Whom amongst us hasn’t accepted concert tickets from a conservative German aristocrat?
Also, a technicality but once a country abolishes nobility, the noun becomes “pretender” not “aristocrat.” I know keeping track of titles is complicated but it’s only polite to use the correct terms.
Another way to help the service industry would be to make medicinal cocaine (and similar) a tax deductible business expense. It’s a more valid business expense than a programmer buying a third monitor.
Or how about banning the practice of making the bartenders/waitresses tip out the bar back or bus boys when they should all just be getting paid a living wage by their employer. That would also be good for tipped employees.
I don’t care what his background is, if a guy who looks like Boris Johnson tried to sell me uranium, I’d call security and ask how he got into the building.
“Alive” is a strong word for someone with a robotic heart and no soul.
I’ll never forget during COVID when I learned Denmark had more mink than people and had to do a cull and it went very poorly. I assumed Denmark was a pretty normal place and then one day, they were like, “OK, so we have 17 million mink.” Like, what the fuck?
It was like finding out your seemingly most normal friend runs a Pokémon card funded crime syndicate that smuggles mini ponies or something where you’re like, “I’m not mad yet. I’m confused. But I reserve the right to be mad. What were you doing with 17 million mink?”
If you ask a historian “How would you assess Winston Churchill?” and they criticize the concept of fighting fascism and not, like, the Bengal famine, strategic decisions, imperialism, drinking up all the gin, etc. then maybe you aren’t talking to an actual historian.
Claiming to be able to make massive cuts without cutting national defense, Social Security/Medicare, or loads of basic government stuff (like the U.S. Mint, patent office, passport services, etc.) is how you know this will never happen.
Every conservative comes to Washington ready to cut whole departments and then learns the Department of Energy manages the nuclear weapons stockpile and the entire National Park system is a rounding error on a B-2 bomber order.
I went to high school during peace time — that used to be a thing way back when — and I think my school required it for ROTC but maybe it was more of a strong suggestion rather than a requirement.
We also had possibly the worst possible system for military recruiters. You had to choose between the regular P.E. class, weight lifting (if you played a sport), and ROTC. The end result was that ROTC was always like 2% committed future service members (who would have joined the military with or without high school ROTC) and 98% awkward people avoiding sports at all cost. (Or the worst fate of all, 1st hour PE so you were the person who smelled like stanky teen gym clothes in every one of your classes.)
Well, at least he has the memories. Maybe. Grandpa has good days and bad days now.
I’ve read my limit of articles this month. Is it because Trump’s policies are the same as Herbert Hover’s, he hires the stupidest people on Earth, and his brain is already 80% smooth goo and the remaining 20% is about golf courses and Ivanka being in Maxim?
Russia wasted $10 million dollars on people who have to beg Joe Rogan for attention when someone cancels at the last minute. I almost feel sorry for them.
I hope I’m not being too cynical but I suspect Israel’s largest police union is going to have to arrest Netanyahu for there to be a ceasefire/hostage deal. He definitely seems like he’s clinging to power to avoid jail and if the negotiators come to an agreement, he’ll tack on additional demands until it’s unacceptable and then blame Hamas for the deal collapsing.
Like two or three generations ago, they fired female teachers who had kids. Also, he’s Catholic. I know he’s an adult convert and so mega weird — adult converts are usually just attracted to the hierarchy and lore instead of the charity and service parts — but he should at least know about nuns teaching school.
Big Pharma doesn’t really do as much basic research as they claim. They do a fair bit but I’d guess it’s mostly universities funded by NIH (and other governments’) grants making the most important discoveries. Then philanthropists, investors, more government grants, etc. often fund the early stage clinical trials and the creation of the small company. Big Pharma does obviously invent a lot of medications in house but it seems like the more typical path is that they buy a small company in later stage trials and provide the marketing and manufacturing/distribution at scale.
Which is fine. They aren’t pure evil or good. The discoverer, university, people who took financial risk get paid. But there’s other ways for scientists, universities, and early investors to get their return (which usually funds the next round of research). Government “bounties” is one idea. Like, if you create a miracle cure, rich governments buy the IP rights for x amount and release all claims on the patents so it’s generic from the start. If done correctly, the savings to national healthcare systems (and the 17 systems the U.S. has duct taped together) would cover the bounty and then some. Big Pharma’s manufacturing and distribution would still be important in that system and they could focus on things without bounties.
Honestly, I’d like to see that anyway, especially for diseases that are sort of ignored by capitalism. It’s perfectly ok if the bounty system loses money curing things Big Pharma isn’t so interested in (like less famous third world diseases). It’s not like bombs and roads are profitable for governments.
I found tons of copper in my neighbors’ A/C units. There’s no shortage.
And Trump technically wasn’t “born.” He hatched from a goose egg like all goose-stepping fascist dipshits.
When I studied International Affairs we were assigned a book called “The Road to Dayton: A Study in American Statecraft” about the Dayton Accords ending the Bosnian War. Richard Holbrooke and Warren Christopher weren’t the only players, obviously, but I remember it being excellent for the time.
I went to college a long time ago so I have no idea if the book is still relevant. But there’s even a Simpsons joke where Homer is afraid Bart is gay and Moe says, “Time was, you send a boy off to war. Shootin’ a man’d fix him right up. But there’s not even any wars no more—Thank you very much, Warren Christopher.”
In retrospect, it was all very September 10th but we used to actually end wars. Probably sounds crazy to young people but it’s true. There used to be peacetime where joining the military just meant you trained and maybe went to Germany or something.
Is this about the piss tape?
Dude, I love China and its people and have been there several times. I obviously don’t approve of everything but some of the funniest, most kindhearted people on Earth are in China. I’m not sure there’s a place on Earth I’d rather have a meal with some regular citizens.
But just follow The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Taipei can be wrong too. But those laws took like centuries of stupid wars and, ultimately, diplomacy, to establish. Even if you want to change them, it’ll require diplomacy and cooperation, not hosing down some Filipino fishermen.