snafu

(1) Castro wasn't a dictator in 1950. He was trying to get into the machine but the machine changed the rules. Sound familiar? He BECAME a dictator after he came into power in order to consolidate and retain his power. The comparison isn't comically laughable -- it is the logical extension (or the execution of) what starts out to be laudable goals in theory. It's nice to have the lofty goals she lists in her website. But when the policy needs to be implemented, the hand gets heavier and heavier. You want a different comparison, let's go with Evo Morales, or any of the "pink tide" leftist leaders in South America. (2) the closest I can see in her policy statements is WRT housing and canceling rent and holding landlords accountable because of her declaration that housing is a right. Sure it is a right. But if you don't OWN your housing, then you need to RENT your housing. For money. Or go live with your parents forever. To take (or even to diminish) the property rights of one class of people in order to distribute the fruits of those rights to another class of people is pretty damn "command economy/socialist". If she wants to limit herself to holding Landlords accountable for substandard living conditions, then yes, sure, whatever. If she will eventually tell Landlords that they can't set the market -- which is the direction she's heading -- then what do you call it? And, hey, why limit this to renters? Why not have any single family homeowner paying a mortgage get their debt canceled? (3) You're sounding like a January 6 conspiracist. I think you and I agree on the sh***y nature of party electoral gameplay. (4) Looks like we agree on my "time will tell" answer. (5) Can't be scaled up. If someone wants to live in a commune, then there's plenty of places to go. That should be a personal election, not imposed upon people who don't choose to live collectively. And I'd add that for India Walton to believe for a second that just because Byron Brown lost focus in the primary doesn't mean that she's got a mandate or ANY broad public support to implement her platform. Her level of support, Citywide, from the potential constituents that she would be working for is miniscule.

Correct.

Are you taking credit or accepting shame?

This makes sense, yes, for the top RBs. But you’re also looking at points over replacement vs RBs who are just behind the top guys — so draft order is important there, too. I guess I’d go WR even over a bellcow, except maybe one who can also catch passes or isn’t on a bad team that has to throw a lot late in games.

I’m not in a league. My wife is, so I’m a casual observer. If a QB averages the same or more points per game than a RB over the course of a season, then isn’t that a good thing? So if you’re picking 9th or 10th and everyone ahead of you chooses the top RBs and WRs then why not go for Mahomes or Allen? Steady point production every week, no?

He might be right. Only in his case Josh kinda blew his point out of the water. And I hope he does well in Houston. He’s in a bad spot, but I’d love to see him succeed.

This week is rough, no team really stands out. Especially since it is week 1. I don’t think I’ll have my choice until the last minute.

Aren’t you the guy that started the *****-poster thread which pretty much violates the TOS by calling people out directly, instead of limiting your comments to the quality of the post?

Hi, Kay. 1. Castro circa 1950. 2. She doesn’t self-describe in the “Who is India Walton” section of her website. However, her endorsements label her as a socialist. Also her site contains this interview of Walton from Jacobin Magazine (there’s a loaded title!) discussing her endorsement by the Democratic Socialists of America. They discussed Socialism and her vision quite a bit. Not only that, but any media outlet that announced her primary win distinctly labeled her as a straight-up Socialist, and I never saw her push back on that. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2021/05/india-walton-interview-buffalo-mayor-race-democratic-primary?fbclid=IwAR2GeLuz8_ra-dCgQ60umzdCm27DDHT7w6LTnaEsEWQFion8kcc2x-4IM1M 3. I haven’t read Sinatra’s decision and I don’t know who his brother is. I will say that the decision, coupled with the past recent news that the City Council is thinking of banishing the office of Mayor led me to my answer #1. With your question #3 are you insinuating that you see a political party setting up the apparatus to defeat a political outsider whom they see as an extremist? Hmmm, have we seen this before? 4. Time will tell. Can’t answer that yet. 5. Depends on a lot of things, but I’d say, like everything Socialist and further left: good in theory, bad in practice. Time and basic human nature erodes the good idea and eventually the only way to sustain the idea is through heavy-handed regulation, to say the least. See my answer #1.

I’m going to guess this post to be a troll job, since it is so incredibly stupid that nobody who wrote it would possibly believe anything in it.

I think nominations should be made by PM to the board owner and whomever becomes a moderator should be given the option of having a second screen persona, if possible.

