And I can’t even start to worry about the climate right now.

That’s a shame, because we are fucking in for it as the Colorado dries up in our winter heat wave. Nevermind what’s going to happen to Poland or Macedonia. I’d be worried what happens between Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California during the next growing season.

If Russia were to attack Europe, or China were to take Taiwan, Trump wouldn’t do a thing about it.

Trump’s cabinet is stuffed to the brim with people who are crazy enough to fight a war with China. What they can’t handle is China not invading Taiwan and, instead, stacking up China-friendly political allies on the island until the Parliament tips their way.

Meanwhile, Russians are damned near out of gas. They barely have the manpower to control that eastern slice of Ukraine. If they launched attacks into the European mainland and provoked a real material response from a combined Western Europe, they would be in huge trouble. But, again, that was never really Putin’s intention. He’s been building up alliances with white nationalist parties all across the continent. By 2030, you’re going to have a swath of ultra-nationalists running every Parliament from the AfD in Germany to Reform UK.

And he’s going to be doing it in coordination with Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, and India. Countries America bribed into a temporary alliance aren’t going to be there when the US economy goes into another recessionary tailspin. That’s what will really fuck NATO up.

And all this happening on the eve of a climate catastrophe, too.

She got gunned down dropping her daughter off at daycare. She wasn’t doing a Leftist 9/11 on the police.

Entry level $38k average $52.

NYPD pay is $60k starting and $125 after five years. That doesn’t include overtime or benefits. At 33k officers and counting, they’re the biggest department in the country. Base salary in Houston is $80k with Senior Officers earning as much as $140k.

Go more local and you’ll find the starting officer pay regularly outruns the median salary and benefits. The NYC median salary is $73k. Houston is $56k. You can find officers in smaller towns earning less. But they’re inevitably in a township with residents that are even poorer.

And, again, this is just baseline salary. Police Unions regularly secure 1.5x - 2x overtime pay compensation, resulting in some curious compensation figures

Houston senior police officer Matthew Davis’ annual salary was about $90,000 this past fiscal year. He made nearly $170,000 more in overtime.

It was not an anomaly. Davis has collected more in overtime than his base salary every year since at least 2020, and was previously disciplined for participating in an overtime scheme involving fabricated witness claims on traffic tickets. He is part of a growing pattern among the city’s highest-paid traffic enforcement officers who routinely collect overtime earnings that match or exceed their base salaries, a Houston Chronicle analysis found

Hardly the only department that’s been scandalized by this kind of misconduct.

The coveted nature of the job is little dicks want power to abuse.

Definitely one of the “fringe” benefits.

The job does suck.

Most jobs suck. Few include the number of perks afforded to entry level staff.

Reddit is fully automated now. It’s a Look-Don’t-Touch platform. They have AI to handle the actual participation and only want lurkers who can be milked for ad revenue.

But in a hypothetical “might makes right”, cops aren’t ever safe either and don’t act with impunity of the courts and the consent of the governed.

Cops operate as armed gangs with staked out turf. They’re safe, broadly speaking, because they have a collectivist attitude towards their own defense. If you fuck with one cop, you are inevitably fucking with the entire department. And police departments - particularly in big cities - have enormous amounts of money, capital, and manpower to deploy against individuals and small groups in opposition.

If they thought the job sucked before with high rates of PTSD and suicide, just wait.

Not remotely high enough.

And the job doesn’t suck. It is highly coveted, both for the amazing pay/benefits - some of the best in the public sector and regularly well above the local median - and for the slew of “fringe” benefits that come from gang membership - prosecutorial immunity when engaged in drug/human trafficking, assault/battery/spousal abuse, vehicle crimes, intoxication, etc.

No revolution

Nobody wants to be the first one to stick their neck out.

Be incredibly angry at Americans

Invade Quebec

Become very cold

Leave after about 80 years

Which makes me wonder if I as a Dane am morally justified in gathering a few friends, breaking into these influencers homes, kicking them out, and just take up residence.

The thing about Might Makes Right is that hypotheticals aren’t a signal of strength.

What would happen if you tried? You’d probably get in an altercation. People would be injured. The local police would be called to break it up. And nobody would care that you were trying to prove a rhetorical point.

