A death sentence for some

[bannork]

15 minutes ago, frank83628 said:

Yes, I'm sure they would had he actually suggested it was something people should do, but it wasn't was it... it was a  question he asked his medical advisors during a press briefing in the beginning of COVID. The words he said are there to hear, you can also see who is is addressing while speaking. It is not the press and it is not said as a statement, you are either purposely spreading misinformation or a ... 

It was a very silly question from a very foolish man.

[Yellowtail]

3 minutes ago, bannork said:

It was a very silly question from a very foolish man.

You still wearing your mask? 

[frank83628]

2 minutes ago, bannork said:

It was a very silly question from a very foolish man.

No, it was naïve of Trump to speedball thoughts and questions regarding possible ways to deal with an potential pandemic in a room full of lying deceitful domocrat activist gutter press snakes.

 still to this day people like yourself still spread the lie, knowing full well its a lie. 

 

[rattlesnake]

13 minutes ago, bannork said:

It was a very silly question from a very foolish man.

 

You should heed this advice from Van Jones, who is ideologically on your side (he cried tears of joy on air when Biden was declared the winner in 2020):

 

 

[Nick Carter icp]

14 minutes ago, bannork said:

It was a very silly question from a very foolish man.

 

   That is how you learn things though, you ask other people questions about things that you don't know about .

   Trump didn't know how vaccines are made and so he asked .

He employs lots of skilled professionals, sio it would be a normal thing to ask his employees about their expertise .

   He made a suggestion and you've been dining out on it for the last five years 

[bannork]

7 minutes ago, frank83628 said:

No, it was naïve of Trump to speedball thoughts and questions regarding possible ways to deal with an potential pandemic in a room full of lying deceitful domocrat activist gutter press snakes.

 still to this day people like yourself still spread the lie, knowing full well its a lie. 

 

You need to see a psychiatrist, all this hateful language is not good for your health.

Lighten up, roll a big one and put on Franklin's Tower ( live version) by The Dead. 

The world will seem to be a much better place.

[mogandave]

18 minutes ago, bannork said:

You need to see a psychiatrist, all this hateful language is not good for your health.

Lighten up, roll a big one and put on Franklin's Tower ( live version) by The Dead. 

The world will seem to be a much better place.

Oh, you’re a pothead, that explains a lot. 

[bannork]

1 minute ago, mogandave said:

Oh, you’re a pothead, that explains a lot. 

No, I haven't smoked since 1980 but I am worried about Frank.

[still kicking]

On 1/29/2025 at 2:13 AM, SunnyinBangrak said:

Small beer compared to the millions he personally killed cuz covid. Remember you guys wanted him charged for over a million counts of murder! Few overweight embassy staff with no ozempic for a week? No problemo

This site is in English 

[MicroB]

On 1/28/2025 at 8:39 PM, Mike_Hunt said:

Let the good people from the EU fund it. 

 

The good people of the EU already fund the world's largest overseas humanitarian aid budget, about $50bn a year.

 

The USAID provided about $27 billion. Total non-military aid was about $40bn.

 

Per capita, the US was the lowest donor in the OECD, a bit behind France, but at least ahead of Turkey, a slightly backward near-Middle Eastern nation, so a win there.

 

There is an interesting with Trumps views of NATO being a protection racket, with member states not ponying up "enough" (some arbitrary number), with the US not ponying up in Overseas aid.

 

Defence and overseas aid are inextricably linked. If the US, and others, had spent a relatively small sum not letting Afghanistan descend into some sort of Mad Max hellhole, 911 and the GWOT might  never have happened, and 10,000 Americans (WTC, Afghanistan and Iraq dead) might still have been alive, and the US would have about $6 trillion extra in the bank. There also would be less of a refugee crisis. Arguably, if Europe reduced its aid budget, the US might see its threat level rise.

 

A correct balance needs to be sought. "Aid" through military spending is pretty expensive. All that kit is top end. I worked for many years as a defence contractor, and saw the sums frittered away by the US and UK, driven mainly in the belief that their militaries should never have anything off the shelf, with the defence departments of both countries pouring vast sums into private enterprise to fund programmes that mostly fall by the wayside because they failed to achieve the unrealistic fag packet requirements of years earlier.

 

At its peak, military spending in the British Empire, ruling most of the globe at the time, was about 2.5% of GDP. The British Army was about 140,000, with 70,000 at home, 30,000 in India, and the rest around the rest of the Empire. Of course, they were supplemented by good value colonial troops, which barring the odd mutiny, could be assured of keeping the restless locals in check, and provide gainful employment, maintaining Pax Britannica. Remarkably,, estimates for the Roman Empire give about 2.5% of their GDP on spending on Legions etc. Like the British, there were not that many actual Roman legionnaires. Rome cultivated armies among their vanquished, no doubt with a mixture of carrot and stick, with the carrot being money pumped into the defeated state (call it overseas aid). The stick being decimation. If you go to Hadrians Wall in England, you will see the Dacian legacy. The Dacian Cohort largely built the Wall. Dacia had been conquered by Rome in AD100, but by AD200, they formed most of that northerly defence in Britannia. Dacia is on the shores of the Back Sea, where modern Romania is.

