Harlequin wrote:I suspect quite a few Tibetans might question that view.
Tibet is like Taiwan. The People's Republic consider it to be part of China (and the Western and Central chunks are controlled by China).
Of course, the rest of us can very much dispute that claim, but through the PRC's eyes, it's sorting out a "rebellion" on their own soil, not invading an autonomous sovereign nation.
As I said, there are disputes about its immediate border. What is and isn't already China. But it really doesn't have a history of "conquest" in the traditional sense.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
But by the same measure, Moscow considers Ukraine to be part of Russia. Tom-ay-toes, tom-ah-toes
"massive retard™", "full of shit™", "tiny bitch™", "retarted™", "a bit of a one trick pony™", "petty™", "simple minded idealistic twat™", "miserable humourless fucker™"
Regarding the Vatican I'm worried that if Pope Francis dies or has to retire the extreme right of the Church manages to elect one of them as successor.
"massive retard™", "full of shit™", "tiny bitch™", "retarted™", "a bit of a one trick pony™", "petty™", "simple minded idealistic twat™", "miserable humourless fucker™"
I just think we don't need the Vatican to go fundamentalist. Our noisy right is all catholic and they don't like Pope Francis even though they are very careful in the way they express themselves. Two of their reps in the Assembly are actually Opus Dei members.
KlaxonCow wrote:Trump and Putin want to gobble up other countries, but China has never really even hinted at wanting to annex the planet one country at a time. It has disputes over its immediate borders here and there, but there's been no hint that it wants to annex Kazakhstan or anything like that.
Mmmm. China has in the past taken the view it has territorial claims to any land it has ever controlled, in particular the empire of the Yuan Dynasty. Kublai's part "merely" covered the entire of south-east Asia, but Kublai named Chinggis as the father of the dynasty, and if they want to lean back that far, that's basically the whole of Asia and most of the Middle East.
Trump was asked about him calling Zelenskyy "a dictator".
He replied "Did I say that?", seemingly denying he had any recollection of it, and then that the Ukrainians and their leader are "very brave".
(Weirdly, in the middle of praising Ukrainian bravery, he dropped "well, someone's got to use that equipment". Which sounds like an "inside thought" that he wasn't supposed to say out loud. Like, of course someone's got to use the equipment or how else would our industrial military complex make its billions, eh?)
So, yeah, the theory that Trump gets what he wants by just acting like the mad unpredictable bastard is playing out perfectly.
He's got Putin, Zelenskyy and all the European leaders eating out of his hand to make deals with him.
He just says some random contradictory shit, scared the hell out of everyone that he's insane, and then they all line up to give him gifts and presents and say nice words.
The question is, who's the bigger fool? The Orange idiot or the rest of the planet for ever taking anything he ever says remotely seriously?
I just learnt of a Turkish proverb recently: "When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace turns into a circus."
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
Well, I guess we've all now seen that Trump and his toady VP were just expecting Zelensky to grovel on his hands and knees. Given the circumstances his response was about as measured as any humans could be. I am trying very hard to keep my real feelings about what happened in the Oval Office today as... restrained.
I have seen some jokes about (Trump's) America being West Russia and here's some trivia about earlier in History Russian interests in West Coast
Note: That area is very beautiful, one of the prettiest I saw in California
Early European Settlement
By 1531, Spain claimed most of the Americas including California. Still, in 1741, the Spanish had not settled up the California coast when the Russians established fur trading settlements in Alaska. In need of a reliable food supply, the Russians soon began moving down the coast in search of places they could establish an agricultural outpost. Spain had to occupy the land or give it up to Russia. By 1776, Spain had built missions and presidios (military posts) up the coast from San Diego to San Francisco. There was uneasy coexistence for decades, long enough for the Russians to establish an agricultural post in 1812 at coastal Fort Ross, on the edge of a paradise rich for growing crops. The Russians moved in and, with the labor of the local Pomo Indians, built a thriving farming community that would supply the other Russian settlements with food.
As California changed hands from Spain to a newly independent Mexico in 1821, Mexico established a few other missions, including one at San Rafael (Marin County), just north of San Francisco. Mexico's General Vallejo also built a mission and fort at Sonoma (now the town of Sonoma) and a home in Petaluma, however there was no formal conflict with the Russian Fort Ross settlement. Nevertheless, Vallejo believed that becoming part of the United States was the best protection against Russian and European aggression and encouraged American settlement of Northern California. The Russians abandoned Fort Ross in 1839-40 and sold the land to John Sutter just in time for the Gold Rush. In 1848, the Russian River Valley became part of the United States of America along with the rest of the State of California.
I was going to keep my mouth shut but I have to vent.
What the f...?
What did they expect Zelensky to do? They incentivated him to fight Russia, half of Ukraine is destroyed, Thousands and thousands of people are dead. He was going to give up and negotiate in the first year of war. NATO, US EU, and friends incentivated him to keep going. Now they want him to give up after all that Ukraine sacrificed?
FF'S!
It's all an economic and political game and about who gets to control the acres to copper, lithium, and the other stuff needed for the energy transformation.
At least that is starting to be pointed out by the media.
Too bad they didn't do it without killing so many people and messing up the life of countless others.
End of rant: I'm going back to my spring plant work
What I found interesting was that Trump had trouble looking Zelenskyy in the eye.
Watch the footage again, but with the sound turned off.
Trump is mostly slumped in his chair, his head down. He's often looking down at the floor, as if in shame.
He has trouble looking at Zelenskyy throughout. When he does look towards Zelenskyy, his eyes look then dart away to the ground - he just can't maintain eye contact. When addressing him, he's sort of "side on" and not directly facing him.
Like, watch it without sound and look at Trump's body language.
