I heard Reza Pahlavi is wildly popular in Iran right now and Iranian locals are enthusiastic about seeing the Shah returned to power. Is this true?

What’s the lie about Ukraine?

Yaroslav Hunka scandal leaps to mind. But farther than that, it was the same old “it’s not going to be a quagmire”, “it’s not just about propping up the US arms industry”, “we have to fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here” line we’ve been hearing in every international theater.

Even the bit about Trump being “Putin’s Puppet” falls apart on any amount of historical interrogation. Trump was selling anti-tank missiles to Kiev as far back as 2018, three years before the Donbas invasion. He’d laid a bunch of sanctions on the country the first year he took office.

Then, as soon as Biden took office, he’s the one weak on Ukraine, according to the GOP.

Both parties egged their own supporters on by insisting the other party wasn’t Pro-Ukraine enough. Both parties insisted the other faction was “Communist”. Both insisted the other was a fifth column, trying to disarm the US from within. It was always and forever bullshit.

Tackle your hunger

No no, your mother died of sadness.

BECAUSE YOU CHEATED ON HER WITH ANAKIN?!

Damnit, son. I need you to back off the hatred for a minute and think about this logically. You need a mommy and a daddy make a baby.

Alright, who was your mom and dad?

Argh, okay, listen here you little shit…

Less crime before Brexit, too. It appears crime peaked during Brexit. Definitely something to think about.

The curious thing about US crime statistics is that we only count crimes against the state. We never count crimes committed by the state.

I would argue that US Crime has been sharply on the rise, from within the organs of the government itself (and its corporate affiliates).

Sharp Decline

rimshot

You could make this graph about pretty much any crime-news coverage over the last 40 years. “If It Bleeds Then It Leads” has become western media orthodoxy.

The guy in the comments calling you a tankie

If they can keep the oil flowing, more power to them. Cuba needs a strong ally right now.

“I’ve got four years college experience and another six years of part-time work experience.”

“Do you know how to use the Flibbidty Widget?”

“No. Where would I have learned how to use that?”

“Only our company. We have a proprietary system that revolves entirely around this custom piece of hardware.”

“So…”

“We are only hiring people with five years experience. Sorry.”

I’ll admit $33k/year is on the low end, but in a country where the average income is $4800 that’s still pretty good.

You can’t make traveling across the street in Laredo easier than flying between Miami, FL and Anchorage, AK. What happens if everyone in town crosses the street at once? The whole town flips over and everyone dies.

If moving from the Quebec to Maine is as easy as moving from Massachusetts to New Hampshire, do you have any idea how many bad things will happen?

All of them! All the bad things!

The EU trade/travel model was a good one, even if the ECB is a moral abomination.

Trying to explain to my wife that millennials are the most technologically savvy generation in history, but she just keeps yelling back “give me the Netflix password, the TV won’t turn on”

I guess I just really, really hate Harry as a protagonist

If Rowling had just stuck to sports YA novels about wizard high school, instead of sticking her withered claw into politics, I doubt anyone would have more to say about Harry Potter than they’ve said about Luke Skywalker.

after the fifth one, I can barely remember anything that happens in them, outside some biggest plot points.

It’s just crazy to introduce “The Three Big Magic Items That Change The World” in book 7. Like, you haven’t finished playing with the Seven Evil Relics That Keep Voldemort Alive and you’re already injecting this other shit? Save it for a different series.

Compared to how I can still fairly well recall what happens in books 1-4, and mostly 5 as well despite there being more time passed after reading them, the contrast is huge.

The first three movies are, in my opinion, really nice happy little Christmas movies. Been watching them on and off since I was in high school. So the plot is burned into my brain. I honestly think books 2 and 3 are the peak of her writing. Genuinely really good kids stories. Fun antagonists. Clever riddles. A few twists at the end.

And then she blew up in popularity, and the whole franchise went off the rails. Ah well…

Moral of the story, never let a good author write a fourth book.

Literally “the pre-destined future leader who just needs to walk forward and automatically wins”.

What’s his biggest hurdle through the entire three-book adventure? Picking which hot princess he’s going to marry? Politely asking some ghosts to defeat half the Dark Lord’s army in an unwritten side adventure? Literally walking up to the Black Gates of Mordor and telling the Eye of Sauron “Made you look”?

Come on. The most difficult fight Aragorn has in the entire epic adventure happens in the first half of the first book.