DradisPing
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User ID: 1102
DradisPing
11hr ago
So this is the rough sequence of events for the first Iraq war...
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Iraq had an oil reservoir that was almost all in Iraq, but extended like a mile into Kuwait. Fact check the exact distance before quoting, but it wasn't far.
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Kuwait was doing slant drilling operations along the border.
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Iraq was upset and started massing troops.
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The US assumed that Iraq was just planning to take the small strip along the border and didn't think it was worth getting involved. They sent a State Department official to deliver the message "The USA takes no position on inter-Arab border disputes"
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Saddam hears this and launches a full invasion of all of Kuwait.
So the first Iraq war was essentially about trying to fix a State Department screw up. They tried to give an inch and Saddam tried to take a mile.
DradisPing
3d ago
Girls are far more into the Wizard of Oz than boys are.
I think it captures the idea of "little girl goes on an adventure" much better than most stories.
For boys it's just a fairly forgettable movie they saw in their childhood and it's crowded out of their thoughts by films they see when they are just a little bit older and have guns / swords / battles / etc.
Stories aimed at girls introduce romantic plots well before the audience is old enough to have any interest in boys. It's probably a cultural hint to try to get them to choose their future partners wisely. I think Oz sticks with them as a fun adventure fantasy with no boys allowed.
Additionally there's a strong cultural current of "witches are awesome and evil witch stories are just the patriarchy pushing misogyny".
So a story that goes back and reinterprets the Wicked Witch as misunderstood and kind of bad ass is fun.
DradisPing
3d ago
Look, the typical CBC reporter is going to tune out once the researcher starts talking about "the sagitta of the circle segment".
The expert is just giving an evasive answer because he doesn't want to do detailed work to make sure that's how NL should look in the photo.
The math says that earth curvature shouldn't block the view of the higher parts of NL.
Is there a strong rebuttal posted somewhere?
DradisPing
6d ago
At least they are front to back. 2020s offices like to put people face to face which is horrible when you are trying to concentrate on something.
DradisPing
7d ago
Tech jobs all went to open concept offices so the 90s cubicles people were complaining about look ridiculously nice.
DradisPing
7d ago
So United States attorneys work for the Executive Branch and are supposed to be selected by the AG.
Clause (d) looks like it's just there to let courts do something to keep the district courts functioning in the case of political paralysis.
If the legislature actually wanted to strip the executive of its ability to make temporary appointments then they would have at least used "shall appoint a United States attorney" instead of "may".
Also this text has existed since at least 1986 and Lindsey Halligan is the first one a court has attempted to remove. I'm fairly sure it's not the first time there's been a second temporary appointment.
Combine that with the fact that the Eastern Virginia legal establishment strongly wants to stop these prosecutions and I think it's likely that this judge is purposefully misinterpreting the law.
DradisPing
8d ago
So the thing about Fuentes is that he's basically a pure streamer. He doesn't really write articles that people read, come up with original insights, or do any effective organization.
He came up doing political commentary on YouTube so he wasn't ever doing gaming streams or anything before that. Also he's been at it since 2017.
So he's basically in a category by himself, similar figures haven't built up an audience. It takes a huge amount of time dedicated to something that doesn't make much money and has huge downsides to get where Fuentes is.
My understanding is he's gotten bigger recently largely because of Netanyahu burning up so much good will towards Israel on the right.
DradisPing
8d ago
Yes. They probably couldn't do direct transfers even if they wanted to, it'd be too easy for the US Government to shut down. They probably do know that some of the money is ending up with al-Shabaab.
DradisPing
8d ago
They aren't exactly a terrorist group like you're probably thinking, hidden with cells.
Somalia is in a civil war. Al-Shabaab is an Islamist faction in that war that commits terrorist attacks and is affiliated with al-Qaeda.
A lot of the Somalis in the west were refugees because they were supporters of Siad Barre before his government fell in 1990. Somali naming conventions are somewhat opaque to outsiders, so it was easy for colonels to just say they were teachers. The Barre government is hard to pin down ideologically, it was allied with the Soviet Bloc and also Islamist groups that opposed westernization.
So a lot of American-Somalis have family aligned with al-Shabaab due to tribal loyalties, support for Islam, local family strategies, etc.
DradisPing
9d ago
Nick Fuentes fans. Generally the ones who form online mobs. If you talk about Fuentes on Xitter you'll attract a big group of them at once.
Reporters have been trying to stretch the term by talking about "Groyper-adjacent views" but it's generally very narrow and specific.
DradisPing
9d ago
There's a huge market for "fun eating" where a unique social way of cooking and eating the food is part of the evening's entertainment.
Korean BBQ. Hot pot. Fondue. Even roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over a campfire.
So think of it as a ready to go memorable dinner party.
DradisPing
14d ago
It's very telling how Michael Avenatti didn't get disbarred or disciplined until he was arrested for trying to extort Nike. Suddenly the California Bar Association started moving forward on complaints about him stealing client money.
DradisPing
14d ago
The character creation screen really needs another screen...
I am interested in:
- Men
- Women
- Both
I find mindflayers sexy:
- Yes
- No
- Maybe
DradisPing
17d ago
Microsoft's focus is on corporate users with remotely managed machines. They don't put much energy into the home user who goes into Control Panel on his own.
DradisPing
21d ago
Is it providing a real service of protecting the schools from liability somehow?
