I have seen this stupid fricking factoid come up every single time people are trying to make fun of libertarians ( which I am okay with ), but the factoid in and of itself is complete useless fricking bullshit and I know this for a fact.

Look at every single "backwards" 3rd world nation in the world and well into the 20th century most of them were marrying off their daughters at 13 or 14 or 15 years of age whenever there was an opportunity for the right price and status. Somehow. SOMEHOW! You want me to believe that WHITISTAN is the only place in the world which when it was living primarily on agriculture, and even centuries before there was any official attempt to have a legal age of consent for the world, with 3rd world tier quality of life, was somehow having parents go, yes I will wait for my kid to grow till they are 20 years old before marrying them off because we all know by 21st century standards that is the right time to marry them off, IS COMPLETE FRICKING BULLSHIT!

You would need a society so exceptional for that in their behavior and ideology that it does not match a single other society on the planet. STUPID R-SLURRED REDDIT FRICKS look at a case of some princess getting married off at 20 or some shit and go looookkk they knew what an adult age of consent was are those people fricking retarrded yes they fricking are THIS IS REWRITING HISTORY LIVE to match some contemporary bullshit moral ideals that pisses me the frick off.

EVERY FRICKING COUNTRY IN THE WORLD WHEN IT WAS LIVING LIKE POOR PEOPLE WOULD HAVE CASES OF SELLING THEIR DAUGHTERS OFF BEFORE They were 18 because age of consent is itself a modern contemporary concept!!

YOU DON"T SEE ANY OF THE CRUSADE ERA LITERATURE CALLING OUT MOHAMMAD FOR hAVING S*X WITH A TEENAGER!!! THEY LITERALLY CONSIDERED MUSLIMS TO BE DEMON WORSHIPPERS OR EQUIVALENT THEY WOULD HAVE GONE AFTER MOHAMMAD TO SLANder HIM WITh thAT if THEY ACTuALLY BELIEVED IN AN 18+ AGE OF CONSENT IN THOSE TIME PERIODS!!!!

THE CONCEPT OF TEENAGERS WASN'T EVEN A REAL COMMON THING UNTIL THE 20TH CENTURY!!!!!!

FRICKING REDDITORS! FRICKING REWRITING HISTORY TO MATCH MODERN VALUES BULLSHIT! FRICKING R-SLURS EVERYWHERE ONLINE!!!

I dislike liars and especially condescending moralist liars.

Conclusion:

Stop rewriting history to match your current day moral values. It is bullshit and ruins everybody's day.

Another great example of American education going down the drain

My name is Talia, and I'm searching for a life partner to start a loving family 💗
-I'm a sex worker with a high 6 fig income and 7 fig NW
-28 and freezing eggs soon! My dream is to be a SAHM for the early years of parenthood

Interested, or just curious? Take the survey below! pic.twitter.com/XjeMqIyVlB

— Talia 🌿 SF (@TaliaGraceSable) February 1, 2025

https://www.guidedtrack.com/programs/dkuryfl/run

We NEED as many dramatards as possible filling this out. If you're a lonely virgin then THIS IS YOUR FRICKING CHANCE !personalarmy !incels @lankyhands

🇺🇸 The female Black Hawk helicopter pilot from the crash in Washington, Captain Rebecca Lobach, was not named until her social media was cleaned … so it seems.

She was Biden’s aide. pic.twitter.com/gP16Tmr2py

— Lord Bebo (@MyLordBebo) February 2, 2025

I (14) finished writing my first book!

I know age shouldn't be an excuse for bad writing and I kinda rushed the end of my book, but I put all my heart and feeling into writing this book. I hope you enjoy reading it.

(PS: this is a pen name)

Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wyfzJTYu7ER34xCSLjETM1YCgBYCm-AvVsCQjuxVsk4/edit

Here comes the critique:

You posted this, so I assume you want feedback.

Your opening few paragraphs do a good job of setting the stage, but there are a few places where the prose could be cleaned up. For example, you mention Starry Hallow I think three times right off the bat.

The year is 2001, when being gay isn't really normally accepted

Try to watch out for unnecessary filler words really normally. We all use them, but they drag the narrative, especially where you can use this opportunity to attach an emotional value to the sentence.

