You blew up their natural gas pipeline.
Ukrainians did that. But I advocate the US government destroying Russian pipelines. Not all of them all at once, but little by little to help wean Europeans off if Russian fuel. The pipelines are impossible to defend. Every now and then a bomb could go off or the pressure could be set wrong causing an explosion and the US could deny responsibility.
This happened back in the Cold War. Every now and then misfortune would strike an oil pipe. Turns out it was the CIA.
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2mo ago
but I highly doubt cats
Local law enforcement says it happened.
https://www.wowt.com/2024/08/21/woman-arrested-allegedly-killing-cat-eating-it-front-neighbors/
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2mo ago
People are vaccinated against smallpox? I'm not.
Are people still being vaccinated for smallpox?
The smallpox vaccine is no longer available to the public. In 1972, routine smallpox vaccination in the United States ended.
In 1980, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared smallpox was eliminated. Because of this, the public doesn't need protection from the disease.
I haven't been to China but I suspect that even Chinese society is beginning to surpass the vibrancy of Japanese society at least in the sense that the Chinese have seen an explosion of wealth and modernization in the past 50 years
I have been to China for work and to visit my in laws. I have been on a few work trips to Korea totalling a few weeks. Korea is very far past China on a subjective newness and technological advancement scale. I have spent months working in Chinese factories and rate them well below Korean factories in technological integration.
Also everything is so dirty and half-assed in China. It really dings them on an aesthetic level. You walk up to your apartment and you see when they painted around some fixture they just slopped it on rather than laying down some tape and making it look neat. I've painted a lot in my life and would never do that shitty a job.
There's some ditch on the side of the road and it has lots of trash in it. One of my college educated coworkers eats a packaged snack and just dumps the packaging on the ground at the bus stop. Everything is dirty. You blow your nose in the winter and your snot comes out grey from the pollution.
At the factory cafeteria (which serves great food, 10x better than American public school food, literal communists are effortlessly dunking on what our government feeds our children) a very sick coworker dips her chopsticks into a shared jar of food. It was quite culture shock.
The food is great. They like foreigners. There's a lot of value there. But fresh, clean, technological, modern. Those terms belong somewhere else. I nominate Korea based on my limited experience.
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2mo ago
I have a carseat and a booster in the back of a midsized sedan. It looks to me like I could fit 3 boosters back there. But I understand reaching your hands between the click the belts would not be easy.
The Nissan Altima is a mid-size sedan with 54.5 inches of rear hip room
With the Accord, you get 55 inches of rear hip room
The Camry has 54.6 inches of rear hip room
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2mo ago
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2mo ago
Worse yet, it was washing your hands between performing autopsies and delivering babies.
Finally, he made a startling realization. A fellow doctor died of what appeared to be a case of childbed fever after cutting himself with a scalpel that had been used during an autopsy of one of the women.
The physicians, Semmelweis realized, had been dissecting infected cadavers with their bare hands. Then, with those same contaminated hands, they were delivering babies.
“They were inoculating their patients with bacteria,” Perlow said. “They were basically immersed in pus for hours.”
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2mo ago
Yep. An American, a North Korean and a South Korean.
Enormous enough adversity degrades and permanently weakens people. A child of starvation and parasite infestations doesn't make for large tough adults.
I liked the book Accelerando. At one point in it they are post scarcity. The Hello Kitty artificial intelligence introduction speech to newly created people says things like monster trucks are free. Only original art, human made fashion and weapons are not distributed by Hello Kitty. Snobbish and exclusive positional goods like new fashions are the only really hard to get things.
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2mo ago
Some monkey's paw situation, in which you get to be emperor, but the year is 69AD.
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2mo ago
Is Mitch McConnell's marriage eugenic because he married an east Asian? Assuming they had chosen to have children.
Is the ultimate hypothetical eugenic melange a mix of the smarter sort of whites, east Asians and Jews?
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2mo ago
Yeah my visa applications for China took a few days. I got a 60 day visa in around a week and years later a 90 day visa also around one week turnaround.
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2mo ago
No. But she is not pleased about that. Also my old coworker unhappy that all her old shoes don't fit.
The diabetes and other health complications were the real physical issues here. The shoes thing was an unpleasant surprise.
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2mo ago
Convent membership has disastrously crashed. They're importing African nuns since approximately no Westerners want to join.
