romad1

This category really bleeds into Project Autocracy because often religion is used as a lever by the autocrats. God bless all those with religious feelings but damn those who impose their versions of theocratic domination over the free peoples of the Earth.

Trump's buddy spent western Christmas pounding the Ukrainians. He's just nice that way. I gather the Ukrainians followed suit with attacks into Russia. Reaping the whirlwind and so forth.

Frisian is the specific language. It is spoken along the northern coast of Netherlands and Germany by a few folk still. One of those protected languages like Cornish or Breton. I know this because my mother's side had Frisian roots. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Frisian

I realize we were all in our family stuff today but nothing on the airliner today?

Chicken Tetrazzini is our go to dinner for Christmas now because we like it and who cares? We play softball catch on Thanksgiving at halftime of the Lions game no matter the weather. We invite the most churchy person present to pray but otherwise if nobody objects, don’t do grace. We eat chinese on Christmas Eve because our departed mother used to insist that she not cook on Christmas Eve. So that becomes a multi generational and multi-geographical thing the siblings have done with their kids.

Rituals are good for people even if they are not religious.

Its two holidays for sure. My Jewish boss celebrates it because she's into the secular/santa version. Why would she deny that to her kids. The comedian Alex Edelman's riff on this in his act is really good. Look that up on HBO/MAX if you have time.

Another part of the PRC thing with Panama.. the number of Chinese as a minority population was notable. It’s the crossroads of global trade so not surprising but still.

I really enjoyed visiting Panama with my daughter's class in spring 2023. Place has a lot of charm to it for having dealt with all it had. The canal was low due to the drought. We had one trip up country to visit a native village of people who had crossed the Darien Isthmus. It was a little slow going because the powered canoes had to be pushed off low water spots in the river quite frequently. The tour guide was very interesting for me because he had experienced first hand the PRC government's "charm offensive" for people like him. The PRC tries to create ambassadors who work in the tourism industry who can also serve as their friendly local agents. Tour guide was also interesting because he had to explain to the group of American middle schoolers that the United States and Panama had a complicated history without trying to sound too aggrieved or sugar-coating it. He did a good job of balancing that. The US facilities in Panama that used to support US Southern Command were turned into a college campus and they all basically looked like US military facilities. Comparing notes with a couple of US Navy friends who had transited the canal a lot they remember a much different Panama back in the day. I told them about the tropical forest urban park we hiked in Panama City and they told me that used to be a den of iniquity where people would get ladies of the evening but for much less time than the evening. Back in the distant US Southcom days you could also purchase drugs all over the place. Again we are there with middle schoolers so it was more than fine when we went.

Unthinkable...is that the same as made up?

Steve Herman @w7voa@journa.host CBS News - Former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who briefly stood to become President-elect Trump's nominee to be attorney general, was found by congressional ethics investigators to have paid numerous women — including a 17-year-old girl — for sex, and to have purchased and used illegal drugs, including from his Capitol Hill office, according to a final draft of a comprehensive investigative report. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/matt-gaetz-et

Watching Trump at Turning Points USA...he clearly knows how weak he is over the Musk presidency storyline.

Yeah, so Elon's funding all the RW crazies. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/12/22/labour-moves-to-ban-musk-donation-with-new-law/

Jayden Daniels is so fire...makes up for the INT. Wow.

Daniel’s with a pants 💩 INT in crunch time

I cite the case of draft position vs. building a winning culture

Watching registration numbers for the league I manage, there are a couple demographic blips I've got my eye on. My daughter was in the wave right around the 2008 crash and I've got t-ballers who will be joining who were born next year who were born in the Covid year. I gather that we hit a new low this past year. And those weirdos want to get rid of IVF.

He’s such an imbecile it’s sometimes easy to forget how corrupt he is. Trump apparently has a bunch of back taxes coming due in Panama.

Trump wants Panama…idiot.

Is the troll pro-terrorist now?

ndrew Weinstein ‪@andrewjweinstein.com‬ Are you really the leader when you have to keep telling people that you are? https://bsky.app/profile/andrewjweinstein.com/post/3ldopd3rnzc23

Bill Kristol ‪@billkristolbulwark.bsky.social‬ I think this should be kind of a big deal: Elon Musk tweeting at 1:03am, “Only the AfD can save Germany.” The AfD is Germany’s neo-Nazi party.

Am listening to her on The Bulwark…she’s interesting.

https://bsky.app/profile/andrewjweinstein.com/post/3ldqrzxtgnc2t Andrew Weinstein ‪@andrewjweinstein.com‬ The question we should be asking is how long will Elon Musk allow Donald Trump to stay in power. https://www.politico.eu/article/elon-musk-endorses-germanys-far-right/