The year is 2001, and being gay sucks.

The grown adults on Reddit, when given a chance to critique the writing of a literal child, somehow make it worse

Not that there's not anything to critique, check out the opening line:

I looked out at my window from the bus to Stars Hollow, Connecticut, and then checked my watch. The time was 1:45 p.m., but I really didn't know what time it was because my clock hadn't adjusted to the time zone yet. It's about an hour until I reach Stars Hollow.

"The time was 13:45:32 on the dot, but actually I didn't know what time it was because my (analog) watch hadn't adjusted to the time zone yet"

This reeks of "Freedom Fries."

I thought freedom fries was the dumbest thing i've ever seen out of washington... well until now. 4 more years of this BTW.

Fun fact about World War One, the US started calling Sauerkraut by the name of Liberty Cabbage. We don't have fresh ideas.

The Gulf of Liberty Cabbage

Welp, I know which name I'm going with.

I'm going with Gulf of Mexico, with Gulfy McGulfface being a close second option.

I'm in NZ. Google maps says its Gulf of Mexico (because that's its fricking name).

>Google says it will change Gulf of Mexico to 'Gulf of America' in Maps after government updates

>will change

Hopefully, it's only 4 more years.

if we're not in some kinda post apocalyptic scenario in 4 years i'll be pleasantly surprised

That's the shit that has me up all night.. Fricking lunatics have escaped the asylum again, but this time they're prepared. This ain't "Joker 2" muthafricka!

Four years, give or take a /r/collapse

This was only the first week. ugh

4 more years so far...

Yup. Just the first week. Im so sick of the darn trump show and it doesn't seem there is a way to unsubscribe, disconnect, turn the channel, unplug the tv etc. His brand of stupidity is fricking everywhere.

4? Try 8 when vance gets elected

Hopefully you'll still have a country that resembles the US in 4 years.

They ruined the Dixie Chicks' career because they spoke out. Turns out we should trust some musicians for our foreign policy.

Just because some are sometimes right doesn't mean we should generally trust musicians.

The overwhelming majority of musicians are not geopolitics experts, or at all informed on political issues.

The fact that we constantly expect celebrities to chime in on issues they have no expertise in is one of the reasons politics is so toxic and polarised today. It's contributed to the dumbing down of political discourse.

But also, being a musician does not disqualify you from having and expressing political opinions, nor does it guarantee that you are politically illiterate.

The world might be a better place if pop artists were more inclined to sing about politics than vague romantic notions.

real big "shut up and dribble" vibes coming from that dude

: Rich people are out of touch and have no idea about reality or what the common people are going through! Guillotine them all!

: Actually, more celebrities should lecture people on how to be hecking good human beans, after all they all agree with me. Tee hee!

The funny part to me is that "America" isn't even the name of our country, it's the name of the continent. We're the United States. 'Gulf of the Americas' kind of makes sense, but has nothing to do with the United States of America.

I could see that if it was the gulf of USA but Mexico is part of America

And everyone will continue to call it the Gulf of Mexico

In Florida we just call it "the gulf".

Not any more - we'll be sure to add "of Mexico" for clarity from now on.

Seems confusing. How do you know which gulf you're talking about?

What an absolutely brilliant question. Your mother must be so proud of you. Do you go poo poo on your own too? Awwwwwww.

Woosh

Awwww, not yet? You'll get there.

They are so angry they just attack each other for no reason

Everyone who matters will call it the Gulf of Mexico, at least.

I hate to break it to you but everyone matters, not just those that agree with you. That was made very evident with the election. Just because in your mind you can just tell yourself other people don't matter, they actually do. And sadly, their decisions can frick up the world for you.

I think he/she might mean those in communities that actually deal with the Gulf like those in the scientific communities, not just the average layman.

Sure, that's perfectly possible. However, that doesn't counter my point at all. The entire idea that some matter, and some don't, is how we ended up in this mess in the first place. It turns out, everyone actually does, and if you don't believe that, your world can get pretty fricked up by that disbelief.

Give up brother this place is like a blindfolded circlejerk

Leftists purity checking each other over things that aren't even disagreements

Americans don't matter to me any more.

