BREAKING: Ross Ulbricht has been pardoned by President Donald Trump

— unusual_whales (@unusual_whales) January 21, 2025

If you don't know who Ross is

FREEDOM!!

FREEDOM!!!! pic.twitter.com/itRuuyFAxe

— Free_Ross (@Free_Ross) January 22, 2025

During their meeting, Netanyahu gifted Trump a golden and a regular pager.

Trump reacted: “That operation against Hezbollah was incredible.”

😂😂😂 pic.twitter.com/MnvC5vc8jl

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) February 5, 2025

Much better compared to the first marsey :3

My friend. I say I start onlyfan. This a trap. Only say this for find out which follower pervert. I'm now identify pervert follower.

Much dumb retard pervert follow me. I'm now proceed block

This only sun tzu strategy. Please appreciate. https://t.co/Qjyfc0F4KC pic.twitter.com/9xdp1efnOn

— Wei Wu 吴伟 (@WuWei113) February 3, 2025

You can tell this account is either a moid larping or an uggo chinkess but that wont stop them.

If you create one, you’ll make so much money.

— Sam Mitha (@MithaEXP) February 3, 2025

WEI WUSSY

— Lolzz1337420 (@lolz1337123) February 3, 2025

!moidmoment

Civilization 4 week draws to a close and it has successfully gotten me to waste my weekend and procrastinate on a bunch of work !g*mers

We're playing the turboneurodivergent Dawn of Civilization mod that replicates world history. Part 1 Part 2

104AD, the Roman Empire is around it's historic peak. We have completed 2/3 of the Historic Victory Conditions, just recently securing the necessary territorial borders for Pax Romana, so we're in a 24 turn Golden Age

There are still some barbarian cities in Africa and Iberia, remnants of the Carthaginian Empire we might as well go take. Persia also controls Mesopotamia and Turkey, so these aren't true Trajanian borders but we're kinda close!!

For a Historic Victory we just need to research a couple more technologies first.

The Pagan Religious Victory is losing viability. We have 22 cities, 4 of which in Egypt and the Levant have Judaism, and Christianity (Orthodoxy) has been founded and started to spread to the Roman Empire. Pagan Temples are disappearing.

Brennus of the Celts is still alive, they live in Ireland. Their core moves from Gaul to Ireland following the Gallic conquests, so they aren't at risk of collapse. They could capitulate but they're worthless. We could wait for them to be willing to offer tribute but they are poor and underdeveloped as shit. We'll offer peace.

We can even offer charity to improve relations and advance them from being such disgusting backwards savages. We'll probably have to help them out a lot. Such is the Roman Man's Burden.

There are a couple peaceful tribal villages around the British Isles, our scouts can explore them for a bonus (a military unit runs the risk of angering them and spawning barbarians). Did I mention how much Civ5 fricking sucks? In Civ5 these are "Ancient Ruins". Why are there ruins? You start at the beginning of human civilization, you play through the ancient times! Are they ruins of the 12000BC Magic Kingdom of Zeal? I'll bet they changed it for cultural sensitivity or some weak shit like that.

The villagers give me a warrior. I name them the Britbong Warriors. Did you know in Civ5 you also can only name units when they are promoted? What an r-slured design choice. That game fricking sucks. You can't even draw on the map either.

Anyway, the above events are depicted here:

Christianity (Orthodoxy) has spread to Rome and the people are all pissed off about it, particularly because we have the Religion civic "Deification". It's past time for some government restructuring.

Unfortunately, unlike in vanilla, changing civics in a Golden Age is not free. Fortunately, unlike Rhyes and Fall, anarchy does not consume Golden Age turns. We just put our Golden Age on hold for a little while.

This will take some thinkorinoing

In addition to the bonuses, we want to have super strong stability. Around 290AD the Eastern Roman Empire will fracture off if we don't have Solid stability. CHEERS to @RWBY for informing me of that this is preventable btw.

Certain civic combos have synergy/negative synergy and when we start to approach the Medieval age some civics will lose stability for being obsolete.