I suppose there is no moral obligation for me to obey American laws, if there is no moral obligation for America to obey international laws.

To borrow a quip from Brandon Lee Mulligan

Laws are threats made by the dominant socioeconomic-ethnic group in a given nation. It’s just the promise of violence that’s enacted and the police are basically an occupying army. You know what I mean?

The US has a military base in Greenland already. Pituffik Space Base doesn’t appear to be going anywhere, despite all the bluster.

And as the US is the military backbone of NATO, I’m not seeing how NATO as an institution would respond with the leadership structure and base management riddled with American personal.

The countries that hit the brick wall fastest during the Arab Spring were - curiously - the ones where the US had the biggest influence. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE, Oman, Iraq… all saw the movement flatline in a matter of weeks. Egypt and Turkiye saw some early movement and even a successful turn of government, but immediately boomeranged back to military dictatorship when too many Arab Nationalists started gaining steam. Gaza and the West Bank had a moment, only for the Israelis to freak out and start killing people for mentioning the Nakba.

Libya, Syria, and Iran saw real instability, though. The Qaddafi government came crashing down, with its ex-leader dying to sodemy by razor blades. Assad put down his revolt with horrible violence per family tradition, buying himself another ten years of dictatorship. Liberal Iranians once again became cannon fodder for the counter-revolution, while Americans were prompted to liberate the country in the same way we’d liberated its Saddem-Era neighbor.

None of these stories ended well, because none began with an eye towards actual democratic liberalization. The Arab Spring was a beautiful narrative spun atop a horrifying region wide civil war for control of… oil.

Finally! Only took them 20 years.

Are they axing all the conservative subs or just focusing in on the really fascist ones?

Oh… no, wait. I’m receiving a note. Nevermind, that’s not what is happening at all.

finger twitching over the little foam hand that says “Death to America”

Don’t make me do it, I’m warning you.

States that happily vote for Joni Ernest and Sarah Huckabee Sanders don’t get to write themselves off as misogynist.

Conservatives that nominated Hershall Walker and Tim Scott and Wesley Hunt don’t get to hide behind the race card.

If Harris were a Republican, she’d be doing fine.

Biden got an extra 6M votes.

Of course, Biden had to slog through a primary with stiff opposition from a socialist challenger. Meanwhile, Harris was handed the nomination absent any democratic input.

So, who can say?

That’s not a Russian tanker, its a Venezuelan tanker that re-flagged as Russia in the desperate hope that it could convince a Russian naval escort to protect it from pursuit by the American military.

Don’t worry. The Russians never interceded. The US leveraged military support from the UK to halt the frigate and board it. We still live in a unipolar world dominated by Amerikkkan imperial aggression.

Water has never been cheap in Iran

You’re talking out your ass.

Industrial run-off in Iran is treated like a nuisance at best.

Why on earth do you think a reinstatement of the Shah would change that? Look at Iraq. Look at Syria. Look at Honduras right now. Look at Haiti.

Have any of their ecological issues improved after Western regime change went into effect?

Getting crucial infrastructure out of the hands of a religious army might actually have positive consequences

That’s not what is being proposed. You’re talking about changing military leadership through armed insurrection and outside intervention.

You’re talking about proxy rule by Israel.

None of this improves the Iranian water reserves. None of it brings in more precipitation.

Building dams in rivers who do not have enough water to sustain dams might be a dumb idea.

Tell that to everyone managing the Colorado River Valley.

When energy is expensive and water is cheap, you make decisions differently than when the situation is reversed

The IRI ran headfirst into a water crisis and is now reaping the rewards

The IRI don’t control snowfall in the Zagros. And replacing them with some Shah aligned goons won’t refill the Qanat system.

The government has mismanaged its resources for decades.

“Water exists! Food exists! They’re just hiding it from us!” is going to be the Big Lie of global politics as the climate crisis compounds.

That, and lots of people doing prayer circles for rain that never comes.

He’s not a potential future rival. He’s the sitting Polish president and head of the biggest party in the country.

Tusk is holding together a shakey coalition of smaller liberal parties. He’s not the most popular politician in the country.