What irrelevant country are you from?

The great thing about American exceptionalism is that it can never have any negative consequences of any kind. Good luck with that!

I will. Frick that nazi. Gulf Of Mexico.

Oh so you like deadnaming now, interesting.

PM Trudeau of Canada should issue an order renaming the USA to "South Canada". Let's see Google change it for Canadian viewing.

This is exactly the kind of high-level international trolling we need. Show Trump for the pathetic man-child that he is.

: So you guys agree that we should be same the country then!

But _I_ don't desire they use that name, and I'm American. Can we, like, petition Google to not be punks who do what the totalitarian wants?

Lmao. The Google CEO was front row at Trump's inauguration. Best of luck

Maybe constantly bitching about CEOs/rich people/important people even when they're on your side could have some unfortunate consequences?

Californian checking in. It's the Gulf of Mexico.

>Google will change

Google is the scariest of all tech companies. They are essentially our library. They have the ability to manipulate the narrative on a different level. For the vast majority they are our dictionary, our encyclopedia, our Library of Alexandria. They are THE reference for day to day life. Our last arbiter of truth.

We are already aware that weighted searches are for sale.. but them kissing the ring is scarier than social media techs doing so. By my estimation, at least.

That's why I periodically download wikipedia

"Here at Google, we deepthroat the whole boot"

Stop being anti-corporations and maybe they'll like your side too

Why do people think this ends when trump ends? It doesn't. It's being set up so it doesn't. We will get Vance, who is more cognizant and has the potential to be worse.

True but, I don't think anyone but Trump has what it takes to rile up the morons enough to get out and vote.

It's comments like this that make me think you people still do not understand the magnitude of this election.

Every single lever of power in the government that matters is now firmly controlled by people who are perfectly fine cheating in broad daylight with a violent mob to maintain that power.

They are not going to let themselves be voted out of that power.

Maybe choose an actual candidate next time instead of an identity checklist?

I think his cult followers can absolutely be manipulated, post Trump Death, into turning on themselves. I don't think they're accept the Charisma vacuum as the next leader.

I think the internal MAGA civil war will tear the movement apart.

You just have to hope that they haven't destroyed democracy too much post that point.

Like how you guys lost the election?

People want to believe that Trump is pulling the strings. They don't want to believe that there's a group of people putting EOs on his desk to sign without reading

Fricking wingcucks lmao

Now factor in the very best healthcare that money can't buy.

COVID would have killed him if he wasn't POTUS. Sad this dude keeps escaping death. It's always the evil ones that live the longest. :/

Even the best medicine can't do miracles.

Ah, frick, who am I kidding, modern medicine is a miracle. We're fricked.

[Karma] Doesn't exist.

I mean… it does. You'll see. And even if you don't believe, when bad things happen, I can assure you us real Americans will be cheering

I'm a real American too but I don't believe karma is an actual thing. If it were true, why would such monstrosities be done to innocent people over the course of history? What did they ALL do to deserve slavery/torture/murder/r*pe/genocide?

I meant real in the sense cheering for karma to happen to dotard. You are also assuming you know exactly how something you don't believe in actually works. Bold assumption

Do you know exactly how it works then?

I know what I believe, but is it what religious adherents believe? No, don't think so.

How is that any different than what I said?

Cause I think my version is real or is to me at least. You said none of it is real.

It's real to me that it doesn't exist.

Hippie with exotic beliefs meets edgy reddit atheist. The argument goes past this point btw

Regarding the BMI, I get the impression he's been taking Ozempic or something. He seems to have been slowly thinning out

Maybe but elderly people often thin out for a variety of reasons, most of which are not good.

