When the Kuwaiti girl talking about Iraqis killing babies turned out to be a US plant during the first Bush reign, that was enough to get me to start asking what the US game plan was, and what the real motivations in the Middle East were. And I was old enough to remember who installed Hussein.

So when Bush II came along, I was expecting the action, just waiting to see what the excuse would be. And the excuse didn’t match the action; there was already a UN delegation that could have helped Iraq clean up the remaining agents with no involvement of US troops.

And of course, there was no reason to attack Iraq because of a Saudi who successfully attacked the US was hiding somewhere in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

The Roma are an easy target because traditionally, they haven’t owned land and have been their own political entity, not beholden to any local government.

This makes them difficult to control, which makes them extremely dangerous to property-based politicians.

Think of it— Western government is generally based on the premise that people who live in defined geographic areas select representatives to govern them. And the Roma live wherever they want, with their own language, culture and politics, and can’t be manipulated based on where they live and who controls that land.

So how about this scenario: someone with a terminal illness has access to the files. Said person sticks their copy in a timed release, so when they die, the documents are distributed everywhere.

At this point, enough people have access to the files that such a thing is feasible.

Of course, it’s also possible that enough of the files are so boring and inconsequential that nobody would see the value in releasing them like that; the main power is to leverage the innuendo to direct public opinion in a timely manner.

Why is he listed as a Zelenskyy associate instead of by name?

It’s not even speculation on the value of their assets; in most cases, it’s speculation on the value of their speculation on someone else’s revenue growing power.

Are we talking about people with $1B in the bank, or people “worth $1B” though?

If you got rid of the stock market today, forgave all loans and capped property values, it would be interesting to see who is actually rich.

…the President has said that the two men fell out prior to Epstein’s convictions.

…tells us only that he didn’t sever ties because of the bad optics.

Epstein didn’t become a child exploiter when he was convicted. There’s documented evidence and witness testimony of him taking underage girls from Mar-a-Lago to his private island —which there is documented evidence of Trump having visited numerous times — where they were sexually abused.

I do say that I’m curious what they fell out over though. Did Epstein try to blackmail Trump? Vice versa?

Her apology and future actions should be considered if she’s ever found guilty and put before a court for sentencing.

Messing up while running for political position should result in a permanent return to private life. There’s a limited number of seats and millions of people who can fill them.

Very few non-dictatorial countries have ever had the equivalent to a US President. Most other countries also have a Prime Minister (and many also have a Governor General). Germany adds in a chancellor. Some even have actual royalty or religious leaders whose only political job is supposed to be to disband parliament when things get out of hand.

Nope; I have no idea why. Cough seems hardwired to my “this person is about to die!” reflex, compounded with “…and they’re transmitting whatever is killing them to me!”

I can’t think of any traumatic childhood events that would have conditioned this response.

Wow… that’s some REALLY heavy spin there.

I have to say, the initial reports puzzled me. This begins to make more sense, that someone who doesn’t like site mirroring has been attempting to get the site taken offline.

My guess is that it’s not about CSAM (that was used as the leverage) and it’s probably not about paywalls either.

Most likely, someone wanted to get some unflattering but true information about them removed from the Internet without drawing any attention to it with a RTBF request.

I grew up in a house where my parents intentionally never raised their voices.

It’s made me unflappable in the face of shouting, but also resulted in years of misery as I learned a constructive way to handle raised voices outside of the safety of my home.

Coughing on the other hand… triggers my fight/flight every time.

There’s a lot of them.

Betteridge’s law of headlines applies here.

People who call themselves Christians but don’t live by the teachings of Christ (and often don’t even know them).

She’s still all-in on MAGA — just not Trump.

Was it something by BKS? https://www.discogs.com/artist/14346-BKS This was early 90s, but the feel seems about right?

Some Spanish were French-pasty; others were Berber-brown. This is because there were lots of waves of people from Europe and North Africa and the Middle East who settled in Spain.

But the Spanish were also known for being pretty rapacious in the New World; this would mostly have resulted in Spanish blood in people who were indigenous by heritage, but I’m sure over time some of those “Spanish-looking” indigenes would have passed themselves off as Spanish for a better station in life, rejecting their heritage in the process. The Spanish didn’t do the whole “reservation” thing after all, they just moved in and set up camp where they wanted and mixed with the locals — kind of like the French in Canada.

A helicopter emits sound in the 85 (max 40 hours a week) to 110 (WILL cause damage, even in bursts of 15 minutes or less) dB.

So a helicopter mother’s yelling is likely more damaging to your ears than the headphones if it is prolonged ;)