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Posts by Kingoftoes
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2024-12-04 at 2:34 AM UTC in Lebanon Paused, Syria Restarted - WHAT MEANS!!!
- As per UN Res 1701, Hezbullah is to move all of their personnel and hardware north of the Litani, where most of their arsenal is outside the range of israel proper. The (much weaker, barely operational) Lebanese army is to replace them in the South.
I wonder how the much weaker Lebanese army will do this, especially since Hezbollah has backing from Iran.- israel is not to attack Lebanese state forces, infrastructure or civilians, but may still attack non-state groups such as Hezbullah (or ostensibly Amal, or the Christian militias).
We will see how long this lasts.All Hezbullah infrastructure in the South is to be dismantled.
We will also see if this happens. Good luck to Israel enforcing this while dealing with Palestine.
The existence of Lebanon as a state and what is seemingly partially preventing it from being split between Israel and other regional powers is the fact that Lebanon (more specifically Hezbollah) is an effective appendage for Iran to flail about in the levant. Both Iran and Lebanon require eachother in order to achieve their interests. Lebanese dependence on iran is obvious, while Iran requires Lebanese influence because Lebanon can potentially be well defended in the event of an invasion, both the Litani and the Lebanese mountains a bit north of the Lebanese - Israeli border are potentially defensible areas.
If this becomes costly for Iran, however, Iran can always use Hamas, err, Palestine can be used to project Iranian influence to the Levant, like it already is. Iran's influence there would just be lessened.
Man I'm tired. -
2024-12-04 at 1:14 AM UTC in I think I might be an alcoholic
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2024-12-04 at 1:11 AM UTC in New Year's ResolutionsContinue to get my shit together.
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2024-12-02 at 3:54 PM UTC in Plan to turn this site aroundSo you want to turn this site into Something Awful?
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2024-12-02 at 3:51 PM UTC in Get off my lawn...
Originally posted by Bradley On topic/Off Topic
I hate when people refer to their heterosexual spouse as their "partner." I start thinking they're LGBTQ friendly. Then like a few months later I see this woman's "partner" is a normal man
And i'm like ???????????????????
why didn't you just say your husband???
Or when a guy is like "my partner and I were house shopping in that area before we settled here."
I think oh u have a husband
then his partner turns out to be a mother of 2 and im like why didn't you just say my girl/wife ??????
Because niggaz be rarded -
2024-12-02 at 3:44 AM UTC in Hi i am Barny from VermontHi, I'm Glowie from Fedmont.
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2024-12-01 at 4:06 AM UTC in How The Venetian Doge Was Elected, And What Modern Democracies Can Learn From It."The Venetian Doge was elected through a complex, multi-stage process designed to prevent corruption and ensure fairness. Here’s a summary:
Initial Selection: The Great Council randomly chose 30 men, reduced to 9 by lot, to act as initial electors.
Elector Selection: The 9 electors chose 40 men, reduced to 12 by lot. This pattern repeated (selecting groups of 25, 9, 45, then 11) until 41
final electors were chosen.
Final Election: The 41 electors selected the Doge, requiring a majority of 25 votes.
Public Approval: The elected Doge was inaugurated and presented to the public at St. Mark’s Square."
- Chat GPT
Obviously, this form of election took place before the internet, and also before the printing press. This form of democratic election is quite different than what we have had for the past century or so.
Now, in the months approaching elections, you are bombarded with information about each candidate. Everything from their policy decisions, their speeches, and their scandals are published and practically force fed down the average (Insert "Western Democracy" here) citizen's gullet until they grow sick.
Because of this, you know a LOT about what candidate you are voting (or not voting) for. From their aforementioned scandals and policy decisions, all the way down to unimportant information not even worthy of a footnote, such as a candidate's wife, how many kids they have, how well they play golf, etc.
As us fellow humans (surprise!) tend to perceive characteristics of a candidate, process them with archaic heuristics, and treat them as indicators of qualities that are desirable in a politician (Trump is a businessman, he must be good with money), we inherently fall short of having a good idea of what a candidate's term in office will do for the nation.
This is a major pitfall of Democracies. As the modern voter is inundated not only with information, but with daily life, and, while attempting to be rational, falls short nearly every time. This partially causes elections to turn into popularity contests. Many candidates get pushed aside because the general public only ingests information from a numerical minority of parties, which simultaneously have the most funding.
Here is where it all comes back around (I think chieftain Trump calls this the WEAVE). Because these candidates receive enormous amounts of funding, which helps them get elected, once they get in to office, they can use their newly acquired power to create mutually beneficial agreements with business men. A good example of this is the "revolving door" in US politics, where lobbyists/ corporate "higher-ups" move between positions in the US government and corporate positions.
As I have presented here in rudimentary, drunken-old-man fashion, this issue stems at least partially from the transparency of modern democracies. You know exactly who is working for whom, and can lobby, bribe, and make deals to achieve power. This is obviously a problem in politics.
I believe that making democracy in the west more opaque would help to create a bulwark against the perpetuation of this "revolving door" (you are just now realizing this is about the USA?). Creating a system where, in order to be elected for a government position, you have to pass through multiple councils and organizations would (at least in theory) help to prevent bribery and lobbying by simply making it less effective and more costly. If you have to lobby multiple councils instead of just 1 (called congress), it not only makes it more expensive monetarily, but is more time consuming, and because of this, is a greater risk than just lobbying a few organizations.
Discuss. -
2024-11-30 at 10:57 PM UTC in I Have A Bust Of Jordan Peterson
It's 3D printed. A friend gave it to me and few years ago, I have cherished it ever since. -
2024-11-30 at 10:45 PM UTC in Get off my lawn...You dirty homosexual.
I'm trying to drink merlot, watch glee, and do my nails 💅. -
2024-11-30 at 7:26 PM UTC in Ray Bans / Meta Smart GlassesAnyone used these before? They look like more of a novelty tech item than something that is really practical, unless you use social media a lot.
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2024-11-30 at 6:53 PM UTC in HEY FRALA
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2024-11-30 at 6:38 PM UTC in HEY FRALA
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2024-11-30 at 4:16 PM UTC in I'm an alcoholic...
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2024-11-30 at 5:23 AM UTC in Name Your Top 5 VideogamesMy dad replaced command and conquer with tony hawk's pro skater 2.
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2024-11-30 at 5:22 AM UTC in I think I might be an alcoholic
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2024-11-30 at 4:46 AM UTC in I think I might be an alcoholic
Originally posted by Mighest A Weekender. I usually don't drink on the weekdays unless I have them off.
But I drink every weekend even if I plan not too.
I always drink because I like quality beer and I don't have anything stopping me and I figure I only live once.
Another beer for all of you after a day of sketchy business, a prostitute, and collecting data.
Drinking every weekend? You sound like a normal, responsible person. -
2024-11-28 at 1:55 AM UTC in Name Your Top 5 VideogamesMy dad's top 5 are:
1: Diablo 2
2: Goldeneye
3: Counter Strike Condition Zero
4: Command And Conquer
5: Mario Kart -
2024-11-27 at 3:45 AM UTC in Are you the same person on nis as you are IRL?I am pretty much the same, I certainly swear here less than I do IRl, but am mostly the same.
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2024-11-27 at 3:35 AM UTC in Got profiled as a mass shooter (I feel like)They read the article about you and a dog.
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2024-11-27 at 12:17 AM UTC in I'm a 4 dollar nigga