Religion

We need to move from Deification 100%. Syncreticism would be dumb because we don't have a lot of religions available, and it's incompatible with Citizenship. Clergy is the obvious answer, although we don't have a State Religion yet, we will soon.

Economy

Redistribution is awful at this point with 22 cities and will soon be obsolete. Merchant Trade is much more lucrative.

Territory

I am still running the primitive default "Kinship" here and it is very embarrassing. I would have benefited from taking the anarchy hit to run one of these earlier. Same with Merchant Trade. I kinda forgot about my civics tbh I'm actually bad at this game

Thalassocracy is better with all the fishing boats we have around the Mediterranean, and has strong synergy with Merchant Trade.

Legitimacy

This is still all we've got available for now.

Government

Monarchy is very good and better than Republic majority of the time but we have more fishing boats than farmland right now and free specialists during a Golden Age will get us more Great People. Republic also has strong synergy with Citizenship. Elective sucks, I don't get the point of it.

Despotism will go obsolete I think, but the whip (population rush) is king. It will allow us to speed up building infrastructure (particularly jails and religious buildings we'll be getting soon) and allow us to control overextension (reducing population outside the Italian core). We're going to continue running it.

Soyciety

Slavery has positive synergy with Despotism, but both will go obsolete soon. Switching one more civic here will save a turn of anarchy later, so it's worth considering changing something now. We have more pastures than quarries/plantations and no longer have a lot of opportunities to capture workers, plus lots of undeveloped land, so changing to Manorialism might be a good idea. Unfortunately it has negative stability synergy with Merchant Trade . If the Eastern Roman Empire split weren't a concern, it would be worth it to just take the hit. Caste System has positive synergy with Clergy, but we can't benefit much from it. We'll just stick with Slavery for now and save a turn of anarchy for later.

Hindsight Fun Fact: This might've been the wrong decision. Slavery it turns out is the only civic that becomes outdated. Switching to Caste System now would have been better and helped with a plague later. Not sure when Despotism becomes outdated

Final: Despotism/Citizenship/Slavery/Clergy/Thalassocracy

120AD, during the revolution, Catholicism is founded in Roma. We of course will embrace it once our government restructuring is over.

The revolution is over, and the reformed Catholic Roman Empire returns to work Look at how rich Greece's coast is No way I'm letting that shit become Byzantine Although it's still Orthodox over there

The Religious victory available is now the Catholic Religious Victory. Being "Pope" means being the head of the Apostolic Palace, which in base game is basically the medieval U.N.

Great Prophet Petrus is born in Athens 200AD. Now that I have Roma as the holy city of Catholicism I can found the holy shrine wonder - Saint Peter's Basilica (which doubles as the Apostolic Palace from base game). I wasn't 100% sure I wanted to build the holy shrine yet but holy crap this is TOO perfect.

Our stability is still Solid. The "Foreign" stability is the only kicker for "Bad Relations". Pretty much always in DoC I have "bad relations" because half the world has a different religion and everyone is pissed off about something. One of the weakest areas in Civ4 is diplomacy, and the tendency for foreign leaders to come by constantly whining and asking for shit with a -1 penalty when you refuse is unfortunately common. I've heard trying to entertain this whining can improve Foreign stability.

For example, a few turns back the King of Aksum (Ethiopia) kept coming by trying to pull me into his irrelevant ooga booga conflict with the Nubian Kingdom of Kush. Typically I click "no go away" without hesitation and just accept the -1, but it may have been advisable to just annihilate Kush for these savages instead. Moving forward I will actually consider entertaining the requests of these lesser rulers, within reason.

And hey, why not join the Aksum war? Nubia is pretty lucrative land, and I now have spies to check up on their defenses. It's conquerable and I still have several soldiers and artillery from the Egyptian conquests stationed here. I may consider gearing up for a small invasion.

Speaking of spies, I'm able to look at Persia a little. They can research Machinery, one of the technologies required for the third victory condition.

But when I apply some espionage to them I can see that they're currently researching Fortification - nothing to worry about yet. We have a strong military advantage too, but I'm still going to leave them alone.

