General News Thread

[MPH]

Seen this being handed around quite a lot, but can not guarantee its accuracy. Semi trustable sources..

 

REVEALED: According to the New York Times, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is effectively running Venezuela's economy from Washington after the U.S. captured Nicolás Maduro. Its oil revenue now passes through the U.S. Treasury under conditions Rubio sets. He is using that leverage to push out Iran, China, and Russia.

Full details in the comments

[leicsmac]

5 hours ago, MPH said:

Seen this being handed around quite a lot, but can not guarantee its accuracy. Semi trustable sources..

 

REVEALED: According to the New York Times, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is effectively running Venezuela's economy from Washington after the U.S. captured Nicolás Maduro. Its oil revenue now passes through the U.S. Treasury under conditions Rubio sets. He is using that leverage to push out Iran, China, and Russia.

Full details in the comments

Imagine if Russia, China or (gods forbid) a Muslim-majority country was doing the act of siphoning off another nations economy as blatantly. There would be an international outcry.

 

I remember a line from the Bond movie Die Another Day where the main North Korean villain talks about studying at Oxford and Harvard and, as he put it, "majored in Western hypocrisy".

 

Now, he's clearly a villain and the NK's are hardly good hombres themselves, but...

 

 

[Trav Le Bleu]

15 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Imagine if Russia, China or (gods forbid) a Muslim-majority country was doing the act of siphoning off another nations economy as blatantly. There would be an international outcry.

 

I remember a line from the Bond movie Die Another Day where the main North Korean villain talks about studying at Oxford and Harvard and, as he put it, "majored in Western hypocrisy".

 

Now, he's clearly a villain and the NK's are hardly good hombres themselves, but...

 

 

The best villains are the ones that you listen to their spiel and you think, "you're not wrong".

 

Like Thanos, for instance, it's their solutions to the problem that's a little off point.

[leicsmac]

16 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

The best villains are the ones that you listen to their spiel and you think, "you're not wrong".

 

Like Thanos, for instance, it's their solutions to the problem that's a little off point.

Yeah, Purple Man identified the problem ("the universe is finite, its resources finite") succinctly enough, but his solution was both morally horrific and actually did nothing to really solve the problem he highlighted. 

 

Ozymandias from Watchmen also comes to mind in that regard. 

[Free Falling Foxes]

Youngsters steals from 'Honesty box'

Fair play to the boys mother.

Edited yesterday at 11:19 by Free Falling Foxes

[leicsmac]

7 minutes ago, Free Falling Foxes said:

Youngsters steals from 'Honesty box'

Fair play to the boys mother.

Reading the history of people abusing such trust based systems in that article is... depressing. 

[MPH]

6 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Imagine if Russia, China or (gods forbid) a Muslim-majority country was doing the act of siphoning off another nations economy as blatantly. There would be an international outcry.

 

I remember a line from the Bond movie Die Another Day where the main North Korean villain talks about studying at Oxford and Harvard and, as he put it, "majored in Western hypocrisy".

 

Now, he's clearly a villain and the NK's are hardly good hombres themselves, but...

 

 

 

I posted this partly to add to the subject of Iran trying to control passage  through the straight of Hormuz and charge ships money   Too, which is of Course reprehensible.  Here comes good cop USA to out a stop to it.

 

But it boils my blood that someone presents them selves to the world as a good cop yet here we have them invading a country, taking their president and now controlling their economy.

 

its sheer hypocrisy of the highest order.

[Lionator]

17 hours ago, MPH said:

Seen this being handed around quite a lot, but can not guarantee its accuracy. Semi trustable sources..

 

REVEALED: According to the New York Times, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is effectively running Venezuela's economy from Washington after the U.S. captured Nicolás Maduro. Its oil revenue now passes through the U.S. Treasury under conditions Rubio sets. He is using that leverage to push out Iran, China, and Russia.

Full details in the comments

This is colonialism and he’s gonna do the same to Cuba 

[Lionator]

wtf is Zelensky doiing btw. Putin knew he only needed to bide his time all along.

[Lionator]

11 hours ago, leicsmac said:

Imagine if Russia, China or (gods forbid) a Muslim-majority country was doing the act of siphoning off another nations economy as blatantly. There would be an international outcry.

 

I remember a line from the Bond movie Die Another Day where the main North Korean villain talks about studying at Oxford and Harvard and, as he put it, "majored in Western hypocrisy".

 

Now, he's clearly a villain and the NK's are hardly good hombres themselves, but...

 

 

To be fair China have basically bought the whole of Africa

[leicsmac]

34 minutes ago, Lionator said:

To be fair China have basically bought the whole of Africa

Do let me know when a partisan member of the Chinese government is directly running the resource based economy of any African nation directly from Beijing without any kind of consideration of the consent of the people there. 

[kenny]

15 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Do let me know when a partisan member of the Chinese government is directly running the resource based economy of any African nation directly from Beijing without any kind of consideration of the consent of the people there. 

Some of the people there you mean?

[leicsmac]

9 minutes ago, kenny said:

Some of the people there you mean?

