caeron

Graham sucked up to whoever would get him power. He was a vile, vile man.

If only we got to decide what other people think of us....

Except that we, the american people, voted for them. They act with our mandate. You can shrug off responsibility, but the rest of the world may not feel the same. I doubt you are shrugging off your american citizenship. And the palestinian people voted for Hamas once over the corrupt palestinian authority. They never got to vote again. I can't hold the russians responsible because they have no voice in their own government. We do not have the luxury of saying we had no voice, it's not our fault.

Oh yes, I absolutely hold everyone who voted for Trump responsible for the disaster that is unfolding. And as an American, whether I supported any of my countries actions or not, I bear part of the stain of them too. Every US citizen does.

Musk was responsible for the shuttering of USAID. Estimates are that it has caused 500,000 deaths or more so far with the number climbing into the millions by 2030. Trump is also responsible for that as well as the enormous death toll from Covid last time around. Both men are murders on an almost unprecedented scale. If anything calls for the death penalty, this does. I am not going to wring my hands about 2 deaths while ignoring millions of others.

He fails on both counts, so take your pick.

Because I lack Luigi Mangioni's courage or insanity, maybe both. But I do hope somebody steps up. And I don't feel the least bit tacky for saying so, given the number of deaths he has caused.

Well, among my friend circle, that's exactly how we talk about Musk. The man is revolting and if he and Trump died in a fire, I would celebrate.

Interesting you choose to judge her for this, but not all the other billionaires for not helping people and spending huge amounts of money on things they want. Why would I care? Weddings mean a lot to some people. Mine was small and relatively cheap and completely lovely. Others want big bashes. Whatever. We could all do more good with our money if we wanted to forgo the pleasure of our own wealth. If we're in this forum, we obviously aren't monks with vows of poverty. We all live in a very large glass house with stones in abundance.

The great, "pay now, get nothing later" offer. We've all heard it before.

There are a ton of airbnb listings in Hanoi. Probably want to check them over carefully to make sure you're not being watched.

I imagine you have some auto translate feature activated that is causing this. Might want to check. I use the brave browser for privacy (and a vpn) and I have to click to have it translate, and it often is a bit finicky and thinks the page is in english even if part of it isn't, so I have to then manually tell it to translate the specific language. Often a problem on Philippine pages where they mix Tagalog and English.

I think buying an apartment before living there for about a year is a bad idea. It makes it much harder to change your mind easily if you find the experience is not what you hoped. It also gives you a much better feel for what you want from an apartment and where you want it. I wouldn't move there, but to each his own.

Nastiness aside, I don't read French and it doesn't automatically translate. I am fairly envious of those who are truly multilingual.

I agree. Keeping someone updated isn't enough. You have made them sit around and wait for you. They have wasted their time because you didn't show when you agreed to. You consumed their working hours and then tried to get a cut rate price at the end. Anywhere else after you'd booked the time, if you didn't cancel with sufficient warning, you'd be expected to pay the full amount and get nothing. You booked a block of time and didn't use it. The gentleman tried to work with you to the limit of his ability and then you stiffed him. It isn't his fault that you made no rational plan to arrive on time, its yours. He's just the victim of your tardiness. The next appointment wasn't any of your business, and he couldn't warn you because he had no way of knowing how late you were going to be. This just shows no respect for him and his time. Courtesy would be to send him the money now and apologize.

Seriously rude. An hour late, and cheap.

You can certainly treat a hire as a piece of meat and dehumanize them, but I disagree that the act of engaging them is inherently dehumanizing. It's a job. I often didn't like my work. But, it paid well and I did it. Why is that any different than this? Perhaps you can argue, and I don't think I'd disagree, that most work is dehumanizing. If you're working, it's almost always because you have to. Different forms of economic vulnerability, but still most people do it because they have to. I do not subscribe to the notion that sex work is somehow inherently worse than other jobs. If you don't want to dehumanize the guys, don't be an asshole. It is amazing how many social interactions go so much better when you aren't an asshole.

I guess I was spoiled. I never doubted my parents' love. So if they made up Santa, I would have known they did it for me. Sort of more a story than a deceit. I do remember actively lying to help sustain my younger brother's belief. Explaining away all the Santas around town as really Elves.

The timing isn't that surprising. Victims often seem to come forward at times like this, perhaps triggered by the idea that their abuser is going to get rewarded instead of punished.

No recollection of it at all. I think I was just a greedy little shit. As long as the presents kept coming, fuck Santa.

One woman was a former staffer. Others came forward. His staff are quitting. I find it unlikely that multiple women have all decided to lie about it. I find it unlikely that his own staff would abandon him if they didn't believe these charges. I find it unlikely that the San Francisco Chronicle was duped by some Trump stooge. Otherwise good people do bad things. Perhaps these public destructions of men will discourage others from doing similar things. The court of law and the court of public opinion have different standards, as they should.

I think the theoretically ability to possibly invade and occupy Iran is irrelevant in the face of the political realities. There is no support for that kind of massive campaign and losses. Hell, most voters don't even support the billions spent on bombs. Trump is losing his diehard supporters over this war already. Does anybody really think the American public would sit still for the massive loss of life that an invasion and occupation would entail? Maybe large parts of the IRG would fold, but as we learned in Iraq it takes very few people to keep a war alive and the US casualties continuing. There are plenty of actors in the world who would like to see us bleed like that, so you can be sure those forces would get support. I suspect Iran would make Iraq look like a picnic. We're in a quagmire, and we're likely to stay there. Iran has no reason to capitulate to our demands. They have already demonstrated their willingness to kill their own people, they are certainly willing to let us do it. They can take that pain longer than the west can take the pain of the global economic shocks of this war.

And this is why we can't have nice things. Science comes up with great ways for us not to get sick and die. Then, people privileged enough to have access to them too often shrug their shoulders and 'no thanks'. Never mind the social value of preventing the spread of deadly diseases, they don't feel like it so they're not gonna.

Trump made them play their own trump card, the strait of hormuz. The only real answer is invasion. Trump's politically in a corner about the war already. Ordering a ground assault and an occupying force would end him. He's an idiot, but I don't think he's that much of an idiot. So, I don't see Trump getting what he wants at the negotiation table even if the Iranians negotiated in good faith. They're very bad people, but they're not stupid people. For all their suffering, they have defeated us. They have a big chunk of the world's oil and gas hostage. Whether we withdraw more from the middle east, everybody is looking around for more trustworthy allies than the US. We elected that buffoon twice. They need to prepare for whoever the third will be.

I think that the fact that the district shifted 25 points towards the democrats even though they lost is a huge, huge red flag for the republicans.