We can put this espionage to good use thoughever. Our spies can't do much right now, but they can pilfer the Persian treasury a little. Dawn of Civilization has an expanded espionage mod that provides a full promotion tree for spies, and "Great Spies" from the original game are now generated like "Great Generals". You can see the counter for both Great Spies and Great Generals at the top. If we want to survive past Medieval times we will need espionage. New civilizations are intentionally placed at an advantage so it is near necessary to use espionage to even the odds. Now is a good time to start gaining espionage experience.

Dorylaion, the city Darius founded on top of the independent Greek city he destroyed is the most efficient place to send spies to, mainly because if it's proximity to Byzantion and Roman cultural influence. I was annoyed about this at first, but it will prove to be useful now, we can send spies from Byzantion easily and gain experience. Khosrow will catch a few and it will further piss him off and hurt our Foreign stability, but

If we crank up our espionage and settle a spy there for a while we could even steal a technology.

Notice we can see inside the city now (though Fog of War is only cleared with the research of Electricity in RfC)

Also, with our Citizenship civic we have a fun little gimmick where we can have spies bribe Barbarian units.

290AD is approaching. We're still at Solid, but teetering a little close. Foreign sucks of course. We've lost some ships to barbary pirates and this has messed up our military stability . I'm building my warships in Rome now so they can get a boost from the Flavian Ampitheater to prevent any more of this. Fortunately, we're still booming and expanding, but we're very close to the overextension point and need to start concentrating on making sure our core population is higher than the population outside. Despotism is great for this because we can just whip all the extra population away. Domestic is lower than usual because Slavery is now outdated - if needed, we can change this to Caste System to take advantage of a further boost from it's compatibility with Clergy.

We just have to hope nothing unexpected could tank our economy...

Oh frick. While exploring the far east I discover a plague in India.

Oh God it's spreading west

AAAA FRICK

We are hit with a Certified Hood Classic Plague from the East. On the plus side this will help cull our population and reduce overextension. This is a pretty shitty plus because I could've just whipped neighbors. The downside is our economic development will suffer. This is a justifiable time to invade the Nubians for their lucrative mines and please the Ethiopians (Aksum). I think maybe annihilating a civilization will also reduce Foreign stability penalties (cuz they're dead). I hope that's how it works. Nobody really likes them at least, so I won't get a "You declared war on our friend!" penalty.

The Nubian conquest is slightly riskier than anticipated because the plague is weakening our troops. The highest promoted crack troops are affected worst so the benchwarmers have to step up.

This ungrateful prick is still Annoyed at me, but now that we're in a mutual war he's willing to open borders. After destroying the Kingdom of Kush I can spread missionaries and bring Aksum into the Catholic fold. Maybe I'll have to supply some resources and technologies too. Truly, I am Atlas, carrying the rest of the world on my soldiers

On that note, frick the Irish Celts too. Even after generously trying to pull them out of the Stone Age they're still all pissed off and probably contributing to the Foreign stability penalty, plus there's still some angry citizens in Paris wanting to rejoin them. They can't join shit if Brennus is dead.

The Germanic barbarians are starting to swarm. We take some losses - this is bad. Barbarian losses negate stability. Using the Citizenship ability to bribe barbarians with spies actually comes in handy.

We're so far ahead technologically that I found Islam just for the heck of it. Waset in Egypt becomes it's holy city. The Arabs (Mohammed) will still spawn and attempt to spread Islam by sword but they've been cucked out of the benefits of Mecca as a holy city.

The Kingdom of Kush/Nubia is conquered. But they're still alive for some reason?!? I have no idea where their last city is.

We send a missionary to spread Catholicism to Aksum but crankypants is still only "Cautious" and isn't ready to convert as a state religion. Hopefully when it spreads to his second city he'll join the fold. Once another leader is Catholic the Apostolic Palace/Saint Peter's Basilica will be able to hold diplomatic conventions.

