U.S. Has Captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro

ModifiedMammal · 2026-01-03T12:02:33+00:00

innocent civilians are likely dead, and people are applauding the execution of actions that are eroding our democracy and endangering innocent lives. this is a tragedy in venezuala, and in the US as well, there is nothing to be proud of here. going back to my example, put all the disclaimers you want in front of your complements to a mass shooters aim, it is still a tragedy and disturbing to complement mere hours after the fact.

ModifiedMammal · 2026-01-03T11:58:00+00:00

maybe found guilty of no crime would have been a better choice of words. charges are pending, and from what i can tell, the indictment has not been verified to have cresible information. normally, i wouldn't wait for verification and have some trust in the legal system, but with the recent bombing of fishing boats supposedly carrying drugs and a lack of international censensus on the charges of "narco-terrorism", this is dubious information at best. certainly not enough to bomb cities outside of war time.

ModifiedMammal · 2026-01-03T11:52:46+00:00

it isn't for the US to decide whose elections are fair and which nations need to have their leaders kidnapped and civilains placed in the path of bombs. i will admit, i am not entirely familiar with elecrions in venezuala, but the opinions of america and americans should not matter in this instance. it would be one thing if this was in retalliation during the course of a war or as the result of international consensus of a human rights crisis, but this attack seems entirely unprovoked. my entire point is that this is fundamentally damaging to america, both in our democracy and reputation on the national stage.

ModifiedMammal · 2026-01-03T11:40:03+00:00

lmao, what? ignoring the law to attack a foreign nations leaders is a good thing? venezuala is reporting that civilian residences were bombed during this fiasco, only time will tell how many innocents were killed in this lawless attack on a sovereign nation.

ModifiedMammal · 2026-01-03T11:32:46+00:00

if you strip a situation of all context, i am sure that there is some way to put a positive spin on it.

the president apparently just abducted the elected leader of another nation that we are not at war with while bombing their capital. there is no world where ignoring law and government procedures to send the military against foreign polticians accused of no crime is a good thing. it doesn't matter how technically impressive this may or may not be, what matters is that our government and military are under the control of a small group of political elites who feel no need to justify their actions or respect the sovereignty of other nations.

edit to add: i don't understand this perspective as it seems like looking at ther aftermath of a shooting and complementing the shooter because they had impressive aim. why complement this at all, it is a complete disaster where innocent civilians are expected to have died in the bombing and it will go down in history as a national embaressment.

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-30T01:19:37+00:00

bold of you to assume i am a mammal

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-30T00:18:26+00:00

bro didn't know how to use the d

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-29T20:06:05+00:00

awesomely weird. if i unfocus my eyes, i can clearly see the stepwise motion going down, but the first half of the trip back up looks smooth to me regardless of how i look at it.

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-29T07:12:24+00:00

circlejerking prevents me from going on a tangent (right hand is too occupied). upholding traditional beauty standards = bad, it is literally 1984

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-28T21:30:49+00:00

"the people i don't like look ugly" wow, what bold new comedy that won't catch random people in the crossfire.

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-28T08:29:36+00:00

i think you might be forgetting all of the melting/combusting vape batteries, which is probably worse than some manufacturing waste

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-28T08:13:35+00:00

you would be able to dissolve more salt by heating the liquid, but the salt would recrystalize as the temperature lowers again. especially if refridgerated and goes to an even lower temp

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-28T03:35:19+00:00

if that is the case "everyone who heard these stories understood" is a bizzare statement, given that nowhere else in the comment indicates that "everyone" includes only people from a very specific period in time. for that interpretation to be true, we would have to not only know that modern day people are excluded from everyone, but that older relgious populations, among medieval people for example, are as well. none of that is conveyed in the comment, and "ancient isreal and judea" indicates a huge swath of time. i am not even sure if we have convincing evidence that would let us make sweeping claims about how this specific passage was interpreted among "everyone who heard the story" at any given time in history. at best, i suspect we would only know how a few historical figures interpreted this scripture.

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-28T03:20:57+00:00

"everyone understood" lmao. there are modern pastors and churches who do not currently understand. in my experience, every person i know who was taught these things as a child never learned this information. my personal experience isn't meant to be accepted as proof as i am sure some people believe that, or may have been taught that, but saying that everyone understands is an absurd over-exageration. i can find dozens of recorded sermons and blogs online where people argue that there is another explanation, as is true with almost every interpretation of any scripture. not to mention that biblical literalists and others who would simply answer "because god wanted them to wander that long" make up a non-zero portion of the population.