Most likely the payment processor came to the school with a deal where the processor will provide and install all the hardware and software needed, while giving the school a chunk of that fee.
DradisPing
22d ago
In the US they used to say "sitting Indian-style". Then that was seen as racially insensitive so they switched to "sitting criss cross apple sauce".
I grew up in an area that just said "sitting cross-legged" and I don't understand why they had to come up with a silly rhyme. Now I occasionally hear adults say it. It annoys me so much.
DradisPing
22d ago
Dissident Right includes a bunch of sub groups interested in various things, I'm not sure if this nails the correct people you're looking for. These are more from about ten years back than what's probably current.
But here are some books I'd recommend.
Michael Malice - The New Right
Steve Sailer - Noticing
Sailer is a quite important idea person, but his writing is scattered over a series of blogs. Noticing is a handy anthology. Otherwise he's currently writing at http://www.stevesailer.net and https://www.takimag.com/contributor/Steve%20Sailer/6/
John Derbyshire
Collects his writings at https://johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/page.html, has an anthology of essays coming out soon: https://passage.press/products/john-derbyshire
Curtis Yarvin
These are probably the two most important articles to read, https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/05/castes-of-united-states/ https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/05/bdh-ov-conflict_07/
Currently writes at https://graymirror.substack.com/
He has a book "A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations" that is less accessible than the title would suggest.
Christopher Caldwell - The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties
He's not a dissident right thinker, but the book captures important points
Tucker Carlson - Ship of Fools
Not a deep make you think book, but it lays out the grievances well
Ann Coulter - Adios America
Really only included because it does a good job documenting how the government chooses not to collect a lot of obvious relevant data about immigration, which the left turns into an argument "there's no proof of X, therefore I'm right"
DradisPing
23d ago
So I'm not on the left, but as far as I can tell it's not really about any specific policy.
The Dem base thinks that Congress isn't doing enough to fight Trump. Schumer supported a continuing resolution back in March to avoid a shutdown and was heavily criticized for it.
There's been talk about having AOC challenge him in the 2028 New York Senate primary. She's leading in some polls.
Mamdani's victory can be taken as a sign that there's a strong dissatisfaction with the Dem old guard in New York in particular.
So with funding set to expire back on September 30th the Dems came out with demands for 1.5 trillion in new spending.
Trump isn't inclined to back down because he's been forced to keep a lot of things in the executive branch due to them being mandated by congressional funding, and now they are technically not funded so he should be free to wind many of them down.
The Obamacare argument is that covid era additional subsidies were set to expire and the Dems want those extended.
Thune is probably quietly pushing for a compromise package where both parties get a bunch of new spending. But I don't think he can sell that to the Rep base without Trump. It's hard for him to go back to voters and tell them that after the 2024 victory he didn't have enough power to keep funding at current levels.
So I think the Dems have the weaker hand, but Schumer probably sees getting a win as existential.
I'm not sure how it's going to play out. It'll be interesting if it's still going on Black Friday.
DradisPing
25d ago
Reporters are abandoning their standards and playing a game of "we aren't reporting y, we're just reporting that people said y" instead of verifying anything.
Left activists think it's OK to lie in immigration contexts and the press lets them get away with it.
So it's a situation where they trust the government much more instead of absolutely trusting the government. They are willing to wait for DHS Official to look at their records and respond.
You seem to be trying to turn trust into a binary and that's not really how it works.
DradisPing
28d ago
A lot of that is Americans downplaying British ancestry post 1776. Genetic analysis from 23 and me showed that the US is much more British and Irish than French and German. Scottish vs Irish is hard to tease apart over time.
The US is the only country on earth where iced tea is more popular than hot tea because drinking tea is seen as suspiciously British.
DradisPing
28d ago
With the SF Bay area the key ingredient was the US Navy doing a lot of research and engineering there. It created a concentration of engineering talent that wouldn't have occurred on it's own.
DradisPing
29d ago
So I think a lot of the anti-Musk sentiment is driven by him humiliating the wrong people. Space-X makes NASA look bad. Tesla made American car companies look bad. The Starlink deployment in Ukraine made a whole lot of defence companies and EU leaders look bad.
A grossly simplified model of progressivism is that it believes all of the worlds problems are fixed by giving more money to progressives.
A lot of modern problems with governance are caused by the fact that they won't be blatant and just say that 30% of funding must be set aside for fake jobs for families of connected people on the left. Instead they mandate that various consultants must be hired or certain companies must get the contracts. As a result the actual work gets affected.
Here's a video from a NASA subcontractor explaining how the minority owned business requirements are affecting projects: https://youtube.com/watch?v=FIONXPbIkVo
DradisPing
1mo ago
"This post is not available in your country."
Instagram has decided that they are a hate crime in Canada.
DradisPing
1mo ago
A guy with an IQ in the 50s might not even notice he's on it.
He'll probably be sad when his friend the probation officer stops calling and asking him what he's been up to.
You're misreading the situation on that one. Hegseth is still too young and pretty to have the look Trump would prefer for SecDef.
Hegseth was picked because he had publicly beefed with the Generals about how the military should be run. Some of their behaviour in Trump's first term was frankly illegal, eg lying to Trump about troop counts in Syria. Trump needed someone who knew enough about the military and was willing to be adversarial.
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