336AD, the Golden Age has ended. We are no longer insanely propserous, and our stability is wavering. We've lost some battles to barbarians and are suffering war weariness for the invasion of Kush. For one positive "Foreign" has gone from -5 to -4, so I guess helping out Aksum and destroying the Celts might've worked. "Domestic" is down because of outdated civics (Slavery) and Religious Disunity (Catholicism is not in cities with Orthodox, Judaism, and Islam). Next time we may have change the Slavery civic and spread Catholicism to the Eastern world.

The Eastern Empire is still ours however. We apparently avoided the Byzantine schism. So mission accomplished

I hope. I can't find this in the code and don't know how it works Some guy on the CivFanatics forum said if you pass 290AD you're good but he was also taking photographs of his monitor instead of taking screenshots. To be safe I'll try to stay in Solid stability as long as I can.

We only have one more technology (Civil Service) for the Historic Victory, so we might as well just win the game too.

()

But frick that! I want a Space victory.

I'm going to reload and intentionally stall researching Civil Service until I fail.

Next game, the scheduled decline of the Roman Empire begins. We attempt to defy history and go to medieval times and beyond.

Next:

https://rdrama.net/h/vidya/post/332528/lets-play-civ4-dawn-of-civilization

Top Drama

Relative Drama (takes into account the size of the subreddit)

autodrama: returning jobs to dramneurodivergents. Ping HeyMoon if there are any problems or you have a suggestion

Another gigachad with perfect genetics (5' tall fat Asian man with autism)...

Mass Effect trilogy, notorious for its uhh... male slop moments??? lmao

Mass Effect 5 just needs to be well written & not focused on modern themes/politics. Kinda simple really.

Complain about the game leaning into "straight males", but guess what? That's most of the audience. pic.twitter.com/T34ATl3xkO

— Michael (@LegacyKillaHD) January 31, 2025

Guess the mayo tigresseses loved the Big Bengali Peepee

!catholics !christians happy Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time!

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

First Reading

In the year King Uzziah died,

I saw the Lord seated on a high and lofty throne,

with the train of his garment filling the temple.

Seraphim were stationed above.

They cried one to the other,

"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts!

All the earth is filled with his glory!"

At the sound of that cry, the frame of the door shook

and the house was filled with smoke.

Then I said, "Woe is me, I am doomed!

For I am a man of unclean lips,

living among a people of unclean lips;

yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

Then one of the seraphim flew to me,

holding an ember that he had taken with tongs from the altar.

He touched my mouth with it, and said,

"See, now that this has touched your lips,

your wickedness is removed, your sin purged."

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,

"Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?"

"Here I am," I said; "send me!"

-Isaiah 6:1-2a, 3-8

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Responsorial Psalm

R. (1c) In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

I will give thanks to you, O LORD, with all my heart,

for you have heard the words of my mouth;

in the presence of the angels I will sing your praise;

I will worship at your holy temple

and give thanks to your name.

R. In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

Because of your kindness and your truth;

for you have made great above all things

your name and your promise.

When I called, you answered me;

you built up strength within me.

R. In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

All the kings of the earth shall give thanks to you, O LORD,

when they hear the words of your mouth;

and they shall sing of the ways of the LORD:

"Great is the glory of the LORD."

R. In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

Your right hand saves me.

The LORD will complete what he has done for me;

your kindness, O LORD, endures forever;

forsake not the work of your hands.

R. In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

-Psalms 138:1-2, 2-3. 4-5. 7-8

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Second Reading

I am reminding you, brothers and sisters,

of the gospel I preached to you,

which you indeed received and in which you also stand.

Through it you are also being saved,

if you hold fast to the word I preached to you,

unless you believed in vain.

For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received:

that Christ died for our sins

in accordance with the Scriptures;

that he was buried;

that he was raised on the third day

in accordance with the Scriptures;

that he appeared to Cephas, then to the Twelve.

After that, Christ appeared to more

than five hundred brothers at once,

most of whom are still living,

though some have fallen asleep.

After that he appeared to James,

then to all the apostles.

Last of all, as to one born abnormally,

he appeared to me.

