caeron

Yeah, what is with all those savages who can't make do with their reservations?

Seems they're a bit crazy about the gambling there. Some years back they raided the bridge club, sure that with all those cards gambling must be going on...

I hate this kind of weak-ass shit. There are thousands and thousands of legitimate arguments to make about US foreign policy through the years. Hell, US actions with the Shah of Iran would be high up the list, and the list is very, very, very long. So when somebody can't be bothered to even make a legitimate argument and just posts weak-ass false memes, it is an insult to the viewers intelligence. I feel no need to validate an underlying truth to somebody who can't be bothered to articulate it themselves.

Elon Musk is an idiot. There are no US military bases in either Afghanistan or Saudi Arabia. This is BS.

Th US has had 30K+ gun deaths in the US per year for decades. Decades. Recently, we're pushing 50K. This nation is insane, and most of us don't even know it. Pretty sure the rest of the world knows crazy when it sees it though...

The Catholic Church wishes you to know that the creator of the universe, the alpha and the omega, the Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient and, of course, Omnibenevolent God who chose to incarnate as a human and kill himself so that he could forgive you is really, really, REALLY obsessed with what you do with your penis. Because that's how the creator of millions of stars, planets, and life forms rolls. They may also have a bridge in one of New York's boroughs that they'd like to sell you so that they can continue their holy works. Ministering to those who misuse their penes is at times a costly undertaking.

Indeed. I don't think Hamas is capable of admitting its strategy is never going to work. I vaguely hope that Israel will wake up and realize its strategy isn't either. If at least one of the two parties acts rationally, things might get better, if not good. Getting rid of Netanyahoo would be a good start.

For those unlike Unicorn who are interested in alternatives to bombings, look at: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/talking-with-insurgents-a-guide-for-the-perplexed/ (click download for the full article. The author points out that the costs of this approach are political and so difficult for someone like Netanyahu to stomach.) For those who would use the counter example of the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, I'd point to this short essay which describes the factors that drove that defeat: https://sangam.org/understanding-sri-lankas-defeat-tamil-tigers/ With the state backer Iran, those factors do not seem very achievable in Gaza. Bombings did not work for the US. They are not working for Israel. Americans loved our 'shock and awe", but at the end of the day, it didn't achieve our goals. I imagine the Israelis are much in the same mindset.

A tiny piece of good news in amongst the horror is that Israeli support for Netanyahu is apparently collapsing pretty dramatically. Israelis may be united, but they also blame him (as they should).

I can name them, Unicorn, but it isn't my job to do your thinking for you. Getting shrill at me because you don't want to engage your own mind isn't helpful. If you really can't think of any alternatives for the Israelis than bombing civilians, then I suggest you do some reading on asymmetric warfare. Bombing civilians hasn't stopped Hamas. It didn't stop the Taliban. (The US is as guilty of this error as Israel is.) What it does do is make the aggressor feel good while creating a whole new generation of militants to perpetuate the cycle. It's a lot like the war on drugs. It has failed utterly and completely, but omigod we can't stop now! Maybe this year we'll achieve what we haven't achieved in more than 50 years we've been doing this. Israel's been bombing civilians in Gaza since 2006. It is now 2023 and the bombings continue. How is that working for them?

There is no alternative to bombing civilians? I can think of several immediately, it just requires that you value those lives enough to choose alternatives. Somehow I imagine that if those civilians were Israelis that Hamas was hiding among that the Israelis would find A LOT of options. This statement so de-humanizes the Palestinian civilians being held hostage by Hamas that I doubt there is any point debating. But those Palestinian civilians are people too. Most of them want no part of this either.

A guy agreeing with you is a sour post? Personally, I find that when people want to try to hurt my feelings they aren't shy about expressing that here, or for that matter pretty much anywhere online.

I suspect because Netanyahu was too busy trying to turn Israel into a fascist state to notice that the Boogey man he'd nurtured for all those years, to ensure he had a boogey man, finally was ready to bite him.

Characterizing Israel as the attacked is overly simplistic to me. The Israeli military has been killing civilians in fairly large numbers for years. I suspect their families and communities are not at all comforted to hear the Israelis say they were trying to kill terrorists. I think a state of war has existed for quite some time with a fair amount of killing on both sides, though the Israelis win the body count battle. I don't think the chance for peace is much helped when people around the world pick sides in this conflict and thereby effectively egg the parties on to continue it. The conflict is unwinnable by either side. Israel can't kill an idea, and Hamas and those like it aren't going to make the state of Israel go away. But, they're both going to keep trying because at the moment they're both more invested in the problem than a solution.

