"innocent Christians" = "innocent Muslims"
alleged Christian genocide = Alleged Gaza genocide

Please make a note of it!

Marcus, thanks for sharing the heartwarming and inspiring story of Elsa's survival amidst the heartbreaking and tragic circumstances of her mother's death. Full credit to the human heroes who have given Elsa a new lease on life. Donkeys are the best!

Meanwhile, our president who campaigned against foreign military adventures keeps embarking on new foreign military adventures, but clearly Venezuela has committed the unforgivable sin of having the largest untapped oil reserves in the Western hemisphere. It wouldn't be the first time Trump campaigned on one thing and then did the opposite. See: inflation. Why does MAGA put up with this? Because the oligarchs who have created their information sphere want them to.

An ass journalism mention is Charles's last inclusion in the SLOG.

@3: Are you missing an adjective been "An" and "ass"?

@3. Cressona. My read of the current MAGA zeitgeist is that they are not happy at all. T may have delivered the goods on Ukraine (sadly) while beginning cutting ties with European security arrangements, but the isolationist impulse cannot be easily satisfied. MAGA voices opposed the Iran strike at Fordo. The current dust up between Ben Shapiro and Tucker/Candace/Megyn is essentially about our relationship with Israel. There are warnings out there about getting involved with Taiwan. Every chess piece on the board is being clawed at.

With one ideological exception - our near abroad. Steve Bannon and a few others have been advocating for a more aggressive posture close to home, and apparently it works politically because short range power projection can be spun and digested as protecting the home front from drug traffickers, illegal immigrants, etc. I expect a much higher tolerance for kinetics in Central/South America than more distant theaters.

William F Buckely was able to refashion a conservativism rife with isolationism and nativism into a movement that would support global power projection necessary to prosecute containment policy during the Cold War. Apparently, without the spectre of a global ideological struggle, WFBs work has become completely undone, and the GOP has returned to its roots.

The timing, IMHO, could not have been worse.

Counting down to the inevitable counterproductive response from barth...

Or perhaps barth is taking off from his troll-feeding duties on this Boxing Day holiday.

Winning over a billion would be a curse. Everyone will respond to you differently, you'll have no privacy. Oh it would be thrilling in many respects, don't get me wrong, but it would be melancholy weirdness day in and day out.

@8: 'These numbers don't include rampant graft by "nonprofits".'

As usual, the real scandal isn't what's illegal, but what's perfectly legal. From a few years back:

"Wow, it's almost like all the studies analyzing Seattle's homeless problem correctly concluded systemic fragmentation involving overlapping local and regional non-profits competing for the same funding is not effective."

https://www.seattle.gov/documents/Departments/HumanServices/Reports/HomelessInvestmentAnalysis.pdf

https://govlab.hks.harvard.edu/files/govlabs/files/seattle_homelessness_project_feature.pdf?m=1548707682

https://kcrha.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/future-lab-report.pdf

https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Featured%20Insights/Meeting%20societys%20expectations/Booming%20cities%20unintended%20consequences/Booming-cities-unintended-consequences.pdf

"Maybe it's time to fund another study for city leadership to ignore?"

Yep:

https://www.seattle.gov/documents/departments/pathwayshome/bpa.pdf

From the last, The Money Quote: "Funders must invest only in evidence-­based, best and promising practices and providers should be required to effectively implement these practices and meet performance standards as a condition of receiving funding."

Nope.

(https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/05/24/73946179/the-hunger-games-of-housing/comments)

Hey, credit where it's due - the locals in Jabo say that a Tomahawk set fire to a farmer's hut at the edge of the village. No casualties, so it doesn't count as a surgical strike.

How does one get chased in a car south from Northgate to Lynnwood?

@1: Hmm. I stand corrected. Don't let anyone say I don't have an open mind.

https://youtu.be/Xj86BeIqFj4

How much longer before the rest of the world exports war on US?

@15: KKKoolie dear, how can you have an open mind when your head's up your ass?

@16: Oh WINDY!

Oops, typo in @17.

@14, Direction is a preference or state of mind.

My SIL, despite being laid off three months ago and not receiving unemployment benefits apparently due to the backlog caused by the government shutdown, continues to dutifully buy lotto tickets (and driving from Las Vegas to the AZ border to buy them because the lottery isn't legal in NV). She was a total downer the day of the lotto draw, and then told me she has been BORROWING MONEY from her parents to buy tickets and pay for the gas there and back. The parents she's been living with for almost four years to allegedly save up money.

It's fun to find out your family members have a crippling gambling addiction enabled by their parents money and lack of accountability. Happy Holidays indeed.

@23~'we
live in a society
that can’t reliably scrape together
enough money to keep 36 people from sleeping outside.'

LOL you can't be serious."

omg -- lol is Right!

we need MORE Peeps
renting out (SOME Of!) their
Homes to other peeps for short-term
Rentals for the Maximization of Return $$$!

and MORE hedge funds, buying up homes-
as-Investment, NOT for the silly NON-
(Monetarily!) Productive purpose
of providing fucking Roofs
over the Citizenry's
unhomed Heads!

Housing-as-Commodity
is the Brilliantest thing Possible
for Maximizing Investments, and, whilst
forcing More and More peeps out into our Streets

& Commodifying the Citizenry,
whose Higher Purpose is
now to be Farmed and
Harvested by those
Cunning (& Ruth-
less!) enough to
see the Value
Other Peeps
have for En-
riching our
Portfolios

making us sick to our Stomachs
over having to See the Fruits
of Unbridled Capitalism

and maybe making us feel
Things We Don't Wanna,

it's
as American
as Apple fucking Pie!

"we live in a society
that can’t reliably scrape together
enough money to keep 36 people from sleeping outside."

loloLOL!
you Cannot
be fucking Serious!

@25 -- [oiegoi nj34
34o i ὣ
avk;nh7uzd[[

@17 & @18: Look who's lamely trolling, as usual, and not a second too soon! Right on the MAGA schedule.
KKKoolie dear, you're the only one around here who's winded.
Pull your head out, already, and breathe fer christsake, before you develop serious respiratory problems.

@25: Putty knife, is that you? What is this now, your 457,829th new login name? Bored much?

@10¢/word, I'd
Hardly call it
"boredom."

Merry
fucking
Chri$tmas!