For I am the least of the apostles,

not fit to be called an apostle,

because I persecuted the church of God.

But by the grace of God I am what I am,

and his grace to me has not been ineffective.

Indeed, I have toiled harder than all of them;

not I, however, but the grace of God that is with me.

Therefore, whether it be I or they,

so we preach and so you believed.

-1 Corinthians 15:1-11

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Alleluia

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Come after me

and I will make you fishers of men.

R. Alleluia, alleluia.

-Matthew 4:19

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Gospel

While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening

to the word of God,

he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret.

He saw two boats there alongside the lake;

the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets.

Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon,

he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore.

Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat.

After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon,

"Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch."

Simon said in reply,

"Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,

but at your command I will lower the nets."

When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish

and their nets were tearing.

They signaled to their partners in the other boat

to come to help them.

They came and filled both boats

so that the boats were in danger of sinking.

When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said,

"Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man."

For astonishment at the catch of fish they had made seized him

and all those with him,

and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee,

who were partners of Simon.

Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid;

from now on you will be catching men."

When they brought their boats to the shore,

they left everything and followed him.

-Luke 5:1-11

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!"

"Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me. For I am the least of the apostles, not fit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God."

"When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.""

Isaiah, Peter, and Paul, three extremely holy men, all said they were unholy and unworthy. This is very humble of them, admitting that any grace they have is a gift from God, but it's also a teaching example. You don't have to be perfect to share the Gospel; the Good News are still good when coming from a bad person. A common question I see here is "how can you be preaching about Catholicism on rdrama of all places? Good Christians shouldn't have anything to do with this site." While it may be true that good Christians shouldn't be here, it's certainly better to be here and share your Christianity than to be here and not do so.

As cute as she is when she falls asleep on my desk, she'd fall asleep on the mouse, keyboard or the laptop. The new cat bed has worked really well.

She's asleep

@kaamrev

the United States shall promote the resettlement of Afrikaner refugees escaping government-sponsored race-based discrimination, including racially discriminatory property confiscation.

this is the natural conclusion of diversity politics. when you elevate foids and every other demographic to positions on the basis they are foids or whatever else, people become less trustworthy.

was this woman a competent pilot? probably, but it doesn't matter - diversity politics ruined any respect she might have.

i've been reading a lot of sirpings blogs and learning a lot from him, and I think he might be a genius.

r/50501 is planning a mass protest at every state capitol tomorrow (2/5/25).

Members of the subreddit are idolizing Luigi Mangione, discussing martyrdom, and calling for revolution. pic.twitter.com/hvdYjQcBSd

— Reddit Lies (@reddit_lies) February 4, 2025

Are you nerds going to let someone driving a Subaru mock you?

The coup and counter-coup in Korea right now vaguely reminds me of Iran in 1953.

You may have read in A People's History of the United States when your pinko high school history teacher assigned it to you, and what you've heard from every midwit in the media, that Mossadegh was overthrown in a coup plotted by the CIA to put the Shah into power because the oil companies wanted to make money. All of these things have a pretty big kernel of truth but way more important stuff was going on.

The Abadan refinery in 1950. At the time it was the largest in the world.

(I'm just gonna summarize this part really quick because it's undisputed: In 1951 Mossadegh nationalized the oil industry built and owned by Britain because they were just stealing it all and not paying royalties. The British together with the big (mostly American) oil companies organize a boycott so that other third world countries don't see this and get uppity. After two years, Iran is suffering badly because of the lack of money from oil among other things.)

Mohammed Mossadegh. He did this strange thing where he would say he was sick in bed and do his business from there. He did it even when visiting America. Maybe there was some meaning to it in his culture but if there was is it went way over everyone's head here. Or maybe it was just an extreme passive aggressive thing. You can understand why negotiating with this guy might be frustrating.

The oil nationalization thing was the big issue looming over everything, but not in the way you might think. Pretty much everyone across the different factions supported it, but there was infighting over whether Mossadegh was doing it competently. As well as a billion other issues. Iran was one of the more democratic countries in the world at the time and people had all kinds of different beliefs and things to fight over. Obviously the religious thing that blew up in 1963 with Ayatollah Khomeini didn't come out of nowhere.

