It’s adorable that anyone thought we’d have a political class willing to combat pedophilia, except as a pretext to harass LGBTQ folks, immigrants, and vulnerable minorities.

I only take issue with calling them anything other than something like crony capitalism

The fundamental difference between Chinese Socialism and American Capitalism can be summed up in their retirement rates.

In China, white collar men can retire at 63. Blue collar women are out at 55. That upwards of twelve years gap in retirement age is why China has billionaires and America has trillionaires.

If I died right now and was told I was going to be reincarnated but unfortunately I would be born poor and was given a choice of where to go, China would be near the bottom of my list of developed nations.

The real value of a civilization is its infrastructure. And you’re going to find it difficult to name a country more advanced and resilient - particularly to looming climate change.

But if you want to roll the dice on Starmer’s UK or Takaichi’s Japan or Milei’s Argentina? Good luck.

Slovenia - a Yugoslav state - was a major trading partner of the USSR. It’s economy was hollowed out, first after the decline of Russia, and then after a decade of looting, sanctions, and war.

That’s what my government tells me

It’s like when China every few years trots out some rich person or powerful politician and nails them for tax evasion or corruption in a show trial then goes back to pretending to be socialist

I think Chinese domestic economic planning goes a few steps beyond the semi-annual show trial.

Their green energy and ev markets illustrate as much

How does a Slovenian model meet an American billionaire?

Through modeling agent Paolo Zampolli. This is well-documented.

Very likely the story of Ghislaine Maxwell, given her father’s shady history.

Epstein was far from the only flesh peddler exploiting the wave of post-Soviet refugees following western Shock Therapy in Eastern Europe. Paolo Zampolli founded the modeling agency in NYC that imported Melania and eventually introduced her to Heir Donald. He did partner with Epstein in 2004 to purchase Elite Model Management. But it could have just as easily been a thousand other creep-o finance tycoons running around NY, Paris, Berlin, or Tokyo from the 90s/00s.

The whole fucking joke of Epstein and The Files is that he gets treated as a unicorn when we’ve had Jack Abramoffs and Lawrence E. King Jrs and Deborah Jeane Palfreys and Andrew Tates for just as long.

No no no. China is Fake News. They don’t even make cars. If they made cars, I would have seen Chinese cars driving around in America.

“China Battery!” typically trips everyone’s “Fake News! Evil Company! Communists Killed 100 Billion People!” alarm

The way to safer is to reduce the amount of cars.

Hersey! Blasphemy! Unamerican!

Ah, so they’ve already exploded, thus rendering them safe for use.

There’s a big semi-sentient computer running the government in Idiocracy, which could make it a neat stand in for Skynet.

Idiocracy -> People become overly reliant on automation and complacent to the point of self-annihilation

Terminator -> Computers decide humans aren’t worth the trouble, so they do a mass extermination

Matrix -> The conflict ends in a blotted out sky, which forces the computers to cannibalize humanity

What they won’t tell you is that all three take place in the same universe.

Long COVID was actually just me turning 40 and losing track of the years.

Although, I’ll say that your perceptions can re-normalize when you have a little guy in your life. Like, people tell you “your kids will grow up so fast” but I’m feeling every single day of the Terrible Twos.

most people probably rapidly lose interest having beyond more than 5 apple.

Like, doing this to a board member is worse???

Doing this to some random student is gross.

Doing this to another board member is also gross. But it signifies a kind of structural disrespect that undermines the office as well as the individual. It’s symptomatic of a general institutional disgust for student involvement in school affairs.

Like Bush Jr doing the creepy shoulder rub on Angela Merkel or - in a more extreme example - UN staffers who were “approached, accosted and raped” by fellow officials and dignitaries. It isn’t merely a personal transgression. It undermines the entire function of the representative body.

as if he does this all the time to children?

It wasn’t just “a child”, it was a fellow board member. Guy has zero respect for the office, the students, or women generally speaking.

If I had money on where this ended, I’d put it on them abolishing the Student Board Member seat on the grounds that it was too much of a temptation for the rest of the board.

Maybe slide in a rule about students needing to wear full figure coverings to prevent anyone on the board from becoming aroused.