Jump to content

956 Worldwide

Full Members
  • Posts

    10383
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    26

Everything posted by 956 Worldwide

  1. Hey Smart Women- What is the appeal of a charismatic, handsome world leader who has been globally praised for bravery and leadership while defending his country against a hideous fascist army? It also seems he loves his beautiful wife and young children. I just don’t know what you see in him. What does he have that JD Vance and Elon Musk don’t? Signed, A Conservative Man Who Isn’t Mad. At All. Lots of Women Like Me. I’m Just Curious Not Jealous.
  2. You can’t be a good writer without first being a broad and experienced reader. Academic and non-fiction writing won’t do to train your instincts. Great books curriculum didn’t produce brilliant writers but it did produce coherent writers. If I could design a reading boot camp for grad students I would include: - The Gospels in New King James, which is accessible but gives you the rhythm and pace of modern English. - Bartleby the Scrivener by Melville - A few Twain humorous essays - Death in the Afternoon by Hemingway - Orwell’s essay on shooting an elephant - A Good Man is Hard to Find by O’Connor - Something by W. Somerset Maugham and Graham Greene - Good translations of some Chekov short stories - Good translations of Joseph Roth dispatches from Weimar Berlin - Strunk and White. Follow the rules until you are sure you are good enough to break them, sparingly.
  3. At nearly every mentorship or informational interview I have, I tell grad students and interns to learn how to write clear declarative sentences and to practice turning five pages of work into one. Without AI.
  4. Surely my fainting couch hyperventilation about how Obama is a the real fascist will in no way create a lumbering zombie horde of seething grievance, dead set on destroying the things I am trying to “conserve.”— Jonah Goldberg in 2012
  5. In which Elon proposes Trump investigate the entire cabinet for corruption less than 90 days into his presidency.
  6. That’s what they want you to believe.
  7. Another one I’ll choose to believe.
  8. A conspiracy theory I choose to believe is that most Tesla firebombing is insurance fraud from dealers or owners who can’t sell or want to ditch their cars.
  9. Extremely sharp response to this from the GOP committee chairs. Rightfully, but will they have the backbone in the end? I know it’s not sexy and arcane but the key things to make noise about and call Congress and get active are the (decisions made to reshape the bureaucracy. COCOM structures and military titles seem deathly dull but this is how a dictatorship locks in its choices by default. Stalin once said “the cadres decide everything!”
  10. As far as I know, no one has released the names of the people we stuffed in a Salvadoran prison. Just a nameless mass of people we are assured were illegal gang bangers. Terrifying.
  11. Elon casually endorsing the idea of turning the U.S. into a Central American dictatorship. 5d chess to stop migrants by making America equally as bad. Also, imagine letting adult oppositional defiant disorder “libertarianism” break your brain so badly that you feel compelled to goaltend for the richest defense contractor in the world, who is also a high-ranking government official. Very embarrassing. But many such cases. SAD!
  12. It’s performative in favor of the Russians. Also important: Trump announced “energy and infrastructure” ceasefire and Putin announced “energy infrastructure ceasefire.” This is because Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy infrastructure hurt Putin, and he knows that Ukraine will not engage in large attacks on civilian infrastructure. Putin will attack Ukrainian civilians (and never offered not to), and honestly cares more about his refineries than the entire oblast that surrounds them. Likewise, Ukraine has no maritime military assets to attack except drones, while Russia has many. If implemented, Russia would be “graciously” agreeing to stop bombing grain ships to protect its own missile barges. The terms are all upside for Russia. We will try to browbeat Ukraine into accepting this, and will not treat missile launches into hospitals and apartments as a breach.
  13. At the time (mid-90s) that the Ford vs. Chevy vs. Mopar guys were standing in the high school parking lot arguing, they (we) absolutely mixed our measurement units. Marketing works well on teenage boys. Ford had advertised their V8 as a “5.0” since they dropped it in the Fox Body. Chevy’s small-block for the Camaro and Corvette (and trucks) was always a “350.” Mopar was beginning to call its 360 truck engine a “5.9” but there was lots of inertia and nostalgia for the 360 small block from the muscle era— and the Mopar crate motor.
  14. The head of European Command or U.S. Armed Forces in Europe has been dual-hatted as Supreme Allied Commander Europe for NATO since Eisenhower. The role has been a demonstration of reality (U.S. force will be the deciding factor in any conflict) and commitment to Europe’s defense. It’s not a rule SACEUR has to be American. Just how it’s done, and the civilian leadership of NATO (SecGen) is traditionally European as a demonstration that the Alliance is not an American construct or directed organization. The proposal aims to combine European Command with African Command and tell NATO we don’t want their job anymore. It’s basically part of the Trump effort to walk away from NATO in every way they counts and signal to Russia that we don’t care about the defense of Europe anymore.
  15. Broke: Massive defense contractors with woke CEOs. Bespoke: Massive defensive contractors with Nazi CEOs. Fuckin’ Anastasis man. What a dipshit.
