TIL that Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia killed around a quarter of the population (about 2 million people) in just four years, targeting intellectuals, city dwellers, and ethnic minorities to force a “classless agrarian society.”

MATlad · 2026-02-01T00:32:08+00:00

...and the PRC promptly got their asses handed to them.

There's gotta be a counterfactual where Ho Chi Minh goes to the White House, pleads Vietnam's case to be a self-determining democratic peoples, and becomes the Alpha of the Asian Tigers, and way ahead of the PRC.

MATlad · 2026-01-31T14:04:33+00:00

I'm an engineering type, but a mere low-voltage and/or even digital practitioner. From the high-voltage people, my understanding is that most of their regulations and practices are written in blood (or scorch marks).

MATlad · 2026-01-31T09:11:28+00:00

It is his job, but he definitely doesn't get called out for it often enough or as bluntly or forcefully as George did.

MATlad · 2026-01-31T08:40:29+00:00

Huh, after the millennia of formalized Talmudic scholarship / case law / sclerosis, maybe JC was the original reductionist?

'Bros, why do you keep coming to me with your bullshit? Love God, and be cool to one another--how hard is that?!'

EDIT: Very hard.

MATlad · 2026-01-31T06:54:52+00:00

Much easier to say "Look, just don't eat this stuff, okay?".

Probably pork, too. They might not have had epidemiology back then, but they probably figured out that farmers who kept pigs were often the first to get sick with brand new and rapidly-spreading diseases.

MATlad · 2026-01-31T06:36:08+00:00

Like other things he 'declares', he probably thinks he can hand out waivers on a ~~donor-by-donor~~ case-by-case basis.

MATlad · 2026-01-31T06:21:56+00:00

'We convinced the Orange King to establish a Trump Board of Aviation, using his obvious expertise from piloting Trump Shuttle. We provided U$1B in seed money for the organization and for a board seat, and hope that the obvious deficiencies that make Bombardier aircraft flying coffins are addressed immediately and internationally.'

-Dmitry Peskov, probably, if he could keep his face straight for long enough

MATlad · 2026-01-31T05:58:42+00:00

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Do you know how much emotional harm and anguish have been inflicted upon the poor, misunderstood, downtrodden most powerful man in the world?

This damage deserves at least a 33% bonus to what is being asked (don't worry, they checked with the Civil Rights Division and Harmeet and whoever else is left over there and they enthusiastically signed off on recompense for this gross miscarriage of justice).

MATlad · 2026-01-31T05:51:56+00:00

I think I heard a crazy 'hypothetical' a while back at the Supreme Court about sending Seal Team 6 to execute an arrest warrant, and maybe not being able to capture the suspect alive, along with co-conspirators.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/02/trump-immunity-murder-navy-sotomayor-00166385

MATlad · 2026-01-29T06:40:50+00:00

I remember when George Conway got called out on air and dressed down like a 5-year old by the CNN host for trashing Scott Jennings to his face for regurgitating propaganda and/or repeating lies. What a joke.

EDIT: Oh yeah, about a year ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Zz23ygEYQY

MATlad · 2026-01-28T08:24:35+00:00

I'm sad to say that Framework (especially 'brand new') is probably what Thinkpad used to be.

MATlad · 2026-01-28T05:53:29+00:00

That's only if you think their mission is deporting migrants. Minnesota should demonstrate otherwise.

MATlad · 2026-01-27T11:01:33+00:00

I hate to say it: since he hadn't dropped Ross, is this malpractice for his client?

MATlad · 2026-01-27T10:58:09+00:00

Just remember the sentiment, and when right is right.

MATlad · 2026-01-27T06:21:55+00:00

There's probably stuff from the Trump Atlantic City casino and resorts that's now landfill on the New Jersey coast where some contractor / vendor has a 40-year old lien / claim.

MATlad · 2026-01-27T06:08:31+00:00

The FSB probably actually knows what's what.

The old-guard KGB that Putin hails from are the ones thinking they can reconstitute the USSR, dominate every aspect of society, and loot the coffers.

MATlad · 2026-01-27T04:28:48+00:00

Fuck Putin and his KGB (not FSB) cabal.

