woooooo

Housing, schooling, healthcare, daycare, food.

Samsung TV purchasing power has skyrocketed, though, so there's that.

You realize he was there at Iraq's invitation? The only impact of killing him is that both the Iraqis and whomever took his place is guaranteed to never forget why the job was open.

Looking at the middle east right now compared to 2020 I see a much bigger shitshow, including Syria. Having a bunch of people die chaotically doesn't serve anyone's interest, it just creates the next generation of radicals.

Ideally its a mix, a good PM should understand the customer/market more than the developer has time to do, and then they can have conversations with devs about how to most effectively fill needs. In reality, these PMs seem more like unicorns rather than expected table stakes, but hey.

Can you point out the substantial positive change?

It's late where I am so I don't have a well-reasoned response, just wanted to say I understand what you're saying. It sucks, given what the current admin is getting away with, but I understand it.

I shouldn't bite but are you seriously saying Maduro had Hitler-like potential to ignite global war if we didn't stop him?

I'm arguing against the US installing leaders in Latin America, sorry if I was unclear. I happen to have some Chilean friends and stories from them, from the Pinochet era, have helped shape my perspective.

I think WW2 had a little bit more justification than whatever this is.

Thanks for engaging in good faith, but you know that China is selling more cars to all of Latin America than us currently, right?

Will this engagement deepen Latin American trust and respect for the US or the opposite? China makes it very clear that they do not give a shit about politics and just want to do good business, they're deepening ties that way. What's our plan? Invade random countries and tell them they better not cross us? How long does that work?

I'm not a lawyer, and I didn't follow every motion, you're right. Still, in my book, fast walking would have meant moving faster. Venue shop if you have to. Release/declassify documents to make the bad guys look bad. There's lots of "improper" stuff they could have done and are currently getting owned by.

Well, as always, who decides the leader is illegitimate? Are the Saudis illegitimate, according the the rubric we put on Maduro?

The UN deliberately has no mechanism for this because it's a talking shop intended to help avoid war by providing a talking venue. That's the whole idea, they're not the world police, there is no such thing. They're a forum.

I'm absolutely not defending any given dictator but history shows that every attempt to remove a dictator "for the greater good" is usually 1) selfishly motivated and 2) backfires horribly.

First off, I'll give you credit for at least trying to justify this, it puts you ahead of the administration that can't even bother.

Second off, only #3b above (geopolitics) could possibly count at all. We support dozens of dictators, don't give a darn about their people as long as it's geopolitically useful. So I've been conditioned to assume it's bullshit when someone says "we're doing it for the people there".

Third, and to your #3.. it's Venezuela. No disrespect to the people there but it's not exactly the lynchpin of international relations. Is this really worth it? For some crude which is really high in sulfur and not even that important given fracking? Even if I'm a Henry Kissinger psychopath, this still doesn't make sense.

Its very much for lack of trying. They had 4 years, we got no epstein files and they slow walked prosecutions to happen during the election, thinking it would help them. It didn't work, here we are.

With some charity, you can assume that people have default concern for Venezuelans.

The politics are baffling. There hasn't even been a case made that one could disagree with. Why are we killing Venezuelans and kidnapping their president? If this is for the greater good, where is that argument?

Google gets subpoenad all the fucking time. They have whole departments set up to handle the case load.

Some public evidence: https://www.alphabetworkersunion.org/press/google-lays-off-c...

Fair

Gemini adoption via search is legit, though. I had a question, I got an answer, its not forced, fake adoption in that case.

Smart people can like sports, and there's a century long history of "sharps" who are better than most at sports gambling.

Even a deliberately bad gift as a gag shows some effort and socialization.

I'm not disagreeing too hard with you, we probably feel similarly about both cases. I just don't like how western media takes a "we're the good guys and they're a dystopia" approach to reporting it.

They've charged like 250 people in 5 years under this law[1], I don't like any one of those cases, I'm also against it, but it gets characterized like nobody ever catches a bullshit charge in the West.

[1]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/06/hong-kong-nat...

Ok, so with charity she's a marginally qualified 150 million dollar aquihire? In journalism?

Wasn't meaning to ignore the trend, the PRC bears full responsibility for their actions. Just saying that complaints from the British in particular are a little rich.

Also they appear to be arresting more people for speech in total and per-capita than HK:

https://insider.iea.org.uk/p/30-people-arrested-daily-for-sp...

https://insider.iea.org.uk/p/30-people-arrested-daily-for-sp...

The Chinese absolutely bear responsibility for how they've governed the last 30 years, just as the British bear responsibility for how they governed the prior 150.

The fact that British HK liberalized a little at the very last second before handover is better than nothing, and the National Security Law is definitely bad, but right now the scoreboard is 7/150 years of free speech under the UK, compared to 23/28 years of free speech under PRC. It'll take another 100 years for the PRC to have a worse record than the UK.

Its a pretty big detriment to American thinking that they take cold-war era characterizations of the Russian economy and then apply them to 2025 China.

The current Chinese worries are about having too much competition rather than too little, Google "involution" to read about it.

FWIW, the ritual of codifying your experimentation like this does still serve a dubious purpose -- it gives your boss a way to talk about it with their boss. This doesn't solve the problem faster, it slows things down in fact, but we live in a society and your boss needs a way to talk about your work.

One weekend, 7 years and Nixon's entire presidency before we actually withdrew.

Thanks!

Isn't it completely standard for international shipping to fly random flags? Ive never understood exactly why but I think its common?

The start?

Once they were in-country, it doesn't sound like it was voluntary. Guy thought he was getting a chill security job at an unrealistic pay point. Clearly not the smartest, but he didn't move to Russia to join the army. Just like Pakistanis don't move to Saudi Arabia to be enslaved.

In both cases, the word is out and these people should have known better, but maybe they were desperate, or naive, I think we can have a little human empathy.