El Guapo wrote: ↑Thu Mar 01, 2018 12:04 pm
The devastating first strike has always been somewhat chimerical, though. All you have to do is scatter your retaliatory capacity across different areas, and chances of the first strike getting substantially everything are pretty much zero. And that's not factoring in nuclear submarines and the like.
I don't necessarily disagree, although both Russia and the USA have a *lot* of warheads on hand if they know where those dispersed launch sites are located. Where things get tricky is when someone with launch keys drinks the kool-aid and believes either that they can pull it off (leading to a full exchange when the surprise fizzles), or that the opforce believes that they can pull it off and decides to use 'em before they lose 'em.
In the end, just because a plan realistically isn't viable doesn't mean that someone won't give it the old college try sooner or later.
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
Weapons from a faraway, long-ago war are flowing into immigrant neighborhoods here, puncturing Swedes’ sense of confidence and security. The country’s murder rate remains low, by American standards, and violent crime is stable or dropping in many places. But gang-related assaults and shootings are becoming more frequent, and the number of neighborhoods categorized by the police as “marred by crime, social unrest and insecurity” is rising. Crime and immigration are certain to be key issues in September’s general election, alongside the traditional debates over education and health care.
Part of the reason is that Sweden’s gang violence, long contained within low-income suburbs, has begun to spill out. In large cities, hospitals report armed confrontations in emergency rooms, and school administrators say threats and weapons have become commonplace. Last week two men from Uppsala, both in their 20s, were arrested on charges of throwing grenades at the home of a bank employee who investigates fraud cases.
An earlier jolt came with the death of Mr. Zuniga, who on Jan. 7 picked up the grenade, which the police believe had been thrown by members of a local gang targeting a rival gang or police officers.
Alec Baldwin: It's Tough To Impersonate The Greatest Presidential Impersonator Of All Time
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I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake. http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
While some elected Democrats continue to embrace him instead of repudiate him. Just to show that the right doesn't have a monopoly on embracing bigots.
Rip wrote: ↑Tue Feb 27, 2018 7:23 pm
It is a little weird to see you guys jump in on my Turkey hating.
It's less Turkey hate and more Erdogan hate. He's an obvious dictator who slaughter thousands of his own people when they rebelled. He is constantly stirring shit up on the international stage and happily used an archaic German law to have Germany lock up one of their own comedians who made fun of Erdogan (this is on Germany too).
I'm not saying Turkey is awesome without Erdogan, but right now, he's the problem.
Also, we should absolutely be doing what we can to help the Kurds - they really do deserve their own state. Pre-Erdogan, when Turkey was a reliable and important democratic U.S. ally, the calculus was a little more complicated. But one side effect of Turkey going into the shitter is that that minus factor is now gone. Though now Iraq complicates things a bit.
Of course, Trump saying that Erdogan is one of the world leaders he most admires probably means that won't happen. Also yet another indicator that Trump is a huge asshole.
U.S.-allied forces in eastern Syria said Tuesday that they are withdrawing from the front lines of the war against the Islamic State in order to battle the United States’ NATO ally Turkey elsewhere in the country, jeopardizing the fight against the militants.
Citing disappointment with the United States, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said they were pulling fighters off the front lines in the province of Deir al-Zour, where Islamic State fighters have been putting up a fierce fight in a pocket of territory on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River. The holdouts there are thought to include some of the most senior leaders of the organization who escaped the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria last year, U.S. officials say.
The move follows an effort by the Trump administration to assuage Turkish ire over the U.S. military’s close relationship with Syrian Kurdish forces. Those forces have been instrumental in the capture of vast swaths of territory from the Islamic State over the past three years, including the militants’ self-styled capital, Raqqa.
According to a statement by the SDF, which has received arms and training from the United States, the fighters will relocate to the Kurdish-controlled enclave of Afrin in northwestern Syria to help fend off a six-week-old Turkish offensive that has reportedly killed hundreds of civilians, displaced more than 10,000 people and contributed to one of the worst crises in U.S.-Turkish relations in decades.
