Excellent response.

I’m just commenting to say that they’ve determined that there is no rise in radiation around the sites they struck, so either there was no radioactive material stored there, or they didn’t impact the sites as badly as they are claiming. If there was radioactive material, it remained contained. They may still have to rebuild their facilities, but they still have the most important element, the uranium.

Me, too. It wasn’t my decision.

Me, but that’s because Reddit permabanned me on the post- inauguration bloodbath.

In some ways I like Lemmy a lot better for things like politics. It doesn’t have all the puns, trolls, Russian Propaganda Farmers, bots, novelty accounts, etc., so while they are fewer comments, they tend to be more substantial. I can also mostly say what I think without getting suspended.

On the other hand, I miss some of the personal forums, which are far more active on Reddit. I’d like the guitar forums to be more active, but they barely have any posts. Most have weeks or even months between posts, while Reddits have a constant flow, every minute. I keep saying that I’m going to start posting content as often as possible, but I haven’t yet. Maybe I’ll start this week.

They aren’t innocent, they are knowingly creating a devastating weapon of mass destruction for a regime who has declared that they intend to use it. While I don’t support this sort of unprovoked attack, I can’t get too worked up over the demise of literally mad scientists.

I have a similar story with ex-partners, but not as long and convoluted, and also without such a successful outcome, but I definitely understand how dastardly ex-partners can motivate you to want to succeed without them.

Well, it didn’t really happen like that, but yeah, the Iran-Contra Scandal contributed heavily to the onset of the crack cocaine epidemic. The fact that they couldn’t use the US military in this operation is why cocaine became involved.

They needed to smuggle illegally purchased weapons to Central America, so they hired drug smugglers to smuggle guns in the other direction. What does a drug smuggler do after he’s dropped off his weapons, and finds himself in Central America with an empty plane, a fistful of dirty money, and CIA cover?

That’s right, he fills it full of cocaine, flies it back to America, and quintuplets his money. And they did it over and over and over, until there was so much coke on the streets of America, that it went from being the drug of the wealthy and celebrities, and became the drug of the ghetto.

And how do we know this? Because smuggler Eugene Hasenfus was captured, and he spilled the entire story.

The only question was: Was the CIA aware of the drug smuggling? Some think that they used it to raise even more money for their cause, but I’ve never seen any real evidence of that, other than speculation. OTOH, I find it hard to believe that they didn’t know their pilots were smuggling cocaine back to America. If they didn’t know, they should have, they’re the CIA. Besides, it’s not exactly a big leap to realize they would do this. They didn’t hire commercial cargo pilots to do some side gigs, they hired drug smugglers specifically because they were smugglers. They aren’t going to fly an empty plane home. Of course, they’re going to smuggle Coke (or weed), back in their planes. Duh.

It’s a wild tale. I once told the entire thing to a friend, who listened through the whole story, then said “Did that really happen?”

George HW Bush pardoned him on the advice of William Barr, giving him the start of a career helping presidents avoid responsibility for their illegal activities.

Giving this traitor a television platform instead of a prison cell, was one giant step in making Republicans feel untouchable, no matter how poorly they behaved. Even treason is excused, and rewarded.

North wasn’t the “Fall Guy.” That makes him sound like a scapegoat, which he wasn’t, he was the guy managing the entire operation.

Also, it wasn’t part of an operation to get the Iranian hostages released. They had been released back in 1980, as soon as Reagan had been inaugurated. The Iran-Contra Conspiracy happened later, but the wound from that humiliating episode was still stinging in the American psyche. The fact that North was selling weapons to our bitterest enemy at the time is only one of the things that made this such an egregious violation.

Iran-Contra was about providing weapons, training, and support to the conservative soldiers fighting the establishment of a Russian-supported regime in Central America.

When Nancy Reagan was a struggling actress in Hollywood, she had a reputation for giving the best blowjobs in town. True story.

Yeah, the interest idea doesn’t make sense, especially since for most of the 21st century the interest on savings accounts has been negligible.

If it cost $6 on the $1500 loan, that’s most (of not all) of the interest right there, and it takes time for that interest to accrue significantly. It’s not going to happen in a couple of days.

If this was the scheme, then your ex-boss was no criminal mastermind.

Edgar Allen Poe laid out the rules for a fully satisfying revenge in his story The Cask of Amontillado:

1. The revenge has to be worse than the original offense.

2. You have to get away with it.

3. The person has to know who did it, and why, yet there’s nothing they can do about it.

Take away any of those factors, and it isn’t a fully satisfying revenge plot.

They first broke during the New Wave era, and were considered one of the quintessential New Wave superstars, along with The Cars, Talking Heads, Duran Duran, Flock of Seagulls, etc.

This reminds me of the Zebra Mussels in Lake Erie. In the 80s and 90s, invasive Zebra Mussels got into Lake Erie, and started spreading quickly. They would cover the surfaces of everything. They were afraid that they would eventually clog up the water inlet that supply drinking water to the region.

There was a near panic among government leaders for several years, as the mussels grew out of control, and no solution could be found. They even announced a contest with a significant reward if anyone could come up with a solution, but nobody could. So the problem increased.

Lake Erie is the shallowest of the Great Lakes, so pollution and organic matter tends to concentrate there, making it very murky, and impossible to see. But the stuff in the water was food to the Zebra Mussels, and the population kept filtering the water, feeding.

Eventually, the population reached a level that the water was clearing up, allowing the sun to penetrate deeper into the water. It turns out that Zebra Mussels don’t like the sun, and between that, and the decreasing amount of food in the water, their breeding slowed significantly. Now they seemed to have reached a good balance. They aren’t going away, but they aren’t the existential threat that they once were either.

The best news is that since the water is much clearer now, it has caused an increase in scuba diving. Being the shallowest of the Great Lakes, Erie has also known over the centuries as a bad lake to be on in a storm, and there are many shipwrecks on the bottom. They were hard to dive on in the old, dirty water days, but today those wrecks are visible, and attracting diving tourists.

So all they had to do was nothing, and the Zebra Mussels problem fixed itself, and caused a new business segment to boom.

This is going to be the threat that EVERY employee will hear over the next several years, whenever they ask for any sort of a raise, promotion, etc. “Just be glad we don’t replace you with AI.”

deleted by creator

He’s just mad because his daughter has a working willie, and he don’t.

Yeah, that thing with the Thai soccer team really opened my eyes. Later, I saw a documentary on the situation, and there was no way that his submarine idea could have worked, it simply would not have fit.

But rather than accept that those on the scene were more knowledgeable about the situation, he immediately jumped to calling the rescuers pedos, as if the only reason they wanted to rescue them was because they were young boys, and wanted to molest them. What an unhinged take, proving that he was more interested in playing the hero and feeding his ego, than actually rescuing anyone. He saw an opportunity for global promotion, and was pissed when it was denied to him.

It showed me a side that we hadn’t seen before, but turned out to be his real personality.

He’s trying to stay independent because he fantasizes about running for president one day. He even did a TV show where the framing device was him being interviewed as a presidential candidate, so they could show his life in flashbacks. It was an obvious ploy to position him as a legitimate political candidate in viewers’ minds.

Every rich and/or famous person now thinks they should be president.