Yeah that's usually a sign of deaths door

He’s completely missing the point. But people who lack empathy usually do miss the point so this isn’t shocking https://t.co/BRRGwD6qLk

— △⃒⃘Youtube: Nu Mindframe△⃒⃘♒️ (@nu_mindframe) February 1, 2025

Context: The annual Tata Steel chess tournament is going on. It's generally the first big event of the year, and consists of two invitational tournaments (the Masters section, consisting of top players, and the Challengers section, consisting of younger up-and-coming players) as well as multiple tournaments for amateurs. This incident occurred in the challengers section, between Uzbek grandmaster Nodirbek Yakubboev and Indian grandmaster Vaishali Rameshbabu. When Yakubboev arrived at the board, his opponent extended her hand to shake (you do this before a chess game). Instead of shaking her hand, however, Yakubboev seemingly declined with a hand gesture and sat down. He also didn't offer his hand when he resigned at the end of the game (there's videos in the reddit post).

some random threads with lots of downmarseys:

https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1iabsh8/isnt_it_against_fide_rules_to_refuse_to_shake/m99dyce/?context=8

https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1iabsh8/isnt_it_against_fide_rules_to_refuse_to_shake/m994x5f/?context=8

https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1iabsh8/isnt_it_against_fide_rules_to_refuse_to_shake/m992kie/?context=8

https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1iabsh8/isnt_it_against_fide_rules_to_refuse_to_shake/m98zwzi/?context=8

https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1iabsh8/isnt_it_against_fide_rules_to_refuse_to_shake/m990hbh/?context=8

https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1iabsh8/isnt_it_against_fide_rules_to_refuse_to_shake/m98zl5s/?context=8

https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1iabsh8/isnt_it_against_fide_rules_to_refuse_to_shake/m9922iv/?context=8

plot twist: this might have been regular autism on Yakubboev's part, and not religious autism. A couple people posted a video of him shaking hands with another female player at a different tournament (

update: He responded on twitter.

https://xcancel.com/NodirbekYakubb1/status/1883623565314101651#m

/r/chess reacts:

https://old.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/1iasbhn/nodirbek_yakubboev_responded_on_the_handshake/

No background

Original Tigger Trudeau

!marseyartists !marseyfans

This is actually pretty strange. Maybe he's just some turbo neet addicted to the janny life. I'm not sure how he'd be making money from this. But it's creepy how these jannies weasel their way into more and more control.

I saw him on the front page earlier here

https://old.reddit.com/r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus/comments/1ie3wnc/severance_2x03_who_is_alive_episode_discussion/

Just a discussion thread, nbd. But I found a bunch of posts about him.

Sardines discussed him 2 weeks ago (removed of course)

https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1i495u2/head_moderator_for_rtheboys_uloretitv_flagrantly/

That's a flagrant repost But he mops hard on any post that calls him out.

Not sure the rDrama rules here , but there is a private social media account with the same reddit username

sardines?

This redditor explains what he's doing

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheseFrickingAccounts/comments/1i19jjc/this_moderator_is_using_their_own_subreddit_as_a/

OR they have some sort of mental illness that drives them to see their fake internet points go up.

I'm leaning toward that, but I'll make a poll at the bottom.

Anotha one

https://old.reddit.com/r/TheseFrickingAccounts/comments/1i1dnd3/uloretitv_the_top_mod_of_rtheboys_reposts_their/

Couple more posts

https://old.reddit.com/r/exposingbadmods/comments/1hwd21b/loretitv/

janny making redditors seethe? Or cringe janny?

https://old.reddit.com/r/HOTDBlacks/comments/1hwz9h3/pathetic/

https://old.reddit.com/r/freefolk/comments/1e48xav/hardest_album_in_the_riverlands/

Redditors, I mean dramneurodivergents, discuss:

Coming soon! pic.twitter.com/BETCBf4s3N

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) February 5, 2025

pic.twitter.com/J8iDhSEewa

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) February 5, 2025

The Trump Resort, Gaza in 2030 pic.twitter.com/8ERR1Nyiz5

— Shelley G (@ShelleyGldschmt) February 5, 2025

🫳🏼
🇵🇸
🗑️

— Hashem (@HashemAllMighty) February 5, 2025

Thoughts? pic.twitter.com/5zn6HMLSJd

— Jews Fight Back 🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@JewsFightBack) February 5, 2025

Think bigger pic.twitter.com/vxZJpXvxEq

— Kitty Surprise (@KittySurprise1) February 5, 2025

Confetti was needed 🎉 pic.twitter.com/H5TP1H2AIE

— Caт Вee ✡︎🪶 (@CatShoshanna) February 5, 2025

The South African did another heckerino - in response reddit jannies have taken up their mops in protest to "petition" their userbase about a total ban on Twitter/X links. Numerous subs have already joined, including but not limited to:

r/MadeMeSmile

r/BlueskySocial

r/DnD

r/nba

r/pcgaming

r/newjersey

r/formula1

r/hockey

r/chelseafc

r/boardgames

r/CHIBears

r/ffxiv

r/detroitlions

r/OnePiece

r/steelers

r/ireland

r/magicTCG

r/antiwork (carp added this one with jannie abuse powers hi!!!!!)