This was a set up. There were awkward questions before they began, which some of the unedited footage that's gone out has revealed. A reporter asking why Zelenskyy wasn't wearing a suit, and people discussing him third-person - like he was the cat's mother - while he's sitting there in the room with them.
This was planned. It was a set up. They lured him in with a deal, but the real intention was to create a scene, to make Zelenskyy look bad.
And though he went along with it, Trump's body language says that he really, really, really didn't want to do it (and is internally ashamed, which is why he keeps looking at the ground).
Putin has something on Trump. That's why America did the most ridiculous thing of siding with Russia and North Korea to vote against the UN resolution. Like, America could have abstained. But, no, it was siding with Russia.
At least with North Korea we know why. North Korean troops have been sent to Ukraine to assist Russia. Putin has clearly made some deal with the pariah state - give them nuclear technology, give them food, etc. - and has hired them as mercenaries (now that Putin can't trust his own mercenary forces anymore, when they attempted a coup against him over Ukraine). And no doubt part of the deal is "side with us on UN resolutions", which North Korea might as well do, as the rest of the planet treats them as a pariah anyway, so it really doesn't help nor hinder their international relations.
So, let's cut to the chase.
Putin has something on Trump. It's known that Russia has used these tactics before, of offering women to visiting VIPs then blackmailing them.
But this is Trump. Him having yet another affair is hardly news or scandalous... even to his wife, by now.
So I can only think that Trump was offered an underaged girl (or boy) and that's what Putin has on him. Because if it were "Trump slept with a whore / porn star" then that's hardly news. We all know he's done that before. Trump wouldn't be Putin's poddle for that.
It's got to be something beyond the pale that not even the most loyal of Trumpists could stomach.
When Trump visited Russia, in his pre-Presidential days, Putin must have arranged for him to do something unforgivable - I'm thinking underage sex, but maybe it was a "murder poor people" safari or something - and has it recorded and is blackmailing Trump to vote with Russia at the UN, try to smear Zelenskyy with what was an obvious ambush and help Putin win his "special operation".
Because Trump really had trouble looking at Zelenskyy during that encounter. Like he was only doing it because he was forced to, and wasn't enjoying it.
And there's that thing I picked up earlier. Calls Zelenskyy a "dictator" but then when asked about it: "Did I say that? I don't remember saying that. No, he's a very brave person".
Which could be that Trump is just being schizophrenic to forget what he said yesterday. Or it could be that the "dictator" and parroting Russian propaganda word-for-word was what Putin made him do. Then it's him talking the next day, trying to walk it back.
Putin's got something on Trump. And it must be bloody awful, if "Teflon Trump" is scared of it coming out to betray his country and do what the enemy says. Because a simple "had an affair" is not remotely a scary thing for Trump. It has to be so much worse.
"Words ought to be a little wild - for they are assaults of thought on the unthinking."
- John Maynard Keynes
End times. Trump will cause WW3. He's currently doing it.
"massive retard™", "full of shit™", "tiny bitch™", "retarted™", "a bit of a one trick pony™", "petty™", "simple minded idealistic twat™", "miserable humourless fucker™"
PFVA wrote:I was going to keep my mouth shut but I have to vent.
What the f...?
What did they expect Zelensky to do? They incentivated him to fight Russia, half of Ukraine is destroyed, Thousands and thousands of people are dead. He was going to give up and negotiate in the first year of war. NATO, US EU, and friends incentivated him to keep going. Now they want him to give up after all that Ukraine sacrificed?
FF'S!
It's all an economic and political game and about who gets to control the acres to copper, lithium, and the other stuff needed for the energy transformation.
At least that is starting to be pointed out by the media.
Too bad they didn't do it without killing so many people and messing up the life of countless others.
End of rant: I'm going back to my spring plant work
Something I was previously unaware of is that, thirty years ago, Ukraine gave up possession of around 1,900 nuclear warheads on the guarantee by the U.S., U.K and Russia of protection from threats to its sovereignty and independence.
KlaxonCow wrote:This was planned. It was a set up. They lured him in with a deal, but the real intention was to create a scene, to make Zelenskyy look bad.
…
Putin's got something on Trump. And it must be bloody awful, if "Teflon Trump" is scared of it coming out to betray his country and do what the enemy says. Because a simple "had an affair" is not remotely a scary thing for Trump. It has to be so much worse.
Emoticon and contraction free since... quite a while ago.
FWIW, I don't think Putin necessarily has kompromat on Trump. I think it's simply that he's a craven coward, and always has been, and he is scared of Putin. Terrified of Putin. He knows he can never be a wartime president.
"massive retard™", "full of shit™", "tiny bitch™", "retarted™", "a bit of a one trick pony™", "petty™", "simple minded idealistic twat™", "miserable humourless fucker™"
The leader of NATO wants Zelensky to have the initiative of making peace with Trump.
Same from Poland's leader.
The UK PM fully supports Zelensky.
François Macron is going around trying to establish a European Union military force. (I remember Chirac defending that long ago)
Also several days before this TV Reality Show with Trump and Zelensky, I saw news that Russia which is also negotiating with Trump was agreeing to go for partnership between the Russian and US companies to explore their rare metals, which they also have a lot of. In the past Russia has closed their boarders to the US exploring stuff in their country. Actually that's how their new oligarchy was born. I only saw that once and I haven't been able to confirm it but if there is that possibility I'm sure that will be included in the negotiations.
Note: Quite a while ago when their was the argument about exploring lithium in the beautiful areas of the North and East of this country I saw a map about the location of lithium, and I remember noticing there was a lot of it in Poland, Ukraine and Russia and I wondered at the time if this was one of the reasons for the war.
Maybe Malta. It's an island.