It is with “regret” that the “painful decision” has been made to pull fighters away from the battle in Deir al-Zour, the SDF statement said. The decision would not have been taken, it added, “were it not for the failure of the international community to curb the Turkish aggression and put real pressure” on the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to “stop its madness within our Syrian borders.”
"What? What?What?" -- The 14th Doctor
It's not enough to be a good player... you also have to play well. -- Siegbert Tarrasch
The Turks have already bit off more than they can chew in Afrin, and that was before the Syrian government sent troops to help the Kurds up there. More veteran Kurdish troops heading into Afrin will just make it even more difficult, to say nothing of giving Isis a chance to regroup.
The Turkish military was never among he best trained in the first place, but reports are that the purges after the coup left it, not quite a shell of it's former self, but certainly weakened, especially among the officer corp.
Strange definition of pedo porn. It kinda says they are of legal age. Unless we are about to start referring to Bill Clinton as a barely disguised pedophile.
A popular Mansfield ISD art teacher was placed on administrative leave with pay in September days after she asked officials to modify the district's anti-discrimination policy to include LGBTQ language, documents show.
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In emails to Wright and the school board members, Bailey stated she was told by MISD associate superintendent Kimberley Cantu and human resources department to contact them about her concerns. She cited San Antonio, Dallas and Austin as Texas school districts that have included LGBTQ language to their policies.
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Almost two weeks later, on Sept. 7, Bailey emailed Michelle Smith and Sarah Buckner, counselors at Ben Barber Innovation Academy, to ask if that school had a gay/straight alliance group and so she could possibly connect with the faculty members who may have organized such a group.
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Sept. 8, the documents show, Cantu sent a letter to Bailey notifying her that the district was placing her on administrative leave with pay "until an investigation is completed." The three paragraph letter did not disclose a reason for the disciplinary action or the basis for an investigation.
I'm sure she's a problem employee for the school. Oh, wait...
Congrats again to our 2016 Charlotte Anderson Teacher of the year, Ms. Stacy Bailey!
It may surprise you but barely-legal and pedo are mutually exclusive.
Barely Legal = 18+
Pedophilia, or paedophilia, is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11, and boys at age 11 or 12, criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13. A person who is diagnosed with pedophilia must be at least 16 years old, and at least five years older than the prepubescent child, for the attraction to be diagnosed as pedophilia.
Except the whole schtick is that he's taking (apparently well-known) 13-year-old characters and having them magically transform into sex-hungry 18-year-olds. It's not legally pedo, but you can see the game he's playing.
But of course the real point (does this really need spelling out?) is that his AWIT movie review complains indignantly about some of the characters in the movie having their race changed from the book.
Yup. No one can possibly get upset about anything if it's demonstrable that they've not been upset about any and every single previous incident, no matter how dissimilar.
Rip wrote: ↑Thu Mar 08, 2018 4:45 pm
I can't help but wonder if the people criticizing him have also criticized the likes of Luc Besson or Woody Allen.
I find it hard to get upset when the entire media business is guilty of sexualizing minors every minute of the day.
and yet you managed to get upset regarding imagined slights from the Clintons while ignoring real ones from the right.
“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.” - H.L. Mencken
Rip wrote: ↑Thu Mar 08, 2018 4:45 pm
I can't help but wonder if the people criticizing him have also criticized the likes of Luc Besson or Woody Allen.
I find it hard to get upset when the entire media business is guilty of sexualizing minors every minute of the day.
and yet you managed to get upset regarding imagined slights from the Clintons while ignoring real ones from the right.
Not hardly. I've never in my life been upset about politics. Doing so is as silly as being upset about the weather.
The only thing sillier is getting upset over what some dude wrote in a fantasy fiction piece.
Yeah, it's not like things that politicians could ever decide about your rights, your health, or your livelihood. I can't understand why anyone would ever get upset about politics.
