Lord Ratner

Agreed, I don't think they'd come to us. Nuclear is definitely a "new" dynamic.

Unless you're about 75 years old, I would say your confidence is not historically supported. But I do sincerely hope you're right

Not so sure anymore. I would have *never* thought the West would support Ukraine the way they have. Nor did I expect the Ukrainians to mount such a strong defense. And I know I'm not alone. Perhaps the human spirit is a bit more robust than the age of social media would have us believe. It is also entirely possible that 20 years of war in the Middle East has conditioned us to think about warfare in a certain, apathetic way. But that changes a lot when the target looks like you, both physically and culturally. At least that's what Ukraine seems to indicate.

We're not going to do anything proactively. That's just not how democracies work. If we haven't figured that out by now, then we are supremely ignorant. But it is fun to imagine the unholy shit storm that would befall China in a true war. You have to consider all of the assets in America that are loathe to be associated with any sort of military endeavor. But watching your people die changes things. Everybody in the public thinks China and Russia have an edge on cyber warfare, but can you even fathom what would happen with the full weight of silicon valley suddenly dedicated towards an electronic attack on our foes? What type of weapons could they develop? If the defense contractors dabbling in AI weaponry had even just the open source community, currently creating amazing software that identifies when your dog shits and whether or not it needs to take Imodium, what would that look like? The Chinese are one of the least innovative societies on earth, at least out of the developed nations. Nearly everything they have is stolen or copied, and the recent ban on chip technology proves their inability to build anything of substance on their own. The software being developed in the civilian sector has truly terrifying implications in a military conflict. There must be somewhere around a hundred or so Elon Musk-type innovators currently in the industry. What does it look like when the most dynamic innovators on Earth turn their attention towards slaughtering the Chinese?

I agree. Doesn't change the fact that Ukraine, despite whatever their desires may be, is subordinate to us in this war. There is no Ukraine victory without our weapons. I don't have to like it, but that's politics. Saying "it's their decision" implies they can do whatever they want. False. If their choice is to lose, then yeah I guess they can do whatever. But they can't win without us, which means their choices are limited to those they can get the US to agree to. Politics and power.

Honestly I'd be shocked if he had anything at all to do with it. More likely the cabinet running the show.

Did you miss the reporting where the White House has been pressuring Ukraine to open the possibility of negotiations? When your patron tells you to do something, you do it. And you do it with a smile.

Football fans don't switch teams when theirs loses, or gets caught cheating, or beats up their wives and girlfriends.

The problem is the same one that has plagued liberals for a long time. Creating a system sufficiently generous and sufficiently staffed to fulfill that goal, while simultaneously weeding out the small percentage who will bankrupt any such system through abuse, is not feasible. If liberals would accept sub-single digit percentages of deserving people falling through the cracks, we would already have these systems and they would be perfectly manageable from a financial aspect. However, the very same sentiment that makes liberals want such system leads them to reject any notion that the system would miss some eligible participants and there would be no recourse. Limiting principals and second-order effects, the eternal weaknesses of liberal policy.

I just installed this at home. When I get back from my trip I'll run a few. Also, you can add an artist or artistic style to the query and it will come out in that style

The metal is moving, so they're not that pissed. It's the same at AAL.

Yup. Like most government failures, those responsible scatter like roaches, then somehow return for the next crisis.

I kind of hope we choose both. We're just going to have to accept some level of inflation to accommodate our obscene amount of debt, but insolvency is going to be the only thing that implements the austerity required to dig out of this hole. Zero and negative interest rates for a decade didn't save Europe from their debt, and it won't save us.

Just watch, the microsecond after the election is over the Democrats are going to be suddenly and deeply concerned with the mental health of the president.

He did say it would be higher than the previous dot plot. Ironically, it's not going to be the Fed that takes us into phase two of the bear market. The tidal wave of earnings revisions is starting to hit. That'll be ugly.

