I don't believe this was ever about taking Ukraine with the Russian military. I believe this is about destroying Ukraine and squeezing Europe's energy-dependent balls until the EU cracks under the economic pressure caused by the sanctions. This is already happening with Germany whimpering to Daddy Vladdy for all that precious, precious oil and gas. "Oh, we gave Zelensky a billion euros!"; yeah, and you gave Putin 25x that in oil/gas purchases.

The mealy-mouthing and dissembling has already begun, most shamefully from the New York Times, who is calling for Ukraine to make "hard choices". "This isn't capitulation" -- fuck you NYT, yes it is.

I had honest hopes that the western powers would show some spine and resolve, but as soon at their economies started to feel a little pain, the number of fucks given for Ukrainian lives went to zero. Russian is going to rape and murder its way from Odessa to the Belarus border until the western powers figure out some way to make it all Zelensky's fault or force him to cede massive amounts of Ukrainian territory before any real economic pain felt.

The worst part is that Finland and Sweden are going to be granted NATO membership, but Ukraine still is denied. Why are these two the hills NATO is willing to die on and Ukraine not? If NATO isn't willing to risk nuclear war over Ukraine, what happens when the tip of a single Russian boot touches Finnish soil? What happens when Finland then calls for Article 5 and the rest of NATO suddenly realizes shit just got real? What happens when it's time to shit or get off the pot; put up or shut up? Either NATO charges into the teeth of a potential nuclear war, or NATO is shown to be a paper tiger. If someone sees a middle ground, I'm interested in hearing it.

(Incidentally, NATO's Article 5 is pretty porous. A-5 doesn't say every NATO nation commits whatever forces are deemed necessary by the whole to defend against an aggressor. Instead, it says that in the event of A-5 coming into play, each member will take "such action as [the member state] deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area."

Notice the whole 'each member' and 'deems necessary'? Yeah, to quote a popular movie 'I don't think this mutual defense pact means what you think it does'.)

Ball is in your court, Catasauqua. If Fossil’s last stand is still open in 6 months, you’re a racist town and must live with the consequences of your choices.

how do you know he's making eye contact? he might be looking at a tennis ball on a stick for all we know.

As Jimmy Kimmel once said (paraphrasing), "The difference between a Rush Limbaugh fan and a Bill Maher fan is, fans of Bill KNOW he is an a**hole!" * And Bill talking about manhood is like Ted Cruz advising someone on how to make friends.

The Ball Count:
Those numbers are stark. Have seen similar numbers. CDC birthrates suggest bleakness. But suggest it isn't lack of manliness but the whole American lifestyle. Long work hours w/low compensation; having little say in how the government works; medical insecurity - - stress, stress, stress - - w/o many signs of hope. (lost a bundle on the Mitch McConnell security blankets)

a lot of issues brought up in his monologue but has very few clues to the reasons.

'Tho his answer to INCELS has already been better stated...
(condensed version starts @ 5:21)

Smith lost a lot of fans right there….me included.
If you don’t have a sense of humor about yourself, don’t go to awards shows where the audience is fair game for jokes at their expense. Same for your wife/husband.
If being bald is a touchy subject, wear a wig. (Coming from a bald guy who’s been bald by choice for 25 years and never once got mad at a Mr Clean or penis head joke).

Will can fuck right off with his violent tantrum (or pretend tantrum if this is some scripted ploy). Chris should have decked him back in the face, kicked him in the balls, and kicked him off stage head first. What a child. I hope charges are pressed and lawsuits filed….he deserves them. If there aren’t repercussions, that’s a good indicator this was scripted to boost dismal ratings, which IMO might be worse.

Obama was only a champion of gay rights. He moved that ball forward. Everything else was so so.

Trump was far better. He put all Americans first. Created growth not seen in years and it is still growing for now. Biden will fuck this up too, like everything else he has done.

Biden kicking ass / taking names? on what planet?