In decades past this could be a good measure. But not so much today or the past couples decades or so.
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2mo ago
Pregnancy is really really hard on my wife. My wife does not have diabetes. But she does while pregnant.
Also it turns out pregnancy permanently increases many women's foot sizes. My wife can't wear her old shoes. A coworker complained about the same problem.
Anyways. No more kids for us. We made the right choice starting a family. But it is much physically easier on me than on her.
There are no US/China dual citizens.
I wouldn't say exactly zero.
Although she was born and raised in San Francisco, Gu competes for her mother's native China. To do so, the International Olympic Committee requires that she hold Chinese citizenship. But in spite of China's ban on dual citizenship there is no government record of her renouncing her American citizenship.
Eileen Gu pulled it off. And if I understand correctly the Chinese government determined she was a Chinese citizen in record time. Right quick to get her qualified for the Olympics. She got a fresh Chinese passport and everything.
And some writer I never heard of before says they accidentally got dual US/China citizenship and discovered that fact as an adult. https://time.com/charter/6148188/eileen-gus-identity/ Whoopsie-daisey. I bet if they didn't renounce their Chinese citizenship they could have kept it on the down low.
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2mo ago
I see this ongoing discussion throughout this thread. And I understand that rules as written dual citizenship is illegal in China. No one is wrong here.
But, the Chinese government doesn't follow their own laws. For example Eileen Gu is a natural born US citizen. There's no record of her ever renouncing her US citizenship. But she wants to compete for China in the Olympics, so now suddenly she is also a Chinese citizen with a Chinese passport. Good to go for the Olympics.
Although she was born and raised in San Francisco, Gu competes for her mother's native China. To do so, the International Olympic Committee requires that she hold Chinese citizenship. But in spite of China's ban on dual citizenship there is no government record of her renouncing her American citizenship.
Rules apply until they don't. A piece of paper with Chinese writing on it somewhere says this is impossible. That's no impediment.
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2mo ago
several more who were implicated due to having ties with Russia but committed no actual crimes
So nothing at all for these ones? You are allowed to "have ties" with a country. And Russia being our enemy is a matter under some contention.
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2mo ago
Tangentially related, but I have helped Asian immigrants with their businesses and there was definitely tax fraud. Chinese women dividing stacks of cash and accounting software that tracks credit card purchases.
Once I went to a newly opened Chinese restraunt (a real Chinese restaurant meant for Chinese people, not that gross American "Chinese" food.). They gave a nearly 10% discount for paying cash. They wrote down two numbers on the bill. Saving on credit card fees and illegally undereporting income.
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2mo ago
Thanks for this explanation.
Incidentally, have you actually been modded on reddit for accusing pedophiles from a century ago? Or I suppose modern youtubers on the infamous recent tack of "I thought they were very short sexy goblins".
So leftist pedo history doesn't repeat but it often rhymes?
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2mo ago
From the school's and parents' point of view: this is the mass slaughter of their children. "Abusing copyright" to decrease grief or discourage copycats is a very small price to pay. Not that these school administrators and parents are necessarily concerned about unrealized gay mixed race sexual pairings.
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2mo ago
This is why I like the rule against darkly hinting at things and instead being required to speak plainly. I also don't know who SteveKirk is hinting at. A group that briefly took over in Revolutionary Spain and Russia. "Free-love advocating Jews" doesn't match my understanding of Revolutionary Spain.
But I'm at a loss for which other group is possibly being called out here. Looney anarchists perhaps? Plenty of those in early revolutionary Russia and the brief existence of revolutionary Spain. But you could bitterly complain about anarchists (and jews and jewish anarchists) screwing up leftist revolutions and I don't suppose anyone would much care. Denouncing other sorts of leftists for screwing up leftism is very low hanging fruit.
Russia endlessly attacks Ukrainian infrastructure. It appears to be a great idea and in fact key to winning wars.
Pipelines are entirely undefesible. So let's say any nation with the desire has a veto on this decision.
And yes, Europe is the most feckless and counterproductive allies the US could have. A parasite society hiding under our defense umbrella, using our hard-found pharmaceuticals without paying to support them and endlessly funding our enemies.
Who would be drone bombing American LNG plants? Not Europe for sure. We've seen their complete inability and extreme passivity in this conflict. You think Russia would do it? I suppose it is possible. But the US has historically been extremely shielded from direct counterattack like that. 9/11 being the one exception.
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