And expressing ambivalence about whether to trust Putin or the United States' intelligence agencies on one issue does not even brush the surface of that threshold.
Out of an endless series of examples of how pathetic the old anti-war Left has become (or how consistently bloodthirsty the neocons have continued to be), I will select Michael Moore (and my pithy response):
These "peace-loving" Democrats do realize that all this saber rattling at Russia is about war, right? I mean, Politico called the DNC hack the "Our Pearl Harbor," and we went to war after Pearl Harbor. Plus, our conflicts in Syria and the Ukraine are really proxy wars with Russia. And the neocons (and mainstream Left too) want war, particularly in Syria.
Oh and then there's NATO. After all, we must protect ourselves from the Soviet Union! And Trump wants to undermine it! And thus we get this syphilitic take:
From the article he linked:
"According to government documents, which BIRN has seen, Montenegro plans to increase the number of soldiers by 50 per cent to meet US demands for allies to help share the load. Currently, Montenegro has 18 troops in the country, rising according to plans to 26-28." Thank you for defending us Montenegro!
Comments
I'm not old enough to remember the Cold War, but I've read enough about it to know that Democrats were consistently pushing for a detente with the Soviet Union. And you know what? They were right to do so. But I guess that was back when Russia was communist and now that they're not, it's time for war. From the mainstream and supposedly prestigious Politico:
"Act accordingly?" What in the Hell does that mean? Does this guy know that we declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbor?
By the way, 2400 Americans were killed and another 1200 wounded in the attack on Pearl Harbor. How many people died when Russia hacked the DNC? And given the bogus intelligence about Iraq, the mistakes regarding the rise of ISIS, the inability to see the Soviet Union was about to collapse and the general difficulty in attribution when it comes to hacking along with the fact that the DNC refused to turn over their servers to the FBI, I would say there is still grounds for skepticism regarding Russia's culpability. But let's say Russia was responsible, which they very likely are. According to one study , the United States has interfered in 81 different elections. (The Soviet Union meddled in 36.) And that doesn't include invasions (such as Iraq or Libya) or coups (such as Iran or the Ukraine). Remember when Hillary Clinton was caught on tape proposing the United States rig the Palestinian election? And if meeting with Putin cordially is such a great crime, what do we have to say about this guy:
Or this guy, who looked into Putin's soul by the way?
Or maybe it's just when you collude with Russia. (Still waiting on the evidence for that regarding Trump, but it's only been, what, two years?) Wait... what's this?
OK, but this outrage is about Trump siding with (or more accurately, being indecisvie) about whether to side with Putin or our intelligence agencies. But given their many failures noted above, the lies of people like James Clapper, the obvious politizied nature of these investigations, as highlighted by Peter Strzok and the piss dossier, and the embarrassing antics of the torture-loving, warmongering, illegally-spying, perjuring, former communist and probably current communist John Brennan... can you really blame him?
Everyone hacks and everyone interferes. China hacked the OPS and Hell, according to TMZ, the multinational corporation with no inherent loyalty to the United States, NBC intentionally leaked the infamous Trump tape. (Which under California law, was probably illegal.) Interference much? This is not to say that Putin is a nice guy or that Russia is an ally. Nor is it to say that if Russia did the hack that that was somehow OK. But let's have some perspective. Their goals are pretty obviously regional. They want NATO off their doorstep and they want influence in Eastern Europe and the Caucuses (which is exactly what the United States and EU want). They have an economy smaller than Italy and a population that is a fraction of China. They are also less authoritarian than China. Basically, as far as international relations go, Putin is not "literally Hitler" or some new boogieman. And Russia is not Nazi Germany. Russia is China Lite. And that's how we should see them. Other than the fact that they have a ton of nuclear weapons and it's probably a good idea to have a detente. Funny how none of these neocon and Democratic warmongers thought to throw a hissy fit over Trump's meeting and massive arms sales to the theocratic oil company of Saudi Arabia (which has spent over $100 billion funding Wahhabism all over the world). Perhaps Trump just needs to sell billions of dollars of weapons to Putin. Then the hysteria will end. But let's talk about foreign interference again real quick. Here's who Politico agreed to have pen an article about why the United States should presumably declare war on a country with enough nuclear warheads to end the world several times over. "Molly K. McKew (@MollyMcKew) advises governments and political parties on foreign policy and strategic communications. She is a registered agent for Georgian President Saakachvili’s government, which she advised from 2009-2013, and for former Moldovan Prime Minister Filat, who has been in prison since 2015." And of course, they note that the agent of a foreign government and antagonist of Russia wrote this agitprop at the end, not the beginning of the article. So my first article has been published in ThinkRealty Magazine. (I have previously written a few posts for their website.) The article is on a subject I've written about before; the importance of deferring gratification and the good ole-Stanford Marshmallow experiment (which unbeknownst to me at the time, has come under fire recently.) Anyways, here's a snapshot of the article in the latest edition of ThinkRealty's magazine: Make sure to check out ThinkRealty's website and magazine as well as their podcast which I will be appearing on shortly.
