I’m obviously no expert, but it is the people who are of value, not the land. I see evacuation as the most straightforward way to avoid loss of life or the enslavement of a free people. Taiwan has been useful, but it’s not like we don’t have military bases near enough in the Philippines and Okinawa. Taking the Taiwanese people permanently out of the reach of CCP dominance would be the biggest blow we could land against China.

I was kinda assuming it was a voluntary thing. Like the people are Taiwan, not the land.

Alabama isn’t THAT bad.

Give the Taiwanese people Alabama and move them there. Then give China an empty island

I still have burn scars on my knuckles from working at a bagel restaurant that used one of those when I was a teenager.

BMW driver’s can’t even change a tire in my experience.

They can shift around a little bit, but they don’t really walk as a means of travel.

Dragonflies.

Their nymph phase is aquatic and in their adult phase they only fly. Their legs are only for grasping.

We are talking about beating Republicans and that doesn’t stop at the polls.

Look, Bernie was the only political race ever where I donated money, so when I say this know where I am coming from. We have no idea if Bernie would have been any more effective than Biden if elected. Maybe the right would have reacted so hard that he would have been obstructed every step of the way, accomplished nothing, and we would have gotten Trump anyway. Maybe they would have just killed him in the first year and we would have ended up in the Civil War 2.

Zohran Mamdani is a great example. He beat the Dems on their own grounds. I have faith he can be a leader against the Republican administration precisely because he proved he has a plan and the ability to execute it in spite of resistance.

We need to get rid of “first past the post” election systems. That will allow candidates like Mamdani to be competitive in a larger variety. The way I see it, this will NEVER happen through Republicans and as the system exists now there are only two viable choices. I’m not saying it won’t be an uphill battle, but at least there has been some progress in making elections more representative of a variety of political views under Democrats.

You don’t think being able to win against an entrenched power structure in spite of legislative obstruction is at all relevant to defeating Republicans?

And you don’t think the Republicans put their thumb on the scale every chance they get? The fight is not going to be fair. You have to be able to win in spite of that.

How so?

Nobody is going to “give” you a shot. The left has to take it. If they can’t figure out how to do that, they don’t have what it takes to lead the country.

If the left can’t beat Democrats, how the hell do you think they will beat Republicans?

I ran a drill rig for soil sampling for a few years. One day it was 100F outside and we had to drill inside a drycleaners. They had dryers and steam presses going , so it was a humid 130F inside. We used a remote drill rig which required running 100 lb hydraulic lines from the truck outside. These lines got so hot you couldn’t touch them with a bare hand. So imagine trying to move these heavy as hell lines without them touching bare skin and while having to shift your hands around constantly to avoid burns.

That ties for worst with the day we drilled at a gas station in a farm field in the middle of nowhere where it was -20F not counting the wind chill. The thing about soil sampling for contaminants is you have to wash the drill between holes. At those temperatures everything froze instantly and the machinery kept locking up with ice. It took us 8 hours to do what would normally take 2. And then we got a flat tire driving back…

1. Visible tattoos. Have to be off legal age to get a tattoo, right?

2. Talk to them. Even if it’s awkward, it’s practice.

I was thinking Russian Roulette, but I guess your way is fine.

I forget what they are called, but there is basically a parachute on a rope that gets dropped into fast deep water currents to tow boats.