That day was my eighth wedding anniversary. I was supposed to be about a block away from the World Trade Center at 9:00 that morning, but put off the meeting until 4:00 because I had to stay home with my 3 year old until 9:00 when our sitter showed up. I got in my car and it was a perfect weather morning. I had the radio on and heard about the first plane and then the second and I kept driving like a zombie from my house in LI to my office in Brooklyn. Traffic was bad on the Long Island Expressway and I remember the ambulances, police cars, and fire trucks heading toward the scene. There where lots of them. Lots. People made way for them and I sometimes think about the men and women who rushed to the scene and didn’t make it back. I kept trying to call my wife, who was at work in a federal office building in Queens, but the phone lines were jammed up and I couldn’t get through to her. When I got close to my office, I could see both buildings smoldering. I don’t know why I kept driving. It was like I was on auto pilot while I listened to the radio. I came over the Greenpoint Avenue bridge and both buildings were right in front of me, so close. They looked like candles that had been just blown out, the smoke was blowing to the east I turned down a side street just as they were broadcasting that the first building went down. The reporter’s voice just conveyed shock and a bit of panic. I finally made it to work and everyone on the street was silent and stunned. A couple co-workers and I walked down toward the river to see what we could see. The second building was down. I’m glad I didn’t see either of them go down, but I felt it with sadness. We saw a couple fighters fly over our heads and just walked back to the office and didn’t get a damn thing done. I walked to the flower shop that was supposed to deliver roses to my wife and brought them home to her. Our anniversaries have never been quite the same ever since. 2001 is always in the background of our minds. So many people lost so much. I’ve got two weeks worth of NYTimes from the 12th through the 25th wrapped up in a bundle in my attic. I don’t know if I’ll ever go back and look at them, but I’ll never throw them out.

I agree that having some presence in Afghanistan would have been nice. And the European ones are also NATO-affiliated. So the "dating back to a century" is based on one of our oldest treaties, and it makes things a helluva lot easier when we're entangled in the mideast and central Asia. There's plenty of justification for keeping those intact.

In Europe, they worry about tanks rolling through just as much as anything else. Ask Poland if they want us to leave. And if we've got an airbase in Germany (or anywhere else) then we don't need to ask a bunch of other countries for permission to fly over their airspace.

I know what a physical map looks like. Poland and Belarus are between Germany and Russia. Maybe you'd have been right prior to 1989.

Have you looked at a map of Europe lately? And (though I’m not advocating for maintaining a base there) Afghanistan borders Iran, China and always shaky nuclear-armed Pakistan. So by your measure of usefulness, Afghanistan is a pretty good location.

It is fun to watch BB run on the QB hamster wheel. I could watch it for 20 years.

Maybe Iraq. Not Afghanistan. This thread is about Afghanistan.

So was Biden and Clinton. Nobody wants to remember that, either.

Nice try. I didn’t agree with the Iraq war and I didn’t agree with staying in Afghanistan as long as we did. But as long as you mention it: By bringing up your two D hero presidents, do you mean the one who got out of Iraq and left ISIS to take over? That same one who put MORE troops into Afghanistan? And the current one who crapped the bed and is still rolling in his own feces? Stime, we get it. You wouldn’t be the person you are today if it weren’t for Trump.

Gonna blame Bush for the hurricane?

To this point. Could you imagine the leaking and whistleblowing from the State Department and the Pentagon that would be going on right now if this happened a year ago? Heck, there are so many voices now deflecting from Biden and laying blame on Trump, as though he’s still in office. Trumps agreement was bad, yes, but that’s no excuse for Biden’s failure.

I agree with this. We were parked in Afghanistan 20 years later to keep tabs on both these neighbors. We kicked the crap out of the Taliban early on. Then we soft-handled Pakistan when the Taliban melted across the border into the hills. Didn’t want to rile up a nuclear-armed “ally”, and they didn’t help in any meaningful way. Half the Taliban are Pakistani and now Pakistan, the region, and the world has a potential nuclear problem on their hands if the Taliban some day decides to move south. ISIS-K may be Pakistan supported, but a lot of those fighters are from the former Soviet-Stans. Maybe they’re supported by Pakistan in order to give the Afghan Taliban something to wrangle with as a distraction. And reports are that Iran is actively allowing Al Quaeda leadership to stay in their country. AQ knows that we’re not going to do anything to them while they’re in Iran.

what happened this week came from a vaccinated trainer (at least the way I understand it). Beasley’s fault? No.

You’re saying that any and all outbreaks in the locker room will be Beasley’s fault because he’s outspoken. You can believe what you want and focus on the one loudmouth, but what you’re saying strains reason. There are no protocols in place this season? Nobody was vaccinated last season and Beasley and his teammates got through the year.