state song thread guy

It really does seem like someone took a look at the chaos and carnage of the Syrian Civil War or post-Gaddhafi Libya and thought "this should be our foreign policy objective"

Conservatives: Government doesn't work! Elect me & I'll prove it!

what's the halal version of "bay of pigs"

hahahahah oh god this is gonna go so badly

the key difference being that they haven't actually won yet

this is generally how things work in corrupt / authoritarian states. government contracts are given out to reward cronies, the mechanism by which public funds are diverted to enrich the ruling class

You people are insane. The U.S. government did it because it wanted to do it, not because Israel manipulated us to do it.
You are absolutely delusional and normalizing terrible views that could lead to terrible things.

Man, just straight up theft.

FOLKS IT WAS HOURS WE WERE HOURS AWAY IT HAPPENED

WE DID IT

It did not happen quickly. We’ve been building up forces in the area for an attack for the past two months.

FML, so the tariff ship money is going to be used for actual ship money.

Everything is f***ing ship money.

"Exclusive: at more than 30 installations, US commanders told troops the war on Iran is a Christian war. The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been inundated with more than 110 complaints. One NCO said they were told the US war is to bring about Armageddon and the return of Jesus..."

Turns out the violent religious extremists were here all along.

this coffee shop in my lab building has a bunch of clocks with national flags on them, showing the time in different countries
most of the flags are just... flags but for some reason the Irish flag has a huge shamrock slapped on top of it

Shock and Uh.

Honestly, the vibe shift from the first 24 hours of Shock and Awe is surreal. Complete decapitation of an entire state with Donald's aura of invincibility immediately shattered by the "uh... Now what?" afterwards.

It's legit amazing that he had no idea this would cause an energy crisis.

He's just randomly breaking shit and he's going to Blue Tsunami himself and his wretched party out of arrogant ignance.

Stancil talking about teacher pay now, the man has a fetish for technically correct positions that will make people furious.

(whether or not this is entirely accurate)

petition to call the current conflict "The War of Epstein's Files"

unfortunately it's very effective, because the media is a fratricidal pack of ravenous wolves with no sense of class solidarity

Google ai response to "panetta burns plan" "Leon Panetta and William Burns (along with Madeleine Albright) filed a 2016 legal brief supporting the EPA’s Clean Power Plan, arguing it was critical for national security and international climate commitments. They emphasized that implementing the plan was vital for ensuring global action against climate change. " followed by a Politico pro link

Somewhat humorously, when you google "Panetta-burns plan" google ai pulls up a (real?) unrelated thing from 4 years after the poll question

SO YOU WANT A REALISTIC DOWN-TO-EARTH SHOW THAT'S COMPLETELY OFF THE WALL AND SWARMING WITH MAGIC ROBOTS?

Every single goddamn time, it’s either a dril tweet or a Simpsons episode, sometimes both

he's not joking. this has been tried
www.businessinsider.com/panetta-burn...

If you poll people on whether they support the Bifle-Swaffelen Act, especially if you link it to a party, 70% are going to give you an answer, even though I just made that up.

one of the factors in my growing elitism is "I will respect the political views of the public as soon as they have any"

Another big reason obsessive poll-sniffing is silly: “Public opinion” on most issues quite literally does not exist. It is an ephemeral artifact of the process of polling itself. Ask again a day later with slightly different wording & the numbers change radically.

Never thought about this much before but one of the key things that differentiates humans and nonhumans is that humans have noticeable whites in our eyes

Benjamin Netanyahu’s long career was built on conflict avoidance—then, October 7 transformed and radicalized him, @Yair_Rosenberg argues:

OMFG they think we are the dumbest people who ever lived.

Yes. And in Iranian culture, it is considered disrespectful to merc your country’s leader for content. There is an ancient Persian concept known as “pattern recognition.” (الگو شناسی) This means if somebody keeps doing something you don’t like if they can get away with it, you notice.