 

The spends about 3.4% of GDP on defence, but some of that is not spent on Americans, but is things like 2000lb bombs for Israel. Trump wants to raise it to 5% and for Europe to match it. Trum is a p*ss poor student of history, because Pax Americana has been pretty shakey of late. USD go much further outside of the US than inside the US. He's giving away US made bombs to Israel, paying full price for them. Instead, he could have paid to have a bomb factory built in Israel, with lower wages etc Probably would have saved money, with the same result, maybe even better, because Israel has more jobs. Which might have helped a few Arab Israelis, which might have persuaded some of them not to go on a rampage. Who knows. Instead of giving the Afghan money for a surely Afghan Army, you go to Afghanistan, and you raise an American Army made up of Afghans, who will lord it over the locals. because the Americans pay well, but way cheaper than a GI. No need to persuade an Afghan to go fight for an Afghan government that never cared for them, because instead, he's fighting for Uncle Sam, who is benevolant, and does care. You just a US military full of Colonel Kurtzs, willing to go full native for years on end. The British used to call these Indian Old hands, colonial officers who had never really gone back home in decades.

 

Anyhow, we are where we are.

[frank83628]

12 hours ago, bannork said:

You need to see a psychiatrist, all this hateful language is not good for your health.

Lighten up, roll a big one and put on Franklin's Tower ( live version) by The Dead. 

The world will seem to be a much better place.

Hateful language? Only if you are weak.

 

[thaibeachlovers]

On 1/30/2025 at 2:39 PM, bannork said:

As has been explained many times, no one knows how many of the women and children killed were involved as a front for Hamas fighters because Israel never allowed foreign journalists into Gaza to verify its claims.

Every time a building was flattened with a large number of civilian casualties, the IDF said it had definite intelligence Hamas was operating from said building. 

Yet the world was never allowed to challenge this claim.

I don't believe the IDF.

 

 

I don't believe them either, plus not netanyahu or any of his government, except when they say something about continuing the conflict or occupying Palestinian land.

[Hummin]

21 minutes ago, frank83628 said:

Hateful language? Only if you are weak.

 

I wonder how strong you really are, lashing out here. Must be hard to have one foot in Russia, one in US, and one finger in Asia

[thaibeachlovers]

4 hours ago, MicroB said:

Defence and overseas aid are inextricably linked. If the US, and others, had spent a relatively small sum not letting Afghanistan descend into some sort of Mad Max hellhole, 911 and the GWOT might  never have happened, and 10,000 Americans (WTC, Afghanistan and Iraq dead) might still have been alive, and the US would have about $6 trillion extra in the bank.

and if someone had assassinated Hitler WW2 would not have occurred, LOL. Unfortunately real life isn't like you said in the quote. There was no reason for the US to occupy Afghanistan and the casualty rate would have been high. Ask the israelis why they withdrew from Lebanon the first time and from occupying Gaza.

It's not the US's job to occupy foreign lands so girls can go to school. I recall the US objected to Russia occupying Afghanistan, so would you have them replace the Russians in that role?

 

BTW Iraq was nothing to do with Afghanistan.

[thaibeachlovers]

14 minutes ago, Hummin said:

I wonder how strong you really are, lashing out here. Must be hard to have one foot in Russia, one in US, and one finger in Asia

C'mon man.

You don't know that.

[Hummin]

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

C'mon man.

You don't know that.

Know what? He is a Russian in Usa, living his dreamlife in Asia at AN?

[frank83628]

14 hours ago, bannork said:

No, I haven't smoked since 1980 but I am worried about Frank.

I am fine, fit and healthy, You on the otherhand should possibly be worried about your heart and blood pressure.

Grateful dead puts you at 65yrs mimimum

[Lapun]

On 1/29/2025 at 9:13 AM, impulse said:

And it's time for other countries to step up and contribute their share.

 

 Please check your facts before making misleading statements. The US doesn't come close to being the biggest contributer on a per capita basis 

 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/foreign-aid-given-per-capita

 

 

 

 

[impulse]

7 minutes ago, Lapun said:

 Please check your facts before making misleading statements. The US doesn't come close to being the biggest contributer on a per capita basis 

 

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/foreign-aid-given-per-capita

 

 

 

Out of the 195 countries in the world, how many are ahead of us?  Kudos to those who are.

 

Now, let's look at the total numbers.  Not the per capita numbers...  Is any country even close?