Is this totally organic? Will it accomplish anything? Doesn't matter, it's a reddit protest!!

An armed man arrested at the U.S. Capitol said he planned to kill Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, and burn down The Heritage Foundation, federal authorities say.

Ryan Michael English, 24, of Massachusetts (), was found with a knife and two Molotov cocktails on Monday afternoon near the south door of the Capitol, U.S. District Court records say.

"I'd like to turn myself in," English said after he approached a U.S. Capitol Police officer, the records say.

Officers detained and searched him and found he had a folding knife, a lighter and two 50-mililiter bottles of vodka with a gray cloth attached to the top.

English told officers he went to the Capitol to kill Bessent, who was being confirmed as Treasury secretary. He said he had more Molotov cocktails in his car.

He said he left home on Sunday with the intention to kill Hegseth, who he called a "Nazi," and Johnson, as well as burn down The Heritage Foundation. He said he aimed to "depose" the officials and send a message, records say.

As English headed to D.C., he stopped at a library in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and saw Reddit posts about Bessent's confirmation hearing. He then altered his intended target, the records say.

Read more @nbcwashington

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

Drake:

!fashion

!coons

/u/LilliaBaltimore is still posting public bathroom selfies regularly (see [NO DRAMA] A Reddit poweruser is STILL getting to the top of /r/waltdisneyworld by posting bathroom selfies for more info.

Yesterday he posted a rainbow which makes me wonder if he's not so subtly calling out for Disney World hookups?

Anyone who dares to say "hey public bathroom selfies are weird and not on topic for /r/WaltDisneyWorld" is called a racist gatekeeper by /u/MarleyTheBeagle, the most typical Reddit imaginable.

I’m so proud of our Democratic members of Congress right now. They’re being blocked from entering the Department of Education—and they’re not having it.

I can’t tag everyone in this video, but seeing Auntie Maxine ready to fight for our kids warms my soul. She hasn’t changed,… pic.twitter.com/V4FxbTHVwf

— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) February 7, 2025

Will stencil is advocating for an insurrection

Push past them force a confrontation https://t.co/rXKJuM2Bbu

— evan loves worf (@esjesjesj) February 7, 2025

This man is a legend! pic.twitter.com/150ZdRNpyC

— Clown World ™ 🤡 (@ClownWorld_) February 7, 2025

A lot has happened in Lebanon over these last couple years and I haven't given a breakdown on the situation across the country because I didn't know wtf was going on most of the time. Everything is finally settling down so I think I can approach this now. I'm going to skip the events of the war because I have talked about those already. I'll just compare the situation before and after the war.

Situation October 6

Lebanon is a total shitshow in every possible way. The economy has totally collapsed. The politicians are all the same ones from 1990, the gangsters who were lucky enough to not get car-bombed during the Civil War. The government doesn't function anymore. Even the lowliest civil service job is appointed through patronage from one of the gangs parties based on a complicated scheme where power is divided among a dozen religious sects. That system has broken down and nothing is getting down now. For example they can't remove a pile of 2,000 tons of decaying explosives before it explodes or provide power for more than a few hours per day. The presidency has been vacant for a year because the various factions refuse to compromise with each other.

Background note: The President of Lebanon is elected by the parliament, not a popular vote. He needs a 2/3 vote so there has to be consensus. He must be a Maronite Christian.

Every one of the parties I talk about below are from the civil war. I've written extensively about all of them. It's not really necessary to understand this but if you have any questions about them, I probably answered it there. If you haven't read them, short story: They're all buttholes.

Who is to blame for the impasse? There's a lot to throw around.