Putin invaded under weak presidents Obama and Biden. Not Trump. Face it Biden and Obama are weak and Trump was / is a leader.

It's not like there's ever going to be a ball there to bother it.

Lol. Triggered much bob!?

Impossible to enlighten you, you live in the dark by choice.

No matter how often or how clearly I explain my feelings on Biden, 20 minutes later you will post “newt, you good think time Biden you boy good!? Explain why you love him. This is you choice?”

There’s no point explaining for a fifteenth time to a moron that can’t read my reply and can’t remember an answer for 3 minutes.

🤦‍♂️

On the other hand, Trump IS 100% you(r) choice, despite all the lies, despite the massive failures on every front, despite adding 50%+ to the debt, despite the worst economy in history, despite being responsible for 750000 American deaths, despite the racist race baiting and scapegoating politics, dispite the most nepotistic administration ever, despite the dissolution of the union, despite letting Russia invade Crimea and murder their political enemies internationally without a word, despite dozens of failed attempts to subvert democracy, defraud an election, outright steal the presidency, use the military to seize voting machines and install fake electors to “elect” him, sell pardons, and despite his being best friends and a long time party partner with Epstein, filmed lecherously leering and gawking at children at multiple events including Maralago parties with just him, Jeff, and dozens of under age girls in attendance and no one else.

Yes, Bob. Biden is incredibly better than Trump, no comparison, it’s a mid level AAA ball player vs a cheater and loser at T-ball. It’s an old fashioned grandpa vs Charles Manson. He doesn’t have to be Hank Arron to be a massive improvement over a cheater who bats 000 and has 4217 errors in 4 seasons and no plays (but claims to be the best player ever).

Could you explain what positive traits you see in Trump? What success he had (without ignoring 2020)? In what way specifically was the nation better off Jan 19 2021 than it was in late 2016?

How are you going to answer with OAN going away? No more canned insane fact free answers for you to cut and paste.

Seriously... everything everyone else said, but you have to give it a chance. If you take it in bite size chunks it's corny. But the whole thing is just amazingly great.

John Cena is balls out (ha!) great in this. And the supporting cast is endearing and interesting.

I have no idea what's going to happen next at all and I freakin love that. I mean, only 3 episodes in and I never expected what I just saw. There is some serious love in the material and crafting here.

And just to say it again, John Cena is fearless.

Totally got this vibe as soon as I was watching the video - can't articulate exactly why but he seemed way too calm after for what had just happened; he didn't even seem to send a distress while in the plane (though the choppy editing could account for that); he jumped out of the plane with a self-stick; he made sure to land near the plane so he could recover the footage before the FAA/authorities got it; and it didn't even seem like he had tried to find a safer place to ditch the plane (or land). If this was a YT stunt he should have his balls nailed to the wall and thrown in jail. While I'm sure the chances were slim, he still could have killed someone with this stunt.

He had to know that would attract cops and rescue crews. He should have put bigger balls on that Mannequin.

Yes, duh Bob.
Trump polling at 36% was worse, so you just claimed fake polls. He inherited a strong robust economy, a system to protect from epidemics, far less debt and deficit, and no pandemic…no crisis. I don’t argue Biden’s popular, like you do Trump despite reality, I only argue he’s a vast improvement, the best that could be hoped for under the disastrous circumstances one Trump term put the nation in.

The people coming, largely Haitians, almost all say they’re coming because they saw American politicians say the American borders are open and accepting everyone. Those are Republicans saying that, lying to get their base riled up, but the Haitians living in South America don’t know that, they think they are being invited by the Republicans. Look into it, you’ll see that’s true if you do. Biden sent many back to Haiti, Trump liked to dump them back in Guatemala to try again.
This energy independence myth, just quit. We were not. There was a world wide oil glut in 2020 because the pandemic lowered demand so much suppliers actually gave it away at one point….that was not some genius Trump energy plan bearing fruit, it was the economy and industry collapsing thanks to an avoidable pandemic. As the economy recovers, so does demand but not production. You seem to want to blame Biden for basic economics.
My gas is the same as 2019+-$.25….you want to compare to 2020 because gas was cheap thanks to Covid. Yours might be more for some political reasons, like your unprotected pipeline got hacked by Russians, but you need to prove it, then prove Biden’s failure caused it, not just say it, and not by cutting and pasting some talking head’s opinion. My assessment is he’s improved security on infrastructure but I’m open to evidence to the contrary.