Part of the fleet review for the coronation of Elizabeth II, 1953. This is the overwhelming power they were threatening to use.

Besides the situation in Iran, there was another crisis in a troubled country. Britain was still trying to figure out what its identity was after they lost India. A lot of people thought they should continue running a global empire. This wasn't some weird fringe Tory belief. Across the country there was deep resentment that they were losing their place in the world to the Americans and their anti-imperialism. Britain had been exploiting Iran's entire oil industry for about 40 years based on a deal they got through bribery and threats and paid only a tiny fraction of their profits to Iran. So Mossadegh nationalized it. The British went apeshit and told the Americans that they would have to invade because they couldn't dare lose face in front of the Orientals. So the US is trying to solve this situation without two allies going to war with each other. It's been two years now and it's deteriorating rapidly.

So Eisenhower eventually relents and orders the CIA to implement the coup the British had been begging for and partly planned. So the CIA gets together and plots with various army officers and politicians they think will back it. You can guess how well that goes. Other factions are tipped off and get their army units in the streets to put it down. The Shah flees the country into exile, presumably forever. Ironically, the whole reason why Eisenhower ordered the CIA to do all this wasn't because they wanted Mossadegh out. He was a pain in the butt but they could live with him. It's because Eisenhower was afraid the increasingly unstable, unpopular, and dictatorial regime was vulnerable to being overthrown by the communists and then everything would really go to heck. So the idea was that we would do it first.

Stuff like this was happening but with multiple factions.

But the failed attempt caused so much chaos, with tanks and various angry mobs from different factions roving around the streets of Tehran, that Tudeh (the commies) decided now was their chance and they tried their own coup, but that failed too. At the end of this game of musical chairs, Gen. Zahedi ended up in power, the guy the US had wanted all along. It's hard to say exactly how much American support helped him. The CIA was bribing newspapers and influential people in the time leading up to it which may have had some influence on events, but the actual coup they totally fricked. This all happened in 4 days.

Epilogue

Ashraf Pahlavi. Once at dinner in front of several foreign diplomats she yelled at her brother "Are you man or are you a mouse?" about some policy issue and stormed off. Would.

The Shah returned with Zahedi's permission, like a browbeaten cuck coming back from his shed. The Americans had never liked him. The CIA considered him to be a spineless coward and preferred dealing with his sister Ashraf, who was much more strong-willed and exerted a certain level of dominance over him. But something surprising happened over the next couple years. The Shah managed to lever Zahedi out of power and make himself an autocrat.

After the coup, BP was forced into giving up their monopoly of Iranian oil. They had been shamelessly screwing over the Iranians, using tactics like claiming that they couldn't pay anything because they weren't making a profit. The oil industry remained nationalized but Iran made a contract with the world's big oil companies (the "Seven Sisters") to operate it for them as a consortium. For various complicated reasons that are certainly way above your head, this meant that the Iranians got a way bigger share of the profits. It paved the way for them taking real control around 1970 and OPEC actually getting some teeth in the following years, under the leadership of the Shah to a large extent.

I dunno why monarchs these days always have to wear military uniforms. Your dad became famous for killing a lot of bandits with a machine gun when he was young, but who are you kidding?

The Shah would go on to be denounced as a puppet controlled by the US. I wish. The CIA said he had a (actual quote) "pathological fear and hatred of the British". He'd been brought up this way by his father, who had been deposed by the British. Delusional megalomaniac? Definitely. Somebody looking to be a puppet? No. CIA wasn't even allowed to spy on Iran. In the late 1970s he got cancer which he hid from his "puppetmasters" until it was too late and was overthrown. But that's a story for another time.

This is the only image of paratroopers landing in that war that Google will return now. Serious 1984 shit.

