Trump is turning the frickin frogs gay.

I live in Illinois, but I look at the Seattle and Portland subs for entertainment, and I've been following this one way too closely lol.

I mean, they are bullies, but not as much as red-bellied woodpeckers. I once saw one fend off a whole flock of blue jays from our platform feeder

We're so fucked.

They're just doing it for the lulz, if we're being honest

no step on snek

Depends on where in Europe. The Soviets and most of the Warsaw Pact used leaded gasoline until the collapse in '89-'91, and many only banned it in the mid-2000s, like Romania and Poland in 2005.

EDIT: Car ownership was also much more restricted, so the damage was limited.

Ain't that the truth lol

Reed Timmer is a legendary storm chaser and all, but the constant yelling is too much.

There's some jabroni who lives in our neighborhood with a total shitbox that constantly backfires. The car is from the '90s, so it must be in very bad shape.

Oh yeah, and it's sourced extensively in the biography, too. There are a lot of small lies and half truths in the autobiography, so I figure it's good to be aware of that before reading.

Yes, Beria recognized that he held this tactical advantage after Stalin died and tried to use it to gain power. It worked for a bit, too.

Khrushchev was not ultimately pushed out for going too far with reforms, but for both his temperament and the ill-conceived nature of some of his reforms and programs, as well as his numerous foreign policy failures (Sino-Soviet Split, failed Yugoslav rapprochement, UN antics, Cuban Missile Crisis, etc.).

Malenkov, Molotov, and Kaganovich tried to unseat him in 1957 for being too anti-Stalinist, but they were blocked by Khrushchev allies like Brezhnev, who was Khrushchev's top lieutenant until the 1964 coup. And in their speeches at the 1964 dismissal, Brezhnev and the others made clear that their removal of Brezhnev mostly had to do with his temperament and increasing desire for power.

Brezhnev did reverse the Thaw, but calling him Stalin 2.0 isn't really fair. For one, he helped stop the 1957 group that would've absolutely been Stalin 2.0 and oversaw the 1965 Kosygin reforms. He also decoupled the heads of state and party, reducing his own power marginally.

Haha, not nearly enough kissing. One of the entertaining anecdotes from the biography is Khrushchev getting too drunk and trying to kiss everyone at a diplomatic event with Yugoslavia. He was trying to heal the Stalin-Tito split, but embarrassed everyone instead.

William Taubman. It's considered the authoritative English language Khrushchev biography by most scholars in the field, from what I can tell.

My opinion of Beria is still at rock-bottom lol. At least the others seemed to be true believers, even if they were delusional, but Beria was just an opportunist trying to outmanuever his opponents for personal power. There was a general desire for reforms after Stalin died; Beria was just the first to make a move, likely to gain power and prestige. He was also a serial rapist and murderer, as you said.

Oh, you're right! I thought Zhukov was holding the gun in the movie, but now I see it's the guy next to him. Well, if that guy was General Pavel Batitsky, then the movie is even more accurate than I thought!

Yup, the timeline is highly condensed, though it makes sense for the pacing of the movie. Beria was executed about 9 months after Stalin died.

That would've been an improvement. Romania couldn't even keep electricity running consistently in the last decade of Ceausescu.

I'm reading William Taubman's Khrushchev biography, and it's crazy how relatively accurate the movie is. Ok, Zhukov didn't execute Beria, but another general did. Khrushchev was also pretty hilarious IRL.

EDIT: Beria doesn't execute Beria in the movie, I saw it that way due to the camera perspective. However, IRL, Beria was shot by General Pavel Batitsky.

The main protest organizers, NSJP and JVP, advocate for the "one democratic state" solution, in which Israel is abolished and replaced with a democratic, secular, and preferably socialist Palestine.

I think it's safe to say that Israelis won't voluntarily dissolve their own country, and their regional neighbors either want to improve relations (Saudi Arabia), aren't strong enough to dislodge Israel (Iran), or have bigger problems at home (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, etc.), so this change would need to be imposed by a major power.

Even if the U.S./Israel relationship soured, I can't see the U.S. participating in an invasion to dissolve Israel, or even tolerating another power doing so. The current state of geopolitics would need to shift dramatically for this to happen. I'm also very doubtful that China or some other power would bother invading Israel to impose a solution some college kids in the U.S. are asking for.

The "one democratic state" solution sounds nice in theory, and is ideologically compliant with anti-Zionism, but it's disconnected from reality and would require a much larger and bloodier war to achieve.

Yup, exactly.

Pass.

Absolutely! Student loans also need to have an option for bankruptcy; the lack of bankruptcy means the loans are much lower risk for the lenders, which leads them to issue $100k loans for idiots getting a music degree (like I did lol). If lenders had to factor in the risk of bankruptcy, lenders wouldn't issue such large loans for low-value degrees, and colleges would be forced to reduce tuition or cut programs. Which isn't a bad thing; there are waaay too many fine arts programs out there for how many are actually needed.

Not all birds go for prey that small. The Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, however, accels at catching gnats!

I'm gonna let the liquor do the thinking