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Cake day: August 20th, 2023

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  • That gas line goes right into Ukraine, they could have blown it up anytime they wanted safely in their own territory. So I’m not sure that makes much sense. They have not done this previously to avoid angering EU allies funding them, as some still rely on it.

    I think more likely explanations are it helps make it easier to strike and and shut down a very important rail route for Russian re supply, it brings the war to the Russian people in a way they can’t ignore, makes Putin look weak, draws Russian troops away from other fronts, and if the land is held gives Ukraine a bargaining chip in any future negotiations with Russia.



  • https://www.nbcnewyork.com/paris-2024-summer-olympics/olympics-boxing-imane-khalif-xy-chromosome-italian-boxer-quit/5662035/

    Look number one, whether or not she is xy has not been confirmed. It was reported by a Russian controlled organization only after she beat a Russian fighter, and they haven’t actually released their results or methods.

    Second, what the posted article is referring to, if she was indeed xy (which is just suspect Russian heresay at this point), is androgen insensitivity syndrome. Meaning she wouldn’t be able to derive benefit from testosterone anyways. This is also different from trans individuals on a number of levels. Though Russia of course sees it as beneficial both for smearing anyone that beats their own athletes, as well as stoking popular lgbt hatred in their own country.

    The only story here is Russia co opting international sports organizations for their own purposes once again, just like when they had state organized doping of their athletes that went all the way to the top involving the flipping FSB. Now they are also using it to try and spread fear and hate of trans individuals, even though it wouldn’t be trans in this case it would be intersex if what they said is true, and we have no actual confirmations that she is intersex anyway. I’ll believe it when an organization not controlled by Russia shows it (and even if they were correct it’s very likely she wouldn’t be deriving any advantages from it).

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2024/08/03/olympics-2024-khelif-russia-boxing/a7e9ff36-5191-11ef-9728-3037305a6b0f_story.html

    They’ve made similar unsubstantiated claims against another boxer. They still haven’t released any specifics of their testing, and they only made these claims after they claimed world championship titles in each case. What a coincidence.

    I doubt either of them is actually xy. This Russian boxing organization was banned by the international community for good reason.







  • Following the CNE’s announcement that Maduro won the election, the Venezuelan opposition has concentrated its efforts on digitizing and publishing on the internet the voting records showing that González won with nearly 70% of the votes, documents that the regime has so far been unable to produce.

    Literally what the opposition is trying to do right now as Maduro hunts them across the country, trying to imprison them all or worse. Over 1,000 people from the opposition the regime Maduro has imprisoned. Meanwhile Maduro hasn’t released any documentation that backs up his ridiculous results, results that conflict with numerous independent exit polls that show a landslide victory for the opposition. The election monitors Maduro himself invited, the Carter Center, have widely condemned the election. Leftist leaders in Colombia and Brazil are condemning him.

    https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-presidential-election-maduro-machado-edmundo-results-3ec88b273cabfee8e5696ff67d24186d

    The mission, led by the Carter Center, a pro-democracy organization, said late Tuesday that the election violated Venezuela’s own laws and the government’s failure to release a vote count was a “serious breach of electoral principles.”

    Maduro has all the results immediately available to him and all the many recourses of an entire country’s government but won’t release. Meanwhile he’s busy hunting and jailing opposition members who are trying to go individually from polling station to polling station across the country to try and get copies of receipts while the government does everything in their power to prevent their release.

    Boggles my mind anyone could try and defend Maduro.

    Oh and if you want to see what the opposition has been able to publish online so far look here:

    https://supervisiondev2.metabaseapp.com/public/dashboard/6b2f7b3b-16ec-4af6-84c7-69c39ee2139d?tab=16-english

    The only one trying to block transparency here is Maduro.








  • It’s mostly been conservatives that have a problem with this, not progressives for the most part. I mean sure some progressives are against but they’re by far the minority.

    I know progressives and democrats, and conservatives and Republicans, aren’t the same thing, but you get the picture. I think most on the left would prefer to stand up to authoritian genocidal governments, whereas many conservatives crazily see a lot they like in Russian government and want the US to embrace them.





  • France, Germany and the ECB worry about Russian retaliation targeting European assets, and also the potential impact on financial stability and the euro’s status as a reserve currency. There’s concern that depositors from emerging economies may be encouraged to pull money out of western banks, fragmenting the global financial system.

    US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen downplayed such risks in February, arguing that “there are not alternatives to the dollar, euro, yen.” She said that if the G-7 acted together then the group would be representing half of the global economy and all of the currencies that really have the capacity at this point to serve as reserve currencies.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/why-seizing-russian-assets-to-fund-ukraine-is-fraught/ar-BB1jHeKz

    I agree with you, they should just be able to tap the assets directly. Basically some European countries are worried about the effects seizing assets could have on the Euro. Most of these assets are held in Europe as euros. The loan is actually an improvement over the original proposal though. Originally France Germany, etc were pushing only for the 3 billion in interest a year on the assets to be given to Ukraine. The loan solution was pushed by other countries who wanted to give them more cash from the Russian assets as a way to give $50 billion in cash immediately, with those yearly interest payments from Russian assets being used to pay off the loan.