Rip wrote: ↑Thu Mar 08, 2018 4:45 pm
I can't help but wonder if the people criticizing him have also criticized the likes of Luc Besson or Woody Allen.
I find it hard to get upset when the entire media business is guilty of sexualizing minors every minute of the day.
and yet you managed to get upset regarding imagined slights from the Clintons while ignoring real ones from the right.
Not hardly. I've never in my life been upset about politics. Doing so is as silly as being upset about the weather.
The only thing sillier is getting upset over what some dude wrote in a fantasy fiction piece.
You have many Drudge Reports proving otherwise, Rip.
Fake news!
(Or an admission of insincerity?)
"If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts." - Albert Einstein "I don't stand by anything." - Trump “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing.” - John Stuart Mill, Inaugural Address Delivered to the University of St Andrews, 2/1/1867 “It is the impractical things in this tumultuous hell-scape of a world that matter most. A book, a name, chicken soup. They help us remember that, even in our darkest hour, life is still to be savored.” - Poe, Altered Carbon
Rip wrote: ↑Fri Mar 09, 2018 6:19 pm
There is much distance between disliking something and being angry about it.
You're using an incorrectly narrow definition of upset, but we all know why you need to.
I can totally understand the left assuming that political opposition means anger. Hell they get angry and start riots about people speaking they don't like, no need to enact laws they don't like.
One would think if I was angry I would go to some of those rally events, protest, or something maybe donate some money to a political group. Nope never done it. Not many of you can say the same.
So anyone preparing for the MAJOR recession I think is coming? Will the US remove / impeach / jail Trump before its too late? Anyone stockpiling canned goods and taking their money out of the banks?
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I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake. http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
Rip wrote: ↑Sat Mar 10, 2018 1:37 pm
One would think if I was angry I would go to some of those rally events, protest, or something maybe donate some money to a political group. Nope never done it. Not many of you can say the same.
Or you could take every opportunity to post the most paranoid, fantastic, rage-fueled Lock-Her-Up fantasies that cross your feed.
Rip wrote: ↑Sat Mar 10, 2018 1:37 pm
One would think if I was angry I would go to some of those rally events, protest, or something maybe donate some money to a political group. Nope never done it. Not many of you can say the same.
Or you could take every opportunity to post the most paranoid, fantastic, rage-fueled Lock-Her-Up fantasies that cross your feed.
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I am Dyslexic of Borg, prepare to have your ass laminated.
I guess Ray Butts has ate his last pancake. http://steamcommunity.com/id/daehawk
"Has high IQ. Refuses to apply it"
Sounds about right, considering Geek Squad's "target audience" - child porn is probably the only illegal material they could ever find. If someone is proficient enough with computer to commit any other kinds of cyber crimes, they are not going to be calling Geek Squad.
Today, voters in Pennsylvania's current 18th district head to the polls to elect a new Congressman.
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The winner of the contest will become Pennsylvania's 18th district's Congressman, but that district may not be around for much longer. In February, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down the state's Congressional maps as a partisan gerrymander in violation of the state constitution's equal protection clause. An appeal to this decision is pending before the US Supreme Court (on a theory of violating the Elections Clause of the federal Constitution), but should a stay be denied, the existing configuration of the state's districts will be thrown out for the elections in November later this year. As a note to users looking for more information on this district, maps on Wikipedia have been updated, and the current 18th district is now largely split between the new 14th and 17th districts.
A man who registered as a Green Party candidate for Montana's U.S. Senate race was on the state Republican Party's payroll and heads a newly formed anti-tax group, according to a review of election documents.
My blog (mostly photos): Fort Ephemera - My Flickr Photostream
“You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn’t waste either.” ―Galen Rowell
Briscoe Rowell Cain, III, is an attorney from Harris County, Texas, who is a Republican member of the Texas House of Representatives for District 128.
"The world is suffering more today from the good people who want to mind other men's business than it is from the bad people who are willing to let everybody look after their own individual affairs." - Clarence Darrow
never mind. 
Strike the barely legal clarification....
