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Anastasis

Certifiably Surly
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    32561
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Everything posted by Anastasis

  1. both sides. YMMV.
  2. Garbage address.
  3. Do whatever you need to do with your own family.
  4. No one is getting perms banned for being an asshole on this board of asshole. Pene is barking up unproductive trees.
  5. Unless he’s a dick and had fired away with political bullshit to ruin your holidays in the past. In which case turnabout is fair play.
  6. Just get him a bottle of booze or something and don’t try to infect your family Christmas with political nonsense. Just a thought.
  7. I am sorry for whatever happened to you sawbonz. That really doesn’t have anything to do with me though. And it’s hardly fair to characterize any of my arguments when you have me on ignore and bias your exposure.
  8. I've been making a good faith effort to procure second hand "stop war now" and "in this house we believe in science" signs for a while now, but they seem to be buried under deep layers of dust in garages.
  9. Frankly, life is too short to be posting on a discussion board format where actual discussion has been overtaken largely by regurgitation of other social media feeds. Shakes fists at clouds. I am not optimistic, but maybe after Trump this shit can kinda reset and we can all age out to retirement and arguing with each other in this little outdated media format.
  10. National address tonight will likely include some form of a "declaration of war". Too bad congress has long abdicated all responsibility for such things to teh executive branch.
  11. Do you need the charity links too?
  12. Equivalent of just putting your fingers in your ears. Look the modeling results that you are citing are extremely sensitive to the parameters and model specifications used. I understand that the results fit your prefered political narrative, so you are going to run with them, and are going to ignore other arguments. That's fine. But you are really not going to impress me with an argument that is basically oriented to calling the morality of people with a different political perspective on the historical and recent role of USAID as an entity in to question. Let me know if you need me to link you to some charities in Bangladesh you can include in your end of the year giving.
  13. What's a few hundred thousand force sterilized or some light regime destablization and torture training, right? Humanitarian efforts need to be totally divorced from regime change and other front operations. Sorry that when you mix those things and roll them up under the same umbrella it is going to be to the detriment of the valuable humanitarian efforts. These are not particularly outlandish thoughts, and would have been widely accepted on this board prior to the Orange Man. Here's a NYT opinion piece from 2014 striking the same chords: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/04/15/when-is-foreign-aid-meddling/secret-programs-hurt-foreign-aid-efforts There is a world of difference between American foreign assistance programs that openly support democratic development, human rights and socioeconomic progress, and the type of clandestine operations aimed at regime change that United States Agency for International Development has been running under the guise of a “democracy” promotion program in Cuba. Those programs are not only counterproductive, they are an abject violation of Cuba’s sovereignty, undermine American interests in Cuba’s slow but steady political and economic transition, and endanger the legitimate missions of U.S.A.I.D. around the world. U.S.A.I.D. was created in 1961 to help the United States win the “hearts and minds” of citizens in poor countries through civic action, economic aid and humanitarian assistance. As a cold war policy tool, the agency was, at times, used as a front for C.I.A. operations and operatives. Among the most infamous examples was the Office of Public Safety, a U.S.A.I.D. police training program in the Southern Cone that also trained torturers. In the 21st century, U.S.A.I.D. has overcome its tainted legacy and undertaken humanitarian, political and economic work around the globe. It runs democracy promotion efforts from Afghanistan to Kenya — building political leadership capacity, electoral education and registration programs, and judicial reform projects — with little controversy. It is when U.S.A.I.D. undertakes “discreet” regime change operations that it runs into trouble. Indeed, its Office of Transition Initiatives now seems to be competing with, or at least complementing, the C.I.A. on hi-tech propaganda and destabilization programs in Cuba, if not elsewhere as well. Regime-change programs have a negative impact on larger U.S. foreign policy interests as well as on the legitimacy of U.S.A.I.D.’s own core missions to advance global health and economic welfare. At a Senate hearing on U.S.A.I.D.’s budget last week, Senator Patrick Leahy told the agency's administrator, Rajiv Shah, that his oversight committee was receiving “lots of emails” from aid workers around the world asking this question: “How could they do this and put us in such danger?” The solution is simple: ban U.S.A.I.D. from conducting such covert operations in the name of advancing democracy.
  14. I am not going to lose my mind over USAID funding cuts. They intermingled the very good with the very bad under that orgs banner. My greater wish generally in terms of haircuts would be for substantial military spending cuts. We all know that that is one of the two primary areas in government where fraud, waste, and abuse is out of hand.
  15. Funding has been continued, yes at reduced level. According to that article we are sending aid money there at greater than a 2 to 1 ratio compared to the rest of the world combined.
  16. From the article: In a statement to the AP, the State Department said the U.S. has provided more than $168 million to the Rohingya since the beginning of Trump’s term, although data from the U.N.’s financial tracking service show the U.S. contribution in 2025 is $156 million. Asked about the disparity, the State Department said the U.N.’s financial tracking service had not been recently updated and “generally does not show the latest information on all U.S. funding.” The department said it had “advanced burden sharing and improved efficiency” in the Rohingya response, resulting in 11 countries increasing their funding by more than 10% year on year, collectively contributing $72 million. To that quoted text you can add "funded forced sterilization programs in Peru". Thanks for the opportunity to update. Let me know wildcat if you need me to find an appropriate charity for you to send the checks representing your genuine concern on the issue in Bangladesh, versus just trying to score message board points.
  17. This Santa wishes he had bought more GLD and SLV to ho ho ho with.
  18. Testing an hour in, masa seems to have set but could use some more time still. Flavor is next level.
  19. Steaming now. Not sure how long these are suppose to go but reading recipes that say up to 2 hours.
  20. Finally got around to the batch. Deer shoulder/shank and pork butt.
  21. If this was RFK, Jr. there would be social media regurgitation across a couple threads on the board.
  22. How do you know what pronouns they use?
  23. The pee pee tapes are scheduled for release on Friday. Plenty to talk about then.
  24. Its not really an exchange about the vaccine BOOM.
  25. Thanks for sourcing me the direct quote re: testing: "The way he (Trump) talks about the vaccine is not particularly rational. He’s talking about it being ready, he’s going to talk about moving it quicker than the scientists think it should be moved … . People don’t believe that he’s telling the truth, therefore they’re not at all certain they’re going to take the vaccine. And one more thing: If and when the vaccine comes, it’s not likely to go through all the tests that need to be done, and the trials that are needed to be done."
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