<snip> I feel like I should clarify my positions. Putin bad. By our standards, Russia is kind of barbaric at their core. Ukraine is probably not angelic. It's a corrupt place and I feel sure that Zelinsky is skimming money during this. It's what they do. I feel very bad for the Ukrainian people. NA...

There are some great essays in the new Foreign Affairs issue. I don’t want to bore I_Shrugged O0 with insufficient America-blaming, but one of the pieces sees three main possible outcomes from the Russian side. The first and least likely scenario is that Russia will agree to its defeat by accepting...

My somewhat out of balance PP, including an international stock allocation, -8.5%
Not as bad as it looked during the year.

I'm a bit high in stocks and low in gold.

The US does not have a free market. Just reading this story makes that clear.

https://stocks.apple.com/AmE1YHO_TQ_m7tzlPRc0e7g

Would it be wrong to say Chomsky is a kinder, gentler Marxist? That’s been my impression. I’m sure it’s more complicated, but that’s my 10,000 foot view of him. I just can’t take that seriously but I’m sure he is able to make some good logical points about it. Whenever I’ve been exposed to his ideas...

Holy chopsticks, that there is a lot of inside baseball.

I gave up after several boring paragraphs about how he became a made man. Sorry DS.

I gather the gist is that his reign is more fragile than thought.

dualstow wrote: ↑Mon Dec 26, 2022 9:37 am Are you able to read this article by Cai Xia? Or just the beginning?

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/xi ... ten-future

Unable.

This is where we are. We have left wing media and right wing media. You are apparently required to pick a side, and then you have to denigrate anything said by the other side, whether it is worth considering or not. It could be an extremely important thing to know, but no, the other side is saying ...

dualstow wrote: ↑Fri Dec 23, 2022 3:14 pm

I Shrugged wrote: ↑Thu Dec 22, 2022 1:18 pm I was most interested in the shot of people in Venezuela shaving gold slivers off of coins to make smaller purchases.

I’m sure that will make Smithers happy about his 5g pieces.
Do they use silver at all?

Yes.

This is where we are. We have left wing media and right wing media. You are apparently required to pick a side, and then you have to denigrate anything said by the other side, whether it is worth considering or not. It could be an extremely important thing to know, but no, the other side is saying i...

Speaking of data…this is pretty interesting. https://www.war-memorial.net/wars_all.asp My immediate reaction to that is, there are some very bad people in all of those. But we ignore most of them. Others, the ones that involve Russia or Iran or their allies, we are all over them. That is why I don'...

From my experience here’s where there is a problem with the military. We stay WAY too long when things are obviously not going well and the cost benefit analysis of military action has swung to the absolute loss side of the ledger. A weird dynamic occurs…all militaries hate to lose. It’s the ultima...

By the way.... How interesting that the crash coincides with GWB. Back then the media actually reported on the weapons of mass destruction not being found. What are they reporting in 2022 to make anyone mistrust the government? Nothing that I can think of. Probably like most of us, I have trouble s...

I saw a bit of Zelenski (sp?) with the big guy. Z spoke about how many people in U are now going to be vengeful for generations. This is a great reason to stay out of European wars. They (all of them) have been fighting for a couple thousand years and they all hate each other. If you ever have a goo...

Here’s a short video by a Lebanese woman on gold as collapse insurance. She makes some interesting points. I was most interested in the shot of people in Venezuela shaving gold slivers off of coins to make smaller purchases.

https://youtu.be/ggiiKfXQDG4

Also, none of this is making the evening news. Nothing to see here. Then again, the evening news is in bed with the government.

Maybe all this will be funny someday.

Well, I mean, surely you can see the hypocrisy in Boris Johnson's approach, can't you? If the war can end only in Vladimir Putin's defeat (I mean, who writes this stuff? But okay, whatever), then why aren't the UK, US, etc. sending their men and women over there to help shoulder the burden of fight...

Suggested book:
The Rational Optimist, by Matt Ridley.

The argument that Twitter is a private company doesn’t apply because they were working hand in hand with the government. The government was actively suppressing freedom of speech through Twitter, among others.

DogBreath wrote: ↑Mon Dec 19, 2022 2:43 pm Murphy was the anti-semite. Not sure why Somedude was banned other than his anti-vax opinions. His posts were intelligent and well thought out IMO, but against the mainstream (usually wrong) narrative.

So who are you then?

Slightly related, with the twitter unbannings/revelations, weren't there a few conservatives people on this forum who should have been banned for a month instead of forever? This forum used to welcome conservative views, but that stopped being the case some time back. Even if the bans are reversed,...

And you guys probably don't think that the CIA lied to get us into the Iraq war after 9/11 also, right? And they didn't lie to get us into several other wars down through the ages, right? Somehow, people are willing to believe that lies happened 20 or 30 or more years ago, but right now at this mom...

Dieter wrote: ↑Wed Dec 14, 2022 4:33 pm And yet another take on Hunter Biden laptop story

https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2022/ ... tid=Zxz2cZ

Sorry, that is a pretty laughable take.

Can’t really blame this on Obama, the CIA or anyone else in the big bad West. Prominent Putin foe sentenced to 8 and a half years in prison over criticism of Ukraine war DECEMBER 9, 2022 / 10:29 AM / CBS/AP https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ilya-yashin-valdimir-putin-critic-prison-sentence-ukrain...

I’ve also stopped at 3. It seems unwise to keep stacking them. However I am open to an annual shot. Just not now.