Biden said the US expects Ukraine/Russia to pop off "within the next several days" so if Monday comes and things haven't gone hot, might be safe to say Putin has changed tack and backed off from whatever US Intelligence is currently expecting him to do. Or it's going to be a wild weekend.
I thought we were getting soft around here, with the extensive discussions about gardening, vaccines and book readin’ Putting spiders in dicks and Downs Victorias Secret models have restored my faith in you idiots.
Honestly, I have some issues with a down's syndrome woman as a lingerie model. Can she genuinely consent to some of this, especially being a sex symbol? Is she able to deal with the consequences of being the only one with her condition being openly sexualized? Did anyone explain to her what dudes do with the Victoria's Secret catalog? Does this increase the likelihood of predation on other women with Down's syndrome? As "yay, inclusion" as this might be, I have to imagine the rest of the world is laughing at how fucking stupid it is, and I can certainly imagine damage being done to the brand for this sort of thing. We are living in the stupidest possible timeline.
I just had a weird moment where I realized I was surprised she wasn't obese, and then wondered why I assume people with down syndrome are all obese in the United States. Is it a caretaker issue, an impulse control issue, or is obese just the default in the United States these days and people with down syndrome don't bother trying to buck the trend by pursuing a non-obese beauty standard?
Honestly, probably not. They probably told her she was going to play Mario Kart and eat peanut butter and the next thing you know she’s wearing lingerie.
Consent was the first thing I was concerned about. She speaks Spanish and at least some English, clearly has her own goals and career, so I think she's capable of consenting. But, just like awful people will prey on "normal" 18 year olds trying to make it (or 15 year olds), there will certainly be someone to take advantage of a Down's model who isn't capable of consenting if there's a buck to be me made.
I'll take a downs model with a great rack over the moo-cows that Target has on display. And I don't mean "curvy" how Dixie likes his women. I'm talking a legit 250+lbs I head that Putin was waiting for the Olympics to be over before shooting his shot.
Does anyone have any information on how effective the Russian military is these days? Because the speculation I have seen is either they are effective because no one reports on Russian casualties or they are one of the most effective militaries in the world. My feeling is that they are competent when punching down but they have no capacity whatsoever to face off against the forces of a developed nation and their ability to project force is limited to their borders. But I don't have any reliable information to support that feeling.
They have a massive amounts of tanks and a decent size blue water navy, however their technology has aged considerably compared to the US. They also don’t have the economic or wartime manufacturing means to sustain a prolonged campaign. Russia’s GDP is about half of the GDP of just California. Russia either being cut off from its ability to harvest natural resources or the ability to export them would completely cripple its economy. There would be millions of casualties in war against a country like China, but China would probably eventually win just based on the ability to throw money and bodies at it. Even then, China can’t even project force outside of the Yellow Sea. A conventional war against the United States would be over before it even began.
Their recent success has been driven by small, hardened units, a la Seal or swat teams. The kind of force required to occupy Ukraine is filled with a bunch of 19 year Olds who don't want to be there and who are not nearly as capable as their smaller, more rigorously trained folks. They can easily deploy 4x the current posture, but they can't maintain them, equip them or sustain their morale for very long. Also their doctrine is woefully out of date, and if they go, it will be wildly unpopular. They literally don't know how to do what they are massing to do.
Every time I’m at Target, I wanna yell out “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKING AT OVER THERE?!?” to all the model pictures. Seriously, all it takes to be a clothing model is to smile and look off camera. As for the Down Syndrome model - I wonder how all the emaciated anorexic women who didn’t get a chance feel about it, knowing she was born on third base and thinks she hit a home run.
Someone posted a "Rape Spectrum" survey online the other day. It was based off a pretty heated back and forth over women speaking up about their boundaries during sex and the complexities of consent and a boatload of other loaded topics people can't have actual discussions about because it always devolves into people screaming vile shit at each other. Anyway, one of the questions on the rape spectrum survey was, "On a scale of 1-100 how rapey is a 32 year old having sex with a 19 year old with down syndrome." Out of like 5k surveys, it averaged out to a 13. I don't think people really understand down syndrome in general so in the instance of whether this girl is definitely getting taken advantage of, most are going to be more in the Yay! Inclusive crowd instead of the horrified shocked crowd.