• The Sunnis for whatever can't come up with any unifying leader beyond Saad Hariri, who is too busy licking caviar off a whore's nipple in Ibiza to inspire political change.

• The Christians are divided. FPM, a vehicle that the last president used to support his megalomaniacal Napoleon-inspired ambitions. He's way too old now so he's turned it over to his son-in-law who is notorious for being even more corrupt, greedy, and r-slurred than your average Lebanese politician.

• The Lebanese Forces during the war was basically the mafia controlling and "protecting" Christian areas. Now they've reinvented themselves as a political party, but they're still run by literal serial killer whose main job during the war was doing massacres and gang hits against Christian rivals. But now he's got a bunch of r-slurred zoomers supporting him, because hey, who care's about his body count if it was a long time ago?

• Marada is a small Christian party that represents the interests of the Franjieh family, who have strong support in one region of the country and close ties to Syria. Notable because he's Hezbollah's favorite and his opponent in the election Geagea personally murdered his entire family.

• The Druze still are completely loyal to Walid Joumblatt. He knows that his sect is a small minority so he throws his weight behind whoever is going to win. At least when he's not too busy smoking weed and shitposting on Twitter.

• Amal is basically all the Shi'a who don't back Hezbollah. Maybe they're secular. Maybe they're normal Shi'a who just don't buy into Ayatollah Khomeini's Vilayat-e Faqih heresy. They don't have the luxury of idealism since most factions in the country and most regional countries are gunning for the Shi'a right now. Led by Nabih Berri, speaker of parliament and a genius for using political patronage to wheel and deal for what he wants. Lots of blood on his hands too from the war.

Hezbollah is important enough to get more than a bullet point. I don't know what to call this organization. It's an army, a militia, a political party, and a welfare system. They gained a lot of prestige for driving the Israeli occupiers out in 2000 after a long guerilla war. Everyone was like "cool, now that the war is over you can give up your weapons". But they found bullshit excuses to not demobilize and resentment has been building since then. Most of the corruption in the country isn't done directly by them, but they use their military power to block anyone from fixing the government, because if they did it would order them to disarm.

They're in trouble now. A lot of their popularity came from social programs that they did in impoverished mostly-Shi'a areas that the government didn't give a shit about. That was funded by Iran. With the sanctions and general decay of the regime, Iran is in serious trouble and has had to cut their donations way back. The population is really pissed off at the complete breakdown of the government and is smart enough to realize that Hezbollah is cockblocking any effort to reform it to solve their problems.

Even more serious, the Assad regime in Syria has dominated Lebanon for most of the last 60 years. Most of these factions have been allied with them at one time or another, but their power has greatly weakened after the Syrian Civil War left the regime as a crippled fragment of the country. Now it's Hezbollah who are most dependent on them. Iran delivers weapons to them through Syria, so they can't keep building up their rocket arsenal without it.

Israel and Hezbollah have both been remarkably good about keeping the cease-fire since 2006. Hezbollah is deterred by Israel's completely overwhelming military power and the damage they suffered in 2006. Israel is deterred by their humiliating defeat in the ground war in 2006 and Hezbollah's massive arsenal of 150,000 rockets, many of which are long-range precision-guided missiles in the same league as ATACMS.

Now

The situation has radically changed in the last few months, more than I've seen in my life time. To summarize the parts of the war important for us here: It turns out that Hezbollah's huge rocket arsenal was vastly exaggerated by the Israelis. The 150,000 rockets didn't exist. The Israelis have infiltrated their organization to an astonishing degree and kill most of their leadership. The Assad regime collapsed like a wet piece of cardboard.

The good news is that the "Shiite Duo" (Hezbollah and Amal) that has cockblocked any kind of reform in Lebanon is not able to do so any longer. They can't be completely ignored, but they can't stop the nation from making progress. Hezbollah is in complete disarray. Their leaders are dead and every means of communication they have is presumably compromised. Just as they can't coordinate their military forces, they probably can't even come up with any political policy. The collapse of Assad's regime means that they can't rearm and replace the weapons lost in this war.

