domain:arjunpanickssery.substack.com
5434a
5m ago
Literally just heard this done as the closing number on BBC Radio 4's impressionist show Dead Ringers.
John_Doe_Fletcher
anarcho-heretic, Quokkit guy
9m ago
Had a fire in my apartment early yesterday morning - bathroom fan burned out and ignited a bunch of trapped lint. Saw it very quickly after it started, thanks flu making it hard to sleep. Didn't remember we had a fire extinguisher until girlfriend called 911. Extinguisher put it out quickly, thankfully the only flammable stuff that was touched was the bath mat and not the very full trash can. Burned my hand and foot, thankfully not too heavily. Girlfriend and cats are completely fine. Currently staying at a hotel, gonna crash with a local friend once we check out tomorrow.
If our management hadn't sent out an email the other week reminding us that it's almost time for the yearly fire extinguisher inspection, I might not have remembered we had one. As it is, I only made the association when GF said she'd call 911. There's a whole lot of little things that have lined up recently that by some factor have contributed to saving our lives. It is a miracle to me that the only casualties in this situation are my bath mat, a bunch of my stuff being covered in soot, and blisters on my hand and foot.
If anyone has any advice on how to de-soot linens and stuff, or anything else I should know about...just processing a near-miss like this. I'd appreciate it.
Double-check where your nearest fire extinguisher is. Make a mental note.
JarJarJedi
11m ago
I'm sure they'd try that but I hope somebody there is still sane enough to realize a violent coordinated movement of this size which is controlled by somebody other than the government is kinda problem for them. Before it's too late.
TitaniumButterfly
12m ago
It's a cynical use of Ukraine to allow us to hurt Russia without declaring war. The well-being of Ukraine was never per se pertinent.
Bartender_Venator
14m ago
And, according to former staff, has poorly controlled diabetes.
Bartender_Venator
16m ago
SAE is generally considered very Southern, idk about Salisbury but at a lot of schools it's the ultra-Southern chapter.
campfire
19m ago
Taste is her best single. The opening line “I leave quite an impression/ 5 feet to be exact” is hilarious and on-brand for someone whose image is built around being short and horny. Isn’t she cucking the other girl though?
Oh and in her live performances of Nonsense, she changes the last line of the song to a different innuendo every time. The original is “woke up this morning thought I’d write a pop hit/ how quickly can you take your clothes off? pop quiz”. When she played on BBC she changed it to “BBC said I should keep it PG/ BBC I wish I had it in me/ There’s a double meaning if you dig deep”
phosphorus2
20m ago
If Biden tried to end the war on these terms Trump would immediately excoriate him for being weak, and he'd be right.
What is the reality of Ukraine's position in the war? Is it in a strong position or a weak one? What is the reality of the US's position in Ukraine? Is it in a strong position or a weak one? What is the reality of Russia's position in the war? Is it in a strong position or a weak one?
Ukraine wants to retake their territory. Below is a war map. Ukraine has not had control of Donestk, Luhansk and Crimea since 2014. And everything not those areas, basically from Mariupol to Kherson, is separated from Ukraine by the Dnieper River. Ukraine has not taken much ground, when the US gave them a bunch of our equipment it did not move the needle. A lot of it got blown to bits. So a weak position to get what they want.
https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/36a7f6a6f5a9448496de641cf64bd375
The US wants Ukraine to retake their territory. And from the above, they are in a weak position as well. I do not see much of a will for escalation. It does not seem all of the sanctions crippled Russia. And from a strategic prospective, we have driven the Russians into the arms of the Chinese. I do think that we will get them into NATO if a deal is cut, but that is just my guess. So overall a weak position to get what we want, at least out of the war.
Originally it seemed that Russia wanted to either annex Ukraine or set up a puppet government, but now I think they're just trying to secure Crimea and get what as much pro Russia Ukrainian territory as they can. Looks like they are in a very strong position to do this, the have de facto accomplished this, so they are in a strong position.
So if the US and Ukraine are in a weak position, then accepting weak peace terms would be an acknowledgement of reality more than creation of it. Ukraine is going to lose territory, Russia is going to gain it, Joe Biden forcing a deal is just recognizing this fact. I don't see this war as in our interest, or at least in our interest at the price tag, so I think Joe should be weak and sign the deal. That is the right call for US interest, and we should work to drive the Russians and Chinese apart. Obviously team NATO would want the best possible deal they can get, but if they are in a weak position to take (retake) what they want by force then why would they be able to take it through negotiation? I don't think they could.
WhiningCoil
20m ago
It's a distinct possibility!
campfire
21m ago
Vampire does shamelessly rip off Creep but that song also rips off an older 70s hit so I can’t complain
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
27m ago
I have been repeatedly told by people arguing for support of Ukraine that our policy is and should be to drag the war out as long as possible to maximize harm to Russia. The fact that this also maximizes harm to Ukraine is waved off as Ukraine is volunteering for the honor. The fact that Ukraine is volunteering for the honor based on their belief that we will help them win, when in fact we have no intention of doing that is likewise dismissed.