For those landlords out there, this is a relatively common problem... and a weird one. Every once and a while, a tenant will want to pay six months in advance or something like that. Usually this comes along with them not meeting your rental criteria. It's always a red flag.
I always say to stick to your rental criteria no matter what. Who knows, maybe this person is a drug dealer and makes lots of money, but you can't verify it since it was garnered illicitly. Regardless, I see this problem fairly frequently and it's one landlords are the most clueless about. I think Brandon Turner breaks down the problem really well on the AskBP podcast here:
And if you're interested in real estate investment, make sure to check out my blog at BiggerPockets while you're at it!
I recently had to quit smoking again after I fell back into the "habit" after some tough life events in the last couple of months. Fortunately, I quit again with Allen Carr's Easy Way method, who's book, The Easy Way to Stop Smoking, I've written about before, and who's webinar can be found here. I have been smoke-free for five days.
I certainly don't recommend ever doing this. It's a waste of time, health and energy and admittedly harder after the first time. But the method still works. This time I used the webinar and one of the last things they recommend you do is to "write a written record of what your life was like as a smoker and what made you want to stop." This is my record, and hopefully, if there are any smokers out there, this will help inspire you to check out Allen Carr's method and quit for yourself. ______________ Once again, I find myself sitting in a motel room watching Allen Carr's webinar to quit smoking. What a waste! Why have I gone to back to this garbage? How much of my time has been stolen from me by this worthless drug? How much of my energy? How much of my health? How much of my self respect? Life is too short to waste it inhaling toxic fumes into my lungs! Life is far too precious for that! I love living, but I most certainly hate smoking. I hate how it made me smell. I hate how it made me feel. I hate how it made me hide from friends and family. I hate how it robbed me or my energy. I hate how it wasted my money, especially when I didn't have much. I hate how I "waited" to quit to travel, ask girls out and do what I wanted in this one and only life I get to live. I hate what this evil thing did to me. Yet I love being free. And all I have to do to be free is choose to be free. I choose freedom.
Now the Internet mob has come for Buffalo Bills running back LeSean McCoy. And he may very well deserve it, but the story so far is a weird one to say the least,
"LeSean McCoy has been accused of beating his girlfriend, according to an Instagram post from her friend. "The user @Miamor_i_adore posted a disturbing picture Tuesday morning that showed a woman, who she says is Delicia Cordon, McCoy’s apparent girlfriend, with cuts, bruises and blood on her face with a caption that alleged, among other things, domestic assault by the Bills running back. "McCoy quickly denied the allegations. "'For the record, the totally baseless and offensive claims made against me today on social media are completely false,' he said in a statement. 'Further more, I have not had any direct contact with any of the people involved in months.'" So this all started from an anonymous Instagram post? OK... That being said, we should all suspend judgement, at least for now. The injuries to Delicia Cordon appear to have been confirmed and it was from a home invasion. And she has stated (I believe on record) that, according to ESPN, LeSean McCoy "set [her] up for the attack." Is it true? I don't know. But we should all remember that not long ago, San Francisco 49ers running back Reuben Foster was accused of domestic assault by his ex-girlfriend. Now, she admits she "lied a lot" and according to ESPN again, "Ennis, who testified against the advice of her attorney Stephanie Rickard, said she made up the story because she wanted to ruin Foster's career and sue him for money after he broke up with her on the morning of Feb. 11. She also admitted to falsely accusing a former boyfriend of domestic violence in Louisiana in 2011 after he attempted to break up with her." Listen and believe... Of course, that isn't just said ironically when it comes to feminists these days, as one back-and-forth on Twitter I saw made evidently clear:
"I literally don't care" might as well be the motto for feminists when it comes to men's well being. Or perhaps they're just a more extreme version of the normal, as science is starting to prove. First with the "Women are Wonderful Effect," then with the trolley car experiments, and now this:
I don't really think this is changeable. Nor do I think men don't have advantages of their own (most notably, perceived competence). But I do think it's something we as a society need to recognize. And that's especially true given that feminists are under the indefensibly stupid delusion that it's the other way around.
At the very least, we need to get away from this idea it's acceptable to just make serious accusations without evidence over social media.
So I got into a Twitter exchange with an actual bigshot (or sorts) for the first time, which was fun. I don't agree with Bloomberg writer Noah Smith that much, but he seems like a pretty fair-minded liberal. Here was his original Tweet and my response:
Of course, I'm referencing the fact that Antifa (the group that was fighting the Alt Right in Charlottesville, which is what Smith was referencing by "Nazis marching in the streets") are a bunch of communists.
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Andrew Syrios"Every day is a new life to the wise man." Archives
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