Fair, most of the people there, then. I don't think anyone can or is about to argue that a plurality of the Venezuelan population actively wants their country to become a direct American satrapy.

 

In any case, the above being said, the point about the horrific hypocrisy of it all stands - but then given that people like Rubio don't understand the concepts of shame or contrition, simply pointing out that they are hypocrites obviously isn't enough by itself. 

[kenny]

30 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Fair, most of the people there, then. I don't think anyone can or is about to argue that a plurality of the Venezuelan population actively wants their country to become a direct American satrapy.

 

In any case, the above being said, the point about the horrific hypocrisy of it all stands - but then given that people like Rubio don't understand the concepts of shame or contrition, simply pointing out that they are hypocrites obviously isn't enough by itself. 

Or a Chinese one. That ship has sailed though.

 

It will be largest empire the world has seen at some point I suspect.

[leicsmac]

4 minutes ago, kenny said:

Or a Chinese one. That ship has sailed though.

 

It will be largest empire the world has seen at some point I suspect.

As per above, let me know when that's happening as blatantly as is happening now with the Americans.

 

I do agree however that the Chinese are best prepared for the coming future of our species and therefore will likely end up with the most ability to make decisions. That does differentiate them though from the other big global players at the present time by virtue of them actually considering the future of the planet and their place on it at all, rather than treating it as a free for all bar before the drinks run out and everyone dies fighting over what's left.

[kenny]

5 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

As per above, let me know when that's happening as blatantly as is happening now with the Americans.

 

I do agree however that the Chinese are best prepared for the coming future of our species and therefore will likely end up with the most ability to make decisions. That does differentiate them though from the other big global players at the present time by virtue of them actually considering the future of the planet and their place on it at all, rather than treating it as a free for all bar before the drinks run out and everyone dies fighting over what's left.

I love how much you admire them, yet they remind me of Britain in 1850.

 

The belt and road initiative is their British navy.

 

 

[leicsmac]

7 minutes ago, kenny said:

I love how much you admire them, yet they remind me of Britain in 1850.

 

The belt and road initiative is their British navy.

 

 

I don't admire them so much as think the way they are preparing for the future and a changing world is our best and perhaps only opportunity to maintain continuity of civilisation through it. 

 

It's entirely possible that they are utilising soft power for entirely nefarious purposes and should they gain supremacy the world of 1984 will come about (mostly) for real. And if that is true, everyone else will have to make the rather dark choice between that and the US's Mad Max ending - where what is left of civilisation is defined only by violence and the most physically brutal have the right to do absolutely anything and everything they want to everyone else.

 

I guess that choice is entirely down to the beholder.

[kenny]

2 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

I don't admire them so much as think the way they are preparing for the future and a changing world is our best and perhaps only opportunity to maintain continuity of civilisation through it. 

 

It's entirely possible that they are utilising soft power for entirely nefarious purposes and should they gain supremacy the world of 1984 will come about (mostly) for real. And if that is true, everyone else will have to make the rather dark choice between that and the US's Mad Max ending - where what is left of civilisation is defined only by violence and the most physically brutal have the right to do absolutely anything and everything they want to everyone else.

 

I guess that choice is entirely down to the beholder.

Soft power sounds nice. Almost fluffy.

[leicsmac]

18 minutes ago, kenny said:

Soft power sounds nice. Almost fluffy.

Soft power, driven by economics, was what the British Empire did mostly rely upon - except on those occasions where an expeditionary force or gunboat fleet was needed. It wasn't always fluffy, as history clearly states.

 

In any case, semantics over one particular term of that point being made hardly invalidates or renders irrelevant the rest of it.

[bovril]

Soft power latest, by the way

 

[leicsmac]

3 minutes ago, bovril said:

Soft power latest, by the way

 

Nothing more American than thinking their rules have the divine right to apply to the rest of the world. 

[kenny]

4 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Soft power, driven by economics, was what the British Empire did mostly rely upon - except on those occasions where an expeditionary force or gunboat fleet was needed. It wasn't always fluffy, as history clearly states.

 

In any case, semantics over one particular term of that point being made hardly invalidates or renders irrelevant the rest of it.

Like owning large areas of economically attractive land by 'paying' the right chieftain? All above board I understand.

 

Good news that we are being threatened with no more Chinese investment after the British steel nationalisation I think. Shame in the short term, but the less we sell to them the better.

[leicsmac]

45 minutes ago, kenny said:

Like owning large areas of economically attractive land by 'paying' the right chieftain? All above board I understand.

 

Good news that we are being threatened with no more Chinese investment after the British steel nationalisation I think. Shame in the short term, but the less we sell to them the better.

I would agree that the best hands to keep such things in still belong to the UK. 

 

Other matters requiring international cooperation, however, may require a differing approach. 

[Zear0]

Trump threatening tariffs on air pollution from the Canadian wildfires is the least self-aware thing the most un-self-aware man has ever said.

[leicsmac]

1 hour ago, Zear0 said:

Trump threatening tariffs on air pollution from the Canadian wildfires is the least self-aware thing the most un-self-aware man has ever said.

But very on brand.