Some dude comments

After the inevitable hacking and leaking of the personal data of tens of millions of people:

"OK, so which genius set the master password for all MyNumber data to oishiigohan?"

We should let them have their way. Let them only hire white, heterosexual, male, religious fanatics for everything. Then just sit back and enjoy the show.

The fossil fuel companies won’t like that. How long before they start spreading rumors about this?

Through a talento with a squeaky voice, I would guess.

if anyone votes against the first “person of color” nominee for FBI Director, you are racist.

I note that you didn't include the words "remotely qualified" in there, which is, as poker players say, a real tell.

But he had no idea that Wray and the establishment would be mobilized and weaponized to try and take him out.

So he failed to do his due diligence, in other words.

Trump is going to have to be tough on Putin.

File under "would be nice but is about as likely as Putin winning a popularity contest in Ukraine".

Huge country with almost infinite number of men to send as cannon fodder needs to spend one third of entire budget to try and crush, for no morally acceptable reason, neighbour which is almost 1/30 of its size.

And yet they insist that they can take NATO on as well.

Bet the rest of the world is trembling in their boots.

It must be nice being a simp for every wannabe dictator across the globe. No need to think, no need for morals. Just operate on the basis that the big guys get to take over whoever they want just because they can.

The modern day equivalents of the "oh, that Mr. Hitler? He's all bluster, he won't do half of what he says, and if he does? Well so what? If the other countries can't stop him, then it's survival of the fittest, isn't it?"

Some parts of Shinjuku and Toshima wards are like China or Vietnam nowadays. It appears that many commenters on JT live in the boonies. The Big Mikan has changed. Come and have a look.

If you're talking about Shin-Okubo, for instance, I know that place pretty well. It's not very elegant, and there are hookers around, but I've spent time around there and never felt like anything was going down.

Make that "missile" singular.

Biden Admin has singularly failed in terms of global security. T*he world has not been this destabilized since WWII is the broadly held consensus view.*

If you're going to try the "flooding the zone" trick, try and be more convincing. Does "Cuban missiles crisis" ring a bell?

It must be really irritating for the US right wing, having to wait another couple of months until they get their wish of the government turning its back on any and all allies with a raised middle finger.

Until then, the rest of us (in other countries) can enjoy a last glance at America doing the right thing. Won't see it again for at least four years, so enjoy the spectacle while it lasts.

One thing I like about the UK is that it has generally managed to free itself from the influence of religion (and that which is left is in the news for all the wrong reasons; google Justin Welby), so any debate on this issue should hopefully be led by general common sense, respect for individual choice, medical science, and so on. Not by fanatics bleating about what their religion has to say about it.

Absolutely not. None of the people in the Trump team are hyper-religious.

You're evidently of the opinion that Trump is a god and will accept no criticism of him, so I will leave this here and bow out of the conversation. I'm not arguing with someone whose mind is nailed shut.

https://tennesseelookout.com/2024/11/25/trumps-defense-secretary-nominee-has-close-ties-to-idaho-christian-nationalists/

Excerpt:

Hegseth is a member of a Tennessee congregation affiliated with Christ Church, a controversial congregation in Moscow, Idaho, that has become a leader in the movement to get more Christianity in the public sphere.

In an appearance last year on the Christ Church-connected streaming show “Crosspolitic,” Hegseth talked about how building up fundamentalist Christian education systems is important in what he sees as a “spiritual battle” with the secular world. He sees Christian students as foot soldiers in that war and refers to Christian schools as “boot camp.”

You want to find the happiest women, find the countries where religion is in decline.

Not sure how you want to judge such a thing. It is incredibly subjective. If you mean the UN's World Happiness Report, take that with the same amount of salt as any other enlightened information emitted by political body...

It's fairly easy to judge if religion is in decline in a country. Just look at attendance figures for churches / mosques / synagogues, and other places of religion. For instance, those figures have been going down in the UK for ages, and more and more people define themselves as "not religious". There are some numbers here:

https://faithsurvey.co.uk/uk-christianity.html

Now I'll be the first to admit that there are plenty of other reasons to be dissatisfied in the UK, but inequality between men and women isn't really one of them. In the last decade we had two female prime ministers in fairly quick succession (and yes, one of them was outsmarted by a lettuce, but she was still a woman) and the current leader of the opposition is a woman.

Those "happiness surveys" pretty much always have the same outcome (top five are usually Scandinavian countries, and I imagine that researching their statistics on religion would give similar results), but that's probably just as much to do with their social security systems and so on. There are clearly more variables than just religion or lack of it.