Britain, having been cockblocked out of invading Iran, was still desperate to use its (still very potent at the time) military power to thrash some wogs to show they were still dominant. This led to the disastrously r-slurred invasion of Egypt in 1956 in which the Americans spanked them and put them back in bed, ironically proving that Britain was no longer a global power that could do incredibly stupid evil stuff without American permission.

Addressing your whining

But Redactor! It was a rogue CIA operation!

Just like how sending Gary Powers out on that U-2 was a "rogue operation" until Eisenhower admitted he ordered it. This is an excuse that politicians use to protect themselves. Please grow up and don't be so naive.

But Redactor! He was democratically elected just like Allende! That should trump everything!

And then when things got tough he made himself dictator. Park Chung-hee was democratically elected. DeGaulle was democratically elected. Nixon was nowhere near a dictator but you're butthurt about him and he was democratically elected. Trump is too r-slurred to know when he's breaking the law and he's been democratically elected twice. It's funny how it's only people lefties want to identify with are the only ones who get a lifetime pass for being a dictator because they won an election once.

But Redactor! This is the reason why they hate us!

I know who obscure musician Sahba Motallevi who plays the tar is, which proves I must know what I'm talking about.

Give me a fricking break. Do you know any Iranians? They're some of my favorite people in the world but they are batshit insane about some things. I'm not usually into "Human Biodiversity" but I think they might have a genetic predisposition toward being paranoid. These are people who, when JFK Jr's plane crashed, their first question was who assassinated him. Where the Cinema Rex fire was so obviously done by Islamic militants that it must be a false flag. Where Jimmy Carter is a ruthless thug who secretly wants to stomp all of humanity under his jackboot. Where a really smart well-educated person asked me if Saddam Hussein had really gotten executed several years after it happened. They would have blamed America for something if we never did anything.

Also it's a country with a deep sense of persecution by foreign powers because they were basically colonized by Britain and Russia from ~1800-1945. Except it wasn't done openly. Everyone knew what was going on but it was behind the scenes. The kind of thing that makes you suspicious of foreign superpowers.

This kind of animosity isn't sparked by a single really complicated event. It gets into all kinds of really complicated psychology. Look at the left in South Korea and their reasons for hating America:

I wonder if a single one of these tards has ever even realized that they must have been wrong because the beef genocide never happened.

• We were really the bad guys in the Korean war. (Yet literally about 90% of people who actually lived through that think we were the good guys.)

• There was a traffic accident once and a little girl got run over by accident. (Car accidents never happen in Korea. Ajussi is totally fine to make it home after a few bottles of soju.)

• American beef has prions in it that specifically target the brains of Koreans and give them mad cow disease. (This was a real thing I'm not even exaggerating. It was a huge national issue and there were massive riots over it.)

I can't even begin to list the number of cases of people irrationally hating America when we did nothing wrong:

• British leftoids like John le Carre who were obviously butthurt that they lost their empire to America, so now they call us imperialists.

• That whole thing in France in the 1960s-1990s where their foreign policy was all about hating America.

• Indians who lived off of rice donated by America but were butthurt because we reminded them of the British or something.

• Canadians. I think that speaks for itself.

In Iran especially, their culture requires them to have a Britain to blame for their problems, so that's going to be the USA. And in South Korea they need a Japan to blame for their problems, so that's going to be the USA. (I mean seriously, hating Japan has turned into this pathogical need where some of them can't live without it.) !asians

Was it the right call?

So should we have done it? That's the $64 question, isn't it?

Eisenhower with the 101st Airborne chads before D-Day. This guy lived in a world where he had to make some extreme choices and they weren't just when to upmarsey or downmarsey.

Imagine being in Eisenhower's shoes. Stalin has just died a few months ago and presumably his heir is going to be like him. You were in a legit shooting war with the commies in Korea up until... 24 days ago. You're 8 years from leading a war on a continental level against another totalitarian regime and having to order the deaths of hundreds of thousands because that's how real shit was. There's a bunch of crises going on all over the world now. This one is especially dangerous because of the extreme strategic importance of Iran. Europe, the place you spent so much of your life fighting to protect, is dependent on Iranian oil. That war would have been a heck of a lot worse if you didn't have more oil than the other side so you know just how important this is. Given the information he had at the time and the imminent danger of WW3 breaking out, I think his decision was fairly reasonable.