>> The US has done virtually nothing. << I don't consider sabotage, assassination and who knows what else we don't hear about, "nothing." If you don't know about these events, then you haven't been following the news on Iran for the last decade or so. Shooting missiles at Iran and dropping bombs on them are hardly the only responses the US has. The fact that you haven't heard about all the US actions doesn't mean they haven't happened. The Hamas attack may well give Israel the cover it needs to actually escalate attacks on Iran that to date have been mostly in the shadows. The US shies away from "regime change", but I doubt Israel has those same qualms. Yes, it can get a lot uglier for Iran. It can also get a lot uglier for Israel, Hamas and a host of others. As long as a lot of people are more invested in the conflict than in its resolution, the killings will continue on both sides.

If you don't care what people think of your opinion, why bother to share it? Personally, I find talking to myself quicker and easier than posting to myself.

"The men were models. They were seeking work as models." Maybe. They were paid for sex work. How much they may have been mislead or not is an unanswered question, and I suspect given the time that has past cannot be answered. _IF_ they were misled, that is a shitty thing to do. If they now regret doing it, or just want more money for having done it and want to extort the one who hired them, that is also a shitty thing to do. I don't think any of us can know which of these two it was. Their lawyer is certainly pushing the former to achieve the latter. It isn't hard for me to believe that no promises were made. It is hard for me to believe future benefits might result wasn't implied. Then again, maybe some of these party attendees did end up getting such rewards, just not these particular ones... But, to Omega's point, I recall a conversation in this forum some years ago when I commented very positively about a siamroads.com guide I had in Myanmar. Someone suggested I should have tried to bed him (he was both charming and handsome). I had hired him as a guide without any such agreement. I considered that suggestion highly unethical because as the employer who had contracted for non-sexual services to attempt to now use that position of power to negotiate a "new arrangement" including sex would be an abuse of power to me. I think it can be very easy for some in power to forget that the position of power they hold limits their counter-party's freedom to choose. Saying no may carry implied consequences that those not in the position of power fear enough to make them do things they would never agree to if they were in a position of equal power. When I contract for sexual services, I am very clear about what I am asking for and offering in exchange, as I suspect most all of us here are. (as an aside, I've enjoyed all the siamroads.com guides I've hired for local guide services.)

I agree fedssocr. I could almost hear the breathless titillation in the article. It made me roll my eyes.

There are many shitty things to do that aren't illegal. That doesn't make them not shitty. I hate the argument legality=acceptability.

Like Omega, I wonder if the young men were led on about what they might get modeling career-wise if they consented. Even so, this feels a bit like an attempt to extract further money from the guys who apparently gave them "envelopes with thousands of dollars of cash". That's a pretty generous payscale in the world of sex work for attending a sex party.

My diabetic partner(whom I usually cook for) and I took note and avoid this for now. While what unicorn said is true, the correlation here was big. "the degree of risk was not modest," is a scientist's way of saying "Holy Fuck!" If you regularly eat things with sugar replacements in it as we do, this study is worth taking a look at yourself.

Many of our first experiences sucked. Mine sucked because I didn't articulate what I wanted, I just wanted them to magically figure it out. (free clue, they don't.) Now, I negotiate exactly what I'm looking for before the meeting so nobody arrives with misaligned expectations. You also get better at judging who is going to give you the experience you want. But, hiring is always a roll of the dice. Sometimes great, sometimes not. If that doesn't appeal to you, try to find a guy who does it for you, and just stick to him. If muscle worship is your thing, you might try Tawan bar. It's known as the muscle place. Just use the translation apps to make clear what you want before you close the deal. Be explicit. I found it a bit embarrassing back then to explain exactly what I wanted... and I didn't get what I wanted. That learned me!

Musk has destroyed twitter. This latest attempt to save it will only hasten its demise if he implements it. Whatever the fee, too many won't bother and it will wither and die. Perhaps when it finally goes bankrupt, somebody who has a clue will buy it and attempt to revive it. If so, I wish them luck. It never had a viable business model and Musk's idiocy really didn't help. Does he really think advertisers want to be on a platform where he tweets that the ADL is the cause of anti-semitism on Twitter? I never much paid attention to him before he bought twitter, but I am now completely baffled how a man so stupid could be so successful so far. He flushed all the brand equity of the name twitter because he has an alphabetic fetish for the letter X. The mind boggles. The mind also stays well away from the place for now. I miss the porn, but I'm not being part of that shit show.

There is plenty of evidence that he did this multiple other times to other men. Dozens of men don't come out of the woodwork to make accusations spontaneously. That they did not have enough proof here to convict doesn't make him not a sexual predator who used his power and position to extort sexual favors. I think the destruction of his career was warranted and self-inflicted. He can spend the rest of his life in social exile.

It is a disadvantage if you want to stay somewhere in the neighborhood of truth. If Manchin is only going to get in to win, then I don't think he'll get in. He'd have a very tough uphill climb and would burn a lot of bridges to try. Threating to do it might get him something. Actually doing it, not so much.