The general public already was very turned off on them before the war started as they were the most powerful faction so they were most to blame for the country's dysfunction. They might have won some moderate degree in sympathy if they had won victories on the battlefield like in 2006 but their catastrophic military defeats have completely undermined their whole raison d'etre. The said that we have to tolerate a "resistance" group outside of the government's control because they were the only ones who could protect the country against Israeli aggression. That made a lot of sense in 1990s, not very much sense afterward, and it makes no sense now. The completely failed to do any damage with their vaunted rockets and on the ground the IDF was too smart to play their game and just didn't attack. So if you're a Christian, a Sunni, or probably most of the Shi'a who don't have a zealot personality type, all Hezbollah managed to accomplish was to drag the whole country into a war and then lose it. Remind me again, why do we let these people have their own private army?

After the cease-fire a president was finally elected after 2 years. The Shiite Duo stopped insisting on Franjieh, who would never have won because if he's president he might remember that Geagea killed his dog (and the rest of his entire family) and go John Wick on him. The winner is commander of the armed forces Joseph Aoun, no relation to commander of the armed forces Michel Aoun who was the last president. ("Aoun" is like "Smith" and they always go to the army for a compromise candidate.)

Joseph Aoun

He seems like a good choice. He joined the army in 1983. During the Civil War he fought for Michel Aoun against the Lebanese Forces of Samir Geagea in the 1990 "War of Elimination" when the army tried to wipe out the gangsters terrorizing Christians and assert the authority of the state. Notice that I mentioned both of these people above and this is the second presidential candidate who fought against Geagea. Are you guys starting to understand why this soap opera is so interesting?

Word is that he's always been very apolitical and gets along with everyone. He did military training in the USA and Syria. His election is approved by Saudi Arabia, the USA, Qatar, France, all the major factions in Lebanon. (Notice this is the one country in the world where their soveriegnty is such a joke that other countries openly declare which candidate they're voting for.) We can only pray that he ends up like Fuad Chehab, the one successful Lebanese president, who was put into power by the US with the same idea, that he was an apolitical compromise candidate who everyone in the country and the region could accept. He went on to create the good times of the 1960s, so who knows, anything could happen.

Hezbollah is playing hard to get, whining about his choice of prime minister, but this is a negotiation tactic. The other factions, even the Maronite patriarch, have said that nobody will be excluded. By this they mean that Hezbollah will get some representation in the cabinet.

Future

What does the future hold for the Lebanese? Hopefully a hot twink with a nice car who can get you a green card. But we're going to look at the national level.

I am very very cautiously optimistic about this new government. I can't think of a single time since 1975 when there was a government that might be willing and able to act like this is a real adult grown-up country. Not even because of Hezbollah. They were just a symptom. The real problem was the Assad regime. There was no way Lebanon could even try to improve itself as long as that existed. They had their tentacles into every part of society. I don't expect we're gonna see true democracy like the USA in 1864 break out tomorrow, but this is legit the first time most of the people in this country could even begin to start trying to make progress in reforming their political system. I mean heck, they might even start breaking down the barriers between the religious sects like everyone has been promising to do since 1943.

There's a lot of dangers left though. Hezbollah and Assad getting the shit kicked out of them brings a lot of opportunities but there's a lot of potential ways to frick this up. I know I'm a nattering nabob of negativity, but I've been saying for decades that when we get rid of them we have to have a plan for how to replace them.

One immediate concern is the Alawis in Lebanon. They have a neighborhood in Tripoli. The population is, I dunno, maybe 10k. There was a lot of fighting between them and the local (Sunni) population several years ago. Not to mention during the Civil War. Now they're totally isolated deep in the territory of people who have really intense reasons to hate them. There's been a lot of cases of isolated communities like this getting massacred. Although on the bright side, those were during wartime and since the Alawis are no real threat to them anymore they'll probably be fine.

Second is the Shi'a. It's difficult for me to follow what's going on with them because they don't post much in English unless it's straight-up propaganda like al-Manar. What I know is, most of them have zero interest in Hezbollah's corruption, its wars, its heresies imported from Iran, its weirdo restrictions on your social life, among other things. They backed them because there is a real legitimate fear among everyone that the other two sects will gang up and wipe you out. The Lebanese Shi'a now have no friends in the world except Iran, which is completely impotent at the moment with a regime bankrupt financially and morally and on the edge of collapse. In my boomer times, the US would have stepped in to reassure these people that they're not about to get genocided.

