@QMS

ditto the Maya et. al. Probabbly because they hadn't paved or privatized everything.

be well and have a good one

Hey, if the Chinese built working irrigation systems 2500 years ago, why can't the
self-considered greatest empire figure out ways to move water to the place it is
needed from the areas with too much? We can somehow move oil around from
field to refinery to ship to EU (gas too) with pipelines. I would think a similar
process could be used for water. (clean-out the pipes first with round-up).

thanks for the OT!

@The Liberal Moonbat as long as it stays inside its fenced yard. If some subjects start to look too threatening, they are restricted, either directly or by distractions and misdirections.

The same thing has been going on for the last 15 years or so but with the introduction of AI and easily forged fake logins their task has been made more effective. The human requirement (lord don't make me use the resource word) has been reduced quite a bit. It takes a very astute human to see anomalies that show a machine-generated entry. Ie, a little clue that indicates that a less astute human defined the AI parameters. But that's a different topic.

Anyone who volunteers to moderate or host a forum catches a lot of crap. Way more that anyone who has the temerity to voice a contrary opinion and they must be cherished in this battle. They are bearing the brunt of the slings and arrows. This BTW shows just one more social institution that is desperately needed.... One that is law based, real laws. Good luck with that.

Hang in there, please. What was that line from Jeremiah that Will Geer quoted about the strength of our enemy? Look for the anomaly.

Something wicked this way comes.

(on edit) OMFG, when I reread the comment I realized that I had reversed my intent in the paragraph above. I am most sincerely sorry... most sincerely.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/12h9ljj/most_of_my_modera...

@soryang

“overcoming of the North Korean nuclear threat,”

applied to somebody legitimately creating a deterrence in response to threatened attacks.

be well and have a good one

....really has me concerned. The local run off ponds had been drying up for the last several weeks in unusually dry weather. There were some heavy rains yesterday and the ponds filled somewhat. I have this unfounded notion, that this unusually dry weather may presage storms later in the summer. So I should be getting back in home in time for that. Along, this line I saw an interesting youtube where someone, apparently a real estate agent, or broker of some kind, was reviewing the Florida residential real estate market, and advising people contemplating a move here, to move somewhere else. The number of storms, the sky high insurance rates, etc., the high costs of rebuilding etc., make Florida the wrong place to live. I would have posted it here, but the guy is trying to sell his services, so I passed on that. He said other southern states only had a fraction of the weather damage to homes that Florida had, and recommended moving to South Caroline in terms of economical retirement living.

The BBC seems to have the most detailed, although still hearsay, information on the leaked classified "wiretap" report that involves the South Korean presidential office. I've watched several South Korean videos on this last night and this morning including the grilling of the South Korean defense minister on this subject before a committee in National Assembly.

Although the general story is that many of the leaked classified documents appeared on Discord or other social media up to months ago, the BBC report says the conversation reported between Yoon's NSA and Foreign Policy Secretary took place March 1 (of this year). The article fails to mention that both of the senior advisors were sacked by Yoon in March.

...Last year, South Korea agreed it would sell artillery shells to the US to replenish its stocks, but insisted the US had to keep the shells for itself and not send them on to Kyiv.

In their conversation on 1 March, President Yoon's foreign affairs secretary Yi Mun-hui reportedly told the then National Security Advisor Kim Sung-han that the government was "mired in concerns that the US would not be the end user" of the ammunition.

They also worried that President Biden could call President Yoon directly about the issue, and that if South Korea were to change its policy on providing weapons to Ukraine, it could look as if it had been pressured by the US.

According to the document, South Korea's national security advisor, Mr Kim, then suggested they could sell shells to Poland instead, given that "getting the ammunition to Ukraine quickly was the ultimate goal of the United States".

South Korea says it is investigating the leak but has insisted that it is impossible to intercept private conversations inside its presidential office, and that this discussion could not have taken place in its private underground bunker...

Pentagon leak shows S Korea torn on sending Ukraine weapons
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-65236991

The Yoon Suk-yeol administration has, from the time it took office, banged the drum for “overcoming of the North Korean nuclear threat,” and has held four joint naval exercises with the US and Japan near the Korean Peninsula. However, the more recent drills have been held with no regard for timing and location.

On Feb. 22, South Korea, the US and Japan held a missile defense drill in the East Sea near Dokdo. Feb. 22 is “Takeshima Day,” a day set aside by the Japanese prefecture of Shimane to celebrate its claim that Dokdo is Japanese territory. (Takeshima is the name Japan has given to Dokdo.)...

South Korea, the US and Japan also held anti-submarine exercises with the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier on April 3-4. The three countries all released statements announcing the drill, but all countries stated the location and the purpose of the drill differently. The South Korean Ministry of Defense described the location as “the high seas south of Jeju,” while both the US Navy and the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force said it was in the “East China Sea.” The two phrases describe the same location.

It is unclear why only South Korea specified the location as “the waters south of Jeju.” It probably wanted to avoid criticism that the exercise was aimed at China rather than at North Korea. South Korea, the US and Japan held anti-submarine warfare drills to detect and destroy submarines in the waters 320 kilometers south of Jeju, in seas south of the 30th parallel north.

Neither the time nor place for Korea-US-Japan drills
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/1087255.html

AP doesn't call them military exercises but "war drills."

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — American and Filipino forces on Tuesday launched their largest combat exercises in decades in the Philippines and its waters across the disputed South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait, where Washington has repeatedly warned China over its increasingly aggressive actions.

The annual drills by the longtime treaty allies called Balikatan — Tagalog for “shoulder-to-shoulder” — will run up to April 28 and involve more than 17,600 military personnel. It will be the latest display of American firepower in Asia, as the Biden administration strengthens an arc of alliances to better counter China, including in a possible confrontation over Taiwan, an island democracy that Beijing claims as its own.

That dovetails with efforts by the Philippines under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to defend its territorial interests in the South China Sea, which China claims virtually in its entirety, by boosting joint military exercises with the U.S. and allowing rotating batches of American forces to stay in additional Philippine military camps under a 2014 defense pact.

“The relationships that we have, that we build into these exercises, will make us faster to respond to conflict, crisis, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,” U.S. Marine Maj. Gen. Eric Austin said.

US, Philippines launch war drills across disputed South China Sea
https://apnews.com/article/us-philippines-military-exercises-60af099f152...

Thanks for the "BS" OT earthling1!

@humphrey Given that, this sort of thing doesn't really bother me; at least it's the rich spending their money, instead of hoarding it like an arterial clog.

As I think I've said before, it's occurred to me that "Trickle-down" might actually work if only the rich spent their money as quickly as they took it in - but they don't, they can't even imagine HOW, and what's really FUBAR is the very existence of the hedge-fund industry, which finds ways for billionaires to spend their money in ways that will leave them with MORE money. Talk about unsustainable.

A f'n pair of running shoes!

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/36161372/michael-jordan-last-dance-s...

Ben Affleck and Matt Damon aren't the only ones paying homage to MJ.

Less than a week after the release of the movie "Air," which chronicles Nike's signing of Michael Jordan, Sotheby's announced that a pair of signed Jordan sneakers that were worn in the second half of Game 2 of the 1998 "Last Dance" NBA Finals have sold for $2,238,000 -- the highest price ever paid at auction for a pair of sneakers.

No doubt that their are plenty of other examples of excess elsewhere.