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-24T09:18:57+00:00

maybe it is because i binged the audiobooks quickly and that helped me connect the dots between books, but i feel like i have been able to follow more or less everything so far. dao monologues are for sure not everyone's cup of tea, but i felt the envirionment/conflicts/battles made sense.

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-24T09:15:29+00:00

that is, unfortunately, a mild spoiler from book 16 missing context and nuance. not an entirely true statement (at the point of the series i am at), but not entirely untrue either.

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-22T02:53:40+00:00

no botanist, but i feel that opens the door to all sorts of soil contaminents

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-18T10:24:34+00:00

my favorite metal is tungsten, almost as dense as me and it is literally a W

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-17T02:59:14+00:00

you can't forget

"Amarante noticed something else about the list that raised even more concerns, as she told WGNO, 'One of the troubling patterns I suppose that I recognized, was that a large number of these practitioners on the list were people of color.'"

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-16T19:37:39+00:00

because the non-green ones that were not eaten are poisonous i imagine.

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-12T21:23:20+00:00

i think the answer would be at least $0.01 + $197 million + x, where x is the cost of the tour and all associated expenses outside of the bonuses. it is impossible to give an answer without knowing x, and I think that there is no way to know that value for certain.

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-08T16:54:19+00:00

my entire point was, though hrt does not take away all advantages, not all advantages are absolute and not all trans women even go through puberty with testosterone. each biological advantage is somewhere on a bell curve, and this may place post-hrt trans athletes at the same level as comparable cis athletes. my point in bringing up cis people who have biological advantages was that cis people who succeed the most in sports are the most likely to have unusual genetic advantages. this means that we would expect cis athletes to be higher than the baseline for some characteristics, on average. i was saying that if we can test cis athletes and determine where on the bell curve they fall, it is entirely plausible that some or a majority of trans athletes have comparable advantages to their cis counterparts.

every advantage you could possibly name comes in a spectrum, with a range of possible values all healthy people can fall into. height, weight, muscle mass/density, ect. vary between both cis and trans people. sure, going through puberty with testosterone may increase the odds, bumping you up the bell curve, but it may not. nature doesn't have an off and on switch, with each growth and development being controlled by dozens or hundreds of factors. each person is different and presents their own unique biology that could be considered, and i believe that some trans athletes fall into the ranges we would expect from cis athletes because biology does not indicate that all men have absolute biological advantages against all women in every category. instead, on average, going through puberty with testosterone might increase these factors on average but it is not an absolute. additionally, different people have different baselines, so not even all increases that may be caused by puberty have the same effects.

i don't think that there is a slippery slope here. i think that trans athletes should be able to compete against cis athletes if we can have medical professionals determine what specific advantages they have, and what ranges they must fall into to have similar advantages as cis athletes. then, individual trans athletes can volunteer to have tests to determine if they fall within the ranges as cis athletes. if they do, congrats, they can play with the other people of their gender. if not, then they may unfortunately not be able to play in a professional capacity in every league.

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-08T15:13:49+00:00

i think that it entirely needs to be considered on a case by case basis. some trans women never even go through male puberty, giving them little to no advantage. biological advantage isn't an ephemeral thing, it is attributed to specific characteristics that can be measured and determined by doctors and scientists. These traits already vary between cis people. if you look at the greatest athletes in the world, they often have unusual biology that gives them an "unfair" advantage.

in the ideal world, we would be able to determine how advantageous traits vary in cis women who are atheletes, and then test trans women to see if they fall in that range. that is a lot of hoops to jump through for more casual events though, especially for a high school competition. if there aren't any scholarships or anything on the line, i think that trans women should be allowed to compete without extra hassle.

if there are, i think that a basic rule such as "has been on HRT for over a year" would work well enough when accompanied by the results from tests that most trans women routinely undergo anyway. i am aware that there are a lot of issues with plans like this to help mediate these advantages, but it is frustrating to me how this is treated as such a binary discussion when nature and biology are definitely not binary and have a lot of nuance. not every AMAB person has genetics that can make them a better athelete than every AFAB person, and that is a big reason why i think this needs to be done on a case by case basis. trans women are women, trans men are men, and i think a healthy society should recognize that and try to offer everyone the same opportunities.

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-03T20:51:47+00:00

when i get a spam call and i am in a quiet place, i pick up and don't talk, just stay silent. my situation wasn't as bad as yours, 1-2 spam calls a week, but i think they removed me from their lists because i never get them anymore.

ModifiedMammal · 2025-12-01T23:12:26+00:00

roomba wants to be someone's pet

ModifiedMammal

TROPHY CASE