Captcha: Type these letters (and its just ones, capital I's and lowercase l's in that font where they all look the same)

I like that the acronym is ATACMS and when I say it, it sounds like "Attack 'ems". Very on point.

There is no Leftist party active in Congress.

So, when you read/hear some USA politician being called "on the left" it should be taken as literally as possible. They are literally standing just to the left of whatever they are being compared to.

So a person who says, "Hey, shouldn't we all have healthcare that you don't have to pay out of pocket for?" is to the left of "If you can't pay, just die." and will be considered "left". Even if the person wanting everybody to get healthcare is fully on board with "The Global War On Terrorism."

Its probably best to view somebody's opinion/action on an individual issue as being labeled "left" and not the person themself. Even when a person in the USA is describing somebody else in the USA as "of the left."

This was wild to watch.

Fetishizing ancient Greece and Rome as the birthplace of Western Civilization whose ideals our immoral society's have degraded from.

me standing at attention and saluting

Reporting for Gay Duty!

Both can be true, you can be exploited and still be guilty of being a part of something bad.

Somebody blackmails you into hurting somebody else, you're a victim of blackmail but you still hurt somebody else. Both things are true at the same time.

In the general sense, yea.

I was in a combat arms job, attached to an armored cavalry unit during the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003 and also managed to get away with only firing like 3 or 4 rounds the entire time I was in Iraq (as a function check into some piles of sand). Didn't shoot at anybody, didn't run anybody over with a vehicle, didn't call in fire on a house, wasn't involved in any black bagging. (Probably some unexploded ordinance might have gotten thrown around when we were piling up stuff as fast as we could into pits to destroy it, so potential for human harm there.) The worst I, personally did, was some light theft and trespassing in abandoned houses. Not great, but not murder.

BUT, I was directly involved in an illegal war though. Even if I didn't understand it at the time, even if I trusted (naively) that people in the political class actually DID know what they were doing, so I get to be war criminal for ever.

Not an accountant, just studied accounting at the university.

laughtrack plays

animated character breaks the 4th wall and looks directly to audience and says

"Please laugh"

I guess the point of the article is that neither candidate is exciting anybody to make participating in the civic religion all that appealing.

Shabnam, a 24-year-old PhD medical student, said she did not vote in the first round and does not plan to do so in the run-off because it is ineffective.

“I think the president in this country doesn’t have much autonomy, and the promises made during campaigns are empty, they lack substance and are just not genuine,” she told Al Jazeera.

“Moreover, the political narratives feel repetitive and unimpactful.”

Seeing the apathy and considering the fact that conditions are unlikely to considerably improve in the short term, the candidates and their supporters have been mostly manoeuvring on attacking each other, rather than presenting actionable plans.

...

Yasaman, a 29-year-old financial analyst based in Tehran, said she is voting on July 5 even though many of her friends are not.

...

“I have to admit that the differences between the candidates’ campaigns are not as significant as they should be, but if you look at inflation and unemployment rates, you can see a meaningful variation in different governments. So, it is undeniable that there will be a change.

"Your OS is not compatible with this application, update your phone's OS"

clicks system update in Settings

"Your phone is no longer supported and cannot upgrade to the current version of this operating system."