Third is the Israelis doing their usual bullshit. Signed a "cease-fire" and kept firing. I guess the implicit understanding was if Hezbollah stops shooting rockets they'll stop blowing away all the apartment buildings in Beirut. In the news they report every little detail of the treaty, but it's understood that most of those are just for show and won't be followed. But Israeli domestic politics once again goes against its national interests. They're not going to leave a couple of the villages on the border that they promised to in the cease-fire. This is very typical of Israeli diplomacy: Always break every agreement a little bit just to remind them that you've got the upper hand and they can't do anything about it. Which dooms them to eventually be in constant war with everyone, but at least in the case of Smotrich and Ben Gvir that's exactly the point. The people they forced out of these villages, Christians and Muslims, are not just going to forget about it. And there's already psycho fringe Israelis trying to build settlements there. They're the fringe now, but once they've got facts on the ground, they'll make sure this keeps going for generations.

Fourth is what Hezbollah does when they're in a corner. In 2006 they won a conventional war which was incredibly shocking. Now their conventional army is destroyed. If they go back to fighting, they're gonna go back to guerilla warfare. And they're really good at that. And if they're really desperate, they'll go back to terrorism. You dipshits call them a "terrorist organization" because you think "terrorist" is a synonym for "bad". They stopped doing terrorism a long time ago but it's not because they found Jesus and became nice. If they get desperate they'll go back to it. And it won't be in Israel.

Hopes

Everything is going right for Lebanon right now except for Israel continuing to bomb them. If the cabinet there just has anybody who wants to accept that they won a war and not prolong it, everything will be fine. The ball is in their court.

!nonchuds

Even for a professional fighter Bryce Mitchell is one of the dumbest motherlovers on the planet lol

Why did Elon Musk just say Trump wants to bring two stranded astronauts home?

For reasons that were not immediately clear, SpaceX founder Elon Musk took to his social media site X on Tuesday evening to make a perplexing space-based pronouncement.

"The POTUS has asked SpaceX to bring home the 2 astronauts stranded on the Space_Station as soon as possible. We will do so," Musk wrote. "Terrible that the Biden administration left them there so long."

Now generally, at Ars Technica, it is not our policy to write stories strictly based on things Elon Musk says on X. However, this statement was so declarative, and so consternation-inducing for NASA, it bears a bit of explication.

lmao bullshit, Ars loves to sneed about everything Elon does; it's basically TMZ but only covering Elon.

Foremost, NASA has gone to great lengths to stress that the two astronauts referenced here—Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams—are not stranded on the International Space Station.

The astronauts are clearly stranded as has been covered extensively over the last year by even leftie organisations:

NPR also released an article insisting that the astronauts aren't stranded - https://www.npr.org/2025/01/28/nx-s1-5278636/iss-astronaut-rescue-spacex-trump:

Ars comments are of course mad:

Why wouldn't the US government want to bring two stranded astronauts home? Why is this the top comment? What are you mad about?

They were meant to be there for eight days. The eighteen month stay was planned.

And yet they're still stranded there, curious. Why don't they just fly back home? They must want to be there.

The bottom two comments - note the guy who's had an account for 17 years.

/r/games re- ACK!ts: https://old.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1iciwl6/sony_corp_shake_up_hiroki_totoki_named_corporate/

ReetardEra re-ACK!ts: https://www.resetera.com/threads/hideaki-nishino-elevated-to-solo-ceo-role-at-sie-herman-hulst-remains-as-ceo-of-the-studio-business-group.1094379/

NeoStrags sneed: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/sony-shake-up-hiroki-totoki-named-corporate-ceo-hideaki-nishino-elevated-to-sie-solo-ceo-herman-hulst-reports-to-nishino-now.1680154/

4chuds chudlebrating: https://boards.4chan.org/v/thread/701522090

Kiwiggers are also chudlebrating the return of glorious Nippon: https://kiwifarms.st/threads/sony-hate-thread.87498/post-20448374

!g*mers !chuds !asians