a bunch of “this is not the Brexit I’ve voted for” to come.

9/11 is the new Red Scare?

Not in the US, not yet.

In a Russian style society, money means jack shit against actual power.

Nobody ever accused voters of being smart. That said, Harris lost a lot of Biden’s 2020 voters, so this is the exact good time to go super critical on her campaign.

Imagine Murdoch arguing with Trump, trying to bankroll another party to rein him in, with it ending in him selling all his news outlets and retiring.

The point is that money doesn’t get you political power in this system.

Look at Russia’s oligarchs. Hell, look at Hungary.

There was this one wealthy guy bankrolling Orbán’s campaigns, one of the wealthiest people in Hungary. He got into an argument with Orbán publicly. Today he’s neither wealthy, nor living in Hungary.

The people will not turn on rich people. I’m saying rich people are used to be controlling politics, but in a Russian style system, rich people are controlled BY politics, not the other way around.