And of course, actually providing them the resources needed to win, presuming those resources actually exist, risks escalating into direct warfare with a nuclear power.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
27m ago
abrasive, transparently insincere, and has had consistent staff turnover issues for her entire political career
If those are dealbreakers for you, boy, do I have some bad news for you!
gattsuru
27m ago
I'd be pretty surprised. There are gay frats, and not just in the explicitly LGBTQWTFBBQ sense, but SAE neither advertises itself nor has a reputation along those lines, at least from what I can see as someone not hugely familiar with frat life. And Salisbury is a pretty tiny school to start with; the statistics would only give around 50-100ish gay (or bisexual) men across campus in total.
aardvark2
34m ago
I am not sure if I am correct, but I think that 18-25 range is not subject to war mobilization, but they are subject to common draft as they were in pre-war times (unless they get exemption like getting education or something), so maybe changing it won't do much
netstack
Texas is freedom land
36m ago
Man. I want to argue with you, but I think you enjoy being miserable.
aardvark2
36m ago
Manpower might not matter if people do not want to fight and Russian propaganda faces much more difficult task than Ukrainian. Russia relies on increasingly large money to hire people for war. The 18-25 range is not subject to war mobilization, but they are subject to common draft as they were in pre-war times (unless they get exemption like getting education or something), so maybe changing it won't do much
gattsuru
36m ago
NBC News has reached out to attorneys for Aird and Leinemann. The others had no attorney information listed. All of the students were released this week on recognizance bonds, except Pietuszka who has his bond hearing Friday.
The Baltimore Banner:
Attorney James L. Britt said the alleged victim is a man in his 40s who propositioned what he thought was a 16-year-old. “Once all of the facts see the light of day, this case will be shown to be an ill-advised attempt to expose someone willing to travel to have sexual relations with a 16-year-old child,” he wrote in an email.
I don't particularly trust any news media or defense attorneys (and their clients), and even if they were being honest there's a lot of ways for people to have tried to portray their character as 16 and failed, but if true, it's not sounding like a Romeo and Romeo sorta situation. And given SAE's reputation, I expect their students would not be especially unfamiliar with the local laws regarding age of consent.
netstack
Texas is freedom land
37m ago
Nothing.
He’s known he wouldn’t be president again since August. If he had an uncontroversial, good-vibes project in mind, why not start it earlier?
For 1, he’s not going to get anything resembling a compromise. Not without something bringing Putin to the table.
Trump has already tarred 3 for Democrats.
I guess digging up another park would be a decent option. It doesn’t involve him giving MAGA exactly what they want, though, so I assume it’s dead on arrival. Maybe that’s too pessimistic.
FlyingLionWithABook
Has a C. S. Lewis quote for that.
41m ago
It would be great if it were true, but I think the end result of any peace talks would be Trump coming home in disgust and urging congress to send more military aid to Ukraine, possible including the kind of offensive weapons that Biden has been reluctant to give.
If you want peace, that would be a good result! I've never understood our constant policy of half-measures. If we're going to back Ukraine against Russia by providing weapons then we should be providing the best weapons and in quantity. Limiting our support just keeps the war going as long as possible. Do we want Ukraine to have a strong position or not? If not, then why supply weapons at all?
roystgnr
43m ago
Nah; the popular vote is a relative rating rather than absolute. E.g. if I'd been in a swing state I'd have voted for Harris, not because she is a non-awful candidate I approved of, but because she seemed like the less awful of the two. I suspect a lot of Trump voters feel the same way in reverse.
On the other hand, one reason for disapproving of a candidate you'd vote for is that you think their weaknesses will cost your team an election, and if that's the case it's possible that Trump's approval rating is shooting up right now as his more pessimistic voters realize he wasn't too much of a liability this time after all. I'm only seeing one poll post-election so far, and it's still got him at Unfavorable +1 among registered voters, but that's within the margin of error of 0 and it's a big jump from the same pollster's Unfavorable +8 a week or so earlier, so maybe he's actually up in the positive numbers now.
TitaniumButterfly
45m ago
Well if there's any point in putting it in toothpaste, it must be to increase the concentration way above that which is naturally-occuring. So I repeat the question.
SophisticatedHillbilly
46m ago
We could have chosen differently
And in fact, some countries, or even states, did. I feel like this conflation of COVID with COVID-response is a huge issue.
They don’t need this, Trump will do it himself. There was a prescient story in 2018 or something like that where GOP operatives in the Trump White House said the thing they were most scared of was Dems swearing fealty to him, honoring him with big dinners and awards and speeches, calling him great, having big celebrities stop by and pay their respects, and then just quietly whispering in his ear that the people don’t really want all this right wing stuff, why not fire this guy and that guy and just do this and you’ll be loved etc.
And the sad thing, of course, is that it would completely work. Trump loved having Kim Kardashian in the White House. If Oprah and George Clooney and Obama come along and say how impressive he is and how presidential he is, and all he has to do is a couple small tweaks here and there, he’ll do it. The one thing he won’t budge on is tariffs. Everything else is malleable.
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