I'm not American so I can only go by what i gather. Namely, the southern and / or red states are uber-religious and they tend to be the strictest with their abortion bans; the incoming administration looks like it might be what Frank Zappa many years back called a "fascist theocracy", and Trump's made no secret of alluding to a total nationwide ban. Not ideal if one is a woman, I would say.

"Academics" do not like being proven wrong.

Au contraire. If they're genuine academics, they welcome it.

If they are however, Science Bros (you know, the ones who think that Joe Rogan knows more about medicine than someone like Antony Fauci), then they're the ones who hate being proven wrong. Which tracks, as they are wrong about most everything anyway.

You want to find the happiest women, find the countries where religion is in decline.

Wow, the discourse from the left has just devolved to name calling and juvenile level commentary,

I don't know. I see one comment about hypocrisy (he'll go after Fentanyl but not the host of drugs which were said to be floating around the White House during his first term) and a handful of reasonable observations about his general mental acuity, which world leaders have said in public.

I can’t imagine there is a world leader more stupid than Trump.

I would have argued for our very own Liz Truss, but she's fortunately no longer in power. (Apparently, though, she's trying to get a foothold in the USA, so I'd like to say sorry on behalf of the UK for that).

But yeah, with her out of the way, he has no opposition on that front.

Technically it was 2003, but it may as well be '88, what with the sky-high taxes, tent cities, and crumbling infrastructure. And it just about seems like the only thing rising faster than housing costs over there is the number of U-Hauls getting the heck out.

You'll have to excuse my obtuseness, I'm not from the US. I was under the impression that a state being referred to as "blue" or "red" was essentially a way of describing that state's basic political leaning.

Last I heard, California has a GDP bigger than all but about four countries in the world, and it's significantly bigger (around one and a half times) than the next biggest state, which I believe is Texas.

However, if a state's "red" or "blue" definition is based on something else, then I guess people could define it however they wish. Doesn't change the fact that California has been won by a democrat eight times in a row.

Nice one Dude, but California is no longer a blue state. In fact, there are no blue states left, technically just blue cities.

I don't know how it's officially calculated, but I just looked it up and the last time California was won by a republican was 1988. That seems a fairly decisive indication that it could be called a blue state.

Then again, MAGA probably think Trump won all 50 states plus Puerto Rico and Guam, and we all know what a waste of time it is to argue with them when objective facts are at hand.

Korea, China, Mexico, etc. Doesn't make a difference. Based on MAGA these guitars should be 100% made in the USA but they're clearly not. Oh the irony. LOL!

Going to be fun to see Trump work out the tariffs on that. "OK, the top three strings are made in USA, the G and B are from China, and the high E is from Spain. The pickups are from California, which is a blue state which I hate, but the whammy bar is made in Alabama. What to do...?"

Eggs? Too expensive, let's throw the government out . Eleven grand guitar? Fine.

Funny how, when this is alleged to happen to democrats, the MAGA people call it lies, hoax, etc. But when it happens to one of their own, they swallow it as truth without question.

This thread is a stunning example of how well the Russian propaganda machine has managed to convince so many Americans that Ukraine deserves to be destroyed.

It would be admirable were it not rooted in evil.

Mexico hasn't quite grasped the MAGA mentality yet. It can be summed up very simply: Trump Can Do No Wrong.

If Trump's tariffs are indeed imposed, and Mexico's prediction turns out accurate, it won't be Trump's fault. It'll be Mexico's. Or Wile. E. Coyote's. Or Mr. Rogers'. Anyone but Trump.

If economists say that Trump's economic plans will damage the US economy and affect US consumers, it's the economists, not Trump, who are wrong.

If there's another pandemic and Trump (or Bobby Brainworms) declares that it's nothing more than a cold, then every medical expert in the US who warns about it is wrong.

The Era of the Entitled Moron continues.

Just as a matter of curiosity, does this alleged flood of fentanyl coming into the US imply that there's clearly a market for it?

I mean, America is capitalism taken to its logical conclusion (you can even buy justice, by all accounts), so why should some enterprising hustler not take advantage of Americans' clear desire to get high and change their consciousness?

i use Threads. It's OK, a bit vanilla, but that's way better than the toxic cesspit that X became after the new first lady Elonia bought it.

Might give Bluesky a look before the trolls migrate over there and ruin it like they do everything else they touch.

“we urge you to seek out a host country with a record of upholding human rights.”

That narrows things down quite considerably.