Lowering corporate tax rates didn’t lower unemployment significantly, it raised upper management compensation and corporate profits. Investing in infrastructure will.

That’s good you don’t want to debate more Covid deaths, because there’s more than enough blame for both sides even if you don’t look at 2020 that was all Republican stoked (anti mask, anti social distance, anti contact tracing). Keep in mind, since Jan, >90% of all cases are in the intentionally unvaccinated population, almost 100% of deaths, and remember who they are and who they follow…not Biden. Covid deaths this year are nearly 100% caused by political division and misinformation created and spread by one political side. Guess which. That’s not to say Biden’s perfect, he should have implemented vaccine mandates Jan 21, no exemptions without permanent quarantine, what was needed to stop more deaths by stupidity, but he doesn’t have the balls for dictating. You should be so grateful for that.

Blaming the Chinese without proof, or even evidence they are to blame, just supposition, is outrageously dangerous and provocative. Accusing them of creating and releasing it on purpose….against themselves….is simply asinine and proof you aren’t thinking for yourself or at all.

Mid terms always go to those not in power, so yes, 2022 will likely return congress to partial Republican control, which you will call a massive mandate against Biden unlike when it happened in 2018 and you just whined that it’s unfair.

>26% of Americans are Republicans. The rest are what you call socialist communists because you don’t know what those words mean. Your party does not represent your (alleged) country….and is shrinking. Democrats aren’t even my party, they are just the only achievable adversaries to the madness of the right at this point in time. Given a better option, I would jump….you can’t say the same. You’re deep in the death cult of personality the Right has become…a true believer.

Biden got money no president in my lifetime has to invest in America. Bridges, Roads, Airports, New water systems, Digital communication improvements, Overall improvements and long deferred maintenance of rail, New funding to fight increasing wildfires (Brandon)…all the things absolutely necessary for the nation to function as a first world nation. He’s already a big winner, and if we aren’t speaking Mandarin in 3 years he still will be. The fruits of his legacy will be enjoyed for decades to come, Trump’s legacy is economic failure, failure to protect from a preventable epidemic, massive unemployment, an administration so corrupt that the convictions of people in his administration or campaign almost certainly outnumber the prosecutions of members of all previous administrations combined while the severity of their crimes outweighs the combined national injury caused by all previous political crimes, and a division so strong one party actually tried to destroy democracy and install a dictator.

History is the judge of any administration, not the midterm, and history will look kindly on Biden, no so for Trump, mired in constant criminal scandal and failures to this day. The only president in our history to not peacefully transfer power, to be impeached twice, who clearly put his own interests above those of the nation at every opportunity. Death and division are his legacy.

Merry Mithra’s season.

Yeah, if each ball is ~$0.33 and that reservoir needed 96 million, would have cost them $32M. (they say they last about 10 years and can recover some of cost via recycling, but also it saved them a lot of money on chlorine, because less of it was needed to keep algae down).
So, even if they need fewer balls and they last 20 years at the copper mine, I highly doubt it costs them $1M a year in staff+drones+bullets.

But I bet there's other materials that are cheaper that aren't food-safe like they need for drinking water reservoirs... another re-use for floating-ocean-trash? In that case they could actually charge by the ton like other waste-management companies.

I remember a video about a LA reservoir that covered the entire surface with 96M plastic "shade" balls - seems like they could do that here (unless the water is so acidic it would melt the balls?)

https://youtu.be/uxPdPpi5W4o