  16. The astronaut came up— big guy, tall with huge muscles. And he had tears in his eyes and he said “sir, thank you so much for rescuing us. Joe Biden could never.” And I said you better thank Elon too and he said “and Elon is the best, I’m never going to drive anything but a Tesla. He’s found so much corruption and is doing a great job.” Then I asked him, what if you’re in the space station and it’s depressurizing and it’s going to suck you into the black void. But inside the rescue capsule 10 feet away there’s a shark. Would you choose the freezing void or the shark? And I said “gimme the freezing void! I’m not taking the shark in the rescue capsule. Give me the freezing black void.” And the astronaut said it’s a good question. No one ever asked it before.
  17. The astronauts were never stranded and flew home on a capsule that has been attached to the space station all along. And we paid for all of it.
  18. Kremlin media openly mocking Trump.
  19. The U.S. got rolled today. Putin refused the ceasefire offer, countered with something else that Putin will not implement, and pitched a bunch of bullshit to pump up Trump’s ego like hockey games. The goal is to get the United States to pressure Ukraine into something unacceptable and then drive a wedge between the U.S. and Europe. Russia is doing its own reverse Nixon on us and everyone around our president is either too stupid or venal to notice or care. Also, the NSC is understaffed and lacking any actual real-world Russia expertise and none of the people they could hire will pass Trump’s political litmus tests. Lots of self-inflicted harm here.
  20. Trump got rolled today. Putin refused the ceasefire offer, countered with something else that Putin will not implement, and pitched a bunch of bullshit to pump up Trump’s ego like hockey games. The goal is to get the United States to pressure Ukraine into something unacceptable and then drive a wedge between the U.S. and Europe. Russia is doing its own reverse Nixon on us and everyone around Trump is either too stupid or venal to notice or care. Also, the NSC is understaffed and lacking any actual real-world Russia expertise and none of the people they could hire will pass Trump’s political litmus tests. Lots of self-inflicted harm here.
  21. Anastasia and Cheong are aligned that noticing Bucha is bad and likely a fake. You will recall that was his position when it came to light.
  22. Up top, let me say that CBP under DJT and Noem appear to have gone completely buck-wild and cruel. On this case, things are much less on the side of the traveler, and any CBP under any admin likely would have bounced her. This CBS article is better reported and explains what actually happened. In a separate article, it’s being reported that her lawyers all quit after doing more due diligence. Not a great vote of confidence. https://www.boston25news.com/news/local/hearing-new-england-doctor-deported-lebanon-canceled-after-attorneys-withdraw-case/RYRF2XCVO5BTNOURS72F6RQGH4/?outputType=amp A couple of thoughts: 1. The only real legal question I see is if CBP ignored a court order they received before she was on a plane back. CBP engages in a lot of ratfuckery, so that could have happened. 2. It is super, super unusual for a federal judge to get involved of questions of entry or order a denial of entry be reviewed/delayed. There is no legal right for a non-immigrant to enter the United States. This is very different from a deportation. I suspect there were some inaccuracies of the facts in the filing (which likely led to the lawyers withdrawing). 3. Reports say that the doctor’s cousin filed a lawsuit on behalf of her. This would likely get tossed because there is no right denied or actual harm done to you if your cousin isn’t allowed to enter the United States. The sponsor of the visa was Brown, not the cousin. It is longstanding precedent to toss lawsuits filed by Americans who demand that their relatives have a right to come visit; and in this case the woman’s stated reason to travel was to work for an employer so her cousin has fuck-all to do with it. 4. When an immigration officer is interviewing you as a non-immigrant for admission, it’s not a legal proceeding where you get due process. Basic human rights are due to you but you don’t have Constitutional rights as a foreign citizen who has not yet entered the U.S. 5. Hard to say why she got yanked for additional screening. Oftentimes CBP gets tips. They 100 percent have the right to search your shit including phones, you can choose to refuse ans not to answer questions and take the next plane back. Entry into the U.S. is basically the only chance the government has to do a full and hard screening with no warrant or order, and they will do it if they suspect you of shadiness I don’t think she herself is a terrorist, but at the same time I can also say that there’s very few CBP officers who are going to let you in if you tell them you were back in Lebanon and went to the funeral of the leader of a transnational terror celebrity because you dig his spirituality. That’s been true for decades. My suspicion is that the family decided to try to use the justified anger over current behavior to try and exploit public opinion.
  23. Also relevant on this and the deportation language: When a person is denied entry at an airport, it’s the airline (not the government) that is on the hook to take the person back on the next available flight to the departure origin. Airlines can also be fined, although that usually doesn’t happen if the person had a valid, checked visa. They will levy a fine if someone shows up with an expired visa or passport or something.
  24. This one is frankly quite different. She was on a non-immigrant visa and was found ineligible for admission when she presented herself for admission at a port of entry. Reporting on this stuff is notoriously bad with muddled and confused terms. Under U.S. law, arriving at an airport is the same as arrival via a land crossing or boat. She was not deported, she was denied entry. A non-immigrant visa is explicitly NOT a right to entry, is is a right to present yourself for admission to an immigration officer. That’s not a comment on the substance of the denial or the timeline as laid out. Just a statement of fact that there are very different rights and due process involved when removing someone from the United States (even if that person entered illegally) versus denying someone entry to the United States.
×
×
  • Create New...