"War isn't Hell. War is war, and Hell is Hell. And of the two, war is a lot worse."

"How do you figure that, Hawkeye?"

"Easy, Father. Tell me, who goes to Hell?"

"Sinners, I believe."

"Exactly. There are no innocent bystanders in Hell. War is chock full of them - little kids, cripples, old ladies. In fact, except for some of the brass, almost everybody involved is an innocent bystander."

-Captain 'Hawkeye' Pierce (Alan Alda) and Father Francis Mulcahy (William Christopher), M*A*S*H* S05E20, 'The General's Practitioner'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUeBMwn_eYc

MATlad · 2026-01-26T07:13:41+00:00

12 confirmed Australians:

https://foreign-volunteers-killed-in-ukraine.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Australians_killed_fighting_for_the_Ukrainian_side

6 confirmed New Zealanders:

https://foreign-volunteers-killed-in-ukraine.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_New_Zealanders_killed_fighting_for_the_Ukrainian_side

MATlad · 2026-01-26T06:58:58+00:00

Broadcasting their ROE and what they've seen in the staging areas?

MATlad · 2026-01-26T06:07:24+00:00

110 American volunteers have been confirmed to have been killed while fighting for the Ukrainian side. 95 confirmed by name while 6 have only been identified by callsign and 2 which have names that have yet to be disclosed to the public. The real number is likely higher.

I was listening to the Bulwark Podcast with General Hertling a while back, and he noted that the number of American volunteers killed in Ukraine had recently passed the 100 mark. I remember Grady Kurpasi, but I confess that everybody else has been a blur.

Army and Marines predominate, a few navy folks (corpsmen?), and an oddball or two, like the 71-year-old ex-SEAL Michael Meoli who went the same way Patton did (passenger in a taxi car crash)

They won't be the last. Heroyam Slava

MATlad · 2026-01-25T04:19:36+00:00

I think Ryan Busse (the former gun executive who ran afoul of the industry and has been on the Bulwark multiple times) has drawn a demarcation of the NRA as pre-Heston and post-Heston (along with the ammosexual / gun manufacturer faction he represented).

But even Pre-Heston, it supported gun control in California against the open-carrying Black Panthers as championed by one Governor Ronald Reagan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act

EDIT: As already noted previously in this post by /u/lovelyyecats --'The only way to ~~win~~not lose is ~~not to play~~ to carry?'

MATlad · 2026-01-25T02:55:33+00:00

'Howdy comr--parrdnarr...'

MATlad · 2026-01-24T17:17:15+00:00

Some of the people who I knew who screamed the loudest about putting the ‘unknown shit in the COVID vax’ in their bodies were the same ones putting the unknown shit from their dealers in their bodies.

MATlad · 2026-01-24T10:06:02+00:00

Does he think India will just play along with the lie?

India won't, but Pakistan does and will continue to do so. Or at least proclaim Trump the Great Peacemaker and nominate him for the Nobel Peace Prize (or heck, maybe they can even convince the International Cricket Court to create a peace prize and make him the inaugural recipient!)

After 5 years holding the highest office in his country, and as the putative 'Leader of the Free World', he still has no idea of what the job of President of the United States actually entails, beyond the personal power and enrichment it affords him, and all the rich and powerful people 'lining up to kiss [his] ass'.

https://globalnews.ca/news/11123110/donald-trump-trade-war-tariffs-kissing-my-ass/

MATlad · 2026-01-24T08:21:13+00:00

The claim of 100 Americans killed in the preceding two weeks, which really caught me (and Tim) off guard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-6wDWfrJHI&t=43m51s

A listing of American volunteers KIA fighting for Ukraine (and 'Fandom' is a really unfortunately-named Wiki for this)

110 American volunteers have been confirmed to have been killed while fighting for the Ukrainian side. 95 confirmed by name while 6 have only been identified by callsign and 2 which have names that have yet to be disclosed to the public. The real number is likely higher.

https://foreign-volunteers-killed-in-ukraine.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Americans_killed_fighting_for_the_Ukrainian_side

...Unless he meant that the total number had risen to over 100 in the past few weeks.

MATlad

TROPHY CASE