Here's my view in hindsight: I don't think they should have done it. I think if there was a better understanding of Iranian culture they would have realized that there's such a large majority who will never accept communism that you don't have to worry about that unless they get invaded. They had a large portion of the population who are conservative Muslims (especially in rural areas). The educated elites liked freedom and democracy. There's actually a democratic tradition going back pretty far and while it was far from perfect it wasn't a complete joke. Beyond that, look at the virtually total failure of communist subversion throughout the Middle East. In the entire Cold War the only truly commie state they managed to take control of was South Yemen. These countries have a really good immune system against communism. Also they really really are not sympathetic toward Russia. You hear it to this day when somebody makes a deal with America and they say "It's another Treaty of Turkmenchay! !" And they are extremely nationalist. They are not interested in world socialism.

But don't take my word for it!! We have access to an actual honest assessment from within CIA about what happened.

It is difficult to juggle the domestic herd and the three quarantined girls at once. Sheila has completely re-bonded with her babies. The boys eat wet food with their sisters so they're bonded.

!animalposters !cats

1/ The Russian media has reportedly been ordered by the Kremlin not to cover Donald Trump positively because his agenda is seen by ordinary Russians as better aligned with their own interests and values than that of Vladimir Putin. ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/2YRqX1eWP5

— ChrisO_wiki (@ChrisO_wiki) February 5, 2025

1/ The Russian media has reportedly been ordered by the Kremlin not to cover Donald Trump positively because his agenda is seen by ordinary Russians as better aligned with their own interests and values than that of Vladimir Putin.

2/ The VChK-OGPU Telegram channel reports what a source has told it about a new directive suppressing Russian media coverage of Trump:

3/ "If the policy of the previous US administration easily created an image of an enemy for the average Russian citizen in terms of values, then now Trump, as president, meets the demands of Russian citizens better than Putin himself:

4/ "– a family man with an open large family, information about which is not classified by special services (although the security issues of the Trump family are no less acute than those of his Russian colleague);

– became a billionaire before he even came to power;

5/ "– firmly defends the interests of US citizens in matters of migrant crime and relations with their countries of origin (the recent case of Colombia with Trump's strong rhetoric and Russia's unconvincing cases with Azerbaijan and Tajikistan);

6/ "– promotes tax cuts for its own citizens and businesses while imposing tariffs and duties on foreign countries.

7/ "Whereas Russia is increasing taxes (on profits, VAT, personal income tax, scrappage fees, tariffs of state monopolies in housing and communal services) for its own citizens and businesses, and constant concessions, forgiveness of debts,…

8/ …reduction of supply prices of resources for foreign countries.

The domestic policy of the United States now absolutely coincides with the values that the Kremlin previously made "unique" for Russians.

9/ "A strict command has been given to all media outlets to stop any material on the positive aspects of Trump's domestic policy, and to reduce all news items from the US only to the growth of domestic national and class tensions.

10/ "It is obvious to the Kremlin that Moscow will no longer be able to compete in the field of traditional values with Washington; the mainstream in the Russian media must urgently be changed.

11/ "As one participant in a meeting of a government working group joked: we can lift the ban on LGBT and start supporting transgender politics by introducing it into Russian culture…

12/ … in order to maintain the agenda of global confrontation and an "alternative path" against the Americans.

13/ "Against this background, it is increasingly difficult to explain to Russians why their 'friends' are Turkey, Iran, North Korea and China, which have completely different and in many ways unacceptable cultural values for Russians…

14/ …(and the latter country is also taking advantage of the situation by sucking all the profit margins from Russia into its economy)

LET US ENABLE TOTAL REDDITOR DEATH AND TOTAL ZIGGER DEATH AT THE SAME TIME

#MAGA #MUGA #MIGA #TRD #TZD

!trump2024 !trump2028 !the_donald !project2025 !chuds !accelerationists