Faip mafia The O club Hook them all High speed low drag

With the autopilot, no sweat. But flying a heavy ≠ flying a small plane designed for single pilot ops. We saw this often when the fighter guys would transfer to a guard KC-135. Just because the mission is a joke (and it is a very, very easy mission to execute), doesn't mean the plane was. Maybe the newer ones though? I've never flown the triple or the dreamliner. But a raw navaid approach in a 737 in actual weather would be a real ass kicker.

Incredible touch giving the helicopter an authentic native American name. Bravo.

Tell me you only watch conservative media without telling me you only watch conservative media. I listen to NPR in my car. Nothing else. It is incredible how they twist and stretch every story to downplay the innumerable failings of the left. Honestly sometimes it's downright impressive how completely warped their presentation is. Regardless, it presents a completely different reality to those listening than when I listen to Ben Shapiro or (occasionally) Tucker Carlson. This stuff is *not* in the news every day if you only consume left-leaning media. And it's not like they are extolling the virtues of chopping off some confused teenager's tits. They are simply not reporting on the bad parts, and spending all their time on the "emotional struggle" and bullying of trans kids. I don't care what you do because you're a random stranger on the internet, but you might learn something surprising if you leave the conservative echo chamber. Granted, the conservative echos are largely correct, but you can't defeat an enemy you don't understand, and you clearly do not understand how the perpetrators of this nonsense are taking the moderate liberals along for the ride. It's eye-opening.

Uh, who are you arguing with? Where did I say I was liberal? And what is a conservative liberal? Is that a moderate? If you were drunk when you posted this, just say so🤣😂. Did you miss the part where I explicitly am against trans procedures for kids? Lemme help: Agreed on the Boomer stuff. Their generation has doomed us all.

Look at her arms turn into panda paws!! 🤣😂

Ok this is awesome

I think the culture aspect is much more important than the policy aspect, since policy is much easier to change than culture. But: Conservatives need to rediscover capitalism. If they are still scoffing at the idea of "income inequality" then we are in trouble. Check out how the wealthiest .1% did during the pandemic. https://wolfstreet.com/2022/09/26/my-wealth-disparity-monitor-september-update-qt-rate-hikes-dropping-stocks-bonds-reduce-outrageous-us-wealth-disparity/ What we have now is corporatism, and it's bad. As long as the government keeps a death grip on the macroeconomy (through Central Bank policy), the rich will continue to have better outcomes from better access. Beyond that, the 30 years experiment of globalism is burning to the ground around us. We killed the unskilled middle class in exchange for cheap TVs, and we funded the rise of our greatest geopolitical adversary in the process. Republicans (until Trump) are just at much to blame for allowing the wide scale infiltration of all areas of American life by the Chinese. That needs to end, and it's going to be painful. Always and forever, children are key to voters' hearts. There are a few areas the Republicans can really pull ahead. First, continue the fight against medicalizing trans kids. Next, as the social security and Medicare systems start to collapse under their debt, propose a new medical paradigm where old Americans have their unlimited medical costs capped in exchange for a new government policy that covers anyone under 20 for anything non-cosmetic. The most powerful country on Earth should not be paying to keep old fat people alive way past their expiration date while kids are medical victims of their parents' decisions/fate. A bonus, you take away one of the most traditionally Democratic campaigning strategies. Continue the push to return this country to a states-first mentality. The more issues we can push to the states, the more apparent the failings of progressive leadership will be. But it's not going to matter without conservatives taking the lead on the cultural front. And that's going to require the conversations I've been advocating for in this thread. We spent decades allowing the left to redefine reality, and they've been able to do so starting at a very young age, knowing that social change is measured in generations, not days, months, or years. That means conservatives are going to have to start now and plan on a very long and painful process of regaining the cultural narrative.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump having a tea party An octopus playing poker A baby firing a nuclear missile A very attractive woman seducing a panda bear

Well, I didn't specifically ask for a demonstration of the failings of the conservatives, but this'll do. If you think the bulk of Democratic party are even aware of the fringe leftist ideology, much less subscribed to it, it might not be me whose been "had." Again, conservatives have to decide if they want to save the country, or win the political pissing match. We can't do both.