Miscellaneous News

coolgod said:

I think you need to re-evaluate Merkel's legacy. She bares great responsibility for present day Europe's woes. If she didn't open the flood gates for refugees, Europe would be totally different today. If she actually tried to enforce the Minsk agreements, then the tragic war in Ukraine might have never happened. Chinese people speak highly of her cause German got along with China well, that's when Chinese people were Germany's biggest customer. In retrospect, other German leaders would have gotten along with China well cause they know which side of the bread is buttered.

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I don't see Merkel as a positive figure. I just think CDU and SPD won't have much trouble governing together.

coolgod said:

I think you need to re-evaluate Merkel's legacy. She bares great responsibility for present day Europe's woes. If she didn't open the flood gates for refugees, Europe would be totally different today. If she actually tried to enforce the Minsk agreements, then the tragic war in Ukraine might have never happened. Chinese people speak highly of her cause German got along with China well, that's when Chinese people were Germany's biggest customer. In retrospect, other German leaders would have gotten along with China well cause they know which side of the bread is buttered.

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She didn't expect anyone would be so stupid as to provoke a war by NATO expansion to Ukraine. She didn't expect anyone wouldn't shut the war down immediately when Putin offered to end the war if Ukraine refrains from joining NATO. Admittedly she did make some mistakes, but without the war Germany could conceivably get by.

Biscuits said:

It's reverse genghis khan where instead of having 1000s of offspring, she has only 1, but it's not known which man out of 1000s is the father

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Elon should give her a ring. She seems optimal for carrying his seed.

nemo said:

She didn't expect anyone would be so stupid as to provoke a war by NATO expansion to Ukraine. She didn't expect anyone wouldn't shut the war down immediately when Putin offered to end the war if Ukraine refrains from joining NATO. Admittedly she did make some mistakes, but without the war Germany could conceivably get by.

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She was chancellor of Germany for over 16 years, she's not naive and knew where things were going.

RedBaron said:

I don't see Merkel as a positive figure. I just think CDU and SPD won't have much trouble governing together.

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For China,

she is a positive figure

While the surveillance flights are the most overt evidence of this new Pentagon mandate, Northern Command has also been mapping out potential operations for months, according to Defense Department sources. Working groups focused on targeting have taken over sensitive compartmented information facilities — secure areas where the U.S. government can store, process, and discuss classified information — at Luke Air Force Base in Arizona.

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A source from the Special Operations community confirmed the Joint Special Operations Command based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, is also lobbying policymakers to include them in any operations. One source familiar with ongoing planning said this is a near-term priority for the administration. But a defense official voiced grave concern over the potential for things to spiral out of control as operations escalate.

A Green Beret turned CIA operator told Rolling Stone in January that past administrations considered using CIA Ground Branch — hybrid intelligence agents and commandos usually made up of former special operations soldiers — to combat the cartels, but the fear of cartel retribution against the operators and their families in the U.S. made it too risky.

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lol

FriedButter said:

Feels like what the US is attempting to do is some sort of modern lite version of Napoleon Continental System. Trying to embargo global trade with China but not publicly.

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They can't do anything of the sort with this move. All this is really doing is subsidize Japanese, Korean, and European ship makers. It's a measure to stop China from gaining a virtual monopoly in the ship building market, for which it will be effective and will lower the market share of Chinese ship building companies, leading to losses.

But like all subsidies, it comes at a cost. If a company was buying from China instead of Japan or Korea, it's for a reason - typically cost or speed of delivery or technology. Distorting this market incentive does not come for "free." It means the company will have to take losses to its operating efficiency in order to supply the US market.

This loss of efficiency will, in turn, result in shipping companies raising prices, which will inevitably be passed to the US consumer, furthering their misery. A classic "captive market" effect.

To prevent China from attaining economic hegemony, the US national security establishment has seen fit to make everyone poorer.

This is expected behavior from the West as it is the nature of white fragility to try and destroy what they cannot own.

Indian teenager alleges rape over five years by nearly 60 schoolmates, neighbors, relatives and strangers​

Five years ago, a 13-year-old girl, the daughter of poor wage laborers from one of India’s most marginalized communities, was allegedly sexually abused by one of her neighbors in the village where she lived.

Her alleged abuser filmed it and police are investigating whether he used the images to blackmail and manipulate the girl into being raped and sexually abused by dozens of other men and boys over the next five years.

Police say the allegations only came to light after the girl, now 18, spoke to a counselor visiting her college in Kerala state and detailed the years of horrific abuse.

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A total of 58 men and boys have been arrested and accused of the sexual assault, rape and gang rape of the girl. Another two men wanted in connection with the case have fled the country, Kerala Police Deputy Inspector General Ajeetha Begum told CNN.

Among the accused are her schoolmates, her relatives, her neighbors – men from all corners of her life, ranging from minors to men in their mid-40s, according to case documents reviewed by CNN and interviews with local police.

Charges have not yet been filed and the 58 men remain in detention. None of the accused has spoken publicly about the allegations. Under Indian rape laws, the girl has not been identified.

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Jai Hinds: At least we're not living under some commie authoritarian state, insert some joke about cultural revolution.

Iron Man said:

And then what happened? BTW, if MacArthur had his itchy radioactive trigger fingers unrestrained by Truman, we wouldn't even be talking about any Chinese victory in the Korean War.

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There's no shoulda coulda woulda in war. The PVA pushed the Americans out of North Korea gave them a humbling defeat. Anytime Americans experience defeat they always come up with the "If only we fought with our gloves off" excuse. The US (and it's allies) were fighting a much less technologically advanced force and they got slapped.